no need to fix anything. It's not like the killed Naomi Wildman. It was one of the least interesting characters in the least interesting Star Trek show
But not everyone thinks like you. Some people were genuinely upset about Icheb's death. And they have as much right to their opinion as you have yours.
It's like I've always said: Icheb, Beloved Star Trek Character Since 2020. But, then again, I'm not a VOY Fan. And I don't post in the VOY Forum. Never have. Not even when it was still on. So I can't say what the Voyager Community thinks. I imagine a lot of them didn't like it. But, the Star Trek Community at large? I'm going to say Icheb wasn't that high up there. Icheb was important to Seven and this shows why Seven would be so angry at Bjayzel and why she'd be motivated to join the Fenris Rangers since Starfleet, especially in the 24th Century, is more concerned about red tape and avoiding creating an Interstellar Incident than about actually seeking justice.
Even among Voyager fandom, I don't think Icheb was topping any favorite character lists. I don't think anyone hated him, but I never got the impression he made much of an impression on the show's fans prior to his death scene on Picard.
He does rate special mention as the only Gamma Quadrant native to return to the Alpha Quadrant with Voyager. Kes, Neelix, and the remaining Borglets stayed behind.
When it comes right down to it, if an actual VOY Fan is upset about what happened to Icheb, then fine, I get it. I have a different point of view, but I understand theirs. But, if it's not actually a VOY Fan, if it's just someone who thinks "New Trek sucks!" and is using whatever they can grab onto as a weapon against Picard, then my answer to them is, "No. I'm not buying it. Sit the fuck back down." Because they never cared about Icheb as a character before. And they think this is the perfect thing they can use to tear down Picard and say, "See? See?! Picard is destroying Star Trek!" All's fair in love and war.
You know, history zigs and zags in unexpected and mysterious ways, and the fate of icons we might have admired at one point might not be to our liking. For example, suppose we loved a comedian or actor in our youth, but the future exposes him as a sexual predator. Or, suppose someone becomes a unifying symbol of resilience in a time of national crisis, but decades later works with forces to subvert that very same nation at the expense of freedom. We might not like the curveballs spacetime throws us, but we must deal. I'm OK with fiction echoing that sentiment.
Yeah, it's hard to keep in mind that people might like Icheb when it is constantly used as a standard of the wrongness of New Star Trek.
Fair enough. I don't engage in either behavior. I was horrified by what was done to Icheb, and thought it justice when Seven splattered his killer all over the bar. But while Picard hasn't engaged me the way earlier Treks did, I don't regard it as destroying Trek, it's just evolved to suit other audiences.
Weirdly enough, I liked Icheb, and that wasn't the ending I would have chosen for him, but I also felt his death was really effective. One of the reasons I wish the death toll for S1 had been a little lower was so that his stood out for reasons other than the gore.
Oh please. 90's trek did a lot worse to motivate characters without the gore. Picard's nephew burning to death, Kira's mother being a collaborator, one of those maquis on Voyager whose wife was raped and murdered by Cardassians, Troi getting mind raped twice, characters on DS9 treating Dukat like he wasn't a genocidal, narcissistic dictator who was also a rapist.
I had more problems with their killing off Hugh. Not just because I thought they could have done interesting things with him - you don't want him in the show, fine, let him leave - but also because it's narratively lazy. You used Icheb for Seven's motivation - fine, but find something else to motivate Elnor, or whoever was meant to be motivated/ impacted by it.
Although, something I noticed was many of your examples are a result of the audience being told about it rather than being shown, the only exceptions being Kira's mother and Deanna getting mind raped. And even those, I can already hear the half-baked rationalizations of "I never watched DS9" or "It's okay if TNG did it." Perhaps the issue of Icheb's death isn't so much that it happened, but rather that we saw it? I can easily see in the 90s it wouldn't have been shown, but rather would have been revealed as a line of expositional dialogue. So, maybe this is a case of Michael Piller's "earn your paycheck" thing from TNG. "Showing a gruesome murder is lazy writing. Earn your paycheck by having the characters talk about a gruesome murder instead." I guess if Icheb's death scene weren't part of the episode and we only find out what happened near the end when Seven explains to the others why she hates Bajayzal (or however it's spelled) 90s fans would consider it the Best episode and truly recaptured the spirit of True Trek.
Nah, then you'd have the same people complaining that it was off screen. They didn't care about Icheb so they killed him off screen!
Apparently Seven again. I think Hugh's death would have actually gone down better if it had been more clearly about Elnor's character development - if Elnor had gotten the showdown with Narissa and all that, since he was the one who was most impacted by Hugh's murder. He saw a lost cause he wanted to be part of making right, without the reservations and resentment that came with being Picard's qalankhkai, and he let that slip through his fingers. (Because it seems Qowat Milat training doesn't cover that your sworn enemies will lie/cheat, but anyway.) That's a hard lesson, but one that should in turn make Elnor examine his role as Picard's qalankhkai and a member of the crew more closely... but we got none of that. Not even the catharsis of a rematch. And Elnor literally has no importance to the show after "Nepenthe" (arguably after "The Impossible Box"); he could have been left on the Artifact with Hugh (or Hugh's corpse) as a cliffhanger and it would have made no difference to the main plot. The whole Artifact bit just becomes about getting Seven back on screen. I'd have much rather kept Hugh around, as I liked Del Arco's performance and think there's a lot of story value in having someone around whose experiences as an xB/minority metaphor are so very different from Seven's. But I also think, as development for Elnor, his death could have worked just fine, esp. if we're looking at Picard as a coda to 90's era Trek - some stories need to end and some metaphorical torches need to be passed on. But the whole thing was just hollow misery porn in the end. Here's hoping S2 picks up on some of those dangling threads and runs with them.