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  • #31
    And since when do you need any 'basis' to love someone? And there was also the factor "you see what you had when you lose it." Pretty believable to me.

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    • #32
      I was just watching Superman(1978) and when Lois dies Superman throws a huge hissy and freakin spins the world backwards to bring her back. Now what basis in this film did he have for doing that? Did we see some deep all consuming Titanic romance bubbling? No, there was attraction, they obviously liked each other but when he lost her he realized how much he needed her.

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      • #33
        You don't know what you got till it's gone. This clark kent is the KING of denial and he's been like that since season one episode one. I would just like to know what would it take from clark for his feelings to be any clearer? For gods sake he saved a raggedy peice of paper from his frist day of work just because Lois wrote on it that speaks volumes in and of itself.

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        • #34
          i understand that maybe he didn't know what he had and only realized when she left. BUT at the end of last season he cut himself off from humanity, meaning lois as well. So even if she was still around the outcome wouldve been the same. I like clois but it should not be so strong yet

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          • #35
            Did you miss how when Lois reappeared in Savior Clark's whole cutting off humanity jig went out the door?

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            • #36
              RE-POSTING FROM SPOILER THREAD WITH SOME EDITS:

              I’ve considered these issues in light of current research on the grieving process and the history of the show, and as a result I’m less critical of the scene. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts and discoveries, but BEWARE OF THE LENGTHINESS OF THIS POST. I address the diverse factors which could have believably influenced the form and intensity of Clark’s reaction to losing Lois first, and then move on to addressing the various ways someone in Clark’s position would grieve—all of this is considered within the context of the show.

              FACTORS AFFECTING THE GRIEVING PROCESS (Source)

              Factor #1: The Characteristics and Meaning of the Lost Relationship


              How does Clark’s extreme reaction to Lois’ death seem logical based on his emotional history with others and with Lois specifically?

              According to following, the manner in which Clark grieved for Lois is dependent on more factors than just the type of relationship he had with her. Indeed, it may be that it’s precisely the lack of a defined connection to Lois that inspired such an intense reaction.
              Characteristic #1: The type of relationship (e.g. parent, child) and/or the type of role the individual played in one’s life. Grief depends upon what you perceive yourself to have lost. It is not only the person, but also the role that person played in our life that is lost (Why We Grieve Differently, Jinny Tesik, M.A.). The more secondary losses there are as a result of the death of your loved one, the greater amount of grief work is necessary (Therese Rando, How to Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies).
              Lois wasn’t just a very close friend of Clark’s, and a potential love interest at the time of her supposed death, she was also his co-worker, and the only person for whom Clark Kent and the Blur existed as two separate people. She was also the Fred to his Barney, whom he sought out eagerly in Stiletto and Doomsday. I agree that Clark has been connected very deeply to others in the past, but each connection he has with the loved ones in his life is different. IMO, one cannot pass judgment on his grief for Lois based solely on the history of his past relationships with others.
              Characteristic #2: The level of ambivalence or conflict in the relationship. It is not uncommon for surviving loved ones who had a contentious or strained relationship with the deceased to suffer severe feelings of grief (Source). These issues are complicated by what is known as unfinished business i.e. those issues that were never addressed or settled in your relationship with the deceased. For instance, were you able to express the things you needed or wanted to express to one another? Did you come to mutual agreement about your relationship before the death? Were there any loose ends in the relationship that had not been addressed, such as explaining why you had been so hurt and angry? Were past conflicts resolved? Were regrets and thank-yous stated? Did you get to say goodbye to each other? Such questions help reveal how much unfinished business remains between you and the deceased. The less unfinished business, the better (Rando).
              Why does being in love with Lois matter? Remove romance from the equation, and I think Clark still would have grieved deeply for the loss of Lois and the role that she had in his life. At the very least, I think it’s reasonable to say that Lois meant as much to him as Oliver means to Lois (i.e. as “a dear friend” Crossfire). The effect of part of him (Clark), not all of him, dying as a result of the unique circumstances of Lois’ death actually makes his response more logical. Disregarding the other factors influencing grief which I’ll address later, typically when an individual loses someone with whom they have not received closure and have unresolved feelings, the level of guilt and grief is intensified. How does this relate to Smallville, you ask?

              Although Lois and Clark had moved past the tension caused by the events occurring between Bride and Infamous, their interactions in Doomsday did portray some level of conflict. Lois was deeply troubled by Chloe's disappearance while Clark appeared to offer little comfort. As the RBB, he was ultimately able to give Lois hope, but Clark likely looks back at this moment with regret. He not only missed out on the opportunity to share how much he cared about Lois, he also missed out on the opportunity to figure out how he felt about her. Even worse, he missed out on the opportunity to say goodbye. Instead, during the last moments they shared together, Clark was an "impenetrable force field." In short, at the time of Lois' death, there was both conflict and unresolved feelings.
              Tom Welling (TV Guide, 2009):

              I understand there’s going to be a love triangle between Clark, Lois and the Red Blue Blur. There was a [production] meeting last year that I walked in on and the conversation was about how much Clark was in love with Lois. I sat there and I said, ‘Wait a minute, Clark’s in love with Lois? When did this happen?’ I said Clark doesn’t know he has feelings for her. If he does and people see it, that’s one thing, but he doesn’t know.’ … So last year Clark wasn’t necessarily aware of these feelings. There was something, there was a reason why he found himself next to Lois. And this year, that’s what’s beginning to change, he’s starting to realize he has feelings for her.
              Maxima said in Instinct that Clark was able to pull away from her—a woman who represented a bond that was purely alien in nature (Krypton/Almerac), because of his attraction and bond to Lois. I believe last season Clark’s feelings for Lois were all subconscious and yet to have been brought to the surface or intellectualized on any level. Looking back, I believe as Clark began to get over Lana leaving him in Arctic, he went through a version of the grieving process. As a result, he’d done a lot of the emotional work to get over her when she returned suddenly in Bride. However, in Bulletproof, he seemed to be doing the opposite of being ruled by emotions, and instead had intellectualized his love for Lana, asking Chloe, “You don’t just stop loving someone, right?” He THOUGHT he was supposed to still be in love with her and he seemed to act accordingly by falling back into his old behavior with her. Lana was a known quantity—safe and familiar—while Lois was confusing and new. When Lana was forced to leave, he was left to mourn her departure once more. His simmering, undefined emotions for Lois and the bond they shared was still something that had an instinctive draw on him, however, as seen in the loving looks in Hex and heart-to-heart phone calls in Stiletto and Doomsday. Nevertheless, Clark almost let thinking overrule his feelings for Lois once more in Crossfire when he rationalized not pursuing her out of courtesy to Oliver.

              So when we look at the history of the show we have to look at it through the prism of Clark feeling a strong instinctive and undefined connection to Lois. When confronted by Chloe in Bulletproof, Hex, Savior, and Metallo, and by Lois in Crossfire, Clark struggles to put his feelings for Lois into words (much like Jimmy did according to his wedding vows). He says to Chloe that it just “felt right” to reach out to Lois during his self-imposed exile—reminiscent of his desire to reach out to his parents in Exile. This is completely in character, according to Tom Welling’s view of Clark as someone “who is not intellectually based,” but “based in the heart.” (S5 Splinter Commentary). Thus the level of Clark’s affection for Lois has been left ambiguous to viewers and to Clark. Yet that in and of itself doesn’t nullify the possibility that Clark did love Lois unknowingly, and with a sincerity and intensity that would have put in sharp relief the true depth and nature of his feelings after her demise. In Savior, it had only been three weeks so Clark may not have gotten this far, but the Clark in Pandora easily could, IMO.

              The Clark in Pandora is a Clark that has gone months without Lois—months during which he could see the effect of her absence on his life. There are the sayings that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone. It doesn’t seem that unbelievable to me that the feelings of which he had seemed so oblivious and which he had been denying would have become more tangible to him after Lois disappeared. Having such ambivalent feelings at the time of Lois’ death and then potentially having an epiphany about the true depth and nature of those feelings in the aftermath of her death, according to Rando, can deepen one’s sorrow to the point that it makes it harder to heal completely; hence creating a reason the human side of Clark Kent remained suppressed.

              Whatever his feelings were, even at the time of Savior we have a Clark who is still instinctively drawn to Lois to the point that he can’t say goodbye to her on the phone any more than he could have said goodbye to her in death. He cannot let her go. What he could let go of, however, was the human side of him that could feel the depth of that loss and that had only existed in its purest form for her. He didn’t work at the DP because he loved reporting, he worked there because being in the middle of the action would help him be a hero and because, as Tom Welling said, he was drawn to Lois. Repeatedly in Season 8, Clark described how much he appreciated keeping an eye on Lois--mirroring his reaction to Lana’s death in Season 7 when he chose to keep an eye on Lois as she investigated the wreckage of Reeves Dam when he could have been commiserating with Chloe over Lana’s death before heading off to his training. So did Clark, and we as viewers, KNOW that he loved Lois at the time of her death? No. At best both Clark and the audience realized there was something there—something that had a lot of potential. However, Lois’ life being cut short so suddenly may very well have served as a complicating factor in Clark’s grieving process and as a catalyst for him to realize just how important she was to his life.

              Lois seems to have a pull on Clark that is powerful and unique, but that was, as of Doomsday/Pandora, also a source of much confusion and ambivalence. As has been touched upon a bit already and as will be demonstrated later, according to experts on the grieving process, the loss of a person with whom there may have been so much strong and unresolved feelings and a person who was lost in such a traumatic fashion, could easily have caused Clark to go into a tailspin after so many other losses. His resultant need to isolate himself and deny the human side which could feel that grief in favor of his alien side which could atone for the injustice of Lois’ death (by training to be a better hero) therefore became acute. It’s actually rather predictable as well given Clark’s response to loss in the past.

              Factor #2: Personal Characteristics
              Bereaved people tend to grieve in much the same manner as they conduct the rest of their lives. While it is true that people sometimes can change, most people tend to cope with grief by using the responses with which they have become familiar. For example, if you consistently have coped with crises by running away, the chances that you will try the same behavior in your grief (Rando).
              For reference, I’ve put together a video of key moments in Clark’s past to illustrate his patterns of coping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAqHi7Bj30M.

              Factor #3: The Specific Circumstances of the Death

              Based on the show’s history and what happened to Lois, why does Lois’ loss have such a significant impact on Clark?

              Everyone grieves differently, so if Lois were to respond differently in a similar situation that would be understandable. However, if she were to respond the same way, I wouldn’t be able to criticize it either because there is no right or wrong way to grieve a loved one. Nevertheless, scholars in the mental health field do note that the sudden loss of someone which is either left open-ended due to a lack of information or a body, or is traumatic due to the cause being a violent act like homicide, often will produce reactions that impair functioning and cause isolation. These reactions are intensified if the bereaved feels the death could have been prevented, if he experiences additional losses simultaneously, and if he is unable to say goodbye properly at a funeral due to the absence of a body.
              Sudden deaths diminish one’s capacity to cope. Grievers are shocked and stunned by the sudden loss of their loved one. Adaptive capacities are so severely assaulted and the ability to cope is so critically injured that functioning is seriously impaired (Rando). Even greater stress is put on the bereaved when the death is the result of a homicide. In such a case, acute grief often goes on for an extraordinarily long period of time. In homicide [which is what Clark thought happened i.e. Doomsday killed Lois] you may have guilt for not having intervened, especially if you think you could have done something to prevent the murder. [Consequently], those whose loved ones die as a result of homicide will often focus on getting justice instead of actually grieving (Rando). Beyond homicide, if a death is violent or traumatic, it usually complicates your mourning and subsequent adaptation; it also can interfere with your receiving social support from others. Coping with this additional injustice and unfairness takes major effort (Rando). Further hindering a person’s ability to cope and function is whether or not there is any ambiguity to the death. If one is not sure if the person is missing, kidnapped, or dead, it will make it difficult for him or her to bring grief to a satisfactory conclusion (Worden, Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for Mental Health). Likewise, without a proper funeral and without a body, [people] struggle with natural but obsessive thoughts that the missing person may turn up alive (Source). This puts additional strain on the survivor, and if the individual believes the loss of his loved one in such a sudden, violent, or open-ended way could have been prevented—and he assumes responsibility for having failed to prevent it—his grief will be greater and he will experience more guilt; thus further complicating the mourning process (Worden). Also adding to one’s grief, is the possibility of having experienced multiple losses in a short period of time. When multiple deaths occur simultaneously it puts a tremendous strain on a person’s ability to cope. Each additional loss increases the likelihood that the process will become complicated, particularly if the losses occur within one to five years of one another (Source).
              Although Jimmy, like Lois, also died traumatically at the hands of a murderer, he died having his suspicions about Clark and Davis vindicated, having experienced great joy in coming face to face with a hero like the Blur, and having reconciled with the love of his life who held him as his life slipped away. Knowing this may have served as some consolation to Clark, but his thoughts about Lois were likely to have worsened as the weeks and months wore on. Was she kidnapped? Does she need me? Is she dead? Did Doomsday kill her because she was waiting for me at the phone booth? Was she scared and alone? The viscerally horrifying image of her being mauled to smithereens by Doomsday with no one to be there for her in her final moments, and after being so cross and withdrawn with her earlier at the DP, would have troubled him along with the rest in the wake of Doomsday.

              In the case of Jonathan, Lana (faked in Phantom-Fierce), Lex, and Jimmy, Clark was able to either participate in funerals or in solemn farewells (grasping Lex’s ashes in Requiem). With Lois, he had no such opportunity, and therefore he had even more reason to experience an intense and prolonged reaction to her loss. Clark appeared numb and angry following the news of Lana’s death in Phantom and Bizarro, but it wasn’t until he discovered Chloe had been pronounced dead in Bizarro that we saw him visibly break down. Part of that reaction can be attributed to Clark’s feelings for Chloe and part of it can be attributed to her death occurring so soon after Lana’s. Likewise, in Doomsday, Clark initially learns of Jimmy’s death and attends his funeral, but he doesn’t seem to initiate his goodbyes and ultimate departure until he can claim that he’s “searched everywhere” for a sign of Lois. She is his last hope that all is not lost. Prior to this, one could also say that Clark had lost Kara, Lana, Lex, Davis, and his friends in the Justice League. The loss of Lois thus serves as the tipping point which compels Clark (and Chloe) to lament having, in their minds, truly “lost everyone.” Chloe says this with Clark’s inability to be there when she needed him at Jimmy’s funeral fresh on her mind (and on the tip of her tongue since she mentions it immediately afterward) and Clark says it right before he pronounces his desire to disconnect from those who would influence his choices as Chloe had in Beast. Chloe and Oliver may not have died, but they no longer represented a safe place to him. He says in Doomsday that he has no home, because he can’t find any solace in the Watchtower and what it represents while Chloe could. For Clark, the place he felt he would find the most solace was his Fortress in the Arctic where he could turn off his emotions and focus on being the kind of hero that may have saved Jimmy and Lois and the kind of hero in whom they had placed so much trust.

              Hopefully it’s clear that unlike any other death that Clark has ever experienced, Lois’ alleged death on the night Clark fought Doomsday can be said to have every feature of the kind of loss which has been found to produce the kind of intensely painful grief which could account for his desire for isolation and his struggle with normal functioning.

              HEALTHY VERSUS UNHEALTHY GRIEF RESPONSES

              When it is said that certain factors could have caused Clark to experience symptoms like social withdrawal and difficulty functioning normally, these are actually symptoms of serious mental health issues which are natural, yet unhealthy, responses to trauma and grief. To criticize Clark or the writers crafting the story on account of him experiencing such issues is perplexing to me. Let me elaborate.
              Bereaved individuals who either feel the death of their loved one is unexpected or violent may be at greater risk for suffering from major depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or complicated grief. Major depression is a psychiatric disorder characterized by depression and/or irritability that last at least two weeks in a row and is accompanied by a number of other symptoms, [which includes among other things] the sufferer experiencing unjustified guilt, losing interest in activities he or she used to enjoy, or thoughts of wanting to kill themselves or someone else. PTSD refers to a condition that involves the sufferer enduring an experience that significantly threatened their sense of safety or well being (for example, the suicide or homicide of a loved one) [whose symptoms include, among others], avoiding things that remind the person of the traumatic event (for example, people, places, or things that the sufferer may associate with the death of their loved one) (“Loss, Grief, and Bereavement”). Complicated grief means a loss fraught with complication. Examples of a complicated loss are: murder or other violent crime; […] a presumed death with no body found; […] The loss of an unhappy, volatile or complicated relationship can be particularly difficult and often takes much longer to grieve than a good relationship. Grieving is also complicated when the situation around the loss is traumatic. Each additional loss increases the likelihood that the process will become complicated, particularly if the losses occur within one to five years of one another (Source).
              According to the above definitions, Clark could easily be diagnosed as having experienced a “complicated loss,” and as a result is susceptible to experiencing its results in the form of major depression or PTSD. Among the symptoms listed above, Clark has shown he feels tremendous guilt, is disinterested in people and activities he once enjoyed, and he literally wanted to kill a part of himself. In terms of guilt, at the end of Doomsday Clark describes his human emotions as his enemy because they led him to make the mistakes the he felt caused him to lose Jimmy and Lois all in the same day. Chloe has to remind him that human emotions are what made him the great hero he had become; yet Clark couldn’t accept this. He felt so much guilt that he did lose interest in activities he used to enjoy like working at the Daily Planet and working with Chloe and Oliver in Justice League. His desire to bury his heartache into becoming a better hero ruled by Kryptonian side became his way of atoning for his mistakes, and in doing so he also effectively killed part of himself.

              Clark turning his back on Chloe and Oliver because they remind him of Lois—either because of their own relationships with her or their role in the events which led to her death—is completely understandable to me. I certainly don’t feel comfortable calling Clark “self-indulgent” or “self-absorbed” when he may just be experiencing a natural response to trauma. If Clark is reacting in a more extreme way to Lois’ death than those he’s experienced in the past, one need only look to the multitude of factors inhibiting his ability to cope to understand why he took her death so hard in particular.

              Time, Stages of Grief, Denial

              The kind of loss Clark experienced when his search efforts proved futile in the months following Doomsday all the way to Pandora, would likely have been one for which time would have been unsuccessful in healing his wounds. Unlike grieving individuals who’ve experience a less complicated loss, including himself in the past, Clark’s experience with depression and PTSD symptoms would mean a drawn out and uncompleted journey through the stages of grief. Rando explains why this would happen:
              Very often, time is viewed as a healing factor in the grief. However, time will be helpful to you in your grief only if you are dealing with the loss; not if you are denying, inhibiting, delaying, or otherwise not working through your loss. […] In sum, the passage of time can help you successfully adjust and adapt to your loss, but only if you are actively undertaking your grief work (Rando).
              This is what happened with Clark when he, as usual, attempts to avoid experiencing his grief by turning away from his human characteristics. Clark chose to bypass undertaking his grief work in exchange for his training. It isn’t wrong and it doesn’t reflect badly on him to respond to grief in this way, it’s just unhealthy. Since the time of his mourning for Lois extended for a year at the time of Pandora, the impact of his struggles with the grieving process is evident in the person he had become and the choices he had made.

              Isolation and Withdrawal

              In addition to denial, those individuals undergoing a complicated grief process, as Clark did, are likely to also experience social symptoms. Such symptoms include:
              Isolation from other loved ones and difficulty functioning at home, school, and/or at work [….] intense emotion and longing for the deceased, severely intrusive thoughts about the lost loved one, extreme feelings of isolation and emptiness, avoiding doing things that bring back memories of the departed, and having no interest in activities that the sufferer used to enjoy. (Source).
              Is it okay and does it make sense for Clark to abandon his remaining attachments as a direct result of losing Lois?

              I saw nothing in Pandora that makes Clark look bad. Grief is a selfish emotion and there isn’t a right or a wrong way to grieve. To say that Clark’s way of grieving Lois reflects badly on him (particularly when isolating oneself and avoiding reminders of the deceased is common when one has experienced a complicated loss), to me is like saying that developing an eating disorder as a result of feeling low self-esteem reflects badly on the individual. It’s unhealthy to be sure, but it’s not a response that deserves Clark getting insults hurled at him.

              Why does it make sense to give Lois sole credit for being Clark’s link to humanity?

              Clark didn’t turn his back on anyone. He said goodbye to them as he had done in Bizarro when he said goodbye to everyone before he was going off to train with Jor-El. Clark Kent being dead isn’t Clark turning his back on humanity and the loved ones that represent humanity to him, it’s him turning his back on the humanity inside him. In the words of Tom Welling, “He’s lost faith in his role with humanity. I think he’s lost faith in himself and what he thought he was supposed to do” (TV Guide, 2009). After Doomsday, Clark explained that his human side was dangerous because it was the side that got attached and made decisions based on emotions. By suppressing his human side (Clark) to focus on being the hero he believes the world needs, Clark was taking Danny Turpin’s sentiments from Bulletproof to the extreme. Danny said, "I do what I do just to keep them safe,” and Clark seemed to have decided that he had to focus entirely on being a better hero so he could keep everyone safer. See Clark in Bulletproof thought he could have it all, when he said to Lana, "Maybe it doesn't have to be all or nothing. For the last year all I've done is sacrifice myself and everything that I love for the greater good. What if the rest of the world didn't have to come first?" For the rest of the season, there was no indication that he had been swayed from this conviction. He even restated in Infamous, that after he told Lois his secret he once again felt that he could have it all. What changed his mind in the first Infamous timeline, as in Doomsday, was seeing how his loved ones could suffer. At that moment as he faded away from the Watchtower, he no longer thought he could have it all.

              This line of thinking continued in Savior:
              Chloe Sullivan: I was lucky to be a part of your life for a little while, but we both know that you’d have to move on one day.
              Clark Kent: I started the training Jor-El always planned for me. With everything I’ve learned, and he showed me…my old life seems very far away.
              Chloe Sullivan: You’re doing the right thing Clark. You can’t look back.
              Clark Kent: It’s the only way I can stay focused…stay objective. By letting go of everyone I care about, by cutting every attachment that may influence the choices that I have to make.
              The only task left before Clark was to cut his attachment to Lois and say goodbye.
              Clark Kent: Jimmy died because of me and I can’t afford to let another mistake like that happen. You sent me here to fulfill a destiny. Tell me what you need from me.
              Jor-El: Kal-El, you do not need me to tell you what is standing in your way, you already know. And you know what you need to do.
              Clark Kent: I have to say good-bye to her.

              Chloe Sullivan: So what part of that involves skulking around a phone booth looking for Lois?
              Clark Kent: It’s not like that. Yes, I came back to find her, but only to say good-bye.
              Considering Clark also tells Jor-el that he said goodbye to everyone else in his life already, and what I said earlier about the importance of closure when it comes to grieving process, it becomes clear to me one of the reasons Clark took Lois’ death so hard was because he didn’t get any chance to get closure or to say goodbye (as Clark, not the Blur). With Jimmy he had his big reveal moment and his relationship with Jimmy wasn’t as deep or as complicated as his relationship with Lois. He even got a chance to attend Jimmy’s funeral. With Lois, however, there was no closure, no funeral, no goodbye. In Savior we learn just how hard it is for Clark to say goodbye to Lois and we also get a reiteration of some of the themes brought up throughout S8 and in interviews with Tom Welling, which is that Lois has an enigmatic pull she has on Clark’s heart. Clark admits to Martha in Solitude: “Dad's given me so much I could never measure. But you’re my heart... my soul.” People aren’t interchangeable though, so while Martha could still help her son grieve through her continued nurturance and support, she can’t make Clark feel better after Lois’ death just like she couldn’t make him feel better after Jonathan’s death in Vengeance.

              Lois is only said to serve as Clark’s proverbial link to humanity because her death was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Yet her reappearance helps Clark feel hope again and, as a result, she entices him back to his human life. That doesn’t mean that she somehow means more to Clark than others like his parents, that she gives him more than they did, or that she’s any more human than they are. All I believe it means in the context of the show is that her death was particularly traumatic due to the circumstances, and the attraction and bond established last season between him and Lois is what drew him back to his life as a human. She was like a light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

              Also, Clark Kent didn’t “die” explicitly because he loved Lois so deeply, but because Jimmy’s death and her death were like rebukes to his attempts to live a normal life and be a hero. The result was turning Clark into a person completely dedicated to being the kind of hero that could have prevented Lois and Jimmy’s deaths and the kind of hero in whom they both placed so much faith and trust prior to their deaths in Doomsday. This is why the lessons he learned in Metallo were so important—lessons that the Pandora Clark would have never learned in his timeline:
              John Corben as Metallo: Control myself? That’s easy for you to say. It doesn’t take much…to stay in control when you watch from the shadows. You stand apart from the world…while the rest of us live in it. Even when it breaks your heart.
              […]
              Clark Kent: This view really puts things in perspective. Jimmy knew exactly what he was doing when he bought this place.
              Chloe Sullivan: I really miss him.
              Clark Kent: I took the easy way out Chloe. I should have been there when you needed me. I’m sorry.
              Chloe Sullivan: Clark, there’s nothing easy about burying everyone you love in your past.
              Clark Kent: I’m afraid I haven’t even done a very good job of that. I’m trying to fill the void by hanging on rooftops eavesdropping on people…people who are connecting…and living. Thinking what’s the point in protecting life…if you lost you’re sense in how to live it. Maybe I can’t do this Chloe. Maybe I can’t completely stay away.
              Chloe Sullivan: Stay away from her, you mean. Lois means something to you…something more. So does this mean Clark Kent is coming back for an encore?
              Clark Kent: I don’t know. But I can’t let that life interfere with my training again.
              Now in this instance, just because Chloe observes that Lois may mean more to Clark doesn’t mean that’s how Clark sees the situation. His response of “I don’t know” and his continued reluctance to resume his life as Clark Kent even in the face of Lois’ return speaks to Clark’s determination to fulfill his destiny and stay true to his conviction of sacrificing his own happiness and attachments for the safety of the world. The problem is that the unresolved feelings which had made it so hard for Clark to grieve Lois’ loss are the same feelings that Jor-El suggests are keeping him tethered to the human realm. In short, not being able to say goodbye to Lois was influential in the level of connection he had to his human side.

              Lois’ death was traumatizing to Clark, not just because he cared about her (the extent and nature of his affection is only one contributing factor), but the way in which it happened. The future Clark in Pandora would have continued to suffer complicated grief as a result of the lack of closure he had in his relationship with Lois prior to her death and he wouldn’t have experienced the lessons of Metallo. He would have persisted in his training, and rightly would look back on this time, once Lois reappears in Pandora, as a time when he had neglected his human side—the side that is attached to loved ones and who lives among us—because he had decided to focus on being a hero ruled by Kryptonian objectivity. I see Clark saying he died when Lois left as a way to figuratively describe, in a romanticized way, just what the preceding year had been like for him.

              Clark Kent could say goodbye to those left behind in the aftermath of Doomsday like Martha and Chloe because they already knew of his dual identity, but because he hadn’t been able to say goodbye to Lois as Clark at the DP in Doomsday when she was alive, or as Clark when she was dead afterward, his grief remained intense and persistent. Indeed, the circumstances of Lois’ death and disappearance likely caused a complicated and traumatized response which also ultimately prompted Clark to suppress his human side so he could focus on being a better hero instead of the pain of saying goodbye. This inability to detach from Lois was further illustrated when she returned in Savior. It was because Lois wouldn’t understand Clark’s absence without knowing about his dual identity, and because of the feelings which had continually drawn Clark to her since last year, that Clark still resisted saying goodbye to her.

              It’s also important to note that Lois very literally acts as Clark’s link to humanity as the conduit through which he communicates to the people of Metropolis. In Doomsday, Clark can’t say goodbye to Lois as Clark, and he doesn’t even plan to say goodbye to her directly as the Blur considering he didn’t want her to read his letter, but he does entrust Lois with his letter of farewell to the citizens of Metropolis. In Idol, Chloe refers to Lois as The Blur’s “PR Queen,” a title Lois earns with her front page article and her speech to the citizens of Metropolis. The people of Metropolis come to view The Blur through Lois as she speaks to his benign intentions and artfully articulates what Clark might consider “his role in humanity.” I believe this unique relationship Clark had with Lois as the Blur further illuminates the nature of the link Lois provides Clark to humans, and I think the sentiments Lois expressed in Rabid could easily apply to Clark:
              Lois: Last year when I was talking with the Red-Blue Blur...for the first time in my life I was doing something that mattered and I wanted to work with him, because we did such good things together. But then I started to realize that I wasn't just doing it to save people. I was doing it for me. I just wanted to be with him.
              Clark: We all have crushes, Lois. It doesn't make you a bad person.
              Lois: You don't understand. I have never had this connection with someone before. Now that I have this connection, I don't want to go back to the way things were. This is embarrassing to admit: I don't want to be alone, anymore.
              Chloe tells Clark in Metallo that she understands how there isn’t anything “easy about burying all your loved ones in the past.” Clark responds by saying he doesn’t even think he “did a very good job of that.” Not only could Clark quite literally not bury Lois, but he also couldn’t let her go. The intervening time between her disappearance in Doomsday and reappearance in Pandora could easily have brought Clark’s unresolved feelings for Lois into the light. Where once Clark was blind (Instinct, Infamous) to those feelings, he may finally have been able to see just how much he truly cared about her; and thus just how much he had truly lost. Hence, on the one hand, Clark’s struggle to say goodbye to Lois led him to isolate himself in the aftermath of her disappearance (a natural psychological response to this type of loss), but on the other hand it is what prompted him to gradually reconnect with his human existence once she returned.

              Clark may serve as a “light in the darkness” to the citizens of Metropolis who inspires each individual to be their own hero, but it’s the individuals themselves that make the choice to follow his example. In Doomsday, we saw Clark seeking Lois out on the phone at the DP and at the phone booth on the street when it seemed his world was crashing down. Her death made it clear to him that he had “lost everyone,” but her reappearance was like the northern star guiding his footsteps back to humanity; yet he was the one who made the decision to take those steps. In other words, individuals like Clark’s parents and other loved ones may have helped form the humanity inside of him, but that undefined pull Lois has on his heart first resulted in his human side being suppressed out of grief for her loss, and then later his human side being liberated out of joy for her return.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by smallvillefreak24
                i understand that maybe he didn't know what he had and only realized when she left. BUT at the end of last season he cut himself off from humanity, meaning lois as well. So even if she was still around the outcome wouldve been the same. I like clois but it should not be so strong yet
                He cut himself off from humanity knowing that Lois was missing/dead and then the day she returned he resurfaced and then came back in Metallo because he couldn't stay away from his human life any more.

                I think that Clark would have still been depressed after Doomsday but he might not have gone to such extremes had Lois been there. That day he lost all of his friends. His two normal friends died and Chloe, Oliver and the rest of the league betrayed him. If he had Lois, he would at least have someone. But we will never know so.......

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                • #38
                  Lois disappeared at the end of last season. Since when did clark have such strong feelings for her? Right now it is heading that way but at the end of last season i never got the impression that she was 'everything to him.' He said he died when she left..I like the clois stuff but I feel like they are pushing it kind of hard without a real basis
                  The feelings were there (they were strong enough to cut off Maxima's hold on Clark ), but Clark wasn't aware of them nor acted on them. You just have to remember that this Clark, the Clark from the future in Pandora has spent a whole year without Lois. He's the one who is saying those words (I died when you left). Future Clark had to go through each day resigning himself to the fact that Lois was dead, to the fact that he never had the chance to say good bye, the fact he wouldn't see her again...the fact that when he realised what those feelings were and how deep they were, it was too late because Lois was gone. Present Clark has just spent three weeks without Lois and his feelings of loss are still too raw and confusing -in regards to Lois-. He's still trying to cope with everything that happened in Doomsday. Lois' absence has not hit him fully and as deep as it happened with future Clark. Present Clark is still between guilt, sadness, denial and shock. (as shown in Savior and Metallo) when Lois comes back to her time. Future Clark has been suffering all that, but multiplied tenfold (and add to that, the longing, the buried feelings that come to the surface, and the slight glimmer of hope that he can change things, only to know that he probably will die fighting Zod).
                  Last edited by Ankhara; 11-06-2011, 12:47 PM.

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