I just wanted to add my opinion on the little "Is-Clark-a-bad-liar" discussion.
Well, I have written the sentence, which doesn't necessarily tell much about my personal opinion. But on my way to University I thought a lot about the problem.
So what's Clark's personal idea about telling lies? He always claims, that there's a difference between lying and not telling something. In the series he's mostly not telling something...that he's Superman.
Okay, he's telling frequent lies about his whereabouts. But that are rather ridiculous lies and he can't really expect someone to buy that he has a weekly appointment with the dentist, or that he needs to get his cheese of the month magazine. He just uses his lame excuses because he cannot tell Lois where he's actually going.
Apart from this lame lies, I can only think of two moments in the show where he was telling a deliberate lie that he really wanted others to believe.
#1 At the end of "House of Luthor" when he tells Lois that he doesn't really love her.
#2 In the episode Top Copy, when he tells that he's not Superman.
Both events do proof (at least in my opinion) that he's a bad liar.
The first time, he uses a rather childish way to "escape" the lie. I mean, how immature can a man of twenty seven actually be? Crossing his finger's doesn't change that he has lied to her. I think if he must tell her that lie, why can't he be honest enough to himself to admit that he had lied?
The second time he doesn't tell the lie himself, but uses an image to do that. Of course it's his voice and he must have said those words, but who was listening that he tried to deceive, when he recorded these words?
So what would happen, if Clark didn't use an anchor by telling his lies? Would he blush? Would he just be silent, unable to say the words?
He's a bad liar, because he doesn't actually want to deceive people around him. And that's the reason for telling lies.
Of course his need to be honest isn't a negative character trait.
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I should say something to the great choral of "Nooooo" that I heard from you. That was definetly worth posting this part.
I'm afraid that you'll have to wait a little, before I can post the next bit. I haven't received the second beta yet and Nancy also warned me to post part 11, before I wasn't sure I could post part 12 within a matter of days. I don't actually know why she exactly thinks that, but maybe you would have the same opinion. So unless I don't get thousands of mails begging me to post part 11 ASAP, I will wait a bit with it.
