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

Hear hear, Sheila. One of the reasons I get so emphatic, and people get the wrong idea of what I'm trying to say, is my frustration with my inability to get across how fundamental my feeling about deathfics really is. It's not just a matter of taste or preference. It's a basic part of my personality. Others seem to think it's something that is a superficial dislike. It isn't. I hate deathfics with something so intrinsic to me that if I suddenly reversed my attitude I'd be somebody else, if that rather incoherent sentence makes any sense at all. I hate, loathe and despise deathfics. A story that rips Lois away from Clark or vice versa really hurts. I don't enjoy crying over something tragic, whether real or fictional, especially when the person involved is someone I value -- even if he or she is fictional. I can't make it more plain than that, and I wish I could make people understand that. The only thing I take away from a Lois and Clark deathfic is a feeling of vast depression and unhappiness. I don't want any more of that right now -- or ever, really. I've dealt with more than enough of the real thing in the last four months. I don't need someone to rub it in.

Nan

Thank you, Sheila, you said it so perfectly. I agree with everything you said.

I, too, get very engrossed in the stories I read. I identify very strongly with the people I read about. Often I identify, to some degree at least, with every at least moderately likable character in the story, and the death of any such character will hurt me. I will never - and I mean never - be able to say, after I have finished reading a story, oh, thank God, it was only Lois (Clark, Harry Potter, Frodo, Rigoletto's daughter etc) who was killed, not me!

The reason why I want deathfic to be about the real world, to tell me important things about the real world, is that that is the only way I can get over my depression of seeing those fictional characters die. I, too, understand that the real world is more important, and certainly more real, than fictive worlds and characters. You may say whatever you like about a book like "Uncle Tom's Cabin", but it did make people question the system of slavery. Rather than getting all wrapped up in the tragedy of Uncle Tom himself, a fictional character, people felt the need to do something to help those who were slaves in the real world. That's the kind of deathfic that I can appreciate, the deathfic that energizes us and directs our purpose outwards, into the real world.

But just experiencing the shocking ups and downs of an emotional rollercoaster ride ending in the death of a likeable character, without being given a suggestion what to do with my ensuing emotions of shock, loss and despondence, well, that will only make me feel very depressed.

As for deathfic about Lois and Clark, I have invested an incredible amount of emotion into these two characters since I was thirteen years old. Reading about the premature death of one of them is, to me, really like reading about the premature death of one of my dearest and oldest friends. Will I ever be able to like or appreciate that? No, I never will.

Ann

I just thought of something last night which amused me. When it comes to TV/movies I am completely of the opposite persuasion. Especially TV. I do NOT appreciate having my heroes die on me on screen. When a series ends, I want to know that they are living on happily somewhere out there in the ether.

And it especially irks me if it's done...'just because we can'. I might forgive TPTB if there's a solid plot reason for it...but it takes effort.

Still haven't forgiven Joss Weedon, for example, who seems to be of the former persuasion. And the Stargate crew in recent years have had an appalling propensity for killing off characters each season, for no good reason that I can see. (Don't talk to me about Jacob).

I don't know why there's that dichotomy in my viewpoint. Perhaps it's because the characters are more 'real' to me on screen than they are on paper and so I invest more emotionally in them. Who can tell?


LabRat

LabRat, perhaps this is due to the fact that if characters are killed on TV, they're gone and usually don't come back (unless they're named Buffy, Daniel or Lex, or happen to be part of a soap opera cast). If a character gets killed in fanfic, another writer, or even the same writer, can still use them in a new fic where they're alive and well . It's not so final and it's not 'official.'

You know that's an excellent theory, C_A. And, thinking about it you've probably hit the nail on the head.

If a TV character is killed off permanently and the show then continues (think Firefly/Serenity) then I'm stuck with that decision. There's talk of a new series of Firefly after the success of Serenity and to be honest, although I adore Firefly, I'm not interested in watching after what happened in the movie. I'd rather we had no more.

But, as you say, with fanfic, I can go on from reading a deathfic to reading another story where my heroes are miraculously back to life and on more adventures. So I'm not stuck with an irrevocable loss. I can change my mind.

And that probably does make all the difference.


LabRat

I really can't add any fresh opinions to what's already been said, but I would like to express my thanks to those with a different view to my own - Nan, Sheila and a few others - for explaining their views and feelings on the matter so clearly. I really do feel I've reached a new understanding by reading what you had to say on the subject - that is to say, I appreciate the true depth and strength of your feelings. So thanks.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'll ever truly understand the nature of those feelings, because I think I'm just wired so differently. The nearest I got was a wonderfully romantic film I once watched, where right at the end, in the last few frames, they killed off the hero. I could have punched a hole in the TV, I was so frustrated. I'd invested a lot of emotional energy in that guy, embraced his melancholy and his slightly whimsical lifestyle, watched with rising hope as he met and seemed to get his girl, and then sat on the edge of my seat when he got into a perilous situation, knowing full-well that he'd survive, because the hero always does, except...he didn't. Argh! But even then, I was only highly frustrated, not deeply upset. In fact, the film clearly didn't have *that* big an impact on me, because about two years later, I mistakenly rented it again and got exactly the same nasty surprise at the end. Duh.

I think the other thing to be learnt from this thread is just how many of us have been touched by death. You really don't get to live very long on this earth before you're confronted by it, and I suspect even those who haven't alluded to a personal experience on this thread have been through some pretty harrowing times with loved ones. What's interesting (and 'interesting' isn't a good word choice, but I'm stuck for a better one) is that there are probably as many different ways of dealing with bereavement as there are people who've been bereaved. Writing about death, therefore, is a difficult and sensitive business.

Yvonne

Wasn't trying to make anybody feel like their opinions were wrong for not liking death fics just because I do (or do if they are written well).

Everyone's opinions are different and that is what makes this place so very wonderful. Nobody has to like everything just because others do and nobody's opinions are wrong just because they are different.

I had a creative writing teacher tell me that fantasy wasn't true "literature" so I agree completely that literature (or film and tv) snobs are the worst kind. Just because somebody says it's a classic doesn't mean it is for you.

And just because some of us like death fics doesn't mean they have to be enjoyed by all.

Lab Rat,

I can understand your frustration with Joss over the fate of Wash on the Firefly film "Serenity"...many fans were left angry and hurt by what happened, but you can believe it wasn't done 'just because he could'. Joss has never been one to kill of a character for random reasons...everything he does has a purpose. Doesn't mean you have to like his purpose, but it is there

Don't know if you saw the finale of Angel but it had a very similar ending in that the fate of the characters remained unkown (but largely in doubt if you get my meaning). I personally loved the ambiguity because Joss meant it as a metaphor for his struggle against the networks (and the fans became part of that as well when we launched the Save Angel campaign). He knew that the foe he was up against (the network) was greater, but he fought anway and that's just what Angel did as well...

Maybe he didn't make it. But he sure as hell went out fighting (as did the fans)

"Personally, I kinda want to slay the dragon"...

Just quickly because I don't want to drag the thread off topic but, sorry, tvnerdgirl, but I ain't buying that one. <g> I saw no reason whatsoever in Serenity for two characters to die. Those deaths didn't add anything to the plot for me and I saw absolutely no dramatic reason for them. To me, they were done for purely gratuitous shock value and nothing else. And, for me, JW does has a history of 'just because'. Remember Anya? It's a trait of his I've never admired. Angel - I'd long since given up on that show before we reached the finale, but that one I don't count in 'just because'. Doesn't mean because he had a reason (or might have had - it's ambiguous as you say) in Angel that the deaths in Buffy and Serenity had value. imo, they didn't at all.

LabRat

One more question, prompted by the types of responses I've seen above. It seems, from what people have said, that the visceral level aversion is a life-long thing. This further supports my view that it's not a reflection of age or life experience, but rather how one is wired. So… has ANYONE? actually moved from one camp to the other? Or perhaps shifted in the degree of your response to deathfics? I've always been willing to read them... and that hasn't changed from my earliest bookworm days.

And I have to ask… what about Black Beauty turned you off, Capes? To me, it was a triumphant story complete with a happy ending. I can see why one would have an aversion to Charlotte's Web or Where the Red Fern Grows (Both of which I loved the first time I read them, as well as in revisits to them.)…but Black Beauty? I'm scratching my head here.

Jackie

Definitely not. If anything, my aversion has grown stronger as I've gone along.

Nan

I have always hated and become terribly depressed by deathfic. I think one of the reasons why I ultimately rejected my Christian religion is that several of the Biblical stories I read as a six- and seven-year-old got to me so extremely badly, especially the story about God drowning all of humanity under the Flood. And then how God tortured and eventually killed a lot of Egyptian children just because he wanted to punish Pharaoh. I also took it extremely badly that God would somehow need to have his own son tortured and killed just so that he would be able to forgive and save humanity.

Good for me, by the way, that there was no "Passion of the Christ" movie that my parents could have taken me to see when I was a kid - not that they would have been cruel enough to take me if there had been one, of course. But I read a positive review of the movie, where the reviewer was nevertheless appalled to see that a morally-superior looking woman had brought her two children, apparently around three and five years old, to see the movie with her.

Ann

Actually, I used to be very violently against any story I felt to have a "sad ending". That was basically all I had against Black Beauty--it ended with a death, so I perceived it to be completely and hopelessly sad.

On rereading it at an older age, I realised the death wasn't the point. But try telling that to a second grader.

I totally understand the viewpoints of Nan and others who hate deathfics, because I felt that way for a long time. As life changed for me, I guess I found that I couldn't believe in conventional happy endings, at least not all the time, so I started accepting others. And as I believe a lot of things are redeemable, I see the beauty even in sadness. Still, there are days when I have to read something very happy just because it is. I like both, but I think I still read more happy than sad overall. Unless it's required reading, and then I have no choice.

Capes, you said something about the story of Black Beauty which I found extremely illuminating, and true. You said about this tragic horse story that
Even though the story ends tragically, the tragic ending isn't the point of it. You will forgive me for saying that this is a piece of totally amazing wisdom.

People, I'm fifty years old. In a few months I'll be fifty-one. It's overwhelmingly probable that I have lived more than half of my life already.

Now let's do a bit more calculating. Astronomers believe that the universe is around fourteen billion years old. For all but fifty of those fourteen billion years, I didn't exist. In less than fifty years, I won't exist again. But the universe will go on and on, for an untold number of billion years.

People, just try to imagine the eons before me when I didn't exist, and the eons after me when I won't exist, either! It would be easy to say that I'm totally inconsequential, and in so many ways that would be absolutely true, too.

But this is what I believe. The point about us humans is not that we are inevitably going to die, or that our lives, from a cosmic perspective, are so unbelievably short. Heck, they are short even from a human point of view - do I vividly remember being seventeen, when it seemed impossible that I could ever become middle-aged, or old.

No, this is the point. The miracle about us humans is our lives. We live. For a very short time - some of us live so briefly that we never even become truly aware of our own existence. Others live more than a century, which is still very nearly nothing from a cosmic perspective. Still all our lives are miracles.

A friend of mine became pregnant after many years of trying to conceive a child. Just a week before she was expected to give birth, her little baby son got so tangled up in the umbilical cord that he got strangled while still inside his mother's body. He was stillborn, of course, but he was perfectly formed, a beautiful little boy. He never made it alive outside the amniotic fluid of the womb. But I know my friend sang and talked to him to him while she was expecting him. We have every reason to believe he heard and reacted to her voice. He rolled and kicked inside her womb. He had his own kind of awareness, and he was a living miracle inside the universe of his mother. He just got a shorter time to live than most of us.

The point is not that we all must die, or that we live such brief lives. The point and the miracle is that we live at all. I want the stories I read to celebrate that life. That doesn't mean that these stories can't acknowledge the fact that our lives will inevitably come to an end. They can indeed tell us that, and even detail the story of the main character's death. The stories can do that and still celebrate life, still make us see that the important thing wasn't the deaths, but the lives.

Stories that leave us with a sense of hopelessness and despair have failed to celebrate our lives, I think. And stories that get caught up in death without looking ahead, without giving us a suggestion as to what we could do to help those who are still alive, they just wallow in death, I think.

Ann

I just found this very intense thread today. Sheila and Nan explain clearly some of my feelings, too.

<<So… has ANYONE? actually moved from one camp to the other?>>

Yes, I'd say that when I was young, I did enjoy deathfics, and my analysis of the reason is that I had not had enough life experience to know those feelings on a personal level. I no longer enjoy a "cathartic" feeling from such themes, in fact I shy from them entirely. Why choose to read more about sadness and loss when life's got plenty?

LaurieD

Black Beauty's tragic ending????

I admit I have not read the book recently. But I could have sworn that the book ended with BB in a pasture of his long-ago owner's daughters. He was looking back on his life, reflecting, and said that he was content. I don't remember the book ending with his death.

The only death I remember was possibly Ginger's death. And then, it wasn't confirmed it was Ginger but perhaps another horse who happened to look like Ginger on the cart....

Can someone who has their copy available double check the ending and email me privately? This is going to drive me nuts and my only copy is either buried in a very scary book cupboard or was donated to a library a long time ago.

Thanks!
This has been a very interesting discussion.

Jackie

I still don't have a problem with death fics, but I do have a better understanding of why some FoLCs choose not to read them.

It all comes down to personal choice and what you feel comfortable with reading. Personally I sometimes enjoy a story that is a bit depressing, but then other times I want something warm and fluffy.

Anyhoo, I enjoyed seeing what others thought on the subject. It's been really interesting.

(Incidentally, "Where the Red Fern Grows" was one of my favourite books in school )

Never read "Black Beauty" though...

Or perhaps something in between those two ends of the spectrum?

Very interesting thread - I'm not sure that those who are uncomfortable with Lois or Clark deathfic are saying that fluff pieces are necessarily their preference. To assume that it is, is perhaps to trivialize both their reading patterns and the stories which they have written as well as the intensity of their personal, real life experiences.

This is not to malign fluff pieces, though - especially those that are sublime bits of piffle.

c (who had no idea Black Beauty was a horse snuff-fic!)

Actually, I didn't read Black Beauty either, so I can't say it's a horse snuff-fic. (Loved that word, Carol.) It's just that others said they felt bad reading it, so I assumed it ended tragically.

The most horrible deathfic I read as a young kid was actually a poem, called Little Black Sara (well, that's the English translation of what it was called in Swedish - it may originally have been written in English for all I know).

Anyway, the poem is about this little black girl living in Africa. And she's dying. She is very, very ill, and there was a picture of her lying down, waiting for her death. And would you know the girl was happy? Well, you see, she was thinking of what the "white teacher" - apparently a missionary - had told her. He had said that Jesus loved her, and when she died she would come to Jesus in heaven, and in heaven she would be so, so happy. And the poem ended something like this:

And little black Sara was made white and pure in the blood of the Lamb.

Even as a kid who had never heard of racism I was uncomfortable that little black Sara was going to be white when she came to heaven. Why? If God had thought she should be black on the earth, why couldn't she be black in heaven?

But of course, it was a lot worse that little Sara would have to die when she was seven years old or something. Why couldn't she be given a longer time to live on this earth?

But the very, very worst thing was that Sara was so happy that she was going to die. She was happy, because she was going to heaven. And this poem was the sort of educating, moralistic piece that told kids what they should feel. I strongly felt that the poem asked me to be happy about little Sara's death. By extension, it asked me to be happy about the deaths of all other kids, too, at least all Christian kids. They, too, would go to heaven. Ultimately, the poem asked me to be happy if I were to be seriously ill and die as a kid, since that would take me to heaven. And if the thought of dying very soon didn't make me happy, it just meant that I was a bad girl, and I should be ashamed of myself.

To me, this is the perfect example of deathfic that doesn't celebrate life, whatever else you can say about it. But, okay, I can see that a kid who was dying herself might take comfort from it. But again, it depends on the child, and I can't imagine ever feeling good or soothed myself by "Little Black Sara".

Ann

You've got it bang on. Although it is heavily implied that the dead horse is Ginger. Ginger's death is really the entire point of the book - the dreadful way that many horses were treated at that time.

The book was written by Anne Sewell because seeing these kinds of events on a daily basis distressed her so much that she wanted to prick the conscience of Victorian society. To an extent she did that and treatment for horses in many ways did improve as a result of the novel's huge success.

But Beauty doesn't die - you're right in that he ends his days dozing in the sun of his pasture, fussed over by the children of his previous owners. In fact, I think I'm right in saying at the end of the book he is even reunited with the little pony Merrylegs, who joins him in his blissful retirement. But that one I'm slightly more hazy on than Ginger and Beauty's fate.

The story has tragedy in it, but it doesn't end on a tragic, downbeat note or with a death.

Incidentally, you can download a free copy of the novel (along with many others which have no copyright attached) here at the wonderful
Project Gutenberg website. This site aims to gather all uncopyrighted material in one 'library' so that they can be freely accessed and either read online or downloaded to your pc.

Seems I got some of those details wrong - it's been decades since I read this one. But here are the final few paragraphs (with spoiler space for those who don't want to know <G>):

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I have now lived in this happy place a whole year. Joe is the best and kindest of grooms. My work is easy and pleasant, and I feel my strength and spirits all coming back again. Mr. Thoroughgood said to Joe the other day:

"In your place he will last till he is twenty years old--perhaps more."

Willie always speaks to me when he can, and treats me as his special friend. My ladies have promised that I shall never be sold, and so I have nothing to fear; and here my story ends. My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple-trees.


LabRat

I've been following this thread since it started, and I thought I'd share my thoughts too.

Before I begin, let it be known that I've never lost anyone close to me, which may explain my current behaviour towards deathfics. Also - I haven't read much deathfic, so a good part of my views is based on literature books I've read that end with, or include, deaths ('Uncle Tom's Cabin', which has already been mentioned, and others). I have the same attitude towards books and fanfics, though, so I guess it's pretty safe to do that.

Deathfic is to me like any other fanfic genre. If it's well-written, I'll read it. Jackie said everything I'd want to say on catharsis, and I must say, catharsis works for me; besides, I'm of the kind who tend to express their feelings out loud (i.e. having temper tantrums etc.). A deathfic or otherwise angstfic has the power to dig in my soul, find all the negative feelings bottled in, and take them away with it when it's over. And that's particularly effective if it makes me cry, too; I love it when the story has the ability to work as an emotional rollercoaster of me, whether of happy or sad feelings. (The fact that I'm a huge fan of comedies must mean something.) A good deathfic/angstfic might make me feel sad, but afterwards I'll remember it and think, 'oh, that was *some* ride'!

Now, I understand that those who don't like deathfic might actually enjoy angstfic, but I can't help it - to me, death in fics is nothing more than an angst tool, and, in fact, my behaviour towards deathfic is the same as towards any angstfic. Some will argue that a deathfic generally can't have a happy ending, while an angstfic can, and that's what makes the difference. Well, to tell you the truth, to me it doesn't make much of a difference. "It's not the destination, it's the journey that counts," as others have said before me. I mean, I *will* be hoping for everyone to end up alive and well, but if they don't... well, that's life. I'll probably get sad, or angry (you wouldn't want to be near me when I first read 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', where one of my favourite HP characters dies. I was mad with fury.) but I'll eventually get over it, and it'll feel good when I do.

Besides, by relating with the feelings of the heroes, I can get to experience things through the safety of living in reality; in the end, nobody will really die, and I'll have become acquainted (if only a little) with the feelings of loss, while I will be feeling cleansed of the negativity that often finds a hiding place inside me and builds up until it's explosion time. (Besides, 'catharsis' means exactly that: 'cleansing'.)

And since someone already mentioned Becky Bain's Ad Astra Per Aspera, I have to say it's one of my favourite L&C fics ever.

Same is my attitude towards writing angstfics/deathfics. I've written one L&C deathfic - it was one of my first fics, and it was far from a masterpiece, but I enjoyed exploring the feelings of guilt and loss through it. And, once I was done writing it, it was great to feel the relief of having the negativity out of my system.

Also, I've got four original pieces, of length varying from 2 to 5 pages. One of them is a story of someone dying, one is somebody's reflections on someone else's death, and the other two are not death-related, but relatively angsty. I wasn't feeling 'down' when I wrote them, the ideas just came to me. When I told my best friend about them, she shuddered. "Why be so macabre?" she asked. I didn't know what to say, except that my mind just worked like that at that moment. I can only say one thing for sure; it was satisfying to write these pieces. And I like reading them as well. For all the reasons I mentioned above.

BTW, Lab - that's one awesome link.

And one question: Is, say, a fic about Mayson's death considered a deathfic? I mean, of course it includes death and everything, but she dies anyway in the show.

See ya,
AnnaBtG.