Why does Spock show more emotion than the average Vulcan because he is half human? Aren’t Vulcan emotions much stronger than human emotions? Shouldn’t he show less emotion?
Do Vulcans feel emotions all the time, but just choose to ignore them?
I don’t think that it is every explained this way, but the best explanation is simply that he was raised by a human mother, and therefore witnessed the expression of emotions while growing up.
The idea with Vulcans is that the repress their emotions as a matter of course, and part of that is training by watching the example of their parents and elders.
Sua
From a Star Trek mythos point of view: They’ve shown us several Vulcans in the various series who had varying levels of emotions showing. Some of them were renegades, some had spent too much time among humans, some were very young, and some were insane. They may be Vulcans, but they’re still people, and they’re all different.
From a TV-show point of view: All of the bit part Vulcans you see being very distant and emotionless probably only have half-a-dozen lines, and they were told by the director, “Stiff. Emotionless. Distant. Action!” And that’s how they played it. If they weren’t given the time to develop the character, they ended up a little two-dimensional.
That has also been, more or less, my understanding. Vulcans have emotions, but they are trained to control and hide them. My understanding is that emotional displays are the height of impropriety and go against everything Surak taught in ancient times. Vulcans apparently hold traditions in very high regard, and are generally loyal and trustworthy. They do not lie (although they have been known to exaggerate, embellish, or omit keys facts when logic requires it).
Spock, being raised by a human mother, was probably used to seeing emotions on display and therefore a little more comfortable letting his own emotions sneak out. I found his protryal in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home quite compelling, since his retraining had been entirely in the Vulcan tradition, so his emotional expression had been buried better than in the TV series and he had to rediscover his human side.
This does not, however, explain T’Pol, who usually strikes me as moody and sullen or generally irritated by the humans and frequently shows other emotions like anger, regret, hurt, embarassment, etc…
DPJ–did you see the episode, The Seventh, in which it is revealed that… hmm, don’t know how to do that Spoiler thingy. Umm, let’s just say that T’Pol counts as one of the things I listed above, and she’s not a renegade or young, nor did she spend much time with humans…
Yeah, I did see that one. Even so, I find her at times to be at least as emotional as the humans on board, which doesn’t ring true to me, shady past or otherwise.
I think you hit on a continuity mistake in the series. Although Star Trek does better than most shows in trying to be consistent from one show to another, they have had many different writers, and sometimes stuff just doesn’t jibe. I think they advanced two different theories on Vulcan emotions: (1) Implying that Vulcans are genetically predisposed to be emotionless; and (2) That Vulcans actually have stronger emotions than humans, but are taught to repress them. The second explanation seems to be the one that caught on.
I think they kind of revamped the whole Vulcan thing on Enterprise. The Vulcans come off as way more arrogant and obnoxious than they did on the original series.