Before Dishonour....seriously?!

[j3067]

******** in Shadows of the Empire.

Way to go. The same spoiler even more out there.

People, use the spoiler tag. Stop spoiling things.

That is only revealed in the N64 game if you get the best possible ending. Amazon has copies for $117.00. If he had not told you then you may never have found out at this point...unless you hit wookiepedia of course.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Dash who?

Gosh, soon they'll be telling me that someone killed off Chewbacca.

 

[j3067]

Dash who?

Gosh, soon they'll be telling me that someone killed off Chewbacca.

At least he did not get sucked into a wall.

 

[Christopher]

Again, you can't deduce a pattern from so few examples. If you want female or nonwhite characters to be treated equally, that means they're equally at risk of having bad things happen to them if it serves the story.

They are 100% of the non-white non-male population of commanding officers to be featured on a weekly series.

And like I said, it's far too small a population size for that to be meaningful. If you flip a coin twenty times and it always comes up heads, that's evidence that it's rigged, because the odds against that happening by chance are very, very high. But if you flip it only two times and it comes up heads both times, that's not evidence of a damn thing, because that's an outcome that could easily happen by random chance.

I never said I want the CAPTAINS to be treated equally either. If bad things happen to them I don't want them to be treated like redshirts.

And they certainly haven't. Like I said, Janeway's death has had deep personal repercussions that the main cast has been dealing with in every one of the Voyager novels published since then, which is the diametric opposite of a "redshirt death" where Kirk grieves for 20 seconds and then is laughing with the rest of the crew by the end of the episode.

The franchise cashed in on their sex and ethnicity.

I don't see how they did so. If anything, by having the guts to cast a black man and a woman as captains, they did the opposite of "cashing in," because that cost them viewers. There are still people out there -- or at least there were in the '90s -- who won't watch shows with African-American or female leads. DS9 was never as successful in the ratings as TNG was, and you'd be shocked how much sexist hatred there was toward Janeway in the online rhetoric of the day. You'd think Trek fans would be above that sort of thing, but a lot of them weren't.

I'm not concerned about how well adjusted society is in the 24th century in this case. I am concerned about a captain that serves as a focal point for an audience in the 21st. The net result is that some Captains are in a 'more equal' situation than others on this farm.

And I've tried to explain why there's insufficient evidence that the differences are because of their race or sex. Correlation is not causation.

Cannon made Kirk and admiral for a little while too, but no one depicted him getting sucked into a wall.

Someone did depict him dying on a collapsed bridge, though. And he wasn't even given an obvious way out of death like Spock, Trip, and Janeway were. So that's a really, really bad comparison, because it actually works against the point you're trying to make.

Spock did his Kolinar but did not go into a total emo superfunk when it did not work out.

I guess you're forgetting the scene in TMP where Spock cried on the bridge. He actually did get pretty emo there for a bit.

Besides, it's a spurious comparison. Ben Sisko is a character who has a history of depression. If you've seen "Emissary," you should know that. The comparison to another character is pointless because Sisko's behavior in RBoE is consistent with what was previously established about his own personality.

Anyway, just because you don't like how Sisko was handled, that sure as hell doesn't prove that the people who chose to take him in that direction are racist. That's a complete non sequitur. Couldn't it just be that they see the character differently than you do?

I really enjoyed Kirsten's books and I think she did a great job. I think she would have done a great job regardless of her starting point. None of that makes me like Before Dishonor more

Fine, dislike BD or RBoE all you want. But it's unfair and unjustified to assume that the only possible reason the authors made choices you dislike is because of a character's race or sex. You can disagree with people's creative choices without assuming they had morally reprehensible motives for making those choices.

 

[j3067]

Fine, dislike BD or RBoE all you want. But it's unfair and unjustified to assume that the only possible reason the authors made choices you dislike is because of a character's race or sex. You can disagree with people's creative choices without assuming they had morally reprehensible motives for making those choices.

I agree, if I had said that it would be awfully unfair. I never said that I thought they had morally reprehensible motives, I just think that they wrote terrible books. I think the net result of that is negative without it being intentional. I don't think anyone should be flipping coins to decide the fate of the series captains either.

 

[MattWallace]

It`s easier for the authors to stuff Janeway into the fridge than Chakotay. This way they don`t have to deal with a female captain unless it`s one that they put in place (Ro, Ezri). Female characters usually get the short end of the stick unless they`re the star of the show like Buffy, etc. In an larger group, even though one or two characters may be more like a traditional leading character, women usually end up on the losing end as time goes on.

What the...? Seriously..what the fuck?

Setting aside the whole women in the refrigerator thing which has been trotted out many times in the past as evidence of the worst kind of sexism on the part of anyone who dares to imagine a universe without Kathryn Janeway in it, you're seriously suggesting that it's no challenge at all to write a female captain as long as she is original to the author, but a female captain created by the series presents insurmountable problems? I didn't create Janeway so I couldn't figure out how to write her, but writing Eden was no problem?

Writing Janeway is a walk in a park on a glorious spring day, largely given Mulgrew's performance which on most occasions rose well above the writer's failings of her character. Janeway is one of the most complex and therefore most interesting characters to write. With Janeway I've got tons of rich history and a pre-existing connection between the characters and readers to mine for stories. I've got vivid images of the character committed to memory given the multiple times I've seen every single episode of the series. I've got tiny performance details that bring depth to every situation. It's like having a treasure chest full of gold and precious jewels and just taking my pick as to whcih one I'm going to play with today.

Creating a new chracter from scratch and placing them in a central position in a story that has lived for years without her? Well, you try it sometime. This is someone fans of Janeway are already predisposed to hate and I've got to find a way to bring her into lots of complicated relationships, make her interesting and original while she's sharing the stage with no less than nine other central characters, all of whom need their stories told too.

I'm not going to try to speak to all of television and literature here as it relates to women's issues, but if you've read Full Circle, Unworthy, and Children of the Storm and still think Janeway, B'Elanna, Seven, Eden, Conlon and Farkas have gotten the short end of any stick, I can't help you. Their isssues are central to every story and all are given their fair share story time in which they succeed, fail, and struggle to overcome whatever obstacle is before them, just like Chakotay, Harry, Tom and Cambridge.

Where your premise fails is in the idea that a characters's gender is some sort of primary factor in the creation of their stories or the amount of emphasis placed upon them in any given story. You may say, and may be right, that some authors write their characters, male or female, better than others. The sentiment is frankly so general as to be meaningless.

Women are certainly underrepresented in many forms of story-telling, but in the specific case of the current Voyager line, the math just doesn't add up. You may not like the way the characters are written, may not think their voices are accurate or may not find them compelling. That would be an opinion you are perfectly entitled to hold. But to suggest that killing Janeway and creating Eden was easier than just leaving Janeway in place or that women, on balance, are somehow being intentionally slighted in the Voyager stories because we just don't know what to do with them is patently absurd.

Kirsten Beyer

<blink> Wow

I don't recall commenting specifically on your handling of Janeway, alive or dead. I'd stopped reading Voyage after Spirit Walk and haven't read any of your Voyager novels. I've heard good things about them and intend to read them at some point. So, none of my comments should seem to be directed specifically at your writing.

I apologize if I caused offence. It was not my intention. However, taken as a whole, of those books which I have read (which is about 99% of them, less some of the more recent ones) I still believe that women get treated less favorably than men. This is also true of a lot of the shows and movies. For example, Uhura get's more to do in the latest movie. Of course most of that is being Spock's girlfriend. In addition to their normal duties, Sulu gets to orbital skydive and fight with a sword, Chekov gets to sit in the center seat and save Kirk & Sulu when nobody else can and Uhura get's to kiss Spock. This hardly seems like progress to me.

 

[Captain Robert April]

So, when are ya bringin' back Janeway?

 

[Therin of Andor]

In addition to their normal duties, Sulu gets to orbital skydive and fight with a sword, Chekov gets to sit in the center seat and save Kirk & Sulu when nobody else can and Uhura get's to kiss Spock. This hardly seems like progress to me.

There are some fans out there who want Spock to kiss Sulu. Or Kirk. Otherwise it "hardly seems like progress" to them.

 

[MattWallace]

<round of applause for Kirsten>

She said it far better than I did. We're not writing "male characters" and "female characters," as if that's the overwhelming consideration. We're writing characters. Characters who have many traits including gender. The choice we make about them are the ones that make the most sense given the needs of the stories and the arcs and relationships of the characters. And since we're writing stories about officers and professionals in an egalitarian society, there are few story situations where any character's gender would be an overriding factor. Heck, gender isn't even necessarily an overriding factor in romantic subplots, considering how free the novels have been about incorporating GLBT themes.

MattWallace's generalization here seems to be based on only two examples, Janeway and post-timejump Kira. Because of what happened to those two captains who happen to be female, he imagines there's a pattern specific to female captains created onscreen. The problem there, really, is that screen canon gave us so very few female captains as regular characters in the first place. With only two examples, it's impossible to distinguish between a genuine pattern and a coincidence. The sample size is simply too small.

Gender doesn't have to be the overriding fact the vast majority of the time. But if it's not going to be a factor at all, why did you, Keith and David decide to add female characters? If their gender isn't important why go with women instead of men?

Let's not forget the very first female captain we saw. The Saratoga was disabled by the whale probe in TVH. Last we saw of her, she was calling for someone to help her. When we later saw that captain of the Yorktown, who was in a similar situation, he said that they were trying to generate power with a makeshift sloar sail (should be panel but let's assume he meant what he said). In his care, he's doing something to help himself and his crew and she's asking someone to rescue her.

 

[Thrawn]

^ I don't think I've ever seen such a textbook example of confirmation bias.

 

[Bob Karo]

I too want to thank Kirsten. It really needed to be said.

 

[Christopher]

Gender doesn't have to be the overriding fact the vast majority of the time. But if it's not going to be a factor at all, why did you, Keith and David decide to add female characters? If their gender isn't important why go with women instead of men?

Oh, make up your mind. First you accuse us of treating female characters worse, then you take the fact that we've gone out of our way to be more inclusive of female characters than the shows were as confirmation that we're sexist pigs? Don't you see what a fundamental contradiction that is?

I create female characters because I like and respect women. But when I'm writing a woman, I don't write her as "a female character," but as a character who is, among numerous other traits, female. I don't define her every action and decision by what sex chromosomes she has. It's just one facet of who she is. In the aggregate, I'll try to maintain a good balance of male and female characters, but I won't treat any single character as being defined by his or her gender above all else. I think your problem is that you are defining characters by their gender above all else, and you're assuming everyone else does too, so it doesn't occur to you that it's possible to make choices about characters for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they're male or female.

Let's not forget the very first female captain we saw. The Saratoga was disabled by the whale probe in TVH. Last we saw of her, she was calling for someone to help her. When we later saw that captain of the Yorktown, who was in a similar situation, he said that they were trying to generate power with a makeshift sloar sail (should be panel but let's assume he meant what he said). In his care, he's doing something to help himself and his crew and she's asking someone to rescue her.

Even if that's valid and not more cherrypicking, what the hell does it have to do with your accusations toward those of us who write Trek literature? We are not the same people who made that movie 25 years ago. Most of us were in high school or college at the time and didn't yet have any connection to the Trek franchise. I for one have always wished the Trek franchise would be more inclusive of women than it has usually been onscreen, and I've striven to live up to that goal in my writing. And I feel my contemporaries have successfully done the same.

 

[Therin of Andor]

In his care, he's doing something to help himself and his crew and she's asking someone to rescue her.

And if the scenes were reversed, would it be the cowardly Asian Indian asking for help?

 

[JWolf]

Dude, Shadows of the Empire is 15 years old. if people haven't read it after that long, they ain't likely to.

Given that a lot of people could be getting a reader or a tablet for the holidays and given that the Star Wars back catalog was just recently put out as eBooks, there could be renewed interest in reading the Star Wars novels. Just because a book is 15 years old does not mean that every person on the planet has read it. So get real and use spoiler tags even for a 100 year old book.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

Spoiler: SPOILER

Rosebud was his sled.

 

[JWolf]

I do think that Kirsten did some very good writing with Voyager. The way she handled Janeway's death among the crew of the Voyager was very well written. To invalidate all of that by bringing Janeway back to life would be a tragedy worse then her death. So let's leave her dead and let's move on.

 

[DonIago]

Dude, Shadows of the Empire is 15 years old. if people haven't read it after that long, they ain't likely to.

Given that a lot of people could be getting a reader or a tablet for the holidays and given that the Star Wars back catalog was just recently put out as eBooks, there could be renewed interest in reading the Star Wars novels. Just because a book is 15 years old does not mean that every person on the planet has read it. So get real and use spoiler tags even for a 100 year old book.

That's not how spoiler policy has ever been handled here to my knowledge, but if you have a problem with it, I suggest reporting it so a Moderator can look into the matter rather than trying to play Moderator yourself.

 

[MattWallace]

I do think that Kirsten did some very good writing with Voyager. The way she handled Janeway's death among the crew of the Voyager was very well written. To invalidate all of that by bringing Janeway back to life would be a tragedy worse then her death. So let's leave her dead and let's move on.

I don't think that's there's any question she'll be back at some time. Q being the untimate "Get Out of Death" card. Just like the Borg, there may not be plans for her return at this time but there's nothing that would prevent her from returning at some point in the future.

 

[Relayer1]

As far as I am aware, policy is that we are careful around spoilers for a month or so, and after that it is assumed that it is not necessary - if you are worried about spoilers for old stuff, you avoid the Treklit threads.

PS - Vader is Lukes father...

 

[MattWallace]

Gender doesn't have to be the overriding fact the vast majority of the time. But if it's not going to be a factor at all, why did you, Keith and David decide to add female characters? If their gender isn't important why go with women instead of men?

Oh, make up your mind. First you accuse us of treating female characters worse, then you take the fact that we've gone out of our way to be more inclusive of female characters than the shows were as confirmation that we're sexist pigs? Don't you see what a fundamental contradiction that is?

I create female characters because I like and respect women. But when I'm writing a woman, I don't write her as "a female character," but as a character who is, among numerous other traits, female. I don't define her every action and decision by what sex chromosomes she has. It's just one facet of who she is. In the aggregate, I'll try to maintain a good balance of male and female characters, but I won't treat any single character as being defined by his or her gender above all else. I think your problem is that you are defining characters by their gender above all else, and you're assuming everyone else does too, so it doesn't occur to you that it's possible to make choices about characters for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they're male or female.

Let's not forget the very first female captain we saw. The Saratoga was disabled by the whale probe in TVH. Last we saw of her, she was calling for someone to help her. When we later saw that captain of the Yorktown, who was in a similar situation, he said that they were trying to generate power with a makeshift sloar sail (should be panel but let's assume he meant what he said). In his care, he's doing something to help himself and his crew and she's asking someone to rescue her.

Even if that's valid and not more cherrypicking, what the hell does it have to do with your accusations toward those of us who write Trek literature? We are not the same people who made that movie 25 years ago. Most of us were in high school or college at the time and didn't yet have any connection to the Trek franchise. I for one have always wished the Trek franchise would be more inclusive of women than it has usually been onscreen, and I've striven to live up to that goal in my writing. And I feel my contemporaries have successfully done the same.

Christopher, at no point have I referred to you personally giving female characters the short shrift.

Part of the problem is that most of the writers are men and generally don`t do as good a job writing women as they do men. The reverse is usually true as well. This is of course a general observation and there are authors of both genders who can handle characters of the opposite equally well.

Nowhere does this say that you do not write female characters well. None of this has been directed at you.

You don't believe that there is a bias against female characters in Trek lit now. I agree that it's much better than it has been, even just a few years ago.

How often has it been seriously considered to permanantly kill Picard? Or Sisko? Or Riker? Or Archer?