Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Adam and Eve

Terry, I didn't want to clutter up the thread commenting on Caroline's story, but I wanted to talk a little about my views of the Biblical story about Adam and Eve. In Genesis 2.7 God creates Adam, which is described this way in my English version of the Bible (New Revised Standard Version Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989):

After this, God immediately sets about planting the Garden of Eden for Adam. Gen. 2.8-14 describes the Garden of Eden. Then God puts Adam there, and gives Adam instructions:

Now God has given Adam a place to live and a source of food, as well as an occupation, that of gardener. Only now does God comment on the fact that Adam is alone:

To me, it is obvious that if God makes Adam "a helper as his partner", then Adam and his helper will not be equals. The helper will exist for Adam's sake, to cure his loneliness, but Adam will not exist for the sake of the helper. God created Adam before he even thought of the helper. So Adam exists because he has an independent value of his own, but the helper exists because Adam needs company (and help).

After God has realized that Adam needs company, he starts creating animals. God apparently hopes that one of the animals will be the helper that Adam needs.

I find this passage hugely interesting, because it clearly suggests that if God had found an animal that would have been good enough to be Adam's helper, then God would never have created woman in the first place. But since no animal was good enough for Adam, God created woman from Adam's rib.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul brings up the story of Adam and Eve to explain his own views of man and woman, including why he wanted the Christian women to cover their heads during prayer or prophesying (1 Cor. 11.7-9):

Admittedly, Paul then somewhat ameliorates his harsh statements about woman, and about the relationship between man and woman (1 Cor. 11.11-12):

Even though Paul makes it clear that man can't exist without woman - obviously - I still find his words about woman being created for the sake of man, but man not being created for the sake of woman, unacceptable. For that matter, I find the story about Adam and Eve unacceptable.

There are other Biblical stories which make man and woman far more equal. In the first story about the Creation in the Bible, the creation of man and woman is described like this (Gen. 1.27):

Jesus, too, basically treats man and woman as equals. Personally I find it hugely interesting that Jesus emphasizes the husband's duties to his wife (see for example Mark 10. 2-9), while at the same time he defends and forgives women who are accused of various sexual transgressions (see for example John 8. 1-11). Personally, I like to think that Jesus recognized that he lived in an oppressively sexist society, where men's right to judge, punish and dispose of women was almost limitless. And since I think that Jesus believed in the basic equality and mutuality between man and woman, he would have opposed such laws and practices.

And Terry, since you brought up the comparison between Adam and Eve and Clark and Lois: personally, I think there is no comparison. Lois was not created for Clark's sake. (All right, she was, in the sense that Robin the Boy Wonder was created for Batman's sake.) But at the very least, Lois and Clark are not used as hugely important religious models of what man and woman should be to each other! The fact that they are soulmates and that they belong together is something else entirely. But let me just say that this is another reason why I'm so violently opposed to Lois deathfics, where the reader is supposed to cry for Clark's sake because Lois is dead. To me, this comes uncomfortably close to the idea that woman is man's helper, and that she has been created for his sake, to cure his loneliness. (In India, there has long been a tradition of burning widows on their dead husband's funeral pyre, since the widow obviously has no reason to live now that her husband is dead.)

If Lois dies, then I think we should cry for her. She is the one who has lost her life. The idea that we should cry for Clark reinforces the idea that Lois and Clark's togetherness is ultimately about Clark's needs. That way, the story about Lois and Clark is ultimately the story about Clark, and that way we can go on telling the story even if Lois dies. That way the story about Lois's death becomes the story of Clark's grief. And that way the story can continue as Clark finds himself a new helper and partner, and that way, the story about Lois and Clark is not the story about soulmates and equals, but about a man coping with the death of his helper.

Ann

Ann, I've moved this into here from Off Topic, because although you're discussing the Bible, you seem to be doing so in the context of and in relation to Lois and Clark and how they are portrayed in fanfic. So it seems pretty much on topic for Fanfic Related.

Making no comment on the points you've raised , except to say...can't we cry for both of them? I know that's what I tend to do and I cannot imagine that I'm the only one who does so when reading deathfic. So I'm not sure why we need to choose who to feel sympathy for. Why it needs to be one or the other.


LabRat

Ann, I apologize for not responding earlier. I just found this thread after looking for something else.

I almost didn't respond even after finding it. What I absolutely do NOT want to do is to start anything that might degenerate into an argument between us, or an attack thread with others chiming in with equally valid and equally strongly-held opinions. If you'd like to continue this discussion via e-mail, I'll gladly do so. I do not believe this forum is the appropriate place to hash out something as potentially explosive as Biblical interpretations.

I value your opinion, Ann, because you always present it in a logical and consistent manner. I don't always agree, of course, but I always read what you write. Thanks for being open and honest and for being reasonable.

Terry, believe me, I value your opinions hugely. I definitely don't want to get into an argument with you over this. Heck, I'm glad no one took me up on it because even though I was happy to get it off my chest, I really, really don't want to start anything ugly or hurtful here.

Ann

This response is totally independent from my previous response.

Ann wrote:

That's an interesting viewpoint, Ann. Do you mean to say that if I die, those who mourn my passing should mourn me and not comfort my wife and our children? Irrespective of anyone's views on life after death, the fact is that once I die, I'm not coming back as me. My troubles on this Earth are over, but the people I've left behind still have to face life without me.

Nearly any counselor or psychologist worth his or her accreditation will tell you that funerals are not for the dead but for the living. The ceremony is meant to comfort those left behind, not the one who is gone. Even if, as in ancient Egyptian burials, the departed is given objects to use in the next life, the effect of such practices is to ease the sense of loss for those still living.

If Lois dies in a story, Clark grieves and has to go on with his life. If Clark dies in a story, Lois grieves and has to go on with her life. What's the diffference? There may be more Lois-death stories than Clark-death stories on the archive, but as a writer I see Lois's death as an opportunity to explore the pain of a destroyed life. Clark's death, even if TOGOM had been a real death, would have damaged Lois badly but not destroyed her, because she was mourning not the loss of the love of her life but the loss of her best friend. That doesn't diminish the pain, of course, but it is a slightly lesser degree of devastation.

Correctly or incorrectly, I view Lois's psyche as tougher than Clark's. I see her as the stronger member of the partnership. I see her as completely essential to Clark's well-being. Conversely, I see Clark as necessary to Lois's sense of completeness but not her sense of self. She was an award-winning investigator before he exploded into her life, and she could be again. She'd always carry the scars of his loss, but she'd react better to being alone than Clark would.

I don't think I'd ever write this premise as a story, but if a bad guy ever gave Clark the option of saving himself or saving Lois, I think he'd save Lois without much hesitation, largely because he couldn't face the future knowing that he'd caused her death, however passively. Lois, on the other hand, would choose to save Clark, but mostly because she knows the world needs Superman. Her own needs and pain would be secondary.

This view of Lois and Clark makes her the stronger member of the team. It also means that exploring her feelings about Clark's death aren't as dramatically interesting, because Clark gives writers so much more to work with. I have seen an early draft of an L&C story (not posted anywhere yet, to my knowledge) which has a central female character with very few character flaws. I offered my opinion to the writer that while this female character might be someone we'd all like to know, she's not dramatically interesting because there are so few areas where she can grow and change for the better. Lois offers a LOT of areas for improvement, so she's a common choice for stories like that. Clark's sense of self is more tied up in his relationship with Lois, so stories where he loses her are more dramatically interesting (in the sense that the writer has so much material to work with).

I strongly disagree that this makes Lois an adjunct to Clark instead of a person in her own right. It's the stuff of great drama. "Gone With The Wind" fascinates us still because of the journey Scarlett O'Hara undergoes in her life. In the beginning, she's a spoiled young rich brat who marries a boy about to die in war because she's been rejected by both Ashley Wilkes and Rhett Butler. In the end, she finally sees that she's less important to the world than she thinks she is, and that her love for Rhett is more important to her than almost anything else. Tellingly, it requires a death sacrifice (Melanie, Ashley's wife) to bring about this epiphany.

I hate death. I've lost people close to me, family members and friends and cultural icons, and for better or worse the experiences have stayed with me and helped shape the person I am today. Death in fanfiction is an intrusion of reality into our fantasy. Some of us can handle the intrusion and some can't. Neither is inherently right or wrong. Mining Clark's reaction to Lois's death would yield a richer dramatic crop for me, because he's the weaker of the two and would suffer more. That doesn't mean I don't like Lois or that I think she's somehow less of a person that Clark is. It means that these are the characters we deal with, and we write about how these characters deal with life and death. I think Lois is stronger, and could better deal with Clark's loss. That's it.

Oh Terry, I so don't want to do this, but at the same time I'm almost unable not to answer you. So I'll do my very, very best to be clear about my own views, but at the same time, to be fair to others.

I am an agnostic who lost my faith in God for many reasons, but one reason was that I spent so much time thinking about God when I was a child. When I was seven years old, I was given a "kiddie version" of the Bible, and I read, and read, and re-read this book over and over, thinking about the stories and turning them over in my mind. I think it's not a good idea for me to voice any general verdict about the Bible, since that will provoke so many people and start a new, painful debate. But I will mention the story of Cain and Abel.

Cain and Abel were, as you all know, Adam and Eve's two oldest sons. Cain was a farmer and Abel a herdsman, and both made offerings to God. But while God accepted Abel's offering, he rejected Cain's, and Cain became jealous of his brother and killed him. God punished Cain by making him an outcast, a lonely wanderer of the Earth.

This story has given rise to many comments and interpretations. For example, how heinous is the crime of murdering one's brother? How is it different from other murders? What would it be like for Adam and Eve to basically lose both their oldest sons because of this fratricide? Are they to blame, at least partially, for this tragedy, by not raising their sons properly? Is perhaps God himself to blame, for creating Adam and Eve in such a way that their very first son became a murderer? And how would you deal with your own horrible guilt if you were Cain? How ominous and fraught with lies and sins is the answer that Cain gives to God, "Am I my brother's keeper?" What would it be like to be an eternal outcast, wandering the Earth with the death of your brother on your conscience? And why does God preserve Cain's life by putting a mark on him to stop others from attacking him?

There is, however, one person who basically never becomes the object of discussion in connection with this story, and that is Abel. Abel, mind you, is the one who died. The one who was robbed of his life, the one who was murdered. Yet no one ever seems to feel sorry for him. Who spares a thought for Abel?

Abel, the way I see him, isn't treated by the Bible as a human being. Rather than being shown a person, he is turned into a catalyst whose purpose of existence is to die, so that the Bible can tell the story that it really wants to tell, or the story that people want to talk about. When I was a child, this was one of the Biblical stories that haunted and disturbed me, the story about a young man whose life seemed to have no value of its own, but whose death was necessary so that we and the Bible can talk about his brother and his parents and God and sins.

I'm sure that there are so many Christians out there who will interpret the story about Cain and Abel completely differently. Please, people, I'm not saying that I'm *right* about my interpretation of it. I know that this is how I read it when I was a kid. And it was this story that made me think that some people are treated as if they have no value of their own, and only their deaths might be of interest because we can use their demise to talk about other things and set up another story.

Later, I concluded that people whose lives were considered inconsequential in themselves but whose deaths might be used as catalysts to say something interesting about others were often women. I have talked about this many times before, and I will not go into it again.

I really feel spent, talking about deathfic. No one will benefit from my continued insistence that I don't want to read them.

As for Superman, I will repeat, once again, that Lois may very well be killed in the "real world" - the world of comics or movies, or even TV shows - but Superman will not be permanently killed as long as his trademark owners can make any money on him whatsoever. And if Lois is killed, as she might well be, but Superman lives on, as he will and must, the trademark owners will most certainly give him a new love interest eventually. It may not even take a very long time for Superman to move on romantically. So how badly will Superman be hurt by Lois's death? My answer is, not very badly at all.

But now it's time for me to be fair. *This* incarnation of Superman, Lois and Clark's Superman, the Superman that this site is dedicated to - yes, he *would* be hurt, very very badly hurt, by Lois's death. I can't blame people for wanting to write stories exploring *this* Superman's grief at Lois's death.

Personally, I can see one extremely good reason to explore what Lois's death would do to Superman. The reason is that Superman is so fundamentally, existentially lonely. He really is the last of his kind. He is the orphan of an entire world, and apart from his adoptive parents, Lois is his only real connection to this world. There is a pureness and an absoluteness of the loneliness that he would suffer if Lois died. I can't blame people for wanting to explore it, even though I myself shudder at the thought of reading this story.

And now, honestly, I don't want to talk about this any more.

Ann