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Sally (Née Finklestein) is the deuteragonist of the film The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the main protagonist of the novel Long Live The Pumpkin Queen. She is a rag doll from Halloween Town. Intelligent, yet inconspicuous, she longs for independence, but is repeatedly restrained by Doctor Finklestein, her overprotective creator, and also is romantically infatuated with Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King.

Personality

Sally KH

Sally in Kingdom Hearts

Sally is kind, sensible, honest, and very clever. She is restless due to being constantly kept under lock and key by Doctor Finklestein and intrigued by the outside world. This restlessness, or a desire for a better life to be more specific, is what draws her towards Jack Skellington. At the beginning of the film she idolizes and admires Jack like any female resident of Halloween Town would, but however learns they are connected by the desire for something more in their lives, which intensifies her feelings for him. The two refer to each other as "friends", as Jack seems unaware towards how she truly feels about him, as she's too shy to make them known to him other than through her sweet actions.

Long Live the Pumpkin Queen

Sally returns as the main character in the sequel novel, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen, where she marries Jack Skellington and explores her new title to Halloween Town as the Pumpkin Queen. She and Zero accidentally uncover a long-hidden, ancient realm called Dream Town, which puts her new title and the entire town in jeopardy.

The Pumpkin King

In his attempts to turn Halloween into New Bug Day, Oogie Boogie sends Lock, Shock, and Barrel to kidnap Jack, but Sally is kidnapped by mistake. Oogie Boogie decides to hold her hostage until Jack comes to save her and the town from his terror, and after being rescued by Jack, Sally instantly falls in love with him.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

In the movie, Sally barely has any freedom, although she frequently runs away from Dr. Finkelstein, her creator. After the Halloween celebration, the Doctor catches her and tries to drag her back to the lab. To escape, she pulls the thread on her arm and leaves it behind dismembered, as she runs off. She then follows Jack all the way to Spiral Hill, listening to his song. Sally then goes back to Dr. Finkelstein to get her arm reattached. She hears about the town meeting after Jack returns to town and poisons the doctor again before leaving to go to the town meeting where Jack tells about his experiences in the land of Christmas.

She goes back home to the lab again and the Doctor locks Sally in her bedroom. Unable to remain in captivity any longer, Sally puts some food and drink in a basket and lowers it onto the ground, and jumps out after it. Sally gives the basket to Jack, but runs away due to her immense bashfulness. Afterwards, Sally plucks the petals off a forget-me-not, which then transforms before her eyes into a miniature Christmas tree and suddenly bursts into flames: a premonition of things to come. When she tells of this to Jack, he fails to take the warning seriously. On Christmas Eve, as Jack is about to set off, Sally pours fog juice into the town square fountain, creating a thick-as-jellied-brains fog all around, grounding Jack. Yet, Sally's plan doesn't work, because of Zero's glowing nose.

Later, when Jack has left, Sally hears the news of the military being called in to stop Jack, and she resolves to go and find Santa Claus, discovering him in Oogie's Lair. Sally tries to liberate Santa, using her sexy leg as bait but fails and gets captured herself. Jack later finds them after he's come to his senses, fights Oogie Boogie and defeats him. After Santa leaves, Sally and Jack talk. Jack is about to tell her how he feels about her, when the Mayor, Lock, Shock and Barrel suddenly burst in to rescue them. They all return to Halloween Town, it starts to snow and Sally walks to the top of Spiral Hill. Jack follows her, having realized he's loved her all along. He sings to and tells her how he feels about her. Sally responds and shows that she feels the same about him. They embrace and share their first kiss.

Other Apperances

Oogie's Revenge

After Jack returns to Halloween Town from his travels, Sally is one of the only citizens of Halloween Town who has not been deceived by Oogie Boogie, and remains loyal to Jack. Unfortunately, she is captured by Oogie's baddies and Jack has to save her from a giant spider. Later on, she helps out in an optional mission to make sleeping soup and returns to bring Jack his Sandy Claws suit. After Santa is rescued in Christmas Town, she arrives with Halloween Town's sleigh so Santa can still deliver the gifts on time. At the end, she and Jack once again kiss on Spiral hill.

Zero's Journey

Sally appears as a supporting character in the sequel comic book, Zero's Journey. She makes later appearances on the covers of Editions, and even the graphic novels.

She is first seen approaching Jack when he is sitting alone on the Spiral Hill, thinking about Zero's disappearance. She assures him that they'll find his beloved ghost pup. After the town agrees to help throw a search party for Zero in order to help Jack, Sally participates and checks in the Graveyard, where she sadly touches Zero's grave. However, she travels as far as the Hinterlands and worries if she is lost. She soon finds the trees of the Holiday Doors, and peeks into Christmas Town's. When she opens the tree door, she recognizes Zero's barks from below as he gets sucked into the snowflake abyss.

She runs all the way back to Halloween Town and tells Jack that she found him in the abyss to Christmas Town. Sally soon looks lovingly at Jack after he insists he's learned his lesson from taking over Christmas, and that he respects it's their holiday. Some time passes, and Sally soon finds Jack lamenting over Zero again, looking at a picture of him and crying. She comes to his side and asks if he can count on lock, Shock, and Barrel, while holding his picture as he tells her 'no'. She insists it's not too late, getting Jack determined to find Zero once and for all.

Sally later joins the search party sent after Zero in Christmas Town, coming up with the idea to use Igor's lighter while The One Hiding Under the Stairs sneezes, effectively clearing their way through a snow storm. She is last seen standing proudly with Jack as they watch Zero lead the reindeer for Christmas that year, as he holds her side.

Kingdom Hearts series

Sally appears in all 3 installments of the Kingdom Hearts video game series. She is voiced by Kath Soucie in English. Her Japanese voice in these games is done by Yuko Doi.

Kingdom Hearts

Sally's role in the first game is relatively minor. Jack and Sora find her in the graveyard and she gives them one of the ingredients for the heart Doctor Finkelstein is making, memory (Forget-Me-Not). She expresses her worries about Jack's plan of adding the Heartless swarming the town to the Halloween festivities, though Jack tells her not to worry. Her gut feeling proves to be right, as Oogie Boogie steals the heart and attempts to use it to summon Heartless to defeat Jack. Oogie's plan fails, and Jack admits his mistake.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

"Created" from Sora's memories of Halloween Town, Sally is in possession of a potion Finkelstein made that can bring "true memories". She hesitates to give the potion to Jack, as Heartless appeared when Finkelstein did so much as sniff the potion. However, Oogie Boogie pops up and steals the potion from her. When Oogie drinks the whole potion, he is overwhelmed with fear, and she concludes that this means the potion was a failure, though whether she is right or not never becomes clear.

Kingdom Hearts II

Sally plays a bigger part in this game, in which the events in Halloween Town are loosely based on the events of the film. Jack is determined to take Santa Claus's place this year, and even convinced Sora and the gang to join him as Santa's bodyguards. Sally has a terrible feeling about this, but Jack and Sora do not adhere to her warnings, too excited by the concept of making Christmas. When Santa goes to Halloween Town to find Jack, Sally comes to him and asks him to avoid speaking with the Pumpkin King. She becomes the only witness to the resurrected Oogie Boogie kidnapping Santa, and runs off to warn Jack and the others. They all return to Christmas Town, where Oogie Boogie is about to throw Santa into one of his own gift-making machines, but Sally distracts Oogie using her leg to save Santa. In the end, she gives Jack a Santa suit she sewed on his request. In the second trip to Halloween Town, Jack still wears the Santa suit, feeling that it would be rude not to wear the suit she worked so hard on. By the end of the visit, Jack learns the meaning of Christmas by understanding the act of giving, and understands that he felt so strongly about wearing the suit because it was a gift from Sally. He dances with Sally in the end, finally realizing all of the gifts she had given to him were all from the heart and wishes to give her something in return. She tells him that the nicest present she could ever ask for is just to be with Jack. Jack responds telling her that she does not even have to ask for that, meaning he feels the same way for her.

Other Appearances

Disney Magic Kingdoms

Sally appears apart of the Halloween event in "Disney Magic Kingdoms". She helps Jack come up with plans to defeat Oogie Boogie from overrunning the Kingdom with bugs. She helps execute his plan by accompanying him on the Spiral Hill and aids him when battling Oogie Boogie. She spends a considerable amount of time in the game worrying about her friends back in Halloween Town and missing them, but gets assured with Jack and Zero's company.

Disney Magical Dice: The Enchanted Board Game

Sally also makes an appearance in the mobile game, Disney Magical Dice: The Enchanted Board Game. Her game figure accompanies Jack and offers the player 160 luckiness and 195 thriftiness at maximum level. Her quest is to help create Jack his Santa Claus costume, and in turn, Jack's quest is to rescue her from Doctor Finkelstein. She is ranked as a "good" specialty who is available in Arena 2 chests.

Her advantages are to receive 100% lap bonus when landing on a lockdown square and having a 50% chance to be exempt from the Sleeping Beauty castle on the Fantasyland Board.

Disney Heroes: Battle Mode

Additionally, Sally makes an appearance in the mobile and desktop game, Disney Heroes: Battle Mode. She plays as a front-line tank hero that can be obtained through the online-shop or through the Coliseum Shop or a Diamond Crate. She has 4 attacks that can be unlocked: Deadly Nightshade, Frog's Breath, Something In the Wind, and Stronger Than She Seems.

Abilities

Due to the fact that she's mostly made up of sewn together body parts Sally is largely invunerable to bodily harm, surviving a potentially deadly fall from a tall tower of Doctor Finklesteins, albiet in pieces. It's also shown that her limbs can move independently from her body, through a scene where she attempts to distract Oogie Boogie with one of her legs while trying to rescue Santa.

Sally is very good at sewing, likely stemming from having to stitch herself back together multiple times, and has an extensive knowledge of potions, keeping a series of ingredients, such as deadly nightshade, used to drug Doctor Finklestein multiple times.

Sally also appears to have precognition powers. However, this was only shown once when she recieves a vision showing Jack's ideas of Christmas ending in disaster. It's currently unknown whether she does possess such powers, or if she's capable of regularly accessing them, or the vision was just a one off due to the situation at hand.

Gallery

Click here to view the image gallery for Sally.
Click here to view the gallery for Sally.

Trivia

  • Jack and Sally are mentioned in the Blink-182 song "I Miss You".
  • A poem is included on the soundtrack which implies Jack had 4 or 5 children, several years after the events of the film. The mother of these children is unknown.
  • Sally was originally supposed to have trouble walking. This idea was rejected due to the animators thinking Sally looked drunk while walking. However, in the movie proper, Sally does walk a little stiffer than the other characters.
  • Despite Sally's hair actually being light brown in the movie she's mostly depicted as a redhead in merchandise.
  • Sally's voice actress from the original movie, Catherine O'Hara, previously worked with Tim Burton on the 1988 movie Beetlejuice and it's 2012 remake of Frankenweenie.
  • Fans highly debate on Sally having psychic powers or not due to her recieving a premonition that Jack's Christmas was going to end terribly. It has never been confirmed if she does have such powers, or simply recieved the premonition in light of the moment.
  • According to the Disneystrology book, her birthday would be on February 8th.
  • Sally's Song has been covered multiple times: -By Amy Lee, the frontwoman of the band Evanescense, in 2008 for the album Nightmare Revisited. -By European Gothic-Neo Classical band, Dark Sanctuary, for the album Exaudi Vocem Meam Part II. -By Californian Gothic band, London After Midnight for the compilation album Oddities. -The Japanese version of Sally's Song was covered by an American artist known as Scott Murphy, who is popular in Japan, for Nightmare Revisited.
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