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More thoughts on Lexmas, focusing mainly on Lex's vision, and a little on Lana's role in it.

Although I like what

mecurtin is calling the "Medea" theory of Lillian (and she quoted me! I was so excited!!!), I really doubt that was the interpretation M&G actually intended for this episode, so I want to say a little more about Lex's vision as the projection of his own unconscious wishes, hopes and fears.

I think this episode is best read not as an actual vision of an alternate future, but as Lex's fantasy or dreamscape. He gives himself the fantasy of the life he *thinks* he wants --marriage, love, suburban life, 2 kids, acceptance by the Kents--but ultimately he realizes it's unsustainable, that love is insufficient to protect him from hurt. He's learned this, ultimately, from Lillian, the woman he loved most of all, but who abandoned him twice: first by killing Julian and secondly by dying when he wanted most desparately to save her.

So even though Lillian, to his subconscious, represents the "other road," the path that is not his father's, and the path of love --which is why, in his dream, she's the one offering him this choice--in his real life he has been taught *by Lillian* that this road only leads to loss and pain. In the dream, the loss/pain of Lillian and Julian's deaths becomes represented by Lana's death, which acts as the catharsis to (a) drive him back to reality and (b) make the only choice that he can (canonically) make: rejecting the uncertainty of love for the certainty of power.

bop_radar has a really amazing review of this episode here, which points out the explicit parallels between Clark and Lex this season. Both, she points out, are given the opportunity to reject their destiny (Clark becoming human, Lex being offered the choice of an ordinary life) and both ultimately reject it. In each case, Lana serves as a catalyst, and while I realize that is the sort of thing that causes fandom to collectively groan and gnash their teeth, it actually makes sense that Lana be the catalyst for Lex *because* she is for Clark, and they're being so consciously paralleled this season. And because, in both cases, she really *is* a symbol: she represents normal life: humanity for Clark, and a normal middle-class life for Lex. In other words, Smallville (minus the mutants). I was worried that the writers had some longterm Lexana on the horizon, but ironically this episode has convinced me they don't, because Lana is here so closely identified *with* Smallville. Clark can't give her the kids she wants, and Lex can't give her smalltown life, so really, in the very episode that seems to cement her centrality in the lives of Lex and Clark, she is being left behind.

That's so clear in the way they've been depicting Lana v. Chloe's relationship to Clark in this season, too. Throughout the whole series, in a sense, Lana has been Smallville and Chloe Metropolis, but they're really emphasizing it this season. Lana is the girlfriend, the one he's celebrating CHristmas with, his home; Chloe's the one in Metropolis, pushing him to action, to help others. (I still think the whole Santa storyline was uber-cheesy, but I do think it depicted accurately the way Lana is increasingly Clark's past, or what he has to leave behind, and Chloe is the future, pushing him to become Superman).

That makes me think there must be a significant storyline coming up with Lex and Chloe, if they are so consciously paralleling Lex and Clark. (Of course, there still might be Lexana, but the end of Lexmas makes me think that at least it won't be Lex *pining* for Lana, since if he has chosen the path of power, he'll be manipulating her or possessing her, not hopelessly longing for her.)

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Good observations! I particularly like this one:

Lana is the girlfriend, the one he's celebrating CHristmas with, his home; Chloe's the one in Metropolis, pushing him to action, to help others. (I still think the whole Santa storyline was uber-cheesy, but I do think it depicted accurately the way Lana is increasingly Clark's past, or what he has to leave behind, and Chloe is the future, pushing him to become Superman).

the end of Lexmas makes me think that at least it won't be Lex *pining* for Lana, since if he has chosen the path of power, he'll be manipulating her or possessing her, not hopelessly longing for her.)

I so hope you are correct about that! The one Lexana scenario I dread the most is desperately!longing Lex and "Eww, get away from me!" Lana.

Thanks! I think I could like (or at least tolerate) Lexana if it's Lex mainly manipulating Lana, or both of them using each other for their own ends, but I agree that desperately!longing Lex and "Eww, get away from me!" Lana is barftastic and would probably make me hurl my television out the nearest window.

Hey awesome update! Thanks for mentioning my essay too... This has definintely been a week where follow-up comments are required - so much discussion and wildly differing opins all over LJ!

I really liked the way you've drawn out here how Lana is Smallville and Chloe is Metropolis: that fits very well with my reading of the show. I struggled with Lana's character for so long but when I realised that she was meant to be associated with family, devoted love and small-time life (and was actually destined to a tragically unrealised and limited life) I became quite fascinated with her. I found it incredibly chilling that her greatest dream was to climb that windmill just to see out of Smallville - she will never get out but she hopes to. Then in Ageless, when she becomes a mother in a sense, the windwill is destroyed. Motherhood will be her final trap.

I definitely also agree with your reading of this episode as a dreamscape and a self-fulfilling one at that. I loved

rivkat's description of it as Lex telling himself to 'stop dithering'!

Thanks! I love the fact that this particular episode is generating so much analysis, because it's been a long time since I've seen so much good discussion of an episode. And I love your reviews so much--you always point out things I haven't seen or considered, and often make me completely re-evaluate my reading of an episode. Actually my own thoughts about Lexmas have really changed from reading everyone's analyses, and I think I have another essay on it in me, but I want to rewatch first.

I agree with you about Lana. To me, it's a little unfortunate that the fandom hates Lana so much. I mean, a lot of the time I agree with them--KK's acting wasn't great, the first season or two (but neither was TW's), and the writers have chosen too much to make her simply a symbol rather than a real character, and I often think her storylines are uninteresting--but they don't *have* to be.

I'm not sure if I agree with your reading of her as *trapped* in Smallville, though. I mean, I think Lexmas is primarily Lex's fantasy, but I also think it is the producer's fantasy, too, about Lana--and clearly she was quite fulfilled and happy as the Smallville mom. What Lana wants, more than anything else, is to recreate the family she never had, and she alone, of the orphaned trio of Lex, Clark, and Lana, will be able to do so. Maybe there will be an element of sacrifice in this--that may be what the destruction of the windmill/her death in Lexmas represents, perhaps because she really loves Clark and has to give him up to the world?--but I still think she's going to ultimately end up happy.

Hmm. Now I'm wondering to what extent the producers are paralleling not just Clark and Lex, but Clark, Lex and Lana. I wonder if that means that *she* is going to be offered a choice to reject her destiny. Of course, that might have been how they explained season 4--Lana caught up in dreams of power that pull her outside of her Smallville destiny--but maybe that's how they're going to do Lexana (if they are still going to do that). Lex offers Lana the world, but she rejects it for a quieter life. It would complete the parallelism if she rejects *both* Lex and Clark because they belong to the world--Clark in the "save the world" sense and Lex in the "own the world" sense, and she wants neither of these. She wants children, she wants a family and real love, and ultimately neither Lex nor Clark can offer her those.

Ok, after making the case that Lana is an interesting character, I've just talked myself into being annoyed with the producers all over again that the only female *lead* in the show has to end up representing home, domesticity, and love. Argh.

Wah! Finally got a chance to reply (work's crazy at the moment). Lots of people have pointed out things I didn't notice about Lexmas this week, including you, so it's great to watch the thinking evolving. This is what makes meta fun!

Lana is interesting. I overlooked her when I first started watching the show and completely understand why she is hated by people, but there's quite a lot there of interest, even in some of her truly craptastic plots (although S4 Lana? Urgh!). It's really interesting that you have a different reading of Lana. The reasons I think she's trapped/destined for tragic sacrifice are as follows:
- the producers are definitely paralleling Clark, Lex and Lana - they do so time and time again in plot episodes and seem to do so on a plot-arc scale as well, even when it doesn't quite come off. But she was from the start set up as a paradox: the fairy-princess girl with the tragic heart/internal life. She essentially can't escape her destiny as that person and all its restrictions in the same way Clark and Lex can't escape their destinies
- She *does* try to escape Smallville/being defined by her relationships with men. There was the whole plot where she wanted to travel and go to Paris, she expresses longing to study and move away from her past, but she's also attracted back to it. There's a kind of push-pull thing going on, because her personal tragedy was so great. Unlike the other two, she has no parents defining her path. She's defined by being an orphan and she attaches to men in place of those absent defining figures. She desperately wants to find a man who will accept her unconditionally: actually acknowledge her flaws and accept them. She said this to Jason, and now Clark is ignoring her attempts to find true intimacy in their relationship. And she's still trying to escape outside the confines of that relationship - by studying astronomy and keeping her fascination secret.
- Do you remember Forsaken (I think that was the one)? Where Emily traps Lana in that glass house, trying to keep her forever locked in the past? For me, that episode worked as a great metaphor for Lana's issues: others enforce and trap her into their image of her, force her to be defined by their vision of her. And this is both infantilising and disempowering. She is trapped by needing someone to rescue her from that, even though she does try to escape on her own. The other quintessential Lana moment for me was when she sits in the old theatre, blindfolded, amidst all the nostalgic costumes: that was a gorgeous image and visually captured Lana's story for me.

Of course feel free to differ! I don't honestly know where they are going with Lana, but I do think she's destined for a tragic end: if not conscious self-sacrifice, then something that grows organically from her character. I think your idea that she could reject both Clark and Lex eventually is interesting - I guess canonically she does that. But I think they could take it in other ways too. I do see why Lex offers Lana something she longs for - he offers her (potentially) her way out to a fuller life, yet at the same time demands love in return. A very Lana paradox.

I understand what you're saying about Lana's portrayal in the earlier seasons, and I agree that the symbolism you mention is powerful, but I do wonder what it means that she gave up living in the Talon this season to go to school in Metropolis. (It's true that she went to Paris, too, but nobody took her apartment at the Talon, then. Does this at all symbolize an escape?)

You're very right about the way she is defining herself by her relationship with men, and it's interesting that in attempting to escape that way she becomes further trapped (that was certainly the case with Jason, and I suspect it will be the case with Lex). And I completely agree with you about Clark denying her real intimacy. Really, it's every Clex story ever when Clark hasn't told Lex and it leads to a bad place, only in this case it's Clana, and I think I'm going to actually end up siding with Lana in the inevitable bad breakup.

It's interesting what you said about Lana not being defined by a parent the way Lex is, and Clark as well--because she did have Nell, and I never really understood why the show wrote Nell out. (They could have gotten rid of the actress, if it was a money thing, the way they have Chloe's dad--simply refer to her and never show her). Because I do think in season one Nell was shown to be reinforcing at least a little the fairy princess mold. So I suppose one could say that symbolically Lana rejected *her* defining parental figure a lot earlier than Clark rejecting Jor-El or Lex rejecting Lionel. Of course, she's rejecting the woman who actually raised her to stay close to her idealized dead parents (really, her dead mother), so I guess in a way she's closer to Lex (rejecting Lionel, idealizing Lillian) than to Clark (who rejects Jor-El and has a good relationship with the Kents.)

I guess to the extent that the show is positing that parental influences are determinative, then, Lana is destined to be torn between being a fairy princess and being her real self. Though I don't think Nell's parenting was completely bad; when Lana found her mom's journals in "X-ray" Nell reacted pretty well to her little tantrum. And I suppose one could read as a positive, for Lana, her mom's "I never made a difference but I hope my children will" speech.

I agree with you that "Forsaken" is a great image of Lana in seasons 1-3, but I thought most of season 4 was about demonstrating that Lana was no longer trapped in a glass cage? I wish I could remember what specifically happened to Lana in "Forever," the season 4 episode that is parallel to "Forsaken," except in this case the meteor mutant is collecting more than just Lana, and keeping them in the high school rather than the glass cage. Still trapping people in the past, though. Frankly, all I remember about that episode is the Luther torture sequences--did Lana help them escape at all, or was she just turned into a statue and had to be rescued again? Because I do think Lana has been gaining more agency as the show has progressed, and that may have an impact on her future destiny. I don't think she can *escape* Smallville, I'm just not sure why that has to be tragic for her. Are you thinking Clark's destiny is going to be tragic, beyond the loss of Lex?

On a completely separate note, since you mentioned "Forsaken": it *amazes* me that there isn't a lot of completely pervy femmeslash about Emily and Lana in that glass cage. If this were Harry Potter fandom, you know there would be--I can't remember the mental age Emily is supposed to be, but she is aging so rapidly she'd only have to keep Lana a few more days to be old enough. And maybe this is more insight into my id than you really wanted, so I will stop there.

I finally got back to this! I meant to come back sooner - bad week. It's a really interesting discussion.

I agree that Lana is closer to Lex than Clark in some regards - particularly her understanding of tragedy, her self-sufficiency and her idealisation of her mother.

I don't agree about Lana in season 4 though - for me, Season 4 was about Lana struggling to retain a sense of independence/freedom despite overwhelming external forces. She was given the mythic destiny plotline, which in Smallville is disempowering. She was driven to pursue the stones. Her relationship, which was meant to be adult and freely chosen, turned out to have been manipulated and duplicitous. She is caught up in a plot she doesn't want to be in and ends up killing someone and losing her innocence. She thought the world would bring her happiness - instead all paths lead back to Smallville and the themes of her life that she can't escape: death and sacrifice and the gap between image and reality. (Btw she got frozen in Forever - I remember because it was gross!)

However you are right that she has been gaining more agency - that's what's interesting. She wars against the restrictions of her destiny as idealised object. She proves herself to Lex by the end of Season 4 as a serious player when she double-crosses him and you can see him register her in a new way. You are right - the increasing agency may shape her future. I think Smallville shows the tug of war between destiny and free will: they may show this in Lana too.

Um, yes I do feel instinctively that this Clark's destiny will be tragic beyond the loss of Lex - I think they've made him a dark character who will have to sacrifice a lot of personal freedom to be a superhero. He has to confront what he fears about himself as an alien and that's going to be a difficult process. To be powerful he needs to embrace his own darkness and his fear of his own power(s). Of course, Clark has Lois in his future, and that does soften the blow somewhat. But I do think being Superman is not going to be romp for this Clark.

Why do I think Lana's story will be tragedy too? Because I feel that's how they've framed the entire story. Each of the three has a public face and a private dark side. They are flawed heroes in the tragic tradition and they are damned by their own decisions. But those decisions are understandable within the emotional context of who they are, what has shaped them and how they feel. That's tragedy. By exploring their youth, the true pathos of the future is shown. Lana is Clark's childhood sweetheart - she is destined to lose him. That loss is going to be bitter, no matter who ends it. If Lana ends it, I suspect it will seem like an empowering act, but will actually represent her limitations. Ok, lots of speculation here - I don't usually do that.

And yeah - Emily and Lana were definitely very femslashable. I guess it's just the fact that people hate Lana that has left that alone. Actually the influence of Emily on Lana's psyche would be really interesting to explore... she's had more than her share of obsessive love, for sure.

Oh - and I also wonder if Lana is destined to become her mother in the same way that the other two are destined to follow/be defined by their fathers. Lana's mother never got out of Smallville and died young. The fact that Lana has expressed a desire to leave but is still caught in exploring Smallville-related mysteries suggests this may be her future too. Don't know.

I love the way you're always making me see themes in this show I haven't thought about before. And I really think you should post an essay with your thoughts on Smallville as a tragedy for all three of the leads in your own journal, so someone besides me sees it, because I think your arguments are very compelling and I don't think it's a perspective that many people have thought about. I mean, everyone knows that Lex's fate is tragic, but I think the general assumption has been that since Clark becomes Superman, his story isn't as dark as Lex's. Though thinking of the death coming up in episode 100, I wonder how I could have continued assuming that.

(Oh, God, I'm really terrified now that it will be Chloe, after rewatching bits of the rerun of "Commencement" and "Arrival," because I forgot that the first reason Clark broke training--or whatever he was undergoing in Jor-El's little cone of knowledge--was to save Chloe's life, so thematically it makes sense for the death to be her. And after I'd talked myself out of that conclusion, before. It will absolutely *break* me if it is Chloe).

To get back to the points you raised: I can't believe I didn't remember her getting frozen in Forever--if anything, that just reinforces the symbolism in Forsaken. But I don't think that she is going to die young like her mother--I can't remember which episode, but I remember somebody (Clark?) having visions of her dying as an old woman, wearing the kryptonite necklace (though it was now clear) and it was supposed to be a vision of the future. But living her mother's limited life in Smallville is definitely an option. (If she really follows her mother's past, I wonder if she and Pete are going to end up raising a child she has with Lex Luthor!)

*BG*
I'm extremely happy this morning and your comment makes me even more so! I love chatting things over with you because you prompt me to articulate further on ideas that are formenting in my mind. I guess I hadn't realised that other people didn't see SV as a potential triple tragedy... I do think there's maybe an essay in that. Perhaps I'll have time over Christmas!

Clark's life is definitely tragic. He's immortal for starters - everyone he loves will die before him (remember the graveyard?) and he will become what he dreads becoming (an alien who 'rules them with strength' - to the extent that being Superman will isolate him from/above other people, force him to exercise power over others that he's uncomfortable with and deny him a 'normal' human life).

Yes, that's right. Lana dies as an old lady. I loooove the idea that she might raise Lex Luthor's child with Pete though. That is just brilliant! But oh how I wish Pete hadn't been such a disaster in SV. I have Pete issues. Oddly, it's the one thing I just can't forgive Al&Miles for.

Is it Saturday morning in Australia? I can't remember which way the date line goes. It's Friday night in California, and I have something like 150 papers to grade before I leave for Chicago on Tuesday, so if I suddenly go radio silent, that is why.

Of course you're correct about Clark's immortality being a tragedy--and that scene with the gravestones strongly supports that reading. They've been setting this up from the beginning--I'm not sure how I missed that.

As for Pete--yes, what a complete waste of a good character AND a good actor. Though sometimes I want to give the producers the benefit of the doubt--like, how much is all the teen drama that took up so much story time (and took time *away* from developing minor characters more, or presenting more coherent Luthercorp storylines) a product of being on the WB and having pressure to capture a particular demographic? We know for sure that the network did stupid things like make them take that actress who played Victoria Hardwick--who could have made a very convincing ongoing foil to Lex, if she had been played by someone who could ACT).

But on the other hand, I can understand why Sam Jones got fed up and quit. I sometimes wonder why Annette O'Toole is still hanging on--she's amazing but completely underused, and they only give her about one good episode a season.

Yes! It's Saturday (afternoon) now. Eek! That's a lot of papers. Good luck! And have a great holiday break too! I have to go Chrissie shoppinig shortly.

Yes, I tend to forgive the producers a fair bit because some parts of the show scream that they were done to appease the WB/certain demographics. I can't imagine how they work under those type of restrictions - they seem to stay sane by adopting a lackadaisacal/philosophical approach to the overall plot consistency. I understand why it drives fans nuts (and I have screamed at them giggling about plot holes myself at times) but I also see why they have to be this way. And I just love how much they HAVE managed to get into the show.

Annette is brilliant - I suspect she stays on because she likes the cast and crew so much. I've heard her talk about how it's like a big family and she seems to adore everyone she works with. I certainly wish they used her more though - she's a wonderful actress and I love it when they give her interesting things to do.

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