I didn't mean only that Lex had bad stuff happen to him, and therefore should be excused from the choices he makes. I meant that the particular kind of bad stuff that happens to him would just about destroy anyone's ability to make moral choices.
Lex hasn't "merely" been abused. He's had his brain zapped, his memory wiped out more than once, his personality distintegrated repeatedly - and that's on top of the 'normal' SV stuff like making vital life decisions while under the influence of meteor rock mutations.
IMO, that goes to the very heart of how we acquire a sense of morality and make moral decisions. We make decisions based on what we know of how the universe operates and how people react. We rely on a universe where cause-and-effect have some logical consistency, where the rules - of physics, of statutes, of normal human conduct - aren't suspended and upended on a regular basis. We also rely on being able to trust our own memories, our own sanity, our own autonomy and selfhood. Without that reliance, that consistency, I don't believe we can make moral decisions.
For Lex, it's like living in a Bizarro Universe, where no matter what he does, no matter how good his intentions, no matter how carefully he plans and executes an action... he's going to fail. Not due to his own merits, or the lack of them, but because Fate, or Destiny, has decreed that he will fail.
TPTB gave us a Lex whose soul was on the razor's edge anyway: his essential decency at war with his ambition and curiosity; his essential kindness and hunger for love/acceptance at war with the Luthor Family legacy of abuse and treachery. They really could have developed the Iconic Evil Lex from that - a Faustian Lex, if you like; someone who lost the battle for his own soul. But he would have been someone who had a chance to win that battle. Instead, they gave us a Lex who never had a chance.
Re: Kill Lionel, Of Course!
Lex hasn't "merely" been abused. He's had his brain zapped, his memory wiped out more than once, his personality distintegrated repeatedly - and that's on top of the 'normal' SV stuff like making vital life decisions while under the influence of meteor rock mutations.
IMO, that goes to the very heart of how we acquire a sense of morality and make moral decisions. We make decisions based on what we know of how the universe operates and how people react. We rely on a universe where cause-and-effect have some logical consistency, where the rules - of physics, of statutes, of normal human conduct - aren't suspended and upended on a regular basis. We also rely on being able to trust our own memories, our own sanity, our own autonomy and selfhood. Without that reliance, that consistency, I don't believe we can make moral decisions.
For Lex, it's like living in a Bizarro Universe, where no matter what he does, no matter how good his intentions, no matter how carefully he plans and executes an action... he's going to fail. Not due to his own merits, or the lack of them, but because Fate, or Destiny, has decreed that he will fail.
TPTB gave us a Lex whose soul was on the razor's edge anyway: his essential decency at war with his ambition and curiosity; his essential kindness and hunger for love/acceptance at war with the Luthor Family legacy of abuse and treachery. They really could have developed the Iconic Evil Lex from that - a Faustian Lex, if you like; someone who lost the battle for his own soul. But he would have been someone who had a chance to win that battle. Instead, they gave us a Lex who never had a chance.