Dan Harmon Says ‘Rick and Morty’s Obsession With Clones and Multiverses Is Based in the Nature Versus Nurture Debate
Rick and Morty is a highly intellectual show that, despite being a cartoon, is happy to tear into some big questions. I absolutely hate itting this, because there’s already a horrific surplus of intolerable fans who think they’re the only ones with the MENSA-level brainwaves to understand it. The kind of people who think Myers-Briggs tests are stupid unless they get one of the results that says they’re really thoughtful and smart.
Keeping the show’s penchant for large intellectual prey in mind, it’s usually a good bet that even gags that seem pretty straightforward have a larger curiosity behind them. This applies to one of the show’s most central driving engines as well: the existence of multiple universes and hence, multiple Ricks, Mortys and so on. At first, it might just seem like a creation of convenience, like when Marvel realized how much money they could make if there were 80 Spider-Men.
But according to Dan Harmon in a recent interview with io9, the prevalence of clones and multiverses comes from a much deeper place than a simple cheat code for infinite plot lines. It’s all an opportunity for him to reflect on one of psychology’s toughest cookies — the nature versus nurture debate. He explains, “That’s what clone-related stuff, and multiversal, which is essentially a clone of you, is for me. The question of like, who are you? What makes you? Is it a bunch of hormones? Is it your pancreas? Is your brain a pilot in a Voltron that you’re steering around? Is it because your parents were mean to you?”
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The introduction of not only clones but multiverses also brings the idea of fate into the mix, so it’s no surprise that it became a central piece of one of our headiest cartoons. Between the ideas of predetermined fate and tabula rasa, you get a little Reese’s cup made of the combination of two endlessly debatable philosophical chestnuts.
It’s yet another intellectual quandary I’m sure super-fans will love discussing endlessly on Reddit. To them, I encourage the exploration of one distinct possibility: Is there a universe in which you’re a huge fan of Rick and Morty, but don’t have to own eight T-shirts about it?
