Lex is capable of great nobility, and it is perfectly in character for him to sacrifice whatever he has to in order to save the world.
To be honest, I think the Zod-related 'charity' is probably the only particularly relevant incident to our current point in S6, timeline wise. Yes, I agree that Lex has arguably done some selfless things, but most of them are pretty early on, and as SV is (supposed to be at any rate) about the journey Clark makes to being Superman, and consequently Lex's journey to being his arch-nemesis, I don't see how you can relate those earlier events to now. Especially not to use them as justification for believing in Lex having ultimately good intentions when there's little other canon to support that. The whole point is that they're changing, growing characters, and what happened early on isn't necessarily or clearly going to fit or relate to their later actions.
Not to mention that even if Chloe's crack about guilt money was snide, there is some element of truth there. Yes, it was Zod, not Lex. But it was Lex's choices that put him in that position, and he continued making those choices even when it became clear that Fine might not be particularly trustworthy. No one just randomly picked him out of a crowd and said 'hey you, you'll make a good tool for Zod,' he did place himself in those cross-hairs under his own steam. So, no, I don't think it can be said that Lex trying to help clean up after Zod paints him as being nobel or self-sacrificing, there's a definite element of justified responsibility there for him.
You're also saying that the baby Justice League is part of the problem because they're undermining Lex, and he's the only one who has stepped up? I really can't see your rationale for this. There are other people trying to do things, or we wouldn't have the baby Justice League in the first place. One of Oliver's gripes with Clark has consistently been that Clark 'waits for trouble to land on his doorstep' rather than, and in contrast to how Ollie and the baby League work, seeking out ways in which the world needs saving. As far as I can see, the only way Clark and co. undermine Lex is because they provide a far less grey example of how to 'save the world' which Lex can be compared to and found wanting. That doesn't intrinsically mean they're a bad thing, it just means they help show where Lex goes morally wrong, even if he has good intentions. (Which I'll admit, I doubt he has all that much of them, or if he does have them that they're less important to him than his self-serving ambitions.) A character/s showing up flaws in another favourite character/s doesn't make the first bad in their own right. Yes, they're hindering Lex's ability to act by attacking 33.1, but Lex's actions have caused death, injury, and he has illegially caught/imprisioned people, exercised power without a shred of authority, blackmailed and manipulated people, and performed experiments on live subjects without their consent. I don't think many of those things would be out of place in an alien invasion scenario, so if Lex is justified in trying to take them down or prepare for that scenario, then I don't see how you can argue that Clark and co. aren't justified in taking down Lex for the same thing. Both see others as a threat to the human community as a whole, on a large scale, but one is on more solid group morally in their means and methods. And I hate to say it, but it's not Lex.
And to norwich36, great post! (Hope you don't mind me jumping in down here. >.>;) I'm also torn between wanting evil!Lex and wanting him to be woobie and widely liked by the other characters again, oh inner conflict. It's nice to see it's not just me. *g*
no subject
To be honest, I think the Zod-related 'charity' is probably the only particularly relevant incident to our current point in S6, timeline wise. Yes, I agree that Lex has arguably done some selfless things, but most of them are pretty early on, and as SV is (supposed to be at any rate) about the journey Clark makes to being Superman, and consequently Lex's journey to being his arch-nemesis, I don't see how you can relate those earlier events to now. Especially not to use them as justification for believing in Lex having ultimately good intentions when there's little other canon to support that. The whole point is that they're changing, growing characters, and what happened early on isn't necessarily or clearly going to fit or relate to their later actions.
Not to mention that even if Chloe's crack about guilt money was snide, there is some element of truth there. Yes, it was Zod, not Lex. But it was Lex's choices that put him in that position, and he continued making those choices even when it became clear that Fine might not be particularly trustworthy. No one just randomly picked him out of a crowd and said 'hey you, you'll make a good tool for Zod,' he did place himself in those cross-hairs under his own steam. So, no, I don't think it can be said that Lex trying to help clean up after Zod paints him as being nobel or self-sacrificing, there's a definite element of justified responsibility there for him.
You're also saying that the baby Justice League is part of the problem because they're undermining Lex, and he's the only one who has stepped up? I really can't see your rationale for this. There are other people trying to do things, or we wouldn't have the baby Justice League in the first place. One of Oliver's gripes with Clark has consistently been that Clark 'waits for trouble to land on his doorstep' rather than, and in contrast to how Ollie and the baby League work, seeking out ways in which the world needs saving. As far as I can see, the only way Clark and co. undermine Lex is because they provide a far less grey example of how to 'save the world' which Lex can be compared to and found wanting. That doesn't intrinsically mean they're a bad thing, it just means they help show where Lex goes morally wrong, even if he has good intentions. (Which I'll admit, I doubt he has all that much of them, or if he does have them that they're less important to him than his self-serving ambitions.) A character/s showing up flaws in another favourite character/s doesn't make the first bad in their own right. Yes, they're hindering Lex's ability to act by attacking 33.1, but Lex's actions have caused death, injury, and he has illegially caught/imprisioned people, exercised power without a shred of authority, blackmailed and manipulated people, and performed experiments on live subjects without their consent. I don't think many of those things would be out of place in an alien invasion scenario, so if Lex is justified in trying to take them down or prepare for that scenario, then I don't see how you can argue that Clark and co. aren't justified in taking down Lex for the same thing. Both see others as a threat to the human community as a whole, on a large scale, but one is on more solid group morally in their means and methods. And I hate to say it, but it's not Lex.
And to