For the most part, Pixar has a surprisingly good
track record with sequels– I said mostly–and Inside Out 2 thankfully continues to improve said
track record. So after we were done having another existential crisis, we decided it’d be fun to do
what we do best–so without further ado, this is Inside Out 2(and 1) characters: Good to
Most Heroic. Spoilers ahead, of course. Now, given the core message of these movies
is just “every emotion is important,” there aren’t any characters we’d describe
as outright bad or evil. So today, we’re going from the least upstanding citizens to
the most purehearted–starting with THE GRAY AREA. We could come up with any number of reasons
why we’ve given the lowest spot on our list to Anxiety, but…come on. She is the literal
personification of a mental illness. Personally, I was ALREADY ready to place her in the Evil
category for that alone–and I’m sure anyone else in the audience who’s had to deal
with one of these little orange ragdolls of their own would agree...but maybe we can show
some grace. Anxiety acts as the main antagonist of Inside Out 2, and her whole goal is basically
to rebuild Riley’s personality from the ground up so that she can fit in with the cool kids.
Like Fear, her main motivation is her…well, fear–but in her own words, the main difference
is that Anxiety fears what she can’t see. This results in her essentially gaining a tyrannical
rule over Riley’s mind, forcing others to think up anything that could POSSIBLY go wrong, and being
willing to capture anyone who gets in her way. Now, to her VERY LIMITED credit, Anxiety DOES
have good intentions…add that to the list of sentences I thought I’d never say. She genuinely
does want Riley to be happy–to have good friends, to make the hockey team, and live a good
life as a whole. It;s just that her way of going about this is…well, it’s atrocious,
really. She uses her talent for overthinking to remake Riley’s personality from the ground
up, causing her to betray herself constantly for the sake of fitting in. When she realizes
what she’s been doing to poor Riley all along, she is genuinely horrified by it and decides to
relinquish control. While she never truly fades, she and Joy cooperate to make sure that she
never goes quite so overboard again. Not only is taking a break a REALLY good piece
of advice for anxious people in general, but it proves that Anxiety–the character,
not the illness--isn’t actually evil; she just gets overwhelmed easily. Still, her
misdeeds are enough to place her at the lowest spot on our list by a long shot. I think I
speak for everyone with anxiety when I say…I still don’t trust you. You might mean well,
but I still don’t trust you. No offense :) Taking the second-lowest spot, let’s give a
quick shoutout to The Construction Workers in Riley’s mind. These little blue guys are
seen throughout both movies, but most notably in the second film where they infiltrate
Riley’s mind for their “demo day”--which is their way of breaking her mind down so
they can expand it as she slowly enters adulthood. If you’ve ever wondered why puberty
is such a long, painful process, um…this isn’t that kind of channel, but Inside Out 2 has a
fun explanation: these guys show up one day, start smashing your mind, and then leave without
finishing their work for presumably years. This might be the only case where giving construction
workers the SLOTH SINNER MEDAL makes ANY sense. These guys aren’t bad people–really,
they’re just doing their job. But they still lack the consideration to give
Riley’s regular emotions any heads-up of when they’re coming by to start
renovating. That’s not to mention how reckless they are with their work–one of
them almost chainsawed Fear AND his teddy bear in half, which would’ve truly been the
most unforgivable sin in either movie. Rounding out the bottom three is Jangles. In
Riley’s mind, Jangles is a monstrous clown creature who lives to terrorize her however he
can. In reality, he’s just a children’s birthday party entertainer who accidentally scared
Riley when she was very young–thus leaving her with a chronic fear. While he might seem
pretty tough in the context of the movie, he isn’t an intentionally evil character by any
means–and unlike Anxiety, he doesn’t run the risk of ruining Riley’s life, so we’ll
give him a slightly more respectable spot. Up next is Riley’s Deep Dark Secret. No,
this isn’t a manifestation of Riley’s fear of the Dark–nor is it a cameo of
Dark from Orion and the Dark. Rather, this guy represents a secret so heinous that
Riley’s subconscious has decided to hide it away behind a vault. The secret in question
might’ve gained him an even lower spot, but the post-credits scene reveals that apparently this
memory is that of Riley burning a hole in a rug. …oh, to have THAT be the worst secret
you have to hide. Never change, Riley. While it’s sure to cause her a lot of jealousy,
we have to give the next new emotion, Envy, a relatively low spot on our list. First
of all…Envy Sinner Medal. I..I don’t think we really need to explain this one.
But now, onto morality. And honestly, in that regard, Envy might even be more
overtly questionable than Anxiety. Nobody likes jealousy–and like Anxiety, Envy causes people
to do a lot of selfish things. In Riley’s case, it leads her to abandon her friends in favor of
the Fire Hawks, in the hopes that she won’t be alone when her old friends go to a different
high school. Envy could definitely be doing a lot worse, but she worries more about social
status than anything else–and unlike Disgust, this is less for the sake of protecting Riley and
more for the sake of making sure she has all she wants. Her constant thirst for popularity
and inclusion makes her a great right-hand helper to Anxiety, leading to her being more
involved in her schemes than the other emotions. Now it’s time to get to the first character
who exists outside of Riley’s mind, Coach Roberts. She’s not a prominent character by
any means, but she’s notable for being the one to invite Riley and her friends to the Fire Hawks
training camp. She’s ALSO notable for shouting at Riley and friends for not settling down after
she told them to in the locker room, causing the whole team to have their phones confiscated. To be
fair, she is their coach, so that’s kind of just her doing her job. She seems like a decent,
respectable person in a general sense, but she’s also one of those teachers who will punish
everyone for the misdeeds of just one student. Seriously, don’t sweat the small stuff, Coach–you
could learn a thing or two from Ennui. Yeah, Ennui is a nice dude–he’s that one cousin family
gatherings who just hangs out on his phone until he’s spoken to, since there’s nobody there near
his age. In other words, he’s…almost all of us, probably. While his stoicism is sometimes used to
push Riley further away from her friends, and her sense of self as a whole, he is one of the least
troublesome of Riley’s new emotions–which makes a lot of sense, given that his whole character is
just the embodiment of boredom and impartiality. For those reasons, we say he’s the perfect
character to say “adieu” to the Gray Area with. Now we enter the more overtly good guys of
the series–and as you likely would expect, there’s definitely more of them.
These characters are THE GOOD. Kicking this category off is the fourth of Riley’s
new emotions. Embarrassment is here to stay, so get ready to spend long nights thinking
about that one moment from middle school. ..haha, just kidding! There’s definitely more
than one. Anyway, Embarrassment is more than just a big, shy dude built like Charlie from
Smiling Friends. He’s MUCH more, in fact; Embarrassment might serve to help Anxiety and
the others in their goal to remake Riley into a more overthinking, inauthentic person, but he’s
shown frequently to disapprove of her methods. Several times throughout the film, he goes against
Anxiety–most notably, he refuses to expose that Sadness is hiding in the control room while the
others go on their journey. While he can’t do it openly for fear of being suppressed by Anxiety,
and does end up helping to capture Sadness, Embarrassment still does all he can to thwart
Anxiety’s plans from behind the scenes. That makes him the most decent of the newcomers.
I mean, come on–just look how he carries little Envy in the palm of his hand! If that isn’t
adorable big-brother energy, I don’t know what is. But enough of those rookies–where would they be
without the OGs, like Disgust? One of Riley’s original five emotions, Disgust functions the
most similarly to Fear by keeping Riley from doing things that are dangerous to her–except
these things are less overtly dangerous, and more so things that would make her
feel unhappy or unsafe. For instance, she’ll keep Riley from putting on
someone else’s mouthguard...or at least, from keeping it on. The reason we place her as
the lowest of Riley’s original emotions is her role in Riley making her first friends; her
hesitation to help Grace due to her being a social outcast shows a bit of an ego on her–but
she DOES earn points for being a sympathetic friend to the other emotions, and placing Riley’s
wellbeing above all else at the end of the day. It might be a surprise seeing him this high
up, but Anger gets to show off a lot more of his good side in the sequel. Don’t get the wrong
idea–he’s still the same short-tempered little red box we all know and love. His outbursts and
occasional use of force are enough to give him the Wrath Sinner Medal, as expected–but when Joy
starts to get stressed out during the search for Riley’s old self, it’s surprisingly Anger to calm
her down and encourage her not to give up. He also proves himself to be surprisingly resourceful and
creative–when the forklift Joy is trying to use won’t work, Anger comes up with the idea to use a
giant vacuum in reverse to propel them up the wall they’re trying to climb–and later on, he calls on
the legendary Pouchy to help them out of a bind. But speaking of Pouchy…believe it or not,
he’s kind of the main reason Anger isn’t any higher.I know you were in a rush, man,
but…uh, how do I put this delicately? You know how you shoved your entire fist into
a person’s mouth to try and dig out helpful items for your adventure? That’s assault,
brotha. Thankfully, they seem to have made amends by the end of the movie–showing that
as angry as Anger is, he’s willing to bury the hatchet with the people he’s wronged. It’s
the bare minimum, sure, but it’s something! Up next is Anxiety’s less intense, more helpful
counterpart, Fear. Fear’s fatal flaw is pretty obvious–he’s admittedly kind of a coward at times
due to his fears…which are many. Rather than being a chronic overthinker like Anxiety, though, he’s
focused on things that are concrete, and overtly dangerous–meaning that he’s much more consistently
effective at protecting Riley from pain and danger WITHOUT the need to try and psychologically
terrorize her with various hypotheticals. It’s also worth noting that Fear is prepared
for a disaster inside Riley’s mind, like using a parachute he just happened to be wearing to
keep the Emotions from falling to their deaths. His paranoia is really his worst character trait,
and even THAT’S never intended to be a bad thing; heck, it’s usually not even detrimental to
Riley or anything. Though, in the sequel, he DOES say at one point that he believes he can
“fix” Anxiety, and while we’re not sure that’s a MORAL problem, it’s…there’s definitely SOMETHING
to be said about that, I’m just not sure what. …and before we move on, can we talk about
the parachute thing one more time? Can emotions die in this universe? What
happens if they do? Is it like a lobotomy or something? THIS is the Pixar
world I have the most questions about. But for now, let’s just finish answering the
question of who’s got the best morals–with Joy landing just outside of the top ten. Joy was more
or less the protagonist of the first movie…and, in a sense, also the antagonist. Her insistence on
bottling Sadness up and keeping her from effecting Riley in any way shows a bit of a control-freak
nature, and a really condescending view of her friend–a point of view that gives her the
PRIDE SINNER MEDAL. Thankfully, though, by the end of the movie, she learns to accept
the fact that all of Riley’s emotions have important roles to play in her life–and in the
second movie, this lesson seems to have stuck. Joy is a lot nicer and more inclusive to Sadness,
allowing her just as many memories as anyone else. But this is where the new manifestation
of Joy’s toxic optimism comes into play: her tendency to throw all of Riley’s negative
memories away into what is essentially a landfill, leaving her with a sense of perfectionism that
makes way for Anxiety. (wow, this movie is WAY too real) While, like in the first movie,
Joy was nothing but well-intentioned here, she did end up affecting her mental state in a
negative way–but when Anxiety comes around to affect it in a much MORE negative way, Joy is
the one to reach out to her and encourage her to let go. After the storm clears up, Joy reveals
that she’s become a sort of counselor to Anxiety, keeping her from worrying about future events
so that Riley can focus on enjoying the present moment. Joy has grown a lot since the first
movie–and by her own admission in the second, it’s easy for her to get overwhelmed
by having to be positive all the time. By embracing Sadness as a friend, it’s almost
like Joy has embraced her own negative emotions and is using them to help the others–which
shows that she’s not only worthy of being the unofficial captain of Riley’s mind, but
a MUCH better friend than she was before. Still, we’re gonna give the highest spot of the
original emotions to Sadness. Sadness acts as the first movie’s deuteragonist, and teaches perhaps
one of the greatest lessons in Pixar history: And okay it is indeed–Sadness, in a sense, is
a much-needed source of comfort to those around her. We see this in the first film when she
comforts Bing Bong after his rocket is dumped, by simply listening to him and giving
him a hug when it’s needed. We all need a friend like that–and once Joy finally accepts
that sadness is a part of life, she’s able to do her work to help Riley feel sad for a bit so
she can be happy afterwards. In the sequel, after Riley finds out that her friends are
going to another high school, it’s Sadness who allows her to get in a quick cry so that she
can move on with her day. Out of all the emotions, Sadness is the least aggressive, the least
prideful, and at the same time, is just as eager to help Riley as the others are–giving
her an especially high spot on our list. But where would any of the emotions be without
the girl they belong to, Riley Andersen? This hockey-loving, braces-wearing, anxiety-fueled teen
is back in action with even more screentime…and man, was it painful. No offense to Riley,
but…oh, the memories of desperately trying to fit in with others throughout high school
were strong with this one. While we see that Riley is a very sweet kid, from helping
up fallen members of the other hockey team to being a caring person in general, we also see
that she isn’t perfect. Her worst deed, and the one that pretty much lingers over the whole movie,
is her tendency to flake on her friends for the sake of getting in good with Valentina Ortiz,
who she pretty much idolizes. She’s willing to betray herself and her friendships for the
sake of getting close with them–and this ultimately culminates in her knocking
Grace down in a hockey-fueled rage. In one of the most stressful scenes in Pixar
history, poor Riley has a panic attack as she struggles to cope with her emotions and just
how complex they’re becoming–the guilt of having hurt her best friend now toppling
that already-unsteady tower. Ultimately, she does apologize to her friends and they
all make amends. While we can’t place her any higher due to her misdeeds, we still
have to give her a lot of credit for that. Hey, do YOU know who the next character is?
[awkwardly long pause] THAAAAAT’S RIGHT! It’s Bloofy, Riley’s favorite
childhood cartoon that she still secretly loves. A parody of Blue’s Clues, Mickey Mouse
Clubhouse, and probably 5 other preschool shows, Bloofy is an adorable pink dog who’s always
looking to help in indirect ways. He’s more than happy to help the Emotions escape being
bottled up if they return the favor by freeing him from Riley’’s mind prison. That said, uh….he
might not be all there, honestly. But sane or not, Bloofy is a good pal who’s always there to
offer his services in support of his friends. Speaking of friends, this movie has both old
friends AND new friends including Val Ortiz, She takes Riley under her wing, sincerely
wanting to include her with the team and make her feel welcome. They have a sort of sisterly
relationship going on–despite Riley’s constant overthinking and anxiety, Val is always genuinely
nice to her, even when Riley accidentally gets the group in trouble in the locker room. Val is
a sweet girl, and doesn’t really have a lot of bad traits to speak of–she’s the kind of
senior everyone hopes to meet in high school. But Val isn’t the first colored-hair idol in
Riley’s world: enter Lance Slashblade. A character from an in-universe fighting game–Lance
is a strong man who desires to do good, but darkness is just outside the gate of his
lonely heart. While he may be a bit of an edgelord, he’s the nice kind–willing to use his
legendary special move to break his buddies out, and even willing to sacrifice himself
to take down the entire police force. But as important as crushes can be, friends like
Bree and Grace are MUCH more so. These two are always happy to hang out with Riley–they even
offer to stick on the same team as her at the training camp so they can all spend extra time
together before they end up at separate schools. They’re also remarkably forgiving–despite Riley
giving them a cold shoulder for most of the movie, and almost straight-up concussing Grace, they’re
quick to forgive her for it. Grace especially deserves extra points for the fact that she
was concerned for Riley’s distress even though she’d literally just shoulder-bashed
her like she was playing Wario Land. Before we get to the top three, though, there’s
ONE more emotion to talk about real quick: Nostalgia. While she only appears in a
couple of scenes(like, literally two), Nostalgia answers the question mankind have
been pondering for ages: “remember the time?” Nostalgia literally exists to occasionally
remind Riley and her emotions of her happiest, most cherished memories. Only every so
often does she come out of her little room, but when she does, it’s always pleasant…even if
she hasn’t quite been invited yet. Still–you have to wonder what she was doing during
the whole Anxiety hurricane thing. Our Bronze Medal of Good is someone we’ll need to
call real quick. Say it with me, now: Oh, Pouchy! Whenever someone in Riley’s mind needs help, they
just need to call Pouchy, and he’ll show up with several items that might help. It’s…admittedly
kinda weird that dynamite always seems to be one of said items, and makes you wonder if Pouchy’s
motives are as pure as he’d have you think. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s more than
happy to help literally anyone who asks him–and like we mentioned earlier, he becomes good friends
with Anger despite him practically assaulting him. Pouchy is a true altruist, but there are two
more characters we’d give a slight upper hand. Actually, there’s technically three more–because
the Silver Medal of Good goes to both of Riley’s Parents. Pixar parents are usually pretty
good, but Riley’s stand out even among the others. Despite their struggles, they always
do their best to put on a brave face for Riley, cheering her on at hockey games and always showing
interest in both how she’s doing and what she’s doing. Given just how supportive they are of her,
constantly hyping her up at games and pretending that burnt chicken looks delightful–there’s never
any doubt just how loved Riley is. They’re also INCREDIBLY patient–even when Riley loses her
temper with her mom for seemingly no reason, she doesn’t get upset with her–instead
understanding that the onset of puberty is nigh, and therefore the emotions are
high. They’re not perfect people, but as far as fictional parents go, Riley
is blessed with some of the best. But now it’s time to honor our Gold Medalist of
Good. The prize once again goes to your friend who likes to play–Bing Bong. Bing Bong was Riley’s
imaginary bestie in her early childhood. We’ve already mentioned that Bing Bong loves Riley
enough to be genuinely devastated when he finds out that she’s slowly but surely forgetting about
him. That doesn’t take away from him being the most loving character in both films, though–Bing
Bong literally exists to make Riley happy, and he’s more than willing to help Joy and
Sadness get back to Headquarters as a result. On that note, you know how we joked earlier
about the whole “do emotions die?” thing? Well, we very well might’ve found out the answer, were
it not for Bing Bong. He was willing to sacrifice himself so that Joy and Sadness could reach
Headquarters, only asking in return that they’d “take her to the moon” for him. Without Bing
Bong’s sacrifice, Joy and Sadness might have never made it back to HeadQuarters–and thus,
Riley would’ve…uh…I don’t know, but something would’ve happened. All we know for sure is that
his noble sacrifice proves that Bing Bong truly was Riley’s friend who likes to play–but more
than that, he was Riley’s friend who liked her to be happy. That kind of self-sacrificial
(albeit imaginary) friendship is enough to send him on a rocket to our top spot…now if you’ll
excuse me, I’m gonna go cry out some candy.
