Another Look at Chapel

[KeepOnTrekking]

Christine Chapel is usually regarded as the woman who's always mooning over Spock like a dreamy-eyed girl. Is that really accurate?

Just as Spock represents the intellect of the human soul, McCoy the emotional side, and Kirk is the ambition or balance in the middle, I believe that Chapel symbolizes the idea of hope.

In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" we see Chapel has been hanging onto the idea, or hope, that her fiancee Roger Korby is still alive after all these years. In "Amok Time" when she's bringing the soup to Spock, McCoy sums it up very neatly with the phrase "You never give up hoping, do you?" It's starting to be an idea that Chapel reflects the idea of hope.

Getting back to "Little Girls," Korby has had his conscious (or is it more accurately just the intellect?) transferred into an android body. He's spent years alone with other androids. How much of Korby's "humanity" was there inside the robot? He apparently lost hope of seeing Chapel again. He apparently felt something of a need for companionship or lust when Andrea was created. If Brown wasn't a transfer like Korby and was an original android created just to look like Brown then why didn't Andrea look more like Christine?

Was the computer programming of the android trying to squash any of Korby's "humanity"? The Old Ones apparently had to destroy the Others in order to save themselves as Ruk related. Was Korby being taken over (like a Borg) by the android body or was his intellectual android nature slowly eroding what humanity was placed in there?

Korby didn't seem to recognize Chapel at first. Then he started to appreciate her more. Was his robot side and human side in conflict with each other? We've seen this before with Rayna overloading from her conflicting impulses in "Requiem for Methuselah." Again we see it with Lal in TNG's "Offspring." Did something similar happen with Korby? And starting to with Andrea at the end?

Korby grabs Andrea's hand and sets off the laser gun. Was his conflicting emotions with his android programming too much for him to bear? Did he commit suicide rather than deal with the pain? Did his human side resurface with Chapel's presence but he was still slowly losing his identity against the machine programming? We never really got a insight into Korby's point-of-view but that would really be a horror story if he was experiencing a Borglike assimilation over the years. No wonder he pulled the trigger on himself if the inner conflict were that great.

Roger and Andrea going up in a blaze of light. That would make a lasting impression on Chapel. Could she have seen a similar conflict brewing between Spock's logical and emotional sides? With her fiancee dead, did she stay on the Enterprise trying to find a purpose in helping Mr. Spock avoid the same fate as Korby?

This would make sense if "Little Girls" came before "Naked Time." The production order or stardate order may not gibe but I can live with that. Chapel feels compassion for Spock and the inner turmoil he's going through. She's hoping that he will be able to resolve the problem without a tragic ending and falls in love with him in the meantime. She loves the human Mr. Spock and the Vulcan Mr. Spock. Everyone sees the nurse being aloof and in love with Spock, maybe she's really trying to be supportive and available for Spock during his journey to reconciliate his two sides. She respects the Vulcan's privacy and doesn't advertise his problem. The feelings of love for the man is a bonus for her that maycome to fruition once Spock finds the balance inside that he needs.

When Spock and Chapel share minds in "Return to Tomorrow," how much of their thoughts interacted? Did Spock learn of Chapel's concern for his dual nature? Did she learn of his inability to ever return that love in his current state?

By the time of STTMP, Chapel appears to be "over" Spock but still comes to the Bridge with McCoy to greet him. Along with his feelings for Kirk and McCoy, her presence really must have been a sore reminder of his inability to achieve Kohlinahr and master his human side that's still giving him so much pain. What appears to be a pointless cameo for Chapel, really accentuates Spock's pain at the moment.

Spock failed achieving Kohlinahr but Chapel's still their hoping that Spock will embrace his humanity instead of extinguishing it. Then Spock mind melds with V'ger...and does.

So "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" In Chapel's case--hope.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Interesting analysis. I've always wondered why "What Are Little Girls Made of?" seems so different in comparison to Chapel's portrayals in most other episodes where she's more insipid than any other character.

 

[Timewalker]

It just occurred to me that sharing consciousness with Spock in "Return to Tomorrow" may have helped give Chapel a better idea of her own strengths and weaknesses - given her a boost in her analytical ability, so to speak. If she gained increased ability to use logic, that may be what prompted her to get a medical degree as a doctor, rather than remaining a nurse.

 

[maryh]

Like you, I've always considered Chapel as a character, who was there to provide balance and a different perspective on matters.

Typically we see stereotypes of the medical field where the hard-nosed, realistic, doctor says "pull the plug", and the family (or compassionate nurse) won't, hoping for that miracle, or unexpected turn for the better. Chapel, I believe, provides that balance. McCoy is emotional but realistic whereas Chapel is emotional but unrealistically hopeful.

Her character should have used, more than they did, to examine the role of hope in the Trek galaxy, That, of course, puts her on a collision course with polar opposite Spock, who not only rejects emotions, but rejects anything which cannot be proven scientifically. She is in love with him because she is so sensitive to pain and suffering, which we know dwell under the surface of Spock, and as a good, unselfish, dedicated nurse, her duty is to relieve that pain and suffering. And until he gets better, she can't desert him. She keeps hoping to be able to relieve the suffering associated with his emotional repression.

In a way she reminds me of women who marry guys on death row or who are terminally ill. It is a sort of love born from pity, and they think they are bringing hope and relief of suffering.

 

[Pauln6]

Chapel is a character with many hidden depths that they just never bothered to explore. She's a scientist - assistant and fiancee to the 'Louis Pateure of Archaeological medicine' so she could be trained in biology, paleobiology, archaeolgogy, and genetics but all throughout What Are Little Girls Made Of, all she does is hope. Her intellect is almost entirely absent and she displays almost no analytical ability at all.

McCoy uses her in his lab research and it is entirely possible that she carries out most of the preliminary work for him but on screen, we only ever see her handing him slides.

She displays quite a bit of back bone and sometimes even vocally disapproves of his diagnoses (we later learn that she must have been training to be a doctor while on board).

I think it was a mistake to make her an MD. She would have been more interesting as the ship's Life Sciences officer where she would have a unique skills set that would allow her to assist both McCoy and Spock depending on the situation. They've made the same mistake in NuTrek by making her a nurse notwithstanding that the alternate timeline could have led to her being a science officer who gets drafted in to work as a nurse temporarily. There's nothing wrong with beig a nurse but from a story perspective she will always be in McCoy's shadow.

I've tried to elevate her slightly in my story on Youtube, albeit only because I thought the plot required someone with her skills rather than 'an old country doctor' like McCoy.

She provides a little sweetness for McCoy's sour, a little emotion for Spock's logic, and a bit od sass where it's needed but overall she was just too passive as a character, always providing support and never truly standing in the light herself.

 

[Satyrquaze]

Christine Chapel is usually regarded as the woman who's always mooning over Spock like a dreamy-eyed girl. Is that really accurate?

Is mooning anything like swooning?

Where I'm from mooning means something entirely different.

 

[Timewalker]

Think of a young woman sighing, putting her hand to her heart, and saying, "Ah, me!" (I believe that was a line in Romeo and Juliet). It's adoration, of an immature sort that isn't reciprocated. Any kindness from Spock would make Chapel ecstatically happy ("He noticed me!"); any rejection or indifference just makes her try harder. That whole "We shared consciousness together - it was beautiful!!! <boo-hoo, sniffle>" would qualify as mooning, as would soulful or doe-like looks across a room.

 

[Lee]

^^^ From Websters:
: to spend in idle reverie : dream —used with away

 

[maryh]

Think of a young woman sighing, putting her hand to her heart, and saying, "Ah, me!" (I believe that was a line in Romeo and Juliet). It's adoration, of an immature sort that isn't reciprocated. Any kindness from Spock would make Chapel ecstatically happy ("He noticed me!"); any rejection or indifference just makes her try harder. That whole "We shared consciousness together - it was beautiful!!! <boo-hoo, sniffle>" would qualify as mooning, as would soulful or doe-like looks across a room.

I never thought that Chapel saying "It was beautiful" referred to her experience of sharing a conscience with Spock. Rather, I always thought she was speaking about the emotional, lovey-dovey goodbye scene between Sargon and Thalassa.

If I saw it your way, I would agree with your opinion.

 

[Keith1701]

Think of a young woman sighing, putting her hand to her heart, and saying, "Ah, me!" (I believe that was a line in Romeo and Juliet). It's adoration, of an immature sort that isn't reciprocated. Any kindness from Spock would make Chapel ecstatically happy ("He noticed me!"); any rejection or indifference just makes her try harder. That whole "We shared consciousness together - it was beautiful!!! <boo-hoo, sniffle>" would qualify as mooning, as would soulful or doe-like looks across a room.

She was great, for the series....