- “Ah, if anyone needs me, I'll be whimpering softly to myself.”
- ―Fear
Fear is a character in the Inside Out franchise. He is one of the original five emotions inside the mind of Riley Andersen.
History[]
Inside Out[]
Fear was created in Riley's mind when she was very young. His job was to keep her safe by monitoring hazards around her, such as a power cord that she could trip over. As Riley grew, he continued to keep her safe and celebrated her not dying each day as she went to sleep.
When Riley was eleven, her dad got a new job in San Francisco, so the family sold their house in Minnesota and moved. All the emotions except Joy immediately hated Riley's new house, while Joy pleaded with them to give it a chance.
On Riley's first day at her new school, Joy had Fear come up with a list of all the possible negative outcomes so they were prepared to deal with them. When Riley's teacher asked her to introduce herself to the class, Fear freaked out.
When Joy and Sadness were sucked out of Headquarters, the remaining emotions decided to do their best to replace Joy and make Riley happy. Unfortunately, without Joy and with all of Riley's Islands of Personality deactivated due to the loss of her Core Memories, Riley struggled. Without Joy, Her Islands started to crumble one by one. When Riley tried out for a new hockey team, Fear tried to replace her core hockey memory with as many hockey memories as he could find, but they weren't enough and Riley ended up leaving the tryout angry after underperforming, causing Hockey Island to crumble.
When Anger had the idea to make Riley go back to Minnesota to make new happy Core Memories, Fear encouraged him to sleep on it first. That night, Fear was on Dream Duty and was scared when Riley's dream turned to a nightmare. He fainted when Jangles the Clown appeared, startling Riley awake. When Anger and Disgust found Fear curled up under the console, Anger decided it was time for Riley to run away and planted the idea in her head, getting the ball rolling. Fear tried to stop her while she was packing, but Anger took control back and she continued with her plan.
As Riley got to the bus station, they started to realize what a bad idea it was, but were unable to get the idea out of Riley's head. They realized they were unable to make Riley feel anything. When Sadness and Joy returned to Headquarters, Disgust goaded Anger to make him Angry enough for flames to come out of his head, which she used to cut a hole in the glass, allowing them to come back inside. Then they were surprised when Joy had Sadness take control of the console, which she used to get Riley to get off the bus and go back home, then tell her parents how she was feeling about San Francisco.
Over the next year, the emotions helped Riley create more mixed emotion Core Memories, forming new Islands of Personality. Fear hoped that Boy Band Island was just a phase. The Mind Workers also installed a new, expanded control panel, including a button labelled, "Puberty," which Joy said was probably not important.
Riley's First Date?[]
While Mom and Riley were upstairs talking, Fear realized that Jordan was downstairs alone with Dad.
Mind Candy[]
Fear became afraid of many things, including the camera, Sadness coming up behind him in the dark, Joy saying "Boo," and bouncing on a trampoline. He also tried to clean a spot on the wall Disgust pointed out, but ended up making it worse. Then he tried to straighten a memory on a shelf and ended up knocking the entire shelf down. Finally, he held up Joy as she placed a memory on a high shelf, creating the pattern of a Christmas Tree.
Inside Out 2[]
The emotions continued to exist peacefully, each respecting the others' roles in Riley's life. They kept up this peace until one day, they woke to the puberty light flashing. Joy sent it to the back of Riley's mind, but then mind workers came in and did some work updating the console. After this, they discovered that the console was much more sensitive, with only a light touch causing Riley to have an extreme emotional response.
When Riley got invited to Coach Roberts' hockey camp, the emotions remembered that Val Ortiz, whom Riley idolized, had gotten onto Roberts' team, the FireHawks, as a freshman. On their way to camp, Riley learned that her best friends, Grace Hsieh and Bree Young, weren't going to be going to the same high school with her. When they got dropped off and Grace and Bree walked away, Sadness finally had Riley cry. Once she was done crying, she started walking toward the building and ran into Val. Riley started rambling about Val and it was during this exchange that the emotions noticed the console was orange. They wondered who did that and met Anxiety, who introduced herself and Riley's other new emotions: Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. Joy happily welcomed them, saying she'd learned that all emotions were important for Riley.
Anxiety quickly took control of Riley, saying Riley needed to focus on making new friends who would come to her new school to secure her future. The emotions initially respected Anxiety's plan and actions, but eventually started to question her actions. When they tried to fight back, Anxiety had Embarrassment put all five original emotions in a jar and take them to the Vault of Secrets. There, they found Lance Slashblade, Bloofy, and the Deep Dark Secret. They asked for help. Bloofy would only agree to help them if they gave him something in return, Lance said that it was their own journey. However, once Disgust flattered Lance, he agreed to help them. Unfortunately, he was unable to get them out of the jar, but the Deep Dark Secret was able to break the glass and release them. Once they were out, Bloofy summoned Pouchy, who gave them the dynamite they needed to get out of the vault. While Bloofy and Lance left with them, the Deep Dark Secret decided to stay in the vault.
Joy led the group, saying they needed to get Riley's Sense of Self before they could return to Headquarters. She decided they could follow the Stream of Consciousness to the back of the mind. Joy thought she knew how to get there, but since Riley's mind had changed, she no longer did. Sadness started to cry over everything changing. When they finally go to the stream, Sadness reminded them that there would be no one in Headquarters to call them back. Joy decided that Sadness would climb a Recall tube back to Headquarters while the rest of them went to find Riley's Sense of Self.
They rode down the stream of consciousness until Ennui making Riley sarcastic caused a Sar-chasm to open, breaking the stream into two pieces. This left the emotions to have to go the long way around. This led them through Imagination Land, which had changed a lot since the last time Joy was there. Among the changes was Fort Pillowton, which had grown and was orange. They went inside and found mind workers, on order from Anxiety, drawing potential negative scenarios that could happen at Riley's camp so she could prepare for all of them. Joy took an empty station and wrote out a positive scenario, then led the others to do the same. This led to the mind workers revolting and drawing positive scenarios as well, then starting a pillow fight. They left when some mind cops arrived and used a balloon from the Parade of Future Careers to get away. They held onto it until they got trapped in a Brainstorm that forced them to let go.
Finally, they got to the back of the mind and retrieved Riley's sense of self, but when Sadness tried to bring them back, Anxiety broke the Riley Protection System, stopping her and stranding them in the back of the mind. Anger had the idea to call Pouchy and see if he had anything that could help them. Anger pulled dynamite out of Pouchy, which gave Joy the idea to use it to cause an avalanche of memories they could ride back to Headquarters. This worked and they ended up back in the belief system, along with all the memories. As new beliefs formed from them, they went back to Headquarters, where they tried with the other emotions to remove the new, anxious sense of self. They were unable to as Anxiety had taken over and was flying across the console, trying to fix the problems she'd created. Joy stepped in and got Anxiety to relinquish control. This allowed them to remove the anxious sense of self and replace it with the old one. Then Joy realized it was keeping a new, more complex sense of self from developing, so she removed it and let the new sense of self replace it. This resolved Riley's problems and the emotions celebrated.
Later, when Riley had returned to school, the emotions had learned to co-exist peacefully, with each respecting the others' roles. On the day that Riley was supposed to receive an email to learn whether or not she'd made the FireHawks, Anxiety started to panic until Joy got her to focus on things Riley could control. They agreed that they loved Riley and would celebrate for her either way. When Riley finally got the email, she smiled.
Disney INFINITY 3.0[]
Fear is set to appear in Disney INFINITY's third installment as a playable character.
Personality[]
Fear, as his name states, is the literal embodiment of primal feelings of being scared and fight-or-flight. He cares very much about Riley's safety and her well-being and is very concerned about the choices Riley makes in her life. Unlike the rest of the Emotions, he is wary, jumpy, and suspicious of whatever lies before him since his job requires him to observe that Riley is well-suited in her current environment, as such, he has to consider and evaluate every possible thing that could endanger her.
When the other emotions try to take a more dominant role, Fear tends to be the voice of reason to convince them not to go through with potentially risky decisions, such as when Riley decided to run away back to Minnesota. Out of desire to avoid tension, he's usually the pacifist in the group, wanting to make Riley responded properly to her parents without causing aggravation between them and Riley. However, Fear's uncertainty and cowardice can also cause him to turn down decisions that would potentially help Riley.
Fear also has a tendency to be sarcastic, especially when he's on Dream Duty, and he hates doing it. Surprisingly, despite being the very definition of being scared, he's not afraid of Riley's nightmares, going as far as to critique and view many of Riley's dreams and nightmares as "cheesy" and "lacking plot lines". As stated in the promotional clip "Shoes of Doom", Fear also claimed that he isn't scared of everything, despite the many things that do indeed scare him on a daily basis (such as the movie of the same name that Riley and the other emotions were watching).
Notes and Trivia[]
- Official Description: Fear's main job is to protect Riley and keep her safe. He is constantly on the lookout for potential disasters, and spends time evaluating the possible dangers, pitfalls and risk involved in Riley's everyday activities. There are very few activities and events that Fear does not find to be dangerous and possibly fatal.[source?]
- According to Pete Docter, his appearance is based on a raw nerve.[source?]
- The hair that protrudes from the back of his head changes depending on his current emotion. Usually, it is located behind the head. If he is worried or scared, it gives a zig-zag shape. If he is sad, it maintains its normal curvature, but falls downwards.
- During development, the emotions were given human names that were later scrapped. During this time, Fear was called Freddy.[2]
- Surprisingly, despite being the very definition of being scared, he's not afraid of Riley's nightmares, instead viewing many of Riley's dreams and nightmares as "cheesy" and "lacking plot lines."
- He treats being put on Dream Duty (monitoring Riley's dreams and waking her if they are too scary) as a chore and despises doing it. He is able to point out and predict many different dream tropes such as teeth falling out and going to school with no pants on, similar to someone watching a badly-written movie.
- Fear has many of the scenes he was improvised by his actor Bill Hader. For example, Bill was never in the script to represent slapstick when Fear tried to "give up" intentionally to get to be sucked through the recall tube.[source?]
- In an early draft, it was Fear who was supposed to get lost with Joy in Riley's mind instead of Sadness, as the writers thought it would be funny. However, the plot wasn't going well and so Docter decided that Sadness would be better, claiming that sadness helped him get through the stress of the plot troubles.[source?]
- At one point in production the emotions had names. Back at this point Fear's name was Freddy which is a reference to Freddy Kruger.
Gallery[]
Quotes[]
- "Woah, sharp turn!"
- "Let me guess. We have no pants on."
- "Boy Band Island? Hope that's just a phase."
- "I sure am glad you told me earthquakes are a myth, Joy. Otherwise I'd be terrified right now!"
- (Referring to his favorite part of the car ride to San Francisco) "Wearing a seatbelt!"
- "All right, we did not die today! I call that an unqualified success."
- (on his favorite daydream) "Ooh! That looks safe!"
- "Just because Joy and Sadness are gone, I have to do stupid Dream Duty."
- "The van is lost?! It's the worst day ever!"
- "Please, we really your help!"
- "We are suppressed emotions!"
- "Look I don't like her words, and I do not like her actions, I just think I can change her!"
References[]
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