Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark When should Clark have told Lois...?

This has been tossed about before but since there are so many new people now...

When should Clark have told Lois The Secret? Was there a point before Lois figured it out when it no longer 'ethical' of him to withhold that info? Or was there no such point?

c.

Well I don't think he would have had to tell her before they started dating but before he proposed would have been nice. Since they only dated a few eps though, that makes it tough. I guess in WWW after Lois picks him over Dan. I always though it was so crazy how they jumped the gun and had him propose right away. Of course I was still happy about it.

I agree with Jackie here. He definitely should have told Lois the moment he realised that she had chosen him. Lois had every right to be angry at him for proposing first and while I can understand Clark's reaction I really don't think he handled her rejection all to well. He acted like a sulking two year old whose mother won't give any chocolate to.

I think either after TOGOM or after WWW would be the best because in both Lois shows how much she cares for Clark (if he would recognize the signs).

I think should have told her during TOGOM! He could have "heard" not too mention "seen" her reaction to his "death." And certainly, after letting his parents know he was okay, he should have told Lois as well.

There is a little part of me that also wonders what might have happened had he told her before this episode. I understand that that would have eliminated the angle of her grief but it might have made for an interesting (fan fic) of her immediate help in getting Clark back and also a test as to whether she could keep his secret. (When he was shot, even if she knew, she would still have to pretend). Fan Fic, anyone,

Mona

Actually, that idea is similar to a fic I wrote recently. It was my TOGoM story for this year.

As for when Clark should have told Lois, that's easy. Whenever it works best for your story.

Tank (who has to remind the gentle folcs that these are fictional characters)

And an excellent fic it is, Tank.

c,

When clark realised that lois had chosen him over dan scardino he should have told lois. Why couldnt they have ignored the phone ringing. But i guess everything turned out in the end. A happy ending where both their dreams came true. My sort of ending.

At the beginning of ATAI instead of saying, "That was Waldo, my barber."

He was already planning to tell her - he should have just spit it out. If not at that very moment, then after he got done rummaging through the dumpster.

But then we never would have had that yummy scene where she recognized his touch. In which case, he should have told her immediately after he thawed her out.

Exactly when he did in the series...otherwise, we wouldn't have so many great fanfics that fix what Clark screwed up!

Clark didn't screw it up. It was the writers. The writers! That fun-loving gang that brought you such priceless moments as the Clois, amnesia and Dr. Deter, New Krypton and that stupid soul mates curse. Heck, pretty much all of season 4...

Even Clark was never that stupid.

I've thought quite a bit about this (yes, Tank, I know they're fictional characters) and keep coming back around to one question. If Clark never intended to tell anyone his secret but his wife, how could he tell Lois before she agreed to be his wife?

Of course Lois wouldn't agree with this logic, but if Clark believed the way Lois did, then he would have told his childhood friends, past best friends, and past girlfriends his secret. What good is a secret identity when a whole passle of people know it?

/me ends rambling
BJ

I think he pretty much nailed it in the beginning of ATAI. Lois wanted to take the next step so it was time for him to make that possible.

Yes the proposal scene, while certainly having tender moments, rates one of the worst character assassination I have ever seen. Lois have shown that she loves Clark Kent so much that she is willing to die for him, it’s clearly Clark’s turn to try to match that level of commitment yet Clark still somehow need to test her resolve further.
Mocking your SO ignorance and humiliating her might not be the best way to start a relationship. And it’s also stupid, what possible satisfaction can Clark get out Lois pledging to marrying Clark Kent if she simply withdraw it when she get the whole picture? It’s also disrespectful because it doesn’t give Lois a graceful way to back out.
Because you know the fact that he has been dishonest with her from day one just might influence Lois willingness to marry him.

And on top of it he gets huffy at Lois for not immediately accepting his proposal after dropping that mountain on her. Nothing about “This must come as a shock to you please take all the time you need, No simply “I asked, you answered”

And after being shown how Clark manipulated her without showing a shred of concern and had her nose rubbed in her own lack of perception What do Lois Lane do?

Get angry? Nah.. let’s just accept it and move on, these things happens, it all water under the bridge now.

I would dearly want to know how the writers reasoned here. Much of the courtship had been handled with care and planning, now everything fell to pieces, and it can’t simply have been to cannibalise the B-plot, because they could easily have spent the next ten episodes telling the story about Lois learning to trust and know the real man behind Clark Kent. They should have been able to write that in their sleep.


And don’t get me started on Contact…

Well, I've said it before, I've been a Superman fan since 1968, and a Lois and Superman fan since 1969. It was in 1969 that I read that comic book story that convinced me that Superman loved Lois and wanted to marry her. Back then, I thought the wedding would take place really soon. Superman just needed to tell Lois about his secret identity first, because I could see that the secret identity stood in the way of their marriage. So I waited for him to come clean with her. You know what? It never happened.

Okay - it did happen. It happened in Superman II, the movie from 1980. Here Clark accidentally(?) revealed his Superman identity to Lois. And wouldn't you know it, it took them probably less than twelve hours from the revelation until they got naked together.

However, Clark had had to shed not only his clothes but also his powers to make love to Lois. And he soon found out that he had to have his powers back. Which meant he could no longer have any sort of intimate relationship with Lois. Which meant... well, which meant that he decided to wipe her mind clean of any knowledge of their lovemaking and of his double identity. Which meant that I got so angry and devastated that I gave up on anything Superman-related for ten years.

Then in 1990, Clark (not Superman) began courting Lois in the comics. Then he proposed to her, but he didn't tell her about his double identity first. Sound familiar?

Let me just say it... the whole Superman mythos has been a long, long story about his lies to Lois. And I'm so tired of it. So please understand why I never sympathize with Clark for lying to Lois, even when the rational parts of my brain insist that it was the reasonable and sensible thing to do.

Arawn, I agree with you... much of what the writers did to Clark was clearly character assassination. But I will insist that it was also sticking to tradition. This is what Superman does. He lies to Lois. He keeps doing it. And when he's finally, finally come clean with her, don't expect him to get ready to marry her. In the comics he proposed to Lois in 1990. Lois said yes right away, but they kept putting the marriage off all the time. If I remember correctly, they finally got married in the comics in 1996. And when it happened, the wedding appeared out of the blue, just like that - and the marriage seemed to disappear just like that, too, because after the wedding Clark's life went on as if nothing had happened, and Lois was nowhere to be seen.

All in all, I think we are really, really lucky that the LnC show got Clark and Lois married after all. Yes, the writers did their very best - their very, very, very best - to make sure that the wedding didn't happen, in the best tried-and-true Superman tradition. And when it did happen, when the wedding couldn't be prevented or undone any more, the writers tried to make sure that Lois and Clark's marriage could not be consummated. It's incredible to realize that in the end, our favorite reporters did end up in bed together. Wow. I guess this is why I'm so obssessed with seeing Lois and Clark make love and really get together, because I feel I've
spent a lifetime waiting in vain for it to happen.

Okay, returning to the show, when should Clark have told Lois about his Superman identity in the show? In my opinion, definitely at the end of TOGOM, if not sooner. How could he pretend that she didn't love him after that episode? How could he tell himself after that that she didn't deserve to know?

Clark has been the perpetual liar, and it's the Superman mythos that decrees that Clark must lie like that. Gaaahh! So why didn't I watch the show? Maybe because I couldn't stand the idea of watching those same old lies all over again. *deep sigh*

Well, thank God for fanfiction. Especially fanfiction of the nth kind, or at least the kind of gfic that tells us that yes, indeed, there is some "n" going on, even if you will have to imagine it yourself. And using my own fantasy to imagine the "n" is something I'm quite happy to do - but please, you wonderful nfic writers, don't ever think I'm not even happier to have you telling me more exactly what Clark and Lois do!

Ann

There is no question that the writers were pretty stupid and while I understand that they wanted to stay true to parts of the comic lore, there were a lot of other things they changed around.

1) Season 3 & 4 were awful. Two characters were evolving and they made them do things they wouldn't have done otherwise just to stick to some marketing gimmick in terms of delaying the wedding to catch up with the comic book one?
2) Dean Cain had a point when he said they should have explored the lives of the supporting characters more. It would have taken the pressure off the main couple and it would have let the show run for a bit longer with much higher ratings. They shouldn't have gotten together till Season 4. When they got together I felt like they had gone from friends to lovers way too fast.
3) Yes Superman lies in the comic, and I think he would have to lie for a little while in the series as well because he isn't perfect but I think that a) Lois should have been allowed to figure it out three episodes after TOGOM but wary and unaware of Clark's feelings (cue: Mayson/Linda or someone)
b) Clark would have no idea she knew and would be constantly obsessing over asking her out, or when to tell her or how long to wait etc and then she could yell at him, when he finally did tell her (maybe before they started dating or fell in love? Trust is trust - he didn't have to wait till he was dating her, she was his best and closest friend and the ideal person to tell to help him create excuses), and feel vindicated and he could take it like man instead of sulking.

Ok I will shut up now. Somebody write this story out.

The Little Tornado.

How about you write it, LT? You seem to have a great idea going there.

In the classical mythos Clark Kent simply is a disguise. There really is no point in courting her as Clark, feeling hurt when she dismiss him as a milksop.
Why would Superman want Lois to love the fake role he plays?
What is reasonable or sensible about it?


Ann, I just wonder why have such fidelity to a character that you consider a habitual liar?
Anyway the reason Lois and Superman doesn’t get together is hardly tradition, except in the broadest sense. Characters in romantic drama series just never lives happily ever after, They are always on the cusp but never gets there, otherwise you lose the romantic “tension”.

L&C is different because both the characters and their relationship have a real development . My trouble isn’t really that they stretched the courtship rather that they didn’t. Instead when they got to their big moments proposal, marriage consummation etc they throw up idiotic road block out of the blue.

Now I could buy that if they were out of road blocks, it’s just that had plenty of the genuine stuff available. They could have spent most of the third season having them working through the aftermath of the revelation without it being contrived in the least.

I think Clark played it safe when he didn’t know what to do. If Clark Kent wasn’t coming back perhaps it was just as well that those who knew him thought him dead.
Lois grieves for him. How couldn’t she? He was her closest friend and workmate for years and she feels responsible for his death. But Clark imagine her grief is for a friend, not for a lover.

Strangely enough in L&C I always thought he showed that his deception hurt him the most. Especially in the first season he is really wistful when Lois cannot see the man under the suit. And to me it makes sense that he is wary of his feelings for her. This Clark can’t just mindwipe Lois if she becomes a liability.

Reeves or Rouths Superman OTOH seems to relish the mindgames.

That's exactly the way I've always seen it, Arawn.

Except the last sentence in your post above.

Reeve's Superman was pre-Crisis, so in those four movies Superman was the real persona. And yet, he still played it up as though he wanted Lois to love Clark instead. Until the revelation, and then he just said that being Clark was "fun."

Routh's Superman was post-Crisis, but was a "sequel" of sorts to Superman II, which was pre-Crisis, so it's difficult to tell whether Clark or Superman is supposed to be the main persona . . . unless you take into account that we rarely saw ANY Clark, and Superman was in most of the movie. So, I'm thinking it was a post-Crisis movie with a pre-Crisis take on the Superman=Clark Kent or vice-versa thing.

DS, What post-crisis elements did you see?
My impression was that it was a straight continuation of the Classical Superman, except the gloomier atmosphere and ambiguous morality in SR.
Sure Clark Kent didn’t get much screen time, and to me that indicated he was insignificant, not the real person.
And what we see of him is commensurate with Superman I-II, he is a socially inept, not taken seriously by anybody really.
And just like in the first movies Superman revels in dazzling Lois with his powers, but here at least he doesn’t pursue her as Clark at the same time.
In the first movies there aren’t really any need to safeguard his secret identity Martha and Jonathan are dead and I’m sure Superman could satisfy his taste for theatre somewhere else, there really are no reason to hide this from Lois or even the world, that I can see.
Clark Kent should never be part of any love triangle, Superman and Lois loves each other and that is all it is.

In the post-crisis variant Clark Kent is the man, and he wants to keep his life, his family and friends. Secrecy makes sense.
And then you have the classical fairytale element of the prince who wants a girl who loves him for himself, not his titles and riches. This is what makes the L&C romance work and the pre-crisis uninteresting, at least for me.

Interesting reading these different takes on 'when'. I find myself agreeing with bits of all of them.

I've always liked the idea that she figured The Secret out before he told her - it's a matter of her smarts. Still, he has to also make up up his mind to tell her and actually carry through on that decision at some point too - matter of *his* integrity.

my thought - He should have told her after WWW. At that point he knew she was serious about him and she had also passed the "prove it's CK, not Superman, you love" Test that he'd set for her right from S1.

Since he was practising ways of telling her at the start of the next ep it's clear he'd decided to tell her. So good for him.
But that he didn't tell her before he froze her was wrong. Not just puppy-dog eyes- lunkhead cute guy wrong, but ethically wrong. As for not telling her before he proposed - what was he thinking??

c.