From: kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones)
Subject: more Kobiyashi
Organization: UUNET Technologies, Inc
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 21:52:22 GMT

kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes...
 > I disagree.  Kirk had faced the no-win scenario before ST2, and
 > he did not freeze.  In "City on the Edge of Forever" Kirk let
 > Edith Keeler die, even though he paid a horrible emotional price
 > for it.  In "Where No Man Has Gone Before" Kirk killed his best
 > friend Gary Mitchell when there was no other alternative.  In
 > "The Menagerie" Kirk was prepared to sentence Spock to death for
 > his mutiny and subsequent violation of General Order 7 (?
 > whatever the stay-away-from-quarantined-planets order is).

v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey) writes:
 >      True, but the movie obviously didn't take these things into
 >      account.  We have to assume that the loss of Spock is 
 >      the most ^catastrophic^ thing that has ever happened to him,
 >      that in the face of Spock's death, everything else Kirk has
 >      ever lost is demoted to simply "horrible."

OK, I'll accept this.

 >      Here's a piece of the scene, verbatim:
 >      David: Lieutenant Saavik was right.  You never have faced death.
 >      Kirk (sits): No, not like this.  I cheated death.  I tricked my
 >      way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity.
 >      I know nothing.
 >      David: You knew enough to tell Saavik that how we face death is
 >      at least as important as how we have life.
 >      Kirk: Just words...
 >      David: But good words.  That's where ideas begin.  Maybe you should
 >      listen to them.

What this scene shows is that Kirk knew as much as any man knows
about how to face death.  He also realized that "mere words" just
aren't enough when facing a loss of that magnitude.  Kirk felt
recriminations about not taking the Kobyashi simulation, just as
anyone goes through "what if's" after a death, but when he had
healed a bit I'm sure he realized that enduring the simulation
would have made little difference.

 >      I think this is, in a way, the most important scene in the movie for
 >      Kirk - perhaps Kirk's most important moment ever as a character.

I disagree strongly.  I think Kirk's most important moment as a
character was when he realized that he needed the Enterprise.  He
finally realized that ist was more than just power and prestige.
He had that as an admiral.  He needed it all--- the adventure and
the challenge along with the power.

 >      He thinks of himself as always coming up on top.  That he never
 >      lost, or at least never lost completely.  Yes, he had to let Edith
 >      die, but what he gained was his timeline returned, he had a life
 >      and friends to go back to.  After the shock wore off he probably
 >      realized this.

After the shock wears off you're capable of a great many things.
But I thought we were talking about what you did when the
shocking loss is occuring and there's nothing you can do about
it.

 >      But at the moment of this conversation with David, Kirk is in
 >      utter shock, completely demoralized, blaming himself for not
 >      being the man who "saves the galaxy on a regular basis," to
 >      quote DIane Duane.

There's nothing wrong with this, if it doesn't get out of hand.
Krik has blamed himself for the deaths of people under his
command before.  (See for example "The Apple".)  McCoy and Spock
tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't let himself be
mollified.  Still Kirk managed to rein himself in and lead his
people out of trouble.

 >      Perhaps he has faced no-win situations before - as people have
 >      pointed out, "Where No Man..." and "City on the Edge..." in
 >      particular - but that isn't the point.  The point is Kirk never
 >      made this horrible, and necessary, realization about no-win
 >      situations and facing death before Spock.

In other words Kirk has faced no-wins before, but he's never
broken down before?  And the Kobyashi Maru test would have kept
him from breaking down?

 >      It took Spock's death to make Kirk realize the truth in his
 >      words to Saavik: how we face death is at least as important
 >      as how we face life.

After watching "Balance of Terror" you can believe this?  Kirk
saw what the Romulan commander did out of duty.  Kirk saw how
Tomlinson's fiance held herself together.

Kirk was willing to have the Enterprise self-destruct with all
hands aboard rather than have it fall into the hands of an enemy.
(Can't remember the episode title for this one.)

I think the wirter of ST:TWOK missed completely on the
significance or rathr the lack thereof in the Kobiyashi Maru
test.  KM was a ST:TWOK invention, so it isn't all that
surprising that it doesn't fit into the rest of Trek.  It can be
discarded as still leave TWOK as a fabulous movie and clearly the
best of the Trek movies.