Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Breaking

wow. amazing. I loved the writing, the introspection, the slow unravelling of the moment. loved it!

beautiful, just beautiful

c.

so beautiful so moving

Wow is right. This was expertly written. When I got through I wanted to 1)collapse in a puddle of tears 2) smack Martha Kent. Hard. and 3)write something titled 'Season Three: How it *Should* Have Ended.'

Like the others have said, this was so beuatiful, but it was also almost suffocatingly, starkly sad. And I think it is because this fic is really about the awful, unforgiving sanctity of ceremonies, and the utter, merciless rejection of those who have not been through those ceremonies.

In Europe in the Middle Ages, newborn babies who died before they had been christened were sentenced to Hell. If the infants couldn't hang on to life long enough for a priest to arrive and christen them, there was no salvation or redemption for them. Of course this didn't have anything to do with any actions on the part of the infants, only with the lack of the required ceremony. For a newborn child, only one thing mattered: whether you had been christened or not.

In this fic, the all-important ceremony, the dividing line between Heaven and Hell, is the wedding ceremony. The presence or absence of a wedding ceremony means everything here, whereas such things as love, affection, friendship, upbringing, parenting, language, culture etcetera means nothing. All of that is null and void before the awesome ceremony.

Kal-El was married as an infant to Zara on Krypton. He didn't choose to be married to her, nor she to him, and neither of them knew what was happening. Only a short while later Kal-El's parents sent their son away not only from Zara but from Krypton, light-years away. It seems more than probable that Jor-El and Lara didn't put too much stock or value in the wedding ceremony tying the infants together. Indeed, Jor-El deliberately sent his son to the Earth, where Kal-El would grow up knowing nothing about his marriage to Zara. He wouldn't learn about Kryptonian culture and language or the ways and preconceptions of the people there. From the Kryptonians' point of view, Kal-El would grow up a cultural illiterate, a societal imbecile.

The Kryptonians expected Kal to come to New Krypton and marry Zara and rule over their planet and lead the war against Lord Nor. Ah, but how could he? Kal had received no military training on the Earth and no education on the finer points of ruling an autocratic society.

But what does all that matter? Kal doesn't speak Kryptonese, doesn't understand Kryptonian culture, has no military training and doesn't know how to rule a world. His parents sent him away to another planet so that he would have a completely different kind of life. What does that matter? He was born to be the High Lord of Krypton, and he underwent the holiest of ceremonies, the wedding ceremony, with the baby girl who was born to be his Lady. Nothing else matters, and the New Kryptonians can only be saved if their culturally illiterate and militarily ignorant First Lord returns to them, confirms the sanctity of the holy wedding ceremony he underwent with Zara as an infant, and leads the war against Lord Nor.

On Earth, Clark was adopted by the loving Kents, and he was raised to be an Earthling and an American. He learnt to understand such things as English, farming, apple pie, the Founding Fathers, church on Sundays and wooing and courting the girl you wanted to marry. Clark wooed and courted Lois, but as he tried to work his ways towards a holy wedding ceremony with Lois here on Earth, he was frustrated by Lex Luthor's proposal to Lois, his own "death" as he was "shot", his own breakup with Lois "for her own good", and Lois's transformation into a clone once he had finally married her. After that he was held back by ABC who wouldn't let him just elope with Lois to have the ceremony over and done with.

So, when Zara arrived, Clark's relationship with Lois was ceremony-less. What did it matter that he loved her? That he had spent years trying to win her? That she was the love of his life and his soulmate? That meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. Compared with the holy ceremony that had joined him to Zara when they both infants, his love for Lois and hers for him wasn't worth the paper that the ABC scripts were written on.

However, if Lois and Clark had been married, then Zara would have backed down. She would have accepted the sanctity of the ceremony that Kal-El had been through with this Earth woman. Indeed, she would have accepted that the sanctity of such a wedding ceremony here on Earth was so great that Kal-el would have to stay on this world, even if that meant certain doom for New Krypton. Even if there was no chance that New Krypton could survive unless Kal arrived there and saved it. Because the sanctity of the ceremony is everything, and life, love and happiness of people is nothing.

Now consider Martha and Jonathan. They had raised their little space baby as their own son, they had loved him and nurtured him. But now he was an adult, and he no longer belonged to the Earth because he was their son: he could only claim membership with the human race and citizenship on the Earth if he was married to a human woman. He could be an Earthling only if he was an Earth woman's husband. Only if he had undergone the holy wedding ceremony here on Earth.

But he hadn't.

So on Clark's last night on the Earth, when Lois and Clark tried to steal for themselves that which only those who lived in holy matrimony could taste the fruits of, Martha intervened. She called and stopped them when they wanted to do what only married people are allowed to do. That which you can do only if you have been through the holy wedding ceremony.

You have not been through the holy wedding ceremony, Martha was saying to her adopted son. You have squandered your right to be one of us. I cast you out. Do not touch the woman you hold in your arms. And be gone with you in the morning.

Abandoned by his Earth parents, Clark pleaded with Lois. Don't make me go. But Lois told him that he had to leave, or people on New Krypton would die. Lois would not have said that if Clark had in fact married her. His ability to save people on Krypton hinged on the condition that he had not married her, Lois, on the Earth. The man she loved didn't speak Kryptonese, didn't know Kryptonian customs, didn't know how to lead a war, didn't know how to rule a planet and didn't know the Kryptonian woman he hadn't even known he was married to. All those objections were null and void. Because he was married to her, Zara, and not to her, Lois. And therefore people would die if he didn't go with Zara.

Such is the awful sanctity of ceremonies. The horrible holiness of them. The newborn baby who dies before it is christened has to go to hell. The man who dragged his feet instead of eloping with his loved one was cast out from the planet he thought of as his own and had to go to Krypton. Because of the horrible holiness and the utter mercilessness of societies ruled by ceremonies.

I shudder.

Ann

P.S. As if this post isn't long enough already, I need to add something. Ndnickerson, you recently posted an nfic named 'Knot'. Nobody commented on the title. While there are interesting nfic implications that can't be commented on in this folder, it is also possible to think that the title refers to how unbreakable, or how impossible to untie, Lois and Clark's relationship is in that fic. Here the situation appears to be pretty much the opposite:

How beautiful. How horribly sad.

I don't think that's what happened at all with the phone call. It was just a matter of bad timing--Martha was worried when she couldn't reach Clark, thought he might've left without just one more goodbye (she was actually trying to keep him as long as she could on the planet, not to "cast him out," as you said in your next paragraph), and wanted to make sure that he was still there for at least that one night. Who knew when she would see her only, and most-loved child again?

Martha wasn't trying to cast him out, or even to stop what Clark and Lois were doing (she didn't even know what they were doing before she called, so how could she have an opinion about whether or not they should continue?).

The reason Lois & Clark stopped, I think, had more to do with the moment being ruined by the phone call itself than any imaginary aspersions that Martha might have cast on them.

In fact, I've always gotten the impression from the series that Martha would be perfectly okay with it if she knew that L&C had been having sex before they were married--she's just cool like that.

It was L&C themselves, after all, who decided to wait until they were married, and Martha who jokingly asked--mere hours after she'd met Lois--if she and Clark were sleeping together, fully willing to give them both Clark's childhood bedroom while they stayed in Smallville during GGGoH.

While I have to agree with Dragon that Martha just had a horrible case of bad timing, the rest of TOC's essay is essentially the core of my imagined 'How it Should Have Ended.'

When Lois and Clark went to the Kents for advice on whether Clark should go with Zara to New Krypton, I would have loved to see Jonathan say something like:

"Are you nuts? Why are you even considering this? Who do these people think they are, showing up here and asking you to give up your entire life, your history, your very identity to save a culture that *kicked you out* be sending you here? Either Jor-El knew about the New Krypton colony and he chose to send you here *instead* or they never told him about it in the fist place. In either case, they have absolutely no claim on your loyalty now.

Have you forgotten who your are? You are not Lord Kal-El. You haven't been since the day your mother lifted you out of that capsule. Read your birth certificate if you have to see it in writing, Clark. You are my *son.* You are Lois's *husband.* I don't care about the technicalities. I saw you stand there in front of God and man and promise to love Lois Lane for the rest of your life. I believe the phrase used was 'forsaking all others.' If you leave her now for this woman who doesn't know you from Adam, you are not the man I raised you to be.

My advice is for you two to fly to Vegas *this minute* and make what you already have legally binding, if for no other reason than to get Zara off your back.

"And another thing: have you forgotton every bit of history you ever read? If this Nor is really as tyranical as they say, and if this New Krypton colony is really a barren rock, then what's to stop Nor from figuring out where Zara found you and deciding that Earth would make a nicer home than New Krypton? In case you hadn't noticed, a technologically more advanced culture stealing natural resources from a less powerful culture is par for the course. So, after Vegas, your second stop should be Washington, where Superman should brief the President and the Joint Chiefs and the eggheads should get busy weaponizing every crumb of Kryptonite that we can find. Forget ruling New Krypton, Clark, your country and your world need you here at least as much as they say they need you there."

So there.

That would've been an awesome speech, HG, but I think speechifying is more Martha's style.

I think the whole stupidity of Clark actually contemplating leaving Earth is because they didn't have time to think about anything. It all just happened really fast, the tests Ching put him through, being told he was married at birth, then the blow when he saw that message from Jor-El about Zara . . .

I think Clark was just floundering during that whole arc, and no one else could make the decision for him, but he wasn't really in a right mind to make the decision himself. His own character forced him, in his confusion, into making the decision to leave and help these people he didn't know, who he shared a heritage with nonetheless. That, and he was probably overwhelmed with the knowledge that he wasn't really alone in the universe--he wasn't the last living Kryptonian after all.

One thing that REALLY bothered me about the NK arc was that none of the NK-ers even so much as acknowledged the fact that Clark had been a citizen of Earth for decades, and therefore should not have to be subject to Kryptonian law at all, not to mention, he knew nothing of their laws anyway. If anything, that should've made the birth marriage to Zara null and void, I thought.

I think you're right, Dragon, that Clark was overwhelmed by the idea of not being the last Kryptonian. I think he also felt duty-bound. Zara appealed to his sense of duty, and that is a very effective motivation for Clark. So I think the way for someone to help him see reason would have been to appeal to a higher duty.

He also needed someone to help him think clearly about the implications of accepting the duty that Zara was presenting him with. If he is the only one who can save New Krypton simply by virtue of his birth into the royal house, the obvious implication is that the only way to ensure the continued stability of the government is to produce an heir. Was he really willing to do that? And to stay there to raise and protect him?

But since Clark has the world't biggest Messiah complex, he wouldn't have been able to reject Zara's demands unless he could offer her another solution. I don't know what that might be. What those New Kryptonians really need is a revolution. How did these ruling houses get established in the first place? At some point there must have been some struggle for power and certain families came out on top. What Zara is trying to avoid is a crisis of succession and the resulting civil war. What if EPRAD could help Zara find a more hospitable planet? Then the house of Ra could claim supremacy by right of conquest/discovery or some such machination?

The whole NK arc was...BLAAAAHHH.

My interpretation of what Martha really meant when she called Lois and interrupted the would-be lovemaking is of course just my own interpretation, but I stand by it. I get the impression that it was moderately late when Martha called and that Clark and Lois were, probably, at Lois's place. Well, as I understand LnC canon, Martha and Jonathan are supposedly very happily married, which definitely suggests to me that they have an active love life. So what would Martha and Jonathan have done themselves if they had been about to be separated, possibly forever? They would be making love, right? Particularly if it was the night before Jonathan had to go. Now Martha is calling Lois on the night before Clark is leaving for Krypton - what was she thinking? Didn't she understand that Clark and Lois wanted the night for themselves? Couldn't she understand that they wanted to make love?

Bear in mind, too, that this fic doesn't suggest that Martha had pleaded with Clark not to go with Zara. I conclude, therefore, that she hadn't tried to make him think that his real duty might be to be the husband of Lois and the guardian of the Earth. If she didn't say it - and I don't get the impression that she did - then she really silently agreed with Zara that Clark had to go to Krypton. At least that's how I read it. And I think Martha must have known that she was interrupting something between Clark and Lois when she called on that particular night, and and she must have known that her son and his fiancée wouldn't be able to recapture the moment and return to intimacy after her phone call. So the way I see it, Martha was really saying, though not in so many words, that Clark should not be making love with Lois (and indeed she had just made sure that he wouldn't) and that he should, indeed, leave her and Jonathan and Lois and the Earth and go to Krypton and marry Zara and be a general and a Lord instead. To me, that is pretty indistinguishable from casting him out.

I agree with you, Darcy, that Clark was forced to leave because of his own character. He has a big Messiah-complex, as Happygirl pointed out, and therefore he couldn't turn down Zara's call for help and marriage, if he thought that he needed to be Zara's husband in order to be able to help the people on New Krypton. Clark has an almost compulsive need to help, which is why other people, like his parents, should have pleaded with him and made him see things differently. Happygirl, I loved your Jonathan speech!!!

Clark did have one very legitimate reason to go to New Krypton, however. Of course he would want to meet other Kryptonians, other people like himself, and see a Kryptonian society. And... yes, indeed... he would want to help those Kryptonians. That's Clark for you.

Ann

Well, I'm not sure Martha's motives were that well thought out, but I still think she deserves a good smack on the principle known in legal circles as 'knew or should have known.' If she didn't know what Lois and Clark were doing, she should have!

Personally, I think they should have gone right back to what they'd been doing after they hung up the phone. Actually, they shouldn't have answered it in the first place. Let Martha stew for a while and call her back later. That's what answering machines are for. I mean, I know she's his mom, but once a man gets married (and I still maintain that these two are functionally married or as good as and ought to be treated as if they are) then Mom has to take a back seat to the wife. Which, I know, millenia of history prove that Mom often has a hard time doing. This is just another example of how Clark needs lessons in 'forsaking all others.' If 'in my heart, I am your husband,' then act like it!

What if Clark and Lois had in fact been married and Clark had still gone to New Krypton in order to help the New Kryptonians avoid a civil war? I guess the question is moot, because if Clark and Lois had been married, then Clark simply wouldn't have left Lois for Zara. And Martha would have told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was absolutely not allowed to do anything so outrageous. (It's interesting to consider what kind of story it would have been if Clark had indeed done just that - left Lois even though he was married to her to go to New Krypton to help the people there, which would have forced him to consummate his marriage to Zara. It would have been a story about blood and race and loyalty to one's original culture and bloodline rather than a story about the awesome consequences of a wedding ceremony.)

Anyway, like I said, Martha wouldn't have taken Clark's decision to leave his wife on Earth for an unknown wife on New Krypton lying down. She would have boxed his ears off, invulnerable or not. So unless Clark was the world's worst bigot, so that he would take any chance to leave the Earth and Lois for 'his own people', he wouldn't have switched Lois for Zara if he and Lois had been married.

But now imagine that Clark had been forced to leave Lois for some other reason, possibly forever, even though he was married to her. Would Martha have called Lois and Clark's home on the night before Clark was leaving just to inquire about Clark's health and whereabouts? Never! She would have respected the married couple's right to privacy on their last night together. By calling when she did, Martha was in fact saying that Clark and Lois didn't have that right to privacy together, because they weren't married to each other. In fact, she may indeed have been implying that Clark should remember that he was a married man, but he wasn't married to Lois. Stay away from her, Martha might have been saying in not so many words. Be faithful to your wife. Go with your wife. Leave us. Leave the Earth. Begone with you.

Ann