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

Ann:

Are you expressing a complaint over a current situation, or a concern over something that could happen? Because if you think that, as things are now, L&C deathfic = Lois deathfic, I would have to say that I disagree with you. (BTW - Pam, I love your point about TOGOM fics.)

Also - a thought that occured to me after reading your 'Joe & I' example.

Maybe I'm just projecting my own inability onto others, but personally, I think it's impossible to cover all aspects of an event in writing. If someone wants to write about a death, it doesn't mean that they have to cover the death act AND the thoughts that went through the dying person's mind AND the grief the people close to the dying person felt AND the legal/social/other consequences that death had. Sometimes you just can't fit everything into a story. Granted, a story doesn't just write itself, but I believe that writing is more than just coming up with lines of words to put on a paper, or a screen. It's finding out the perfect way to tell a story. And sometimes, what's best for the story is *not* covering everything.

Just MHO, of course.

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Pam, I love the TOGOM rewrites, but these stories always end adorably happily, don't they? I don't think they qualify as deathfic at all. Lois is always extremely upset about Clark's death, so we get to explore her grief, but Clark always comes back to her. Moreover, he was never dead in the first place.

So, people, if you want to explore Clark's grief by writing equivalents of TOGOM rewrites - that's to say, stories where Clark thinks that Lois is dead, but she is alive and well all the time, and they end up being reunited - well, let me tell you, that is the kind of death-of-Lois fic that I'm going to love!

Ann

Sounds like Wendy & Kae's fic "If Living is Without You" ... also my "Tryst" And others, I'm sure, I'm just not remembering them at the moment... You might also want to check out "Twist of Fates" and "The Devil's Bargain." Not to mention this year's favorite "24 Hours" And others not written by Wendy Richards...

PJ

Pam, I haven't read "Tryst". I certainly will!

Ann

opinion warning:

Ann, that's an apt and interesting analogy. Women have often been used in that way in films, trash novels, TV etc. (still recall a James Bond flic where a woman was tossed to her death (or very grave injury - we never did find out) over a balcony simply because she was a prostitute - and then the guys, including Bond, all had a good laugh about it)

I know I bring a feminist bias to all this, but I have to say one of things that made me cheer about "Lois and Clark" was that Lois *mattered* as much as did CK/S. Her story was as important as his story. It was sort of like watching a show that made Tonto as important as the Lone Ranger. (please tell me that someone out there gets this comparison. )

So, because of that point of view, I'm bothered by those serious fics (or MVs for that matter) which use Lois as a plot device only, or marginalize her character, or who kill her off simply so we can see Clark suffer. To elevate CK/S as more important than Lois or to minimize his character flaws while we condemn Lois's takes us backward in time to a period when female characters in pop culture rarely mattered except for their role as "girlfreind of". At best, they were sidekicks; they simply did not matter in their own right. But I don't think that's what L & C:TNAoS was about. And I just sat back and grinned when I watched the pilot.

Now I admit that this is all 'large picture stuff' and of no interest whatsoever for those who regard fanfic as trivial stuff with no larger significance and ought not to be taken seriously at all. And they're probably right.

Am I way off topic at this point?

c.

I'd say that depends in large part on the ethnicity of the entire cast. If the black person is killed and the story is set in a mostly black community, I'd say that making the victim white would be silly. In this universe, if you want to get to Clark's core, Lois is one avenue to explore.

I think that one reason Lois is a "preferred target" as it were, is BECAUSE she is so important to Clark and the story. I just don't see these stories of Lois's death the way you do. You see her becomming the token woman, damsel in distress, thowaway sidekick, if I understand you correctly. I see her as so important to Clark that another's death wouldn't have the same impact on him, or result in the exploration of consequences etc. that Lois' death would. And I don't think that exploration of what happens next is necessarily bad, although I understand you don't want to read it.

Lois is a huge and significant part of the landscape, which makes her death a topic that several of us want to explore in different ways. It doesn't mean we don't value her or respect her. It just means we want to ask a "what if" question and see what happens next.

Jackie

Okay, I'll be honest and admit that I haven't read the entire thread. So much to keep up with! But I have read the last 20 or so replies (a bit surprised to find my own story mentioned ).

It seems some people are intent on seeing "death-of-Lois" fic as merely a way to watch Clark suffer. Now, I'll admit I like to watch Clark suffer , but I really don't think that's the point of most deathfic, at least not that I've read. To Clark, Lois's death is more than just something to grieve over.

Lynn said it quite well, but I'd like to expand on this idea.

The alternate universe we were presented in the series serves as a perfect example. There, Lois IS dead. The writers of the show killed her (not to mention Clark's parents!), then they introduced "our" Lois just to show Clark what he's missing. To show him that there was someone out there who could have completed him. To show him that there is another man out there in the universe (galaxy?) who is just like him, but he's happy and has Lois and has his parents alive and well.

Wow, talk about the angst there! For ratings, you think? Did they do this just to make Clark suffer?

Well, yes and no.

There's something far bigger going on here. Think about it.

Without Lois and his parents, who is Clark Kent? You'll notice, without these people in his life, there *isn't* a Superman. Alt Clark needed a Lois to show him who he could be. Even after her guidance, though, he's still shaky. He hasn't had Martha and Jonathan's influence and loving support and acceptance. And he still feels lost because he knows now that there's something missing: Lois.

So, did the writers kill just for the sake of angst so we could watch Clark suffer? No. They did it to show us that without Lois, Superman just doesn't exist.

I think that's something elemental to this fandom. Heck, it was even presented to us that way in the series: "Wherever he is, you are. Never one without the other." Lois is the one who guides Superman, helps him grow into his role as a hero, not to mention she gave him the idea in the first place. I'll admit I stole at least one of these observations from Wendy, but take a look:

Clark was about to cheat at cards until Lois mentioned in the conversation that Superman wouldn't cheat at cards.

Clark was about to give it all up because he didn't think he was making a difference. It's Lois who makes him realize that "what he *can* do is enough."

Clark was about to tell the world he was Superman to avoid scandal because he believed it the only way to protect his integrity. Lois lets him know that it's a mistake. She tells him who Superman is, *what* Superman is.

The list is innumerable. But the point is that Clark can't be Superman without Lois, and I don't think I'm rash in assuming that most (if not all) the fandom can agree with that.

This is why I just can't see why people are assuming that anytime Lois dies, it's for the sole purpose of watching Clark suffer and grieve. Sure, that's a part of it... but maybe it's just harder to see the *extent* of his grief - something he may not even realize himself, though he'll feel it. The whole point of it is that, in losing Lois, he's lost a part of himself.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to talk in circles, and I could really wax on all day, so I'll stop here.

Sara

Thanks, Sara! I'd forgotten that quote. And that's it; it sums it all up And where the spirit of that quote isn't evident or reflected in a fic then, well....

c.

Not that it matters, but I really doubt that you're remembering this correctly; unless it's one of the later films I haven't seen, I'm pretty sure that the film is Diamonds are Forever, the girl is the romantic interest, and she is shown landing in the swimmming pool and later plays a major part in the story.

But I entirely agree that women tend to be the victims in action-adventure movies; someone recently pointed out that the most dangerous role in any film is Harrison Ford's wife, because in nearly every film he's made for a good few years his wife has been murdered or is in grave peril.

Jackie, I still think you are saying that Lois and Clark stories are about Clark, and the reason it is interesting to kill Lois is just that she is the most important thing to him. The way I read you, you are not saying that Lois and Clark are equal partners, and that it would be equally interesting to kill Clark to see how Lois would react as it would be to kill Lois to explore Clark's grief.

Sara, I love your post. You pay such a wonderful tribute to Lois in it, and to the concept of Lois and Clark.

My objection is the following. There is an ongoing Superman mythology out there. Suppose that Lois as a character is really killed there, her death just possibly aided by the fact that even FoLCs seem to like to fantasize about her death.

Now, in the ongoing mythology out there, Superman will change when Lois is dead. There will be no room at all for the wonderful man who loves Lois. Don't tell me that from the moment Lois dies and onward, comics and movies will show us a heartbroken, lost Superman who keeps living in the past, obsessing about his lost love!

No, Superman will become everything I don't want him to be. Harder as a character. Far less interested in his Clark identity than in his Superman persona. All wrapped up in his macho crime fighter mood. And his attitude to women will be either that he will become celibate and uninterested, or else he will be moderately womanizing, or else that he will find a new love interest such as Lana. Maybe after a while Lana will be killed too, and yet another woman will be found for him. Wonder Woman? Lori Lemaris? A new character altogether? Perhaps even a slightly dangerous and evil woman who can lead him into temptation?

And after things have been going in that direction for a suitable number of years, people will say: Lois who? What do you mean, soulmates? How can you think that Superman will grieve much over a woman?

I think that we are helping to endanger the Clark we love by killing the Lois he loves. Kill her a sufficient number of times when many others out there would like to kill her anyway, and our wish to see her killed may come true. And then the Clark we love will have to go, too.

Ann

I sincerely doubt it, Ann. I mean, sure. Lois is more replacable than Clark. Superman is arguably the most recognizable superhero in existance.

Sure, Clark has died a few times (as Clark or as Superman), but he always comes back. Superman is Clark Kent, and the public isn't going to accept anything else.

And Lois hasn't always been his primary love interest. There have been plenty of LLs over the decades. There was even a Superboy series with Lana Lang and no Lois. It was pretty popular for a while and was turned into a TV show in the 80s.

At this point, though, Lois is very much Clark's destiny. His One True Love. Sure, there's Smallville, but Smallville is hardly true to the Superman mythos. It's also only a small part of all things Superman, just as the Superboy comic and TV show were only a small part in their time.

I hardly think a few deathfics in our little community are about to make an impact on that. Especially not when they focus on Clark's reaction and the fact that Lois is crucial to him.

Come to that, there's a very famous graphic novel out there, Kingdom Come. Early on (actually, several decades before the story takes place), Lois is killed by the Joker. By the end of the book, Superman and Wonder Woman... well, they're an item. And the book takes place in the DC Universe future. For a while, it was considered a possible future towards which everything was heading. (Since then, a critical moment in the book's story happened differently in real present continuity, so we know things won't turn out as they were in the book.)

Did Kingdom Come change things? Is Superman going out with Wonder Woman? Heck no. He's still married to Lois. Wonder Woman is off doing her own thing. If she's flirting with anyone, it's Batman (but not really very much at all).

Superman goes with Lois Lane, and that's not going to change.

It's pretty much universally accepted that Superman's top 3 vulnerabilities are:

1. Lois Lane
2. Kryptonite
3. Magic

Meanwhile, there's the opposite situation with Wonder Woman, the most recognizable female superhero in existance. She'll never be replaced, but Steve Trevor has come and gone from her life several times. He'll no doubt be back again, but he isn't nearly as well-known as Lois.

I don't see why TOGOM stories don't count, either. They're a natural magnet for Clark deathfic because TOGOM is part of series canon. If you see more Lois deathfics than "real" Clark deathfics, it's because TOGOM is out there skewing the numbers.

(Of course, I had a beef with the spate of fic that came after BGDF. Every single one was about Lois's pain from the separation. Clark, OTOH, had to be separated from Lois, lose his powers, go into a war zone, deal with this alien culture which was his by birth, etc etc, but somehow that was considered secondary. A passing thing. That irked me.

So, I can sort of sympathize with you seeing this as one-sided. But there you go. A counterpoint to your complaint. A way in which FoLCs are one-sided in favor of Lois.)

As for deathfic in general... I was never big on it. I like my fics to be happy. I have enough pain in RL (I won't get into my more recent issues with mortality specifically), and catharsis never did much for me.

But then, one day, I was working on this story. It'd started with me getting this cool idea for a title. Then the title sat there for a couple of years with no story to go with it. Then I was talked into trying to write it again. And, in the course of a single weekend, I ended up writing The Cape of Good Hope , an angsty (and perhaps cathartic?) deathfic. Go figure.

Stories are stories. Whether I'll like them or read them depends on how they're written, what they're about, my mood at the time, and a bunch of other factors (some variable, some not). I'm not a big fan of deathfic, but it has its place.

In the end, you write the stories that come to you and you read the stories that suit you (and your mood). Trends come and go, and, as has been pointed out, telling a writer to consider trends and bigger pictures is more counter-productive than anything.

Are there more Lois deathfics than Clark deathfics? Depends on how you count them.

Does it matter if there are? It depends on you and how you look at things.

Are a handful of Lois deathfics in a small community of fans that's out of the way even amongst Superman fans going to change the future of Lois Lane? I sincerely doubt it.

Is this drifting mishmash of a post going to help, make things worse, or end up just being one tiny part of an already huge thread? Only one way to find out...

Paul

Thanks, Ann and Carol.

I don't think we're endangering Lois in the whole of the Superman mythos just by killing her. I can see what you're trying to get at, but I respectfully disagree.

Think of it this way...

If there were ever a character FoLCs fantasize about killing, it's Lex Luthor. ), but he still lives on. He hasn't been erased or forgotten in the Superman mythos. That'd be impossible, IMO.

Same goes for Lois, I think. As I said in my last post, Lois Lane is an intergral part of who Superman and Clark Kent are. You can't have one without the other; Lois dying won't change that fact.

Sara

For more insight into what's going on with the comics in this regard, see the current thread on Zoom's mbs.

Marcus, I think you're right - it was Diamonds are Forever - I can only remember my shock at her being pushed off the balcony. They must have cut for a commercial or something at that point when I was watching. First the memory goes, and then....

(what's my name again?)

I’ve been following this debate for a while now. And I’ve found some good arguments being made on all sides of the issue. I find myself reading one post and agreeing. Then I read the following post, which says the exact opposite, and find myself again agreeing. (Occupational hazzard, I suppose - although, it probably means I wouldn’t make a very good judge ).

Personally, I’m not a big fan of death-fics. But it isn’t because of some profound reason. I just like happy endings - which, to me, means Lois and Clark being together and alive. However, if I’m simply given a ‘broken toys’ warning at the beginning, I’m fine. At least that way, I know not to become to emotionally invested in the story or... depending on my mood, avoiding the story all together.

On the other hand, death has never really bothered me. I don’t like dying. I don’t like movies about dying. But death... If a movie gets too long sometimes I find myself wishing that the author would just kill off all the characters (although, I’m not sure if that is quite the same thing ).

As for having deep thoughts about death... Well, on those occasions where my life has been in peril (like rolling down a hill in a car), I tend to think things like: “Oh no! I didn’t clean my house today! People are going to see my dirty house!” or “I’m wearing my holey underwear! I can’t die in my holey underwear! What would my mother say?” I do, however, have more problems with the thought of the death of a person I love than I do with my own death. That's a little harder to deal with or to think about.

So I guess, since the question being asked is whether I like death-fics, I’d have to say that the answer would be no, but if others feel the need to write them, that’s okay with me, too. Would I ever write a death-fic? Uhh... No comment .

I do have a question, though (which is actually the reason I decided to post). I would have said that a death fic was one where either:

1. Lois or Clark or both die, or
2. the main focus of the story is on death.

I wouldn’t have thought that stories that kill off the other characters, but where the focus of the story isn’t on that fact, would qualify. For example, at the beginning of Heaven’s Prisoners, Demi kills off Martha and Jonathan. Yet I wouldn’t call that a death fic. Or in one of Tank’s stories, I remember him killing Cat. I thought it was very effective in the story (and I must admit to shedding a few tears), but I wouldn’t consider that story a death fic. So... how do people catagorize them? And should there be warnings if you are going to kill off a supporting character at some point in the story?

ML

(btw, Carol, I really enjoyed that thread about Lois and Clark's marriage in the comics on Zoomway's boards.)

Well, the reason why I will always kill Lois in preference to killing Clark has nothing to do with my disrespect for women, Lois, or the Superman myth, and everything to do with being a straight woman who likes her stories to feature a hero. If I kill Clark, I lose my hero. Also, I get left with a bereft Lois, which is interesting, but doesn't really bring out my sympathetic and protective instincts in the same way as a bereft Clark does. On the other hand, if I kill Lois, then I get to keep my hero, and I get to feel sorry for him. What could be better?

It's the classic hurt/comfort syndrome, of course. It's not sophisticated or clever, but it's what I and many fellow sufferers enjoy.

That said, I usually prefer not to kill anyone, so that Lois herself can comfort Clark. Which is why, in turn, I generally prefer stories where Lois knows The Secret, because then she's much better equipped to recognise when comfort is needed and apply it appropriately.

Yvonne

Yvonne, on some level I agree with you. Not when it comes to killing either Lois or Clark. Honestly, I would never, ever kill either of them, so the question of which of them I would kill is really not an issue, but... okay, if somebody forced me to write a deathfic because if I didn't they'd hurt my family or something, then I'd kill Clark. I'd do pretty much anything to avoid killing Lois!

Still, I understand what you say about wanting to keep your hero alive. For many years - ten, fifteen years or something, I'm not really sure - I'd tell myself a "Spock story" as I waited to fall asleep every night. Yes, Spock of Star Trek was my big hero, and I made him incomparably more heroic than he had ever been in the TV show. Well, people, keep that Spock-storytelling up for ten or fifteen years, and you can imagine how my hero eventually turned out. He became so insufferably good and super-mega-giga-altruistic that there was nothing I could do to prevent him, honestly, from sacrificing his own life for the greater good of all the sentient (and for that matter non-sentient) life forms of the universe. So he died, and let me tell you, I felt so bereaved. What could I do now, to help myself fall asleep at night?

I can understand what you mean when you say that Clark is your hero, not Lois, and in any case you'd rather rest your eyes on Clark than on Lois. I understand all of that. And believe me, too, that I'm not trying to deliberately misunderstand you. When you say you'd rather kill Lois than Clark you're talking about these honest-to-God fictional characters who you're having a romp with in a bit of fan fiction.

But, even so, Yvonne, I shudder. And not because of you, really, but because of all these women out there, all of us women, who just stand by and shrug and close our eyes while a holocaust of women are being killed every two to four years.... And then we sit down by our word processors and write a story where we'd rather kill a woman than a man. People, I shudder.

Ann

Nope. I'm saying that SOME Lois and Clark stories are going to focus just on Clark, for whatever reason. And I'm trying to explain to you why I don't believe that killing Lois is just a plot ploy or a result of cheapening her value. Not every Lois and Clark story is about Lois and Clark as a couple in the present. Some of us want to explore one side of that coin or the other, or explore what happens when one side of the coin goes missing.

I don't see where each and every story must give Lois and Clark equal screen time, equal font size in the credits, and identical on set trailers. That does not equal a view that Lois is less important overall.

I heartily disagree and here is why: The Superman mythology has become part of our culture. It's a symbol that is recognized by millions... much like the symbol of two small circles on top of another that stands for Mickey Mouse. Because the mythology belongs to all of us, we each get to interpret it and play with it as we wish. The "downside" to that is that we give up control over the mythology as a whole. Because it belongs to all of us, no one individual, or group, or even DC/Warner brothers gets to dictate to everyone else how it is seen. "Your Clark" will forever live in your life. Even if individuals in fandom drift away from a similiar view, your individual ownership of the characters as you see them remain.

Jackie

Perhaps it will put your mind at ease if you pull back and look at the picture. In THIS fandom, with THIS arrangement of the indestructable character being male and the love of his life being female, yes, we sometimes lean towards destroying the indestructable hero by way of the destructable woman he loves.

BUT... this is not the only fandom that deals with death. It's certainly not the one I most actively write in. And in my big, epic, monster fanfic I've been working on for more years than I care to admit, I'm an equal opportunity killer. Characters live and die to serve the story, and the beloved main character I killed off was a guy. An alien guy at that! I hated to do it, tried to come up with ways out of it, but in the end, he had to die. Muses can be a royal pain sometimes.

I don't think what we do in our exploration of the Lois and Clark universe truly indicates a real-life sensitivity (or lack thereof) to the events of the real people in our real world. Just like I don't think that people who ride roller coasters would find equal pleasure falling out of an airplane with no parachute. The sensations of free fall and speed may be the same... but the context is very different! Just because we sometimes explore Lois' death does not mean we don't value women or want to make their sutation better.

After all, one reason we love Lois so much is because she is a strong woman who can change the world without Superman's help. He just keeps her alive so she can continue her work!

Jackie

I'm glad to hear that you value women and want to make their situation better, but I'm not too glad to hear you may be intending to "sometimes explore Lois' death".

I feel like I have a million reasons to be opposed to deathfic, death-of-women fic and death-of-Lois fic. I've tried to explain them all here.

One reason why I hate Lois deathfic in particular is that I've invested an incredible amount of emotion in her since 1969. So it's no consolation to me at all that you may be in other fandoms, if you've come to this one to kill Lois.

Of course, I haven't seen any stories by you posted here at all, at least to my knowledge. So I'll reserve my judgement about what your intentions may be until I've seen something you've actually written.

You said in your last paragraph:
This description of Lois's role and character and your own feelings for her sounds good to me, Jackie. Are you up to writing a Lois and Clark story that fits the description that you yourself have formulated here? A story where Lois doesn't die, mind you, but is kept alive by Superman, just as you said.

If you'd like to write a story like that, I'd sure look forward to it.

Ann

Originally posted by TOC:
I do understand your position; it isn't my position. Thus while I respect your view, I do not feel that my own writing is bound by it. However, in respect for those who share your position, I would certainly post WHAM and broken toys warnings on it.

To me, that sounds like you view me as a person with only one motivation. I've tried to explain and defend the viewpoint of writers who kill off Lois, not define my sole reason for participating in this fandom. Can't I have many different, overlapping, and even contradictory motivations? I write the stories that come to me. Some might involve a main character dying if that is the story that my muse and I develop. I've yet to sit down on a "mission" and generate a story as a result; I just don't work that way.

I do have a LnC story in the works, but don't expect it any time soon! The main theme has emerged and some scenes, but the linking plotline to hang a story on has not yet been developed. Add two kids and a full time job to the mix.... for some reason I get the time to write when I'm too tired and never have the time when I'm itching to write!

This current story, at this point in time, does not involve the death of a main character. But I can't and won't promise not to write that type of story, too. I also don't believe that my willingness to see a main character die in service to a story makes me love the show or a particular character any less. Nor does it accurately reflect on my sense of social responsibility in the real world. I write to ask a "what if" question, wind up the characters, and watch them go. The difference between that and real life is that I'd never experiment on living breathing people because you never get a "do over" like we do in fiction. I can kill Lois in one story, Clark in the next, and neither in the third. Three different what if questions, three different results, three romps in my imagination. THAT is why I write. But I certainly don't live like that!

OTOH, my son would love it in some cases. I could see what happens if I eliminated his bedtime, made mandatory baths optional, relieved him from all of his chores.... Nah... It's too much fun to be the enforcer!