Ann, let me try. I think the reason you become so distressed by deathfic is that you view death as something final, a negation of all value. But a lot of people don’t view death like this.
Presently I’m reading Pressfields “Gates of Fire”. This is a book about the Spartans and Thermopyle and is very much about death, but the focus is not on gloom but on man’s ability transcend fear and death. And that there is a beauty in sacrifice, in overcoming the insurmountable.
Here Leonidas explains to his men why they will stay and die even though everyone urge them to retreat with the rest of the allies, once the Persians are able to surround them.
"If we had withdrawn from these Gates today, brothers, no matter what prodigies of valor we had performed up till now, this battle would have been perceived as a defeat. A defeat which would have confirmed for all Greece that which the enemy most wishes her to believe: the futility of resistance to the Persian and his millions. If we had saved our skins today, one by one the separate cities would have caved in behind us, until the whole of Hellas had fallen."
"But by our deaths here with honor, in the face of these insuperable odds, we transform vanquishment into victory. With our lives we sow courage in the hearts of our allies and the brothers of our armies left behind. They are the ones who will ultimately produce victory, not us. It was never in the stars for us. Our role today is what we all knew it was when we embraced our wives and children and turned our feet upon the march-out: to stand and die. I don’t know about you but these kind of things send shivers down my spine. And I get elated rather then distressed.
When I started reading L&C fanfic it was for the same reason as watching the show, the feel good factor, I remember reading Sara’s stuff and thinking it was pity such a talented author put so much angst into her story. but gradually I have come to appreciate more of it. Superman is a fascinating figure as much for his values as his powers. Fics that test his mettle has such an appeal. Like Symbolic Angel wrote a fic were Lois gets MS and the couples reaction to it that I found very touching. Or C_A shorty Time enough another fic that technically is a Lois deathfic but to me really is a about the triumph of life and love over oblivion. Much like Leonidas and Dienekes in “Gates of Fire”.
It’s easy to love someone when that love is never tested, and you never really know the value of something until you are asked to pay for it. This is what angst and death is about. At least for me.
