Sulley's journey begins when he accidentally brings a human child, Boo, back from the Scare Floor. He must now protect Boo from being discovered. After several challenges trying to hide and rescue Boo, Sulley realizes that children's laughter is more powerful than their screams. He transforms the company into a Laugh Floor. By the end of his journey, Sulley has changed his views on humans and matured as a hero.

1. Sulley's Hero Journey
By Dana Godrich

2. The Call
 Accidental Call
Sulley finds a unoccupied, open scaring door as he is
getting Mike his paperwork. He goes inside of the door
to check it but he sees no one. As he closes the door
after inspecting it, he hears laughter. He turns around
and finds out a little girl is on his back. This is very
lethal for monster like Sulley because a human’s touch
is known to kill a monster. This ends up not being the
case and Sulley definitely isn't dead. Sulley was just
about to throw the girl back into the door, but it was
too late. Randall, Sulley’s nemesis, walks in not seeing
Sulley and sends the door back up making it disappear
into the hall of doors. Now, Sulley is stuck with this
little girl. This is the call because it is what drives
Sulley to go on his journey of the known monster
world to the unknown world of living with a human.
The cause of the call is out of Sulley’s curiosity.

3. Threshold
-Boo’s door is the main threshold
 The known is the world were monsters scare humans and
do not ever come into physical contact with them.
Boo’s door soon becomes a portal between the human
and monster world. The unknown is when this little girl,
Boo, breaks this and escapes from her door entering
both an unknown monster world for Boo and an
unknown human experience for Sulley.
 The “leap of faith” Sulley takes is keeping Boo. Yes, he
tried to get rid of her and put her back into her door, but
was not successful. When the door got put away by
Randall, there was no way to get rid of this human other
than to call the CDA (child detection agency) and have
them “dispose” of her. Sulley decides he doesn’t want to
do that because he knows that if he gives her in ,
everyone will know that he had he. Now he has put the
trouble in his hands trying to keep her under his watch.

5. Challenge
Our initiate, Sulley, has Boo clad in sofa leather that makes
her look as if she were a monster. Randall gets suspicious
the moment he spots this and decides to secretly kidnap
Boo by setting up Boo’s door as a trap to lure her in. When
Sulley saw Boo’s door in the blue he knew that nothing so
paramount could be secure or trivial to get. Sulley makes
an abrupt decision that the right choice is to scope the
room prior to entering . Unknowingly, while Mike tries to
prove the room safe, Randall kidnaps him thinking it’s Boo
and takes him away to extract screams from who he thinks
is Boo. Now, Sulley is faced with the challenge of trying to
save Mike from Randall. This turns out a success and
Sulley saves Mike while running away from Randall. Sulley
learns that Randall is up to something and he develops a
great sense of caution telling him that he must try much
harder to keep Boo and Mike away from danger.

7. Challenge
After the first challenge, Waternoose, the company’s
CEO, quickly finds out that Sulley has the child and
sends him and Mike off through a door into the
barren Himalayas because they had the child all
along. Now, Sulley has lost Boo who is in danger in
the hands of Randall and Waternoose. To make
matters worse, Mike is outraged at Sulley blaming
him for being stuck in this land. Sulley now learns he
must try to leave this place alone and continue the
journey by himself. This is a challenge for Sulley
because he must try to endure the cold, harsh winds
of the Himalayas while stressing about Boo’s safety.
This a major failure of Sulley to be abandoned on

9. Challenge
In this rigorous challenge, Sulley starts off peacefully rummaging
around the doors with Mike searching for Boo’s door. Then it
takes a turn for the wicked. What began as a mere search
became a high-speed chase. Randall found Sulley and
hunted after them trying to get Boo in order to extract
screams from her. After much chasing, Sulley learns that his
goal is altered, not only does he want to keep Boo and Mike
safe, he wants to defeat Randall in order to protect everyone
from his evil acts. So, this chase ended when Sulley was left
at a impasse only hanging on Boo’s door with by finger,
Randall pushing him off slowly. Soon, Boo hits Randall from
behind while he is distracted and Sulley is able to get up and
defeat Randall.

11. Mentor
Roz is the company’s dispatch manager. She could very well
be considered a mentor because she consists of all the
characteristics to be one. She is in and out and not always
helping, but at the end of the movie, she helps Sulley a
great deal by offering wisdom. Sulley discovered her to be
CDA agent 001, the most powerful. Towards the end of the
movie, Roz speaks out to Sulley explaining to him how the
morally just thing to do is return Boo home. This is how Roz
would be Sulley’s mentor: by helping him achieve his goals
with wise words and leaving room for success and failure.

13. Helpers
 Mike Wazowski
 Mike is Sulley’s main helper. Not only are they best
friends, they work together and scare together. Mike
helps Sulley with many small and big challenges.
For example, Mike helped Sulley hide Boo and went
along with Sulley merely being a good friend and a
great sidekick. Mike is by Sulley’s side and at times
they work together, at times they do not. That is
what makes Mike a great helper.

15. The Abyss
 The abyss is usually done in solitude and that’s how
it was with Sulley. In Monsters, Inc., the ultimate
duel is fought between Randall and Sulley. At the
culmination of the last challenge, Sulley retrieves
Boo. Now that he has her, he must bring her back to
her home, that’s not trivial with Randall being a
massive obstacle. Randall is chasing Sulley
unceasingly throughout the monster world. But once
Sulley entered Boo’s door, he is now safe with Boo
through the threshold; the human world. This harsh
and challenging abyss was succumbed by Sulley
who successfully achieved his goal of bringing Boo
home where she belongs.

17. The Revelation
 The revelation is when Sulley realizes that a child’s
laughter is stronger and much more useful than a child’s
scream
 After saying bye to Boo, Sulley realizes that along the
journey, Boo has laughed and it made a blackout. He
pondered on it for a moment and discovered that a laugh
is much more powerful than a scream. This is the
revelation because Sulley is now mentally aware that
good, laughter, will defeat bad, screams. Also, Sulley is
mentally changed due to his experience with Boo. He
learned that humans aren’t lethal and informed
Monstopolis too. Before this journey, Sulley vaguely
understood humans and their impact on monsters and
vise-versa.

19. Transformation
 Sulley’s behavior changes as he overcomes his challenges
and climbs up the ladder into becoming a hero. After this
journey, Sulley’s behavior is now altered and he acts with
much more care towards people and he shows that he knows
that every moment counts. He does this because he didn’t
have much time with Boo but he grew to love her and care for
her. Now Sulley has learned to behave the same to others he
loves and cares for. He is now changed because he Boo
drove him to want to change his behavior to people and
appreciate every moment with them just in case they leave
you, just like Boo’s case. For example, he treats everyone
with care and equality knowing that being good to people and
offering them kindness can get you far. Specifically, now
Sulley wakes up to his company every morning wishing
people like Needleman, Smitty, and George Sanderson good
day at work and showing them that he truly does care about
them no matter if they are a little inferior to high ranked
employees.

21. Atonement
 After his journey, Sulley is now “at one” with himself due to
his experience and adventures with Boo and Mike.
 Even though Sulley had to say good-bye to Boo, he knows it
was the right thing to do. He takes pride in his actions and is
aware that Boo has to continue her life without him and him
without her. He has found inner balance with himself by
studying his choices and choosing the harder and right one to
do, say good-bye to Boo and let her live her life without a
constant fear of monsters. He has done this by turning the
scream factory into a laugh factory. Sulley has gained
harmony with himself because of Boo and understand life and
grasping the selfish versus the unselfish ways to handle
situations. He did the unselfish move by letting Boo continue
living a normal life back at home with her family. Sulley has
attained a state of selflessness and love.

22. The Return
 Sulley has now returned to his known world because Boo is
safe, she is at a state of peace at home. Now that Boo is
safe from all danger like Randall and Waternoose, it drives
Sulley to stay strong and make slight alterations. Others
have respected him as a hero and due to his unselfish acts
and gained knowledge about making clever decisions. The
employees at work including Roz, Mike and others now
have an even higher respect for him than they did before
his journey. This is due to the fact that Sulley is not the
same benevolent person he was before, he’s better; he’s a
hero.

24. Gift
 There are to gifts bestowed upon Sulley and his
employees, they are both physical. One gift is granted to
the company by Sulley. After his revelation and
transformation, Sulley understands that a major change in
the company’s ways must be made and being promoted to
CEO made his dream possible. Now, instead of collecting
screams to use for energy, the company collects laughs.
This not only benefits the children of the unknown world,
but it gives monsters the ability to have fun and not be
scared for their job. At the culmination of the movie, Mike
has a present he wants to give to Sulley. This present
enabled Sulley to visit Boo another time. Mike put together
Boo’s door which got shredded and just had one piece
missing, the one Sulley kept. The door worked and Sulley
was able to visit Boo.

25. Gift one

26. Gift two