Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related "The Dying Dandy" and the LnC deathfic

Just recently I saw a reproduction of a famous Swedish early 20th century painting, "The Dying Dandy" by Nils von Dardel. The painting is here:



At the center of the painting there is a slender young man with spiky black bangs, elegantly dressed in green, holding a mirror in his right hand and resting his left hand over his heart. His face is pale, but his features are almost angelic. His eyes are closed and his expression is dreamy.

He is dying, and he is beautiful.

Three young women tend to him. They look calm and solemn, almost as if they were officiants at a religious ceremony. The smallest of the women holds a pillow under the dying dandy's head, so that he will die comfortably. One woman is preparing to cover the dandy with an opulent blanket of some kind. She has a ghost of a smile on her face, like a mother tucking her little boy in for the night. The middle woman is looking straight down on the dandy's face, untroubled, calmly tender and almost smiling.

These women aren't feeling too bad at the dandy's passing, but they enjoy officiating at his demise. In the left hand corner of the painting, on the other hand, is a young man who is putting on a very exaggerated show of grief at the other man's death.

Interestingly, there exists another version of Dardel's painting:



Here the three women who tend to the dying dandy have been replaced by two young men and a young boy. The grieving man in the left hand corner is gone. The dandy has a fan in his hand instead of a mirror, and he is even more physically beautiful here; interestingly, we see more of his legs here than we did in the other picture. One of the young men who tend to him tenderly touches the dandy's face and smiles down at him.

What do these pictures tell us about death and grieving? First of all, who is the dying man, and what does his death symbolize? Is it Dardel himself who is dying in these pictures? No, I don't think so, because the dandy's hair is too black to be Dardel's. This is how Nils Dardel painted his own self portrait:



No, I don't think that the dandy is Dardel himself. On the other hand, the dandy could represent certain aspects of Dardel. For example, Dardel was clearly bisexual, but after these two paintings were completed Dardel had relationships with three women. It could be that Dardel "was saying good-bye" to the homosexual aspect of himself, as it were. If so, the three male figures tending to the dandy could be three different versions of himself "putting the homosexual dandy away", as it were. Or at least, they are "covering him up", and it is the sternest one of them who is in charge of the cover-up.

In his lifetime, Dardel was criticized for being too much of an aesthete, of caring too much about the exaggerated beauty and elegance of certain things. In the picture where a man is crying for the dying dandy, it could be that Dardel is grieving for his own inner aesthete who couldn't find acceptance anywhere, and the three women who tend to him could represent the surrounding society whose dismissal of Dardel was somewhat similar to the way a mother is "dismissing" her son when she sends him to bed.

In any case, the pictures represent the death of a male character, and the only person who is really grieving for him is also male. This is an all-male tragedy.

By contrast, most LnC deathfics are Lois deathfics, where the person who dies is therefore Lois. But while the dying dandy himself is at the center of the pictures carrying his name, Lois herself is rarely at the center of Lois deathfics. Instead, it is the man in the left hand corner who is at the center of the Lois deathfics - that is, it is Clark and his grief that are square in the middle of the Lois deathfics. As for the people tending to the dying dandy in the paintings here, no such people are usually to be found in Lois deathfics. In other words, no other people pay much attention to Lois's death. Lois, in other words, is not an important player in the Lois deathfics. Instead, the Lois deathfics are extremely Clark-centered fics. And in that respect the Lois deathfics are very similar to the tableaux described in Dardel's paintings: they are extremely male tragedies.

There are two versions of the Lois deathfic. The most common one is the relentless tragedy. This is the kind of story where Clark can't stop grieving for Lois. The tragedy is not that Lois is dead but that Clark can't stop grieving.

The other kind of Lois deathfic is the "sort-of-happy-ending" deathfic. Here Clark is able to stop grieving for Lois and turn his attention back to the world again. Clark is feeling better again, and since the tragedy was always about his feelings and not really about Lois's death, things are looking up again.

In any case, I think it is revealing to look at Dardel's paintings to see what the LnC deathfics are and what they aren't.

Ann

Hmm, interesting. o_o

I don't know how many deathfics I've actually read, but yes, the heart of the tragedy would be Clark's feelings. It likely wouldn't be Lois herself per se, since she being dead has either gone to a better place or, at the very least, "feels no more pain"; however, there is something to be said for the impact she should have left on the world, and the Lois-shaped gap she'd leave behind.

Comparatively, what fics I've read in which Lois is a ghost, and thus grieving for herself and her life lost, tend to either not be tragedies or not stay that way; because as long as Lois is somehow able to participate in the story, we know that somehow she and Clark will find their way to each other, either in life or in death.

I'm less sure that the 'heart of the tragedy' would be Clark's. That's sort of Clark-centric and trivialises the actual process of death - Lois's emotions and physical suffering. It
s her life that she loses. She becomes a prop in these death fics - to show us that Clark Suffers.

c.

Wow, Ann.

This is true; however, one must acknowledge that, female value aside, making the tragedy Clark-centric is simply easier. As Lois' soul-mate, her death impacts him the most. As a sensitive guy, her death impacts him keenly. As a still-living character, her death impacts him longer. Clark is easy to milk for angst.

Ergo, my comment that the heart of the tragedy is Clark's reaction. That is where you'll get the most meat right away. Making a sufficiently interesting death-fic that somehow does not center around Clark (whether because he is grieving, or because he is dead and the world must now cope without Superman) would take, I think, substantially more thought and effort.


I'm not saying it's right or wrong; I'm merely saying it is.

It may be, too, that because many of us here are female we like to think of the female protagonist as having been important enough and loved enough to cause Huge Grief when she dies, and maybe too that we want to skip the horrific bedlam that death is. Or maybe it's because, as women, we've been conditioned to see our self-worth not as intrinsic but as something that is conferred on us by others. So Extreme Grief and Suffering is the ultimate validation.
It's a pre-feminist notion but probably still out there.

c. (who is pleased to see that Pam has gone over to the Dark Side and embraced the Bad Pun - "beat the dead horse" )

btw no Black Beauty corssover deathfic please.

Of course, you can always argue that having Lois and not Clark as the victim of the LNC deathfic is canon.

From Swear To God:

Of course there's nothing to say that Myrtyle or Voyle are right - perhaps they'd judged Clark and Lois's relationship all wrong.

LabRat

Originally posted by LabRat:

Yes, that is my impression. But it could be because I have judged Lois and Clark's relationship all wrong myself.

You know that I am at least partly an LnC illiterate, LabRat, so maybe you can enlighten me. The way I remember TOGOM, Lois shows a lot of grief for Clark in that episode, so there seems to be nothing wrong with her ability to grieve. Clark, on the other hand, never shows much grief over Lois, at least according to my limited understanding of LnC. For example, Clark came very close to killing Lois in ATAI, but he wasn't too upset about it, not the way I remember that episode. I can understand that he didn't have time to be shocked or horrified at himself while he had to concentrate on saving Lois, but he didn't seem too upset at himself afterwards, either, when he had time to think about what he had almost done. He seemed to feel much worse about the fact that Lois didn't immediately accept his proposal than about his own near-killing of the woman who would give her life for his parents.

So is it really fair to think of Clark as more sensitive and more "talented" at grieving for Lois than Lois would be at grieving for Clark? Or is it just my lack of familiarity with the LnC show that makes me think that Clark didn't show much talent for grieving in the show, or at least he didn't show many signs of being good at grieving over Lois?

Ann

If you could see him searching for her during the ARGH [no she wasn't dead but missing and with Lex], you might change your mind... He sits on an outcropping on a building and wraps his cape around him and looks like he could cry [though I don't think we ever actually saw him cry? Not macho enough? dunno why but he often does in fic...]

Edit:

She wasn't with Lex yet - again. She'd been with him, escaped, hit her head and woke up thinking she was Wanda. She was near the docks being Wanda Detroit singing at the Ace o Clubs. Clark knew he was with a clone but had no clue where Lois was or if she was even still alive. He flies around looking for her but can't find her.

I thought the reason Voyle said that was because of a confrontation between Lois and Voyle - Lois realized what Voyle was up to and so Voyle manipulated Myrtle into changing her target to Lois by telling her that Clark suffers better than Lois. That's why he is 'feigning surpise.'

ML

Thank you for the picture, Carol. It does show that Clark will grieve for Lois.

It doesn't show that he will grieve for her more than she will grieve for him, however.

It could be that many people are more touched and impressed when a man is obviously grieving for his wife than when a woman is grieving for her husband.

Or it could be that I'm all wrong about that, and that most people feel the same amount of sympathy for the bereaved one, regardless of this person's gender. But in fiction, it could be that the widower is seen as slightly more interesting than the widow. At least it struck me a year ago or so that there seemed to be a whole spate of new movies about men who had lost their wives and children who had lost their mothers. (The only "widower-movie" that I can remember the title of is Pixar's animated "Up", but there were many others.) During the same period there seemed to be no new movies at all about women who had lost their husbands or children who had lost their fathers. (At least there weren't any such movies that I noted.)

Of course, most movies are about men in the first place, and therefore most movies about a main character suffering bereavement will naturally be about a man having lost his wife, because if it was the other way around the movie would have to be about a woman.

I think it is fair to say that people who create fiction are "encouraged" by the surrounding society to make their main character a male person, because that is how it is usually done. Therefore stories about "bereavement" will more naturally be about men grieving for their women than the other way round.

Ann

P.S. As I said, there are few Hollywood movies whose main characters are females. Once recent such movie, however, directed by Peter Jackson, was a movie about a young girl who was... dead! The movie was basically about her happy life as a dead person, after she had been murdered! But only her parents were the victims of her murder, because she herself was as happy as could be!

So judging from Hollywood movies, the best thing a woman or a girl can do to "set off fascinating stories" is to die. And if she does, she herself is never the one we should feel sorry for.

Unlike you, Ann, I started watching LnC at the age of 13, long before I started reading fanfic. Judging from season 1 and 2, I never really understood why Clark fell for Lois anyway. She was behaving badly and most of the time, I identified with Clark more than I could with Lois.

About ten years later, I discovered the boards and became hooked to all those wonderful fics out there. Most of them were trying to explain why Lois was behaving so badly, they were portraying her fear so much better than the show ever could.

The way the show is written, I guess, we're supposed to believe that Clark's love for Lois runs deeper than her love for Clark. Throughout the show Clark constantly says how much he loves Lois, it's mentioned in almost every episode. We see it in his eyes, his love is clearly visible.

Lois on the other hand hides her feelings, she ignores them, tries to push them aside. In my opinion, ToGOM is the first episode in which Lois really shows how much she loves Clark.

Until then, we've seen a whole season of Clark suffering from unfulfilled love. I think that clearly influences how we perceive their relationship.

Speaking of deathfics - I don't like them. I've always stopped reading a fic, however well it may have been written, when a main character was killed of. I like well written angsty stories, but this is a theme I will neither read nor ever write.
But thinking of the dramatic impact, I understand why a griefing Clark is portrayed more often than a griefing Lois.

1. A griefing Lois was part of the actual show. We already saw how much Lois suffered from Clarks supposed death. Knowing how devastated Clark was when he lost Lois to Lex, a griefing Clark is an interesting perspective.

2. Dramatically, a widower is more interesting than a widow. Judging from the common roles in marriage, she cared for the kids, she cooked, maybe she even went to work and earned money. So when the wife is left alone, she deals with her grief, but otherwise she already knows how to organize her life. Lois would certainly be one of those women.
When he is left alone, he doesn't really know how to keep the household, he probably needs to build up a real relationship with his kids because he always went to work.

3. Clark would suffer because he - Superman - couldn't save Lois.

4. And judging from the writer's point of view: It's easier to kill Lois, plain and simple - you don't need a decent A-plot to explain her death. She could die of a disease - having a villain is not essential.
And being a writer I know that a villain, particularly a new one, is hard work. You need to portray him, explain his motivation. Where did the kryptonite come from...

Ann, I think most of us are here because we like reading about Superman--in this case, Superman in a relationship. Or in the case of a deathfic, Superman mourning the loss of a relationship. The contrast between his being the physically most powerful person in the world and his emotional vulnerabilities is what makes the story so interesting.

To be honest, I'm not here primarily to read stories about a female investigative reporter. There are a lot of other good mystery stories and series out there with female protagonists, but that is not what brings people to the LnC show.

I like Lois as a character, I probably identify with Lois in some ways, but she is in the stories because of her relationship to Clark. Without Clark/Superman, there would be no story, or it would be something completely different, a grown-up Nancy Drew.

That's really interesting, Ann. Because it reflects something I sometimes think about.

There is another recent thread on this board about stories we will never write. And in one of mine, Lois dies sometime after Lois and Clark are married and have small children. So far, your typical Lois deathfic.

Clark grieves, cutting himself off from the world around him, unable to connect with his children or continue his Superman duties. Not even his parents can get through to him.

However, in this fic, after a short intro where we see Clark grieve, the rest of the story focuses on Lois - making use of the show's idea of soulmates.

Lois is going towards the light when she becomes aware of Clark's pain. She stops and looks back. Mike (the angel) shows up and tells her she has to continue towards the light - that her next life awaits her. But she refuses to leave Clark. (And we all know how stubborn Lois can be when she knows she's right )

The rest of the story is about Lois finding a way to help Clark continue to live. Of course, first she has to find a way to let him know she is still there - that even death hasn't parted them. (And, although I don't know how, it would be more of a connection than just a 'feeling' - I guess it would be more like a 'haunting' ) I suspect that at first, Clark will probably think he's losing his mind. But once he comes to realize that Lois is really there, he's able to go on - always with her help and support.

The story ends with Clark's death - and him meeting up with Lois on the other side and them going together towards the light, to their new lives.

Anyway, that's the story I will never write - but still play with in my mind sometimes. .(Boy, it's much harder to explain a story line than it is to just write the story ) Not even sure if the story is 'politically correct', but then I never think about political correctness when writing a story. I just think about the story.

That's interesting, cookiesmom, because that isn't what attracts me to the show. I've never been a Superman fan. I am a Lois and Clark fan. I put up with Superman because I adore Lois and Clark. (After all, Superman uses far too much gunk in his hair - can you imagine running your fingers through that? - yuck ) Still, I must admit that Superman is a very convenient plot tool to get Lois and Clark out of some sticky situations or into others. And I've come, over time, to sort of like the big guy, too, because of my feelings for Lois and Clark.

ML

Me too. For me, Lois Lane is intrinsic to the myth - in many ways she is more heroic because it's she who implicitly risks her life for "Truth and Justice". Superman does, too, at times, but because of his powers he rarely risks his life.

I guess I'm trying to say it's easier for him to be heroic.

As well, I bring a feminist perspective to it. Lois Lane matters as much as the guy does - she sets the agenda as often as he does. She doesn't stand aside and hold the top hat while he pulls the rabbit out of it.

I guess for me what is special is that Lois Lane gets to be heroic and Superman gets to human. True Magic

c (plus she can't cook!!!!!)

Intersting thoughts, everyone. Thank you for your input.

Let me point out, however, that fictional portraits of bereavement and grieving haven't always been about tragic men trying to survive without their women. Remember the movie "Ghost"? Where Demi Moore's female lead character was mourning her dead husband (or possibly boyfriend), played by Patrick Swayze? Wow. A woman's bereavement was interesting enough to make a movie about. And a man could be portrayed as dead!



Of course, the movie is from 1990. Those were the days.

(Yes, there's also "The Sixth Sense", a brilliant movie, but not the same kind of "death story" as "Ghost". In any case, "The Sixth Sense" is also from the nineties, from 1999.)

Ann

P.S. There is also "The Gift" with Cate Blanchett. That movie is not from the 1990s, but it is still ten years old, since it is from 2000. The movie is about a widow trying to raise her three sons by herself, supporting them by working as a fortune teller. A dead man plays an important role. So back then it was possible to make stories about women trying to deal with widowhoood and stories about men being dead. But something has happened to our cultural climate.

Carol, I love the way you put that. It really encapsulates magic of the show, of *this* version of a very old story. That's the crossover characterization that puts them so firmly on the same level, true equals, who together can be more than either of them could be, separately.

re: Clark crying -- didn't really ever happen, and the way I heard it was that Dean Cain refused to cry on camera.

However, I'd point out the scene in DTOSC where Clark (dressed as Superman, I think) watches a video the Lakes made, to make it look like Lois was killed. He didn't cry, but he did punch out the TV. We know how much self-control has been emphasised for Clark all his life, so it took something big for him to lose it like that.

And then of course there's the whole scene in the "zoo" where Superman agrees to be captured in order to save Lois's life. Because he needs her, and he's convinced that he couldn't go on without her. I guess some people see that as a challenge, to write through the process of how he would have to cope if the worst happened, since grief doesn't actually kill you, most of the time.

There are also a few Mary Sue fics in which the author bumps off Lois so that Clark can fall in love with their character, but this fandom is pretty much all 'shippers, so Mary Sues tend to be cousins or something, and not get between Clark and Lois.

PJ

When I read the latest "Lois dies" story, I told the author that she needed to get ready for an "interesting reaction." Well, here it is.

Look, people, if you don't like to read Lois Lane deathfic, then don't flippin' read them! No one is making you take in those stories. You have every right not to like such tales, and you have every right not to read such tales.

But you DO NOT have the right to criticize such stories solely because you don't like their content, nor do you have the right to try to intimidate writers to stay away from content you don't like. Ann, Carol, ML, we all know that y'all don't like stories where Lois dies. There are FOLCs on the board who don't read ANY story where someone dies. That is their right, just as you have the right to dislike stories where Lois dies.

But you don't have the right to insist that everybody cater to your preferences. You don't have the right to tell people what to post or not post, as long as it's within the board's guidelines. If you really, really, REALLY believe that no Lois deathfics should be posted, then you should get the guidelines changed on the board instead of wasting time protesting (however indirectly and elegantly) a story theme you don't like.

Kill them all! And let Deborah Joy Levine sort them out!

Well, technically we *do* have the right to complain and generally be annoying (Hooray for Free Speech! ) But yes, I see what you mean.

Telling people not to write Lois Deathfic: Yes, this is poor sportsmanship. Or ficsmanship. I don't know the right word here.

However, it *is* worth bringing up as a general point of discussion with an aim to encouraging more variety and thought in fic.

For instance, this very thread has me now contemplating a Clark Deathfic. Can it be done? Can it be made to be Lois-centric while still maintaining enough of the Superman/LnC elements to keep it from being an Alice and Bob story with the names changed? What would be required?

So yes, I agree that it's silly/futile/mean to say "I don't like X, so please don't write anymore of it." However, it's perfectly valid to say "I'm tired of X. What else have you got?"

Eh, my 2 cents.


Of course, Clark's uncle ran into trouble when he tried to put that philosophy into practice. Now let us never speak of him again.

Ah, but we de have the right to discuss themes that are raised.

Discussion rights are surely not limited because a fanfic has been written on any given theme. I don't read deathfic. Period. But do I have views on the ease with which we kill off female protagonists and gush about the suffering of the entitled male?

You betcha.

c. (long live the American BIll of Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights, etc)

Well, in that case, I'll just say, "I'm tired of Ann complaining about how Lois deathfics mean that the world is deeply sexist". How many times do we need to beat that (genderless, asexual) dead horse? Okay, some of us don't like Lois deathfic. Duly noted. Can we move on to another topic now?

PJ

Respectfully, Pam (and Terry, too) no. (although, of course, you personally can move on - your choice)

and I really sincerely mean that.

But if it is valid to keep writing Lois deathfics (or any other genre like alternate beginnings or next gen or whatever), then it is surely valid to discus those themes.

If you intend to censor discussion of the deathfic theme then also censor deathfic.

for the record, I do not think either is the proper approach.

c.
Socrates: "an unexamined life is not worth living")

Thank you, Carol.

I have tried not to attack deathfics this time, but to discuss them. A point I have tried to make is that we seem to live at a time when the general culture finds it easy to tell stories about widowers and hard to tell stories about widows. The cultural climate seems to ask for stories where fictional men live and suffer and fictional women die. But it has not always been like that.

I think it is just a little too easy to come up with reasons why LnC deathfics should be about Lois dying and not Clark. There are reasons such as Clark being more sensitive (that's doubtful), Lois being the easier to kill (true, but not a problem in a fictional world which has kryptonite), and Clark being the main character anyway (debatable). My point is that if a Lois deathfic has been written in the recent few years, maybe the main reason is that the general culture of our time decrees that deathfics should be about dying women and suffering men.

Ann

P.S. I was talking about movies generally from the 1990s which tell stories about women losing their loved ones, and I forgot the most successful of them all, Titanic! How could I forget? And wouldn't you know that that movie is from the 1990s, from 1997?

you're welcome, Ann.

but have to add that I forget sometimes that this is all very trivial stuff.

c.

Wow. I don't recall ever telling anyone what to write or not write or post or not post. In fact, I did write a Clark deathfic once. I even just gave an idea for a Lois deathfic above. But if I somehow gave you the impression that I thought no one should post deathfics, I apologize. I just thought we were having a discussion here where anyone could give his or her thoughts.

Will bow out of the discussion now. My real life has enough conflict so I try to avoid it in my hobby. Sorry if I offended anyone.

ML

ML, I forgot to tell you... the deathfic that you described but wouldn't write seemed like an interesting fic to me, because Lois was such an active force in it. I like the idea of her being Clark's "guardian angel", as it were.

And I can't prevent anyone from writing any fics whatsoever, but I hope I have the right to discuss them. But I agree that such discussions should try to address other questions than whether or not a person likes such fics.

Again, a point I tried to address here is whether fics such as deathfics are sensitive to cultural trends in society as a whole. I have tried to say here that for whatever reason, the 1990s were interested in discussing how the lives of women are impacted by the deaths of men, but the "noughties" (as the British call them) have switched the gender roles here, for whatever reason. But since most movies and stories are about men in any case, the "male death stories" of the 1990s were few and far between compared with the "male life stories". Today most stories are still about men, and that makes women's starring roles as dead bodies or disembodied spirits more problematical than the "male death stories" of the 1990s, in my opinion.

Ann

I just wanted to chime in, if the movie you mean is The Lovely Bones. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I read the book it was based on (by Alice Sebold) a few years ago, and that's not the impression I got from it. In the book, she lives out her afterlife in her own heaven, tailored to her. She gets anything she wants as soon as she thinks of it. Yet, something that stuck with me even after I forgot many other details of the book is that when she describes her heaven, she says there is only one thing she cannot have, and it is the thing she would like the most: to be alive again.

Quote from page 19 of the paperback:
And from page 20:
(Mr Harvey being her murderer.)

Also, she describes her family's chronicles for years after her death, and considering what they go through, I can't say I read a "happy as can be" tone in her narration.

If she comes across "happy as can be" in the movie then it was seriously misinterpreted by the screenplay writer, IMHO. o_0

Julie

Julie, some reviews of the movie commented on how it differed in tone quite substantially from the book, to the detriment of the movie.

I've not read the book, but I have friends who did and also saw the film. Night and day, I gather.

c.

Telling people not to write about certain themes is censorship. And I am opposed to censorship.

Is this subject worth a reasonable discussion? Yes. Should we encourage "more variety and thought in fic"? Yes.

But that's not what this thread is about. This thread is like many others, in that it was begun to protest Lois dying in fan fiction, specifically fan fiction posted on this site.

If we were being deluged with a spate of Lois deathfics (we're not), if writers were treating Lois' death as a mere inconvenience in Clark's life (I know of no such instance - please let me know if there are any such), if Lois was written as a one-dimensional generic character whose death was used only to show us how profound Superman's respect for all life might be, then I would join the chorus. I would object to any writer marginalizing Lois Lane. She is, indeed, essential to the fiction posted on this website, and to the love story continued by the tales written and posted here.

You have the right not to read deathfic, Carol. And I respect your right. But since you don't read deathfic, are you sure that you're accurate in characterizing any female protagonist's death as "easy?" Or that "we...gush about the suffering of the entitled male?"

Tossing every Lois deathfic into such a category isn't discussing the issue. It's profiling. And doing so reveals a strong bias in your worldview, just as any author who writes female characters as disposable reveals a strong bias in his or her worldview.

Nearly every time a dead-Lois story pops up, a thread such as this one either appears or is revived. My experience is that the same thing doesn't happen with dead-Clark stories. If it did, I'd have little or no objection to these threads.

But the propensity of some FOLCs to protest Lois' death without balancing it with protests of Clark's death bothers me. And I think it has a dampening effect on writers. I've written two stories where Lois and Clark are separated permanently, once by death and once by a personality change in Lois, and both times I've been clobbered pretty hard. I accept that not everyone will love every word I post here. People just aren't that way, and not every story touches every reader. But we're going to squash someone's creativity and drive if we aren't more careful.

If we want to have a discussion of deathfics in general, I think that's a good idea. If we want to discuss Lois deathfics or Clark deathfics specifically, that's probably a good idea too. But condemning any genre out of hand is a bad idea and leads to a form of censorship, whether mandated by the sysops or by the tenor of public reaction. It would be akin to someone condemning nfic because he or she dislikes reading erotic literature. Hey, if you don't like nfic, don't read it! It doesn't mean that you should condemn its existence.

Same goes with deathfic.

Terry, you raise some good points.

Maybe part of the problem is that culturally, women have been marginalized for so long that it's hard to appreciate an honest effort by an author to find beauty in the death of a woman. In that sense, Toc is right: we have been tinted by our culture.

I'd like to ask everyone on both sides of the death-fic argument to please remain calm and not be offended by each-other, even though we disagree. We should also be wary of how we are interpreting the statements made here: science shows that text-only communication is not perfect; we miss out on tone and facial expression, and our own mood dictates how we read a thing.

Was this thread started as an attack, a plea, or a neutral discussion? I haven't a clue, but it has opened the door for valid discussion.

Point taken that I don't read Lois deathfics, Terry, although in the beginning I did read a couple. But haven't done so in a few years now. But part of it is that death is too much what RL is and so there you go. Shallow I know.

But, oddly I admit, I frequently read the comments on such fics, I think to gauge from those comments how the topic is treated. Now this is a very imperfect way to go about that task I admit, but there it is. Generally (I'm tempted to say always, but 'always' statements are suspect . what I've found is that no mention is made of Lois's actual dying, her suffering, etc. Mostly comments are 'poor Clark' etc. Now that doesn't mean of course that the fic itself did not focus on Lois' dying but it does suggest that it did, I think.

I'm not willing to do a tally of Lois deathfics (and here too I would include - dead-Lois fics) vs Clark death and dead-Clark fics - too depressing a topic, but my impression is that were someone to do that, they would come up with a very unbalanced list.

You must remember too that, as Mary put it so well above, we do live in culture that is still biased in this regard, and so I think perhaps it's understandable that some of us might draw attention to the pattern when it occurs in L&C fanfics.

btw, I have admitted to my 'biased worldview' - I'm a feminist. But I like to think that feminism is about equality of the sexes.

c.

I do not think your viewpoint is shallow, Carol. When I go to funerals, the custom where I live is for the attendees to pass in front of the open casket in order to view the departed once more. I don't do that. I don't want my final memory of a friend or loved one to be horizontal in a box and slathered with makeup. If your preference is shallow, then so is mine, but I don't buy it.

I don't want to go through the Archive and tally up the Lois death tales vs. the Clark death tales, either. Although I agree with you that it is probable that stories where Lois dies are in the majority between those two topics.

The stories which do not focus (or, for that matter, describe in great detail) Lois' death can probably be split into two categories: those which are guilty of the infraction of which you charge them, namely 'poor Clark' stories, or those which do not linger on her death because death is a nasty, brutal thing and this is a PG-13 or below board. Anything which described in slow and horrifying detail Lois (or anyone else) being disemboweled while still alive surely belongs in the Nfic folder. And I would draw the line at reading such a story myself.

All that being said, I still believe that too much is made of this point. I agree that our culture has, in the past, marginalized women, just as people of non-Caucasian heritage have been marginalized. But starting a new thread every time Lois dies in a story, irrespective of the circumstances, is beating a dead horse. If feminism means treating men and women equally, then a thread such as this one should pop up when a Clark-dying story is posted.

And while I haven't made a survey of such threads compared to Clark-dying stories, I don't recall such a thread. If there is one out there, I'd like to read it. If there is not such a thread, then the natural conclusion is that the FOLCs who are drawn to such threads as this one to blast (however gently and elegantly and politely) Lois-death stories aren't treating men and women equally.

I'd like to make the comment that the database for this study is this fanfic board. Now, without detailed analysis of members gender's I think it is safe to say that the female readers and writers have a large majority over the male readers and writers here.

If there were more Lois deathfics than Clark deathfics on this board I would expect it to be due to the prevalence of female writers and cannot be extended to the general populace.

We write fantasy cloaked in the costume of a superhero and a human female's relationship. Most of we women are more interested in seeing and writing about a man grieving for us than the other way around.

It's the same way we like Clark to take the lead in the romance department. There have been fine stories where Lois is the super one, but the romance still plays out in the more traditional manner, IIRC, because that's our fantasy.
Artemis

Interesting, Artemis. And I believe that you are quite correct about that. But equally interestingly, if there was a prevalence of male writers on these boards, I don't think that that would necessarily lead to a greater number of Clark deathfics.

Yes, that's definitely true, I think. But is the opposite also true? Are men in general particularly interested in reading stories that are told from a woman's point of view, and which describe a woman grieving for a male character? I don't think so, not when it comes to most men. As I said in an earlier post, most stories are about men, because women like to read about (and see) men they can fantasize about and imagine having a relationship with, and most men like to see (but not so often read about) men they can identify with and imagine being themselves. Hence the general shortage of stories about women in popular culture.

But the fact that the general culture looks like that (in order to cater to our fantasies) also means that boys and girls are brought up to value the lives of men and women differently.

Speaking about male writers of fanfic, however, I must point out that we have had some brilliant male writers on these boards, both current writers and writers who are no longer active here. Among these writers are Terry Leatherwood, of course, whose brilliant style of writing is impressive indeed. There is also Bob Bartholomew (wonder if I got your name right this time, Bob?), who is a master at writing about emotions and romance. There is the absolutely inimitable Tank Wilson, truly one of a kind, and among past writers there has been the brilliant Shayne Terry. Sorry if I forgot anyone I should have mentioned.

Interestingly, however, all these four men, Terry, Bob, Tank and Shayne, have often written fics told from Lois's perspective. They have certainly shown the ability to take an interest in a woman's feelings and point of view. And two of the writers, Tank and Shayne, have written Clark deathfics. Shayne, as far as I know, has written no Lois deathfic even if he has definitely written a Clark deathfic.

So some men are interested in imagining women grieving for a male character, and they are also interested in describing a female character and her emotions. Still, as I said, most men and women seem to prefer stories about men, making it more likely that men will be the heroes and that the main female character may end up playing the part of a dead body in stories aimed at the general population.

Ann

Terry wrote:

This bothered me a bit because it's not what I was suggesting. Expressing myself poorly again.

I wasn't asking for gory-detail fics, although of course I was asking that the hypothetical fic not avoid those details if the author chose to kill Lois is that CSI way. I guess it's the interpretation that that's all I was expecting. But dying's not nearly that simple nor limited to the strictly physical.

Further to Ann's comment about about gender and reading/writing preferences. Recent studies of preteen readers have found that generally, girls will read a story with either a male or female as the main protagonist but boys will boycott stories with female main protagonists. There was some discussion of this pattern when the first Harry Potter books turned out to be so popular.

Artemis's point about the gender of most folcs explaining reference for Lois death fics because that allows them to fantaize about their importance as wives, mothers, lovers has been made before, and also in this thread. What can I say?? We women are martyr's in the service of our men.

And I will repeat, but only because Terry reused 'the dead horse' metaphor - it's no more dead-horsing around to write an exposition on death-fic than it is to write a death-fic fantasy.

One thing that is a bit OT - I didn't think gfic specifically censored graphic gory details. I thought it was only the graphic sexual details. Anyway, I don't have difficulty with that policy, I was just unaware of it.

c.

No, it's not only graphic sexual details which will elevate your story to nfic. Graphic violence would also be considered beyond the PG13 rating.

That's why we have so much trouble with the old term of the 'n' in nfic meaning naughty. It gives quite the wrong impression. The nfic folder is actually for a lot more than just LNC romps. It's for graphic adult themes - sex, violence, anything else you can think of....

Of course, despite a lot of previous discussion, we've never been able to come to a conclusion on anything to replace it which would be a little more appropriate, so in the meantime we're stuck with it.

LabRat