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“Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems.”
Sadness came into existence after Riley's first 33 seconds of her life. There, she met Joy. When she caused baby Riley to cry, Joy pushed her aside and fixed the situation. Sadness was only used whenever Riley threw tantrums or did not get her way.
Official Description
None of the other Emotions really understand what Sadness' role is. Sadness would love to be more optimistic and helpful in keeping Riley happy, but she finds it so hard to be positive. Sometimes it seems like the best thing to do is just lie on the floor and have a good cry.
Personality
Sadness is literally the very definition of sorrow and gloom. Her emotion is almost never used because Joy doesn't want Riley to ever be sad, even when she needs to be. Because of this, Joy treats Sadness badly, but she yearns to earn her place among the other emotions, even though the others do not believe Sadness has a purpose in the mind and almost always prevents her from trying. She is the most sensitive and melancholic out of all the emotions, as she felt genuinely hurt by Joy's abandonment because "Riley needs to be happy", which made poor Sadness feel she was truly useless and unneeded.
Sadness also complains a lot, as seen when she keeps saying she's too sad to walk or do anything, much to Joy's frustration.
Sadness is also smarter, has more common sense, and is more pragmatic than the others, which proved expedient in the journey through Riley's mind, as she kept trying to warn Joy about the dangers of taking Bing Bong's "shortcut" through Abstract Thought, which was really a dangerous place to go through, but nobody listened to her. She also suggested scaring Riley to wake her up, but Joy thought that giving her a fun dream would wake her up, which it didn't.
Despite her pessimistic disposition, sarcastic demeanor, and negative attitude, she is very considerate and compassionate toward others; when Bing Bong is sad about losing his rocket, she sympathizes with him and lets him tell his true feelings, which makes him feel much better. Unknowingly, this is because of Sadness's true purpose - her role is to tell others when Riley needs help by helping her let the sadness out so she can then let it go. When Sadness is requested to take control after Riley's sorrow becomes evident, she is able to let Riley express her true feelings and helps Riley find happiness at last. After the other emotions finally trust and accept Sadness, not only does Joy start treating her better, but Sadness gains more confidence in herself as well, now that she has finally found her place.
Despite her personality, Sadness is actually a fan of romance-related things. This can be seen when she smiles when she sees the Imaginary Boyfriend and Tragic Vampire Romance Island. This appears to be one of the few things that make her happy.
Physical appearance
Sadness is rounded and chubby and appears to be around the same height as Disgust. She has light blue skin, shoulder-length dark blue hair, sapphire blue eyes, and buck teeth. However, in Disney Infinity 3.0, she has light pink lipsticks and purple faint cheeks. She also has a calm and slightly low-pitched voice.
She wears a white turtleneck sweater, navy blue pants and slippers, and dark purple round glasses. She is the only emotion to have any sort of headwear. In the sequel, she is shown wearing a robe that matches her sweater.
Sadness first appears at Riley's birth less than a minute after Riley's first emotion, Joy, presses a button that makes baby Riley smile. Sadness makes Riley cry, but Joy pushes Sadness out of the way and makes Riley happy again. Due to Joy's obsession since then with keeping Riley happy, she treats Sadness poorly. As a matter of fact, the other emotions tend to exclude Sadness as well. They won't let Sadness take the wheel at all, no matter how sad the situation needs to be.
When Riley moves to San Francisco in California, everything starts to go from bad to worse; Riley's dad doesn't have time for her, their new house is terrible, they only serve broccoli pizza and the moving van won't come for weeks. Sadness thinks that this situation is a good time to handle Riley's problems, but Joy still doesn't let her get involved.
The next day at Riley's new school, Joy tells Sadness to stay out of everything and stay in a small white circle Joy made of chalk, so Riley won't be sad. When Riley is called up to introduce herself, Joy makes her talk about the good old times in Minnesota, but Sadness accidentally causes her to cry and miss living there. The film reveals that Sadness was touching a memory that was originally positive and made a new Core Memory that is a sad one. The other emotions begin to panic as the sad core memory rolls into the core memory chamber. Joy immediately takes the core memory out and decides to throw it away. Sadness tries to stop Joy, but in the chaos, Sadness, Joy, and the core memories get accidentally sucked up into a tube and they end up in Long Term Memory. Joy decides to find a way to get back to Headquarters with Sadness as her guide.
During the long journey, they run into Riley's old imaginary friend from toddlerhood, Bing Bong, who knows a way back to Headquarters. Joy decides to have him show them the way back. Bing Bong suggests they take the Train of Thought and Bing Bong leads them to a shortcut, which actually is the dangerous Abstract Thought. Sadness tries to warn them, but she is ignored. They manage to get out just in time thanks to Sadness' knowledge, but they miss the train. Bing Bong leads them through Imagination Land, where they see that many of the childish aspects of Riley's personality are being removed, including Bing Bong's rocket that is sent down to the Memory Dump. Bing Bong sits down sadly and Joy tries to get him to stop by being goofy, but it doesn't work at all. Instead of trying to cheer him up, Sadness decides to sympathize with him and let him express his emotions. In just a minute or so, Bing Bong feels better. Joy is shocked that Sadness could solve Bing Bong's problems without cheering him up.
By the time they finally reach Train of Thought, Riley goes to sleep, which always stops the train. Joy decides to wake Riley up to get the train moving again. Sadness suggests they try to use a scary dream to wake Riley, but Joy is abhorred by the idea and decides to use the complete opposite. Joy's dream, however, has no desired effect, until Sadness accidentally rips off their dog costume, which causes the dream to become disturbing, which has the desired effect. But due to the ruckus, guards try to apprehend them. They take Bing Bong and lock him in the Subconscious along with Riley's greatest fears. Sadness and Joy rescue him from Jangles the Clown and decide to use him to wake up Riley. Jangles' rampage causes Riley to wake up, allowing the trio to board the train to headquarters.
On the train, Joy thanks Sadness for solving their problem, and as they look upon one of the Core Memories, Sadness recalls, how in that memory Riley missed a hockey goal and felt bad about it. Suddenly, Honesty Island collapses like three other islands before it, and the collapse causes the train to be wrecked. They learn that Riley is running away. A recall tube is revealed and they decide to use it, but unfortunately, the tube is too tight; it would cause Riley's Core Memories to go sad if Sadness foes with Joy. Joy decides to leave Sadness behind and return to HQ, but her plan backfires when she falls into the Memory Dump, and Bing Bong comes after her. When Joy looks at all of the forgotten memories, she looks at the Core Memory Sadness talked about more closely and realizes that Riley's problem then was solved because Sadness was the one in control during that time, and Joy finally sees that she went way overboard with trying to keep Riley happy. Joy makes it out of the chasm, but Bing Bong sacrifices himself and fades into oblivion. Joy tries to get Sadness to come back with her, but Sadness thinks Riley doesn't need her and just cries her eyes out and runs away from Joy. Soon enough, Joy is flung into the air and grabs Sadness, and the two make it back to HQ, just as Riley is about to run away. The others tell Joy to handle Riley's problem, but Joy says that it's now up to Sadness to save Riley. After Sadness successfully removes the idea, the console becomes operative again. Joy hands the core memories to Sadness, who turns them all sad and places them in the core memory holder. At first, Sadness is unsure and nervous because she has never done this before, but Joy assures her otherwise. Riley comes home, and the sad memories help her tell her parents how she really feels about her new life in San Francisco and that she misses Minnesota.
As Riley hugs her parents while still sad, Sadness takes Joy to take part in the moment, and as both of them operate the console, a new core memory materializes - it's both yellow and blue (which creates Melancholy), creating a bigger, cooler, greater, and updated Family Island. Joy and Sadness hold hands on the new core memory and, when Riley turns 12, they finally become a team and the best of friends.
Sadness and the other emotions appear in this new short, where they help Riley when her friend Jordan (a boy Riley met at the end of the film) comes over for a visit.
Sadness will appear in the upcoming sequel where she and the other emotions meet a new set of emotions, including Anxiety when Riley becomes a teenager.
Sadness is a playable character in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode. Sadness is a Front-Line Tank role hero. Sadness can put enemies in circle of sadness to debuff them, she also can leap on her raincloud to damage enemies, and she also can wail during fights to damage and silence nearby enemies. Whenever an enemy attacks her they are applied with a Slow debuff. Sadness has unique buff 'Sorrow' which allows her to increase armor and reality on herself and her allies.
Sadness has friendship campaigns with Eeyore and Joy. She also has friendship campaign with Disgust.
Joy and Sadness have a meet-and-greet area near the Art of Animation exhibitions at Hong Kong Disneyland for a limited time during the coolest summer ever event in 2015. They are currently the only Inside Out characters to appear at Disney Parks. The two emotions are currently seen at Epcot with Baymax in the Character Spot. Joy and Sadness also make a brief cameo during Happily Ever After, and multiple scenes from Inside Out are seen during Together Forever: A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular.
According to Pete Docter, her appearance is based on that of a teardrop.
This can be seen in Abstract Thought, as during the fourth stage (non-figurativity), Joy and Sadness were reduced to a shape and color - Sadness was a blue teardrop and Joy was a yellow star.
Sadness could resemble a nerd, with her thinking she doesn't fit in, being fat, and with her big round glasses and sweater.
Even though Sadness is mostly seen as mournful, there are several occasions when she is seen smiling, proving that emotions can express more feelings than their own representation.
Sadness is the only emotion that wears a head accessory, that being her glasses.
In an early draft of the film, Sadness wasn't originally going to get lost with Joy in Riley's mind, but instead, her role would have been given to Fear.
Sadness' true mission of empathy is hinted throughout the film:
In the first scene when Riley is born and cries for the first time, this is a common signal for babies to alert their parents that they need something, such as a diaper change or food.
When Joy is bluntly talking about Sadness in the prologue, the scenes of Riley crying shows she ripped her teddy bear, dropped her ice cream, doesn't want to leave the store, and is upset at going home, the first two being hints that something is wrong and she needs help, with the last two signaling that her parents might have forgotten something at the store.
While most of Riley's memories were happy, Sadness was able to turn them sad. This is a clue that Riley is unable to keep her homesickness suppressed and she can't be happy all the time.
When Riley starts crying in front of the whole class after Sadness turns another memory sad, the students stare at her, not with confusion, but with visible concern that she's homesick. And when Joy and Sadness get sucked out of Headquarters, the teacher understands her sadness and how hard it is about moving.
At the same time Riley began crying in class, the console became inaccessible for Joy, but not for Sadness. This also hints at Sadness being the only one who was able to eject the idea to run away when Riley was close to leaving.
Sadness feels sorry for Bing Bong losing his rocket to the memory dump as a sign Riley was getting older.
Phyllis Smith, Sadness' voice actress, was chosen for the role after Jonas Rivera, Inside Out's producer, noticed her performance in the 2011 film Bad Teacher.
Sadness' personality is similar to that of Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh franchise, due to both of them being the gloomiest of their respective friends.
Coincidentally, Sadness and Eeyore have yellow friends, Pooh and Joy, who try to cheer them up.
Sadness and Eeyore also have a friendship campaign together in the Disney mobile app Disney Heroes: Battle Mode.