From: v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: Locarno = Kirk (Spoilers "First Duty"))
Date: 16 Apr 92 02:54:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Apr15.235653.7510@uunet.uu.net>, kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes...
>kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes:
> > I admit we didn't see Kirk break down in TOS.  Yes, he did indeed
> > "put on a happy face" after many misadventures and close calls.
> > _This is what men were supposed to do._  Men simply did not whoop
> > and cry on TV in the sixties.  Particularly not leaders.  Kirk
> > held it in because duty and custom demanded that he do so.
> 
>v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey) writes:
> > The examples that prove the point.  Kirk didn't "whomp and
> > cry" in TOS at all.  Why?  TWOK is telling us it is because he
> > never let death get inside him.  You are telling us it is
> > because it was "the sixties and men didn't do that."  Your
> > reasoning is fine, but you are reasoning outside the dramatic
> > action.  Tim and myself, and TWOK, are reasoning WITHIN it.

>Nay, you're ignoring the examples I've posted showing that Kirk
>did feel, and was in fact affected by death.  Whooping and crying
>just wasn't one of the ways Kirk expressed himself.  Try to keep
>your gorge down and think about how Kirk reacted when M5 was
>mowing down all those starships.  If he were as uncaring and
>monomaniacal ("I can not lose!") as you say, then he would have
>bene sitting there thinking "If I were out there, I wouldn't let
>this compiter beat me and destroy MY ship."

     I don't think anyone has tried to characterize Kirk as
     uncaring.  He definitely was not uncaring, nor was he
     monomaniacal.  
     I don't think anyone, especially me, is trying to say
     that Kirk went through life actually saying to all and 
     sundry, "I can't lose!"  
     My opinion: Kirk never took the KM lesson "how we deal with
     death is at least as important as how we deal with life"
     to heart.  He gave death no consideration and, even when
     deaths occured, like Mitchell and Edith, he never truly
     faced them head on.  I think that should be "I have never
     lost totally."  Kirk had a cocky adolescent belief that 
     there was no such thing as a no-win scenario.  He spent his
     career turning "death into a fighting chance to live" and
     was never forced to change his mind on that.
     He even taught that "how we deal with death..." lesson to
     other cadets (Saavik), but never truly believed it.
     Because of his talent and skill, Kirk never learned until
     midlife a lesson most of us are forced to learn young.
     That doesn't mean I think, or anyone thinks, Kirk is a dick
     or an "uncaring" "monomaniacal" bastard.  Quite the contrary -
     TWOK is saying, "This is the price of being a hero."

>Just how much whooping and crying would have been required in TOS
>to change your mind?

     None.  I don't have any problem with Kirk being "a man's man"
     and a hero in TOS, because TWOK takes a look at the "man's man"
     and the "hero" as a PERSON for the first time, and that's 
     worth all the TOS posturing you can think of to me.

>TWOK's characterization of Kirk stands out like a tumor.  But it
>was a subplot of little consequence so it can be excised without
>hurting the movie.

     You're the only one I have heard put it quite so negatively.
     (And not many people, I gather, take it as a negative point).
     And it certainly wasn't a subplot of little consequence - if
     you think so I would conjecture (with no malice) that you
     have missed the point of the movie.


                ^She's My Cousin But Doesn't She^
                      ^Look Almost Exactly^
           ____________^Like Laura Palmer^____________
          ^Scott Gorcey, v075q5fr@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu^