WMG / Soul

Pre-release

"Soul" is a Double-Meaning Title

It refers not just to human souls, but also the genre of soul music. Confirmed. Joe's driving motivation is to be a jazz musician, and music is how he gains access to The Zone in the climax.

It takes more than one soul to make a human.

Some souls become emotions, as seen with Inside Out.

There is going to be a Body Swap issue.

Recent promotional material has shown what appears to be a cat in the film. During the second trailer, Joe sees his body in a hospital bed and leaps in to return to his body, with 22 falling in after him. If you look closely, you can see the cat on Joe's bed. What if that means it shall be a case where, upon returning to Earth, Joe winds up in the body of his cat, and 22 winds up in Joe's body?

Confirmed exactly

22 will end up becoming Joe's daughter.

A theory from some fans, even though there is no indication in the trailer that Joe's wife is pregnant.

• Jossed. Joe doesn't even have a wife, let alone an expecting one. He could have children before he truly dies, but 22 was already born into a human life just before Joe was given his "second chance" by the Jerrys. Not only that, 22 seemed to be dropping down towards the Eastern Hemisphere, meaning there's a possibility she'll wind up starting her life somewhere far from the Americas.

The movie is a Stealth Prequel to Inside Out

A few theories going around is that 22 is actually Riley before she was born and Joe will succeed in getting her to experience life, with Inside Out kicking off not long after Soul ends.

• Apparently Jossed by Nolting himself, who was told about this theory in an interview.

There will be No Antagonist.

It doesn't seem like an antagonist is too necessary, based on what we know about the story so far. Pixar has done numerous other films with no central antagonist, so they'll likely do it again with this film.

Half-jossed. Terry is an antagonist, but she is a Punch-Clock Villain at best

22 is the twenty-second soul ever.

They've been around for a while.

• It has been shown that 22 has been around for a few centuries at least, given that she had mentors such as Abraham Lincoln and Copernicus among others.
• Given that the only other explicitly numbered soul is 108,210,121,415, this may very well be the case.

The film's release will be delayed

At least in the United States. Some countries may be able to have proper screenings though.

• Confirmed. It's getting a Disney+ release on December 25th worldwide.

Joe will end up not performing at the club in the end

He'll be okay with it though, after his experiences teach him there's more to his life than that lone goal.

Jossed, though he does learn that lesson

Post-release

Terry is the Anthropomorphic Personification of Mathematics

She does seem strangely obssesed with counting and numbers.

If a sequel happens.

The focus will be more geared towards whoever 22 became and is probably a child or young adult crossing paths with a more aged Joe and whatever he decided to make of his life. The two realizing who each other are and however a plot transpires from that general concept.

That's really, really unlikely. Really, how likely do you think 22 is to randomly happen upon Joe at some point, let alone for Joe to realize what he's actually seeing? The scenario becomes even more absurd when you pay attention to the globe and look at where 22 was headed for. 22 appears to be headed towards somewhere in China. The fact that they're in different hemispheres makes things even more absurd.

• perhaps, 22 moved to New York when 22 was a child, teen or young adult.

There is technically a different Great Beyond for animals.

Our only confirmed animal soul was the cameo of Mr. Mittens' out-of-body experience. Unless someone can look through the crowd to find a dog or similar heading to the afterlife it seemed as if everyone was a human.

The Jerries and Terry are angels.

The Jerries could be a form of Principality, unborn humans being the group of people they watch over and guide. This makes one wonder; what would a fallen Jerry be like?

• In the French dub, the Jerries are all called Michel.

Jerries and Terry actually don't have "official" jobs.

They don't seem to have a command structure, for one. And every time a Jerry tells someone to do something, it's framed as a suggestion (i.e. "Why don't you three go into the 'aloof' pavillion?") and they don't continually assert said suggestions if contradicted. The implication is that they guide new souls out of sheer benevolence, rather than because it's their job.

With the exception of Terry, that is. But even she doesn't claim that her whole Balancing Death's Books schtick is actually her job; she just says it's what she does, making it sound more like a hobby. Notably, Jerries respond to her claim that the soul count is off with essentially a shrug, implying that her otherwise-regulatory role is ultimately unnecessary.

• Just like how Joe Gardner thinks music is his "purpose" and Terry thinks the same about counting while everyone else just "lives every minute of it".

22 became a cat

She wanted to see what Joe’s experience as a cat was like so that’s what she decided to incarnate into, as she already had a human experience in Joe’s body.

All Mentors are people who jumped from the conveyor belt

All of the mentors seem to be famous people who would have been just as upset as Joe to find out they've died. So every one of them would have jumped from the conveyor belt and ended up in The Great Before. The Great Before put in place the Mentor system to help those souls exist long enough to willingly accept moving on to The Great Beyond. Joe just took an unexpected route to achieve the same outcome.

• Well, not all of them. Quite a few like Mother Teresa and Gandhi probably accepted that they were dead quickly. The Jerries likely hand pick specific people to be Mentors.

There are unseen members of Jerries and Terry’s kind who have other jobs. All of their names end in erry

This includes the Kerries who guard the borders between the worlds (they don’t seem to mind Joe being in the Great Before, but draw the line at him going back to earth), the Berries who handle the souls of animals and plants, the Gerries who actually dwell on earth and report the lives of souls to the Jerries, the Merries who help the Lost Souls (they need all the help they get and happily hire souls like Moonwind to assist them, giving them boats to help them travel), and the leader of all the erries: Larry, the ruler of the Great Beyond who is known to humans as God.

After returning to life, Joe can enter The Zone at will.

Joe still enters The Zone sometimes when he plays jazz, or through meditation, and occasionally runs into 22 when she pursues something she is passionate about. He also sometimes assists Moonwind and his crew in rescuing lost souls.

Now that 22 has entered the world of the living...

The New York Knicks will enjoy an unprecedented winning streak.

22 will remember the Great Before...

...Due to the unprecedented amount of time 22 spent residing there before getting her spark.

How Joe and 22 will cross paths in a sequel

12 years later from the first movie, 22 will be a Chinese exchange student moving into New York and attending Joe’s school, and Joe will suspect that it’s her from her personality and mannerisms. Either two of the scenarios will play out: 1) 22 won’t remember Joe, and Joe spends the whole movie trying to get her to remember him and her past life through some sort of adventure where they both end up stuck in the soul world. 2) The above WMG is true and 22 remembers Joe. They have a reunion, and there’s a conflict in the soul world they must work together to solve. To make things interesting, maybe it could be like children in real life claiming reincarnation, where she vaguely remembers things from her past life but not quite fully remembers everything about it. This will lead to her gradually remembering elements of her past life through Story Breadcrumbs.

22's dilemma can be interpreted as a metaphor for depression

• Even after being in the Great Before for countless years, 22 still hasn't found her spark, or the thing that gives her a reason to live. She's tried so many things, but none of them work.
• All the other little souls are happy and cheery, while she's cynical and world-weary. When you're depressed, it can seem as if everyone else is having a great time and/or has their shit together, while your life is the only one that sucks.
• Because she doesn't have a spark, she can't leave the Great Before. Having clinical depression tends to feel like you're trapped in a place you can't get out of, or feeling like things will never get better or never change.
• 22's life is implied to be pretty repetitive, which is also what depression can feel like. She stays in her room (like a depressed person who never leaves their house), does whatever she feels like, and once a week, the Jerries show up to force her into the You Seminar (the equivalent of well-meaning people who try to get you to leave your room and interact with the outside world).
• She crosses the Despair Event Horizon when she argues with Joe and he tells her that she only found her spark because she was in his body, and she interprets it as him saying she will never have a purpose in life. Depression is (or can be) generally more like emotional numbness than constant despair, but sadness is often the easiest emotion for a depressed person to feel. (In Inside Out, this is also why only Sadness was able to help Riley when she was depressed.)
• Her becoming a Lost Soul may represent self-destructive behavior or a suicide attempt.
• 22 being untransformed from her Lost Soul state and going to Earth represents coming to terms with herself and moving forward in life, finally having found a purpose.

Assuming a Soul can be reborn at any point in time on Earth 22 will become Carl from Up

This is admittedly super unlikely but given how at one point 22 had Ed Esner's voice wouldn't it feel super nice from a thematic perspective that 22 became Carl? Given what happens in Up it would bring the messages of both movies full circle.

22's Lost Soul form is an Alternate Company Equivalent to Witches.

Her Lost Soul state is very, very similar to them. Both are created from a soul crossing the Despair Event Horizon, both are completely wild and out of control examples of a Superpowered Evil Side and of Tragic Monster, both absorb other souls, both keep the true core of the soul tormented in despair and suffering as a Self-Inflicted Hell, both are undone by the main character of the story. Joe and Madoka respectfully.

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