I want to live!
- EvilKirkās last words
Whatever else you want to say about EvilKirk, itās pretty clear that he didnāt want to be merged back into the single Kirk. Despite this, there is no shortage of reasons why it was a good idea to merge the Kirks: the Enterprise needed its CO back, GoodKirk wanted to do it, and it seems possible that the strain of remaining split would have eventually killed EvilKirk anyways. However, the fact remains that EvilKirk did not consent to the procedure which ended his existence.
Clearly the circumstances here are quite different and thereās basically no argument to be made that allowing EvilKirk to continue to exist would benefit any involved party, EvilKirk included. But for the purposes of this comparison, the only fact that really matters is that EvilKirk was just as passionate about his desire to continue existing as Tuvix was.
Yetāand itās obvious where Iām going with thisāāSpock murdered EvilKirkā is not a meme.
So what gives? Did Spock murder EvilKirk or not? If yes, why does he get a pass while Janeway is condemned?
I always got the impression that the Kirks were both destined to wither away and die if kept separate, but itās been a while so I might be wrong there.
Thereās also the issue that EvilKirk was a danger to everyone else on the ship. You could make the argument that if he survived, he could have learned to control his behaviour, but Iām not sure thatās the case for a personality entirely made up of those negative traits.
Itās definitely a moral grey area, whereas with the Tuvix situation itās more black and white. There was no danger to anyone else, he was well-liked and a credit to the ship, there was basically no reason for Janeway to split him back apart other than āI want toā.
Janewayās decision was far from arbitrary. She did it to save the lives of Tuvok and Neelix, who were unable to advocate for themselves at the time.
YES!
EXACTLY!
Everyone wants to save Tuvix because they like him. But nobody wants to save Tuvok or Neelix. They didnāt consent to dying so Tuvix could live. If you agree Tuvix is a person, then you cannot disregard that so were Tuvok and Neelix. Where was their funeral? Does Tuvokās family not get itās husband and father back because the crew liked Tuvix better? The two people whoās opinion mattered the most couldnāt be consulted. If Tuvix is a person, his judgement on the matter is simply too biased as his sense of self preservation would interfere with objective decision-making.
To save Tuvix was to murder Tuvok and Neelix.
They couldāve attempted to recreate the Riker accident. Copy the datastream before itās split. Surely thereās the technical knowledge to do it.
Itās also interesting that at the end of the episode, they never go into Tuvok and Neelixā memories of the whole thing - they donāt seem surprised to be in sickbay instead of the transporter room, so theyāre clearly aware of what happened. They could have at least asked them at that point whether theyāre happy to be back of if they would like to be merged again - theyāve shown that itās just a matter of having the orchid in the same transport.
In fact, that theyāre not confused by the - for them individually - new memories, like Tuvix was when he first came into being, could actually suggest that they were both actively present to some degree inside Tuvixā personalityā¦
Aside from all that, the way they explain the orchidās effect means that it would never have been safe to have Tuvix in a shared transporter stream: the orchidās means of reproduction is basically to merge with another species through the use of a particular enzyme, so it stands to reason that Tuvix is the orchidās offspring and also possesses that enzyme.
But what does it even mean to be āmade up of negative traitsā? Would he have been completely unable to learn? To realise that, maybe, sometimes, there is benefit in not being āevilā, even for entirely selfish reasons? And who says that GoodKirk couldnāt also learn to be more assertive? (psychotherapy must be easily available in our socialist future, especially for high-ranking Starfleet officers, as well as plenty time off for mental health reasons)
Itās not like Kirkās positive and negative traits are inherent, he wasnāt born with them, but they are a result of his lifeās experiences. So could one make the argument that both would just need time to adjust?
See this is exactly what I mean. The Kirk example is a grey area, that in real life would lead to way too many questions than could be answered in a single TV episode. Itās an interesting thing to think about though, and gets into the whole nature vs nurture debate that we saw tackled a bit in episodes like the DS9 one with the baby JemāHadar. If youāre ripped apart into two beings like that, are you essentially ābornā good or evil and would you have the capacity for change?
Could each Kirk have gone on to become psychologically stable? Maybe, maybe not. Did merging them save one combined life that wouldāve otherwise soon expired, or did it murder two individuals who couldāve gone on to have long happy lives? Lots of questions, ripe for debate. A grey area.
Whereas in the Tuvix example, thereās nothing really grey about it. And regardless of which side you come down on in the Kirk debate, thatās why I believe Janeway gets all the flak and Spock does not.