This was originally published in May, but I thought it was worth sharing now that SNW is back on the air. I really like this take - I personally think a lot of people’s perceptions of the message of “Arena” don’t line up with the text of the episode, but I hadn’t considered the argument presented here.
One of the challenges in interpreting TOS episodes is that many of us have read so much about them over the decades that our collective headcanon can crowd out what was actually onscreen.
It’s great that we can come together and make inferences, interpolations and extrapolations. Tie-in novel authors and magazines extend this further.
But the risk is that we come to a collective headcanon that can be quite rigid even though it’s certainly not the only way to look at what we’re shown and what’s said.
My recollection of my schoolchild’s reaction to the captain fighting the monster but choosing to be magnanimous and merciful in victory was that Kirk had burnt out his anger, and was ready to hold to his values.
More generally, I’ve been concerned for a long time that the message of the episode is so completely overshadowed by the cheeky meme of Kirk vs the guy in the rubber suit. Anything that can make the Gorn more believably terrifying to justify Kirk’s emotional response, and validate the significance of his choice to be merciful, is all to the good in my view.
I think that’s fair. To be clear, the interpretation that I disagree with is that the Gorn in “Arena” are somehow misunderstood.
I am always left with the paradox of tolerance here. How do you survive if you show mercy to a group that doesn’t reciprocate? You just leave someone else later to make the hard choice or to be killed, or you’re hoping that thes hunters will decide to go hunt somewhere else. Yet your asymmetrical action actually incentivises them to come back because you have shown they will be spared so it’s a no lose scenario for them.
On the flip side you risk becoming a monster.
The Gorn as originally shown could be any somewhat agressive native interacting with colonists. The Gorn as show in SNW are like the current Russians or historical Nazis, they are going to keep coming, and the horror and death is actually part of their goals.