How we deal with death

[Leaf]

So I've been reading the various Janeway=dead threads and I'd like to ask a question. Is anyone else getting tired of 'stunt' deaths? Like, a major character dies, and it's a big thing, they're dead for a few months then a new creative team brings them back for whatever reason. Happens a lot in comic books.

Spock's death in ST2 was supposed to be all meaningful, but I was young enough that it was out on video when I saw it first, so I watched it knowing full well Spock came back and saw the big dust-up over his death as just a maudlin and stupid attempt to pull heartstrings. Data's trip to the big bit bucket in the sky in Nemesis didn't move me at all (and I loved Data), 'cause I was too busy rolling my eyes at the cynical 'safety save' of B4. Even now, I'll bet Data will be back before long.

We've even added Trip Tucker to the "I'm not dead, I feel happy, I think I'll go for a walk" list.

Even in Janeway's death, there was a Q-powered wink to the audience that she's not really dead, she could come back. And if there's a possibility her resurrection will make money, she probably will.

In star trek, death is a joke. If killing a character is meaningless, why bother doing it at all?

 

[DimesDan]

So I've been reading the various Janeway=dead threads and I'd like to ask a question. Is anyone else getting tired of 'stunt' deaths? Like, a major character dies, and it's a big thing, they're dead for a few months then a new creative team brings them back for whatever reason. Happens a lot in comic books.

Spock's death in ST2 was supposed to be all meaningful, but I was young enough that it was out on video when I saw it first, so I watched it knowing full well Spock came back and saw the big dust-up over his death as just a maudlin and stupid attempt to pull heartstrings. Data's trip to the big bit bucket in the sky in Nemesis didn't move me at all (and I loved Data), 'cause I was too busy rolling my eyes at the cynical 'safety save' of B4. Even now, I'll bet Data will be back before long.

We've even added Trip Tucker to the "I'm not dead, I feel happy, I think I'll go for a walk" list.

Even in Janeway's death, there was a Q-powered wink to the audience that she's not really dead, she could come back. And if there's a possibility her resurrection will make money, she probably will.

In star trek, death is a joke. If killing a character is meaningless, why bother doing it at all?

No I am not and nor do I classify it as a "stunt" death, nor any of the examples you have made as because when those deaths were written, they were meant to stay dead.

 

[LightningStorm]

Perhaps, then, it is the resurrections that could be referred to as stunts?

Either way there is a certain amount of stuntage? Stuntitude? Stuntery? I like Stuntery...

 

[Trent Roman]

Not Tucker. The producers said as much: if another season had come through, they either would have written the episode that he lived or, if it were too late, have brought him back. They only killed him off because they knew they would never actually have to do the show without him (and good thing, too - where would ENT be without it's endless Tucker/T'Pol soap opera?). It was a cheap, hackneyed and otherwise incompetant attempt at playing on the audience's emotions and trying to make a crappy finale somehow relevant. It's the very definition of a stunt death.

Janeway's death was basically like Barrymore in Scream, the stock idiot girl offed by the serial killer in the first act to establish peril, with the extra pep that it was someone famous who gets the axe (or hungry wall, as the case may be). It was a sad, transparent attempt to make the bathetic failed-epic that was Before Dishonor somehow meaningful, something that would appear serious to counteract the novel's rampant idiocy. Stunt death.

Data is a bit more complicated, because the actor felt that he was getting too old for the role, so it's partly a death due to (perceived) actor availability. The way it was executed, however, tacked on at the end of the film, failing to achieve any thematic resonance with the rest of the movie or really be affective in any fashion, certainly gives it the air of a stunt death, a ham-handed attempt to go out with a bang, to underscore the finality of the characters' various journeys.

Spock's death, more importantly than whether or not it was believed to be permanent at the time, was a genuine, heartfelt sendoff for the character which matched the film's other concerns. In no way a stunt death.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[JoeZhang]

Don't Data/Janeway actually have to come back to life before we call them stunt deaths?

(and the comics are seperate so let's not get into that one again).


The best trek deaths are in SCE:Wildfire, I found the death of the engineering section particular moving.

 

[Trent Roman]

Don't Data/Janeway actually have to come back to life before we call them stunt deaths?

I don't see why. To me, 'stunt death' refers not to the permanence of a death but the manner of its execution/depiction. Otherwise, I'd call it 'false death', which is a device of its own.

The best trek deaths are in SCE:Wildfire, I found the death of the engineering section particular moving.

Agreed.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[kissthestar]

The writers (and others) treat character deaths as continuity problems, more than anything else. No one seems much interested in exploring the meaning or effects of a death.

 

[Thrawn]

New Frontier, Vanguard, SCE, Gorkon, Titan (sort of), and if we include characters that aren't so-to-speak regulars pretty much every other Trek series too...they all have had deaths of important characters that were meaningful, permanent, and well-told. At some point along the way. Death is a pretty important component of Treklit these days.

And yes, it does annoy me when such obvious outs are left for main characters to return, but in all fairness, in every example you gave, the resurrection was made by a different creative team than the death (with the exception of TWOK, which was a change of heart by Nimoy more than anything else). And to a certain extent, that's just what you get with large-scale properties like this, or comics, etc. Someone else comes along and wants to tell stories about a character, so they bring them back. Can't really blame them, I suppose.

 

[ClayinCA]

Well, apparently

exploring the meaning or effects of a death

is exavctly what we're going to get in the upcoming Voyager novels, so you might want to have a look at them.

 

[Christopher]

The writers (and others) treat character deaths as continuity problems, more than anything else. No one seems much interested in exploring the meaning or effects of a death.

If you're referring to the novel writers, you couldn't be more wrong. Over a Torrent Sea, Losing the Peace, and especially Full Circle all involve exploring the meaning and effects of death.

And it's unfair to blame the novelists for decisions made by other people. The only canonical deaths that have been reversed in the novels are Kirk and Trip Tucker, and Kirk has only been resurrected in a series that's separate from the main book continuity. And I don't know of any novelist or novel editor who has plans to resurrect Janeway or Data; several of us have said repeatedly on this very BBS that we'd much rather explore the consequences of death than have it cheapened by resurrections.

 

[JoeZhang]

Don't Data/Janeway actually have to come back to life before we call them stunt deaths?

I don't see why. To me, 'stunt death' refers not to the permanence of a death but the manner of its execution/depiction. Otherwise, I'd call it 'false death', which is a device of its own.

The best trek deaths are in SCE:Wildfire, I found the death of the engineering section particular moving.

Agreed.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Then I don't understand the use of the word "stunt" - I understand it's use in the creative arts in the sense of stunt casting - where an actor or character not associated with a series just pops up, so Riker appearing in the last episode of ENT is stunt casting. Stunt death to me would be Kirk appearing in Destiny to be killed off by the borg (again? :-)).

It seems to me that it's different from stupid death which Janeway and Data's deaths were.

 

[Christopher]

Then I don't understand the use of the word "stunt" - I understand it's use in the creative arts in the sense of stunt casting - where an actor or character not associated with a series just pops up, so Riker appearing in the last episode of ENT is stunt casting. Stunt death to me would be Kirk appearing in Destiny to be killed off by the borg (again? :-)).

It's not that narrowly defined. A stunt is "an unusual act or display designed to attract attention," according to my dictionary. Stunt casting is casting done as a publicity stunt, a gimmick to attract ratings. It's got nothing to do with the duration of the guest appearance; it's about the celebrity or appropriateness of the casting choice. For instance, getting Christopher Reeve to play a recurring character on Smallville was stunt casting. Getting Richard Hatch to play a recurring character on the Battlestar Galactica revival was stunt casting, although it turned into a long-running stint.

So a stunt death would be a death used as a gimmick to draw in viewers or readers, especially if it's intentionally temporary. For example, when DC Comics killed off Superman for a few months, or just recently did a storyline called Batman R.I.P. that was promoted so as to suggest that Batman would die at the end of it (although of course he didn't really).

 

[Therin of Andor]

In star trek, death is a joke. If killing a character is meaningless, why bother doing it at all?

The alternative is to make a decree that no regular character will ever die in a Star Trek novel or comic ever again.

Or to ensure that every character who dies stays dead forever, until there are none left.

I would prefer the current situation, where none of us are sure about how past, current and future story arcs will end. Science fiction deaths, and comic book deaths, are reversible. Nothing new about that. And licensed tie-ins do need to return to a status quo at some time, otherwise they stop resembling the original product on which they were based.

Are you also tired of stories involving leadership squabbles, wars, famines, planets blowing up, scientific investigations, warp drive experiments, war games, rogue captains, first contacts, time travel, religious uprisings, family reunions, births, marriages...?

 

[Trent Roman]

The only canonical deaths that have been reversed in the novels are Kirk and Trip Tucker, and Kirk has only been resurrected in a series that's separate from the main book continuity.

I think we should count Weyoun as a resurrection, since WYLB stated that the one who died was the last Weyoun, subsequently fudged by the novels to mean the last Weyoun in the Alpha Quadrant.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Therin of Andor]

The writers (and others) treat character deaths as continuity problems, more than anything else. No one seems much interested in exploring the meaning or effects of a death.

A bit hard to enjoy what an author has crafted if you've already black-banned the book from your reading list (to punish the publisher and previous author for killing off the character)!

 

[Rush Limborg]

So...let me get this straight....

Kirk dies...and stays dead...and people whine that he stays dead....

Spock and Trip die...and people whine that they do NOT stay dead....

Data and Janeway die...and people whine that they MIGHT NOT stay dead....

 

[DimesDan]

So...let me get this straight....

Kirk dies...and stays dead...and people whine that he stays dead....

Spock and Trip die...and people whine that they do NOT stay dead....

Data and Janeway die...and people whine that they MIGHT NOT stay dead....

Isn't Kirk only half still dead? He may not appear post Generations in the normal continuity of books yet he is in the Shatverse continuity?

Oh and fans, go figure

 

[Lynx]

I'm actually happy that there are skilled writers who have the skill, will and imagination to undo some of the worst character destructions of Star Trek.

If Star Trek had been such a destructive doom crap show as some "fans" seem to want it to be, I wouldn't have watched a single second of it or bought a single book. In that case I prefer biographies about real people.

Star Trek is supposed to be a series of hope for mankind and hope for a better future, not a refelection of the dark ages of the 21th century.

Those who want a "dark show" or read similar books can watch the news or read some evening tabloid and enjoy how our pathetic political "leaders" and economists are doing their best to destroy what's left of this world or watch a nearby funeral instead.

 

[donners22]

The real stunt "deaths" are the Defiant and Delta Flyer, blown up for effect, then brought back a couple of episodes later.

 

[DimesDan]

The real stunt "deaths" are the Defiant and Delta Flyer, blown up for effect, then brought back a couple of episodes later.