For anyone who doesn't like the term "villain" for Gary Mitchell, perhaps they'd prefer the term "antagonist."
Who would you classify a villain in TOS?
- Thread starter The Laughing Vulcan
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Based on what? "Walking freezer unit"? Certainly a sexist, uncomplimentary, and dismissive statement, but I don't think I would extrapolate that to suggest that his basic character was one that was malignant, thwarted and seeking vengeance if had the ability to do so, or covertly imbued with an innate sense of superiority and hubris. On the other hand, with his impressive esper rating, one might postulate that he might have perceived himself to be on a somewhat different plane than his colleagues, even if that impression wasn't a conscious one. Of course, using the same rationale, perhaps his comment about Dehner wasn't so far off the mark, however odiously expressed. Still, he did show concern/compassion for Yeoman Smith as they were about to enter the Barrier.
All in all, I just don't think that a couple of minutes of screen time, during which he is mainly a peripheral character, constitutes a sufficient foundation to make such a supposition particularly tenable. Indeed, it obviously wasn't going to happen, but I think one can make such a case much more readily for Kirk, as at least we get to see some personality tendencies that one could draw some conclusions from.
Just as an interesting aside, I stumbled across this clip from a fan production that I find particularly relevant or even poignant related to this whole matter, especially as regards the comments I made at the end of my post in this thread from about a week ago. I know little about the various fan iterations, so maybe this has been seen by many, but again it did make an impression on me having so recently been thinking about the incident.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTI7_IXaZ9Y
I would say Captain Tracey and Lt. Cmdr. Ben Finney (the guy who framed kirk)
And Jim Kirk would be friends with such a person... why, exactly?
Kirk's a bit iffy on the friend front. Ben Finny and John Gill come to mind. Couple of guys who went off track, so to speak.
John Gill wasn't his friend. He was a respected teacher that went off the rails.
Patterns of Force said:
There's no evidence of that which I can see. Just because Gary became such a megalomaniac because of the powers given him by the barrier does NOT mean that was what he was like all along. Have you never heard of the concept "absolute power corrupts absolutely"? Power like that could, and probably would, make anybody crazy. It would do the same thing to you, to me, or anyone else.
It does not mean Gary was always like that. Not even close. Gary was mutated, changed, corrupted by what the barrier did to him. That's all. Just because somebody can be turned to evil, doesn't mean they always were.
Plus, if Gary was always like that, that makes Kirk and Spock both look pretty stupid. I'd say it's much better to go with what the episode actually shows and tells us, which is that Gary is corrupted by the power that he receives.
I can believe that Gary was intuitive and controlling in a much more benevolent way, though. We can infer that from young Gary knowing that his friend Jim Kirk needed to unwind and steering that "little blonde lab technician" towards him ("I outlined her whole campaign for her"). After the barrier, those tendencies came out in the worst possible way.
Exactly. Although the character transformation didn't take long (Sulu's mathematical calculation), I think it's absolutely reasonable to venture that the psychological and physiological changes taking place would overwhelm just anyone's ability to cope with and process in a way that any longer even resembled their previous mode of perception, reaction to stimuli, and sense of perspective. It would seem that the power fosters an increasingly virulent kind of psychosis. I don't doubt that it would have overcome Dehner, if given more time, but Kirk was fortunate to make the final encounter at a time where she still held some level of control and proportionality to what she had been before.
It seems very similar to what was depicted in happening to Kes, albeit the loss of herself took much longer, which I would probably appreciate to the indefatigable strength of her personality. But ultimately, even for her, with the far greater powers she acquired in comparison with Mitchell (although I do concede that interestingly she could be killed by a phaser), a dissolution of the essence of her character could not be avoided.
The parameters for a Star Trek villain in the movies had always been measured with the level of Khan Noonian Singh from ST:II. It makes the villains 1 note and not interesting, it's a trend which has lasted too long. Does a villain have to cast revenge or is homicidal crazy?
Harry Mudd, I thought, would have been an interesting villain but the story has to be right. I've always loved wildcard characters because they're unpredictable.
Harry Mudd, I thought, would have been an interesting villain but the story has to be right. I've always loved wildcard characters because they're unpredictable.