Kirk's One True Love Is...
- Thread starter Joanna McCoy-Kirk
- Start date
What about that android chick he needed a memory erasing mind-meld to get over?
Oh, I like to think that he was a better man than that.
"Not to mitigate the tragedy that was once your 'great love,' but Jim Kirk is, well, I believe the human term is 'a total nutjob.' I'm quite sympathetic to the condition of objectophilia... but if your boyfriend cheats on you with a tricorder and runs off with an starship, he's bonkers and you'd best be done with him."
Like many others here, I, too, think that Kirk's one true love was the Enterprise. Nothing kinky about it - it happens to many leaders.
A one-night stand?Where did you get that info? Seems very unlikely.
I was exaggerating. I just meant that she ultimately meant little to him compared to his ship, or (in his early days) his career.
Jim Kirk's one true love was Jim Kirk. As it should have been.
Edith Keeler was a plot device. The Enterprise was a fetish (nice one, Dennis) that reflected his own power and accomplishment. Remember, his fear in "And the Children Shall Lead" wasn't of losing the Enterprise but of losing command.
Rey, narcissistic
Edith Keeler was a plot device. The Enterprise was a fetish (nice one, Dennis) that reflected his own power and accomplishment. Remember, his fear in "And the Children Shall Lead" wasn't of losing the Enterprise but of losing command.
Rey, narcissistic
Sister Edith... because he was willing to sacrifice the universe to save her.
No he was not. Nor should he have been.
GR understood Kirk better than HE.
The Enterprise.
True dat.
In TOS, Kirk often used women in service of his needs--get your minds outta the gutters folks, I ain't talking about sex. Except for Edith Keeler, Kirk usually manipulated women to get something from them--outta the gutters--or to get at someone or something. Like Lenore in "Conscience of the King" or Lt. Marlene Moreau in "Mirror Mirror", to name a couple.
Even in TVH, Kirk used his charm on Gillian Taylor so she can reveal to him the information he needed on the whales.
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Indeed.
If we take eros out of the equation (and sex and love are only incidentally related through an evolutionary bribe), I'd say the deepest relationship Kirk had with anyone was the one he had with Spock. But even then it was tinged with the narcissism I praise above. Recall how Kirk talks of Spock in the film which most centers on their friendship: Spock is the "noblest part of myself," says Kirk, and his soul is Kirk's responsibility, "as if it were my very own."
I firmly believe there is nothing wrong with this: Kirk is the kind of narcissist who must constantly earn his own affection. This fuels in the best of such men a fierce devotion to duty and a need to achieve, accomplish and explore. For such a man, to have the most emotionally reserved and withholding member of the crew fall so deeply and completely in love with him--platonic or otherwise--would be the ultimate validation. In such a case, Kirk could not help but reciprocate.
Good observation, middy. I'd only append that Kirk's needs were often the needs of a larger mission: solve a series of murders and maybe bring an escaped mass-murderer to justice in the case of LK, get back to his own universe and (try to) save the Mirror Halkans in the case of MM and save the planet Earth itself in the case of GT. The only time we see "Kirk" frivolously use a woman is in the deleted scenes of Abrams's movie, which desecrates the corpse of the assassinated Kirk character by then having him apologize to the wrong green girl. (So glad those scenes remained on the cutting room floor...)
If Spock and The Enterprise were contestants I wonder how they'd divide up the Other vote?
Looking back at that movie, I wonder if Antonia existed in the real trek universe, or was she a nexus generated fantasy, simular to Picard's christmas family.
Spock was Kirk's longest lasting relationship, it even outlived Kirk. Putting aside sex, everything that should exist within a true loving relationship is there. Confidence, trust, respect, interdependancely.
Hmm, interesting! So the one woman capable of winning out over the Enterprise, turns out she has to be an impossibly-perfect fantasy!
Eh, I enjoyed both endings. Ellison's feels much more human, though.
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I can see that. For me, though, the aired ending is far superior. By having Kirk act (after being jolted from his human instinct to save Edith by the still inhumanly scary Spock), the ending managed to inflict far more pain on him while at the same time establishing his depth as a truly heroic figure. Making Kirk more heroic--even when such heroism is as dark and unpleasant as it is here--than the vast majority of people is essential to making him believable. Jim Kirk is no ordinary man.
Spock.
Yes, Kirk does love The Enterprise, and he once says "Nothing is more important than my ship", but when his friendship with Spock deepens (nothing slashy here) and becomes an integral part of his life Kirk is willing and ready to sacrifice his career for Spock and he explicitely states it in Amok time: "I owe him my life a dozen times over – isn't that worth a career? He's my friend!"
Regarding the girls, it's definitely Edith Keeler. She's the only one he falls in love with while being himself and without any hidden agenda. So I think this is the real thing, and she has a very special place in his heart and in the TOS lore.
Yes, Kirk does love The Enterprise, and he once says "Nothing is more important than my ship", but when his friendship with Spock deepens (nothing slashy here) and becomes an integral part of his life Kirk is willing and ready to sacrifice his career for Spock and he explicitely states it in Amok time: "I owe him my life a dozen times over – isn't that worth a career? He's my friend!"
Regarding the girls, it's definitely Edith Keeler. She's the only one he falls in love with while being himself and without any hidden agenda. So I think this is the real thing, and she has a very special place in his heart and in the TOS lore.
Thanks, everyone, for seeing what I meant with my simple, one word post: Spock. Nothing snide, or jokey was meant and you all caught it. The relationship with Spock was the deepest, most important Kirk had. It was mutual, their friendship was symbiotic, they were closer than brothers. Kirk's agony over losing Spock far outweighed the loss of Sam. Kirk's reaction to Sam's death is muted compared to his feelings of Spock's mere blindness in the same episode. Their friendship had become the basis of "their" Star Trek, and is central to the Abrams redo.
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