Every Core Memory Riley Has In The Inside Out Movies

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Inside Out 2.

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Summary

Inside Out movies explore Riley’s intricate mental system through core memories & emotions like Joy, Sadness, and Anger.
Islands of personality in Riley’s mind reflect different aspects of her character, powered by core memories that change as she grows.
The core memories and emotions in Riley’s mind shape her decisions and behavior, impacting her relationships and self-image.

The Inside Out movies include an intricate system of personality that relies on all of Riley’s core memories to thrive. In 2015, Pixar released Inside Out, which delves into the mind of an 11-year-old named Riley Andersen. Within the mind, a headquarters is run by five emotions – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear – who become conflicted about the best way to handle Riley’s emotions and memories. The 2024 sequel Inside Out 2 introduces new emotions that shake up the internal system, with Joy and Anxiety fighting to control Riley as she goes off to a hockey camp.

A feature in both of these films is the islands of personality, which contribute to who Riley is. The islands activate so that Riley can display different aspects of her personality. Each of these islands is themed and powered by an associated core memory. In the movies, Riley’s core memories change as she grows, showing the impact of time on an adolescent’s mind.

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10 Riley Walks With Her Arm Around Her Friend

Riley’s Friendship With Meg Makes It Harder To Move Away From Minnesota

One of Riley’s core memories in the first Inside Out shows her walking in a goofy way with her arm around her friend, Meg. They sweep their legs from side to side, making them waddle like a duck. This memory looks to be from when Riley was around 4 or 5 years old, though none of the core memories from the beginning have a specific age associated with them.

The memory is connected to the emotion of Joy. However, as proven by the ending of Inside Out, it can be filtered through other emotions like sadness. Without this memory, Joy, and Sadness in place, Riley gets jealous of Meg’s new friend and ends the video call, causing Friendship Island to fall. Luckily, when it’s put back in place, the island comes back. By the start of Inside Out 2, Friendship Island has grown bigger than ever.

9 Riley Scores Her First Hockey Goal

Riley’s Parents’ Praise Creates Her Love Of Hockey

When going through the core memories at the start of Inside Out, Joy shows the first time that Riley scored a goal while playing ice hockey. When Riley was little, appearing to be around 3 years old, her parents were teaching her how to play the sport. She tried to hit the puck, but she slipped and fell. In the process, her stick accidentally hits the puck, which slides into the goal.

Riley’s parents lift her up and celebrate, even though the goal was an accident. Inside her head, all the emotions celebrate as well. This memory is connected to joy, and it formed Hockey Island. Without the core memory, Riley fails at her hockey tryout. When Anger makes her quit, the island falls apart. By the end of Inside Out, the core memory for hockey has been replaced.

8 Riley Wears Underwear On Her Head While Running Around Naked

Riley Runs Away From Her Dad After Bathtime To Be Silly

Riley’s funniest core memory in Inside Out involves her as a toddler – appearing around one and a half years old – running around naked with underwear on her head. As her dad chases her, she shrieks with joy. Toddler Riley climbs onto a chair where she plays the drums on her naked bottom. This memory, which is linked to Joy, is the source of Goofball Island. The island is shown to be one of the most active.

Sadly, Goofball Island is the first one to fall. Riley’s dad tries to cheer her up by making monkey sounds when putting her to bed. Without Joy to react and the core memory to activate her silliness, Riley can’t respond with laughter or joy. After the islands are rebuilt at the end of Inside Out, Goofball Island appears smaller than before. This could be reflective of the change that happens with age or the impact of moving, though these ideas are just speculation.

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7 Riley Breaks A Plate With A Hammer

Riley Tells The Truth To Her Parents After Doing Something Wrong

While most of the core memories at the start of Inside Out are positive, one memory shows Riley, looking around three years old, standing next to a broken plate. With a down-turned face, she shows a hammer that she’d hidden behind her back. This core memory is odd because the actual events aren’t happy, but the orb is shown to be the yellow of Joy.

The only logical explanation for this is what’s shown later in the film. An orb can be connected to one emotion at the moment shown, yet another color when rewinded or fast-forwarded. It seems probable that Riley breaking the plate was a fusion of two emotions. This core memory created Honesty Island. With the memory gone, Riley was able to steal from her mom to buy a bus ticket, causing Honesty Island to collapse. In the end, Honesty Island returns, but it’s slightly smaller than the other islands.

6 Riley Gives Her Parents Cookies

Riley’s Love For Her Family Starts Young

One of Riley’s core memories at the start of Inside Out shows her around the age of 2 and a half, excitedly talking unintelligibly to her parents. At the same time, she takes a pink cookie with sprinkles and shoves it in her dad’s mouth. Based on everything laid out on the table, the family seems to be decorating cookies together. This cute little core memory, which is linked to Joy, is what created Family Island – the biggest island in Inside Out.

Of all the islands, Family Island is the last one to go down. The longer she goes without the ability to feel at the climax of Inside Out, the more pieces fall off the island. This core memory is also the first one to be replaced. By the end of Inside Out, the cookie memory isn’t the source for Family Island.

5 Riley Cries In Front Of Her Class

Riley’s Forms This Core Memory On The First Day At A New School

The first core memory that’s added to Riley’s brain during the span of Inside Out occurs a quarter of the way through the movie. On her first day at a new school in San Francisco, Riley gets asked about Minnesota. She starts to share memories, and thenSadness takes over, causing her to cry. This creates the first core memory orb that isn’t the yellow color of Joy since it’s associated with Sadness.

However, Joy can’t tolerate the idea of a core memory being sad, so she pulls it out of the core memory console before it can have an impact on the personality islands. This is the catalyzing event for the plot of Inside Out. By the end of the movie, Joy understands that the core memory of Riley crying in front of the class is necessary, so she gives it back to Sadness – presumably to put it back on the console, but that part isn’t shown. It’s unknown which personality island this creates or influences.

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4 Riley Cries And Hugs Her Parents

Riley’s Parents Comfort Her Allowing For A Joint Sadness-Joy Memory

At the end of Inside Out, Riley comes home from running away. When she walks in, her parents come up to her in a panic. The young girl breaks down crying and tells them how much she misses her friends and her family. Rather than chastising her for going missing, they validate her feelings and co-regulate alongside her. When she goes in to hug them, Sadness has Joy press a button to give her relief. This creates the first overtly and visibly mixed memory.

The memory doesn’t change as it’s rewinded or fast-forwarded. Instead, the orb is three-fourths Sadness blue and one-fourth Joy yellow. When it reaches the console, the core memory rebuilds Family Island as a bigger and better island. However, by the start of Inside Out, Family Island is so small that it can only be seen through binoculars. This represents the normal psychological change that occurs in the tween and teen years, where external support systems like friends and school become more significant than family.

3 Riley Lies On Her Stomach Reading A Book

Riley’s Book-Related Memory Is Never Mentioned In Inside Out

At the very end of Inside Out, Riley is twelve years old and has new core memories that control the old and new islands of personality. While it’s never discussed by the characters, one of the memories shown on the console is Riley lying on her stomach on the floor, reading a book while kicking her legs up at her knees. The colors of the orb are purple and green, so the memory is related to the emotions of Fear and Disgust.

The core memory seems like it could be responsible for Tragic Vampire Romance Island – one of the new islands at the end of the first movie – but that’s just a guess based on the fact that the tragic vampire romances could come from a book. It’s also possible that this could be an assigned book or a textbook for class, in which case, the memory could control School Island.

2 Riley Plays Hockey

This New Memory Replaces Riley’s First Goal Core Memory

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At the end of Inside Out, the hockey memory of Riley’s first goal has been replaced with a memory of her on the Foghorns team in San Francisco. The orb is only shown for a moment, so all that’s known about the new memory is the fact that Riley is skating fast on the ice while moving the puck with her stick. This new memory controls Hockey Island like the one before did.

However, unlike the previous memory, which was purely associated with Joy, this new hockey memory is a hybrid of two different emotions. The new memory includes both Anger and Joy. This is representative of the fact that Riley is playing more assertively, aggressively, and competitively than she did when she was a child first learning the sport. This personality trait plays into the story and ending of Inside Out 2.

1 Unaccounted For Core Memories

Inside Out Doesn’t Identify Five To Eight Core Memories

Based on the fact that the starter memories for Family Island and Hockey Island seem to be replaced by mixed-emotion memories at the end of Inside Out, there’s a good chance that there are new core memories that took the place of the originals for Goofball Island, Honesty Island, and Friendship Island. However, this is never confirmed onscreen. However, there are definitively unaccounted-for memories related to the new islands of personality.

By the end of the first Inside Out, the unknown core memories created Friendly Argument Island, Fashion Island, Boy Band Island, Social Media Island, and either Tragic Vampire Romance Island or School Island. In total, the missing memories range from five to eight, depending on whether the three established islands received new core memories. Because the edge of two of these orbs can be seen in the panel, it’s known that one of these memories relates to Disgust, and the other is a hybrid orb that combines Anger and Joy.

By the time Inside Out 2 picks up, Boy Band Island is gone, though. As such, this old core memory likely no longer functions as a core memory. However, most of the information about the core memories in Inside Out 2 is speculation because the movie focuses on the pool of memories that contribute to the Sense of Self, instead of the core memories that contribute to Riley’s personality.

Inside Out
PG
Animation
Adventure
Comedy

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Director Pete Docter Release Date June 19, 2015 Studio(s) Disney Distributor(s) Disney Writers Michael Arndt , Pete Docter , Meg LeFauve , Josh Cooley Cast Lewis Black , Mindy Kaling , Phyllis Smith , Amy Poehler , Bill Hader , Richard Kind , Kaitlyn Dias Runtime 95 minutes Franchise(s) Disney Sequel(s) Inside Out 2 Budget 175 million

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Inside Out 2
PG
Adventure
Comedy
Animation

Director Kelsey Mann Release Date June 14, 2024 Studio(s) Disney Distributor(s) Disney Writers Meg LeFauve Cast Amy Poehler , Tony Hale , Maya Hawke , Liza Lapira , Lewis Black , Phyllis Smith , Diane Lane Runtime 96 Minutes Franchise(s) Disney prequel(s) Inside Out Main Genre Animation