This started out as a reply to the Wraith commandos thread but the more I rambled on about it there the more I figured it deserved it's own thread rather than derailing that one.
The topic, the constant killing and resetting of the Wraith queen characters (potential recurring villians) rather than making one and sticking with her for a while like the various Goa'uld system lords.
Now it's no secret to anybody that watches Atlantis that if you see a Wraith queen you'd better not get too attached because you can expect her to be dead by the end of the episode. Queens are suppossed to be a rare and valuable resource to the Wraith, leaders, mothers of armies, scientists, starship captains, and yet from the first episode the show has remained fairly commited to treating them rather more like skeet discs.
The most recent queen was killed after uttering literally a single line of dialog
"You will pay for this".
"PULL!"
Other queens have fared little better, typically showing up for a few scenes in a single episode before being uncerimoniously gunned down, blown up, stabbed to death or some other decidedly unqueenly death more suitable for a nameless Jaffa. In every case they're never around long enough for them to evolve any really well defined personalities as characters and of course when they're killed and replaced with their newest version we have to start from the begining all over again.
I think this pretty much sucks and has robbed a lot more potential from the show than has probably been realized by most people, and if you do to here's the thread about it.
I've said before in other threads that they should have used the Rising hivekeeper as a villian for a lot longer than the 10 or so minutes they did, and after her the Allies queen. Those two really stood out to me as having the potential to be developed into something far more interesting than the throw away characters they ultimately became.
The Keeper was an ancient and powerful individual who gave the perfect intro to the Wraith, an intro that could easily have carried on for at least a season or two rather than the black featureless void of Wraith non development we got in the seasons following her cheepo death. Due to her status she was someone you could easily justify as having personal control over enough resources to make a lot of trouble for the expedition at the outset, a perfect first badguy for our heroes to face and one that would allow us to avoid the ridiculous idea that Earth's a match for the entire society that crushed the ancients at once. Rather than fighting "the Wraith" at the start they could have just faught her and her own personal family assets, more than enough initial challenge for 100 people and a broken down relic from the loosing side of a 10,000 year old war I'd say.
She also remains my personal favorite skeet disc because her blueish colour makes her more challenging to see against the sky, but also because in the breif time we saw her she seemed strangely more curious about the way humans actually thought and percieved the world, suggesting the possability that she was actually fully aware of their basic equality of sentience with Wraith like herself but ate them anyway. In other words she might have been someone who'd "seen behind the curtain", the whole "humans are infearior species/food animals thing". An intriguing thing to explore to eventually shape her as either someone who's potentially reachable on the idea of eventual cooperation due to her more complete view of the world, or someone who's so decadently twisted that knowing humans are just as sentient as herself only increases her delight in toying with their minds and emotions before killing them.
The allies queen was interesting for different reasons. In addition to a snappy little suit she also had a great potential ongoing arc with Michael had she not been waste killed like all her predecessors. She also had a certain quality of deviousness that made her compelling, more so than the typical "rar I'm the booggyman, I'm gonna eatcha" portrayal the wraith more typically got. The way she totally duped the entire expedition in allies and the whole idea of her being a young, militaristicly weak, but clever queen trying to work her way up in a power structure of jaded immortals held great potential for future stories.
Even the queen in the hive could have been developed into an interesting recurring villian. She was the only Wraith queen ever seen to keep human slaves, human slaves she seemed to be "doing things" with. While the keeper could have represented the same ancient malevolence that destroyed the ancients, and the allies queen could have been the ambitious new order, she could have been the decadent corruption that came between. She could have been a sort of twisted perverse individual more concerned with personal indulgence, her own pleasure and the fame and personal glory destroying Atlantis and culling Earth would bring to her in Wraith society. The sort of bored aristocrat who's casual cruelty stems from a boredom with life itself. It's no doubt that some of the other's, like for example the keeper I've envisioned here, would despise her and her corrupt lifestyle, and with them chasing the same goal you'd therefore have the potential for Wraith infighting that actually gets to happen on screen, and with actual characters instead of in throw away lines.
The submersion queen has never been a personal favorite of mine but the story potential with her was abundant. Given her situation, being cut off from Wraith society for 10,000 years it not even impossible that she could have been basically forced to seek shelter with the Atlnatis expedition following her release. With the Wraith in a state of civil war and her most recent accomplishment being a 10,000 year old failed attack that ended with her ship crashing into the ocean and her eating her entire crew it's not likely that she would be a hot commodity on the Wraith markets. Hell if you wanted to do something really radical you could even have her express some measure of gratitude for being saved from the nightmare of spending 10,000 years on the bottem of the ocean by herself. I know, Wraith expressing gratitude or actually suffering misery, I'm thinking of them like they're part human or something. I should really get control of these ridiculous thoughts of mine eh.
The spoils of war queen is really the only one I can't think of anything for, maybe someone else can. There's no questioning that she was wasted though, and made of fool of before hand by having a frakking fetus and someone who couldn't even be considered a wraith halfbreed somehow overpower her psychically. When her end finally came it was to nothing but a few 9mm rounds from Shep's pistol. Yep that's right, she wasn't even important enough to get the P90s out. I may not have really liked her because she reminded me more of a lizard than a Wraith queen but that still sucks. Remember when Wraith used to just laugh and eat your face when you tried to shoot them with little pussy guns like that? If you don't ask Colonel Evrett, he remembers.
Anyway the whole kill and reset thing was an interesting experiment with the whole "faceless enemy" vibe but I think looking back on it now it ultimately hurt the show a great deal more than was perhaps initially realized or forseen. I mean could you imagine SG-1 without Apophis to give a face to the Goa'uld at the start? All that great material for Teal'c would have never happened, the Sha're plot would have been different and likely worse without ther personal hatred between him an Daniel and we never would have grown to appreciate and even like him for the lovably over the top megalomaniac psycho he was. Who knows how much similar material was lost as a result of never having a central Wraith badguy to play off of? Good villians don't just exist to develop themselves, they're an excellent foil for the heroes and well, the interactions of the two sides revealing more about both.
Every hero needs a good villian to balance them out and challenge them. Stargate Atlantis has a whole team of super heroes and they're confronted with nothing but a bunch of no names to mow down with minimal effort.
The topic, the constant killing and resetting of the Wraith queen characters (potential recurring villians) rather than making one and sticking with her for a while like the various Goa'uld system lords.
Now it's no secret to anybody that watches Atlantis that if you see a Wraith queen you'd better not get too attached because you can expect her to be dead by the end of the episode. Queens are suppossed to be a rare and valuable resource to the Wraith, leaders, mothers of armies, scientists, starship captains, and yet from the first episode the show has remained fairly commited to treating them rather more like skeet discs.
The most recent queen was killed after uttering literally a single line of dialog
"You will pay for this".
"PULL!"
Other queens have fared little better, typically showing up for a few scenes in a single episode before being uncerimoniously gunned down, blown up, stabbed to death or some other decidedly unqueenly death more suitable for a nameless Jaffa. In every case they're never around long enough for them to evolve any really well defined personalities as characters and of course when they're killed and replaced with their newest version we have to start from the begining all over again.
I think this pretty much sucks and has robbed a lot more potential from the show than has probably been realized by most people, and if you do to here's the thread about it.
I've said before in other threads that they should have used the Rising hivekeeper as a villian for a lot longer than the 10 or so minutes they did, and after her the Allies queen. Those two really stood out to me as having the potential to be developed into something far more interesting than the throw away characters they ultimately became.
The Keeper was an ancient and powerful individual who gave the perfect intro to the Wraith, an intro that could easily have carried on for at least a season or two rather than the black featureless void of Wraith non development we got in the seasons following her cheepo death. Due to her status she was someone you could easily justify as having personal control over enough resources to make a lot of trouble for the expedition at the outset, a perfect first badguy for our heroes to face and one that would allow us to avoid the ridiculous idea that Earth's a match for the entire society that crushed the ancients at once. Rather than fighting "the Wraith" at the start they could have just faught her and her own personal family assets, more than enough initial challenge for 100 people and a broken down relic from the loosing side of a 10,000 year old war I'd say.
She also remains my personal favorite skeet disc because her blueish colour makes her more challenging to see against the sky, but also because in the breif time we saw her she seemed strangely more curious about the way humans actually thought and percieved the world, suggesting the possability that she was actually fully aware of their basic equality of sentience with Wraith like herself but ate them anyway. In other words she might have been someone who'd "seen behind the curtain", the whole "humans are infearior species/food animals thing". An intriguing thing to explore to eventually shape her as either someone who's potentially reachable on the idea of eventual cooperation due to her more complete view of the world, or someone who's so decadently twisted that knowing humans are just as sentient as herself only increases her delight in toying with their minds and emotions before killing them.
The allies queen was interesting for different reasons. In addition to a snappy little suit she also had a great potential ongoing arc with Michael had she not been waste killed like all her predecessors. She also had a certain quality of deviousness that made her compelling, more so than the typical "rar I'm the booggyman, I'm gonna eatcha" portrayal the wraith more typically got. The way she totally duped the entire expedition in allies and the whole idea of her being a young, militaristicly weak, but clever queen trying to work her way up in a power structure of jaded immortals held great potential for future stories.
Even the queen in the hive could have been developed into an interesting recurring villian. She was the only Wraith queen ever seen to keep human slaves, human slaves she seemed to be "doing things" with. While the keeper could have represented the same ancient malevolence that destroyed the ancients, and the allies queen could have been the ambitious new order, she could have been the decadent corruption that came between. She could have been a sort of twisted perverse individual more concerned with personal indulgence, her own pleasure and the fame and personal glory destroying Atlantis and culling Earth would bring to her in Wraith society. The sort of bored aristocrat who's casual cruelty stems from a boredom with life itself. It's no doubt that some of the other's, like for example the keeper I've envisioned here, would despise her and her corrupt lifestyle, and with them chasing the same goal you'd therefore have the potential for Wraith infighting that actually gets to happen on screen, and with actual characters instead of in throw away lines.
The submersion queen has never been a personal favorite of mine but the story potential with her was abundant. Given her situation, being cut off from Wraith society for 10,000 years it not even impossible that she could have been basically forced to seek shelter with the Atlnatis expedition following her release. With the Wraith in a state of civil war and her most recent accomplishment being a 10,000 year old failed attack that ended with her ship crashing into the ocean and her eating her entire crew it's not likely that she would be a hot commodity on the Wraith markets. Hell if you wanted to do something really radical you could even have her express some measure of gratitude for being saved from the nightmare of spending 10,000 years on the bottem of the ocean by herself. I know, Wraith expressing gratitude or actually suffering misery, I'm thinking of them like they're part human or something. I should really get control of these ridiculous thoughts of mine eh.
The spoils of war queen is really the only one I can't think of anything for, maybe someone else can. There's no questioning that she was wasted though, and made of fool of before hand by having a frakking fetus and someone who couldn't even be considered a wraith halfbreed somehow overpower her psychically. When her end finally came it was to nothing but a few 9mm rounds from Shep's pistol. Yep that's right, she wasn't even important enough to get the P90s out. I may not have really liked her because she reminded me more of a lizard than a Wraith queen but that still sucks. Remember when Wraith used to just laugh and eat your face when you tried to shoot them with little pussy guns like that? If you don't ask Colonel Evrett, he remembers.
Anyway the whole kill and reset thing was an interesting experiment with the whole "faceless enemy" vibe but I think looking back on it now it ultimately hurt the show a great deal more than was perhaps initially realized or forseen. I mean could you imagine SG-1 without Apophis to give a face to the Goa'uld at the start? All that great material for Teal'c would have never happened, the Sha're plot would have been different and likely worse without ther personal hatred between him an Daniel and we never would have grown to appreciate and even like him for the lovably over the top megalomaniac psycho he was. Who knows how much similar material was lost as a result of never having a central Wraith badguy to play off of? Good villians don't just exist to develop themselves, they're an excellent foil for the heroes and well, the interactions of the two sides revealing more about both.
Every hero needs a good villian to balance them out and challenge them. Stargate Atlantis has a whole team of super heroes and they're confronted with nothing but a bunch of no names to mow down with minimal effort.
I would very much like to see a Wraith Queen survive to come back another day! 
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Cause you have to say to yourself, who exactly worked with who (all the wraith, some of the wraith, etc) to figure out how to clone themselves on the hundreds of thousands level, and then be balsy enough to include lantean ZPMs into your plan. How wraith society/civilization started out is also a curious thought.
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