Characters / Star Trek: The Original Series - James Tiberius Kirk

Captain James T. Kirk

"I don’t believe in the no-win scenario."

Played by: William Shatner

Dubbed in French by: Yvon Thiboutot (TOS), Sady Rebbot (Star Trek I to VI), Denis Savignat (Generations)

Dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese by: Garcia Junior (TOS, redub), Marco Antônio Costa (TOS, 2:23, 2:24, 2:26 on, Star Trek 6), Marcos Miranda (Star Trek 1 to 3), Waldyr Sant'Anna (Star Trek 4)

Appearances: Star Trek: The Original Series | Star Trek: The Animated Series | Star Trek: The Motion Picture | Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan | Star Trek III: The Search for Spock | Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home | Star Trek V: The Final Frontier | Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country | Star Trek: Generations | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ^note Archive footage | Star Trek Beyond ^note Photograph

"'All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.' You could feel the wind at your back in those days, the sound of the sea beneath you. And even if you take away the wind and the water, it's still the same... The ship is yours, you can feel her. And the stars are still there, Bones."

— Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer"

The Captain. James Tiberius Kirk leads his ship, the Enterprise, through the adventure of the week — hostile cultures, supercomputers, places which look suspiciously like Earth, time-travel shenanigans. A very talented and level-headed officer, Kirk always took his duty to Starfleet deeply seriously and his main concern in any crisis was always the safety of his ship and crew. He was notorious for his hollow seductions, and a few romances which ended tragically, but mostly those failed because he named the Enterprise herself as the woman in his life. Although he took the dangers to his crew very seriously, he also maintained a light-hearted attitude and bantered with the other two members of his Power Trio frequently.

While dealing with the Monster of the Week and then running off was the norm in his series, the movies deconstructed this trend, showing off the consequences of trying to ignore everything that hurts him.

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A-L

• 10-Minute Retirement: In “Generations”, he acknowledges in the Nexus that the universe keeps fucking him over and he deserves to be selfish for once. Of course he goes back to reality because he needs the danger, and it helps that he had multiple Nexus realities, letting him fix everything.
• Accidental Misnaming: Occasionally prone to this.
  • In "Where No Man Has Gone Before", he addresses Yeoman Smith as "Jones", and she corrects him in a manner that implies it's not the first time he's done that. (In the original script, he does it again in the ending scene, but this was cut.)
  • In "Space Seed", Kirk mispronounces the ship's historian's name before Spock dryly corrects him with "McGivers". He continues to stutter over the name in front of McGivers herself, who also dryly corrects the pronunciation.
  • In "The Immunity Syndrome", Kirk consistently pronounces Lt. Kyle's name as "Cowell", something no other character ever does. Kyle himself makes no attempt to correct him.
• Accidental Pornomancer: Bones lampshades that even when Kirk is not actively manipulating someone, he still seems to get every alien species wanting to rail him.
• The Ace: Quite possibly the greatest Captain ever produced by Starfleet and humanity in general, despite all his competition, and even long after his day his many accomplishments and reputation lives on as an inspiration to later Starfleet officers, many of whom look up to him as a legend, and he is even considered this to various alien species he encountered.
• Agent Peacock: In “Where No Man”, the writers talked about how they wanted Kirk to be a man comfortable with being both masculine and feminine, willing to fight dirty and being in command, but memorising poetry, stopping to admire flowers, happy to joke about himself being a mother, uses his sexuality like a Femme Fatale or Heroic Seductress depending on how greyly ambiguous the episode wants to be, and is treated like a Lust Object.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Kirk went up against malevolent computers so often that it became something of a Running Gag in the fandom.
  • And in the early 80s Shatner did commercials for an early home computer, the Commodore Vic 20.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Mostly refused, but if it’s Close to Home enough, like children ensuring their own destruction, Garth (a captain who he respected) forcing him or Trelane messing with his crew, he’ll beg, plead and kneel as a last resort.
• Ambiguously Bi: It's been discussed how Shatner imbued Kirk with a sense of flamboyance that he probably wasn't created with, Spock is described as the person who knows Kirk better than anyone (and the movies ran with it, "the noblest part of myself"), the doublespeaky footnote has him say he finds "best gratification" in women which is definitely not ruling men out, and both Mudd and Uhura look at him weirdly when he asks about male androids in "I Mudd".
• Ambiguously Jewish / Ambiguously Christian:
  • Captain Kirk's famous line to the alien impersonating the Greek god Apollo in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" is this:
    Kirk: Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate.
  • An idea with some popularity in the fandom is that he's really Jewish, since both William Shatner and Chris Pine are Jewish. As fan-theories go, this is not too far-fetched, since Christianity is essentially an offshoot of Judaism. That said, Kirk has no uniquely Jewish behaviors to speak of.
  • In another episode, Kirk and crew come upon a planet dominated by a Roman Empire but with 20th century technology, where a persecuted, pacifist new religion worships a sun god. At the end of the episode, Lieutenant Uhura discovers that this new religion does not worship the Sun but the Son, clearly referencing Jesus. Kirk even considers remaining at the planet for a number of years just so they can "watch it happen all over again."
• Ambiguous Situation: What Kirk considers to be the biggest regret of his life and the main source of his pain, refusing to allow Sybok to reveal it, as he did Spock's strained relationship with their father and McCoy's regret over mercy killing his dying father from an illness that soon after was cured. Given all the tragedies he has suffered throughout his life, there are many possibilities.
• Anti-Hero: Sixties sex symbol or not, Kirk stumbled into Classical Anti-Hero in Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan where his mid-life crisis wears heavy upon him and some poor choices cost the lives of many recruits, and later Knight in Sour Armor in The Undiscovered Country.
• Arch-Enemy: He has a special hatred of Klingons, called out for it in “Errand Of Mercy” and getting exploited in “Day Of The Dove”. And that’s before his son is killed by one of them.
• Badass Normal: Kirk is a good tactician who leagues of more powerful aliens respect, whose exploits include beating a bio-engineered superman with his bare fists. Did we mention he's a non-powered human?
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The suggested reason why he’s a Love Martyr and forgives so easily. He doesn’t ask for much (a few days on a real beach, knowing he made a difference), and any kindness shown seems to be good enough.
• Benevolent Boss: For the most part he’s a tough but fair captain to his crew and a genial father to his men (even if Spock lampshades that general orders don’t apply to his friends). If he starts to act like a brash asshole then something is usually very wrong.
• Beneath the Mask: Spock tells him early on that he has to look perfect as Captain to his crew, and it’s made clear that the swagger is partly affected, admitting to Bones he would like a long sea voyage where he can rest, and to Carol that he feels old and worn out. There’s more than a few episode endings where he’ll laugh along with Bones and Spock, and look regretful once they turn away.
  --wondering how in the hell he got a public reputation as an impulsive hothead. A lot of the time he felt more like Hamlet, agonizing over every decision. He just had the knack for not letting it show. Being a captain was sometimes more about looking decisive and convincing your crew that you knew what you were doing.
• Big Beautiful Man: Was always a cuddly-looking version of a Mr. Fanservice, even with many shirtless scenes (and Shatner apparently working out to unhealthy levels), and fills out when he hits middle age in the second movie, still being seen as attractive and charming even if his one not-resisting-a-seduction works against him in the sixth movie.
• Blood Knight: On several occasions (“Errand Of Mercy”, “Day Of The Dove”, “Spectre Of The Gun”, “Taste Of Armageddon”), he’s forced to admit that he wants to fight/is a barbarian, and that he’s been trained as a soldier. He settles for diplomat as he gets older, but traces remain, and the fact that he surrenders in the sixth movie proves a Spanner in the Works, everyone expecting him to be more than happy to knock up a few Klingon kills.
• Bold Explorer: Though it was just his job, Kirk's boldness makes him an iconic version of the trope.
• Boldly Coming: The Trope Codifier through Pop-Cultural Osmosis, although it's nowhere near as omnipresent as you might believe. Over 79 episodes, the number of alien women Kirk definitely sleeps with is... four. One of those was the result of being drugged by magic tears, and none of them were green (that was Pike, and she wasn't even really green. The green woman Kirk met was a mental patient who tried to seduce him, to his immense discomfort).
• Break the Cutie: Aside from his seduction as tactic, he gets victimised a lot as well, either Mind Rape, drugged or some other kind of coercion, and he’s never happy about it but he can mostly deal. Until “Requiem For Methuselah”, when he finds out he was used again by Flint (but still loves Reyna anyway), and sounds seconds away from sobbing. No wonder Spock makes him forget about the whole thing.
• Break the Haughty: The movies show what happens when all his flaws come back to bite him. Convinced he's the Captain who deserves command of the Enterprise? Promote him and he'll become an Insane Admiral, not knowing how to deal with a remodelled ship. Be self-absorbed and convinced that you're on the right side of To Be Lawful or Good? A Villain of the Week sets off a chain of events that end with Spock and Kirk's son being killed. Still think you can seduce to get your way? Get used instead, and nearly get murdered if your friends hadn't beamed you up. No wonder that for a while, he just wants to stay in the Nexus after being considered dead.
• Broken Ace: Pike started off the line of Starfleet captains who really could do with therapy, Kirk just continued it. He's a hero with many medals, saved the world more times than can be counted, and is a respected Captain, he's just hiding a lot of grief and trauma (around getting old, following orders, not following orders, feeling like he's worthless if not commanding a starship, Tarsus IV, the USS Farrugut, consent getting taken away, the people he's lost…), that he thinks he needs.
  James T Kirk, hero at large. You can save the galaxy from destruction, but you can’t get your own life in order.
• Broken Hero: The man has suffered a lot of trauma, from coercive situations wearing on him, surviving two separate massacres, The Chains of Command and for some reason feeling like he doesn’t deserve to be happy, yet it’s established early on he has to look perfect to the crew as Captain, and can always be counted on for a Golden Retriever smile. He can’t quite keep it up in the movies, but he still goes out with a smile at just being told he’s managed to make a difference. Quoth Tor:
  when asked to share his pain with Sybok, Kirk becomes the Kirk of old yelling, “I don’t want my pain taken away, I need my pain!” [...] Kirk has always been a champion of being screwed up.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The things Kirk got away with... The Autobiography of James T. Kirk calls it a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, as he's not happy towards the end of the five year mission, thinks he wants to be Admiral, and does more reckless shit to get attention, when he wouldn't have done before.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • His trip to the Mirror Universe. While there, Kirk single-handedly talks Mirror Spock into instigating an uprising against the Terran Empire. We're meant to think they'll eventually find their way to a Federation-like alliance, but in Deep Space 9 we find that Kirk's machinations left mankind ripe for an asskicking by a combined Klingon / Cardassian / Bajoran alliance, after which humans are enslaved. The top dogs of the Mirror Universe are on constant look-out for anyone coming over from the other universe to interfere again, redesigning their tech to make damn sure it wouldn't, and Kirk's name is legendary among them. For Kirk, and Starfleet, the Mirror universe incident was just a weirder-than-average day at the office.
  • His encounter with Khan. Kirk meets one of the most famous tyrants on the 21st century, nearly gets killed by him, beats him up, sentences him to Ceti Alpha 5, and then forgot all about him until Khan came back pissed. Khan spent every night thinking of Kirk, while Kirk didn't give him a second thought.
• The Captain: Kirk is the Trope Maker.
  Spock: "If I may be so bold, it was a mistake for you to accept promotion. Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny; anything else is a waste of material."
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: He's far more genial and sociable with his crew than his aloof, coldly logical XO Spock.
• The Chains of Commanding: His Married to the Job deal was deconstructed as early as "The Naked Time", as his life is i Enterprise, and his own identity fades. He never gets over it, even as he calms down in his older age.
• Character Development:
  • He learns to chill and understand what’s really important as he gets older, from being an insufferable nervous Teacher's Pet at the academy, at least trying to be by the book in the series, to full on Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! in the movies.
  • His conflicting loyalties about whether to be a soldier following orders or being a diplomat mostly end in Season 3. Of course the movies (and “The Cloud Minders”, as he trusts Vanna to listen to him and gets taken hostage, even if it ends up okay) show that confidence in your own rules don’t always work out, especially when it’s coupled with a mid life crisis.
  • Definitely not enjoyed, but the movies force him to actually confront loss and pain, and not just shove things down like a Broken Hero who wants to Just Ignore It.
  • He goes from stealing back command of the Enterprise from Captain Will Decker in The Motion Picture, overriding him similarly to the way his father Commodore Matt Decker tried to do to him in The Doomsday Machine, to refusing to do so when the chance to steal command of the Enterprise-B from Captain John Harriman occurs in Generations, despite the temptation.
• Characterisation Click Moment: Started being his own person and less like an Ideal Hero-slash-copy of Pike in “The Enemy Within”, both for the good and bad; compassionate, dutiful, determined, gentle father to his men, but thinks of himself of an extension of the ship, capable of brutality and manipulation, marked self loathing and an anxious tendency to ignore problems he doesn’t want to deal with.
• Character Tics:
  • When trying to seduce someone, he always grabs a woman’s upper arms before kissing her. When he starts to do it to Spock, he’s told not in front of the Klingons, who are all looking on curiously.
  • Does the rubbing his forehead version of a facepalm a lot. Lampshaded in “The Trouble With Tribbles” where he actually admits for once that he’s got a headache.
  • Rubbing and clenching his hands together when he’s anxious. Spock notices him doing it in “And The Children Shall Lead”, and Kirk reassures him he’s not feeling as bad as he did in the turbolift.
• The Charmer: Kirk is quite the ladies' man, although not the out-of-control horndog he is often misremembered as.
• Chick Magnet: Numerous women of various species tend to be drawn to him, he is aware of it but mostly only takes advantage of it when necessary to see through his duties and protect the lives of his crew and ship.
• Chivalrous Pervert: May very well be the anti-Bond. A lot of the time he'll use his charms for a greater purpose, but he's gentlemanly when he is actually is in love, dissuades Charlie from Entitled to Have You, and most of his (less than ten) exes consider his main flaw to be Married to the Job. He also gives female crewmembers appreciative glanceovers ^note does it with a few men as well, but that seems to be as far as he goes, telling other romances to chill and keep to duties, and defending women as crewmen.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Not for nothing did 70s fandom call him a masochist — one of his fantasies in “Shore Leave” is to have a fight with old school bully Finnegan with himself all sweaty and bloody and shirt ripped.
• Companion Cube: Kirk's strongest love in the TV series is for the Enterprise herself; this may vary between Happily Married and The Masochism Tango. The movies have this become overshadowed by loyalty to his True Companions, culminating with his painful decision to self-destruct the original 1701 in Star Trek III.
  • A Running Gag in the movies is Kirk's loving relationship with his chair. He glumly sits in the rickety captain's chair aboard the Enterprise-A, declaring that it's just not the same. Generations repeated this gag on-board the Enterprise-B, this time complete with Male Gaze.
• Condescending Compassion: His paternalistic tendency to... change civilisations so that they’re assimilated under the Federation was called out early in “Errand Of Mercy”, him acting like the Organians are overly peaceful idiots and swiftly proven wrong, being more akin to the Klingons he hates than the Knight in Shining Armor.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Deela teasingly suggests between forcing kisses on him in “Wink Of An Eye” that he’s used to being kissed when he’s not aware of it, and Odona wonders how he can even look at her when she manipulated him in “The Mark Of Gideon”. It all explodes in “Requiem For Methuselah” when he falls for a robot woman who’s actually nice, and loses his mind a little when he finds out he was still used by Flint.
• Court-martialed: "Court Martial": Kirk gets put on trial for (seemingly) causing the death of a crew member through negligence.
• Cunning People Play Poker: The Corbomite Maneuver" when faced with Balok's incomprehensible mothership threatening to destroy the Enterprise, Spock contextualises their situation as a game of chess and concludes Balok has declared checkmate. Captain Kirk changes the game to poker, and then bluffs that Enterprise has a defense feature that will ensure that if it's destroyed, Balok's ship will also get blown up.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • At some point before he got to command, Kirk was witness to the massacre on Tarsus IV, where thousands were killed in an attempt to hold off starvation that came to naught when the supply ships arrived^note the episode regarding the massacre doesn't state as much, but a reference to his age a later episode, which was subsequently formalized as canon, makes him no older than fourteen at the time of the massacre. During his time on the Farragut, Kirk blamed himself for an attack by a vampiric cloud creature that killed Captain Garrovick and 200 other crewmen.
  • His mirror verse version has one too, raised in poverty by his Good Parents until his home was burned down and he was captured by the empire for “re-education”, making him brutal and sadistic.
• Death Seeker: He’s always played fast and loose with his own life, calling the ship so much more important to the point where Sulu is actually concerned, and in “Shore Leave '', Finnegan taunts him on being able to sleep forever if he wants. Gets worse in the movies, doing stupid stunts while his friends are around because they’ll keep him from dying, as he’s convinced he’ll die alone.
  Kirk: (to the Organians) I’m used to the idea of dying, but I have no desire to die for the likes of you.
• The Defroster: Despite his previous positive relationship with Captain Pike, Spock remains quite stoic and aloof, ashamed about his human heritage and determined to hide it. His friendship with Kirk becomes a chink in his emotionless armor almost immediately (the very first episode has Uhura calling Kirk the closest thing to a friend Spock has). Gradually, under his influence, Spock unbends into psychologically healthier state.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Word of Shatner is that Kirk really does want someone to talk to, to tell them that something is wrong with him, but can’t because as Captain you have to keep some distance.
• Determinator: When Kirk makes up his mind to do something, especially if the lives of his crew are at stake, no force in the universe can keep him down.
  Kirk: I don't believe in the no-win scenario.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: A specialty of Kirk's.
• Disappeared Dad: Though not by his own choice. He and Carol had a child and he was so focused on his career that she eventually asked him to stay away.
• The Dreaded:
  • The name James Kirk is spoken with great annoyance by the Temporal Investigations department. Seventeen different violations will do that for you.
    Agent Lucsly: The man was a menace.
  • Back in his academy days, a then-Lieutenant Kirk was the bane of the underclassmen.
    Gary Mitchell: "Watch out for Lieutenant Kirk! In his class, you either think or sink."
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: His death in Generations is the Trope Namer.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: In Generations, Picard's initial attempt to get him to help by appealing to his duty is brushed off by a bitter Kirk pointing out he'd been saving the galaxy for years, and all it's got him was an empty house. Of course, he soon comes around anyway.
• Dying Alone: Zig-zagged. He reveals in Final Frontier that this is his greatest fear, and he believes that it is his fate to die alone, without his best friends, Spock and McCoy, being near. Sadly, this comes to pass in Generations, but he is not entirely alone, with Captain Picard at his side reassuring him that he has made a difference one last time.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: "Tiberius."
• Endearingly Dorky: In decent episodes, he's... endearingly hammy as a character trait, and how seriously he takes having fun (see times like "A Piece Of The Action") is treated with affection by his crew.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Male Klingons check out his ass, big monsters throw him around like a ragdoll, and he has several ex-friends who end up a little obsessive over him.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Kirk protects refugees and famously refuses to consider any casualty acceptable. He has even impressed multiple Sufficiently Advanced Alien species with his capacity for mercy and civility. However, he's much more of a Deadpan Snarker around Mudd and Baris, and the Klingons were an Arch-Enemy even before Kruge killed his son (not that previous Klingons hadn't nearly killed people he loved before).
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Throughout the series, he’s right on the Federation’s side, and is more likely to blame himself for following orders (like in “The Apple”) than be angry at them for actually giving said orders. The only exceptions are “The Trouble With Tribbles”, a priority one distress call for wheat even before the tribbles arrive, “The Galileo Seven” where it’s finding Spock vs a jerkass ambassador on board, and the movies where he’s wearier and chilled out.
  • He’s willing to take the blame at first with Janice Lester, and dismisses it when Odona asks why he’s not angrier with her for all the deception and coercion.
• Exhausted Eyebags: Occasionally they’ll slather on a lot of eyeliner below Shatner’s eyes when Kirk is in a particularly bad state.
• Face Death with Dignity: He does this numerous times in the series and movies in the face of death, and lives up to his words to Saavik about the importance of how one deals with death at the end of his life, aboard the Enterprise-B when he believes he is sacrificing himself to save the ship, and again for real on Veridian III when he stops Soran from destroying the star system at the cost of his life.
• Fan of the Past: He embraced the culture and history of his homeland, especially western lore and the life of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Recognizing the document mirrored on the planet Omega IV, he could recite the preamble of the US Constitution from memory. His extensive knowledge of his ancestral background served him well on numerous occasions. In travels to Earth's past, or on planets mirroring Earth's development, Kirk was able to function and pass himself off as a native of the time or culture with (more or less) ease.
• Farm Boy: Kirk was born and raised on a farm in Riverside, Iowa. This only gets said out loud in the fourth movie, but according to Roddenberry, he had it in mind since the beginning, and it’s why Kirk so easily gets distracted by flowers and other growing things.
  Gillian: You're from outer space.
  Kirk: No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His Inferiority Superiority Complex. He has a lot of self loathing, so it makes him crave attention to overcompensate and the need to prove himself. Getting glory and press goes to his head, and in turn makes him miserable because he feels he doesn’t deserve it. The biography has “The Enterprise Incident” as just a shade more acted than how he was actually feeling.
  • He also likes repressing his problems. As willing as he to talk about his emotions, Bones despairs about how much he touts Misery Builds Character, getting out of the problem fast without thinking things through has far reaching consequences for Khan and the Mirror Universe, and expanded material has Spock’s death be the catalyst for being forced to think about all his other losses, like Gary, Sam and Edith. Star Trek: Ex Machina also has a Long List of civilizations that he dropped a bombshell on and ran away from, comparing it to his (admittedly biased) view of abandoning Carol and David.
• A Father to His Men: He has a breakdown when three men are killed in “The Apple”, saying it’s his fault because he’s allowed to modify rules (he’s a By-the-Book Cop a lot of the time, just comes off worse later because Starfleet is still writing the rules, as Janeway points out) as he sees fit, and the mission wasn’t that important. He is genuinely upset and enraged by pretty much the death of every crewman, blaming it on himself. One of his Nexus fantasies is saving every Red Shirt.
• Feeling Their Age: At the tender age of… thirty four, he’s taunted by the fantasy Finnegan about being too old, and he comes away from “The Deadly Years” thinking the lesson is he has to be young to be good at his job. No wonder he has a Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis in the movies.
• Former Teen Rebel: Inverted. Unlike his alternate universe counterpart, Cadet Kirk was something of a humorless swot as an underclassman, only later developing into the Military Maverick we see in the movies.
• Four-Star Badass: In the movies. And everyone knows it. Though as a Rear Admiral, technically he was only a Two-Star Badass. Until he gets demoted at the end of Star Trek IV. However, this is also largely subverted. Kirk's moments of badassery as an admiral are actually while he's in direct command of a starship and he's shown to be apathetic and uninterested towards his admiralty duties, such as when he almost immediately cuts the inspection of the Enterprise short in The Wrath of Khan.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Kirk is the Choleric, although by no means unsympathetic; he's just the most decisive and determined member of the trio.
• Genocide Survivor: In "The Conscience of the King", Kirk is stated to be a survivor of a genocide on the planet Tarsus IV, where the Governor ordered thousands of citizens killed to ensure the rest could survive, using eugenics to decide who lived and died. It's only All There in the Manual that the actual circumstances are discussed; his mother moved to the planet for work, leaving her children and husband behind in Iowa. When Jim visits on a trip, things go very wrong, and between an Enterprise being the supply ship, the trauma itself, and his mom using him as a therapist, it hardens him and he ties himself to Starfleet.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: As The Captain, he wears a gold shirt.
• Good Is Not Soft: As Nice Guy Love Martyr as he is, Kirk — especially Gene Coon’s version, which carried on throughout the movies — often has to remind himself that while he was trained to be a soldier, and humans can be savage, mercy and peace is always the best option, and Vengeance Feels Empty.
• Go Out with a Smile: Despite his somewhat pathetic death, he’s happy knowing he made a difference after so much worry that he wouldn’t, and that he got closure in the Nexus for everything he feels went wrong in his life.
• Gunboat Diplomacy: One of his favorite diplomatic techniques seems to be threatening to blow up a planet that doesn't do what he wants. Somehow he gets away with this. He's Kirk. He even gives orbital bombardment a go as a persuading tool (with phasers on stun... sometimes). Partially justified by the fact he was trained as a soldier, not a diplomat.
• Has a Type: Of the five women Kirk had long-term relationships with before the series, four out of five were blondes and/or scientists. (The exceptions being Janice Lester, a brunette scientist, and Areel Shaw from "Court Martial", a blonde Starfleet JAG officer.)
• Hates Being Alone: It’s the stated reason why he falls so hard for the first nice woman he sees and can spend some free time with in “Requiem For Methuselah”.
  Kirk: I had a whole universe to myself after the Defiant was thrown out. There was absolutely no one else in it. I must say I prefer a crowded universe much better.
• Heartbroken Badass: Let's see...with the losses of Edith Keeler, his brother Sam and his sister-in-law, his wife Miramanee and their unborn child, Rayna Kapec, his first BFF Gary Mitchell, his true BFF Spock, his son David, and the Enterprise herself, it's amazing that there's still anything approaching an intact heart by the time he retires. The book versions of the movies are well aware of all he’s lost, and while the angst is there in the films, they bring it to full-scale depression, going right to Death Seeker both when Spock dies and when he retires, as McCoy and Spock go back to their families and he has nothing.
• He Knows Too Much: Kirk is one of nine surviving eyewitnesses who can identify Kodos the Executioner, the man who ordered the deaths of four thousand people on colony planet Tarsus IV. Kodos's daughter Lenore tries to kill him by hiding an overloading phaser in his quarters. By the end of the episode, Kirk is one of only two surviving witnesses, since she succeeded in killing the other seven.
• The Hero: He is clearly the protagonist of the show (and the cause of some off-screen drama).
• The Hero Dies: Eventually meets his end performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save a star system during the events of Generations.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The end of his life involved two of these, one attempted and believed to be such by history, and the other one for real. The attempted one being his saving the crew of the Enterprise-B, ending up in the Nexus instead. The one that stuck happened after later choosing to leave the peace and happiness of the Nexus to stop Soran and save the millions of lives in the Veridian system, including the entire crew of the Enterprise-D, none of whom he had even ever met or knew anything about.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: More pronounced in the movies, but even in the show, he'll find a reason to hate himself, whether it's feeling useless without command, Survivor's Guilt, losing men, having to kill Edith, being impulsive, and in one comic, worried if being a Heroic Seductress meant that he was nasty to women.
• Heroic Willpower: In "Dagger of the Mind," one of the bad guys notes that he hasn't given in when subjected to a force that reduced one of their scientists to screaming. Note that Kirk is still having a bad time, struggling and crying, but he still alerts his ship. In "Elaan of Troyius", he is even able to resist the intoxicating, hypnotic tears of Elaan and force himself to carry on.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: A common theme in Christopher L Bennett’s books is some strong Leaning on the Fourth Wall, with public perception of Kirk being an Ideal Hero who can do no wrong or a reckless bad boy who will sleep with anyone, with neither close to how he actually is.
• Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: In most of the films, he suffers from a bad case of this. Starting with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, in which he struggles with the question of whether he is too young to be an Admiral or too old to be The Captain; this leads him to take back command of the Enterprise as soon as a major threat to Earth is spotted, shamelessly ousting its current (younger) Captain. Subsequent films would have him agonizing, sometimes to the point of Wangst, over his age, career, life in general, and missed opportunities. Notably, he is the only character who seems to suffer from this, to the occasional frustration of Bones and Spock.
• Honey Pot: A lot of the time his "getting some" labelled by pop culture is using his charm and good looks to try and save someone else. Still gets him a reputation as Really Gets Around even in-universe during the movies.
• Honor Before Reason: In "Arena" and "Spectre of the Gun", though in both cases "honor" was the right choice.
• I Can Still Fight!: Kirk doesn't like being shut up in medbay at all, much to McCoy's consternation.
• Improbable Age: Minor example In-Universe. Background material states that, at 30-ish, he is the youngest man yet to command a first-rate Starfleet ship, a record that wasn't broken until the first year of TNG, when Tryla Scott (played by Afro-American actress Ursaline Bryant) is promoted to captain of the USS Renegade in her late twenties (albeit thanks to a burst of parasitic infiltrators).^note Captain Scott ended up possessed, controlled, shot and never heard from again.
  • In the Season 2 episode "The Deadly Years", Kirk is stated to be 34-years-old. He had been Captain of the Enterprise for two years at that point, making him 32 at the time he got the promotion — or to put it another way, just a decade out of the Academy, an average of one promotion every two years.^note Commissioned as an Ensign, and then promoted through Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, and Commander to the rank of Captain. Had he continued at that pace, he would have made full Admiral by age 40.
  • Although Kirk's rise to the Captaincy was exceptionally rapid, it's clear that he's obviously an extreme outlier with regard to the average quality of Starfleet officers (even in TOS, most other Starship Captains we meet wind up dead or go insane). Contrast his reboot counterpart, who is field-promoted to Captain from Cadet before graduating from the Academy, which might generously be described as a bit farfetched.
  • Curiously, his Mirror Universe counterpart, who is considerably less competent than the Prime Kirk, only reached the rank of Captain through plundered alien technology allowing him to remotely eliminate all of his superiors without putting himself in danger of retaliation.
• Improbable Weapon User: In hand-to-hand combat, he will sometimes grab whatever object is nearby, regardless of what it is. Twice, he has used pillows.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Throughout the show and the movies; arrogant, paternalistic, swaggering with a Knight in Shining Armor self image, but also massive Survivor's Guilt ^note the novelization of the fourth movie has him yelling at Bones not to bring up the “old days” of the Enterprise, as he still remembers having to watch Edith die, as well as his brother, his sister-in-law, and Gary, is exhausted from The Chains of Command yet feels like he’s worth nothing if he’s not Captain, and worries there’s stains on his shining armor. The official show bible makes note that he has a god complex, and hates himself when he inevitably can’t measure up.
• Insane Admiral: Drifts perilously close to this early in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, especially when butting heads with the Enterprise's new Captain. He gets over it to some extent, but his later actions lead to a "demotion" that puts him back in the captain's chair, which is exactly where he wants to be and resolves the problem.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Owns foundation beyond the out of universe putting all the male actors in eyeshadow and mascara, gets distracted by flowers easily, and is happy to joke about himself as a mother.
• It's All About Me: A Jerkass Has a Point moment in “The Ultimate Computer” calls out that it always has to be him who explores a planet or fights the enemy, and as much Heroic Self-Deprecation as he has, fame and glory have a tendency of going to his head.
• It's All My Fault: Of the “everything that happens under my command is my fault” variety (less so for further consequences, which the movies and DS9 will call him out hard on). McCoy and Spock have the “there’s no point in self recrimination” speech down perfectly.
• Just Ignore It:
  • If he’s hurting about something (his age being a prime example, in both “The Deadly Years” and the movies) then he goes right into denial and Bones has to yell at him. He admits it himself at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, saying he’s always managed to push the pain from death down until now.
  • Less sympathetic is “The Enemy Within” where even the “good” version of himself is far more interested in pretending it never happened than listening to what Janice is saying.
• Kicked Upstairs: While the actual events differ, most books will have him accept being Admiral the first time, ask for a Captain rank between the first and second movie, quit for a while after, and eventually be kicked into Admiral again because Starfleet is sick of him not actually knowing what he wants and they’d rather keep him on a leash anyway.
• The Kirk: He's the Trope Namer, obviously. Whenever presented with a hard dilemma, he almost always tries to find the Third Option that allows for a morally acceptable solution without sacrificing any more crew or victims.
• Killed Off for Real: In Star Trek: Generations. Let's just say they...Dropped a Bridge on Him.
  • And then revived in a Star Trek novel series written by...William Shatner!
• Knight in Sour Armor: Played with in the show, as he doesn't want to admit it, would rather be the Knight in Shining Armor, and it's thanks to the trauma of being one of the few surviving members of the Tarsus IV massacre that he does some terrible things in "The Conscience Of The King" (Lenore, a mentally ill 19-year-old girl who is killing other survivors for the sake of her father, calls him out on using her, and asks if there's stains on his armor). By the movies, he can admit that he feels exhausted, needs his pain, and that his impulsive It's All About Me has cost lives, but will still do the best he can.

  Kirk: We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today.

• Lame Comeback: His being Endearingly Dorky continues as he gets older, having a Fun T-Shirt with the insult (“insult” in big air quotes) “go climb a rock” imprinted on it.
• Large Ham:
  • He's played by William Shatner, after all. Star Trek: The Motion Picture suggests this is a character trait, as he's practically Dull Surprise until Spock comes back.
  • “The Enemy Within” plays with it as well, having the good part of Kirk be sedate and softly anxious, while the evil version is just brimming with barely restrained pork, except for when he’s playing weak and charming.
• The Leader: Famously of the Levelheaded type. Come crisis or moral questions, Kirk's main approach was to let his officers have their say on the matter at hand and then try to find a way to successfully combine the various strengths of their advice into an effective solution. He also treated his responsibility to his crew with unwavering seriousness, often sticking his own neck out so they wouldn't have to.
• Legendary in the Sequel: Kirk is depicted as the Captain, against which all of his 24th-century successors are judged (well, eventually. Early TNG episodes treated Kirk's era like it was shrouded in myth, if they acknowledged it at all — even though Dr. McCoy shows up in the pilot episode). Of course, with The Next Generation being the first Star Trek TV series since the original, using an entirely new crew, this was intentional by the producers, who wanted the series to stand on its own. This even extends to the reboot continuity, where a bunch of Romulan space miners living over a century after his heyday immediately recognize James T. Kirk by name as having been Starfleet's greatest Captain.
• Living Legend: Even though the original series depicts his first command, it's clear that he's already becoming one of these. The movies take this trope and run with it.
• Logic Bomb: Known for pulling this move off successfully in just about any episode featuring A.I. Is a Crapshoot... and then some.
• Lonely at the Top: According to “Where No Man”, Shatner apparently talked to the skippers of atomic submarines so he could get a sense of how lonely and desperate for affection Kirk would be in command.
• The Lost Lenore: The expanded canon books have Edith as someone he loved the most and lost, while also inspiring him to help even more people. Spock, “the noblest half of myself”, at least comes back.
• Love Martyr: The amount of times that someone has hurt him, drugged him, or mind-raped him, and he shoves the anger down. Nobody in-universe can figure out why either, compulsively getting into bad relationships was mentioned in the show bible, Bones and Mulhall treating his trust in Sargon in "Return To Tomorrow" as Stockholm Syndrome, and Odona in "The Mark Of Gideon" asking how he can look at her after what she did to him. He finally breaks in "Requiem For Methuselah", just as upset at getting used as losing someone he fell for.
• Lust Object: Mostly women, but other guys seemed to see it as well. Kirk is one of the few men in popular culture who will regularly use this status to save someone else, provide a distraction, or get information.

M-Z

• Married to the Job: No matter what, his main commitment is always first and foremost to the safety of the Enterprise and her crew. This sense of duty in him is so overpowering he doesn't even need an antidote to a love potion. This is treated as ultimately unhealthy, as he feels completely lost without command, and the films have him muscle his way back in after getting Kicked Upstairs, not wanting to move on.
• Memetic Badass: In-Universe example. Kirk serves as one for all of Starfleet. When given with the chance of meeting him, Picard and Sisko both positively Squee. Considering that both Picard and Sisko are also examples of this within the Trekverse, that says something.
• The Men First: Being A Father to His Men, Kirk is always insistent on keeping them safe if possible. On a number of occasions^note "The Squire of Gothos", "The Immunity Syndrome", "The Empath", he has wanted to pull a Heroic Sacrifice (or even tried to do so) to ensure the well-being of his crew, and torturing them is generally a better strategy than torturing him.
• Misery Builds Character: He of the “I need my pain” and “pain can drive a man harder than pleasure” mindset. Spock and Bones don’t quite agree, both taking turns with “there’s no point in self loathing” speech.
• Missing Mom: All There in the Manual has Kirk’s parents have an Awful Wedded Life, and she leaves to work on Tarsus IV, leaving baby Jim to feel abandoned. She does try later on when he lives with her (he got his rock climbing habit from her), but after the massacre, she uses him as a therapist and he has a complicated relationship with her. Not helped that he repeats her patterns with his own son.
• Mr. Fanservice: That uniform shirt of his will tear open at the touch of a twig. This was not actually intentional; it's just that the tailoring budget for the original show was less than impressive. More intentionally, the green wrap around shirt that’s mostly seen in Season 2, is affectionately called the “fatshirt”, as it’s very form-fitting and shows off everything, along with the much tighter pants Kirk wears than the rest of the crew. Not for nothing that one of Shatner’s nicknames on set was apparently “bubble butt”.
• Must Have Caffeine: Nothing from a super-powerful alien threatening to blow up his ship to a crew member vanishing into thin air on an inexplicably abandoned planet can come between Kirk and his cup of coffee. (When an infestation of tribbles do, then It's Personal!)
  Kirk: (regarding a cup of tribbles) This was my chicken sandwich and coffee! I want these things off the ship, I don't care if it takes every man we've got!
• Murderous Thighs: Rare Male Example in that one of the few times it’s Shatner in the “Space Seed” fight is when Kirk is trying to choke Khan out with his thighs.
• My God, What Have I Done?: His reaction to sacrificing the Enterprise in The Search for Spock. Understandable, given that for Kirk, it's the equivalent of sacrificing a lover all over again. Good thing Bones was there to remind him:
  McCoy: What you had to do. What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live.
• My Greatest Failure: Kirk came to see his banishment of Khan as this, as not only did it leave him and his crew off-guard for Khan's Roaring Rampage of Revenge after the unexpected destruction of his world and the death of his wife, but it ended up initially coming at the expense of his best friend's life, something he continued to feel guilty of by The Search for Spock.
• Narcissist: The fragile narcissist, as he’s a good person with compassion, but is self-obsessed in a self-loathing way and overcompensates by swaggering. Lampshaded in the sixth movie, where Marta mocks him that kissing himself must have been his life-long ambition.
• Necessarily Evil: When Shanah in “Gamesters Of Triskelion” is a Woman Scorned because of how he coldly seduced her (and she’s definitely not the only one in the series to feel that way), he’s regretful but calls it necessary and what he had to do, the implication being that he knows he does this all the time.
• Nice Guy: He's more balanced and friendly compared to brash McCoy and aloof Spock.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He’s touchy-feely with everyone, especially Spock, even when he’s not trying to seduce anyone.
• "Not So Different" Remark: From the Romulan Commander in "Balance of Terror." Also to Kor in “Errand Of Mercy”, as much as he denies it and is ashamed when the Organians finally point it out to him. It doesn’t exactly help his loathing of Klingons.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • For all his Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!, actively placing his command in danger is rare for him, the main two times being "The Conscience Of The King" and saving Spock in the movies.
  • Overlapping with Shatner's in real life ham, in-universe his crew knows something is wrong when Kirk is being quiet. He walks out without a word when called "Captain Dunsel" in "The Ultimate Computer" and they're all worried, and according to the movie novels, has to be snapped back to reality multiple times when silently despairing over Spock's death.
  • It doesn’t last long, as he needs some fear and danger, but Kirk gives up in the Nexus, eventually explaining that making his whole identity about the Enterprise has ruined his life, and wants to make up for the mistakes he’s made. (All There in the Manual having him save every Red Shirt, save Edith, relive his youth etc).
• Officer and a Gentleman: In addition to judo-throwing aliens and romancing to get his way, he finds time to be well-versed in classical literature and offer aid to space-borne refugees.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • Kirk is positively notorious in Starfleet for his violations of the Prime Directive. However lost in the shuffle is that in most cases, Kirk arrives on the scene only after someone has already interfered, and he's now in a position where he must fix or mitigate the damage, or prevent others from interfering.
  • In more of a personal example, he accidentally flirted with Helen Noel at a Christmas party, thinking she was a visitor instead of a crewmember (according to the script), and neither Bones or Spock let him live it down. He’s embarrassed and uncomfortable around her until she gives him Fake Memories.
• On the Rebound: In the books, he tries to get back with Carol after Spock dies (“because they’re both alone”) and she rejects him, as her lover was one of the casualties of Khan. He also wants to get with Gillian as a distraction for David’s death, but she’s too busy.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Most of the time, Kirk is a by-the-book guy but prone to impulsiveness and biases, and mostly had to fix messes (and make some more of his own) by violating the Prime Directive, essentially a mix of To Be Lawful or Good and I Did What I Had to Do. In “The Omega Glory”, he says without a shred of irony that a captain would give his life rather than violating the thing.
• Papa Wolf: Kirk is A Father to His Men who makes a habit of punching out any entity, super-powered or not, that messes with anyone in front of him. Hurting his people (or actual children) causes him much Angst and more anger. Do the math on whether messing with anyone under him is a good idea.
• Please, I Will Do Anything!: Word of actor is that he would willingly (if angrily) let himself be a Sex Slave if it meant protecting Spock.
• Pretty Boy:
  • Guns of steel aside, Shatner at the time had a soft face with long lashes, a tendency to pout, and the camera objectified him as much as humanly possible. Lampshaded in “Wink Of An Eye”, when Deela wants to keep Kirk for a long time because he’s pretty.
  • “Spock’s Brain” has one of the males be confused by Kirk specifically, calling him “small, like the others”. “Others” being women, “who give pain and delight”.
• Proud Beauty: Was a Clueless Chick-Magnet when he was younger, with Gary having to push girlfriends on him, but in series knows full well he’s hot, and uses his looks to get out of trouble (and in one officially published fic, free drinks). Lampshaded by Colbert in an interview with Shatner, asking him if he knew he was beautiful in the show, and of course he did.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Moreso as he gets older, especially when Spock is Not Himself and Jim wants their old friendship back.
• Rank Up: He gets promoted to rear admiral sometime prior to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. However, at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Starfleet busts him back down to captain for stealing the Enterprise in defiance of orders in The Search for Spock.
• Refusing Paradise: A recurring belief of his, in conjunction with Misery Builds Character, first shown in Who Mourns For Adonais?, turning his back on paradise under Apollo in favor of the real world, believing people must 'march to the sound of drums', as well as ending the 'paradise' in The Apple for the villagers so they could make their own way in reality and become something more. He does this again at the end of his life in Generations, recognizing the Nexus for what it was and finally refusing its eternal happiness and peace to go back to the real world and perform a Heroic Sacrifice, saving the Veridian System and crew of the Enterprise-D from an Omnicidal Maniac.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Inverted, Captain Kirk is a charming Officer and a Gentleman. By contrast, his first officer, Spock, is more tactless and ruthlessly pragmatic. The fact that he's also The Stoic when he does these things probably doesn't do his image any favors.
• Samaritan Syndrome: “Let me help.” He takes every red shirt death as a personal failing, to the point that in Season 3 all he can do is tiredly and bitterly phase a grave for one of them.
• Sanity Slippage: It’s there in the movie and onwards, but more pronounced in the books that Kirk is losing it after Spock dies, not wanting to be alone, losing track of reality, and almost certain his reputation in Starfleet will be remembered as a poor, sad nutcase. He’s still not completely all there after Spock comes back either, sleeping around to distract from grief, having breakdowns about Edith, Sam, Gary and his sister in law, and verging on Death Seeker.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Kirk does this quite a bit. Spock reminds him of "our prime directive of non-interference" and he rationalizes a way around it. Hell, if he were anyone else other than James T. Kirk, he'd have been toast long ago, but he is supposed to have unusually broad powers to make decisions affecting his crew, alien societies, and new worlds. Many times he doesn't violate it and instead he or the bridge crew find a clever way to solve the problem without doing so. In fact more often than not, Kirk is in the position of having to undo damage caused by others.
  Bones: Jim, ethics are one thing, but you’re crucifying yourself on yours.
• Sex for Solace: Attempted at least. The writer’s bible says that the stress from being Captain leads him to acting out compulsively off-duty, and getting himself into unhealthy romances that he can’t get out of. The novel for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is more explicit about it, wanting to distract himself from grief over his son.
• Sex Slave: Several Season 3 episodes have him trying to get out of becoming breeding stock for one reason or another, or at least trying to get out of being drugged.
• Shirtless Scene: It's not quite to the level of Walking Shirtless Scene, but Kirk appears shirtless a lot in the original TV show. Most famously, it's caused by Clothing Damage during action sequences, but he also tends to just lounge around his quarters without a shirt and such.
• Smart People Play Chess: He's Spock's opponent of choice in chess games and is quite cunning, as a lot of foes have found out, to their regret.
• Sore Loser: Sympathetically, but in a Hard Truth Aesop kind of way. He doesn’t deal well with losing crewmembers, sinking into unhelpful levels of guilt each time, and he programmed the Kobayashi Maru test the third time because he can’t deal with failure. He goes right into self loathing when Spock dies, thinking he’s lost the better half of himself.
• Sudden Name Change: In the second pilot episode, Gary Mitchell, possessed of near-omnipotent alien powers, fights Kirk and creates an open grave with a tombstone reading "James R. Kirk." This would normally be a minor matter, but given how many times Kirk later introduces himself as "James T. Kirk," it's actually quite jarring. Michael Jan Friedman's books turned into a inside joke between Kirk and Mitchell from their Academy days.^note Lieutenant Kirk boasted that "Racquetball is my middle name" when challenegd to a game by Cadet Mitchell, then Gary would joke that the R stood for different things like "Rhinocerous" or "Resourceful" when Kirk got into a tight scrape.
• Survivor Guilt: A deleted scene in "The Conscience of the King" would have revealed that Kirk one of the people whom Kodos deemed worthy of saving in his eugenics program, which would further explain Kirk's hatred of him. Really, though, it would probably apply either way, since no matter whether he was chosen to live or whether he escaped execution, he survived when thousands of others didn't.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Far more often than he gets credit for these days. Kirk is good at talking monsters to death (AKA fast talking his way out of a jam). Since he routinely runs into Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who cannot be defeated with firepower, it's an important skill.
• Teacher's Pet: Was a humorless walking stack of books on legs when he was younger, and actually programmed the unwinnable Kobayashi Maru test on his third go because he saw failing as something he couldn’t live with.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: The worst ones come after Edith dies, after Spock dies and after admitting to Picard that being dutiful got him an empty house, but he’s prone to lesser ones generally.
• To Be Lawful or Good: One of the most frequent moral dilemmas faced by Kirk in quite a few stories. To his credit, he usually manages to come up with a way to actually be both lawful and good, but when his back is truly against the metaphorical wall, he will slightly lean towards the good option and be willing to bend the rules, though he never takes such a decision lightly.
• Took a Level in Cynic: There was always a bit of a stain on his shining armor in the series, but he’s much more weary by the time of the movies. The losses of Spock, his son, and the original Enterprise only make it worse, and he’s a hair’s close to just completely giving up in the Nexus.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Has a definite fondness for Saurian Brandy, with his evil half chugging it straight from the bottle in “The Enemy Within”.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Kirk isn’t reckless, but he is impulsive and can let his emotions and biases get the better of him (that’s why having Bones and Spock around helps him out). He admits this himself in the sixth movie, mourning that he was so clouded by the loss of his son (and never liking Klingons much anyway) that he was an easy scapegoat for the assassination plot.
• Tragic Hero: Originally a Broken Hero, the movies (and even more so for the book version of the movies) have him make a lot of mistakes that cost dear collateral damage, and he dies not in a blaze of glory like he wants, but suffocating and bleeding under a fallen bridge, just happy that he’s made a difference.
• Tragic Mistake: It’s a combination of being manipulated by a girlfriend in Starfleet, the trauma of season three making him think he needs another position, and Spock going back to Vulcan that makes Kirk accept being an Admiral. He makes even more mistakes trying to get his ship back, and even after he’s demoted like he wants it’s still a factor in his depression, telling Picard never to accept promotion.
• Trauma Button:
  • He worries everyone with how much he wants vengeance in “Arena” (even if he realises by the end) for what he thinks is a massacre/invasion, and he’s particularly upset with massacres that claim to be “clean”. He spends the last quarter of “Miri” sounding on the verge of a breakdown.
  • The presence of Karidian/Kodos on the Enterprise brings up some bad memories of Tarsus IV, since he witnessed the massacre and watched a friend suffer permanent injuries.
  • At the end of “Elaan Of Troyius”, having sex with her under the influence of being drugged, he tells Elaan that he has no choice remembering her. In the novel version of the sixth movie, it’s explicit that he doesn’t resist Martia kissing and spooning him due to wanting to get out of there, but still feels sick and guilty.
• Trauma Conga Line: A lot of it is self-imposed angst, but the movies do a number on him until he's broken down enough to want to stay in the Nexus. It's only the fact that there's no risk that gets him out of the funk, and he goes out Married to the Job as ever.
  Kirk: It was fun...
• True Companions: with Spock and McCoy.
• Ultimate Job Security: Later crews even lampshade that Kirk shouldn't have been able to get away with so much. However, the times when he's reckless or rebellious have been exaggerated in popular culture's perception of the character; ordinarily, he's a pretty law-abiding guy. Furthermore, Starfleet looking the other way regarding his more wild exploits makes sense insofar as the Enterprise is continually getting mixed up in situations where one wrong decision could result in the destruction of humanity at the hands of alien forces, and Kirk is the only captain proven to have a talent for continually making the right call in those circumstances. Organizational discipline is one thing, but species survival trumps it.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Both in-universe and out. While quite charming and capable with women, Kirk was rather restrained and mature about it despite his reputation. Even Shatner and Nimoy around the time of Star Trek: The Motion Picture were getting annoyed with Kirk’s “love them and leave them” pop culture rep, and reminded people that sometimes Kirk went “no no” (though as the series bible and Shatner also points out, still a lot of Sex for Solace on shore leave because of the loneliness of the Enterprise). In-universe he gets fucked over frequently, the assumption being the seduction tactics are just him wanting to sleep with everyone, and many years after his day even his biggest fans assume and believe this about him.
  Captain Sisko: "Kirk had quite the reputation as a ladies man."
• Verbal Tic: His peculiar speaking style is perhaps the most famous (and certainly the most frequently-parodied) thing about him. A combination of Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter and Punctuated! For! Emphasis!, along with seemingly random, inappropriately-placed pauses, then followed by delivering the rest of his line in a rushed, breathless pace, as if he has to make up for time lost from taking the pause (essentially, delivering his lines in tempo rubato).^note In fact, that's exactly what happened — scripts were frequently being rewritten even as scenes were being shot, so Shatner constantly had to memorize new dialogue on the fly, which he wasn't very good at. The pausing is him trying to remember the rest of his line, which he then rushes to finish because a scene can't drag out too long — an episode is only 51 minutes long and every second counts. It makes it look like Kirk is trying to think of words to express himself in the clearest but briefest way.
  • It should be noted that despite this being such an infamous trait of Kirk's, it's only Shatner's Kirk who talks like this. Both Pine and Wesley consciously chose not to imitate it. Like the mysteriously disappearing and reappearing Klingon forehead ridges, this simply creates questions which are probably impossible to answer. Pine, for his part, proved he could do the "Kirk voice" when he appeared in one of the many Saturday Night Live parodies of Star Trek, in which he played the Kirk from TOS.
  • In "Get a Life!" Shatner claims that it's a holdover from his D-list theatre days, when it was the only thing that kept the audience awake. Since his daughter thinks Kevin Pollack does a better Kirk than him, he also asks Pollack to help him punch up his Kirk.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Deconstructed in the bio, as Kirk is more like his mother than he wants to be, but she regresses after the trauma of Tarsus and uses him as a therapist, while he suffers Innocence Lost. He also has to comfort his parents after the death of Sam, when he would like nothing more than to go home and be looked after.
• War Hero: Captain Kirk is openly stated to have been decorated many times for valor. Kirk doesn't talk about his awards or display them, preferring to keep them locked away in his quarters.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: The main reason for all the close ups of them with everything else in a darker light seems to be just for pointing out his big and luxuriously lashed bambi eyes.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Kirk gets his fair share, whether it’s from women upset that he’s pretended to love them as a means to whatever end, from Bones or Spock for being an impulsive martyr, or literally anyone for getting too much into a soldier mindset and acting like a dick as a captain.
• Worth It: Despite some not entirely undeserved grumbling about what a lifetime of service has gotten him, Kirk still helps Picard fight Soren in Generations. His last words? "It was fun."
• Worthy Opponent: Klingons, in particular, recognized Kirk as this. The legendary Kor, frustrated by Organian interference that made battle against Kirk impossible, wistfully surmised, "it would have been glorious" in 2267. Captain Klaa believed defeating Kirk would make him the greatest warrior in the galaxy in 2287. General Chang reveled in his attack on Kirk at the Battle of Khitomer, until he lost his advantage. Jadzia Dax would later relate Koloth telling Kurzon Dax about verbally sparring with Kirk on a space station, and lament he never had the opportunity to face Kirk in actual battle. The Romulan Commander of "Balance of Terror" also regards Kirk as a formidable opponent, acting as the Commander himself would in Kirk's place, calling him a sorcerer who "reads the thoughts in my head," and goes to his death telling Kirk "You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The only time his evil half shows any intelligence, is when he’s playing charming and weak, lulling his good half into a false sense of security before slamming him against the wall and knocking him out. Kirk as a whole person will use nicer variations of the tactic with so many women, and a few men too.
• Wrestler in All of Us: You may have noticed Kirk isn’t actually good at fighting (the throwing himself at the three guys in “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” and the butt move in “Journey To Babel” are two good examples). This is because Shatner took it from wrestling he saw growing up, because he wanted to make it look like Kirk was always improvising.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He really wants to believe he’s the shining knight when in reality, Lenore was right saying there was a stain on his armor, and he’s had to admit more than once that he wants blood. Wrath Of Khan finally dissuades him of the notion, telling his son morosely that he knows nothing, and part of his arc is having to deal with losses instead of trying to ignore them.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Portrayed By: Paul Wesley

Appearances: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

In the setting of Strange New Worlds, Kirk is presently a lieutenant serving on the Farragut before being promoted to First Officer. In the Prime timeline, after two alterate variants of the character appeared before him, Lieutenant Kirk finally appears as the recently promoted first officer of the USS Farragut, which was collaborating with the USS Enterprise on a mission.

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Strange New Worlds Kirk

• The Ace: Top of his class at Starfleet Academy, and (will be) the youngest captain in the fleet. He's already become the fastest promoted First Officer in Starfleet, breaking the record previously held by his father.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • Jim's struggle with his father's legacy in the Prime Reality stems from the fact that the elder George Kirk was always away helping others, and famed for being the youngest officer in the fleet to be promoted to first officer. In the Kelvin Timeline, Jim struggled with the fact that George was revered for having sacrificed his life on the Kelvin to save its crew, including Jim and his mother.
  • The circumstances behind Kirk meeting Pike and Uhura are also much different. In the Kelvin Timeline, he met both in a bar brawl trying to flirt with Uhura and getting into a fight with Starfleet cadets, with Pike daring him to do better than the late George Kirk did instead of wasting his life. He meets Uhura while nursing a drink after an argument with his brother, and has to make it clear he's not flirting with her (even when she decks him during a hallucination), with his first meeting with Pike being a result of his efforts to help Uhura.
  • While later works in the franchise establish that Kirk has a reputation as a ladies man, it is established here that when in a relationship he will remain committed to his partner and his natural charm and outgoing personality are easily mistaken as him being a flirt.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: As far as Sam Kirk's concerned, Jim is this on account of the way he's advancing through the Starfleet ranks; Sam thinks he's just trying to one up him to please their father.
• Big Good: He's a bit of a maverick, but he's one of Starfleet's best officers and a paragon of their ideals.
• Call-Forward: He immediately takes notice of Spock's skill and insight, hinting at their eventual friendship.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: La'an quickly calls him out for "helping every stranger in need". He gets it from his father.
• Commonality Connection: In his first meeting with Spock, both men feel that Sam is a huge pain in the ass.
• Doomed by Canon: He turns down a relationship with La'an because he's in an off-again/on-again relationship with a woman named Carol, and she's pregnant. She doesn't even give him a chance to be a father. His son fares no better.
• Exact Words: He mentioned that he first met Pike when he became Fleet Captain. Turns out that it wasn't the exact time he was promoted; Pike had been given a temporary promotion to Fleet Captain, and Kirk happened to be on that same assignment.
• Following in Relative's Footsteps: It's already established that in the prime universe, George Kirk Sr. was the inspiration for his sons to join Starfleet, and Jim directly states that he wanted to understand his father's passion for helping others.
• Guile Hero: His defining trait. If there's even a slight chance to Take a Third Option, he'll do it. His brother Sam mentions that he doesn't like to lose, and will do whatever it takes to avoid that.
• Rank Up: He's given a promotion to First Officer of the Farragut in his first "Prime" appearance, albeit that it's going to take a few weeks until they can train his replacement.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: As Uhura begins to suffer from mysterious complications related to the mining facility the ship is stationed at, and seems to be the only one experiencing them, Kirk is the one officer that takes the extra step to help her out, as the rest of the Enterprise crew think she's just suffering from over-exhaustion and a form of radiation poisoning, which he suspects is something more.
• Smart People Play Chess: Prime Kirk points out a mistake that Spock makes in a game against Christine Chapel and how it costs him an easy win.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He loves his brother Sam and would go to any lengths to keep him safe, but Sam's jealous attitude about his brother's fast-advancing career makes things an annoyance for the younger Kirk.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Sam accuses Jim of this by trying to outdo their father's already impressive Starfleet career.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: George Kirk, in contrast to being dead in the Kelvin Timeline, was rarely home to spend time with his sons, having vested himself to his Starfleet career. This left Jim wondering why his father was choosing to help total strangers instead of making an effort to be there with his family.

A Quality of Mercy Kirk (spoilers)

In a timeline where Christopher Pike never had his accident and remained captain of the Enterprise, Kirk instead assumed command of the Farragut, a ship he first joined as a Lieutenant.

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• Always Someone Better: To Pike, at least in the scenario of "Balance of Terror". The viewer gets the benefit of seeing that Kirk's handling of the Romulans would have indeed proven itself correct, as Kirk's more aggressive response discouraged the Romulans' belligerence, while Pike's attempt at diplomacy and negotiation in an alternate timeline was seen as weakness.
• Batman Gambit: He does these so frequently that he's able to identify one on sight. When the Romulans let their appearance leak, showing that they're similar to Vulcans, Kirk suspects they did it to sow discord amongst Federation officers.
• Birds of a Feather: We first meet this version of Kirk in an alternate timeline where he never captained the Enterprise, and thus he meets Spock much later than he did before. That aside, they both get on immediately due to their shared ability to think outside the box and to also be pragmatic when the occasion calls for it.
• No Hero to His Valet: His older brother Sam makes it clear that he's one of the best captains in Starfleet. He also freely acknowledges that his little brother is a massive pain in the ass. Later, it turns out his brother is The Resenter of Kirk's rapid success in Starfleet, making Sam feel inadequate compared to his equally-famous father.
  Sam Kirk: Look, I'm not gonna say that Jim isn't a pain in the ass. He is. He's a huge pain in the ass. But the truth is, he's as fine a Captain as Starfleet has.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Both he and Spock agree that showing weakness in front of the Romulans is bad, but for different reasons. Kirk doesn't want the Romulans to think the Federation won't defend themselves. Spock knows how vicious Vulcans were before they embraced logic, and if Romulans are an off-shoot of that martial philosophy, then he knows they should not be under-estimated.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Pike hesitating against the Romulans costs Kirk the Farragut, and he's not happy about that. Kirk doesn't want war, but he also isn't willing to hesitate against a violent enemy.
  "You flinched! You deliberated! And you lost!"

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow Kirk (spoilers)

A second alternate version appears in a timeline where the Federation never formed, and he commands the United Earth Fleet ship Enterprise in the present-day.

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• Big Brother Instinct: Or rather, little brother instinct. He has no pretense of altering the timeline until La'an reveals Sam is still alive in her time, at which point he changes his tune.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Instead of having a bridge dropped on him after traveling into the future, he dies in the past with a point-blank disruptor shot to the chest.
• For Want Of A Nail: In this timeline, the Romulans assassinated a child named Khan Noonien Singh before he could become the infamous dictator of the Eugenics Wars. Without him, they never occurred, but it didn't give humanity the kick in the teeth it needed for losing billions of lives to it, and they became an isolationist government with a bleak, barely habitable Earth, and are stuck in a war with the Romulans that they're implied to be losing. For Kirk, he was born on the Iowa instead of Riverside, Iowa, his brother is dead (well, dead before he should be), and his only contact with Spock is a message to tell him they can't help.
• In Spite of a Nail: He still becomes Captain of the Enterprise, albeit much earlier than he did in the Prime Reality.
• The Lost Lenore: For La'an, compounded by the presence of Prime Kirk as an eternal reminder. As of "Subspace Rhapsody", she is still holding onto the watch he gave her.
• Smart People Play Chess: Not only does the alternate version of Kirk in season 2 defeat multiple 21st-century opponents at traditional chess, but he also dismisses it as "idiot's chess".

Tropes applying to the novelverse Kirk

Novelverse Kirk

• Antiquated Linguistics: How Bones got his nickname, according to "The Captain's Oath". Kirk called McCoy a 'sawbones' in one of their early meetings, and Bones was amused by the fact the younger man was using more outdated language than the self-professed country doctor.
• Break the Badass: He's initially talked into experimenting with time travel by Admiral Delgado on the grounds of "think of the potential". After what happens with Edith, Kirk's attitude is locked into "screw the potential". The events of "Yesteryear" do not help. At all.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The events of The Motion Picture, specifically V'Ger's ascension. A mass freak out occurs across Federation space, with people debating what it means, some people seeing Kirk as a religious icon and some as a monster who kills AI. Kirk doesn't get what the big deal is.
• Cassandra Truth: Some of Jim's more... unusual exploits tend to get dismissed by 24th century characters as being implausible, or stuff he made up (such as that incident where someone supposedly stole Spock's brain). The Enterprise-E crew, on hearing the things about "Requiem for Methuselah", however, are more open-minded (run-ins with Q will do that).
• Character Development:
  • "The Captain's Oath" shows Kirk's transformation from the humorless terror of the Academy to the rules-lawyering man of the show proper, along with the start of his friendships with Bones and Spock.
  • A flashback in "Forgotten History" shows the transitory Kirk at the end of the five year mission - he's gotten fed up of The Chains of Commanding, the lost red shirts, the various failed romances and chasing around the galaxy, and is looking to pack it all in and take a desk job, maybe just settle down with someone.
  • "Ex Machina" has Kirk beginning to go from getting his fire back at the end of The Motion Picture to the man we see in Wrath of Khan, feeling his age and use diminishing in equal measure.
• Designated Villain: In-universe, even. The Department of Temporal Investigations calls Kirk one of the biggest menaces of time travel on record; a boogeyman held up as a cautionary example of exactly what not to do. Most of Kirk's seventeen violations were accidents, or things Starfleet got him into. Agent Lucsly even comes to realize this when an eighteenth violation brings him into contact with the man, and he sees the dreaded "Time Pirate" isn't so bad as all that. But for the sake of the Department, he still has to lie and maintain Kirk's image.
• Famous for Being First: Among other unsavory bits of his reputation, he's the first captain to be court-martialed thanks to that mess with Ben Finney.
• A Father to His Men: Used to justify why he keeps leading shore parties - he doesn't want to expose anyone to danger he wouldn't face himself.
• Improbable Age: As mentioned up above, he made Captain by his thirties, which gets mentioned in "The Captain's Oath", with one or two characters thinking poorly of him for it, figuring he didn't earn it on legitimate merit.
• Kicked Upstairs: Sort of... his being made admiral is a little more complicated. There was a court martial after Kirk decided to screw the Prime Directive again, this time when an Obstructive Bureaucrat was on-board (of the TNG-era style mindset of "the Prime Directive says they must die"). The bureaucrat had been put there by Admiral Delgado, who wanted Kirk out of the way so he could get his hands on the Enterprise engines, but Admiral Nogura actually did want Kirk as a Fleet Admiral because he thought he'd be good at it.
• Love at First Sight: No, not Spock. The Enterprise. Kirk fell in love with the old girl the first moment he saw the bridge. (Spock played Moment Killer.)
• Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • His various meddlings with alien cultures. Related, his habit of destroying AIs, which even has pro-AI groups seeing him as some sort of demon.
  • Apparently Spock taunted him about not recognising who Surak was that one time. Afterward, Kirk made time to study up on Vulcan history.
  • His reputation as a seducer. One book in New Frontier has a member of the Excalibur crew decry this reputation Kirk has... only to seconds later state he did seduce her grandmother.
  • A century onward, and Flint is still ticked off with him, and Starfleet types in general.
• Red Baron: The Department of Temporal Investigations brand Kirk "The Time Pirate".

Captain James T. Kirk (Kelvin Timeline)

"I don't believe in no-win scenarios."

Played by: Chris Pine

Dubbed in French by: Emmanuel Garijo

Dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese by: Marcelo Garcia

Appearances: Star Trek | Star Trek Into Darkness | Star Trek Beyond

The youthful and slightly caddish captain of the USS Enterprise. Despite his wanton and frequent disregard for authority, his intellect and overall sense of justice quickly won him over in Pike's eyes, eventually landing him the captain's chair of their latest and greatest vessel.

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Tropes involving Kirk

• Abusive Parents: His unseen stepfather is heavily implied to have been abusive towards him and his brother. In the original script, his friend "Johnny" that young Kirk speaks to is his brother George Jr., who was running away from home due to this and learning their stepfather intended to sell their biological father's prized car. Kirk, meanwhile, decided to total it to spite him.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Due to his father's death, this Kirk had a significantly rougher upbringing. He was essentially an aimless drifter before Pike encouraged him to step up while the original Kirk had wanted to join from a young age. Even by Beyond where he's mostly grown back into his original characterization, the loss of his father still weighs on him.
• Adaptational Dumbass: While far from stupid (Pike describes him as "the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest"), this version of Kirk is more prone to reckless overconfidence and impulsive action than the Prime universe version, though this can mostly be put down to inexperience; the Prime Kirk was an experienced, seasoned officer when he became Captain of the Enterprise, whereas this one got the job while he was still a cadet. By Star Trek Beyond, he's closer to his original portrayal.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: A minor example; the original Kirk had hazel eyes, while this one's eyes are blue.
• Adaptational Personality Change: This Kirk is more laid back than the original.
• AM/FM Characterization: In his first scene, he's hanging up on his step-father in favor of blasting Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" (a song that In-Universe is a 100-plus-years-old) over the radio, establishing his disregard for authority (and a certain degree of love for Good Old Ways, even if they clash with Federation standards) even before the character says a single word. The detail about "Sabotage" being so old it's considered "classic" (and Kirk loving it) gets a Call-Back gag on Star Trek Beyond.
• Amusing Injuries: A lot of them in the first movie. Gets shades of it in the first half-hour of the second, but after Admiral Pike dies, the joke stops being funny in a real hurry.
• Anti-Hero: He's a Chivalrous Pervert and Jerk with a Heart of Gold with some serious issues when it comes to authority. But at the end of the day, you can count on him to do what's right, even if it conflicts with protocol. By the end of Star Trek Into Darkness, he's becoming more of a Hero Classic.
• Arch-Enemy: No matter the universe or timeline, Kirk and Khan will always be bitter enemies.
• Badass Biker: Star Trek Beyond has Kirk show his amazing biker skills when he averts the attention of Krall's men.
• Badass Normal: No superpowers, but he'll go charging in anyway.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Chekov in Into Darkness and Beyond.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: The character retains Chris Pine's bushy eyebrows.
• Birthday Hater: He hates celebrating his birthday because it reminds him of his father's death. In Beyond, he hates it even more because he's now one year older than his father ever got to be.
• Boldly Coming: Zigzagged. So far, he's bedded an Orion woman and Caitian twins, but both those incidents took place on Earth. When he's on the Enterprise or otherwise away from his home planet, he avoids actually romancing anyone.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Kirk is confident about himself, fearless, and absolutely believes there's no such thing as a no-win scenario, prompting him to cheat at the Kobayashi Maru test to prove his point. But then comes Star Trek Into Darkness where he gets demoted and lost the command of the Enterprise, lost his father-figure Pike, and almost led his entire ship to its demise because of his impulsiveness (good thing Scotty saved them).
    Kirk: I'm sorry...
  • At the beginning of Into Darkness, he bragged how no one in his crew was killed in the past six months of his command, then his mission to Kronos cost the lives of his escorts, many of the crewmen sucked into space at warp speed and fell into their deaths when the ship was crashing. Kirk was unable to do anything but watch. He tried to save one woman, but she slipped from his fingers.
  • On the mission to infiltrate the Vengeance, he ordered Spock to stay and take command of the ship, admitting that he didn't know what to do. He realized Spock was the one needed while he's expendable.
  • By the time he's dying, he's definitely broken.
    Kirk: I'm scared, Spock. Help me not be...
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Kirk has a brilliant tactical mind and is an outstanding leader, but only if you can pry him away from women and alcohol long enough. Pike even refers to him as the "only genius-level repeat-offender in the Midwest."
• Broken Ace: While Kirk Prime had shades of this, the premature loss of his father in this reality definitely has caused this Kirk to grow up a lot more rough around the edges. Many of his behaviors, such as excessive flirting and posturing, could be construed as coping mechanisms for his Dark and Troubled Past.
• Butt-Monkey: Many of the first film's action sequences, and much of its humor, involve him getting owned in one way or another. He also gets stranded on planets and has freaky and potentially embarrassing reactions to vaccines.
  • He gets choked by Spock at one point and by a Romulan at another. Both times with some pretty good acting by Pine. It hurts as you try to catch your breath afterwards. Pine actually mentioned in an interview that he admires Harrison Ford for his ability to take a beating like it really hurts, and that he considered that an underrated skill.
  • Kirk getting repeatedly owned in hand-to-hand combat with Spock and the Romulans is somewhat justifiable, considering they're meant to be three times stronger than humans.
  • The second film is no different, although it's less humorous this time around: He accidentally shoots the ride that he and Bones were going to use to get back to the Enterprise, loses his ship (temporarily), watches his father figure Pike die, gets the snot beaten out of him by Harrison, and he even dies (albeit temporarily) a very painful death of radiation poisoning.
  • By the third movie, his injuries aren't so amusing anymore.
• The Captain: Captain of the Enterprise, leading his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits across the stars.
• Cerebus Callback: Kirk's Heroic Sacrifice in into Darkness is a direct reference to Kirk and Spock's debate in the first film after Kirk cheated on the simulation.
• Character Development: Grows from a smart-ass drifter to a capable leader throughout the first film, and learns to abandon some of his Military Maverick and Leeroy Jenkins tendencies in the second. By the third, he is becoming jaded with never-ending exploration and considers taking a promotion to a desk job, though he later turns it down and loses his jadedness.
• The Charmer: Flaws aside, he's likable, friendly, and charming.
• Chick Magnet: Gaila was into him in the first movie and the sequel has him in bed with two Caitians.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Despite how much he flirts with women, we never see Kirk get pushy, and the only woman he ever (visibly) scores with is Uhura's roommate. Though in Into Darkness, he's in bed with two Caitians. As for the "chivalrous" part, it's worth noting that, despite chasing Uhura the entire first movie, he treats her as a professional and an officer worthy of respect and never makes a pass at her in the second movie. They even have a Friendship Moment bonding over their frustration with Spock.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Heavily alluded to. Kirk lost his father just minutes after his birth, was frequently abused by his stepfather while his mother was off-planet, his brother ran away when Jim was still young because he hated their stepfather so much, nearly killed himself by driving a car off a cliff when he was 12, and was already a repeat offender long before enlisting in Starfleet. It certainly explains a lot of the behavioral differences between him and Kirk Prime.
• Deadpan Snarker: Kirk often exhibits a dry wit.
  Kirk: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
  Spock: An Arabic proverb attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects..
  Kirk: Well, still, it's a hell of a quote.
• Determinator: He doesn't believe in no-win scenarios and is certainly one stubborn fellow once he sets his mind to accomplishing something. He keeps fighting physically superior beings (Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, Harrison), and either holds his own or keeps going despite taking beatings that others would collapse from.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Kirk hits on Uhura at the beginning of the first movie, but she turns him down. It is later revealed that she and Spock have an established relationship. In the Star Trek (IDW) comics and subsequent films, he's actually quite supportive of the relationship and gets worried about them when problems arise.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: To the point his father refused to let it be Kirk's first name.
  George Kirk: What, "Tiberius?" [chuckling] No, are you kidding me? That's the worst.
• Expy:
  • Of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. Both are Military Mavericks who are also Handsome Leches and eventually prove their mettle when faced with danger in an emergency situation. Both also served on the USS Enterprise and have fathers who were killed in action.
  • To make things more interesting, he also has traits of Jason Nesmith from Galaxy Quest — who was himself an expy of Shatner's Kirk (bringing things full-circle). Both start out as arrogant jerks who go through major Break the Haughty plots and emerge humbler and more serious about leadership.
• Farm Boy: Kirk was raised on a farm in Iowa.
• A Father to His Men: Kirk loves his crew as if they were his family. Harrison notices this and presents his own love for his crew as a point of similarity between them. Towards the end of Into Darkness, Kirk provides an answer to the question posed by Harrison when he gives his life (temporarily) to save the Enterprise and her crew.
  Harrison: My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?
• Fight Magnet: He gets into no fewer than four fistfights during the first film and loses pretty much all of them.
• First-Name Basis: McCoy mostly is on this with Kirk, Spock, and Scotty as well, but not so much.
• Fire-Forged Friends: He and Spock had to be this first, though.
• Former Teen Rebel: In Pike's words, "The only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest."
• Freudian Trio: The Military Maverick and Handsome Lech id to Spock's superego and McCoy's ego.
• Genius Bruiser: According to Pike, "[his] aptitude tests are off the chart." And he's good in a scrap.
• Guile Hero: He loses most of the physical fights he gets involved in and has limited scientific expertise. Instead, Kirk relies on his wits to win.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: A bit jerkish, maybe, but Kirk still fits the archetype of a heroic blond protagonist. This trait also contrasts against Harrison and Admiral Marcus.
• Handsome Lech: Played by the attractive Chris Pine, but also eyeballs every woman in the vicinity (even while delirious from the vaccine McCoy gave him).
• The Hero: He is the lead protagonist of all three films.
• The Hero Dies: In Into Darkness. But only briefly. It helps that McCoy put him into cryostasis to preserve Kirk's body as soon as possible.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Goes into the radiation-filled warp reactor of the Enterprise during Star Trek Into Darkness to save his crew.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Spock, to the point that Spock gets jealous when Kirk accepts Carol Marcus as a second science officer aboard the Enterprise. Spock Prime goes to incredibly risky lengths in order to preserve the natural development of the galaxy's greatest bromance.
  • He also has elements of this with McCoy, which is especially apparent in the first film. In this universe, if there's anyone who's going to stick by Kirk's side through thick and thin, it's the good doctor. And he's proven it plenty so far.
• I Am Not My Father: He does not enjoy constantly being compared to his deceased father.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Frequently gets his ass handed to him in fights, but makes up for it with guile and simply refusing to give up.
• It's Personal: In the sequel after Harrison murders Pike.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kirk can be a rather manipulative Guile Hero. However, Kirk is never out to hurt anyone just for his own ends and it's made clear he's only acting up because he lacks a challenge worthy of his smarts. Most importantly, he uses his cunning to save the universe.
• The Leader: Starts out as The Headstrong type, which gets brutally deconstructed as he leads the Enterprise into near-destruction. After coming back from being mostly dead, he grows into The Levelheaded type.
• Living Emotional Crutch: He and Uhura are this to Spock. He is Spock's closest friend (besides Uhura) and their bond is a crucial one in the franchise. Zoe Saldaña even describes how he and Uhura are emotional crutches to Spock in the documentary For the Love of Spock:
  Zoe: Every time he [Spock] goes into a negative place, or he starts being a little bit of a pessimist, he allows Uhura and Kirk to snap him out of it. And I really like that.
• Manly Tears: When he sees that Pike has died during Harrison's assault.
• Military Maverick: Regularly says Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! or straight-out leaps before he looks.
• Mr. Fanservice: Played by the attractive Chris Pine, and has a number of shirtless scenes.
• Not Quite Dead: McCoy revives him with Khan's enhanced blood, even lampshades it by saying "Oh, don't be so melodramatic. You were barely dead."
• Over Ranked Soldier: Gets an official promotion to Captain at the end of the first film. Note that he wasn't even technically a Cadet at the time. The expectable happens in the sequel when it shows he's as hot-headed as ever.
• Papa Wolf: Kirk will do anything to ensure the safety of his crew.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The brash, rule-breaking Red Oni to Spock's logical, task-orientated Blue Oni.
• Revenge Before Reason: He's dead-set on killing Harrison after Pike's death, to the point that he's nearly manipulated into provoking a war with the Klingons. His crew talks him out of it before it's too late.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  Spock: I would cite regulation, but I know you will simply ignore it.
  Kirk: See? We are getting to know each other.
  • This actually gets him in trouble in the sequel, as Starfleet, for some reason, does not like him violating the Prime Directive. He's actually stripped of his command and Pike has to struggle to keep him as Commander.
• Seen It All: He has a different flavour of angst in Beyond than his original, Prime Kirk feeling like he's nothing without the Enterprise, Reboot Kirk tired of how "episodic" it all feels.
• Shipper on Deck: Kirk was genuinely worried (and somewhat amused) when he thought that Spock and Uhura were having relationship problems. In the IDW comics, after Spock risks his life on a mission, Kirk actually orders them to spend some time together.
  • During Spock and Uhura's conversation on Qo'noS, he was clearly on her side, commenting that she's right and Spock's response to Uhura's accusation is "not exactly a love song."
  • Despite Spock's injuries, Kirk still allows him to join the mission into Krall's camp after Spock says it's for Uhura.
• Took a Level in Badass: Goes from a delinquent in Iowa to being a legendary captain who saved the Federation from total annihilation twice.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He starts out a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but loses the jerk part by the third movie.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: A Deleted Scene reveals that Kirk, as a child, would get good grades and stay out of trouble. Things didn't stay that way. invoked
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With McCoy. And Spock, far more in the Abramsverse than the original series.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: While he's fully in the right not to trust Khan during their Enemy Mine, he might have ordered Scotty to knock him out a little too early, though admittedly they'd probably not have fared well owing to Khan's Chronic Back Stabbing Disorder.

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