What's that, Spock? 'Logic?' If we listened to your cold reasoning, you'd have us look for that stupid Cosmic Keystone while innocent people suffer! The greater good? Better in the long run? The Klingons will kill us in five minutes if we go to rescue the high priestess unprepared? Dammit man, dare we call ourselves human if we don't?!
What do you mean 'Thank You?'
The McCoy is part of a
Power Trio along with
The Kirk and
The Spock. Where the former is rational and
intuitive, and the latter is
cold and logical, the McCoy is
emotional and
humanistic. He cares about others deeply; for him doing the right thing is not a question of convenience or moral relativity, but about the concrete reality
right now. Which is to say, someone like
The Kirk cares about saving people; the McCoy cares about making things
right. This often leads the heroes into hot water as this concern for others blinds him to complications in the Moral Dilemma Of the Week and leads him to advocate (or take it upon himself to do) "the right thing", regardless of how disastrous it would be in the short or long run.
That said, they help keep the drama of a situation
personal both for the characters and the viewer, reminding us just why the
Littlest Cancer Patient deserves for
The Hero to use the phlebotinum that
only works once on him rather than to
get them home. To be fair, the Spock can be just as compassionate, but is tempered with detachment and a wee bit of forethought that suggest that while the emotional answer can be valid, it
might not be the right one,
illogical as that sounds.
The McCoy is frequently a target for reminders about the
Prime Directive, and one or more episodes might focus on how having his heart on his sleeve can actually cause
quite a bit of damage to the people he "helps" with the best of intentions.
Also, the McCoy exists as a counterpart to
The Spock. If they are the moral center of the team in general too, then they are
The Heart as well.
The McCoy is the
Honor Before Reason trope personified.
Examples
Anime
- The main characters of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fit directly into this trope. Rather than simply listening to logic, they prefer to screw the rules and dive right into a situation.
Literature
- In The Brothers Karamazov, the brothers form a Power Trio: Alyosha as an idealistic Kirk, Ivan as The Spock, and Dmitri is The McCoy.
- Ron Weasley is very much this in the Harry Potter books.
- Debatable. Ron tends to take the longer view. Hermione fits the role better, especially with her insistence that the House Elves be freed, no matter what they happen to think of it.
Live Action TV
Film
- According to co-writer Roberto Orci, the 2009 Star Trek film maintains this trope, but swaps Kirk and Mc Coy:
"
Mc Coy in a way represents for us, or represented for us, the extremes of Kirk and Spock. If Spock is extreme logic, ... extreme science, and Kirk is extreme emotion and intuition, here you have a very colorful doctor, essentially a very humanistic scientist. So he, in a way, is literally and figuratively a representation of two extremes that often served as the glue that held the trio together."
- Though it comes off in a very similar manner to the show, and is very well played.
- Katara from Avatar The Last Airbender. She once detained the group for three days to help a village who lived on a polluted river, even destroying the factory that polluted it.
- Teen Titans: Cyborg.
- Sam in Danny Phantom. She forces Vegan meals and steals frogs from being dissected in her school, displays her disguise on a Beauty Contest to bring individuality to the girls, and other humanitarian beliefs she has up her sleeves. When she's not doing that, then she makes sure Danny is going the right path.
Webcomics
