Although he is not a prominent or regular
member of the Star Trek cast, the character of Ambassador Sarek is one
that seems uncharacteristically popular among fans of the series. After Sarek’s
first appearance in the thirty-ninth episode of The Original Series, Journey to Babel, a lot of the interest
came from his obvious connection to Spock – the fans’ all-time favourite – as
his father, but it did not take the fans very long to realise that with Sarek,
they had been given a second Vulcan, a full one this time, whose character
depths and complexities very nearly equal those of his son.
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| Sarek (Mark Lenard) giving the famous Vulcan salute. |
Sarek was born in 2164 (or 2165, according
to Memory-Alpha.org) on Vulcan. His
father was Skon, son of Solkar. His mother is never mentioned, although some
non-canonical sources like to use T’Pau, who can be seen in The Original
Series episode Amok Time. Sarek
was very possibly born in or near the metropolis Shi’Kahr, where he raised his
son Spock (and his other son Sybok, if you consider Sybok canon) and continued to
live until his death on an estate named D’H’riset. Semi-canonical works have
used S’chn T’gai as a first name for both Sarek and Spock. The original script
of Journey to Babel states that
before going into politics, Sarek was an astrophysicist. This information was
not included in the actual episode – which did, however, indicate that Sarek
possesses a significant amount of computer-technological knowledge. Either way,
his diplomatic expertise allowed him to climb the hierarchical ladder of
politics rather quickly, and he became the Vulcan Ambassador extraordinaire to
Earth and the Federation. According to his third wife, Perrin, Sarek “owes the
Federation a lifetime of service”, and he had soon established his reputation
as one of the most significant politicians of his time.
First Officer William Riker of the USS
Enterprise-D once says, “I remember studying his career in school.” Sarek’s
most distinguished political achievements that are considered canonical, many
of which led to him being immortalised in numerous Starfleet history records,
include the admission of Coridan into the Federation, his involvement in the Klingon
Treaty of Alliance and the Khitomer Accords, as well as the treaties of Alpha
Cygnus IX and Legara IV. The latter took the incredible effort of 93 years and
was finalised less than two years before Sarek’s death with the help of Captain
Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise-D.
It was on this mission in 2366 that Sarek
was diagnosed with Bendii Syndrome, a debilitating, slowly progressing and untreatable
lethal condition that only affects Vulcan males over the age of two hundred
Terran years. The effects of the disease have been compared to those of Alzheimer’s
in humans. The major component of Bendii Syndrome is, however, not primarily dementia,
but rather the loss of the emotional control that is a quintessential part of any
Vulcan’s culture and pride, making the condition far more frightening and
painful than many others. Furthermore, the disease affects neurochemical
pathways, leading to gradual deterioration of the brain. The later symptoms
therefore include loss of memory, confusion and dementia as well as loss of
more delicate motor functions. The latter leads to one of the most touching and
heart-breaking scenes of The Next Generation, in the episode Unification I, where Captain Picard
helps Sarek put his fingers in the right position for a ta’al (Vulcan salute), only days before his death.
The Next Generation has done a great deal to unveil Sarek’s personality in several
ways. In the aptly titled episode Sarek in
season three especially, we learn a lot about the man’s personal pride and the
feeling of great dignity that his majestic appearance already suggests. To
summarise one could say that Sarek is “a very Vulcan Vulcan” in the same way
his second wife Amanda Grayson has been called “a very human human”. He keeps his own dying a secret for as long as possible, and for the last year of his life he dwells in seclusion with his third wife Perrin; wishing to see no one - it is a vulnerability he cannot bear to reveal.
Sarek, like most Vulcans, believes in logic
and rationality as the source of peace and progress. Often, the Terrans of Star
Trek, such as Dr Leonard McCoy, can be found accusing their neighbours of
being cold and ‘heartless’. Sarek, however, never appears deliberately mean,
unlikeable or arrogant. On the contrary; the way he delivers his logic, while
always calm and quiet, has a certain quality of warmth to it, and sometimes
there is almost a naiveté of some kind that seems to sincerely ask “Because
what else would I do?”, as in for instance the last scene of Journey to Babel.
It is, of course, hard to describe the
character of someone who never really shows any emotion in depth. For a Vulcan,
however, Sarek seems to be more susceptible to emotions than would be
considered average. Whether that is natural or rather a result of having two
human wives, working with humans at the Terran embassy and in the Federation
and also dealing with his constantly ostracised son Spock is another question.
At least in The Original Series, however, it is clear that Sarek is at
peace with himself and whatever emotions he may have. In many Star Trek novels
that are generally considered fanon, such as The Pandora Principle by Carolyn Clowes, Sarek’s utter conviction
that peace can and has to be achieved no matter the case and that any violence
has to be avoided at all costs is mentioned and praised as a quality that makes
him such a valuable Federation ambassador.
Another attribute worth mentioning is Sarek’s
‘darkness’. In Diane Duane’s novel Spock’s
World, his entering a room aboard the USS Enterprise is described with the
words “Darkness walked in: Sarek, in his usual diplomatic dress” (Spock’s World, p. 89). This
thought-provoking word choice can be interpreted many different ways. Sarek
obviously is not someone who takes things lightly. Like most Vulcans, he is
very serious about his job and responsibilities and work in general – however,
most of the situations depicted in Star Trek are rather dangerous and
often consist of life-threatening adventures and risks, so a certain amount of
professionalism is usually present in and expected from all the characters. One
could also say that “darkness” relates only to Sarek’s appearance, which, as
has already been mentioned, does in fact have a very dark, solemnly majestic
and dignified quality.
Both Spock’s
World and A. C. Crispin’s novel Sarek
also tend to show his character with a tinge of very dry, sarcastic humour.
This, fortunately, is never overplayed and never seems out-of-character. Diane
Duane wrote, for example:
“Father”, Spock said. “Are
you and Mother well?”
The dry voice, far away, got
an ironic tone to it. “I had not thought
you gone so far into human behaviour, my son, as to begin indulging in ‘small
talk’ with me.” (Spock’s World,
p. 10)
In fact, Journey
to Babel may have started the notion by the following conversation between
Sarek and the Tellarite Ambassador Gav who is later murdered:
GAV: Vulcan, I would speak
to you!
SAREK (suppressed sigh, rather
sarcastic tone): It does seem unavoidable.
Sarek’s hard-working serenity, sincere logic
and this dry edge combine to give an extremely charming individual. It is
canonically established that Sarek had at least three partners and was married
to at least two of them. His first wife or bond mate was the Vulcan princess
T’Rea, with whom he had his first, semi-canonical son Sybok. But Sarek was not
content with his Vulcan wife for reasons unknown to us. Many fan fictions like The Vulcan’s Wife by Aphrodite420 have
suggested that after constantly being around humans while working on Earth,
Sarek became rather accustomed to them and found himself actually missing their
warmth and unpredictable emotionalism.
Understanding human behaviour has always
been a difficult task for the Vulcans, and their struggles have been a focal
point of many Star Trek episodes and even entire series, for example
with Spock The Original Series or T’Pol in the newer ‘prequel’ Enterprise.
Sarek is one of the few Vulcans that seem to have more or less mastered this
task. He accepts and even enjoys new cultures and philosophies, especially the
Terran ones, making him a well-liked colleague among his fellow politicians.
Unlike many other members of advanced societies, he never judges humans and
seems to instead tolerate and respect them. In Sarek, he beams aboard the USS Enterprise-D with a small but
welcoming smile on his face, a contraction of facial muscles that Spock would
have never allowed himself. Sarek, on the other hand, uses it as a diplomatic
tool, not to manipulate, but to signalise open-mindedness and goodwill.
A lot of Sarek’s understanding of human
behaviour is undoubtedly the doing of his second wife Amanda Grayson, an
Earthwoman from Canada, later usually known as ‘The Lady Amanda’. The
relationship between Sarek and Amanda is an interesting and unusual one. There
are hundreds of stories illustrating how the two of them met and fell in love,
but none of them have ever been approved by Gene Roddenberry. Sarek himself
humorously answers his son’s question why he married Amanda with “At the time,
it seemed like the logical thing to do”, drawing an affectionate smile from
her. In the movie Star Trek from 2009 – usually referred to as the Reboot
– Spock asks the same question, and years later, after Amanda’s untimely death
during the destruction of Vulcan in the alternate timeline, Sarek simply says,
“I married her because I loved her.”
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| Sarek and Amanda. |
Either way, it is obvious that an
inter-species marriage requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice and devotion
from both partners. Amanda had to give up her home to move to Vulcan and then
endure the constant patronising of her neighbours there. Sarek also is very
likely to have encountered a lot of dismay regarding his bonding with a being
as ‘unworthy’ as a human – even the children of Shi’Kahr openly call him a
traitor.
In addition to that, it is more or less
established that Amanda went through several miscarriages due to incompatible
gene combinations before Spock was created with assistance from the Vulcan
Science Academy or, in proper Vulcan, Shi’Oren t’Ek’tallar T’Khasi. Such
experiences are usually said to either destroy marriages or make them stronger,
and for Sarek and Amanda, it was definitely the latter case. In Journey to Babel the two appear almost
inseparable without ever seeming ‘clingy’ or disrespectful of each other. Sarek
answers Amanda’s humorous inquiries calmly and rationally, but still seems
amused by them. He explains everything with the sweetest patience, without ever
appearing patronising or even condescending. In one of the most famous (and
only) dialogues between them in Journey
to Babel, Sarek tries to explain his actions rationally for quite a while,
finishing with:
SAREK: …Do you understand?
AMANDA (affectionately): Not
really, but it doesn’t matter. I love you anyway. I know. It isn’t logical.
Amanda herself also shows a great
understanding and acceptance of her husband, as can be seen in the following
lines:
I know that you love me, she thought,
gazing up at him. But I will not
embarrass you by telling you so… (Sarek,
p. 113)
And although Sarek logically knew that he
was going to outlive Amanda by up to one hundred years, his pain after her
death, even decades later, is truly heart-breaking. The grief of her loss is probably
the most prominent emotion that manifests itself in The Next Generation,
when Sarek, after being diagnosed with Bendii Syndrome, decides to mind-meld
with Captain Picard in order to gain the emotional stability needed to finish
his treaty with the Legarans, leading Picard to experience all of Sarek’s
repressed emotions. Picard is in his quarters, accompanied by Dr Beverly
Crusher for support. After the mind-meld, the human captain is close to a
nervous breakdown, crying and screaming as Sarek’s grief and regret roll over
him.
Because
although he always has an air of serenity and contentment around him, Sarek has
accumulated a devastating number of such regrets throughout his life. Most of
them regard the relationship with his son Spock, which will be analysed later
in this essay, as well as the fact that his Vulcan identity and upbringing have
made it impossible for him to ever show his wives and son the love and devotion
he felt for them. The following is a transcript of Sarek‘s soliloquy that is
delivered though Captain Picard:
SAREK (through PICARD): No! It is wrong. It is wrong! A lifetime of discipline washed
away, and in its place… bedlam. Bedlam! I am so old… there is nothing left but
dry bones… and dead friends. Tired, oh so tired. …No! This weakness disgusts
me! I hate it! Where is my logic? I am betrayed by… desires. I want to feel. I want to feel everything. …But I
am a Vulcan. I must feel nothing. (Starts
crying) Give me back my control… Perrin.
Amanda. I wanted to give you so much more. I wanted to show you such…
tenderness. But that is not our way. Spock. Amanda, did you know? Perrin, can
you know how much I love you? (Sobbing) I do love you!
PICARD (as himself again): It is quite difficult. The anguish of the
man, the despair pouring out of him, all those feelings. The regrets. (Sobbing)
I can't stop them…
Sarek’s relationship with his third and last
wife Perrin, another human, is different from the one with Amanda. In many ways
it appears more serene and less ‘youthful’, although it is not clear whether
that is based on age or simply on the metaphorical ‘chemistry’ between the two
personalities. Although their relationship lacks the sweet, flirtatious
qualities of Sarek’s marriage with Amanda, it is in no way short of the love
and devotion we have seen before. In the end of Sarek, when the couple takes their leave of Picard, the Captain and
Perrin exchange the following words:
PERRIN: Thank you, Captain.
PICARD: …He loves you very
much.
PERRIN: I know. I have
always known.
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| Sarek formally bids his son Spock (left) farwell. |
After all this praise of Sarek’s character,
it has to be said that he was never intended to be perfect, and his greatest
flaw has always been his son Spock. The relationship of father and son has
always been exceptionally strained, and it raises an important question: How
come Sarek, the personification of tolerance, who was married to and worked
among humans for most of his life, never seemed to accept his son’s human half,
never seemed to acknowledge the ostracised child’s difficulties? Why was he
never satisfied, no matter how hard Spock tried to please him? Sarek himself
stated that it was his and Amanda’s dream to create a child as a symbol of
their people’s unification and equality. In the 2009 Reboot, Sarek tells
his son, “You will always be a child of two worlds. I am grateful for this. And
for you.” So why does it never show?
There are people who do not consider The
Animated Series canon. However, most people agree that a certain episode
entitled Yesteryear is indeed canon,
especially since it was written by Dorothy C. Fontana, who also created the
script for Journey to Babel. Yesteryear features Spock having to go
back into his own past to save his seven-year-old self from being killed by a
Vulcan le-matya during his kahs-wan (a ritual that involves young children
proving themselves by surviving out in the desert of Vulcan’s Forge without any
assistance for ten days). Pretending to be a distant cousin of the family,
Selek, Spock spends some time in his parents’ house, and we get a chance to
observe their early family dynamics.
In the episode, Amanda says that Sarek does
not understand his son very well, and much later, in The Search For Spock,
Sarek himself admits to the High Priestess T’Lar, “My logic is uncertain where
my son is concerned.” Even though that may not be intended to carry a negative
connotation, other conversations between father and son like this one in Yesteryear are actually quite shocking:
SAREK: I do not expect you
to fail.
SPOCK: What if I do, Father?
SAREK: There is no need to
ask that question. You will not disappoint me. Not if your heart and spirit are
truly Vulcan.
We already knew that Sarek was a stern,
no-nonsense leader, but such uncompromising, relentless coldness is entirely
untypical of him. He obviously has extremely high expectations of his son, and
he does not accept any human notions in him. In a deleted scene of the Reboot,
he tells Amanda that “his humanity is the very source of his ostracism”.
Spock’s well-known personality, his attempts at complete flawlessness and
perfection and his inherent difficulty with the processing of emotions is
undoubtedly the product of this harsh upbringing. After Sarek’s death in Unification I, Captain Picard tells
Commander Data:
“Father and son - both proud,
both stubborn, more alike than either of them were prepared to admit. A
lifetime spent building emotional barriers; they are very difficult to break
down. And now the time has come and it's too late... it's a difficult moment.
It's a lonely one. It's a moment that Spock is about to face.”
Their strained relationship reaches its peak
when Spock decides to join Starfleet instead of fulfilling his father’s
expectations of him going to study at the Vulcan Science Academy. Sarek himself
is not particularly fond of Starfleet as he disapproves of their use of
violence, even if it is only hypothetical – the fact that the Fleet’s ships
carry weaponry is enough of a reason for the pacifist Vulcan. As every fan of Star
Trek probably knows, since it is the type of information that tends to be
displayed and included everywhere, Sarek and Spock did not talk “as father and
son” for eighteen years after Spock’s decision. During most of Journey to Babel, they tend to pointedly
ignore each other’s presence, and if they do interact, there is no trace of
affection behind their words, only cold, professional logic.
The conflict that makes Journey to Babel such a fantastic episode is one of Spock’s
loyalties. Spock is the only one who can save his father’s life by giving him a
blood transfusion, but on the other hand, Spock needs to replace the wounded
Captain on the bridge because the Enterprise is under attack from an alien
vessel. While he does not want his father to die, he knows it would be logical
to stay on the bridge during the time of danger. As he puts it, “Can you imagine what my father
would say if I were to agree, if I were to give up command of this vessel,
jeopardise hundreds of lives, risk interplanetary war, all for the life of one
person?” Obviously, Spock is trying so hard to please
his father by acting rationally and in true Vulcan fashion that he is prepared
to accept his father’s very death in exchange.
In the end, of course, Sarek gets the
transfusion, and there is a definite feeling of family reconciliation in the
air. For a few years, father and son redevelop respect for each other, and in
the end of The Voyage Home we see the following dialogue:
SPOCK: Father?
SAREK: I am returning to Vulcan within the hour. I would like to take my
leave of you.
SPOCK: It was most kind of you to make this effort.
SAREK: It was not an effort. You are my son. Besides, I am most
impressed with your performance in this crisis.
SPOCK: Most kind.
SAREK: As I recall, I opposed your enlistment in Starfleet. It is
possible that my judgment was incorrect. Your associates are people of good
character.
SPOCK: They are my friends.
SAREK: Yes, yes of course. Do you have a message for your mother?
SPOCK: Yes. Tell her… I feel fine. Live long and prosper, Father.
SAREK: Live long and prosper, my son.
The state
of peace, however, did not last long. After leaving resigning from his post as
science officer aboard the USS Enterprise, Spock finally follows his father’s
footsteps and becomes an ambassador to the Federation as well. It is assumed
that the two attended several diplomatic missions together. However, they soon
split again over the Cardassian issue of the mid-2350s, when they began
publically contradicting and objecting each other. As Perrin puts it: “They had
argued for years. That was family. But when the debates over the Cardassian war
began, he attacked Sarek's position publicly. He showed no loyalty to his
father.” While Sarek pointed out errors in Spock’s logic and accused him of
endangering the Federation by ignoring historic precedents, Spock argued that
Sarek’s logic is too inflexible and conservative, clashing with the reality of
changing times. In Unification II,
Spock explains to Captain Picard: “I always had a different vision than my
father. The ability to see beyond pure logic. He considered it weak.”
More
importantly, Sarek strongly disapproved of Spock’s intention of reuniting the
Vulcan people with the Romulans and his friendship with the Romulan senator Pardek, who also supported
reunification. Sarek was correct in his presumption, since Pardek, “after spending decades building a reputation as an advocate for peace
and supporting Vulcan-Romulan reunification, lured Spock to Romulus for false
reunification talks; secretly, he had launched a Romulan invasion fleet to
Vulcan.” (Memory-Alpha.org: Pardek) - even though Sarek was already dead during
these events.
These incidents, again, led to father and son
almost refusing to acknowledge each other’s existence. Only much later, after
Sarek realised that he would have no more than a year left to live, he
expressed his wish for reconciliation. As Perrin told Captain Picard in Unification I: “He wants to see his son.
He wants to heal any rift that may still remain. Now it may be too late.”
And it was too late, indeed. While his father
was on his deathbed, Spock was involved in his campaign of reunification on
Romulus, and for unknown reasons, he never came home, even though he was
informed about Sarek’s illness. They had never chosen to mind-meld, so Sarek
never had the chance to personally tell his son that despite all their
conflicts, he always felt love and an exceptional pride for him and that
secretly, he “admired
him, the proud core of him that would not yield.”
Picard
fulfils Sarek’s last wish and allows Spock to touch the memory of his father’s
mind – which the Captain gathered during Sarek
– by mind-melding with him. When Picard finds Spock on Romulus, the have the
following conversation:
PICARD: He is a great man.
SPOCK: He was a great representative of the Vulcan people and of the Federation.
PICARD: I was with him before coming here. He expressed his pride in
you. His love.
SPOCK: Emotional disarray was a symptom of the illness from which he
suffered.
PICARD: No, those feelings came from his heart, Spock.
The
episode Unification II ends with
Spock initiating the mind meld. Before the screen goes dark, we see him
silently crying for his loss and regret as he finally sees his father’s true
feelings – it is one of the most mournful and touching scenes of the entire
franchise.
In
conclusion, it is probably clear now that Sarek is one of the most complicated
and multi-facetted characters of the Star Trek universe. Not every bit
of information regarding him has been analysed in this essay, but hopefully,
the main points have given the reader an outline of his personality and an
invitation to consider him and his implications independently. Not everyone
views Sarek as one of the ‘good guys’. While he was an advocate of peace,
acceptance and equality, many fans feel that his failure to administer these
philosophies during the upbringing of his son make it impossible to see him as
the proud and loving father he was – to the Federation in a metaphorical sense,
and finally for Spock as well. Either way, taking sides in this discussion
seems redundant at this point. Let it just be said that with Sarek, Gene
Roddenberry gave us one of his deepest, darkest and most complex characters,
and I am grateful for his creation.
