#st: everybody suffers on a starship

[betty-fran]

Long post about the impact of traumatic experiences on Jim Kirk's behavior, and how the difference in these experiences makes TOS and AOS so not similar

This is a rather subjective topic, but I've thought a lot about it because of my work in art therapy for traumatic experiences, and after reading these two great TOS analyses about Jim is a victim of SA here and here by @sad-trekkie-life I decided to compile my thoughts about this in one place.

tw: mentions of dv, genocide, sa/csa, please be careful

I first encountered how Kirk's character is read through experience as a victim of SA in... AOS fanfictions, and before I started watching TOS, I actually thought it was some kind of only AOS fandom thing, which was strange to me because there were no direct hints of it in the movies. Still, it could be explained considering the time and environment in which AOS was released. People write things influenced by their own life experiences, and what proportion of people experience SA in their lives in modern society? How many experience DV? Especially as children? And how many of them get help? When the first AOS movie came out in 2009, I was 13 and had my own experience of domestic violence in the house where I lived. And I lived in a family of educated middle-class people. Domestic violence is actually something that happens not only in poor neighborhoods, often it can be things that are not as easy to classify as real "violence", and which are not taken seriously when you seek help. I'm sure that the situation with DV in America is even worse than in Europe, and if we are talking about the 21st century, this is undoubtedly part of it.

JJ Abrams is not a director of poetic or philosophical cinema (no one doubts this) and while AOS clearly lacks the depth, subtlety, and sensitivity of the original series, it's very much a product of its time (and for its time, it has well-preserved this “We change. We have to. Or we spend the rest of our lives fighting the same battles” idea of ​​Star Trek about becoming better, kinder, and learning to empathize). Yes, Pines' Kirk is no Shatner's Kirk, but where the hell would you find someone like the original Jim Kirk in all this capitalist cynicism, millennialism, narcissism, self-centeredness, and dystopian sentiment after 9/11? AOS Kirk was very adaptable to the environment in which he was created, and this is the main reason why I think the headcanon of AOS Kirk's childhood/teenage SA experiences isn't that far off the mark.

We are shown a boy growing up without a father on a godforsaken farm in a small town somewhere in the middle of Iowa and having noticeable self-destructive tendencies and a lack of fear of his own death; his mother is not mentioned (except at the very beginning, which makes you wonder if she even figures in his life), but a certain Frank is mentioned, who is apparently the only adult male figure in his surrounding (read: a person who has power), and with whom he has a clearly strained relationship; in one of the cut scenes, we are also shown that his older brother, ran away from their home when he was a teenager and left Jim, who was still a child, alone with the problems he was running away from. These are all just blatant red flags of domestic abuse and emotional neglect, which I consider canon for AOS Kirk. It doesn't confirm, but it doesn't deny, the possibility of SA being a part of this experience. Especially if we add that in adulthood Kirk demonstrates all possible mechanisms for not overcoming traumatic experiences - avoiding responsibility for his own life and thoughts about the future; self-destructive tendencies - alcoholism, aimless fights, promiscuous sexual contacts; lack of trust in people and outright disrespect for authority; and, the most important, lack of any shock at violence against himself as if it's deserved and expected.

Like TOS Kirk, he have a quick reaction in dangerous situations, high stress tolerance and efficiency under pressure, and like TOS Kirk, he easily uses his body to survive, protect others, or achieve what he wants, both in situations where this means flirting and sexual contact, and in situations where it means taking on pain or sacrificing his life; he easily distances himself from his own body, and like TOS Kirk, his survival reaction is instinctive, unconscious, sewn deep under the skin by constant repetition.

But for me, that's where they're perceived so differently: TOS Kirk survival reaction is the result of the Tarsus IV genocide, AOS Kirk survival reaction is the result of domestic violence. This is, of course, my headcanon, but I think that Tarsus was never mentioned in AOS not only because Abrams forgot? didn't know? it, but also because in 2009 it wasn't the kind of experience you could associate yourself with, unlike the 60s. And in fact, the only topic that the AOS really raises, and which is an echo of the early 21st century, is terrorism. Nero, Khan, Edison in AOS were terrorists. Even the Vulcan genocide is perceived precisely as a terrorist act - a quick, uncompromising, instantaneous one, and not the slow psychological and physical torment that Tarsus was. This shift in the focus of the experience of mass tragedy from Kirk to Spock in AOS is undoubtedly intentional, because AOS is constantly playing in reverse, and it further confirms for me the theory that the traumatic experience in AOS Kirk's life is primarily domestic.

TOS Kirk's traumatic experience is that of a survivor of a mass tragedy, one of a thousand, where his own trauma is depersonalized, if not devalued, in the face of such unmitigated grief. AOS Kirk's traumatic experience, on the other hand, is isolated in its individualism, and although domestic violence affects almost one in three people, it's a very personal trauma, something that remains behind closed doors between you and your abuser. Traumatic experiences are not measured in percentages, and while their impact on a person can vary, it's impossible to say which is actually worse: being a victim of war, or your own caregiver; being isolated in an entire city that is slowly dying from hunger and bullets, or in the house where you live that has turned into a house of horrors. These are all experiences that should not be. Something that cannot be endured without losing something in oneself.

Therefore, I tend to think that AOS Kirk doesn't so much crave captaincy (and the sense of control it gives) as the sense of belonging and acceptance that the ship and close people give. That's why he tries to leave the captaincy in Beyond, because in reality he continues to feel this inner emptiness even on the ship, a disconnection from the people around him; because it's not the role of captain that gives meaning to his life, but the connection with people, the opportunity to change the situation through his own actions (which noticeably distinguishes him from TOS Kirk, for whom captaincy and responsibility, on the contrary, are what really ground him). In this regard, I consider Leave No Soul Behind (in which Jim gives up the captaincy, remaining in the role of a point in the thick of things, and finding his sense of belonging) not just the best reading of the AOS dynamic, but better than it has even been done in the films. AOS Kirk's traumatic experience is easier to read; he can't really hide it, he's not very subtle about it, it lies closer to the surface, visible through his sharp angles and actions. It's the personal nature of his traumatic experience that makes it so obvious, it's like a broken bone that long ago healed incorrectly and can't be fixed, and it's immediately apparent when you get closer, and he knows it because it's personal, and he carries this scar without pride, just doesn't know what the hell to do with it.

It's more difficult with TOS Kirk, because he's much more subtle and adept at concealment. He's a really well-written, multi-layered character, and his traumatic experiences are built on the experiences of people who went through WW2 and who saw things that we would have had a hard time imagining in the real world before the events of recent years. When I started watching TOS, I didn't really associate him with any traumatic experiences at all. Part of this was influenced by how often in AOS fanfiction he is referred to as a happier, luckier version of Jim who had everything that AOS Kirk didn't have, which I now find to be just a blatant misunderstanding of his character (and what can I say, if even in SNW he's read through this lens). And he really gives that impression. But if you look at him through everything we know about his experience, his trauma is much deeper and more complex. But it's less personal, and therefore not as noticeable at first glance. From TOS we know that he survived Tarsus IV as not just a child, but a child at the beginning of his transitional age, when you already understand very well what is happening to you, and this experience is already conscious. A genocide where thousands of people were executed, where there was hunger and disease, and the fear of being killed, where he was isolated, alone, and had to quickly learn to do everything to survive. In his 20s, he witnessed half the crew of the starship he served on, along with the captain, being killed, and he had to live with the constant feeling that it was his fault because he couldn't stop the killer in time, even though logically he understood that he couldn't have done it, that it would've been impossible for anyone.

TOS Kirk is a good actor, as is repeated over and over again throughout the series, and his flippant demeanor is more often a game than a real comfort. This becomes especially noticeable over time as you begin to better read Shatner's acting, which is built on undertones and eye contact. And as a boy-from-a-good-family-with-a-happy-childhood, he slips into survival mode all too easily and does it unconsciously, naturally, practically domestic, which indicates an experience deeper than the experience of a command track. Many things speak to the influence of Tarsus IV on his behavior. His well-known belief in the impossibility of a no-win scenario stems from his fear of not being able to influence the situation, because as long as he can do something, there is always a chance. His behavior often reflects the trauma of a survivor, in how demanding he is of himself, in his obsessive sense of guilt towards the people he failed to protect. The inability to truly build a stable relationship, not so much because it's really impossible for him as a starship captain (because despite certain difficulties, it's obviously possible), but because he denies himself this, because what he really seeks in love, this complete acceptance, the merging of two essences (which he says in S2EP9 “Metamorphosis” - "You haven't the slightest knowledge of love, the total union of two people") is almost impossible to find, and no other relationship will be sufficient for him, won't give him the feeling of finally being seen, of being heard. This isn't allowed by his inner loneliness, which he is terribly afraid of and wants to stop feeling, but which is such an integral part of him, part of his survival, that letting it go for him means remaining defenseless before another, believing that this other person won't abandon, won't leave him alone, which he cannot afford to believe, because it means returning to his deepest fears.

He really easily uses his own body to survive, protect others, and achieve what he needs, often doing so (again) unconsciously, as if without thinking about alternative options. And he easily distances himself in these moments, which is really indicative of the SA victim's experience. Tarsus IV leaves room for this, given that it was a famine stretched over time in constant fear, surviving in something like that meant using pretty much everything you could, especially if Jim was responsible for someone besides him. There are many uncomfortable scenes in TOS where Kirk has no control over his own body, and which are really taken as scenes of violence towards him, and we always see how hard it is for him. While he flirts easily with both women and men, and often manipulates another person's affection for him, he's not a manslut and he doesn't get pleasure from it. From what we are shown more than once, he really understands women and sympathizes with them. He really understands what it means when you say no and mean no, and the other person thinks you mean yes. But truly, I think surviving genocide and famine is also enough to learn to adapt to any inconvenience and distance yourself from your feelings, to simply survive the moment, because that's how the self-defense mechanism works during a traumatic experience. All of these things also make me wonder what the situation is with TOS Kirk's parents, considering they are NOT mentioned in the original series, and taking it as canon alone, I have no positive theories for that.

Whatever TOS Kirk experienced on Tarsus IV, it had a strong impact on his later life and on his moral views. But it doesn't define him. It has an impact, it causes damage, it determines many patterns of behavior, but the trauma doesn't define him (and it doesn't define you). I think what defines every Jim Kirk is his capacity for compassion, his humanity, his empathy, his belief in people, and that there are no situations that are impossible to overcome. And his traumatic experiences didn't take that away from him. On the contrary, the harder it is for him, the stronger he holds on to his belief in a better world. That's why we love him so much.

[betty-fran]

#but 'ofc he's a hedonist who doesn't want to settle down' as the default assumption just became super weird after the tos marathon#and the reluctance to see anything but this kind of healthy hedonism with some secondary goals in the flirtations/seductions#esp given that while he's an aspirational figure he's... uh. i don't think presented as. let's say. a model of psychological wellness.

(via @anghraine)

I couldn't pass it by, because lately I've been thinking about why Kirk, as a character, is perceived so differently within the fandom itself, and I wanted to put it all (some of my unpopular opinions) into a more coherent text.

AOS, like most modern media, does a pretty poor job of characters' depth, but that's precisely why, I think, it forces fans to pay more attention to the psychological analysis and search for that depth on their own. They try to figure out who Kirk is and what's behind his behavior patterns, and there are many examples of really good work on portraying a trauma survivor. It's a main reason why, for a long time, even when I started watching TOS, I thought it was some kind of exclusively AOS fandom thing (not Tarsus, of course, but all this SA/DV concept). An attempt to talk about what hurts, and what is familiar to the modern viewer, but which is difficult to talk about openly, as well as an attempt to give more sense to what is happening on the screen.

But if in the context of AOS, this is more fan reading than objective reality (again, because AOS was filmed primarily as entertaining action movies, and while I really like them overall, I realize that I want to see this complexity more than it actually exists there), TOS really has this complexity. And it really talks about these things.

TOS is generally perceived very differently by people, but in fact, I was able to explain it to myself quite unexpectedly - TOS is more theater than cinema. That's why it gives this feeling of "I've never seen anything like this in cinema before," because I haven't. But I've seen it in the theater. And like any good theater, it makes you think, speaking to you between the lines, through the acting, through the light, relying entirely on the viewer's ability to perceive what they see. It's a very allegorical thing, and any of its sequels (even the original films), spin-offs, prequels, etc., can't replicate that feeling. And here lies something, which, in my opinion, exists in the way TOS is perceived in the fandom, which has been oversaturated with information for 60 years. Almost no one perceives it as an independent thing. And under the weight of an entire franchise, something of genuine significance is lost.

TOS itself provides so much material for analysis that you don't have to try to see something that isn't there; you just have to look at what's in front of you. And that's why I'm especially in-a-bad-way-surprised when Kirk is perceived as misogynistic/cruel towards women/a frivolous womanizer/man-whore/etc, when he clearly isn't. He, and we're shown this more than once, sympathizes with women in a way that none of the other male characters do. He sympathizes with them from a very feminine side. And quite obviously, in situations with strangers, he prefers women's company to men's, not because he is a womanizer as is often claimed, but because, and this is actually very noticeable, he is more comfortable with them. I saw pages from Shatner's biography where he talks about an incident from his youth when he had a near-SA experience:

What happened that night changed my attitude toward women for the rest of my life. I understood the anger and frustration that a woman feels when she says no, and means no, and the man believes she is saying yes.

And speaking specifically about his acting, it's undoubtedly felt in TOS. That's what Kirk has. He understands that feeling of being treated like an object. And in three seasons of TOS, he's been treated exactly that way more than once. We have scenes of explicit coercion (through blackmail, manipulation, deprivation of the ability to control his own consciousness/body) into physical contact/sex that can't be read any other way. We have several episodes that, if he were a woman, would be perceived as blatant sexual assault/rape. We even have a moment (I honestly only remember "Wink of an Eye", but I have a feeling there was something else like it) where he is directly told that he is only needed for reproduction. Should we perceive it differently because he's a man?

For an entertainment show, it talks too much about traumatic experiences and life after them, constantly and coherently raising topics of the limitation of autonomy/violation of personal boundaries/physical or psychological abuse, and more often than not, does so through Kirk. It's emphasized how easily he separates himself from his own desires/feelings, and allows himself to be used, to violate his own boundaries (psychological or physical) if it gives a chance of survival (for himself/another person/the ship's crew) or to achieve another goal (which actually also concerns the chance of survival). There was an interesting moment in "The Lights Of Zetar" that I find quite revealing for understanding how deeply rooted this idea of "doing to survive" is in Kirk. When one of his subordinates is taken over by alien entities that are trying to destroy the entire ship, the only option to deal with them is to let them take her completely so they can be taken out through a pressure chamber. It's dangerous physically, but it's also psychologically abusive, and it's a difficult moral choice for her to make, which Kirk tells her with cool determination but also emotional understanding:

KIRK: They'll be here very soon. They may destroy you and us as they did Memory Alpha. You are especially susceptible to their will. But we have one chance to survive. Don't resist. Let them begin to function through you. If we can control that moment, we have a chance. Will you try?

And this understanding is not so much that of a ship's captain, but rather that of a person who is very aware of what it's like to let another take over your body if it means a chance at survival. A person who is well aware of what this "don't resist" means. This violation of personal autonomy/boundaries/physical and psychological safety is undoubtedly a dangerous part of working in Starfleet. However, there is a noticeable, and I don't think unintentionally emphasized, difference in the response to similar situations between Kirk and others. This is especially pronounced in Kirk/Pike parallels, which can be seen by analyzing Pike's behavior in a similar situation in "The Menagerie". Pike, who is shown to us as a model captain and a noble man, has a fairly healthy, distinctly masculine (and not in a bad sense of the word) reaction to the situation he finds himself in. He's naturally indignant, takes steps to get out, and keeps well this internal distance between himself and Vina/Talosians. As a captain, he's willing to sacrifice his freedom/his life for the sake of the ship's crew, but this is the personal courage he has as a person, something that still remains in the realm of beautiful heroism, noble self-sacrifice. It's not Kirk's survivalism, his ability to compromise his integrity, to let someone else get too (uncomfortably) close to him, just to have a chance, the real ugly and dirty face of survival. This is the difference that is traced in these two captains, this boundary of true understanding between "I am willing to do anything to survive" and "I can do anything to survive."

This is what generally makes Pike a better role model for healthy behavior patterns, but it's also what makes Kirk a much more meaningful character to understand. He turned out to be much more of a trauma survivor than the golden boy I expected to see him as, but it rather explains to me why he touched me so much as a character. Despite everything, he remains an idealist, a utopian, a humanist. It's not that he believes in people because he thinks they are good; he believes in them even though he knows they might not be. And this, I must say, is much more difficult and requires from you true kindness and the ability to forgive.

I watched "Measure of a Man" not long ago, and while it was indeed very good, the weird, toxic, bitter relationship between Picard and his JAG ex really made me nostalgic for one of my favorite Kirk/lady of the week relationships—Kirk and Areel Shaw in "Court Martial."

Kirk himself is the one on trial in "Court Martial," and Areel is the prosecuting attorney rather than the judge. They're exes in their early 30s who broke up in the past for unknown reasons, but are still fond of each other, respectful, and retain an amicable, pleasant relationship years after their break-up. Both of them handle the strain of Areel's professional obligations with maturity and grace, but not impossibly idealized invulnerability. Areel recommends a good defense lawyer for Kirk and regrets the role the situation places them in, but she also doesn't sabotage her case against him and is good at what she does.

The thing that really makes this a favorite "Kirkmance" for me, beyond all this, is that it's very obvious that both of them still care a lot about each other and remain deeply attracted to each other. Neither of them have anything to gain by this. They're both too intelligent and sensible to consider re-kindling their old romance; it fell apart for a reason, despite the lingering affection/attraction, and for pragmatic reasons, sex isn't on the table.

But both early and late in the episode, Kirk and Areel seem to enjoy the flirtation for what it is: not calculated or desperate, not useful, not some fridge horror dub-con scenario, not a high-romance disaster waiting to happen, not even a prelude to a one-night stand, just a fun and affectionate acknowledgment that the chemistry remains strong and they still love each other in a way. There's something genuine and tender and unforced about their flirtation and mutually agreed-upon good-bye kiss that is just so conspicuously different from the tactical Kirkmances. I think it's really lovely, actually:

[thisbluespirit]

Ten Favourite Characters

Memed from @mariocki​  And despite the numbering, not really in strict order, although I tried and no. 1 is definitely no. 1. 

10. Kathryn Janeway

"There are three things to remember about being a starship captain. Keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship... and never abandon a member of your crew."

Okay, basically, me and Star Trek is: I like it if it has Captain Janeway in it.  If it does not have Captain Janeway in it, I might go so far as to mildly enjoy it from time to time, but Janeway is the essential thing.  I walked in one day and saw Kate Mulgrew on the screen and sat down immediately, eventually asking my friend, in hushed tones of awe, “Who is that?”  (I’m not even joking.)  (I don’t hate the rest of ST or anything, but, you know.  It’s not Doctor Who and it doesn’t have Captain Janeway in it, what can I say?  I like the one with the whales, too?)

9. Jenkins

“Magic is not an exact science. If it were, it would be science.”

With Jenkins (John Larroquette), The Librarians takes a mythical character I never gave a thought to, or imagined I would want to, and gave me All the Feels about him.  By the end of S1, I was drawing hearts around Jenkins every time he appeared and that happens all too rarely at the moment, so I think he has to go on this list.  (I’m a Doctor Who fan, how could I not love a grumpy immortal caretaker with a magic door and a heart of gold?) *draws hearts around him regardless of his disapproval and annoyance at said hearts*

8. G’kar

“No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand. The Centauri learned that lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.”

G’kar’s arc is just beautiful (from semi-villainous schemer to unwilling religious icon), as is every part of his epic relationship with Londo, and he is my favourite.  There was a period in S1 where there were about 7 episodes without him and I nearly died.  And, I mean, I really like Babylon 5 and everybody else in it, but that was just cruel and unusual.  Thank goodness it never happened again.  Andreas Katsulas was just brilliant.

7. Seventh Doctor

"That's what guns are for. Pull the trigger, end a life. Simple, isn't it?  Why don't you do it, then?  Look me in the eye, pull the trigger, end my life.  Why not?"

What do you do with a thing like Doctor Who in a meme like this?  I could do my top ten fave characters just in Doctors, let alone companions, before we even get started on minor characters, so let’s have my favourite Doctor do the honours for everyone here.  He hates unrequited love, loathes bus stations (terrible places, full of lost souls and lost luggage), and knows we all have a universe of our own terrors to face, and he’ll be back in time for tea.

With Ace, of course, who is also the best.  As are so many of the rest.

6. Servalan

"There’s no one as free as a dead man.”

It’s so hard to choose Blake’s 7 characters!  They’re all so fascinating, that’s why it still gets watched and loved.  If I’m honest it’s Vila or Servalan, and today I went for Servalan, which probably will save anyone from getting stabbed in the back.  I love me an evil lady and Jacqueline Pearce’s Servalan is probably my favourite villain in anything, especially in terms of characters who remain irredeemable, but are also plausible and interesting.  She’s certainly the most fabulously dressed, anyway.

5. Lynda Day

”I don’t do conversation.  Everything I say comes out like an order.  I say hello and people salute!”

Like every other girl of my very specific age demographic in the UK (Press Gang was watched by something ridiculous like 80% of its target teenage audience, which I don’t think has ever happened before or since), I wanted to grow up to be Lynda Day, dictator editor of the Junior Gazette.  It’s probably as well that none of us did, but she was the very best, and I remain grateful to have had her around, and Julia Sawalha was always fantastic right from trespassers will be exterminated to there are crocodiles. 

4. Silver

Sapphire: “You’re supposed to lose sometimes.”

Silver: “Oh! I wondered why I wasn’t having any fun.”

So, Sapphire and Steel are pretty amazing, right, but let’s be honest, I was always watching this for the red-headed guy in Assignments 3 & 6, and he did not disappoint.  I mean, Sapphire & Steel is the weirdest, creepiest low-budget thing with our srs bsns inhuman heroes and then suddenly David Collings turns up and makes light-bulbs glow and turn into glitter.  He is the sparkliest, no one can deny it and he can slide right into the perfect OTP and turn it into the even shinier OT3.  Not that that stops him flirting with everyone else as well, of course.

3. Regina Mills

“There's no redemption for me. There's only suffering. Because now I have a curse. The curse of knowing the difference between good and evil. And I'm caught between them. If I revert, I lose everyone I love. Henry, my friends, everyone. And if I go forward trying to be good, I have to live with my past darkness and all its well-deserved consequences... But for me, it's a simple choice really. I'd rather suffer than see that pain on the people I care about. This is my fate.“                            

Regina gets to go from being Once Upon A Time’s original OTT fairytale villain to hero (and plays out every possible shade in between, plus various cursed and alternate versions of herself, not to mention her evil doppelganger), and Lana Parrilla’s just amazing at All The Things.  I went from not even liking her to somehow letting her rip my heart right out of my chest when I wasn’t looking.  (Bonus shout out to her mother Cora Mills/Queen of Hearts (Barbara Hershey) too.)

2. Frank Marker

"Have you heard about old heads on young shoulders?  Well, you employ me, you get an old head.  You get old shoulders, too, but then no-one's perfect."

I’m with @mariocki​ here: Alfred Burke’s run down, small-time enquiry agent in Public Eye (TV 1965-75) is one of the most utterly 3D, real and compelling TV characters I’ve ever come across.  (With a bonus mention for the very lovely Helen Mortimer (Pauline Delany), because I might even love her a tiny bit more than Frank some days. <3)

1. Ruth Evershed

“I like to think no institution in the country is safe from me.”

I had to think about this long and hard a while ago, and Nicola Walker’s Ruth from Spooks | MI5 is still probably my favourite character in anything.  It’s tough.  But RUTH.  I love her so much.  There’s a S2 DVD commentary with Howard Brenton and Nicola Walker on her first episode and basically Nicola just sits there going, “I love Ruth.”  And I’m: “ME TOO.” From her first appearance, dropping the files, buggering the Home Office, and breaking the desk lamp to more serious, angsty, later stuff, she’s just so damn good at her job (and in Spooks that’s a tragedy waiting to happen).

It’s really hard to list only 10 though.  I’m an all-eras Doctor Who fan.  I’d need three posts at least just to start on that, I keep falling in love with characters from ancient telly and every now and then I even watch new things...

[texaxwib]

Come With Me on My Star Trek Adventures   

Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek series really made a name for itself and earned the reputation that allowed for all of the other ST spinoffs. Any program that wants to carry on the Star Trek tradition should be worthy. It’s 2020 and my Star Trek lust is not being satiated. I viewed a few episodes in three different series that have the name Star Trek in the title and … in my humble opinion … they don’t live up to the name. Hey! It’s an opinion. Feel free to disagree. We all have our peculiar tastes when it comes to entertainment

First, let’s recap the Star Trek series being used as my basis for comparison.

Star Trek: The Original Series

The TV show aired back in the 60s (1966-69) and was considered groundbreaking because of its diverse cast, which included an African-America female high ranking officer, Lieutenant Uhura; and a Vulcan first officer, second only to the captain of the USS Enterprise, the logical and the incomparable Mr. Spock. Imagine. Before man had a mission to go where he had never boldly gone before, Vulcans had already boldly come to us. An advanced civilization had to come and give us ignorant humans a helping hand with our exploration efforts. It’s interesting. Considering that during our space explorations we found that there were so many other “sentient beings” in the universe, one may wonder why the Vulcans chose to ally with the humans and landed in the United States of America for their First Contact. That question is answered in another Star Trek series called Star Trek: Enterprise, which did not air until 2001 after several other ST spinoffs happened in between.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

The show ran from the late 80s into the early 90s (1987-1994). It will always be remembered for Captain Jean Luc Picard, he was very commanding and very wise; the android named Data, he was incredibly smart and very handy to have around; and an extremely scary enemy called … The Borg! Hey! Why fight them? “Resistance is futile”. So what! We fought them anyway!

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

This series aired throughout the 90s (1993-99) and quite frankly, I liked the episodes where they were in the holo suites more than the episodes where they were facing off with a real enemy, The Dominion. The most memorable characters were Captain Benjamin Sisko and Odo, the changeling. (Image: Deep Space Nine Station.)

Star Trek: Voyager

This series began in 1995 and ended in 2001. Can you believe it? They got stranded in outer space, in the wrong quadrant, and the entire series was about them trying to find their way back home and get home before they were too old for their relatives to still recognize them. So get this! A 24th-century state of the art starship with no GPS to give them directions when they’re lost. It’s believable. Sometimes we humans are very creative and inventive but in the process of building things, we overlook an obvious and critically important feature. Who was the scariest enemy? The Vidians. These beings were suffering from a disease so they went everywhere stealing organs from everybody else. They didn’t ask for organ donors. They just took what they needed. What must it feel like to have your lungs disappear? One second you’re breathing. The next second? NO AIR!! Who is the most memorable character in this series? Seven of Nine. She was a Borg drone, who was captured by The Borg when she was a child. By the time she was found by the crew of The Voyager, she was a young woman. Captain Janeway was determined to give her back her life so that she could live as a human again. She succeeded. Out of all of the characters in all of the Star Trek series, I am never going to forget Seven of Nine.

Star Trek: Enterprise

This series is the prequel. Star Trek: The Original Series began without ever explaining how the United Federation of Planets began. It ran from 2001 and 2005 and honestly, nothing about the show was memorable. But it did explain how and why it was decided that we should boldly go where no man had ever gone before. Even if we do cross paths with sentient beings who think they are a superior race or just don’t really like us very much and want to fight a war. If you think about it, it’s really not that much different from living on planet earth.

So now it’s 2020 and here’s where I am in my Star Trek adventures.Star Trek.

Picard

I watched only one episode because it was offered free of charge for the curious who might be willing to pay to watch the entire series. It was OK. To be honest, since it bore the name “Picard”, I had higher expectations. I’m content to wait until I can binge watch all of the episodes for free at some later date when its novelty has word off.

Star Trek: Discovery

I watched some episodes and I have several complaints.

Number 1: The lighting is awful! For many scenes, it seems so dark.

Number 2: The Klingons wear way too much make-up!

Number 3: The special effects are serious overkill.

This series was launched in 2017. By this time, the original Star Trek series was 50 years old.

Star Trek Continues (???)

I was searching for streaming apps and stumbled across this series. You will recall that the mission was supposed to last for 5 years, only the show was canceled after 3 seasons. Somebody decided that since the original Star Trek series was cut short and fans were terribly disappointed, they would continue the old show only … with new actors playing the old parts for Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones, Scotty, etc.

Number 1: The replacements have no strong screen presence at all! They are like cheap imitations or really bad counterfeits of the original cast. My opinion.

Number 2: If the first episode is an indicator, it’s a good series to watch if you want to compare it with your imagination. Surely you must have wondered what the Star Trek series would have been like had they actually completed the 5-year mission. I am not that impressed, however, in all fairness, the creators of this series get an A++ for their honorable intentions.

♦ All I can say is… once upon a time … there was an awesome TV show called Star Trek that set the standard for all the other science fiction space exploration television series that would come after.

[betty-fran]

Even though I'm completely and irrevocably captivated by TOS, my long-standing youthful attachment to AOS has not actually diminished. AOS is still like all my worn-out Kerouac paperbacks, that old, tattered (not) leather jacket I wore through the house and the desert and all the bars where my dad played garage rock. But now I understand well what things they really lost in the reboot.

And probably the most important and critical thing for me is that they ruined Kirk and Uhura's friendship.

Their sincere working-friendly brotp dynamic in TOS turned out to be a really great part of it, and was very unexpected after their bitchy relationship in AOS. I'm actually loyal to most of the changes they made to AOS and can find an explanation for them, but why they did this to Uhura's character, I don't understand. Zoe Saldaña is a beautiful woman, but her Uhura is such a bitch, and so out of character, that it's just unfair to her. Now, I think that Spock/Uhura in AOS is a problem for the correct perception of Uhura's character even more than for Spock's.

[betty-fran]

Being in the process of watching post-TOS films right now, and having rather mixed feelings about it, there is something that probably surprises me the most about all of this. We talk a lot about AOS Kirk and even SNW Kirk (which Paramount tries to show us as the canon young Kirk) as being non-TOS-canon, very different readings of Kirk as a character, but we never really talk about the fact that Film!Kirk is an equally non-TOS-canon reading of the character.

ETA: this is going to be a very long post that I wanted to finish earlier, but my latest meltdown obviously didn't let me finish anything I had planned this week.

[there will be a bit of film criticism now, you can skip that right away and move on to criticizing Kirk's characterization… this really sounds bad, but don't get me wrong, I like post-TOS films, but they're so damn different and I want to talk about it]

The post-TOS films certainly lose all the noir and theatricality of TOS, all its épater la bourgeoisie, this legacy of old cinema (TOS, strangely enough, is completely a child of the golden age of Hollywod, and is much closer to "Casablanca" than to "Star Wars") by completely projecting itself into science fiction (which, to be honest, was the last thing TOS did at all, like they flew in space, of course, but it was such an obviously special transcendent type of space, where you would rather meet Socrates than Xenomorph) and outright militarism.

Perhaps the most shocking moment in "The Motion Picture", and my personal point of no return in the sequels, was one of the opening scenes in the Enterprise's transporter room. The ship wasn't ready to leave yet, and the transporter wasn't working properly, but two crew members were sent out of the Starfleet transporter room, and they… just died in the process (why?). This wasn't negligence on the part of the ship or the crew; it was clearly blatant negligence on the part of Starfleet, and it was presented so quickly and dryly as if it were a fairly routine situation for everyone. They were a little upset, shook their heads, and went off to more pressing matters. It was an absolutely unnecessary scene for the plot (the only thing it affects is the appearance of a vacant science officer position on the ship, which, like, could’ve been vacant anyway? these scene is generally never mentioned again, you could just not add it at all), meaningless and cruel in its absurdity, which perfectly highlights the changes in the approach to the display of violence between the 60s and 80s.

[Enterprise transporter room] RAND: Do you read me Starfleet? Override us. Pull them back! STARFLEET [OC]: Unable to receive their pattern, Enterprise. KIRK: Give it to me. Starfleet, boost your matter gain, we need more signal! ...More signal! SCOTT: We're losing their pattern. RAND: Oh, no! They're forming! WOMAN: (a scream) SONAK: (a moan) KIRK: Starfleet, do you have them? STARFLEET [OC]: Enterprise, ...what we got back didn't live long, ...fortunately. KIRK: Starfleet, ...Kirk. Please ...express my condolences to their families. Commander Sonak's can be reached through the Vulcan Embassy. There was nothing you could have done, Rand. It wasn't your fault.

All of these things were the result, in political and cultural changes, the growth of noticeable gloom in science fiction, and mostly changes that the film industry experienced after the 1960s (the rapid development of technology, the expansion of the audience, and the attempt to move away from the theatrical relic of the past to spectacular films) and in the sequels this is felt not only in the script, which emphasizes dynamic scenes and is much more simplified in literary terms, but also in the acting, which is already much more static and tied to the camera (the acting is one of the reasons why TMP is so difficult to watch, apart from the frankly weak direction and editing, and despite the pretty good [still very Roddenberry-esque with all this love is a touch but not a touch] plot, which is quite funny, because the fact that this is happening against the background of the character of Ilia, who really plays a non-human /a body/ that uses a computer, doesn’tt improve the situation in any way, because none of the actors look noticeably more alive than her, and the only glimpse of emotion in the entire film is the scenes between K/S, which is of course very sweet, but…).

First of all, this concerns Shatner, who is actually a very good theatrical actor (and criticism of his performance in TOS is completely incomprehensible to me). Where he is absolutely alive, natural, and sincere in the noir, theatrical TOS, he is exhausted, stiff, and (I'll be honest) repulsively arrogant in the films’ blockbusterness and their efforts to be dramatic. I partly attribute this to the fact that, like me, he is completely unsuited to dark hair and it turns our lives into a Nietzschean abyss, but more likely the combination of his ego and inability to realize himself played a bad joke on him, and he lost something real, really important in the pursuit of attention. But that's why the K/S interaction scenes in the films (and all the Kirk scenes that involve Spock in any way) are so surprising to me, because they're the only scenes where Shatner suddenly sheds all of his ego, arrogance, and discontent, becoming again... sweet, alive, and natural in his acting, and sincere in his absolute admiration and warm love for the one important person in Kirk's life, and it's such a contrast to his acting at other times that I'm just, I don't know, Bill, what are you doing? He just sees Spock, and bang, he becomes a completely different person. In any case, Shatner's changes and internal conflicts have their impact on the character's formation and perception in the films, but they are only part of the bigger picture.

[end of films criticism, let's move on]

"The Motion Picture", our ground zero in Kirk drift, generally sets this emphasized masculine tone in Kirk's portrayal from the very beginning, clearly departing from both his gender-ambivalence and his noir femme fatale, and becoming quite constrained even in his nature of utopian humanism. In my conversation with my sister, I joked that it was quite funny that they were trying to convince us that TOS Kirk, who had survived genocide (famine, mass murder, psychological/physical abuse, and clearly read SA) at 13, and then went through a mass massacre on a ship he served in his 20s, for which he blamed himself, had become this in a few years of paperwork. The midlife crisis had apparently erased even his traumatic experiences. I generally understand the idea they were trying to show - a real captain who is tired on solid ground and more than anything in the world wants to return to space, and even more - to his ship, the only place where he was truly happy + (this is of course not so obvious, but it's damn visible in Shatner's acting and in subsequent K/S scenes) this existing gap between him and Spock is a tangible trauma and Spock's absence in his life breaks him to pieces. But, even with this idea of growing up/(literally) returning from heaven to earth, Kirk's behavior in TMP frankly doesn't align well with his characterization in TOS.

We see several consecutive scenes of his conflict with Decker, the acting captain of the Enterprise, whom he removes from his post by order of Starfleet, and although Decker himself is a rather static character, in whose development not much effort was put, in all these scenes, he is clearly... right.

KIRK: I'm taking over the center seat, Will. DECKER: You're what? KIRK: I'm replacing you as Captain of the Enterprise. You'll stay on as Executive Officer. Temporary grade reduction to Commander. DECKER: You personally, are assuming command? KIRK: Yeah. DECKER: May I ask? Why? KIRK: My experience, five years out there dealing with unknowns like this, my familiarity with the Enterprise, this crew. DECKER: Admiral, this is an almost totally new Enterprise. You don't know her a tenth as well as I do. KIRK: That's why you're staying aboard. I'm sorry, DECKER: No, Admiral. I don't think you are, not one damn bit. I remember when you recommended me for this command. You told me how envious you were, and how much you hoped you'd find a way to get a starship command again. Well, it looks like you found a way.

KIRK: All right, explanation? Why was my phaser order countermanded? DECKER: Sir, the Enterprise redesign increases phaser power by channelling it through the main engines. When they went into anti-matter imbalance, the phasers were automatically cut off. KIRK: Then you acted properly, of course. DECKER: Thank you, sir. ...I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. KIRK: You saved the ship. DECKER: I'm aware of that, sir. KIRK: Stop ...competing with me, Decker! DECKER: Permission to speak freely, sir? KIRK: Granted. DECKER: Sir, you haven't logged a single star hour in two and a half years. That, plus your unfamiliarity with the ship's redesign, in my opinion, sir, seriously jeopardises this mission.

We are also given an emphasis on how Kirk puts pressure on his crew:

KIRK: Programming ready? DECKER: Programme set for standard warp entry, Captain, ...but I still recommend further simulation study. KIRK: Mister Decker, every minute brings that object closer to Earth! Engineering! Stand by for warp drive. SCOTT (on intercom): We need further warp simulation on the flow sensors. KIRK: Engineer, we need warp speed now! McCOY: Jim, you're pushing. Your people know their jobs.

It's not that he's never done it before, but there's a literally physically palpable difference in how and when it happened in TOS and how it happens in TMP, and how truly unjustified (apart from wanting to seem significant and controlling again) Kirk's behavior in TMP is.

He also, not particularly justified, takes a risk by allowing that weird electric thing onto the bridge, which leads to further tragic events.

KIRK: Mister Decker? DECKER: I advise caution, Captain, we can't withstand another attack. KIRK: That thing is twenty hours away from Earth. We know nothing about it yet. DECKER: That's precisely the point. We don't know it will do. Moving into that Cloud, at this time, is an unwarranted gamble. KIRK: How do you define 'unwarranted'? DECKER: You asked my opinion, sir. ... DECKER: Ilia! ...Ilia! (the probe with Ilia disappears) DECKER: This is how I define unwarranted!

In fact, this whole Kirk vs Decker situation is an obvious paraphrase of "The Doomsday Machine", where the same Kirk vs Decker conflict is played out (god, it's not even funny), but with the roles reversed. Kirk now finds himself in the role of an older, more experienced man, but it’s his self-confidence, obsession with an idea, fear of being rejected, and his apparent conflict as an authority figure against the younger and more brilliant captain (ok, it's not about TMP Decker, but you get the idea) that prevents him from being truly flexible and leads to abuse of power. Of course, TMP Kirk handles this situation better than TOS Decker (but he was also not in a state of traumatic shock after the death of his team at the time of the events).

I understand what they meant by this (ok, again), but it's such a blatant misreading of TOS Kirk as a character that I'm starting to think that even AOS Kirk at some points was read much closer to TOS Kirk (maybe not really, but even in the face of the obvious opposition between the two, AOS Kirk got his clearly existing psychological trauma/unhealthy coping patterns and (coincidentally, this was definitely not planned in the heteronormativity of the reboot) his sexual ambivalence) than Film!Kirk. Now I understand much better where this concept of the Golden Boy of Starfleet, the lucky guy who easily gets out of any situation, a kind of exemplary good young man who has had no real difficulties in life, or terrible PTSD or anything shameful, disgusting, dirty, that you want to forget, in his past, came from. The 2009 film (thank's aos) gave new life to this, clearly emphasizing the key difference between AOS/TOS Kirk - the presence of parental support (although it's not like Kirk's parents were ever actually mentioned in TOS, which makes this concept pretty meaningless in light of TOS):

KIRK: Wait. Where you came from, did I know my father? SPOCK PRIME: Yes. You often spoke of him as being your inspiration for joining Starfleet. He proudly lived to see you become Captain of the Enterprise.

And of course, there's that important line between Kirk and David in TWOK, which is obviously easy to read as "the loss of Spock has become such an all-encompassing and overwhelming grief for Kirk that nothing can compare to it" (the films unexpectedly turned out to be even more romantic than the series, which is partly exacerbated by the fact that they lose TOS in the plot and K/S becomes just the only palpably real thing on which it’s based at all), but it actually works very strangely with the TOS Kirk’s death experience, by crossing out the very existence of this:

DAVID: Lieutenant Saavik was right. You never have faced a death. KIRK: No, not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I tricked my way out of death ...and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. ...I know nothing.

I patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I honestly think about these words in the context of Kirk's words in Obsession /No man achieves Starfleet command without relying on intuition, but have I made a rational decision? Am I letting the horrors of the past distort my judgment of the present?/ and it somehow doesn't fit together at all. How can a man who has lived for over 10 years with a constant paranoid sense of guilt for the deaths of about 200 people through his own mistake consider a survival experience as cheating death and commendable ingenuity? And of course, another obvious thing that doesn't fit together is his Tarsus IV experience. Even if we imagine that somehow Kirk managed to escape a truly horrific experience and that he could’ve saved his own life through trickery and ingenuity, this absolutely contradicts his characterization in TOS. He was a child (at that borderline age when traumatic experience is particularly merciless in its memories), he saw four thousand people die, he experienced a terrible famine (which is hinted at repeatedly in TOS), violence, and experiences of violation of personal physical/psychological space (which is hinted at even more in TOS). "The Conscience of the King" is a beautiful episode in its complexity, which actually gives us enough to understand how fundamentally traumatic these events are, and how much they have influenced Kirk's increasingly (humanistic) worldview:

KIRK: What were you twenty years ago? KARIDIAN: Younger, Captain. Much younger. KIRK: So was I. But I remember. Let's see if you do. Read this into that communicator on the wall. It will be recorded and compared to a piece of Kodos' voice film we have in our files... ... KARIDIAN: (reading) The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. (stops looking at the paper) Your lives means slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered. Signed, Kodos, governor of Tarsus Four. KIRK: I remember the words. I wrote them down. You said them like you knew them. You hardly glanced at the paper. KARIDIAN: I learn my parts very quickly. KIRK: Are you sure? Are you sure you didn't act this role out in front of a captive audience whom you blasted out of existence without mercy? … KARIDIAN: Or is. Kodos made a decision of life and death. Some had to die that others might live. You're a man of decision, Captain. You ought to understand that. KIRK: All I understand is that four thousand people were needlessly butchered.

It honestly surprises me how a character who was written as someone who had more than one experience of mass slaughter, which he witnessed at a young age, suddenly begins to be interpreted as someone who never really encountered death, but only trickery and ingenuity avoided it. TOS Kirk is obviously a player, an actor, a pirate, and a seductress, a person who is really capable of using all available methods to survive/to save others, but all of these actions of TOS Kirk are, and this is actually well written and consistently shown to us, the result of the fact that he has really faced death, and is very well aware of what it is. This is not empty /I don’t believe in no-win scenarios/ this is a clear awareness of what price you have to pay to survive things like genocide. A person who pays that price, who goes through something like that, will never say that they have ingeniously escaped death or that they are lucky.

This reminded me of a very stupid conversation I had with my coworker about Dostoevsky, he's obviously one of my least favorite writers, and talking about him on a special level means just ruin the day, but in this conversation we touched on the topic that Dostoevsky was supposed to be executed, but at the last moment, literally before the shooting, he was pardoned, such an inhumanly cruel experience that forever broke his psyche and affected all his subsequent work, to which my coworker just said, "Exactly, he's such a lucky guy.” I thought for a long time about what to answer him, and I realized that it wasn't like I really had the words for it. Some experiences are the exact opposite of winning a lottery ticket, and living with the memories of them can be more unbearable than death itself, sometimes the price of survival is too high, but even if you get through it, it stays with you forever, and TOS actually talks a lot about these things, but it was hardly something that was really thought about in the 80s.

Spock's death would undoubtedly be the most terrifying and personally difficult experience in TOS Kirk's life, but it wouldn't be the first. It wouldn't be that first terrifying shattering, first shock of a great loss, but it would be the last straw, that point in the chain of all these endless losses and loneliness and pain, after which there would hardly be anything else. It would read much closer to the quiet absolute doom of Yanagihara's "A Little Life" ending than to what we see in TWOK. And while this scene is particularly touching for understanding the K/S relationship, it would have had much more meaning if this confession /No, not like this/ had occurred against the backdrop of Kirk's already existing horrific death experience, the reminder of which is a constant line in TOS, rather than against the backdrop of completely erasing this experience from the plot, reducing it to a simple /I cheated death because I don't believe in no-win scenarios/ simplifying both Kirk as a character and Spock's true significance in his life.

[betty-fran]

I don't like SNW for many reasons, mostly because, as a production designer, when I look at this footage, I want to throw my diploma out the window, but especially because I can't see it as a prequel to TOS. It's just not. It's not the same people. They're… absolutely normal, I've seen somebody like them hundreds of times on screen anywhere but TOS, and that's exactly the problem. This show is just normal. It has to be something much more than just normal to be like TOS. It has to be whatever it is, but not normal, to be honest.

But, I finally figured out the problem with Paul Wesley as James Kirk a few days ago, when I watched S2EP14 "The Trouble with Tribbles". There was a dialogue with Klingons, which I found to be quite irrelevant at first, but which actually explains well the reason why Wesley can't:

KORAX: No. I just remembered. There is one Earthman who doesn't remind me of a Regulan blood worm. That's Kirk. A Regulan blood worm is soft and shapeless, but Kirk isn't soft. Kirk may be a swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood, but he's not soft... ...and if I think that Kirk is a Denebian slime devil, well that's my opinion too.

Paul Wesley is a good guy - yes, he doesn't look like Shatner, and yes, he's inferior to him in acting (which is obvious, given Shatner's theatrical background and his old Hollywood acting), but those aren't the things that really matter. A character is defined by their essence. It's not the actor's appearance, it's not their acting style, it's whether they can show what's most important about the character, what defines them under any variables. This is why I think Chris Pine made a good Jim Kirk, even though the character he played is noticeably different from the original. There's something about him, something that Shatner has and that Paul Wesley doesn't, something that makes Jim Kirk, well… Jim Kirk. A crush on Spock, obviously. And bisexuality. He is a good captain. A man responsible for his crew and his ship, for the 400+ people on board who are under his command. And in fact, he always had the qualities for this. It's not something he developed over time because he became a captain; it's something that is the foundation of his character and is an integral part of him, and that's why he was able to become a captain. He's not soft, even if he really looks like it. Or, rather, he's not only soft. This brings us back to S1EP6 “The Enemy Within” and Spock's words:

SPOCK: Yes, and what is it that makes one man an exceptional leader? We see indications that it's his negative side which makes him strong, that his evil side, if you will, properly controlled and disciplined, is vital to his strength. Your negative side removed from you, the power of command begins to elude you.

This is why he is the only one of the entire crew who is actually on equal terms with Spock, why he is so understandable to Spock, despite all his irrationality. Vulcans, let's not forget, were brutal warriors; it's etched in their blood, in their souls and hearts, and even if they learned to restrain it, they never forgot. We are repeatedly shown that Kirk has this tough side, the ego, the ambition, the desire to win, which are tempered by his kindness, humanity, and compassion. Paul Wesley is a good guy, but Jim Kirk is much more than a good guy; that's the point. Part of him is a Denebian slime devil.

[betty-fran]

I've just had this idea of a f/f AOS Kirk/Spock AU for a long time, and it's actually quite funny because I first imagine the worst possible version of how JJ Abrams would do it, and then I adjust that version to what the AOS would look like if the writers actually worked with the original and didn't make up nonsense. And it's just wildly weird! Because:

a) I imagine JJ Abrams trying to turn f! Kirk into Rey, because she's obviously his magnum opus of a female character, but at the same time keep his idea of "Kirk is an asshole, a man whore, a fatherless boy with a shitty childhood, alcoholism and self-destructive tendencies, who miraculously gets an education." It doesn't work together at all, but he tries really hard, and I just love the idea of how the entire spectrum of AOS Kirk's psychological issues would work on a female character.

b) I imagine how f! Kirk and f! Spock would've to exist in the context of the heteronormativity of AOS, and that's also pretty funny, because I'm leaving all the other characters without a genderbend, which means Spock/Uhura doesn't work anymore, whoops!

Spock should obviously have a relationship (because, for some reason, the idea of building Spock's heterosexuality is some kind of idea-fix in the entire post-TOS space) with someone from the characters we know, but not the main one, and my main option is unexpectedly M'Benga. This would be the most Abrams-style, giving hope for interesting development of the supporting character, but reducing him to the role of the main character's boyfriend.

McCoy and Kirk should have a purely platonic place, because I'm thinking of Rey again, and how Abrams is very attached to the idea of "Kirk shouldn't be in a relationship." But I'm sure that would be in the spirit of his Star Wars sequels - the main character has a best friend who is clearly in love with her, but she has to get into some kind of intense love/hate relationship with an obvious villain who has to die at the end so that she's left alone like it was planned from the beginning, but the problem is that Star Trek doesn't have such a character, and inventing a new one is a bad tone, so I can just see Abrams being thrown the idea of Gary Mitchell, and it's just - wow, bingo, toxic relationship, character is an asshole, dies at the end, you don't even have to invent anything.

Nobody needs plot threads to waste time on!

I'm just leaving it at the point of "Abrams would have liked to do it, but he couldn't, and it didn't go according to plan," because:

c) despite all attempts to assure us that nothing happens between K and S, the writers absolutely fail, because no one can stop this train. Like literally no one. We know that for sure. AOS is bad in many ways, but Chris Pine played such an obviously, pathetically, hopelessly in love character that it really hurts to watch, like you've turned on some Korean soap opera. And as a primarily visual person, I'm just - oh, I already have a perfect fancast for AOS f! Kirk (as always, f! Spock still remains a mystery to me). Ivanna Sakhno really looks like a f! version of Chris Pine (small, blond, and chaotic), strikes a perfect balance between being an asshole and being cute, and she's clearly good at "I'm bad at hiding that I'm hopelessly in love with this woman next to me."

[betty-fran]

How Jim Kirk (again) became my comfort character

#or one of the K/S talks

The longer I watch TOS (I'm still halfway through season 2 today), the more I realize that I missed out on a lot by not watching it during my school years. Of course, everything comes to us at the right time, and the way I perceive TOS now is primarily the result of my own life experience through which I look at it; but I'm also sure that if I had had the opportunity to see it earlier, Jim Kirk would undoubtedly have become a much healthier role model for me than any of my favorite characters from that time.

I first saw Jim Kirk when I watched AOS either in my first or second year of studying at the Academy of Arts, but this memorable day is forever buried in the cemetery of my memory (the only proof that it really was at that time is the memory that among my saved playlists on 8tracks, was one with AOS mirrorverse, and why do I remember that?). In any case, it was a quick realization that he was my character, that I already knew him, and just as AOS resonated with my life and the world around me during my growing-up years, Jim Kirk was a comfortable character in my 20s. Somewhere out there, with childhood traumas and the knowledge of how to make a Molotov Cocktail, after my father and the whistling of bullets on the Maidan at the end of the winter of 2014. Somewhere among the self-destructive tendencies club's characters.

For me, the most important difference between AOS and TOS is how they work with trauma. Traumatic experiences are part of both universes, but while TOS is society-centric, AOS focuses on individuals; while in TOS the characters live through traumatic experiences and move on, no matter how difficult it is, in AOS they get angry. It's about the inability to truly live through a traumatic experience to move on, about reacting without awareness. That's why AOS is often, and quite rightly, perceived as a teenage version of Star Trek. I still plan to write a comparative analysis between the two of them, because they actually work really interestingly with the environment they were filmed in, and are children of their time, which really explains why AOS is what it is, even if not everyone likes it.

But the closer I get to my 30s, the more acutely I realize that growing up is not only about the ability to take responsibility for your own life, but it's also about the ability to see other people's problems beyond your own. Growing up is primarily about empathy. After all, when my country has been in a bloody war for three years, when another country is currently experiencing genocide in real time (and this could all be just the beginning of something bigger), it's difficult to look at the world the way we used to. That's why TOS resonates with my life more now than I expected, and that's why Jim Kirk has become my comfort character again, even if differently.

I've seen a joke about the Star Trek fandom being more calm and quiet compared to the Star Wars fandom, and that it's because one of them has Spock and another one has Anakin. But I would say it's because one of them has Kirk and another one has Anakin. Even though they have different backgrounds and follow radically different paths of development as characters, they actually have some similar traits. Both have ego, anger, ambition, talent, a fierce temper; both are the first to rush into battle, often react without thinking, are well-versed in technology, and are the favorites of fate. But where Anakin is fixated on his ego, his trauma (slave, poor boy from Tatooine, you have no place among the Jedi, chosen one, must live up to expectations) and his pain and desires, Jim thinks of others. Sure, he has a healthier family history (addition: no, he hasn't), but he survived the genocide in Tarsus at a young age, he also grew up having expectations from others that he had to live up to, he is also a person who stands out a lot and who never quite fits in (in Academy, in Starfleet, to the Admiralty).

And that's exactly what makes TOS Kirk such a unique character - his ability to control his own ego without crushing it. This is something that S1EP6 “The Enemy Within” speaks particularly loudly about. His humanity and compassion coexist with his anger and power. It's no wonder Spock admires him so much because he's actually a model of great control, even if, at first glance, he seems irrational and impulsive. He is a person who is very aware of his capabilities, his potential, and his limits. His self-confidence is not the result of pride, but the result of adequate self-assessment. TOS Kirk is (actually) a very psychologically healthy character - he is not perfect or a superhero, he has his dark side, fears, and weaknesses, he makes mistakes and stupid things, but every time he learns from them. He doesn't put himself above other people, but he also doesn't let himself be humiliated, he takes responsibility for his actions without shifting responsibility to others, and he can rely on others where necessary (he really has his scout star "best captain" not for his beautiful eyes). He's not broken, over-traumatized, or doomed to tragedy (addition: he is, and even more than others, and he handles it much better than most modern protagonists), but he's still a complex character, and in a world of modern media where absolutely everyone is constantly in a permanent state of not reliving their traumatic experience; and the amount of that traumatic experience is an indicator of the character's complexity, he seems like an archaic semi-myth.

This is why I find Kirk and Spock's relationship one of the most psychologically healthy of any that has ever existed in media. And that's why I ended up on this ship so easily and so forever. Because despite the many difficulties that arise between the two of them, their relationship in the canon in any reading (platonic or romantic alike) is built on understanding, acceptance, admiration, respect, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, appreciation, care, and love. So it always confuses me when I come across some more toxic interpretation of what's going on between them, especially in fandom. TOS is not about toxicity in general; that's the point, and that's why it's so amazing today. What's going on between them isn't simple or easy, but if, as someone once said, love is architecture, theirs is without a doubt.

[betty-fran]

#there is another post somewhere on this website about the difference between tos and aos in the postion as captain but yea (via @follower-of-many-fandoms - uh, yeah, that could be mine (but if not, it would be interesting to read someone else's opinion!), because I definitely brought this up, it's actually a pretty subtle and tangible difference in how for TOS Kirk, the captaincy is what gives him a sense of grounding, while AOS Kirk clings much more to the people he meets than to the captaincy (I'm sure he could just as easily drive a barge or fix motorcycles), and it has to do with how they both perceive control.

I'm more interested in TOS on its own than in connection with the films, but speaking of them, in general, yes, I'm pretty sure they tried to show this idea of "finally finding a permanent place", but in general this whole fondness for antiques concept is a very TWOK thing (it coexists well with the image of an aging admiral, a retired captain, for whom objects are more of a sentimental symbol, an opportunity to touch other worlds/times once again) but TWOK is probably the most OOC film concerning TOS, so, well. The director of TWOK tried so much to make Kirk's glasses a complex, sentimental symbol, but when in The Voyage Home, Kirk pawns them and doesn't even raise an eyebrow, I'm like "now I can believe this."

There is a very noticeable connection between Kirk's rather specific traumatic experience and his attitude towards things. In general, we tend to cling to "things" that give us a sense of grounding. There is a fairly wide range of psychological reasons for this (especially in correlation with childhood/or trauma), and it doesn't really change over time. Let's just say, for me, the very idea that Kirk is retired, finally having a permanent place and some kind of stability, starts buying antiques and stuffing the house with things, and feels a deep emotional attachment to them, doesn't work with what we know about him from TOS. It's not that he had this "impossibility of having" things, or some internal prohibition against getting attached to things (but, and this is important, he clearly has these issues in the context of love/personal emotional attachments), he rather had an experience of devaluing things, of forming this clear perception of a thing in its utility here and now, rather than in emotional attachment. He actually has a similar relationship with food; he perceives it not as a delicate pleasure, but as a primary necessity, it's rather a pressing issue of the experience of famine, and TOS reminds us of this more than once. So, IMO, he appreciates things, and he can enjoy them, but it will never be something truly important to him. The things that are truly important to him have no physical form. Even his desire for love is not so much physical as something beyond, that absolute union of two entities that he spoke of in Metamorphosis. I often think of TOS Kirk's experience in the context of our current realities (wars/genocide), and it really feels "wow, how relevant this is", and not that a lot of modern media talks about it like that.

But AOS Kirk, I think, is more likely to become attached to things, because his childhood experiences obviously tend toward emotional neglect/DA, and he is more likely to perceive the things that belong to him as something that gives him a sense of grounding. He probably won't have a lot of stuff, but what he does have will be really important to him, so having some favorite books, old and worn, that he carries around with him everywhere, oh, I can imagine that.

Speaking of books, I think this idea of "Kirk as old paper books lover" (although I have an absolute fondness for this concept, esp somewhere like the door) isn't really particularly canonical in TOS.

Kirk is clearly a book nerd (and not just someone who reads a lot, but someone who reads thoughtfully, and quite complex, personally expressive things for him, preferring philosophy and ethics), and we're told about this already in the pilot, where Gary Mitchell mentions Spinoza as an author who was an obvious choice for Kirk:

MITCHELL: Well, I'm getting a chance to read some of that longhair stuff you like. Hey man, I remember you back at the Academy. A stack of books with legs. The first thing I ever heard from an upperclassman was, watch out for Lieutenant Kirk. In his class, you either think or sink. … KIRK: (looks at monitor) You? Spinoza?

And we do see paper books in Kirk's cabin (at least in The Conscience of the King), hardbacks, respectable editions on his desk and in the cabinet by his bed, but it's actually a pretty modest collection. It's clearly more than any other average inhabitant of the computerized 23rd century, but a far cry from his lawyer's collection in Court Martial (an episode that actually made me doubt that Kirk really has some kind of unbridled passion for collecting paper books):

KIRK: (Notices the piles of books everywhere) What is all this? COGLEY: I figure we'll be spending some time together, so I moved in. KIRK: I hope I'm not crowding you. COGLEY: What's the matter? Don't you like books? KIRK: Oh, I like them fine, but a computer takes less space. COGLEY: A computer, huh? I got one of these in my office. Contains all the precedents. The synthesis of all the great legal decisions written throughout time. I never use it. KIRK: Why not? COGLEY: I've got my own system. Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn't so important, I'd show you something. My library. Thousands of books. KIRK: And what would be the point? COGLEY: This is where the law is. Not in that homogenised, pasteurised, synthesiser. Do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, Learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the tribunal of Alpha 3? Books.

Interestingly, in contrast to Cogley's clearly shabby and reread many times, but truly impressive and authentically old book collection, Kirk's much more restrained one looks a bit faceless, in its uniform style, tangible presentability, being in such perfect condition that they are either read with incredible care, or very rarely picked up (and here both options are possible, actually.)

Given what we know about Kirk's childhood/youth in TOS, we understand that he never/or for most of his life, didn't really have a permanent, settled place. Theoretically, this was possible in his childhood, about which we know virtually nothing (Where did he live before Tarsus IV? The first mention of Iowa only occurs in the films, but in TOS it remains a blank spot, and he could equally well have moved from place to place until he ended up on Tarsus, or grown up in one place), and while it was also possible after Tarsus and before entering the Academy (he had to live somewhere for at least 3 years), given that it had to be right after Tarsus, I doubt it could've actually felt like something stable/permanent. And after that, his life was obviously not tied to one place for long, and was kept in the conditions of a dorm room/ship cabin/etc. In many ways, his captain's cabin is the closest thing to home he's had in years. And considering that of all the cabins we're shown in TOS, Kirk's cabin is actually the most restrained in details and minimalist in its contents, I don't think he was really used to owning a lot of things, or being particularly attached to them.

There's a really interesting moment in This Side of Paradise where Kirk, under the influence of flower spores, is packing a suitcase (a sort of suitcase to that pseudo-paradise with everything he can need for this sort of trips) where he puts only his captain's shirts, and is about to put one of his captain's awards, which momently sobers him up, reminding him of who he is, and it pretty well illustrates his attitude towards things, which are more a part of his identity here and now, his role, than something personal. While he can certainly enjoy things (he clearly likes his green tunic), he treats them as something temporary, something he can practically and wisely use in the moment, obviously valuing non-physical things much more, and this logically correlates with everything we see about him in TOS.

Therefore, I, pretty headcanonically, perceive the books in Kirk's cabin not so much as this small, personally dear, re-read and annotated collection of books important to him, but rather as a good selection of publications that interest him, which he can turn to if he needs to, but which he obviously prefers to PADD, not because he doesn't like paper books (he does!), but because it's clearly more practical.

[betty-fran]

Great addition! I spent days thinking about my AOS f! Spock fancast and after going through probably a hundred actresses, I remembered the only woman I'm absolutely in love with who has the visual heaviness of Zachary Quinto. And also steely composure, a cold mind, and complete control over emotions/while being on a constant emotional edge. It seems my f/f AOS AU is getting more and more gloomy, but Elizabeth Dulau is just the perfect combination of everything I imagine f! Spock to be in it.

I've just had this idea of a f/f AOS Kirk/Spock AU for a long time, and it's actually quite funny because I first imagine the worst possible version of how JJ Abrams would do it, and then I adjust that version to what the AOS would look like if the writers actually worked with the original and didn't make up nonsense. And it's just wildly weird! Because:

a) I imagine JJ Abrams trying to turn f! Kirk into Rey, because she's obviously his magnum opus of a female character, but at the same time keep his idea of "Kirk is an asshole, a man whore, a fatherless boy with a shitty childhood, alcoholism and self-destructive tendencies, who miraculously gets an education." It doesn't work together at all, but he tries really hard, and I just love the idea of how the entire spectrum of AOS Kirk's psychological issues would work on a female character.

b) I imagine how f! Kirk and f! Spock would've to exist in the context of the heteronormativity of AOS, and that's also pretty funny, because I'm leaving all the other characters without a genderbend, which means Spock/Uhura doesn't work anymore, whoops!

Spock should obviously have a relationship (because, for some reason, the idea of building Spock's heterosexuality is some kind of idea-fix in the entire post-TOS space) with someone from the characters we know, but not the main one, and my main option is unexpectedly M'Benga. This would be the most Abrams-style, giving hope for interesting development of the supporting character, but reducing him to the role of the main character's boyfriend.

McCoy and Kirk should have a purely platonic place, because I'm thinking of Rey again, and how Abrams is very attached to the idea of "Kirk shouldn't be in a relationship." But I'm sure that would be in the spirit of his Star Wars sequels - the main character has a best friend who is clearly in love with her, but she has to get into some kind of intense love/hate relationship with an obvious villain who has to die at the end so that she's left alone like it was planned from the beginning, but the problem is that Star Trek doesn't have such a character, and inventing a new one is a bad tone, so I can just see Abrams being thrown the idea of Gary Mitchell, and it's just - wow, bingo, toxic relationship, character is an asshole, dies at the end, you don't even have to invent anything.

Nobody needs plot threads to waste time on!

I'm just leaving it at the point of "Abrams would have liked to do it, but he couldn't, and it didn't go according to plan," because:

c) despite all attempts to assure us that nothing happens between K and S, the writers absolutely fail, because no one can stop this train. Like literally no one. We know that for sure. AOS is bad in many ways, but Chris Pine played such an obviously, pathetically, hopelessly in love character that it really hurts to watch, like you've turned on some Korean soap opera. And as a primarily visual person, I'm just - oh, I already have a perfect fancast for AOS f! Kirk (as always, f! Spock still remains a mystery to me). Ivanna Sakhno really looks like a f! version of Chris Pine (small, blond, and chaotic), strikes a perfect balance between being an asshole and being cute, and she's clearly good at "I'm bad at hiding that I'm hopelessly in love with this woman next to me."

[betty-fran]

I'm obviously going to make this post even longer, if that's even possible.

Firstly, thank you @sad-trekkie-life for such a detailed and constructive answer, it really means a lot to me! I have to say that I really like all your posts and your analyses of TOS. They're not overloaded with unnecessary sentiments, which is typical of me, so it's really fascinating to read. And thank you for raising the issue of the perception of TOS through the objective (and especially the objective of the 60s) reality of military organizations. I actually think that TOS is much more difficult to analyze (and to write about) than AOS (this is obvious, and not only because of the difference in the literary nature of the plot, where it's more like comparing Shakespeare to one of the young adult novels). But because TOS works, and works very well, with topics that we don't encounter every day in modern reality. Not only because WW2 still feels fresh on screen, but because Starfleet is, after all, a military organization. So all those things you mentioned here are really important to consider, and they are the 24/7 environment in which the characters are formed and their subsequent choices. As a person with no military experience, I lose a lot in assessing many points. Even with friends on the front line, for me, it still remains not my experience; I can only look at it from the sidelines, through my civilian glasses. So I admit that this is a point where I objectively lack the knowledge to really base my analysis on it. I rely more on the psychological basis of it, and the things that I understand enough to talk about. I planned this post primarily as a comparison of AOS and TOS in reading Jim's character, but by focusing specifically on the impact of traumatic experiences on him, I slightly missed the impact of other things. The truth is, Jim Kirk is impossible to perceive outside his captaincy. This is his visceral part of being.

I'm really interested in the impact Tarsus had on him, but I'm in no way claiming that the experience broke him, because it objectively didn't. He comes across as a really mentally healthy person, DESPITE any experience he's had before, and despite the things he's been through as a captain, which I've written about here. What makes him a good captain is that he can truly process his experiences; his traumas are a part of his life, but they don't guide his actions. As for his inability to build (working) romantic relationships, which I wrote about, this is undoubtedly my subjective view, which I don't really attribute so much to his experience in Tarsus (although it undoubtedly had an impact on his attitude towards loneliness/belonging) as to how much I consider it part of his personality - his desire for stable monogamous romantic relationships is obvious, he's one of the most genuinely romantic characters I've ever met, but wanting and having are slightly different things. He's not just a complex person, and he doesn't just have a deep inner world and high intelligence; he is given a lot - his personality is vast, noticeable, taking up a lot of space, and it's difficult for such people to build romantic relationships. This is the experience of centuries of geniuses, writers, scientists, and people who were too devoted to their work, who had the same difficulty. This doesn't mean that it's impossible, or that the relationships he had/is in are not successful. It's just more difficult for him. He did have several potentially workable relationships in TOS, with obviously good women, but I had a hard time imagining them in the long term, not even because they all ended tragically, but because for them to really work he had to be a little bit not quite himself, not who he really is. He, without a doubt, demands 100% involvement and commitment in relationships, because that's what he demands of himself in everything he undertakes, which leaves not much room for combining relationships and career, and for him, I think, it's a monolithic choice to some extent. Although he longs for romantic love, he's really looking for a partner who can be with him every day in the kind of life he's chosen, who can carry the burden he carries. The women he met, he could love them from the side, like a beautiful image from a dream, but really being with them meant letting them into his life, and for him, that meant changing something about himself, or expecting them to change something about themselves. Of all his women, in my opinion, Edith Keeler was the only one with whom it could have really worked, if things had turned out differently. This is my subjective view, and it's actually related to the fact that through the things I see, I try to answer my personal questions and figure out my life. In this, in general, the main charm of art for me. Everyone seeks answers to their own questions in works of art, which makes their perception subjective from the start, but also makes them such an important part of our being.

Therefore, I'm pretty sure that Jim is capable of building good, harmonious romantic relationships, but only with someone with whom he will be truly equal, for whom he won't have to sacrifice his essence, give up his type of life. As a fairly obvious and not-so-subtle K/S shipper, I think Spock is the only person Jim could really have this kind of relationship with. But the greatest charm of their dynamic (and why I love them both so much) for me is that even without my shipper glasses, that fact doesn't really change. Spock is apparently the only person who truly sees and accepts Jim for who he is, with his dark side, with his love for the ship that trumps everything, with his life choices. Their understanding of each other exists on some quantum level. Roddenberry really managed to convey this idea of ​​two parts of one soul very well. If it was another character that Jim could have built a relationship with that gave him that full acceptance, that opportunity to share his life as it is, that would have worked too. But in my opinion, he never had the same closeness with anyone else as he did with Spock. Besides, I don't in any way deny Jim's ability to build good relationships with people in general, TOS shows wonderful friendships (among the crew, between episodic characters, between people from Jim's past, and of course Jim's friendship with McCoy, which is no less unique than his relationship with Spock, but which I read only platonic), and a lot of this is a result of Jim's ability to set the tone of respect and sincerity that exists between the entire Enterprise crew, and how he generally values ​​respect and sincerity in relationships.

Long post about the impact of traumatic experiences on Jim Kirk's behavior, and how the difference in these experiences makes TOS and AOS so not similar

This is a rather subjective topic, but I've thought a lot about it because of my work in art therapy for traumatic experiences, and after reading these two great TOS analyses about Jim is a victim of SA here and here by @sad-trekkie-life I decided to compile my thoughts about this in one place.

tw: mentions of dv, ptsd, genocide, sa/csa, please be careful

I first encountered how Kirk's character is read through experience as a victim of SA in... AOS fanfictions, and before I started watching TOS, I actually thought it was some kind of only AOS fandom thing, which was strange to me because there were no direct hints of it in the movies. Still, it could be explained considering the time and environment in which AOS was released. People write things influenced by their own life experiences, and what proportion of people experience SA in their lives in modern society? How many experience DV? Especially as children? And how many of them get help? When the first AOS movie came out in 2009, I was 13 and had my own experience of domestic violence in the house where I lived. And I lived in a family of educated middle-class people. Domestic violence is actually something that happens not only in poor neighborhoods, often it can be things that are not as easy to classify as real "violence", and which are not taken seriously when you seek help. I'm sure that the situation with DV in America is even worse than in Europe, and if we are talking about the 21st century, this is undoubtedly part of it.

JJ Abrams is not a director of poetic or philosophical cinema (no one doubts this) and while AOS clearly lacks the depth, subtlety, and sensitivity of the original series, it's very much a product of its time (and for its time, it has well-preserved this “We change. We have to. Or we spend the rest of our lives fighting the same battles” idea of ​​Star Trek about becoming better, kinder, and learning to empathize). Yes, Pines' Kirk is no Shatner's Kirk, but where the hell would you find someone like the original Jim Kirk in all this capitalist cynicism, millennialism, narcissism, self-centeredness, and dystopian sentiment after 9/11? AOS Kirk was very adaptable to the environment in which he was created, and this is the main reason why I think the headcanon of AOS Kirk's childhood/teenage SA experiences isn't that far off the mark.

We are shown a boy growing up without a father on a godforsaken farm in a small town somewhere in the middle of Iowa and having noticeable self-destructive tendencies and a lack of fear of his own death; his mother is not mentioned (except at the very beginning, which makes you wonder if she even figures in his life), but a certain Frank is mentioned, who is apparently the only adult male figure in his surrounding (read: a person who has power), and with whom he has a clearly strained relationship; in one of the cut scenes, we are also shown that his older brother, ran away from their home when he was a teenager and left Jim, who was still a child, alone with the problems he was running away from. These are all just blatant red flags of domestic abuse and emotional neglect, which I consider canon for AOS Kirk. It doesn't confirm, but it doesn't deny, the possibility of SA being a part of this experience. Especially if we add that in adulthood Kirk demonstrates all possible mechanisms for not overcoming traumatic experiences - avoiding responsibility for his own life and thoughts about the future; self-destructive tendencies - alcoholism, aimless fights, promiscuous sexual contacts; lack of trust in people and outright disrespect for authority; and, the most important, lack of any shock at violence against himself as if it's deserved and expected.

Like TOS Kirk, he have a quick reaction in dangerous situations, high stress tolerance and efficiency under pressure, and like TOS Kirk, he easily uses his body to survive, protect others, or achieve what he wants, both in situations where this means flirting and sexual contact, and in situations where it means taking on pain or sacrificing his life; he easily distances himself from his own body, and like TOS Kirk, his survival reaction is instinctive, unconscious, sewn deep under the skin by constant repetition.

But for me, that's where they're perceived so differently: TOS Kirk survival reaction is the result of the Tarsus IV genocide, AOS Kirk survival reaction is the result of domestic violence. This is, of course, my headcanon, but I think that Tarsus was never mentioned in AOS not only because Abrams forgot? didn't know? it, but also because in 2009 it wasn't the kind of experience you could associate yourself with, unlike the 60s. And in fact, the only topic that the AOS really raises, and which is an echo of the early 21st century, is terrorism. Nero, Khan, Edison in AOS were terrorists. Even the Vulcan genocide is perceived precisely as a terrorist act - a quick, uncompromising, instantaneous one, and not the slow psychological and physical torment that Tarsus was. This shift in the focus of the experience of mass tragedy from Kirk to Spock in AOS is undoubtedly intentional, because AOS is constantly playing in reverse, and it further confirms for me the theory that the traumatic experience in AOS Kirk's life is primarily domestic.

TOS Kirk's traumatic experience is that of a survivor of a mass tragedy, one of a thousand, where his own trauma is depersonalized, if not devalued, in the face of such unmitigated grief. AOS Kirk's traumatic experience, on the other hand, is isolated in its individualism, and although domestic violence affects almost one in three people, it's a very personal trauma, something that remains behind closed doors between you and your abuser. Traumatic experiences are not measured in percentages, and while their impact on a person can vary, it's impossible to say which is actually worse: being a victim of war, or your own caregiver; being isolated in an entire city that is slowly dying from hunger and bullets, or in the house where you live that has turned into a house of horrors. These are all experiences that should not be. Something that cannot be endured without losing something in oneself.

Therefore, I tend to think that AOS Kirk doesn't so much crave captaincy (and the sense of control it gives) as the sense of belonging and acceptance that the ship and close people give. That's why he tries to leave the captaincy in Beyond, because in reality he continues to feel this inner emptiness even on the ship, a disconnection from the people around him; because it's not the role of captain that gives meaning to his life, but the connection with people, the opportunity to change the situation through his own actions. In this regard, I consider Leave No Soul Behind (in which Jim gives up the captaincy, remaining in the role of a point in the thick of things, and finding his sense of belonging) not just the best reading of the AOS dynamic, but better than it has even been done in the films. AOS Kirk's traumatic experience is easier to read; he can't really hide it, he's not very subtle about it, it lies closer to the surface, visible through his sharp angles and actions. It's the personal nature of his traumatic experience that makes it so obvious, it's like a broken bone that long ago healed incorrectly and can't be fixed, and it's immediately apparent when you get closer, and he knows it because it's personal, and he carries this scar without pride, just doesn't know what the hell to do with it.

It's more difficult with TOS Kirk, because he's much more subtle and adept at concealment. He's a really well-written, multi-layered character, and his traumatic experiences are built on the experiences of people who went through WW2 and who saw things that we would have had a hard time imagining in the real world before the events of recent years. When I started watching TOS, I didn't really associate him with any traumatic experiences at all. Part of this was influenced by how often in AOS fanfiction he is referred to as a happier, luckier version of Jim who had everything that AOS Kirk didn't have, which I now find to be just a blatant misunderstanding of his character (and what can I say, if even in SNW he's read through this lens). And he really gives that impression. But if you look at him through everything we know about his experience, his trauma is much deeper and more complex. But it's less personal, and therefore not as noticeable at first glance. From TOS we know that he survived Tarsus IV as not just a child, but a child at the beginning of his transitional age, when you already understand very well what is happening to you, and this experience is already conscious. A genocide where thousands of people were executed, where there was hunger and disease, and the fear of being killed, where he was isolated, alone, and had to quickly learn to do everything to survive. In his 20s, he witnessed half the crew of the starship he served on, along with the captain, being killed, and he had to live with the constant feeling that it was his fault because he couldn't stop the killer in time, even though logically he understood that he couldn't have done it, that it would've been impossible for anyone.

TOS Kirk is a good actor, as is repeated over and over again throughout the series, and his flippant demeanor is more often a game than a real comfort. This becomes especially noticeable over time as you begin to better read Shatner's acting, which is built on undertones and eye contact. And as a boy-from-a-good-family-with-a-happy-childhood, he slips into survival mode all too easily and does it unconsciously, naturally, practically domestic, which indicates an experience deeper than the experience of a command track. Many things speak to the influence of Tarsus IV on his behavior. His well-known belief in the impossibility of a no-win scenario stems from his fear of not being able to influence the situation, because as long as he can do something, there is always a chance. His behavior often reflects the trauma of a survivor, in how demanding he is of himself, in his obsessive sense of guilt towards the people he failed to protect. The inability to truly build a stable relationship, not so much because it's really impossible for him as a starship captain (because despite certain difficulties, it's obviously possible), but because he denies himself this, because what he really seeks in love, this complete acceptance, the merging of two essences (which he says in S2EP9 “Metamorphosis” - "You haven't the slightest knowledge of love, the total union of two people") is almost impossible to find, and no other relationship will be sufficient for him, won't give him the feeling of finally being seen, of being heard. This isn't allowed by his inner loneliness, which he is terribly afraid of and wants to stop feeling, but which is such an integral part of him, part of his survival, that letting it go for him means remaining defenseless before another, believing that this other person won't abandon, won't leave him alone, which he cannot afford to believe, because it means returning to his deepest fears.

He really easily uses his own body to survive, protect others, and achieve what he needs, often doing so (again) unconsciously, as if without thinking about alternative options. And he easily distances himself in these moments, which is really indicative of the SA victim's experience. Tarsus IV leaves room for this, given that it was a famine stretched over time in constant fear, surviving in something like that meant using pretty much everything you could, especially if Jim was responsible for someone besides him. There are many uncomfortable scenes in TOS where Kirk has no control over his own body, and which are really taken as scenes of violence towards him, and we always see how hard it is for him. While he flirts easily with both women and men, and often manipulates another person's affection for him, he's not a manslut and he doesn't get pleasure from it. From what we are shown more than once, he really understands women and sympathizes with them. He really understands what it means when you say no and mean no, and the other person thinks you mean yes. But truly, I think surviving genocide and famine is already enough to learn to adapt to any inconvenience and distance yourself from your feelings, to simply survive the moment, because that's how the self-defense mechanism works during a traumatic experience.

Whatever TOS Kirk experienced on Tarsus IV, it had a strong impact on his later life and on his moral views. But it doesn't define him. It has an impact, it causes damage, it determines many patterns of behavior, but the trauma doesn't define him (and it doesn't define you). I think what defines every Jim Kirk is his capacity for compassion, his humanity, his empathy, his belief in people, and that there are no situations that are impossible to overcome. And his traumatic experiences didn't take that away from him. On the contrary, the harder it is for him, the stronger he holds on to his belief in a better world. That's why we love him so much.