The McCoy: Difference between revisions

The McCoy still functions as an admirable character, however, due to his absolute devotion to his Moral beliefs and his refusal to give in to what others may tell him. For him, there is no such thing as acceptable losses. And if you start claiming that [[We Have Reserves|numbers can be lost]] or that [[A Million Is a Statistic]], you can expect a thorough [[What the Hell, Hero?|chewing out for your coldness]]. In the McCoy's mind, every life matters and everyone deserves to be saved. While [[The Spock]] sees people as numbers in the greater picture, The McCoy sees people with real lives and emotions.

 

 

The McCoy is the [[Honor Before Reason]] [[Trope]] personified, and may occasionally be a [[Strawman Emotional]].

 

{{examples}}

* The main characters of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' fit directly into this [[Trope]]. Rather than simply listening to logic, they prefer to screw the (Physical and otherwise) rules and dive right into a situation.

** Specifically, they kick reason to the curb, and go [[Beyond the Impossible]]. Because that's the Team Gurren way.

* In ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'', Sayaka and Madoka are the McCoys to Homura and Kyuubey's [[The Spock|Spocks]]. In this way, it almost seems to [[Take a Third Option]] when it comes to the [[Emotions vs. Stoicism]] debate: Sayaka lives by her emotions and ends up paying for it {{spoiler|in every possible universe becoming a Witch in the main timeline}}, Madoka {{spoiler|ends up rewriting the universe into a happier place through the [[Power of Love]]}}, Homura is by far the most competent [[Magical Girl]] outside Madoka and none of the latter's achievements would have been possible without her, while Kyuubey has an arguable point in the goal he's working towards, but {{spoiler|does so in an inarguably cruel and heartless way}}. In other words? Neither is specifically better than the other, and in fact both may be necessary, depending on the situation.

 

* According to co-writer Roberto Orci, the 2009 [[Star Trek]] film maintains this [[Trope]], but swaps [[The Captain|Kirk]] and [[The Medic|McCoy]]:

{{quote|"[[The Medic|McCoy]] in a way represents for us, or represented for us, the extremes of [[The Captain|Kirk]] and [[The Spock|Spock]]. If [[The Spock|Spock]] is [[Straw Vulcan|extreme logic]], ... extreme science, and [[The Captain|Kirk]] is [[Strawman Emotional|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 Kirk|the glue that held the]] [[Freudian Trio|trio]] together."}}

* Mr White of ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'', in comparison to the cold and logical Mr Pink and the psychopathic Mr Blonde. He tells the dying Mr Orange his name and defends him all through the movie from accusations that Orange is a rat, based purely on the fact that he likes the guy.

 

* In ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'', the brothers form a [[Freudian Trio]]: Alyosha as an idealistic [[The Kirk|Kirk]], Ivan as the cold, rational [[The Spock|Spock]], and Dmitri is the emotional McCoy.

* Marianne Dashwood in ''[[Sense and Sensibility (novel)|Sense and Sensibility]]'', in contrast to her sister [[The Spock|Elinor]]. Possibly the [[Trope Maker]], considering this is one of the first known intentional uses of it (Austen intended the sisters' [[Emotions Versus Stoicism]] to be a metaphor for [[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment]]). Also notable as one of the few cases where The McCoy is wrong and has to learn to be more reserved, rather than the other way around.

* Ned Land from ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]]'' is an emotional harpooner who isn't excited about going around the world on the ''Nautilus'' and simply wants to return to civilization, in contrast to Aronnax's [[The Kirk|Kirk]] and Conseil's [[The Spock|Spock]].

* In the ''[[Star Trek]]'' novel ''[[Star Trek: Vulcan's Forge]]'' Rabin(an earlier friend of [[The Spock|Spock's]]) is like this, though more [[Beware the Nice Ones|friendly]] and less crotchety then ...Mmm...the real McCoy.

 

* The [[Trope Namer|trope is named for]] [[The Medic|Doctor Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy]]. He not only stressed humanism, [[Strawman Emotional|he was all but dominated by his emotions]], to the point that he seemed to find ''no'' value in logic whatsoever, even in situations where it would fit... um, logically. There are many ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episodes wherein, had they listened to the Doctor instead of Spock, the ''[[Cool Starship|Enterprise]]'' would be a cloud of space dust. In fairness, that came with his position and area of responsibility, as well as his Hippocratic oath, and is why he was in charge of running the medical division and not the ship; but he often served as [[The Kirk|Kirk's]] [[The Conscience|conscience]].

** There's a clear ideological bent this way in Starfleet medical school in general—an inclination to take "first do no harm" as far as the [[Alien Non-Interference Clause|Prime Directive]] allows it; this may be because subsequent series are a [[Generation Xerox]] of the first. (Starfleet members from [[Deep South|the American South]] are also frequently like this.) Examples include [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Dr. Crusher]], who quite often would ignore rational ordeals and run into the battleground to try and save someone, and the more obnoxious Dr. Pulaski, McCoy's [[Distaff Counterpart]]. They definitely take an oath like the Hippocratic one, perhaps a modern modification of the oath like [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html this one], or perhaps something unique to the Federation.

* "Doc" Soto in [[Alcatraz (TV series)|Alcatraz]] seems to be slipping into this role in opposition to Hauser's [[The Spock|Spock]].

 

* In [[Persona 4]], this role is shared by [[The Lancer|Yos]][[Butt Monkey|uke]] and [[The Chick|Ri]][[Mission Control|se]].

* Garrus Vakarian of the [[Mass Effect]] Series evolves into this over the course of Mass Effect 1 & 2. By the second game, he forms a team of [[Cowboy Cop|Cowboy cops]] to combat the corruption on the station in Omega. {{spoiler|True to the "Get into hot water" portion, his whole squad ends up massacred.}}

* [[The Hero|Lloyd Irving]] in [[Tales of Symphonia]] has spades of this. While [[The Chick|Colette]] is [[The Chosen One|The Chosen]] and works hard to bring about the regeneration of the world through a set quest procedure {{spoiler|until it turns out to not be the case at all with Cruxis}}, Lloyd doesn't follow tradition and urges others, in his own [[Idiot Hero|short-sighted viewpoints]], from [[Fantastic Racism|half-elves discriminated]] to Exspheres {{spoiler|and [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|what they're used for]],}} to make their own decisions and accept/help each other along the way.

 

** Miko Miyazaki was also sometimes like this, although she mostly expressed her concern by [[Knight Templar|slicing the cause of the problem to ribbons]].

* Conrad from [[Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name]] is not a very [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|humanitarian/sentimentalist]] example, but he is the only part of the main triad (himself, [[The Kirk|Hanna]] and [[The Spock|Zombie]]) that is freaked out by the general supernatural weirdness of the comic. He's pretty much a staple [[Only Sane Man]] who questions everyone else's logic and peculiar calmness in the face of things that should scare the crap out of normal people like him.

* In [[Harkovast]] Scatterpod plays The McCoy to Quinn-Tain's Spock over the morality of Quinn-Tain killing [http://www.drunkduck.com/Harkovast/index.php?p=719524 BrightLeaf]{{Dead link}}.

 

* Mudd from [[The Book of Stories (Original Character Tournament)|''The Book of Stories'' (Original Character Tournament)]] was this.

 

* 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.

** This being significant because they are on the way to save the world from [[A Nazi by Any Other Name|what is basically Fantasy Nazi Germany]], before [[Fantastic Nuke|Sozin's Comet arrives]] and gives the entire enemy nation [[Time Limit Boss|unstoppable and overwhelming powerups.]] So stopping for any reason is really endangering the entire planet.

* Mikey Blumberg from ''[[Recess]]''

 

* [[Winston Churchill]] was a The McCoy and [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|FDR]] was a Kirk. Whether Marshall or [[Josef Stalin|Stalin]] was [[The Spock]] depends on how you view Stalin.

** [[The Spock|Spocks]] seem to end up as a [[Number Two]] in [[Real Life]] as much as Hollywood.