Kirk and Spock hot on the case in “The Devil in the Dark”
So far on this blog, I’ve talked about Spock’s devotion to logic and McCoy’s commitment to compassion. But what about Kirk? What’s the keyword that most defines or describes what Kirk brings to the Enterprise?
We are used to complementary fictional characters coming in twos: in detective fiction, there’s Watson and Holmes, Lewis and Morse, Captain Hastings and Monsieur Poirot. (I had to be reminded in my high school French class that even though we pronounced ‘mon’ with a full nasal O vowel, ‘monsieur’ pretends there is no O there at all: m-syuh.)
But there’s a threesome in juvenile detective stories to compare our Star Trek threesome to: George (the tomboyish friend whose full name is Georgia*), Bess, and Nancy Drew.
In the stories, as I remember them, George is the athletic can-do and slightly irreverent goer; Bess is giggly, feminine, slightly plump; and Nancy is the star of the show: poised, smart, brave, conscientious, resourceful, attractive (and, presumably, perfectly proportioned). In short, George and Bess are swell pals to have around, and they each have appeal, but as a sub-teenaged girl, I didn’t want to be George, because I wanted to be polished and elegant as well as independent and self-confident. I didn’t want to be Bess, despite her niceness, since she lacked the sense of strength that George had, or the moral seriousness of Nancy, for that matter. Nice and shallow wasn’t what I aspired to be. If I wanted to be anybody, like most young readers of Nancy Drew, it was the main character. And Nancy is not quite but almost arithmetically George + Bess - George’s excess - Bess’s deficiency + Nancy’s additional virtues. Nancy is all the best of George and Bess, while not being as extreme as their most notable features: not as boyish as George, not as girly as Bess. But she is something more, besides. If they are the Bronze and Silver (you decide who is which), Nancy is the undisputed Gold.
I say this not because there is much to compare between the Nancy Drew stories and Star Trek (for one thing, the latter is enjoyable both for children and adults). But I do think there is a parallel between the Drew three and the Trek triumvirate. Nancy has a bit of George and Feminine in her but she's something more, as well. That’s how I see Kirk: a bit of the other two, toned down somewhat, and something more as well. And of course it’s Nancy and Kirk that most readers and viewers most want to be.
But back to the question I raised at the start. If George is yang and Bess is yin, then what is Nancy? Nancy is yin and yang yoked together in a pleasing way: she is a balance between the two.
Something more complex is going on in Star Trek. Something more adult.
If Spock is logic and McCoy is compassion, what does Kirk represent? I would say: spiritedness. Kirk is what the ancient Greeks called thumotic: he is the spirited man. He fights; he loves; he ventures; he argues; he feels; he is a strong actor in his own life. He rules himself. That’s what makes Kirk so distinctive. Or part of it — more later!
*Yes, Georgia not Georgina, as confirmed by George herself in The Clue in the Old Stagecoach (1960). See Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew And The Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak, p. 251. An interesting book: I recommend it.