Psychology of a Hero: FRODO BAGGINS - VoiceTube 看影片學英語

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Alan: This episode is brought to you by Squarespace,
the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence. Like me.
Jono: Radical acceptance is as much about accepting the things you cannot change...
Frodo: What must I do?
Jono: ...as recognizing, Do I need to step up? Because that's what morality requires.
Gandalf: Hobbits really are amazing creatures.
And because, since I can't escape this fate, what's the most amount of good I can do
with the cards I've been dealt.
Frodo: I will take the ring to Mordor.
Though...
...I do not know the way.
Alan: These films are a stunning feat of filmmaking.
It is mind blowing.
There's still possibly the best films ever made as far as just filmmaking craft.
Frodo: I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee.
Jono: And I love when Frodo pivots emotionally, from his own elation to being there for his friend.
Frodo: Here, at the end of all things.
Jono: And that is a very honorable thing to do.
Jono: Hello and welcome to Cinema Therapy.
I'm Jonathan Decker, licensed therapist, and I love movies.
This is...
Alan: Alan Seawright, professional filmmaker. I need therapy.
Are you going to give me some?
Jono: No. We're friends and I don't want to.
Alan: That would be a...
Hard rejection after hard rejection.
Alan: I was going to say, That would be a dual relationship, which is bad, but...
Jono: The real rea... Alan: He just doesn't want to.
Jono: That's the real reason. Alan: Which is good.
Jono: So today we're going to be doing a Psychology of a Hero episode on Frodo Baggins.
Alan: My second favorite hero.
Jono: Yes.
Alan: Oh, Mr. Baggins.
Jono: Frodo of the Shire.
We're going to be talking about the psychology of honor.
Alan: Okay. Interesting.
Jono: If we look at honor, it's three things.
It's doing what's right, it's following through,
and then it's the esteem and praise and adulation to be held in high honor.
And by all three definitions, Frodo meets the criteria.
Alan: Very honorable hobbit.
Jono: So why should we care? And what does this have to do with psychology?
Alan: That is a question I had.
Jono: Well, Dr. Po Chi Wu in his Psychology Today article, What has happened to the concept of honor?,
ask the question if honor still has a place in society,
or if it's an old fashioned notion.
Alan: Okay. Jono: What say you?
Alan: Yes. Honor does have a place in society, Jonathan.
Jono: And back to you, Jonathan. Okay.
Alan: Okay. No, look, honor is super important.
I think the the idea is honor gets de-emphasized,
because we have so many shows about anti-heroes and this and that and the other,
but we also have tons of media that is about the honorable character,
Alan: ...like the most popular series that there are. Star Wars - Luke Skywalker. Super honorable. Jono: Yeah.
Alan: Lord of the Rings - freaking everybody.
Jono: Captain America and Harry Potter. Like, all these characters.
The hero has honor and integrity.
The side characters may have less and we may find them more interesting,
but at the end of the day, we aspire to be like Frodo.
The reason I would say, psychologically, honor matters
is for our mental and emotional health.
The cognitive dissonance when you have a value and you don't hold to it can be excruciating.
Alan: Oh, it can be damaging.
Jono: Yeah. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And then when it comes to relationships, without honor there is no trust.
And without trust, there's no healthy relationships.
And then on a societal level, we see the rot and corruption
that we currently see all around us today.
So let's aspire to something greater.
Alan: The world's great.
Just... not.
There's nothing any of us can do.
We're all screwed.
Jono: Not on a macro level.
On a micro level, the world actually is pretty great.
Alan: It's okay.
Jono: On a macro level...
So, number one, honor is radical acceptance.
Gandalf: Frodo...
He must never find it.
Frodo: All right.
We put it away.
We keep it hidden, we never speak of it again.
No one knows it's here, do they?
Jono: So Frodo's trying to get rid of it. Trying to pretend that this isn't going on.
Alan: It's still hard to believe that that's a visual effect shot.
Alan: I literally can't pick the lines. Gandalf: There is one other...
...who knew that Bilbo had the ring.
I looked everywhere for the creature Gollum,
but the enemy found him first.
Gollum: [shrieks]
Jono: I was gonna say... Shire!! Baggins!!
Gandalf: Amidst the endless screams and inane babble...
Jono: But... So radical acceptance is the concept of, I spend my energy on the things I can control,
Jono: ...not the things I can't. Alan: Right.
Jono: And Frodo, right now, there's something that he doesn't want to deal with.
Frodo: That would lead them here!
Jono: Which... Who would want to deal with that?
Alan: I don't want to deal with that. This guy is going to try to deal with it.
Frodo: Take it, Gandalf.
Take it.
Gandalf: No, Frodo.
Frodo: You must take it.
Gandalf: You cannot offer me this ring.
Frodo: I'm giving it to you.
Gandalf: Don't tempt me, Frodo!
I dare not take it.
Not even to keep it safe.
Understand, Frodo.
I would use this Ring from a desire to do good.
But through me it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.
Jono: So Frodo's first... Frodo: But it cannot stay in the Shire!
Gandalf: No.
No, it can't.
Jono: So first is like, Let's hide it. Then he's like, Here, you take it.
Alan: Yeah, he's trying to get rid of it anyway he can. He doesn't want the responsibility.
Jono: Yeah, but I love that last shot.
Jono: His fingers close on the ring and he says, What must I do? Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And that, folks, is radical acceptance.
Frodo is trying to change a situation here.
Let's just pretend the problem doesn't exist. We never speak of it. We just...
Alan: Nobody knows it's here. Do they, Gandalf?
Jono: Right. And we do this with our problems. I mean, that's human nature.
We don't want to face up to things.
And then if we can, we'd prefer to hand it off to somebody else.
And radical acceptance is as much about accepting the things you cannot change,
as recognizing, Okay, at what point do I need to step up.
Because that's what morality requires.
Jono: And because since I can't escape this fate, what's the most amount of good I can do... Alan: Right.
Jono: ...with the cards I've been dealt. Right?
It could be a cancer diagnosis.
It could be, you know, a child who's struggling with different problems.
It could be any number...
Alan: It could be a breakup.
Jono: It could be a breakup.
It could be any number of things that are outside of our control.
So the question then becomes, All right, since I can't change this fate,
what can I do to be the best version of me in it and to do the most amount of good?
And that's one of the things I love most about Frodo.
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Squarespace. Defending the realm of Middle Earth since 3018 Third Age.
I have no idea how old Squarespace is.
Jono: Number two, honor is stepping up to do what must be done.
[overlapping angry voices]
Gimli: Never trust an elf!
[voices distort and fade away]
Alan: The sound design in this scene is so great. How everything...
...fades down and gets echoey and distant and he just starts hearing the black speech.
[the black speech intensifies]
Jono: But then, instead of being afraid and running from it...
Frodo: I will take it.
[arguments drown Frodo's voice]
Frodo: I will take it!
Jono: That's the best shot right there.
Jono: The best acting. Alan: The close up on Gandalf's face?
Jono: As he... Yeah.
Alan: It's so good.
Frodo: I will take the ring to Mordor.
Jono: And when you talk about half of acting is the reacting,
and half of directing is, like...
Frodo: ...I do not know the way.
Jono: ...to show the faces of everybody when he says it.
The amount of awe.
Alan: You know, the recognition from Aragorn.
Like, all he does is like raise his chin and change the set of his eyes.
And just from that you get he knows how strong these little hobbits are. Jono: Yeah.
Alan: He doesn't know things are going to be okay, but he knows that this is the best option.
And then you get Gimli just going, like, Well, it's not a dwarf, you know? Like...
Gimli: I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox.
Ohhh...
Alan: At least he's small.
Yeah.
Jono: When I was watching this scene for the first time and all the audio goes down on everybody else
and you hear the black speech and you see the fire rushing through.
If I were in Frodo's shoes, I'd be like, I'm out.
Alan: Yeah.
Jono: Like, all of these great, noble warriors...
Look at how quickly this thing just corrupted all of them in an instant.
And now they're all fighting and bickering, and I can see exactly what's going on.
Jono: I can feel the evil influence. And Frodo says, I will take it. Alan: Yeah.
This is why when people are like... Listen, I'm not disparaging Samwise Gamgee.
Samwise is arguably THE hero of the trilogy,
but when people, in order to build up Sam tear down Frodo and say, Frodo is not the real hero,
Jono: ...it's like, Frodo did what nobody else could do. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: You know, and this moment is such a heroic moment.
So you talked about earlier,
Jono: ...you still can't believe that earlier shot of Frodo and Gandalf is a visual effect shot. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: Watching this trilogy, the amount of mental gymnastics it would take...
Because I know sometimes it's...
Alan: Sometimes they're doing forced perspective shots,
sometimes they're comping things.
So they're shooting two different plates and compositing them together.
It is mind blowing to me, having watched them maybe two dozen times in the last 20 years,
they're still possibly the best films ever made, as far as just filmmaking craft.
It is mind blowing. And the quantity of it.
Jono: Yeah.
Number three, honor is using your time to make a difference.
Alan: I think I know what scene we're going to watch.
Alan: This scene is just so beautifully lit.
Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me.
I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.
Bilbo was meant to find the ring.
In which case you also were meant to have it.
And that is an encouraging thought.
Jono: So something that echoes through the story of Bilbo and Frodo is...
they both rather just be at home.
Alan: They're the hobbits. They want to, you know, have breakfast and elevenses.
Jono: Yeah, yeah. Alan: Second breakfast.
Jono: It reminds me of the scene in The Hobbit trilogy.
One of the better scenes where Bilbo is telling the dwarves...
Bilbo: Look, I know you doubt me. I-I know you always have.
And you're right. I often think of Bag End.
I miss my books.
And my armchair, and my garden.
See? That's where I belong.
That's home.
Jono: That he loves his home and his garden and his books and his chair,
and he misses all that.
But that makes him an asset, not a liability.
He says, Your home was taken from you, and I will help you get it back. Right?
He understands how important home is.
And I see a similar thing with Frodo.
Frodo would much rather be mucking about the Shire, goofing around with his friends,
you know, doing silly dances in the Green Dragon. But instead he's here.
And as Gandalf astutely reminds him, and this is part of radical acceptance,
You're here, so what are you going to do about it?
And this really solidifies for Frodo,
I'm going to use whatever I have to make a difference.
Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And then also the pity component, which is going to feed into our next clip.
Frodo learns that from Gandalf, and that takes us to number four, which is...
Honor is doing right by others and giving them a chance.
Samwise: Quiet you!
Gollum: [unholy shrieks]
Samwise: It's hopeless. Every orc in Mordor is going to wear this racket!
Jono: If that's not walking with a kid anywhere...
Gollum: That would kill us! Kill us!
Samwise: It's no more... Alan: One of my favorite uses of surround sound ever in a movie is actually in this scene.
AIt's like the big wide leading into this.
Alan: And his shriek is all in the back channels, and it just...
[groans] It just gets inside your brain.
Jono: "Now that I see him, I do pity him".
Gollum: ...if they be nice to us.
Take it off us.
We swears to do what you wants.
We swears.
Frodo: There's no promise you can make that I can trust.
Gollum: We swears to serve the master of the precious.
We will swear on... on the precious.
Gollum, Gollum.
Frodo: The Ring is treacherous. It will hold you to your word.
Gollum: Yes... on the precious.
Jono: Like Bilbo, Frodo show... What?
Alan: I just... I love Gollum so much.
Gollum: Give it to us, raw and wriggling.
Jono: And that's the thing is there are scenes where you're supposed to feel sorry for him, and you do.
But you still can't help but be amused at the thought of Andy Serkis...
...in a mocap suit, just really going for it.
Alan: And then the performance that the animators put into the character of Gollum.
It's one of the all-time great film performances and it's an animated character.
I mean, they had, you know, obviously mocap reference for physical movement and stuff
and they had his voice, but that's not what Andy Serkis' face looks like.
They had to do a lot of animation and it's so good.
Jono: For The most part, they are his mannerisms, like you're saying. But yeah, it's... incredible.
So Frodo here, he's doing the honorable thing and you have to balance honor
with being savvy, being smart, being wary.
Right? Because doing right by others and giving them a chance
doesn't mean letting your guard down,
or just giving someone your trust when it hasn't been earned.
Alan: Right. If you just by default trust people, you're just going to get taken advantage of.
And that's not honoring anyone.
Jono: Right. And so I think life experience can show you, Okay, here's how much I'm comfortable giving,
here's the amount of risk I'm willing to put into the situation.
Jono: And for some people, it's going to be very small. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: Right? But I can still do right by them.
Alan: Well, and it's so beautifully illustrated in this scene.
You can see, you know, we look at Gollum and when we cut back to Frodo and Sam,
Sam is looking at Gollum with disgust.
Frodo is looking at him with a mixture of what can I do to trust this guy?
Jono: Yeah.
Alan: Because I know I can't abuse him. Jono: Yeah.
Alan: And it's such an interesting dynamic to see.
And both of the actors, Sean Astin and Elijah Wood,
are just playing those emotions so well.
And it... Man, it's just such a good scene.
Like most of the scenes in these movies.
Jono: Speaking of Frodo and Sam, Frodo shows honor by sharing credit.
Samwise: I wonder if we'll ever be put into songs or tales.
Frodo: What?
Samwise: I wonder if people will ever say, Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring.
And I'll say, Yes, that's one of my favorite stories.
Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad?
Yes, my boy.
Samwise: The most famous of hobbits. Alan: The most famous of hobbits.
Samwise: And that's saying a lot. Alan: And that's saying a lot.
Frodo: You've left out one of the chief characters. Jono: You've left out one of the chief characters.
Frodo: Samwise the Brave. Jono: Samwise the Brave.
Alan: Are we just going to quote this whole scene?
Jono: "I want to hear more about Sam".
We could do it.
Here I go.
Alan: Okay.
Frodo: Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam. Jono: [utter gibberish]
Samwise: Don't make fun, Mr. Frodo. Alan: Don't go making fun, Mr. Frodo.
Samwise: You shouldn't make fun. I was being serious.
Jono: So was I, Sam.
Frodo: So was I.
Jono: Okay...
Samwise: Samwise the Brave. Alan: Samwise the Brave.
Jono: Okay, let me do that again.
Frodo wouldn't have made it far without Sam.
[applause]
Jono: So... shares credit.
Shares credit and glory.
Alan: We're so dumb.
Alan: Welcome to us, just... loving on this movie.
Jono: Shares credit and glory.
Jono: People don't share credit and glory out of a place of insecurity. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And then mask it and project this great confidence, and this look-at-me,
and this pompousness, and look at what I've accomplished.
And Frodo doesn't have any of that, which to me says that humility is honor.
Alan: Sure, that makes sense.
Jono: Of course, this journey is a hard one. It's a long one.
That's what she said. Damn it. I'm sorry.
As the journey gets more and more difficult,
we see that honor is finding the inner strength to see things through.
Alan: Okay... This, objectively, shouldn't work.
Like, why is he having this vision?
What is going on?
Jono: So why does it work? Jesus...?
Close enough.
Galadriel: This task...
Alan: Galadriel might be better than Jesus...
Jono: No. Well...
Galadriel: If you do not find a way, no one will.
Jono: Yeah, but knowing Tolkien's background, she's partially based...
Alan: Yeah, there's allusions all over the place.
She is. Aragorn is. There's all kinds of stuff.
Alan: But, no...
Jono: Gandalf dies and comes back all white.
Alan: Yeah, it comes back as Gandalf the White.
Jono: Yeah. All like, bright and shiny.
Alan: Glowy.
Jono: So why does the scene work?
Alan: It works so well, because...
I have no idea why.
I honestly don't know why.
Jono: But it does.
Alan: It does. But think about it. Let's... Let's pitch this scene. Jono: Okay.
Alan: We're pitching it to a production executive, right?
So, okay, Frodo has just come through Shelob's lair.
He barely defeated this giant spider and got away.
And then he's, like, struggling into Mordor.
It's his darkest hour, and he collapses on the ground in this rocky desert,
and lands face first on soft moss.
And then Galadriel shows up, glowing, and talks to him without opening her mouth,
and then picks him up, and we cut back to him being lifted by nothing.
Jono: You know how this scene works for me...
This scene works for me, actually...
It works better if it's literal instead of metaphorical.
Not they're just literally in the woods.
But you see earlier that she can communicate with just her thoughts to Frodo.
And I see her, wherever she is, reaching out to him with that power.
Alan: She is reaching out psychically. She's using the powers of Nenya, her Ring of Power.
Jono: Oh...
Alan: I'm a huge dork.
Neeeeeerd!
Alan: That's not something from the books. Jono: Yeah.
Alan: Even the psychic connections that they're able to do in the movies
are not, strictly speaking, from the books, but there's stuff like that in other...
The rest of Tolkien's legendarium, there's stuff like that.
Jono: To me, personally, it's kind of cheesy if Frodo is hallucinating or daydreaming it,
but it's super powerful if she's literally...
Alan: If it's literally happening. Jono: Like...
Alan: It also... I mean. Howard Shore...
Make things good.
Jono: This is very true. But she says, This task was assigned to you.
And if you don't find a way to do it, no one will.
That goes back to radical acceptance. Like, he has to find a way to get it done. And...
And... I don't know. I'm...
How often in your life as a husband, or a father, or a business owner, or otherwise,
have you done things that you didn't think you were capable of doing because you literally had to?
Alan: Oh, constantly. Jono: Yeah.
Alan: This is, like, half of my adult life is like, Well, that's literally impossible.
Two weeks later... Well, I did that, I guess.
Jono: Yeah.
Number seven honor is mourning with and comforting others.
Frodo: It's gone.
It's done.
Samwise: Yes, Mr. Frodo.
It's over now.
Jono: I imagine that would be a relief.
Frodo: I can see the Shire...
Jono: And before he couldn't.
Frodo: Brandywine River.
Bad End...
Alan: I love that for his remembering we push in on Sam,
Frodo: The Lights...
Jono: Yeah, let's talk about that after the clip. I want to hear your thoughts on that.
Samwise: Rosie Cotton dancing.
She had ribbons in her hair.
If ever I was to marry someone...
...it would have been her.
It would have been her.
Frodo: I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee.
Here, at the end of all things.
I wonder how many takes it took to time out that tear perfectly.
Jono: The things directors think about.
And you're still crying even as you are...
Alan: Of course, I'm crying!
I contain legions.
I can both emotionally invest in a scene and go, I wonder how the hell they did that.
Jono: I think that's what makes you good at what you do.
Alan: There we go.
Jono: So why do you think...
Why do you think the focus is on Sam while Frodo is talking about the Shire.
Alan: Two reasons. The direction is Frodo is laying back, eyes closed.
He's not performing a lot with his eyes closed, picturing, you know, the Shire,
which makes sense for what the character is doing.
You're not getting inside very much because the eyes are the window on the soul.
Right there.
And the other thing is acting as reacting, right? Direction is reaction.
Jono: Yeah.
Alan: Sam is reacting to what Frodo is saying, and we can see him, as we push in slowly on Sam,
we build up, build up, build up to where we get
the emotional release of him saying, Rosie Cotton dancing.
Jono: Yeah.
Alan: Which is...
Jono: Well, and you see...
Alan: Well done, Sean Astin.
Jono: You see Frodo and he's... The Ring's gone.
And he can finally remember home and remember good things.
And it's a peaceful moment for him.
And I as an audience member, I see them looking at Sam as...
Sam's not having the same emotional experience Frodo is.
Sam knows he's going to die on this rock with Frodo and he's in a place of...
Alan: He's mourning.
And Frodo is so elated to just have the weight gone
that he's not mourning yet.
Jono: Yeah. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And I love when Sam says that.
Jono: That Frodo pivots emotionally from his own elation to being there for his friend. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And it's such a beautiful moment of selflessness, and that is a very honorable thing to do.
And then, of course, the Eagles come. Weeeee!
And we get to number eight. Honor is accepting praise with humility.
Alan: I think I know what scene we're going to watch.
I was right...
Jono: I'm doing this to break you.
Alan: It's going to work.
King of Gondor: My friends...
You bow to no one.
Jono: Yes, we already showed the scene in our Aragorn video,
but we will show it in everything.
Alan: We will show the scene in every... in unrelated videos.
Jono: Yeah, definitely. Alan: In videos about freaking Pixar movies.
Jono: Just throw it in there. Alan: F you. It's the best scene ever in a movie.
Alan: Come on.
Jono: What I love about this scene is, the implication is, you know,
a lot of people, honestly, like, a lot of people online,
I see them saying that, Well, Frodo decided not to throw the Ring in.
And the only reason it went in is because Gollum attacked him,
and bit his finger off, and all this, that and the other.
And the implication is that one mistake doesn't undo your honor.
Alan: Right.
Jono: A moment of weakness, a moment of humanity doesn't undo who you are
and who you've been this whole time.
And I think that's such a powerful message,
because we can get hung up on, Well, Sam didn't do anything wrong ever.
And it's like, Well, okay... But Sam wasn't...
Alan: He had very few opportunities.
Jono: And that's not true because he was a [beep] to Gollum,
and that caused some serious problems.
Alan: Yeah.
Jono: Because the fact is, if Sam and Frodo had been compassionate to Smeagol,
Gollum may never have come back.
Alan: That's true.
Jono: You know what I mean?
So Sam's not perfect. He's amazing. But let's dial it down a little bit.
Alan: Who wants perfection?
Jono: Yeah.
Alan: Bleurgh. Boring.
Jono: There's no heroism with that.
Alan: There's no story there.
Jono: But Frodo' there. He's got an entire kingdom and the King and Queen bowing before him,
and he just looks completely humbled by it.
Alan: Yeah.
Jono: He has acted with honor, and now he is receiving honor.
And the beautiful thing, moving forward, when he goes off with the elves,
and realizes that he can't be in the Shire anymore,
there's no peace for him there, he's got too much trauma,
is that after honoring Middle Earth and honoring his friends,
Jono: ...and doing right by everybody else, he's finally going to honor himself. Alan: Yes.
Jono: And, you know, when it first came out, when I was younger and immature,
I always thought that scene was kind of cheesy, like, at the end.
And it's not. Like, I watch it now and it's freaking beautiful
because Frodo is honoring himself and he's asking his friends to honor that.
And they do.
And this is the psychology of honor. I hope you enjoyed it.
Alan: Frodo is great.
Who is that?
Jono: What are you...?
Alan: Figwit.
♬♬ Frodo ♬♬
♬♬ Don't wear the ring ♬♬
♬♬ I know it's very tempting ♬♬
Jono: Oh, my gosh...
Alan: True Lord of the Rings stans know what I'm talking about. Yeah, baby.
Aragorn: For Frodo.