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I found this article online titled why Clana doesn't work. this might help clarify certain things about whether or not Lana owes Clark anything. but according to this, it seems that Clark doesn't owe her anything, including telling her his secret (and that Lana is the one indebted to Clark for being her only one true friend)
Reason #4 - Lana never really got Clark (nor did she trust him)
Early on in the series, Lana and Clark bonded over the whole orphan thing, and they could empathize with each other about the baggage that brings along, and that was good. But beyond those first tentative explorations into each other, Lana didn't really seem to absorb much about him other than that "Clark Kent lies." Which is actually kind of hilarious, because Clark is honest to a fault... except about this one thing.
If Lana truly was Clark's one true love or whatever, it shouldn't have bothered her so much that he had a secret. I can totally understand getting frustrated that someone you love won't open up to you. It would be frustrating to anyone, but Lana took it way past the point of acceptability. Rather than taking all the other things she knew about him (that he was a good man, that he always put the well-being of those around him before himself, and that even if he did so by accident, he never ever wanted to hurt her or see her be hurt, for example) and deciding whether all the good things she knew outweighed this one single bad thing, she fixated obsessively on something that (from her perspective) was his one flaw. She wasn't the only one to do this (notable examples being such dark creatures as Tess and Lex), but she was certainly the one most bothered by it.
It flat out comes down to the fact that she plain did not trust him. Admittedly, Lana doesn't trust anybody, but if she and Clark really were as deeply connected as they always claimed they were, she should have been able to at least trust that he wasn't keeping secrets for malicious reasons and wait for him to tell her in his own time. A person's trust (especially a person like Clark, who lives the kind of life he does) is a privilege, not a right. Lana expected his implicit trust without ever giving him her own.
She didn't trust him enough to be honest with him about her own secrets (which were many), and she didn't trust him to love who she really was any more than he trusted her to love who he really was. This is proven time and time again in the series. She said it herself at the end of Season 2, and again in Season 7:
From Accelerate:
"This might sound silly... but I have this fear that-- that one day you'll finally get a good look at me and... I'm going to disappoint you. That you'll see that I'm not as strong or as good as you think I am. And I'm afraid that it'll change the way you feel about me."
Which is a legitimate fear, all things considered. Clark "fell in love" with her apparently years before they ever had a conversation that lasted more than thirty seconds. Now, I know that love at first sight is all super-romantic and all, and if it happens to someone, then great. But you can't just rely on blind love to carry you through. You have to actually know the person and actually love everything there is to know about them as well. Otherwise that "love at first sight" kind of love is purely superficial. You have to understand someone's flaws and strengths and accept all of them, and Lana suspected even then that Clark didn't really want to do that. Trust me when I say I know the feeling - being put on a pedestal is not fun.
From Wrath:
"Don't do that. Don't take all the blame so that you don't taint the image of me that you created. I have to live with the decisions that I've made. I just need to know that you love me. No matter what."
So from this we can clearly see that Lana's feelings on the subject haven't really changed in the five intervening years. She still feels as though she is not really the person that Clark loves and is still asking him to love her despite her flaws rather than just pretending they don't exist. She never could trust him to just love her as she was.
(And it's interesting to note that not even two years previously, Clark promised oh-so-sincerely in exactly those words that he would always love Lana, no matter what, but when she asks him to make that promise again after her actions in Wrath, he's somber and silent, noticeably questioning whether that's even true anymore.)
That, in the end, was what led her to putting on the Prometheus suit. It wasn't the only reason, but it was a big part of it. She thought if she could become someone and something else, then maybe it would work and he would love her the way she wanted him to. If you really want to be in a relationship that works, it can't be that it works because you fundamentally changed something about yourself. It needs to work because it always worked, and if things change along the way (because let's face it, people are constantly in a state of flux and change happens), then that's okay, but the change can't happen because "if I do this, maybe he'll love me more." That's an incredibly infantile and unhealthy way of thinking.
On another note, I have to bring up the Bizarro thing. I have to. If Lana is supposedly so in love with Clark and as in tune with him as true love couples are supposed to be, it should have been obvious pretty quickly that something was wrong. Maybe not immediately, but after a couple of days (especially once Bizarro started sleeping with her, which Clark had refused to do), Lana should have at least picked up on the differences.
And then once she did realize that the man she'd been living with for three weeks wasn't actually Clark, she flat-out said she preferred him.
"I've never been more in love than I have the past month. But it wasn't with you... it was with him."
Or how about how she described Bizarro as being more affectionate and more understanding, that being with him was easier? That implies right there that Bizarro was giving her something (besides the obvious) that she wasn't getting from Clark, something that she needed from a relationship. Now, a relationship doesn't have to fulfill every need in your life (and in fact, for it to be healthy, it shouldn't), but in that situation, when you actively preferred your relationship with a different person, that's a time for reevaluation. Oh wait, but she killed Bizarro, didn't she? So why bother to reevaluate since you murdered the person who made the reevaluation necessary meaning the option is no longer available?
(That was sarcasm, by the way...)
Reason #2 - If they really wanted to be together, they would be
This is one that a lot of people are gonna raise hue and cry over. "To be together, Clark had to tell Lana the truth!" they cry. "The kryptonite in Requiem forced them apart!" they insist.
But you know what? That's ********. I'm not even gonna censor my swearing here, because that is BULL. ****.
If Clark honestly, truly wanted to be with Lana so badly because she was the great love of his life, he would have made it happen. As he himself posited in Promise, all of that "the only way to protect her is by lying to her" stuff was mostly an excuse. There was some truth to it, sure, but mostly he just told himself that because he didn't trust her to react the way he hoped.
Clark never fought for their relationship. Sure, he's definitely the self-sacrificing martyr type, but you notice how he fought pretty damn hard to keep his relationships with Alicia and Lois despite pretty intense obstacles to both? He didn't fight for Lana. He found it easier to break up with her in Season 5 than to try to find a way to work through their issues. He just let her go at the end of Season 7, when he could have chased after her if he'd really wanted to, but clearly even once he got back from Russia, he never even considered it and just moved on with his life. In Season 8, there was the kryptonite debacle, but you know what? I can think of two EASY solutions to that right off the top of my head. If he'd really wanted to, he could have used the Legion ring to go back in time and stop Toy man from setting up that bomb in the first place, and they never would have had the problem. OR he could have found himself some more Blue K and worn it while he was around her, meaning that the Green K wouldn't affect him and they could be together, then he could take it off and still fulfill his duties as the Blur (and later Superman). So don't tell me "they just never had their chance," because they had plenty of chances. Neither of them just ever seemed to find that it was worth it.
The only times Clark actually takes action with regards to Lana is when it looks like he's flat-out going to lose her for good. At the end of Season 3, for example, or in Promise like 2.6 seconds before her wedding. To me, this seems to indicate that his continued dependency on that relationship stems, not from the fact that he loves Lana so desperately that he can't even imagine his life without her (because clearly he can since he moves on quite quickly after she's permanently gone and seems pretty much content with his life), but from the fact that he was scared of growing up. His very negative encounters with Jor-El gave him a very negative impression of his destiny, and if he grew up and let go of that first love that was so very strongly associated with his childhood, that meant he had to accept the burden of that destiny which he was afraid to do. Meaning that in a subconscious way, holding onto Lana was his way of holding onto a simpler, easier time.
If he had really wanted it, he could have taken any opportunity to make it work, but he didn't. If a guy really wants something, he makes it happen, and Clark may be Kryptonian but he's still a guy. Clark didn't make it happen.
Incidentally, Lana also could have made it happen, but she seemed perfectly content to sit back and if Clark made a move she'd dive right in but she didn't seem secure enough in her feelings to actually commit to them unless Clark had already declared himself... or if he was about to leave her, or if fiery death was about to rain down on them and she thought she was probably going to either die or go to jail or if she was about to leave Smallville for good and it didn't matter or... well, you get the picture. The only time outside of these "dire circumstance" type situations is at the end of Power when she's convinced that she's done the one thing that will make her Clark's "equal" (even though it was never a physical equal that he needed). Then she has to actively convince him that this is definitely the right decision, as he's clearly reluctant to go there again.
One of the biggest rules of storytelling is that you have to expose your characters by way of showing who they are through their actions, not just telling about them. Sure, you can say anything you want, but the actions have to match the words or the words ring false. Clark and Lana are constantly saying how they love each other so much, but the way they actually act with regards to each other says something completely different. Actions always, always, always say more than words.
Reason # 6 - Lana never respected Clark (nor did she appreciate him)
Lana is always constantly criticizing Clark (and she also often criticizes Chloe at times, but mostly Clark) for his questionable, unpredictable, confusing, evasive and secretive behavior and Lana has always taken Clark for granted but even if Lana is grateful for Clark being in her life, she will always be ungrateful for all that Clark has done for her so far. being there for her, befriending her, protecting her, saving her life countless times, helping her, giving her advice, her taking his advice, being patient with her, being understanding, selflessly risking his life for her in the process, looking out for her, having her best interest at heart and always trying to do what's best for her, you know, trying to do right by her. and what does Lana do to repay him for his kindness and compassion? criticism. Criticism and pressure. Nagging. demanding. prying. space invading. pressing. pushing. complaining. crossing lines, disrespecting boundaries you name it. and Clark never calls Lana out on any of these things she was doing to him, like he did with Chloe and Lex. Lana is too obsessively focused on honesty and having people being truthful to her and not reciprocating the same. And don't get me wrong, Honesty is very important value to have, but honesty is not the only value that is important, there are many other values that are just as equally important as honesty. Lana expects too much from Clark, she doesn't even acknowledge his good qualities, she was just only interested in finding out his secret no matter what the cost. (so Lana is no different from Lex, minus all the things Lex did to Clark that Lana never did to him, i.e the investigations, the Clark room, the medical files and the emotional blackmail)
One minute, Lana declares her love for Clark and then the next minute she's disrespecting him. You don't hurt some one that you love because you are the one who is hurting, you can't say that you love some one one minute and then disrespect them the next minute that is not ok. Lana has abused and taken advantage of Clark's trust. Love. nature. powers and hospitality, she is horrible to him on so many levels, and therefore brought out the worst in Clark (appreciation to men, is what affection and reassurance are to women) Lana never appreciated Clark and if Lana doesn't know what Clark is thinking then Clark is probably thinking of leaving, but never does when he should.
Reason #4 - Lana never really got Clark (nor did she trust him)
Early on in the series, Lana and Clark bonded over the whole orphan thing, and they could empathize with each other about the baggage that brings along, and that was good. But beyond those first tentative explorations into each other, Lana didn't really seem to absorb much about him other than that "Clark Kent lies." Which is actually kind of hilarious, because Clark is honest to a fault... except about this one thing.
If Lana truly was Clark's one true love or whatever, it shouldn't have bothered her so much that he had a secret. I can totally understand getting frustrated that someone you love won't open up to you. It would be frustrating to anyone, but Lana took it way past the point of acceptability. Rather than taking all the other things she knew about him (that he was a good man, that he always put the well-being of those around him before himself, and that even if he did so by accident, he never ever wanted to hurt her or see her be hurt, for example) and deciding whether all the good things she knew outweighed this one single bad thing, she fixated obsessively on something that (from her perspective) was his one flaw. She wasn't the only one to do this (notable examples being such dark creatures as Tess and Lex), but she was certainly the one most bothered by it.
It flat out comes down to the fact that she plain did not trust him. Admittedly, Lana doesn't trust anybody, but if she and Clark really were as deeply connected as they always claimed they were, she should have been able to at least trust that he wasn't keeping secrets for malicious reasons and wait for him to tell her in his own time. A person's trust (especially a person like Clark, who lives the kind of life he does) is a privilege, not a right. Lana expected his implicit trust without ever giving him her own.
She didn't trust him enough to be honest with him about her own secrets (which were many), and she didn't trust him to love who she really was any more than he trusted her to love who he really was. This is proven time and time again in the series. She said it herself at the end of Season 2, and again in Season 7:
From Accelerate:
"This might sound silly... but I have this fear that-- that one day you'll finally get a good look at me and... I'm going to disappoint you. That you'll see that I'm not as strong or as good as you think I am. And I'm afraid that it'll change the way you feel about me."
Which is a legitimate fear, all things considered. Clark "fell in love" with her apparently years before they ever had a conversation that lasted more than thirty seconds. Now, I know that love at first sight is all super-romantic and all, and if it happens to someone, then great. But you can't just rely on blind love to carry you through. You have to actually know the person and actually love everything there is to know about them as well. Otherwise that "love at first sight" kind of love is purely superficial. You have to understand someone's flaws and strengths and accept all of them, and Lana suspected even then that Clark didn't really want to do that. Trust me when I say I know the feeling - being put on a pedestal is not fun.
From Wrath:
"Don't do that. Don't take all the blame so that you don't taint the image of me that you created. I have to live with the decisions that I've made. I just need to know that you love me. No matter what."
So from this we can clearly see that Lana's feelings on the subject haven't really changed in the five intervening years. She still feels as though she is not really the person that Clark loves and is still asking him to love her despite her flaws rather than just pretending they don't exist. She never could trust him to just love her as she was.
(And it's interesting to note that not even two years previously, Clark promised oh-so-sincerely in exactly those words that he would always love Lana, no matter what, but when she asks him to make that promise again after her actions in Wrath, he's somber and silent, noticeably questioning whether that's even true anymore.)
That, in the end, was what led her to putting on the Prometheus suit. It wasn't the only reason, but it was a big part of it. She thought if she could become someone and something else, then maybe it would work and he would love her the way she wanted him to. If you really want to be in a relationship that works, it can't be that it works because you fundamentally changed something about yourself. It needs to work because it always worked, and if things change along the way (because let's face it, people are constantly in a state of flux and change happens), then that's okay, but the change can't happen because "if I do this, maybe he'll love me more." That's an incredibly infantile and unhealthy way of thinking.
On another note, I have to bring up the Bizarro thing. I have to. If Lana is supposedly so in love with Clark and as in tune with him as true love couples are supposed to be, it should have been obvious pretty quickly that something was wrong. Maybe not immediately, but after a couple of days (especially once Bizarro started sleeping with her, which Clark had refused to do), Lana should have at least picked up on the differences.
And then once she did realize that the man she'd been living with for three weeks wasn't actually Clark, she flat-out said she preferred him.
"I've never been more in love than I have the past month. But it wasn't with you... it was with him."
Or how about how she described Bizarro as being more affectionate and more understanding, that being with him was easier? That implies right there that Bizarro was giving her something (besides the obvious) that she wasn't getting from Clark, something that she needed from a relationship. Now, a relationship doesn't have to fulfill every need in your life (and in fact, for it to be healthy, it shouldn't), but in that situation, when you actively preferred your relationship with a different person, that's a time for reevaluation. Oh wait, but she killed Bizarro, didn't she? So why bother to reevaluate since you murdered the person who made the reevaluation necessary meaning the option is no longer available?
(That was sarcasm, by the way...)
Reason #2 - If they really wanted to be together, they would be
This is one that a lot of people are gonna raise hue and cry over. "To be together, Clark had to tell Lana the truth!" they cry. "The kryptonite in Requiem forced them apart!" they insist.
But you know what? That's ********. I'm not even gonna censor my swearing here, because that is BULL. ****.
If Clark honestly, truly wanted to be with Lana so badly because she was the great love of his life, he would have made it happen. As he himself posited in Promise, all of that "the only way to protect her is by lying to her" stuff was mostly an excuse. There was some truth to it, sure, but mostly he just told himself that because he didn't trust her to react the way he hoped.
Clark never fought for their relationship. Sure, he's definitely the self-sacrificing martyr type, but you notice how he fought pretty damn hard to keep his relationships with Alicia and Lois despite pretty intense obstacles to both? He didn't fight for Lana. He found it easier to break up with her in Season 5 than to try to find a way to work through their issues. He just let her go at the end of Season 7, when he could have chased after her if he'd really wanted to, but clearly even once he got back from Russia, he never even considered it and just moved on with his life. In Season 8, there was the kryptonite debacle, but you know what? I can think of two EASY solutions to that right off the top of my head. If he'd really wanted to, he could have used the Legion ring to go back in time and stop Toy man from setting up that bomb in the first place, and they never would have had the problem. OR he could have found himself some more Blue K and worn it while he was around her, meaning that the Green K wouldn't affect him and they could be together, then he could take it off and still fulfill his duties as the Blur (and later Superman). So don't tell me "they just never had their chance," because they had plenty of chances. Neither of them just ever seemed to find that it was worth it.
The only times Clark actually takes action with regards to Lana is when it looks like he's flat-out going to lose her for good. At the end of Season 3, for example, or in Promise like 2.6 seconds before her wedding. To me, this seems to indicate that his continued dependency on that relationship stems, not from the fact that he loves Lana so desperately that he can't even imagine his life without her (because clearly he can since he moves on quite quickly after she's permanently gone and seems pretty much content with his life), but from the fact that he was scared of growing up. His very negative encounters with Jor-El gave him a very negative impression of his destiny, and if he grew up and let go of that first love that was so very strongly associated with his childhood, that meant he had to accept the burden of that destiny which he was afraid to do. Meaning that in a subconscious way, holding onto Lana was his way of holding onto a simpler, easier time.
If he had really wanted it, he could have taken any opportunity to make it work, but he didn't. If a guy really wants something, he makes it happen, and Clark may be Kryptonian but he's still a guy. Clark didn't make it happen.
Incidentally, Lana also could have made it happen, but she seemed perfectly content to sit back and if Clark made a move she'd dive right in but she didn't seem secure enough in her feelings to actually commit to them unless Clark had already declared himself... or if he was about to leave her, or if fiery death was about to rain down on them and she thought she was probably going to either die or go to jail or if she was about to leave Smallville for good and it didn't matter or... well, you get the picture. The only time outside of these "dire circumstance" type situations is at the end of Power when she's convinced that she's done the one thing that will make her Clark's "equal" (even though it was never a physical equal that he needed). Then she has to actively convince him that this is definitely the right decision, as he's clearly reluctant to go there again.
One of the biggest rules of storytelling is that you have to expose your characters by way of showing who they are through their actions, not just telling about them. Sure, you can say anything you want, but the actions have to match the words or the words ring false. Clark and Lana are constantly saying how they love each other so much, but the way they actually act with regards to each other says something completely different. Actions always, always, always say more than words.
Reason # 6 - Lana never respected Clark (nor did she appreciate him)
Lana is always constantly criticizing Clark (and she also often criticizes Chloe at times, but mostly Clark) for his questionable, unpredictable, confusing, evasive and secretive behavior and Lana has always taken Clark for granted but even if Lana is grateful for Clark being in her life, she will always be ungrateful for all that Clark has done for her so far. being there for her, befriending her, protecting her, saving her life countless times, helping her, giving her advice, her taking his advice, being patient with her, being understanding, selflessly risking his life for her in the process, looking out for her, having her best interest at heart and always trying to do what's best for her, you know, trying to do right by her. and what does Lana do to repay him for his kindness and compassion? criticism. Criticism and pressure. Nagging. demanding. prying. space invading. pressing. pushing. complaining. crossing lines, disrespecting boundaries you name it. and Clark never calls Lana out on any of these things she was doing to him, like he did with Chloe and Lex. Lana is too obsessively focused on honesty and having people being truthful to her and not reciprocating the same. And don't get me wrong, Honesty is very important value to have, but honesty is not the only value that is important, there are many other values that are just as equally important as honesty. Lana expects too much from Clark, she doesn't even acknowledge his good qualities, she was just only interested in finding out his secret no matter what the cost. (so Lana is no different from Lex, minus all the things Lex did to Clark that Lana never did to him, i.e the investigations, the Clark room, the medical files and the emotional blackmail)
One minute, Lana declares her love for Clark and then the next minute she's disrespecting him. You don't hurt some one that you love because you are the one who is hurting, you can't say that you love some one one minute and then disrespect them the next minute that is not ok. Lana has abused and taken advantage of Clark's trust. Love. nature. powers and hospitality, she is horrible to him on so many levels, and therefore brought out the worst in Clark (appreciation to men, is what affection and reassurance are to women) Lana never appreciated Clark and if Lana doesn't know what Clark is thinking then Clark is probably thinking of leaving, but never does when he should.
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