But at least once Spock did "logically" yield to an emotion in just this way during TOS, as I noted earlier - in "Requiem for Methuselah," the last of the four Jerome Bixby scripts. When he sees the treasures in Flint's home - the works of Leonardo, et al. - Spock reacts with astonishment (to the point of agreeing to have a brandy!), even though he then says that the unaccustomed emotion he's "close to experiencing" is envy (which isn't too convincing because he immediately explains that he's discovered that modern materials were used).
^The difference is, those moments were
exceptions to Spock's normal pattern, which was to resist and suppress his so-called "human half" (a ridiculous characterization, since of course the whole reason Vulcans embraced logic is because their own innate emotions are so intense). He still strove for a self-image as a totally logical being and frequently criticized or dismissed other characters' emotional reactions (for instance, look how contemptuous he is toward Scotty's "feeling" about the condition of the ship in "That Which Survives"). He admitted his emotions when he had to, but treated them as a problem to be overcome or a source of shame (see "Plato's Stepchildren," for example, where he admits to feeling hatred toward Parmen, but does so only with reluctance.) That's very, very different from the movie-era Spock who's completely comfortable in his own skin, not struggling with his emotions at all or judging others for theirs.
And let's face it, Spock was often out of character in the third season, since the show was in the hands of writers who didn't understand the characters as well as their predecessors. His ridiculous mooning over Droxine in "The Cloud Minders" is an example. And as much as I love "Requiem for Methuselah" for its gorgeous, poetic writing, the fact is that its portrayal of Spock is a bit off-kilter. There's a difference between unintentionally changing the way a character is written because you don't fully understand him and purposefully having the character undergo a transformative experience.
Spock's holding-hands-with-Jim turning point in TMP, the apparent focus of the present discussion, has little impact for me because of course "this simple feeling is beyond V'ger's comprehension." We can all see that for ourselves, so Spock's epiphany is meaningful only to himself (at least at the moment).
Uhhh... what???????? That's pretty obviously the whole point here -- what it meant
to Spock. How it redefined his view
of himself, what
he believed, how
he chose to relate to his emotional side. The epiphany wasn't about what V'Ger could comprehend. The epiphany was that Spock had been wrong to fight against his emotional side, because emotion is what gives life its meaning. V'Ger was simply the illustration of that. It represented the ideal Spock had been pursuing -- pure logic with nothing else in the way -- and when he melded with V'Ger and experienced that firsthand, he recognized how completely barren and empty it was. From that point on, he understood that emotion wasn't something to be fought against, wasn't a character flaw to be embarrassed by and try to purge, but something to be embraced and accepted as an integral part of himself, as something with value to himself and others.
And I can tell you firsthand that such a realization is very meaningful. I lost my mother when I was seven, and for a few years I dealt with the grief by trying to emulate Spock, to bury my emotions. Which turned out very badly because it just left me without a release valve for the tensions that built up until they exploded. When TMP came out four years later, Spock's epiphany helped me to make much the same breakthrough he did, to accept that I needed my emotions and was only hurting myself by trying to suppress them. So what Spock went through in TMP is very relevant to me, because it positively affected me in real life.
