There's the problem with continual development and no continuity.
Can we just pretend that Voyager never happened?
- Thread starter mahler
- Start date
If you think that things like the Iliad or the middle ages in general were unsophisticated then you should probably think about going back to school. These things are not studied solely for historical reasons and they are certainly not primitive. You are being very narrow minded.
This is actually made apparent within your diatribe. You critique my argument that interiority and character driven narratives are not the only way to tell a story by arguing that medieval lit was primitive because it was trying to focus on Christian allegory rather than characterization. Self evidently circular argument. ''Character driven narratives are the only way to tell a story because telling stories with narratives that are character driven is the only way. So there!''
Similarly you argue that LotR 'doesn't count' because it was attempting to 'do' an old fashioned style. Yet Tolkien specifically wanted to write in a medieval style precisely because he objected to the modern novel and felt it to be of lesser literary value. The same is true of Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces. The priveledging of character driven narratives is really a facet of Romantic culture, and rather a dated viewpoint.
I thought someone would go down the Blake/Shelley route with Satan. Yet by your own admission the character doesn't have any true depth and there's no sense of character development. Being vengeful or resentful are not individualistic characterizations -they're just representations of type. The fact is that he's an archetype and a superb example of just how powerful they can be at communicating and expressing ideas. In his case it was so effective that it actually led the likes of Blake and Shelley to misunderstand what his role really was (as a result of interposing the culture of their own era which distorted what Milton had been trying to express).
If you think that character driven narractives focusing on naturalistic characterizaton and development are the be all and end all then you really shouldn't be watching Star Trek. It's just not that at all. There are so many things that do that so much better than any of the series or movies. Star Trek's strengths lie elsewhere. The fact that you do enjoy Trek suggests that maybe you don't actually subscribe to the dogmas you are parroting as much as you think you do.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of reasonable continuity but when you've got a rabid section of fandom that quibbles about the number of photon torpedos because they've been book keeping over a seven year series or mind numbing precision about speed and distance travelled as described in scripts over the same period it's just not being realistic. Is there actually anything in Voyager that is as blatantly stupid regarding denouement or negligent in terms of character progression and development as in the episode of TNG that I mentioned? Quite possibly but I can't think of it off the top of my head.
You read criticisms of things based on them not having been brought up earlier in the series. ''Why wasn't the development of the Quantum Slipstream mentioned before or the potential use of Transwarp coils?'' Well, because its an episodic show. Stories are treated as self contained units within the greater whole and having a build up threaded through prior eps would 1. be boring and unnecessary 2. ruin the surprise of the ep's concept and go some way to ruining its impact.
Sure, there's plenty you can criticize and laugh at as in all versions of Star Trek but the criticisms I've seen mounted at this series are all too frequently far from reasonable (some of the second guessing of dramatic choices is something I find particularly bizarre and really pretty unusual even amongst the more rabid fandoms out there). I'm sure the same is true of Enterprise but I think that was a very poor series for the most part so I don't often bother to read about it. I just get the impression that Voyager has a bad rep because of a few things that weren't right when it first started out so that it came across as a bit bland and a retread and as a result fandom consolidated into this orthodoxy of hating it essentially just 'because'. Frankly the first two seasons of Voyager are still far better than the first two of TNG.
First of all, I like your literary analysis of different works of fiction throughout history. The archetype nature of many works is one of the reasons that the characters can become so memorable. Satan (in Milton's work), in particular, has become a bit rooted in Western consciousness, specifically with "rule in hell" line. I won't go on, because there is much more to be said, but isn't really relevant to the discussion 
As for VOY, you can visit the "Why do fans hate VOY?" to see my arguments there about the fan "hatred." I personally don't think fans hate it in the sense that they irrationally lash out at it, so much that it was a mediocre series that did little with the proposed concept. Also, I get that they went with a more episodic format, but that seemed to have come at the expense of ignoring any continuity, even from episode to episode.
Personally, I have never really got attached to the characters or identified with them like I did with TOS or TNG or (later on) with DS9. It just felt like none of the character choices mattered in the long run, so I don't feel like I could invest anything in them.
Obviously, YMMV
As for VOY, you can visit the "Why do fans hate VOY?" to see my arguments there about the fan "hatred." I personally don't think fans hate it in the sense that they irrationally lash out at it, so much that it was a mediocre series that did little with the proposed concept. Also, I get that they went with a more episodic format, but that seemed to have come at the expense of ignoring any continuity, even from episode to episode.
Personally, I have never really got attached to the characters or identified with them like I did with TOS or TNG or (later on) with DS9. It just felt like none of the character choices mattered in the long run, so I don't feel like I could invest anything in them.
Obviously, YMMV
If you watch all 7 seasons of DS9, you can actually see the development of so many characters. Sisko comes to terms with the loss of his wife, develops as a leader and even goes on to become a prophet. Oddo develops a whole back story and changes as he learns more about his origins and people, then gets further development through his relationship with Kira. The things we learn about Bashir's background informs his development a great deal. In the space of a very few episodes, even Garak is fleshed out as a character (the list goes on)
But when you look at Voyager, you just don't really see any of that. Only the Doctor has any noticeable development as a character (maybe Seven too) but both of those characters are standard Trek Character development tropes....e.g "becoming human"
Admittedly Voyager doesn't have the luxury of focusing on character in the same way that DS9 does but even so, there's still a obvious drop in character development standards
I adore Voyager (it's my favourite) but i totally get why people have a problem with it (especially the criticisms regarding poor character development)
But when you look at Voyager, you just don't really see any of that. Only the Doctor has any noticeable development as a character (maybe Seven too) but both of those characters are standard Trek Character development tropes....e.g "becoming human"
Admittedly Voyager doesn't have the luxury of focusing on character in the same way that DS9 does but even so, there's still a obvious drop in character development standards
I adore Voyager (it's my favourite) but i totally get why people have a problem with it (especially the criticisms regarding poor character development)
I was just trying to say that judging storytelling in the 20th century by how things were done over 2000 years ago is a bit oversimplifying things.
First of all I said "mostly" not "solely". Read what I wrote. However from my experience many people who enjoy the Iliad do so because they are projecting their own characters onto the archetypes present in the story.
The Illiad is "primitive"/"unsophisticated" when judged by modern standards. It was outstanding for its time, otherwise it would have been lost along with the rest of the Troyan cycle (minus the Odyssey) It still has many rather clumsy elements like the Catalogue of Ships.
However I would still argue that Euripides did a better job with conveying what such a war meant about a millennium later. His works in general can be read as a deliberate rejection of the very archaic storytelling of the Homeric Circle.
Likewise the Middle Ages maybe weren't the "Dung Ages" many people imagine them to be but they also still thought that maggots generate spontaneously from rotting meat and thought letting blood was a good idea, compared to us they were, yes, primitive.
Erm....I said that character driven narratives are NOT the only way to tell a good story, again read what I wrote.
What I said was that more complex characterization can, in my eyes, only make a good story even stronger/more enjoyable.
I respect Tolkien greatly for what he created with Middle Earth, but he was also a bit in love with the past,in all aspects not just with literature.
And he did deliberately ad a modern element to the stroy in the form of the Hobbits. All the four Hobbits develop and grow during the storyline and we get plenty of introspective with Frodo and Sam.
Tolkien's unpublished/unfinished post-Lotr work shows an even greater trend towards making his characters complexer, more realistic and more relatable.
Poetry ( and that includes prose poetry) is more forgiving about that, poems are language first (style, atmosphere, painting a picture with words), narrative and character only second. That's not really comparable to a novel or a TV show. Characters like Milton's Satan and Keats' Belle Dame do not go through years worth of story telling without changing or developing.
Now we are a bit accusing aren't we? First of all again: complex characterization is not the only way, but makes good thing better, stories will always have a greater impact if you care about the characters.
Man, now I feel you are trying to turn me into a non-complex character by saying that because I prefer complex characterizations in general, I can only enjoy character driven things. Yet I think that people can be more complex than that and are able to like or love things despite or even sometimes for their faults. That's so meta....
And DS9 is also Trek, did rather well with character driven storylines.
That's sort of an oxymoron. Or as they say in Voyager "some kind of"...
There are some character development thruout Voyager.
B'Elanna Torres develops from an angry outsider with self loathing because of her race to a more mature and confident women, a wife and mother, and a valued officer of Voyager.
Tom Paris begins as a immature criminal, a womanizer and a rogue and becomes more mature and responsible, a family man.
The Doctor begins as a nonsentient program and develops into a fully sentient person.
Seven does get a lot of development, exploring her lost humanity, struggling with PTSD from her assimilation by the Borg.
Voyager is very episodic, as was the norm back then. They don't fully take advantage of their opprotunites for story telling because of this, but there are story arcs thru the series. The Borg arc. The Seska arc. The Seven arc. Ongoing relationship arcs with various characters development and their relationships, like Tom and B'Elanna.
I agree with those, and I'd like to mention Neelix as well. He begins as a schemer and becomes one of VOY's most trusted crewmembers. Kes too had a nice development going until she left the show.
But Janeway, Tuvok, Chakotay, Kim? they don't receive anywhere near as much character development. If you swapped any of the S1 figures with their S7 counterparts, I don't think I could tell the difference easily. (well except for Janeway's hair
). Whereas in DS9 it's quite hard to even mention a prominent cast member that has little development going on (the only one I can think of right now is o'Brien, and even he had some).
He was three shots of whiskey away from leaving Kieko and the kids for Julian.
Last edited:
...
But Janeway, Tuvok, Chakotay, Kim? they don't receive anywhere near as much character development. If you swapped any of the S1 figures with their S7 counterparts, I don't think I could tell the difference easily. (well except for Janeway's hair
Janeway's hair style had a story arc. Does that count.
Perhaps I should add that I think we learn quite a bit about Janeway, so in that sense there's character development for her. There's just not a whole lot of character evolution, for want of a better term.
He was hardly very convincing as a space cowboy though. He settles into his affable pet role very quickly to be fair
O'Brien was the shows anchor. His presence on TNG meant he didn't need too much development (he had plenty of back story)
O'Brien gets jailed a few times, tortured a few times, dies once (in an alternate future), dies as a clone, gets infected with a deadly disease, beat up many times, his arm keeps popping out of its socket.... His daughter gets changed to a ten years older retard, his wife is possessed by a pah wraith...
He's an anchor, alright!
Well, yeah, but that kind of stuff happens to everybody there
(guess I wouldn't want to live there). But I don't see much evidence of him changing as a result of those episodes ...
Well, yeah, but that kind of stuff happens to everybody there
BTW, Worf seems to have made significant progress, but only if you include both series.
Glad you agree
He doesn't change massively but he serves as the reliable everyman of DS9 very effectively (and besides, he's seen it all before)
I despised Worf on TNG but liked him quite a lot on DS9 so something obviously changed. He seemed to be a slight moron on TNG but got experienced and smart on DS9
Maybe you changed then, because I see Worf as being basically the same in the two series. He clashes with the Klingons in both series, he loses and then regains his status among the klingons in both series. He has troubles with his brother in both series. He has troubles with his son in both series ( and the troubles are basically the same, which is amazing). His mate dies in both series, killed by an enemy in both series. Worf returns to the Klingons in the end, in BOTH SERIES!!!
I'm confused. First you said....
.....but now you're saying he's the same in both series and hasn't made progress ??
Anyway, in TNG he always seemed to me to be quite petty and severe not to mention extremely dumb. He lacks humour and experience and makes assumptions. In DS9, he just seems to have developed a lot more. He's smarter, experienced, more open minded and more capable of seeing the bigger picture (maybe more relaxed)
Less of a numpty basically
I found it easier to like him
Similar threads
