Rick and Morty: Why Morty Matters

Here’s why #MortyMatters on Rick and Morty and why it’s perfectly okay to be a Morty.

Transcript provided by Youtube:

00:00
“Go to school, Summer. I’ll go in Morty’s memory and do a little.”
00:04
Rick often plays God,
00:06
“If God exists, It’s f***ing me!”
00:08
while Morty is a mere mortal.
00:10
But Rick himself certainly values Morty, enough to want to spend all his time with the boy,
00:15
and if we dig deeper it becomes clear that Morty’s actually just as essential to the
00:19
Rick and Morty universe,
00:20
or rather, to all the Rick and Morty universes, as Rick is, and for good reason.
00:27
So here are the key reasons we can see for why Morty matters.
00:30
By the way, stick around at the end of this video,
00:32
and we’re going to tell you how to get a major discount on some really cool Rick and Morty
00:36
gear we came across.
00:37
“You two call yourselves geniuses, but you’ve spent this time learning nothing!
00:41
Come with me into the forest — there’s something I wish to teach you.”
00:46
“There’s a heavy theme of creator and createe in Rick and Morty.”
00:52
The dynamic of father and son or creator and creation is reflected in Rick’s contentious
00:57
relationships
00:58
with his creations.
01:02
But while of course they’re literally grandfather and grandson,
01:09
thematically, the father-son story is a key part of Morty’s relationship with Rick.
01:14
Father-son narratives have been around for thousands of years,
01:18
not just as a way of talking about literal parents and children,
01:21
they are humanity’s way of dealing with our complicated feelings on life’s key principle
01:26
—
01:27
new will inevitably replace old.
01:29
Stories based on an “Archnemesis Dad” reflect our pain due to the inevitability of life
01:34
cycles.
01:35
In Greek mythology, Cronos, the youngest of the titans, overthrew his father to become
01:40
ruler,
01:41
then became paranoid that his children would overthrow him,
01:44
and decided to kill all his own kids by eating them, as a precaution.
01:48
But one baby, Zeus, was hidden by his mother in a cave,
01:52
and grew up to kill Cronos and become king of the gods on Olympus.
01:55
Perhaps the most iconic example of the Archnemesis Dad trope is Star Wars, with Luke and Darth
02:01
Vader.
02:02
“You killed him.”
02:03
“No. I am your father.”
02:06
A key message of these narratives is that fighting the inevitable only helps it come
02:11
to pass.
02:12
In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, a prophecy says that the baby Oedipus will kill his father
02:17
and marry his mother.
02:18
All of his parents’ efforts to avoid this only make sure that these events do in fact
02:23
happen.
02:24
And Harry Potter features an original take on the same motifs.
02:27
Voldemort hears a prophecy saying Harry would kill him, so he tries to kill the young boy.
02:32
But in the process, the powerful wizard inadvertently plants a bit of his soul in Harry,
02:37
giving the young boy unique powers and acting as his “creator” in a way.
02:42
Harry, thereby strengthened, grows up to become Voldemort’s downfall, and fulfills the prophecy.
02:47
All of these stories demonstrate the pain we feel knowing we’ll die and be replaced.
02:52
But we can’t prevent this universal destiny, so characters who try to fight this natural
02:57
life cycle are punished.
02:58
And the dad who tries to stop his son from replacing him by squashing new life
03:03
becomes a villain at war with the nature of life itself.
03:06
As we’ve seen, the “Archnemesis Dad” trope can apply to any Parent-Child, Creator-Creation,
03:11
or Student-Teacher duo.
03:13
Any relationship that is fundamentally about the old passing on knowledge or life to the
03:17
young
03:18
or the young searching for their place in the world.
03:20
Rick and Morty aren’t father and son, but their relationship eerily follows this classic
03:25
Archnemesis Dad narrative.
03:27
Early on in the show, Morty admires Rick and tries to mimic him,
03:31
spending much more time with Rick than with his actual father.
03:34
Morty’s time with Rick is an apprenticeship of sorts,
03:37
though he learns more about controlling Rick than about actual science.
03:41
He can now see through Rick’s petty behavior and disable a nutrino bomb in minutes.
03:45
“You should still stay back!”
03:47
“Morty, how many of these –”
03:48
“Too many, Rick! Too many!”
03:50
Rick, meanwhile, seems hellbent on asserting his dominance and keeping Morty’s ego in
03:54
check.
03:55
“Just don’t get too big for your loafers, Buster Brown.
03:57
A cocky Morty could lead to some big problems.”
03:59
This underlying dynamic explains why Rick so often feels the need to put Morty down.
04:04
His behavior echoes many of the Father-Son stories
04:07
in which the father tries to keep the son from gaining any power, fearing displacement.
04:12
Their time together transforms Morty — he becomes increasingly jaded and callous.
04:16
“Mr. President. If I’ve learned one thing today,
04:17
it’s that sometimes you have to not give a f***!”
04:21
And most importantly, his attitude towards Rick changes drastically.
04:25
He’s now disillusioned with Rick’s behavior, ethics and approach to life,
04:29
“Come on, bird person. Rick’s that complicated!
04:32
He’s just a huge asshole!”
04:33
He sees through the bravado to the egotism beneath.
04:36
Rick’s pedestal has now cracked.
04:38
“He bails on everybody! He bailed on mom when she was a kid! He bailed on Tiny Planet!
04:43
And in case I never made this clear to you, Summer, he bailed on you!”
04:46
The “Archnemesis Dad” narrative has already been overtly featured on Rick and Morty in
04:51
the Evil Morty storyline.
04:52
Here we saw a bitter, cold Morty who hates “Ricks of all kinds” and devotes his time
04:57
to killing them.
04:58
This Morty possesses the solidified adult identity and goals
05:01
that every “son”’ figure must search for and eventually achieve,
05:05
and this role seems to be ridding the multiverse of Ricks.
05:08
The question that remains is whether our Morty will renounce Rick.
05:11
In Morty’s Mind-Blowers, we saw what might have been the final straw
05:14
as Morty snapped and actually attacked Rick.
05:17
And in Ricklantis we see what appears to be Evil Morty returning
05:21
and making a bid for city council in the Citadel of Ricks, suggesting bigger upheavals to come.
05:26
If Rick’s story reflects the fear of inevitably growing old and becoming irrelevant,
05:31
Morty’s story reflects the challenges of growing up.
05:33
There’s a crushing realization that hits everyone sometime post-puberty –
05:37
finding your place in the world doesn’t happen automatically.
05:40
Becoming an adult is really hard and seems to inevitably involve becoming disillusioned,
05:45
disappointed or angry with your parental figures.
05:48
“I’m sorry! I ended up lying to you and yelling at you just like my parents did to me.”
05:52
The creator-creation life cycle eventually requires the creation or son to become his
05:57
own person
05:58
and that means renouncing your idols
06:00
or at least realizing idols are human, just like everyone else.
06:04
“My father kept me locked in a house until I was a teenager.
06:09
and there was violence and…threats of poison gas.
06:15
But also dancing.”
06:17
In many ways, Morty is Rick’s polar opposite.
06:20
He’s naive where Rick is cynical, anxious where Rick is confident.
06:24
Rick walks all over people, people walk all over Morty.
06:28
“Glenn’s bleeding to death! Someone call his wife and children!”
06:33
“They’re not robots, Rick!”
06:35
“It’s a figure of speech, Morty! They’re bureaucrats! I don’t respect them!”
06:41
Morty asks a lot of questions while Rick has all the answers.
06:44
Rick seemingly doesn’t care about anything, Morty cares too much about everything.
06:49
Their differences make Rick and Morty an odd couple,
06:52
a classic comedic pairing based on two characters’ differences.
06:56
Some of the show’s inspirations were odd couples as well,
06:59
like Phineas and Ferb, and Doc Brown and Marty McFly.
07:03
Clashing personalities often result in comedy gold.
07:06
Rick and Morty being dysfunctional polar opposites makes us think
07:09
that maybe combined, they could make one functional person,
07:13
which is probably why the fan theory that Morty is actually Rick’s younger self is
07:16
so popular.
07:18
There are obvious holes in this theory, like does that make Beth both mother and daughter
07:22
to the same man?
07:23
The show’s creators avoid definitive explanations like this, for fear of writing themselves
07:27
into a corner,
07:28
and they prefer just messing with fan conspiracy theorists,
07:31
for example by placing a Rick-Morty hybrid in The Citadel of Ricks.
07:35
So Rick and Morty may not secretly be parts of the same person,
07:39
but Morty is definitely the thing that’s missing from Rick.
07:42
So watching a show with just Rick without a Morty would probably feel sad.
07:50
Rick and Morty also fit the bill for hero and sidekick.
07:53
Being a brilliant man of science who can’t stand most people and cares about little other
07:57
than his work,
07:58
Rick is an anti-hero type called “The Insufferable Genius.”
08:01
Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Who and House all fall into this category.
08:06
Insufferable Geniuses typically need a sidekick to help them navigate the world,
08:10
due to their complete lack of social skills and their egotism.
08:13
They’re often paired with someone more conscientious and likeable, a type called the Morality Pet.
08:18
“You have got to find less debilitating outlets than humiliating people.
08:23
I hear bowling is more fun than stalking.”
08:27
Morty compensates for Rick’s lack of a moral compass,
08:30
calling out some of Rick’s most ethically questionable behavior, like enslaving a miniverse
08:34
or dealing arms.
08:35
“Selling a gun to a hitman is the same as pulling the trigger!”
08:38
The Morality Pet bridges the gap between the Insufferable Genius and the rest of the world.
08:43
It’s a special character who can understand both the inaccessible brain and everyone else,
08:48
and translate between the two.
08:50
While Morty may not be as glamorous or get called a genius,
08:53
it’s the Rick who truly needs the Morty, and not the other way around.
08:57
“All right! Knock it off! You’re not impressing anyone.
08:59
Morty, not that I give a [bleep], but are you okay?”
09:03
Even though everyone thinks Morty is mentally challenged, including his family, teachers
09:08
and even the Vindicators.
09:09
“Oh, so you’re the leader now because we gave you a jacket?
09:12
You’re the learning-disabled kid we do photo ops with!”
09:14
From what we witness he’s actually very wise.
09:17
He’s not cerebral like Rick, but Morty’s genius lies in his ability to identify other’s
09:22
emotions
09:23
and understand what to do with this insight.
09:25
In other words, he’s emotionally intelligent.
09:28
For example, in “Get Schwifty,” Morty knows exactly how to help his dad feel valuable.
09:32
“Hey, dad? Nobody’s smarter than Rick. But nobody else is my dad. You’re a genius at
09:39
that.”
09:40
“Wow.”
09:41
At this point, Beth thinks Jerry is insecure about his intelligence,
09:44
but Morty knows that the real source of his father’s insecurity
09:47
is the fear that Rick is displacing him as a father figure for Morty.
09:51
Morty also correctly predicts that Jerry will buy into the Plutonians’ fake admiration
09:55
of him,
09:56
understanding that Jerry is driven by a desire for fame and admiration.
10:00
“Oh man, this is definitely going to go to his head!”
10:03
Unlike Morty, Rick is actually not very smart when it comes to people’s emotions and motivations,
10:08
possibly because he just doesn’t care very much about feelings.
10:12
“Goodbye!”
10:13
“So did you guys make out a little bit? Is he gonna send you a postcard?”
10:18
He builds Beth a perfect kids’ fantasy land to stop her from acting out,
10:22
and never recognizes that what she really needs is more attention from her father.
10:25
“You can’t do it, can you? You can’t just [bleep] apologize.”
10:29
“Okay, okay, Beth. I’m sorry. You think you deserve an apology.”
10:33
But Morty knows exactly how his mother feels about Rick and tries to keep her from getting
10:37
hurt.
10:38
“Rick, I can handle it if you go , but you’ll break mom’s heart, and I won’t forgive
10:43
you for that.”
10:44
And he knows his dad is depressed after the divorce, so he convinces Rick to take Jerry
10:48
on an adventure.
10:50
Rick is the brains of the show, and Morty is its heart.
10:53
As the heart, Morty also has an intuitive understanding of ethics and decency.
10:57
He pushes Rick to treat others with more concern and fairness.
11:01
“Thank you, Morty. You are not like other carbon-based life forms. You put the value
11:05
of all life above your own.”
11:07
Morty’s intellect isn’t as easy to recognize as Rick’s,
11:10
because our society places less value on emotional intelligence.
11:14
We tend to view it as inferior.
11:16
But while Morty’s smarts aren’t appreciated, the people around him clearly depend on Morty.
11:20
So his form of intelligence does a lot of good in his world.
11:25
This one might probably make a lot of the would-be Ricks in the Rick and Morty fanbase
11:29
furious,
11:30
but if there’s any character in the show that represents the audience — it’s Morty.
11:35
Morty is the ‘normie’ of the show.
11:36
He reacts the way a real person would when placed in these situations,
11:40
mostly by being completely terrified and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
11:43
“That’s it! I’m done with these insane adventures! That was really traumatizing! I quit! I’m
11:48
out!”
11:49
He’s constantly horrified by Rick and by what they experience together,
11:53
so that we don’t have to be, letting us just sit back and enjoy the show.
11:58
Also, Morty has an anxious tendency to ask a lot of questions,
12:01
“So what’s so special about these seeds anyways?”
12:04
“You ask a lot of questions, Morty. Not very charismatic.”
12:07
which conveniently allows the writers to slip in exposition without forcing it.
12:11
If it wasn’t for Morty, we would probably be confused most of the time, since Rick’s
12:15
behavior is erratic at best.
12:17
While most of us have probably thought about what it would be like to be a Rick,
12:21
there’s nothing inherently bad in being a Morty,
12:24
and maybe this video has even convinced some of you that being a Morty has its merits.
12:29
So maybe it’s a good thing that he has more questions than answers.
12:33
Like most of us, Morty is still figuring out who he is and what his life is going to be
12:37
like.
12:38
And maybe we should ask more questions too.
12:41
Do you sometimes get the urge to yell?
12:46
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12:47
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12:51
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12:56
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12:58
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13:01
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13:07
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13:11
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13:14
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13:18
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13:22
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