Gods above.
I swore to myself when I saw this thread that I wouldn't go here again. My work here was done a long time ago. But perhaps you don't realize how incredibly insulting these posts have been over the many many months during which they have been written, or how insulting they continue to be. I fear that you do, and that this is intentional on your part. If it's not, my apologies for misreading your tone time and time again.
While I don't for a moment entertain the folly that I will be able to change anyone's mind, for those who may not be familiar with some of the previous discussion of this topic and who might actually believe some of this nonsense, and speaking as one of only a few people on the planet who actually knows what was in the minds of those who made this decision since I, you know...
worked for them, I'm going to try and make this totally clear.
So...we'll start here...
What I don't agree with is the whole "We thought Janeway had to die so the crew could move on" justification. Janeway was not their mother - she was their captain. You never hear anyone say "Picard had to die since he was the father figure to the crew". I find the whole idea that Janeway had to die to tell a good story repugnant. It does a disservice to the fans who have been waiting patiently for a DECENT story featuring her. For why I believe there have not been decent stories with her in them lately please refer to AuntKate's post above.
Here you assert that "we" allowed Janeway's character to die so that a) the crew could move on, and b) that she
had to die in order for anyone to tell a good story.
And this you find repugnant.
If in part a by "we" you are referring to anyone other than the editors and authors involved, then I am misreading your post. (I'll gladly acknowledge that some who have speculated upon the reasons for this choice might have made such statements.) Given, that you then cite Aunt Kate's post (which I'll get to in a minute) however, and she more explicitly puts reasons into the minds of the editors, I'm going to address this as if you are referring to the editors and authors.
Both a) and b) are simply preposterous. If they were true, I might share your distaste, but they are not.
Whether Janeway had lived or died, the crew would have moved on. Whether she had come back to Voyager by taking a reduction in rank or as an Admiral, or had continued to participate in stories from her post at Starfleet, the crew would have moved on. We're not telling stories in which the characters do not grow and change. At least not anymore. Every single character has to have an action or emotional arc which is moving forward in every story or there's no reason to have them in the story. Any of the above Janeway choices, and the choice to allow her to die, lead to different possible directions for all of the characters.
All that was done...
All that was done, was for the editors to select and the writers to execute one of these choices. The editors chose the one they were most interested in exploring because it was one that had not yet been explored in any depth. Any of these options, however, would have led to character growth. Janeway's death was not a prerequisite for growth. It simply dictated some potential developments.
Nor was this choice necessary for anyone to tell a
good story. No one was sitting around thinking...gee, there's only one way to make Voyager good anymore. There were as many ways to continue this story as there are writers to imagine it. And I'm certain that any number of them would have been fascinating and interesting and a hell of a lot better than good.
This was simply the one that was chosen at a particular time and place by a particlar group of creative people who recognized that while not everyone might be happy with this choice, everyone is
never going to be happy with any choice, therefore that unhappiness is never going to be a reason to tell or not to tell a particular story.
No one fan contingent was targeted for pain here. The assumption that people who love Kathryn Janeway's character were never considered or intentionally marginalized is equally false. One could as easily assume that they would enjoy seeing her die a valiant death defeating the Borg and saving the galaxy, and then see those who loved her work through that reality as that her absense going forward would turn them off entirely.
I guess we all know how that one turned out though...
If "Places of Exile" is the finest Janeway we can hope for in Treklit, than all I can say is, "Nuts."
The Janeway in "Places of Exile" continued to be so fixated on getting home (even after Voyager was destroyed) that she ignored the needs of her crew and basically separated herself from everyone as she pursued her "new" career. If you have watched the show at all, you know that Janeway would never do that. She would never have let B'Elanna get into the state she was in after Tom's death, would never have let the crew splinter and scatter the way they did. She would have been more like a good shepherd and encouraged them to stay together, keep in touch, form some sort of community. The precedent for that is in "Year of Hell," where she admonished the crew to find each other, if at all possible, when they were finally forced to abandon the ship. Another precedent for her concern over the crew is in "Night," where she agonizes over how her decisions have affected her crew. The PB writers seem to overlook these qualities when they write Voyager novels in favor of a simpler, less complex fixation on the AQ.
The narrow focus on her "let's get home" obsession might be what resulted in the belief that Janeway's "story has been told," as it was purported that the editors said when Janeway was "targeted" for death. All that comment tells me is that the editors have reduced Janeway to a character with a single focus at the expense of her other interesting and inspiring qualities. I hope that if/when she returns to the novels, the writers take some time to review the seven years of episodes and watch the character without any preconceived notions about what Janeway is like (and without a gleeful search for her "inconsistencies"). I think she deserves better treatment than the current stable of writers have given her in recent years.
Now you might find this hard to believe but up through the discussion of "Places of Exile" I am actually inclined to agree with Aunt Kate. I know a lot of people loved that story. I had issues with it. I believe that Christopher felt for a long time that the focus on getting home was one of Voyager's greater weaknesses as a series. (Christopher...if I'm getting that wrong, please feel free to correct me). Making this Janeway's major issue in this story and having it motivate what I felt were some questionable choices on her part made it hard for me to see that portrayal as terribly accurate. I did, however, bear in mind that it was always intended to be an alternate universe story and as such, it's perfectly acceptable for Christopher to run in that direction and end up where he did. It's one of a billion possible explorations. It didn't have to be my cup of tea for it to be worth telling or reading. It was interesting, but not something I could have written, given my understanding of Janeway.
I do, however, disagree with the inclusion of the episode "Night" as evidence of Janeway's concern for the crew, and I'm going to go into a little detail here to illustrate the point that "we" do really think hard about these things. "Night" remains one of my least favorite episodes ever, because for the first time I saw her behaving uncharacteristially selfishly in her choice to isolate herself from everyone and ruminate on her initial decision to strand everyone in the Delta Quadrant. Janeway is as bright a woman as has ever captained a starship. She knew when she made the choice it would likely take them many years to get home. I hardly think that four years into it she was surprised that they hadn't made it to the Alpha Quadrant yet and was now ready to start beating herself up about it. Worse in my mind was the mutiny at the end. She says, "I'm taking a shuttle and going on my way while you guys take the ship and get out of the void" and every one of her senior officers refuses her direct order and then questions her on the bridge of her ship. As far as I'm concerned, the only right answer to her order was "Yes, ma'am. We'll have that shuttle ready to fly in two minutes." The fault was in the construction of the dilemma. There was no way they go down that road without making her look incredibly weak...much weaker than I had ever known her to be as a character, and for that I blame the writers of the episode.
Moving on...however....
Aunt Kate and I part ways when she asserts that anyone thought Janeway's story had been told because the sum total of her character was her desire or need to get them home.
The nice folks who made Nemesis created the problem when they showed Janeway as an Admiral in that film. Christie Golden was forced to run with that choice. As I've stated before, had I been telling the story from that point, I'd have moved heaven and earth to fix that, because that's where we run into trouble. Once Janeway is separated from the ship, and bearing in mind that we're talking about a series that is going to be focused on the Starship Voyager, her story as it relates to Voyager (apart from checking in from time to time or overseeing their missions) has, in some senses, been told. Sure, we can take a couple of books that explore life back in the Alpha Quadrant...but at some point, we have to get back to Voyager stories and she's simply not there. Were there ways to get her back on the ship at that point? Sure. Were there ways to shoehorn her into every other story or shift the focus to her and stop telling ship based stores? Yeah. But those stories have been told time and again in Trek. And for what it's worth, I still believe that had her character been marginalized in any of the above ways, a number of folks, probably including me, would have bitched and moaned privately and publicly about such treatment of our beloved Janeway.
The choice to allow Janeway to die...or "target her for death" as you phrase it...had not been told. The inference here is always that were we better at our jobs, or more creative, or loved Janeway as much as everyone else, or whatever...we would not have made that choice...is not worthy of any of us. No one, least of all myself, ever saw Janeway as an overly simplistic character. She was full of complexity and contradictions. That was one of the reasons I loved writing her most. And for the record, I re-watched every single episode of Voyager every time I wrote a story...going back to Fusion. And that was after having already seen all of them multiple times as a fan. More information about the character or a deeper understanding of the character would not have resulted in a different choice on the editor's part. While it may be hard for you to believe, I completely share Aunt Kate and every other Voyager fan who has posted here's appreciation for Janeway. She was awesome and inspiring and one of the most amazing Trek characters ever created.
None of that, however, means "we" were wrong to make the choice to explore this story at this time. We wanted to tell the best, newest, freshest, most interesting Voyager story we could. There were lots of stories that would have filled that bill and one was chosen that has made some readers very unhappy. I'm sorry about that. And I'm sorry they feel cheated. And I fully support their decision not to buy or read the new stories.
But for the love of all that is holy could you please stop making assertions that have been directly contradicted here and elsewhere and/or speculations which are either intentionally or unintentionally dismissive of the creative people who are doing this work. They all boil down to the same thing....if "we" saw this the way you do, we would never have made this choice. Well, the truth is, we do see it the way you do and we still made this choice.
I don't know how to help you live with that beyond your perfectly reasonable response to simply not buy the books.
Best always,
Kirsten Beyer
, this is absurd.
Let's say Janeway's death caused some upheaval, even if only minor, while editors and authors might not reverse it, maybe one will think twice about killing say Archer or Sisko. And whether or not they take said opinions or not is irrellevant as with no negative opinions at all how would they know anything was looked upon negatively at all if no one spoke up about it?
