What difference does it make?
Why should any future movie or TV show have to take account of a licensed tie-in that will likely be out of print by that time?
Random Thought: Was Janeway Killed Because She was So Polarizing?
- Thread starter Frontier
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What difference does it make?
Why should any future movie or TV show have to take account of a licensed tie-in that will likely be out of print by that time?
I think Janeway should have died at the finale of Voyager. Her character was based on bringing her crew home (yeah, in a way she did). I think its more heroic this way. I like it when writers have the guts to kill off characters. Characters don't die enough.
We did have a Janeway "die" in "Endgame". The future Admiral Janeway, who was absorbed into the collective to give the younger Captain Janeway a chance to escape.
Maybe all Janeways are fated to be assimilated, just as all Pikes end up crippled?
OK, I don't want to put anyone down or provoke but after reading some posts here, I just have to ask:
What's the matter with you people?
I simply can't understand those who claim that they like a certain series but then seem to be happy about main characters being killed off. There are some who seem to show malice over it too.
Well, I guess I simply don't belong among those fans.
"Oh-My eyes they see but I can't believe
Oh-my heart is heavy as I turn my back and leave"
"Sea Of Madness"
Iron Maiden
What's the matter with you people?
I simply can't understand those who claim that they like a certain series but then seem to be happy about main characters being killed off. There are some who seem to show malice over it too.
Well, I guess I simply don't belong among those fans.
"Oh-My eyes they see but I can't believe
Oh-my heart is heavy as I turn my back and leave"
"Sea Of Madness"
Iron Maiden
Well, I guess I simply don't belong among those fans.
You were saying that two years ago. What's changed?
Yes you do.
If you didn't want to put anyone down or provoke, you would, y'know, not put anyone down or provoke.
I recognize the difference between real people and make-believe, and think that main characters deaths' can sometimes make for really good stories. It's really that simple.
I don't think either point of view is that hard to understand. I don't even think they're all that different.
One attraction of being immersed in a fictional universe is that it is a comforting and satisfying refuge from the universe we inhabit in our everyday lives. That does not mean that we are necessarily dissatisfied with our daily lives, or unhappy: merely that real life is extremely complex, sometimes drab, sometimes horrible, and having an alterative to that, or having a way to take a break from that is attractive to almost everyone at one time or another. Fiction provides comfort, excitement, entertainment, whatever is lacking.
The disagreement here is mostly due, I think, to different expectations as to how this particular fictional universe should be structured, with Lynx basically having a preference for a high degree of stability, whereas most of the other voices in this thread have a greater appetite for change and the unexpected in this particular case.
Is Lynx's attitude hard to understand? No, that is why we watch and rewatch our favorite movies and tv series: they are always the same, and that stability is reassuring and enjoyable.
Is the opposite attitude hard to understand? No, that is why following television shows and individual characters over time can be so entertaining: characters are created, live, evolve, change, die, and all of that serves as a sort of mirror for our own experiences.
Tie-in literature is by nature on the borderline between a sort of nostalgia for old stories and a desire for new stories, so it is not surprising that this sort of disagreement would occur over this particular material.
Okay Lynx, here is a very simple exercise. Take a cleansing breath and repeat after me: "Change is a good thing. Change is a good thing. Change is a good thing..."
Breathe again and repeat.
LoL well I don't think that a burning desire for something entirely new is what brings most people to Trek tie-in literature. Mostly it is a desire for the familiar with a dash of new mixed in.
Look at some of the review threads in this forum. How often do you see reactions such as "I enjoyed the story for the most part, but this wasn't the Picard I knew" or words to that effect? I think I've seen that type of reaction rather often. I've had it myself.
I'm sure the next DS9 novel could have all the main characters from the tv show die very poetic, beautifully written deaths, but I don't think I'd be all that happy about that particular creative choice. I'm also pretty sure it won't happen, since the market for tie-in literature is a market for the well-known and the familiar, not the drastically new and daring.
Lynx's point of view is not that different, it is just a matter of degree.
Ah, but that's exactly how Angel ended. It was brilliant.
Perhaps, but I think that still fits with flemm's point in so far as the key difference is that Angel ended, whereas Star Trek is still ongoing.
I'm sure that's true, but it is irrelevant to the point I was making.
Having all or most of the major characters die at the end of a story can be an excellent ending, and is not even an unusual one.
My point is simply the following: tie-in lit exists because there is a desire to revisit certain fictional worlds and certain fictional characters. Therefore, Lynx's point of view should not strike fans of tie-in literature as innately odd or incomprehensible. He is simply more extreme in his desire for familiarity and stability.
It's worth noting that even revisiting a character's death can be a source of a similar sense of familiarity and comfort, as I suppose is the case of the ending of Angel for fans of that show. Would you want the show's ending to change? Would you want someone else to rewrite that ending? Or see those characters ressurrected by another writer?
Already been done. The series Angel:After the Fall, published by IDW.
Back to the point. You sited as an example the deaths of all the original DS9 characters. That's an ending in and of itself whether the series continued without them or not, just as my follow-up example of Angel illustrated. Hardly irrelvant.
So, if I am to understand correctly, beloved characters from a tv series were resurrected so that fans could continue reading stories about them? They wanted to read about the same characters? Not new ones? Why is that? They loved those characters and wanted to read more stories about them. Not difficult at all to understand.
Lynx loved Kes and I gather to a lesser degree Janeway and wanted to read more stories about them.
Disagreeing about the specific case of Janeway's death is one thing. I also disagree, for what it's worth. But I don't think it is too difficult to understand his point of view. That is another thing entirely.
Most people reading Trek tie-ins enjoy the Trek characters from the tv series and movies and want to read more about those same characters in that same universe.
In the the case of Lynx he wants to read more about a very specific set of characters from a very specific era of a particular show which is certainly an unreasonable expectation in practice, but not hard to understand conceptually.
It is pretty much the same point of view that brings everyone to tie-in lit, just more focused on a rigid set of expectations.
Some just don't like Janeway. Honestly it is that simple in some cases: never liked the character, happy she's gone. Doesn't mean those same people can't still like the series as a whole.
That accounts for some people.
Others are indifferent towards Janeway, don't mind if she's around or not. I'm probably in that group. But what we can see is that her death is an interesting mechanic to move things forward for the other characters. It opens up story-telling possibilities for the future that otherwise wouldn't be there. It could be interesting.
And then there's those who really liked Janeway, and wish she was still in books. I get that. I wish Data were still around too. But it's Star Trek and no-one stays dead forever, and it's still interesting to see what happens in the meantime until they bring her back, because the other characters are interesting enough too to carry things for a while.
There's three reasons why.
Personally I'm enjoying the books far more than the TV show - I rewatched some of it recently and it was painful. I think it says an awful lot about the show itself when many of even it's most dedicated and loyal fans and supporters think that without Janeway and Neelix the remaining characters are just too boring and one-diminsional to carry the series themselves. Fortunatley we have novel writers that are a lot better than most of the Voyager show writers.
This is a pretty awesome point about fandom in general, actually. I stand corrected; good post.
That or part of it is that you CAN'T still call the series Angel, if he's dead seeing as he's the title character, where as in the case of say DS9 you can kill everyone but as long as the station is still there you can call it DS9.
I'm sorry, but if James T. Kirk and Data (two of the most beloved characters in all of Trek) can be killed off and Spock can be shuffled off to a parallel universe, there is no reason that ol Kate should have been spared. She is just one of a vast 40+ year pantheon of characters. Nothing more nothing less.
Simply put, there was no reason to spare her. If some of the most important characters in Trek can face death in official canon...why shouldn't Janeway meet her end in the books?
Simply put, there was no reason to spare her. If some of the most important characters in Trek can face death in official canon...why shouldn't Janeway meet her end in the books?
For the record, Angel didn't die in either his show finale or in After the Fall.
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