Anger in Big Hero 6
An exploration of how bitterness-fueled anger and selflessness cannot coexist
In Disney’s Big Hero 6, Hiro (protagonist) and Callahan (antagonist) both lose someone that they love. When they find out that it’s at the hands of someone else, their grief sidetracks into anger. Anger can make its host feel faux-productive: they can plan, scheme, and have the clear purpose of making their perpetrator feel just as hurt as they are.
Callahan’s anger and drive towards vengeance blinds him from his own sins, particularly how he is actually similarly as responsible for Tadashi’s death as Crae is for his daughter’s. When Hiro points out to Callahan that Tadashi died trying to save him, Callahan is unable to sympathize with Hiro as he is too blinded by his own anger and hasn’t fully grieved his own loss. This crass attitude from Callahan leads Hiro to ruthless anger himself, continuing the cycle of hurt. Just as Callahan uses Hiro’s microbots for hurt, so does Hiro begin to use Baymax (who was created to help and heal) for hurt as well.
When Baymax reminds Hiro of Tadashi and his intention for creating him, Hiro is able to think of the person that he misses rather than focusing on the blame. Hiro acknowledges that he is not good like his brother after all. He comes to this realization before his friends arrive, which allows him to see his role in causing his friends pain and abandoning his friends on the island with no way back. Selfish actions and intentions blind us from the hurt we cause onto others.
Hiro was able to recenter himself when Baymax reminded him of who Tadashi was. He didn’t need Callahan to acknowledge his role in his pain. In remembering his loved one, he remembers the values that his loved one held and decides to move forward with those values, too. Perhaps he realizes that these selfless values cannot coexist with the strong consuming fire of anger. This comes to the test at the end of the movie when he and Baymax show grace to Callahan by letting him live, even when he never repents of his actions. Maybe he realized that by seeking vengeance, it made him also recklessly cause hurt and pain in others’ lives without permanently fixing his own. As the cliche goes, fire doesn’t extinguish fire, but only adds to the destruction.
In this movie, we see two responses to confronting the reality that their anger and destruction won’t change the fact that their loved one has passed. When Hiro is gently confronted by Baymax, Hiro changed his heart and acted as if his brother were still alive. When Hiro tells Callahan that causing more destruction won’t change anything, you can see from Callahan’s face that he starts to break from the angry facade and contemplate the reality of that fact. For the entirety of the movie, Callahan’s action were driven by the want for Crae to feel the pain that he feels. He is obsessed with this mission. Perhaps the mission feels like it will actually change the loss and acts as a defensive mechanism towards feeling the hurt. But in this pivotal moment, Callahan can’t seem to fully go to that helpless place of grief. Maybe it’s because Crae is there and interjects his contemplation, reminding him that his revenge is literally already temptingly within his grasp. Maybe it would’ve been different if, like Hiro, he was able to see his daughter’s face through video in a quiet room that he would have been more changed. But we wouldn’t know, because he decides to stick with his anger and mission. He restates his mission (“I want my daughter back”), continuing instead to feed the delusion that his destruction will make that possible (which, ironically, it somehow does). Does Callahan actually believe that by harming Crae, his daughter will return to him? If he truly did, would he have taken the route that he had, knowing that it will lead to prison and painful separation from his daughter, physically and relationally?
“This won’t change anything. I know.” — Hiro to Callahan
By the end of the movie, Hiro suffers another tragic loss — the loss of his new best friend, Baymax, a loss that could also easily be attributed to the fault of Callahan.
Whereas Callahan was selfish in the university fire and showed no care for Tadashi who ran in to help him, Hiro does the opposite — he risks his life to save someone who he does not need to.
Just how Tadashi dies performing a selfless act, so does Baymax.
“Baymax… I can’t lose you, too.”
“Hiro, I will always be with you.”
The ending of Big Hero 6 is bittersweet. Callahan’s daugher is saved and alive, headed to the hospital where she will most likely recover. But Callahan is last seen in a police car, where he will most likely be spending the rest of his days behind bars, tainting a true reunification. Will Callahan take ownership of his actions, or will he blame Crae? What will Callahan’s daughter reaction be when she learns about what her father has done? Will she blame Crae? Will she blame her father? Will she blame herself?
Question for self: Does anger always contain blame?
