Moved To @fontofmercy

“He answers to no one, not even I think to god.”

(Re-posted with minor revisions after I moved accounts and accidentally deleted this post)

Lex’s motivations are quite explicit in BvS, he has a whole speech explaining why he is doing what he’s doing and what he says is consistently shown throughout his screentime. But I think there is a lot unspoken beneath the surface that most people wouldn’t think of, based on my observations I think that BvS’s Lex was molested by his father and that he’s sexually attracted to Clark, and that his issues with Superman partially stem from the duality of desiring Clark and being afraid of him. That may sound strange, especially the csa bit, but hear me out because there is quite a bit of evidence and it may give you a clearer perspective on the character.

NOTE: I just want to clarify that it is not at all my intention to equate homosexuality with CSA nor demonize CSA survivors, I’m simply observing this particular character who happens to be a villain. Lex being attracted to Clark doesn’t make him villainous, the way he deals with it because of trauma and internalized homophobia is the problem.

1.) Daddy’s Abominations?

“No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to save me from daddy’s fists and abominations!”

This is quite self-explanatory, Lex just said that his father sexually abused him. The only other possible interpretation I could think of is a more general ‘my dad made me evil because he was evil’ but that’s a really weak explanation especially since the line is equated with the trauma of being beaten by his dad and the way he is very visibly triggered saying that line. When he finishes “abominations” he immediately flinches away from Superman and shakes his hand in front of his face as if desperately trying to erase what he just confessed.

2.) Lolita + Alice in Wonderland

“Plain Lo in the morning, Lola is slacks -“

“Late, late says the white rabbit”

Lolita and Alice in Wonderland...those are interesting choices of literature for a supervillain to quote. You’d think something more threatening and/or pretentious would be an obvious choice for a traditional mastermind-type supervillain rather than two obscure (not very masculine) classics that only have one thing in common: themes of sexual obsession and pedophilia.

Lolita is the story of a pedophile who uses his power as a step-father to groom and sexually abuse a child. Alice in Wonderland, while not having explicit pedophilic content, was written by a suspected pedophile and is obsessively focused on a child that there are photographs of the author kissing on the mouth. These are the two novels Lex relates to enough to quote them casually off the top of his head.

3.) The “it’s cherry” scene

So this is obviously a sexual innuendo but the question is, why this guy? This character is utterly unimportant on his own and this doesn’t affect anything plot-wise which means this action is entirely about characterizing Lex. What are they trying to communicate here? This guy represents a figure similar to Lex’s father, an older businessman who behaved as if he had authority over Lex, and Lex’s instinct to that is to assert dominance in a sexually suggestive manner. This establishes Lex as a character who uses sexuality to dominate and make others uncomfortable, and relates it to a man who who represents his father.

4.) Two Versions Of The Same Scene

Lex caressing Zod’s face directly parallels him caressing around Clark’s face, even the framing is identical. I think these are two versions of Lex confronting Superman, one with the actual Superman where he has to keep his distance and put on a callous front, and the other with a Kryptonian corpse he can project Superman onto. The scene with Zod I think shows how Lex truly feels about Clark. “You flew too close to the sun” he’s saying this and crying as he’s creating a monster to kill Clark which makes me think those words were not for Zod but the god he feels he has to kill. There’s no reason for Lex to cry for Zod, Lex has no relationship with him, it’s much more coherent that this scene is using Zod’s body as a substitute for what Lex can’t express to the real Superman.

EDIT: Upon rewatch I noticed a small moment where the Jolly Rancher Dude (I don’t think he has a name lol?) says with a smile “You want Zod’s body?” and Lex goes “Okay”, it’s a very playful interaction and it I think strengthens the connection between Zod’s body being an implied sex symbol of Superman.

4.5.) The Sexual Tension In The Rooftop Scene

Every moment of the rooftop scene (and all of this film) is so multilayered and intense, I could talk about it for hours but I want to talk a little more about the moment in the above gif.

Seconds before this, Lex was wagging his fingers inches for Superman’s glowing laser eyes but now when he knows Clark isn’t going to attack him, he won’t touch him? Lex is less afraid of having his fingers burned off than he is to touch Clark’s head knowing that he won’t do anything. Because Lex would be happy if Superman burned him, that would prove him right and give him an easy category to put Clark in but letting himself touch Clark in an ‘affectionate’ manner is terrifying.

A straight male villain that just wanted to use physical contact to assert dominance over the hero would have touched Clark here (and also would have no reason to caress Zod’s dead body) but Lex can’t even though he’s literally trembling with desire to and we know for a fact he’s not afraid of invading Clark’s personal space in an even more physically dangerous moment.

5.) The Dual Realities Of An Abused Child

“If God is all good then he cannot be all powerful.”

Now, I’m not an expert in psychology but I will do my best to articulate this. When someone, especially a child, is abused by someone they love it creates an extreme paradox in their mind. They love this person and they have to trust them but they also have to fear them, their brains are forced to compartmentalize when this person is a threat vs when they are a protector. In some cases, like Lex’s, this can lead to someone entirely thinking in absolutes and dualities.

It’s a consistent theme in Lex’s dialogue that he thinks in absolutes. The cornerstone of his ideology is people have to be “all good” or “all powerful” when really no one is either, there arguably is no such thing as either.

It’s also a theme that he has dual views of people in his life, the most prominent being his father and Superman. In one scene he’s reminiscing about wishing his dad would come back, in another he’s emotionally describing the abuse he inflicted. And Lex does the same with Clark as explained in point 4.

Lex even seems to have a dual view of himself. In the rooftop scene he points to himself as “the evil in the world” but his speech about Prometheus at the party is clearly meant to illustrate that he sees himself as a misunderstood savior of humanity (this is even confirmed in the bonus material).

6.) Internalized Homophobia

“I don’t hate the sinner, I hate the sin.”

Two things are important to me with this line. First is that it reinforces point 5 but also this is a very, very common phrase in homophobic rhetoric so for him to say this and gesture to Clark’s body as the “sin” has implications. And yes, yes, I know he meant that Clark’s powers are a sin but things can have double meanings and I sincerely doubt that anyone making a movie in the western world’s current political climate wouldn’t realize that phrase is strongly linked to homophobia.

To elaborate on how it reinforces 5: Lex is openly saying that he doesn’t hate Clark, he just hates his power, which brings us back to the idea of an abuse victim’s dual reality. It’s Clark’s power that is the threat to him but he can still love Clark, same way his father’s abuse was a threat but he can still love his father. Note: Lex calls Clark “my friend” and “Clark Joe” and similar affectionate names throughout their interactions which I think suggests that Lex sees Clark as partially a person.

7.) Conclusion

DCEU’s Lex Luthor was a fresh, contemporary take on the character so it was a jarring difference from the Lex we’ve seen in other recent mainstream media. I also think it was upsetting partially because it took away Lex as a male power fantasy; a buff, suave billionaire who’s hyper masculine and doesn’t let anything get to him including his canonical abuse. Now we’ve got this definitely charming and silver-tongued but effeminate and deeply traumatized Lex that I think is much, much more dynamic and compelling (and definitely fits this universe) but was uncomfortable for people that were attached to the charecter as a male power fantasy.

Nevertheless we need more villains like this. That can be both intimidating and vulnerable, that are human and offer a real ideological opposition to the hero. BvS could not have been the story it is without this Lex. BvS is a brilliant and nuanced film about how fear and trauma affects people’s worldviews, which is an important thing to explore when you have a Superhero that is the embodiment of hope. It’s important to show that not everyone can have hope so easily and to humanize those people.

- Despite spending most of their childhood apart, Jerome and Jeremiah can still perfectly minimic each other’s mannerisms and speech to the point where no one can tell the difference. Jerome does this in his first appearance where he’s trying to appear an innocent, loving son (i.e Jermeiah) and Jeremiah of course pretends to be Jerome as part of his first plot post-gas. This shows how vividly they still remember each other.

- We never see Jerome more emotional than when he is confronting Jeremiah about leaving him, it’s clear that more than the horrific physical abuse and more than having to murder his own mother (who he didn’t love and for good reason) - Jeremiah leaving him was the worst thing that has ever happened to Jerome and I don’t think it’s just because the abuse probably increased in severity after that (although Jerome’s abuse is NOT Jeremiah’s fault and I made a post about that on my old blog*). I think it’s also because Jerome lost the only person who was ever on his side and who understood him. I firmly believe that Jerome did do something that made Jeremiah genuinely afraid of him (also explained *) and I imagine he probably behaved aggressively or even possibly abusively towards Jeremiah because he was desperate to hold onto the only person that he actually loves (similarly to how Jeremiah ends up behaving towards Bruce, he picked it up somewhere).

- There’s also the fact that they don’t want each other dead. Jeremiah cries when he sees his brother’s body. As for Jerome, yes he says that he’s going to kill Jeremiah “of course” but I am 99.9% certain that he didn’t mean that and was just fucking with Jeremiah because he’s spiteful about the attempted murder stories. Jerome planned for Jeremiah to get sprayed and become like him, you could argue that he planned to drive jeremiah insane and then kill him but that doesn’t make much sense. See, Jerome doesn’t see “driving Jeremiah mad” as a punishment, he thinks being insane is a good thing (and post-gas, Jeremiah sees it as “the gift his brother gave him”) so no I don’t think Jerome meant to punish Jeremiah then kill him, he meant to make Jeremiah see the world the way he does and by doing so permanently bind them together. Sound familiar? Oh, it should 😉

- Jeremiah is a person who needs an obsession to survive, we never see him without someone that consumes his life and drives his every move. It’s quite clear that Jerome was Jeremiah’s obsession at least from the time he left to when he meets Bruce (who replaces Jerome in Jeremiah’s life after his death) but it can be inferred that they were obsessed with each other as children too.

- I’ve been alluding to it but yes, Jeremiah’s obsession with Bruce is an attempt to recreate (and by proxy, fix) his relationship with Jerome. How do I know that? Because Jeremiah explicitly says so multiple times!

“You’ll be the brother I never had, the one Jerome never could be.”

“If I can’t have you as a brother bonded by love...we’ll just have to be bonded by hatred.”

The second line in particular: brothers failing to bond through love so becoming bonded through hatred. That is literally Jerome and Jeremiah’s relationship in canon! Meaning that Jeremiah’s love for Jerome is the only source of reference that he has to love Bruce (because that’s the only other person he’s loved, Ecco was a favored tool and his mother was a delusion).

As I said earlier: Jeremiah tries to force Bruce to see lose his mind and see things the way Jeremiah does because he’s convinced that will bond them together because that’s what bonded him to Jerome.

It’s clear that Jeremiah has non-platonic feelings for Bruce, he wouldn’t see Selina specifically (more so than Alfred or anyone else Bruce loves) as competition if he didn’t. So, it follows that Jeremiah wouldn’t be making references to his relationship with his brother unless he had some level of non-platonic feelings for Jerome as well.

So, Jeremiah tries to force his worldview onto Bruce the way that Jerome probably did to him when they were children and the outcome is the same; Jeremiah scares Bruce into abandoning him and falls even deeper into insanity when he “loses the one, the only thing he loves”.

* https://jrluthor.tumblr.com/post/187669992458/im-so-done-seeing-people-act-like-jeremiah-lying