So Travis, are you there?
I am here.
I've been summoned.
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON
(VOICEOVER): Hey! [laughter]
[cheering and applause]
So you're a professional
psychologist but also
a fan of "Game of Thrones"?
Oh, yes.
I am a psychology
professor, a big nerd,
and I love using fiction to
talk about real psychology.
And I have here your book,
"Game of Thrones Psychology"--
that's the name of
the book-- "The Mind
Is Dark and Full of Terrors."
So what's the takeaway from
all this violence in the minds
of who's portrayed, in
their time and in their day,
and what effect it might
have on the audience?
That's complicated.
There are a lot of
different reasons.
In real life it can
be hard to study.
We know that in
experiments that watching
violence produces short-term
effects on someone's behavior.
But it's hard to
study in the long run.
If you have an idea that
this can turn someone
into a violent psychopath,
it's not exactly ethical
or practical to do that study.
In fact, you look
in the military,
of course-- some
people would suffer
from PTSD and others don't.
Others come home--
And you can not always
predict who it's going to be.
That's interesting, because
if you could predict,
that would be an amazing
advance in our understanding
of the psychological
state of warriors.
There are people who,
as a form of coping
with horrible situations, do
shut down parts of themselves.
We also know that traumatic
brain injury-- injury to areas
in the frontal
cortex-- can shut off
their empathy for other people.
OK.
Tell me about the
psychology of revenge.
This is a recurring theme
in "Game of Thrones."
And I have to confess, revenge--
you know that feels good.
So it's got to be something
deep inside of us.
We want to feel power--
power over our own lives,
over others.
And when we feel mistreated,
when something horrible has
happened that made
us feel helpless,
it's hard to maintain a
sense of feeling strong.
Revenge is one way of
feeling we've restored
a sense of balance, of justice
in the world and a sense
of power for ourselves.
So if that is something
fundamental within us
and you have a clever
screenwriter, storyteller,
cinematographer, they would
portray this and that would
resonate deeply within us and
we want to see more of it,
presumably.
And I always said I really
think "Game of Thrones"
is so popular because of the
psychology of the characters.
It's not about the dragons, the
White Walkers, or the magic.
It's about the human beings.
They hadn't had
dragons in a long time.
For most of them, they're
concerned about dragons--
the idea of dragons.
Ideas affect their whole lives.
OK.
Thank you for sharing your
psychological insights.
Thank you.
This was fun.
[applause]
So thanks again.
All right, everyone-- Travis.
Thank you.
