• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Poorly treated characters

Though it did not occur in the books I think the most needless/poorly plan/without forethought to future happenings was the death of K'Ehleyr, her ambassadorial duties alone would have been extremely beneficial to various plots, not to mention further interaction with Worf and Alexander.
 
This has actually been in the back of my mind since the latest eruption of anti-dead-Janeway sentiment, but I think what they should really be angry about is the end of the last "String Theory" book. Now, I've heard arguments up one side and down the other about Janeway's characterization and how consistent it may or may not have been, but that's no excuse for what happened here. Any character inconsistencies with Janeway in the last half of the show are explained as being because she's insane due to brain damage and the rest of the crew must never speak of it again, or else her brain will explode.

Okay, so having Janeway killed by the baddest mother to ever go after the Federation ever, complete with her fighting off the Borg from the inside is murdering the dream of female equality, but saying that her actions only make sense if she's mentally handicapped and everyone needs to humor her no matter how bad her decisions are because otherwise she'll die, well that's a-ok.

It's a shame that the forum doesn't go back that far. I'm curious about how the critics of that overlap with opinions in the great Janeway debate.

I read all three of those novels, somehow. About halfway through the second one, I was ready to pull my hair out. It was really bad, but ten times better than the third one. Janeway was totally UNRECOGNIZABLE in String Theory. I'm guessing that no one mentions it because they didn't finish the trilogy. Look on your shelf, readers. I bet the spine of Book Three is uncreased and perfect. I sure wish mine was! :lol:
 
... discussing Janeway in the TrekLit forum. The conversation never goes anywhere but the same old places.

Replace the word "Janeway" with any of the following and you have the exact same thing.

the Borg
the Shatnerverse
Mirror Universe
the Destiny Trilogy
Canon
New Frontier
Titan (in particular the diversity)
DS9 Relaunch
Kirk
Picard
Sisko
Archer
Trip
the Enterprise Relaunch
....
I could go on....
 
I haven't read the DS9 relaunch, but some fans are upset with the direction that's been taken with the Sisko character. Anyone care to fill me in?
 
Sisko makes some bad decisions that leave him in a sort of unlikable place. Being Sisko, however, I'm willing to have faith that he will see how stupid he's being.

After all, the story is in the journey, not the ending.
 
Hands down it has to be Janeway. Quite frankly, if my only exposure to the character was via Trek Lit then I wouldn't be a fan myself.

So true. It seems that the Trek Lit writers have decided that Janeway's erratic behavior in two or three episodes are so important that they render her more positive qualities insignificant. What about the Janeway we saw in the other 167 episodes? She is flawed and human, but she isn't careless or imprudent. She cares about and stays involved with her crew, and she is able to laugh at herself more than once. She would never have marched onto any Borg cube without knowing what she was getting into and how to get out of it because she never took risks without having backup plans in place.

Is Janeway too complex a character for Trek Lit to treat properly? :p
 
Hands down it has to be Janeway. Quite frankly, if my only exposure to the character was via Trek Lit then I wouldn't be a fan myself.

I dunno, the way Deanna Troi was portrayed when she was pregnant, all emo and self absorbed was pretty bad.

Oh wait..
 
I haven't read the DS9 relaunch, but some fans are upset with the direction that's been taken with the Sisko character. Anyone care to fill me in?
In Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire after a bunch of bad stuff happens to his family and friends (his dad dies, his daughter is kidnapped, and Elias Vaugh is injured and ends up in a coma) he decides that the Prophets warning about his marriage to Kasidy bringing them nothing but misery was correct and leaves Kasidy, their daughter and Jake. Alot of people were upset and thought this was out of character, but I actually thought in context it made plenty of sense, and was perfectly in character.
 
It came true because the first reply to the OP's list of 4 misused characters was a post focussing only on Janeway and why the OP was incorrect.
 
Hands down it has to be Janeway. Quite frankly, if my only exposure to the character was via Trek Lit then I wouldn't be a fan myself.

So true. It seems that the Trek Lit writers have decided that Janeway's erratic behavior in two or three episodes are so important that they render her more positive qualities insignificant. What about the Janeway we saw in the other 167 episodes?

"Yeah, but, officer, what about all those people I didn't brutally murder?"

Sometimes, the gravity of a few isolated decisions is simply too great not to outweigh the rest of one's choices.
 
I dunno, the way Deanna Troi was portrayed when she was pregnant, all emo and self absorbed was pretty bad.

"Emo?" She was grieving after losing her first baby to a miscarriage! She'd discovered that her second baby was guaranteed to die the same way! Nothing could possibly be more tragic and horrible to go through. How can you not understand that? "Emo?" That's like saying that "Chain of Command" portrayed Picard badly because he got "whiny" about being tortured.
 
So true. It seems that the Trek Lit writers have decided that Janeway's erratic behavior in two or three episodes are so important that they render her more positive qualities insignificant.


You know, I didn't get that memo . . . .

Seriously, it would be a mistake to assume that "the Trek Lit writers" are some sort of monolithic entity working from a common consensus. Different authors are going to handle the same character slightly differently. Put five Trek writers on a Shore Leave panel and you'll probably hear five different opinions.

I believe it was Mimi Panitch who said that being the editor of the Trek books was like being the Pope during a time of extreme doctrinal dispute. Everybody has a different interpretation of the Canon and they all think they're right . . . . .
 
It seems that the Trek Lit writers have decided that Janeway's erratic behavior in two or three episodes are so important that they render her more positive qualities insignificant.

Well, no... What Evolution said was that what happened to Janeway would still leave her perfectly fit to command but might, on rare occasions, cause inexplicable mood swings. It makes it clear that the "erratic behavior" would be a very rare exception to the norm -- and even hedges by saying there's no guarantee it'll happen at all, so readers who don't find her behavior problematical in those two or three episodes would be free to continue believing that way. So really this is being blown way out of proportion. That's what happens when people go by vague recollections and assumptions and rumors rather than checking the actual text.
 
Picard is being portrayed as a loving father after years and years of disliking children.

HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO HIM, AUTHORS. RAGERAGERAGE
 
Are you talking about geting along with his fake son?

What fake son? In the current novel continuity, Picard and his wife Beverly have a real son, Rene, who was conceived near the end of Greater Than the Sum and is a bit over a year old as of Paths of Disharmony and The Struggle Within.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top