Well, since that crash apparently wiped away a bunch of my review counts as well, I'll follow Ann's example and post all of these as separate responses . . .
Continuing with your "two cents," Hasini . . . (I think it's more like a fifty-cent piece
)
Ah! So it's *your review that I've been quoting all the way down in my responses to everyone else.
I couldn't remember exactly who had gone out on this thought . . .
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t disagree more. Firstly, just because Clark comes to Lois in his suit, it doesn’t mean he’s presenting himself in his Superman persona. Just because Lois calls him Kal-El, it doesn’t mean she’s embracing Superman only. As I have pointed out in my review, this story has gone far beyond separate personas. Clark is presenting himself as he truly is, a flawed, naive being with a fragile heart who is an alien and superhero as well as being the most wonderfully human man Lois has ever met. Lois acceptance of him is more complete and unreserved in this story than in any I have ever seen.
I'll tell you, even though one of the early chapters is called "what's in a name?" I've wanted to use that title again and again and again as we go on. Like I said to . . . Ann, I think it was--Clark's identities are no longer masks or whatever, but have become a confusing mixture of who he really is--with Lois's reaction to him making the difference as how he acts as Clark and Superman. And it's confusing him, just like you said:
There are two obstacles between them. Clark is understandably in the throes of an identity crisis and can’t see that Lois’ rejection of him as her hick partner is only based upon her own early misconceptions which she has not yet moved past, and also her preoccupation with her relationship with Kal-El. Largely the latter. I honestly fail to see how this is such a great betrayal on either of their parts.
The Clark’s failure to realize the reality and extent of Lois’s love and Lois’ failure to figure out Clark’s secret’s has everything to do with their own self-absorption and insecurities and nothing to do with any conscious betrayal. Loving each other the way they do, I find it unthinkable that the guise under which Clark chooses to reveal himself would matter to Lois’ reaction to it. She’s hardly that shallow!
Would Clark be more honest to carve a relationship with her as Clark only, any more than if he were to present himself as Superman? She would be investing her feelings in the promise of a relationship with only half the man, in either case. In the scenario of Darkest Dreams, Lois enters the relationship with both eyes open. She’s in love with the real, whole man. Now all she has to do is prove it.
Beautifully put.
I agree with you on plenty of these points. Lois's love has gone to the man underneath both guises--it's such a thing that won't be rattled. I mean, Superman ran off and left her, and she was just glad to have him back. The pre-Bureau 39 Lois would have been furious, hurt, and much less forgiving. She didn't even force him to tell her why he left, yet. That alone I think shows how much she's really come to trust him and love him--and how much she's afraid of losing him, and how much she's willing to let go in consideration of him rather than her own feelings.
But the others have a point as well. Lois has certainly been feeling very strongly towards Superman and not so well towards Clark, though she is warming up towards the latter and certainly more than a little unsure of what exactly to think of her naive partner.
I guess we'll just have to see what happens, eh?
As for Lois failing to see Clark is also Superman, well, it isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s Siegel and Shushter’s who, in their infinite wisdom, decided that there would be no interesting love triangle to keep readers hooked if Lois was allowed to use her razor-sharp intellect and intuition and see the obvious. If a guy can fly around in tights and a cape, he can also pass himself off as a mild-mannered reporter to his dearest friends. It’s one of the foundations of the mythos. Why should a woman blindly in love be expected to see what those of clearer heads and more experience can’t either? Why is nobody bashing Perry, Jimmy, Henderson, Maggie Sawyer, Bobby Bigmouth etc. etc.?
And if people disagree with that, fine. Write a fic where Lois sees Superman for the first time and goes “Clark, where on earth did you get that ridiculous get-up?”. Well, it’s hardly unfeasible! Would’ve been my reaction! But of course, no one will, because what would be the point of that?
In fact, Richard Donner’s Lois figured it out quite sensibly on her own before Richard Lester stepped in and decided that was not a profitable plot development and wrote in the memory-wiping kiss.
Fact is, Lois is blind because we want her to be. We like yelling at her and groaning in frustration when she doesn’t figure it out. We LOVE the near-misses that carry on the sexual tension and their eternal love triangle!
I love this discussion that's going around. It's certainly interesting to think about, and to tell you the truth I'm going to sit back and ponder and marvel about the logic of all of your arguments.
So it’s one thing to enjoy this kind of unrealistic farcical comedy. It’s a whole other thing to diss Lois’ character because of it. How can you blame a puppet for being puppeteered? It’s irrational!
Hm. Here's where I'm going to have to disagree to save my own reputation. I think it was Ben Jonson that wrote that books and such should be natural in such a way that it catches the essence of human beings and how they would react in certain situations, and that every character should be able to have some reason for what they're doing (even if it's irrational--because heaven knows that people are often plenty irrational).
As for myself, in DD at least, I figure that we have a few reasons why Lois doesn't see the truth. We have her own grief and completely narrowed view (which she did in order to not completely lose her mind in the horrible memories and aftermath of Bureau 39) which kept her mind almost exclusively on Superman and the government agency and left no room for anyone--not even herself. Second, remember that since Bureau 39 capture them, at least, Lois has only been around Clark for a few days. Before he went to Smallville she was completely caught up in the case (see point 1), and later . . . well, even if she doesn't know what she's suspecting, she is suspecting *something* of Clark Kent, and she's getting close. Considering that he got back on Friday and right now it's only Saturday evening--in her mind, she's only been around Clark for the equivalent of one full day at work--I think we should be congratulating her, rather than condemning her.
Lastly, it's a human tendency that we don't see what we don't expect to see. Who a person is to us is as defined by how we feel towards them as to their face, if not more. As a prime example, I'm absolutely horrible with connecting names to faces and vice e versa. But if my brother mentions a name, I get the *feeling* I feel towards a person--whether I like them, whether I think they're fun, serious, helpful, or whatever . . . and that's who they are in my mind. In Lois's mind, Clark and Superman *feel* like different people (except for every once in a while, but she dismisses that as how she can't get Superman out of her thoughts), so it doesn't matter all that much what they look like.
If that works. <shrugs>
Anyway, that was my . . . <counts> 12.7 cents into that discussion.
Thanks for your extended review! Very thought-provoking. Loved it!
SmirkyRaven
