- This show was sponsored by
BetterHelp online therapy. When life gets hard,
talking to someone can help. Whether it's venting, processing, or getting tools to deal with stress. Visit betterhelp.com/super. Lighten the load. Hey brother, you guys remember
Riley from Inside Out, right? Like full of joy, wearing all
of her emotions on her sleeve, transplant from Minnesota
to San Francisco, great at hockey and totally soulless. Seriously, it never ceases to amaze me how like you watch one
Pixar movie and then it goes on to like recontextualize like so many of the other ones. Like did Woody get a soul? Does Meilin have two? Did somebody else cause
the count to be off? Did Riley lose her soul? See our published works
and the rest of this video. Anyway, recently I was
driving back from vacation and I had all three kiddos in the backseat and we played the movie Inside Out for them which by the way, once you have kids, that movie hits like way harder. But it was getting to that
part of the end of the movie where the console starts to gray out and her emotions lose the ability to affect your state of mind
or control her mood at all. - Why aren't these working? Why, why isn't it working? - And while thankfully Joy and
Sadness arrived moments later at HQ to save the day. Spoilers. I realized we never got
much of an explanation for why the console starts to
gray out in the first place. Well, I mean, she did lose
all of her core memories and her final island of
personality starts to crumble, so there is that. But why does that mean her
emotions can't function? Well, I think it's because
what we're seeing in Inside Out is an up close look at someone
going through the process of becoming a lost soul. (dramatic music) ♪ Hey, brother ♪ Guys, before we dive
on into today's video, we need to give a huge thank
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betterhelp.com/super. Link is in the description down below. Okay, so did Riley lose
her soul in Inside Out? Well, first let's revisit
what we know about becoming a lost soul in the
first place from the movie Soul. We are first introduced to
the concept of a lost soul when Joe was mentoring 22 and they bring him to the astral plane where you can witness
people who are in the zone. The zone, of course, being that
feeling you get when you're really in the groove of
whatever you're great at doing or passionate about, like for Joe, this is playing the piano. But Joe and 22 quickly
encounter a lost soul who promptly attacks them
before being stopped by Moonwind who gives a brief explanation
as to what lost souls are. - Some people just can't let go of their own anxieties and obsessions, leaving them lost and
disconnected from life. - And then the example
we get in the movie is of a hedge fund manager
who works on Wall Street who's become so obsessed
and lost in his job and the need to make a trade that
he has become a lost soul. However, as soon as Moonwind steps in and the hedge fund manager is
able to re-enter his body, he immediately wakes up and is able to feel all of his emotions again. - What am I doing with my life? I'm alive! - I think it's also worth noting
here that being a lost soul doesn't mean that your
body back on earth dies. It's not that the hedge fund manager isn't able to function back on earth, it's that he has no passion
or feelings about anything. We should also point out
that not all lost souls become lost souls by being miserable. The director of Soul, Pete Docter, says some people get caught
up in something that isn't necessarily bad;
cooking, video games, art, but if you do it to the exclusion of everything else in life, you
might become a lost soul. So with all that in mind, I think this is absolutely
the state we find Riley in at the end of Inside Out. She has left home, she's
wearing all black to represent her disconnectedness from
all of her emotions and said emotions have lost the ability to make her feel anything at all. Plus, I think it's safe to
say that not only is she suffering some severe
anxiety in this moment, but she has also become obsessed with the idealized memories of her
past life in Minnesota. In fact, we get a literal
physical representation of that obsession right here. Without Joy or Sadness present, Anger, Fear and Disgust decide
that the only way to get more core memories is
to go back to the place where all the original
core memories were formed, in Minnesota. And with what has to be said,
very little consideration, they go ahead and light
this idea in her head which sets her in motion. She skips school, packs
her things, leaves home, buys a bus ticket, even
gets on the bus and is ready to voyage away
from San Francisco. But as she's on her way to the bus, we do see that her mom
keeps trying to call her and that she keeps declining the call which is causing her final
island of personality, family island, to crumble. And upon seeing this,
her remaining emotions do everything they can to
take the idea out of her head, but they can't. Why? Because it has become an obsession. And this is when the console
begins turning gray and Riley truly becomes a lost soul. But, of course, and thankfully, we all know that this only
lasts for about a minute before Joy and Sadness re-arrive
in HQ and save the day. Spoilers. But what's really interesting here is how Riley escapes this situation. Because I don't think it's
like the hedge fund manager. Like I don't think
Moonwind rolled up on her immediately lost soul and
just put her back in her body. In fact, I'm positive
that's not what happens because we get to see exactly
how she overcomes this. It's Joy and Sadness. When they get back,
they finally allow Riley to feel sad about her move instead of trying to force her
to feel happy all the time. And this really lines up
with what Moonwind tells us about how people will
become lost souls and their tenuous relationship with the zone. - The zone is enjoyable, but when that joy becomes an obsession, one becomes disconnected from life. - I mean, is that one sentence not the entire theme of Inside Out? Joy is the literal
embodiment of that emotion that is obsessed with
Riley only feeling that way all the time. And her inability to let Riley feel sad, even for one moment, is basically what sets in motion the plot of the entire movie. Which, goodness, can we just
take a moment and pause and remind everyone that it's
okay to feel sadness? - Oh, remember the funny
movie where the dog dies? - But seriously, look at Riley's memories on the day they move. Like for sure, Riley's having a bad day, but Joy is still doing everything she can to make Riley feel happy. But that's not all she's doing. In fact, I dare say even more than trying to make her feel happy, she's trying to prevent
her from feeling sad. - [Fear] Dad just left us. - Oh, he doesn't love
us anymore. That's sad. - [Joy] Delicious.
- [Fear] Pizza? - Pizza, great idea.
- Yes, Pizza. - Like, seriously, just
look at the memory bank. There's plenty of fear, anger and disgust mixed in with the joy. But Joy has halted any
sadness from getting through. And that really is sad because
just one single sad memory could have signaled mom and
dad that Riley needed help, but Joy just cannot comprehend this. - [Joy] And you've met sadness. She, well, she, (crying and screaming) I'm not actually sure what she does. - Instead, she just
does everything she can to banish Sadness from Riley's mind. I mean, seriously, let's
go back to Soul and look at how you reaccess your
body from the astral plane. It's by drawing a circle in the sand. Joy does the same thing to Sadness, but she draws a circle
around her with chalk. But she's doing it from
this side of things which means she's like
metaphorically sending Sadness to a literal different plane of existence. And honestly, I don't think that's far off from the metaphor they're going for here because these two movies,
Inside Out and Soul, were both directed by the
same guy, Pete Docter. Like in his mind, this is how
he visualizes these things and how he has now represented
it in two movies that or I guess maybe he
just really likes circles, which is fine too. You know, I mean, it's a great shape. I mean, it's no rhombus, but what is? Honestly while we're here, rhombus, probably a top 10 word as well. Like, I mean, this video's
full of good words. But here's the thing, I don't wanna throw too much shade at Joy because I really don't
think it's her fault that any of this happens. And honestly, I struggle to say it's really anyone's fault if you will, it's just a tough situation
the family's going through. Like, have you ever
moved across the country? It's not easy. Here's
what I mean, though, and I'll admit, this can be hard
to kind of conceptualize because whilst Joy, Sadness,
Fear, Disgust and Anger kind of feel like their own characters with their own brains and
motivations and stuff, they're not. At the end of the day, they
are all still just Riley. Which once you grasp makes
certain moments like really cool. And you sort of get to see
Riley's instincts at play. Like specifically right here when she's going to
bed on the first night. Riley has done her best all
day to put a bright face on, but reality is setting in and well, I'll just let them tell you. - We could be lying on
the dirty floor in a bag. - There's absolutely no reason for Riley to be happy right now. - Anger is right. Riley is right. Her instincts are spot on in this moment. She's trying to let her other emotions just take over and handle the situations. And honestly, this could have been the end of the movie except... - Well you've stayed our happy girl. If you and I can keep smiling,
it would be a big help. - This little nudge from mom
forces Riley to reconsider and try and remain happy. - Happy it is. - Team happy. - Let's do this.
- Sounds great. - Totally behind you, Joy. - It's this external pressure
that is forcing her to push sadness down and
never let it through. And the thing it's not like
mom is the bad guy here either. She's just trying to help out dad. And from everything Riley
has shown her so far, Riley has remained positive. Which I think is why she's so
proud of Riley in the moment she's expressing gratitude. I think she expected her to have a really hard time with the move, but so far, she's just been really happy. Ironically, though, this signals Riley to continue pushing sadness
down to the point where she even has a sad core memory and she tries to suppress even that. Which, as we all know, causes the loss of all of her core memories, the very basis for her entire personality. You can also see that the
more she pushes sadness down, the stronger the urge
to become sad becomes. Like literally everything sadness touches starts turning blue. Like when sadness is in long term memory, she's just touching everything, random memories all over
the place in Riley's mind are just becoming sad. And yet she resists. Interestingly, though, even after the core memories are gone, she mostly remains herself until she tries to access any given aspect of her personality. Which over and over causes the
destruction of another island until the last one finally
falls and her soul is lost. And I think what Pete Docter
is really trying to say here is that the pursuit of
nothing but joy or purpose, I guess if you will in the
case of Soul, is fruitless. - We don't assign purposes. Where did you get that idea? - You have to let yourself
experience your feelings as you feel them. You have to find a way to be present because, if you don't, you'll get lost. And I just personally like to say that I know that's really hard. Like it is easy for me
to sit here and say that, but we all experience all
sorts of external pressures every single day, from all sorts of angles telling you how to feel
and how not to feel, but in the end, you just gotta let it out. You gotta find a way
to celebrate yourself. Guys, speaking of celebrating, later this month
SuperCarlinBrothers is going to be celebrating its 10 year
anniversary on YouTube. And part of that celebration
is going to be the hosting of another spirit week. Starting the week of June 20th, each day we'll have a themed day. We have Mickey Monday, Pikachuesday, Lightsabers verse Wandsday, Thorsday, Formal Friday and SCB Saturday. All you have to do each day is find a fun way to dress up
and celebrate that fandom and post and share those photos on Instagram. Make sure you tag each post
with the hashtag SCBSpiritWeek so we can find and share all of them from me and Ben's personal
Instagram accounts and by posting any picture at
all, you'll be entering to win any of our daily contests. So go ahead and mark your
calendars for spirit week and that Friday, June 24th,
we're gonna be hosting a trivia live stream right
here on the main channel. Hope you'll join us for that as well. But guys, thanks for
watching today's video. If you wanna see some more Soul theories, like how Meilin might have two souls, you can check out this video right here, but otherwise until next time, Ben, I will see you in
another life brother.
