Anxiety is the main antagonist of Disney•Pixar's 2024 animated feature film Inside Out 2. She is one of the new emotions and the sixth inside Riley Andersen's mind.
Background[]
Personality[]
Anxiety, like her namesake, is the literal embodiment of any and all feelings of nervousness, tension, stress and the like. She's extremely nervous and anxious about many things, such as meeting preexisting emotions like Joy, especially because she wants to make a good first impression. Her main job is to protect Riley from things she "can't see" and plans for the future, as such, she is an intense planner, predicting everything that can go wrong so that she can find a way to avoid it and desperately tries to fix it if it does happen. Everything must go exactly as it must happen as she had planned, with every mistake being seen as something that may "haunt" her later.
During her first appearance she is described to be highly energetic, zealous, and a typical geek filled with excitement towards working with the original five emotions. Similar to Fear, Anxiety is prone to overthinking things, though to a larger extent. While Fear's overthinking is a reaction to a perceived threat that soon disappears once that threat is out of sight, Anxiety projects those fears, leading her to try to think of any scenario that can go wrong, even if they are not a reality. This is showed on her overplanning regarding Riley's future on high school, leading her to pressure the girl to do everything she could to get a spot on the hockey team of her future high school and blend in with the older girls. However, none of this is out of malice as her intent was to protect Riley from being alone in high school.
Despite being self-aware and extremely analytical, Anxiety is not without her limits. Her extreme overthinking and insecurities can blind her judgment causing her to put past her limits and forget what was truly important. Her hardworking and ambitious nature is overshadowed by her restlessness and self-destructive mindset, shown through Riley's feelings of inadequacy through Anxiety's driving. The more Anxiety kept adding to Riley's Sense of Self about trying to become good enough to make the team, the more Riley felt that she really was not good enough, until it became a reality to her, leading to both Riley and Anxiety to have an anxiety attack.
Similar to Joy in the first movie, Anxiety is also a control-freak, wanting nothing but to be in control of everything in Riley's life, hating when she is placed on the backseat of the controls, especially if that strays away from her plans. However, she is willing to get rid of everything she sees as unnecessary and/or dangerous to what she perceives as being the right thing for Riley, being extremely pragmatic about it, even if she has to "bottle up" the old emotions or reinvent Riley's entire sense of self. The more Anxiety tried to change things into what she believed to be Riley's best self, she would take even more control over everything, even if was too much for her to handle, until the point she got stuck into her own feelings of anxiety.
After Joy was able to convince her to let go of her control over Riley, Anxiety was able to see how her desire to shape Riley into what she perceived to be her best version by any means necessary was hurting her. Not only that, but, with a little help from Joy's positivity, she also learned to let go of the worries Riley didn't have control on, focusing only on the ones she did.
Physical appearance[]
Anxiety appears as an orange emotion with a volcanic eruption like updo of a darker shade of the same color and jade green eyes, orange and white-striped long-sleeved shirt, brown pants attached by a black belt with a gold button-shaped buckle, and brown shoes.
In the book, Go to Sleep, Anxiety!, she's seen wearing a long sleeved, orange and white striped nightgown that matches her ordinary attire.
Appearances[]
Inside Out 2[]
Anxiety enters headquarters after Riley Andersen turns 13 years old. As she appears in Headquarters, the other Emotions are scared of her. Soon after, she appears Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui also appear alongside her in the headquarters. Nostalgia also shows up, but she is quick to send her back to the basement of Headquarters.
Trivia[]
- Anxiety is the very first emotion to be formed in Riley's mind ever since her toddler years, being also the very first emotion to be introduced at the beginning of Riley's adolescence.
- She is also the fourth female emotion to inhabit Riley's mind.
- Her sudden appearance on HQ and before the other new emotions may be a reference to her eagerness to start her new job and meet her new colleagues, which is a characteristic of the emotion she embodies.
- She is the only one of the new emotions, and first emotion since Joy, whose eye color doesn't match the color of her theme.
- Her eyebrows are black instead of orange, just like Fear, which could be symbolistic that Anxiety is a more complex or different form of fear.
- Additionally, Anxiety's character design, while being similar to Fear, is meant to parallel horizontal lines, while Fear is much more vertical in his movement and body.
- The way the other emotions met Anxiety is similar to how Joy met Sadness, since they only noticed her when the console turned orange, Anxiety's color. The same thing happened when Joy met Sadness, where the former only noticed the latter when she made Riley cry when she turned the console blue.
- Anxiety is showed to be a heavy packer, since she possess a lot of baggage to unpack now that she had settled on HQ. This can be seen as a reference to her own emotion, since people who possess a lot of negative experiences and disappointments that affect their own behavior and/or interactions with other people are said to "have a lot of baggage".
- This can also represent Anxiety's very need to be always prepared for anything and try to control any problem that may arise before they are even a reality, which contrasts with the core emotions who normally react to the problems and deal with them as they come.
- Anxiety is highly energetic, being unable to stand still on one place and being constantly thinking and talking fast. Not just that, but it would appear she has a hard time going to sleep. That is a common trait for people with anxiety, as their constant worrying causes their brain to overwork and prevent it from shutting down for sleep.
- After Anxiety is overwhelmed by her own anxiety, she works so fast and frantically that she creates a huge orange whirlwind around the console, all while vibrating so much and being frozen stiff in one place as if she is a hologram that no one could feel.
- She's sort of the odd-name-out with the new emotion characters because she's one of them whose name doesn't start with an 'E', alongside Nostalgia.
- Based on how she said 'we' (referring to the other new emotions that appear in the sequel) after meeting with the old emotions, it's likely that she (and by extension the other new emotions) already existed within Riley's mind since the first movie.
- Anxiety taking control of the HQ and "bottle up" the old emotions is similar to what Joy did in the first movie when she suppressed Sadness.
- However, unlike Joy, where her absence allowed her to see the importance of Sadness, it was Anxiety's overworking that allowed her to see how harmful she was being to Riley.
- Like Joy, Sadness, and Fear (sequel only), Anxiety also has the ability to cry, as evident when she shed a tear during her and Riley's anxiety attack near the end of the film.
- Anxiety also cried a bit in "Go to Sleep, Anxiety!" due to being concerned that her paper doll could get ruined the next day.
- Anxiety is the only of the four new emotions, who is seen in the minds of Riley's parents, proving that she and the other emotions will remain inside of Riley even when she reaches adulthood, appearing whenever they are necessary.
- Anxiety is shown drinking coffee as well as energy drinks which both often contain caffeine. Appropriately, caffeine can trigger anxiety in some people.