Wow. Twice in one comment you have said nice things about Lionel. I have to pause a bit to mark this moment in the historical record.
There was a time, waaaaaaay back in the day, when I was sympathetic to and even liked Lionel. Sometimes, those memories bleed through. ;-)
But of course it's a pivotal plot point in "Lineage" that Jonathan betrayed his friends by convincing them to sell to Lionel, presumably for under market value, isn't it.
*nod* And like I said to Pep, I think "cheating" does strongly imply that's what happened -- he bought it for less than it was really worth, but that just brings me back to "The Rosses should have known what their own property/business was worth."
Or is Jonathan's attempt to convince the Rosses to sell supposed to be evil just because it gave Lionel a foothold in Smallville?
I think that's really what it is, but maybe back then the creative team felt like that was too subtle a point, so it had to be couched in terms of something Lionel himself actively did? In other words, just saying "Lionel got a foothold in Smallville and that's been bad," is a hard point to make when your own internal storytelling suggests that his business is the single largest employer in the town. But if you combine it with the suggestion that Lionel got that foothold through unethical or dubious means, the assertion gets stronger.
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There was a time, waaaaaaay back in the day, when I was sympathetic to and even liked Lionel. Sometimes, those memories bleed through. ;-)
But of course it's a pivotal plot point in "Lineage" that Jonathan betrayed his friends by convincing them to sell to Lionel, presumably for under market value, isn't it.
*nod* And like I said to Pep, I think "cheating" does strongly imply that's what happened -- he bought it for less than it was really worth, but that just brings me back to "The Rosses should have known what their own property/business was worth."
Or is Jonathan's attempt to convince the Rosses to sell supposed to be evil just because it gave Lionel a foothold in Smallville?
I think that's really what it is, but maybe back then the creative team felt like that was too subtle a point, so it had to be couched in terms of something Lionel himself actively did? In other words, just saying "Lionel got a foothold in Smallville and that's been bad," is a hard point to make when your own internal storytelling suggests that his business is the single largest employer in the town. But if you combine it with the suggestion that Lionel got that foothold through unethical or dubious means, the assertion gets stronger.