• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.49
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• pp.325-357
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• 2017

It can be assumed that the reasons why the animation characters, 'Olaf (in Frozen Kingdom)' and 'Minions (in Super Bad)', etc., which were very successful in the merchandising market while having won the popularity better than the main characters are very popular even though such characters appeared only by playing a funny role while assisting the adventures of the main characters are not only because of their cute appearances but also because such characters have their own core features in their inner world as the transitional object-characters. Simply expressing, a 'Transitional Object' as a concept suggested by a child psychologist, 'Donald Winnicott', means a lovey doll or an imaginary friend which temporarily replaces an infant's mother during the procedure when the infant is mentally separated from its mother. However, in case that the theory of transitional objects was applied directly to many narrative content characters for doing a study, there must have been done some studies in advance for establishing some new criteria and indexes related to the transitional object-characters of such narrative contents. Accordingly, while thinking that the 'emotional relationship' between a growth-subject and a growth mediator must be dealt with as the most important content in order to define a transitional object-character in a narration clearly, this researcher established some emotional index for judging the propensities of a transitional object-character on the basis of such way of thinking. The index is composed of 4 kinds of emotional roles (quasi-family member, growth mediator, lovey doll, an imaginary friend), 6 kinds of emotional supports (hugging, protecting, accepting, giving the initiative, improving the relationship and mutual supervising) and 4 kinds of emotional impressions (impression by contacting, impression to protect and impression accepting an attack). In case that some main characters of a family feature animation, 'Inside Out', are analyzed while the index mentioned above is applied, it was found that 'Bing Bong' and 'Sadness' have a high propensity as a transitional object-character. Especially, it could be inversely inferred in which ways some good transitional object-characters can help the narrations on growth of a family feature animation by taking a look at the character, 'Sadness' that has the highest propensity as a transitional object-character. The transitional object-character, 'Sadness' assists the narration on growth internally and externally by helping the internal maturity of a growth-subject in a way of projecting the tasks for the internal maturity of a growth-subject while helping the growth-subject to be successfully externally in a way of providing the growth-subject with some kinds of facilitating emotion. As the results from this Study, since such kinds of emotional experiences provided by such transitional object-characters are displaced to not only the relevant growth-subjects but also the audience who are emphasized with such growth-subjects as they are, such transitional object-characters play a role of hidden benefactors who induce some immersion into the narrations and provide child and adult audience with various layers of emotional satisfaction.