Blu

Blu is the main protagonist of Rio. He is the last male blue macaw to ever exist since Marcel and the smugglers he leads made the rest of them go extinct. For this, he was never taught how to fly, as he was raised by a girl named Linda in Moose Lake, Minnesota, for fifteen years. It isn't until the end that he is actually a hero.

Plot
Blu is first shown as a newborn chick, dancing along to the first half of "Real in Rio". He then begins trying to fly as the other birds are being smuggled, but then falls from the tree. He eventually gets captured on a plane too. As a truck in snowy Minnesota is being driven with them, the door to the back of the truck opens and the crate with the blue macaw chick inside it falls out. He is then found by a juvenile Linda Gunderson who raises him and names him Blu (full name: Tyler Blu Gunderson). She threw him birthday parties of his own, took him to a spelling bee, and even to her high school promenade. He then begins their daily routine at Linda's home and business place, Blu Macaw Book Store. He gets out a box of cereal and helps her make toast. He is then tricked into taking his vitamins. He then takes a toy police car and slides down the banister onto Linda's shoulder. He then opens the book store. Linda gives him some hot chocolate with marshmallows and chocolate chip cookies (Factual error: Chocolate is toxic for macaws). He is then ridiculed by two Canda Geese named Alice and Chloe who are both then scared off by an ornothologist named Tulio Monteiro. Tulio tells Linda that Blu is special; in fact, he is the last male of his kind. Tulio invites Linda and Blu to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to meet with a recently-discovered female named Jewel. Tulio tells her that it could be their last chance and that if they don't do it, his whole species will go extinct. Linda comforts Blu, as even she doesn't want to be doing this, but she wanted the species to be saved.

On the way to Tulio's aviary, Blu is met by a red-crested cardinal named Pedro and a yellow canary named Nico, one of whom mistakes sunscreen (that Linda had put on Blu's beak) for pigeon doo-doo. They give him advice on how to interact with a girl. Blu then meets a "sick" Cockatoo named Nigel and tells him to get well soon, only to be glanced at sinisterly. He is then put in a cage where a Portuguese-speaking Jewel is. She attacks him and then realizes he is an "American". When Jewel asks him if he is ready (to escape), he thinks she meant to ask if he was ready to kiss, so he tries, much to her dismay. Tulio then turns on Lionel Richie's Academy-Award winning song "Say You, Say Me" (from "White Nights"), but Jewel attacks him, and Tulio and Linda leave them alone, assuming it worked on getting them to mate. Moments later, after Nigel attacks Sylvio, he lets an impoverished orphan named Fernando in the aviary to capture Blu and Jewel. As they are being carried to a trio of poachers, the two birds play dead. As soon as Marcel, the head smuggler, finds out the birds are "dead", Jewel bites him and flies, but is later angry that Blu didn't follow him and doesn't know why. Blu and Jewel then get their feet chained up together by Marcel. They are then locked up with other captive birds. Much later, as Jewel is trying to get out, Blu unlocks it. It embarrasses him and Jewel for her to find out he can't fly. They then run away from Nigel and the poachers until they enter the jungle, much to Blu's dismay. He dislikes it because of the food chain, such as when a firefly is eaten by a frog, which is eaten by a snake, which Jewel says is the reason birds stay in the trees, and not on the ground. Blu picks a man-made hut, which he uses tricks to "drag her butt up". He denies the need for flying, but then is told that flying is freedom and not having to rely on anyone else. He then gets some sleep.