I Can Imagine Spock Judging Jim Every Time It Happens - Blog Posts

Alright I’m now convinced this was intentional

Guys buckle in cuz it’s time for another installment of Kirk judges someone for doing something morally questionable for possibly good reasons and then finds himself doing something similar/faced with the same dilemma several episodes later.

First round it was the Menagerie and Conscience of the King

Kirk was mad at Spock for lying and hiding why he took the ship off course with Pike and then literally the next episode Kirk hides his intentions with Kodos as he takes the shop off course until he is confronted. Another fun contrast between the two is everyone except Kirk thinks Spock is acting weird in the Menagire before he explains himself, while in conscience of the king, only Spock notices Kirk is acting off and has to do digging on his own to figure out what is going on because Kirk refuses to explain.

Second round was a taste of Armageddon and the Errand of Mercy.

In the former, Kirk was pissed at the locals for fighting this war on computers, condemning 3 million to die every year, instead of going to the negotiation table and working this out. So he destroys the computer (their weapon of war) to force them to negotiate.

And then in the latter story, the locals of a planet take away Kirk and the Klingons’ ability to fight via disabling all their weapons across the entire galaxy in order to force a negotiation that both sides are hesitant to start.

And round three is Tomorrow is Yesterday and The City at the Edge of Forever.

In the former, after the enterprise accidentally time travels, Kirk kidnaps some pilot b/c said pilot has seen their spaceship and could change the future. The pilot tries to escape several times to get back to his country and wife, not caring about the consequences, much to Kirk’s annoyance. And the episode ends with them erasing everything, even the events themselves so the timeline is restored.

And of course, in the latter story, Kirk is faced with the dilemma letting the woman he fell in love with die in order to restore the future, or saving her and condemning millions to die in a changed future. He chooses the former, and is so wrecked by this he curses for the first and last time in the whole tv series. And the episode ends not on a shot of the enterprise sailing away to its next location, but lingers on the time portal.

Edit: This one really gets me cuz that pilot was willing to break the timeline to be with his family, something extremely selfish, while Jim was able to let Edith die, sacrificing his personal happiness, saving the timeline.

Big picture is we can watch Kirk both see these dilemmas or actions from an outsiders perspective, and then later he either does the same thing or faced with the same situation personally. In short, it humanizes Kirk in a way that doesn’t make him an asshole.

I love this so much and I hope it continues.

Edit: so it didn’t really continue but I still really like this. You learn what kind of a person Jim Kirk is based on how he interacts with each given episode plot and how he deals with said plots in comparison to other people rather than him just monologuing about himself.