Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Ultimate Lois Deathfic

Carol, that's the way I remember hearing about Tim's thoughts as well.

But...that's not the way it came across in the episode. Clark keeps dodging Lois' question, and finally admits that he doesn't know how many years he gave up. Since the episode left it open-ended, it's not surprising that authors, as Jojo said, would explore the angle of his living an inordinately long lifespan. Even with Clark's aura protecting Lois and increasing her longevity, it's not an impossible thought that he will outlive her.

Like you and others have said in earlier posts, we can often learn new things even when rehashing old ground. I've appreciated reading the different theories that people have suggested as to why Lois deathfic is more common than Clark deathfic.

I still hold true to my belief that it is not the dire problem - and an ever-increasing one at that - that Ann seems to believe it is. But of course she is every bit as entitled to her belief as I am, just as every time that she starts or contributes to a thread stating these concerns, I or anyone else are entitled to express our concerns on the entire issue.

Have women historically been undervalued in society? Yes, I don't think anyone can deny it. Are things better now? Absolutely. Are they perfectly balanced? No, probably not. Improvements can continue to be made. But are L&C authors who choose to write a deathfic where Lois has died doing so because they believe - either consciously or subconsciously - that Lois is inferior to Clark simply because she is a woman? I'm not privy to their thoughts, but I truly doubt it, and I fear that Ann is insulting them by trying to attribute this as a possible motive.

Kathy

Concerning the preponderance of Lois deathfics? - A lot of interesting and valid points have been brought up in this thread. But how about the fact that in TOGOM, we've already experienced Lois's grieving. But we don't explore Clark's grief, not even in DToDC. And as the Wedding Destroyer indicated when choosing Lois as her victim, Clark's grief will be the deeper, the more profound. Just a thought. :rolleyes:

I thought I was done posting in this thread. But, Dandello, I must point out that the reason why I started this thread at all was that I wanted to call attention (for the umpteenth time, I know) to the difference between one person actually dying and one person grieving for his or her loved one.

In all the variations of TOGOM, Lois grieves for Clark. In all the Lois deathfics, Clark grieves for Lois. In that respect, these stories are perfect mirror images of each other.

In the TOGOMs, however, Clark always survives, but in the Lois deathfics, Lois always dies.

If we think that a deathfic is only about watching the grief of the bereaved party, then the TOGOMs and the Lois deathfics are just the same. But if we think that it matters at all whether the supposedly dead person actually dies or not, then the TOGOMs and the Lois deathfics couldn't be more different.

The educational stories that I read as a child told me that it was the same thing when little girls died and went to heaven as it was when little boys were saved by God so that they could live out their lives on Earth. I didn't believe for a moment that these two alternatives were equally good.

Dandello, I believe that you are married. Let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that you are. Would it be the same to you to believe that your husband was dead but find out later that he was alive and well and on his way back to you, as it would be to believe that your husband was dead and find out that he actually was, too?

And would it be the same to him?

I probably crossed a line here. I'm sorry, Dandello. It's just that it frustrates me beyond belief when people seem to think that the TOGOMs and the Lois deathfics are the same. The only way that anyone could believe that, in my opinion, is if this person thinks that the question of whether a person actually dies or not ultimately means nothing. Or at least, you would have to believe that the question of whether a fictional character lives or dies has no impact on the story where this character plays a major part.

Ann

I only have one kid.

What I was trying to point out was that, to me, the point of the deathfics, whether or not the 'dead' person is or is not actually dead, is to explore the grief of the survivors. In TOGOM Lois grieves although Clark really isn't dead but she doesn't know this. Her grief is palpable - it's a key to the episode. The number of TOGOM rewrites testifies to the power of that scenario. As a writer, if I kill a character, it is to explore that grief and the aftermath of that loss.

I don't think the number of Lois deathfics is a reflection of any anti-female bias. Lois's personality is such that she is more likely to get in over her head. And Clark's grief (compounded with probable feelings of failure) makes for an interesting study.

As a writer, I have covered the death of a child, the suicide of a major character, insanity, and many other topics I have never experienced and never hope to.

I'm less certain that writers are uninfluenced subconsciously by that belief. But perhaps that's because I think that the cultures in which we've been raised and live have quite an impact on shaping our perceptions of reality. But that doesn't mean that all L & C fanfic writers are influenced in the specific way under discussion, nor that that bias about gender roles is the top influence shaping what gets written.

As Kathy says, "we are not privy to their thoughts".
Not to mention, it's difficult to asses subconscious influences.

it's complicated - think there are probably several factors involved in trying to understand it.

At any rate, I don't see that Ann is insulting anyone with her suggestion. I doubt there's a writer out there who isn't influenced in some way by her subconscious. (I guess this statement shows I've bought into the world as seen by Freud and all his heirs.) Now this doesn't mean I don't also believe in Free Will - we are not all zombies, Borg, whatever all of the time, controlled by those who conditioned us.

last rambling , early morning thought: Just as writers are motivated. both consciously and subconsciously by a variety of factors, so too are readers as they process what the author has written.

- Socrates

c.

On second thought, I deleted this entire post. It added nothing new or constructive to the deathfic debate.

Ann

ditto what Kathy said.

As Ann has deleted her post, that eliminates a reason for mine, which was in direct response.

Kathy

Ann, I have a question for you. The topic of deathfic and Lois-deathfic has been discussed over and over. Usually because, in my opinion, you wanted to make a point of women dying and questioning the author's intent. As you have stated (twice now), you are very aware of my intent and purpose. So why are we discussing this all again when nothing new has come of it?

I was very aware when I posted my story that this discussion could come up again. By stating in the author's word what my reasoning was, I had hoped to avoid this. To no avail. I didn't want to bring this all up again, as it will only unneccesarily hurt people. Hurt may be the wrong word, but many are emotionally involved, even if it's just annoyance.

I believe strongly that every individual has their own believes and a right to voice them. But to do so time and again? To me, it feels like preaching. And I usually do exactly the opposite thing then. That's just my nature. Don't get me wrong, I do understand your point of view. I just don't share it, like others here. So to each their own, that's what makes our world so interesting.

That's what you keep saying, Ann. Less than 10 deathfics have been written in the last year, far as I'm aware. (I could be way off, since I don't read much fic lately, but I'm catching up slowly.) How many stories are written on a yearly basis? I'm going to take a nice round number. Let's say 300. That's about 3% then. That may be more than years ago, but seems to be true for the last few years. So what trend do you see?

And even if it were a trend, what is wrong with that? Just because you have objections against it (and some others too, but all for their own reasoning), does that mean we can't write about it? That's like saying a few people don't like to read angsty stories, so we just don't write them anymore. That's hardly fair to the people who do enjoy them. So angsty stories are still being written, as will deathfics.

So to sum up my point: We know how you feel about the subject, you know how we feel. Why do you keep bringing it up when you know nothing will change?

This has nothing to do with me being the author who posted a deathfic this time, by the way. I've been wondering about it for some time now.

Saskia

Ah Saskia. This isn't about your story in particular, so take heart.
I suspect , too, that when you say 'we' you don't intend to imply each and every poster or member of these boards other than Ann.

But does no one ever change? Are we never able to say, "Hey. there's something I never thought of before." ?

Hasini did a good job summarizing what's gone in this thread a few posts back. We've all got a little carried away at some point or other during this.

You said that "nothing new has come up", but I think a few points have come up that haven't before as well as perhaps more of a knowledge of where individual posters are coming from. So hopefully we've each gained a little understanding we didn't have before.

I have, anyway.

carol

If I hadn't posted my story, Carol, would this discussion be here now? I believe that because there was another deathfic, Ann made her post. It just so happens the story is mine.

I agree that new points have been made and that some of it has been very educational (hey, I learned new words here, too ). So there may be better understanding all around, the result is still the same. Deathfics will still be written and posted. And everyone has a choice to read it or not. I don't see that changing unless the majority of the fandom is against deathfics.

Does that make more sense? I know I can think faster than I can put into words, so at times I express myself rather poorly.

Saskia

I've just caught up with this thread and am dropping in as an admin to correct a couple of misapprehensions that I wouldn't want to see accepted as true. Carol said:

I'm not sure what you're suggesting here, Carol, but the admins of these boards have always taken a very open approach to discussion, whether on or off the topic of L&C (as long as topics are posted in the correct folders). There are a tiny number of topics not permitted on the boards, and these are well-advertised in the FAQ: gossip about the actors and Real Person Fiction (so-called George and Lynn stories) being the main ones. We don't close down topics or discussion; on the very, very few occasions threads have been locked it's been because the discussion has degenerated into nastiness.

If you're referring to board members suggesting unhappiness at the discussion of particular topics, then of course everyone does have a right to express her/his opinion - and, as long as it's done without flaming, the admins will not interfere. And saying 'we've been over this before several times' isn't discouraging discussion - I've seen that pointed out in other threads, though often the poster will also give links to the earlier threads so that the original poster will be able to read them.


Also this:
Of course there've been many debates through the years on the morality of nfic, though I think most of those predated the forming of these boards. When these boards were established, some of the present admins (myself included) discussed what forums we would have, and there was never any doubt that nfic would be one of them. It was there right from the start, and of course member-only, with membership based on statement of age.

I believe, though can't remember exactly, that when Zoomway first moved to UBB format for her MBs nfic was also a separate, password-protected folder right from the start. In this fandom, unlike many others, nfic has always been kept separately, difficult to get without signing up for passwords or giving statements of age.

So, not suggesting at all that nfic isn't or hasn't been controversial; I just didn't want any newer members to think that there was ever a time when we didn't put it in a protected folder and that people actually had to ask us to.

I now return you all to your well-mannered debate


Wendy
Boards Admin Team.

I'm sitting here absorbing the irony of this comment, Carol, on a topic thread that's now reached in excess of 70 posts. I'd call that tolerating a rather large discussion.

LabRat

Hmm. Having been on the receiving end of some pointed comments about the one deathfic that I wrote, may I put in what I hope are two cents worth of gentle comments?

Not everybody likes deathfic. Of course, that's a painfully obvious statment, but some dislike it more than others. Me, personally, I wouldn't want to write or read deathfic exclusively. And I really don't care for deathfics where the death of the victim is meaningless.

But I asked in a post in another thread, "What makes a story a deathfic?" and never got a direct response. But I think, after reading all the responses from others in this and in other threads, I've come up with a definition. It's subjective, not definitive, but it seems to encompass the viewpoints I've seen posted.

Deathfic is where someone you don't want to die dies.

In the majority of the deathfics on this board, Lois is the one whose death is most vehemently protested. Case in point: "Gone the Rainbow" by Catharine Bruce, posted on June 26 of this year, elicited some feedback with tears on it (mine included), but no posts containing accusations of anti-Clark bias, no biting comments about her being anti-male, no sarcasm or personal critisism, nothing but praise. So I must conclude that stories where Clark dies are okay, but stories where Lois dies are somehow very, very bad.

(Not at all incidentally, I consider Catharine's story superior to anything I've written for FOLCdom. My personal opinion, not to be taken as fact, and no one is urged to consider this as a suggestion to convert to my viewpoint.)

Death is a tragedy. Death is quite final (unless you're a popular soap opera star). Death is noble only if that death produces some lasting positive effect for other people, as in "Gone the Rainbow," where Clark stopped Zod from becoming a tyrant over all of Earth at the cost of his own life. Protests against Lois dying but not against Clark dying are inherently unequal, because when the passion spent defending Lois against death isn't matched by equal passion defending Clark against death, it betrays that person's bias.

But we can only know this if person A clobbers the latest Lois deathfic and praises the latest Clark deathfic. Even then, because Clark is inherently harder to kill than Lois, believable plots where Clark dies are going to be fewer and farther between, so unless person A makes it clear that he or she is attacking the Lois deathfic simply because it's a Lois deathfic, we can't really know what's going on in person A's mind.

In my humble opinion, it all boils down to this: if you don't like deathfic, don't read it.

There are stories in the archive towards which I do not gravitate for various reasons. I am confident that everyone reading these words must confess to the same thing: a personal bias either towards or away from a particular genre or even a specific style of writing. There shouldn't be a problem with this, people. We're all different, and we don't all like the same things. And that's the way it should be, because we're all different people.

The only problem I have is when someone clobbers a writer for writing about a specific subject. If someone were to write about Lois having had an abortion when she was twenty, for example, that would elicit different reactions from different readers. And if the story is constructed in a believeable and reasonable fashion, it could stimulate a reasoned discussion about the practice of abortion, both pro and con.

But if someone gives feedback blasting the author simply for bringing up the subject, there are a number of negative results possible. One, that particular author might be discouraged from writing anything more at all. Two, other authors might be discouraged from writing stories with similar themes. Three, we all lose out because we've censored a theme or a subject or even a writer.

As a writer, I can handle someone telling me "I don't like the way you handled that subject." I hope I don't get that kind of response, but at least it's a response. And it's perfectly valid, because I cannot possibly dictate any other person's response. But if someone tells me "You shouldn't write about this theme," that's not valid. That borders on censorship, and that's not what we're here for.

As long as the story and the content are within the stated boundaries of the boards, then what's the problem? If you don't like the story or the manner of the telling or the subject or the writer, just don't read the story. I consider that to be a perfectly valid response, too. Don't attack the writer. Don't attack the genre. Don't attack others who disagree with you. Just don't read the story if you can't refrain from attacking, or at least don't attack the author publicly. (A personal message or e-mail would be appropriate, I think, as long as it's not a personal attack. Who knows? It might generate a reasoned discussion.)

Can't we all just get along? I know I'd like to.

Thanks for reminding us of this, Wendy. That was my understanding of what Admin's position is.
I was fearful that the unofficial censure of the right to discuss/ deconstruct/ critique, state an opinion about genres which was expressed in a few of the posts in this thread was leading towards a change in that policy. I'd thought, however, near the end of the thread we'd passed by that possibility and had regained our tolerance.
I made that statement because I was afraid we were about to go back to square one with respect to the tolerance of other's opinions. (this feels clumsily worded to me)

Thanks for clarifying the sequence of the nfic debate - I do remember how heated it was but I couldn't remember the time line on it. I wasn't involved in that debate - but it was a bit of an eye-opener for me to read. Up until that point I'd had no idea people felt so strongly about the genre one way or another.

Lab, I think perhaps the reason the deathfic analysis topic gets so much more 'traffic' so to speak is simply because the topic is "death", and perhaps also because, as Terry points out, most of us love both characters and so it is distressing when either is killed off. And so we ask the age old question "Why?".

Hope both of you found something in one of my many previous posts in the thread that you liked or agreed with or thought was a reasonable point

Terry's suggestion of anti-male bias in the Clark deathfics rasied an interesting question. We'd have to find the number of Cdf and the number of Ldfs. What actually is the size of discrepancy? Is it greater than we would expect , considering that Clark is nearly invulnerable? If it is not, then I wouldn't think you could claim a particular bias, but if it's larger then we could. I'm just playing with this idea here, and I know it would be a tricky thing to do. First we;d have to agree on how much more likely it is to kill Lois than Clark and I think such agreement might be difficult. Still it would give us the numbers. Sounds tedious to do though.
(although maybe stats types would not find it so?)

Terry's advice to just not read the story makes sense but before you can make that decision you have to know that the story *is* either a Lois or Clark DF.

btw, at no point in this thread has anyone "blasted" the author. In fact the specific story itself was not the topic of discussion, (nor should it have been).

c.

My previous post added nothing to the deathfic debate, so I deleted it. The reply I'm going to post now does add something, or at least I think so.

I decided to check out what pictures I would find if I googled "mourning widower". Could I find any pictures that could illustrate the concept of a grieving Clark Kent?

Google immediately responded to my request for widowers by asking me if I didn't prefer pictures of widows instead. To Google, it was apparently more natural to ask for pictures of women grieving for their husbands rather than for husbands grieving for their wives!

I decided to google "mourning widow" too, to see if Google would ask me if I wanted to know about mourning widowers instead. But no. Google was fine with me asking for pictures of widows and showed no particular wish to display pictures of widowers instead.

When I checked out the pictures I could see when I googled "mourning widower", it turned out that most of the pictures that had anything to do with a bereaved spouse at all showed me widows instead of widowers! Even though I had specifically asked for widowers! This, for example, is a cartoon of a widow who has gone to a "spiritist" (or whatever they are called) to get into contact with her dead husband:



This is a cartoon of a dead man and a woman who is unhappy about his death, even though she may not be his widow:



Here's another widow:



One of the comparatively few pictures of widowers I found when I googled "mourning widowers" was this one:

He looks sad, no?

The only picture I found of a widower that looked heartbreakingly sad was this one:



To me, this man looks like he wasn't part of our Western culture at all.

Another man who mourned his wife was the Indian mogul Shah Jahan who built the superb mausoleum Taj Mahal for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal:



(You have to wonder how much he mourned his other wives.)

And there is quite a poignant story about the English King Edward I and his wife Eleanor. Their marriage had been arranged as a 'marriage of conveniance' in 1254, when Eleanor was ten and Edward was fifteen. When they started living together about eight years later they fell in love and had fifteen children. When Eleanor died in northern England in 1290, Edward I decreed that wherever her body had been put down to rest on its way home to Westminster there would be erected an Eleanor Cross. The most famous of the Eleanor Crosses is the one at Charing Cross, London.



The Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross.

So there have certainly been widowers who have mourned their wives. Still, judging from Google's tight-fisted response when I asked for pictures of widowers, our culture doesn't take a great interest in widowers and doesn't expect them to do a lot of public grieving. Again judging by the willingness of Google to provide pictures of widows, our culture expects more public grief from widows than from widowers.

Could it be that precisely because our culture may not expect widowers to grieve much, it becomes that much more tempting to imagine Clark's grief if Lois was to die? Because he would surely grieve a lot, and that would be so unusual and wonderful to see. Maybe Lois would grieve as much for Clark as Clark would grieve for Lois, but perhaps our culture expects more grief from widows than from widowers, so that Lois's grief would be less unusual and wonderful than Clark's, and therefore less tempting to write about?

Ann

The fact that google doesn't provide pictures of a grieving widower seems rather to me because (1) the larger part of the people connected to the Internet are from the US and/or other Western countries. And (2) particularly in the US (and perhaps to a lesser degree in other Western countries), the construction of masculinity encourages men to keep a tight lid on their feelings and not show them publically (which incidentally can be an argument for why women write about men who show an excess of "feeling", because it's not something frequently seen. I believe, you're saying something along these lines, but your reasoning has holes in it).

So yes, Western culture does expect more public grief from widows, but the issue is not as simple as that. "Public" is a keyword here and it is necessary to look at how "male" and "female" are constructed in this public space--what behaviors are societally sanctioned.

Thus, I wouldn't jump the gun and say that "society doesn't expect widowers to grieve much." That's a big jump from "society expects more public grief from widows." That ends up oversimplifying things again.

We also must keep in mind that grieving too is a loaded term (and another keyword). We all grieve in different ways which are also influenced by gender among a plethora of other factors.

alcyone

Or it could simply be that, in North America at least, I believe that the use of the word "widow" is more common than using the word "widower".

For example, you'll see a newspaper article with a sentence like Cassandra, Jackson's widow, talked about.... But the phrase Jackson, Cassandra's widower, talked about... would be less common. Often it would be phrased Jackson, whose wife Cassandra passed away in 2000, talked about... or Jackson, whose late wife Cassandra founded.... I personally have seen sentence constructions similar to my suggestions more frequently than the use of the word "widower". Obviously I have no statistics to back that up, though.

And this is hardly a statistic that I can hang my hat on with any authority, but...
I googled the word "widower", without any descriptor, and was told that there were about 1.3 million instances in the database. I googled the word "widow", and was told of about 16 million. Certainly as far as Google is concerned, the word "widow" is much more common.

Kathy

So you are saying, Kathy, that the word 'widow' can refer to both men and women. All right. The word 'widower', however, can refer only to men. However, when I googled 'widow' (which can refer to both men and women) I almost exclusively got pictures of women. But when I googled 'widower', which can only refer to men, I got more pictures of women than of men. Go figure.

Kathy, you also said:

There are two possible interpretations of this. Either the word 'widow' refers almost equally to men and women, and the reason why 'widow' gets many more hits than 'widower' is simply because widowed men are usually described as widows. But another explanation is also possible. While I am in no way denying that 'widow' can refer to a man, it could still be that most of the hits you get when you google 'widow' may refer to female widows. To women. And if that is the case, then the reason why 'widow' gets so many more hits than 'widower' could be mostly because widowed women are considered more interesting than widowed men. It could be that our society (or at least Google) assumes that a woman is harder hit by losing her husband than a man is hit by losing his wife. And because of that, there will be more articles and references to bereaved women than to bereaved men. Again, this supports my hypothesis that it might be particularly interesting to write about widowed Clark, because he can be assumed to take the loss of his wife much more seriously than "the average guy" would do.

Ann

This can be problematic. It's important to keep in mind that the existence of something versus another on the internet does not becessarily map cleanly to a larger interest in society as a whole. We need to consider that the audience of the internet might not be the same as the larger society. That said, I do think there is more interest in widows, but not for the reasons you pose.

This is not adequately supported. In fact I see no connection between presence of "widows" (however that gets marked by google--an image of a crying woman, text mentioning "widow"--I think its the latter and if so this brings up other problems regarding writing, etc) and a woman harder hit by the loss of a husband. It could have to do that women are more likely to write about bereavement than men. That also does not prove that they are harder hit than men.

Or perhaps it is because it's more societally sanctioned to discuss female grief as opposed to male grief--at least in a lot of Western societies.

As I see it, there are too many fraught assumptions about the "average guy" in place to make such a claim (at this point, I add). Google can hardly provide the initial (unquestionable) basis for adequate support.

alcyone