By chance, can anyone point to examples of Memory in either Zootopia or 12 Angry Men?
Or in any popular (better chance that i’ve seen it) film that doesn’t seem to have any explicit memories or flashbacks?
PS, the 12 Angry Men storyform on Dramatica.com shows a Timelock Story Limit. It’s an Optionlock.
I recall that in the first act of Zootopia (first OS signpost=Memory) the missing otter’s wife is annoyed that everyone seems to be forgetting her husband, and she brings a photo (kind of a physical memory).
I can’t recall exactly but the photo ends up being important, a connection to Nick that Hopps figures out somehow?
One of my favorite stories with an OS Concern of Memory is Apt Pupil (original story by Stephen King)
As a concern, it’s not so obvious as far as it’s the MC (the kid) pushing the OC to tell him about his past because the MC is fascinated with what he’s learning in school about WWII.
And as a transit, I guess it’s related to when a group brings up the OC’s true identity in order to judge him.
I haven’t rewatched 12 Angry Men in a while, but at the 1:11:23 mark of its DUG recording, it’s discussed that the first Transit/Signpost (Memory) is related to the jurors going over what they remember of the case. There’s also a mention of the woman’s testimony and questioning her memory of the events, but from what I recall it happens far too late in the movie for it to be part of the first Transit.
In one of the first scenes available on YouTube, they seem to be looking back on the defendant’s life, arguing that what he’s done in the past makes him suspicious, which brings Juror #3 to remember his son and the last fight he had with him before he left.
I haven’t watched/read that many stories with an OS in Mind, and the ones I did mostly seem to be about memories & flashbacks when it comes to their Transit of Memory, such as the Protagonist remembering her former maidservant in The Help (Transit 1 of Memory), recalling Jack’s origins with the handbag in The Importance of Being Earnest (Transit 4 of Memory), and Anna finally remembering who Marnie is in When Marnie Was There (Transit 4 of Memory).
I don’t remember much about The Father, and the story was mainly centered around the Main Character’s issues with his memories, so I’m not exactly sure what the Transit 4 of Memory was, maybe the big revelation that he had been misremembering the person who was meant to help him all along?
Jim once mentioned that Memory could be about suppression or bottling things up, and not just remembering or forgetting.
It was the last known sighting photo, to be more precise (I remember your old post on it).
Something I noticed was that Juror #3 also brings a photo (of his own son) when he mentions his lost family member in the first Transit. I find the parallel interesting.
When you change Timelock to Optionlock, I think it pushes Memory to later in the order. Don’t have my Dramatica at hand to check that at the moment, though.
I must have gotten distracted. I listened to the podcast but didn’t hear this part. Thanks for pointing it out. I’ll go back and listen to it. I do remember several instances where they’d argue over whether someone said 15 seconds or 20 seconds, and that someone said “hit”, and not “slap”. These seem like good instances of memory as a source of conflict, but they’re not what i’d look to for a description of an entire Signpost/Transit of Memory. Maybe they’re part of the process of “jogging the jury’s memory”, something like that. Also, as you said, questioning someone’s memory of events seems like a good fit here.
It has been a long time since i’ve seen or read this one. Recounting events is obviously a good example. I may have to check this one out again to see how they used it.
I didn’t initially see this as forgetting about Otter so much as just not taking Judy seriously as a police officer, but I suppose, yes, it could be Mrs. Otter making sure her husband isn’t forgotten. Seems like it comes in at the very tail end of where Memory should be. Also, Chief Bogo is telling Judy right before Mrs Otter bursts in to “let it go”. While this is obviously meant to be a silly reference to the song from Frozen, perhaps the Signpost of Memory is everyone telling Judy to let go of/forget about being a police officer. File it away. Suppress it. Bottle it up (see that @Panstraw ?)
The photo shows Otter with one of Nick’s Pawpsicles and I think Nick is stepping out of frame. Judy recognizes the Pawpsicle and sees Nick’s foot or whatever. Perhaps this is also an instance “jogging one’s memory”?
@Panstraw again: Oh, and now you mention it, the first several minutes that Judy is in Zootopia, she’s trying to get people to suppress their biases. She tries to refuse the Fox Spray…but does choose to carry it on her because that’s her bias. She tells Clawhauser or whatever the cheetah’s name is that he’s not supposed to call her cute. She threatens the elephant with health code violations if he doesn’t serve Nick. She reminds everyone that she’s not just a meter maid but an actual police officer. I think this is the kind of thing I was hoping for, here. Suppressing something rather than strictly remembering/forgetting.
There was a debate in the Discord Subtxt community about the limit (or continuum) of 12 angry man, and Jim finally decided for Optionlock (or Spacetime): Discord
I like the examples you picked, @Greg!
I checked and it doesn’t change the order. As far as I’m aware, the Story Limit/Continuum has no visible effects on the storyform and the PSR.
I wasn’t aware that there was a debate on the Continuum for 12 Angry Men—I watched the movie twice in a row a while back but I don’t ever remember hearing about a deadline. Looking back, it could’ve been because English isn’t my first language, meaning I could’ve missed some lines, but I feel like it would’ve held more importance if it had been a Timelock/Timespace. For me, it always was about how there were only so many ways to convince the jurors (and that they all had to be convinced as well).
Changing this setting in Dramatica will have no effect.
I stand corrected. And i think i knew that wouldn’t change anything once upon a time. Maybe I put something else in wrong when I was looking at it earlier, haha.
I’m not in the Discord community, so I didn’t see that, but that’s interesting. There are some times given (“the game starts at 8:00”), but they have nothing to do with limiting the story that I can see.
Yeah I think that was Jim’s logic as well, hence making it Optionlock.
FYI I think Timelock vs. Optionlock does have an effect in Subtxt (not sure if it’s only at the lower Element-level storybeats or if it reaches up to the Variation level, which is Subtxt’s equivalent of PSR).
Because it affects the relationship between space and time, it only alters time-based sequencing (up and down through the model). You won’t see this in Dramatica.
Does Hamlet count? Memory as being haunted – literally by the ghost of the king and more broadly by guilt. Hamlet’s play re-enacts the murder – forcing Claudius to face his guilt.
I like being haunted. In terms of suppressing or filing away, being haunted is like exploring the inability to file a memory away as a source of conflict. Or as a methodology for achieving a purpose, being haunted is kind of like refusing to file a memory away in order to achieve some given state of mind.
It’s really the process of memory i’m trying to work through. “Remembering something” is like looking at a file after you’ve pulled it from the filing cabinet, whereas looking up the file in the index, finding the correct filing cabinet, searching for the right drawer, and physically pulling a file out of the cabinet is the process of retrieving a file. That process of retrieving the file…or putting it away…is what i’m really looking for.
I like the idea of Judy in Zootopia trying to get everyone to “file away” their bias files as an exploration of memory, if that really works for memory.
In 12 Angry Men, one of the things they do early on is decide to go around the table in order and share why they think the kid is guilty. If Conscious is “present consideration”, sharing why they have already decided their vote based on what they heard in the trial is like describing their “previous considerations”, Not sure how to describe it, but thinking of memory as things that have already been considered and decided upon feels a lot more like “Mass” or “Knowledge” to me than “remembering/forgetting something”.
It’s not in Dramatica or Subtxt database, but I’m pretty sure The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes deals precisely with Past-Memory. The MC receives an inheritance that leads him to dig into the past and affects what he remembers about that period of time.