What did Burnham do to Spock?

[Delta Vega]

If I had a pound or dollar or whatever for every time I've said nasty things to any of my brothers, or them to me, I'd have enough to budget a whole season of Discovery.
So that was it, after all these weeks, Burnham was horrid to her little brother ?
Jesus wept.

 

[Nerys Myk]

If I had a pound or dollar or whatever for every time I've said nasty things to any of my brothers, or them to me, I'd have enough to budget a whole season of Discovery.
So that was it, after all these weeks, Burnham was horrid to her little brother ?
Jesus wept.

Goes way beyond "nasty" as I explained elsewhere.

 

[Delta Vega]

It was inappropriate as I said elsewhere
But not the end of the world

 

[Nerys Myk]

It was inappropriate as I said elsewhere
But not the end of the world

For Spock it was given the context of his life. There is more to it than harsh words from a sibling.

 

[Delta Vega]

As I said before
I can't accept that Spock, with his all encompassing logic would let a remark, that he knew wasn't meant to be taken at face value, bother him for years, specifically in his interractions with Burnham.

 

[Gov Kodos]

As I said before
I can't accept that Spock, with his all encompassing logic would let a remark, that he knew wasn't meant to be taken at face value, bother him for years, specifically in his interractions with Burnham.

Your lack of acceptance doesn't change that the story says it was for the character or that it does make sense as part of experience that many viewers do understand and connect with.

 

[fireproof78]

As I said before
I can't accept that Spock, with his all encompassing logic would let a remark, that he knew wasn't meant to be taken at face value, bother him for years, specifically in his interractions with Burnham.

Spock has demonstrated an inability to move past some things, and that he is not always logical.

 

[Nerys Myk]

As I said before
I can't accept that Spock, with his all encompassing logic would let a remark, that he knew wasn't meant to be taken at face value, bother him for years, specifically in his interractions with Burnham.

Spock's logic is far from all encompassing as many episodes and films of Star Trek have shown. Kirk and even McCoy's comments in a similar vein, have been shown to hurt him, even if the intent wasn't meant to.

 

[Succubint]

There's also the abandonment issue. She left him. All alone. She made it clear she never wanted to see him again and walked away. This kind of loss is scarring as a child and can last well into adulthood. It's well documented.

 

[fireproof78]

There's also the abandonment issue. She left him. All alone. She made it clear she never wanted to see him again and walked away. This kind of loss is scarring as a child and can last well into adulthood. It's well documented.

And can require specific therapy to undo the damage.

 

[SJGardner]

As someone who grew up in an atmosphere of childhood emotional neglect and still has trouble to process painful memories and negative emotions in a healthy way at almost thirty years old, I've found the entire scene extremely relatable for me. What little Michael said to Spock cannot and shouldn't be examined separately from the family environment he grew up in. Sarek never taught him how to process his feelings in a healthy way (or Michael for that matter... I keep seeing myself every time she resorts to that stilted 'this makes me feel X' kind of talking), so the only coping strategy he has is rationalizing and logically understanding the memory/feeling and of course emotional suppression. And I can tell you, the idea that applying logic to your negative emotions magically makes them go away is the misconception of the century. It doesn't give you anything other than a temporary measure of comfort in finally understanding why you feel that way, but the whole process of rationalization circumvents the emotion itself, which never gets processed. I understand fully well why my parents treat me the way they do as I've learned quite a lot about their own childhoods, but it doesn't take the edge out of their words whenever get reminded of them. I find nothing unrealistic in Michael's words still affecting Spock well into his late twenties.

 

[matthunter]

Hell, I'm in my forties and my mind will occasionally drag up a negative memory from childhood when it wants me to feel even worse about myself than usual. I was nowhere near as isolated as Spock as a kid, but had few close friends. So when they said hurtful stuff, it cut quite deep. You start to wonder if the other kids who see you as a geeky outsider to make fun of might have a point, if even your friends can see it.

Remember too, that Spock does NOT know how to process emotion. Amanda wasn't allowed to raise him that way, so his only chance of getting to grips with emotional pain would have been Michael... and she not only quit on him, she inflicted pain that he's obviously still struggling with years later. He may CLAIM to understand her motives from a logical viewpoint, but he's doing the Vulcan thing of repressing emotion and it's clear he's not actually "over" anything from the vitriol-masquerading-as-Vulcan-superiority act.

Someone mentioned therapy upthread, and the problem here is that Vulcans don't see talking about their emotions as therapy... they just shove them down. It probably starts early enough in full Vulcans that they don't really take matters personally enough in most cases, but Spock is a different matter.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

If I had a pound or dollar or whatever for every time I've said nasty things to any of my brothers, or them to me, I'd have enough to budget a whole season of Discovery.
So that was it, after all these weeks, Burnham was horrid to her little brother ?
Jesus wept.

Spock felt that he'd basically been rejected by the only person apart from his mother who understood him and made him feel safe. You only have to look at how Spock responds when he find out about Valeris's betrayal to see how angry it makes him when people he trusts and puts faith in fail him.

My feeling is Burnham became the focus of all the rage he had towards the people who bullied him. Also Burnham seemed to have a better relationship with Sarek and that no doubt lead to some resentment.

There is a lot going with Spock and his anger has many sources.

 

[Delta Vega]

The point that I am trying to make, is that Spock, by his own admission, told Burnham that he was fully aware that her language towards him was not meant, that it was done purely to hurt him at that moment in order that she could make her flight away from the family home, thinking she would never return.
He knew this as a child, it hurt him at the time, but he still KNEW it wasn't meant to be taken at face value.
So therefore, why would his logical mind. his developed adult mind, give any credence or feel any anger towards Burnham ?
I'm not trying to belittle the emotions of people on here who have had traumatic experiences in childhood, nor make light of such experiences.
The reality here, in the writing, in the dialogue, is that Spock knew Burnham, while using totally callous language, wasn't sincere in what she said.

 

[matthunter]

The point that I am trying to make, is that Spock, by his own admission, told Burnham that he was fully aware that her language towards him was not meant, that it was done purely to hurt him at that moment in order that she could make her flight away from the family home, thinking she would never return.
He knew this as a child, it hurt him at the time, but he still KNEW it wasn't meant to be taken at face value.
So therefore, why would his logical mind. his developed adult mind, give any credence or feel any anger towards Burnham ?
I'm not trying to belittle the emotions of people on here who have had traumatic experiences in childhood, nor make light of such experiences.
The reality here, in the writing, in the dialogue, is that Spock knew Burnham, while using totally callous language, wasn't sincere in what she said.

As I said above, his logic tells him that Burnham had a reason for doing it. But you DON'T resolve emotional pain with logic. You need to process it and express it. Spock has done the Vulcan thing of shoving it down and, as we can see, no matter what he SAYS, he clearly has not dealt with those issues.

He shows the same pattern with Sarek and Sarek with him, bottling it all up until - in their case - it can only be expressed post Sarek's death.

Actually, there's a good example in this very ep - Culber should intellectually know that Tyler isn't the same individual as the one who killed him. But rationality isn't making the anger go away.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

The point that I am trying to make, is that Spock, by his own admission, told Burnham that he was fully aware that her language towards him was not meant, that it was done purely to hurt him at that moment in order that she could make her flight away from the family home, thinking she would never return.

He knew this as a child, it hurt him at the time, but he still KNEW it wasn't meant to be taken at face value. So therefore, why would his logical mind. his developed adult mind, give any credence or feel any anger towards Burnham ?

The reality here, in the writing, in the dialogue, is that Spock knew Burnham, while using totally callous language, wasn't sincere in what she said.

Because deep down, despite all his protestations to the contrary, he is not driven only by his logical mind, and the irrational, emotional human part of him just can't let go of the anguish of hearing the words that have haunted him his whole life coming from his sister. And the fact that he can't just let it go only lends credence to the insult in his mind, because it confirms his own feelings of inadequacy about his human shortcomings.

Remember in ST:V Spock's other secret sibling Sybok reveals that Spock's hidden pain is Sarek remarking on him being "So human" when he was born. Now there are two ways to interpret that. One is that the incident never actually happened, and it's just a reflection of Spock's own personal fears about how Sarek felt about him. Or two, even at birth, the newborn Vulcan child can sense their parent's thoughts and feelings when they are touched (as Sarek was touching Spock). It doesn't make sense to a newborn, but they can have an eidetic memory of the event and recall it later on as they're older and they can understand it.

Either way, whether it's Spock's own feelings or something he retained from his father's first impression of him, it's obviously a deep wound, one which his childhood bullies sensed and latched on to. So to hear it coming from his beloved and admired older sister, someone that represented and was teaching him about his human half as much as his mother did, was devastating, regardless of why she did it.

His irrationality is a bigger conformation of his flawed humanity than anything else, and only reinforces his feelings. When a passenger feels survivor's guilt for living through a plane crash when most others did not, their rational mind tells them it doesn't make sense to feel guilty about it, as the crash wasn't their fault, but people still feel it. You don't just have a switch that turns illogical feelings off despite your understanding of the reasons why they happened. Spock's going to have to mature and come to grips with his feelings over time and with greater experience.

 

[DaveyNY]

If one has never truly been emotionally hurt by a loved one, then it's probably going to be very difficult to relate to this kind of experience.

Being picked on by ones siblings doesn't come close to what happened to Spock.

 

[captainkirk]

I find it to be entirely believable that this was the reason for the rift between them. Remember, Spock was repeatedly bullied about being half-human. Those bullies psychologically attacked everything about him and tried to make him feel worthless. Now his sister apparently betrays him by acting exactly the same way they did. How else could he react?

What I won't defend though, is how this mystery was dragged out across so many episodes. I think it should have been answered when Amanda came aboard the ship. This would have put an end to the ridiculous speculation, and given more context to their relationship.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

What I won't defend though, is how this mystery was dragged out across so many episodes. I think it should have been answered when Amanda came aboard the ship. This would have put an end to the ridiculous speculation, and given more context to their relationship.

I disagree. It would have required redundant conversations about the same incident, because she would have to go over it with Spock again, but the second time hearing the story it wouldn't have had as much dramatic weight for the audience.

And by having Burnham refuse to tell Amanda what she said, it reinforces the shame she felt over her actions, even though they were well-intentioned. She was so guilty over what she said she couldn't even bring herself to speak it out loud to Amanda, because she would have resented Michael even more.

 

[captainkirk]

I disagree. It would have required redundant conversations about the same incident, because she would have to go over it with Spock again, but the second time hearing the story it wouldn't have had as much dramatic weight for the audience.

And by having Burnham refuse to tell Amanda what she said, it reinforces the shame she felt over her actions, even though they were well-intentioned. She was so guilty over what she said she couldn't even bring herself to speak it out loud to Amanda, because she would have resented Michael even more.

I guess I'm just sick of stretched out mystery melodrama. They built it up in such a way that fans theorize that it's something huge. It's one of the reasons mystery box plots have become such a turn-off to me.