Garrett Wang

I half-jokingly mused that by the time they get home Harry might be an excellent recruit for S31.

 

The most sad thing is that we can't even get good stories about our favorites from TNG, DS9 and VOY in the Star Trek books anymore since certain authors are doing their best to destroy the characters from those series

I had an outburst of anger about that in the TrekLit forum a while ago which created some discussion but the truth is that there is a lot of characters destruction going on there.

Actually my wish too.
There were times when I wanted to see certain characters back in future series and books but now I hope that it won't happen. PIC was such a disappointment and the TrekLit is full with stories in which our favorites a re destroyed.

 

So, book burning?

 

As I've said, it would be an opportunity for him to start over, and escape the career-ruining debacle of his service on Voyager.

TrekLit is non-canon, though. So the damage is limited.

I liked the way Una McCormack handled Harry in her book. Janeway gave him his overdue promotion as her last act as Voyager's captain, and he rose rapidly through the ranks thereafter. It was the perfect middle finger to Voyager's showrunners.

Too Nazi-ish.

 

Book banning?

We're talking destruction here, after all.

 

Definitely not!
Book banning and book burning are disgusting and barbaric acts.
But we must be allowed to criticize what we find bad and destructive in books.

Harry in Section 31?
Why not!
But I rather see him as some computer expert than some action field agent.
But on the other hand, that't the way Tim Mcgee in NCIS developed. From a computer geek and rather nerdy person to a professional and reliable agent

Maybe. But it's all we got since the 24th century characters won't show up on TV.
And I also get the feeling that a character who is destroyed in one book won't be brought back in another book as if nothing has happened.

Well, you were lucky since Harry obviously was the only character in that book who wasn't ruined but restored.
I actually liked Una mcCormacks books The Never Ending Sacrifice and The Crimson Shadow. But after what has happened in her later books, I will stay as far away from them as possible.

Yes, very barbaric.

 

I didn't have much of a problem with most of the character fates she came up with. She was actually easier on the Equinox crew than I would have been. But, in the case of the VOY senior staff, they now have canonical fates that render Una's theories irrelevant. Except Harry.

If they don't want to do anything significant with the character, that's their business... but they can at least bring an end to the deliberate effort to humiliate the actor that was carried out decades ago. But it seems to me they're going out of their way to perpetuate it.

What's she done that's so bad? I don't read much TrekLit, so I don't know.

We've seen everyone but Neelix, B'Elanna, and Harry. And it's at least been mentioned that B'Elanna helped design the USS Dauntless.

I could see that.

Tim McGee is a classic example of how to develop a character over time. So are Ben Sisko, Kira Nerys, and Nog.

Harry Kim is a classic example of how not to.

 

Bad, sure!
Destructive is were I raise a Vulcan eyebrow. But then I don't believe fictional characters can be destroyed so we'll probably never agree on this.

 

Fictional characters can be destroyed in books.
If they are supposed to be "good guys" and had been that in TV series and books and some author turn them into bad guys, wimps, drunks or stupid fools in some book, then I think that they are destroyed.

I haven't read the Janeway biography. I actually planned to buy it but when I got a tip from some good-hearted person about the fate of janeway herself and the other Voyager characters (except Harry) and saw that they had been turned into average wimps, then I got an outburst on the TrekLit forum and after that dropped the whole thing.

But it is ironic that Harry, who have been so put down and seen as something almost ridiculous for years was redeemed in the book while all the others were turned into uninteresting no-no's.

Spoiler: Character destruction

She ruined Garak by making him first become some sort of war criminal and mass murderer and then look like a fool in the book Second Self and finally killed him off.

It was also ironic that I found out about this one day after praising her books The Never Ending Sacrifice and The Crimson Shadow on the TrekLit forum and told everyone that her books had given me the faith back when it came to Trek Literature!

So then I told people there what I thought about it.

There was something with Bashir too which looked destructive but I haven't done any further research about that.

Then I found out about the fate of the Voyager characters which made write another angry post at TrekLit.

I guess that I'm not the most popular person there now. But I have stated what I wanted to state and that's it.

If I buy any Trek books in the future, it will be older books written when the different series were still in production and such as The Voyager illustrated handbook or similar books for DS9 and TNG.

Be happy for that!
But we haven't seen Kes!
Ooops, she has already been destroyed.

Me too!

That's correct.

 

Agree to disagree. Otherwise I would only be a TOS series fan, since TMP "destroyed " Kirk.

 

Well, I didn't like what they did to Kirk in Generations either.
But many of the other movies are good.
Or do you mean the first movie?
In that case, how was Kirk destroyed in that one?

 

Harry's fate was one of the best outcomes, especially because it was revealed that Libby had been as unlucky in love as Harry had over the seven year interim, allowing them to get married at the end. In any case, his fate wasn't really much of a stretch, it was just a matter of the character passing out of the orbit of writers who were determined to abuse him.

But, most of the others weren't that badly treated, I thought. A little generic, maybe, but a few of Ms. McCormack's chatacter fates actually made sense. And she let the reader make up their own mind about Janeway and Chakotay (and as a determined J/C shipper, I approve).

And yes, I found Amelia (no spoilers) a nice touch.

 

Well, I don't mind Kirk's death in Generations in itself, all good things must come to an end after all. At most, I would have wanted him to die in a somewhat more heroic and apotheotic battle, his end as we got to see it in Generations was anticlimatic. But it didn't 'destroy the character' in my book- that would have only happened if they had shown a Kirk that betrayed all values we knew he had shown earlier in his career, and that didn't happen.

I agree that we do see a bit of character destruction in TMP. Then again, perhaps a reminder that Kirk, too, is not a superhuman hero but also has his more petty human characteristics (such as begrudging Decker the command of a ship) isn't too bad.

 

He's short tempered, impatient, in over his head, and makes mistakes, while pushing others around for no good reason. In any other episode, he would be the bad admiral we're supposed to cheer against. Instead, we're supposed to just accept that this is the same heroic figure from the show who manages the conflict between Spock and McCoy, and is capable of so much more, and empowering his crew to do more.

TWOK isn't much better.

These characters are not the same and it makes for a lesser movie.

 

That's interesting!

Because what has happened to some of my favorite characters are much, much worse than what you reacted against when it comes to Kirk.

What we see of Kirk in those movies is actually not worse than a Kirk with bad temper and bad manners, actually comparable to janeway's weird behavior in many of the later Voyager episodes, like when she put Tom Paris in the brig for a minor offense.

When it comes to both Kirk and Janeway, I can agree that it was bad writing and made the character look bad in some way. But it isn't even close to what's been done to characters like Kes in two horrible Voyager episodes and to characters like Garak and some of the Voyager members in recent books where they have been totally destroyed.

I think we can count Harry Kim to those destroyed characters too.

I can agree on your statement about Harry and about the Janeway-Chakotay relationship

But turning the rest of the Voyager main characters into uninteresting no-no's like Mr Smith next door or the leftovers from last weeks dinner is totally unacceptable. Not to mention the destruction of my favorite DS9 character.

The Amelia thing was just weird.

 

Which is why I don't think characters can be "destroyed." I disagree with this concept in its entirety. If I can still go back and watch something like The Original Series, and ignore Kirk's odd behavior in the films, then it's not destroyed. It's not destruction. It's hyperbole, at best.

No, no I can't.

Misused, perhaps. But that's about it.

 

For the most part, @fireproof78 is right... Harry's character never really developed that much. But every now and then, when they needed someone to act like an angsty 9-year-old (looking at you, "Resolutions"), he wound up doing it. Despite being at least an intelligent and capable officer most of the time. Even if, career advancement-wise, he was treated like an incompetent.

 

Well, I can see your point there. For me, what happened in Generations was far mor worse to Kirk.

But even that fades compared with being written out in a silly plot and then all obf a sudden being brought back for no other reason at all as a disgusting monster which at the end is turned into a pathetic wreck.

Or being labeled as a war criminal and after that turned into a pathetic wimp and finally killed off.

Or simply being turned into totally uninteresting no-no's, just as exceiting to watch or read about as last weeks garbage. A fate I wouldn't wish even for characters I don't like, like the main characters in ENT and DSC.

In all those cases I'm talking about and writing about characters who could have been used so much better in episodes, movies and books. Great characters who deserved better that just being destroyed.

I have to agree on those statements about Harry.
But he could have been used better.

However, he wasn't killed off or turned into an insane monster, pathetic wreck, war criminal, wimp or uninteresting nobody and then killed off. At least he got his promotion in a book and can be used in further stories.

 

He gets promoted in pretty much every post-VOY media he appears in. Problem is, he's only appeared in non canon media, which means his official rank remains ensign. And with Picard over, LD ending, and PRO's fate very up in the air (Netflix agreed to air the already-made second season, but there's no indication that they'll order any more), that might not change. Sadly, the people who ridicule him as the Forever Ensign may well get their wish.

 

Well, it could be worse still. At least his fate is still open for future series. They could have made a passing reference to him as 'one of those rare cases that never got a promotion despite serving over 30 years as Ensign before he died in xxx battle', sealing his canon fate for good.