Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Can Superman do the wrong thing? And should he be punished for it? (Re: Terry's fic)

In Terry Leatherwood's new fic, Rebuilding Superman, Superman is facing charges for having killed a man, arch-criminal Bill Church. Terry's story has already drawn at least some fire. Superman is known as the icon of truth and justice and a paragon of nobility who selflessly and tirelessly keeps helping others. In view of that, is it a good thing at all to write about Superman as a killer, or, as in Terry's new story, to write about Superman as a one-time killer who is now facing charges for what he has done?

Personally, I love Superman (or better yet, Clark) when he is a totally, perfectly good guy. I love stories celebrating that aspect of him. But during my 38 years as a Superman fan, I have come across Superman stories that have deeply troubled me. Stories where Superman has behaved in a way I have found unacceptable. But, shockingly, very often other "Super" fans seem to have reacted by glossing over what Superman has done. In the comics there have been many cases where Superman has come through as unnecessarily brutal, which has met with few protests.

The prime example of "happy acceptance" of Superman's behaviour, however, is how fans reacted to Superman's brainwashing of Lois in Superman II, where he robbed her of her memory of their lovemaking and of his double identity. Back in 1980 when that movie opened, I was totally devastated at what my hero had done. But I couldn't find a single review or article that really criticized him for it, as if no one but me found his behaviour unacceptable. As if - how do I put it? As if Superman had an almost holy, inviolable right to keep his secret identity safe and to - well, to keep Lois Lane ignorant of his true nature. As if this right entitled him to steal her knowledge of him and steal her memory of her lovemaking with him. But would such a thing have been acceptable if anyone other than Superman had done it? How many of us female FOLCs would be okay with the idea that a guy we made love to might wipe our mind afterwards, leaving us with no memory of what had happened (but leaving us with a possible pregnancy instead)? I feel confident that if it could ever be proved that an ordinary man had deliberately done such a thing to a woman - say, with the help of drugs or something - it would have been regarded as a criminal act, which would have rendered the man a prison sentence. But with Superman, almost every fan around seemed to happily accept it. Why is that?

Sometimes I get the impression that many people judge Superman (or Clark) by what they know of him already. They define Superman as the ultimate good guy, and therefore he can't have done anything really wrong.

Personally I love the idea of Superman as a perfectly good guy, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, I remember those stories where I did not approve of him and he did not come through as good to me. And it troubled me that so few people seemed to object to his bad behaviour - as if Superman should be judged by who he is, not by what he does.

I have no trouble whatsoever with stories where Superman is incredibly good and noble. In fact, I absolutely love those fics! On the other hand, stories where Superman behaves badly also resonate with me. They remind me of Superman II and of those comics I can remember where our favorite Kryptonian did act disagreeably. These dark and troublesome stories affected me sufficiently strongly that I would like to see a fic where Superman's bad behaviour is taken seriously, where it is not swept under the rug, and where Superman has to answer for his actions.

Regarding Terry's new fic, I think there are clearly mitigating circumstances when it comes to Superman's killing of Billy Church. For example, how many lives has Superman saved, and how many lives has he taken? How much good has he done, compared with how much evil he has done? Also, in view of the fact that Superman continaully keeps giving of himself without ever asking for any reward or thanks, isn't it understandable if a sense of horrible frustration can push him over the line just once? The law must consider those circumstances, and, moreover, the legal system should seriously ask itself whether it would be right to imprison Superman and potentially rob him of his superpowers so that the man who used to be the Earth's guardian will be unable to help at any future catastrophes.

For all of that, I do think that Superman did commit a crime - a serious crime, even - when he killed Billy Church, and I think he should be sentenced to some sort of punishment for it. At the same time, I hope that the public will not condemn him for it. I hope they will condemn his act of killing Billy Church, but I hope they will not condemn the man who committed this killing.

So, Terry, I'm very glad to see you post this story and discuss these questions. To me, reading a story like this one really feels like a sort of catharsis. I also see it as an acknowledgement that Superman should not be above the law, at least not to the extent that we don't even criticize him for killing people. (And Terry, I wouldn't mind a sequel to She's..., where Superman is charged with causing the death of Lois Lane by wilfully and deliberately subjecting her to mortal danger.)

Ann

Honestly the title of this thread alone is a fascinating topic, and it's probably the main reason why I'm following Terry's story right now. I feel a little out of the loop since I didn't read the prequel; in some sense I want to know what Superman was thinking when he committed his crime, what were the circumstances leading up to it. To me, Superman can do wrong, but it needs to be explained so that it's believable, just because he's held at such as such an icon of truth and justice yadda yadda. I can never find time to get into the comics, but for me, Superman has a pretty ok track record.

But there are several other writers for me that have accomplished the whole Superman doing wrong, or almost crossing the line or doing something...not OOC per se, I don't know, but anyway I don't know if Superman committed as serious of a crime as he did in Terry's story...I'll have to think about that.

For the time being, I'm just along for the ride. I'm shocked that I don't have an overall opinion right now for this story, or any clue where it might head, or even any clue where I want it to head. I mean, I have an opinion on everything from door knockers to the ridiculous mustard on my sandwich. But for now I really just want to see where Terry charts the fanfic boat. And I really want to scrape this mustard off my sandwich.

JD

My Superman does not kill... period.

That said, Terry is a terrific writer and I will read those fics. The Superman of this story does not necessarily match up with mine, but then this is *fiction* and as such is open to interpitation.

The other advantage is that, if it bothers you to see this Superman doing something you don't think he would, you have the option to not watch it and wait until a story with a Superman you can agree with comes along.

Nothing is written in stone, nor is anything done here actual cannon. (Actually, neither are the comic books or the movies, since those change and revamp things to suit the wants of the current creative teams... think Smallville )

What we have is a potpouri of stories to choose from. Some will fit out expectations, some won't.

Tank (who knows that the comics have played with the idea several times over the years... the latest was Superman and Batman's reactions to Wonder Woman's killing of Max Lord to break his mental hold over Superman)

As a huge believer in the theory that you can make your characters do anything - even something that on the face of it might seem to be OOC - I have to go with dang right he can, as the answer to this one.

What you definitely need though is a reason. Logical motivation for the character to act in the way that he does. And an author with the skills to lead you to the action in such a way that the character's actions or choices seem logical and plausible. Without those, it's not likely to fly.

If you have that in place - and I'm sure Terry falls easily into that camp - you can get away with it with most readers.

With SF/Fantasy characters, such as LNC, it's even easier to provide the right motivation. Be it magical means or some weird machinery...witness Clark handing over a child to kidnappers and vandalising parking meters in IoG, just as one example. Not something he'd ever contemplate doing normally. But throw in a bit of magical hypnosis to the mix and you're there.

It's even more fun though - and more challenging - to provide the motivation through purely human reasoning and natural events which force the character to act in a way they would never do normally.

LabRat

All this raises the issue: at what point does a character who carries the name of a specific fictional character act in such a fundamentally different way that there really is no point in naming that character "Clark Kent" or "Superman"? Essentially, the character has become an original character or another existing fictional character in all but name.

So, for example, is Superman's murdering someone more Batman or Spawn than Superman?

So what makes a character - the name or the personality? For example, could Mr. Darcy's character be swapped with James Bond's, and we'd still accept each as being the person whose name they bore simply because of the name?

(Is House the same guy as Bertie Wooster? )

Here I'm taking about major character traits as opposed to minor things that different incarnations or fanfics change - like a preference for chocolate or shooting hoops.

To give another example, I've been reading some of the comments on the Smallville Lois on TVWP. A great many posters don't like her (although they're a lot rougher on Lana ) and the reason they don't like her boils down to their feeling that she's just not "iconic" Lois Lane. (A lot of the posters there seem to think a character called Chloe is the real Lois Lane)

So that's the issue - how far can you push a character away from "iconic" and still have the reader feel that this is *still* Clark Kent. (or Mr. Darcy or Charlie Brown or... )

Now to come back to the issue of murder. Sadly, thousands of people in the North America are murdered every year. People lose their loved ones - that's a horrible thing to have to deal with. Yet most survivors don't go out, take justice into their own hands, and kill the murderer.

So why would Superman's loss be any more tragic than say a mother whose child has been murdered?

Then the question of the "trade off" . Does the fact the S. has saved so many lives give him a couple of "free kill" cards?

There's a quantity issue too, implied in Ann's question - 1000 lives count more than 1 life. Yes, of course, but, on the other hand, no never. After all, he's only killed one person, so give the guy a break. We'd take the issue more seriously if he'd killed maybe 10 guys. I'm not sure I buy that from an ethical point of view.

So making Superman a "Killer" is a real challenge for any writer.
Not just the fact that he killed, but the viciousness of the "kill" itself has to be explained. As well, the author has to go back and set up the psychological history of the character so that we believe that because of what we've seen of him in the past, he is capable of murdering someone. Context is crucial too - there has to be absolutely no other option than to kill the other person.

Anyway, some rambling thoughts. This is such a huge ethical issue that Ann has raised.

c.

Can Superman do the wrong thing & should he be punished for it? Short answer: Yes, and yes.

Disclaimer: I haven't been reading Terry's fic.

In general, though -- yes, Superman can do the wrong thing. Part of the appeal of L&C was that Clark/Superman was *not* perfect, that he could and might do stupid things. But he's not above the law, either. Murdering someone is wrong, period. No matter how many lives he's saved, that doesn't give him the right to kill anyone, so if he *did* kill someone, he needs to face consequences for that. Otherwise, how could he stand for justice? Judges and juries have some leeway, though, to consider any mitigating circumstances and come up with an appropriate sentence. (I suspect, though, that Clark will *not* grant himself any leniancy at all)

I don't especially *like* the idea of Superman killing someone, but it is an interesting topic for a writer to explore. Carol Malo touched on the issue, a few years back, in Yesterday, Upon the Stair, and I think Raconteur did too, though I can't remember the fic title.

Would he still be in character? Depends on how well it's written, and how it's read by each individual person. There have been stories that I look at and wonder, who *are* these people, and why are they called Lois & Clark? But others have loved them, so there you are.

Carol, on Smallville, Chloe has a lot of character traits & plot functions that we'd expect to see Lois in -- she's the Daily Planet investigative reporter who digs up all the dirt, and for the last few seasons, she's known Clark's secret and worked closely with him. They're writing Lois as, well, pig-headed but not brilliant, and she's only just beginning to get into that whole investigative reporting thing -- she's been published in a tabloid. Mostly she's there for the writers to make fun of, from what I can tell. So Chloe comes a heck of a lot closer to fitting what I think of as the Lois Lane character.

Well, gotta get back to work now, so I'll stop rambling

PJ

In my thinking, Superman has spent many years perfecting his abilities so that he would not kill. His ethics wouldn't allow it. As he has been described for many years, he is the great boyscout. He would do his hardest to make sure he did NOT kill anyone.

I think it would take a great external force to make Superman kill. Something like red kryptonite to make his powers go erratic, or brainwashing to make him go against his ethics. Once he was aware of his actions, he would beat himself up over what had happened.

Now, should someone else punish him? Yes. Just like anyone else, he would probably stand trial. They would look at the circumstances and determine if anything could have been done to prevent it. Would they find him guilty? Who knows. But I wonder how they would punish him. Hmm..

Rac's story was Burden of Conscience . Absolutely awesome. I highly recommend it.

That story was a different situation than Terry's, though. Rac's was set near the end of GGGOH - Clark did not have his powers, and he shot Trask in a split second to prevent Trask from shooting Lois. So at that moment he was as human as anyone else, with no Super-powers to enable him to find another way. And he was totally broken up about it, since it was very clear in his mind that "Superman does not kill".

Kathy

This is totally off the topic of Superman as a killer, so I apologise up front.

Carol said:

Thank you, Carol, for clearing up something that has been bugging me for a while now. I knew Hugh Laurie looked familiar for some reason, and every time I watched House I tried to remember where I'd seen him before.

And now I know.

We now return to your regular programing.

This is a very interesting topic. I would say part of how you view the topic depends on your religious upbringing and your view of "absolutes".

To illustrate, for example - Do you *really* feel that Superman is "perfect"? According to many religious beliefs, to be perfect is to be "without sin".

Is Superman without sin? Well again, this would depend on your religious beliefs - but according to many beliefs the ideas of both lying and stealing are considered a sin. And, at least in the LNC series, we have seen Superman do both - as Clark Kent. We have seen him steal - a couple of examples are the perfume from Miranda's shop in "Pheromone". Another example is when he stole the diamonds from Mazik's Jewelers.

Now, we've also seen him lie. In my opinion he normally doesn't "out and out" lie about his identity - I would call his actions more like deception or subterfuge - in fact I would go as far as to say that *most* of the time he words things very carefully so as to avoid lying... just allowing people to believe what seems plausible without coming out and actually stating a lie. However, who is to judge when a shady area becomes a lie? And that's a discussion for a whole other day...

So back to the original thought. In the world of black and whites and absolutes - Superman/Clark Kent - has been a liar and a thief. And according to those beliefs mentioned above, those actions would account for sin. And if he has sinned he is not a perfect man.

If he is not a perfect man, then he is as capable as the next person is of committing murder. He is as imperfectly capable as any other normal human is of committing murder... of allowing his feelings to be pushed past the point of no return.

Would he do that? IMO? No. But in my opinion most normal human beings who've grown up in a loving family like he has and been taught good values wouldn't do that either. But there's always that "x factor" that one thing that could be possible to push us past our point of no return.

So I think if it were written well and that moral breakdown was thoroughly explored, that yes, it is possible - not probable - but possible.

Should he be punished for it? Yes. If he is capable of murder, like any other human, then he should be held responsible for his actions, like any other human...

This doesn't have anything to do with Terry's story (I'm not sure of the particular's of that murder) but... one interesting note. In Superman's case (barring there was no green Kryptonite involved) he couldn't really claim "self-defense" either. It would be malicious. How would the courts consider that in their ruling?

Oh, and yes, what *would* his punishment be?

Okay, there's my 2 cents worth - I just couldn't resist.

-- MR

I agree with the people who basically pointed out that as long as we're walked through what leads Superman to kill it's more than acceptable. I haven't read Terry's fic, but I definitely will later on once I get a smidgeon of time. I'm 100% supportive of edgy characterizations, I've said so before--I don't read fanfic to get just another episode of a given series, I see it to get more about the characters explored and to see what people's imaginations are capable of. I admire in fact, those brave authors who take on plots which garner raised eyebrows. I marvel even more when they make them work.

As for getting punished I think what people do to him is anywhere close to what he would do to himself psychologically, were that to happen. Placing the law in there rings a bit like overkill.

alcyone

Pam, thanks for the explanation about Chloe - that makes sense then. I'm also picking up a "Clark belongs with Lex" thing when I read the criticisms of Lois on TVWP.

I'm not so sure, simply because it's murder we're talking about rather than a 'there was no other choice' killing. And a vicious murder at that. So what I'm thinking is that a character capable of that act would not be beating himself up psychologically after the fact. To have the character do so would be inconsistent with the new personality developed for the character in that particular story. So the edginess, if you will, comes not from creating a Clark Kent who is capable of a vicious murder, etc, but from staying within the logic of that new character.

Also I'm not so sure about the law being a bit like overkill (lovely pun in this context ) - but maybe because I think the law against murder is an important one.

Murder is a much more serious crime than theft. As well, when Clark stole those jewels his motivation was quite different - it was to save his parents' lives.

Interesting discussion.

c.

Like I said in my post, I haven't read the prequel so I don't know the specifics of the murder. So if that's what you're specifically referring to, feel free to ignore my reply.

So wait, what you're saying is that if Superman were to lose his cool and kill someone he wouldn't regret it (regardless of the viciousness)? He wouldn't feel horrible about it after all was said and done?

Unless it was premeditated and I don't see how regret can be avoided there either... I'm parting from the premise that he avoids going too far at all cost and something like this brings into question who he thought he was among other things (his upbringing, etc). I mean fundamentally Superman is moral (the natural conflict when he acts immorally), so something like this would always be a huge deal.

Again if this is Terry's fic (and I suspect it is), then I don't have the background to comment. If it isn't I'd like to point out that you're assuming that simply by adding murder to the mix you're changing the character to create a new one. This to me sounds like a variation of the "Superman would never kill" camp.

I don't see it that way. Murder does not necessarily equal a complete personality change where an otherwise moral person would not regret the event. Even in "self defense" situations, I see regret as fundamental to being someone with any sort of feeling (and not psychologically disturbed which is another can of worms). You might not regret protecting yourself, but you might regret having to go that far. The same holds even more in crimes of passion, where afterwards the weight of the events would presumably be heavier because it was "temporary insanity." Don't crimes of passion or whatever tend to be much more gruesome than other crimes? If pushed too far people can do really horrible things. That doesn't mean that they don't regret it once they realize what has happened.


That's not my definition of edginess. There's a fine line between "new character" (which is I guess another word for OOC) and pushing existing characterizations to the limit. It depends on how conservative a reader about a given event. Obviously if a reader can't ever concieve of X event in the character no matter what then it follows that a new personality be needed in order for him/her to be all right with it.

But that's not how I see it. The creation of new character is not so exciting to me. I love it more than anything when a writer takes us through the steps and shows what can make a canon character make a huge decision and later on what that means to the character as the consequences unfold. Keeping the character recognizable throughout something like this takes a lot of delicacy and skill, not to mention bravery because not everyone will be convinced. I am aware however that this can go either way and that it's kind of ridiculous to pretend that there is an objective division between OCC/new character and edgy characterizations-- it largely the depends on how a person reads.

This is a bit of a spoiler here, but given the context of the thread maybe I don't need a spoiler space? Based on Terry's summary I'm getting the impression of a very impulsive Clark, one who doesn't forgive easily (his treatment of Lois for example), and is quick to anger. This guy holds a grudge, and even Martha can't talk him out of it.

When he kills Bill Church it's an impulsive act, not motivated to save a life but to avenge one. What he does is rip out Church's heart. (I have to admit I was shocked by that, although I realise other readers may not have been)

Now I'm not saying that all murderers never feel remorse, but I do think this Clark's reaction has to be consistent with the Clark created in part 1, and I'm not sure remorse is consistent with that character. You can't go "lightswitching" the character. (this is new term I picked up from the TVWP boards )

Still, you could get around this objection by the old "weird K" device (shades of Jekyll and Hyde ) that Labrat mentioned, but I'm suspecting Terry won't go that route. Although of course I don't know how Terry is intending to develop this. It would be very brave of him to keep with the implications of this Clark's darker character traits and write him as not really feel remorse.

I'm repeating an argument here - but i can't get past the fact that most people who've lost someone to a murderer don't then go out and murder that person. Why should Superman be different?

I have no idea if they tend to be more gruesome. I'm never quite sure about "crimes of passion" though. Who are the people who commit those, I mean in psychological terms? Are there signs in their earlier lives that indicated they could be capable of such an act?

The temporary insanity plea apparently has been a very hard one to use successfully in North American courts.

yes, i agree with that, Alcyone. It's a very complex issue and is very challenging for any writer to pull off.

i stress here that all this is just my opinion, and that one of my many sins is that i look for consistency within the context of a story. (and I would suspect that Terry has achieved that)

I'm nor sure if i've wandered a bit away from Ann's initial question.

c.

I don't see quick to anger and holding grudges inconsistent with regreting a violent murder. I know plenty of people who fit that description (impulsive, quick to anger, holding grudges). Being impulsive doesn't necessarily mean that a person doesn't regret the results of their actions.

Because that argument assumes that people have the same triggers, the same responses and the same thresholds. I don't think you can measure people by the same metric (doesn't mean we shouldn't have the law, but that it exists as a way to establish order, not to be descriptive of people). Someone might shrug at the loss of their job and someone might become depressed to the point of suicide. People deal with anger and loss in different ways. Some are environmentally conditioned and some aren't.

As for that particular example, most people are conditioned to let police and the law seek justice for them. I bet if people thought they could get away (that it was actually possible) with bringing the murderer to justice themselves we'd see more cases of that. Actually, what about before the law was implemented way back?

I'm assuming that sometimes there are and some times there aren't.

We're all capable of doing terrible things if put under extenuating circumstances. I remember reading of an experiment where people were put in a make shift prison and half of the group were arbitrarily made the wardens. These were "average" psychologically stable college students and maybe about a couple of weeks into it they had to stop the experiments because things were getting out of hand. In another experiment an actor was to pretend to be in pain when someone pushed a button. They recruited "average" people and ordered them to press it with the knowledge that they were causing the person pain. Most of the people actually complied regardless of the screaming of the actor (without knowing he was acting).

So it actually doesn't take a psychologically disturbed person (unless ALL of these "average" people screened by psychologists are psychologically disturbed) to hurt another knowingly. Imagine if you aren't thinking right--being overwhelmed by rage, etc. I mean clearly it's irrational to rip someone's heart out, not only because its murder, but because of how involved the act is. To me it doesn't scream "remorseless machine killer!" it screams "I am not thinking straight." The same way a battered woman beating her assailant to death with a bat screams "I am not thinking straight." No, the victimization is not the same (before someone accuses me of saying that), but the feeling of rage behind the brutality rings similarly to me.

Human beings just aren't rational 100% of the time, especially in a traumatic moment. Couple that irrationality with a large amount of power and it's bound to be explosive.

I'm not surprised. Something like "temporary insanity" does take away from the accountability of the person. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist though.

Not disagreeing with what you're arguing, Alcyone. A lot of people are clearly capable of extreme violence under pressure or stress.

But to bring the question back to Ann's initial question, is Clark Kent one of the group of people you describe? Would that character be someone who could kill where the safety of others was not the issue? It's at that point that the individual reader's perception of character takes over, I think. How much altering is the reader comfortable with before they say "Clark Kent" wouldn't do that - but, say, Lex Luthor would?

It may be, too, that it depends on whether you believe that man is inherently evil. Not to mention which personality traits are innate and which are learned. I gather they're revising the books on that question all the time.

As I recall that experiment you described, not all the students involved reacted exactly the same way. As well, when interviewed, many of the students said that they believed the situation to be 'safe' because it was under the control of the profs. (yeah, i know "i was only following orders" <g>)

And so once again i've wandered away from Ann's question.

and totally OT- was it Ghostbusters that opened with that great send-up of the classic electric shock experiment you mention?

c. (and current insomniac)

I think the writer must be very bravo and ingenious for write a story where Superman is a killer!
Clark is a complex person with so many values! His moral integrity is so strong and I think it's difficult for any reason to change this fact! Maybe he could be more "angry" and more "bad" with the right situation but a killer? I don't think so!
In the HoL he tried to safe Luthor at the end but he didn't have superpowers for the kryptonite! He hate Luthor, he knew who was Luthor but he was the same sad!
Maybe Clark could kill but for error! It's a good explanation! The only one for me!

Ghostbusters? Hmm. Don't remember. I learned about the experiements when I was working on something Holocaust related. Love those movies though. Yum.

I don't believe in absolutes personally, which is what lies behing this--DJ pointed the centrality of this question. If I did, then I wouldn't be able to see Clark as human (and he wouldn't be interesting to me at all). He'd be 100% alien/god to me. But his upbringing and his actions and feelings in the series place him comfortably in the "human" category at least to me (and subject to be capable of violence under extreme pressure/stress be it physical or _emotional_--I think this would fall under emotional). And he's extremely powerful--ultimately it really would depend on how believable the "trigger" is built up to be. It's not something we can take for granted.

For instance if both his parents are brutally murdered or something along those lines and he does not have the support of Lois, I could see him spiralling out of control immeadiately afterwards. Extreme situations like that which also have to be built up in a certain way--so it's not just about event X--reaction X, but rather dealing with the emotional impact in a way that heightens tension, increases outrage etc.

But yes, it's up to the reader. I don't know if someone biased against this would ever be fully convinced.

Yes, in both experiments one of the larger issues explored was consent and personal responsibility. Some criticisms levied were that the abusers were acting as they "were expected to." But the results behind these are frightening in terms of what lurks behind some "psychologically stable" facades. The reasons behind the abuses are less interesting to me than the mere fact that "normal" "stable" people were initiating them. It really belies the categories...

At the risk of dragging this off topic: expected to by whom? In the case of the Milgram experiment (the electroshock experiment), Stanley Milgram and his colleagues expected most subjects not to act the way they did. Although I'm not that familiar with the Stanford prison experiment, I do know that the outcome was unexpected and that's why the study had to be terminated prematurely.

To follow on a related point I made briefly--all this also begs the question of how much can we fault a writer for going that dangerous route. Or more specifically how can a reader, coming from a biased position of "Clark/Superman never kills" evaluate how well a fic is carried through? If the premise never feels real for reader X, how far can their criticism go?

I mean considering that the harshest critique given (from what I've seen) is the accusation of OOC-ness, this seems to be a sticky situation.


And a quick answer to off-topic-ness:
I was referring to the Stanford experiment--I was paraphrasing how some speculated in the end that the students might have internalized how they were "expected to act" in general, based on media images etc. This criticism implied that these behaviors were not inherently in the students and questioned the validity of the experiment in the first place.

I just found this thread, and I'd like to drop my two cents worth in here, since apparently I've set off yet another firestorm on the boards.

Could Superman kill? This is a touchy subject. Many people have differing views on this (just look above), but I’m going to base my response on the TV series and its episodes, and I plan to present my case by asking and answering a few questions (not unlike a court of inquiry).

Did Clark (as either of his public personalities) ever deliberately take a life?

No. Never happened.

Did Clark (as either himself or as Superman) ever threaten anyone’s life?

Yes.

When Luthor came to Clark to find Lois (who was then singing as Wanda Detroit), Clark told Luthor that if Luthor had hurt Lois, Clark would go through him if necessary to defend her. Luthor asked Clark if that was a threat. Clark didn’t deny it, and in fact sounded like he really meant it.

Here’s the dialogue from the DVD (Double Jeopardy, #16).

CK: I don’t know yet what you’ve done to her, but I will find out. And I WILL bring Lois back. If I have to right through you to do it, I will. I promise you.

LL: My, my, that sounds like a threat, Clark.

You would be correct in protesting that Clark didn’t actually kill Luthor. You might also protest that Clark was speaking in hyperbole, making a threatening statement when he had no intention of following through on it.

I don’t see it that way. Clark didn’t use hyperbole in anything else, whether speaking or writing as himself or as Superman. His character wasn’t given to empty threats or hollow speech. If he said something, you could take it to the bank. I believe that, given the proper circumstances, Superman (or Clark, if you prefer) would be capable of killing Lex Luthor to protect Lois.

This is, of course, my opinion, and that doesn’t mean you have to agree with me. You’re free to disagree with me about this fictional character.

Let’s ask one more question, shall we?

Did Clark (or Superman) ever take a life during the course of the show?

Yes, he did. On two occasions during Season Three.

In the episode “Ordinary People,” Superman redirected a flow of liquid nitrogen onto Spencer Spencer, Dr. Pescado, and Nurse Heidi. Admitedly, they were trying to kill him and probably would have killed Lois soon afterward, so one might conceivably claim self-defense, but his actions directly resulted in the deaths of those three people when the ice that held them shattered under gunfire which he allowed to ricochet off his invulnerable body. We can speculate that he believed that he might revive them after all the action was finished, much as he had recently revived Lois, but the circumstances were different. Being chilled by frigid air is not the same as being frozen by liquid nitrogen. They were not simply encased in ice, they were frozen into ice themselves. These folks were people-cicles (and were quite dead) long before the ice was shattered. And Superman did it.

As much as we might wish to ignore this episode, it’s obvious that Superman killed three people. It was not done with malice aforethought, nor was it done deliberately, but it was done.

The second instance was during the episode “It’s A Small World.” Annette Westman (who had just tried to murder Lois) was pushed into a wall by the couch shoved across the room (which was propelled by a tiny Superman) and was drenched by her own shrinking potion. She shrank out of sight and was never seen or heard from again.

Did Superman deliberately kill her? No. But he did directly cause her death. Even if she survived being shrunk so small, she’d be prey for any small insect with a taste for fresh meat. No court (at least, in the episode) ever looked into her actions in shrinking and kidnapping her former classmates or investigated her disappearance, especially Superman’s participation in it. And neither Clark nor Lois ever expressed regret over her death.

I agree that the incidents I’ve mentioned do not represent murder, but I believe that they seriously damage the notion that Superman couldn’t be Superman if he were ever to cause someone’s death. You may, of course, disagree with me. And that’s the beauty of fan fiction. We can write whatever we please, and nobody has to read it or agree with it.

The only other point I'd like to make is that several respondents have tossed the term "murder" around as if it fit anyone who took a life. It does not, no matter what country you're in. Murder is the deliberate taking of a human life, or the taking of a human life during the commission of another felony (such as shooting a guard who tries to stop you from robbing a bank). I hope that, if you post comments about either this story or its predecessor, you will read them. You don't have to agree with my portrayal of the characters, or like what I've written, but I hope that if you do comment, you do it from a position of knowledge instead of presupposition and prejudice.

interesting post, Terry. I thought about some of those incidents as I was writing my earlier posts but was too lazy to look them up.

I'm less certain about whether Clark's using the words would automatically mean he "would walk the talk" though. Also I think it's significant that he used these threats in a limited way, as you point out, - he wanted to protect someone.

Nevertheless, I do agree that Superman could take a life in order to save someone - but I don't think he would deliberately kill someone if there were some other way to save that life. (at least that *he* could come up with - he wasn't MacGyver )

Clark was never an "executioneer", though. He brought the bad guys to law. Once the Bad Guy had been thwarted, that was it. CK/S was never a revenge killer. He wasn't "wired" for the automatic violent response.

Xcully's HoL example is a good one - Clark knew what Luthor was, and, as well, Luthor had just put people Clark cared about through a private hell, and nearly succeeded in killing him. Yet his physical *instinct* was to try to save Luthor. Even when he could have killed Nor, Clark didn't (couldn't?) do it. The instinct to kill wasn't there.

The *instinct* to save is there in Clark Kent though - think of all the automatic quick saves he makes during the course of the show. that's one of the first things we see him doing with the bus in the pilot.

To clarify, I'm one who used the term 'murder', but not to mean anything other than what would be a willful and deliberate act. As you point out, there's a difference between that type of crime, and self-defence or manslaughter or criminal negligence.

I think that's really hard to do because no one is free of either of the latter two. For example, some posters believe that all people are by instinct revenge killers and so that particular "prejudice" or "bias" shapes how they view this issue.

As well, we all have presuppositions about how the characters might act in an unknown situation because of how we've seen them act in L&C:tNAoS. For example, I mentioned Clark's "instinct" to help.

As well, we look at ourselves and say, hey, it's only natural for me to do this, and so therefore it would be natural for Clark or Lois Lane do that. But I'm not sure that sort of personal projection or "prejudice", if you will, is completely valid, either, as a way to judge Clark Kent or Lois Lane or any of the other characters.

As for knowledge - well, can never have enough of that.

One of the images I can't get out of my head is that of those Amish people who lost their daughters to a vicious murderer. There can be no worse thing than to lose a child. And yet their reaction was never less than truly "human".

c.

Wasn't it? I believe we were told (and shown) the exact opposite. From the "Battleground Earth" script:

Later, the duel, and the script says:

This is, in fact, what we were shown on the show, as well. I think it was established that Clark/Superman can and will kill, under certain circumstances. It's canon. It's not out of character at all for L&C:TNAOS's Clark, because the show established it as in character, thereby deviating from the general assumption and rule that "Superman does not kill, period."

Just something to think about.

P.S. Just to add to the list of people whose death Superman has caused: in WIEAK, he was responsible for Patrick Sullivan's demise.

I'm less certain that part of the script proves the "exact opposite". Here's the next part of the script following that quote.
(The military has started firing K gas at Nor and Clark. Lois is urging Clark to get out of there.

form the script:
So at the end, Clark could not kill Nor.

But, as I said above, I do agree that he could kill to protect someone else.

c.

Not once he realized what he'd done, no. But you specifically said "the instinct to kill wasn't there" and I think what occurred here happened very much instinctively. That's even what Clark describes it as: "Kryptonian instincts like that."

So I think that scene proves that he will kill if he's upset enough and forgets what he's doing. There wasn't even an immediate threat to anyone in that scene, save himself. So it can't even be claimed that he was protecting someone in that instant.

Obviously, this is a difficult issue, but I do think that L&C took a different approach to the idea of Superman killing. He did repeatedly cause the death of others and he did not feel/show remorse afterwards.

I wish we had seen him angst over what happened in BE, but we didn't. The show clearly established for me that our Clark, maybe because he's more human than in previous incarnations, is capable of rage that will overcome him so quickly that he will take someone's life. In that instant, he will not be aware of what he's doing, but he will do it. And he will not necessarily be torn up about it later on, as we also saw on the show.

Just my interpretation of the character, of course, but I think it's a logical assumption to make, given the show's canon.

But that threat to himself is significant - Nor would have killed him, and so Clark was fighting for his own life. As well, if Nor lived he was a huge threat to other people. So even had Clark's last blow been a "kill", at that point it would still not have been murder. I haven't been arguing that Clark would or could not kill but that he was not a murderer.

So the instinct to "kill" is not there - but the instinct for self-preservation and to defend and protect is there.

It depends, though, on what you believe his primary goal was in that scene. Was it to save the Earth from Nor and his army or was it simply to kill Nor? of course, he knew that he might have to kill Nor in order to achieve his primary goal, and we can only guess about how he psyched himself to do that before hand, although we saw some of that as Ching coached him earlier.
But we never saw any indication in the show of a rage that would lead Clark to kill just for the sake of killing.

c.

Oh glorious canon, you baffle me at times. It's so strange: a guy who gets mad at someone for making a joke about a dead guy (I remember that from the Pilot)--but is pretty apathetic about his own involvement in someone's death. Maybe it's just me, but I thought he would be more sensitive than that. Ah well. Guess that was some bias right there.

Stepping outside for a minute--it could also be that it being a family show, showing remorse would make the events somehow more dark than we're being led to take them. In the most extreme example mentioned above-- the lady shrinks. She _shrinks_. Remorse over that would be kind of hard to take seriously...well at least for me.

*shrug*

The nature of the show I think is key in considering why...

Or to parraphrase "a rage that would strip Clark of all rationality."

I *don't* hold this as an absolute either (that he would go murderously crazy if something horrible happened). All I'm saying is that I'm okay with either way, as long as I'm led carefully he'll still be "Clark" to me.

lol - i wrote a fanfic about that theme once.

c.

Carol wrote:
I'd like to clarify my initial statement. What I should have written was that I hoped people would comment from a position of knowledge (specifically about my stories) instead of posting without that knowledge.

Carol also wrote:

For those who may not be as familiar with this aspect of the story, the Amish parents went to the family of the man who murdered their children and offered both physical and spiritual comfort to them. They never behaved any way other than completely loving to that family, and not only did the Amish offer food and forgiveness, they maintained their contact and continued to offer their assistance.

I have to disagree with Carol. This is not a "human" reaction. A truly human reaction would have been to accuse, villify, or otherwise heap abuse on that family. Perhaps the "human" reaction would have included revenge killings carried out either singly or en masse. The "human" reaction would have been violent and sudden and would have continued the cycle of pain for generations. And if you don't believe me, all you have to do is look at Northern Ireland or the Middle East or China or Kentucky (where the Hatfields and McCoys still struggle with the fallout from their famous feud, even though they don't shoot at each other any more) or any number of other places around the globe where people react to insult and injury with greater insult and greater injury.

The reason the Amish did not react as "normal humans" would is because of their Biblically-based faith in God. They themselves would tell you that they aren't special people, but that they are called to behave towards their neighbors in a special way, in order to show others who their Master really is.

Whether one believes that humankind is inherently evil, inherently good, or inherently neutral, one cannot view our world without seeing terrible conflicts all around. Humanity's history is one of warfare and conquest, interspersed with little pockets of peace here and there. Yet we strive on, reaching for something better, something more.

In many ways, Superman embodies this "something better" in our culture. So many of our fellow readers view Superman as an immutable moral standard in and of himself that any tarnishing of that image is rejected out of hand. Yet, despite his great power and greater potential, Clark is still a flawed human. He has the same kinds of weaknesses each of us do, and if we can see him overcome not only a flaw in his character but see him overcome the negative consequences of a serious mistake, we may all be encouraged to do better, to be better, next time temptation comes knocking on our door.

Hope this spreads balm and not cayenne pepper.

I was not arguing that he was capable of murder, either. Just that he was capable of killing.

If what Ching said was correct, then there was no room in Clark's mind for anything but "the kill." That, in my opinion, includes concern for the welfare of others.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on the interpretation of that scene, Carol. I think it revealed a dark side of Clark that we hadn't seen before. Maybe the writers realized that and that's why we weren't shown the emotional aftermath. It would have, as alcyone said, made the scene more significant. In my opinion, it's still a significant scene, even if the writers kind of sidestepped the issue.

Gotta love characterisation and ethics discussions.

Terry wrote with respect to my comment about the Amish:
So elaborating:
What i meant by human is that how they acted was truly "good" and so, imo, at that moment they were embodying the full potential of what it is to be human. They weren't acting in response to animal instincts, but as fully actualized moral beings.

In their place, I couldn't have done that, I don't think.

I see the Hatfields and McCoys et al differently , as well. That's inhumanity at work- animal instincts in the drivers' seat, not humanity.

(And my apologies to animal lovers here - Lassie was a truly fine human being as everyone knows )

Terry also wrote:
"Yet, despite his great power and greater potential, Clark is still a flawed human."

Totally agree and have never suggested otherwise. That's one of the aspects of L & C that I especially liked. In fact, have written fics about 'flawed Clark' ( and flawed Lois, too <g>) as have so many other writers on these boards.

CA wrote:
To some extent I agree, but I don't think that was any darker than a soldier knowing he might have to kill in order to stop an enemy soldier's attack. Not going to argue that those two soldiers represent mankind at his finest , nor that I don't see that violent struggle as dark, but I don't see it as *especially* dark. What I would see as dark is if once a soldier had wounded his enemy and thus stopped the attack, he then slit the man's throat. So I was no more surprised by Clark's going into that battle with Nor, being aware that he would have to kill Nor than a police-officer going to a violent, in -process crime or a soldier on the front lines knowing that he might have to kill someone.

CA - it's interesting how people select different bits of a scene as being *the* significant bit. For example, you see Ching's statement as indicating what Clark was truly about, while I see Clark's very last action with Nor as speaking to what Clark was.

c. (who did read Maysonry of Life and thought Laura was a great villain)