(no subject)

[jakrar.livejournal.com]

Sorry to come in late with this, but the entry about SV's pilot episode got me thinking. Who besides the jocks who strung Clark up know that he was the scarecrow his freshman year? Lex, of course, since he got Clark down, and Lex deliberately nudged Lana into the realization, but is there anyone else? Clearly, Clark didn't tell his parents at the time, since Jonathan was all buddy-buddy with Whitney the next morning, but did Jonathan and/or Martha ever find out later? At the time, neither Pete nor Chloe ever expressed any guilt that they were off having fun at the dance while Clark was hanging out there, barely clinging to life, but mightn't one or both might have heard school gossip about it at some point? Did anyone else close to Clark ever realize? And, if not, what difference might it have made in the way Clark's family and friends viewed Lex to know that Lex had very likely saved Clark's life soon after Clark had saved his? *ponders*

Comments

[hils.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone apart from Clark, Lex, Lana and Whitney knew but it would make an interesting fic :)

Gah! *adds it to plot bunny list*

[jakrar.livejournal.com]

Bunnies are good! *pets bunnies*

[danceswithgary]

I am sort of exploring that with LOE where Chloe and Pete know Lex saved Clark and even said thanks for the help. :-D

[jakrar.livejournal.com]

I am sort of exploring that with LOE

True, and I am loving that story!

In the aired SV universe, by contrast, it appears as if no one else ever finds out, and that actually seems a little odd. Wouldn't you think the jocks would torment Clark afterwards where other students could hear, deliberately letting the word get around? Maybe Lex, in an effort to spare Clark some humiliation, issued a few private threats to Whitney to make sure he and his friends left Clark alone and kept the incident quiet. (Letting Lana know, of course, was part of Lex's campaign to get Clark the girl he seemed to want, and not-so-coincidentally punish the jock she'd been dating.)

[danceswithgary]

I believe there is a 'conspiracy of silence' that helps perpetuate that type of hazing ritual. The silence on Clark's part is understandable, to me, on multiple levels.

First, his father played football and and would most likely have been aware of the ritual, how humiliating to admit to your father that you fell victim to something he felt was part of growing up in Smallville, especially if you were afraid your father would just say that was the way things are and with your gifts you should have been able to handle things better.

Second, admitting he had been overcome could have exposed his weakness to the meteor rock, leaving him open to further harassment/retaliation.

Third, Blowing the whistle on the team members would have left Clark subject to scrutiny, the same attention he had been conditioned to avoid all his life. Knowing it wasn't right wasn't enough to make him the one to stop it for all time. I think that particular brand of courage would be something he grows into as the series goes on.

[jakrar.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can absolutely understand why Clark wouldn't be likely to admit it to anyone. I was mainly wondering whether the football players would see it as the kind of joke they'd want to share with their friends, giving the story a chance to spread from there, or whether they'd all be tight-lipped out of fear of some kind of official retaliation.

Come to think of it, though, wasn't the sheriff at that time a former football player himself? So he might well have been inclined to ignore anything he heard about that type of hazing unless some victim adamantly insisted on pressing charges -- which would be unlikely for the sort of reasons you mentioned.

[pepperjackcandy.livejournal.com]

I've always suspected that Pete knew.

[jakrar.livejournal.com]

With Pete having joined the football team, you would think he'd hear something about it. Of course, the big question then would be: did he only hear about it afterwards, or did he know beforehand that Clark would be targeted? I wouldn't think Pete would have just gone to the dance with Chloe if he'd known the whole time Clark would be hanging out in the field (though maybe I'm giving him too much credit), but if he only heard about it after, he might have figured it was best just to let the subject stay buried rather than bring it up to Clark. So Pete might know Clark was the scarecrow, but not that Lex was the one who saved him, and Clark might not even know that Pete knows.