In the previous chapter memory and recollection were instrumental in directing a character's experience and in shaping the greater theme or moral developed during the course of a tale. Yet, given the creative freedom invited during the process of recollection, memory was never restrictive or overly controlling in the narrative. Rather, characters and the audience retained the free will inherent in voluntary intellection (as was discussed in Chapter 2) which allowed them to choose and recollect in their own way and, to a certain extent, at their own pace. Materials were presented which could be used during the process of recollection, cognition, and interpretation and a subject's willingness to engage with such memorial cues was heightened by their belief that such efforts were heading in the right direction.

However, this is not the entire picture. Romances often involve disagreement, conflict, betrayal, and deception amongst characters; plot lines that necessarily include figures who would rather that certain past events are forgotten or re-written to suit their own desires. At the end of the previous chapter, during the discussion of Amis and Amiloun, it was noted that although an event had actually taken place, it was “forgotten” and replaced with the larger romance memory of loyalty. This was a deliberate act of forgetfulness, which the narrative encouraged (indeed, no character played any part in occluding the infants’ murders) and we accepted the revision because it confirmed our understanding of that particular romance. Nevertheless, the technique should alert us as to whether characters or the narrative can deliberately manufacture past events, urging people to misremember what has gone before in order to shift the entire direction of a tale.

Here we will discuss the ways in which such deceptions or misrememberings (deliberate or accidental) are achieved in a selection of romances. It will become clear that the remembering subjects (characters and audiences) are deliberately duped by false accounts of the past which often erase and re-write episodes which previously we all knew to be true and accurate. Another striking feature of such deliberate or imposed “forgetfulness” is the way that, in order for the falseness to be successful, memorial creativity is compromised.