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Mini: Release the Hostage · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do Many I am
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
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  Speaker 1: a psychology podcast. We talk about all of the things
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  Speaker 1: that humans and non human animals do, and we sometimes
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  Speaker 1: do these we sometimes every week we do these short
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  Speaker 1: episodes that just a quick dive into a thing, and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes that dives into the history of a word.
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  Speaker 2: So today we are talking about the history of the
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  Speaker 2: word hostage, which seems to be in the lexicon these days,
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  Speaker 2: and so we're talking about this a lot. And I think,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, I'm excited to get into
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  Speaker 2: this because I like world history and I like some
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  Speaker 2: of the stuff that we're going to talk about.
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  Speaker 3: So I think this will be fun.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean you might hear that and be like, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's boring. I don't want to hear about the history
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  Speaker 1: of a word. But we're going to start with mythology. Mythology,
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  Speaker 1: not mythology. Mythology is different, yeah, different study mythology. Let's
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  Speaker 1: start with a little introduction here, which is that the
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  Speaker 1: meaning of words they shift and change over time, right,
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes unpacking the history of a word can actually
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  Speaker 1: help deep in our understanding and appreciation of our language
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  Speaker 1: if you can for English and how we got to
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  Speaker 1: where we are right and further, it can help us
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  Speaker 1: see how some of our language may have shaped broader
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  Speaker 1: cultural practices in a kind of unique way, which is
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  Speaker 1: the case with this word today. So let's talk about
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  Speaker 1: Norse mythology.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so, by the way, as a bonus recommend for
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  Speaker 2: this episode, if you get a chance to read Neil
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  Speaker 2: Gaiman's Norse Mythology book, it's incredible nice. So if you
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  Speaker 2: like American Gods and Sandman, he does a fictional accounting
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  Speaker 2: of Norse mythology and it is incredible. So anyway, lovely So,
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  Speaker 2: in Norse mythology, the gods typically belong to one of
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  Speaker 2: two tribes, the Asier spelled a R and the Veneer
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  Speaker 2: v A n I R. The Veneer gods used powerful magic,
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  Speaker 2: whereas the Seer gods did not.
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  Speaker 1: Now, these two tribes of gods in Norse mythology, they
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  Speaker 1: actually got along pretty well until the Veneer god Freya
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  Speaker 1: visited as Sir, also referred to apparently as Asgard under
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  Speaker 1: the pseudonym hither, which is spelled with letters that don't
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  Speaker 1: have a name in English.
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  Speaker 4: There you go.
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  Speaker 1: I mean some of them do, but some of them don't.
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  Speaker 1: And so Frea she's magical. She comes from this tribe
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  Speaker 1: of gods, the Veneer, who practice magic, and the as
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  Speaker 1: Guardians are very impressed with her magic abilities and they
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  Speaker 1: sought her help in many things because she was so
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  Speaker 1: powerful and had all these cool tricks that she could do.
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  Speaker 1: They're like, I need this thing. There's a god right
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  Speaker 1: there who can make things happen. I'm gonna go ask her.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's magic as hell. I love that.
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  Speaker 2: So eventually the as Guardians realize or decided that h
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  Speaker 2: Thor was sort of the cursed monkey paw wish grant
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  Speaker 2: her in that Freya i Thor was actually selfishly capitalizing
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  Speaker 2: on them whenever they employed her magic. So she was
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  Speaker 2: just basically benefiting from them using her magic.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, she'd she'd sort of give them what they wanted,
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  Speaker 1: but with a twist in a way that benefited her.
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  Speaker 1: So it was like it's a monkey's paw thing. It's like,
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this differently than than you sort of thought.
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  Speaker 1: There's there's a really the really funny sketch on the
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  Speaker 1: TV show What We do in the Shadows where they
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  Speaker 1: find a genie, the Gin, and he's he's trying to
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  Speaker 1: work out how to wish for the largest penis, and
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  Speaker 1: they're like, thinking of all the caveat they spend, like
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  Speaker 1: I want to say, days, thinking of all the ways
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  Speaker 1: the genie could misinterpret that, And right before he makes
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  Speaker 1: the wish, he puts in the caveat like you can't
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  Speaker 1: make it so that everyone else's penis in the entire
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  Speaker 1: world is super small. And the jin was like, was
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  Speaker 1: going to do that?
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  Speaker 3: That's pretty great. I think I love Monkey Paula jokes.
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  Speaker 3: That's pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: That's a really good one.
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  Speaker 4: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, so we're talking about thes Guardians here. They're really
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  Speaker 1: mad at Freya because they feel like she's been using
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  Speaker 1: them and sort of twisting their their wishes and whatnot,
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  Speaker 1: and they're upset and they hurt. They're hurt, and so
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  Speaker 1: now they call her Govig, which means gold greed. They're like,
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  Speaker 1: we're to call you names and we're to try and
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  Speaker 1: kill you, and so they try and kill her by
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  Speaker 1: burning her alive, but of course she is a powerful
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  Speaker 1: magic bean, and she simply re emerged after each attempted
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  Speaker 1: murder that they that they threw at her, and eventually
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  Speaker 1: this confrontation between Veneer and a Seer bursts into.
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  Speaker 4: An all out war.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so I told you this is gonna be exciting episode.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Now, the Aceer use traditional combat weapons whereas the Veneer
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  Speaker 2: used often subtle magic in it. Various times either side
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  Speaker 2: had the upper hand, but eventually they grew tired of
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  Speaker 2: battle and called a truce.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, and so as part of this truce, each side
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  Speaker 1: sent hostages to one another to help secure and ensure
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  Speaker 1: the terms of the truce. And so what happened is
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  Speaker 1: Freya and some rando who apparently was apparently important named
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  Speaker 1: Njord went to live in a Seer, while two new characters,
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  Speaker 1: High Neer and me Meir wents to live and Veneer.
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  Speaker 1: So essentially, the Veneer sent two people, Frea being one
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  Speaker 1: of them to Asgard and a Seer. The as Guardians
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  Speaker 1: sent two people to go live and Veneer, and those
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  Speaker 1: were called hostages.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so Freya and Njord lived peacefully in a Acier,
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  Speaker 2: but Hei Neer and Mimir had a more complex ending.
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  Speaker 2: So long story short, because mythology has all sorts of
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  Speaker 2: twist and turns no matter which mythology you're talking about,
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  Speaker 2: it's there's lots of I mean, there's like we have
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  Speaker 2: a whole mythology that you hear about all the time
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  Speaker 2: where like some guys you know, water into wine and
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  Speaker 2: like makes all this fish and bread and like that.
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  Speaker 3: Like he does all kinds of stuff. So and like
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  Speaker 3: he dies, he comes back three later, three days later,
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  Speaker 3: and he's his own dad. It's weird.
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  Speaker 2: So mythology is strange. So in this story long story short,
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  Speaker 2: Mamir was very bright and clever, while Hyneer was very
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  Speaker 2: simple and dumb. But Mameir gave hi Neeer advice which
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  Speaker 2: he constantly listened to and took, and the Veneer assumed
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  Speaker 2: that Himer was very clever and constantly used him for
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  Speaker 2: counsel and advice. When they discovered that he was actually
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  Speaker 2: a simpleton, they furiously killed Mameir and sent the head
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  Speaker 2: back to a seer.
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  Speaker 3: Lots of ears in this.
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  Speaker 1: Uh there are yeah, yeah, the words need to end
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  Speaker 1: in the sound ear apparently.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, so that is a sort of that is the
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  Speaker 1: Norse mythology piece here understanding. But as you might have
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  Speaker 1: caught on, what was kind of unique is that when
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  Speaker 1: they sent hostages, they sent the hostages who were natives
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  Speaker 1: to Veneer to live in a Seer and vice versa,
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  Speaker 1: like they as guardians sent natives of Asgard to go
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  Speaker 1: live in Veneer, and that was the hostage exchange and
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  Speaker 1: podcast the hostage Exchange is ads.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, okay, we're back.
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  Speaker 1: So, as I said, what I think was interesting about
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  Speaker 1: this story and why I wanted to talk about this
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  Speaker 1: is because of its like the way to communicate the
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  Speaker 1: use of that word as it related to Norse mythology
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  Speaker 1: seemed very fun to me.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, well the word hostage here, and as I said,
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  Speaker 1: when they sent that they were the native, the people
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  Speaker 1: who belonged to those different tribes to live with the
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  Speaker 1: other tribes. And in fact, these were very important people,
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  Speaker 1: right like Frey. It wasn't just someone, She was very important,
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  Speaker 1: right and she was the one who left and went
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  Speaker 1: to live at them. So the original word hostage and
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  Speaker 1: old French possibly hostage it meant kindness, hospitality, rent, tribute, compensation,
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  Speaker 1: and guarantee. I think it evolved through sort of different meanings,
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  Speaker 1: but you can see sort of the.
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  Speaker 4: Through line that kind next them.
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  Speaker 1: It has to do with this a lot of it
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  Speaker 1: being sort of a resident, if you will. I think
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  Speaker 1: this is a very common one. But in a way
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  Speaker 1: that like hospitality was always really important back in this
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  Speaker 1: time and still it is to some people. And this
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  Speaker 1: may have a work emerged from the word host which
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  Speaker 1: is called hoste meaning guest host or landlord, and that
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  Speaker 1: sort of turned into hostage and became hostage. And so
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  Speaker 1: you can see how like hostage and host and that
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  Speaker 1: how they have like very similar roots, which is kind
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  Speaker 1: of I think interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Now, in this sense, the word hostage
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  Speaker 2: referred to somebody who serves as a security or a
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  Speaker 2: guarantee for the fulfillment of an agreement. Right, hostage was
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  Speaker 2: a citizen of the country. Brokereen peace offered us a
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  Speaker 2: tribute to the enemy as a way to say, here's
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  Speaker 2: one of my important people. I send them to you
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  Speaker 2: as a guarantee that we will both hold our end
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  Speaker 2: of the bargain with this peace treaty. And of course
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  Speaker 2: this was typically in exchange, so both parties would get
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  Speaker 2: usually important figures from the other side.
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  Speaker 3: It was it was an exchange. It was a mutual exchange.
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  Speaker 1: And you can kind of follow the logic here like,
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  Speaker 1: if I send you someone who's really important to us,
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  Speaker 1: and then we go back and we sort of renege
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  Speaker 1: on our deal, then our enemy might harm the person
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  Speaker 1: we sent to them. So it symbolically represents I'm sending
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  Speaker 1: you someone I do not want to have harm come
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  Speaker 1: to them, because I know that if I hold up
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  Speaker 1: my end of the deal and I'm good to your people,
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  Speaker 1: you hold up my end of the deal, you're good
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  Speaker 1: to our people, and we can we maintain the peace.
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  Speaker 1: Then like then that that sort of it's embolicy, but
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  Speaker 1: very like practically represents that commitment to the shared value
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  Speaker 1: of like peace at that time, Right, it'd be like
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  Speaker 1: if the US sent their vice president to go live
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  Speaker 1: in another country and that country sent their vice presidents
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  Speaker 1: to us to secure a peace treaty, assuming we needed
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  Speaker 1: and want and assuming we cared about losing our vice president,
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  Speaker 1: which you currently don't, that would be sort of like
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  Speaker 1: the analogous situation.
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  Speaker 2: Right exactly now, at this point in time, the hostages
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  Speaker 2: in the old sense were essentially gifts to ensure peace.
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  Speaker 2: So how did hostage come to mean prisoner of war? Well,
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  Speaker 2: that's kind of unclear, but you can kind of see
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  Speaker 2: a very similar idea in what we understand of hostages today, right,
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  Speaker 2: rather than give someone to guarantee peace, you take someone
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  Speaker 2: to leverage them as a bargaining chip to try to
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  Speaker 2: negotiate piece. Not super different practically or like from a
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  Speaker 2: functional standpoint, but super different thematically. Like it there may
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  Speaker 2: be some some more coercion involved in this type of scenario.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the moral honor and like, yeah, feeling in the
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  Speaker 1: execution of it, if you will, is very different, but
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  Speaker 1: the function's pretty much identical.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: It's unclear if people started taking hostages and like some
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  Speaker 1: bastardized attempt to leverage the idea of hostages during war,
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  Speaker 1: or if that like just emerged as a wartime practicality,
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  Speaker 1: Like we're going to capture enemies anyway, and so like
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  Speaker 1: we can then use them. I would kind of guess
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  Speaker 1: the latter about it. I don't actually know, but like,
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  Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to imagine that they're like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: we have always used the strategy where we'll send then
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  Speaker 1: someone will send our enemy someone of ours so that
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  Speaker 1: they will know that we're committed to this piece. And
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  Speaker 1: then they're sort of like, how about we send them
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  Speaker 1: someone that's important to them? But we don't hold on.
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  Speaker 1: We will hold on to them until, like we're basically
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  Speaker 1: manufacturing that exchange rather than in a good faith negotiation
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  Speaker 1: putting forth like what that exchange would entail.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So basically, what's really fascinating is that hasAge used
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  Speaker 2: to mean a person, usually of high esteem, surrendered to
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  Speaker 2: the safe keeping of the enemy to ensure investment in
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  Speaker 2: a peace treaty.
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  Speaker 3: Now it operates.
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  Speaker 2: The same way, but it's a little bit different in
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  Speaker 2: how we get there. Like the outcome is similar, but
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  Speaker 2: how we get there is a little bit different.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway, I just thought that that was a
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  Speaker 1: fun excursion, Yeah, into understanding the word hostage, and by
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  Speaker 1: couching it in you also get a lesson in Norse mythology.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
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  Speaker 1: Cool.
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  Speaker 3: I love it. Thank you for that.
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  Speaker 4: You're very welcome.
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  Speaker 1: All right, So anyway, thank you so much for listening.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you for recording with me today, Shane. If you
• 12:16
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  Speaker 1: of people who have committed to supporting us on Patreon
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• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that we can show that.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I love that.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: But if you'd like to tell us your thoughts on
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the word hostage or anything else about in this Norse mythology,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: or just tell us hi, or share any thoughts in general,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: you can email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: You can reach us on the social media platforms. Thank
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: you so much to my team of people for helping
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: make this podcast with me. Thank you everyone who is
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: here for listening, old or new or whatever. We appreciate
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you being here. Is there anything that I forgot it
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: that you would like to add before we say oh goodbye.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Shane, Nope, I think that covers it all.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Well, then I think we're good. So this is Abraham,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: This is Shane. Why We Do What We Do? Mini
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: is out.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day.