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SV: Splinter as foreshadowing?
I don't believe in destiny, but I do believe in foreshadowing. When I rewatched "Splinter" last week in light of "Reckoning" and "Lockdown," I noticed a few things that may be foreshadowing upcoming developments in the season, especially in the Lex/Lana relationship.
Spoilers through Vengeance
"Lana, Lex, Lies"
"If I told you the truth and something happened to you, I'd never forgive myself," Lex says to Lana in Splinter, when she wants to know the truth about the spaceship. Isn't *that* an interesting quotation to be coming out of Lex's mouth, especially given the events in "Reckoning." But it's not just foreshadowing "Reckoning," it's more immediately foreshadowing "Lockdown."
In "Splinter," Lex initially tells Lana that he didn't tell her about the spaceship because he's protecting her. Knowledge about the spaceship, he says, is dangerous--"people have killed for a lot less." Lana suspects he's bullshitting her because he wants her knowledge of the spaceship, and at the time it seemed a reasonable assumption. However, it turns out Lex was right: knowledge of the spaceship *did* put Lana in danger--both she and Lex almost got killed for that knowledge in "Lockdown."
Furthermore, the fact that Lex will trust Lana, rather than lying to protect her, is also spelled out directly in "Splinter", where he tells her that he had to stop protecting her because he couldn't lie to her anymore, and he knew that she was searching for the answers haunting her since her parents died. (Again, in "Splinter" this is delivered as fakery--Lex actually makes this response to try to avoid answering hard questions from Lana--but in "Lockdown" we see he was actually telling the truth, in that classic piece of Lex misdirection).
Lana's attitude towards being protected is split: on the one hand, as in "Lockdown," she is drawn to the equality of her relationship with Lex; each takes turn being the protector of the other. This is the adult Lana, and one of the many reasons why Lana's relationship with Clark is doomed to fail. On the other hand, part of her still wants (and needs) to be protected, and that is the part of her that was drawn to Clark's revelation of his secret in "Reckoning." But ultimately (even if Clark had changed the past in a different way), she needs more equality in her relationships. (I've figured out that's why I liked her first scene with Lex in Reckoning: even though she wasn't necessary very *good* at it, she stepped up to try to protect Clark's secret. She does want to be able to protect the people she loves, not merely be protected by them).
Clark's fears, Clark's fists
"I don't know what you did to trick Lana into believing she was in love with you." This is Clark's accusation to Lex while he is under the influence of silver K in "Splinter." He fears that Lana will betray him, just as Lex has--though her betrayal would be the double betrayal of consorting with Clark's enemy. And this does seem to be coming true: every episode since Splinter has moved a step closer to Lexana. I suspect that what Splinter is predicting is that Clark is never going to be able to accept this relationship as real, and that this will somehow lead to full-out war between Lex and Clark. ("I don't want to hurt you, Clark." "But I want to hurt you.")
"If I'd have killed Lana...." (Clark in "Splinter") Clark does, as it turns out, kill Lana in "Reckoning"--or at least, he contributes to her death. (Interesting that in Splinter he *also* almost kills his dad, and attacks Lex, saying that he wants to hurt him. ) Splinter predicts that he cannot live without Lana--you'd never forgive yourself, Professor Fine tells him. And in fact, the decision he makes in "Reckoning" does show he can't bear to be the one responsible for her death. Does this mean he'll never forgive himself for his contribution to Jonathan's death?
"Those Kents, they pack quite a punch." (Lionel Luthor, "Splinter") Here he's talking to Lex, whom Clark has bruised pretty badly; but this statement also foreshadows Jonathan's death. It would be interesting to trace the significance of all the punches this season. Clark punching Lex in "Mortal" signalled the start of open hostilities between them. Everyone was rightly critical of him immediately after that episode for continuing to punch Lex when he was down. This is not the action of a hero, but it is definitely the instinctive response of a Kent (at least a Kent male raised by Jonathan!). Will Clark ever learn that his father died striking his enemy in anger? I think he *must* learn that, sometime in the future, because I think it will be one of the things preventing him from striking a similar future blow at Lex, which would not destroy him physically, but would do so morally.
Actually, I wonder if Clark would have been capable of saving Lionel's life in "Vengeance" had he known the truth about Jonathan's death. Will he ever find out? Will he be tempted not to save him in the future, especially once Lionel starts his seduction of Martha in earnest?
Predicting the future?
"Lana Lang will never love you, son." This is from the end of "Splinter," in the scene with Lionel and Lex. Is this foreshadowing? Or maybe just a warning from Lionel, as part of the deep game he's playing this season?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
latxcvi has been talking about the slow progression of Lexana this season, how they are actually taking time to build an organic relationship between them, and I think that's true, as I have sketched out, a little, above. I agree that Lexana is only going to work for the viewers to the extent that there is mutual desire between them, so I really *hope* that this is just Lionel's usual mindfuck, and *not* foreshadowing.
Spoilers through Vengeance
"Lana, Lex, Lies"
"If I told you the truth and something happened to you, I'd never forgive myself," Lex says to Lana in Splinter, when she wants to know the truth about the spaceship. Isn't *that* an interesting quotation to be coming out of Lex's mouth, especially given the events in "Reckoning." But it's not just foreshadowing "Reckoning," it's more immediately foreshadowing "Lockdown."
In "Splinter," Lex initially tells Lana that he didn't tell her about the spaceship because he's protecting her. Knowledge about the spaceship, he says, is dangerous--"people have killed for a lot less." Lana suspects he's bullshitting her because he wants her knowledge of the spaceship, and at the time it seemed a reasonable assumption. However, it turns out Lex was right: knowledge of the spaceship *did* put Lana in danger--both she and Lex almost got killed for that knowledge in "Lockdown."
Furthermore, the fact that Lex will trust Lana, rather than lying to protect her, is also spelled out directly in "Splinter", where he tells her that he had to stop protecting her because he couldn't lie to her anymore, and he knew that she was searching for the answers haunting her since her parents died. (Again, in "Splinter" this is delivered as fakery--Lex actually makes this response to try to avoid answering hard questions from Lana--but in "Lockdown" we see he was actually telling the truth, in that classic piece of Lex misdirection).
Lana's attitude towards being protected is split: on the one hand, as in "Lockdown," she is drawn to the equality of her relationship with Lex; each takes turn being the protector of the other. This is the adult Lana, and one of the many reasons why Lana's relationship with Clark is doomed to fail. On the other hand, part of her still wants (and needs) to be protected, and that is the part of her that was drawn to Clark's revelation of his secret in "Reckoning." But ultimately (even if Clark had changed the past in a different way), she needs more equality in her relationships. (I've figured out that's why I liked her first scene with Lex in Reckoning: even though she wasn't necessary very *good* at it, she stepped up to try to protect Clark's secret. She does want to be able to protect the people she loves, not merely be protected by them).
Clark's fears, Clark's fists
"I don't know what you did to trick Lana into believing she was in love with you." This is Clark's accusation to Lex while he is under the influence of silver K in "Splinter." He fears that Lana will betray him, just as Lex has--though her betrayal would be the double betrayal of consorting with Clark's enemy. And this does seem to be coming true: every episode since Splinter has moved a step closer to Lexana. I suspect that what Splinter is predicting is that Clark is never going to be able to accept this relationship as real, and that this will somehow lead to full-out war between Lex and Clark. ("I don't want to hurt you, Clark." "But I want to hurt you.")
"If I'd have killed Lana...." (Clark in "Splinter") Clark does, as it turns out, kill Lana in "Reckoning"--or at least, he contributes to her death. (Interesting that in Splinter he *also* almost kills his dad, and attacks Lex, saying that he wants to hurt him. ) Splinter predicts that he cannot live without Lana--you'd never forgive yourself, Professor Fine tells him. And in fact, the decision he makes in "Reckoning" does show he can't bear to be the one responsible for her death. Does this mean he'll never forgive himself for his contribution to Jonathan's death?
"Those Kents, they pack quite a punch." (Lionel Luthor, "Splinter") Here he's talking to Lex, whom Clark has bruised pretty badly; but this statement also foreshadows Jonathan's death. It would be interesting to trace the significance of all the punches this season. Clark punching Lex in "Mortal" signalled the start of open hostilities between them. Everyone was rightly critical of him immediately after that episode for continuing to punch Lex when he was down. This is not the action of a hero, but it is definitely the instinctive response of a Kent (at least a Kent male raised by Jonathan!). Will Clark ever learn that his father died striking his enemy in anger? I think he *must* learn that, sometime in the future, because I think it will be one of the things preventing him from striking a similar future blow at Lex, which would not destroy him physically, but would do so morally.
Actually, I wonder if Clark would have been capable of saving Lionel's life in "Vengeance" had he known the truth about Jonathan's death. Will he ever find out? Will he be tempted not to save him in the future, especially once Lionel starts his seduction of Martha in earnest?
Predicting the future?
"Lana Lang will never love you, son." This is from the end of "Splinter," in the scene with Lionel and Lex. Is this foreshadowing? Or maybe just a warning from Lionel, as part of the deep game he's playing this season?
latxcvi has been talking about the slow progression of Lexana this season, how they are actually taking time to build an organic relationship between them, and I think that's true, as I have sketched out, a little, above. I agree that Lexana is only going to work for the viewers to the extent that there is mutual desire between them, so I really *hope* that this is just Lionel's usual mindfuck, and *not* foreshadowing.
no subject
That would be really good TV, and I'd *love* to see Lex bring down his father in that way.
Lana was being used as a stand-in; Lionel was essentially telling Lex *no one* would ever love him, because he's apparently inherently unloveable, and that's (a) an awful thing for a parent to say to their child, and (b) absolutely not true, as iconic!Lex *is* well-beloved by the people of Metropolis
I agree that here his dad is actually saying no one will ever love him. I think, though, that in Smallville canon (as opposed to comics canon) that's going to be *true*. I mean, he'll have people who are crazily devoted to him, like Lexfan in "Fanatic" (and Mercy and Hope, if they ever turn up on the show), and he may be *popular* as a politician, but I think part of the SV mythos is that if anyone really ever loved Lex for Lex (as opposed to for his power or money or influence) and *didn't* later abandon him, he wouldn't go completely evil.
This suggests, to me, that even if Lana *does* fall for him, she's going to end up abandoning him at some point (perhaps because he lives up to his promise and never lies to her, and at some point she realizes she can't live with knowing exactly what he's doing).
no subject
I agree that it's part of the SV mythos, but honestly? It's a part of the mythos that's always troubled me, because I think it's really very simplistic. The idea that all any given person ever really needs is to be loved to keep them from doing or being bad is, IMO, a somewhat romanticized idea of the power of love that bears no relationship to the real world/real life. There are lots of people who love and have been loved who *still* end up doing shitty, awful, bad things to their fellow man, because despite loving and being loved, they're still able to choose the morally/ethically expedient way to get what they want/need because it's easier to them than Doing the Right Thing.
I think Lex's story would be even more interesting if, *despite* the fact that he's not only capable of loving others but of being loved by them, he still *chooses* to do ethically/morally dodgy things to achieve his ends (I certainly think it's closer to Lex's story then being an actual *tragedy*, in the dramatic sense of that word, than 'Lex is bad because no one loved him enough/everyone mistreats him'). Setting it up where the idea is essentially "Lex does bad things because no one ever really loved him/everyone who loved him left him" carries with it the implication that Lex isn't really *responsible* in any way for how he turns out because hey, if someone had just loved him enough, he wouldn't feel compelled to do bad things! I think such a set-up skirts too close to letting Lex off the hook for his choices for me to really endorse it. Sadly, though, I'm not the SV PTB.
no subject
No argument here. I think part of the problem is that TPTB just aren't good enough at really complicated storytelling to tell something that complex. I also think that perhaps they decided to stick with this particular motivation for Lex's fall because they thought it would be easier for a lot of the audience to accept, especially given Lex's popularity. (And I'm not sure that your desire to see Lex being responsible for the choices he makes towards his iconic destiny is widely shared in the fandom--given how frequently people still want to blame Clark's secret keeping, or Jonathan's judgmentalism, or Lionel's machinations for every bad decision Lex makes.)