I love relationships where the two people just mercilessly, RELENTLESSLY drag one another but they are so often tragically misunderstood as bullying/harassment.
Like, you can tell that more recent iterations of Star Trek have backed off on this aspect of Spock and McCoy for fear of looking racist–and to be fair, 1967 did not have the greatest awareness of microaggressions. But McCoy wasn’t calling Spock a hobgoblin because he thinks Vulcans are lesser, he’s doing so because Spock just called him a witch!
The shit they say to each other is wildly out of touch with reality when you actually stop and listen to it. Spock calls him a witch doctor making potions and shaking rattles and implies that he regularly kills patients.
Their insults should be updated for the modern day but c'mon, let these guys drag each other with the most absolutely unreal accusations.
In fact I think the reluctance of post-Roddenberry writers to accept that Spock was just being a big fat bitch is why modern Spock is so dull.
Spock has self-awareness. Spock always had self-awareness. Spock is a scientist; do you know how ridiculous it is for a scientist to sneer at chemistry and biology?
Spock knows it’s ridiculous! Spock does not actually scoff at the existence of chemistry and biology! Spock is linking McCoy’s emotionally-driven habits to archaic, apocryphal practices solely because he knows this annoys McCoy.
Why is McCoy’s nickname “Bones”? It comes from “Sawbones”, a Civil War-era slang for surgeon, because McCoy has a morbid fascination with the history of medicine. McCoy collects antique medical equipment. He’s disgusted by how brutal and ineffective medical treatments used to be.
This is why Spock calls him a witch doctor: old and spurious medicine is McCoy’s specific pet peeve.
