However, writing this I realised one of the reasons that it did bore me: it was pushed onto the character at a late stage, rather than growing organically from the show/her character development. That might be worth me footnoting.
Well, and ultimately, Lana's quest was (1) not only a 'false' one like Lex's (because the Kingdom at the end isn't destined to be hers, either; only Clark would have known what to *do* with all the elements once he got his hands on them (although Lex, alone among the other Questors, figured out that the caves had something to do with it)), but (2) it was also one that arguably did not result in her growth or change
Lex became more embittered as a result of the failed Quest and thus, in S5, became even more actively concerned with, as you put it, shaping his own Kingdom. Clark found himself finally acquiescing to Jor-El's teachings in Arrival, something he had been resistant to up until that point. This was, of course, cut short thanks to his having to tend to Chloe and then, later, choosing to ignore Jor-El's admonishment to return and doing so for Lana's sake. This latter decision has literally haunted Clark for the remainder of the season. I do wonder -- if he could go back in time to that moment at the mansion in Arrival, would he do things differently, knowing what he nows knows? Had he kept his promise to Jor-El, significant aspects of his S5 heartache probably could have been avoided.
But Lana ... Lana essentially began S5 in the same way she did S4, blissfully caught up in happy romantic love. She goes along with Clark's suggestion that they treat the past as the past, not even talking about the events with the elements (and she's still not told him about killing Mrs. Teague); her quest qua the quest didn't actually *change* Lana in any significant way**. The aliens' arrival has had an impact on her, but that is only tangentially related to her S4 Quest.
** An excellent example of this is actually Tomb. *Despite* the fact that Lana not only has first-hand experience with the weirdnesses of Smallville, she also has first-hand experience with *being controlled by an outside force* thanks to her possession by Isobel, it never even *occurs* to Lana that something akin to this might be happening with Chloe. She doesn't even raise it as a possibilty to either Clark or Lex. Now, yes, this could just be sloppy characterization continuity on the part of the creative team, but if one is looking at it from the intra-textual perspective, it arguably shows that Lana learned nothing from her S4 experiences or that those experiences certainly didn't do much to alter the lens through which she views her world.
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Well, and ultimately, Lana's quest was (1) not only a 'false' one like Lex's (because the Kingdom at the end isn't destined to be hers, either; only Clark would have known what to *do* with all the elements once he got his hands on them (although Lex, alone among the other Questors, figured out that the caves had something to do with it)), but (2) it was also one that arguably did not result in her growth or change
Lex became more embittered as a result of the failed Quest and thus, in S5, became even more actively concerned with, as you put it, shaping his own Kingdom. Clark found himself finally acquiescing to Jor-El's teachings in Arrival, something he had been resistant to up until that point. This was, of course, cut short thanks to his having to tend to Chloe and then, later, choosing to ignore Jor-El's admonishment to return and doing so for Lana's sake. This latter decision has literally haunted Clark for the remainder of the season. I do wonder -- if he could go back in time to that moment at the mansion in Arrival, would he do things differently, knowing what he nows knows? Had he kept his promise to Jor-El, significant aspects of his S5 heartache probably could have been avoided.
But Lana ... Lana essentially began S5 in the same way she did S4, blissfully caught up in happy romantic love. She goes along with Clark's suggestion that they treat the past as the past, not even talking about the events with the elements (and she's still not told him about killing Mrs. Teague); her quest qua the quest didn't actually *change* Lana in any significant way**. The aliens' arrival has had an impact on her, but that is only tangentially related to her S4 Quest.
** An excellent example of this is actually Tomb. *Despite* the fact that Lana not only has first-hand experience with the weirdnesses of Smallville, she also has first-hand experience with *being controlled by an outside force* thanks to her possession by Isobel, it never even *occurs* to Lana that something akin to this might be happening with Chloe. She doesn't even raise it as a possibilty to either Clark or Lex. Now, yes, this could just be sloppy characterization continuity on the part of the creative team, but if one is looking at it from the intra-textual perspective, it arguably shows that Lana learned nothing from her S4 experiences or that those experiences certainly didn't do much to alter the lens through which she views her world.