(no subject)

[brushwolf]

I'm still thinking about Nimoy - I guess he was more important to my history than I thought of at first. (Back when I was a kid watching the series I wanted to be Sulu. Actually, what's this "back when" part?)

Something that characterizes Spock is that he's not Vulcan the same way he's not human, which means that where an actual full-blooded Vulcan would be irrational as all hell and never think twice about that being inconsistent (Sarek's a great example), Spock's conscious enough to try harder. Which is both noble and a deeply-rooted flaw. He's trying to be this rational ideal - humans aren't, and Vulcans definitely aren't - to the extent that he's hampering himself. Granted he's coming from an entire species with anger management problems and he has a believable perspective that he has to jam down the lid, tightly and at all times and on all his emotions, lest he become a particularly enthusiastic murderous berserker. But ultimately desperately trying to be completely cold and rational, is an irrational stance, especially because emotions are data on their own, and Spock winds up being strongest when he manages to pull off being both rational and emotional, something that makes him potentially way more ethical and compassionate than let's say, Kirk. And that's got to have been a kinda personal journey on Nimoy's part, too.

I think really that's kinda the strongest thing I could get out of old-skool Trek, really.

Comments

[fayanora]

Spock is the only Vulcan I've ever liked. Even Tuvok I never really liked. I think it's because the Vulcans as a race are utterly unrealistic. No being with emotions can shove emotions away like that without snapping and going totally apeshit, it doesn't work that way. Shove a lid down hard even on normal human emotions, and those emotions - which are still there - are going to ferment, turn toxic, and explode. I know this firsthand, because I had mild success doing the same thing for about 10 years, and they eventually came back on me like a pit of black acid that I'm still dealing with years after the lid exploded off.

And then, the Vulcans supposedly had even more intense emotions than humans, before they started pushing them down. So yeah, Vulcans would last maybe two or three generations before going completely bugshit and turning into a race of berserkers the likes of which would make Klingons look sane and calm, and probably blow each other to Hell until nothing was left of their species.

Lt. Cmdr. Data, at least, was realistic, never having had emotions to begin with. Though in his own way, he did kind of have emotions anyway, even before getting the emotion chip installed.

[fayanora]

Actually, correction: there was a movement of Vulcans in Enterprise who were about controlling their emotions, rather than shoving them away. I liked those guys. Much more realistic, their philosophy. They felt their emotions, but were not ruled by them.

[brushwolf]

Similar to the below - I missed nearly all of Enterprise.

I do think it does kinda work that way for the Vulcans though - the idea of someone invested in the idea that they're as rational and reasonable as they claim, while they're being complete bastards, is entirely too believable for me. Old-skool Trek - which I'm most familiar with, given what chunk of my life I had the most TV access - definitely has that in Sarek. Just how rational is it to always be disappointed in your son, especially because he reminds you of the woman you chose to marry, or because he basically chose a college different from the one you like? How rational is it for an ambassador to express disapproval of other peoples' cultures? The guy's a piece of work, and the entire time he's okay with his own lamentable behavior because his ego's so caught up in being the reasonable person.

[stardreamer]

(here via ysabetwordsmith)

I like the version of the "no emotions" thing that Diane Duane sets up in Spock's World. According to her, the entire idea that Vulcans suppress their emotions results from an error in an early version of the Universal Translator; the word that got translated as "suppression" would have been better expressed as "mastery". Vulcans have emotions, but they consider it very rude to show them in public, so they don't.

[brushwolf]

Thanks! I really haven't read a lot of the related books, so it's perspective I didn't have.

[thnidu]

I like that, and it's entirely reasonable that it comes from DD.