Inside Out

And as for whether Bing Bong's death was effective... well, more than anything, Bing Bong dying made sense. Bing Bong is supposed to be an imaginary friend who Riley played with when she was a toddler, and whom she barely remembers at the beginning of the movie. Of course he's going to be forgotten. I think literally the instant they introduced the memory dump, coupled with the fact that Riley had already mostly forgotten Bing Bong, I asked myself: "Oh, so that's where Bing Bong is going to end up?"

So I think Bing Bong's death is far from a cheap shock to induce unearned pathos. In fact, not killing Bing Bong off would have been a borderline cop-out.

Not to mention it could go a completely sideways direction where the other emotions "conquer" Depression and everything goes back to normal, if not then it would literally be a Downer Ending. The real power behind the movie is the acknowledgement that the pain you feel doesn't disappear immediately, but it takes some time to build a new physical and emotional foundation.

Well, not all of us forget all of our imaginary friends. (I do remember I *never* had one, though. Mostly because very early in I somehow got the idea all children should have one, and actually grew worried there was something wrong with me because I didn't have one. Despite being a fairly lonely child, mind).

I tried to make an imaginary friend once. I Hate Past Me.

Well, maybe not. But the way Bing Bong's arc went is still pretty much the only viable ending I can see for the character. He's in a similar position to the toys in Toy Story, in that he cannot by his nature keep playing with Riley forever. However, unlike the toys, Bing Bong doesn't even physically exist outside of Riley, so he can't be passed on to someone else. Even if Riley had maintained some memory of Bing Bong, she wouldn't keep playing with him, and there's nowhere else for him to go. Basically, if he hadn't been forgotten entirely, Bing Bong would have spent the rest of his existence as a hazily recalled childhood memory with little to no bearing on Riley's life. If you left Bing Bong's arc at that instead of letting him die, you'd just end up with an even more sour conclusion to his story, and far less poignant.

I tried a few times, but every time I couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't working and I was being stupid.

And I'm not saying it to boast, since I was a very dumb child in other things. My sense of geography was seriously skewed up, in that, while I knew the maps, I always thought distances were much shorter than they actually were.

edited 9th Aug '15 2:48:07 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

I never figured out if imaginary friends were things real child actually make or something the TV made up. I never had one and I don't think anyone every told me they had one either (though I never asked).

That said, I have inserted myself into the stories I was fan of (books, cartoons, whatever), which I guess is not all that different. I never wrote it down, though.

Indeed. When watching the movie, I was wondering how they would deal with Bing Bong. It would feel a bit weird to actually give him what he wanted (to go back to playing with Riley). Their solution was unexpected, but clever and powerful.

edited 9th Aug '15 3:03:57 PM by Heatth

I still have imaginary friends; they're just called "original characters" now and I can keep writing stories about them.

I saw the film over the weekend and I loved it. This is the best film I've seen this year to be honest. On the topic of Bing Bong, I first thought that he was actually going to be the villain of the movie. I mean he's introduced taking some of Riley's memories, almost kills Joy & Sadness with his shortcut, and his desire to be remembered would be a proper motivation for a morally dubious action. I guess it's just because a lot of animated movies tend to have their villains be a surprise nowadays. But they let him be a comedic side-character and actually have the balls to kill him off. That was the scene that got me to cry, and I have the utmost respect to any media that can do that.

Also, Riley didn't forget Bing Bong - she still has the memories of playing with him as a child and such. But Bing-Bong no longer has a presence in her mind - essentially, she's gone through the point we all go through where our imaginations change as we mature, where we no longer create extraordinary things and believe they're real, and instead accept that those things are extraordinary and that our reality isn't actually like that.

On the downside, that means she'll never feel the same joy imagining Bing Bong as she once did. On the upside...

... this is always possible.

edited 9th Aug '15 4:05:33 PM by KnownUnknown

New headcanon: Riley grows up to become a children's author and writes a bestselling picture book called Bing Bong Goes to the Moon.

somebody write this fic

edited 9th Aug '15 5:00:36 PM by SmartGirl333

Works for other people, but Riley's already forgotten Bing Bong forever.

But yes, I agree with the assessment of imaginary friends to original characters. There's a reason they say that writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

edited 9th Aug '15 5:02:02 PM by TobiasDrake

"Following the Miyazaki model."

Oh, you mean the old grumpy guy who isn't making movies anymore because he's fed up with today's movies and technology??

Funny you should say that because just last month he un-retired (again-again-again-again-again-again) to announce his first CG project.

edited 10th Aug '15 12:10:48 AM by Tuckerscreator

Which means now exactly half his films will be his last film.

Not exactly the same thing. He's making a SHORT FILM that won't be in theaters, and he's making it outside of Ghibli. Still I'm happy to hear that he's still appreciating the art form, and isn't totally hating on CGI anymore.

Bing Bong's ultimate fate does seem like Status Quo Is God of some sort. He's not a core emotion, so what exactly is he going to do in HQ?

Of course it's Status Quo Is God! Who the heck still has an imaginary friend when they're thirteen years old?

Also, I like to think Bing Bong's not dead. He's just in foster care.

Bing Bong's ultimate fate is Reality Ensues. While the aforementioned exception for writers certainly exists, it's not exactly one of Riley's interests. Most people aren't writers; Riley, in particular, is an athlete.

For most people, there comes a time when you have to let your imaginary friends go. It's just part of growing up. Not everyone forgets them but they stop being relevant to your life. Bing Bong was destined to either be forgotten or to just hang around as a memory Riley occasionally accesses when she's musing on her past but never plays with again.

All things considered, he went out on his own terms to help Riley one last time. That's more than most imaginary friends get. And now Riley should grow up to be an astronaut.

edited 10th Aug '15 8:13:54 AM by TobiasDrake

Or a children's book writer.

I did. It was a tiny blue hamster with a tiny little hat, with the power to spit watermelon seeds at things. I named him Feisty.

Fridge Logic: the emotions are part of Riley, and Joy and Sadness should remember Bing Bong, so shouldn't a bit of Bing Bong still exist within Joy and Sadness themselves?

edited 10th Aug '15 8:52:35 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

And for a lot of people, their imaginary friends were their toys that they projected their own personalities on. I know this is joked about as kids being lazy, but for some it's easier for us at that age to project personalities on to objects than to create a full weird creature from scratch.

(As was for me, my "imaginary friends" were Squako and Flatmango, a parrot plush from Disneyland and a Flamingo beanie babie with a bead deficiency respectively. Squako was a hairdresser who liked styling "and was subjected to my terrible hair styling projects because I thought his fur would grow back and Flatmango was a floppy, boneless flamingo who could turn into liquid and slime around the place)

So, would Andy have a Woody inside of his head in addition to the toy Woody that exists in the physical world?