Why couldn't the Vulcans see V'Las' display of anger.

[ConRefit79]

In season 4's Vulcan arc, the actor portraying V'Las showed anger on several occasions. Is this because of the actor or director not understanding Vulcans? Or was it intentional? If it was intentional, what the explanation for the other Vulcans not seeing these emotional outbursts? I don't think they would consider such a Vulcan as rational and would have removed him from power much sooner.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, lots of actors playing Vulcans show emotion. Look at Spock yelling in the first few TOS episodes. Really, John Rubinstein as Minister Kuvak was hardly any more placid in his delivery than V'Las.

Anyway, people in power often have private indiscretions that are tolerated because of their power. A Vulcan administrator having outbursts of emotion might be akin to, say, a US president having an affair. The people in the administration who know about it may disapprove privately, but they tolerate it and mainly just try to keep it out of the papers. Everyone has flaws, so it'd be pretty ridiculous to toss out an officeholder the first time they exhibit an imperfection.

So the High Command wasn't going to throw out V'Las simply for raising his voice. Bombing civilians, framing them for terrorism, and attempting to start a war on a fabricated pretext are a touch more serious than that.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Maybe V'Las just has shitty emotional control. Like Solok on DS9.

 

[horatio83]

In my opinion the point of showing his emotions cooking was to show that he might be physical a Vulcan but culturally a Romulan, i.e. he doesn't suppress his emotions but channels them into authoritarian rule and outward aggression. Vulcan orthodoxy as well as Romulan fascism are ways to keep the extreme Vulcanoid emotions in check. As V'Las abandonded the former for the latter, as he and his minions were still in the minority on Vulcan and as he made a shift from one culture to another I do not find his behaviour surprising.
It is probably more akin to how early Romulans, those who marched beneath the raptor's wings, behaved, i.e. before their culture became stable.

 

[Sci]

I took V'Las's outbursts to be an indication that the interpretation of Surak's teachings common in the mid-2100s was false or corrupted, and that the teachings found in the Kir'Shara would lead to the more stoic Vulcans we are familiar with from TOS.

 

[eyeresist]

In my opinion the point of showing his emotions cooking was to show that he might be physical a Vulcan but culturally a Romulan

I took V'Las's outbursts to be an indication that the interpretation of Surak's teachings common in the mid-2100s was false or corrupted, and that the teachings found in the Kir'Shara would lead to the more stoic Vulcans we are familiar with from TOS.

I agree with both these interpretations, but given the wild emoting of both T'Pol's mother and T'Pau in season 4, I think the truth is that it was a production oversight.

 

[Sci]

In my opinion the point of showing his emotions cooking was to show that he might be physical a Vulcan but culturally a Romulan

I took V'Las's outbursts to be an indication that the interpretation of Surak's teachings common in the mid-2100s was false or corrupted, and that the teachings found in the Kir'Shara would lead to the more stoic Vulcans we are familiar with from TOS.

I agree with both these interpretations, but given the wild emoting of both T'Pol's mother and T'Pau in season 4, I think the truth is that it was a production oversight.

It's not a production oversight -- everyone knows that Vulcans suppress their emotions. If the producers allowed the actors to overtly emote, that is a deliberate choice and therefore must have a purpose behind it.

The obvious one explanation, of course, would simply be to establish that 22nd Century Vulcans were much more emotional than 23rd Century Vulcans -- and that it was the Kira'Shara (which, remember, not even the Syrannites had ever seen) which held the key to the teachings followed by characters like Spock a century later.

 

[Christopher]

I took V'Las's outbursts to be an indication that the interpretation of Surak's teachings common in the mid-2100s was false or corrupted, and that the teachings found in the Kir'Shara would lead to the more stoic Vulcans we are familiar with from TOS.

I agree with both these interpretations, but given the wild emoting of both T'Pol's mother and T'Pau in season 4, I think the truth is that it was a production oversight.

As I said, quite a few of the actors who've played Vulcans have been more or less emotionally expressive, including Nimoy when he started out. Actors are trained to show emotion, and it takes time to unlearn that habit and internalize it, so guest Vulcans generally aren't that great at it.

But yes, it's possible that the greater emotionality of the Vulcans in ENT season 4 was meant to suggest that they didn't quite have their logical act together, although that doesn't mesh too well with the prior seasons.

 

[RandyS]

I always just assumed V'Lass was a Romulan infiltrator.

 

[Hando]

I always just assumed V'Lass was a Romulan infiltrator.

One does not exclude the other.

 

[Noname Given]

In season 4's Vulcan arc, the actor portraying V'Las showed anger on several occasions. Is this because of the actor or director not understanding Vulcans? Or was it intentional? If it was intentional, what the explanation for the other Vulcans not seeing these emotional outbursts? I don't think they would consider such a Vulcan as rational and would have removed him from power much sooner.

Remember: Vulcans are not 'emotionless'; they (through the use of logic) suppress them. Vulcans were often shown as emotional:

Spock, Stonn, T'Pring, T'Pau in TOS' Amok Time

Sarek in TOS' Journey to Babel (Sarek also lied in this episode)

many people like to think that Spock's show of occasional emotion was due to him being half-human; but I never thought that was the case as emotional suppression was a LEARNED behavior by Vulcans, and not a genetic trait.

So, in the end; while other Vulcans may have noticed it; they decided not to comment on it as they understood the actual stress of the situation, etc.

 

[Christopher]

many people like to think that Spock's show of occasional emotion was due to him being half-human; but I never thought that was the case as emotional suppression was a LEARNED behavior by Vulcans, and not a genetic trait.

Yes, absolutely. That drives me crazy. Innately, biologically, Vulcans have stronger emotions than humans. So the idea that his emotional outbursts come from his human side is absurd. The fact that he himself, and other Vulcans, have often assumed this argues that Vulcans have their own illogical prejudices and blind spots. (As I wrote in my first Trek novel, Vulcan behavior is not so much wholly rational as wholly rationalized.)

 

[horatio83]

I disagree. Spock frequently shows emotions for two reasons. First, his human side is about weaker emotions that are harmless to show which we witness e.g. in Amok Time. Second, while he is livingg among humans he begins to slowly question Vulcan orthodoy.
His whole life journey is about discovering that it is possible for him to allow and show "good" feelings. And this is mainly due to him being half-human, a Vulcan is prone to more violent and volatile emotions.

So I also totally disagree with the notion that ALL Vulcans could be like Spock. In TFF and Fusion we saw how unwise that is. Let's keep in mind that Vulcan society is so rigid and dogmatic precisely because anything else would either lead to the chaotic old anarchic Vulcan society or to different and potentially worse dogmas like that of the Romulans.
It is better to have arranged marriages, lot of stupid rituals and less personal liberty than Romulan fascism or anarchy.

What is feasible though, and we see this personalized in the fantastic portrayal of Surak in the three-parter, is a little bit less of extremism in Vulcan orthodoxy. Surak was sad and hopeful, he showed some feelings (albeit IMO not as much as old Spock) so it should be possible for Vulcan to ease up a little bit.

 

[Stephen!]

Is this because of the actor or director not understanding Vulcans?

Wouldn't the script itself dictate how the lines are intended to be read by the actor, rather than the director deciding how each line should be read?

 

[Christopher]

Wouldn't the script itself dictate how the lines are intended to be read by the actor, rather than the director deciding how each line should be read?

Oh, certainly not. A script can suggest how the lines are read, but it doesn't invariably do so, and the actors and director won't necessarily follow the suggestions if it does. After all, the words are the writer's department, but the performance is the actor's and director's department. For instance, if the script says a character delivers the line in an agitated manner, do you go big and shout and pace the room, or do you stay quiet and fidget tensely, or do you ignore the suggested delivery and play it very cool to contrast with the dialogue? All of those options and more are available to the actor and director, regardless of what the script says.

 

[Go-Captain]

many people like to think that Spock's show of occasional emotion was due to him being half-human; but I never thought that was the case as emotional suppression was a LEARNED behavior by Vulcans, and not a genetic trait.

Absolutely. When we first meet Spock's father in TOS, his father is just as much a wise ass as Spock. They both make extremely dry jokes, I just can't remember if they were both making them at McCoy's expense.

None the less, even though Spocks emotionalism declines through the episodes in TOS, he maintains his humor, and humor serves an emotional need.

The other Vulcans we saw in the series were nothing like them. Same for the movies. There is room for variation even in a rigid society.

 

[heavyneos]

I always thought that V'Las was a Romulan infiltrator that slithered his way into the top seat

 

[Bad Atom]

I always assumed it was a deliberate, but misguided directing choice. There were prior concerns about scenes between multiple Vulcan characters becoming boring, and Robert Foxworth is far too good of an actor to get it that wrong. Ironically, his mostly quiet and controlled performance in DS9's "Homefront/Paradise Lost" would have suited a Vulcan character very well. Here, the shouting and histrionics were out of place.

 

[eyeresist]

There were prior concerns about scenes between multiple Vulcan characters becoming boring

Which I don't really understand. There's this stereotype that Vulcans talk like computers, but really all you need is good actors talking with quiet intensity. You can be emotionally interesting without shouting or mugging for the camera.