The Science Behind “Game of Thrones”

Dragons, violence, magic & more: Explore “Game of Thrones” through the lens of science, with Neil deGrasse Tyson, actor Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran Stark), comic co-host Michael Ian Black, author Helen Keen, and psychologist Travis Langley. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this is StarTalk. Tonight, we're going to explore the science behind the hit TV series Game of Thrones. Oh my god! From flying, fire-breathing dragons, to magic, to what it takes to survive in the Middle Ages. So let's do this.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never tackle these subjects alone. First, my co-host, Michael Ian Black. Hello!

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's a professional comedian? Sure. And you are not a stranger to StarTalk? No, I had the StarTalk Jigsaw Puzzle. I had the StarTalk Stuffed Animals. I'm a fan. So, tonight, our topic is, of course, Game of Thrones. And I don't claim particular expertise in that, but other people do. Especially this woman here, Helen Keane. Helen, welcome to StarTalk.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna draw heavily on your expertise in this regard, because we couldn't believe this. You wrote a book called "The Science of Game of Thrones." Destiny. It's destiny. And I'm surprised it's even this thick. Lots of pictures. Lots of pictures!

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let's get a taste of why Game of Thrones is such a pop culture phenomenon. Let's check out this clip.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Are you afraid?

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love me some fire-breathing dragons. So, this is based on a series, a fantasy series by George R.R. Martin of the same title. And that program averages 23 million views per episode. So Helen, this is set in a medieval age.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 2:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, to just, to put us on record, what defines the medieval age? Is that even the right thing? Or is it the Dark Ages? What is it?

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's kind of a term, it's always controversy around these things. There's a term for the period in European history from the end of the Roman Empire, so about sort of 400, 500 A.D. until-

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That early, okay.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  -15th century, yeah.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, so this is 1,000 years?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there are some things that are clearly, it seems to me, post-Dark Ages or very late Middle Ages. So, it's clearly a mixture of times to enable him to tell whatever story he wants.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that doesn't bother people, because it's fantasy, I guess. Is that right?

• 3:16Speaker 02

  And I think as well, any fantasy or science fiction always to a certain degree reflects the world that it's made in as well.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, I was out at Comic-Con, and we stumbled on one of the actors, Isaac Wright. Isaac Wright, who plays the character Bran Stark, in the series on HBO. Let's check it out.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how old are you?

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Seventeen.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seventeen, and the show's been on for six years?

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you've been in there from the beginning?

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, don't carry the tube, you would have been 11.

• 3:49Speaker 03

  I think I was actually 10, because we did a pilot as well.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you're a career Game of Thrones guy?

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's me. Game of Thrones for life.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, they've got to write your character to age with you?

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, luckily for me.

• 4:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because when you're grown up, you kind of stay the same the whole time.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, that doesn't happen when you were this age.

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you, as a kid, you wanted to be an actor?

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Not especially, no, I kind of fell into the-

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shh, don't tell.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was my dream.

• 4:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were you a geeky kid, or you're still geeky?

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Definitely geeky.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah?

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 4:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you're card carrying?

• 4:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, excellent. And what's your best measure of your geekitude?

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Well, I'm big into physics.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physics?

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physics? If you're into physics, that's good. We're done here.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physics, so in the UK, do you have tutors, or do you actually go to school?

• 4:46Speaker 03

  No, I go to school.

• 4:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go to school, okay. So that just means that the show is not taking you away all the time.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Well, it means that when I film the show, I just have to kind of take any work that I know I'm gonna miss and try and get it done at the weekends or whenever I've got some days off.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so where are you this year in your educational trajectory?

• 5:05Speaker 03

  So I'm year twelve, which is...

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there'd be a senior in high school for us?

• 5:10Speaker 03

  I think so. So I have one more year before college.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before college. So what do you want to major in?

• 5:17Speaker 03

  I'm thinking...

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or study?

• 5:18Speaker 03

  I'd quite like to do a joint honours in music and maths.

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Music and maths?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, cool. Do you do music now?

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you do?

• 5:26Speaker 03

  I play piano mainly, but I'm playing a bit of guitar.

• 5:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, this is great. I just met, like, recently, Brian May.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Oh, cool. All right, he's the king of physics.

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there he is. It's like, I really wanted PhD in astrophysics, but I will...

• 5:41Speaker 03

  I wanna be a rock star.

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let me be a rock star first. Let me delay that. So Brian May, like, lead guitarist of Queen as a PhD in astrophysics.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  I know, it's so cool.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can't get cooler than that.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  And Brian Cox as well.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brian Cox.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Keyboard.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Brian Cox, one of the best-known scientists in the UK.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And many of us know him here as well.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's not as big as he is in the UK. But he was also a rock star in the UK.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Had a number, a top...

• 6:09Speaker 03

  I think he did.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Top ten song one year.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so this may be the trend line.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay. So, yeah, you'd be a famous actor, then a musician, then you get your PhD.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like a plan.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a plan. We got this. Tell your parents you got this going, right?

• 6:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's the geekiest thing you ever did?

• 6:32Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well. So it's gotta be so geeky that you are simultaneously embarrassed and proud of it. Oh.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Okay. I can recite pi to quite a few decimal places.

• 6:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, how many decimal places?

• 6:47Speaker 03

  It used to be sixty, but I think it's down to about forty now.

• 6:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  I know, I'm sorry.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, okay. Well, why don't we get you on record for that?

• 6:56Speaker 03

  All right.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now, now, just so you know, forty, fifty, sixty, among pi people?

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's mild. Yeah, that's, that's entry level.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They won't even let you in the bar, okay?

• 7:10Speaker 03

  Some guy can do it to sixty-seven thousand.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I know, that's what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying. But, but, but, among actors.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, maybe you win, okay? So let's go, let's get the camera on him. Okay. Go on, rub your shoulders here, okay. Okay, ready, good. Okay, get ready, okay. I'll start you off. Ready? Three.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three two seven nine five zero.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, how many did we get there?

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know who did really well?

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Who?

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chris Hardwicke.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he majored in math and philosophy.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we had him on, he went on, it was like, can we stop him? Can we stop him now, please?

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but that's good, that is plenty of precision to make any calculation you need to work the universe.

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's good, we'll take that as card carrying, card carrying geek.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the geeks are taking over.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're coming out.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I'm convinced that they mistranslated that line in the Bible. It's, "And the geek shall inherit the earth."

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, had you imagined that this was something that would go this long?

• 8:27Speaker 03

  No, no, I mean, these kind of, you, there are every now-

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're supposed to say at this point, "I'd really rather direct."

• 8:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think every now and then you come across these shows that click and work and then kind of snowball into these huge phenomenons, but-

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why do you think it clicked and worked?

• 8:47Speaker 03

  I think what's cool about Game of Thrones is it is medieval history, but without kind of the historical aspect, if you get what I mean, because it has that sort of basis in reality, but there's still room to explore all these fantastical elements.

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the room to explore, on top, layered on top of enough that is medievally real, I guess that anchors it. And is there anything that surprised you the most about it? Because when I think about the medieval times, I'm just thinking, "I am so glad science got invented."

• 9:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all I'm thinking. That's all I'm thinking.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I completely concur.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They did what? They believed what?

• 9:28Speaker 03

  I think that's very evident in Game of Thrones. You've got all these weird kind of religious sects and strange things going on all over the place.

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And magic is real. Gods are real and-

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Well, what's interesting is the way Game of Thrones presents it is it's, everyone in the world is skeptical about it. And they don't really believe that there are the dragons there and that all these white walkers died thousands of years ago.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then there are the believers there where stuff actually happens.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you've got to deal with that.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Now, there are obviously so many things that back in those days you wouldn't have been able to explain or anticipate. And so naturally, you assume it's magic.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Helen, tell me about what role magic played in the Middle Ages.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Well, I think in the Middle Ages, magic and religion weren't really particularly separated. I mean, I think there was an element in religion that was magic and an element in magic that was religion.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The mysterious.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, and I think if we go back even further-

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you don't think there was even a distinction? There was just all mystery? That you don't understand and there's somebody who's telling you about it in charge?

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's either coming from God, it's either coming from a good source, or it's coming from demons and Satan, so yeah, I-

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because you can't have a good source unless there's an evil source.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  No, of course, yes.

• 10:42Michael Ian Black?

  The yin and the yang.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:44Michael Ian Black?

  The up and the down.

• 10:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The up and the down.

• 10:45Michael Ian Black?

  The backwards and the forwards. I get it, man.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Just try to stay with the-

• 10:48Michael Ian Black?

  No, I'm happy. I get it.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there are other things, so for example, remember Merlin from Arthurian legend. There's in almost all of these stories, there's somebody who knows some chemistry or alchemy, and they've got power. This would be medieval magic. It's something that you don't expect. It's something mysterious happening. And in any pre-scientific era, if you do something that's scientific and don't explain it, it's magic. One of the things that fascinates me most, of course, or I think anyone, is dragons. They're just the coolest. We all want a dragon.

• 11:22Michael Ian Black?

  What is the history of dragons? Where do they originate, do you know?

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Well, that's one of the interesting things. They seem to originate all over the world. There are lots and lots of different countries and cultures that all have a dragon myth.

• 11:32Michael Ian Black?

  All, all fire-breathing?

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Not all always fire-breathing, no.

• 11:36Michael Ian Black?

  Then it's not a dragon.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  I think often fire-breathing.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, are the Asian dragons fire-breathing? Are they?

• 11:43Michael Ian Black?

  I don't know.

• 11:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know they don't have wings.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there are different number of limbs as well. Yeah, and there are different number of limbs. Some dragons have four legs and two wings, and some dragons have two legs and two wings, which would be more evolutionarily plausible.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's, yes, exactly. Yeah, did you get what she said there? It's important.

• 12:00Michael Ian Black?

  Let me, let me explain it for the audience at home. Two legs and two wings is more evolutionarily plausible.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 12:07Michael Ian Black?

  Because animals have four, and it would evolve into two, and horns and fangs.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basically correct. Yeah, you have four limbs to work with.

• 12:20Michael Ian Black?

  Why?

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just is, it's, it's the...

• 12:25Michael Ian Black?

  Layman's or...

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The branch of the evolutionary tree that led to mammals and other verte, and other vertebrate, their four limbs. And so, that's what you're stuck with. Now, if you want to fly, you gotta give up two of those limbs for wings. The bats did it, the birds did it. Right, the bats, their two, their four limbs are wings. And birds, they, they don't have front arms, right? Those are, their front arms are their wings. And so, yeah, that'd be evolutionary sound. So, I, I asked one of the actors, Isaac Wright, I asked him about dragons, because that's, it's a major part, a major force in the storytelling. So, let's check it.

• 13:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How good could a fantasy possibly be unless it's got dragons? It's not fantasy unless you have dragons. Yeah, you need the dragons. Yeah. You need the dragons. And in my home institution, the American Museum of Natural History, we had an exhibit a few years ago that was all about mythical monsters. And whether they were the imaginations of people who discovered fossils of extinct dinosaurs. Oh, wow. Wow, that's... Yeah. So imagine, you know, triceratops. Yeah. Imagine that emerging from the eroding side of a cliff. That would be pretty... Right? And there's clearly no other animal you've seen. It's extinct. Yeah. But the concept of extinction is a modern idea. Yeah.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A few hundred years ago. So here's this thing. It can't be, it must be some monster. Yeah. That we fear in the night. And so, so, yeah, so you didn't know about that? No, no. Oh, my God! I haven't really thought about that. Yeah!

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I think you love dragons because they're great if they're your friend, but if they're not, they're a super predator.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  And that's another theory, actually, about where we have this idea of dragons from that's even more ancient than the idea of people discovering fossils. This idea that it might date back to when we were very frightened of apex predators. An anthropologist called David E. Jones who puts forward this theory. He studied vervet monkeys in Africa, and he noticed that they are particularly anxious about three predators: lions, eagles, and snakes. And so they have a particular cry that they make when they see any of these three creatures.

• 14:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 14:38Speaker 02

  And if you sort of merge those three creatures together, you sort of get something that resembles a dragon. So he, again, has sort of used this to theorize.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So snake kids get you like this...

• 14:47Michael Ian Black?

  Is this the cry? [bleep].

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Yes! Very similar, I think. Very similar.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's exactly...

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You put it through the monkey translator, and it's so bad.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what comes out, yeah.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when you think about it, if you have something as ferocious as a lion, that has the body type of a serpent, such as the snake, but it can fly as a flying predator, such as an eagle, yeah, I'll give him that.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  So that'd be terrible. So yes, he has this idea that we would have had this sort of passed down through millions of generations. We would sort of evolved this fear that's so great that we've created

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A primal fear.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Amalgamation, yes, of these three predators.

• 15:23Michael Ian Black?

  Where does the fire part come from? I mean, we're all scared of, I mean, we would be scared of fire.

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They just added that after, say, "We want to make it even more ferocious."

• 15:29Michael Ian Black?

  Right, right, right. Is there anything in nature that, any process by which air can be converted to fire, other than like, Mexican food?

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, if it's air as we think of it, oxygen.

• 15:45Michael Ian Black?

  Is flammable.

• 15:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's flammable? No.

• 15:48Michael Ian Black?

  I was kidding!

• 15:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's a common misconception. Oxygen itself is not flammable. Otherwise, when you lit a match, you would ignite the atmosphere.

• 15:58Michael Ian Black?

  Alright.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just wanted to be clear about that.

• 16:00Michael Ian Black?

  So what is burning?

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, oxygen makes other things burn. So, oxygen oxidizes things that then themselves burn. And they can make them burn more ferociously than they otherwise would. There are gases that are themselves flammable when mixed. So, you take the gas that comes out of your stove, and you ignite that. In the presence of oxygen, that thing just goes. Same with pure hydrogen. It just goes. So, you could imagine a beast, perhaps, certainly in fantasy world, where there's some process inside that produces flammable gas. And then you need some flinting mechanism with its teeth. And it's just like, "Chchchch!" It ignites it, and out comes flame.

• 16:41Michael Ian Black?

  When I was at camp,

• 16:44Michael Ian Black?

  we used to...

• 16:47Michael Ian Black?

  And we would light a match. Is that the same thing?

• 16:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is exactly the same thing. Except, that would be a different kind of dragon, lighting... That'd be less ferocious.

• 16:59Michael Ian Black?

  You didn't smell what came out. It was pretty ferocious.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And hold up my tail while I... Yeah. That's methane, by the way. Methane.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so methane, that's one of the interesting theories about where we get this idea of fire breathing from, that people have gone underground and they've gone to maybe either mine for minerals like gold, or they've gone to look in burial mounds and they've actually encountered, they've been carrying candles, they've encountered methane of a slightly different kind, and there's been an explosion and they've thought, well, maybe there's some terrible huge creature that lives underground and that's just thrown all this fire in our direction.

• 17:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, and underground you have anaerobic life acting. When that happens, one of its byproducts is methane. So you can have methane trapped in pockets, and especially in mines as well. You ignite that, flame comes out of the hole, oh my gosh. Well, you know, there, the dragon sleeps. Yeah, I wouldn't come near that if I were in superstitious times. But nowadays, why just pull out the measuring tools and we got, yeah, or plug the hole. So there are other things, there's something on the show called the dire wolf.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is that?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Well, the dire wolves are absolutely enormous wolves. They are the companions of the Stark children, so they're sort of like, they're guard dogs come spirit animals, almost.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so are they real or are they fantasy?

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Well, the, the size that they are on the show is fantastical, but they were real dire wolves.

• 18:21Michael Ian Black?

  What are their actual dimensions?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  They're probably roughly the size of a, of a modern gray wolf, so maybe slightly stockier and they have a sort of more ferocious bite, but they are.

• 18:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these, they just, they just pumped them up a little?

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, put them on steroids.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  They just made them quite a lot bigger, yeah.

• 18:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, but they're extinct now. We lost them in the Ice Age, the end of the Ice Age. So, why not bring them back?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Why not?

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, good, we're glad we agree on that.

• 18:42Michael Ian Black?

  So are we almost at a point where we can do that, where we can bring them back?

• 18:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not authorized, dude. I, I don't see why not. I mean, as, in the very reachable, near future.

• 18:56Michael Ian Black?

  All right, so if we can do that.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Michael Ian Black?

  Then can we combine the snake, the eagle, and the lion?

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 19:05Michael Ian Black?

  And make ourselves a dragon?

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that. To create the thing that we fear most.

• 19:10Michael Ian Black?

  Yes.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  What could possibly go wrong?

• 19:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, coming up, more on the science of Game of Thrones. In particular, we'll talk about the power of mind control on StarTalk.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk, right here at the American Museum of Natural History. And we're extracting science from the hit TV series Game of Thrones, featuring my interview with one of their lead actors, Isaac Wright. Now, in the show, his character is paralyzed, can't walk, but he's got some serious powers of the mind. Let's check it out.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  He pretty much has the entire history of the universe within his brain, or that's what's eventually going to manifest itself in there. And it makes him an incredibly powerful and wise character, I think. And it's interesting to have that parallel with the fact that he's also such a weak physical character.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and of course, what comes to mind is Stephen Hawking, who has brilliant thoughts. Yet there's this shell of a physical body that remains. Another sort of authentic element in the fantasy is that you had this power, but you needed, it had to be honed. Because in all of our superheroes that we talk about, or people with power, when they come into that power, they really don't know how to use it.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's very much the case with Bran. And it's, it's been spread over many seasons of him starting to unlock it more and more. And it just starts as this kind of small spark of something. And he eventually finds himself in this cave of the three-eyed raven, where he can fully explore and learn under the tutelage of a very wise, you know, thousand-year-old tree man.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Helen, a thousand-year-old tree man? Could you explain this, please?

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Well, just to give you a bit of background on Bran, he essentially walks in on the queen having sex with her brother, and as a result, he's pushed out of a very high window. He appears to be hovering between life and death, and he has these visions.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is episode one of the series. The queen is having sex with her brother, and he's a child, walks in.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they push him out the window.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he becomes paralyzed.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then all-seeing.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Yes, so he starts to develop these, he starts to have these visions, and he starts to sort of be able to sort of travel beyond his own physical body and into the body of his wolf, his direwolf, and that's how it all begins, really.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's clear.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but it also meant he had a mentor.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The thousand-year-old tree man.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Yes, thousand-year-old tree man.

• 22:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And mentors are, that's a fundamental part of anybody's powers. But Michael, did you have mentors, comedic mentors?

• 22:17Michael Ian Black?

  Um, sure, sure, but people that, I mean, in, no, the answer is no.

• 22:29Michael Ian Black?

  Well, who was your mentor? You must have a great science mentor.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I assembled my mentors à la carte. So there'd be a little piece of this person whose expertise I greatly valued, but it wasn't the totality of what I sought for myself. Then I'd find a little bit of expertise in another. And then you get enough of that, you staple it together, and then you have sort of an amalgamated mentor.

• 22:48Michael Ian Black?

  Did you ever meet Carl Sagan?

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so he's a little piece of that.

• 22:52Michael Ian Black?

  Right, and was he like the thousand-year-old tree man imparting the history of the universe into your head?

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little bit. This man, I was in high school and he was, he was already accomplished and hadn't done his cosmos yet, but nonetheless, he was fully accomplished. So a little bit of wisdom came my way. That has affected me my entire life. The fact that he gave me any attention at all as a high school kid aged seventeen, and this is Carl Sagan, you know, already famous, I said, "If I am ever remotely as famous as he is, I will give time to the next generation of students the way he gave time to me." And that was just a certain duty and a passing of a torch that I felt was fundamental.

• 23:32Michael Ian Black?

  If only I felt that with my children. But I don't.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so of course, Isaac's character, he can see through time. He's got bad attitude in this department. So here's more from my interview with Game of Thrones star Isaac Wright. Check it out.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Bran gets to look at certain events from the past specifically. And there were hints at the fact that he might have had some connection with one of the characters in the past. He sort of shouts and the character turns around but sees nothing. And it's interesting because it is time travel in a sense. And I think as Stephen Hawking famously said, that the greatest evidence that

• 24:16Speaker 03

  time travel to the past isn't possible is that we haven't had anyone visit us from the future. And what's interesting about Bran going back in time is that no one can see him when he's back in time. So maybe that's maybe that's our route into travelling back in time.

• 24:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's your most memorable time sequence, force telling moment?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Well, I think the key one from this past season which fits in with the whole kind of deterministic indeterministic argument with the with the whole time element is the tragic death of Hodor. Bran has in trying to learn about the past of Hodor has directly resulted in Hodor becoming Hodor. So I think it definitely just lends to that concept that this was a predestined thing that had to happen.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Explain to me Worgen?

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Worgen, okay.

• 25:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Worgen, what's going on there?

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Mystical, magical ability to be able to take over the mind of another creature or a human being.

• 25:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you become that creature?

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, so you don't physically...

• 25:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the body of that creature?

• 25:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 25:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, so to go into the mind of another creature. And it makes me think of this, you know, the singularity that people say we're approaching.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where you upload your brain into a computer. And that would be interesting if you could not only upload your brain into a computer, if you could download it into another brain. That asks the question, what is your actual identity? Right, so when you are occupying the other entity, are you still you, or are you that entity?

• 25:52Speaker 03

  I suppose it comes to the end. What is consciousness?

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's what it comes down to.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  And that for me, I think is one of the most interesting things. Because neuroscience is a field that fascinates me, and I think...

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not fascinating enough for you to major it in college, let me just say.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  But yet, we still know so little about it.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's why it's fascinating.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  And as you said, in the coming years, I think that's gonna be exactly where the route that science is gonna go down, and that's gonna be the next.

• 26:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I'm fascinated that two twins, who are genetically identical, have separate consciousnesses.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And every morning, not every morning, but more often than I'm ready to admit, I wake up and I say, "Why am I still me?"

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not someone else, or vice versa.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  Or are you constantly just changing into different ways the whole time?

• 26:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I wonder. Is my entity today just what I think I always was?

• 26:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But yesterday, I was actually something different.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Consciousness. So do you go there in your book, here?

• 26:50Speaker 02

  A little bit, yeah. I talk about how there are some quite new experiments that have been done with virtual reality, which can sort of convince the wearer who's got a headset on, that you can basically change someone's identity with virtual reality, and they will experience that new body as their own body. And when it's... they will feel that it's being touched and moved around. And it's kind of quite a... it's quite a sort of... at the frontiers, I guess.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a modern version of what he just described?

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except he gets to pick who... whose mind he occupies. Here, it would be some avatar that you created.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A fantasy version of yourself.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly, exactly. But just the potential for that to sort of give you the experience of living, as I say, a completely different life is quite something, I think.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's not just occupying that state, but it's... By the way, the avatar that I occupy, that's me before, during, and after I occupy it, right? I'm not competing with itself to run its own life. So that's a little different, just a little.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so what do you know of mind control in nature? Is there any example of that?

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's some quite disturbing stuff that we see in nature. I mean, it's interesting what you were saying about.

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know I was gonna get a disturbing answer, so now, can I retract the question?

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so tell me.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there's a creature, a tiny, tiny, tiny wasp called the jewel wasp, which is very beautiful, very, very small, and it basically completely takes over the body of a cockroach to get the cockroach to raise, it lays its egg on the bottom of the cockroach's body, and basically the cockroach loses its will to resist the power of the wasp and basically raises the wasp's young and serves as its protector.

• 28:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A surrogate?

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, so basically it protects the wasp's young and it also feeds it, so the wasp's young, as it grows, gradually eats the body of the cockroach, and the cockroach doesn't complain, it doesn't do anything, it basically has its mind and its body completely taken over by this tiny creature that's much smaller and much less physically powerful. My marriage is a lot like that.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, coming up next, we'll get into the psychology of Game of Thrones when Star Talk returns.

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to Star Talk, right here under the sphere of the Hayden Planetarium. And tonight, we're extracting science that can be found in the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. And here is more of my interview with Game of Thrones actor Isaac Wright. You're immersed in this really creepy, backwards world, oh my gosh.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And had you learned about the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages in school before you stepped into this acting gig?

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Only kind of superficially, nothing, the 10-year-old me wasn't an expert on any kind of medieval history or beheadings and all sorts of Game of Thrones violence. For me, it was just quite fun to be on a set where you had all these dead bodies that you could play around with. It didn't really register the violence.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, I see, because at 10, it just is.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is cool, oh, there's a head on the floor, take a picture.

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey, you did a good job with the head.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  I think what Game of Thrones has touched upon is the quite sort of brutal side, as it were, of that whole aspect of those times. And has come under fire for it, I think, on certain occasions with a number of scenes. But I think it's important that that kind of horror did, you know, occur in those times.

• 30:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what we don't know, I don't, maybe psychologists know this?

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have to maybe bring one into the show. If you're exposed to violence, does that mean you then become prone to violence? Or is that a world you get to say, "I want to make sure my world is not that"?

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to know. And none of us here are psychologists. So Travis, are you there?

• 30:56Speaker 05

  I am here, I've been summoned.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey!

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're a professional psychologist, but also a fan of Game of Thrones?

• 31:05Speaker 05

  Oh, yes. I am a psychology professor, a big nerd, and I love using fiction to talk about real psychology.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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?

• 31:34Speaker 05

  That's complicated. There are a lot of different reasons. And in real life, it can be hard to study. We know that in experiments that you're 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 could turn someone into a violent psychopath, it's not exactly ethical or practical to do that study.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, because I wonder if the same force of influence turns some people into psychopaths and others that has no effect, shouldn't we be studying the people on whom it has no effect? And isn't that where we would learn more than only studying the people that it affects? Because we, in the end, we want it to not affect you.

• 32:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, a number of prominent people in psychology have started to take exactly that point of view. That we need to learn more about what brings out the best. Throughout the history of psychology, you look at what brings out the worst in people. Freud, looking at everyone as neurotic. And Milgram and Zimbardo, looking at what brings out the worst in people's behavior. And Seligman, known for studying what makes people feel helpless, said we need to start looking at the good side of human nature. Zimbardo, who became famous because of a prison simulation study that went very wrong, when some of the guards, the people cast as guards, became very cruel to those cast as prisoners. And Zimbardo said, "We need to study why some people didn't become those,

• 33:04Speaker 05

  why some people become heroes." And the main thing he's finding is that there's not a lot known about this. We know a few things about that, we know a few things about resilience. What makes someone, you know, do better in trauma and under pressure than other people. But we don't know a lot, and so it is a growing area right now.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and I think it's long overdue. In fact, you look in the military, of course, some people would suffer from PTSD and others don't. Others come home-

• 33:33Speaker 05

  And you cannot always predict who it's going to be.

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's interesting, because if you could predict, that would be an amazing advance in our understanding of the psychological state of warriors.

• 33:43Speaker 05

  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.

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, 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 gotta be something deep inside of us.

• 34:15Speaker 05

  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. The name Game of Thrones itself can be about power, where the throne is in people's own lives. Every one of these characters is motivated to have power, power over others, power over themselves. Arya, who's seeking revenge, my favorite character. She's driven to restore her sense of balance in the world, but she already had spunk before that.

• 34:59Speaker 05

  Back when her father told her what life is like for the lady of a castle, she said, "No, that's not me." Learning to swing a sword was her way of having a sense of power even back then. Later, another character was horribly, sadistically abused by someone, found a way to have a sense of power in her own life by taking power over the person who had tormented her.

• 35:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  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.

• 35:38Speaker 05

  And I've 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 and the magic. It's about the human beings. They hadn't had dragons in a long time. For most of them, their concern about dragons is the idea of dragons. The ideas affect their whole lives.

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Travis, thank you for sharing your psychological insights.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  Thank you. This was fun.

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, thanks again, everyone. Travis.

• 36:05Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, coming up, we're gonna break down fact and fiction of some key Game of Thrones storylines, when StarTalk continues.

• 36:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. Right here in the Hall of the Universe at the American Museum of Natural History. We're exploring the science and the history within the hit fantasy series Game of Thrones. And Helen, can you tell me about some of the storylines in Game of Thrones that might have actual roots in historical events?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Oh, well, I think there are lots of them. I mean, it's sort of almost like a sort of hall of historical mirrors where you can pick out lots of things that actually...

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so they're not by accident, you're saying they're purposefully put in?

• 36:55Speaker 02

  I think so. I think they're sort of an inspiration, but usually they're a sort of jumping off point. So things like the Wall, which is obviously this huge, completely impossible wall made of ice that divides the Seven Kingdoms from the sort of lands of the barbarians beyond, is sort of based on Hadrian's Wall. It was the extreme edge of the Roman Empire, and beyond that was Northern England and Scotland, which was never really conquered by the Romans.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an ancestor of Donald Trump, built this wall. Yeah, okay.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's the thing. There's still a bit of debate about whether it was a good idea to build the wall, whether, you know, the amount of people you have to have garrisoned on that wall was actually an effective way of, you know, combating the threat of people from beyond the wall.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how about the Red Wedding?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Again, that was a sort of possibly inspired in part by Scottish history. And some guests of the King of Scotland were invited to this wonderful dinner, and it was all going brilliantly, and then suddenly, at the end of the dinner, a single drum began to beat, and everybody went quiet. And then a bull's head on a platter was brought in, and the Douglasses who were at the dinner were all killed.

• 38:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You all some messed up people over there.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what it means is, I think, that if you're going to tell this kind of story, George R.R. Martin has to be fluent in sort of the history of cruelty and the storytelling that surrounded it, and the legends and the culture of this kind of barbaric conduct.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So it has its roots in this sort of real event from our very unpleasant European past.

• 38:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up next, we'll answer your questions called from the internet and the fanbase of StarTalk. Your questions on Game of Thrones when StarTalk returns.

• 38:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. Start off. Call of the Universe. We're exploring the underlying science from the storytelling in the ever-popular series Game of Thrones. And right now, it's time for the ever-popular Cosmic Queries segment. Let's do it. This is a fan favorite where we poll questions from our fanbase. So, you're gonna read them to me? I've never seen them or heard them before.

• 39:16Michael Ian Black?

  Dan Hohn from Melbourne, Australia. What kind of solar system would Westeros have to be in to experience such long summers? Obviously, it's a normal day-night cycle, he says.

• 39:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so that's a great question. So, in fact, we have a 24-hour day, day and night. If we rotated more slowly, our day would be longer, and relative to the year. And in the case of Venus, its day is on the same timescale as its year. So that one day lasts about as long as its year. Now, so-

• 39:51Michael Ian Black?

  So every day's your birthday?

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. That's good. I hadn't thought about that. So, I suppose you could configure that. The difference is, to have these long periods of winter and summer, what you would need is a planet that would have a strongly elliptical orbit. And if it's a strongly elliptical orbit, you would spend time near the sun, time far away from the sun. When you have strong, or it's host star, when you have strong elliptical orbits, it turns out it's not symmetric. You spend way more time far away than you do close up. Comets experience that.

• 40:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a comet's around, is only here for a couple of weeks, then it's gonna spend 100 million years-

• 40:40Michael Ian Black?

  Is that because of the slingshot effect of gravity is throwing you back out?

• 40:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly. The closer you get to the sun, the faster you will move. And Kepler discovered this in the early 1600s. So, if you had long winters, long summers, the winters would be vastly longer than your summers in this configuration.

• 40:54Michael Ian Black?

  Got it.

• 40:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good.

• 40:56Michael Ian Black?

  I don't got it.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:58Michael Ian Black?

  Elena Clark from Burbank, California. In Game of Thrones, there is a bright red comet featured. Is this possible? Can there be other colors as well?

• 41:08Michael Ian Black?

  Do you know this bright red comet?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is a comet appears because it's sort of seen as the sort of herald of dragons returning to the world.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there are no red comets, but if you see a comet very low on the horizon, it would take on sunset colors, just the way the sun would because the light is coming through the atmosphere. So you can make something look red, but it wouldn't be red natively, no.

• 41:30Michael Ian Black?

  So the answer to the second question, could there be other colors as well? No, right?

• 41:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's blue in a comet. You get a blue. There's an ion tail that it has two kinds of tails. There's something called a dust tail and an ion tail. So those are the two colors you get. Generally, you don't get red. Okay, go.

• 41:45Michael Ian Black?

  Terry Rogers, Vancouver. British Columbia brand can see both the past and the future in visions. My understanding is that time travel to the future would take a near infinite amount of energy and time travel to the past is impossible, but is viewing the past or future theoretically possible without actually traveling there. You want me to take this one?

• 42:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anybody?

• 42:14Michael Ian Black?

  No.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. So backwards time travel would take an extraordinary amount of energy because you have to curve that so the writer said it backwards. You'd have to curve the fabric of space and time, create a trajectory where you could then join your spacetime life at an earlier time. So that is theoretically possible. Traveling to the future, you don't need anything special, just travel fast. If you travel fast, your time takes much more slowly for you.

• 42:44Michael Ian Black?

  Or if you just live. I mean, we're time traveling to the future right now.

• 42:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are. We're time traveling at a rate of one second per second. But if you travel fast, then you will enter the future at a slower rate than the rest of us, as prescribed by Einstein's general theory of relativity.

• 43:00Michael Ian Black?

  So the second part is, can we view the past or future theoretically without actually traveling there? Is there some way?

• 43:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know of no way. No, no. Yeah. That was my guess. We are prisoners of the present, forever stuck in transition between the past and the future. Did you just make that up? Yeah. Good. Okay. It was good. Well, thank you, Michael, for those, for those questions. So, we've been comparing the reality and fantasy of living in medieval times through my interview with Game of Thrones star Isaac Wright. Let's check it out. When I think of the Middle Ages, I think of people in desperate need of science.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 43:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when you are seeing what people do as written and scripted, what are you thinking?

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you thinking, "Boy, I'm glad I don't live in..."

• 43:54Speaker 03

  I think more than anything, it's, "Look at this barbarism."

• 43:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The barbarism.

• 43:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 44:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if that is the world, and you're born into that world, do you even know it's barbaric? It just is.

• 44:06Speaker 03

  That's a very good point. I think, you know, relatively speaking, you're born into that world, you just survive it, you just...

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  500 years from now, will people be saying, "Oh, those barbaric years of 2016, I'm glad I don't live there."

• 44:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, given the way everything's given now, I think that's...

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. I mean, is there anything today that you would judge to be medieval, and you could just as soon not have any of it?

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Oh, I think religion is the number one.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  From medieval times.

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 44:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, well, it's, it's, it's, religion has strong roots in a time that's pre-science, basically.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. I think it would, for them, it was their kind of, it was their science.

• 44:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's an interesting observation, that religion was their science. So, in Game of Thrones, the gods are, are real, right?

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a certain amount of skepticism about them, and one of the academics that I spoke to said the reason that she loved the show so much was because if you asked a medieval person, what are the, what are the things they'd most like to see, they would say, "A resurrection and a dragon." And so, obviously, Game of Thrones has both of those, and nudity as well. So, it's, so, yeah.

• 45:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Female nudity especially.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. They need to work on the male nudity, but they need to up that. But, yeah.

• 45:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, what about sacrifice? That's something that's been with the human... There we call it civilization, like from the beginning. But in the case of Game of Thrones, we have people being burned just to please the gods so that you could win a battle.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Yes, so there's an idea that, for instance, the flesh and blood of a king is very valuable. This is also an idea we see in medieval Europe as well, but not in quite the same way. And so the child of one of the would-be kings is burned alive to ensure victory in battle.

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what intrigues me, and I wonder if you have insight into this. As a professional scientist, if there's something I don't understand, I just say, "I don't understand it." I'll investigate it further. In medieval times, if they didn't understand it, they would just invoke some supernatural explanation for it, and then that was that.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, being steeped, knowingly steeped in ignorance, there was no room for that. Everything had to have a cause and effect.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I suppose in Game of Thrones, you have, I mean, one of the things that really developed understanding and curiosity in Europe as part of the Renaissance were things like the telescope and the microscope. So, yeah, you already...

• 46:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both invented within ten years of one another, by the way.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Kind of extraordinary.

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Telescope and the microscope, yeah.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Extraordinary, isn't it?

• 46:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  So, yeah, so I think, and even when people were developing those technologies, there was still obviously quite a lot of debate about whether that was going against religion, whether that was prying into things that God didn't want human beings to know about. So, I suppose there's always got to be a way around that. In order for people to have that curiosity, they've got to try and find a way of squaring that with the predominant religious thought.

• 47:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I hadn't actually thought that through completely. But you needed that for there to be the full-up Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  I think there was a sufficient amount of curiosity, there was sufficient sort of organizations were starting to be founded, I suppose, slightly post the medieval period, but people were starting to sort of get together and form sort of science associations and meet and exchange ideas. And once that starts, I think it's very difficult, even for something like religion, to kind of stop it.

• 47:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something I hadn't fully appreciated. If you don't have an exchange of ideas, you can wallow in your own superstitions without the thoughts ever getting challenged.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  I can see.

• 47:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to pick up on a point that I began in the last clip there. At any given moment, is anyone actually saying to themselves...

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Boy, we live in backwards times. No. I bet back then, they were not even saying that. Back in medieval times, they're saying, "Wow, we've come a long way. Look how I now can cure this disease compared with my ancestors, or compared with even decades before." And I ask myself, what the year 2016 would look like? In the year 2116? How primitive will we be to them? How barbaric would we look to them? To try to make sure that we can look forward to tomorrow and not fear it? This, a point of view of the cosmic perspective.

• 48:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been watching StarTalk. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.