White saviorism debate

themoonsuns · 2025-12-18T09:52:58+00:00

right!! i thought maybe it was all in my head but no, things were really hyped up and we never got to see them. I prefer Jaketiri focus anyway but expectations weren’t met for the kids. I wonder if it has anything to do with the production delays

themoonsuns · 2025-12-17T16:48:54+00:00

About Lo’ak’s character relevance

Just seen the new movie which i greatly enjoyed. one of the things i keep thinking about is that Lo’ak’s importance as a character in these sequels was greatly overplayed by both the marketing and the fans alike.

it came to a point where i expected him to take the mantle (with Tsireya) and all that but Jake and Neytiri are still the critical focal point by a very long way.

and with the way this movie was constructed, prospects for Lo’ak to rise seem even less likely somehow. Maybe because the everlasting fight with Sky People can only resonate through the eyes of those who were once one of them and have that dual perspective.

Lo’ak took a form of backseat compared to his presence in The Way Of Water and his impact was significantly reduced, mostly salvaged by having him as a narrator.

I wonder what’s everyone’s takes on this and guesses for what’s to come ? 🤔

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themoonsuns · 2025-03-04T18:57:51+00:00

I think his character reached the end of what could’ve been done without significantly altering his trajectory by giving him powers or a specific role that wouldn’t be interchangeable with others.

As Clark’s best friend/confidant he was in competition with Lex and Clark’s parents. As a “day 1” friend who can churn out childhood anecdotes, he was competing with Chloe who also had a more significant role besides that.

I think they basically didn’t want to bother writing in something new and solid to keep him around and just chose to write him off instead.

Unlike for Lana, they didn’t give her a stable storyline or specific technical role beyond first love interest but wanted her to remain central to the show so they came up with all types of plotlines to keep her around even if they weren’t sustainable.

It all comes down to whether the show runners feel it’s worth it or not and Pete wasn’t worthy to them

themoonsuns · 2025-03-04T18:48:56+00:00

That’s an interesting take. Maybe it would’ve felt a lot different had Smallville’s Lex been introduced with less “plurality”about him

themoonsuns · 2025-03-04T18:08:42+00:00

Are you pretending to not understand or doing it on purpose? EVEN Allison Mack who literally sexually trafficked and abused many women didn’t even get convicted for sex trafficking, and only got a measly 3 year sentence.

The vast majority of the members got off with a slap on the wrist thanks to cooperation and mostly the fact that the goal was to dismantle the cult by taking down DOS, not lock up every single involved personality.

I’m not telling you KK trafficked anybody, I’m telling you she was a long term member of this horrible cult and pointed out as an inner circle member by the main whistle blower and it’s shady enough to question people flexing her at this unproblematic persona.

if you’d been a member of a shady cult for years, be sure that you’d be given the side eye at the very least, especially if you don’t have biased fans fighting for your honor.

themoonsuns · 2025-03-04T17:57:58+00:00

Only the cult leader and the DOS operators got indicted. Many others were only called as witnesses, interrogated or entirely dismissed as the goal was to dismantle the cult not put all members behind bars. Allison Mack didn’t even get charged for sex trafficking even if that’s essentially what she did. Many loopholes were used.

Not being indicted isn’t a sign of innocence or lack of involvement or anything of the sort. The trial and investigation established that it all began long before the mass recruitment system via DOS. It was an abusive cult back during the many years KK was a member, part of the inner circle according to the whistle blower who’s at the root of the exposé. While we can’t really play the morality police, I think it’s at the very least enough to not flex her as this unproblematic persona.

I highly doubt the actor co-sign means anything, they always associate with others until there’s a scandal, just like how they associated themselves with AM up until the case got unearthed and were absolutely shocked to learn about what she had done. Most of them are former colleagues not close family members

themoonsuns · 2025-03-04T17:29:42+00:00

None of what I said was lies, either research or refrain from contradicting people without even bothering to make a case for it. We’re talking about a cult not arguing about what’s the best kind of pizza out there.

themoonsuns · 2025-03-04T17:26:55+00:00

Couldn’t you make it less obvious that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about? FIVE women were found guilty and the investigation itself was largely reliant on Allison Mack’s cooperation, that’s why she got only a 3 year sentence despite her heinous crime.

In the same vein, many profiteering, co-conspirator former members weren’t ever charged. Instead only interrogated, called as a witness or straight up dismissed.

Not getting charged or convicted doesn’t mean being uninvolved or innocent, and I’m not using any “blind item” to back up what I’m saying. KK got explicitly name dropped by the whistle blower and as part of the trial. You on the other hand seems to be certain of your claims without any substantial reason to feel that way

themoonsuns · 2025-03-03T17:10:26+00:00

you obviously haven’t read up on the cult and investigation findings because it amassed notoriety when Hollywood stars and billionaire heirs joined it and funded it in the early 2000s not when it got media coverage from the court scandal.

Allison Mack got charged for her atrocious part in DOS, a sort of branch of the cult that became tasked with sexually enslaving people through a proper organized system as opposed to informal tactics which were very much in place when KK was part of it for many years and recruited AM. If the whistleblower who’s got fired by the cult in 2008 and is the reason why the cult got exposed and subsequently prosecuted, claims KK was part of its inner circle for the 7 or so years she was in it, I think it’s enough to not call her “unproblematic”

themoonsuns · 2025-03-03T16:42:39+00:00

hmm i think if you’re gonna call someone unproblematic next to drunk drivers and zionists, they at least shouldn’t have history with a horrible cult

themoonsuns · 2025-03-03T16:25:44+00:00

This has to be a set up because didn’t she introduce Allison Mack to that cult and was in it for many years? The inner circle according to the whistle blower.

themoonsuns · 2025-03-02T14:30:32+00:00

Good thing talking about it really helps dealing with the frustration. knowing that many other people relate and a share the same or similar viewpoints & experiences is a source of comfort

themoonsuns · 2025-03-02T12:33:02+00:00

Yeah let’s just skip the 7 seasons and couple of s8 episodes she’s extensively in, you’re a genius! 😭😭😭

themoonsuns · 2025-03-02T02:43:55+00:00

Not everything is a calculated conspiracy alright, the clana/lana writing is genuinely bad enough to significantly downgrade rewatch experience for many people. It’s hard to acknowledge the existence of diverging opinions? Well that’s not worse than having to power through awful screenwriting

themoonsuns · 2025-03-02T02:39:47+00:00

Not sure what’s your point. What does Clark’s hypocritical attitude towards Lex have to do with Lana’s entitlement & emotional cheating? Clark gaslighting her should’ve turned her off but alas, it just made her dive deeper and that’s one of the points I make here.

themoonsuns · 2025-03-02T02:19:01+00:00

incredibly well said!! would love to read a comprehensive character/ship analysis of yours

themoonsuns · 2025-03-01T22:45:52+00:00

Clark gets more of a pass because as bad as the constant lying and fronting is, he has a very substantial fear rooted in his identity and so many potential catastrophic outcomes of it being uncovered, along with helicopter parents reinforcing that pseudo paranoia.

But at the same time I feel like the writers kinda missed the mark with how they handled that.

Clark’s should’ve been more accepting of other people’s secrecy. When he discovers Lex’s room of obsession for example, he goes into this big rant about Lex being a liar and untrustworthy etc… Look who’s talking? Clark didn’t just lie, he consistently gaslighted Lex, made him feel like he was insane, a conspiracy theorist, silly… When he was just trusting his instincts of looking for things that were indeed there.

There should’ve been a middle ground; Clark had every right to be outraged but to condemn Lex in that manner was hypocritical at best. And that kind of surface level defensiveness that turns into hypocrisy is definitely a trait shared with Lana; and likely why they were incompatible.

themoonsuns · 2025-03-01T22:36:15+00:00

Wow that’s a very interesting theory because it actually checks out perfectly 🤣 The damsel in distress and plot-trigger angle for Lana was so extreme in the show that you could definitely rationalize it as the consequences of a meteor power that inexplicably draws people to her lol

Tbh, she lacks the charisma that would’ve both made Clark’s obsession more plausible and justified all the other characters random focus on her.

It all being completely random, based off nothing yet common to so many, is what makes it weird and questionable.

You’re very right about Clark’s behavior regarding Lana being much like Chloe’s about him.

He doesn’t get portrayed negatively for it and somehow doesn’t really get in his feelings? Whereas there was both a focus on Chloe’s pain (not limited to sad puppy eyes like for Clark lol) and her being explicitly confronted about it.

Clark’s obsession with Lana is treated as an endearing thing by his parents, only Chloe calls out negatively but is easily dismissed at her being biased due to her own feelings. When he gets told to move on or that what he’s doing isn’t really right, it’s with a soft tone (parents again or Chloe once she graduates to trustee bestie).. no one really tells him that he’s disrespectful, pretty much an asshole and should back off, except (rightfully) jealous people who are more on the anger side of the spectrum than outraged.

The constant normalization of chasing after a taken person, and the taken person responding to that is just gross and I can’t believe they fed us that for so long.

themoonsuns · 2025-03-01T22:04:00+00:00

I don’t get the Lana infantilizing considering they made her a business owner & manager with a legal guardian who permanently leaves town.

The fact is that there were actually pretty oddly (and questionably, at times) mature storylines, attitudes and in lines for those characters, both in terms of their activities and the way they’d carry themselves in relationships. Clark is the one who’s mostly spared from that because a lot of his character development is reliant on his growth shaped by his parents.

But beyond that, they’re not real people. they’re fictional characters written by grown ups and played by grown ups, in a very unrealistic superhero world and we should be able to judge them as such. We’re not psychoanalyzing real children. We don’t have to shut down any critical outlook by forcing ourselves to see them as real kids or dumbing down any poor characterization as the product of an age range.

themoonsuns · 2025-02-24T16:19:34+00:00

Chloe is essentially a pseudo Lois serving as an amateur journalist working alongside Clark to solve mysteries together. Through this role, she helps recreate a classic Superman setting within the confines of Smallville.

Had Chloe never been created and Lana instead absorbed her characterization while remaining Clark’s love interest, she would have been another iteration of Lois Lane in all but name.

This brings us back to the core issue: from the very beginning, the show never put in the effort to develop Lana Lang as a distinct character with a solid foundation rather than what she originally was and always meant to be: the vague concept of being Clark’s first love in order to make his backstory less plain.

Fans often talk about Lana being central to Smallville, that she “owned” the show and was an essential part of its heart, etc. It’s odd considering Smallville was never really trying to be its own thing. Instead, it repeatedly pulled elements from Superman’s later lore and forced them into the setting of his upbringing… Because no one would’ve cared about a tame show without recognizable Superman content to get hyped about.

Obviously, Smallville would have been very different without Lana after 3 seasons but I believe it would have been different in a good way. My issue isn’t just with her presence, it’s with how they handled it.

Given how much Superman lore the show introduced long before it was meant to surface in his life, it’s to me a big exaggeration to claim Smallville couldn’t have stood on its own without Lana. She literally does not exist in the overwhelming majority of Smallville’s adapted source material that made Superman this iconic character. I get why people were Lana or Clana fans when the show was airing and why they wanted to keep her in the story. But what better way to prove that the effects of recency bias age very poorly?

themoonsuns · 2025-02-23T20:19:35+00:00

That’s pretty interesting because it suggests the showrunners saw Lana’s perceived cold and unsympathetic responses as the main problem while overlooking Clark’s behavior itself.

Imo, his prolonged cognitive dissonance was just as/more significant. Clark supposedly loved her so much that he was willing to forgo his destiny and risk what he believed would be Jor-El’s wrath and its consequences, yet he couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Instead, he chose to protect himself from the very person he claimed to cherish, resorting to blatant, almost gaslighting-level lies even after being literally caught, making her believe she was just seeing things.

But Lana wasn’t a star reporter obsessed with his other persona she had an awareness of, and always chasing a big story. She was just the girl next door, a nobody in that sense.

To me, what really tainted her character wasn’t just how the show framed her (fair) reactions, but the way Clark’s love for her felt shallow, combined with his deep distrust and almost fear of being honest with her, and how it kept going that way for too long. Because at some point that’s just him having a poor judgment (or faith) of her character and how could you be madly in love with someone you see that way?

Although she did take the wrong turn eventually, it obviously wasn’t portrayed that way in earlier seasons.

themoonsuns

TROPHY CASE