Headscratchers Inside Out Discussion

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DoctorNemesis Since: Jan, 2001

Oct 10th 2015 at 7:06:33 AM •••

I've taken the liberty of moving this discussion here. I was reluctant (partly because I've contributed and didn't want to seem like I was taking my ball and going home or anything) but after long consideration I don't think it belongs on the Headscratchers page. If consensus agrees that it should be reinstated then I'm happy to comply, but IMHO the following counts against it:

It's based more on a dislike of a particular character rather than a plot-hole or Fridge Logic, thus coming under Complaining About Characters You Dont Like.
The discussion gets a bit circular and repetitive at times; this might be my bias coming through, but there's really only so many times you can point out "Joy goes through Character Development" before it starts to get a bit redundant.
It gets a bit heated towards the end, including a bit of really rather odd petulance over my apparent failure to spot a pun that the poster was apparently quite proud of making (and incidentally, if what I originally thought was the wordplay in question wasn't what I was supposed to be getting, what was? I'm quite sincere; if someone can steer me in the right direction I'd be grateful, since I'm obviously missing something but I don't really want to hash it out on the main page).

Joy is a Meanie!

Why do people ship Joy and Sadness? This is not because of them both being female. This is because of all the things Joy did to Sadness. To reiterate, she (and the others, under her leadership) left her out all the time, regarding her as a nuisance who doesn't have any conceivable role, like on the first day of school, and most importantly, she left Sadness and went to the recall tube herself because Sadness might have tainted the core memories and because "Riley needs to be happy", meaning that Riley has no need for Sadness as far as Joy is concerned. I know she went back to get her, but was she REALLY surprised when Sadness said what Joy left unsaid at their previous meeting, that Riley is better off without Sadness?
Joy does have some Character Development near the end and realizes that she and Sadness complement each other.
As numerous other tropes have shown, fans will ship anything with anything, especially if it makes no sense.
While none of these things exactly reflect well on Joy, they're not exactly unforgivable either — especially since Joy clearly realises the error of her ways and works to make amends by the end.
- As to Joy's character development, this might be only me but I felt it to be a bit too small. Guess I have to remind myself harder that this is only a 90 minutes long movie... However I might add that at the moment Joy leaves Sadness at the recall tube, Joy took away the last way of going back to Headquarters and was fine with leaving Sadness to spend the rest of Riley's life down there, as far as they both knew. Remember, Sadness did know which direction to go in but without Joy's optimism and nudging she would have stopped early in the adventure, when she tells Joy not to venture into the labyrinth that is long-term memory because she could get lost.
  - Maybe, but again, that's where the "realises her error and works to make amends" comes in. Joy's actions aren't exactly laudable, but they're not necessarily unforgivable or the worst we've seen from a Pixar character, and once she realises her error she works to correct it and make up for her previous poor treatment of Sadness. It's also worth noting that Joy is clearly conflicted about leaving Sadness, but considers Riley being happy the more important thing; she makes the wrong decision, granted, but her motives are based on what she views as Riley's well-being and she still clearly has to pause before making her choice. In any case, I think this might be beginning to touch on Complaining About Characters You Dont Like more than being a Headscratcher.
  - Also, Joy would have presumably come back for Sadness or had the Train of Thought bring her back. She wanted to get back and fix things first.
  - OP here: They saw about 2 islands break down already right when they thought they could go through them, the Train of Thought got derailed and as noted, Long-Term Memory is an enormous labyrinth. Who's to say Joy could have found Sadness again or brought her back? Who's to say she would have?
  - Her character development / atonement is 'too small'? I think it's worth chronicling precisely what happens to her and what she does after she makes the decision to abandon Sadness to address this. As a direct result of her selfish actions, she gets thrown into the memory pit and risks being completely forgotten (i.e. being completely obliterated from existence). While down there, she experiences an epiphany which completely changes her entire outlook when it comes to Sadness. She's then forced to watch someone else sacrifice themselves for her and in the process being completely forgotten (i.e. completely obliterated from existence). She then risks being dumped in the memory pit again (this time without any hope of rescue) to find and save Sadness, gets them both back to the control room and then — completely contrary to her previous actions — willingly steps back and allows Sadness to take over the console and save the day. So essentially, she's directly punished for her selfishness, risks death twice (once in a direct attempt to atone for her earlier selfishness), is forced to watch someone she's come to care about be obliterated from existence, rescues the person she abandoned and by the end has completely changed her worldview to become less selfish, blinkered and uncaring towards that person. With respect, what more do you want? Self-flagellation? Banishment? Guilt-induced suicide?
  - I expected a sign that it will really stick. This happened in the course of 24-32 hours at most if I remember right.
  - You get a sign that it really sticks. The epilogue, wherein everyone (including Joy and Sadness) is working harmoniously and equally together, with no sign that Joy is mistreating Sadness or denying her any input or influence over Riley, is set a year later, remember. That's, like, a billboard telling you that it sticks.
  - The last line in the movie, though, is "what's the worst that could happen?", which is precisely the same thing said in the beginning before Riley's parents drop the bomb of moving. Meaning that troubles are far from over.
  - I think you're starting to unfairly distort things to fit your preconceptions a bit here, since that's clearly a reference to the fact that Riley's about to hit puberty (see the "poo-berty" button that's been installed on the console). Everything else about the ending and that scene practically screams that Joy has learned her lesson about sharing control and letting Sadness have her time when its needed. There's nothing to suggest that Joy has been neglecting or overlooking Sadness in the Time Skip or is going to start doing so again like you're suggesting.
Why does no one ever call out Joy on her treatment of Sadness? Why isn't Anger angry over Joy emotionally abusing a teammate? Why isn't Disgust disgusted by her actions? Why is Fear never shown being afraid of ending up like Sadness and being put in a "Circle of Fear" to keep the fear out? Joy is a Control Freak and if Fear ever became an inconvenience in her eyes like Sadness did then there is no doubt she would do that to him. It's one of my biggest complaints with the movie.
- It's worth noting that, although Joy is the emotion in charge, all of the other emotions struggle to see what the point of Sadness is. Joy is the most overt about it, but she's not the only guilty party; all of the emotions neglect Sadness to some extent. Note that in the end scene, they're all surprised when Joy defers to Sadness; they don't call Joy out on her treatment of Sadness because they don't realize that what they've been doing is wrong either. Furthermore, I can't help but think that a bit of Ron the Death Eater is beginning to creep into this discussion; we're beginning to exaggerate exactly how bad Joy is to Sadness here. She's a bit thoughtless, neglectful and dismissive, certainly, but it's a great stretch to go from that to "emotionally abusive". Joy's no saint, but she's not an abuser either, and it's frankly unfair to suggest so.
- The Circle of Sadness, that is abuse. I mean, Joy basically put Sadness in time out for no reason other than existing. And I see you failed to see that play on words I made. Also, your explanation helps but it also brings to light another big problem I have with the movie: all of the emotions that aren't Joy and Sadness are so one-dimensional and not given much development.
  - Okay, fair enough, I was forgetting the Circle of Sadness, but that's still a fairly minor example of what we can call 'abuse'; we're still exaggerating just how cruel Joy is being here. It's a bit mean, certainly, but it's hardly an unforgivable act of evil. And as for the other emotions, while "one-dimensional" is perhaps a bit harsh, they don't get as much development because they're secondary characters; the main bulk of the movie is about the relationship between Joy and Sadness and about Joy's Character Development. You can't focus on everything and everyone equally. And FWIW I didn't fail to see your play on words, but I don't really know what you expected me to say about them to be honest; with all due respect, discussing a character called Anger getting angry isn't exactly up there with Oscar Wilde when it comes to wordplay or anything.
  - You still missed it.
  - So what he didn't care about a pun? What are you asking for? Him starting his paragraph with "Haha, lol, that was so clever, here's your congratulations?"
  - The point is that he misinterpreted something.
  - So what? It sounds either really pedantic or really egotistical to keep complaining about it.
- Yes, Joy mistreated her partner early in the film. Then there was a whole hour of movie where she learned how wrong she was, got punished when she tried to abandon Sadness, then learned her lesson and let Sadness take the lead, after which the two forgave each other. That's the whole point of the movie. It's like complaining that Marlin was a jerk to his son at the beginning of Finding Nemo; both movies are about them learning to become better people.
- Not the best comparison. Marlin's an overprotective father, Joy isn't. Plus, he doesn't treat Nemo nearly as bad as Joy treats Sadness.
- Joy is an overprotective mother, in a way, to Riley. That's why she did what she did to Sadness, because she thought it would help Riley. Likewise, when Marlin insisted his son not go to school for years more or told him he wasn't capable in front of his entire class, he thought he was for his son's own good. It's the same arc as Marlin, as Woody, as Elinor, etc. Pixar having a character who starts out bad but trying to do good is nothing new.
- Now therein lies another problem which goes back to my original post. Joy's basically trying to protect Riley by treating another person like crap. So far she's the only Pixar protagonist to do so. Furthermore, Woody is not a good comparison because he was JEALOUS of Buzz. He wasn't trying to protect Andy at all. Also, Dory's a secondary character too but she gets developed as a character.
- The point is, not just that Joy had good intentions, but that she got better over the course of the film. If anything she started out better than Woody because she had good intentions throughout. Marlin too treated Nemo's classmates and Dory rudely; he even got the latter nearly killed and then scarred by jellyfish. And by the end all of them have learned their lesson, became better people, and treat their friends with respect. If Woody and Marlin could be forgiven by their former rivals and by the audience, then why not Joy?
  
  On the other point of secondary development, Dory has a more central role than the other Emotions do in the hero's journey plot. Dory's role is more comparable to Sadness, being the partner on the trial who the protagonist develops sympathy for. The other emotions are more comparable to the Tank Gang, being comic relief who advance a subplot but have less prominent development.
- This is just feels like it's going in circles now. Also, I think both Marlin and Woody were called out. Woody I know for a fact was called out by the other toys. I don't remember Marlin ever being rude to Nemo's classmates.
- Woody was called out, but for the wrong reasons; the toys thought he'd pushed Buzz out of the window when he had actually tried to knock him behind the desk. Marlin wasn't called out, and he was unkind to the classmates when they tried to vouch for Nemo having not gone out past the dropoff; "This does not concern you kids, and you're lucky that I don't tell your parents." Regardless, story-wise a character doesn't need to be "called out" every time they do something wrong. The audience is smart enough to know what's right and what's wrong; they don't need to be reminded. If the character in the wrong figures it out themselves and learns their lesson, it's the same effect and more subtle. In fact, a common symptom of the Revenge Fic is that the targeted character is constantly called out for everything they did wrong, which gets really annoying. It would also be out of character for the other emotions. They too thought Sadness was useless during then so they didn't see anything wrong to chide Joy for.

Edited by DoctorNemesis Hide / Show Replies

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)

Oct 11th 2015 at 2:04:49 PM •••

I think there's a legitimate question in asking why the other Emotions didn't care about Sadness, but the majority is buried under Complaining About Characters You Dont Like. The asking about shipping of the characters isn't necessary either, since it's not relevant to the film itself and also has complaining. So it can stay here and off there.

Edited by Tuckerscreator

DrNoPuma [[VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld Plessie]] Since: Mar, 2015

[[VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld Plessie]]

Jul 16th 2015 at 6:17:46 AM •••

So I recently added a Headscratcher speculating on whether or not anything else lives in the Subconscious besides Jangles. However, the troper Tuckerscreator removed it, giving no other reason than "This isn't a question", and not even explaining why!

The only reason I can think of is, perhaps that subject would be better suited for this movie's WMG page instead.

But still, if you're reading this, Tuckerscreator, I'd like to know why that "isn't a question!"

No "Bowser's Fury" questions please. I haven't played it yet. Hide / Show Replies

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)

Jul 16th 2015 at 8:30:45 AM •••

Basically because it can't really be answered. There isn't enough information in the movie to discuss it, and most of the entry is basically speaking at length about one's own speculation and not seeking a specific answer. It is better suited for the WMG page.

Edited by Tuckerscreator

DrNoPuma Since: Mar, 2015

Jul 19th 2015 at 1:04:59 PM •••

I have added it to the WMG page. Case closed. (Sorry for getting angry!)

No "Bowser's Fury" questions please. I haven't played it yet.

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)

Jul 19th 2015 at 1:08:33 PM •••

No problem. Thanks for responding civilly.


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Discussion Headscratchers / InsideOut