I thought this was interesting, its a video review of a Voyager episode and Janeway came off as a bit of tyrant in that episode. Does Janeway come off as a tyrant some times? http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated-reviews/voy-latent-image-review-5999206
I don't feel like she was coming off as a tyrant in "Latent Image" at all. She'd already been through all the ethical implications of rewriting the Doctor's program back when she did it the first time, which is why she wasn't open to discussion the second time initially, why retread old ground? But she did actually come around and change her mind. As for the rest of the time...well she IS a military captain and I wouldn't really say she consistently cruel to the crew so I wouldn't say she was a tyrant no.
Only Archer was truly on the frontier to be capable of being a tyrant. But he was an idiot. The other three had oversight, and if their crew thought they were dicks, these justifiable malcontent's could just request a transfer or file charges of misconduct at the next starbase's jag office. In Sisko's big dalliance towards the darkside in In the pale Moon light, he still went to starfleet command and asked permission to do what Garak was conning him into doing. Momma's boy. Did you see the TNG the Drumhead or TOS Court-martial of DS9 Rules of Engagement? Checks and balances. If any one tried to check or balance Janeway she threatened to delete them, or sent them to their room. Good lord look how pathetic the Mutiny in ENT hatchery was while Archer was clinically insane that the crew still segregated into a civil war, or singularity where Archer sends everyone who is acting odd to their room... He has no tools for dealing with a contentious crew like a real tyrant would... like how PIcard can flood the ship with neurozene gas at the first whiff of discontent.
I wrote a story once where the hero tried to escape from my word processor and kill me. But it's still what I wanted him to do. It's very rare that fictional characters have free will.
She could come off as a tyrant at times. "Tuvix," "Equinox," "Nothing Human," etc. I think the problem was two-fold: 1. She was off on her own, with no Starfleet to check her authority 2. She was written so inconsistently in terms of her principles(one week she's a Prime Directive fundamentalist, the next she's flexible) that it made her seem like she was on arbitrary power trips sometimes.
But here's the really odd thing which happened all too often on Voyager. The writers were a little out of touch with "some" of their audience and when they thought they were writing an Odyssean heroic Archetype, they were not. Efforts to make her seem human by giving into violence (Equinox) or madness (night) only made Janeway seem mad and violent, which is not the behaviour one would expect from a well rounded human being. Did Picard seem weak in Chain of Command when he admitted that he saw five lights? Yes. But it was understandable. Everyone breaks on the third day. He didn't seem weak because he broke, he was just a big girls blouse about it after the fact. A real man would have turned to bourbon like my gramps when he came back from the war. And... Making Deanna's education seem justified is unforgivable.
I think a problem is Janeway seemed to be more intolerant of differing opinions then other captains were. Janeway gave Harry Kim a reprimand for getting a space STD, busted Tom Paris down to ensign for a year and half and had him sent to solitary confinement for 30 days. She also had Chakotay sent to his room during the Equinox story. Stuff like that made her seem like a control freak.
Tom and Harry should have been banned form all away missions/face time with aliens from thereafter. Timothy McVey blew up a building because he disagreed with the local governments politics. John Holmes caught aids. he was told that if he he had sex with anyone else that they would die, so he would have to give up his participation in the porn industry. He didn't. People died. He then fled the country and continued to spread aids to international porn stars in Europe before they too found out exactly how callous and disinterested with the well being of his fellow man he was. I would have made Tom and Harry janitors after pulling that shit.