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a-man-in-the-crowd · 13 days ago

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so, a good portion of you have probably seen me talk about my plural lenore headcanon. and, if you’ve seen that, you might’ve also seen me say i’m working on a larger post about it.

well, turns out i had so much to say about it that i had to split it into three parts. i’m very normal about this. it’s honestly funny because despite all reason telling me there’s no way this was actually intentional, the more i looked into it the more i genuinely convinced myself of this so yk. hopefully at least some of y’all end up a little convinced too.

anyways, no more dilly-dallying, here we go:

I Think Lenore Vandernacht is Plural — And This Is Why

for the unaware: plurality is a broad term used to describe those who see/experience themselves as multiple people/identities/whatever. the most well-known example of this is dissociative identity disorder (d.i.d — or, its outdated term, multiple personality disorder). the rest of this post assumes you have a basic idea of how d.i.d/o.s.d.d works so if you don’t i’d suggest doing a very quick google search but like obviously do whatever you want.

but andy, what makes you think lenore is multiple people in a trench coat?

well, actually, there’s a pretty decent chunk of the fandom who already thinks this. i’ve seen at least one or two posts that differentiate lenore and her ‘alias’ leo simply because they act so different. however, what really made me go ‘okay she’s SO plural’ was this post, that points out how hard it is to see lenore as the same person sometimes. so, to the creator of that post, thank you for ruining my life (jk you’re cool).

now, i couldn’t just leave it at ‘vibes’ — anyone who’s read my trans pluto and/or dissociative will posts knows that i have to justify myself. so, i went back to the very beginning.

and oh. my. god. how did i miss this shit?

very quickly, i realized something that was so obvious in retrospect: lenore talks to herself. a lot.

take this little moment from ep2:

the reason this reads to me as at least two different people talking is because there seems to be two levels of information being displayed here. one voice, that not only knows they have a mother but also has recollections of something specific she used to tell them, makes a comment. then, another, that doesn’t have any knowledge of their mother at all, questions the first voice. finally, either the first or a new, third, voice responds to the previous one, dismissing its question with logic. you get me?

one voice has memories. the other doesn’t have those memories. they are both in lenore’s head.

this isn’t the only time we see interactions like this. a few other examples so you can see for yourself: ep4, ep8, ep20, ep23, ep24, ep29, ep48 — and, skipping way ahead to the most recent example of this, ep124. i’d also argue MAYBE ep127.

let’s break down some of these examples:

episode four — the voices have different colours. while this could just be a stylistic choice, i find it interesting that moments after a (seemingly emotional) flashback, she bounces back with an inner voice of an entirely different colour. it’s almost like a switch, which are often caused by stress, something a traumatic flashback can definitely induce. not only is this voice a different colour from the previous voice, but it also seems to have a specific purpose, that being to get lenore out of this room. i actually have a name for this voice, but that’s for a little later.

episode eight — at the end of this episode, when she realizes theo is dead, a voice appears that addresses lenore in second person. that’s very important, this voice addresses lenore as if she were a different person. this is an interesting choice. they could’ve easily had lenore’s voice say ‘i killed theo’, but instead they decided on ‘you killed theo’. this seems to be the same voice that appears at the ends of ep20 and 124.

episode twenty-three — this scene was the first time i was able to properly identify three voices. i’ve dubbed these voices self-doubt voice, the observer, and the problem solver. self-doubt voice is the voice in ep8, 20, and 125. problem solver is the voice in ep4. observer voice we see a lot, i think. but i believe problem solver voice is the main lenore we know. it’s honestly a little wishy-washy, because i also think we’ve seen a good amount of them equally so 🤷‍♂️

however, it’s not just the voices. in general, our dear lenore seems very disconnected from her memories.

going back to ep4, does anyone else find it a little odd that none of her supposed belongings seem to really register with her? lenore comments “what sort of person was i anyway?”. meanwhile, immediately upon opening her suitcase, morella finds her lucky locket. duke has a poster and a bunch of his old magic trick stuff. pluto, presumably, had a box of cigarettes and lighter that he uses frequently. to me, it's hard to believe lenore didn’t have a singular thing of sentimental value to her in her own suitcase — that is, unless, the belongings selected weren’t really hers, but rather for the lenore that the deans had a picture of in their book. the lenore that we see in the beginning of the dementophobia trial.

speaking of which, ep4 isn’t the only time lenore’s disconnect is alluded to. it’s not even the main time.

let’s talk about the dementophobia trial.

in ep21, lenore comes face-to-face with her past self. this lenore is subdued, veiled, sickly. it makes sense she’d seem so different — the wound of losing her brother is fresh — but what sticks out to me is that lenore, our lenore, speaks to her as if she’s a different person. not just a moment of talking to herself but THE moment of talking to herself.

not only does this split lenore into two, but it also splits their memories up. lenore literally implies it — “if i could do it all for you, i swear i would”. these memories are not lenore’s, despite clearly wishing they were. she barely even knows what happens in them.

and, because our lenore needs them, past lenore shows her.

there’s a lot to be said, but i’m going to skip over to the lennabel meeting in ep22.

here, lenore’s monologue (who i suspect is leo) is distrustful, on guard. and yet, she can’t seem to act as hostile as she wishes to, because another part of her (who i suspect is the ‘past lenore’) is utterly enthralled. as if she doesn’t have control of her own actions and thoughts. (anecdotally, this exact thing has happened to me. it's annoying.)

and then, she’s suddenly and forcefully pulled away. in this case, it’s because pluto was getting her out so they could complete the maze. but it’s not uncommon when an alter is regaining memories for them to suddenly be ripped away — notice how her mind tries to convince her that it wasn’t real? she tries to tell herself, it was all just a hallucination. a dream. it might’ve felt real, but don’t most dreams?

but lenore, fortunately, manages to win the battle with her mind. she comes to the conclusion it all was real.

going back to the beginning of the trial, lenore panics when pluto tells her what dementophobia means. unlike how calm she was during the dendrophobia trial, which pluto and duke point out is odd, because she was crushed by a tree. why does going mad freak her out, but not trees?

well, we (the audience and lenore) are reminded:

let’s talk about that — specifically, the phrasing. it isn’t ‘mother said i was touched in the head’, it’s ‘mother always said i was touched in the head’. this implies she was told this multiple times throughout her life, and not just by anyone, but her mother, whom we don’t see in lenore’s flashbacks save for when she’s being inspected by doctors. so, we can infer that her mother never came to visit. lenore doesn’t even entertain the idea when she’s asking who’s visiting her in ep22.

this would mean that whatever made lucille vandernacht deem her daughter ‘mad’ had to have been before theodore’s death and lenore’s injury. it had to have been since childhood, otherwise the use of the word ‘always’ wouldn’t make sense.

obviously, there are a lot of things that could’ve made lucille say this. it could’ve been whatever neurodivergency that seems to run in the vandernacht family (aka the ‘vandernacht curse’). it could’ve been her gender non-conformining nature (which doesn’t necessarily discredit the plurality interpretation — but that’s for the second post). it could’ve just been her being dramatic about a young lenore being an aggressive little kid.

however, it’s worth noting a very large majority of people who didn’t realize they were plural until later in their life have had signs since childhood, so it’s something to consider when talking about lenore’s plurality. after all, if her own mother was willing to drill the idea that her daughter, a child, is crazy, then one can only imagine how shitty her childhood must've been.

in ep8, we actually get another allusion to her (and even theo’s) strained relationship with her mother.

theo claims that lenore has made their mother ‘ill with dread’, and both their faces promptly fall. the reason behind lenore’s is obvious — theo’s could either be because his relationship with their mother isn’t all that great either (unsurprising) or because he’s aware of lenore’s conflict with their mother (also unsurprising). but either way, it’s evidence that lenore has had issues with her parents for a long, long time. that’s the face of deep-seated resentment.

a common sign of (disordered) plurality is amnesia. i’ve talked about how lenore is disconnected from her memories, and even is almost convinced they’re not real, but it seems every character has memories missing (as morella says “[they] just need to find them.”). so, i can’t really say for sure if her amnesia is any different but i can give a few other examples that make me think that this isn’t normal amnesia.

episode 30 — in which annabel gets frustrated with lenore for forgetting something she said presumably only a little bit earlier. lenore could’ve not been paying attention, but that’s something a lot of people with memory problems are accused of, so i hesitate to properly entertain that in this post.

episode 50 — in which montresor and lenore see a memory even she cannot fathom. one where she burns down a house. notice how absolutely horrified lenore seems at this, as if this isn’t something she could ever imagine doing. and yet, she did.

that’s another thing. we can guess that annabel became a lot more scheming due to leo’s influence, but at what point did lenore not only stop seeing others as fodder but actively find the idea disgusting? what could have possibly caused this absolute 180? did annabel influence lenore? i doubt it, because if she did, she wouldn’t be so shocked by lenore’s behaviour. annabel literally says lenore doesn’t act like the lenore she knows — with a line that, i personally think, is very damning and oh my god it drives me crazy.

“sometimes i’m not altogether sure who i’m talking to. you look like lenore. you speak like lenore does. you act like lenore, especially around everybody else. but there’s something missing.” (this quote is from ep62)

annabel lee knew lenore in the final year of her life, up till what i can assume was lenore’s death. in fact, there’s a pretty good amount of evidence pointing to the idea that lenore died first, but other people have put their thoughts on the matter a lot better than i probably could. and, while you could make the argument that the difference is due to lenore not remembering the end of her life, i just… really don’t think that’s the case?

lenore was already willing to run away from her life in the first flashback we see of her. when lenore sees herself(?) burn down a home, even with all the context she had for it, she was horrified. and, by that point, she would’ve already had her plan to craft a new identity, which is around the point we see leo in all his glory. and yet, despite having seen all of that, annabel still says that lenore is different. despite seeing all that, lenore still can’t fathom what’s going on in annabel’s mind. if it was about ‘remembering who she used to be’, wouldn’t the change have occurred by now? and, if annabel had influenced leo the same way leo influenced annabel, wouldn’t annabel have been less surprised, considering she knew lenore near the end of her life?

so, in conclusion, lenore:

has multiple voices in her head, one of which frequently refers to her in second person and all of which have different purposes and levels of information

has a disconnect between her and her past self

experiences emotional amnesia (separate from last point, because last point was about her talking to her past self + being frustrated by her ‘useless’ belongings) + amnesia in general

has had unspecified issues since childhood + childhood trauma

has straight up changed her entire identity (more in the second post)

an ‘inexplicable’ change in behaviour and ideology (as noted by both annabel and the fandom)

and that’s mostly everything for the evidence that i could find without essentially repeating the same points over and over again. you might’ve noticed that i didn’t acknowledge other issues lenore has (for example, always blaming herself for people’s deaths) — this is mostly because i found that they weren’t too related to the point i was making. this isn’t a full psychoanalysis of lenore (i’m not qualified to do that anyways) this is just me focusing on one specific part of her psychology that i feel has gone pretty unacknowledged, likely because it was almost definitely not intentional and i am starved for rep — but hey, a lot of people seem to like this headcanon so maybe i'm not that crazy?? lmao??

part 2 coming... whenever i want. i think as this little project progresses i definitely start straying more from like. factual evidence and just go "okay but IF lenore was plural it would mean THIS and wouldn't that be cool" so do not expect more evidence-based arguments abt this from me, i fear i may have exhausted my ability to see things how i want to see them from writing this post and my pluto and will ones lmaooo

#plural lenore #lenore vandernacht #lenore nevermore #nevermore webtoon #headcanons #andy yapping #part 2's going to be about leo so that's fun

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