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Can I just say, I've watch the trailer for "Jessica Jones"
at least 400 times.
It looks fantastic.
And David Tennant as Kilgrave is genuinely terrifying.
And I think a big reason for that,
aside from his obsessive stalker tendencies,
is his ability to get into people's minds,
and make them do things that wouldn't otherwise do.
Thankfully, that kind of power can't exist in real life.
Can it?
You want to stick around to find out.
(upbeat rock music)
Welcome to Comic Misconceptions, I'm Scott.
And Netflix is set to premier "Jessica Jones" this weekend,
which means I obviously have not seen it yet,
so if you are watching this video in the future
after the show has premiered,
just know that this was recorded before then.
Any speculations I make about the show,
especially in regards to David Tennant's character,
Zebediah Kilgrave, aka Purple Man,
will be just that, speculations based off the trailer
and nothing else.
But holy cow, what a trailer!
Kilgrave looks to be a super creepy villain,
someone who is a lot different
than the villains we've seen in the MCU so far.
Sure, we've had some mind control stuff
in "The Avengers" and even "Agents of SHIELD",
but this is on a whole new level.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the character,
which shouldn't be a lot of you,
since I'm sure just about every other comic book channel
has probably made videos about him,
Purple Man, aka Kilgrave,
with one L in the show, but two Ls
in the comic for some reason,
is a former spy with purple skin
who has an interesting ability.
He emits pheromones that can be absorbed
either through skin contact or via inhalation.
These pheromones allow Kilgrave to control his victims
with simple verbal suggestion.
As they say in the trailer,
he has the power of mind control.
And while it's true that there are many things out there
than can influence our actions and behavior,
like color, weather, music, and so on,
brainwashing mind control is very theoretical,
and was even rejected in 1987
by the American Psychological Association,
calling it quote, "Unscientific,"
and quote, "Flawed to the point
"of being almost ridiculous."
Still, there is a kind of mind control
that is fairly well documented,
and puts its subjects in a highly suggestible
trance-like state that we've seen
from the "Jessica Jones" trailers.
Hypnosis.
I know, I know, Jessica specifically says, not once,
but twice that Killgrave's power isn't hypnosis.
But it's really, really close,
so close that I feel like it would be a missed opportunity
not to at least talk about it.
And while Jessica has had a lot of exposure
to Purple Man's powers,
who's to say that she knows every detail
about how it exactly works?
It's possible that there could be at least some
hypnotic techniques behind Kilgrave's powers
that allow him to be as effective as he is.
But what exactly is hypnosis?
Simply put, hypnosis is a trance state
wherein the subject is relaxed
and their imagination is heightened.
But most importantly,
the subject is tremendously suggestible.
It's a bit of a misnomer, though.
The word "hypnosis" was coined
by a 19th century Scottish surgeon named James Braid,
and is derived from the Greek "hypnos",
which means to sleep.
However, subjects in a hypnotic trance
won't actually be asleep.
In fact, they're hyper alert.
So, how does hypnosis work?
And can someone like Kilgrave hypnotize people
into doing horrible things
that they wouldn't otherwise do,
even endangering their own lives
or the lives of other people?
Well, for starters, we don't really know exactly
how hypnosis works.
But unlike mind control,
hypnosis is generally recognized as valid.
The predominant school of thought of how it works
has to deal with a person's conscious mind
and their subconscious mind.
Your conscious mind is all of the thughts
that are aware of, things that you are
explicitly focusing on.
But your subconscious mind is all the behind
the scene stuff that happens in your brain.
It's constantly working through problems
and automating tasks in the background
so you don't have to devote your attention
to every little thing that you do,
things like which shoe to put on first,
or how to hold a spoon correctly.
These aren't things that you need to consciously
devote your focus on.
You just do it.
Your subconscious mind takes over
so that your conscious mind can focus on
the tasks that do deserve your attention.
Like, hitting that thumbs up button.
Your subconscious is also responsible
for a lot of the problem solving that you do.
When you have those eureka moments,
and you get a great idea seemingly out of nowhere,
that happens because your subconscious
already worked it all out,
and simply forwarded that
to your conscious mind for approval.
And that's kind of the relationship
between the two minds.
The conscious mind works as a sort of filter
to the subconscious mind
which does most of the actual thinking.
The theory behind hypnosis,
and again, it is just a theory,
is that hypnotists can subdue a subject's conscious mind.
It gets rid of that mental filter,
and targets the subconscious directly.
And without those brakes that your conscious mind
puts in place, the subject is left with their
subconscious mind at the driver's seat,
leaving them feeling much more creative and impulsive.
Any suggestions made by the hypnotist
seem as though they are your own original ideas,
so you automatically act on them.
And this is exactly how Purple Man's powers
are reflected in the comics.
Jessica specifically states that Kilgrave's commands
don't feel any different in your head
than if you think it yourself.
In fact, it not only feels the same,
it actually feels better because the command is pure,
it's strong, it's there loud and clear.
This lines up perfectly with
the leading theory behind hypnosis.
Hypnotists can tap into your subconscious,
suggest commands, and you spring into action automatically.
You're aware of what you're doing,
but your conscious mind isn't around to inhibit
your thoughts and actions.
You just go with it because it feels like something
you genuinely want to do.
And that is frightening to me.
If you're wondering how to hypnotize your own friends,
you lunatic, there are a few methods.
The most well-known is probably that thing you've seen
where the hypnotist swings some kind of pendulum
in front of a subject's face,
and tells them to focus on it and nothing else.
And because they're focusing so intimately
on that one object, they tune out all other stimuli
around them, which allows the hypnotist
to lull them into the trance.
This is called hypnotic gaze induction,
and it does actually work,
but it's not used much these days.
The most common and effective method used today
is all about progressive relaxation.
The hypnotist speaks to a subject in a slow
and soothing tone to gradually relax them into hypnosis.
However, as this method implies,
it's all about progressive relaxation.
It doesn't happen all at once.
It can take quite a while for it to take effect.
Kilgrave's powers seemingly take hold instantly,
so he's clearly got something else up his sleeve.
In the comics, Purple Man uses unique pheromones
that produce psychoactive chemicals
which allow him to get into people's heads,
pheromones that Jessica Jones says induce a monomania,
or an obsessive exaggerated fixation with one thing.
Remember how that fixed gaze concept works?
A subject intensely focuses on one object,
typically a pendulum of some kind,
to the exclusion of everything else,
as the hypnotist talks to them in a low soothing tone,
causing them to enter a relaxed
and highly suggestible state.
Notice how in both the comics
and in the show trailer,
Kilgrave's victims cannot seem
to take their eyes off of him.
They don't even blink, they're so fixated.
He doesn't need any kind of object to swing
in front of people's faces
because thanks to his pheromones,
he is that object.
All righty, things are looking pretty good for Purple Man
essentially being a skilled
and chemically enhanced hypnotist.
However, there are quite a few important limits
to what hypnosis can achieve.
For starters, you can only hypnotize people
if they meet certain criteria.
They kind of need to want to be hypnotized
in the first place.
Not only that, but they need to genuinely believe
that they can be hypnotized.
Lastly, but certainly not least,
the subject has to be relaxed,
or at least comfortable.
And all of that would make it really hard
for Kilgrave to do the kinds of things that he does.
Also, hypnosis doesn't make a subject
100% completely submissive.
Two big key things that remain out of
the hypnotist's control are the subject's
personal sense of morality and safety.
Coincidentally, David Tennant,
who is playing Kilgrave in the Jessica Jones show,
once had a small role in a little-known show
called "Doctor Who", where he said this.
- You can hypnotize someone to walk like a chicken
or sing like Elvis.
You can't hypnotize them to death.
Survival instinct's too strong.
- That's actually pretty true.
Kudos, Doctor Who.
For all the very confusing science fiction you throw about,
you actually nailed this one.
This is brought up in the comics as well
with the general rule being
that a hypnotist can't make you do anything
you don't already want to do.
So, even if Kilgrave was
an incredibly influential hypnotist,
he still could never make this person jump,
or make Trish shoot herself,
or any of the other terrible things
he will presumably do throughout the series.
That's not to mention the awful things
he put Jessica Jones through in the comics,
like sending her to kill Daredevil
of the other truly evil things that he's done.
Of course, you could always just say that
Kilgrave's pheromones break through
all of these limiting factors.
That's what Jessica implies when she says
that he has the power to overpower people's wills.
Still though, even though Jessica makes it
explicitly clear that Purple Man's power isn't hypnosis,
based on what we've seen in the comics
and in the Netflix series,
I don't think the pheromones
can receive 100% of the credit here.
Purple Man is clearly using hypnotic
induction techniques to put his victims
in a trance state.
And the way that his powers work mimics
how hypnosis effects our subconscious mind.
His comic book pheromones
are simply the catalyst that take things to the extreme,
and make Zebediah Kilgrave
an unbelievably powerful and menacing villain.
What do you guys think?
Is Purple Man using hypnotism
alongside his pheromones to control people's minds?
Or is it purely the psychoactive pheromones,
and hypnotism doesn't play a role at all.
Have you ever been hypnotized?
I'd actually really like to know
what that experience is like.
You want to leave your comments down below.
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Once again I'm Scott.
And normally I'd see you right here on Friday
for another video, but I am definitely
gonna be binge watching "Jessica Jones" all weekend.
See ya.