A much needed, but probably rote, discussion on Vulcan emotions in Star Trek

[timepiececlock]

I feel like I can't write Spock's POV until I get this, and there's something fundamental about the whole thing that is escaping me.



So, in the movie, young Spock talks about a Kolinar ceremony to "purge all emotion". I looked it up and it seems TOS Spock almost took it in the first movie (the only one I haven't seen), but didn't. We know the new Spock didn't, because he joined Starfleet instead. So... he still has all his emotions. He's clearly repressed them in an unhealthy way that is different from the other Spock, and other Vulcans. TOS Spock would never have the kind of anger management problem / burst of blind rage that this Spock had. Also, he was a sensitive kid, who seemed only to learn to fake stoicism instead of actually being emotionless. This Spock is seething with emotion he doesn't express...blame the actor ZQ for staring soulfully into the camera, but it's true. So in fact, writing Spock himself isn't exactly the problem. He's just a really repressed guy, fine.

It's all the other Vulcans I don't understand. And in order to understand Spock's goals of being Vulcanish, I've got to understand what he was TRYING to be.

In short... I don't get the whole emotionless religion thing. Is the idea to have no emotion affect your decisions at all, almost a Jedi thing but worse? To be without earthly attachment?... Or is it to accept and control the emotions, acknowledging them while outwardly stifling them so no one knows what's actually driving you? This is an important distinction, because one is an absence of emotional motivation, and one is just being super reserved in public.

If the goal is to reach a mental state where they have no emotions... is Sarek atypical for loving his wife? Is nuSpock a total failure at being a good little Vulcan?

I know what they say in the movie, about how Vulcans actually feel very deeply, but that seems to directly contradict with everything else I've read about it, and with the whole religion of emotionlessness. I especially don't get what that means for, like, daily life.

Do they only avoid anger/fear/sadness/pride/humor/joy, etc?

Do they feel CONFUSION?

What about the smaller emotions? Like curiosity, ambivalence, vanity, nostalgia, cynicism? Excitement, thankfulness, lethargy?

Self-confidence?

How do they choose what color of towels they buy at the store? How do they know if they prefer broccoli over spinach? Blue pen or black pen? How do they decide between jelly donut and sprinkled?

Without emotion, how do you even operate in a world where you're constantly forced to make little decisions that have no logical answer, but become an expression of your tastes and preferences? ...preferences come from the emotion of pleasure/affection, and irritation/dissatisfaction.

But they can't have a favorite color, because THEY HAVE NO EMOTIONS!

Or they just pretend?

I'm confused.

I'm especially confused because Older Spock, Spock from the movies 1-6, is not emotionless that I remember. He's pretty stoic, sure, but he obviously loves the crew and his BFF Jim, and he obviously cares deeply about the Federation's safety. If I were going to write about Spock Prime, I'd just write about him as this pleasant, wise old guy who stays calm in almost anything but has a secret preference for Earth carrots and misses his old friend Jim Kirk. The idea that he's supposed to emotionless because Vulcans are, would never enter into my concept of the character at all. I'd write him as a fully empathic character, with complete active range of emotions even if he doesn't voice them very often.

Would that be, like, the completely WRONG reading of what his character is meant to be? Is this the noobie failure equivalent of assuming that hobbits are all short because they don't have domesticated cows so none of them took enough calcium as a child?

Did I miss the memo at the beginning of everything that said to all the fans, "This is what the Vulcan shit is all about?" My questions can be summarized thus:

1. What is this Vulcan shit about?
2. What does that mean for Old TOS Spock?
3. What does that mean for new AU Spock? [as of the end of the movie]
4. Are either Spocks striving to be more or less of this philosophy?

cross-linked to spock_uhura

Comments

it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rawles.livejournal.com]

STXI!Spock doesn't suppress his emotions in a way that's any more or less healthy than any other Vulcan. He's just worse at it, ostensibly because of his half-human heritage.

Vulcans are not, as stated in the movie, emotionless and nor is their general goal to be so. They feel everything very intensely which is their reason for suppressing their emotions. Their religion arose from the fact that they were once an extremely violent and volatile people and Surak (the originator of said philosophy) decided that being ruled by logic instead of impulse was the only way to keep them from destroying themselves. (There were, of course, people who rejected this philosophy and they basically left and became the Romulans.)

The idea is for them to suppress their emotions to the point that their emotions have no bearing on their decisions and their actions thus leaving nothing but pure, efficient logic to govern them. They still feel things. They just don't, can't, and/or won't allow themselves to express them or, in many cases, even acknowledge them (depending on the situation).

With TOS!Spock, one thing to keep in mind is that the portrayal of how much he felt or didn't feel was fairly inconsistent at certain points. But initially in the series, his reaction to his heritage was to want to be more Vulcan then Vulcan, so to speak. And his character arc, as it were, was about him learning to...be more human, basically. And to not be ashamed or unwilling to love his friends, etc. So Spock Prime, at that point in his life, is certainly far more emotional than the average Vulcan would be because he's been so humanized.

Whereas AOS!Spock starts off indulging more of his humanity from a young age and identifying a lot more with his mother's side of his heritage than TOS!Spock. This is best exemplified in his relationship with Nyota which is entirely illogical for many reasons and clearly based on his feelings for her and not much else. (With, of course, the subtext behind Sarek admitting that he married Amanda because he loved her being a validation of Spock's own decision to love a human woman.) So, he is also, in his own way, quite humanized, but clearly nowhere near as at peace with it as Spock Prime.

So overall a good thing to keep in mind wrt how he behaves and his internal processes is that he's feeling a shit-ton of things but he's only very rarely going to want to indulge in them or let them be apparent. Think of it as uber, uber reserved. Even in private. He, for instance, is obviously capable of letting things slip with Nyota, but he's not going to like come into his quarters and, figuratively, let his shoulders slump and then be totes expressive or whatever.

Also, an addendum re: kolinahr, I tend to think of it as sort of like becoming a priest or a nun. It's in some way the ultimate expression of the philosophy, but it's also not attainable or meant for everyone.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[cleojones.livejournal.com]

kolinahr, I tend to think of it as sort of like becoming a priest or a nun. It's in some way the ultimate expression of the philosophy, but it's also not attainable or meant for everyone.


Ahh, like the Vulcan nirvana! Heh.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[meiou-set.livejournal.com]

STXI!Spock doesn't suppress his emotions in a way that's any more or less healthy than any other Vulcan. He's just worse at it, ostensibly because of his half-human heritage.

In one of the meta I read, the poster claimed that AOS!Spock does not so much control his emotions as repress them, which is why he tends to flip.
Part of it, the argument went, had to do with a particularly acute xenophobia he was subjected to because apparently (this I didn't know from the movie) in Vulcan Romulus was discovered 20 years or so as a result of Nero's patty cake with the timeline.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rawles.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting distinction to try to make!

I don't know how much I actually agree though because Vulcans very specifically and intentionally do not express or react to their emotions, which is the very definition of repression. So, semantically, I just don't think that saying that Spock's restraint is repression, while other Vulcans' restraint is control holds up.

I can see the argument that Spock sometimes just tries to pretend he doesn't feel things instead of actually dealing with those feelings, accepting them, and through that method not allowing them to control him. But I actually think that Vulcans, in general, do a lot more repressing of their emotions than controlling them. (I mean, the entire concept of pon farr is supposed to basically be backlash from their normal refusal to deal with their feelings!) As such I don't think Spock's fundamental way of dealing is inherently unique. I mean, it took Amanda dying and Spock having a breakdown before Sarek would even admit that he loved his wife. The way I see it, you have to express an emotion on some level to control it in the way that I assume that poster was outlining. Because if the only control you're exerting over an emotion is to restrain it, well, that's just another way of saying repression.

Though I do agree that the waaaay early discovery of Romulans and their connection to Vulcans could have had a lot of affects on the kind of prejudice he faced.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

http://seperis.livejournal.com/737263.html

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rawles.livejournal.com]

Not actually interested in the original meta, but thanks anyway.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Sure thing. I won't have a chance to reply to these in depth until later tonight, but I thought I could provide a quick link if you were interested.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[meiou-set.livejournal.com]

I thought that was an interesting distinction too. I'm not sure all restraint is "repression" however, but pon farr is a compelling example that perhaps there is more repression than actual control. I'll think about that for sure.

As such I don't think Spock's fundamental way of dealing is inherently unique. I mean, it took Amanda dying and Spock having a breakdown before Sarek would even admit that he loved his wife.

Maybe not unique, but it would be expected that his reaction be more aligned with Sarek's wouldn't it? I mean almost ending a colleague is pretty extreme given a lifelong training *not* to flip out. Do you see Spock from TOS have reacted that way had the same happened to him-if someone screwed with him after the loss of his planet and his mother (all other aspects from his childhood in TOS remaining the same)?

And another really fascinating thing to think about it in terms of the nurture/nature thing. I don't want to go crazy on detaching the two since I don't think it's altogether possible, but it can be neat to think about. If one does see Spock from TOS acting the same as nu!Spock in this situation, is it because of the human part of him which just doesn't take repression all that well? Seems like if one sees Spock from TOS *not* reacting with the same vehemence, an argument for the importance of how he grew up (the prejudice he was subjected to) becomes more significant.

Sorry this is so rambly and incoherent, but I really liked reading your take. Gave me a lot to consider.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rawles.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think ALL restraint is repression. I mean, if someone does something silly and I want to laugh in their face, but don't in order to spare their feelings, I'm restraining myself, but I'm not necessarily repressing my humor. I don't think that any instance of restraint equals high level repression, but the systematic and automatic restraint of all emotional reaction pretty much does.

Maybe not unique, but it would be expected that his reaction be more aligned with Sarek's wouldn't it?

I don't! When I say that I'm dubious that Spock's fundamental method of trying to control his emotions is not unique, I am not making the argument that his tendency to flip out is also not unique. I think THAT is. I just don't really believe that said tendency results from an inherently different or flawed way of following Surak's teachings than other Vulcans. Though, I could see TOS Spock possibly reacting in a similar way if for no other reason than, as pointed out below, he has on occasion canonically beaten the shit out of dudes in the course of getting himself under control again. Although, as I said in my original post, he is generally presented to us (even before he came over to the AOS) as older, wiser, and more at peace with himself than AOS Spock so it's certainly far less likely in my mind.

I am also not arguing that the way AOS Spock grew up and the entire butterfly affect of the alternate universe didn't change him and the way he reacts to things! I believe they absolutely did. I also don't believe that it is ever one or the other of nurture and nature. I think that the various aspects of the AOS Universe, the possibly altered prejudices and his closer...bond or identification, perhaps, with his mother and even how young he is at this point in the story all affect his reactions just as much as, if not moreso, than whatever biological inclination being half-human would cause towards emotional outburst.

In summary: all I'm really saying is that he clearly has problems controlling his emotions, but I just don't agree that it's because when it comes to the Vulcan way he's just doin' it rong. I think his fundamentals are strong, he just isn't as disciplined or successful at it as he could be for various reasons having to do with both his specific background and perhaps his biology!

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[beatrice_otter]

It's not that Romulans were discovered earlier (they weren't) it's just that in the original timeline they managed to conceal the fact that they were an offshoot of the Vulcans until the TOS episode Balance of Terror. The Federation had fought a war and a long cold war against them without ever actually getting to see a Romulan in the flesh. In the alternate timeline, they learned twenty years earlier (not long after the end of the war with the Romulans) and during a major defeat for the federation, instead of a couple decades after the main action's done, at a time when Romulans aren't particularly an immediate threat.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[meiou-set.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh. That makes sense. Thanks a bunch for the correction, I wasn't too clear on the details.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[flowrs4ophelia.livejournal.com]

Well said. I have almost nothing to add because you addressed everything I was going to comment about very well.


STXI!Spock doesn't suppress his emotions in a way that's any more or less healthy than any other Vulcan. He's just worse at it, ostensibly because of his half-human heritage.

On this point...I think a lot of people easily misunderstand Vulcans in general because of a sort of "nature vs. nurture" misconception about what exactly it means for Spock to be half human. To my knowledge/memory there's never been anything in canon that necessarily indicates Spock struggles more with controlling his emotions because of a sort of genetic handicap of being half human. This wouldn't make much sense since the Vulcan/Romulan history proves that they're not naturally an emotionally reserved race and their self-control has to be learned.

As STXI suggests pretty strongly, I think it's more of an identity conflict that holds him back from being a perfect Vulcan. Like you pointed out is a big factor, his relationship with his human mother was a very integral and influential part of his life and that has made him feel like his human side is still an important part of who he is rather than something that needs to be completely overcome. There's a lot more choice involved in what makes him the kind of Vulcan that can have close relationships and make subtle sarcastic remarks than some people seem to give him credit for.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rawles.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with what you said re: nature vs. nurture! Which is why I said ostensibly. I think the genetic component is one clearly presented in the text (in that people make reference to it), but yeah, I lean far more towards nurture.

Though I think I do remember some things about a particular part of Vulcan's brains or brain chemistry etc. corresponding to this sort of thing. I might have to check Memory Alpha, but I don't know that it's something that has never ever been established in any way at all. Also, wrt the Romulan thing, it doesn't really mean that much because the separation was supposed to be so long ago that they evolved separately and in different ways from Vulcans. I mean, Romulans don't experience pon farr either.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[flowrs4ophelia.livejournal.com]

Also, wrt the Romulan thing, it doesn't really mean that much because the separation was supposed to be so long ago that they evolved separately and in different ways from Vulcans. I mean, Romulans don't experience pon farr either.

*nod* Good point. Even if the philosophy of logic originated because of their ancestors' need to keep from being a violent society, I guess it's entirely possible it's just something that stayed around in their culture even if Vulcans are different enough from Romulans now that it isn't so much a necessity anymore.

Re: it would be awesome to actually complete my thought!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I'd like to tell you thanks, for responding! I read this whole thing, and while I don't have specific comments to most of it (I'm absorbing all the different posts so far; its overwhelming), I really appreciate you taking the time to lay it out for me, and for your participation in the general discussion.


Whereas AOS!Spock starts off indulging more of his humanity from a young age and identifying a lot more with his mother's side of his heritage than TOS!Spock.

This is where i think I've noticed a big disconnect. I remember that it was almost like Spock was 'learning' emotions the way Data does in TNG, learning his human side. Whereas I feel this new Spock comes equipped with a full understanding of his own emotional reactions; he just doesn't have the finesse of control over it when faced with extreme emotional situations.

I rewatched a clip recently from the movie, and in the cave scene, TOS Spock says openly "It is remarkably pleasing to see you, old friend." Still kind of dry, but definitely emotive.