Truth, Love, Power = Spock, McCoy, Kirk

[Andreas]

Am I crazy or are the principals of Truth, Love, and Power everywhere now that I have eyes to see them? Recently, it hit me. Aren't the symbols of Truth, Love, and Power almost perfectly embodied in the original Star Trek's Spock, McCoy, and Kirk?

Spock focuses on Truth/Logic
McCoy is passionate, focuses on human element, Love
Kirk wields the power to decide

Think about it.
What do you think?

[seeker5]

That's a great observation!

Although I wouldn't say they are only aligned in one of them, as it seems all three are aligned with each principle. However, when each of their character are put together, they each seem to emphasis one of the principles.

[DanielBrenton]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Am I crazy or are the principals of Truth, Love, and Power everywhere now that I have eyes to see them? Recently, it hit me. Aren't the symbols of Truth, Love, and Power almost perfectly embodied in the original Star Trek's Spock, McCoy, and Kirk?

Spock focuses on Truth/Logic
McCoy is passionate, focuses on human element, Love
Kirk wields the power to decide

Think about it.
What do you think?

I agree, very good comparison.

I wouldn't call myself a "trekker," but the original series is an "old friend," and I spent quite a bit of time with it.

David Gerrold, a writer of a couple of the episodes, talked in his book The World of Star Trek, about that relationship, and he pointed out, I think accurately, that the relationship of the "big three" was really a device to externalize the inner argument of logic versus emotions as far as Kirk's need to make command decisions was concerned.

I haven't done a lot of research into this, but it sounds like variations of the Truth/Love/Power triad are present in a lot of esoteric materials. I guess it should be no surprise this would show up in popular culture.

[Savage]

That's cool that someone else spotted that. I've had many discussions with Erin about the same thing.

You'll also find strong characters that represent various principles in TNG and DS9. For example... Picard = Authority. Worf = Courage.

In the Voyager and Enterprise series, the characters are more muddled, which is probably why those shows were weaker by comparison.

For example, Cpn Janeway's character (Voyager) was addicted to coffee, but that doesn't make for great drama because it's not strongly rooted to a universal principle. Spock's character could calculate probabilities, which is well-rooted to the principle of Truth. This is one reason that Spock's character had better opportunities for quality drama. Not many characters cared that Janeway drank coffee, and those interactions weren't very dramatic or interesting. But many characters reacted strongly to Spock's logical stance, and that created interesting drama -- and humor as well.

The interplay between various principles makes for interesting drama. There are lots of Star Trek episodes based on Truth vs. Love, Power vs. Truth, Power vs. Love, and so on. Sometimes the resolution was to find a way to align with both principles instead of picking one or the other.

If you find a TV show or movie with really strong character drama, you'll likely find that the main characters are well-defined in terms of their alignment (or anti-alignment) with the 7 principles.

If you're a fiction writer, you can actually use the 7 principles to deliberately design strong characters that will yield interesting dramatic opportunities. You'll also understand the nature of those interactions (i.e. where to look to create good drama) based on the interactions between the principles. For example, if you have a Oneness-based character and an Authority-based character, the Authority character can help the Oneness character develop Initiative (aspect of Courage) while the Oneness character helps the Authority character develop Heart (another aspect of Courage). Courage (Love + Power) is the area of overlap where both characters are deficient, so that will be a rich source for dramatic interactions between these two characters. Both characters share a strength in Truth, so those interactions aren't likely to be as dramatic.

Since the 7 principles are universal, you'll encounter them EVERYWHERE, especially where strong emotions are present.