Lex Luthor is NOT evil

[wearetheborg]

Anyone think that Lex is not evil ?
He is not goody two shoes, but he is not all black either.
Lets look at things from his perspective.

Meteor freaks are popping all over the place.
Aliens dropped down on earth. They have technology unmatched by earthlings.
Blackout all over the world, satellites were taken out.
The kuwachi caves mystery.
And Lex only understands part of the puzzle.
Clark is not forthcoming.

If YOU were president, what would you do ?
Heck, the US invaded Iraq because of what Iraq COULD do.
Sure, he is experimentiing on mutants, and lying his way around, but thats just because he wants to accumulate power fast to battle evil (the situation is worse than X-Men, as here as hostile aliens are involved with a superior technology). Its called collateral damage.

Imagine if Clark were just a human, and there was no superpowerful being willing to fight for us (this is what Lex presumes). Wouldn't you want someone on our side who is willing to bend the rules a bit to get the job done ?

Finally, we have seen Lex's greatest fear - that he will go too far one day, and cause total destruction.

I think Lex is good.

[avidreader]

Sure, he is experimentiing on mutants, and lying his way around, but thats just because he wants to accumulate power fast to battle evil (

That's the way Lex justifies it in his mind, but that doesnt mean he's right.

I dont think he's all out evil, but I dont think a good person traps a young man in a glass cage where if he stops running he'll be electrocuted.

[SeaNymph]

I totally agree, avidreader. The ends definitely do not justify the means. No, he's not completely evil. But I'd definitely say he is more bad than good.

[wearetheborg]

Originally posted by avidreader
That's the way Lex justifies it in his mind, but that doesnt mean his right.

I dont think he's all out evil, but I dont think a good person traps a young man in a glass cage where if he stops running he'll be electrocuted.

Try sneaking on a top secret military base to steal classified documents. See if the military hesitates to kill you.
Remember, Lex did not know who this kid was working for. Just because he is white and a kid does not necessarily mean he is good.

Lex did not torture the kid, he just put him in a very very uncomfortable position. Nothing different than what spies would endure.

Now we KNOW that Bart was not evil and all that, but for all Lex knew, Bart could be selling information to terrorists. What then ?

[GottaLoveHotSuperHeros]

imo, I think that he's trying to stray away from the path of evil, but is stuggling very hard to do so, and beginning to fail

[avidreader]

Originally posted by wearetheborg


Lex did not torture the kid, he just put him in a very very uncomfortable position. Nothing different than what spies would endure.

Now we KNOW that Bart was not evil and all that, but for all Lex knew, Bart could be selling information to terrorists. What then ? [/B]

Just because Lex has questions about what Bart was up to, it doesnt mean that he can do what he did to him just to get answers. That is torture, and a good person doesnt do stuff like that.

I could list a whole heap of things that Lex is doing that implicate evilness, but I just gave one example to illustrate that he is not a good person.

[KryptoDog38]

This thread is funny next thing everyone is going to say is that Lex deserves sugar cookies or rather sugar cookies laced with rat poison!! Do you all remember the Lex split and Lex evil double that was the future Lex Luthor. Superman real Nemisis was the Evil Double Lex Luthor!

[wearetheborg]

Originally posted by avidreader
Just because Lex has questions about what Bart was up to, it doesnt mean that he can do what he did to him just to get answers. That is torture, and a good person doesnt do stuff like that.

Its OK for Jack Baur to break fingers to get the anwsers he needs, but its not OK for Lex to make some kid run till he gets tired ?

Lex did not go after him, Bart broke into Lex's facilities.

In positions of power, some evil things need to be done.
I wish the world was simple, and the "right" thing to do was always good. But in reality, being goody two shoes gets people killed.

[avidreader]

Originally posted by wearetheborg
Its OK for Jack Baur to break fingers to get the anwsers he needs, but its not OK for Lex to make some kid run till he gets tired ?

Lex did not go after him, Bart broke into Lex's facilities.

In positions of power, some evil things need to be done.
I wish the world was simple, and the "right" thing to do was always good. But in reality, being goody two shoes gets people killed.

Yeah the world isnt quite so black and white, but I guess you have to look at the motives behind what is going on. I dont watch 24, but I do know that Jack Bauer is on the side of freedom and democracy.

Lex Luthor on the other hand, I'm not so sure what side he is on. Most of the time he seems to be on his own side because he's arrogant enough to think that the world is viewed through his eyes only.

And its not like he interrogated Bart for any length of time. He could have just held him captive for a few days to see if he would fess up. He knew Bart had a power and he exploited it to serve his needs. i.e. to get the answers he wanted.

I guess lying to Wes Keenan's wife about her husband's death was an act of goodness, when all the time Lex has him captive in his underground tunnel performing experimental procedures on him, just like he did with Victor Stone?

As I said, I dont think Lex is all out evil, but the justifications that he uses to condone his nefarious activities, doesnt make him a good person.

[silverfist]

LOL. Oh well, I'll still go ahead and make a serious comment to this topic.

Comon now wearetheborg.
If Lex tortured and/or killed someone you know because he personally thought that it would greatly benefit the world, would you still see him as a good person?

Because that is what Lex have done and will continue doing in the comics and so on. He will hurt and sacrifice completely innocent people in order to get what he wants.

"Well no one I know is a meteor freak/terrorist!" you say.

That doesn't matter because if Lex thinks so, then he's probably right and it's OK.

No one is 100% "evil" but Lex is definetely one extreme example of how you should NOT behave. :P

[MozartRequiem]

"As I said, I dont think Lex is all out evil, but the justifications that he uses to condone his nefarious activities, doesnt make him a good person."

Very well put. He's not the Lex of the comics who would willingly kill millions...or BILLIONS...nor is he the Lex of seasons 1-3 who tried his best never to hurt anybody...no, now, he's somewhere stuck in between. What I find interesting is that in season five, Lex was questioning his own actions and feeling some remorse. He wanted to make amends with Clark as well and clearly still had some feelings of compassion for the Kents.

This season, though, instead of questioning his actions, he's making up twisted justifications for them. This is very much akin to the Lex Luthor of canon.

I think that Lex's torture of Bart was sadistic and uncalled for...bordering on evil, because Bart could've died, and Lex wouldn't have cared much if at all, would he? The same goes for what he did to AC and Victor. He held these people against their will. Granted, AC and Bart both DID invade LuthorCorp private projects, but that doesn't give Lex the right to torture them. He could've sued AC or put him in jail for a while, but not torture him to the point of near-death. As far as Bart, he'd have a hard time suing him or handing him over to the law, because 33.1 itself is an illegal project. But he still could've handled the situation with Bart differently.

Impregnating Lana with a "fake baby" (whether or not it's really fake is yet to be seen) is a terrible thing to do to a person. The REALLY scary part is that this is someone Lex loves. If THAT is how he treats the people he loves, then the rest of the world (whom he essentially hates) is in BIG trouble.

Here's a few other examples of his behavior NOT being the behavior of a "good" person by any means:

Leaving Lionel to die in the season four finale: callous and ruthless and almost evil.

Withholding information that can help save countless lives in "Ageless"-well, this one may be the most evil, actually. What possible justification for that is there? Sure, maybe he's using that information for his 33.1 experiments (which he thinks is for the betterment of mankind), but how could he look someone who's dying in the face and say that it's ok for him to withhold the information that could save that person's life?

Hiring the meteor freaks to attack the Kents and Lana in order to find out if Clark is a freak or not-Lex may have rationalized that Clark would save the day and nobody would get hurt, but he still took that chance of people getting hurt or even killed. A "good" person does not take such a chance just for his own obsessive needs.

For a list of more detail, check out xrayvision's brilliant post on this. I think it's under the Lex thread entitled "Lex's Evil Acts" or something like that.

Anyway, my point is that Lex may have some justifications for what he does, but that does not make it right for him to hurt others and act ruthlessly.

[wearetheborg]

Originally posted by silverfist
LOL. Oh well, I'll still go ahead and make a serious comment to this topic.

Comon now wearetheborg.
If Lex tortured and/or killed someone you know because he personally thought that it would greatly benefit the world, would you still see him as a good person?

The US did precisely that when it invaded Iraq, thousands of civilians were killed who arguably would not have been killed under Saddam's rule (perhaps others would have been killed under his rule, but not the same people who died in the Iraq war).
The Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombing is another example.

My point is, the world IS acting like Lex, and is getting support from the people.

Regarding "Withholding information that can help save countless lives", Clark is gulty of the same thing. His blood has rejuvenating properties, and he hasnt come forward.

If Lex hurt someone I know, I would for certain go after him, but that doesnt mean what Lex did was wrong.
Take illegal immigration. The immigrants for the most part just want to make a better life for their families, they work hard, and at a lower pay rate than their american counterparts. What they're doing is certainly not unethical from their viewpoint.
But from the viewpoint of a native citizen, illegal immigration is ...well "illegal".

Regarding Lex sending meteor freaks after the Kents, aliens had just landed a while ago, and they mysteriously disappeared. If this happened in the real world, you're kidding yourself if you think the govts would not do worse things to get more information.

The Lex in "Superman Returns" was evil - he was willing to kill millions of people for pure financial gain. This is not the Lex we're seeing here.
The Lex in smallville is willing to take a bullet (for Lana), and to volunteer as a guniea pig for experiments (when that gas leaked out).

[SteveS]

Re: Lex Luthor is NOT evil

Originally posted by wearetheborg
Anyone think that Lex is not evil ?
He is not goody two shoes, but he is not all black either.
Lets look at things from his perspective.

Meteor freaks are popping all over the place.
Aliens dropped down on earth. They have technology unmatched by earthlings.
Blackout all over the world, satellites were taken out.
The kuwachi caves mystery.
And Lex only understands part of the puzzle.
Clark is not forthcoming.

If YOU were president, what would you do ?
Heck, the US invaded Iraq because of what Iraq COULD do.
Sure, he is experimentiing on mutants, and lying his way around, but thats just because he wants to accumulate power fast to battle evil (the situation is worse than X-Men, as here as hostile aliens are involved with a superior technology). Its called collateral damage.

Imagine if Clark were just a human, and there was no superpowerful being willing to fight for us (this is what Lex presumes). Wouldn't you want someone on our side who is willing to bend the rules a bit to get the job done ?

Finally, we have seen Lex's greatest fear - that he will go too far one day, and cause total destruction.

I think Lex is good.

IF you ignore all the crime, graft, and potentially deadly sins committed by Lex, you may delude yourself that he is good. He is not good, but Lex is not totally evil. He is generally, a bad person however.

[wearetheborg]

Re: Re: Lex Luthor is NOT evil

Originally posted by SteveS
IF you ignore all the crime, graft, and potentially deadly sins committed by Lex, you may delude yourself that he is good. He is not good, but Lex is not totally evil. He is generally, a bad person however.

OK, maybe he is not totally "good", but he is more like the good of the punisher.
The punisher for all purposes killed the wife of the mobster just to get revenge.

[jimmyolsenblues]

i have always enjoyed the theory/plot, that the reason lex does what he does is to provide balance to superman.
if superman would be left to his own devices would he involve himself in such day to day decisions, humans would lose free will.
superman's man goodness would over rule anyone's slightest desire for something lets say in a grey land of truth. not everything we do is right or wrong , some is in between.
Theoretically superman could if unchallenged become the end of humans free will to chose.
I enjoy this theory because it really expands on the concept of good vs evil.
How can we know what goodness/happiness is without evil/sadness. I really like that lex views his life is to bring superman in check. To lex who is the true hero, the alien with all the superpowers, or the mere mortal with intellect going up against him.
Superman and Lex Luthor are really some of the greatest fiction characters in world history.