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Tragic Fate of Inside Out’s Beloved Character Fuels Speculations About Pixar Universe Connections

Tragic Fate of Inside Out’s Beloved Character Fuels Speculations About Pixar Universe Connections
Image credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The good news is that he could not be dead after all.

Summary:

  • Pixar is famous for its cartoons full of deep philosophical meanings and heartbreaking stories — but, despite Up and Wall-E being the saddest ones, another movie features a character with a seemingly tragic storyline.
  • In the movie the character makes a personal sacrifice to save others, which adds one more devastating storyline to Pixar’s collection.
  • Nonetheless, the fan’s wild theory about Pixar universes may imply that the character’s fate wasn’t that as sad as it seemed to be.

Throughout the years of its existence, Pixar has repeatedly proven that its films are not only for children — with all the deep philosophical narratives and some truly heartbreaking scenes the studio’s franchises have also become favorites among the grown-ups.

And though Wall-E or Up are usually considered the saddest stories that Pixar has ever created, there’s another particular character’s storyline which sounds even more devastating — until it comes to a fan’s viral theory.

The Inside Out ’s plot follows 11-year-old Riley whose inner feelings are controlled by cartoon-ish images of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust.

Tragic Fate of Inside Out’s Beloved Character Fuels Speculations About Pixar Universe Connections - image 1

When Sadness accidentally brings Riley’s core memories to the light and she and Joy are driven out of the emotions’ headquarters to right the wrong, they meet Riley’s imaginary friend Bing Bong — a peculiar mix of a cat, an elephant and a dolphin made of cotton candy.

Bing Bong eventually agrees to help the expelled emotions get back to Riley’s head who in the meantime can’t feel either sadness or joy. However, when they’re trying to not fall into Memory Dump, which will make the main character forget everything that falls in there, Bing Bong realizes that all of them won’t be able to make it and thus sacrifices himself.

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Though it’s obviously something that will break the fans’ hearts one more time, they may also find a big consolation in a wild fun theory that’s been around for years. The theory created by Pixar’s fan Jon Negroni suggests that all the studio’s universes are at least very much connected if not form one big cartoon world.

He once even brought up Bing Bong saying that initially the character belongs to Monsters Inc universe as his appearance and behavior point out to it.

If the theory in fact confirms what Pixar has been trying to show in little details all this time, it may also become possible that Bing Bong didn’t die in Inside Out, but instead just returned to his Monsters Inc world.

After all, he may be (sadly) forgotten by Riley, but nothing more.