Fear — protagonists

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“	Thank you, Joy. But I'll have you know I'm not scared of everything.	„
	~ Fear to Joy

“	Look, I don't like her words, and I do not like her actions. I just think I can change her.	„
	~ Fear in regards to Anxiety.

Fear is one of the three tritagonists (alongside Disgust and Anger) of Pixar's Inside Out franchise.

He is the purple emotion of fear and one of the five original emotions inside the mind of Riley Andersen. He appears to be very paranoid and unsure of himself, and often tries to protect Riley from danger, a description that matches his name.

Portrayals

In the first film and Riley's First Date?, he is voiced by Bill Hader, who also voices Flint Lockwood in Sony Pictures Animation's Cloudy with a Change of Meatballs franchise, King Leonard Mudbeard in The Angry Birds Movie film series, J.P. Spamley in Ralph Breaks the Internet, and BB-8 in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and portrayed General Armstrong Custer in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
In the second film, he is voiced by Tony Hale, who also played Forky in Pixar's Toy Story franchise and Jerome Squalor in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
In Disney Infinity, he was voiced by Jason J. Lewis, who also voiced Rex in the Toy Story franchise, albeit for certain commercials.

Appearance

Fear is a thin and lanky emotion. He has light purple skin, a long bean shaped nose, one curled strand of hair, thick purpleish-black eyebrows, and purple eyes.

He wears a powder blue shirt with thin white stripes, a houndstooth sweater vest, a magenta bow tie, violet pants, and black dress shoes. In the sequel, he is shown wearing dark purple footie pajamas and a matching nightcap.

Personality

“	That's Fear. He's really good at keeping Riley safe.	„
	~ Joy narrating and introducing Fear.

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).

Biography

Inside Out

Fear appears in this film as one of the five emotions inside Riley Andersen's mind and the third one to be introduced. He works at Headquarters with the other emotions. His position is to keep Riley safe. When Riley and her parents relocate to San Francisco, he, Disgust, and Anger are upset about the shortcomings that came with the move, but Joy manages to have the bright side of the situation. When Joy and Sadness get lost in Riley's mind, along with the core memories (relevant memories that power up islands that represent Riley's personality), Fear proposes that he and the remaining emotions act like Joy until she returns. Unfortunately, this backfires as he, Anger and Disgust are unable to make Riley joyous due to their respective emotion representations and he and his friends unintentionally cause Riley to make decisions that lead to the Islands to fall into an abyss that erases memories.

Fear attempts to give up and exit headquarters, but the memories that he and the other emotions have produced prevent that from occurring. When Anger proposes influencing Riley to take a bus back to Minnesota since she was happier there, Fear talks him out of it. He handles dream duty (a job where an emotion watches a dream) where the actions of Joy, Sadness, and Riley's imaginary friend, Bing Bong and Jangles the Clown, cause him to freak out, prompting Anger to put his plan into action. Fear nervously voices his disagreement with the idea, though he is too indecisive to stop Anger carrying it out and passively allows it to occur. However, Anger's plan causes the remaining Islands to crumble into the abyss.

Realizing their mistake, Fear and Anger then try to remove the idea from the control panel, but this proves to be impossible. When Joy and Sadness make it back to headquarters, Fear, Disgust, and Anger beg Joy to fix the crisis, but Joy lets Sadness fix it. With the disaster averted, Riley's life improves, with new Personality Islands made by the emotions and a bigger control console that the emotions use to control Riley.

Riley's First Date?

Fear returns in the short along with the other emotions.

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

Fear returns along with the other emotions for the sequel, having a more important role and continues his role of keeping Riley safe, as seen when during the last game of the hockey season he protected Riley from colliding with a player from the opposing team and immediately reminded her to put on her mouthguard. Fear along with the other Core Emotions continued to exist peacefully, each respecting the other's role in Riley's life. They maintained this peace until one day, they woke up to the puberty alarm flashing. Joy pulled the alarm and sent it to the Back of the 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.

As Riley headed 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 the five original emotions in a jar and send them to the Vault. There, they found Lance Slashblade, Bloofy, and the Deep Dark Secret, who were asked for their help by Joy and Emotions, however, Bloofy would only agree to help them if they gave him something in return, while Lance said it was his 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, Deep Dark Secret decided to stay in the vault.

Upon leaving 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, so Joy decided that Sadness would climb a Recall tube back to Headquarters while the rest of them went to find the Sense of Self.

They rode through the Stream of Consciousness until Ennui, by making Riley sarcastic, caused a Sar-Chasm to open, splitting the stream into two parts. 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 several 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 drew a positive scenario, then led the others to do the same. This led the mind workers to rebel and draw positive scenarios as well, then they started a pillow fight. They left when some mental cops arrived and used a Future Careers Parade balloon to escape. They held it until they were caught in a Brainstorm that forced them to let it go. Using a big idea to get out of the storm, Fear told his companions to hold on to them and then he pulled his bow tie and activated his parachute, and they landed on safe ground.

Finally, the emotions got to the Back of the Mind and retrieved the 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 after reconciling with Bree and Grace, Riley voluntarily called Joy and helped her reintegrate into the hockey game.

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. Fear and the rest of Emotions agreed that they loved Riley and would celebrate for her either way. When Riley finally got the email, she smiled.

Other Media

Disney Infinity 3.0

Fear appears in Disney Infinity's third installment as a playable character. His abilities include heightened speed, generating memory orbs, and emitting pink energy that can destroy enemies all around him.

Disney Heroes: Battle Mode

Fear is a playable character in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode. Fear is Back-Line Support role hero. Fear deals damage to enemies by screaming on full on panic and also applying scare debuff. Fear also buffs his allies by throwing hockey helmets to shield them, this shield also protects allies from first 4 disables and sents them back to enemies. Fear has unique buff 'Dread', this buff allows Fear to increase armor on himself and allies and also decreases taken critical damage.

Fear has friendship campaigns with Anger and Rex. Fear also has friendship campaigns with Hopper and Daisy Duck.

Disney Parks

Fear appears as an animatronic in the Inside Out pre-parade at Disney's California Adventure.

He made his first live appearance in the new Disney on Ice show, Follow Your Heart which debuted on September 2, 2016.

Quotes

Inside Out

“	Very nice. Okay, looks like you got this. Very good. Whoa, sharp turn! NO! LOOK OUT! NO!	„
	~ Fear's first words in the first film of saving Riley from running.

“	BRAIN FREEZE!!!	„
	~ Fear

“

All right, we did not die today! I call that an unqualified success.

„

“	Disgust: Riley is acting so weird. Why is she acting so weird? Anger: What do you expect? All the Islands are down. Disgust: Joy would know what to do. Fear: That's it. Until she gets back, we just do what Joy would do! Disgust: Great idea. Anger, Disgust, Fear, how are we supposed to be happy!?	„
	~ Anger, Fear, and Disgust try to figured how to fix everything as Joy.

Inside Out 2

“	Helmet, pads, gloves, safety check is complete. It sould be nothing but smooth sailing from... (screams) LOOK OUT!	„
	~ Fear's first lines in the second film, checking Riley's hockey sport until he save her from colliding with a opposite player.

“	We gotta get our mouth guard, people.	„
	~ Fear reminded the emotions that Riley had put on her mouthguard.

“	We are suppressed emotions!	„
	~ Fear after him and the other four orginal emotions get trapped in jar and locked in the Vault.

Trivia

His tall, thin design is supposed to resemble a shocked nerve.
According to Pete Docter, his appearance is based on a raw nerve.
In an early draft of the original film, 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 funnier. However, Fear and Joy (along with Disgust and Anger) would have their own adventure through the mind in the sequel.
During the development of the film, when the story of Joy and Fear getting lost was still going, Fear was originally called Freddie.
According to the deleted "Imagination Park" sequence, Fear was originally going to be the movie's villain, turning on Joy near the end of the movie, saying that Riley is better off without her. This antagonistic role would later be somewhat reprised by Anxiety in the sequel.
In early versions of the first film, Fear was originally going to be white; but was later changed to green, which was originally going to be the color of the deleted Emotion, Hope. However, in the end, his color ended up being purple, which was originally going to have the deleted Emotion, Pride.
Fear's primary color of purple might be based off the idiom "shrinking violet", which refers to a painfully shy individual.
Fear's eyebrows are black instead of purple.
The single strand of "hair" that sticks out from the back of his head will change depending on his current emotion. Normally, it will curl downwards behind his head. If he is concerned or afraid, it will form a zigzag shape. If he gets sad, it will keep its regular curl but droop downwards.
In Inside Out 2, he, like Joy, Sadness, and Anxiety, also has the ability to cry, as evident when he teared up by Joy almost losing hope of returning to Headquarters to return Riley's Sense of Self and stop Anxiety from hurting her.
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.
Besides Joy and Sadness, Fear seems to be the only other emotion to remember Bing Bong due to seeing him in the dream he was watching during his shift on Dream Duty.
- However, in a collection of promotional shorts called Mind Candy, Anger is seen playing soccer with Bing Bong.
Fear is surprisingly the dominant Emotion of the Cool Girl, who has a fear of losing her popularity.
Jordan's Fear is more aggressive as he tackles Jordan's Joy when the latter mocks him. He's also braver as instead of being intimidated at Mr. Andersen's threat, he's just confused. He's also Jordan's main Emotion since he's the only one who bothers paying attention to what's going around him, if only for a few seconds.
Many of Fear's scenes were improvised by his actor Bill Hader. For example, Bill was never scripted to act out slapstick when Fear tried "quitting" by intentionally getting sucked through a memory tube.
Tony Hale, who voiced Fear in Inside Out 2, previously voiced Forky in Toy Story 4. Coincidentally, Fear's original voice actor, Bill Hader, also had a role in Toy Story 4 as Axel the Carnie.
Fear is implied to have a crush on Anxiety. He constantly mentions her, usually with a dreamy expression on his face. He is even willing to forgive her throwing him and the other emotions out of headquarters, stating, "I don't like her words, and I do not like her actions--I just think I can change her."
Even though the idea of Joy and Fear getting lost in the first film was scrapped, it was eventually used in the sequel. In fact, all of Riley's original Emotions got lost in the sequel.
It is unknown why Fear was voiced by a different actor in the sequel.

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