Did Janeway really strand the crew?

[Yukaphile]

Again, I don't dispute it would have been great if she could have tried that, but is there any guarantee it would work, given how A) They were associated with Neelix, who led them there and B) Neelix betrayed them, tainting further negotiations and C) The Kazon's portrayal makes it clear they'd probably rather take what they want at this point rather than trade for it. Even Culluh killed the negotiations because he was misogynistic, so... yeah, I still think there was no way home. Doesn't excuse Janeway being stupid and not giving good reasons, but there you go. That's Voyager's writing in a nutshell. A stupid "have our cake and eat it too" approach.

[Zefram Mann]

...I seriously doubt the Kazon would fall for this...

These would be the same Kazon that think a jail cell is drawing a line on the floor, right?

It's odd how many times Janeway makes a perfectly reasonable decision in the moment but later on is presented as if she did something horrible and fails to properly defend herself "shrug"

You condemn one little planet to genocide because of a rule that's supposed to be there to protect said planet and all of a sudden you got a reputation for poor-decision-making.

[Yukaphile]

And I repeat, they're smart when the script says so, dumb when it says so. Chalk it up to the usual Voyager trope of inconsistent writing.

I do agree with Jonathan, in that, I think Kate Mulgrew is right and her character is bipolar. Hell, it's insulting they only see her as an organ with legs, so couldn't write her properly. Isn't that in and of itself misogynistic? And yet people somehow think she's a Feminist captain, which... I don't like her at all, and I'm one of the strongest Feminist-leaning men out there, and I can't support that idea. I say leaning because modern Harvard Feminists repeatedly make me lose faith with the modern world. As has Janeway. She is exactly like those Harvard Feminists. Judgmental, stupid, and... just plain wrong.

[Jonathan101]

Janeway is basically Hillary Clinton IN SPACE!

And she gets pretty much the same reactions from people, it seems.

[PapaPalpatine]

They got into this mess because they had orders to go after a ship full Maquis into the badlands; it was only supposed to be a three hour mission... A three hour mission.

[Yukaphile]

Hillary Clinton is far more competent than Janeway ever was, not to mention internally consistent, and she has a strong following of 18,000,000 supporters. She's more like Bernie Sanders in space. Not even joking. I wonder if Sanders is bipolar given how useless and inconsistent he is.

[Enterprising]

I think this thread highlights nicely what bad writing 101 does to stories and the people that watch them. Debates are being had here on points made up via speculation/supposition of viewers in an attempt to fill in logic or story gaps. Except that isn't for the viewer to do, that's the writers job to think of these things and have something to account for it. If you need to fill in gaps yourself via your own headcanon, then it's a badly compiled story.

In this particular instance, it fails because they (writers/producers) wanted Janeway as "the woman captain" to look "strong and decisive" from the get-go via making a big call. Except Mulgrew in her portrayal of the character already demonstrated during the pilot she can be firm, competent, and no-nonsense as a Captain when needed. Having the Kazon ship colliding with the station setting-off a chain reaction that destroyed it in minutes, would have sorted most of the issues. Kirk and Picard have had events taken out of their hands plenty of times before, and it didn't make them any less well thought of.

By the words in the script, Janeway did stand Voyager of her own accord. Outside of that, it was bad writing.

[Yukaphile]

I don't think anyone here disagrees it was bad writing. But they couldn't commit to the idea of her "making a moral choice" 100%, given reinforcements were coming and that it would take several hours to learn how to use the array, or that they had no choice, otherwise they wouldn't have wanted her to be presented as making a choice. That's Voyager's approach though, they really wanna "have our cake and eat it too" as I said. I just see them as having given both sides ammunition.

[FaxModem1]

*pouts because no one likes Option G*

Anyway, I think, if we want to reconcile this....

Janeway really had no choice in the matter, as even if they were able to get it perfectly working, even if the Kazon weren't an issue, they would probably be slaying at least another third of the crew, if not at least half. That's not acceptable for a Captain who has had the ship for less than a month.

Five years later, by Night, Janeway has lost a LOT of her crew due to the Delta Quadrant. And she's lost dozens of people over the years, from Kazon, Vidiaans, Borg, Hirogen, alien science experiments, Macroviruses, etc.

That's enough to weigh anybody down. especially for their first command. Getting home at any cost probably became more and more of a priority. This might be why they keep on taking shortcuts whereas before they tended to be more moral about taking them. Hence wanting to steal a transwarp thingie from the Borg, the Slingshot, the Slipstream drive, etc.

Even though it's not there in the text, Janeway is probably feeling Survivor's Guilt, and it's starting to affect her.

[AllanO]

Anyway, I think, if we want to reconcile this....

A noble effort to bring order to the chaos. I'm not sure it explains why almost immediately other people start talking as if she had some clear choice and so on, but good job.

I tend to agree with Yukaphile, the problem seems to stem from the writers being afraid of things being to stark and so fudging Janeway's decision, giving it more justification lest she appear to extreme and unlikeable etc.