Do Inside Out’s emotions have emotions inside their head? Pixar fans “need answers”

In Inside Out, we see the beings in charge of controlling young Riley’s emotions — but fans are now wondering if the emotions themselves have headquarters to deal with their own feelings.

Inside Riley’s mind, her core emotions — Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger, with Joy as their leader — influence her actions and help create long-term memories.

Each emotion is pretty self-explanatory, with Riley’s early experiences led by how Joy handles the rest of the emotions to a certain degree. But do the emotions have their own emotions?

A video clip on X/Twitter of Joy in Inside Out 2 has fans wondering exactly that. The scene shows Joy getting angry and lashing out at the others, saying it’s hard to stay jolly all the time.

Her outbursts led a fan to question, “If she’s angry does this imply that each emotion has its own emotion hq in their head, and the chain just keeps continuing forever?”

To be fair, the same question could have been asked in the first movie. When Joy is thrown into the abyss with Bing Bong, she’s sad and even starts to cry.

Each character embodies their emotion, but with them able to feel other emotions, could it be that they too have their own headquarters in their minds?

Many fans feel like it’s far too complicated of a question to focus on. But a few have possible theories as to how it works.

“I think the emotions are supposed to be advisors and nudge Riley at the control board based on their emotions. So happy controls Riley based on how a ‘happy person’ should act, but still has a personality outside of it,” explained one fan.

Another fan then asked why the emotions are predisposed to their emotions, like Anger always getting angry or Disgust being grossed out. Shouldn’t they act like normal people?

“Since they’re parts of the body, maybe they start out that way by default due to the brain developing, and over time become more nuanced due to the brain growing. We see the parents’ emotions are a lot more subdued so it would explain that,” they answered.

This theory may be accurate, as one fan said the emotions are only fragments of Riley’s personality, and don’t embody their emotions entirely.

“The first movie covers this. Joy is joyful all the time and refuses to acknowledge otherwise until Sadness shows her how beneficial letting the sad out can be, and she becomes more nuanced (so does Riley), accepting that some memories, and her, can be happy and sad,” another fan wrote.

Inside Out 2 is set for release on June 14. You can find out if Inside Out 2 will be on Disney+, the new characters being introduced, the new spinoff series in development, and new movies to watch.