Even when I tell myself to stay out of it, I get drawn into almost every deathfic thread. Stupid of me.
I imagine that there are a number of reasons, when an author chooses to write a deathfic, as to why they're doing so and who they choose to kill. I personally do not ascribe to Ann's theory that if Lois is the one who dies, it's because "a woman's death is tragically beautiful, as opposed to a man's death being devastating and unbearable."
Carol wrote:
The deathfic pattern in L & C fic is that it is usually Lois who is killed off. And also that it's Clark's angst that is deemed to be the interesting pain to poke at and explore.
Lois does not count - she's expendable. She gets to be dead, as I said above. Woman as plot device, her dead body a prop to allow us to see Clark suffer.
There are deathfics that I have felt to be incredibly well-written, cathartic to read, and thought-provoking. In none of these did I ever think of the one who died - either Clark or Lois - to be "expendable". For me, just because there are more stories that have Lois be dead than Clark, does not automatically mean that those authors - nor the readers who enjoy the story - think of Lois as any less worthy than Clark.
What if the tide suddenly shifted? What if, for perhaps no other reason than authors' muses at the moment, suddenly there was a spate of stories written with Clark being killed off in various ways? Would people start complaining that Clark was considered more "expendable"?
That word seems to come up every time Lois is killed in a story. I don't expect any of my comments to change anyone's mind, but let me go on record that I do not agree that this fandom thinks of Lois as more "expendable" than Clark. Since L&C is my main interest, I have no opinion as to the sentiments of the Superman universe as a whole.
And as to this comment of Ann's
A deathfic is bad, but a Lois deathfic is okay.
From what I've read - either here or in any other thread - no one has ever said this. With the particular premise that Lynn speculated about, Clark would be the cause of Lois' cancer because of his powers, so it couldn't possibly be the other way around.
Kathy
