Toy Story is an iconic Pixar movie and franchise about toys that come to life when no one is looking. The story follows Woody, a cowboy doll who is the favorite toy of young Andy. In the movie, Woody gets jealous of a new toy, Buzz, leading to Woody accidentally making Buzz fall out the window. They spend the rest of the film seeing past each other’s differences while attempting to make it back to Andy before he and his family move houses, leaving them as lost toys forever. Over the course of four official Toy Story movies, these characters have evolved in some interesting ways, including one of the darkest characters, Sid.
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Who is Sid in Toy Story, and Why Call Him a Villain?
Walt Disney Pictures
Sid is Andy’s nextdoor neighbor and is immediately shown as a villain when he blows up an army man doll with a rocket. Of course, he is excited by it with a kind of bloodthirsty glee. And you have to hand it to him; when you were a kid, you thought blowing stuff up was cool too. Maybe not your dolls, but bottle rockets and small fireworks were always a hit. But to the toys watching him, this is terrifying because he destroyed a living object, one of them. We later see that he has mutilated many toys that he and his sister own, leaving him as the biggest instigator against toys in this movie.
But that’s simply because the story is told from the toys’ point of view, not Sid’s.
How Sid is Not the Villain You Imagine
From what little we know about him, Sid can be seen as having a hard life. Starting off, we see Sid’s father once during the movie, and he is in a chair watching TV. Around him are beer bottles, and we also see pill bottles in multiple scenes. This leaves little to the imagination of the issues in Sid’s house.
Sid is a troubled kid. He has emotions and issues he doesn’t know how to process, and with little supervision, it seems that he takes it out on his (and his sister’s) toys. But it could have been worse. Sure, he blew up the toys, but he never hurt his sister or dog like some budding serial killer; he teases her but never once does he act aggressively towards her. All aggression is put into toys, and this aggression we can assume is a learned behavior from a parent figure, or a result of their lack of love.
Along with aggression, this could also be a need to have control over something. Sid, more likely than not, doesn’t get to control most things in his life, and his toys are the only objects he can control; after all, they are only toys, and we just happen to be viewing the events from their perspective. So, just like Andy makes up stories with his toys, Sid does the same; except this child’s stories are darker and more violent because that is how he was raised.
Sid’s sister also seems much happier and less traumatized than Sid, making it seem like whatever issues are happening in Sid’s house, Sid is taking the brunt of it. Whether that’s because of his gender or age, or if it’s voluntary, it seems his sister is doing normal children’s activities while he is not. All these things should make us feel sympathy for Sid, but we don’t because this is not Sid’s story; it’s the toy’s story. Perspective is always key.
Did Sid Deserve the Trauma the Toys Caused Him?
Sid was already a child who needed help and wasn’t getting it; now, he is traumatized and has a story that no one will ever believe.
The fact is, Sid did not know the toys were alive. He did not think he was hurting them or destroying living things when he took their arms off or blew them up. He thought he was taking his aggression and issues out on inanimate objects, and nothing proved otherwise, so why would he think they were alive? If anything, what he did was probably a healthy way to channel some of his anger and loneliness.
As mentioned before, Sid is taking out anger and stressful emotions on toys because he doesn’t want to take that learned behavior out on living creatures like his sister or the dog (though he can be seen as being not too friendly to it). Then, if he had known the toys were alive, he would have stopped hurting them, something he vows to do once he learns about their reality. The toys scare him in the movie and terrify him beyond belief, but they could have talked to him instead. This kid probably could use a companion.
Now he is afraid of toys, the one thing he felt okay releasing his issues onto. He also has to realize that he has hurt living things even if he didn’t know they were living, a complex concept for a 12-year-old to swallow. Now Sid has nothing to use to vent, to help him stabilize himself. He’s terrified, and no one is going to understand why. It is also easy to assume that if Sid’s father learns of his fear of dolls, he will not be accommodating of that fear. Perhaps this is why Sid is only really seen again as a garbage man in Toy Story 3, and Woody doesn’t even recognize him despite scaring the hell out of him. It’s honestly a pretty tragic character arc.
But, the winners always write the history books, and the heroes write the movies, and Sid was on the losing side of this battle, labeled a villain instead of the hurt child that he is.
