Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Hardest implausibility for you to swallow

Posts in a couple of different threads today made me decide to start this new thread.

Obviously, one needs to suspend one's disbelief in order to enjoy LnC. There are a myriad of impossibilities and implausibilities in the show. What is the one that is hardest for you to swallow?

I am guessing that I am going to be alone in my choice of hardest thing to suspend disbelief on: Even harder for me to deal with than things like an alien looking and functioning so much like a homo sapien, a baby surviving the journey to earth, a man flying under his own power, time travel, and all of the other more glaring scifi/fantasy elements of the show, the hardest thing for me to deal with is the way Clark's super-hearing only kicks in when it is convenient for the plot. My reason for this is rather personal.

When I was a girl, my hearing was unusually keen. For example, when I would be at one end of the house and my parents would whisper or speak in very low voices at the other end of the house, I could hear their conversations clearly. Many was the time that they would start to speak about me only to have me shout out to them that I could hear them. (They were always amazed at my ability to hear; had I been less scrupulous, I would have learned a lot of interesting things, I am sure...Obviously, I am not at all like Lois in that regard!) I could also hear many things that other people could not, both in terms of low volume and frequency range. (For example, I could hear dog whistles.) As I grew older, my hearing worsened to the point that it is now no better than that of my peers.

But as much as I loved having such acute hearing, it was sometimes a liability. For example, I distinctly remember attending a band concert my sister played in...Well, I sort of attended it. I had to leave the auditorium as soon as they started playing. The volume was agonizing to me; even when I covered my ears with my hands, I was in physical pain. So I did not get to *see* the concert, but I did enjoy *listening* to it...I stood out in the lobby, with the auditorium doors closed, during the entire concert. The volume was quite comfortable for me there. The point is, there was no way for me to turn the sensitivity of my hearing up or down. I wish there had been.

This brings me back to LnC. It seems to me that loud volumes ought to bring Clark to his knees as surely as kryptonite. The one bit of realism in the series in this area was in DLW, where Clark asks Lois to pipe down because when she talked so near to him while he was trying to super-hear, it was as if she were sticking a knife in his ear. (I'm paraphrasing here.)

I could hypothesize a partial explanation: Perhaps Kryptonians have something similar to eye lids covering their ear drums. If the "lids" are closed, they hear human-normal; if opened, they super-hear. But if that were the case, how could Clark hear cries for help when he wasn't purposely super-hearing? And how come he wasn't in agony all the other times that he and Lois were speaking and he suddenly super-heard something? And why was his experience of super-hearing never like that of Lois when she was Ultra Woman -- i.e., hearing multiple cries for help all at once?

I realize that in the grand scheme of the LnC universe, the way Clark's hearing works is a relatively minor implausibility; but I guess because it hits so close to home for me, it is harder for me to swallow.

So that was me. What do you find hardest suspend your disbelief about?

cheers,
Lynn

One that crops up not just in LNC, but in a lot of shows and always makes me shake my head - people having conversations in close proximity to others which the others apparently are unable to hear.

Usually the protagonists are talking about some deep secret or other and should be heard by those around them, given they're standing right next to them, but, somehow, never seems to happen.

LabRat

That's an interesting story about your hearing, Lynn. It clearly illustrates how our own experiences and beliefs color what we are willing to believe in and what we find hard to accept.

I don't worry about implausibility a lot when it comes to Lois and Clark. I have been a Superman fan since 1969, and I knew right from the start that it was impossible that a man could fly. It was just so delightful to pretend that he could!

For me implausibility becomes a problem when I'm asked to believe in it for real, or when I'm asked to suspend my disbelief about something that I not only find implausible but also don't like in the first place. I can pretend that Clark Kent can hide his identity behind a pair of glasses, even though it forces me to pretend that everybody in the fictional world of Superman suffers from prosopagnosia. (Imagine that a colleague of yours comes to work one morning sporting a pair of glasses for the first time ever, and you stare at this bespectacled person and say: "Who are you?".)

I do find this concept just a tiny bit over the top, but I can accept it as a part of the fantastic and totally implausible story about Superman. But I remember reading a sci-fi book by Robert Heinlein, where the whole point of the book was to prove that a person who was out of his luck could suddenly get the biggest break in his life by being offered the chance to impersonate the most important leader in the world and then get away with it. Heinlein described the training and preparations of the sudden stand-in and his fantastic ensuing success (which was so complete that this other guy eventually took over the identity of the deceased leader. And no one ever noticed!) I couldn't accept it at all, because Heinlein took the concept too seriously and at the same time the whole thing was just totally impossible. Imagine that somebody would pick a person off the street and tell him to be Obama, and after a few months of training this nobody pulls it off. He travels around, makes speeches, is seen on TV almost daily etc, and nobody notices that he isn't actually Obama!

(I wonder, by the way, why the suggestion that an ordinary person could impersonate a real person in real life and get away with it irks me so. Maybe it is because I'm not very good at recognizing people myself, so maybe the suggestion that I myself could be so utterly taken in by an impostor is something I find vaguely threatening and not very funny at all.)

I don't want to be told why an impossible concept is possible. I want to be asked to pretend that it is possible and leave it at that. But I much prefer "fairy-tale-y" flights of fancy (like the Superman fantasy) over complete improbabilities that take place in a world which is too much like the real world, like the suggestion that somebody could impersonate Obama and fool absolutely everyone.

One thing I hate when it comes to Clark's identity-game is when other people see through Clark's disguise, but Lois remains stubbornly ignorant. The underlying assumption is that Lois is more stupid than other people, and that is a suggestion that I don't like at all. The common explanation, that Lois was so "blinded by love" that she couldn't see through Clark's disguise, isn't good enough for me and doesn't make Lois less stupid, at least not in my opinion.

So when it comes to implausibilities, I want to be asked to pretend that something is possible rather than to be told I should believe that it is. Also, very importantly to me, I'm only willing to "suspend my disbelief" when it comes to ideas that I like. Because I have this hangup about the death of women, I am utterly unwilling to believe that Lois's body could be destroyed while her soul could be transported into another body and live on there. To me, this idea smacks too much of a suggestion that it is not much of a problem when young women die, because their souls live on anyway, either in heaven or in another body on the Earth. I realize, of course, that the writers of LnC stories where Lois's soul is transported into another body most certainly aren't trying to tell me that it is okay when young women die, but even so that is what their fics mean to me. It certainly doesn't help that as a non-religious person, I don't believe that one's soul is separable from one's body, or that there exists any sort of afterlife. And when it comes to this conviction of mine I'm not willing to suspend my disbelief, precisely because the idea of an afterlife has been linked in my mind to the idea that women's living bodies are expendable.

Ann

There was a bit in I've Got A Crush On You where Clark was trying to Super-hear at the Metro Club and got a blast from some loud drumming, which you could see hurt his ears/head. But yeah, this effect wasn't shown consistently throughout the series.

There are actually a lot of things (believability issues) about L&C that I struggle with, but I actually have a pretty good time trying to come up with rationalizations/explanations for everything. I can usually come up with something that satisfies me.

But there are a few in particular that I just can't buy.

One is in Tempus Fugitive, when, toward the end, H.G. Wells supposedly drops L&C in 1995 "before I ever showed up" so that they'd remember nothing, and it would've never happened. Well, it DID happen, because as we know, Tempus writes the diary all about it. And Lois still has the card for Perry in her purse with the "Clark=Superman" note on it at the end, which is further proof. So what the heck? The only thing I can come up with is that H.G. Wells figured out some way to give them selective amnesia. Which would be easier to do with Lois than with Clark. This drives me crazy every time. I can accept time travel, I just can't understand this "memory loss" thing they go through.

Another is in TPVLL/DLW where Lois is sentenced to life in jail. There is just no way. Not even in sci-fi land can I buy that the entire justice system was THAT bass-ackwards.

One of the hardest things for me to swallow is that Lois doesn't have a criminal record a mile long for all the breaking and entering that she does.

That reminds me - I could never buy Lois driving around in a Jeep with personalised number plates when she was fond of tailing suspects. Didn't the entire criminal fraternity know in the space of a week where Lois Lane was at all times? No wonder they kidnapped her so often. :rolleyes:

LabRat

I think the A-plots. Lois getting death-rowed in just 2 weeks. The Vixen? Luthor's body retaining enough integrity to heal after falling 500m of free-fall and not even a single scar. Space station Prometheus next to club-sized mobile phones. I could continue.

On the other hand, I'm willing to accept everything related to superpowers and time travel. No idea why. Maybe because superpowers are a part of the package. And time travel. Well, there's Star Trek. So, time travel is a scientific fact nowadays Seriously, though, time travel is fun, so, no reason to complain.

Michael

Shhh, that's Lois's way of catching the bad guys. First, get kidnapped. Then, have Superman come to the rescue and write the story.

Michael

I had thought about the superhearing thing but I just figured that like his other powers it was something that he could control. He has superstrength, enough to move a space station but doesn't crush every fragile thing he touches. He also has xray vision but doesn't spend the whole day looking through walls and clothing. If we want to believe that he got his powers gradually then probably when he first got superhearing he expirieced things like excrutiating pain from nearby loud noises until he learned to control it.

One small thing that does bother me is in Brutal Youth when their on the ceiling. What the hell since when can Lois fly?!? It irks me,yes Superman can fly but he's the only one (and other kryptonians) the laws of gravity still applies to everyone else. Clark has one arm casually thrown over her, logic dictates the rest of her body should be hanging down but instead shes laying perfectly flat on the ceiling.

But most of the outrageous things that happen on Lois and Clark I'm able to accept as something that can just happens in that world because that's just the way it is there.

It doesnt go on your record if you dont get caught

As for the hearing...

My kids have been known to turn their regular hearing off . Don't know why Clark couldn't turn his super hearing off =D.

As for BY, figured it was some sort of extending his aura thing...

Carol

I just can't get over the idea of someone like Jimmy Olsen managing to stay employed all those years.

Tank (who like everyone else, could never see how Lois would ever entertain getting serious with a man like Luthor, even if she didn't know he was a criminal)

Chef Andre's specialty was love potions in the chicken?

Thank you all for replying to my question. I am finding the responses fascinating...It looks as though I am not alone in being more bothered by something that is relatively plausible than a lot of the other things on the show. Had I guessed at the responses others would make, I would have thought that the things that most people would have found hard to suspend disbelief on would have been the really impossible and/or more major things -- like Clark's superpowers. Instead, it seems to be relatively more mundane things (such as people not overhearing a conversation, Lois' vehicle's vanity plate, or, in my own case, the way Clark's hearing works) that seem to be the most distracting.

Another little thing that gets me is his whole change-of-clothes routine. What's up with the spinning? How would rapid rotation help him change clothes quickly? And where do his street clothes go when he changes into Superman? (Yes, I have read a fanfic or two that try to answer this question. None have been particularly convincing to me.)

cheers,
Lynn

These comparisons don't work with me...Everyone can control the amount of strength they use. (You don't hold an egg or a newborn with the same firmness you would an old fashioned (i.e., heavy) TV or computer monitor, for example.) He seems to need to concentrate to "turn on" the X-Ray vision. (He intentionally lowers his glasses and *stares* at what he wants to X-Ray.) But his hearing just "kicks in".

A bit about human hearing...There's the famous "cocktail party effect," in which one can decide which conversation to listen to and "tune out" the others. For most people, this comes naturally; but for some people with sensory integration disorders, learning to do this is extremely difficult, and as a result they struggle throughout life. (For example, they may *want* to listen to the teacher in school, but the other sounds in the classroom are distracting to them.)

But while one may be able to be trained to "tune in" to certain sounds, AFAIK, one can't be trained to find a high volume less painful. (If one can, I would love to learn how -- I have avoided many social situations throughout my life (concerts, dances, etc.) because the noise level assaults my ears and I am simply in too much discomfort or outright pain to enjoy myself.)

No arguments here. But FWIW, the first Superman movie had the same problem, only even moreso...As long as Lois was touching Superman at all -- even when they were barely holding their fingertips together -- she was able to fly right alongside him. But the moment they lost all contact, down she went.

I guess that all FoLC, in order to enjoy the show, become like the Red Queen in Alice through the Looking Glass, who sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast...

cheers,
Lynn

To me, Batman is almost more implausible than Superman. With Superman, we know that he has these impossible powers and we know that there is no way of rationally explaining them. Some people scoff at Superman precisely because he is "impossible". But the same people who dismiss Superman as an impossible fantasy may embrace Batman because he is "real". But truly and honestly, Batman isn't "real". He is a lone vigilante without a large organisation behind him, and so many of the things he does all on his own and without the help of any sort of superpowers are completely and utterly impossible for a human being.

To me, Superman makes sense if you accept his superpowers. What doesn't make sense to me about him is the fact that he can lead a double life without ever getting outed. But Batman, in my opinion, doesn't make sense at all.

Superman is the guy we are asked to believe in just for fun. Batman is the guy we are asked to believe in pretty much for real, even though he is totally impossible.

Flying Batman

Can this guy fly? He can't, but he does! Superman leaps tall buildings at a single bound. Batman leaps from tall buildings at a single bound!



Ann

Yes, this! The only thing I can come up with is that changing clothes quickly while spinning must be a superpower itself.

He learned it from Wonder Woman. (Remember Linda Carter?)

I always loved Debby Stark's explanation for the change of clothing as being a small pocket in hyperspace where Clark stored them. I'm not sure I find it the most plausible explanation , but it always just tickled me for some reason and I liked it.

LabRat

It may not be the most plausible explanation from the scientific standpoint, but it is the most believable to me of the ones I have seen so far. (Given how much scientific implausibility I overlook to watch the show, what is one more implausible thing?) It is better than the explanation that he compressed his clothes real small and put them in a pocket sewn into his cape. Although he could probably compact his clothing that much, when he shook them out afterwards to put them on, his shoes would be destroyed and the rest of his clothing would be extremely wrinkled. (Intellectually, I realize that non-wrinkled or destroyed clothing is less implausible than the use of hyperspace; but I guess that precisely because it *is* closer to something that might happen in RL, I have a harder time suspending my disbelief about it...I guess it comes down to what Ann had been saying about the difference between just being asked to believe for fun vs. "for real".)

cheers,
Lynn