YEEESSSS....Thank you Martel quote from These are the Voyages TOS Season 2...I love hearing actors talk about how they perceive their characters.
I feel like hearing her say that the episode is (in her eyes) about being true to your nature & impulses makes so much sense but I've never thought about it that way before.
I think there's something very interesting about the role of impulse or freedom in Amok Time, thinking about it. T'Pring and Spock being drawn together by something outside of their control, Spock being bombarded by so many impulses that he must act on but which aren't necessarily true to his nature (the impulse to mate, to be violent) and how he fights against them as fiercely as he can - how T'Pring has a plan but abandons a crucial part of it the moment she sees an opportunity to ensure Stonn lives no matter the challenge's outcome.
Impulse is not always synonymous with freedom. Being 'freed' from logic, for example, is no joyous thing for Spock. Nor is freedom always an impulsive thing - T'Pring very clearly thought deeply about how to become free and her attachments to both Spock and Stonn before the day came. She isn't an outlaw, she works within the system, but she finds a way to wring her own freedom out of something that wasn't designed to grant it to her.
There's also of course as a contrast to freedom - the threat and horror of being shackled. Spock must endure the indignity of the pon farr which strips him of his logic and forces him to act in ways he doesn't condone and at a certain point doesn't even remember. T'Pring is seen as property by Vulcan law - unable to divorce a man chosen for her by her parents, even if she states she does not want him it is never up to her whether or not she's his (even at episode's end, Spock must be the one to say to Stonn "she is yours"). That same Vulcan law compels Spock to kill a man, the person dearest to him, if he doesn't want to die himself.
Though in Spock's words T'Pring is a 'flawlessly logical' Vulcan and that is uncontested, we see that there is something that drives her other than pure logic. Just like Spock, she has someone whose continued life is more important to her than her own. If Stonn is the sure win the episode treats him as and your ultimate goal is to ensure your freedom, there seems to be no logical reason to ever swap him for some Human you don't know unless the slim possibility that he loses (and thus dies) is so unbearable to you you'd rather bet on an unknown. In essence, she trades a guarantee of freedom for a guarantee of Stonn's life - certain that if he lives, they will be together. It is the only constant, the only thing she's absolutely sure of despite the plan having changed. And nothing in the episode would prove that faith incorrect. It reminds me of Spock's quote regarding Kirk's nature: "If I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see it fall to know that it has in fact fallen." She and Spock both contain this love for and absolute faith in another.
It's also noteworthy to me that when Spock says he fails to see the logic of choosing Stonn over him, T'Pring does not offer him a case for Stonn. She explains why she didn't want to marry Spock and then says simply that she and Stonn "wanted" one another. And isn't that beautiful? Genuinely! It's that simple. They wanted one another and all that wanting, by the end of the episode, is rewarded with the joy of having all around - by everyone!
"You'll find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting," says Spock, minutes before shouting - grinning to ear to ear as Jim greets him, a walking miracle, Spock's wanting turned solid and pressed into his palm. Well, it seems like having is a very pleasant thing indeed, mister Spock!
