Okay okay okay. Usually I would just move on, but people keep commenting on this post with takes like this. These takes are so prevalent, and such a fundamental misunderstanding of McCoy’s character, probably inspired by the fanon interpretation of Bones as a grumpy stick-in-the-mud who only opposes Kirk and Spock, that I feel the need to give a more thorough response.
Bones absolutely takes medical risks all the time, in the context of the situation. It is not always his first choice, but often it is his only choice, and he sticks to it.
First of all, Bones injected himself in Miri neither because he was pushed nor because he was crazy. Bones did it because he was on the verge of being consumed by an illness that would cause him to eventually go insane, and then he would hurt others. The illness did make them snappish and short with each other, tempers fraying, but he didn’t choose to inject himself because he was crazy. At no point does what he says have any unreal aspect to it: if they don’t have the communicators and therefore access to the test results, they’re sunk. He was desperate, but had no way to know that the communicators would be retrieved in short order, and having everyone out of the room was his only chance to do it without pushback. Very logical, actually.
Second, this is not the only instance of Bones performing a desperate act without enough time to set up a board of review. He’s also often shown himself to be intensely medically curious, to the point where he has no regard for his own safety.
Faked Jim’s death by dangerous medical means to get them out of a deadly Vulcan ritual (Amok Time).
Sacrificed himself to torture with almost guaranteed death to avoid Spock getting tortured to insanity (The Empath).
Offered to wear The Teacher (NOBODY pushed him, and in fact Jim is initially reluctant and Bones convinces him), something no human had ever put on, knowing it could kill him instantly, because it could also give him the knowledge to put Spock’s brain back in his head before time ran out (Spock’s Brain).
Determined a way to treat a silicon-based lifeform on the fly after offering up one single line of “I don’t know what I’m doing” protest (The Devil in the Dark).
Tried to be the one to die by flying into a giant amoeba because he couldn’t pass up the chance to save everyone while studying “the greatest living laboratory we’ve ever seen” (The Immunity Syndrome).
Given Sulu cordrazine, a substance Jim calls “too risky,” because it was necessary to bring him around. It winds up creating a terrible accident, not for Sulu, but for Bones himself; we see how dangerous the stuff is (The City on the Edge of Forever).
Seemed willing to stay on the android planet, simply because they had an amazing laboratory with all sorts of discoveries he could make (I, Mudd)
Decided to treat Eleen and her baby even though the council and she herself were willing to kill him over it (Friday’s Child).
Yelled at a probe in the hopes of resurrecting his dead friend that the probe had just killed (The Changeling).
Offered to stay on a planet-ship that was on a collision course with an asteroid in the hope of helping them (okay, he was under a bit of duress in this one) (For the World is Hollow).
I know you said the series, but as further evidence, Bones’ risk-taking tendencies only worsen in the films:
He agrees to save Spock’s immortal soul by stealing the Enterprise (and later crashing it).
He “choose[s] the danger” to himself to accept the Fal-tor-pan and put Spock’s marbles back in his jar.
He decides purely on a whim to violate time travel protocol, potentially creating a world- or universe-changing scenario, simply to give an elderly, ailing woman a new kidney via a pill (and perhaps to introduce new technology, such as said pill and transparent aluminum, into the system), even though he knows more than anyone what can happen when you save a single life (City on the Edge). The last time he did that, Starfleet disappeared from existence. He still can’t stop himself, because there’s a suffering person and he has the means to stop it.
He yells at a being that considers itself God when it makes decisions he considers cruel.
And in the alternate universe of AOS (which gets many things wrong, in my opinion, but this isn’t one of them), he breaks his oath into tiny pieces and literally brings Jim back from the dead, which is not something you’re going to see in any medical ethics textbook under “it’s totally normal to do this.”
But here’s what Bones WON’T do:
He won’t sacrifice other people’s bodies or lives for his life (The Empath) or those of his friends, not even by silence, even if it means more risk, pain, and death to himself, because he “will not peddle flesh” (Return to Tomorrow).
He doesn’t like his friends taking stupid risks without what he considers a good reason/no other choice (many examples)
He won’t risk a life to save another person without the consent of the person whose life is being risked: see Spock, in Journey to Babel. He won’t put Spock’s life at risk until he knows it’s the only way to save Spock’s father (and that, we can gather later even though it wasn’t a part of his character at the time, was likely motivated by his own guilt at not saving his own).
However, once he has consent, and he knows how much this means both to Spock and Amanda and to the peace conference? Then, still in Babel, he agrees to let Jim pretend he can still captain (after being stabbed) long enough to get Spock and Sarek settled down for the procedure to save Sarek’s life. Otherwise, Spock had insisted on taking over the captaincy, preventing the operation from taking place. Once he’d worked the procedure out, yes, it’s dangerous, but he’s not going to let Sarek die simply to preserve protocol. Even if the ship is in danger from an unknown spy.
He won’t put Jim’s life at risk until it’s obvious that any other avenue of saving Jim or putting him back together is too dangerous; see The Enemy Within.
He insists on going back to save Spock, physically in The Galileo Seven and verbally in The Immunity Syndrome, even though it puts the rest of the ship at risk, because he sees that incredible level of risk as acceptable when it comes to saving someone who would otherwise die for sure.
Risk-taking isn’t Bones’ first choice, but, to be honest, I’d argue it isn’t Kirk’s either. That’s also a fanon interpretation that most of us are guilty of perpetuating because it’s funny (like Bones’ grumpy one-liners). The great thing about the triad of Kirk, Spock, and Bones is that each one of them takes turns being the “voice of reason.” In Return to Tomorrow, it’s Bones, and Kirk says, “Risk is our business.” In The Menagerie, Kirk tries to temper Spock’s bid to fly to forbidden territory. In The Tholian Web, Bones tells Spock reluctantly that they have to think of the crew’s lives, and leave before they get trapped. In Spock’s Brain, it’s Spock warning Bones that The Teacher is a massive risk. In The Empath, Bones has to knock them both out.
Now, the original post is a silly shitpost that’s supposed to be a joking comparison not to be taken too seriously (you can tell because Hypospray Maru doesn’t make any sense as a term). But to me, Bones’ medical curiosity and his willingness to take medical risks as a last resort, especially on himself, is a major defining trait of his character, and the only risks he pushes against are the ones that might hurt others. Sometimes, he utters a one-liner of grumbling protest as he’s already basically starting to do the thing, which I see as more of a verbal pattern than as him having to be ordered or pushed; he simply likes to kvetch.
He also is very willing to do something dangerous if he sees it as the only alternative, or as better than doing nothing. In fact, Jim is concerned about him in This Side of Paradise because he seems to want to continue doing nothing, and it’s only a reminder of how he won’t be able to help people medically that snaps him out of it.
So please, everyone, stop characterizing Bones as a scaredy-cat grump who never does anything under his own steam and only serves as resistance and the “voice of reason” against his charmingly madcap captain. He’s well proven himself as a risk-taker in his own capacity, all the more brave because he’s always doing things that clearly terrify him. He’s willing to do what he must for the oath he puts far above the Prime Directive – and the value of life he places even above that oath.
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