#The 100 meta

[blogquantumreality]

Neo-Colonialism In The 100

I’d like to preface this by saying that I feel the Season 1 and 2 arcs are not implicitly in support of a colonialist “we have the right to take whatever exists here” narrative.

When the dropship lands, the young adults and teenagers (it’s hard to come up with one classification since we’ve got Bellamy at 23 all the way to Charlotte who might be 13 or so) don’t appear to be immediately targeted until they cross a river and Jasper unwisely (in retrospect, obviously) holds up a Mount Weather sign and yells loudly in what is obviously gonasleng.

Even afterwards, as wariness rises, the delinquents only secure for themselves a defensive space and Clarke tries to seek peace even though there are repeated incidents that make it harder to get. And Anya seems amenable to at least trying to negotiate something until Jasper’s itchy trigger finger ends up tilting the balance to war.

And even in the aftermath, the kids decide to take Lincoln’s advice and leave for a possibly more hospitable area - hardly die-hard colonialists intent on wiping out the indigenous population.

The Ark landing can be argued as the best of a set of essentially not-great alternatives, and luckily, none of the Ark fragments landed in populated areas. It could be argued justifiably that the Ark landing could have been better controlled to aim at a known uninhabited area.

The essential thrust of Season 2 is the discovery of a common threat amid efforts by Lexa and Kane, as well as Clarke, to secure a workable peace everybody can live with.

However, in Season 3, explicitly colonialist narratives begin to be articulated, which through the “lens” of the camera we the audience are asked to sympathize with even though there is no internal canon support for the allegations made by Pike and Bellamy. In addition, aggression and expansionism with no effort to seek peaceful resolutions are screaming neon bright signs of colonialist worldviews.

Even in Season 4, there are colonialist overtones in the meta-narrative surrounding the finale. It has been reported that S4 was intended to contain explicit S1 callbacks and that S5 is in a sense a “reboot” of the series.

What that effectively means is that all grounder identities have been essentially erased because the bunker, for all intents and purposes, might as well be dead; all the work that over a thousand people have put in has been for nothing. There’s just Nightblood Clarke defending her small patch of Earth against unfamiliar intruders.

[bellamyblake]

rant for 1x09 cause I gotta but under cut since I’m sure I’ll get hate

I really don’t get the O.ctavia and F/inn point here especially at the end of the episode. Yes, Jasper shot first but he didn’t make up the grounders in the trees-they were there and let’s not mention the fact that A/nya arrived with TWO armed soldiers at her side and all L/incoln said was “I was told there’d be no weapons” but surprise surprise there were! 

And Clarke was right to bring Bellamy along and keep an eye on them since she was sure the grounders wouldn’t keep up with any promises L/incoln or F/inn tried to make and she was right. A/nya’s whole angry speech is another aspect I don’t get-yes, the 100 are invaders in a way but come on, you and L.incoln specifically, observed them for ages (if he knew he wanted Clarke to come along as the leader, let’s be real and let’s kinda ignore the fact that the whole relationship with O is a bit...well...I can dissect that but I won’t right now); 

The point is they saw those were just children who knew nothing about the ground, had no weapons and fought against each other from day one. Those weren’t soldiers who went out there to seek land and kill the grounders-those were kids. A/nya’s other point-the falres? Sure, that probably caused fires but it was unintentional. Meanwhile what happened to them-they crossed Jasper on a tree and impaled him, killed and hunted a bunch of the others without any mercy and without stopping to think about asking what they’re doing here and what they do know about the ground (which is nothing); Her other point-capturing L.incoln and torturing him, yes, that’ IS bad, no one is denying that but that happened only after they hurt Jasper on day 1 of them coming down and killing 10 more delinquents and him stabbing F/inn. Let’s be real here, L/incoln isn’t some sort of helper to the 100 at first at all, he just observed them for a while and fell in love (weirdly) in O/ctavia which is why he blew the horn and saved her when he found her fallen. Does he want to change that later? Sure, he doesn’t think what they’re doing is right and he gets in conflict with his people but at first he was sent to scout, observe and possibly kill. 

So none of A/nya’s points on that brdige make sense. They knew those kids weren’t invaders-they observed them and saw them for what they were-children, with no way of fighting (like the grounder children did if we are to think like them and know about the conclave) or any way to support themselves. They are just barely surviving. Yet you went there and killed them. THOSE are acts of war. Yes, what Clarke, Bellamy and the others did wasn’t good either-capturing L/incoln and torturing him but they would’ve done and they did the same to them if we look at Murphy and what happened to him. 

The fight at the end of the episode between F/inn and O/ctavia on one side and Clarke, Bellamy, Jasper and Raven on the other is just...plain stupid for me. Yes, F/inn can want peace but he’s delusional if he thinks he’ll get it that way and O/ctavia if we’re going to be real is the one who acts out most as a teenager out of them all. I like this grounder and I’m gonna be with him for the sole reason that it will piss my brother off and that he is something different and adventerous that I want. She acts like none of the 100 ever got killed or hurt by them. Suddenly it’s all rainbows and unicorns and everyone else is wrong.

I’m not saying war and guns is the way but in this particular case Clarke and Bellamy were right and acted smart and in accordance to everything they knew about earth so far. The narrative blames them though just like it does later on many occassions. 

[bellamysgriffin]

why do you think lexa wasn't? genuinely curious/asking

happy to answer this one actually! so this is in reference to my bold claim that lexa's death on the 100 was not part of the bury your gays trope and i stand by that.

so the 100 was a show in which main characters died every season. when adc decided to leave the 100 there was truly no other way to write lexa's character off than to kill her. again, this is a show where lincoln would die episodes later, finn had died the season previous, wells died, monty and harper would die, jasper would die, kane and abby would die, and im sure there are plenty more i'm forgetting. main characters died all the time.

lexa is actually as far as i can remember the only canon queer character who died -- clarke, niylah, and miller all survive to the finale. there was no way to have lexa walk off into the sunset for a season and pop in and out. she was too consequential as a character. when adc left, lexa had to die, and i don't think the way she was killed was particularly disrespectful. in fact, i would argue that her death was the most resonant in the plotline long after she was gone. it advanced the plot, advanced clarke's character, and was a rather beautiful send off scene. lexa was mentioned post-death more than any other character on the show. i know there are some people who have issues with the fact that she and clarke had just gotten together when it happened, but that's just a common writing trope -- the character gets what they want only to die immediately after. super common.

now, that said, i understand that she was one of several lesbian deaths on television that year, and i don't begrudge any queer woman who mourned that death in a deeper way. there is so little representation that when a sapphic character we love dies so brutally it can feel like more than just a television death. that said, i don't think jroth (a man of many crimes) did anything wrong by killing off lexa nor killing her off in the way he did. it wasn't offensive.

the 100 is a survival show. as a queer woman i personally find it just as dehumanizing to demand that the only queer stories we get are happy as to say that every queer story must be tragic. and queer people deserve well-written, resonant tragedies. lexa's arc/clexa's arc on the 100 was beautiful and well-executed, and it wasn't offensive to kill her off. "bury your gays" is not just when a queer person dies. it's when the queer character is seen as expendable, is usually the only queer person in the cast, and usually not on a show/film where characters die regularly. it has ties to the hayes production code in which homosexuality was seen as immorality and was required under the code's rules to be punished, often resulting in queer characters dying or committing suicide.

i don't think that trope describes lexa. i think her death made sense for a show in which there was a lot of death and carnage, i think her character was well-written, well-developed and honored long after her death, and i think we would be remiss to say that she cannot die merely because she is queer when there are truly no other compelling reasons for why it would be wrong to kill that character off on a survival show. and i would hardly call it shock value, which is usually what the bury your gays trope is.

[azulhood]

DPxDC crossover but, instead of Danny being his ghostly-horror self, the justice league believe that he's just some guy.

Danny: *glowing eyes, sharp teeth, aura of eldritch being*

Villain: You're seeing this right?

Justice league: *turns around to find all the ghostly stuff gone* oh that's Danny *waves* hi Danny!

Villain: ...are you being serious right now?

It's not even that he's doing it on purpose, it's just anytime he does ghost things none of the heros are looking, and when they do have him in their sights he's just a normal person.

It probably wouldn't work for batman and his thousand cameras, but let's just say that it never got his attention cause no one in the league thought to mention it and the one time he did check it was just regular dude hours.

To the Justice league Danny is the humanist human to ever human.

Which is why they are so confused as to why this small branch of the government (mad scientist parents optional) is so sure he isn't.

[chanafehs]

Vivienne’s line about “a leash can be pulled both ways” is actually so fascinating because it can not only be applied to its original context (Mages & Templars) but to the Inquisitor themselves - as many have discussed the Inquisitor loses their standing, their heritage, their identity to this weird Andrastian cult up in the mountains regardless of what they personally believe. They are the Herald of Andraste, the leader of this massive powerful religious military organization that has its hands in every holding in Thedas and yet the Inquisitor is controlled by everyone else. You are locked into centrist diplomacy, the game is playing you as much as you are playing it. You can make choices but all of the choices you make are guided and picked apart by everyone else, you lose your entire personhood to become someone that everyone around you has molded you into and you cannot escape. The dichotomy between Vivienne and Sera becomes even more interesting because on one hand, Sera keeps trying to humanize you and tear down the barrier between you and the average person (or followers of you), while Vivienne wants you to harness your position since it is all you can do because escape is not an option - harkening back to her experience as a circle mage. Dragon Age Inquisition fundamentally gives you a protagonist sitting in the most powerful position in Thedas and the only thing you cannot control is yourself.

[ultfreakme]

"Gojo should've gotten to live as a person-" THAT’S THE POINT. That is the ENTIRE point of JJK. Every single character who died was someone who "should've gotten to" do a lot of things. Riko should've gotten to live for herself, Geto should've had the chance to be a teenage boy given support and safety, Junpei should've gotten to live without fear, Nobara should've had the chance to let people in without fear, Nanami, Yuki, Mai, Higurama, EVERYONE.

Here's the thing, Gojo is on this list. Gojo isn't the exception because JJK at its core is a story about how overarching systems destroy people; bullying, capitalism, sexism, etc. And this system does not need people to run it. Which is why killing Kenjaku didn't stop shit because yeah he started this mess but its grown beyond him. Fuck, it was there before him.

This is also why despite Sukuna & Uraume being the only ones who are actual threats, nothing is better. The cast got rid of the higher-ups, jujutsu tech as it is, is no more. The major families are dismantled. This should be a victory. This is what the Sashisu gen pointed out as the problem but things have never looked more bleak.

Why? Because the problem isn't Kenjaku, Sukuna, curses, sorcerers or curse users. It's the existence of Cursed Energy itself. This has been pointed out multiple times by Yuki. Its the system and Gojo has been complicit to the system for a long, long time. He's also it's victim. Gojo says he's the exception a lot, but as everyone has rightfully pointed out, he was nothing more than a weapon to jujutsu society.

JJK has followed a very clear pattern to every character right from Geto to Junpei to Riko; characters are representatives of systems of suppression, and they will not escape it. I can't recall a single character that's escaped unscathed, much less alive.

Is it disrespectful? Yes. Is it demeaning? YES. There has not been a single character death that's been dignified in JJK. It's all on a scale of bearable to absolutely horrifying. It is genuinely wild seeing people resort to threatening the author AGAIN. Calm the fuck down. You are entitled to feeling upset about how Gojo has been treated but Yuta stans are being calm despite Yuta arguably suffering the "he is a weapon" thing WORSE. It's still a fictional character and JJK's narratives never treated Gojo with any exceptions despite the character saying otherwise.

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[aphel1on]

AURGH auwarghh the autistic parental trauma... the epi was wacky hijinks then dropped this on us out of nowhere... (sobs) laios... laiiiiooooos

[fuckmeyer]

the choice between Edward & Jacob is not a question of which relationship is healthier or which partner is best suitable for Bella. neither is correct. neither is best. neither produces a happy ending for Bella. at the end of the day this is still a vampire novel. any choice Bella could make would yield, at best, a bittersweet happily ever after.

if she chooses Edward, she gets the terrifying Breaking Dawn ending: a girl who rejected her call to grow up has hung her love & her eternity on an emotionally stunted partner who hates himself marginally less than he loves her. she's a teen mom with a kid she never wanted who perpetuates the generational trauma passed down from her parents. by keeping this child, the Cullens have set the stage for an uprising/cold war against the Volturi who are likely to take revenge in order to maintain power. Bella is living in a tenuous "dream come true" wrapped in a nightmare & doesn't realize it.

choosing Jacob is the true coming-of-age ending that rips the stitches out of a wound that never fully healed. even if we ignore the fact that she ends up with a man who sexually assaulted her (we must bear in mind Jacob's character is influenced by smeyer's racism, but it did happen), they can't have a secure romantic relationship. based on the high imprinting rate of the pack, Jacob will likely find his imprint in his lifetime & will lose himself to the imprintee. he will no longer be her Jacob. he will inevitably abandon her (whether he wants to or not), & she must reconcile with the reality that she will always be inadequate to Jacob's imprint. & say he never manages to escape the vampires? he will presumably not age for a long time, meaning the relationship Bella always feared with Edward (her being an old grandmother while he stays forever young) remains a possibility. this is the story of a girl who slaps a Band Aid on an open wound & calls herself healed while flinching every time she sees the shadow of the knife that cut her.

if she chooses neither (team therapy), her healing requires her to lose or be at least partially disconnected from everyone she cares about. Bella must spend the rest of her life shut out from one world while never fully existing in her human world ever again. she must always keep secrets. she can never go back home. even in the unlikely event that she manages to escape the Volturi, the threat of being hunted by vampires will never leave her. in addition, she must face her worst fears (aging, losing Edward) while always keeping in mind the immortal life that could have been hers, if only.

even the "healthiest" option produces scars that will never quite heal.

Twilight is a horror. Twilight is a vampire novel. Twilight is gothic. Twilight is fiction. neither Edward nor Jacob is a "bad" choice because neither will give Bella her happily ever after. the choice between Edward & Jacob is simply a matter of which horror story you prefer to read.

[sunshine-zenith]

Something about Ambrosius’s reaction to cutting off Ballister’s arm

He drops his sword and looks like his mind went off line before doing a hard reboot. He acted on his lifelong training before he could process that the weapon he was “disarming” was attached to the man he loves. He looks dumbfounded and horrified, and sure some of that is probably “oh shit the queen is dead” and “did my boyfriend just murder someone?”

But

This face, the way he looks at Ballister here. I’m not seeing “what did you do?!” I’m seeing “What have I done?!”

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[quillthrillswriting]

i'm sorry, but the atla fandom is the only place where i've ever seen people unironically use a 12 year old telling his friend that killing someone out of grief is maybe a rash decision and not healthy to argue that that same 12 year old is being controlling and is an unhealthy partner

you guys know that murder is like....a bad thing....right? especially for a 14 year old? you guys know that revenge murder isn't a healthy strategy? you guys know that anyone who would encourage that is probably actually the unhealthy one in that scenario...right??

[theerurishipper]

Tim Drake, for no reason at all:

Dick Grayson, Tim's big brother in every conceivable way for the past several years:

[angelmachines]

ok. falls to the floor. something interesting i find about this omake is that reigens reaction to terus living situation is pointedly Not shown. reigen finds out that teru has no one and spends entire months alone in his apartment and his first course of action is to try to set up positive relationships for this kid while acting casual about it so as to not trigger terus defenses. insane actually

[pirateshelly]

There really is a sort of tragic irony to the fact that Armand's one moral line in the sand that he's managed to maintain despite centuries of adapting and having his identity shaped and reshaped by others (his refusal to turn anyone else into a vampire) is just kind of never taken seriously by those around him. Louis dismisses it as him being contrary and difficult and Daniel reacts with the sort of mocking disbelief you often see in people if they've been told someone doesn't want children or has never had sex; like it's more of a slightly absurd failing than a choice worth respecting.

Because honestly, saying 'I may literally depend on taking other people's lives to survive and I can't change what I am, but the one thing I will never do is make more of us or condemn anyone else to this" is a completely reasonable stance to take! It's a more practical way of attempting to be a vampire in a way that minimizes harm than trying to just not eat people, which is inevitably going to fail. Which is obviously not to say that this makes Armand, like, a good moral person lol (none of these characters are, and they'd be less interesting if they were, but it's still more interesting to me to recognize the ways they struggle with that than to act like the story exists in some sort of amoral void where nothing matters because everyone's a literal monster).

Like. That's his one single personal boundary, the one tiny thread of humanity he'd managed to keep for himself and has control over. And obviously I'm not defending his choice to betray Louis and Claudia and Madeleine. But you can still understand, as a viewer, how (from his understandably very warped and defensive way of interacting with the world) Louis and Claudia choosing to turn Madeleine anyway and essentially making him complicit was the one big thing that pushed him over the line to thinking "this relationship is not something I can trust enough to be worth risking my standing with the coven I've been a part of for centuries for"

[da-janela-lateral]

Have you ever thought about how Teruki was prepared for brainwashing. How he spent years since childhood being targetted by Claw while the only thing he knew about them is that if he were ever caught, he would be brainwashed. How in the manga he made himself gag after eating the cult cookies AS SOON as he started getting strange thoughts.

Or maybe the way Teruki became hyperindependent in order to not being caught, and for this reason, he tried to fight Psycho Helmet by himself and got brainwashed. How it only happened to him because of this independence. Wasn't he horrified for trying so hard and for so long to keep his individuality only for something twist his mind into making him harm the most important person to him. As if he was never prepared at all.