Do you ever look at someone and wonder, what is going on inside their head? Well, I know. I know Riley's head.
„
~ The movie's catchphrase (just the first part) said by Joy
“
I just... I just wanted Riley to be happy!
„
~ Joy's heroic breakdown, as she breaks down crying while she is trapped in the Memory Dump.
“
Delusional...? OF COURSE I'M DELUSIONAL! Do you know how hard it is to stay positive all the time when all you folks do is complain, complain, complain?! Jiminy, mother-loving, toaster strudel! Do you think I have all the answers?! OF COURSE I DON'T! We can't even find the back of our own minds. Anxiety is right. Riley doesn't need us as she needs them. And that hurts. It really hurts.
„
~ Joy's breakdown.
Joy is the main protagonist of Pixar's Inside Out franchise. She is the embodiment of happiness inside the head of a pre-teen girl named Riley, also being the leader of her brain's headquarters and the other emotions, those being Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust.
While her goal was initially to make her happy no matter what, even sometimes looking down on other emotions due to her thinking happiness and joy were the only emotions Riley had to feel. However, her point of view would change after a journey with Sadness through Riley's mind to retrieve her Core Memories and save her mind.
Joy is overall a kind and loving emotion whose goal is to make sure Riley has a good life.
While she did initially started off as an arrogant control freak and was quite bossy to the other emotions (especially towards Sadness), she grew up to not only respect, but acknowledge all emotions were as important as her, seeing they all want Riley's happiness just as much as she does, subverting the corrupting traits of arrogance and looking down on others she had at the start.
Despite being an emotion, it's made clear that Joy is able to distinguish right from wrong and is able to have desires and actions that differ from Riley's own interests. This is further evident as she's capable of feeling other emotions such as sadness or anger.
Even though she had personally conflicted with the other emotions, namely Sadness and Anxiety, she doesn't hold a grudge against either of them and does her best to get along with them, realizing her overall goal of having Riley be in an ideal state of mind requires all of them to work together in harmony.
Inside Out[]
From the very first minute since she was born, she made Riley happy in every way she could, also creating the Core memories, that defined her personality.
She tried to make everything about moving to a new house better for Riley, her family, and the other emotions, making everybody see things from a positive view.
She cheered up Riley when the moving van was late, making her play with her parents and getting her to order pizza with her mom.
She stopped Sadness from turning one, and eventually more, Core Memories sad, instead of happy, even if it wasn't on purpose. Turns out the reason Sadness wanted to touch those memories is because Riley missed Minnesota.
Tried to get Sadness to find fun in things, even if initially to keep her away from the headquarters.
Stopped Riley from having a nightmare, playing a happy memory instead.
Did everything she could to make Riley's first school day incredible.
She tried to save the Core Memories when they were being sucked up.
After she and Sadness got sucked out of headquarters, she never scolded Sadness or even blamed her for the fiasco.
She saved Bing Bong from the subconsciousness along with Sadness.
She felt remorse over leaving Sadness behind when trying to get back to headquarters.
When Bing Bong had to sacrifice himself to get her out of the Memory Dump, she mourned his death, wishing it hadn't played out that way, and promising she'd "take Riley to the Moon" as he wanted.
Though she puffed the cloud guy's wife away, it was accidental since she was only trying to save Sadness and get back to headquarters.
She made an elaborate plan to save Sadness from her cloud and depression and get back to the headquarters.
When she got back to the headquarters along with Sadness, she let Sadness touch the Control Panel, and allowing her to retrieve the stuck idea of running away from home, as Riley needed to be sad to put all of her emotions outside and explain to her parents what she was going through, saving her entire mind.
Managed to create new Core Island Memories, this time along with the other emotions.
Inside Out 2[]
In the flashback of Riley befriending Grace and Bree, when Grace failed miserably in her presentation while almost the entire class laughed at her, she felt compassion by her and wanted to get Riley to help Grace.
She formed a system which sent Riley's negative memories to the back of her mind.
She is shown to keep a model of Bing Bong near her bed, refusing to forget about him even after his death, showing gratitude for him for sacrificing himself for her.
She guided Sadness through the Belief System, helping her overcome her doubts that she would mess things up.
She saved the life of a Mind Worker by extinguishing a dynamite that Anger accidentally lit.
When Sadness was restrained by the other emotions from accessing the console after hearing that Bree and Grace were transferring to another school, Joy encouraged them to let Sadness use it once they were alone so she could let Riley cry in order to vent her emotions. This proves that Joy now respects and understands Sadness.
Although her causing Riley to goof off with her friends ended up causing them to get punished, she only wanted Riley to have fun and never intended to get them in trouble.
She tries to make Riley have fun at summer camp, clashing with Anxiety's attempts to pressure her.
She tried to stop Anxiety from removing Riley’s Sense of Self, and from planting an Anxiety memory to “change” Riley.
She led the other original emotions on the journey to recover Riley's original Sense of Self and get back to Headquarters. She also planned to make peace with Anxiety, holding no grudge towards her for kicking them out.
She dislikes Anger’s idea of throwing Anxiety into the dump.
While she briefly snaps at Anger, Disgust and Fear, it was an understandable brief heating-up moment from the stress of hearing them complain all the time and she was able to reconcile with them.
After getting to the memory office, she tries to encourage the Mind Workers to replace Riley's anxious scenarios with positive ones, eventually succeeding and loosening Anxiety's control.
When Anxiety's panic causes Riley to suffer an anxiety attack, Joy helps her see the errors of her ways by telling her to let Riley go, before saving her from the tornado of anxiety that she created.
She tried to restore Riley's original Sense of Self, but after understanding how her emotional repression made her control of Riley no better than Anxiety's, she discarded it and created a new Sense of Self alongside all of the other emotions, which caused Riley to snap out of her anxiety attack and accept herself as a person.
She embraced Riley's new Sense of Self, allowing Riley to calm down. This also motivated the other emotions to join in and embrace the Sense of Self.
After being chosen by Riley to take control, she helps her to makes amends with Bree and Grace, accepting both them and Val as her friends.
She and the original emotions made peace with the new emotions and began working together with them, even forgiving Anxiety by giving her a comfy chair and allowing her to contribute productively.
She tried to help Riley's Deep Dark Secret come out of the Vault and admit that they burned a hole in a rug.
Trivia[]
For the longest time, Joy was rejected from Pure Good as it was once believed that she suffered some moral agency issues due to being an emotion and was approved as Near Pure Good, but after the sequel was released, it was revealed that she does indeed have a clear moral agency, and thus, she was approved as Pure Good.
Given the release of the first Inside Out film, this makes Joy the first overall Pixar Pure Good to be a female protagonist; Dory and Elastigirl don't count because technically speaking, they were originally the respective deuteragonists of Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, both of which came out before Inside Out itself.
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Pure Goods
