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The McCoy (view source)

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{{trope}}
[[File:leonardmccoy_5742.jpg|link=Star Trek the Original Series|rightframe|Can't you see from my expression how inhuman this so-called "logic" is?!]]
 
 
{{quote| ''"By God, [[The Kirk|Jim]]! You can't seriously be considering this! [[Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right|Screw the]] [[Alien Non-Interference Clause|Prime Directive]], [[No Time to Explain|there's no time for debate!]] We have to act now to [[Save the Princess|rescue the]] [[High Priestess|high priestess]]; [["Friend or Idol?" Decision|forget]] the [[MacGuffin]] and think about doing what's'' right!}}
 
{{quote| ''"What's that, [[The Spock|Spock]]? '[[Straw Vulcan|Logic]]?' If we listened to your cold reasoning, you'd have us look for that stupid [[Cosmic Keystone]] while innocent people suffer! [[Emotions vs. Stoicism|The greater good]]? Better in the long run? [[Always Chaotic Evil|The Klingons]] will kill us in five minutes if we go to rescue the high priestess unprepared? Dammit man, dare we call ourselves [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|human]] if we'' don't?! ''[[Insult Backfire|What do you mean 'Thank you?]]'''"}}
 
[[The McCoy]] is part of a [[Freudian Trio]] along with [[The Kirk]] and [[The Spock]]. Where the former is rational and [[Take a Third Option|intuitive]], and the latter is [[The Stoic|cold]] and logical, [[The McCoy]] is [[Hot -Blooded|emotional]] and [[The Heart|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. In [[Sigmund Freud|Freudian]] psychology, this character represents the concept of [[The Id]].
 
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 [[It Only Works Once|only works once]] on him rather than to [[You Can't Go Home Again|get them home.]] To be fair, the [[The Spock|Spock]] can be just as compassionate, but is tempered with detachment and enough forethought to realize that [[Emotions vs. Stoicism|the right answer might not be the correct one]], ([[Straw Vulcan|illogical as that sounds]]).
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** When Willow was kidnapped, the Scoobies (especially Oz) were [[The McCoy]], Giles was [[The Kirk]] and Wesley was [[The Spock]].
*** Buffy herself was [[The McCoy]] more than anyone else, often thinking with her heart rather than her head, such as her reluctance to kill Angel in season 2, endangering the world as a result, her refusal to kill Dawn in season 5, endangering the world as a result, her refusal to kill Spike in season 7, endangering the world as a result... Sensing a theme here?
* [[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]] has a tradition of this, when the companions usually act as the heart and the moral compass for the often aloof and alien Doctor. Barbara was the first companion to somewhat "humanise" the unpredictable and sometimes callous First Doctor. In the new series, Donna lived and breathed this [[Trope]], especially as the Tenth Doctor's characterisation grew darker and darker.
* Ironically, Jack McCoy of ''[[Law and Order]]'' is not [[The McCoy]] for the show. That role is typically filled by the female A.D.A. Except when Angie Harmon played that role as a conservative Republican, so they made the new D.A. a female college professor, and made ''her'' [[The McCoy]]. Of course, some can take it too far: Serena Southerlyn was too much [[The McCoy]], which resulted in her being fired. This also led to an example of [[Suddenly Sexuality]].
* Sheldon, from ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'', insists that since he's [[The Spock|Spock]] and Leonard is [[The Kirk|Kirk]] then Leonard's girlfriend Stephanie must be [[The McCoy|McCoy]].
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** Mostly Elan, as Durkon usually takes a more passive role. And has more common sense. Durkon is the [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|party Scotsman]], though...
** 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 Boys 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.
* Arcturus Winrock from [[Suicide for Hire]] pulled a HUGE McCoy on Hunter when he killed a cancer patient.
* 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].
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[[Category:Emotion Tropes]]
[[Category:The Mc Coy]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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