Well... lots of interesting responses for me to address. *cracks knuckles*
No, I have never stated that NO main character should be killed off, ever. There might be reasons where it's necessary, I mean if you watch "Titanic" then it is supposed that the main characters, well at least many of them are going to die.
But that's completely different. "Titanic" was a movie based on a real event about a cruise ship that sank, killing many of those aboard.
Obviously lots of people are going to die. Granted, I didn't specify, but I really meant purely fiction, and specifically, fiction that involves the characters of the story being put in danger on a regular basis (mortal danger, fairly often), like Trek does.
But when it comes to series like Star Trek, I think that it would only happen during very specific circumstances and "the Janeway case" is definitely not such a case.
Ok. So what, then, makes "the Janeway case" different or special? Is it just cause it was Janeway, and she was a personal favorite? If so (and some have indicated that yes, it was as simple as that), that's perfectly fine. For me personally, the death of one main - even a favorite - wouldn't be enough to drive me away like that, but that's just me.
The reason I asked this is to try and get a sense of why you seem to feel that Janeway's death was
wrong. A mistake that needs correcting, as I put it before. Weather you realize it or not,
Lynx, your posts have frequently gone way beyond just trying to get across your opinion; you seem to lack the ability to process the notion that for some people, Janeway's death is fine, that accepting said death doesn't mean we want Trek to suddenly spiral into this dark pit of despair and destruction. I'm just trying to figure out
why you can't accept that there are perfectly valid reasons to be ok with Janeway's death.
^^
Tasha Yar was killed off because the actress wanted to quit.
Not really. If a character is killed off, then of course the actor cannot continue on the show. But the reverse is not true. An actor leaving does not mean that the character NEEDS to die. When a character
does die, it's cause the producers decided to take advantage of the fact that the actor left to try and tell a story revolving around that character's death, which is obviously something they don't get to do very often (Tasha, Jadzia). But just cause an actor is taking off, doesn't mean the character must be killed (Kes, Dr. Crusher after season 1).
I would, yes. I like feel good stories and I enjoy action/adventure even though I know the main characters won't ever die. TOS was like that. The only death was the nameless ensign or redshirt. Spock's death changed all of that imo, but then they did bring him back. TNG was also safe, up until the death of Tasha Yar, but they brought her back later on as well. Now many here think it's stupid to kill off a character only to bring them back later on. It's not real and it somehow makes the death meaningless. I can understand that point, but my preference is to escape reality and feel good about what I watch or read.
I can respect that you would enjoy a story more with that knowledge. I personally don't really agree, but I can certainly respect it. I personally feel that what you described about TOS was one of that show's
weaknesses,that week after week, random background people would be killed due to the extreme danger the ship & crew found themselves in, yet our heroes would always come through unscathed. Of course, neither the books nor the shows can go around killing off a main every two weeks or something, just to balance things out; that'd be ridiculous. A more immediate solution is to be more careful about just how often and in what ways random redshirts (or goldshirts, as the case may be) bite it. And quite frankly, I could make a whole other post about my feelings on how death is portrayed/handled for
non-main characters. But I won't put all that in now; this post is already going to be another mini-novel.
Anyway, it is partly for this reason that I feel having main characters die
on occasion is fine, when handled properly. It's important sometimes to show that with all this dangerous stuff they go through, these mortal characters sometimes don't make it through. They are, afterall, no less mortal than the redshirts.
And I understand that some here simply feel that Janeway's death in Before Dishonor
wasn't handled well. I thought it was, but that - again - is just a matter of opinion.
It is not only because the arguments about Janeway`s death are turning in circles, it is also arguments like this one that I find frustrating and annoying.
I have been told sometimes in essence because I am not in favour of killing off “canon” main Star Trek characters that I only want to read happy stories in a nice utopia that makes you feel good about yourself.
Well, it is not my intention to be frustrating, nor annoying. If I have been, then I apologize. I will say that I'm more than certain that there are a number of people (on all sides of this debate) who have been frustrated or annoyed at times.
Now, as to the part I bolded, I find this a very interesting comment. Allow me to paraphrase it to make a point:
"I have been told sometimes in essence because I am ok with killing off Janeway or other "canon" main Star Trek characters that I only want to read dark stories in some kind of corrupted, un-Trek like twisted universe wherer everything is dark and horrible."
Note that I am not accusing you specifically of saying such a thing
Baerbel, but your comment provided the perfect way for me to address that. Certainly it's something that
Lynx has been saying over and over since this debate began (a point I was not going to bring up again after
Lynx said he was done with the debate a few pages ago; however, since he's back...)
Once again,
there is a middle ground. This entire situation is
gray, not black and white, which is entirely the point I have been trying to make.
There are valid reasons for a person to think that Janeway's death sucked, or that main characters should not be killed in general, and for that person to decide that they are not going to read the books anymore, at least until and unless she comes back. That's fine.
There are valid reasons for a person to think that Janeway's death was just fine, and that killing off TV mains is ok under the right circumstances. Those people may be very interested to see what happens in books like Full Circle, and are going to continue to read the books. That's fine too.
What's
not fine is this idea that Janeway's death is WRONG. That it was an
error. No one is saying that those of you who don't like it
should like it, or anything like that (well, ok... I'M not saying that, anyway. I won't speak for others, but I would assume no one here is trying to assert that anyone needs to change their personal opinion)
. All I'm trying to get across is that just because I'm ok with her death, doesn't mean that I'm somehow
happy that she died or that I want
more main characters to die. I just accept that in this kind of story, sometimes the death of main characters is part of life, and in this particular case, I thought the event was well written and opened up interesting dramatic possibilities, which I'm looking forward to exploring when I finally get around to picking up a copy of Full Circle. If others don't accept that, fine; I may not understand that, but I will respect it. All I'm asking is for the opposite viewpoint to be similarly respected.
As it is usually the case, my answer is “it depends”. A good example is Babylon 5. The death of Kosh was shocking to me and touched me a lot. But I loved that story. It fit so well into the overall story arc and I could live with that decision easily. Marcus, on the other hand, is a different matter. His death was very well written and touching as well but I hated it. I still think that his death was unnecessary and harmed the series.
I agree that it does depend. I also happen to agree with what you said about Kosh's death, but not about Marcus'. When I watched the ep, I thought it sucked, but it didn't take me long to come around to accepting it. My reaction to a main characters death will vary from character to character, show to show (or book to book, or whatever). It certainly wasn't my intention to paint myself as someone who says "All main character death is ok, no matter what", because it CAN absolutely be handled poorly and feel unnecessary. Not a
main character exactly, but the first example that came to mind: I thought the manner and timing of Joe Carey's death near the end of Voyager's season 7 was horrible, not to mention the lack of fallout afterward. To me, his death was stupid and unecessary.
By the way, what I hate most is the approach “The series, the story is nearly finished. It doesn`t matter any more – let`s kill off someone in order to give it some realistic touch and shock the audience.”
Now this I agree with. In fact, that is
preciesly how I felt about Carey's death.
