#i am still mad that this scene didn’t make it into the film#how is it less important than uhura stripping off#it’s a virtual goldmine of character development#i mean#you can see the moment that he realises that doing everything right won’t stop people from leaving him#that following the rules won’t keep him from getting hurt#and that his brother left because he couldn’t find the right words to make him stay#and if that didn’t haunt him for years afterwards i’ll eat my hat#and then he goes off the rails#then off the cliff#then off to tarsus IV and back again#(it happened in aos it did it did)#and that cocky confident swaggering jim kirk we see in the bar#is only a tiny miniscule fraction of everything that he is#he just keeps the rest tamped down so that it’s less likely to get broken#i like my jim kirks damaged what can i say (via nyotas)
but really though “i can’t be a kirk in this house, if you can show me I’ll stay” defines so much of his character. for jim being a kirk means fighting and fucking and abandoning up until the very end of your short life. his life has been showing sam how to stay, but sam isn’t here anymore.
I’m SO ANGRY this was taken out! This explain the goddamned changes between AOS Kirk and TOS Kirk! TOS Kirk DID follow every rule, get good grades, and obey every order. It wasn’t until SO much later that he realized he didn’t have to. That sometime he could do better by not being who everyone told him to be.
AOS Kirk is an angry kid who isn’t following the rules to spite. He’s trying to live up to what a Kirk is through his brother’s eyes. But he only ends up hating the name because he can never seem to be enough for it.
TOS is James T. Kirk, passionate, but controlled, thoughtful and mature.
AOS is Jim Kirk, young, angry and living in the shadow of his own last name.
This one damned scene explains so much. This was an entirely different way of living. This isn’t just about his father dying. This is about when and how he realized he didn’t have to do the expected.
This is about WHY he became the reckless man we see in AOS.
This one tiny scene shows us a motive for the wildness of AOS’ Jim Kirk. This takes it out of the realm of “he’s young and doesn’t understand why he has to play by the rules.“
TOS Kirk ignores the rules because he knows they could be wrong, he knows it could make actions better.
AOS Kirk ignores the rules because he thinks he’s supposed to, he thinks it will make him better.