Kirk's execution of Nero/Optimus Prime "Any Last Words?" TF2

[horatio83]

First of all, I am a European who basically agrees with Tariq Ali that 9/11 was not an act of war but a crime so not a war against terror but a police or intelligence operation to capture the masterminds of mass murder are in order.
Yet I detested all this juristic-moralistic "bin Laden should have been put on trial" stuff that appeared in our papers when he was executed. This would have been the formally right thing to do but isn't there something obscene about having to prove the guilt of someone when everybody knows that he is a mass murderer? Same applies when a tyrant is toppled. I am not for murder but it seems obscene to not immediately execute bin Laden, Louis XVI or Nicholas II.

Sorry for the long introduction but I considered it necessary lest you put me into a simply category like "a liberal wants to be soft on terrorism".
Back to your question, condemn would go too far but I think an execution can only be ethical if you do it because it is necessary and not because you enjoy it.
If I did something absolutely horrible I would neither want mercy nor a mob with pitchforks, I would want a friend to kill me out of cold love (love in the sense of agape, political love). Isn't this third option generally missing in today's discourses?

 

[BillJ]

"There's no justice like angry mob justice..." - Principal Seymour Skinner

 

[Greg Cox]

To repeat myself for the fourth time, yes, they ACTED properly. This is not the issue.

How can you watch the scene and not notice how Kirk enjoys to break out of the role of the principled Federation captain, how can you not notice how he enjoys to be able to be his real primitive self once his superego embodied in Spock tells him that he doesn't have to play by the book anymore?

.

But again, so what if they got a little personal satisfaction from disposing of Nero once and for all--after doing the decent thing and giving him a chance to surrender? As I mentioned before, they're not robots or plaster saints. That's a perfectly human reaction given everything they've gone through. Even Vulcans have emotions, especially after their planet and mother are murdered before their eyes. So why expect Kirk and Spock not to have a normal emotional reaction to Nero's death?

As you admit, they acted properly. So why begrudge them a believable emotional response?

Remember what Kirk learned in "The Enemy Within"? He's not just superego. He needs his primitive side as well. It's part of what makes him who he is. And it's what makes him a real, flesh-and-blood character and not just a mouthpiece for high-minded moral principles.

 

[horatio83]

I totally agree with you that Kirk should be "a real, flesh-and-blood character and not just a mouthpiece for high-minded moral principles", Kirk should be Kirk and not Picard. If what he has done had been portrayed as normal human weakness I wouldn't mind it. It is the transgressive pattern which I find disgusting.

Take TUC, some fans don't like that the crew are racists and Shatner and Uhura resisted respectively refused to speak some lines. But the characters learn from their mistakes, there is progress in the story. Sure, lowering the heroes to elevate them later could be called a cheapo but the idea is nonetheless, like in FC, that the characters are human and imperfect but strive to improve themselves.

The transgressive motif in ST09 is the very opposite of the above pattern, there are some official principles which you follow because you have to but at the first chance you break out of them and enjoy it.
Note that you can do an adolescent story (which ST09 has to be to some degree) without having to embrace the transgression-pleasure principle. Think about Kirk in TSFS, it is not rebelling for the sake of rebelling or rebelling for the sake of pleasure but rebelling for the sake of friendship, family or however you want to call it.

 

[BillJ]

Take TUC, some fans don't like that the crew are racists and Shatner and Uhura resisted respectively refused to speak some lines. But the characters learn from their mistakes, there is progress in the story. Sure, lowering the heroes to elevate them later could be called a cheapo but the idea is nonetheless, like in FC, that the characters are human and imperfect but strive to improve themselves.

But since this happened right at the end of the film there's no way to know if it'll cause change in the character...

 

[Greg Cox]

The transgressive motif in ST09 is the very opposite of the above pattern, there are some official principles which you follow because you have to but at the first chance you break out of them and enjoy it.
Note that you can do an adolescent story (which ST09 has to be to some degree) without having to embrace the transgression-pleasure principle. .

Okay, I admit I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "transgressive" or why this is supposed to be such a big deal. I'm more concerned with characters behaving in a believable and dramatic fashion.

Were Kirk and Spock supposed to feel bad about destroying Nero in the line of the duty? And was the movie supposed to scold them for having a natural human reaction to seeing the guy who killed their parents get his just desserts? Would it have improved the movie if they had reacted calmly and unemotionally?

They acted properly under the circumstances. They reacted like normal human beings (or Vulcans). What grievous human failings were they supposed to learn to overcome here? Not being flawless, dispassionate saints who only operate according to the higher principles of their super-ego?

That sounds like a sermon, not a gripping human drama or adventure story.

If anything, Kirk is all about striking a balance between logic and emotion, between breaking the rules and answering the call of duty. He rushes in where angels fear to tread--because he's no angel. And it's not "transgressive" to feel anger at the right moment, for the right reasons.

 

[Sci]

The transgressive motif in ST09 is the very opposite of the above pattern, there are some official principles which you follow because you have to but at the first chance you break out of them and enjoy it.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. Nothing in ST09 supports the idea that it's about the joy of breaking away from higher principles and embracing your inner evil.

ST09 featured Kirk and Spock offering Nero aid, and then taking satisfaction from his subsequent death. That doesn't mean that they're saying, "As soon as you get the excuse to do so, break free of your higher principles and enjoy it." It just means that they drew some satisfaction from a war criminal's death.

 

[horatio83]

The transgressive motif in ST09 is the very opposite of the above pattern, there are some official principles which you follow because you have to but at the first chance you break out of them and enjoy it.
Note that you can do an adolescent story (which ST09 has to be to some degree) without having to embrace the transgression-pleasure principle. .

Okay, I admit I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "transgressive" or why this is supposed to be such a big deal. I'm more concerned with characters behaving in a believable and dramatic fashion.

Were Kirk and Spock supposed to feel bad about destroying Nero in the line of the duty? And was the movie supposed to scold them for having a natural human reaction to seeing the guy who killed their parents get his just desserts? Would it have improved the movie if they had reacted calmly and unemotionally?

They acted properly under the circumstances. They reacted like normal human beings (or Vulcans). What grievous human failings were they supposed to learn to overcome here? Not being flawless, dispassionate saints who only operate according to the higher principles of their super-ego?

That sounds like a sermon, not a gripping human drama or adventure story.

If anything, Kirk is all about striking a balance between logic and emotion, between breaking the rules and answering the call of duty. He rushes in where angels fear to tread--because he's no angel. And it's not "transgressive" to feel anger at the right moment, for the right reasons.

What is unclear about the word transgression? You break a rule and enjoy it.
Since when are ethical transgressions no big deal? It is not Frostian fire or ice, desire or hate, that lead to the worst ethical disasters in human history but transgressive patterns.

"City on the Edge of Forever" is a "gripping human drama" in which Spock behaves like I suggest; "Edith Keeler must die" is an ethical imperative whereas enjoying to be allowed to "fire everything we got" respectively to give in to your desires for revenge is a trangression that serves in this particular instance to do what is necessary. When Spock threw Kirk overboard this was anything but necessary.
When Sarek tells spock that he should not try to suppress his desire for revenge he solicits him to break basic Vulcan rules. Structurally this is no different than Karadzic writting poems to solicit the Serbs to do whatever the hell they want:

People nothing is forbidden in my faith
There is loving and drinking
And looking at the Sun for as long as you want
And this godhead forbids you nothing

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/radovan/poems.html

The transgressive motif in ST09 is the very opposite of the above pattern, there are some official principles which you follow because you have to but at the first chance you break out of them and enjoy it.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. Nothing in ST09 supports the idea that it's about the joy of breaking away from higher principles and embracing your inner evil.

ST09 featured Kirk and Spock offering Nero aid, and then taking satisfaction from his subsequent death. That doesn't mean that they're saying, "As soon as you get the excuse to do so, break free of your higher principles and enjoy it." It just means that they drew some satisfaction from a war criminal's death.

Between the lines the movie clearly says this when Spock basically flips off the Vulcan establishment, when he maroons Kirk and when he follows his father's advice. In the last case it is not even between the lines but as blunt as it can get:

SPOCK: I feel anger for the one who took mother's life. An anger I cannot control.
SAREK: I believe, as she would say, do not try to.

 

[Greg Cox]

That doesn't mean that they're saying, "As soon as you get the excuse to do so, break free of your higher principles and enjoy it." It just means that they drew some satisfaction from a war criminal's death.

As did the audience. I mean, were we not supposed to cheer when the bad guy blows up? If that's "trangressive," then I guess pretty much every adventure story every written is pandering to people's id--and setting us on the slippery slope to ethnic cleansing!

And since when did Star Trek heroes not break the rules? Kirk and Co. were forever "flipping off" Starfleet orders and stuffy Federation bureaucrats--and, yeah, sometimes they grinned while they were doing so.

"I think, if I were human, I would tell them to go to hell. If I were human . . . "

Hell, Kirk broke the rules when he cheated on the Kobiyashi Maru test. That was the whole point, established as far back as The Wrath of Khan, and he didn't seem terribly guilty about it. Kirk breaks the rules. That's always been part of his character.

Although, for record, I don't think the new movie condoned Spock marooning Kirk. That was clearly a case of Spock over-reacting because he had been "emotionally compromised" by the destruction of Vulcan and the death of his mother. He wasn't thinking clearly at that moment--as Spock Prime stated explicitly.

 

[Sci]

The transgressive motif in ST09 is the very opposite of the above pattern, there are some official principles which you follow because you have to but at the first chance you break out of them and enjoy it.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. Nothing in ST09 supports the idea that it's about the joy of breaking away from higher principles and embracing your inner evil.

ST09 featured Kirk and Spock offering Nero aid, and then taking satisfaction from his subsequent death. That doesn't mean that they're saying, "As soon as you get the excuse to do so, break free of your higher principles and enjoy it." It just means that they drew some satisfaction from a war criminal's death.

Between the lines the movie clearly says this when Spock basically flips off the Vulcan establishment,

Absolute nonsense. Spock didn't "flip off the Vulcan establishment" and thereby establish that you ought to "break the rules." The Vulcan Science Academy's entry council were the ones being transgressive, by indulging in gross anti-Human prejudice -- essentially telling Spock that he's inferior to full Vulcans for being half-Human. They transgressed, and Spock behaved completely appropriately.

when he maroons Kirk

That's not Spock "breaking the rules." That's Spock being ruthlessly logical; he has calculated that Kirk would incite a mutiny if he was allowed to stay onboard.

This is no different, really, than Spock urging Kirk to kill Gary Mitchell very early on in "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

and when he follows his father's advice.

That's not "break the rules." That's Spock and his father finally realizing that maybe Vulcan's rules are themselves sometimes unjust and unworthy of being followed -- the exact same realization Spock came to after encountering V'Ger in TMP and the subsequent films.

 

[horatio83]

As did the audience. I mean, were we not supposed to cheer when the bad guy blows up? If that's "trangressive," then I guess pretty much every adventure story every written is pandering to people's id--and setting us on the slippery slope to ethnic cleansing!

And since when did Star Trek heroes not break the rules? Kirk and Co. were forever "flipping off" Starfleet orders and stuffy Federation bureaucrats--and, yeah, sometimes they grinned while they were doing.

"I think, if I were human, I would tell them to go to hell. If I were human . . . "

Hell, Kirk broke the rules when he cheated on the Kobiyashi Maru test. That was the whole point, established as far back as The Wrath of Khan, and he didn't seem terribly guilty about it.

As i wrote before: Note that you can do an adolescent story (which ST09 has to be to some degree) without having to embrace the transgression-pleasure principle. Think about Kirk in TSFS, it is not rebelling for the sake of rebelling or rebelling for the sake of pleasure but rebelling for the sake of friendship, family or however you want to call it.
There is a difference between refusing to immediately have you ship mothballed, to disobey orders in order to save the life of a comrade and friend and to enjoy your desire for revenge.

Did you cheer when the Romulan commander died in Balance of Terror? Is this a mere coincidence or is the way Kirk and the Romulan commander deal with each other an essential element of the episode that explains a part of its popularity? After all on a shallow reading it is just a stupid submarine story adapted for Star Trek.

Even simpler stories with less sympathetic villains like Kruge, Chang or Soran did not make me rejoice when they died. I cannot understand why I should rejoice when a baddy dies, be it in fiction or reality. I can be glad or relieved that he can no more commit any crimes but I cannot enjoy the death of a brother or sister, no matter how low they have fallen.

What I am saying is nothing crazy, we neither want our judges to enjoy to punish nor to enjoy the warm felling of compassion and mercy when they make a judgement, we want them to be cold, rational, ethical agents. In matters if life and death this applies even stronger.

Absolute nonsense. Spock didn't "flip off the Vulcan establishment" and thereby establish that you ought to "break the rules." The Vulcan Science Academy's entry council were the ones being transgressive, by indulging in gross anti-Human prejudice -- essentially telling Spock that he's inferior to full Vulcans for being half-Human. They transgressed, and Spock behaved completely appropriately.

when he maroons Kirk

That's not Spock "breaking the rules." That's Spock being ruthlessly logical; he has calculated that Kirk would incite a mutiny if he was allowed to stay onboard.

This is no different, really, than Spock urging Kirk to kill Gary Mitchell very early on in "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

and when he follows his father's advice.

That's not "break the rules." That's Spock and his father finally realizing that maybe Vulcan's rules are themselves sometimes unjust and unworthy of being followed -- the exact same realization Spock came to after encountering V'Ger in TMP and the subsequent films.

There are numerous Trek stories that point out why this pagan thinking "oh, we Vulcans just gotta find a decent balance between emotions and logic" is wicked. Amok Time shows raw Vulcan emotions, The Final Frontier shows such a pagan Vulcan fellow, Fusion shows similar Vulcan folks not to mention all the stories about Tuvok or T'Pol which show what happens when they fail to suppress their emotions.

You basically agree with Sarek that it is OK to give in to one's desire for revenge. Vulcans or humans, this is wicked. I doubt that you really want to advocate a return to a tit-for-tat vendetta culture which, in the case of Vulcans, would mean with Warp 9 back into the old, savage, pre-Surak days.

 

[Greg Cox]

That's not "break the rules." That's Spock and his father finally realizing that maybe Vulcan's rules are themselves sometimes unjust and unworthy of being followed -- the exact same realization Spock came to after encountering V'Ger in TMP and the subsequent films.

Exactly. I'm not sure where people got the idea the Vulcans are supposed to be role models for humanity. If anything, Star Trek kept asserting over and over again that you need logic and emotion--and that seeming utopias in which nobody ever "trangresses" were unhealthy and unnatural.

If you want characters who never get angry or break the rules, look at "The Apple" or "This Side of Paradise" or "Return of the Archons" or "A Taste of Armageddon" . . . .

Heck, Kirk enjoyed the hell out of beating up a robot Finnegan on "Shore Leave." Should he be condemned for indulging his more primitive impulses and natural desire for revenge? Was that unworthy and "transgressive"? Should there have been some sort of pious coda in which he saw the error of his ways?

And were we not supposed to enjoy Scotty and Chekov brawling with the Klingons in "The Trouble with Tribbles"?

 

[horatio83]

That's not "break the rules." That's Spock and his father finally realizing that maybe Vulcan's rules are themselves sometimes unjust and unworthy of being followed -- the exact same realization Spock came to after encountering V'Ger in TMP and the subsequent films.

Exactly. I'm not sure where people got the idea the Vulcans are supposed to be role models for humanity. If anything, Star Trek kept asserting over and over again that you need logic and emotion--and that seeming utopias in which nobody ever "trangresses" were unhealthy and unnatural.

If you want characters who never get angry or break the rules, look at "The Apple" or "This Side of Paradise" or "Return of the Archons" or "A Taste of Armageddon" . . . .

Heck, Kirk enjoyed the hell out of beating up a robot Finnegan on "Shore Leave." Should he be condemned for indulging his more primitive impulses and natural desire for revenge? Was that unworthy and "transgressive"?

And were we not supposed to enjoy Scotty and Chekov brawling with the Klingons in "The Trouble with Tribbles"?

Brawling with the Klingons is comparable to old school sexual morality. In the fifties a father told his son to "not mess with girls" but between the lines this basically meant to "do it but quietly". The solicitation to break the rule is already programmed into it. The enjoyment that results from breaking it is utterly harmless.
Finnegan is a bully but he also wants Kirk to fight with him, i.e. Kirk does not know whether he really does what he wants or just what Finnegan wants. Not a matter of transgression but a question of whose desire is actually fulfilled.

Killing or Vulcan suppression is hardly as trivial as brawling or sex.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20041212153818/memoryalpha/en/images/b/b3/AtomicBomb.jpg

[Please don't hotlink images from other sites unless you have permission from the site's owner to do so. Also, please read this. - M']

 

[Greg Cox]

There are numerous Trek stories that point out why this pagan thinking "oh, we Vulcans just gotta find a decent balance between emotions and logic" is wicked. Amok Time shows raw Vulcan emotions, The Final Frontier shows such a pagan Vulcan fellow, Fusion shows similar Vulcan folks not to mention all the stories about Tuvok or T'Pol which show what happens when they fail to suppress their emotions.
.

Whoa there! Are you saying that failing to suppress one's emotions is "pagan" and "wicked"? And what are we doing throwing quasi-religious terminology around now? Suddenly, we're worried about whether things are "pagan" or not?

Emotions, even anger, are not "wicked" and Kirk, for one, had a marked aversion to societies that tried to eradicate any sort of "transgressive" behavior. Again, that was the whole point of episodes like "The Apple" or "This Side of Paradise" or "Return of the Archons." Or even "The Enemy Within." (Kirk has to accept his dark, primitive side to be a whole human being.)

Which gets back to my original point: which is that the new movie is no more "transgressive" than the original series, in which Kirk was both a volatile, rule-breaking maverick and a disciplined Starfleet officer.

 

[Sci]

Absolute nonsense. Spock didn't "flip off the Vulcan establishment" and thereby establish that you ought to "break the rules." The Vulcan Science Academy's entry council were the ones being transgressive, by indulging in gross anti-Human prejudice -- essentially telling Spock that he's inferior to full Vulcans for being half-Human. They transgressed, and Spock behaved completely appropriately.

<SNIP>

That's not Spock "breaking the rules." That's Spock being ruthlessly logical; he has calculated that Kirk would incite a mutiny if he was allowed to stay onboard.

This is no different, really, than Spock urging Kirk to kill Gary Mitchell very early on in "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

and when he follows his father's advice.

That's not "break the rules." That's Spock and his father finally realizing that maybe Vulcan's rules are themselves sometimes unjust and unworthy of being followed -- the exact same realization Spock came to after encountering V'Ger in TMP and the subsequent films.

There are numerous Trek stories that point out why this pagan thinking "oh, we Vulcans just gotta find a decent balance between emotions and logic" is wicked. Amok Time shows raw Vulcan emotions,

And apparently Vulcans in a state which is uncontrollable under any circumstances, whether or not they practice Surak's teachings.

The Final Frontier shows such a pagan Vulcan fellow,

And of course, one asshole proves everything.

Fusion shows similar Vulcan folks

"Fusion" made it clear that there were numerous V'tosh ka'tur who were nonviolent and perfectly reasonable -- that not all V'tosh ka'tur are like predators or dangerous like Tolaris.

Subsequent ENT episodes also made it clear that claiming to practice Surak's teachings of suppression emotion and embracing logic does not mean that a given Vulcan actually does so, and does not mean they're not going to be guilty of fairly horrific ethical transgressions themselves.

not to mention all the stories about Tuvok or T'Pol which show what happens when they fail to suppress their emotions.

There's a huge difference between not suppressing all of your emotions and completely losing control of your emotions.

And Spock's entire character arc in the TOS films is all about him finding a different balance for himself than tends to be seen as appropriate in mainstream Vulcan society. "Logic, logic... Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris. Not the end."

You basically agree with Sarek that it is OK to give in to one's desire for revenge.

No. I basically agree with Sarek that sometimes it's wrong to try to pretend you're not angry, that sometimes anger deserves expression.

You're looking for a ludicrous all-or-nothing approach here -- one which ignores the fact that there are numerous competing Vulcan ideas about the appropriate levels of emotional suppression (Syranite teachings vs. 22nd Century mainstream teachings vs. V'tosh ka'tur teachings, among others), characterizes all variations in levels of control as being equal (they're not -- there's a huge difference between expressing emotion in a controlled manner and losing all self-control, period), and which ignores the fact that, frankly, what is right for some Vulcans may not be right for all Vulcans. People can be different without that being bad, without being inferior.

Killing or Vulcan suppression is hardly as trivial as brawling or sex.

[Hotlinked image removed. - M']

Vulcans certainly believe that if they abandon their philosophy's teachings of emotional suppression -- although they don't seem to have any consensus on what that teaching actually means or what levels of suppression are appropriate -- that it will inevitably led to a complete breakdown of social order and genocidal war.

This doesn't mean that this is an accurate belief on their part. Surak's followers wouldn't be the first to justify their organizing philosophy by claiming dire consequences if they're not obeyed.

That doesn't mean they're wrong, either. What does it mean?

It means that we shouldn't be looking for absolutism.

 

[horatio83]

Whoa there! Are you saying that failing to suppress one's emotions is "pagan" and "wicked"? And what are we doing throwing quasi-religious terminology around now? Suddenly, we're worried about whether things are "pagan" or not?

Emotions, even anger, are not "wicked" and Kirk, for one, had a marked aversion to societies that tried to eradicate any sort of "transgressive" behavior. Again, that was the whole point of episodes like "The Apple" or "This Side of Paradise" or "Return of the Archons." Or even "The Enemy Within." (Kirk has to accept his dark, primitive side to be a whole human being.)

Which gets back to my original point: which is that the new movie is no more "transgressive" than the original series, in which Kirk was both a volatile, rule-breaking maverick and a disciplined Starfleet officer.

Why does a non-native speaker have to explain words to a writer?

Wicked is not a religious word.

About paganism, in the pagan universe harmony is achieved as a midway between extremes, yin and yang, dark and light, summer and winter and so on. It is natural that such a thinking emerged in us as our immediate experience of day and night, the four seasons, life and death and so on implies some kind of dualism in the universe.
Pagan thinking was overcome in monotheistic religions, e.g. in Judaism the law is something violent, intrusive. You don't follow it intuitively but have to be forced to comply.
Surak is also not pagan, he does not advocate more balance but a radical cut from one's emotions.

Sybok on the other hand is pagan which means that he advocates a more moderate approach to suppressing one's emotions. His "feel your pain" stuff has also an obvious New Age, esoteric aspect.
That this does not work has been repeatedly pointed out in plenty of Star Trek stories with Spock's evolution being the only exception. But then again he did not go as far as Sybok and only opened himself up to intuition and not suppressing "good" emotions. Sarek on the other hand explicitly told Spock to not suppress his "bad" emotions.

I am glad that my father never told me to execute revenge whenever I have such feelings.

You're looking for a ludicrous all-or-nothing approach here [...]
It means that we shouldn't be looking for absolutism.

I totally accept your accusation that I am the crazy totalitarian. There is something monstrous about cold ethics, about Spock saying that Edith Keeler must die and something natural, warm and human about enjoying the death of bin Laden.
But not everybody can be a warm human being, someone has to be the monster.

 

[BillJ]

I now have a bad taste in my mouth having defended nuKirk. Thanks everyone!

 

[BillJ]

I am glad that my father never told me to execute revenge whenever I have such feelings.

I wonder what advice your father would've given you if your mother was murdered and the man who did it may possibly get off free?

I've always heard that it's bad for you to just bottle up those emotions...

 

[Greg Cox]

And Spock's entire character arc in the TOS films is all about him finding a different balance for himself than tends to be seen as appropriate in mainstream Vulcan society. "Logic, logic... Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris. Not the end."

You basically agree with Sarek that it is OK to give in to one's desire for revenge.

No. I basically agree with Sarek that sometimes it's wrong to try to pretend you're not angry, that sometimes anger deserves expression.

.

Good points. If we were supposed to think that the Vulcans had it right, that suppressing one's emotions is always a good thing, then Spock should have completed his Kolihnar training and gotten rid of those messy human emotions. But, of course, that's not what he does--in that timeline or the new one.

And in the new movie, you can argue that trying to deny his anger is what caused Spock to become "emotionally compromised" in the first place. Leading him to maroon Kirk, etc.

If one doesn't react angrily to seeing one's planet destroyed and one's mother killed before your eyes, then you've seriously lost touch with your humanity . . . .

 

[horatio83]

I now have a bad taste in my mouth having defended nuKirk. Thanks everyone!

Saurian Brandy does the trick.

I wonder what advice your father would've given you if your mother was murdered and the man who did it may possibly get off free?

I've always heard that it's bad for you to just bottle up those emotions...

There is little murder over here in Germany so it's a pretty hypothetical issue. I guess my father would not want to see the murderer dead whereas I would kill the SOB and then turn myself in. Nothing noble or ethical about it.

I am not saying that you always can or should be a sublime ethical agent. This would be lunatic. But it is nonetheless a benchmark and as Spock has always been pretty close to it it pains me to see him deviating from it. Fall of a hero and so on.