Ann --
If I'm honest, I expected a negative response to this, I just didn't expect it to be so strong. <g>
Dave, believe me, you
didn't make me angry with this story.
To me the idea that Clark might marry Lois without ever telling her about his dual identity has always seemed like a real possibility. Consider what Wendy said:
He kept the truth from her not to deceive her but to protect himself.
Exactly!
Of course Clark wouldn't keep the truth from Lois just in order to deceive her and be malicious to her. Let me state, for the record, that I would
never think of Clark that way. But I have no trouble believing that he might keep the truth from her in order to protect
himself - in other words, he might very well be lying to her for selfish reasons.
When it comes to love, I think Clark allows his own needs to outweigh the needs of Lois - or at least,
when he is lying to her he is putting his own needs before hers. For the record, I don't blame Clark for lying to Lois before he had gotten to know her at all, before he had any idea whether or not he could trust her. I don't necessarily blame Clark for lying to Lois before he actually proposed to her - okay, I really think he ought to have come clean with her before that, but I don't find it
unacceptable that he didn't. But yes, I really think it
was unacceptable to propose to her without telling her, and we know that he did that in the show. It's canon.
Now, in the show, Clark actually
never told Lois about his double identity. It was
Lois who informed Clark that she knew. Suppose she hadn't figured it out on her own. (Or suppose she had figured it out, but she never told him that she knew.) Would he ever have told her himself? Would he have told her before they got married? These are legitimate questions. Your story explored one possible scenario, Dave.
Your story lays bare the selfishness that is part of Clark's love for Lois. Believe me, I'm not angry at you for doing that! On the contrary, your vignette demonstrated the cruelty that is inherent in Clark's selfishness that I keep ranting about and try to make people believe! You just proved my point, Dave! How can I be angry at you for doing that?
But, Dave, I don't mean to imply that Clark is
deliberately cruel or evil. Of course not. He is
needy. It's interesting to contemplate the possibility that in a long-term relationship between Clark and Lois, Lois might well turn out to be the chief
provider of love and care, whereas Clark might be the chief receiver. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Ultimately, it could well be what both of them are happiest with.
And Dave, I thought your story demonstrated so beautifully why Clark is so needy. It is, like I said in my first post here, because he keeps giving so much of himself to humanity, and because he can really take such a small measure of comfort and warmth from humanity in return, considering that he is not actually one of them. I was very moved by your description of Clark's weariness after he had labored for three days at the earthquake site. (Oh, and by the way - sorry, Dave, your story didn't say anything about Lois and Clark being married for
three years. I was wrong about that.) Anyway, I thought this part of your story was so moving:
He pulled out the ring tucked into his cape, running his dirty fingers over the smooth circle of gold. Round. Never ending. Eternal.
Lois was going to kill him. And then she was going to leave him. And then... then...
"Superman?"
He spun around, slipping the ring safely out of sight and squaring his shoulders. He was Superman now, not Clark Kent. And Superman, unlike Clark Kent, didn't have a wife who was going to leave him when he returned to the States.
Superman, unlike Clark Kent, had to walk with his shoulders squared and his chin up. Always. Even when he was standing in the remains of a village torn apart by natural disaster. Especially then.
The relief coordinator looked as haggard as he felt. The small man's tired eyes fixed on him. Clark could see the man's weary determination and forced himself to remember why he was there. Forced himself to draw on his reserves, to push his shoulders impossibly back, to straighten his already straight spine.
He was Superman, and he was there to help, not wallow.
He was Superman, and Superman was more than a man. He was a symbol. He brought hope. Lois had told him, all those years ago, that Superman was...
Clark clenched his jaw, took a shallow breath, and addressed the man. "Yes?"
"Some delivery trucks are trying to get through the pass to bring supplies, but the road through is blocked."
He nodded sharply. He could handle that. He could clear the path and bring in the troops. One last thing before he left. One last thing before he went home...
You show us so clearly how Superman has to be strong all the time, when he is facing the world. How he can never let down his guard, never ask people to give him some slack, never ask anyone to sit down with him for a while and have a beer with him and listen to his sorrows and pat him on the back. He is so existentially alone. And he is giving, giving, giving. Never really receiving.
And that's why he needs Lois so desperately. That's why he so desperately needs to come home to her and be someone other than Superman to her. That's why he needs to come to her and be given the love and comfort that he can never ask for as Superman. That's why he's lying to her.
Yes, I think that his neediness is selfish. I think he is being selfish when he keeps feeding her a monumental lie about himself just in order to keep her by his side, even though his lies are going to cause
her a lot of grief. Some men do even worse things to their girlfriends or wives just to keep them by their sides, again because they need them so desperately.
Clark would never use threats or force to make Lois stay with him. Of course not! The moment she decides she has had it with him, he will let her go. Please let me make myself absolutely clear that I don't
want her to walk out on him. Temporarily, yes, to force him to think about his own selfishness. Permanently, no. I want these two to be together.
Wendy said:
Yes, Clark's deceiving Lois, Ann. And it's completely unfair to Lois and he owes her so much more than that. But what this vignette is about is that he knows that. He knows it soul-deep and it's driving him absolutely insane with guilt and regret, and it's also meaning that he can't take the comfort from her that he so desperately needs, because she doesn't know why he needs it and he feels that he doesn't deserve to ask.
Oh yes, Wendy, I agree! Clark's guilt in this story is soul-deep and desperate.
Of course he feels guilty! If he didn't, he would just be repulsive and scary, and he wouldn't be
Clark at all. But he certainly
is Clark in this story, and therefore his guilt reverberates throughout this entire vignette, and it's incredibly moving. I feel sorry for him too. Believe me, I do!
So, Dave, I don't know if you believe me, but I didn't mean to critcize your vignette. I, too, was struck by the beauty of your writing, and I felt so strongly the chord you struck when you asked us to consider Clark's lonely heroism and his desperate need for Lois, his heartbreaking deception of her, and his crushing guilt.
Just think of it like this. As a Lois fan, I wanted to consider
her point of view, and I wanted to show what it would be like for
her to be married to a man who kept ducking out on her without ever telling her why. That's why I concentrated on that aspect in my first comment on your story. I will admit that I thought of it as a kind of fleshing-out, a sort of counterpoint, to your vignette. It was
not, however, meant to be a criticism of it.
There is a kind of LnC fic that I simply can't stand, and that is the stories that treat Lois cruelly in order to make the readers feel sorry for Clark. (Or at least that is what some stories look like to me.) But I don't think your story did that, Dave. When I thought about it, I realized that Lois in this vignette must have accepted that Clark's lies to her was a part of the man himself. She must have known that when she said yes to his proposal and when she said "I do" at the altar. That is an important point that I myself was trying to make.
Lois knew what she was in for. And yet her love for Clark was so great that she chose to marry him even though she knew that he would keep lying to her.
Wendy said:
What you identified, Ann, is that Lois is truly the stronger of the two of them - which is one thing we did see time and again in the series. She's stronger, because she's accepted that there are things he's not telling her, and she trusts him enough to believe that he will tell her when he's ready. Because she loves him and believes above all that he loves her.
Yes, that's true. And that is why I'm not angry at this vignette at all! This fic is not about treating Lois badly just so that we can feel sorry for Clark. This vignette is about how love can be overwhelmingly strong even when words falter and lies and deception abound. It is about a hero who heals the world and needs the love of a woman to heal himself. And if you ask me, it is a tribute to Lois. (Even though - pssst, Lois - remember that you
can take self-sacrifice too far.
)
All in all, that was a very beautiful and moving vignette, Dave.
Ann
