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

[tehomet.livejournal.com]

JIMHO, I think it's fine for me to like Lex's character and dislike the way he is being pushed to the dark side, and even to disbelieve that he will end up the villain. Fifty years of canon, my eye. In terms of the story, watching Smallville, we are in the moment. Although he may sometimes approach the line, from our point of view, Lex is still on the side of the angels, and the future hasn't happened yet.

And anyway, even if it does play out that way, I'm a fanfiction junkie and a slasher. I don't have to accept a future Lex who ends up the villain as a whole complete text -- I can always look at the subtext. Lanning's Identity Series, Julad's Marble, Destina's Wetwork, Livia's Demarcation -- all posit ways, varying from substitution to resistance to collaboration, in which the future Lex of canon can be satisfyingly subverted.