Really though, if Janeway gets kicked upstairs and flies a desk, that's pretty much the end for her, story-wise. Which may have been the plan in the first place. 
The Refrigerator Theory
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Only if you have writers and editors that do not think outside the box, I can think of a couple of ways to go myself. The problem is if you "think" you can't then there is a good chance you "wont". Janeway is a completely different point of view for most Trek writers. Again it is a writing and editing problem not a character problem.
I hate to break it to you Guy, but I already know this and it's part of the problem, the mind set is that science fiction readers don't want stories that might be thought of as "girlie". And the problem with that idea is that it's killing Science Fiction as a genre.
Oh, I completely agree.
There is no reason that a Starfleet Admiralty series, either in book or on screen, couldn't do a "West Wing" style drama. If well written, this drama could be just as compelling as the Star Trek standard action/adventure. Some of Trek's best efforts through the years have been dramas, Inner Light comes to mind. The interactions of the characters is one of the things that fans say they like the most, and complain about the most too when it's missing.
No. This keeps springing up, the 1960's TPTB loved the idea of a female first officer, for a number of reasons they just didn't want Majel Barrett. Roddenberry had no interest in re-casting the role with another woman for the second pilot. Otherwise there would have been a female first officer opposite James Kirk.
Good point. In my last apartment the 70-year-old down the hall would dogsit for me while I was at work. Half the time I would come home to no dog, go down the hall and the two of them would be on the couch watching the Sci-Fi Channel. She said she used to watch TOS back in the 60s while making dinner for her family. She also had a nice memorabilia collection including a Janeway plate.
my mom will be 61 years old in 2 weeks is a casual fan of most of the trek series and is an avid syfy channel watcher. she would definitely welcome another trek series on tv...as long as it wasn't a shallow series like so many of the programs that have been mentioned by brit and guy.
Well, IMHO, it seemed that the 1st half of Full Circle, where Admrl. Janeway was not only alive and well, but important in the resolution of the plot, belied the idea that there were no more stories to write for her. That made what Pocket Books did to KJ in BF that much harder to digest; it really just seems arbitrary and mean spirited. That they brought in a new (male) Admiral in the "VOY" books made their flimsy explanations for getting rid of the main character of a storyline even more ridiculous. Someone just wanted her gone and KJ fans have to deal (or non-deal, if she doesn't come back) with the loss. Well, they've lost fans from Trek fic entirely now, too bad.
It's probably spelt "Guy Gardner" who was an astronaut in the 1960s, but I named myself after the asshole Green Lantern of the same name from DC Comcs OH so long ago.
That theory often works (see: Heroes), but here it doesn't really work IMO.I wasn't sold on this when I first heard about it. However, the link below has me thinking about it again. I'm curious what folks in the Voyager forum think about the "Women in the Refrigerator" theory as it relates to Janeway.
I'm hoping we can get some good discussion here.
http://www.jceternal.com/kjif.htm
The author of the article mixes up two different areas: canon events (shows & feature films) and Trek literature:
No, it doesn't, unless you ignore the following facts.
1) While Janeway's death was entirely an artistic decision of the editors and writers, the rest of the examples are from TV shows & films, which are subject to objective circumstances. Namely, out of the 3 main female characters who were permanently removed from their shows (Crosby, Farrell and Lien), the producers are only solely responsible for the firing of Jennifer Lien (whose character wasn't technically killed, but was removed from the show). This is the only example that can contribute to the debate about sexism - as TPTB decided to fire one actress in order to bring another, as if there is some sort of limit as to how many females there can be on the show (if they had kept Lien and sacked Wang as first planned, that would have brought the male-female ratio, to, what - "shocking" 5:4, instead of 6:3
). One could also bring up the example of the sacking of Grace Lee Whitney from TOS under very questionable circumstances (possibly related to a sexual assault on Whitney), as well as Gates McFadden temporary leaving TNG, also under questionable circumstances, and reportedly due to sexual harassment by one of the producers. But that speaks more about the industry's treatment of actresses, than the writers' treatment of female characters.However, the two main female characters who were literally killed off - Tasha Yar and Jadzia Dax - weren't killed due to a decision by the writers, but due to their actresses wanting to leave their respective shows. In the former case, Crosby was later brought back whenever it was possible (once she seems to have realized she had made a mistake), while Jadzia was replaced by another female character - a new Dax host.
On the other hand, out of the 5 main male characters who were killed off or 'disappeared' in canon, only 2 were killed due to outside circumstances: Data (Brent Spiner didn't want to play the character anymore) and Spock (because TPTB were afraid that Nimoy would not do any more movies, which was solved by the next movie). Captain/Admiral Kirk, Captain Sisko and Trip Tucker were all killed (or, in Sisko's case,. 'disappeared') due to an artistic decision of the writers. Shatner would have continued playing Kirk. Sisko and Trip were 'killed off' in their respective shows' finales, when there was no reason whatsoever to kill them off other than because the writers thought it was a good idea.
So, that leaves 3 males in canon that the writers decided to kill off on their own free will, as opposed to 0 females.
In canon, Trip is still dead, Kirk is dead, and Sisko is with the Prophets, while Janeway is alive and well and has been promoted to Admiral as of "Nemesis".
If we're going just by canon, there have been more 'men in refrigerators' in Trek than women in refrigerators, as far as main characters go.
2) If we look at the literature now: it has more than one continuity. Shatnerverse is its own continuity, ignored by and ignoring other continuities. In other continuities, Kirk still die on the Nexus planet. I don't know if Mulgrew could, if she wanted to, publish novels under her name in which Janeway would be alive and in which she would ignore otyher continuities, but fact is, she has never tried, and, like many of her colleagues (with a few notable exceptions), she hasn't expressed any interest in Trek lit. If she were to express an interest, I think she could at the very least have some say in what the Pocket Books decide to do with Janeway.
Data has only been revived in "Countdown" comic - but post-Nemesis TNG and other books of main continuity still treat Data as dead.
3) Yes, Janeway is the only main character (AFAIK) that has been killed off in literature, while still alive in canon. This makes her only the 5th main character to be killed off (or sort of killed off) due to a decision of TPTB.
But, while the decision to kill off Janeway can be questioned and debated in all sort of ways, it is difficult to argue that this is exemplary of a trend in Trek literature, or of a fear of strong female characters. One example does not a rule make, and, AFAIK (correct if I am wrong, I haven't read all of the Trek novels to date), none of the other Trek main female characters have been killed off in Trek literature. In fact, not only did they stay alive and active, but many of them have been given new duties and higher ranks and bigger roles to play; and, in addition, a bunch of new, original characters have been introduced. DS9 relaunch is full of strong women - besides Kira having become the commander of the station, Ro Laren was brought back as the new chief of security (instead of Odo), Ezri Dax had been promoted to captain and given her own command and played a big role in both DS9-R and the 'Destiny' trilogy, Kasidy Yates continued to play a role, and a couple of new female characters were introduced (in addition to a few new male characters) to replace the characters who left in DS9 finale. Meanwhile, Captain Erika Hernandez was given an important role in recent Trek lit, and the TNG and Titan series have introduced new female characters in their crews (as well in Ezri's Aventine crew), coming a long way to redress the gender imbalance. (I haven't read Destiny yet, but the list of crews at the end of the book shows an Enterprise main crew that - for the first time, I believe - has more females than males.
In short, whatever the reasons for killing Janeway were, they are hardly indicative of any overall trend of killing off women and reducing their roles in Trek lit.
Everyone especially the anti time people from Yesterdays Enterprise said that Tasha's death was pointless, but did any of you read the news article about Pat a month back recounting the more ridiculous days on the Next Generation Set that he made light of how ridiculous it was to talk to an oil slick. We all probably know that that wasn't Denises last episode even if it was Tasha's but it still seems a little cold, kind of like if People Mocked Kes' departure or Neelix's or... Jenifer was a little girl in tears and Neelix got his own ending before all that Borg crap but Denise I suspose if the stories are to be beleived thought she was too big for the show, but that's hardly the characters fault that she was murdered murder before her relationship with Data became public.
I agree that this doesn't really apply to the Trek TV shows, movies, or most of TrekLit. It's more that this is something that happens in pop culture fiction as a whole and perhaps this recent incident in TrekLit reflects it. Both B'Elanna and Janeway are dead or rumored dead, and Seven's stuck weeping in Chak's arms.
As I said, I don't know that the main women in Trek, outside of a small group, are really powerful enough in the first place for this to even apply.
As I said, I don't know that the main women in Trek, outside of a small group, are really powerful enough in the first place for this to even apply.
The theory really does not hold up in the case of Trek, either in canon or in the books. In canon, all lasting deaths came about because of cast changes or being the end of the show/series. Most of those had loopholes which the books or later canon exploited to revive the character. The books have had two characters die (McCoy and Janeway) in one continuity, but they are alive in others (main continuity for McCoy, The Needs of the Many for Janeway). Janeway's death also has one of those exploitable loopholes, so she need not be gone for good.
Janeway's death has had an effect not just on men like Chakotay and Kim but on women like Seven and Torres. It's a gender-neutral story spark. I can't speak for Margaret Clark, but it seems like she thought that there was more story potential in having Janeway's death affect the remaining crew than there was in having her be Kathryn Exposition like she was in Nemesis. There were other ways she could have been used, but a lot of them would have been as awkward as the Trip side stories in the current Enterprise novels.
Looking at Sisko's case, he was brought back, but he did not assume his old role as commander of Deep Space Nine. There's no reason to think that a returned Janeway or Yar would jump back into the positions they had before their deaths.
You might make the case that canonical Star Trek did/does not always treat women as proper equals in their roles and number, but that is not the same as falling into the WIR trope.
Janeway's death has had an effect not just on men like Chakotay and Kim but on women like Seven and Torres. It's a gender-neutral story spark. I can't speak for Margaret Clark, but it seems like she thought that there was more story potential in having Janeway's death affect the remaining crew than there was in having her be Kathryn Exposition like she was in Nemesis. There were other ways she could have been used, but a lot of them would have been as awkward as the Trip side stories in the current Enterprise novels.
Looking at Sisko's case, he was brought back, but he did not assume his old role as commander of Deep Space Nine. There's no reason to think that a returned Janeway or Yar would jump back into the positions they had before their deaths.
You might make the case that canonical Star Trek did/does not always treat women as proper equals in their roles and number, but that is not the same as falling into the WIR trope.
The whole death (not death) whatever 
has always bothered me and still does. Mainly because we were given this completely awesome female character only to have her killed off. I don't know about the WIR but it was an interesting read and made some good points.
Did Kirk die and then he was "brought back"?
If so do we think William Shatner had a hand in that?
has always bothered me and still does. Mainly because we were given this completely awesome female character only to have her killed off. I don't know about the WIR but it was an interesting read and made some good points.
Did Kirk die and then he was "brought back"?
If so do we think William Shatner had a hand in that?
Well, from what I've heard, Kate didn't mind too much that KJ was "dead," because she's kind of moved on (altho have read KM has said she would play KJ again). She did venture, though, that KJ should be cavorting around w/ Q instead of Lady Q.
I don't know about the idea of KJ's death being decided in the first place as something to show how it affected others. It may have been that since there was some protest when Bef. Dis. came out (10/07), M.Clark decided to give KJ fans a little sop and explore her death more in Full Circle (came out April, 2009), so she could say "see we gave her a good send off." Otherwise, KJ's departure might have been just left as it was, a most unfortunate cast-off and not considered by Pocket Books as much of a big deal.
I don't know about the idea of KJ's death being decided in the first place as something to show how it affected others. It may have been that since there was some protest when Bef. Dis. came out (10/07), M.Clark decided to give KJ fans a little sop and explore her death more in Full Circle (came out April, 2009), so she could say "see we gave her a good send off." Otherwise, KJ's departure might have been just left as it was, a most unfortunate cast-off and not considered by Pocket Books as much of a big deal.
I haven't read these books, so I don't really have a feel for the events. But as far as the character having 'no more stories left in her'-- that is simply unbelievable. There are always stories. What that says to me is that there are no more stories we want to imagine for women beyond a certain age.
Interesting that no matter how fat, wrinkled, tired, toothless, and short of breath you are, Star Trek can always squeeze out one more adventure for you, if you're a man. But older women are sedentary and dignified advisors at best; when that begins to make you yawn -----------> R.I.P.
Interesting that no matter how fat, wrinkled, tired, toothless, and short of breath you are, Star Trek can always squeeze out one more adventure for you, if you're a man. But older women are sedentary and dignified advisors at best; when that begins to make you yawn -----------> R.I.P.
It is consistently infuriating that Janeway fans think that Janeway is criticised by male trekkers just because she is female, and not because she is poorly/inconstiently written for/characterised by the writing staff (a problem which VOY suffers in general but exemplified by Janeway).
Social Heisenberg Uncertainty: The observation of sexism creates further sexism.
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