Consider this a reminder for people currently watching Star Trek, old and new.
Logic and controlled emotion aren’t inherent to being a Vulcan. Somehow gaining Vulcan traits, or biologically transforming into a Vulcan, will not make you logical and emotionless. In fact, quite the opposite would happen.
Vulcans used to be warlike, barbaric (as Spock would describe them) and nearly wiped themselves out. It was the teaching of Surak in the philosophy of pure logic, after centuries of war, that made Vulcans what they are today. Vulcans do this by training logic and emotional control throughout their childhood and teenage years. Ultimately culminating in Kolinahr, the final stage to “purge emotion”. But Vulcans still experience emotion, and their state of control is something that requires constant maintenance through meditation and practice.
Vulcans are far more emotional and passionate than even Humans. If a Human so much as houses a portion of a Vulcan’s Katra (the mind/spirit), said Human would struggle immensely to keep their feeling under control.
I’m writing all this because I’m getting the feeling that this very important part about Vulcans is being forgotten (perhaps more-so by the current writers of Star Trek).
Isn’t there an episode in the original series where Spock has to like go full monka in ritualistic combat? Pretty sure he drinks something or does a ritual to suppress his mental fortitude against his inner rage
That was the pon farr, basically when even Spock’s half-Vulcan mating urge couldn’t be repressed anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amok_Time
If you raise a Vulcan without the mental training, you basically get a Romulan.
Yea when he has to fight rivals for T’pal’s hand in marriage. Don’t remember an emotion enhancing (in effect) drink, but he does fight. He also still has logic, as he stops and makes an appeal to end the ceremony before he kills Kirk.
He’s lost his control in a few episodes, but the season of love is cannonically the only time it “naturally” happens. (I forget the name they have for it)
Pon Farr.
That’s the ticket! Thanks.
Since it’s such an intimate affair, I wonder why they didn’t call it Pon Closs.
Spock in the original series goes into his mating season, which is a time where Vulcan emotions become too uncontrollable to repress. Vulcans are ashamed of this loss of control and try to hide it away.
Spock had to fight Kirk because Spock’s arranged marriage wife-to-be was allowed to chose anyone as her champion against Spock when she decided she didn’t want to him. Spock was out of control in full ragemode and only regained his senses when he thought he’d killed Kirk.
Vulcan society has, to my eye, always been one that acts like it has everything figured out but its repression has created just as many bizarre rituals as any other culture.