If my eyes don't deceive me

[rivkat]

I have book reviews, but first I want to talk SV fic. I just reread Lanning's excellent Agenda. I love the Identical series, I love Eli (though I doubt he'd call a man a yenta as he did Jonathan, but maybe that's just the way my family uses the term), I love the twists and turns and the way Lionel loves Lex, after his fashion. Yet I discovered

Comments

[liviapenn]

I agree with you that a more human Lillian is probably more realistic-- but the show so far actually supports angelic!Lillian characterization. Yeah, 99% of our view of her is filtered through Lex's loving memories, but yeah, apparently it was too much that the writers actually tell us *how* she reacted to Lionel's infidelities, his business practices and his whacked-out approach to child-rearing.

Another question that you could ask is, if Lillian *was* such an angel, then why is Lionel such a bastard? (This isn't a question that really applies to the Identical series, because in the latest installment it's implied that after all the horror he's put the Kents through, maybe he actually does care for his *real* son and isn't such an irredeemable bastard after all, etc.)

But in many schmoopy futurefics, Lex's darker qualities are smoothed right over, because Clark Loves Him and therefore he becomes a Good Person. As if that follows logically at *all*. In the Identical series, Lex still has his dark side intact, thank goodness, but I find it interesting that other characters constantly refer to Clark as "Jiminy Cricket--" he's constantly being Lex's better half, the angel on his shoulder. And taken to the extreme, in those melodramatic futurefics, Clark literally *does* become Lex's conscience-- if they break up for a weekend, Lex goes back to murder and extortion and general heartlessness without a blink, only to repent tearfully when Clark returns (because, of course, it was all a horrible misunderstanding.)

So, if that's true, and if all *Lex* needs is one person's devotion and belief, one person to stand between him and his worst impulses-- if Love can create a soul where there apparently isn't one-- then why didn't it work for Lionel? He was always a bastard, even when Lillian was alive; witness the multiple infidelities, the locking away of a troublesome mistress in a mental institutions, and the swindling/deal-breaking swath he cut across Smallville around the time of the meteor shower.

I suppose you could posit that Lionel just didn't *want* to change, but then that kind of invalidates the "love cures all" theory. I mean, either love *can* fix even the most horrible bastard, or it *can't*-- and if it can't, if it *is* up to the individual and his choices, and Lex doesn't really need Clark at all, does he? I mean, that's actually the scenario I *prefer*. I like it when Lex reaches his heights (or his depths, for that matter) without a crutch, without having to assign all the credit to Clark's faith, or putting all the blame on Clark's betrayal.

[rivkat]

Yes, exactly. Lillian's posited existence in too many stories -- encouraged, as you rightly point out, by the show's idea that she was Dead Lana Minus Dead Parents -- contradicts what we know about Lex, and further muddies the waters on Destiny, Fate and Character. The canonical blank, and the fact that we know her mostly through Lex, makes it easy for me to imagine that she was something less than perfect. But as loving as she might have been, it clearly wasn't enough.

I don't generally think of the Lillian question in the terms you pose, about why Lionel wasn't redeemed, because I tend to ignore "it's all about Clark" characterizations. I can get behind a version of Lex who would like to think it's all about Clark, though he'd quickly add in Lillian and Lionel and all the other people who betrayed him, but I won't lay that heavy load on sixteen-year-old shoulders in my own judgment. The reason I framed the question as "why would Lillian choose Lionel if she were that perfect?" is that the Identical series, and other stories I respect, seem to canonize her even when they're complicating all the other characters. (Pun, I suppose, intended.) But your point seems even more important, characterization-wise.