This Side Of Paradise message

[Christopher]

Except that bliss was never depicted as being received with consent. Anyone taken within range of the spores was infected (except Kirk). Once infected, the victims are compelled to introduce and expose any new arrivals to the spores.

No one is depicted as voluntarily choosing to be infected by the spores after being informed of their affect. Everyone infected is ambushed by someone already infected.

Is it still a wonderful place if your consent is removed?

Exactly. It's not some harmless bliss, it's an imposed compulsion to infect others and enforce absolute conformity, like the Borg. The numbed contentment is just part of the trap.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, there was a deleted passage (included in the Blish novelization) that would have explained the spores had a degree of sentience, so they weren't just a drug, but basically entities that enslaved others to serve and propagate them. Essentially it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except they just take you over instead of cloning you.

 

[Ragitsu]

There is something quietly unsettling about having one's volition subverted by a plant (i.e., a lesser life-form almost certainly reacting purely on instinct/the simplest of stimuli).

 

[MarcKyle1964]

Except that bliss was never depicted as being received with consent. Anyone taken within range of the spores was infected (except Kirk). Once infected, the victims are compelled to introduce and expose any new arrivals to the spores.

No one is depicted as voluntarily choosing to be infected by the spores after being informed of their affect. Everyone infected is ambushed by someone already infected.

Is it still a wonderful place if your consent is removed?

Well, you don't stay there. I had a plan: Pike gets infected and then fixed up by the spores, starts fighting with Mr Spock and then beams back up, free of their influence, good as new.

 

[Etbj SMY]

There is something quietly unsettling about having one's volition subverted by a plant (i.e., a lesser life-form almost certainly reacting purely on instinct/the simplest of stimuli).

Perhaps...though Spock was the first character to actually complain about it (and only momentarily). Plus, you/we/he would get to frolic in the barn with Leila Kalomi.....or another fetching individual.

 

[Henoch]

Well, you don't stay there. I had a plan: Pike gets infected and then fixed up by the spores, starts fighting with Mr Spock and then beams back up, free of their influence, good as new.

In my head canon, Starfleet eradicated the spore plants, thus, removing the plot hole that anybody can be healed by a short visit to the planet.

 

[Mytran]

In my head canon, Starfleet eradicated the spore plants, thus, removing the plot hole that anybody can be healed by a short visit to the planet.

Makes sense - if Kirk was a bit of a "party pooper" in this episode then those stiffs at Starfleet Command would be even more so!

 

[Ragitsu]

Perhaps...though Spock was the first character to actually complain about it (and only momentarily). Plus, you/we/he would get to frolic in the barn with Leila Kalomi.....or another fetching individual.

Truth be told, I would rather live as an ugly man than exist as a beautiful marionette.

 

[UssGlenn]

While TOS was generally progressive, I have to admit that once in a while it did seem to veer the other way. I’m particularly thinking of “A Private Little War”, where Kirk concludes that it’s sadly necessary to arm the Hill People/South Vietnam against the Klingon-proxy villagers/North Vietnam.

If arming the Hill People is the "conservative" position, then letting them get slaughtered by their over armed neighbors is the liberal position, and that doesn't seem right at all.

 

[Christopher]

If arming the Hill People is the "conservative" position, then letting them get slaughtered by their over armed neighbors is the liberal position, and that doesn't seem right at all.

The whole point is that Kirk's hands were tied. As long as the Klingons were arming the villagers, then doing nothing would mean the hill people would be wiped out, and taking direct action against the Klingons could provoke a larger conflict that would get both sides wiped out. Kirk and McCoy were trying to gather evidence that could be used to expose the Klingon interference and put diplomatic pressure on them to stop, but then matters escalated too quickly for that to be enough. So the only option Kirk could see was to restore the balance of power. It wasn't what he wanted, it wasn't what made him happy, and it wasn't a representation of his political ideology. It was just the only option he saw that wouldn't get Tyree's people wiped out, because the actions of the Klingons and Nona had closed off all the better options.

"A Private Little War" is a tragedy. It's a story where the characters' attempts to find a good solution are stymied by others' malice or by cruel fate, until there's nothing left except a bad outcome. Thinking that the episode is endorsing Kirk's decision is like thinking that Romeo and Juliet is endorsing teen suicide.

 

[johnnybear]

Leila did feel empty after losing the influence of the spores, unlike Sandoval who seemed bitter at their loss by saying we've achieved nothing here and was ready to return to the Enterprise with the crew. But I still think a voluntary expedition with fore knowledge of the spores could bring something good to the colonists.
JB