Full Circle

[AuntKate]

Where would I begin? As I read the first part, where she was so irate with Picard and so cantankerous with Lady Q, I was sure I was reading about the Admiral Janeway from the future, not the Janeway from season seven. If ever there was a Starfleet officer who was tolerant and forgiving of officers who had to think on their feet and react to unfolding situations, it was Janeway. There were many times in the DQ when she should have come down hard on her subordinates and didn't.

I don't think she would ever have assumed that the Kirk that arrived in her quarters was Q, and, even if she did, she would have called an intruder alert. Also, her relationship with Q was not at all hostile as Lady Q implied. She would have listened to Q, with a grain of salt, and she would have taken precautions or even stepped back to rethink her motivation. The last time she saw him, he gave her a "shortcut" for helping with his son and left a room full of roses for her. Not quite the way PD depicted the relationship.

One of the biggest clues? She had no sense of humor whatsoever and some really lame philosophizing, to boot. When the captain joked with her before she left the ship, she would have replied in kind as she always did. For example, in "Unimatrix Zero," when she was deliberately going to get assimilated, she joked with Chakotay as she left the bridge. What happened to that attitude?

Janeway was always scientific in her planning, and she never took risks unless there was an essential payoff. I don't believe she would have to see this cube for herself if it had been thoroughly studied already. She would have ordered it destroyed unless she thought there was some specific advantage to be gained--and it is clearly shown here that there isn't. She has no reason to be there, so, the Janeway I know wouldn't take the chance.

While she was more than willing to use force, she never went into any situation without a pretty elaborate set of answers to the "what ifs" that might come along. To beam onto that "dead" cube without several safety nets in place is something she would never do. She didn't survive seven years in the DQ and multiple brushes with the Borg by charging into danger for no good reason and with no avenues of escape.

Reading through those first pages reminded me why I put the novel down and why I don't read PD any more. He has taken big liberties with this character, and why not? He was going to kill her and she wasn't coming back, so why not make her act out of character. This reminds me of the character assassination that Chakotay and Seven got in "Endgame."

Enough? Maybe I should ask what you find about this opening that reminds you of Janeway?

 

[DigificWriter]

Thanks for the response, Aunt Kate; however, I have to say that the majority of the things you cite as inconsistencies are actually subjective, and are only inconsistencies if you see them as such, which I don't. That said, I do want to address some of your examples.

Janeway contemplating coming down on Picard: Momentarily contemplating whether or not Picard deserves to be taken to task for his actions is not the same as actually recommending such an action. If she had actually recommended taking Picard to task for his actions, that WOULD be out of character, but contemplating whether or not to take such action is not; it's Janeway simply living up to the by-the-book regulations/responsibilities of her rank in this instance, even if that isn't something she always did.

Suspicion of Lady Q; I don't remember very much about the Voyager Q episodes, but the fact that you used the words 'I don't think' in citing this as an inconsistency in her characterization kind of dulls your argument that it is in fact an inconsistency.

Going to the Borg cube without back-up or a back-up plan: Janeway has always trusted Seven's word implicitly, and it is hammered home repeatedly in the first few paragraphs of the novel that Seven's report indicated that the cube was dead. Furthermore, Janeway has always been a scientist at heart (as you mentioned), so it made complete sense to me that she'd want to see the cube for herself due to simple curiosity, and that she would do so with as few 'complications' as possible. I also found it completely believable that she might've been subconsciously have been feeling invulnerable as a result of her encounter with her future self, especially since Peter David never actually says that such is the case.

 

[AuntKate]

Digificwriter, I'm glad you found Janeway's actions completely believable. That means that, for you, PD did his job, to set up the story so that the readers are willing to "suspend disbelief" and let the plot evolve using the established parameters. This is especially true in science fiction, where the world that the writer creates might not resemble Earth or might have special qualities that are essential to the way the characters act and live. Star Trek is a special case because these characters are well-established in the franchise’s canon. In the case of “Before Dishonor,” I found it more difficult to suspend that disbelief about Janeway. For me, characters have to have proper motivation to be different from what I expect them to be--and, for me, PD fails to provide adequate motivation for the changes he makes in Janeway’s character.

Let me digress. We can all agree that PD is a good story teller; no one can write as many novels as he has without having a good grasp of narrative structure. A basic rule for fiction writing is that you only tell the parts of the story that are necessary to develop either the characters or the plot. Extraneous details, no matter how entertaining, are just not necessary and are usually left out. That means that whatever is left in is accomplishing one of those two tasks. Another rule that writers have to remember is that readers bring a certain amount of knowledge with them to the text. In Star Trek, that means that the readers are likely familiar with Star Trek canon. To include information about Starfleet, to describe how a transporter works, to tell who the Borg are and that they travel in cubes would be unnecessary, even boring information to a reader of Trek fiction. We can agree, I’m sure, that PD is well aware of these two things.

So, let’s turn to chapter one of “Before Dishonor.” The first pages of the book are pretty much focused on Kathryn Janeway, whose decision to go visit the cube is necessary for the rest of the plot. He has to include this action, so it satisfies the first rule above. PD also knows that his readers come to the novel with a clear understanding of who Janeway is and how she behaves. After all, she has been the main character of 170 television episodes, so we know what to expect. Or do we? PD spends a great deal of time explaining why she is behaving as she is and attempting to help us understand her motivation. If we already know her, why spend so much time on developing the character? There can only be one answer: this Janeway is not behaving the way canon would have her act. PD knows that and has to address it.

PD is modifying (assassinating?) her character only because he has been told that she is supposed to die and will no longer be part of Pocket Book’s future novels; if it were not for that, he would have never been so drastic in what he does. How does he change her? While this may be repetitive, let me just point out a few of the changes we see in those opening pages.

First, she is on a boondoggle, using Starfleet ships and personnel to take her on what is basically a sight-seeing trip. This is an abuse of her authority and something that is against Starfleet protocol. She as much as admits it when she says she could have commandeered a ship to go do it, but decided to just catch a ride instead. In all her years as an independent captain in the DQ, she never used her authority for a personal whim like this. Second, she is visited in her quarters by an alien presence in the shape of James Kirk without alerting the ship of the intruder. This has got to be a regulatory infraction that she dismisses with a lame excuse (although PD has a motive for it, as you will see). Instead, she makes a very unscientific leap of judgment that this entity is, in fact, Q and is, therefore, not a threat. I find both actions to be very much out of character. She isn’t that careless. However, it is necessary for PD’s plot that no one else knows about Q. What if the captain and crew knew that Q had not only been there, but had warned her against visiting the cube? It would have greatly complicated PD’s plot—so leave it out! Third, she admits to herself that she is probably risking her life just because she is curious about the cube, because she wants to see it and stand on it. This is definitely not the Janeway we know. After all, she passed up exploring the nebula full of Borg cubes, even though she was curious about it, because it was too dangerous. She has no motivation for going, no ulterior motive, nothing to gain from all this time and effort. I just don’t believe that the Janeway I know from canon would do any of these things.

Accepting PD’s Janeway in this book requires the reader to alter the way the character has been established in canon, something I am unwilling to do. That is why I put the book down while reading Chapter 1 and that is why I won’t read any more Voyager novels until she is restored. The decision to kill Janeway was just too much and handled too poorly, or why else would TPTB at the franchise insist Janeway have an avenue of return—hence her trip to Q-land with Lady Q?

The difference between our reactions to PD's book boils down to the fact that you are willing to accept these character changes and I'm not!

 

[JB2005]

Digificwriter, I'm glad you found Janeway's actions completely believable. That means that, for you, PD did his job, to set up the story so that the readers are willing to "suspend disbelief" and let the plot evolve using the established parameters. This is especially true in science fiction, where the world that the writer creates might not resemble Earth or might have special qualities that are essential to the way the characters act and live. Star Trek is a special case because these characters are well-established in the franchise’s canon. In the case of “Before Dishonor,” I found it more difficult to suspend that disbelief about Janeway. For me, characters have to have proper motivation to be different from what I expect them to be--and, for me, PD fails to provide adequate motivation for the changes he makes in Janeway’s character.

Let me digress. We can all agree that PD is a good story teller; no one can write as many novels as he has without having a good grasp of narrative structure. A basic rule for fiction writing is that you only tell the parts of the story that are necessary to develop either the characters or the plot. Extraneous details, no matter how entertaining, are just not necessary and are usually left out. That means that whatever is left in is accomplishing one of those two tasks. Another rule that writers have to remember is that readers bring a certain amount of knowledge with them to the text. In Star Trek, that means that the readers are likely familiar with Star Trek canon. To include information about Starfleet, to describe how a transporter works, to tell who the Borg are and that they travel in cubes would be unnecessary, even boring information to a reader of Trek fiction. We can agree, I’m sure, that PD is well aware of these two things.

So, let’s turn to chapter one of “Before Dishonor.” The first pages of
the book are pretty much focused on Kathryn Janeway, whose decision to go visit the cube is necessary for the rest of the plot. He has to include this action, so it satisfies the first rule above. PD also knows that his readers come to the novel with a clear understanding of who Janeway is and how she behaves. After all, she has been the main character of 170 television episodes, so we know what to expect. Or do we? PD spends a great deal of time explaining why she is behaving as she is and attempting to help us understand her motivation. If we already know her, why spend so much time on developing the character? There can only be one answer: this Janeway is not behaving the way canon would have her act. PD knows that and has to address it.

Except that Janeway was not "consistently" portrayed over the 7 years of Voyager. And we frequently see her acting in different ways. In Caretaker we see her sacrificing her crew to uphold her principles while in Endgame we see her as an admiral sacrificing her principles to protect her crew.

In the intervening 7 years she has gone off on vendettas against rogue Starfleet captains, violated the prime directive on numerous occasions ("Caretaker, Night spring immediately to mind) and then on others been willing to die or let others die for her beliefs.

And we've never seen a novel that focuses on Janeway as an Admiral. We've only seen novels up to this point that describe Janeway getting used to being an Admiral, so PD probably felt it was necessary to introduce the differences.

PD is modifying (assassinating?) her character only because he has been told that she is supposed to die and will no longer be part of Pocket Book’s future novels; if it were not for that, he would have never been so drastic in what he does. How does he change her? While this may be repetitive, let me just point out a few of the changes we see in those opening pages.

First, she is on a boondoggle, using Starfleet ships and personnel to take her on what is basically a sight-seeing trip. This is an abuse of her authority and something that is against Starfleet protocol. She as much as admits it when she says she could have commandeered a ship to go do it, but decided to just catch a ride instead.

Read Full Circle. The reasoning is explained totally.

In all her years as an independent captain in the DQ, she never used her authority for a personal whim like this

.

Sure she did, in Course:Oblivion she wanted to extend the (admittedly curtailed) trip home on the grounds that she wanted to do some exploring.

In Equinox she went on a vendetta against Ransom rather than trying to escape.

Second, she is visited in her quarters by an alien presence in the shape of James Kirk without alerting the ship of the intruder.

Why should she? When Janeway was visited by Q or other entities in her quarters she rarely as a first step said "Janeway to Tuvok, help there's something in my quarters"

This has got to be a regulatory infraction that she dismisses with a lame excuse (although PD has a motive for it, as you will see). Instead, she makes a very unscientific leap of judgment that this entity is, in fact, Q and is, therefore, not a threat.

Q never threatened Voyager like he did Enterprise, he was always far more benign in his visits.

I find both actions to be very much out of character. She isn’t that careless.

Depends on exactly who's characterising her...

However, it is necessary for PD’s plot that no one else knows about Q. What if the captain and crew knew that Q had not only been there, but had warned her against visiting the cube?

Well considering how irritated Janeway was by the Captain in question (perhaps understandably) I doubt she was putting much stock in it.

It would have greatly complicated PD’s plot—so leave it out!

You're complaining about the fact that things only happen to service the plot...and you're a Voyager fan?

Third, she admits to herself that she is probably risking her life just because she is curious about the cube, because she wants to see it and stand on it. This is definitely not the Janeway we know. After all, she passed up exploring the nebula full of Borg cubes, even though she was curious about it, because it was too dangerous.

No she wants to make sure it is dead. Unlike in Endgame where she was dealing with many live Borg cubes, here she is dealing with one that she has been told is dead...

She has no motivation for going, no ulterior motive, nothing to gain from all this time and effort.

Umm...Full Circle disagrees with you

I just don’t believe that the Janeway I know from canon would do any of these things.

That would be the Janeway from the Omega Directive? Who wanted just her and Seven of Nine to take a shuttle craft to destroy the largest number of Omega molecules ever detected and only stopped when Chakotay told her she was being an idiot?

Accepting PD’s Janeway in this book requires the reader to alter the way the character has been established in canon, something I am unwilling to do.

You probably should stay away from nu-TNG then...Picard actually pulling his finger out and marrying crusher is hardly in keeping with the character...people change. Especially when they are promoted and placed into different circumstances. Admiral Janeway was nothing like Captain Janeway. Just like Captain Riker is far different from Commander Riker and Lt Commander Data is far different from Lt Data.

That is why I put the book down while reading Chapter 1 and that is why I won’t read any more Voyager novels until she is restored. The decision to kill Janeway was just too much and handled too poorly, or why else would TPTB at the franchise insist Janeway have an avenue of return—hence her trip to Q-land with Lady Q?

Because they're hedging. They want a way to be able to bring her back if absolutely necessary, in case she ever crops up in canon/.

The difference between our reactions to PD's book boils down to the fact that you are willing to accept these character changes and I'm not!

seriously, read Full Circle, a lot of your problems with the novel are dealt with there!

 

[DigificWriter]

Aunt Kate: One of the 'unwritten rules' of Trek Lit is that each novel - even those that are part of a crossover series or ongoing story arc - stand alone as effectively as they are 'tied together'; where you saw Peter David's meticulous set-up/focus on Janeway's character as malevolent, I saw it as him simply doing his job as a writer by making the reader aware of why she was in the situation she was and why she was taking the actions she was taking so that, on the chance that someone (like myself) was picking up the novel without having read any of the things that preceded it, they wouldn't be confused.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion in this regard, but I I do think that basing your criticism/hatred of "Before Dishonor" solely on that opinion weakens said opinion somewhat because it makes you come across in some fashion as incredibly intransient and unwilling to budge.

Yes, Peter David has said that he doesn't really care for Janeway, but that doesn't automatically mean that he was deliberately mishandling her just to piss off Janeway/Voyager fans, nor does it automatically disqualify him from being chosen to faciliate/describe Janeway's removal from the ST 'universal narrative'.

One final thought that is somewhat related to your criticism of BD: I happen to be a fan of Peter David's writing style, but my enjoyment of BD is/has been tempered somewhat by certain choices he made with regards to his handling of the 'rebellion' that is staged by Miranda Kadohata and other members of the Enterprise's 'command crew' against Picard (particularly with regards to Kadohata and how it makes her come across as an entirely different character from the one present in the other novels I've read thus far that feature her [Destiny]). However, I'm also forgiving enough to not let my issues in that regard completely cloud my enjoyment/judgment of BD as a whole. Do I wish that he would've kept Kadohata's involvement in the 'rebellion' against Picard in keeping with her characterization as it is in Destiny? Yes. Am I completely discounting his fitness to write her character or taking the inconsistencies his handling of her produces as a personal attack? No, I am not.

You seem to have taken PD's handling of Janeway's character as a personal attack against you and your love of the character, which smacks, to me, of egotism and, as noted, an intransience and unwillingness to budge and accept that characters change and evolve, even if that change and evolution isn't manifested in a manner that you would have preferred. Said egotism is, ultimately, the fatal flaw in your argument against Before Dishonor and Janeway's death, because it prevents you from being objective about the situation.

 

[HoneyBLilly]

Ok, the books aren't canon.


Why does it matter?

She's not really dead, just "dead"

In plain English, and Treklore, that means she'll be back at some point. And even then, the books aren't canon, therefore none of this happened.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ I wouldn't say that it's a 'given' that she'll be back at some point (at least in terms of the Trek Lit), merely that the potential for her to return at some point exists (just as it did with Sisko).

You are right, though, about Janeway's death not 'mattering' in the long run, at least when it comes to the annals of Trek canon, since, as noted, the novels have no bearing on said canon and are ultimately, for the most part, subservient to it.

 

[BillJ]

You're complaining about the fact that things only happen to service the plot...and you're a Voyager fan?

You owe me a keyboard JB, I spit Mountain Dew all over mine when I read this.

 

[JB2005]

You're complaining about the fact that things only happen to service the plot...and you're a Voyager fan?

You owe me a keyboard JB, I spit Mountain Dew all over mine when I read this.

My work here is done

 

[AuntKate]

JB2500, I'm not going to copy you're reply to my post, because it's ridiculously long already. However, I do want to make some comments.

The "inconsistency" complaint about Janeway is overblown and often taken out of context. She was more consistent than many are willing to acknowledge, and an unbiased watching of the series would reveal that. If she was the same old Janeway in "Before Dishonor," PD wouldn't have had to spend the first chapter establishing her "new" characteristics. She just would have shown up at the dead cube, and we all would have said, "There she goes again, letting her curiosity and lack of planning get her rump in a sling again." Nope, he had to make some changes to Janeway for us to believe his upcoming plot.

The "Course: Oblivion" Janeway was the duplicate. It is open to argument whether or not that copy of her is the same as the real thing. There was no escape from the beings in "Equinox," and, when she realized that, she contacted the friendly race that helped her communicate with them. I would have been after Ransom just as hard-core as she was.

You're right about Q never being threatening, but she didn't know for sure that Kirk was Q--and it wasn't Q, it was Lady Q. And since, as you point out, they were such good buddies, why wouldn't she take his warning about the cube seriously? She would have. She often modified her plans based on crew input (look at "Unimatrix Zero," where she agreed to take along Torres and Tuvok, for example).

I don't buy the comment that she went to the cube because she was "making sure it was dead." That's not what she says in "Before Dishonor"; she says it is purely curiosity.

None of your comments about "Full Circle" apply here. I'm talking about "Before Dishonor" as it's own novel. When it was written, "Full Circle" was not yet published.

All writing services the plot. I think that was my first point.

 

[AuntKate]

Aunt Kate: One of the 'unwritten rules' of Trek Lit is that each novel - even those that are part of a crossover series or ongoing story arc - stand alone as effectively as they are 'tied together'; where you saw Peter David's meticulous set-up/focus on Janeway's character as malevolent, I saw it as him simply doing his job as a writer by making the reader aware of why she was in the situation she was and why she was taking the actions she was taking so that, on the chance that someone (like myself) was picking up the novel without having read any of the things that preceded it, they wouldn't be confused.

I never said that PD's change of Janeway was "malevolent." In fact, I agree with you about the fact that he was doing his job of establishing her reasoning and motivation--because it is different than the usual Janeway we have seen before. If her behavior here was typical, he wouldn't have needed to spend so many pages explaining why she was taking this trip. He realized the need to do some significant character development (or modification) before he could continue with the plot.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion in this regard, but I I do think that basing your criticism/hatred of "Before Dishonor" solely on that opinion weakens said opinion somewhat because it makes you come across in some fashion as incredibly intransient and unwilling to budge.

Thank you for letting me have my opinion! I'll give the same consideration! I suppose I could say you were being "intransient" and unwilling to budge, but that might be a bit too critical.

Yes, Peter David has said that he doesn't really care for Janeway, but that doesn't automatically mean that he was deliberately mishandling her just to piss off Janeway/Voyager fans, nor does it automatically disqualify him from being chosen to faciliate/describe Janeway's removal from the ST 'universal narrative'.

Did I say he was deliberately "mishandling her to piss off" her fans? What I said was that the fact that she was not going to be back (or so he thought) meant that he could more or less do whatever he wanted with her character--and he did, in typical PD fashion.

One final thought that is somewhat related to your criticism of BD: I happen to be a fan of Peter David's writing style, but my enjoyment of BD is/has been tempered somewhat by certain choices he made with regards to his handling of the 'rebellion' that is staged by Miranda Kadohata and other members of the Enterprise's 'command crew' against Picard (particularly with regards to Kadohata and how it makes her come across as an entirely different character from the one present in the other novels I've read thus far that feature her [Destiny]). However, I'm also forgiving enough to not let my issues in that regard completely cloud my enjoyment/judgment of BD as a whole. Do I wish that he would've kept Kadohata's involvement in the 'rebellion' against Picard in keeping with her characterization as it is in Destiny? Yes. Am I completely discounting his fitness to write her character or taking the inconsistencies his handling of her produces as a personal attack? No, I am not.

I enjoyed "Imzadi" and several of his Q novels. I think I said he was a good storyteller who knows his craft. I'm sure he could do a good job of bringing Janeway back if that was his assignment in an upcoming novel. In fact, that would be poetic justice!

You seem to have taken PD's handling of Janeway's character as a personal attack against you and your love of the character, which smacks, to me, of egotism and, as noted, an intransience and unwillingness to budge and accept that characters change and evolve, even if that change and evolution isn't manifested in a manner that you would have preferred. Said egotism is, ultimately, the fatal flaw in your argument against Before Dishonor and Janeway's death, because it prevents you from being objective about the situation.

I don't think that anything I have said has constituted a personal attack on PD nor do I feel that I was personally targeted by the plot of "Before Dishonor." In fact, I think my tone has been very objective and unemotional, focusing on narrative choices and decisions. I am not hiding the fact that I'm unhappy with the way Janeway was handled in "Before Dishonor" and admit to feeling that her character was done a disservice, but I have no problem with characters that "evolve and change" in a manner that is consistent and respectful. What was done to Janeway was simply too extreme for my preference. I'll be happy when she is restored to her former self.

 

[JB2005]

JB2500, I'm not going to copy you're reply to my post, because it's ridiculously long already. However, I do want to make some comments.

The "inconsistency" complaint about Janeway is overblown and often taken out of context.

We do see her at times acting in ways which aren't always readily (if ever) explained...my reading was that BD was one of these occasions, (if you read Full Circle then you get a better understanding of why:

Spoiler: Full Circle Explanation

She hadn't had a good seeing to by Chakotay in nearly a year, which was interfering with her good mood and Starfleet was threatening to send Voyager back to the DQ, which since Janeway had desperately brought them back she wasn't very keen on happening, so she parlayed that in exchange for her investigating the cube.

Plus JLP had undermined her authority as an Admiral (3 grades ahead of him no less) by refusing to follow orders, and worse he'd been right and we all know how much Janeway hates being wrong (that's fairly consistent in the show)

She was more consistent than many are willing to acknowledge, and an unbiased watching of the series would reveal that. If she was the same old Janeway in "Before Dishonor," PD wouldn't have had to spend the first chapter establishing her "new" characteristics. She just would have shown up at the dead cube, and we all would have said, "There she goes again, letting her curiosity and lack of planning get her rump in a sling again." Nope, he had to make some changes to Janeway for us to believe his upcoming plot.

But not all TNG fans might be familiar with Janeway, and since she is now an Admiral, it is quite possible her motivations and outlook could have changed. She has been in the AQ for 3 years. Compare Season 1 Janeway with Season 4 Janeway with Season 7 Janeway with Nemesis Janeway.

The "Course: Oblivion" Janeway was the duplicate. It is open to argument whether or not that copy of her is the same as the real thing.

Since no one could tell Tom and Harry weren't real, I'd tend towards the same.

There was no escape from the beings in "Equinox," and, when she realized that, she contacted the friendly race that helped her communicate with them.

No. Chakotay wanted to contact the race (Janeway just wanted to keep plowing after the Equinox) and Janeway practically kidnapped them in order to get them to help.

Janeway wanted to torture people instead of looking for a peaceful solution. She confined Chakotay to quarters for daring to stand up to her and threatened to do the same to Tuvok when he pointed out she was acting contrary to the law.

I would have been after Ransom just as hard-core as she was.

That's not a good thing...

You're right about Q never being threatening, but she didn't know for sure that Kirk was Q--and it wasn't Q, it was Lady Q.

Apples and Oranges

And since, as you point out, they were such good buddies, why wouldn't she take his warning about the cube seriously? She would have. She often modified her plans based on crew input (look at "Unimatrix Zero," where she agreed to take along Torres and Tuvok, for example)

.

Key Word being "Crew" input. Q input on the other hand...bearing in mind the last time she had encountered Q, Lady Q had abandoned her son and left "Aunt Kathy" to deal with him, I'm not surprised she chose not to heed her warnings.

Plus in all the times Q has shown up (except when he was chasing skirt on DS9, but lets not go there) he's always had an ulterior motive that is not readily apparent. I'm guessing Janeway knew that whatever she did there was no helping her...

I don't buy the comment that she went to the cube because she was "making sure it was dead." That's not what she says in "Before Dishonor"; she says it is purely curiosity.

Well I forget the exact reason, but if it is curiosity then since you said curious Janeway is what "our" (or rather your...) janeway is, I don't see the problem.

None of your comments about "Full Circle" apply here. I'm talking about "Before Dishonor" as it's own novel. When it was written, "Full Circle" was not yet published.

So? It's not unknown for characters motivations to not come out until later books, or to be expanded upon in later books.
Should I say that it's stupid that B'elanna was the one who built Emperor Kahless a mobile emitter because it doesn't say it in ATFWATFP or that Kristen Beyer was wrong to include B'Elanna and Miral alive in Full Circle because KRAD had killed them in ASD?

All writing services the plot. I think that was my first point.

Then your argument confuses me. Why is it a problem that PD makes sure Janeway's motivations are known in order to make the plot clear?

If you want to talk moronic in BD lets discuss Mackenzie Calhoun promoting JLP to commodore...but I let that one slide because it's Calhoun!

 

[DigificWriter]

I never said that PD's change of Janeway was "malevolent." In fact, I agree with you about the fact that he was doing his job of establishing her reasoning and motivation--because it is different than the usual Janeway we have seen before. If her behavior here was typical, he wouldn't have needed to spend so many pages explaining why she was taking this trip. He realized the need to do some significant character development (or modification) before he could continue with the plot.

You're claiming that you agree that PD was just 'doing his job', yet at the same time you're claiming that the only reason he had to be 'doing his job' is because he treated Janeway completely OOC. The fact that you're claiming he would not have had to have spent so much time dealing with her character if she wasn't, according to you, being written completely OOC kind of offsets/nullifies any statement of agreeance with regards to why PD spent so much time with Janeway at the start of BD.

Thank you for letting me have my opinion! I'll give the same consideration! I suppose I could say you were being "intransient" and unwilling to budge, but that might be a bit too critical.

You COULD call me 'intransient', and you'd be completely wrong, because I'm not the one who has taken what would normally be considered an instance of an author evolving a character and instead chosen to look at said instance as said author mishandling said character (which you have done).

Did I say he was deliberately "mishandling her to piss off" her fans? What I said was that the fact that she was not going to be back (or so he thought) meant that he could more or less do whatever he wanted with her character--and he did, in typical PD fashion.

Not directly, no; however, the gist of your argument is that, by treating Janeway in the fashion that he did, he somehow 'mishandled' her character because she wasn't written in a fashion that you consider to be consistent with her portrayal in canon.

I don't think that anything I have said has constituted a personal attack on PD nor do I feel that I was personally targeted by the plot of "Before Dishonor." In fact, I think my tone has been very objective and unemotional, focusing on narrative choices and decisions. I am not hiding the fact that I'm unhappy with the way Janeway was handled in "Before Dishonor" and admit to feeling that her character was done a disservice, but I have no problem with characters that "evolve and change" in a manner that is consistent and respectful. What was done to Janeway was simply too extreme for my preference. I'll be happy when she is restored to her former self.

A lot of your arguments against BD have boiled down to a repeated insistence that PD mishandled Janeway's character or wrote her as completely OOC simply because he could and because he knew he was going to kill her off. That, to me, very much smacks of 'taking it personally' that Janeway wasn't treated/written in a manner that you think she should've been, as does this claim that you'll only be happy 'when she is restored to her former self'.

 

[AuntKate]

You asked how PD's Janeway was OOC. I think I showed that in spades. Put a fork in it, I'm done.

 

[JB2005]

^ And I refuted that assessment...

if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen

 

[Brit]

^ And I refuted that assessment...

if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen

It isn't a kitchen, and Aunt Kate is right. PD's version is out of character. We want Janeway stories and we are going to demand them.

"Fight 'em till hell freezed over, and then fight 'em on the ice."

Dutch Meyer, 1939 Legendary TCU Coach.

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/usnikefootball/en_US/rivalries2010#uniform?id=tcu

No one gets anywhere by giving up, and we haven't.

Brit

 

[JB2005]

^ And I refuted that assessment...

if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen

It isn't a kitchen, and Aunt Kate is right. PD's version is out of character. We want Janeway stories and we are going to demand them.

"Fight 'em till hell freezed over, and then fight 'em on the ice."

Dutch Meyer, 1939 Legendary TCU Coach.

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/usnikefootball/en_US/rivalries2010#uniform?id=tcu

No one gets anywhere by giving up, and we haven't.

Brit

It's good to see you're prepared to be open minded

 

[Brit]

^ And I refuted that assessment...

if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen

It isn't a kitchen, and Aunt Kate is right. PD's version is out of character. We want Janeway stories and we are going to demand them.

"Fight 'em till hell freezed over, and then fight 'em on the ice."

Dutch Meyer, 1939 Legendary TCU Coach.

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/usnikefootball/en_US/rivalries2010#uniform?id=tcu

No one gets anywhere by giving up, and we haven't.

Brit

It's good to see you're prepared to be open minded

My mind is just as open as yours.

Brit

 

[JB2005]

It isn't a kitchen, and Aunt Kate is right. PD's version is out of character. We want Janeway stories and we are going to demand them.

"Fight 'em till hell freezed over, and then fight 'em on the ice."

Dutch Meyer, 1939 Legendary TCU Coach.

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/usnikefootball/en_US/rivalries2010#uniform?id=tcu

No one gets anywhere by giving up, and we haven't.

Brit

It's good to see you're prepared to be open minded

My mind is just as open as yours.

Brit

Touche!

Well Kristen Beyer didn't outright say Janeway wasn't in COTS so who knows!

 

[BillJ]

I think I'd be less inclined to read Voyager books (but never say never) if they brought Janeway back. Simply because they would be returning to the dynamics of a TV show I really didn't care all that much about.

My mind is just as open as yours.

Brit

Not even close.