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LOIS LANE'S LOVE: A Final Test, A Perfect Fit

Prophecy, the penultimate episode of the series, explores themes of power, love, and sacrifice by putting several characters, including Lois, to the test. It begins with Clark taking Lois to his Fortress of Solitude where he proudly asks Jor-El “as a Kryptonian, as a member of [the House of El], and “[his son” to approve his marriage to Lois. In this request, Clark shows he honors his Kryptonian side just as he honors his human side. Nonetheless, Jor-El decides not to honor Clark’s request until he tests his son and future bride with a power swap so they could “both understand” what it would truly mean for their lives “to be joined.” Helping Lois understand his Kryptonian side, “instead of hiding” it, was something Clark said he wanted to do in the preceding episode, Dominion. He wanted Lois to understand that even though he makes “choices using [his] human side […] sometimes his Kryptonian side takes over,” which means “try[ing] to control [a] situation” by “lean[ing] on no one.” By granting Lois all the powers of a true Kryptonian, Jor-El granted Clark’s wish in a way that would test and ultimately validate his bond with Lois.

The Power Within

True power, Smallville tells us, comes from within; hence the most significant insights gained from the power swap in Prophecy focus on emotional rather than physical strength. Throughout the day, Lois eagerly uses her new powers to tackle as many tasks and crises as possible. But soon she discovers that her typical zeal, which makes her such a formidable foe as a journalist and such a fierce friend and lover, also makes her impetuous. It took Clark years of trial and error to learn how to approach his heroics with a balance of passion and precision. Lois, on the other hand, is shaken when she realizes she has to reign in her passion—her emotions—to prioritize in a way that means not saving everyone all the time and not letting her feelings for one person, Clark, make her vulnerable. One can see in her confession to Clark later—that she “always knew” he “had a big heart” yet never “realized how strong it was”—how much Lois saw herself as having an equally “big heart,” but not the same requisite strength to balance it out. More importantly, she realized how truly delicate a balance that was to keep. She therefore concluded that because Clark had been her “greatest weakness,” she would be his; for, at any moment, she could tip the balance away from a selfless duty to many toward a selfish love for one. So, Lois decided to sacrifice her selfish desires to be with Clark believing it would be in everyone’s best interests.

If what Lois experiences in Prophecy sounds somewhat familiar, it should, since it echoes Lana’s final arc on the show which similarly had her experience power and sacrifice. Where Lana’s and Lois’ experiences differ reveals one of the key reasons why Lois is better suited for Clark. After Lana’s first experience with Clark’s powers in Season 5’s Thirst she said she had been able “for a moment” to “feel what was inside [Clark’s] heart” and in it there was “warmth and love and an overwhelming feeling of strength.” Had Lana remembered that the strength was in Clark’s heart, perhaps her ending wouldn’t have been so tragic. Unfortunately, Lana became so desperate to protect herself after years of victimization, and redeem herself after recently surrendering to her darker impulses to get revenge, that she tries to be like Clark only to end up a pale imitation. One sees the chinks in Lana’s armor when her trainer Carter Bowfry, in the aptly named Power, warns her she needs more “maturity” only to have her disagree, saying what she “needs is power.” Those chinks are also on display when she lies to Clark about her mission to acquire powers for fear he’d disapprove, since such a lie makes it so she directly contradicts her stated desire to be “more like Clark” (i.e. she can’t be more like Clark by doing something she doesn’t believe he’d ever condone). Finally, when Lana’s pursuit of power and her romantic delusions of a life with Clark were tested the ultimate truth, which all of the above hinted at, was revealed: Lana didn’t yet have the “true power” that comes from within. Lois, in Prophecy, hadn’t found the power within her yet either.

Lana believed in Power that “nothing could hurt her” physically, and Lois believed in Prophecy that she and Clark were “bulletproof;” they both were wrong, but Lois only temporarily so. Lana left Clark in Requiem not because she “sacrificed everything for her bulletproof beau,” as Toyman erroneously told Lois two years later in Prophecy, but because she sacrificed her relationship with that beau for innocent people in Metropolis threatened by Lex’s bomb, and then was too weak-hearted to deal with the emotional pain that sacrifice entailed. Her final tearful words to Clark implied that he was “stronger” than her because all her effort to become his equal by starting with the outside instead of the inside left her still too enamored with the physical and superficial and still too weak emotionally. Weeping, Lana confesses in Requiem that Clark was “stronger than” her because, unlike him, the pain of not being able to touch him anymore was more difficult to bear than the pain of not being in his life anymore. Lois’ surrender in Prophecy may be similar, in that sacrificing her happiness for the sake of innocent people was a factor, but what she couldn’t bear wasn’t about anything physical or about her own unfulfilled happiness; quite the opposite. No, what made Lois weep was knowing “every moment” she and Clark shared together meant “stealing from people that need saving” and standing “in his way” of being an even better hero than he already was.

Hitherto, Lois had coped with Clark’s heroic duty by seeking assurances that she would be an asset rather than a liability. The experience in Prophecy of having Clark’s powers and risking lives for his sake when Toyman threatened his life made Lois realize how dangerous needing someone like she wanted Clark to need her really was. In other words, Lois finally understood what Clark meant in Dominion about Kryptonians’ inclination to control instead of trust; it’s less emotionally taxing. It devastated her to think that Clark could help more people if he wasn’t spending time with her or that he could ever be defeated if her life was threatened in any way, especially if it was her fault her life was in jeopardy in the first place. So, like Lana prior to getting the Prometheus suit, Lois worried about being a distraction and holding Clark back. Unlike Lana, however, Lois didn’t try to fix the problem with inadequate superficial solutions nor was she unresponsive to Clark’s heart reaching out to hers. Instead, as usual their perfectly complemented souls found their way back to each other and strengthened each other through the power of what was in their hearts, particularly as reflected in their wedding vows.

The Right Decision

Now, one might wonder why test Lois so close to her wedding and have her make a decision most know, based on their existing knowledge of the Superman mythology, isn’t going to last. The answer can be found in Prophecy itself. In the episode, the tale of Orion describes a son who had to turn away from his father to find the power within himself to forge his own destiny as a warrior of light. Lois and Clark are each presented with a variation of this same dilemma. For Clark, Jor-El prophesies that “a time will come when [Clark] turns away from” him, but “in the end, he will make the right decision.” Following in Orion’s footsteps and Jor-El’s predictions, Clark returns to the Fortress to tell Jor-El, “I can only be what the world needs when I can finally admit that I am no longer just the son of Jor-El or Jonathan Kent, and you knew the time would come when neither of you could guide me anymore. And that time is now. Goodbye, Jor-El.” Even though Jor-El knew that this was not “the right decision” (a decision he said would come later for Clark and did in the Finale), it was a necessary step. Likewise, it was a necessary step for Lois to be able to give up Clark because it gave both Lois and Clark the opportunity to definitively choose their destinies in the finale.

Clark, as predicted, returns to Jor-El because, while it was important for him to acknowledge that he was ready to hold his own counsel, it did not necessitate absolutely cutting Jor-El out of his life. At the Fortress, Clark tells his father, “I shouldn't have tried to push away my Kryptonian side. My strength is accepting it, accepting you.” Pleased, Jor-El says to his son, “Any father can only hope that he is one day humbled by the feats of his son. But it is your soul, Kal-El, of which I am most proud. […] I ask you to remember one thing. Your abilities may be of my blood, but it is your time in Smallville, with Jonathan and Martha Kent and all the people there, that made you a hero, Kal-El.” In short, Jor-El was happy to acknowledge humanity remained an important part of Clark and he was proud Clark had found a way to integrate and balance his alien nature (super) and human upbringing (man) to become Superman.

Lois, having made a decision similar to Clark’s—which in her case was to detach from Clark to show she was prepared to put the world’s needs above her own, including her need to be needed—would have to make her own “right decision” as well. She had to realize her strength was accepting that she, and the balance and belief she provided Clark, were assets not liabilities. For, as Chloe reminds her, unlike a god, Clark is “a man.” And, as a man, he “sometimes needs to not listen. [He] needs to rest, to love, to laugh. And when he [takes] to the skies” he'll need Lois “to ground him.” The latter got Lois to think, but only the words from her soul mate’s wedding vows touched her enough to prompt her eventual change of heart.

I, Clark Kent, take you, Lois Lane, to be my companion, forever. With you by my side I will never be alone. Though the world sees a strong and independent woman, I've never known someone with such gentle grace and more pure heart. When I've been lost you've always been there to bring me back, so on this day, at this moment, I pledge the rest of my life to you. You've always believed in me, and I believe in you. When you believe in someone it's not for a minute, or just for now, it's forever.

Considering these are Clark’s wedding vows, it’s expected they would profoundly encapsulate his feelings for Lois in a way that would move her. Fortunately, they do that and so much more starting with the first sentence. Look up companionate love anywhere and one discovers that Clark desiring Lois as his “companion forever” is more tender and significant than what some might believe. It’s the kind of love that provides a solid foundation that endures the storms of life. Clark and Lana were perpetually in the infatuation or passionate stage of love that most experts would equate to a high from a drug which rarely survives challenges and always subsides leaving some couples who lack companionate love desperate for their next fix. For Clark and Lana, secrets, lies, and other forms of delusion were used to maintain their artificial high, and they never stayed together long enough to face the truth about themselves and whether what they had was enough once all the artifices and highs were lifted. Clark and Lois, conversely, began as friends, became passionately in love, and developed the companionate love which is a deeper, more mature, more enduring, and more affectionate form of attachment between people who love, like, and respect each other. In short, it’s the kind of love that sustains couples married decades.

Clark’s vows continue, declaring that with Lois by his side, he’d never be alone. What Clark is saying isn’t that Lois is just a warm body to keep him company. Rather, it goes back to a conversation Clark had with his mother in Obsession when she reassured him that “someday” he’d “find the person who’s right for [him]” and he replied that “he thought that person” could have been Lana or Alicia but because he couldn’t be honest with Lana, and because Alicia’s powers didn’t mean she was like him, he was resigned to the reality that he’d “always be alone.” Nevertheless, unlike his relationship with Alicia, Clark realized what he needed wasn’t someone just like him but his complement. And unlike his relationship with Lana, Clark and Lois ultimately broke through their walls and facades until their secrets became their truth which, again, simply means that their understanding of each other was so complete and so accurate that they not only strengthened each other, their hearts were virtually interchangeable. A poem by Sir Philip Sidney featured in Elizabeth (1997) expresses this beautifully:

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange one for the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss; There never was a bargain better driven. His heart in me keeps me and him in one, My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides; He loves my heart for once it was his own; I cherish his because in me it bides.

Sharing one's life with another means trusting your heart to someone else. And to entrust one’s heart to another, as the poet describes, requires a great deal of faith in one’s beloved. The goddess Isis got Clark to “take that leap” of faith in Isis/Harvest after explaining to him that “true love” means risking one’s whole heart by giving it to one’s beloved for safekeeping. Even more important, though, was that Lois was willing to take the risk with him so they could truly "share a life together." As Clark said, "the odds are stacked against us and we would be risking everything, but if you are ready to take that leap, there's no one else I would want to take that leap with."

By Kent, Clark showed he was ready for another leap of faith to enhance the life he and Lois shared together when he decided to follow his own advice to his father about Martha in Earth-2 and risk leaving the farm behind because he’d come to understand his true home wasn’t a place; it was Lois. With her, Clark was incapable of getting beset by the “sadness and loneliness” (Warrior) of a hero’s life, or getting detached from humanity, because he carried Lois’ heart with him and she kept his safe with her. Clark trusted Lois with his heart in this way because, like he said in Luthor, she could “see right through” him “straight to” his “soul, to [his] heart].” As Clark also eloquently stated in his vows, that kind of clear-eyed, full-hearted love was one he couldn’t “live” without because he knew if he was ever “lost” Lois would “always” be able to “bring [him] back." To put it simply, Lois helped Clark feel safe to face his fears of being different from everyone else, which was the thing that had always made him feel alone. As Ned from Pushing Daisies would say, “Home did not mean four walls and a door you never walk out of. It was a feeling of where you belong.” Clark felt he belonged with Lois, so he risked opening the door of his heart wide open for her and subsequently felt safe leaving behind the house he'd grown up in knowing he had the heart of the woman he'd grown to love instead.

Clark telling Lois in his vows that she made him not feel alone was therefore a touching affirmation from Clark that he’d finally found the right person he said in Obsession he dreaded he’d never find, and being his complement was an important part of this. That Lois was Clark’s complement, or the Yin to his Yang, is expressed in the next section of Clark’s vows that goes, “Though the world sees a strong and independent woman, I've never known someone with such gentle grace and more pure heart.” Here, Clark is saying that on the outside Lois projects strength and independence—traits associated with Kryptonians—but she has a softer side which displays a different kind of strength that he became particularly enamored with during his phone calls with her as the Blur (Hostage). Clark, of course, is essentially the inverse of this. In this way, Lois and Clark are both strong, independent, gracious, and pure of heart; they just generally express those traits differently.

What does it mean, though, to have grace and a pure heart? Answering that question is difficult yet, fortunately, not impossible. Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life describes grace as something that “doesn’t try to please itself. [It] accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked….accepts insults and injuries.” It doesn’t look for “reasons to be unhappy.” Thus, grace expresses itself in Lois in her caring for others when they need help, in her celebrating of others’ successes and commiserating with their failures, in forgiving others, in doing the right thing even when it’s difficult (like admitting her mistakes), and in not letting bitterness or envy take root to the point of perpetual dissatisfaction and restlessness. Meanwhile, purity of heart most nearly means to not be a hypocrite (source). A person whose beliefs never falter and who demonstrates a consistency between appearance and reality is, therefore, a person with a pure heart. Being pure hearted, Lois has the power within that gives her the true strength Lana lacked; Lois was strong in body and in spirit.

Such spiritual strength, or purity of heart, exists in Lois because she, unlike Lana, places her faith in what’s true and substantive instead of empty delusions. Some might recall the parable of the wise man who built his house upon the rock found in Matthew 7:24 which states, “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” With truth as her rock and guidepost, Lois effectively roots out the corruption in herself and others. Whenever she falters she admits her mistake and whenever others falter, such as when someone abuses or co-opts power by perverting or obscuring the truth, she reveals that hypocrisy and demands justice. Clark relies on this because not only does it mean Lois herself won’t become corrupted by his secret as others did, it also means she’ll be able to act as a tether to his true self, allowing him to express different sides of who he is without getting lost in either.

Given that much of what it means to be pure of heart relates to the sincerity of one’s beliefs, the fact that Clark mentions belief in the closing of his wedding vows is significant. He wrote, “You've always believed in me, and I believe in you. When you believe in someone it's not for a minute, or just for now, it's forever." For Clark, and the show, belief is the epitome of love. Not only did Cat Grant describe a person who really loves you as someone who, "when no one else believes in you [is] the one person who loves you unconditionally [...] the one you'd risk anything for" (Isis), but Clark viewed Chloe's lack of belief in Jimmy in Season 8 as anathema to what spouses should do when they're trying to "build a life together" (Hex). More importantly, at Lex’s rehearsal dinner before his wedding to Helen in Calling Clark said all of his research and soul searching to write the perfect speech made one thing quite clear to him: “There are no words for [love]. And when you have it you trust it, and you believe in it.” So when tasked with expressing his own loving feelings for Lois, Clark naturally described his indescribable deep love for Lois as belief.

In general, believing in someone means you will always have such a deep love for them that no matter what, it will endure. You'll also always want the best for the person you love and always be able to look past any shortcomings to see their true potential. It means trusting a person with everything you are and everything you hope to be. Blind faith it is not. As Cat Grant said in Shield, “People need to see someone’s heart to believe in them.” Undoubtedly, Clark wanted Lois to "know [him] completely" (Harvest), knew that she did (Luthor), and felt she believed in him by the end of the series (Collateral, Finale). Clark saw Lois’ heart clearly as well, and believed in her; not so with Lana.

In a Season 2 conversation about belief, Lana confided in Clark her fear that he’d “created this perfect picture of who” she was and “that one day” he’d “get a good look at” her and be disappointed she wasn’t “as strong or as good as” he thought which would “change the way” he felt about her (Accelerate). At the time, Clark denied that could happen, but his actions proved otherwise. In Season 7, Lana begged Clark to not “take on all the blame” for the dark path she’d chosen to deal with Lex just so he could “hold onto this perfect image” he’d “created” of her (Wrath). But Clark preferred to blame himself over taking an honest look at Lana’s heart, because he doubted whether he could still love her if he allowed himself to see the truth he was avoiding. By Siren, Lana had become convinced Clark secretly “doubt[ed] whether [she’d] be the one” he’d “end up with.” Brainiac’s attack and Lex’s kidnapping of Lana only postponed the inevitable. Clark and Lana’s last chance began inauspiciously in Bulletproof with Clark’s inclination to “squint” at Lana so he could pretend she was 14 again. Such delusional nostalgia was emphasized further in the opening to Clark and Lana’s final episode together. “The world moves so fast today,” Toyman mused in Requiem. “People forget how much better they had it as kids, when hours seemed like days and a favorite toy could be a child's best friend. Toys are powerful things, you know. They are vessels for the imagination imbued with life through the simple act of play.”

With love and faith in each other free from delusions and conditions, Clark and Lois didn’t just “play” at love like Clark and Lana did; they had true love, so they found their way back to each other letting their wedding vows be their guide. The first to lose her way, Lois found Clark’s vows so infused with the power of his true love for her that they broke through her doubts, making her realize she had been an “idiot” to have broken their engagement because of this epiphany: “I can be loud, and at times I'm a little bossy. So someone might wonder why a person of your God-like caliber would be with a woman who is so imperfect. Well don't take this the wrong way but you come with some baggage of your own and it's made me a better person. Just like being with me will make you a greater man and a superhero.” Said differently, Clark's faith in Lois—stated as belief in his vows—got her to accept that she wasn't a liability like she'd feared, and that accepting their imperfections and sharing them along with their doubts, made them better and stronger instead of weaker.

Consequently, it was significant that, while leaning on the door of their apartment in the Finale, Lois and Clark leaned on each other. Only this time it was Lois' turn to do what Clark did for her and what he, in his vows, said she did so well--help him find his way back--because while his vows may have heartened her, her prior doubts had come to weigh heavily on him because his belief in her meant he had a lot of faith in her judgment. So instead of surrendering to his doubts, Clark shared them. He told Lois that her reservations and her family’s sudden inability to attend the wedding were beginning to look like ominous signs affirming her decision to call if off. Fortunately, after Clark’s vows inspired a change of heart in her, Lois' were able to inspire a change of heart in him:

I wanted these vows to be perfect, but perfection is a hard thing to get your hands on. But life is meant to be a little messy, and when it comes to love I think it's like my dad always said about the army: You only sign up if it's the only thing you could ever imagine doing. Clark, I can not imagine spending a moment of my life without you. I promise that I will always have your back, as you will always have mine. You're my best friend, you're my home, and you are my true love, and I am yours and will be forever.

However, before Clark read these vows, which include wisdom from Lois’ father, Lois shared advice from her mother: “The ones you love are always with you.” Since Lois’ earlier doubts had gotten Clark to reconsider if Lois (or loved ones in general, like his parents) were standing in the way of his destiny, Ella’s words reminded him of what he learned in the dark period between Doomsday and Metallo, which was burying people in your past to make way for a future is more detrimental because it’s avoiding truth instead of dealing with it. So when Lois suggested Clark guess the kind of advice Jonathan would give him on his wedding day, it not only reinforced the idea that Jonathan was still in Clark’s heart, it also highlighted one of the reasons Clark loves Lois: her ability to ground him and remind him of who he is beneath the clutter of doubt.

Clark was buoyed even more when Lois told him they were a “perfect fit” both because of, and in spite of, the imperfection or “messy” nature of their lives. For a time, it had been hard for Lois to believe what Carter Hall had told her in Shield—that “with every great relationship, comes a great burden, and the strength to carry it,” especially when her experience in Prophecy made her realize that the “burden” needed to be accepted was that there were some things that couldn’t be helped. Or, as Clark put it when he tried to reassure her, “there will always be a balance of good and evil in the world, but it’s up to me to tip the scale.” Although neither Clark’s alien nor his human side represent darkness or light specifically, the balance he needed to find in his life between those two aspects of himself—alien and human—and the balance he and Lois needed to find between love and duty is the same kind of balance the show posited needed to “exist between light and darkness” (e.g. Prophecy, Finale). So when Lois changed her mind to say they were a perfect fit because of their mutual baggage, the doubts she'd awakened in Clark, when she broke off the engagement out her fear of detracting from his duty to the world, dissipated.

Ultimately, then, what Clark and Lois needed to believe, and helped each other believe, was that the answer to Clark's question, "What if heroes aren't destined to love?" was that love enhances a hero's life more than it complicates it. Since Lois believed in Clark and he believed in her, then she had to believe, to trust, that he was right; she would always be by his side helping him shoulder burdens and not in his way creating them. That as lacking as she was, Clark was lacking too, and only together could they make each other complete, thus strong. Lois had experienced relationships before with her father and with Oliver where she knew they loved her sincerely, but neither of those relationships made her feel equal and special simultaneously. So while all of Clark’s heartfelt expressions of love—from his “you’re the one and always will be” to his “you are the love of my life”—were poignant and cherished, they weren’t what would be sufficient if she and Clark were to share a life together as partners (Fortune, Harvest). Partners like her parents who had been “in it together,” and like Clark’s parents whose teamwork to help the people of Smallville one “rainy day” assuaged Martha’s doubts that she’d “made a huge mistake following Jonathan to a small town” (Patriot, Hostage). In short, partners who are better together and make the world better together because they fill in each other’s gaps and share each other’s burdens, which would be impossible to do if Lois believed Clark was such an infallible god that he had no deficiencies.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O no! it is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken -- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Being in love with someone is easy, but loving someone—truly loving them—is hard because believing in someone and relying on someone is hard. Yet, as Clark told Darkseid in the Finale, it’s “stronger to love.” So instead of surrendering to the fear of losing his childish illusions, which he did in his relationship with Lana, and instead of surrendering to the cynical need for control, which he did whenever he decided to push people away and be alone, Clark pledged his life to the woman he said could see into his soul and love him completely and unconditionally, and for whom he could do the same. And instead of worrying when Clark would “let her stand with him” (Patriot), and then fearing she would just be standing in his way after he did, Lois actually let herself stand with Clark, believing at last that she was more an asset than a liability. So rather than letting "fear decide love" (Icarus), their "perfect love cast out fear" (1 John 4:18).

Sharing their vows before their wedding may have been breaking with tradition, but it gave Lois and Clark a chance to do what they do best and what makes them true loves who’ll stand the test of time: they faced the darkness of their doubts together by believing in their vows to each other. Not only does that mean Clark agrees that Lois is his “best friend…home…and true love,” it also means Lois believes Clark isn’t so godlike or perfect that he doesn’t need her. Furthermore, if Clark had felt any doubts about his love for Lois or was in any way denying a part of himself, like his human side, he would not have been able to defeat Darkseid. How wonderful that in the end love really did conquer all because it was pure love—whole and true!

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