Vulcan High Five™

in modern trek, they always present the idea of logic vs emotion, with spock being logic and kirk being emotion, but thats not how tos has it. in tos, the logic vs emption debate is spock vs mccoy. kirk is supposed to be the mediator between the two, sometimes siding with one side over the other, sometimes finding a middle ground between the two. thats why hes the captain, hes able to see all angles and pick the best course

when you make kirk the emotional one, it completely breaks the format, because 9 time out of 10, it means kirk has to be correct. theres no more balance

When I teach rhetoric in my college essay writing/analysis course, it's always with the example of Kirk, Spock, AND McCoy. Ethos, Logos, Pathos--you need all three. Kirk isn't the counterweight to Spock; he's the fulcrum that balances Spock and McCoy.

Kirk isn't emotion. Kirk is ethos: credibility, authority. Spock and McCoy are there to stop him from damaging that credibility by falling back on an authority he doesn't actually have in the situation, to remind him of the logic or compassion that's lacking when an abuse of power would be the easy or basely satisfying thing to do.