Goofy?
Janeway Died? In Which Book?
- Thread starter sniksder
- Start date
- Status
Goofy?
So if the majority of what pissed you off happened in the TV shows, why are you so pissed at the books? I understand that you are mad they killed Janeway, but swearing off all of the books because they killed off one character in one of the 7 different series seems like a bit of an overeaction IMO.
Maybe because I actually liked the books and did spend some time defending Trek literature against those who dismissed the books as "non-canon" or whatsoever.
Maybe I also had hopes for the books, especially the Voyager relaunch and maybe I expected more from the authors of the books than from Berman and his gang. They were good at killing off and ruining characters. Now we have the same thing here too. Once the door is open, who will be killed off or ruined the next time?
Why can't those authors create their own characters which they can kill off at random, all for "the greater good" or whatever they claim, why do they have to ruin and destroyed those who weren't killed off or ruined in the TV series?
You are severely over-reacting to the death of one character, and it's starting to get cartoonish.
They do and have created their own characters and they have killed off some characters but not randomly and neither was Janeway just killed randomly. You really do not understand the process here do you?
Since your own books are so MUCH better than what has been officially released then why not share what you have written and let us be the judge. Post it in the fan fic area. I doubt that you can write as good of stories as what we get from Pocket Books. I have a feeling that you are a legend in your own mind!
Kevin
Ah, the Legend of the Redshirt. It became very, very predictable, and often lampooned savagely, that the writer's guest star officer was gonna be the one to get killed in the episode or movie. That's why ST II was both controversial and popular for its time, because a regular was killed off. Even though Spock fans took out a full page ad in Variety, warning Paramount they were prepared to boycott, and there'd be a loss of profits, they still went to see the Vulcan cark it. Many, many times!
Guys, apologies. Don't know what the hell happened to the formatting of my message.
I'll try again.
Which would all be fair enough if that was as far as it went. But in addition to that, Lynx has been saying that creative choices she disagrees with out to be banned from the line, that she's going to abandoned every single book because of one creative decision, that the authors do not really care or did not really think the decision through, and that there will be a large number of Janeway fans ready to boycott the entire book line on her say-so -- to say nothing of some absurdly emotional tirades about feeling incredible amounts of pain over the death of a fictional character and feeling "betrayed" every time a character she likes dies. There does have to come a point where you pause, step back, and remind yourself that it is all a work of fiction, not an actual human being.
So are we, and I for one am tired of people taking a disagreement over a creative decision and trying to magnify it into something bigger than it is.
WARNING: SPOILER FOR DS9: THE DOMINION: OLYMPUS DESCENDING BY DAVID R. GEORGE III BELOW
I completely disagree with the idea of the Founders of the Dominion worshipping a god of their own. I think the entire concept is absurd and antithetical to the basis of the Founders' characters. I mean, I really, really loathe that particular creative decision.
Guess what? The fact that I disagree with it doesn't mean I think that it should be banned from the books. It doesn't mean I'm planning on boycotting the books. It doesn't mean I'm going to try to start a larger boycott, it doesn't mean I'm going to accuse the authors of not having given sufficient thought and care to the work, and it doesn't mean I get so emotional on it that I feel somehow fundamentally betrayed. I can accept a creative disagreement without getting outraged over it.
And that, ultimately, is what has irritated so many other people: The apparent inability to disagree with a creative decision without feeling outraged.
OK, well whatever I've done I can't correct formatting wise (back to the Internet for Dummies book, I'm afraid). Thank you Sci for getting the main points anyway.
I agree with you about creative decisions and how we need to live with them. But really, it seems like half of the posts at TrekBBS revolve around the wisdom of a particular Trek moment (in books, movies or series') having been adopted and why some other alternative would have made so much more sense.
I mean we are going back to the 1960s in some of these discussions.
Of course, it's silly. But it is still fun.
I agree with you about creative decisions and how we need to live with them. But really, it seems like half of the posts at TrekBBS revolve around the wisdom of a particular Trek moment (in books, movies or series') having been adopted and why some other alternative would have made so much more sense.
I mean we are going back to the 1960s in some of these discussions.
Of course, it's silly. But it is still fun.
I'm so glad you said this, because I've been waiting for the right opening...
There's an argument to be made that she has faced the consequences of "her sometimes less than Starfleet-worthy decisions," to wit, when she was killed. Because the circumstances of the events of Before Dishonor, not to mention Resistance, Greater than the Sum, and the Destiny trilogy and its aftermath, are all entirely a consequence of the actions taken by both iterations of Kathryn Janeway in "Endgame." The destruction of the transwarp hub is responsible for the series of events involving both the Borg who were cut off from the collective (and who killed Janeway) in Resistance, Before Dishonor, and Greater than the Sum, and the rest of the Borg's decision to, in essence, take out a hit on the Alpha Quadrant, resulting in at least 63 billion deaths.
And all that happened because Janeway decided that the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.
Mind you, I'm expressing neither support nor rejection of this argument -- for one thing, part of the fun is that it's one possible interpretation, and multiple interpretations are more fun than singular ones.But it's a possibility worth examining, methinks.
Yes, I agree with you and the irony was not lost on me. But did Janeway actually "face the consequences"?
She would have or at the very least should have if she would still be alive. But that is another opportunity that has been lost.
i agree with Sci, I don't like the whole Andorian four genders thing (as I've mentioned in the past, repeatedly, but not ad nauseaum) but that hasn't stopped me reading the DS9 novels or any other recent novel with Andorian chens, zhens and what have you in. i just don't even think aobut it.
One of my favourite ST novels is "Ex Machina" and that's despite the fact that Christopher did something ghastly and permanent to a minor canonical character, whom I'd elevated to continuing star status in my fanfics of the 80s. Sigh.
I didn't state that my own stories were "so MUCH better". I stated that I actually enjoyed reading them more than the books.
Two of them are to be found on my website.
Sci wrote:
Cartoonish?
It's just that I happen to really like those characters, especially the Voyager ones. In some strange way, it feels like a close friend or relative has been murdered. And it's not the first time it happens.
Cartoonish?
In some strange way, it feels like a close friend or relative has been murdered.
Wheel out the ACME anvil...
Sci wrote:
Cartoonish?
It's just that I happen to really like those characters, especially the Voyager ones. In some strange way, it feels like a close friend or relative has been murdered.
Which is an absurd reaction to have. I'm being very serious when I say that you are identifying with these characters to an unhealthy degree if you are accurately reporting your feelings. No one was actually killed. Your close friends and family are fine (or as fine as they would have been without the novels being written). Hell, last I checked, Janeway is even still alive in the Shatnerverse novels, so it's not like she's dead in every novel out there, just the ones that follow the current continuity. And your DVDs, VHSes, and previous novels didn't wink out of existence.
Sci wrote:
Cartoonish?
It's just that I happen to really like those characters, especially the Voyager ones. In some strange way, it feels like a close friend or relative has been murdered.
Which is an absurd reaction to have. I'm being very serious when I say that you are identifying with these characters to an unhealthy degree if you are accurately reporting your feelings. No one was actually killed. Your close friends and family are fine (or as fine as they would have been without the novels being written). Hell, last I checked, Janeway is even still alive in the Shatnerverse novels, so it's not like she's dead in every novel out there, just the ones that follow the current continuity. And your DVDs, VHSes, and previous novels didn't wink out of existence.
I'm just expressing my feelings about this subject, you don't have to mock me for it.
As for the "current continuity", it no longer exists for me. The only thing that counts from now is the continuity I might create in my own stories.
Sci wrote:
Cartoonish?
It's just that I happen to really like those characters, especially the Voyager ones. In some strange way, it feels like a close friend or relative has been murdered.
Which is an absurd reaction to have. I'm being very serious when I say that you are identifying with these characters to an unhealthy degree if you are accurately reporting your feelings. No one was actually killed. Your close friends and family are fine (or as fine as they would have been without the novels being written). Hell, last I checked, Janeway is even still alive in the Shatnerverse novels, so it's not like she's dead in every novel out there, just the ones that follow the current continuity. And your DVDs, VHSes, and previous novels didn't wink out of existence.
I'm just expressing my feelings about this subject, you don't have to mock me for it.
I'm not mocking you, I'm making a statement: If you truly, earnestly identify with a fictional character so much that its fictional death is literally the emotional equivalent of a loss of a close friend or relative, then that is an unhealthy level of identification. Part of art is learning to step back and keep in mind that art is the support mechanism for life -- life is not the support mechanism for art.
And what of the Shatnerverse, wherein Janeway is still alive? What if, for VOY's fifteenth anniversary, they write a Crucible-esque trilogy featuring Janeway that's set in its own continuity and disregards her death?
Part of the reason I'm arguing that your reaction is irrational and disproportionate is that it ignores the fact that there can easily be other novels where the creative decision you disagree with is not repeated.
And, quite frankly, it's a little bit hypocritical to ask someone else not to criticize your personal reactions to the character's death when you are more than willing to criticize the authors' perceived motivations by attributing frivolity and lack of concern for the quality of their work to them. Don't make a personal criticism if you can't accept one back.
Can we all stop feeding this thread please???
I try to read the posts daily here, and this one has jumped the shark a long long time ago.
Lets face it, anyone who stopped watching Voyager after Fury because they didn't like how they treated Kes, yet could still feel this much angst over Janeway being killed - to the point of feeling like a family member has been killed - isn't going to be convinced of anything you or I say.
Hence the reason I don't mind if you think I am personally attacking you. Because I am sure that all these posts are interpreted as a personal attack on you.
Continue to write your own fan fic, enjoy it, just stop telling everyone here that we all agree with you. The response you have received thus far should be enough to convince you otherwise...
I try to read the posts daily here, and this one has jumped the shark a long long time ago.
Lets face it, anyone who stopped watching Voyager after Fury because they didn't like how they treated Kes, yet could still feel this much angst over Janeway being killed - to the point of feeling like a family member has been killed - isn't going to be convinced of anything you or I say.
Hence the reason I don't mind if you think I am personally attacking you. Because I am sure that all these posts are interpreted as a personal attack on you.
Continue to write your own fan fic, enjoy it, just stop telling everyone here that we all agree with you. The response you have received thus far should be enough to convince you otherwise...
- Status
Similar threads
