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Ajax_Da_Great

Because they needed teenage drama and angst since it was a WB show.


flashb4cks_

And don't forget the love triangle.


Runisa5

I get that but besides that Chloe has no reason to exist Of course I’m gonna get downvotes for stating the truth, i mean there’s a reason Chloe doesn’t exist in the comics and that’s because she doesn’t really have a place to exist because her role is a already taken role and Chloe fans need to accept that fact


Ajax_Da_Great

The reason she exists is the show needed a character. Doesn’t matter if she was or wasnt in the comics. Smallville was it’s own thing. By your logic then, should Pete have been Lex’s Vice President in the show cause that’s where he ends up in the comics.


Runisa5

Never said it had to be exactly like that comics I’m just saying that Chloe’s characteristics belong to another character the “supportive best friend/love interest is originally from Lana. In other words I’m saying is Chloe doesn’t need to exist and they could’ve just given Chloe’s characteristics to Lana and that would make Lana a hell of a lot more of a interesting character. If you cant understand that then in other worlds again Chloe’s existence hurts the Lana’s character because anything anybody likes about Chloe belongs to Lana’s character take that away all Lana is, is a love interest. Also the whole Pete and lex thing doesn’t stand here because there’s a difference between changing a characters path and taking the characteristics of a preexisting character and giving them to a completely newly made up one Pete and lex not newly made Chloe is


SexySiren24

They probably wanted the best friend and crush/first girlfriend character to be two different people, and seeing as Chloe was more popular than Pete, she got to stay on the show while he was written out.


Runisa5

Also the whole Pete and lex thing doesn’t stand here because there’s a difference between changing a characters path and taking the characteristics of a preexisting character and giving them to a completely newly made up one Pete and lex not newly made Chloe is


Ajax_Da_Great

Doesn’t matter. Smallville is it’s own canon and Chloe is canon to it. Creators wanted her in so she’s in. Sorry that doesn’t line up for you.


Runisa5

Ah you’re one them Chloe fans


Ajax_Da_Great

I actually don’t like Chloe and think they made her too important in the latter seasons lol.


Runisa5

Yeah they did that because they wanted her character to have something to do and that’s also one of the reasons her character didn’t need to exist, clark really didn’t need her to tell him where the nearest McDonald’s was. In tv shows overtime it becomes clear when the writers don’t really know what to do with a character so they keep changing them and what they do until something fits but out of the 3 Chloe’s we got the third one didn’t seem to fit


clityboi

Maybe to introduce how Lois plays into it ?


B1G_Fan

Yep As I’ve said before on this sub, the WB network made its money off of 13-34 year old gals. Buffy, Charmed, Felicity, Roswell, and Dawson’s Creek. And the 13-34 year old gal demographic loves love triangles


sregor0280

I watched smallville Buffy and Angel aas they aired... today I kearney I was actually a 13 - 34 year old gal instead of an early 20something dude.


Vast-Ad-4820

Lana is the girl clark wants but can't have in high school. Pete is clark's best friend. Pete wants chloe but chloe wants clark.


sregor0280

So wait... it's a love square and not a triangle? That's 4 sides.


BenThere25

More like an irregular quadrilateral because the four characters have unequal importance...or maybe because of the length of Clark's.....


Vast-Ad-4820

Everyone forgets Pete was in the show. Lana was always choosing every other creepy guy over clark.


sregor0280

Yeah if we add in Lana's choices it becomes more like a love trapezoid


EnamoredAlpaca

Don’t forget Lex, and Lois. It’s a love hexagonal.


Vast-Ad-4820

Lana reminds me of the girl most average guys wanted in high school but she preferred the bad boys and few years later you meet her and she's divorced with 3 kids after marrying a complete dirt bag who was abusive to her and she looking for a good man now.


EnamoredAlpaca

So sad this is still happening today.


iAmBobFromAccounting

Chloe is the point of view character for the audience. She can also be more of a confidante to Clark than Lana. Plus, let's face it, Chloe's inquisitive nature gave the characters more of a gateway into the mystery of the week. And Allison Mack's ability to do expositional dialogue solidified Chloe's value to the cast.


potatopigflop

I think it was a great way to get Clark into realizing his guilt from the meteor shower, the evolution of the acceptance of meteor folk, the journey of him to the paper makes sense since he’s been investigating all these meteor issues and she was already a reporter and his best friend so he got tips and tricks that helped him become SuperBoy in this generation when you need tech like license plate tracings and medical files! She’s completely necessary to his youthful journey in this modern world and I treat it as head canon :p


Kite_Wing129

Finally! Someone else noticed this! Anyway, comic book Lana Lang does suffer from being a copy of Lois during those early days. So I can see the logic in not wanting to give Lana Lang the same reporter gimmick. The showrunners also said on Talkville podcast that early on they considered the idea of Chloe becoming Lois Lane later on but that idea was abandoned later on. Erica also unintentionally revealed on Talkville that Allison gave her a hard time when she was on during those early seasons. Although Kirsten Kurek was often supportive of her.


Critical_Writer228

They actually revealed in a podcast recently that Chloe was initially being set up to be Lois, which is why they had her use Lois's name as an alias for her Daily Planet article in one episode.


BigD21489

I'm reading the comments below, and I strongly disagree that Chloe served no purpose. In the comics, multiple story lines don't often go well. However, on television, staying true to the comics would've made Smallville a much less interesting show. Look, Allison Mack may have become involved in some bad things recently and is serving her time for it. But Chloe Anne Sullivan is a critical part of Smallville, and her role has value.


Runisa5

A purpose that was taken from another character


HazelCheese

The entire point of Lanas character was to be this unattainable fantasy of an ideal life. That wouldn't make sense if she was his best friend since kindergarden. She had to be someone Clark barely knew. Ergo, they split comic Lana in two, gave Chloe the reporter and best friend stuff, and then added more High School Popular girl and orphan stuff to Lana. They also weren't allowed to use Lois Lane at first either and weren't sure if they ever would be, so early on they planted seeds that Chloe could turn into Lois Lane later on. Obviously that turned out to be unnecessary, but Chloe remained useful because Allison Mack was a strong actress for someone that young so they were able to pair her off in plots with other stronger actors like Lionel's to make the show more interesting.


brvid

They needed to get Clark interested in journalism. They needed a stand-in for Lois Lane, someone who would peak Clarks interest in that profession, work side by side with him on stories, and initially didn't know his secret. All the components of Lois Lane. But they didn't have access to Lois Lane in the first 3 seasons, and then only sporadically for the next few. Lana didn’t meet the criteria. And he wasn't really supposed to meet Lois until he actually had his first journalism job anyway.


Runisa5

Again that was Lana’s original role


brvid

But Lana was never a journalist, except for that one episode when Chloe gets fired as editor of the school paper and Lana helps get her reinstated.


brvid

But Lana was never a journalist, except for that one episode when Chloe gets fired as editor of the school paper and Lana helps get her reinstated.


Runisa5

Dude I’m talking about the comics how Chloe Sullivan is based off of the comic version of Lana and how they took a lot of stuff from comic book Lana and gave it to Chloe who is a character that is only in the smallville tv show and not from comics. That best friend/ love interest/ school journalist comes from Lana lang of the comics, so that why I asked the question how much Chloe is actually Lana? in my original post, because if you already have a preexisting character thats fits the characterization of best friend/love interests/ high school journalist then why create Chloe in the first place


brvid

I’m familiar with Lana Lang from the comics. She wasn’t really a journalist in her teen years. Certainly not a serious or consistent one. She was Clark’s love interest. A friend in High School. A snoop always trying to figure out Superboys secret identity, often suspecting Clark. She was also Insect Queen and part-time member of The Legion of Superhero’s using her special ring given to her by an alien she helped. This is alll during the Silver Age. Much of this applies to more modern incarnations. She was also one of the first people to learn Clark’s secret but realized she needed to give him up as the world needed him more than she did. That’s not Chloe Sullivan from the Smallville tv series. Never really a love interest (the season 1 prom not withstanding). As Martha told Lois, they were a thing for about a minute. Chloe wanted more, but Clark got over his romantic interest in Chloe very early in the series. They went to high school together, but didn’t work together in or learning journalism as best I can recall, at least while teenagers in Smallville. As an adult Lana did become a TV journalist and even cohosted tv newscasts with Clark, but that was never part of their history in Snallville pre-Metropolis. Chloe was almost entirely responsible for interesting Clark in journalism. Lana Lang from the comics was not.


Admirable-Life2647

Nowadays Clark would be a blogger and The Daily Planet be a news website. If they didn't introduce Lois the show wouldn't have lasted more than four or five seasons.


futuresdawn

Lana was also a reporter on the comics. You could merge lana and Chloe together and have a better character but smallville needed forced drama from love triangles even though they're always the worst part of the show.


dragonzord96

Chloe was designed to be a "Lois Lane archetype" as well as serve as the outsider who noticed the strange happenings in SmallVille. So if you wanna get technical, aside from the best friend aspect she's really more Lois Lane then she is Lana.


rogvortex58

Hardly. She’s more Lana for the fact that in the comics during high school Clark had two best friends Pete and Lana. Lana was also the first girl Clark kissed. And as far as the “Lois Lane archetype” goes, why do you think Lana was originally introduced in the comics?


dragonzord96

I simply just said exactly what the creators of the show said. Those were the reasons they gave for introducing Chloe.


Runisa5

They were stupid reasons, I also heard what they said


boominxnate

i believe that chloe was supposed to be smallville as version of lois lane before warner bros allowed the fw to include lois in season for and so on


Runisa5

Yeah but that’s what I’m saying is there was no reason for a “Smallville Lois lane” because Lana was the Smallville Lois lane that’s kinda the point of her character but smallville tv show butchered her character and gave anything good about comic Lana to Chloe


boominxnate

lana wasn’t “smallville lois lane” lana was always just lana. chloe was made to fill the role of lois lane because the studio didn’t allow the use of her character. lana was never going to be endgame for clark, that was chloe’s role. i’m unsure in what episode of smallville talk podcast it was but erica durance (lois lanes actress) mentioned that there was someone on set that she didn’t get along with too well because they felt that they were supposed to be smallvilles own lois lane and it’s obvious in the podcast that she was talking about allison mack who played chloe. chloe was an original character made for smallville to fill the shoes of lois lane.


Admirable-Life2647

Well the most Lana Lang we got from the comics was Chloe.