Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Deathfic Debate- love 'em, loathe 'em, and everywhere in between...

Okay, I'll start it!

I have a love/hate relationship to deathfic. Most of the time, fanfic is my escape. I don't want reality. I get that in spades in reality! I want escape. I want the good guys to win, the bad guys to pay, and the toys to all be put back in the happy ending. I'll suffer any angst along the way, but I want the happy ending.

Usually.

Sometimes, my mood is different.

Sometimes, a good writer MAKES me read a deathfic I normally won't.

Becky Bain did this to me once with a B&B (Beauty and the Beast) story. Not a deathfic per se, but in that fandom, there are two camps: one where happily ever after is with Beauty (Catherine), one where Beauty died (as in the TV show) and Beauty II (Diana) comes along to help the Beast heal. Talk about a touchy subject- does Catherine get happily ever after, or 6 feet under? I can easily read most Catherine died, Vincent got over it fanfic. Alternate reality and all is a wonderful thing. But then Becky had to write a really good story that twisted a knife in my gut... Catherene wasn't dead after all, but had to walk away out of love. Diana got her man. Catherine had her life.

Me? I had a boat load of hurt.

It haunts me still. Good writing does that. I knew going in I wasn't going to "like" the ending, but there it was, Becky's name on it... and I had to read it. And it's a great story in every way except... no happy ending for me.

Enter this new story about Lois dying at the hands of the justice system. Clark watching, helpless. Me? Stumbled on it. Saw the WHAM, disregarded it. Why?? Because 95% of the time other people's WHAMs don't WHAM me. The other 5%? In a "need to see how bad the accident was sort of way," I can't stay away. I wince, I skim, I squirm, and I keep reading because of the dang good writing that forces me to keep going. I lean into the pain, finish the story in relief, and sit in awe that the written word can cause such strong reactions.

I'm glad that most fanfic isn't deathfic. I don't seek out deathfic. I don't wallow in hours of long stories that end up being deathfic. It's not FUN!

But I'm so grateful for the chance to have my virtual world shaken up by great writing, that I'll keep reading it.

Carefully of course... and with lots of kleenex handy.

Jackie

I sometimes like my fanfic to be nice and fluffy. It's a nice change from the real world. However, if I get in the mood...bring on the heartache! I heard a line somewhere like "my fandom eats angst for breakfast." I don't remember where it came from, but it *totally* applies to me! Sometimes, there's nothing better than a great big bite of heartache. Now that being said, I don't know if I actually want anyone to *die* although I've killed off a main character or two back in the day in some unfinished stories. So it just depends on what kind of mood I'm in. Usually, though, if I'm reading fanfic before bed, I just want something fluffy to fall asleep to...usually.

Jen

I have a totally different viewpoint. To me, deathfic is the most awful thing I can read. It doesn't matter how well it's written. If it ends with finality, with Lois or Clark losing what makes them live and breathe, I won't read it, and if I've been tricked into reading it, I'm furious with the writer. I don't even want to think about such a possibility.

I know that many persons can read it and feel great crying their eyes out. I can't. At 58, I've lost too many people in real life, and seen death and grief too much in my line of work. I have seen people die. Death isn't romantic. It's final, and horrible. Yes, we all face it in the end, but it's not something I look forward to with any anticipation, and nothing at all that I can enjoy, even in a story. It may be part of life, but that doesn't make it any better. Diarrhea is part of life, too, but I'm not going to write a fanfic about it, and a digestive complication is a lot less serious than death.

I read to escape some of the unpleasant things that we all face, and some of the trials that I am currently enduring. Deathfic doesn't improve my frame of mind in such situations and I hate it. I will never write such a story and avoid like the plague any such stories that are written by other authors. To me, Lois and Clark is about hope, not despair. Stories about meaningless, premature death aren't hopeful, and to me are the antithesis of everything the series was about.

If that makes me shallow, so be it.

'Nuff said.

Nan

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you, Nan. I don't think that the willingness to read and write fanfic has much to do with age or innocence. Yes, I'm younger than you are (36 next month), but I've seen my fair share of real life. If I wrote a biography, they'd have to sell it as fiction, but that is neither here nor there.

I think that a comfort level with deathfic or "heavy-fic" (my new term for MAJOR angst without death) has more to do with two things:
1. What the is person experiencing in real life at the moment.
2. How they best process the emotions of tough times in real life.

For some people, enduring a hefty dose of reality is cause to run into the arms of happy-fic for comfort. Usually, that is me.
But sometimes, real life is just too real. Too much. Too intense. And I need to, for whatever reason, keep it together in that real life. But I need a release. A good cry with a movie like Somewhere in Time can do that for me. It's a safe outlet for real emotions that still lets me not "deal" with the real issues.

In other instances, I'm so worked up that I can't let go and have a good cry even if I want to. I'm not a crier. Don't even get tears in the eyes. I feel things deeply, but I don't often cry. It's exhausting, it leave my nose a mess, and my eyes feel dry! But there are times when I simply need to trigger the process and get the release. Crying for a movie or a fanfic etc. doesn't cost as much energy to me. I don't feel so drained as I do after a "real" cry. But it functions as a safety valve. So in summary- a heavy fic or a death fic can help me cope with the emotions of an icky real-life situation without having to directly deal with those emotions as they relate to that icky real life situation.

Sometimes, I even write dark passages to help me process those feelings and get them out. On paper, they free my soul for happier thoughts.

From the sounds of things, your fanfic therapy comes in the form of "escape from reality" to a place where things work out right. All the power to you! In no way does that make you shallow. It just means you know what you need to do to feed your soul. Don't apologize for that! Rather, embrace it and use that knowledge to feed your soul as much as it needs you to.

But I'm willing to bet that there are plenty of battle-worn people that actually seek out heavy stuff to help them cope. Fanfic is a safe forum. It's not real. We can write a death fic off as an alternate reality, what-if scenerio and not cannon, providing a different form of fanfic therapy than when used as an escape, but a form of therapy even so.

No way is better than another. It's just a case of what works for that individual. But I don't believe it correlates to age or life experience. Rather, it's a reflection of how we each cope as best we can.

And I'm going to go even futher and suggest that toying with death in fanfic is a way of grounding oneself in reality when life is going "too well" to be trusted. What better time to explore the issues of life and death than when we're on a natural high and looking down at the valley we know is coming?

Jackie

I'm not sure why people feel the need to be defensive about the fact that they don't enjoy a particular genre in fanfic. Deathfic, angst, kid fic, whatever...personal taste will always apply.

Deathfic is just like any other genre - some people will like it, some people won't.

End of story.

For myself, there are very few genres that I won't read. I have zero interest in reading slash and avoid reading that genre when I find it in other fandoms. But that's about it. Well, kid fic. Don't usually have much interest in that, either. Although, unlike slash, there have been exceptions to that over the years which I have enjoyed immensely.

Deathfic is obviously not going to be to everyone's tastes. Well written deathfic is fine with me. Too much of it is maudlin for the sake of it. But, again, there have been marvellous exceptions over the years for me.

Everyone else should feel free to have their mileage vary and think no more of it. We don't question why some people like a certain published author or published genre. We just accept with natural logic that it would be a boring world if everyone liked the same stories. By the same token, why should we give a second thought to the fact that tastes vary on genres within fanfic?

If it suits your tastes, read it. If it doesn't, read something that does. Life's way too short to be wasting time reading things you don't enjoy.

And I'd second that disagreement on age being a factor on enjoying deathfic. I too have had my share of painful loss - and I'm sure I'm not the only reader of deathfic who has - but somehow it's never connected with reading deathfic. I don't see fiction as real life and so it has less impact emotionally on me. I know that for others fiction is much more real and that's probably more of a factor in whether you read deathfic or not, I think, than age. How deeply emotionally involved you become in the story. How real (or not) you view the characters. Which again, is just down to infinite diversity in readers. Neither viewpoint is more important than the other - both are equally valid as reasons for like/dislike of the genre.

EDIT: I've been musing on it further and I've come to the conclusion that deathfic gives me hope. I know...weird. But thinking back on the examples that have moved me over the years, most of them are in the 'Somewhere In Time' bracket. Clark or Lois existing in some form after death and their love continuing after they are gone. Not all of my favourites fit into that group, but they are the vast majority.

Another thing which affects whether I read deathfic or not is my mood of the day/week/month/hour. Sometimes I'm in the mood for comedy, sometimes for angst with a happy ending and sometimes for the odd deathfic that comes my way. It's all good.


LabRat

I usually don't like deathfic. I haven't lost many people, but the ones I did lose have been painful. The world is an ugly ugly place, and fanfic is my escape.

There are a few exceptions. Dealing with death, I can do. Most of the time. Especially if it's a natural end and not painful. It really depends on the story, though. (I can't count how many times I've read Little Women, even though I know I'm going to bawl)

Just the thought of that fic seems extremely humorous to me... mental images bad.

I didn't say deathfic wasn't for other readers -- but it definitely isn't for me. As a nurse, I have been there when people were dying, and been there when it happened. I was there when a baby died. Not a pleasant situation. I was there when my sister died. That was much worse than the phone call informing me that my father had died.

If someone has written such a fanfic, then I want plenty of warning. I don't want to go anywhere near it. And I want to reiterate. To those who haven't seen death: death is not romantic. It's ugly. And what the people left behind go through isn't romantic either. Those scenes on TV when the person closes his eyes and slips away -- it doesn't happen like that. I know. And you don't get over it in a few days.

Romantic tragedy is wonderful, but reality isn't. It's not something anyone wants to go through. I have, and I don't want a story to rub it in. That was why I asked that someone post a warning in the WHAM thread yesterday.

Nan

Thank God, Nan:
(just kidding )
In general, I'm not a fan of deathfic. The exception is when it is also romantic. How you ask?
Lois and Clark are in their dotage (somehow I relate) and he and she have one last romantic fling or something. I'm also not a fan of giant angst. A little angst is O.K. because it fuels the drama. I like stories with a lot of hope or where problems are solved. But there are always exceptions. I read all of Nan's stories because I know she'll keep my tender little heart safe.
Mostly I just enjoy good writing. Usually that doesn't include authors who write in text messaging format.

Artemis

I'm not meaning to get picky here because I get what you're saying, but I know of so many people my age that have seen more, done more, and lost more than people two to three times our age. It goes with the job sometimes, and I'm thankful I'm not one of these people.

This is the main reason why I would write something that is just unbelievably dark or angsty. Granted I don't need this need for escapism every time I write a piece of unfluffy work, but it helps. And at this moment in my life I AM needing an outlet. While I would normally run into the arms of something happy, I need the cry. I need the heart wrenching agony of made up characters because it lets me allow myself to feel it. Perhaps when life gets to difficult people throw up a wall in order to keep everything out. This way we can feel what we should be feeling. Does this sound weird? Yeah. It does to me as well.

This is something that, had I not known it before a few months ago, I am coming to understand. But I don't think I ever saw death as being romantic. (Romeo and Juliet never did anything for me anyhoo! =D)

ANYhoo.

Other reasons why I would write deathfic. If I'm feeling particularly 'evil' I may write something.

I'm now wondering at how wise it is to post a reply while tired...

I guess I understand, Catherine, but I've simply seen too much death. I lost my sister in December at the age of 55, to non-smoker's lung cancer. I still haven't come to terms with it and deathfic only rubs salt in the wound at the present.

I've never been a fan of deathfic, though. I can't confer great meaning on death. Only life, and tragedy only leaves me with a feeling of tremendous pain and loss, and the feeling that something wonderful was wasted. That's probably one reason why I can't read it.

Nan

My viewpoint on this is that people do die, and refusing to admit the possibility in stories does omit a fairly important aspect of life.

I've killed off characters in several of my Buffy stories. It's a difficult decision to make, but sometimes it's the dramatically appropriate way to handle things. I'll typically post a warning, though at least once I've done that and killed off a second string character to lull readers into a false sense of security before taking out someone major in a later chapter.

Just thought I'd weigh in here...I enjoy any kind of fanfiction that is written well and in character. If the story is staying true to the characters, I can pretty much read anything.

This includes death fic. I read and write in many other fandoms (some of which being Buffy, Highlander, Remington Steele, Angel, Firefly, M*A*S*H, Doctor Who, Lost, Harry Potter, etc. etc.) and all of which have have many varied and different kinds of fic, the least of which controversially is death fic.

I mean, Harry Potter has fics with incest, fics in which Hermoine and Snape get together, slash fics including Harry and Draco, etc. etc.

So when it comes to death fic, it's pretty much a shrug of the shoulder for me as I've seen way weirder (and some of which have been REALLY scary).

That being said, when it comes to death fic I'm perfectly fine with it as long as it serves another purpose (other than to just knock off the character in question). There's no doubt about it that that was exactly what Catherine's story did.

Now, other people have different opinions. That's fine...it's what helps the world function and what makes us all different, so I can see where others are coming from. For some people death fic is just not their cup of tea. For me, it's only a story. I can write a fic and kill of my favourite character, but then I can write another one in which they are healthy and happy and perfectly fine.

We can't ever *truly* kill them until we run out of ideas. That's when I would start to get worried...

In terms of age and experience, I may be younger than some on this list (I'm 23), but in no way shape or form am I a stranger to death.

I watched my Grandfather slowly die from prostate cancer when I was 13. My grandmother lived with us when I was 17 while she died of lung cancer. I can still remember my dad waking me up at 5 in the morning to tell me my grandmother had died in her sleep in the bed that we had for her in the living room.

The body laid there for the entire day before the coroners came to get her.

So I know that death is not romantic and it's not beautiful.

But the beautiful thing about fanfiction is that it's NOT real and we can do with it whatever we choose.

Again, not trying to project my own opinions on to everyone else, just stating my own view of the situation.

*jumps off the soap box*

Hi,

I'd like to say that I'm not a fan of deathfic. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own tastes, but I tend to shy away from deathfics.

Some of my reasons have already been explored in earlier posts, but one has not.

I loved the show Lois and Clark for a number of reasons. One of these reasons was that it celebrated the idea of hope and goodwill.

Lois and Clark faced many traumas, but in their world good always triumphed over bad.

Now I am not naive, nor am I young, and I know that life isn't like that. I also know that sometimes 'death' is not always the worst thing that can happen. Often it is the quality of life that matters and how death takes us is important too.

I can read deathfics which have either Lois or Clark dying in old age. This is the cycle of life and I might shed a few tears, but my sensitive soul can accept that.

I also don't mind reading stories which have serious whams, I even write them, but I do prefer whams which can be put right. In fact, I've even written stories where secondary characters die.

However, stories where, in the end, evil destroys good... and in the case of Catherine's story, which was very well written, where justice which should be relied upon was dupped by evil and became evil in itself, was just a step too far for me.

I write and read fanfic for the same reasons I watched and loved the show. It made me feel uplifted and warm inside. Now this might be considered looking at life through rose-coloured spectacles and I can assure you, I don't do that.

But I do believe that hope and positive thinking is a very strong tool to negotiate the horrors of real life, and anything that can make me feel good about life is a bonus for me, including TV fantasy shows and fanfiction.

As I said at the start of my post, each one to his/her own tastes, but I prefer not to read fics where death is a strong theme.

Yours Jenni

I think I'll have to agree with Nan and Jenni -- I can deal with a little bit of angst (and some stories/authors get me involved with a lot of angst) but tragic death stories (and other WHAMs, to a lesser extent) just make me mad, and scared, and hopeless... and that's not what I'm here for.

It's a funny thing, though -- I can enjoy angst when it's set to music. Country music has a lot of songs that make me cry, and I love them. Rascal Flatts has a song called Sarabeth (well, actually, it's called Skin but you have to hear the song for that to make any sense ) about a teenager who's got a possibly fatal disease... and it's a beautiful song. But I know I would *not* want to read that as a story. Go figure.

PJ

I'd guess I go in between, then.

I can read deathfic, but I really, really prefer not to because they always leave me with a sense of...loss. And I don't like that feeling.

In the other hand, I've written a deathfic of my own (that was for Harry Potter, though).

So, I guess it might have a little bit to with what mood I'm in. And, probably how the fic is written. If the death is non-descriptic, then it's okay. Otherwise...well, there we have the sense of loss again. Plus, I'm very emotional. I cry at sad endings.

And...err, that didn't make sense, did it?

I just googled the lyrics. It made me feel all choked, as it reminds me of what my dad must have gone through. Although not a young person imagining their dreams of first moments being tainted by disease, my dad was a very very handsome man in his youth, and at the end of his life, his skin was peeling off in sheets and his face was all mottled and purplish because of what the cancer drugs had done to him.

(My dad died from a drug reaction called Stephens Johnson disease)

Normally, I don't do deathfics. I am, after all, the girl who threw a huge fit when forced to read Black Beauty for school. As with almost anything else in life, though, there are exceptions to my rules. And the exception with deathfics, for me, is that they not only be well-written but that they have a purpose.

The suffering on the way to death that some people have to endure is heart-breaking and the pain they leave behind with those who love them is truly tragic. Death itself doesn't particularly scare me, though. Nor does it make me feel hopeless. Life is a journey that culminates in death. But as I don't believe life ends there, I can even find death to be a blessing under the right circumstances.

I don't think it can be chalked up to being young and innocent, per se. I'm not going to take offense at that stereotype, because I'm sure it wasn't written for that purpose. Possibly the difference is due to personality. I may be young, but I'm not sure I'm particularly innocent. While I won't claim my life has been the equivalent to the sufferings faced by, say, someone my age who grew up in the Projects, I've lost several people dear to me.

So, a story to illustrate my point seems fitting (since we're all about stories here): When I was a kid, I lived in Kenya for several years; sometimes my dad would take me with him to visit people he was taking care of. We'd go to their shacks, and I saw little children dying from everything from malnutrition to HIV. I would hold their hands while he examined them and watch their bodies waste away to nothing over the weeks until they died. It was horrible and sad, but I'm really glad he took me anyway. It made me realise that injustice does exist, that people who are just as good as I am are dying every day, and that I not only need to be grateful for my own life, but I have a responsibility to try my best to help those who can't fight for themselves. Death isn't pretty, but at least in my case it's a lesson that has stuck with me my whole life.

That's the same way I view deathfics. Gratuitous death does nothing for me. Something like Catherine's story (sorry to pick on yours, but it's the one foremost in my mind ), reminds me of how flawed the justice system is and how that can lead to tragedy. Stories don't let you forget. Stories memorialise the best and worst of mankind. After all, it's thanks to the works of people such as Elie Wiesel that I, still unborn when it happened, know about the Holocaust in a real and intimate way that only someone who lived through it can impart. Hopefully that memory makes me more aware to the possibility of that happening in my own day and age. Stories do that.

For that reason I love them. And I hate them. But they're necessary for someone like me. Even the painful ones. And I venture to think that I'll probably feel the same when I'm old and worn-out by life.

According to my New Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus, "catharsis" means "purgation; (the Aristotelian) purification or relief of the emotions through art, esp. tragedy". In other words, "catharsis" is the good feeling you experience after you have closely followed the tragic downfall and often death of a person.

Catharsis: the idea that watching and vicariously experiencing the tragedy of others is something that makes you feel good. People, I have never understood it.

How about this old Greek tragedy? A father kills his daughter and sacrifices her to the gods, because he needs a fair wind since he's off to Troy, where he is going to kill and murder and slaughter the inhabitants. Having accomplished his mass murder mission in Troy, he returns home, only to be killed by his wife, who is extremely upset with her husband for killing their daughter. The couple's dutiful son now recognizes that it is his filial duty to kill his mother to avenge his father, and he does so. The godesses of vengeance start hounding the son, demanding that he be killed, until the godess Athena intervenes. She explains that every child has only one true parent, namely the father, because the mother is really only a sort of oven where the already fully formed baby in the father's sperm grows to the proper size. Since the mother isn't her son's true parent, the son didn't commit a crime when he killed her, and he mustn't be punished. The end. This story was one of the most admired of the classic Greek tragedies, one of those supposed to make you feel the greatest amount of purification and relief. So, people, did it make you feel good?

The above tragedy was written down circa 2,400 years ago. Perhaps we shouldn't discuss such very old stories? How about something slightly more recent, such as the 400-year-old tragedies by Shakespeare? Personally I admire several of his tragedies, especially Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. These plays are so relentlessly logical. If two families are mortal enemies, and a young man from one of the families falls in love with and secretly marries a young girl from the other family, what can you expect but tragedy and death? And if a father summons his son to carry out a mission of vengeance and death, how can you be surprised if the son is turned into an angel of death, so that every important character in "Hamlet" is dead by the end of the last act? I admire Shakespeare's tragedies, because they work so extremely well as cautionary tales, and they are, in their own way, so realistic. That does not mean that they make me feel good.

How about something still more recent? I read a crime-fic (is that what you call it?) about a world-class javelin thrower, who lost his right arm as he was rescuing some children from a burning car. The one-armed ex-athlete became his country's most popular TV show host, someone like Johnny Carson or possibly Oprah Winfrey, loved and trusted by everyone. What no one knew was that this one-armed, beloved TV host was a serial killer, who got his kicks out of torturing young girls to death, keeping them prisoners as he slowly crushed their right arm and let them bleed to death. Killing girls this way is what gave him his sexual kicks. To hide his horrible perversion, he entered into a sham marriage with a well-known woman, who wanted her own homosexual proclivities to be kept a secret from the public. So while this man and this woman were supposedly sharing a matrimonial bed, she was out sleeping with women and he was out killing young girls. In this book, we were introduced to the TV host's latest victim, a 15-year-old girl. We followed her as she tried to get the famous man's autograph, as she went to an out-of-the-way spot where he had promised to meet her, as she was taken to an unremarkable cottage which was in fact a sophisticated torture-chamber. We followed her as he turned on her and expertly caught her arm in a vice, where it was slowly crushed over the course of several days. We followed the police as they desperately tried to find the girl, and we were with them when they actually found her... about fifteen minutes too late. We followed the police when they seized the TV host and arrested him, but even as they did so, they knew they would never get this man convicted. Because there was no hard evidence against him, and there was no way a court would find such a famous and beloved person guilty of such utterly gruesome crimes, unless the evidence was overwhelming. He would be set free again, and eventually, he would start torturing and killing girls again. The end.

When I started reading this book, I had absolutely no idea it was going to turn out like this. The story was very well written and I was caught up in it. Almost up to the very end, I was sure the girl would be saved, although her arm would obviously have to be amputated. I was extremely horrified at the ending. And guess what? Very soon after I had finished reading it, ex-Beatle Paul McCartney married a moderately famous British model and amputee. People, does this ring a bell? Two famous people marry, one of them is a very beloved celebrity, and one of them is an amputee? It is all a sham marriage, so that the two newlyweds will be free to pursue their own quite different sexual agendas... such as murdering young girls? People, can you believe that when I heard of Paul McCartney's marriage, my first thought was that Paul McCartney was perhaps a mass murderer? Reading that book didn't make me feel good, but instead it made me sufficiently paranoid to think, however briefly, that Paul McCartney was perhaps a dangerous person because he had married a one-legged woman?

When I was twelve, my parents took me to see a performance of Rigoletto. In this opera, Rigoletto is a relatively disagreeable person, as far as I can remember. At the end of the last act, Rigoletto is punished. Guess how? His daughter is killed. And we, the audience, are treated to Rigoletto's grief and remorse, expressed in his splendid arias. I remembered that the audience was mesmerized, and afterwards, they broke into thunderous applause. But I was totally, totally horrified. I was twelve years old, just like Rigoletto's daughter. And I imagined that some people might perhaps want to punish my dad for one reason or another. To do that, they would kill me, just like Rigoletto's daughter was killed. My father would grieve, cry and complain as he cradled my dead body in his arms, just like Rigoletto. And around us, interested onlookers would gather. After a sufficient time, after my father was done with his public grieving, the onlookers would start applauding, just like the audience at the opera. They would feel so strangely moved. So sad, and yet so happy. They would be so happy that I was dead. Because thanks to my death, all those other people could get to watch my father's fine display of emotion. How uplifting that really was, in the midst of all sorrow!

I can't tell you how totally horrified I was, after seeing that performance of Rigoletto. Even today, 38 years later, the very name of Rigoletto makes me cringe. So tell me, people, because I don't understand. What is good about deathfic? How does it make you feel good to read about people's death? How does it make you interested to see a character sacrificed like a pawn, just so that you get to admire another character's reaction to her death?

Personally, I'm able to appreciate deathfic only, and only, if it is very realistic and sheds some very interesting light on the reality we all live in. Deathfic about unrealistic characters does nothing for me, except that it makes me feel sad and bad.

Lois and Clark are unrealistic characters, or at least Clark most certainly is. You don't shed any light on the world we live in by telling a deathfic about Lois and Clark. As for Catherine's story, which I admittedly only skimmed, i believe Lois was sentenced to death for one reason or another. But Lois and Clark live in Metropolis, which has long been established as being close to New York. To my knowledge, neither New York State nor New York City has capital punishment. Why would Metropolis have it? Because if it doesn't, we can't execute Lois, which was the whole point of this story anyway?

Would Clark support the death penalty, by the way? Would he bring criminals to justice so that they could be executed, even though he must know there would always be a chance that he might be mistaken about at least one of those he brought to their death? The way I think of Clark and Metropolis, Metropolis doesn't have capital punishment and Clark doesn't support it.

I dislike almost all kinds of deathfic, and I dislike Lois and Clark deathfic even more. Because, like Jenni said, Superman as well as Lois and Clark has always been about the triumph of good over evil. Literally. Also, Lois and Clark are in their own way immortal. They have been around since 1938, and they haven't aged a day since that time. The decades have rushed past, and Lois and Clark have evolved and adapted, but stayed young. This makes them a sort of fairy-tale characters. What's the point in murdering one of them? What could anyone want to prove? That it's fun to kill and break such characters, just to prove that you can? That Lois doesn't matter too much, so that we can kill her in order explore Clark's emotions, just like Rigoletto's daughter was killed so that we could enjoy Rigoletto's fine display of grief? That it would be fun to see Superman defeated and see evil prevail over good? Where is the catharsis in this? Where is the purification or relief? Tell me, people, because I don't understand.

Ann

Just a factual observation:
You did see the episodes The People v Lois Lane and Dead Lois Walking, Ann? Catherine's story was an adaptation of those episodes. New Troy (which is the state) does have the death penalty in Lois and Clark's universe. And, whether or not Clark supports it - which wasn't explored in the episodes - he trusts and respects the law. Up to, at least, the point at which he feels that the law itself is unjust.

As for my own personal feelings about deathfic, I'll try to come back later to explain. Fascinating discussion so far - there are some interesting perspectives being expressed.


Wendy

On LnC, Metropolis is in the state of New Troy, which, according to TPvLL and DLW, does indeed have the death penalty.

This is a very touchy subject for most people, which is why it was never addressed on the show, just like Lois and Clark's political affiliations were never talked about or whether or not they support a woman's right to choose. The only time that the show came close to touching on the subject was in Faster Than a Speeding Vixen when Clark went to interview Peter Massey before Massey's execution. Afterwards, he says to Lois: "They kept filing appeals, so the waiting went on 'til dawn. Boy, you come outta something like that really appreciating.... life." (This is from the script, as I don't have the episode handy right now.) That's not exactly a strong reproval of the death penalty, although it's not an endorsement either. Because Clark values life so much and refuses to kill, I would assume that he doesn't agree with putting someone to death, but he does accept it as part of the justice system.

Sorry to jump in here and kind of derail the thread. You may now get back to discussing the original post .

Edited to add: I see Wendy got there before I did.