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ivyblossomSome Smallville thoughts, cut because...well, I'm in a different timezone and in a different country than a lot of my favourite Smallville fans, and I realize that I've seen what many are watching right now or won't see for an hour or so...
Alright. Well, so the theme of Smallville is daddy issues. Lana has them, Lex has them, Chloe, of course, has mommy issues, so that's unique, and now Clark also has daddy issues. What actually interests me most about this is that Smallville is turning into a dissertation on fatherhood. Lana's dad: decent but distracted, not 'there' for his love child and therefore giving her an abandonment complex. Lex's dad: self-consumed and only interested in his children when they can be useful to him, or can be a helpful extension of himself while he tries to destroy the world. Chloe's dad: what's with Chloe's dad, have we ever seen him? Whoever he is, he not only raised a bright and fairly well-adjusted daughter, but he even took in Lana. He's like a mother bird taking in all these abandoned children. Possibly Lex should move in with Chloe and Lana; is there another purple bedroom in that house? Lex's wardrobe would fit right in!
Anyway, on with the dads: Clark has a pretty good one, or, at least I think that's the idea. Protective, masculine, rugged, suitably and traditionally 'fatherly', desperately loving and accepting of his alien spawn. The perfect dad. Gruff yet tender. And now Clark also has a blood-thirsty murdering biological father, apparently. Is that canon? Clark was actually fathered by an alien Lionel, but pushed into a basket and set adrift as an infant to be raised by...the meek, who shall inherit the earth. Clark could have been Lex, but was, as Jonathan nicely points out, saved by his adoptive father's good rearing skills. A good father is critical, don't you think?
Other, random thoughts: Chloe rocks out. I totally love her. I think she completely capitulated unfairly at the end, but granted I don't know what I'm talking about, this is my eighth episode. I like Chloe. She's sympathetic, and even when she's betraying Clark, she doesn't do it on purpose or with any actual nasty intent. She's just...curious. And interested. And right.
Lana, on the other hand, just gets worse and worse and worse. I think Kristin Kreuk is a good actor, but I can't believe what they're doing with Lana. I'm not supposed to hate her, am I? First: she snoops into Chloe's files. It could have been the porn folder, but instead it was the 'nostalgia' folder. I can understand Chloe getting upset. Why Chloe went ahead and gave Lana some fodder for her own crush-not-crush is beyond me. And Lana's "it's not my fault" was kind of weak. Should could say that if she hadn't already knowingly hit on Clark while she knew full well that Chloe had serious, serious feelings for him. AND THEN to go ahead and use her little spying trick as a sympathy tactic to get Clark to give her that poor you look is just horrible and disgusting.
"Weep weep, I'm not really family." Excuse me, Lana. I guess you've really never had a sister, because let me tell you, even if you were Chloe's sister it would a) not be okay to snoop through her freaking files and b) it would still be make you a total fucking bitchcake for trying to hit on the love of Chloe's life. Weep weep, I'm not really family, where the FUCK DID THAT COME FROM? Lana, must everything really be about you? I mean, come ON. And then Chloe comes back with, "Oh, I think of you as my sister," which Lana really, really doesn't deserve. I'm appalled.
You know, I'd like to write chloe/lana, but good god I can't see what anyone sees in Lana. I really can't. I might have to write a fic where Chloe steals Lana's pubic hair off the shower floor and makes voodoo dolls with big eyes and black hair and sticks pins in it.
There was an odd vein popping out of Lex's temple this week. It was distracting me. And does he have a scar on his lip? Is that what it is? That wasn't distracting, but I noticed it while trying to avoid looking for that vein. Lex and Clark really don't trust each other, do they. Friends, but really not friends. Sad.
I'm really high on muscle relaxants right now, long story, so if this makes no sense that's why. Yes, I will claim that.
Alright. Well, so the theme of Smallville is daddy issues. Lana has them, Lex has them, Chloe, of course, has mommy issues, so that's unique, and now Clark also has daddy issues. What actually interests me most about this is that Smallville is turning into a dissertation on fatherhood. Lana's dad: decent but distracted, not 'there' for his love child and therefore giving her an abandonment complex. Lex's dad: self-consumed and only interested in his children when they can be useful to him, or can be a helpful extension of himself while he tries to destroy the world. Chloe's dad: what's with Chloe's dad, have we ever seen him? Whoever he is, he not only raised a bright and fairly well-adjusted daughter, but he even took in Lana. He's like a mother bird taking in all these abandoned children. Possibly Lex should move in with Chloe and Lana; is there another purple bedroom in that house? Lex's wardrobe would fit right in!
Anyway, on with the dads: Clark has a pretty good one, or, at least I think that's the idea. Protective, masculine, rugged, suitably and traditionally 'fatherly', desperately loving and accepting of his alien spawn. The perfect dad. Gruff yet tender. And now Clark also has a blood-thirsty murdering biological father, apparently. Is that canon? Clark was actually fathered by an alien Lionel, but pushed into a basket and set adrift as an infant to be raised by...the meek, who shall inherit the earth. Clark could have been Lex, but was, as Jonathan nicely points out, saved by his adoptive father's good rearing skills. A good father is critical, don't you think?
Other, random thoughts: Chloe rocks out. I totally love her. I think she completely capitulated unfairly at the end, but granted I don't know what I'm talking about, this is my eighth episode. I like Chloe. She's sympathetic, and even when she's betraying Clark, she doesn't do it on purpose or with any actual nasty intent. She's just...curious. And interested. And right.
Lana, on the other hand, just gets worse and worse and worse. I think Kristin Kreuk is a good actor, but I can't believe what they're doing with Lana. I'm not supposed to hate her, am I? First: she snoops into Chloe's files. It could have been the porn folder, but instead it was the 'nostalgia' folder. I can understand Chloe getting upset. Why Chloe went ahead and gave Lana some fodder for her own crush-not-crush is beyond me. And Lana's "it's not my fault" was kind of weak. Should could say that if she hadn't already knowingly hit on Clark while she knew full well that Chloe had serious, serious feelings for him. AND THEN to go ahead and use her little spying trick as a sympathy tactic to get Clark to give her that poor you look is just horrible and disgusting.
"Weep weep, I'm not really family." Excuse me, Lana. I guess you've really never had a sister, because let me tell you, even if you were Chloe's sister it would a) not be okay to snoop through her freaking files and b) it would still be make you a total fucking bitchcake for trying to hit on the love of Chloe's life. Weep weep, I'm not really family, where the FUCK DID THAT COME FROM? Lana, must everything really be about you? I mean, come ON. And then Chloe comes back with, "Oh, I think of you as my sister," which Lana really, really doesn't deserve. I'm appalled.
You know, I'd like to write chloe/lana, but good god I can't see what anyone sees in Lana. I really can't. I might have to write a fic where Chloe steals Lana's pubic hair off the shower floor and makes voodoo dolls with big eyes and black hair and sticks pins in it.
There was an odd vein popping out of Lex's temple this week. It was distracting me. And does he have a scar on his lip? Is that what it is? That wasn't distracting, but I noticed it while trying to avoid looking for that vein. Lex and Clark really don't trust each other, do they. Friends, but really not friends. Sad.
I'm really high on muscle relaxants right now, long story, so if this makes no sense that's why. Yes, I will claim that.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-25 07:28 pm (UTC)Jor-El is actually a very good man. I think Clark is taking what his father meant the wrong way. He was obviously trying to explain to Kal-El that he would be different and that the people of Earth would see him as a god and that Earth could use some guidance. Jor-El was likely just telling Clark everything Jonathon ever has except not quite in the same Kansas platitudes. It was more - look, you have these great abilities, our people were far advanced beyond them, you have this knowledge, you can lead them in the right direction. Just be careful.
At least, that is the way it should be. With this show lately, they could have decided Jor-El was actually Lex in some past life or something.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-25 07:28 pm (UTC)No no, his father was a scientist.. he knew the planet was going to explode, but no one believed him. So he sent his newborn son to the most likely planet, Earth. He knew the sun's rays would give him powers to take care of himself.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-25 08:03 pm (UTC)Tara has the shooting script speech from the first (Donner) movie up in her LJ, here (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=taraljc&itemid=146601#cutid1) if you need a peek. It's all very moralistic.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-25 08:52 pm (UTC)Yeah, but it's more than that, I think. It's not that they don't trust each other, exactly, it's just that for both of them, keeping these kinds of things has become habit. Clark never tells his secret, period; it doesn't have much to do with Lex himself. Even when Clark knows that he needs to tell his secret, he can hardly do it...that's why I really loved that scene with Reeves when Clark asked, "Why are you doing this to me?" Clark just doesn't want to ever tell, to ever admit to his secret, no matter who's asking.
It's more like a mental block than the action/belief of distrust, I think.
And Lex might only be reacting to all that. He'd be much more open, I think, if he saw Clark doing the same. I don't think he really has something against it in principle, at least not any longer with Clark, but right now, he's just covering his ass.
I'd still call them real friends at this point, in any case. Just friends with issues. I personally really like how the WB is portraying their relationship; it makes it feel more real, because everything's not perfect. Or maybe I'm just dysfunctional! :)
And does he have a scar on his lip?
Oh, yes, he surely does. I want to lick it. :P
Mara Celes
no subject
Date: 2003-02-26 02:09 am (UTC)Well. *cracks knuckles*
Jor-El wasn't a bad man as such, but Krypton wasn't a very nice planet. He was the head of a house that was pretty much royalty, leaders of a cold, emotionless race who, when cloning stopped after the civil war, prolonged their life spans by shunning physical contact of all kinds and wearing protective garments that quite frankly looked ridiculous. He was powerful and ambitious but not necessarily *bad*.
When Black Zero's thermonuclear bomb went off thousands of years ago - Black Zero being the extremist cell, opposed to cloning and instigators of the 1000 year civil war - it had set off a chain reaction deep below the planet's crust. Over time, the pressures in Krypton's core had fused it's native metals into a new, radical element known as, you guessed it, Kryptonite. The Kryptonite slowly poisoned the planet's inhabitants - it was known as the Green Death - and Jor-El knew that eventually the pressure would cause Krypton's rocky outer mantle to erupt, and they would all perish. He appealed to the High Council numerous times for a whole-planet evacuation, but they wouldn't hear of it, labelling him a crackpot, paranoid fool.
However - Jor-El was a smart one. He invoked a centuries-old Kryptonian law that allowed him to remove the infant Kal-El from the incubation chambers.
Yep, incubation chambers. Remember what I said, about the physical contact being shunned? Well, that included hanky-panky of any kind whatsoever. Kryptonian babies were all concieved in test-tubes, and were incubated in a pod or a 'Matrix'. Shippy Sue, according to comics canon (to which I will hold until the day I die)is Kal-El's birthing Matrix - only with a hyper-light star drive attatched, transforming it into a ship! Jor-El chose Earth, with it's warm yellow sun, as the destination for his baby boy, hoping the Earth people would accept and raise Clark as one of their own.
Lara, Jor-El's wife and Clark's biological mother, was horrified at the idea of sending her only child to Earth which, to her, seemed a harsh and barbaric world compared to the technologically advanced Krypton.
But Jor-El convinced her that the Earth people were exactly the kind of race who would fit the bill - because they would provide for Clark until he came of age, and took up position of ruler, re-starting the House of El and the Kryptonian race itself!
(Side Note - Jor-El and Lara sent Kal-El into space just in time. Moments later the planet erupted, and as Krypton shattered around them Jor-El touched Lara forthe first and last time ever, caressing her cheek as he spoke of his love for her. *sniff*)
So while Jor-El was not a bad man, he was an ambitious, ruthless scientist who, although he did want to save his sons life, was also intent on preserving the future of his race and bloodline. And said race and bloodline came from a cold, war-ravaged planet, so you know. We're kind of grading on a curve here. Kal-El *was* meant to be a conqueror, the future leader of the human race.
Apparently, Jor-El didn't count on the Kents. *grins*