Yes--absolutely spot on--the fire is about failed intimacy. It's about Lex's hopes for intimacy more than their success--quite often recently he is alone at the fire. It's also interesting from Clark's pov, because he has projected a lot of fear onto that hearth and what it means (in Slumber he dreamt of Lex confronting him there, in Splinter of Lex seducing Lana there). It's as if he subliminally conscious of Lex's desire for intimacy and fears the ways in which it might expose or hurt him.
And yes, it's interesting to speculate that he may now consider Lillian as a woman who will betray him. I can understand how he would have deeply ambivalent feelings about her following Lexmas, but depending on how you read that experience, it may have begun before then.
And there's definitely different ways of reading these visions. Even at the most literal level they're interesting. The Lillian scene was terribly funereal. She's moved from being someone he longs for (re)connection with (like Julian) to someone he somehow dreads. And yet her message is supposedly positive--that he could yet choose to be good. There's a sense of inevitability that is developed from having her be so punitive and accusing in her approach. She should be a loving saviour figure, but she's far darker than that, and I can't help but read that as reflecting Lex's own complex relationship with the idea of 'good' and 'evil' now.
Jonathan pushing Clark back into life was such a powerful image!
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branchandroot
Re: space and place
Date: 2006-04-08 09:43 am (UTC)And yes, it's interesting to speculate that he may now consider Lillian as a woman who will betray him. I can understand how he would have deeply ambivalent feelings about her following Lexmas, but depending on how you read that experience, it may have begun before then.
And there's definitely different ways of reading these visions. Even at the most literal level they're interesting. The Lillian scene was terribly funereal. She's moved from being someone he longs for (re)connection with (like Julian) to someone he somehow dreads. And yet her message is supposedly positive--that he could yet choose to be good. There's a sense of inevitability that is developed from having her be so punitive and accusing in her approach. She should be a loving saviour figure, but she's far darker than that, and I can't help but read that as reflecting Lex's own complex relationship with the idea of 'good' and 'evil' now.
Jonathan pushing Clark back into life was such a powerful image!