Toy Story is an iconic Pixar film and franchise about toys that come to life when no one is watching. The story follows Woody, a cowboy doll who is young Andy’s favorite toy. In the movie, Woody gets jealous of a new toy, Buzz, which leads to Woody accidentally dropping Buzz out the window. They spend the rest of the movie overlooking each other’s differences as they try to retrieve Andy before he and his family move, leaving them forever as lost toys. Over the course of four official Toy Story movies, these characters have evolved in some interesting ways including one of the darkest characters, Sid.
Who is Sid in Toy Story and why are you calling him a villain?
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Sid is Andy’s neighbor and is immediately shown as a villain when he blows up an army dummy with a missile. Of course he is excited by it with a kind of bloodthirsty glee. And you must give it to him; When you were a kid, you thought blowing things up was cool too. Maybe not your dolls, but bottle rockets and small fireworks were always a hit. But for the toy watching him, this is terrifying because he destroyed a living object, one of them. We later see that he has mutilated many of the toys he and his sister own, making him the biggest toy instigator in this movie.
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But that’s simply because the story is told from the toy’s point of view, not Sid’s.
How Sid isn’t the villain you imagine
From what little we know about him, it can be seen that Sid has a tough life. For starters, we see Sid’s dad once during the movie, and he’s sitting in a chair watching TV. There are beer bottles around him, and in several scenes we also see pill bottles. This leaves little to the imagination of the trouble in Sid’s house.
Sid is a troubled boy. He has emotions and issues he can’t handle, and with little supervision, he seems to be taking it out on his toys (and his sister’s). But it could have been worse. Sure, he blew up the toys, but he never hurt his sister or dog like a budding serial killer; he teases her, but he never acts aggressively towards her. All aggression is in toys, and we can assume that this aggression is a learned behavior from a parental figure, or a result of their lack of love.
In addition to aggression, this can also be a need to have control over something. Sid, more likely than not, can’t control most things in his life, and his toys are the only objects he can control; it’s just a toy, after all, and we happen to be viewing events from their perspective. So, just as Andy makes up stories with his toys, Sid does the same; except this kid’s stories are darker and more violent because that’s how he was raised.
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Sid’s sister also seems much happier and less traumatized than Sid, making it seem like no matter what happens in Sid’s house, Sid takes the brunt of it. Whether that’s because of his gender or age, or because it’s voluntary, it seems that his sister is doing normal childhood activities while he isn’t. All of these things should make us feel sympathy for Sid, but we don’t because this isn’t Sid’s story; it is the story of the toys. Perspective is always key.
Did Sid deserve the trauma the toy caused him?
Sid was already a child who needed help and didn’t get it; now he is traumatized and has a story no one will ever believe.
The fact is, Sid didn’t know the toy was alive. He didn’t think he was hurting them or destroying living beings when he took their arms or blew them up. He thought he was taking his aggression and trouble out on inanimate objects, and nothing proved otherwise, so why should he think they were alive? What he did was probably a healthy way to channel some of his anger and loneliness.
As mentioned earlier, Sid reacts anger and stressful emotions to toys because he doesn’t want to apply that learned behavior to living things like his sister or the dog (although he can be seen as not being too friendly). Had he known the toys were alive, he would have stopped hurting them, something he promises to do once he learns the reality of them. The toys scare him in the movie and scare him incredibly, but they could have talked to him instead. This kid could probably use a buddy.
Now he’s afraid of toys, the only thing he felt good about letting go of his problems. He also has to realize that he hurt living beings even when he didn’t know they were alive, a complex concept for a 12-year-old to swallow. Now Sid has nothing to vent, to help him stabilize himself. He is terrified and no one will understand why. It’s also easy to assume that if Sid’s dad finds out he’s afraid of dolls, he won’t accept that fear. Perhaps this is why Sid is only really seen as a garbage man again Toy Story 3, and Woody doesn’t even recognize him, despite scaring the hell out of him. It’s a pretty tragic character arc, honestly.
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 kid he is.