I saw the new Pixar movie, Inside Out, a couple of weekends ago, and I was utterly enthralled. It’s a very human, real story about emotions and trials in life.
Now, talking about it here isn’t gonna be very interesting, since it follows the Hero’s Journey almost to a T, but I thought it might be interesting to talk about the characters and how they embody the Archetypes. They are, after all, literally archetypes themselves. So let’s start with the easy ones:
Anger is a perfect example of the Emotion Archetype. He is irascible, uncontrollable, and literally fiery in temperament. More than once, he just snaps and expresses himself however he wishes.
Disgust is pretty close to the Skeptic. She’s quiet and moody, and she never seems to approve of anything. Her whole thing is that she makes sure nothing is embarrassing or gross.
Sadness shows more than a little bit of the Contagonist. The whole point of the story is that she’s begun to be a hindrance towards Joy’s endless happiness campaign. She keeps drawing Riley away from being like she used to be. This infuriates Joy to no end, meaning Joy is probably the Guardian, at least in part.
I also see a bit of it in Bing-bong, the imaginary friend. He guides them throughout Riley’s mind, teaching them how everything works and aiding them in their quest to get back to HQ. He’s a bit… slapdash about it, but he means well.
Joy herself seems to be a mix of the Sidekick and the Protagonist. She’s the one in charge of Riley’s mind, and she always tries to stay relentlessly positive, even when her carefully-constructed reality comes crashing down around her. I’ll explain why I’m a bit hesitant about this definition in a moment.
Now Fear is a bit tricky. He’s closest to the Reason character, but he’s a bit jumpy and negative, like Disgust. I think he’s a bit of a Skeptic as well, which is why he muscles out Disgust pretty frequently. But he’s also a little Emotion too, but Anger muscles him out of that. Now you could call that bad storytelling, but I think it speaks to the fact that they squabble in-story as well; they need Joy to help balance each other out.
There’s only one Archetype left, but here’s where my analysis stalls out. Who is the Antagonist? None of the characters actively want Joy and Sadness to not get back to Headquarters; it’s only the sheer enormity of Riley’s brain and the lack of options available to them to get back that impedes them. I guess Sadness is kind of antagonistic with her resignation early on, but that’s why I had her as the Contagonist.
One thing that jumps to mind is that the Goal isn’t just to return back to HQ with the missing Core Memories, but something deeper, like “Maintain Riley’s cheerful naiveté” or “Help Riley grow as a person.” The first has a similar problem to what I had before, but the second is interesting, as it makes Joy the Antagonist in a certain respect. She’s the one who wants to keep everything as it was, who actively Avoids letting Sadness’ Core Memory join the others. In this view, Sadness is essentially an unwitting Protagonist.
Of course, all of this is ignoring the overall metaphorical impact of the story’s structure, but I’ll leave that to all of you to think about. (For example, it’s interesting to note that the Main Character’s name isn’t Happiness. The story’s moral, after all, is that happiness is as much born from Sadness (and the other three fundamental emotions) as it is from sheer Joy.) What do you all think? What is the clearest way to understand this story? I’m curious to see what you all thought of this movie.