We have a future together, Rivka: Smallville as destiny

[rivkat]

I've been thinking about a certain sentiment I've seen expressed here and there. Caricatured, it goes like this: You guys who complain that Lex just can't catch a break (and makes really stupid choices on occasion, though so far those are less in evidence this season – I know, I know, give him time) should shut up, because you knew what you were signing on for from the get-go. I mean, come on, fifty years of canon has got to count as fair warning, right? It's not as if the end was unwritten.

I see the justice in this point, and yet I can't help but feel that there's another side: from my perspective, I didn't "sign on"; I got drafted. I wasn't looking for a new fandom and I most assuredly wasn't looking to fall in love with the bad-guy-to-be. Yes, I knew all along that it would end badly for the character I care most about. And yes, perhaps a stronger person than I am would have resisted. But I didn't know when I fell in love how much it would hurt, and I didn't experience the process as a choice. So when I talk about how my heart is being put through the juicer every time Lex steps or is pushed closer to the darkness, it's not because I expected different or thought the show owed me better. (The show owes me better continuity and characterization, but that's a separate issue.) It's because my heart is being put through the juicer, and I wish things were different. That's why I write fan fiction, after all – because in my dreams, sometimes things work out differently.

Why we end up with one fandom over another is often a mysterious process. By all rights, I should be far more fond of Daniel Jackson and (early) Willow Rosenberg than I in fact am, though I like them fine. My appreciation of John Crichton, while robust, is not as knee-jerk as my feelings for Scully and Lex. I suppose the reason the criticism "it's silly to complain when you knew what was coming" stings so much is precisely that, because I don't feel that I chose my allegiances, it feels like my personality is being criticized – whatever it is about me that led me to glom on to Lex – and not just my view of my show.

Comments

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

As the sort of person who makes that kind of remark, it's really not directed at people who are just suffering along with Lex. I mean, I am, too, and I knew just as well--perhaps better than the comics-innocent--what was coming, and I reserve the right to let out cries of pain at times. The problem is really with the fans who are actually aggrieved that Lex makes bad choices, that Clark's decisions work out better, that their relationship goes badly.

After all, there's a distinction between being unhappy for a suffering character and criticizing the show just because the character is suffering. The first is expressing emotional involvement with a character; the second is complaining simply because you don't like the kind of story being told, which is usually pointless. SV can please me, in the highest sense, even if it hurts me terribly in depicting Lex's suffering and degradation, as long as it tells the story in a satisfactory way. A person who can't appreciate the story regardless of how good it may be, just because of the kind of story it is, when she knew in advance what kind of story it would be, has forfeited the right to complain.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I understand the distinction you're making, but my discomfort is with the idea of "forfeiting" the right to complain. Maybe the fans you're criticizing didn't feel they had a choice of falling for Lex, either. And how do you draw the line between letting out cries of pain and being aggrieved? There may be styles of conversation that get you riled -- maybe expressing hatred for Millar/Gough when our very emotional involvement with Lex shows that they had a plan that worked? I don't know what really annoys you -- but I'm not sure there's a big divide between the two types of emotional expression. Would I want SV to be a show where Lex always wins and never suffers? In one sense, sure; in another, I know that would interfere with stories they want to tell and also stories I want to tell. My guess is that a lot of the people who express opinions that sound like "I want Lex always to win and never to suffer; I also want Clark & Lex to get together on the show" also have those two considerations in mind. They just express one, and not the other, because it feels good to let out your frustration and somewhat less good to explain why you're going to stay frustrated.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

my discomfort is with the idea of "forfeiting" the right to complain.

If you just plain don't like something, in *any* sense, and can choose to avoid it with little or no effort, yet continue to seek it out, then you are just deliberately cultivating a grievance and really don't have a claim on anyone's sympathy. Some people find it very cozy to nurse a sense that they're *entitled* to a certain story, and the evil incompetent TV bastards are abrogating that entitlement and are therefore horrible writers. I don't think they have any such *entitlement* and find it the spiritual equivalent of complaining that a fanfic writer has screwed you because they put icky *het* in the (pairing-labeled) story when it should have been slash!

And how do you draw the line between letting out cries of pain and being aggrieved?

I suppose individual cases, individual posts, especially taken out of context, may sometimes be ambiguous. However, I don't generally find it particularly challenging *overall* to distinguish between someone who's unhappy because something bad happens to a character and someone who's unhappy because she believes that the story *is a bad story because of what happens to the character*. One is an emotional reaction within the confines of a story, the other is a critical analysis on a flawed foundation. It really doesn't take much effort to find comments to the effect of "This story sucks! M&G are denying us our Clex! I'm going to quit this week...or maybe next!" or "This show sucks and I am just watching it to see how terrible it is. [long string of bitching]" I find this obnoxious. In most instances, though, I would be willing to make substantial allowance for people being surprised by a sudden and drastic turn in a show's previously-enjoyed tone, style, characters, etc. Such things do happen to TV shows all the time. In this case, though, the viewers should have known from day one that not only was the season one "idyll" doomed, but that season one was only idyllic in order to set up the later tragedy. As LaT often says, you don't go watch Romeo and Juliet for the happy ending.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I quit ClarkLex because that wasn't the kind of commentary I wanted to see on a regular basis -- I just see myself as being on the same spectrum.

I find it fascinating that you mention Romeo and Juliet, because I'm in the middle of scripting a story that involves a conversation between Clark and Lex about the play, in which Lex points out that some popular nineteenth-century productions did change the ending so that they live. Lex finds this sacrelige; Clark thinks that Shakespeare's ending is stupid and that there should be more room for grace and mercy in our stories -- that stupid kids' decisions shouldn't lead to everybody dead and brokenhearted, even if reality is otherwise.

In that view, false hope is better than no hope at all.