A problem with Captain Janeway

[Bry_Sinclair]

Looking back on some of the characters, they don't seem to have much depth to their conception. Janeway does come across as the Woman Captain, just like Chakotay is the Native American and Kim is the Rookie (both of whom never really develop much further than that).

Janeway also became quite stereotypical as the caring, maternal figure, often times more the crews mummy than their Captain. But if they'd made her more standoffish and Picard-esque she'd be branded a 'bitch' like Nechayev has been (something I have never understood).

[hux]

The Overlord wrote:

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The difference is Picard's actions in that movie were clearly being presented as wrong in that movie, the writers rarely present Janeway's actions in a similar negative light.

In Scorpion, Janeway made an alliance with the Borg and what came of this alliance? Janeway helped the Borg win a war where they were the agressor and this led Species 8472 to decide that the Federation was a threat to them and they nearly declared war on the Federation. Janeway almost got the Federation involved in a war with a vastly superior force, that would have crippled the Federation and no one called her out on any of this. At least someone took Picard to task when he was behaving irrationally and we were supposed to be on Lilly's side when that happened. No one ever did the same with Janeway.

This

Janeway apologists will point to episodes where Picard was being irrational but will ignore the fact that the whole point of those plots was that Picard's irrational actions would result in another member of the crew pulling him up on his behaviour

When Janeway was being irrational.....NO ONE pulled her up on it or relieved her of command....NO ONE...in Equinox, after she goes insane, all we get at the end of the episode is Janeway saying that Chakotay had good reason to have a mutiny of his own (even she is perplexed at his utter lack of balls).....and Tuvok is also told he will be sent to the brig with Chakotay if he doesn't shut up

Now someone please give me an example of Picard threatening two senior crew members with the brig if they don't follow his irrational orders......he may have made irrational decisions but

1 - his officers would call him on them immediately (Janeway's would not)
2 - and he would not have threatened the brig if they continued to question him

I would like to point out once again though that i firmly believe Janeway was deliberately written to be slightly incompetent and a little out of her depth....for me, that was the whole premise of her captaincy and also possibly one of the reasons the crew didn't want to knock her confidence too often but i think it's clear she was meant to be inexperienced and therefore, a slightly poor captain (even the doctor says towards the end that he's been keeping a record of her questionable decisions)...she was clearly written to be a tad weak (though it was probably a bad decision in hindsight given the fact that she was a woman and those weaknesses would be seen as being due to that fact rather than due to the fact that her character was written to be a little poor and out of her depth)

[Guy Gardener]

Janeway wasn't written to be a bad Captain, it's just that they hired some back to front writers from time to time who were so in love with this woman that they didn't recognize her batshittiness for what it was.

Any novel by Christy Golden is evidence of this.