From: v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: more Kobiyashi
Date: 14 Apr 92 07:37:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Apr13.215222.28077@uunet.uu.net>, kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes...
>kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes...

>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.

     He does know how to face death.  The realization that hits Kirk
     here is those words never had meaning FOR HIM.  He was just SAYING
     that to Saavik, and to the other cadets, and that he DIDN'T REALLY
     believe them.  
     Do as I say not as I do?  
     Kirk had these demoralizing tragedies through TOS, but he never
     believed that "how we deal with death is at least as important
     as how we deal with life..." -- Kirk gave a lot more stock to
     dealing with life.  
     That doesn't mean he didn't know how to face death.  Kirk's heroic
     actions time and time again showed that he could control himself
     in the face of death -- but Kirk was either laughing it off at
     the end of the episode or just the same when the following episode
     started.  
     TWOK is saying that these deaths Kirk faced that were portrayed
     as so important at the time, failed to make him stop and think
     and feel the truth of "how we deal with death is at least as 
     important as how we deal with life" -  he was never CHANGED
     by death, it always deflected off of him.
     So while he taught in turn the words that he had been taught and
     refused to accept them for himself.
     Until Spock.



> >      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.

     When, you mean before TOS started?  In between TOS episodes,
     because during TOS Kirk already knew he NEEDED his ship like
     that.  He had forgotten the NEED by TWOK because he was in a
     midlife crisis, thought he was old and it was time to leave
     the galloping around the cosmos to the young.  As TWOK opens,
     Kirk and Spock are reminding him of the need - and saying
     "You've been an asshole lately and it's because you've got
     this need you've forgotten, you need the ship."
     The scene in TWOK with Kirk and Bones, if that is what you're
     talking about, is only minor in Kirk's realisation that he needs
     his ship - that realisation must have come 15 years before 
     TWOK.

> >      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.

     As I said, Kirk let those deaths, even edith's, deflect off
     him, never making the realisation - and that's the important 
     thing.  
     Spock's death just SLAMMED him whole, the others did not, even
     if they came close, do that totally.

> >      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.

     Spock's death just SLAMMED him whole. 

> >      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?

     No, but maybe if he had taken the truth of the KM test to heart
     he would have made this realisation about dealing with death being
     just as important as dealing with life earlier.  It's an important
     realisation involved in growing to maturity - and Kirk didn't make
     it until midlife crisis.    


> >      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.)

     Okay, you're arguing for the "Look at these horrible situations,
     Kirk must have dealt with them and made the realisation then,"
     but we never SAW him sit down and say it out loud; and the next
     episode he was unchanged.  

>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.

     I would ammend that to: I think you choose not to acknowledge
     the significance the writer (credited: Jack Sowards; in reality:
     Nick Meyer, Harve Bennett and J. Sowards) was portraying because
     the way you see Kirk he MUST have made that realisation already.

     That's a valid rejection of part of the premise, I guess.  But
     remember that it is rejection of what the movie is telling
     us and that my point of view is from accepting what the movie
     is telling us.  

     There is no solid (i.e, Kirk sitting down and doing what he
     did in the scene with David at some point during TOS) evidence
     that Kirk DID make that realisation during the tv episodes because
     he never made one during the tv episodes.  
     All we have is TWOK telling us that he NEVER MADE ONE.  It's 
     believe their word or not.


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