She's been wandering the ocean trying to find her family since she was a guppy: years before the events of Finding Nemo, two fish voiced by Kate McKinnon and Bill Hader hear a child's voice calling out of the darkness. It's Dory, rendered an orphan by her short-term memory loss.
Thankfully, the answer to all those questions is a solid (spoiler alert) yes. Not only are so many great Nemo characters back, including a pitch-perfect Crush and an adorable Nemo, but Dory does manage to reunite with her parents at the movie's end.
In a flashback Dory hears her mother crying in fears of being relocated to another aquarium, so she left to retrieve a shell to cheer her up, to which she was pulled away by an undertow current out into the ocean.
The companionship that emerges is completely genuine. Nonetheless, Dory and Marlin's relationship is a complicated and interesting one. Some view Dory as Marlin's companion and speculate that the two are actually lovers.
These problems in encoding new information are hallmarks of anterograde amnesia. Dory describes her condition as “short-term memory loss” which is the way most people refer to the problem of encoding new information that is the hallmark of anterograde amnesia.
Dory suffers from severe short-term memory loss, but a lot of what she goes through can be adapted to other contexts, such as the world, or ocean, of ADHD. Dory has trouble with multi-step directions, is easily distracted, and is very impulsive.
On coral reefs, “Dory,” the small vibrant blue fish with black stripes and a yellow tail, is known by several other names: Hippo Tang, Royal Blue Tang, Regal Tang, Palette Surgeonfish and by the scientific name Paracanthurus hepatus.
Dory is the third female protagonist in a Pixar film, the first two being Merida and Joy. She is also Pixar's third titular character, the first two being Nemo and WALL-E, and the second titular character to be a protagonist overall, the first one being WALL-E.
It's quite obvious that Dory has anterograde amnesia, which is the inability to form new memories. I also see many of the signs of ADHD within the character.
Dory, a gender-neutral name with a positively glowing demeanor, comes from the Greek Dorothy, meaning “gift of God,” and Dorris, meaning “gift” and “gift from the sea.” A true testament to your love, baby Dory will always be reminded how they are a cherished godsend.
They have just returned back to the reef when Dory begins to have flashbacks regarding how she lost her family. Through this sequence, we realize that Dory was actually born with memory lapse but chose to embrace her uniqueness and maximize each opportunity.
Dory's scars from her travel through the jellyfish in Finding Nemo (2003) have disappeared. They may well have healed in the time between the two films. Dory tilts the coffee pot (to be dropped into the bucket of dead fish) by moving to the pot's left side.
Nemo is a curious and impressionable six-year-old, only child who lives with his overprotective, single-parent father, Marlin. Having led a sheltered life, Nemo brims with the excitement of starting school and finally seeing the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef.
Dory, a happy-go-lucky Regal Blue Tang, suffers from anterograde amnesia, or the inability to form new memories. It was well-established in Finding Nemo that Dory has this condition, which is more commonly known as short-term memory loss.
This probably explains why the sequel called 'Finding Dory' will be focused on her. Dory in the film has short term memory loss, perhaps a nod to the urban legend that fish only have three second memories.
What do Bart Simpson, Tigger and Goofy have in common? They're all male, cartoons and larger than life – and all considered among television's most prominent fictional characters with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Of course, Finding Dory isn't a true story. But the characters are based on real sea creatures, the Great Barrier Reef and Morro Bay are real locations and awesome marine aquariums that rescue, rehabilitate and release do exist all over the world. (We have two in Sydney, and love visiting them regularly!
