Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic The Roads They Walked Alone Part 41 - Comments

Comments go here. Thanks for reading everyone!

Rac

Hi,

Great part.


Let’s catch them.


They kidnap him.

Ooh! Progress on New Krypton! Even though Nor and his wicked mommy are still on the loose, good stuff is happening. I wonder how long Rae Et and her minions (don't you just love the evil, disgusting slime that drips from that word?) will allow things to be quiet.

Ooh! Progress in Kinwara! But all is not well, because Lois is nearly at the end of her emotional rope. No matter how much good she does for people, she can't escape feeling inadequate as either Mommy or Ultra Woman. It's the classic working-mother guilt syndrome, and this time it isn't a choice between time spent with her child and money, it's between time spent with her child and the lives of innocent people. No wonder she's on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

And the situation with Luc and Ingrid may be that trigger. If something bad happens to either of them (or both of them), will it trigger a case of ultra-rage for which Lois will not feel able to forgive herself?

Maybe not. Maybe you have some other insidious tortures awaiting our favorite couple. But right now, the light at the end of the tunnel looks like an approaching express freight. Neither Clark nor Lois have much left in their tanks. They each need the support of the other, because all the sincere family and friends each one has can't take the place of the other. Everyone has a breaking point, and they're each pushing their own limits.

Gee, you're cruel. But it's fun! Keep it up, and come back with the next excellent chapter as soon as you can.

Rac, this very much got to me:

I love the sheer poetic power of myths. Myths endow our human (or Kryptonian) existence with larger-than-life forces of magic, love, death, tragedy and redemption. And I love the Tale of Revan and Sirin. This was breathtakingly beautiful:

I'm reminded of the ancient Jordanian city of Petra, which has been carved out of faintly rose-colored mountains there. What a crossroads the country of Jordan has been, and what a relentless string of strife and war this part of the world has seen. One wonders if the rosy mountains there have been colored by human blood slowly seeping into the cracks of them over the millennia, and what the people of Petra were fleeing from when they carved their city into the mountains themselves. It's no wonder that most myths from the Middle East seem to deal with war, not love. The myths that also deal with love - I'm reminded of a wonderful story of cosmic lore, about a princess represented by the beautiful bright star Vega and a prince represented by the bright star Altair and the "river" of the Milky Way flowing between them, separating them - well, mythic stories about love as well as war touch my heart in a special way. I will remember the Tale of Revan and Sirin.

And as Terry already pointed out: The situation on Krypton is looking up.

I felt so strongly for Lois in this part. She is trying so hard to help, to make things better in - well, I keep thinking of it as Darfur. But she has to battle not only the murderous rebels there but a lot of Western bureaucrats as well.

I loved the little glimpses we got of Lois as a mother:

Lois is such a good person, so full of compassion, and being a mother has made her even more compassionate. But she is also growing exhausted, running herself into the ground.

I love this. The beauty and peacefulness of the night sky and the aching loneliness in Lois's heart.

"I took for granted the fact that he always knew what to do and he did it" - this got to me so incredibly strongly. Most of us tend to assume that someone else will ultimately fix a lot of sticky problems for us. Too often we are not especially grateful to those who actually take care of the problems. We just assume that they know what to do, and we rarely thank them for doing it. But when we have to take on new responsibilities ourselves, we often feel helpless and confused. And the more we are supposed to do, the worse it gets.

Lois is fast approaching her limits, fast running herself into the ground. Martha makes her sleep in and take a morning off. But what happens when she does?

This is so horrible. "Some were barely teenagers, but the weapons they carried in their little hands were just as lethal." I'm seeing a group of heavily armed African twelve-year-old boys, kidnapping and possibly killing doctors who have come to their region to help people, when I'm reading this. And I'm comparing these young boy warriors with another little boy, Lois and Clark's son Jon. In a few years he will be twelve years old, too. Not many years ago the twelve-year-old soldiers were innocent little boys like Jon. What is happening to the children of the world? How can the adults protect them when they are claimed by the forces of war? What got most to me of the Krypton parts of this chapter, apart from the beautiful tale of Revan and Sirin, was Enza's concern for her young niece, another child caught up in a world at war. How can we protect our children?

Your story is as emotionally harrowing as it is beautifully and exquisitely written.

Ann

Another well written installment. This story is a tapestry, so rich in character and tales within tales.

interesting to see Ultrawoman so proactive politically. Would Superman have reacted the same way, I wonder? Of course, now that he's experienced so much darkness, maybe yes. Liked the Ambassador's euphemism :


loved this because it is so refelctive of Lois's wistful exhaustion:
Ah, but she is

and more challenges for Talan.

bring on the enxt part

c,

Hi everyone,

Thanks for you all for taking the time to comment. I'm really glad to see you're still reading and enjoying this story.

Hi Maria. Thanks for always commenting on every part. The rebels have indeed kidnapped Luc, so while things on New Krypton seem to be improving, things for Lois are getting more difficult.

Thanks for your comments, Terry. I agree that Lois's 'working mom' dilemma is made much more acute because she's trying to balance raising a son and saving innocent lives. It's pretty easy to say a your children should always and absolutely take priority over the ordinary, everday job. It's harder to figure out what the moral balance is when it's between spending more time with your children and saving lives, especially when you're the only person in the world who can do your job. At least with firefighters and soldiers, there are lots of them and their sacrifice is supposed to be limited in time - they're still supposed to be able to take time for their families when others are shouldering the responsibilities of work. Lois doesn't have that. As a result, she is, like you said, pretty much running on fumes these days. Things aren't exactly easy on Clark, either.

I've tried to do as much of a role reversal as possible with respect to the challenges they face. Not only was Clark more accustomed to the humanitarian crisis scenario, Superman was so well-respected and established internationally that he'd probably have an easier time encouraging world leaders to see the nature of the problem. And let's not forget the blindingly obvious point that he's way more diplomatic than Lois. I think Lois is more comfortable when she's completely free to take a side and when she doesn't have to worry about stepping on toes. So even though they're both confronting a war situation, I think they're both out of their elements for different reasons. I'm hoping to convey the fact that they're such amazing people that they perform heroically despite this fact.

Hi Ann. Thanks for your very kind words. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the myth. I've been trying to create a Kryptonian civilization and culture worth saving, so that it's not just about defending the lives of the NKers, but about defending their way of life. To me, that means they have to have a historical and literary heritage that's worth preserving. I agree that myths tell us a lot about who we are and what is important to us. And I have to admit, you got me on the issue of Petra. That's one of the things I was thinking of when I created the myth of Revan and Sirin. I was wondering what would motivate people to carve an entire city out of rock. The other source of inspiration was a story from the Shahnahmeh of Ferdousi.

As for events in Kinwara, this section was actually inspired by real life events in Rwanda. The UN commander there had been begging and pleading with the Directorate of Peacekeeping Operations to allow him to destroy the radio towers for months before and all throughout the genocide there. It was those radio towers that made the fastest ethnic cleansing in history possible. In the world of fiction at least, his pleas didn't all fall on deaf ears. The issue of child soldiers, as you noted, is a huge problem throughout war torn regions of the world and is particularly heartwrenching. What do you do when the perpetrators of such terrible crimes are also its victims? Lois certainly has her hands full with the situation there. Not to mention feeling like she's not doing her job as a mom. I really don't envy her.

Carol, thanks for your comments. I agree that Lois's initial approach was much different from what Clark's would have been, but as you say, who knows how he would have handled the situation post-NK. As I mentioned above, though, I think Superman would have had some built in advantages over Ultrawoman from the get-go. On the show we saw that countries wouldn't allow anyone but Superman mediate their peace talks. If he's that respected diplomatically, he might have carried more weight among the various statesmen that needed convincing. Oh, and while he's a really minor character, I thoroughly enjoy writing Ambassador Dalton. He's kind of a counterpoint to all of the completely irritating and useless diplomats.

Lois is indeed exhausted and I certainly don't blame her. This story hasn't been particularly nice to her. But then again, adversity is what shows us what we're really made of. Speaking of which, there will be more challenges for Talan and for all of the other characters in upcoming parts.

Thanks for reading and commenting, everyone!

Rac wrote:
Parts? PARTS? You mean we're not close to the end of this thing yet? Wow!

I'm not griping, really I'm not. Despite the gaps that RL has put in your writing schedule, I think this story is excellent. I'm a little concerned that Talan will try to 'help' Clark through his difficulties, and that will present him with a terrible moral problem: do you accept that kind of help from someone who needs help as much as you do, especially since you don't know when your personal trials will end? I hope Clark is strong enough to resist this temptation, and do it diplomatically.

I hadn't conciously considered that Clark and Lois are both in situations which the other might handle more easily. That's an interesting thought. I wonder if Lois would have been able to withstand Nor's torture, or if Clark would have been able to respect the UN restrictions without taking matters into his own hands even sooner. You've put both of them in extremely difficult (if not impossible) situations and squeezed them until they're ready to burst. I can't wait to see which of them pops a cork first, and just how difficult it will be to put the genie back in the bottle.

Hi Terry,

To answer your question, this behemoth is about 400 single spaced pages at the moment. And yet, there's still more to be written. It's not close to being done, but I am fairly confident that we're way, way past the halfway marker.

Major problems abound for our heroes. How they deal with those problems, however, is the real story. What's the old saying? Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent what you do about it.

More soon!

Rac