Kirk gets ridiculed for jumping from "biology" to "reproduction", but Spock is obviously embarrassed and what part of biology is half so embarrassing to talk about as reproduction?
Spock also has zero problems talking about all other aspects of his biology, from extra eyelids to misplaced hearts to "green ice water" for blood (usually in response to some jab by McCoy). So reproduction is probably the only aspect of Vulcan biology Kirk hasn't heard Spock casually reference, and he's suddenly loathe to talk about his problem. . . Kirk applied some simple logic.
Additionally, as we see in "The Apple", in an era where one didn't use the word "sex" on network television, the word "biology" seemed to be an Unusual Euphemism in the series for sexuality.
Also, T'Pau says that T'Pring will become "property" of the victor. Presumably, Spock could have treated her much worse than he did and been within his rights... just like T'Pring was in pitting Spock against Kirk. She's lucky he didn't decide to go Beware the Nice Ones on her.note "Property of the victor" is left over from Ted Sturgeon's original script, which was worked over thoroughly by Roddenberry, Coon, Fontana and six or seven other rewriters to become what you saw. Sturgeon originally had Vulcan as a BDSM culture where women were "absolutely owned" and expected to give "absolute obedience". T'Pau's line originally read "Thee are prepared to become the property of the victor? Not merely his wife, but his chattel, with no other rights or status?" Arlene Martel said the final script seemed to honor T'Pring as a woman of self-respect, logic and intellectual centering.
At first the "marriage party" that arrives on Spock's land looks nothing like what you would expect from Vulcans. There appear to be armed guards escorting the party and one big tough masked guy who looks like an executionernote played by Russ Peak, Sturgeon specified he was the "ceremonial executioner". Spock mentioned before that Vulcans were a warlike people before they found logic, so why would they still stick to those bellicose traditions when getting married? Also, during the ceremony, just before the fight, the big masked guy seems awfully eager to use his weapon to enforce T'Pau's intentions. Why would a supposedly pacifist logical people behave this way? Listen to Spock talk about the Pon Farr and their behavior makes sense. Vulcan weddings involve one and probably more people undergoing a "blood fever" that literally rips their logic away from them. Those logical people behave like mindless animals until they either Mate or Die. The big burly armed guard is there to make sure that these crazed Vulcans don't step out of line and hurt people.
Fans traditionally attribute Spock's unusual display of emotion when he sees Kirk is alive to the intensity of their relationship. While this undoubtedly had some effect, another reason exists: ponn farr involves a barrage of hormones that gradually break down a Vulcan's emotional controls. Spock has just come out of it, and while he's putting up a good show, he's probably not back to normal.
When Spock manages to speak through the blood fury to beg T'Pau to prevent Kirk from taking part in the kal-if-fee, something believed impossible, she mocks him by asking him whether he's a human or a Vulcan. It's most likely because Spock is mixed race that he's able to find the strength to resist the blood fever, a rare instance in the series of Spock's human half proving beneficial over his Vulcan one.
When Kirk goes to confront Spock in his cabin, there's an Oh, Crap! moment where he sees Spock has been holding a knife in a trembling hand for the duration of their conversation. Since Spock has had some violent moments before, one assumption is that he had been resisting the urge to attack Kirk. But it is quite a small knife, not one that could do much harm in a fight... And at this point, Spock is under the impression that there is no way for him to get to Vulcan in time, and is terrified that he will soon go completely insane, a Fate Worse than Death for him. What are the chances that the knife was not meant for attacking any of the others...
In Spock's final exchange with T'Pau, he responds to the traditional "Live Long and Prosper" with "I shall do neither." Did Spock mean that he was contemplating suicide, or did he mean he would die of grief and guiltnote possibly via Vulcan Mind over Matter powers?
Given that Spock's final words to T'Pau were that he didn't expect to live long, everyone involved was very lucky that he decided to go about the proper methods of passing on command, giving him time to find out that Kirk was alive.
Also, T'Pring explains that even if Spock won the combat she could do whatever she liked because Spock would be "gone". Did she mean "away on a mission" or "dead"?
Also, the end. Yes, Spock won't kill himself or die of grief now that he knows Kirk is alive, but he'll have the guilt of having attempted to kill his best friend for weeks, maybe the rest of his life.
Also, the fact that the most logical, (theoretically) sensible and smart people in the Federation only allow people to back out of arranged marriages via fights to the death, and that the woman in such cases becomes the property of the victor - What the Hell, Hero? barely covers this! Admittedly, this May have been left in due to the existence of the “blood fever” that afflicts Vulcans during Pon Farr. Someone whose blood is literally boiling due to a need to engage in either sexual intercourse or mortal combat or both, and has his Logic “ripped from him” isn’t going to be sensible enough to amicably back out of an arranged marriage. The only way to deal with him is to either satiate his need or put him down. Fanon has attempted to amend this, usually having someone explain that divorce is forbidden only during the time one of the parties is in Pon Farr. While this would add further Fridge Horror as T'Pring would no longer be a girl trying to get out of an undesired marriage, but an actual cold blooded murderess, it does make a certain amount of sense. After all, if Vulcans are generally married at eighteen during their first Pon Farr (Spock's half-human biology messed up the timing) and Stonn is clearly no teenager, he must have gotten a divorce for him to marry T'Pring.
Fridge Logic
Rather than divert the ship to Vulcan, couldn't a shuttlecraft, well-established by then, be lent to Spock instead? Then again, since Kirk swore to keep it under wraps, that would still require a very volatile Spock to be trusted, alone, with a shuttlecraft. Or, it's possible that the contemporary shuttlecraft lacked the speed and/or range to get Spock to Vulcan in time. Remember that in similar circumstances ("The Menagerie"), Kirk chased the hijacked Enterprise across interstellar distances and ran out of shuttle fuel rather quickly.
What the hell was Stonn doing coming in with the wedding party in the first place? And he's wearing one of those knitted sashes, so he does have some official role. It might be assumed that he is there as T'Pring's friend, as Kirk and McCoy are there as Spock's friends, or that he's a relative, there to do the equivalent of giving the bride away. Still, his presence must have alerted Spock, at least, that something was going on, before T'Pring issued the challenge.
Then again, Spock was not exactly quite all there at the time. T'Pau and the other Vulcans present may have known or at least suspected though, considering the complete lack of surprise when T'Pring issues a challenge.
T'Pring's Alternate Character Interpretation of either a vicious manipulator or trapped by society and tradition is well established by this point, and, obviously, without her actions, there wouldn't be a central conflict to the episode, but really, what is the logic in her not speaking up sooner? Why wait until the ceremony itself - after the blood fever has begun and Spock is well and truly in the 'mate, fight, or die' state - to object to becoming Spock's wife? Logically, the thing to do is to speak up before, to allow Spock the opportunity to find an alternative to mating with her, rather than condemn him to death or a fight to the death with someone else. Bare minimum, even if he'd not contacted her, she had the ability to contact him as well and express her concerns, discuss this before it reached the point where Spock entered the blood fever and lost control.
It's probable that this is the point in the ceremony at which the bride is allowed to object, like the "speak now or forever hold your peace" at human weddings. Given the arranged marriages, and that they're apparently done deals when the betrothed are very young children, the cultural and ceremonial expectation is that things will just go according to plan, but there is an avenue for either party to object if necessary. Basically, by Vulcan law and custom, T'Pring herself couldn't call off the wedding until that one moment. Her family may have been able to annul the betrothal, and she may have tried to convince them to do just that, but failed.
T'Pring's Freudian Excuse of wanting to marry Stonn instead of Spock falls apart a bit when one considers that she never intended to stop the affair in any case.
Not necessarily. Just because she was willing to carry on their romance as an affair if she had to doesn't mean that she wouldn't prefer to be able to actually marry Stonn if possible now that the opportunity had finally presented itself. As theorized above, she may simply not have had the chance before now to annul her betrothal to Spock. Considering her betrothal to Spock has brought her decades of feeling humiliated by basically being ignored by the man she was supposed to marry despite not ever wanting to marry him in the first place, it's no surprise that she doesn't want to go through with the marriage if she can avoid it, especially now that she has someone she actually loves and does want to marry.
