I think you're comparing apples to oranges. Yes, non-canon characters have been killed off. One of the big kerfuffles about the whole Janeway thing is that she is a main canon character. As such, if any future deaths are restricted to non-canon characters, then there's really no difference whatsoever. The sense of peril is unchanged.
The bolded part is what I wanted to address, although
Thrawn did put it very well in his responses. To some of us, what
Thrawn said about characters dying in New Frontier is
not comparing apples to oranges, because we care about the non-canon mains (the people I have been referring to as "book originals" in my posts) as much as some of the TV show/canon mains. Of course:
But I concede that this could be a subjective area. Other than that, I don't think we're actually that far in disagreement.
Now
that is something I think we can all agree on; this is a very subjective discussion, and really, none of us are ever going to bend when it comes to certain key points. But I still find the debate worthwhile.
This I can agree with, or could agree with if I first agreed with the premise that Janeway's death actually contributed anything to the ongoing story instead of massively detracting from it. But again, there's the problem of the exception proving the rule, because if it's that infrequent it can't contribute to a genuine, realistic universe where death is common and the characters are in danger; your middle-ground, the so-called balance, remains massively slanted towards the certainty of characters surviving; only perhaps now it's a 97% certainty instead of a 99% one. What it becomes is almost a kind of life-event tokenism, the bragging rights to "see, we did that once". And it rings entirely false, reeking of--yes--a stunt.
Well, this too is subjective (weather or not Janeway's death was a "stunt", weather or not it did anything for a sense of peril, etc), but again, I point to the Trek TV shows and movies.
How infrequent, exactly, is "this infrequent"? The canon works killed six characters (I forgot about Trip before), and only one of them has come back to life within another canon work. How does that factor into what you're saying? Are any of those "stunt deaths"? All of them? None? If they are ok, what is different about Janeway's that makes it
not ok?
You might not have, but others did--and if you don't agree with the original premise, why take issue with my responses to it?
Uhh... Not sure what you mean here, but I think there must have been some confusion. This part of your post was attached to a part of my post which was in
turn meant to respond to a point made by
octavia.
You approve of the decision to kill the character. You've repeatedly opposed suggestions that this be reversed. This isn't a boulder that lands on someone's head: these are choices made. Still, 'want' may have been the wrong word here; 'prefer' Janeway dead?
Perhaps "approve" is the wrong word (and yes, I used it too). "Accept" is really closer.
Actually, I don't think I ever said I preferred she
remained dead. For me, it's not really about that as much as the debate about the fact that she died in the first place. If they want to bring her back down the line somewhere, I'm fine with that. I do personally feel that brining her back too
fast would cheapen the meaning of her death, but that's purely from the standpoint that I think the story would be better. In terms of her being back in the Trek universe, I have no problem with that. Maybe I never did make this clear, really, I dunno. But for me, the point of entering this debate was never really centered around the question of weather or not she should come back (despite the fact that the thread was originally supposed to be about just that
).
Dude, chillax. Metaphor, yes? Figures of speech. When I talk about 'commodity fetishism', you don't imagine I'm talking about humping a Mercedes-Benz, do you?
I'm just saying there's a fair amount of agreement with the idea, not that anybody wants to ravish Janeway's mutilated body (although there have been a handful of intimations about the corpse and golden showers...)
Well, my wording was a little strong, granted. But I do think it's pretty ridiculous a connection to make. And yes, I'm aware that you didn't
actually mean we had a secret desire to do anything disturbed like that. What I was reacting to was the idea that my words in this debate (and others' words, as well) in any way reflect
any kind of desire to see Trek have more character death, or become darker, or anything of the sort. I'm not suggesting that YOU were suggesting that any of us are actual, honest-to-god necrophiliacs. But some of the stuff you said... say, the comment about "there's no reason you shouldn't enjoy slasher films" for example. I found that to be baseless and completely nonsensical in this context. The relationship between: A) accepting this character death, and believing that character death can have value to this franchise,
and B) wanting more characters to die, wanting more violence and death and destruction in Trek, is not automatic. Agreeing with A does not mean the person agrees with B, period. That's all I was getting at.
^ *Applauds.*
You keep saying what I want to say, only better. It's a little annoying...
It's definitely a skill
Saito has, isn't it??
Aww, thanks you guys.
Seriously though, I can say the same thing. For example:
If book after book of reset-button-itis starts being published, then the universe will start losing this legitimacy to my mind.
This, right here, is why I started to lose interest in the books during the Richard Arnold era, and its immediate aftermath. Book after book of inconsequential stories that in the end, had no effect on our characters and were kind of disposable as a result. I'm not saying there weren't some well-written books done during this time--a lot of them were pretty good, and written by authors who chafed against the imposed restrictions--but
for me personally, the reset button made them less enjoyable. I like the new way of doing things much better.
Nonsensical stories are far more damaging to the legitimacy of the universe, and those can just as easily occur with 'reset button' stories (The Good That Men Do) as the so-called consequential ones (Before Dishonor). As always, the onus is first and foremost on execution.
Now this I agree with. While I don't have the hate-on for
Before Dishonor that many seem to, I did find an awful lot of the execution to be pretty far-fetched, to say the least; it almost had the air, occasionally, of Peter David writing a spoof rather than a quote-unquote serious book. I don't have a problem with a less-than-serious style of storytelling--"The Trouble With Tribbles" leaps to mind--but that was executed well, and
BD wasn't, by and large.
Very well said (by
Clay and by
Thrawn as well... I didn't include most of
Thrawn's post because my post is long enough already).
Especially the part about the older Trek books. I found a few to be pretty good, but I had trouble really getting into any of them. They all felt sort of... I don't wanna say "pointless", exactly, but something like that. They all had that "This could have been just another episode" feel. Except... they
couldn't, because none of them were canon, and they could never follow along with plot threads started in other books. It felt too much like it was almost just ripoffs of the TV shows. I know that's not what they
were, but it's the closest I can get to articulating why they couldn't hold my interest.
The more recent stuff, though, is fascinating to me,
because it's gone into the realm of "beyond the shows": continuing to tell the stories of this universe after the shows have ended. This is great because - while
technically, novels are still not canon - it has a different feel, since there are no shows to contradict it. It's not "canon", but until/unless a new show were to be made, the main novel continuity might as well be what "really" happens. Plus, for me, the simple fact that it's all one big continuity, that the events of the TNG relaunch and the DS9 relaunch and
Destiny and
Full Circle... all these stories
exist in the same continuous timeline, instead of each individual story being it's own self-contained thing that "could have" happened (but didn't)... this is a FAR superior format, for me anyway.
Oh, and as for
Before Dishonor... I generally agree with your assessment,
Clay, except that I didn't think it was executed "not well." I would say it was more like "good, but not great." I did
enjoy the book quite a bit, but I also had issues with several parts of it (although the actual moment of Janeway's death was not one of them). All in all, I thought it was good, but by far not the best modern TrekLit I have read.
This may be my longest post yet!
anyone feel up to it?
