haron-ghost

But the toys that are made based on characters tend often to have the same personality as these characters. There are debates around the "woke up having real memories and not thinking they're toys" thing, because not even the Woody's Roundup gang and none of the other characters except from toys from the Buzz Lightyear collection show that they thought they were real, and this maybe be just a manufacturing defect from the Buzz Lightyear toy collection, or maybe this now happens with the most modern/recent/electronic toys that have wires and reprogramming and all that... anyway, I'm not going deep into these theories right now.

The toys can already know that they're toys, but their personality still matches their characters. Buzz is heroic, kind, analytical, and Jessie is brave, adventurous, confident. Their personalities don't change much from the characters they were based on even after knowing the truth, and what makes two Buzz Lightyears different from eachother are their life experiences, each one having their own life, memories, opinions, and everything, after getting out of the box. Overall, maturity. But I wonder if the characters' "factory" maturity changes anything about this, I believe it does. If an adult character toy comes out of the box with the adult character's mentality, then this toy will be mature and will only become more mature as the years go by, living as a toy; since whether the toy likes it or not, it still has a lot to learn about how things work after leaving their box. In the same way that a child character would have the mentality of a child, and could be matured over time, like the Sunnyside baby, who still acts like a baby to this day, but can understand the world around and have opinions.

The Buzz Lightyear toys are made based on the characters from the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command cartoon (recently a retcon happened and Pixar said that this toyline was actually made based on Lightyear, but I can't take that seriously, since BLOSC had been canon since the year 2000, and the Buzz toy that Andy wanted looks nothing alike with the character from the movie Lightyear). Apparently, Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story remembers himself as the character from the show and looks like he had memories from the show too, somehow. Inside the show, Buzz' character is described, and knows himself, as a guy in his 40s (we know this based on the episode Tag Team and it's also written in his fandom wiki ), which shows that he's experienced in life as a Space Ranger and overall a "mature person" (not that much lmao). Furthermore, he is always shown and described as a seasoned veteran of Star Command while the other characters on his team are rookies. He had a lot of training, a lot of study, and seems more confident and responsible than his teammates, which is fitting for this age.

As for Jessie, we can't watch Woody's Roundup because it was never made into a real, watchable show. But when Toy Story 2 was released, Pixar hired the band "Riders In The Sky" to make an entire album themed around Woody's Roundup and eventually use these songs in the film, many of which were not used but work as bonus content. (By the way, in this album the band added a bonus song, which is a cover from the Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command theme song that was released around the same time, "To Infinity And Beyond", in Woody's Roundup style! I love creative people). In this album, Riders In The Sky made certain theme songs for Woody's Rounduo characters, and telling in-universe Woody's Roundup stories about them, including Jessie's character backstory! The song is called "Jessie The Yodeling Cowgirl" and a fem singer, who is playing Jessie, sings about how she left her home in Oklahoma to move to California to sing.

For me, this all sounds like a story that would happen to her while her character was still young, and Jessie in the Woody's Roundup universe does look quite young indeed. Leaving her homeland, apparently for the first time, to go pursue her dream, added to her appearance and naivety in the show, makes me think her character was not even in her 30's yet. Maybe she was 27? At most?

The average age for woman to get married in the 50s was around 20 years old. Based on that and at the time period, I highly doubt that a show aimed at children made in that highly conservative time would have a fem, strong and tomboy-ish (she wore pants!!!) — and to make matters worse, who is also single in her adulthood because at that time a 20 years old SINGLE woman was almost in her old age in people's eyes, — character as a co-protagonist. Meaning that: they made adult characters with child-like features to appeal to their young audience (because everybody knows that children love to admire adults and wish to grow up, but at the same time, playing and living adventures is a lot more attractive to them than paying taxes, so the creators of the show made adults that act like children which would be a perfect combo to sell well) OR their characters are just that young, young enough to be able to show these child-like features. Which means that Jessie is pretty capable of being like — in this context specifically — 20? To be a young and single lady at that time and still be accepted on TV? Maybe less? Or they're just from that kind of show where the creators never tell the characters ages, ever- like in Barbie Life In The Dreamhouse? I wouldn't be surprised if Jessie's character were a teenager, to be honest, but I prefer not to believe in that because I love Jessie x Buzz so much and their shipp is too cute and healthy for me to make them weird like this

I also find it interesting to note how (back in the 1900s) they made dolls that looked like children but wore adult clothes and little girls would play with them that way. Maybe Jessie is something similar, with an undefined age, because her character in the show is clearly not a child, however she has very child-like characteristics such as big head and big eyes, somewhat innocent behavior at times, adventurous, and someone who would care more about playing and having fun than romance, since the show is targeted at children. If the show were targeted at adults, her character would be extemely different and would probably be more limited in a romantic role because adults already care about that. If her character is indeed in her 20s and still was well accepted on TV... that means that Jessie was a feminist icon in the media from her time and in the Pixar universe??? Oh wow

But oh well, Woody's Roundup looks like a very innocent and soft show to watch, like those cute pre-school cartoons, Sofia The First for example, just so you can get the view, but with a bit of adventure (oh if you knew the amount of adventures that happened in Sofia The First...). Well, the way we make shows and cartoons changed a lot since the 50s and today younger children watch cartoons with more script and drama, but at that time some shows were just innocent and fun like that, with simple premises in each episode and that was enough even for older audiences; that's why I think Emily (Jessie's previous owner) watched a show that today would be classified as for pre-schoolers due to it's simplicity and cute lessons about friendship. I think I just let myself write stuff that came to my head and now I lost where I was at.

Going back to where I was at, I think Jessie's character is naturally very naive since the show, besides being brave and adventurous. Maybe the script, and the characters, and the whole story overall, made the Woody's Roundup characters come out of the boxes like this (despite probably not having memories from their show like Buzz Lightyear does, they still have the same personality as their characters), very naive, much how they already were in Woody's Roundup. I'm trying to voice ny thoughts here, wait

I came to this conclusion based on how the toys have their characters personalities at first and that is slowly changed and shapes them into unique beings overtime due to life experiences. Buzz Lightyear acted like Buzz from the cartoon even after learning that he was a toy, and that will never go away, but will be matured and more explored overtime, to a level that two 15 yo Buzz Lightyears from different places and owners would be really different from eachother. If one is traumatized, he will have to deal with that trauma, when other Buzz Lightyear didn't went through that and does not have to, like Jessie was traumatized by Emily and has claustrophobia, but other Jessies don't. I think that our Toy Story Jessie was like Jessie from the show, naive, when she was straight out of the box, and she learned to have more common sense, opinions and tastes, ability to distrust and read people/situations, much like humans learn with experiences. Which means that the Jessie we know today is probably very different to how she was like when she was new, and not only because of trauma.

Which also means that the "When She Loved Me" sequence happened when Jessie was much more unprepared, immature and optimistic, that subconsciously thinks that things will always turn out fine because in her show they always do (Buzz was like this, even after finding out he was a toy, he had an absurd sense of optimism, still inside the limits of his character, which is a hero from the cartoon he's in but still very cautious and analytical not to let things go wrong. In Woody's Roundup the characters don't have to be analytical, the script just works for them because it's a very light and simple show. You can take your conclusions from there...). Sorry for ruining your day