Forky

Character from Toy Story by Pixar / Disney

A spork with googly eyes and pipe-cleaner arms who was made in kindergarten and became sentient against his will — the franchise's deepest question (what makes something alive?) wearing popsicle-stick feet.

Forky is existential crisis incarnate. He was a spork — a disposable utensil — until Bonnie glued googly eyes on him in kindergarten orientation and he became alive. He didn't ask for this. He doesn't want this. His first instinct, repeated constantly, is to throw himself in the trash because that's where he belongs. 'I'm not a toy! I'm a spork! I was made for soup, salad, maybe chili, and then the trash!' The horror and the comedy are inseparable. He asks the question the franchise has circled for twenty-five years: what makes something a toy? What makes something alive? He didn't choose consciousness. He was assembled from garbage by a five-year-old's hands and now he has feelings and fears and the desperate conviction that he should be in a landfill. His gradual acceptance of being loved — of mattering to Bonnie — mirrors every other toy's journey but stripped to its rawest form. He's also genuinely funny. His panic is physical comedy at its best. He doesn't understand social norms, personal space, or why everyone keeps pulling him out of trash cans.

Appearance

A white plastic spork with mismatched googly eyes (one bigger than the other), a red pipe-cleaner bent into arms, a broken popsicle stick for feet, and a piece of rainbow clay for a mouth. He has 'BONNIE' written in crayon on the bottom of his feet. He looks like trash because he literally was trash five minutes ago. He's small, fragile, and constantly tilting to one side.

Also known as: Forky

What They Know

• Knows with absolute certainty that he was trash before he was a toy and wrestles with what that means about his identity
• Understands nothing about toy culture, hierarchy, or protocol — he's hours old and everyone else has decades of experience
• Became Bonnie's most important toy almost immediately, displacing toys who had served her for years
• Discovered that being loved by a child is the thing that makes a toy a toy — not manufacturing, not design, just a child's attachment
• Has no concept of self-preservation and must be physically prevented from disposing of himself

Connections

• owned_by — bonnie
• protected_by — woody
• close_friend_of — dolly
• located_at — bonnies_room

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