#thus giving us blodreina

[prothos]

Ah, the Blodreina era.

[sometimesrosy]

I was wondering what you think the sanctum storyline is trying to tell us. It's something we've see before (over and over and over again) and I really thought they'd take a different approach to it, show the Grounders have learned something after bloodreina. But after 7x10, I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm reading it wrong? I'd love to hear your thoughts. 😊

I don’t KNOW where it’s going because we haven’t gotten there yet.

But one thing I do know about this story is not everyone makes it. Not everyone grows or learns their lessons or succeeds.

Some people in this story fail. Their weakness wins out. They do not CHANGE.

And in a story that is about the breaking of the cycle, some people are going to want to MAINTAIN the cycle. 

The grounders have ALWAYS wanted to maintain the cycle. Even Indra, who recognizes when the cycle is taking them down the wrong path, can not always break free from it. In season 4 she returned to the fear and violence and tribalism that she had broken free from before. Thinking the world is ending can do that to you.

Indra now might have broken the cycle of violence for herself, but the rest of the grounders, or some of them anyway, have NOT.

Our heroes still have to break the cycle. They need to start humanity over on a better path. Meanwhile humanity, the grounders, the sanctumite sheep, and the eligius prisoners DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE. They like their lies. They like their violence. They like their xenophobia.

Maybe they’re afraid. Nelson said no. He would not kneel to another false god. And his people died. It’s too bad. He was trying to break the cycle. Sheidheda is a leader from the past (not the only one, we also had Russell, Josephine, the primes, even Becca and ALIE we and still have Cadogan and Gabriel) is a sighn that the cycle has NOT broken, and that the grounders have not broken free.

It’s also a reminder that the grounders are not and never have been the heroes of this story. They are trapped in their cycle of violence and do not want to leave. Only the ones who tried to break it are part of our heroes. Lincoln, Luna, Indra, Gaia. Lxa TRIED to, but she was never willing to give up her power and thus fell prey to her weakness and hubris. She was a failed hero, like Jasper, who was not strong enough to fight and succumbed, in one way or the other.

I think the sanctum story is there to remind us that we are not free of the weight of the past, we have to keep fighting, and just because we THINK we’ve learned a lesson (hello blodreina) does not mean we have moved past it.

[lee-em-dee]

A Season 6 Bellarke Recap [a.k.a. the Receipts]

Before the finale airs, I thought we were due for a recap of some of the major B/C moments of Season 6, episode by episode.

6x01 “Sanctum”

[a.k.a. “It’s not crazy.”]

This felt like such a turning point for Bellarke, particularly on Bellamy’s end, because you can finally see him starting to fill in the blanks of their relationship. Clarke is so tentative and reticent about addressing the radio calls. Bellamy recognizes her vulnerability, understands the significance of this admission. And by assuring her “it’s not crazy” that she depended on him for six years, he reveals that he relied on her memory just as much, thus affirming the strength and stability of their relationship. Devotion is the name of the game.

6x02 “Red Sun Rising”

[a.k.a. “I don’t need you anymore.” + “This time, you die. Not me.”]

Talk about Foreshadowing™. This episode allowed audiences to get into the heads of each character (sans body snatching) and fully grasp what it is that drives/haunts them. Case in point, during Bellamy’s red sun psychotic episode, his compulsive need to protect and save his people is underscored, as is his deep-seated fear of being abandoned by/losing Clarke. This illustrates how, to a certain extent, Bellamy is terrified of how much he depends upon Clarke, knowing fully well the toll her death took on him for the past six years.

6x03 “The Children of Gabriel”

[a.k.a. “She is. She can speak for us.” + “We’ll bring Madi back. I promise.”]

Though the two are separated for the majority of this episode, Bellamy and Clarke’s “Together” partnership and co-leading dynamic are back in full force. Theirs is a relationship built on trust and mutual respect, a fact made very apparent when Bellamy doesn’t hesitate to allow Clarke to unilaterally conduct diplomatic affairs in Sanctum while he reconnects with their people. Likewise, Clarke entrusts the safety of her daughter to Bellamy in spite of the calamitous series of events that transpired in Season 5. It’s truly a redressal of S5, and it establishes how a relationship as profound as theirs is only strengthened by past disputes, betrayals, and grievances.

6x04 “The Face Behind the Glass”

[a.k.a. “You’re my family, too.” + “You’re too important to me.”]

I found this moment particularly significant when juxtaposed with the B/C dynamic in Season 2. Clarke’s “You’re too important to me” is very reminiscent of her S2 “I can’t lose you, too,” only this time around Clarke doesn’t attempt to diminish Bellamy’s value to her and, instead, recognizes that her love for him is a strength, not a weakness. She conveys to him how deeply she regrets abandoning him at the pits (much like her abandonment of him at the gates of Arkadia in S2), vowing to never lose sight of the fact that he is and always will be family to her.

6x05 “The Gospel of Josephine”

[a.k.a. “How are we on different sides of this?”+ “Who are you?”]

The strength of B/C’s relationship is even further bolstered with Josephine acting as a foil character to Clarke. Bellamy and Clarke know and understand each other so well, and her absence is glaringly obvious to Bellamy when he recognizes how uncharacteristically out-of-sync they are. He is the first and only person to have figured out that Clarke had been bodysnatched purely from knowing who she is as a person—her mannerisms, the way she speaks, the way she thinks, the things she values most (the same cannot be said of her own mother, but c’est la vie).

6x06 “Memento Mori”

[a.k.a. “...the hardest decision of his life: he will not take revenge.”]

Bellamy reveals the depth of his love for Clarke not by being consumed with his desire to exact revenge on her murderers, but rather by pushing aside his rage and grief in order to honor her. His inconsolable, bereaved, emotionally volatile state screams at him to perpetuate the cycle of war and violence, yet he overrrides his natural bloodthirsty instincts, all for Clarke. Bellamy is a fighter, and him choosing not to fight to preserve Clarke’s legacy is precisely why his love for her must be true and abiding—a love that stands the test of time and transcends death.

6x07 “Nevermind”

[a.k.a. “You’re too afraid to face him.” + “I’ll take your deal.” vs. “We’re gonna get her back.”]

The noticeable absence of Bellamy in Clarke’s mindspace (save for the drawings of him on her cell walls) is very weighty, especially when accompanied by Mindspace Blodreina’s spiel about Clarke‘s subconscious being unable to conjure Bellamy up due to fear. Fear that he will always resent her for her mistakes, fear that he views her as a selfish monster. It’s evident that Clarke values Bellamy’s perception of her to an unparalleled degree. Pieces of him are scattered throughout her mindspace (notice how a sketch of him is hanging in the area of her mindspace that symbolizes home, happiness, security, and family). He is literally ingrained in her head. This makes her decision to sacrifice herself to Josephine all the more meaningful. It is only when Clarke assumes Bellamy had given up on her without a second thought that she, herself, gives up. What she doesn’t get to see is how devastated he had been by her death and how determined he is to get her back when he discovers she’s still alive.

6x08 “The Old Man and the Anomaly”

[a.k.a. “You only care about Clarke.” ATTA BOY, JORDAN]

Bellamy is a man on a mission, and he’ll stop at nothing to save Clarke, regardless of the fact that doing so potentially endangers his people and their prospects for peace. While it’s inaccurate to suggest that Bellamy “only [cares] about Clarke,” you cannot deny that in this precarious situation she takes priority above all else. Saving Clarke is more important to Bellamy than ensuring that the peace deal for his people is fleshed out without a hitch. “He’d do anything for her. To protect her. Just makes sense.” Yet another S2 parallel. Bellamy will do whatever it takes to bring Clarke back, consequences by damned. If that entails leaving his people to fend for themselves, then so be it.

6x09 “What You Take With You”

[a.k.a. “Your people are in trouble. I guess you care about her more.” + “Now that’s a weird relationship, isn’t it?” + “I won’t let you die.” + “I’m not leaving you.”]

This episode was truly an ode to the history between Bellamy and Clarke—a complex history characterized by its highs and lows, by reconciliation and betrayal—but a history of devotion, nonetheless. Bellamy’s interactions with Josephine are enlightening, to say the least. The clinical way she breaks down the complicated relationship between Bellamy and Clarke is not only a testament to who she is as a person (i.e. a psychopath) but also to how deeply B/C must care for each other. In spite of everything that’s happened between them, their love and devotion to one another remains. Josephine leaves no stone unturned when it comes to recounting the bad and the ugly aspects of Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship, yet she redacts all of the good (those deep, intimate, emotional moments must be difficult to comprehend through the eyes of a psychopath). Everything about this episode—from Bellamy’s heartfelt “I won’t let you die,” to the terror and desperation in his eyes when J!Clarke is on the chopping block, to Clarke’s adamant “I’m not leaving you”—affirms that their bond is unbreakable.

6x10 “Matryoshka”

[a.k.a. THAT SCENE]

It takes real acting chops to simultaneously rip my heart in half and stitch it back together, yet, within the span of two measly minutes, Bob Morley accomplished the feat seamlessly. When Bellamy is confronted with the reality that Clarke is dead on that operating table, his greatest fears in 6x02 paradoxically come alive before his very own eyes. “I’m not losing her again.” “I need you.” “I’m not letting you go.” The shift from denial to desperation to devastation is as breathtaking as it is heart-breaking to watch. Speaking of the heart, what elevated the CPR scene to a caliber rivaling that of poetic cinema was its overt symbolism. Bellamy is Clarke’s heart. Clarke is Bellamy’s heart. When she’s trapped in her own head, it’s Bellamy’s voice that brings her back and jumpstarts her fighter instincts. When her heart’s stopped beating, he pumps it for her. He’s begging for her to come back to him because she is his touchstone, his other half. “The heart and the head.” “The head and the heart.” In other words, we belong Together. In other words, I love you, and I don’t want to live without you.

6x11 “Ashes to Ashes”

[a.k.a. “You saved me.” “So how do we save everyone that I left behind?” + “For Monty.” “For Monty.”]

The guilt sets in for Bellamy as he begins to think about the potential repercussions of his actions. Leaving everything behind to save Clarke was purely a heart move, and now that he’s got Clarke back, his head is starting to punish itself for shutting down and abandoning his people. Bellamy is off kilter and guilt-ridden. His plans for a peace deal fell apart, and he’s terrified that he won’t be able to protect his people just as he had failed to protect Clarke before (a 6x02 callback). Now, more than ever, it’s evident that Bellamy relies on Clarke to center him. She is his voice of reason, the head to his heart—a heart that, in a lot of ways, beats for her, as evidenced by his adamant refusal to allow her to jeopardize her life by acting as the inside man. Objectively, he knows her plan is the smart play and the only way to ensure that they “do better” per Monty’s charge, but he can’t risk losing her again. Bellamy eventually conceding to her plan illustrates how ideologically-attuned they are now. They’ve never been more Together, and, above all else, they uphold faith in each other.

6x12 “Adjustment Protocol”

[a.k.a. “I left them.” + “What took you so long?”]

Though this was definitely more of a fast-paced, plot-driven episode, the flashes of Bellarke peppered throughout are very telling, teeing up a major emotional moment for them in 6x13. While waiting for Clarke to shut down the shield, Bellamy is once again plagued by guilt for leaving his people behind without a second thought. Octavia’s verbal consolations do little to ease his mind, which goes to show how tormented he is by his actions. He genuinely believes dropping everything to save Clarke was a selfish decision on his part because he couldn’t bear to live without her. It wasn’t so much about Clarke needing Bellamy than it was about Bellamy needing Clarke.

He needs her. Not just as a co-leader, not just as a partner. Bellamy needs Clarke. His person. Never mind that his people may need him. If Clarke’s in trouble, he’ll go through hell and back to save her.

Pivot to the Becho reunion. Bellamy’s just been reunited with his girlfriend, the person he’d entrusted to protect his people while he went off to galavant around the woods with J!Clarke. The pure relief on his face upon being reassured that Echo okay is apparent. He left her behind, she was in trouble, but now she’s okay. He’s comforted by her presence in the same way that he’s comforted by the knowledge that a member of his family is safe.

But that look on Bellamy’s face when his eyes meet Clarke’s and everything around them seems to melt away? That’s more than relief. That’s yearning. That’s devotion. That’s “You came through. I knew you would.” That’s love.

[osleyakomwonkru]

Failure of Empathy: Team Delinquents and the Undoing of Octavia Blake

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Team Adults, and how they failed Octavia in the bunker and then betrayed her the first chance they had after it was open. Today, we take a look at Octavia’s former friends who found themselves outside the bunker and how they failed her too.

While for the adults, the major way they failed Octavia was by not putting their experience into practice, the delinquents failed Octavia in a different way - empathy. Not one of them asked her what happened over those six years with an honest desire to know and understand. Not one of them acknowledged the difficult circumstances she must have led through or told her that she’d accomplished something extraordinary by uniting a group of people who mostly hated each other, and kept most of them alive despite the bunker’s expiration date passing a year earlier.

Then they proceeded to destroy the society she’d built, betraying her one step at a time. She also gave them the latitude to do so, because she believed that she could trust them. She believed that she could trust her friends, because they’d been through a lot together. Even when she was presented with evidence that she couldn’t trust them, her big heart still wanted to, and that trust was her undoing.

So let’s get into it, shall we?

Monty (and Harper)

I hate how fandom views these two as having made a “great sacrifice”. Seriously. They didn’t. They chose their peaceful life. They chose not to wake anyone else up, even when they could have helped in finding a new place to call home, because they didn’t want anyone else interfering with that peaceful life. Hell, they didn’t even start looking for a new place to live until 28 years after the others went to sleep. Them finding this new planet for the others to live on was their redemption.

Which brings us back to the purpose of this post - them and their relationship to Octavia. Octavia and Harper never really had one, so the focus here will be on Monty.

Now, Octavia and Monty have had an understanding and friendship going back to the early days of the dropship, when it was the two of them and Jasper. While in season 1 most of the others were all business, those three were the sweet kids trying to make the best of their situation. They always stood by each other, defended each other - until the irradiation of Mount Weather, and nothing was ever the same again after that.

And the reason it wasn’t ever the same again after that was Monty - for awhile I thought Monty’s callous attitude to Octavia in season 5 was an anomaly, but it really wasn’t, if you look at how Monty treated Jasper throughout a lot of season 3 and 4. Octavia was the only one who showed Jasper any sort of compassion in season 3, and Jasper then reciprocated that when Octavia lost Lincoln. Monty? He threw a bucket of cold water in Jasper’s face.

Monty does pretty much the same thing to Octavia in season 5. He actively doesn’t want to understand the trauma that Wonkru went through in the bunker, and while tough love is something that works in some circumstances, it isn’t something that you can apply with any sort of success to the deep-seated psychological trauma that Wonkru had.

It isn’t just Octavia either - when he’s talking to Cooper, and she says they’re marching to war and she never wants to see the bunker again, he brushes that off with a flippant “you did things to survive” and thinks that they should just get over it. A few episodes later, Octavia as good as tells him and Harper about the Dark Year - but they don’t seem to catch the underlying message of “you fight to live or you die - that is how I survived when this farm stopped feeding us” - and brush her off again.

Because of their lack of desire to understand her world - and why she needed out of that bunker - they put the final nails in the coffin of their own hopes of restoring a peaceful farm there. Cooper offered Monty the hydrofarm upon their departure for the war, and I do believe Octavia would have upheld that. But instead of staying in their new farm, Monty and Harper provided support for Traitor Squad for the next three episodes in their fruitless attempt at trying to stop an inevitable war (see post here) and destroyed their opportunity for peace on earth instead, because them proclaiming the restored farm to Wonkru was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Octavia (as detailed in this post here).

Clarke

Now, to her credit, Clarke was impressed by - and did want to understand - what happened in the bunker at first. She even told Bellamy that their survival was impressive. But what she should have done is told Octavia that too. It would have meant so much to her. Octavia’s heart would have warmed from Clarke’s story about Madi having “heard every story about the girl under the floor who saved the human race” - but she wasn’t that girl anymore, and hadn’t been for a long time. She needed a different kind of acknowledgment, and Clarke was well poised to offer it - she respected what Octavia had accomplished, she herself knew what it was like to have to make the hard choices, they should have been natural allies.

Instead, Clarke let Bellamy’s doubts eat at her, which resulted in her losing all sense of logic when Madi showed up. Clarke and Octavia had a similar goal - neither of them wanted Madi to take the Flame - but Clarke didn’t see that for some reason, even though Octavia was very clear about it all. She accepted Madi into Wonkru, and by doing that, granted her protection that Clarke couldn’t dream of being able to give. She made Madi her second, which also provided protection that Clarke couldn’t give - people would know that Madi wasn’t to be messed with, because Blodreina had taken a personal interest in the girl and was training her for battle and eventual leadership.

Eventual leadership is a key phrase - Octavia wasn’t stupid. She knew that there were people who wanted the Commanders back. So by accepting Madi as her own and training her, she was preparing her for when that day would come (which would also hopefully be a day in a time of peace, in which Madi wouldn’t have to make the hard decisions that Octavia - and Clarke - had had to).

They had a solid battle strategy, plus a sneak attack, where Madi would have been safer than any other battle that could have been waged - because as noted in the post linked above, that war was going to happen one way or another.

Instead of trusting in that, or even going with Bellamy’s plan of taking off in the Rover to retrieve Spacekru, Clarke decided the best idea was to attempt to deliberately sabotage Octavia’s plans by murdering one of her people. Clarke knows Octavia. She knows Octavia is relentless. That when she has a goal in mind, she pursues it single-mindedly and nothing will stand in her way. This would be no different. So instead of being able to go with a reasonable Plan A, Octavia had to keep going down the list of plans, each one becoming more dangerous.

Clarke continued to aid the movement down the list of plans after she and Madi left Polis and went to Shallow Valley. If her single solitary goal was to protect Madi, she would have disappeared into a far corner of the valley and waited out the battle, rather than joining up with McCreary. She’d taken the worms out of the equation, there wasn’t a risk to her or Madi if they did that. Instead, she delivered her daughter to a psychopath, and instead of letting Madi kill him when the moment was open, she continued to heal them and sold out the rest of her remaining friends.

Clarke is credited with having a change of heart and trying to stop McCreary and spearheading the evacuation, but it would have all been wholly unnecessary if Clarke had stayed out of everything in the first place. Clarke is the one who started the war with Eligius IV in the first place. Clarke is the one who murdered a member of Wonkru, resulting in Bellamy’s actions against Octavia, and thus putting the Flame in Madi. Clarke is the one who betrayed her friends to McCreary, resulting in them getting slaughtered. Meaning Clarke is the one who created the circumstances by which she was essentially sending her daughter into a kill box (see this post).

If Clarke had worked together with Octavia from the beginning, the valley would have been won with little fuss, Madi would not have the Flame, and hundreds more would have lived. What’s more, she could have been the emotional support that Octavia so desperately needed, because Clarke had been in her position enough times to understand. I’m really disappointed that we didn’t see that.

Echo

Now, Echo isn’t a delinquent, but there’s not really a reason to make a special post just for her, and given that she spent six years living in space with five delinquents, she fits here well enough.

Out of all of the people here, she did the best - her only issue was deferring to Bellamy when she should have stood on her own merits. Echo more than any of them would have understood the pressures Octavia was under - and she did, though Bellamy chose not to understand. Echo was the only one who recognized that something horribly bad had happened in the bunker and that Octavia needed Bellamy, her brother, to be there for her. She should have been more specific in how that should happen.

Echo also respected Octavia’s authority in the way the others didn’t - even when Bellamy disagreed, Echo acknowledged that Octavia was right. This also meant that Octavia listened to Echo and took her information and recommendations into consideration. Not to mention that in 5x09 when the fighting starts in Shallow Valley between McCreary and Diyoza’s factions, and Kane shows up to say that Bellamy and Clarke negotiated a surrender with Diyoza, Echo writes it off as fake news, because Octavia would never surrender, knowing that Bellamy and Clarke had no authority to speak for her with Diyoza. All the respect to Echo for that.

Bellamy

Now, I have another essay planned on the Blake dynamics through the series as a whole, but here we’re sticking just to S5, and to the thesis of that essay - despite all of their tumultuous past, their reconciliation at the end of S4 and the subsequent six years apart should have been the best thing that happened to them and their relationship. Six years apart would break their co-dependency, so that they could restart their relationship as adults with a clean slate when they saw each other again.

It should have been wonderful. But it wasn’t. And it was Bellamy who screwed it all up.

It’s this moment. This moment right here. Their first private conversation out of the bunker in 5x04.

You can see Bellamy’s hostile stance - holding himself back, arms crossed. You can see Octavia steeling herself for the lecture she knows is coming, though you can tell she’d hoped for understanding.

Then Bellamy begins to speak. “Blodreina. The Red Queen. Tell me about the fighting pit. How did that happen? Because it looks to me like someone read Ovid a few too many -”

Bellamy’s only concerned with what he’s seen in five minutes. He’s not concerned about her, the person he’d spent most of his life trying to protect from harm. He doesn’t ask her how she’s doing, what happened to her, what she had to do to lead them - like he said she’d have to, in their last radio conversation before Praimfaya.

Bellamy is known as the heart for a reason - because he uses it. But suddenly, all that heart he’s been known for is gone. He doesn’t want to know what happened to his sister in those six years. He only finally wonders in 5x10, at which point it is way way too late.

This here in 5x04 is the moment when everything could have been different. If he’d asked her what happened. Or not even that - he knows she’s not a talker. All he needed to offer her was understanding. Love. Confirmation to her that he’d be there for her no matter what. And hell, knowing at least that some sort of gnarly shit went on down there even if he didn’t know the specifics, but now they were free - he could’ve offered her that forgiveness that he and Clarke were so famous for giving to each other: “If you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. You’re forgiven.”

But he didn’t. He didn’t give her validation, he didn’t even give her consideration.

He did ask her to trust him. And she did. Which backfired so spectacularly that she almost ended up vaporized on the streets of Polis.

This set the tone for the rest of the season. I could write thousands of words more on it, but I don’t think I need to. Because this scene in this episode is the tipping point. Everything else was just actions and reactions to each other, all stemming from here, all stemming from how Bellamy showed no empathy and Octavia could take no chances.

Clarke and Spacekru spent six years living in peace and relative plenty. Octavia spent six years in a war zone. It was clear from the moment the bunker was opened that some serious shit had happened there, and Octavia was at the epicentre of it - and yet, despite having had to make all sorts of horrific choices for the survival of their people in seasons past, her fellow delinquents seem to have forgotten what that felt like. Forgotten their own experiences. Forgotten the way they wanted to be treated, forgotten the empathy that they so desperately craved after those acts. After their six years of peace, they didn’t want to understand that Octavia had been living in a very different world, and that the choices they’d had to make in the past were now choices that she’d had to make as well.

Octavia even calls Clarke and Bellamy out on it in 5x07 - and they have no words to say in their defense. The thing that they could do, however, is draw on their shared experiences - but they don’t even do that. Bellamy’s always been full of motivational tidbits to prevent others from making what he perceives as the same mistakes he has - such as when he tells Riley in 4x05 that “war made me a murderer, don’t let it happen to you” or when he tells Madi in 5x13 that she can be “better than them [the prisoners]. You can be better than us.” Why doesn’t he have one here for Octavia besides “don’t do this”? Where was his empathy here?

Bellamy failed her. Clarke failed her. Monty failed her. They all failed her.

[wisteria-in-the-garden]

Bellarke & Revelation of romantic feelings (includes minor 6x01 spoilers)

I have to say, I love Bellarke, but I really do not understand the majority of the Bellarke fandom, or why so many of them have stopped believing that Bellarke will get together romantically in canon. I don’t really engage much in fandom, but I do lurk in it, and finally felt the need to break out of lurk mode for a bit. I saw a couple people saying on twitter that they’re never going to address the fact that Bellamy poisoned Octavia for Clarke, that they’re probably going to make the narrative say ‘he did it to save everyone,’ that it’s irrelevant now, and that it should have been addressed in S5. Do they really believe all that? I don’t get it. Why are people so convinced that they won't address the major Bellarke plot points from season 5? Just because it’s still unresolved, doesn’t suddenly make it irrelevant. You say they should have addressed it in S5, but where was there time for it? It happened in 5x08 and they weren’t even reunited until 5x13 when the world was literally ending again. But it's still an active narrative thread and a secret that Bellamy has withheld from Clarke (”not to mention, kill the people we love” wasn’t subtle, and Bellamy stayed mute about it. Also, Echo notably still doesn’t know either, and it’s relevant to her too because she has a boyfriend who would go to greater lengths for another woman than he would for her). You’re essentially saying that you think the writers will completely drop/ignore/retcon it – why? Because you feel like JR hates Bellarke and has no intention of following through on the storylines he’s set up in canon and it’s all just bait, right? Even though there is no concrete reason to believe that, besides fandom reading into intentionally ambiguous/misleading/un-spoiler-y comments he’s made which don’t accurately reflect the canon story he’s telling (meaning you’re valuing word of god comments over canon – not always a good way to understand a story, especially when those word of god comments are unreliable like Jason’s are). The story is very obviously romantic Bellarke, especially in S5 – he just won’t outright say so in interviews because that would constitute spoilers when the story has yet to reach its resolution. And we all know how anti-spoiler Jason is. Didn’t he even retweet an article calling bullshit/questioning his description when he called Bellarke non-romantic partners and soulmates following S5? Whether he did or not, this seems to be the number one quote which has fandom so convinced romantic Bellarke is dead. But if I’m recalling the quote correctly, the “non-romantic” qualifier (which is not the same thing as platonic by the way) is tacked directly onto the partner half, rather than the soulmates half - two different descriptions that don’t seem to match (intentional ambiguity – does the “non-romantic” qualifier also apply to the soulmates half? It might, but it also might not). And the non-romantic partners half is true as of the S5 finale, because they have yet to act on any romantic feelings – it’s a description of their status, not the nature of their relationship/feelings for one another. The nature of their relationship/feelings is very obviously romantic in canon, but that is something that JR won’t ever say before they are canonically together romantically, because it’s spoilers for his story. And fandom should know him well enough by now to know that they can’t expect him to spoil what his intentions are for Bellarke in interviews, nor can they read what he says as definitively clarifying his intentions one way or the other. The only way to know his intentions is to follow the story on screen.

So, I went off track a little, but back to the issue of them addressing the fact that B poisoned O for Clarke – there’s every reason in canon to believe it will be revealed, just as Clarke’s radio calls were revealed to B (after she had clearly and intentionally withheld that info during the fireside scene in 5x05 for... reasons) and it was a turning point that made him realize she did care after all. The whole reason he was upset with her for her actions in 5x09 is that he was hurt because he thought she simply didn’t care about him anymore, when that was never true – thus his immediate forgiveness when he learned she did care after all and that she regretted being so rash/reactionary. Now, he understands that he matters to her, but I don’t think he knows in what capacity yet. That will come out this season, I believe, probably when they have that second conversation about the radio calls that we hear in the trailer – he says “you called me every day for six years, and you left me to die in the fighting pits” and the essence of that statement is “how can you love me and do something like that” (because those are two very contradictory actions and it gives him mixed signals). Basically, he’s seeking clarification from her, in her own words, about how she feels. Didn’t we hear that they’ll have a long conversation this season? That is probably where that voice-over was taken from, and there’s a good chance feelings will be revealed, at least to some extent, during said conversation. It was clear in the first radio calls conversation that it’s still unresolved – she ran away quickly again to avoid talking too much about it, and Bellamy looked kind of unsatisfied before being distracted by the Red Sun Rising book. And as for Bellamy’s side of things (regarding the poisoning and his motivation for it), already in the first episode, we have Clarke talking to Jordan about the algae, mentioning that it’s what Bellamy used on Octavia, and then a close up on Bellamy’s face as he overhears her saying this. So it’s something that is clearly still on his mind – and an obvious sign that the writers don’t intend to drop it and it will come up again. Whether it is brought up by Bellamy during their second conversation about the radio calls, revealed to Clarke (and maybe even Echo as well) by Octavia sometime before or after that, or what, I can’t predict, but I do believe it will be revealed and addressed, the same way Clarke’s feelings/the radio calls will be. There are clear signs that this season is building up to an eventual revelation of feelings on both sides, and I don’t understand how so many people that supposedly ship Bellarke can’t see it or don’t believe it, simply because they think JR is somehow out to get them.

And I would also like to add regarding the events in 5x09, from Clarke’s POV, Bellamy giving the flame to Madi felt like him turning against her to save his other family, that didn’t include her, the same way she believed he had poisoned Octavia only for them (and he let her believe that – not telling her that it was actually for her). That’s why she felt so hurt and betrayed and part of why she reacted so rashly (in conjunction with the extreme overprotective mama bear instincts) – she didn’t understand that by doing what he was doing, Bellamy was trying to protect not only his other family, but also herself and Madi. She didn’t see how giving Madi the flame could make everyone safer, including Madi herself. Granted, Bellamy didn’t do a great job of reasoning with her, but Clarke wasn’t exactly being receptive to the idea either. She just automatically assumed it would put her in greater danger – but we saw how Madi, with the flame, was able to sway someone who had been loyal to Blodreina to her side. The flame gave Madi power and protection. And Clarke, because she didn’t recognize this at the time, thought Bellamy didn’t care about Madi’s safety, and therefore also did not care about her. So essentially, the basis of their entire conflict in S5 is an epic misunderstanding/miscommunication rooted in the fact that neither truly knows how important they still are to the other, after six years apart. Because they weren’t able to be open about it to one another. Clarke couldn’t open up to him at the fireside scene in 5x05, then saw that he’d seemingly moved on with Echo and closed herself off even more, and then finally was crushed and heartbroken when she didn’t know Bellamy was acting on her behalf and it seemed to her like he was throwing her and Madi under the bus for Echo and the rest of spacekru (culminating in her running away with Madi and leaving his fate in Octavia’s hands). Meanwhile, because Clarke never opened up to Bellamy, when she left him behind to die it seemed to him like she no longer cared about him either. And they were both wrong about that. Thus, in order to resolve that conflict, they HAVE to start being more open/honest with each other about how they feel, and part of that includes the revelation of both the meaning behind the radio calls, and the fact that Bellamy poisoned Octavia for Clarke, because he loves her (and not only that, but he loves her more than Echo – which Echo will eventually figure out too). So yeah, that’s why I believe that they will address both, and that all the associated romantic feelings are going to be revealed – because it’s been set up in S5 AND what we’ve seen so far of S6, plus it’s essential to the resolution of their lingering conflict from S5. Also why, on a more general level, I’m confident that Bellarke is not, in fact, dead (despite the conflict they had, despite the temporary existence of B/E, despite JR’s unreliable comments and so on; whatever other reasons fandom has for thinking Bellarke is dead).

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The 100 5x10 "The Warriors Will" Review

(image credit: Terra @getsomesleep on Twitter)

Hello, fans of The 100, and welcome to another review. The last time you all heard from me I had the opportunity to write about Episode 6 of Season 5 “Exit Wounds” and this time I get to review what amounts to yet another filler episode in a season that has thus far been chock full of them. Episode 10, “The Warriors Will”, had huge potential, but it fell flat for me. As in my previous review, I’m going to abandon my preferred paragraph formatting and use lists. Without further ado, here are “The Ugly, the Bad, and the Decent.”

The Ugly:

1. This Seems Familiar

For the fifth episode in a row, we are again watching those in the bunker plot to get to Shallow Valley. It’s something they’ve done in every episode and we’ve finally come full circle (which isn’t a good thing). Just as in Episodes 5 “Shifting Sands” and 6 “Exit Wounds” in particular (although, as stated previously, every episode has given us the same dilemma), we are treated to Wonkru believing they have no alternative other than to go to war with the crew of Eligius, being shown another option that could work, doubting Octavia as their leader, Octavia destroying their possible sustenance and the Grounders believing they have no other option than to go to war.

“The Warriors Will” feels like an episode that should have happened much earlier in the season (perhaps even as early as Episode 6). Don’t believe me when I say we’re watching the same episode repeatedly (like we’re stuck in a demented time loop)? Have some proof:

We have someone presenting Octavia with proof of vegetation to prevent a war and Octavia destroying it.

We have Abby continuing to struggle with her drug addiction (with no real end in sight — because a drug addiction takes more than one episode to clear up and we only have 3 episodes to go).

We have Monty (and Harper) once again refusing to fight because there must be a better way than constantly murdering people.

We have Bellamy and Octavia sparring (with words this time) and Octavia not wanting to kill Bellamy but also still threatening his life.

Sandworms in a desert?

We have Clarke Griffin, our leading lady, appearing as a guest star in her own show.

Nothing is new this season. We’ve been facing the same dilemma, from the same characters, with the same motivations and no real plot movement since the midway point. Now that we’re about 80% of the way through the season, it’s really starting to become evident that there were a lot of big ideas in The 100 Writers’ Room, but no real way to stretch them out over the course of 13 episodes. Episode 10 of The 100 ends with Wonkru in the exact same place they were in Episode 5 and I don’t think I should have to explain why that’s not great.

2. Motherhood Doesn’t Make You Stupid…

But The 100 would surely have you believe that it does. Over the course of this season we’ve seen how devoted Clarke is to Madi, the Grounder child she met in her initial foray into the newly irradiated world, and it makes absolute sense that the two would be close as they only had each other for six years. Clarke has adopted Madi as her own child, fed her, clothed her, sent her off to school with water and more; no one is questioning that their bond is real.

The problems with their relationship (and therefore Clarke’s character development) only really show up when you bother to look at Clarke’s actions. Nothing she does (even under the pretense of protecting Madi) is logical or is even truly reflective of things that a real mother might do. It seems that Clarke’s intellect has fled the building (as has her previous desire to ensure that everyone stays safe, not just her own people — I’m looking at you especially, Season 3 and 4 Clarke) when she makes the decision to simply toss out the sandworm larvae she finds in the back of the rover, even though she is fully aware that the worms are capable of growing and surviving in the desert — she was the one who had to pull the worm out of Octavia’s arm in Episode 5 of this very season.

The smarter move would have been to ensure their destruction, but I suppose that wouldn’t work with the pretty obvious need to have the worms make a reappearance in the desert in Episode 11 (likely in a “turnabout is fair play” moment for Octavia — wherein the worms she plotted to use to level Diyoza’s army wind up leveling her own), but there were other ways of doing this without sacrificing your lead’s intelligence.

More, Clarke continues to try to bend Madi (a 13-year-old with full awareness of the choice that she made) to her own will because of her own fears. She even goes so far as to physically wrestle with Madi and later, she threatens Madi with the activation words for the Flame (something that makes Madi flinch away from her). As a mother myself, I understand loving your child, but I will never do so to the point of physically forcing them to do things my way. I understand we’re meant to see this as a lesson in how far gone Clarke is now, how much her priorities have shifted, but having children doesn’t fundamentally change who you are, at least not the way the show would have you believe it does.

It doesn’t help that Clarke herself seems unaware of the lessons she’s been teaching Madi herself. When Madi slits the miner’s throat Clarke looks horrified (and I’m tempted to believe she thinks Madi’s new ruthlessness is inspired by the Flame), but it’s Clarke herself — with her continued murdering of guards in front of Madi under the guise of “There are no good guys” — who has created this monster. Will the show finally have Clarke realize she might have gone overboard? At this point, I don’t know.

3. Sometimes a Villain…

Can just be a villain. I’ve never been Octavia’s biggest fan; even in Season 1 she didn’t appeal to me the way she did to the masses, and perhaps that’s because she always felt too well adjusted for someone who was forced to live under the floor with no human interaction outside of two people for her entire life. Her actions in later seasons only forced me further away from her (beating her brother, her mentor, her lover, telling Grounders about their culture, etc), as it felt like the show was still trying to make me see her as someone who was capable of redemption.

Season 5 seemingly threw redemption out of the window for Octavia and leaned full blast into her apparent psychosis. This is who Octavia should have always been: unbalanced, with a yearning for power (caused by her own years of helplessness) and a desire to keep it by any means necessary, but “The Warriors Will” felt like an odd mix of redemption and further destruction for Octavia. When she cried after meeting with Bellamy and almost ran the piece of glass across her own wrist, it seemed as if we were supposed to feel sympathy for her. When she begged Indra to show her another way, when she pleaded with Monty to speak with Bellamy about Indra’s weakness and reminisced about the good times trapped in their room with Bellamy; all of these moments felt as if we were supposed to be seeing Octavia under the guise of “Blodreina”.

Unfortunately for the show, I’ve already spent four years understanding why Octavia is who she is, and I didn’t need any more explanations. Yes, I can see that each of the “softer” moments I’ve listed above were then flipped on their heads by Octavia allowing Blodreina to creep out when people didn’t bend to her will, but a villain as bad as Octavia has become in those six years under the ground doesn’t need to be humanized further. This was always going to be her destination, because Octavia was doomed from the moment of her birth.

I hope that the writers fully give in to Octavia as a truly broken and destroyed individual, someone who has truly “died” on the inside, but Octavia has had a metaphorical death every season and I have no faith that the writers are finally ready to commit to the villain they’ve created.

The Bad:

1. Where are the Grounders, Who are the Grounders...

Why are the Grounders (love and miss you Dax!) written as so ridiculously idiotic? This show is full of MacGuffins (plot devices) but I can’t believe that an entire group of people are functioning as one. I cannot understand how an entire group of reasonably intelligent people are still following Octavia’s orders after she has betrayed them twice in one episode.

We have seen the Grounders turn against their Commander before (that was the entire plot of the front end of S3) and know that some will even resort to assassination attempts if necessary. We know that, in the first few months in the bunker, the Grounders didn’t respect Octavia as a true leader, likely because she isn’t a Nightblood and does not hold the Flame, and we know that dissent has been growing amongst them since the bunker was opened.

In this very episode, we see the Grounders lead a chant of “No more Blodreina” for almost a solid minute after the discovery that she’s been lying to them about the existence of food (and a way to grow their own sustainable plant life outside of the bunker), but after Octavia burns that very same sustenance to the ground, the Grounders are once again ready to march to their deaths for their Red Queen.

It’s just not realistic. No group of people is truly this stupid. Not when dissent was already beginning amongst them as early as “Exit Wounds”, not when Octavia doesn’t fit their idea of true Commander anyway, not when she continues to prove how little she values their lives over her own need for power, not when they know that they have a true Commander out there waiting for them (and at least half of the army believes in Madi) — and all of this is made even more offensive by the reminder that Grounders are coded as indigenous peoples.

2. Too Many Serial Killers…

Makes the show a bit dull. As much as I enjoy the inner turmoil that has boiled over in the Eligius crew, McCreary and his merry band of thieves and murderers don’t really bring the same punch when they aren’t facing off against fan favorites Diyoza and Zeke Shaw. The scene in the woods with McCreary murdering the defectors had absolutely no emotional impact (or even an impact on the overall plot) because the audience has no attachment to the characters he murdered.

I assume it was meant to show us once again that McCreary is a ruthless killer, but we already know that. He was on Eligius for a reason and it wasn’t because he handed out candy to crying babies. The scenes with his crew guarding Abby were also unfulfilling because, again, we didn’t know those miners, and because I didn’t know them, their gruesome deaths at the hands of the obviously cannibalistic Vinson (probably foreshadowing for next week’s episode, “The Dark Year”) fell flat as well. The filming choice for that scene was also atrocious as a viewer. I understand that we’re supposed to be “seeing” through Abby’s eyes, but a shaky, blurry camera doesn’t make for a good viewing experience.

I had to consistently force myself to pay attention to the action on the screen during these moments, and even in my rewatch I found nothing of note save Diyoza’s notebook (which mentions the Sword of Damocles — an allusion to the ever-present peril faced by those in power and the title of the two-part finale), which clearly foreshadows the use of the element mined all those years ago later in the season. I would have been more interested in seeing McCreary and his crew hunting for Zeke and Diyoza (as opposed to simply torturing defectors for information) interspersed with the escapees trying to get to safety or coming up with another plan of attack. Instead, the fan favorites were all missing this episode (Zeke, Diyoza, Raven, Murphy, Emori) and what was left was…not great.

3. Let the Past Die

Not to quote Kylo Ren (because…gross), but it’s just not a good thing to continue to harp on the Season 3 actions of one character and one character only. Yes, if you haven’t guessed by now, I am discussing the second mention this season of Bellamy’s participation in the Pike sponsored massacre. We are constantly framing this one moment as the defining moment of Bellamy’s character arc, all while ignoring that Pike actively used Bellamy’s PTSD as it relates to Grounders to coerce him into participating, that Bellamy immediately showed remorse for his actions (in trying to stop Pike from murdering the wounded and later his body language and facial expressions upon entering Arkadia) and that it has, in canon, now been six years since those events happened. It doesn’t help that each time that moment in Bellamy’s life is mentioned the camera pans slowly to his face and Bellamy always must look guilty for a few moments, so we can understand that he did “a bad thing”.

If we are going to dwell on the Bad Thing that Bellamy did in Season 3, why is that we don’t also focus on the Bad Things that almost every other character did in Season 3? Why don’t we ever discuss Octavia brutally beating her brother while those who were supposed to be Bellamy’s friends watched in silence? Why don’t we ever discuss Clarke abandoning her people to relax in the shade in Polis for two weeks under the guise of ambassadorship? Why don’t we discuss Monty being on Team Pike just as much as Bellamy was and even helping to lock the gates to prevent Pike defectors from leaving Arkadia? All of those actions have been excused by the narrative as OK and yet, six years later, we are still dwelling on one day in the life of a character who is meant to be one of our heroes. If Bellamy has grown past his actions and has matured into a head and heart leader, let the others around him do the same.

To be clear, this isn’t a problem that Bellamy alone faces, it’s simply that his actions are the only ones portrayed as negative. Here I’m discussing the show’s continued pandering to Lexa kom Trikru fans. Despite Lexa’s death six years ago, Clarke still holds onto to the memory of her lost love (which is fine! I want to be clear that I have no problem with Clarke being curious about Lexa and Madi’s ability to “commune” with her if you will). My problem here is that we now have a show that has stated that Clarke was canonically willing to allow her best friend (again — canon confirmed) to die for placing the Flame in her child’s head (something just last episode Clarke was referring to as a “thing”), but now can’t bring herself to destroy the Flame because, even six years later, she still believes Lexa is actually residing within it, even as she believes the Flame’s existence to be a clear and present danger to her child.

You can’t write Clarke as being fanatically protective of Madi, to the point where she will allow her best friend to die over a device, I cannot emphasize enough that Bellamy is her still-living best friend, and then turn around and have her use her daughter to inquire about a woman that she loved who has been dead for over six years now. We get it, you want us to understand how important Lexa was, but you should not do that at the expense of what has been deemed the “foundation of the show” by the showrunner himself.

The Decent:

1. Don’t Mess with Gaia…

Kom Trikru, that is. I have been a Gaia stan since her initial introduction and the religious warrior hasn’t let me down yet. Her every action for six years in the bunker has been done with the faith that one day a true Commander would return to them and lead the Grounders once more. In the interim period, she made sure to ingratiate herself to Octavia, becoming a trusted member of her group which allowed her to continue to protect the Flame and operate mostly unquestioned. I admired her plan in this episode, her staunch refusal to murder her mother or Bellamy and even her attempted assassination of Octavia. Now that Gaia knows Madi is out there, she will stop at nothing to place her in her rightful place.

Equally as exciting is that there are people who believe in her as well. Gaia’s faction of the faithful seems small now, but I have no doubt that as we get closer to the end of the season we’re going to see that number increase. It won’t be easy to walk through fifty miles of desert, especially not once the sandworms make their appearance, and the further they walk the more cracks will appear in Wonkru, and I have no doubt that’s when Gaia will strike. I believe in her mission and I hope that her faith will be rewarded.

2. Always Bet on Green…

Monty Green, that is. It comes as no surprise to any of us that Monty, who has been pushing for a peaceful solution since he got to the ground and realized what has become of the bunker, found a way to save the day. He knew he could regrow the hydrofarm, he said as much to Kara only a few episodes prior (in 5x08 “How We Get to Peace”) and he’s managed to do just that and more, expanding his idea into the ability to create sustainable flora even outside of the bunker, with the hope that perhaps they could create their own Eden. It’s a genius solution, one that wastes no more lives and, while it might take a few years to truly bloom, it was one that was workable. In fact, that shred of hope might have given the bunker group enough time to work out true peace with Eligius.

Instead, all of Monty’s hard work is burned to the ground by literal dictator Octavia, and it is heartbreaking to see Monty sitting outside the ruins of Polis, holding on to his last bit of algae. Monty’s one hope was that death could be avoided. He didn’t want to return to Earth if it meant having to kill to live, he didn’t want to march on Eden, and I believe that his words about “deserving Earth” will come back to haunt a few people. Monty’s algae in small doses was enough to put both Murphy and Octavia in a coma, in a large enough dose I fear it could prove lethal. The camera focus on the jar and Monty’s insistence this season on peace (and death before war) tell me that the facilitator of irradiation in Mt. Weather, the boy who killed his mother twice (one time for Octavia herself — methinks he might regret that now) might be planning something, and I don’t think it’s going to turn out well for everyone.

3. A Mother’s Love…

As much as I’ve bemoaned the presentation of motherhood on The 100 in general and this season in particular, they finally got it right with Indra. I have never been more in awe of her than I was when she told Octavia that Gaia would be walking out of that pit and that she would kill Bellamy to ensure it. There was no hesitation, and finally I saw a mother’s love that I recognize. Indra’s willingness to sacrifice herself (and everyone else in the ring with her) is exactly what motherhood is all about. What makes the moment even better are the facts that:

Indra considered Octavia a daughter and loves her still, but is unwilling to continue to allow that to take precedence over the continued survival of Gaia, and

Octavia truly believed that Indra would choose Bellamy (and thus Octavia herself) over Gaia, only to hear Indra reject her.

Just as Bellamy is Octavia’s blood, Gaia is Indra’s (and more — flesh of her flesh as well). There is no stronger bond than that of motherhood, no greater love than that of a mother for her child, and I will rewatch the moments that Indra told both Blake siblings that her child would be the one walking out of that ring alive until my DVR recording refuses to allow me to rewind again. There is true strength in motherhood that does not run from problems but faces them head on and when it realizes that the only option might be death, does not flinch. I love Indra kom Trikru, she deserves the world.

In conclusion, “The Warriors Will��� was another filler episode that had little to no impact on the overall plot of the season. It’s beginning to seem as of the six-year time jump, which could have had huge emotional impact across several relationships, was only created to force a divide between two characters, as no other aspect of the show has changed. Octavia is darker, absolutely, but she was already dark. Abby has a severe medical condition, but she already had one of those. Kane is operating as a goodwill ambassador for Eligius, but he’s always done that. The Flame is still a MacGuffin that does whatever the plot needs it to, it’s always done that.

I believe an opportunity for actual character-driven plots (as opposed to the characters continuing to react to the plot) was missed and, with only 3 episodes left in the season, I have no idea how the show can successfully wrap up every loose end it’s created and also shoehorn in the introduction for next season. I hope the show can prove me wrong.

The 100 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

April’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝

[head-and-heart]

The 100 Highlights - “Exit Wounds” (5x06) ... 2.0

Hi guys. So some of you may be reading this title in mild confusion right now because “didn’t she already do a highlight post for 5x06?” 

And you would be right! I did, indeed, create a highlights post for this episode that you can view here. And I would be lying if I said it didn’t bring me some level of satisfaction in posting it, but - alas - it does not really fit the purpose of this series in the first place ... which was to spur positivity within the fandom for whenever we experience another inevitable meltdown.

My initial purpose of starting this series was, ironically enough, exactly for episodes like 5x06 - the episodes that fandom despises. I did a highlight post for 4x04 last year, another episode many people did not enjoy, in an attempt to put a more positive spin on it and lift the moods of people in fandom. My motivation for creating this series was mostly in the attempt to preserve the sanity of myself and the fandom as a whole.

So, forgive my petty crackpost. While I had my fun with it, it was always my intention to do another, more serious list of highlights for the episode when I gathered up the energy to do a rewatch.

So here it is. The new and improved (????) list of my favourite parts of 5x06:

People of Wonkru, hello and welcome to the 100th annual Hunger Games. I have to say, I did appreciate my wife, Charmaine Diyoza’s homage to THG. She grew up in the early 2000′s, she knows what’s up. Dropping a bunch of parachutes from the sky full of rations? Now that’s a power move. A woman after my heart.

“Two missiles and this war would be over.” “And then what? How many of our people are farmers? How many are engineers?”

Seriously CHARMAINE IS SO SMART. She’s not rash, she’s calculating. And she doesn’t fight needless battles. She isn’t here to kill, she’s here to take the valley. But she’s also willing to negotiate peace in order to reach her goals - she isn’t irrational, and she isn’t cruel. Never have I ever rooted for an “antagonist” on this show more. Every episode she just gets more likable and more relatable. She says everything I’m thinking, I swear.

“In war the greatest victory is the one that requires no battle.” I don’t think there has been a person in power on this show who has ever verbalized such a thing. It’s no wonder Kane is siding with Diyoza. Even if Octavia wasn’t such a tyrant, how could he resist teaming up with the one person who actually practices what he’s been preaching for all these years?

“We’re the only thing that can defeat us.” Why does this line feel like foreshadowing? 

Okay, I have to take a moment to scream (again) about how aggressively into Gaia’s look I am. Damn girl. No idea how you bleached your hair down there but good on you. Good. On. You.

“Gina at Mount Weather. Ilian in the conclave. Me, on that damn cliff.”

Listen. I fucking cheered at that line. I cheered. And I don’t think I have ever cheered for Octavia in anything she has ever done, or said, since maybe Season 2. I am not an Octavia fan. I’ve been pretty vocal about that, but this is one of the few moments during the series in which I could actually understand and empathize with her, because in this episode she voiced everything that the audience has been thinking AND. IT. WAS. SO. VINDICATING.

First of all, shout out to my girl, Gina Martin. You were the realest, and you deserved better. RIP. I don’t think it is actually possible that I could ever dislike any line that acknowledges her.

Second of all, Marie SLAYED the delivery of this line. Her voice actually breaks when she references Echo almost killing her in 4x04. I was trying to place what it was about Octavia in this scene that I liked and I realized: she may be swinging a sword, but that is not Blodreina talking. Underneath that armour is Octavia. And, judging by the way she clutches her stomach, she can still feel the wounds inflicted on that day on the cliff. Now, however, it isn’t Echo who is holding the sword: it’s Bellamy. This isn’t Blodreina holding up a facade to maintain her power; this is Octavia expressing real pain. And I may not agree with how she treats her brother, but this is perhaps the one case in which her argument is completely, and totally valid. 

I don’t know if Marie clutching her stomach like that, right where the scar would be, was an acting choice or a directing choice but I really liked that small detail.

“Why are we even doing this? So your sister can go to war? What happened to us being the good guys?” Thank you, my precious Monty, for being the light this world needs. Now go ditch Wonkru and join up with my wife Charmaine. 

Listen, I cannot describe how initially soothed I was when I heard Niylah’s accent. Finally, someone seeking out my girl Clarke! It felt like old times (and this is coming from someone who never used to give two shits about Niylarke, if I’m honest). *sigh* 

“I’m sorry. It’s just, everything’s so different.” God, my heart BROKE for Clarke so many times during this episode. I feel so much for her and it’s just SO easy to connect with her this season. She’s definitely my favourite character after the time jump, thus far, and I’m loving every second that we get of her. 

I already said that I never really cared much for Niylarke but giving her that black panther was CUTE. Sue Me.

“You saved our lives, again. Thank you by the way.” “That wasn’t me; that was Bellamy.” First of all, my girl is getting the acknowledgement she deserves. Second of all, I will take my crumbs - thank you very much.

I’m not going to lie: The 100 can disappoint in many ways, but the soundtrack never does. Tree Adam’s score was slaying the game in this episode, especially in the scene with Niylah and Clarke. That track was beautiful. It had the perfect amount of softness and nostalgia and melancholy and I loved it.

“How do you explain the sun to someone who’s never seen it?” This line was so eery and creepy HOLY shit. But I loved it, even as much as it broke my heart to realize that the one person who sought Clarke out in this episode was only using her for information. 

“I can still tell when you’re lying.” dark!Niylah - I never knew I would be so intrigued.

“Gaia, what are you doing?” “Protecting the last true natblida, as my order has always done.” BA DUM TISS

That plot twist ... I have to admit that I honestly did NOT see that coming. I was sure that Gaia was shoved straight up Octavia’s asshole. I cannot express how much gratification it brings me to know that Gaia was playing her the entire time. As Murphy would say, “that’s a survivor’s move.”

“I’m not the one you should be afraid of.” Seriously, the story potential this twist opens up for Clarke, Gaia, Octavia, and Madi is just OFF the charts. I cannot wait to see where this goes.

The entire interaction between Gaia, Niylah, and Clarke was simply fascinating. Three woman who I didn’t know I needed to interact this much.

“I don’t enjoy seeing you suffer, John.” “Then why’d you leave me.” I’ve never been a diehard Memori stan (just casually enjoyed it) but goddamn this episode was prime angst material for them. I have such a weakness for angst, my friends.

“You didn’t need me anymore. You were always off doing your own thing with Raven.” “SO WHAT?” YOU TELL HIM EMORI

“When we were on the ring, I was part of something bigger than myself. I didn’t know I needed that, but I did. And you punished me for it.” This is my favourite version of Emori, guys. Remember when we all thought that Emori died off-screen before S5 aired because there was no BTS of Luisa? I’m so glad we were wrong. Her story this season has been absolute fire. A prime example of natural character development following a time jump ... *ahem*

“A spy and a murderer ... with a conscience. You’re right Bellamy, she has changed.” I SCREAMED at Marie’s delivery of this line. It was just ... so on point you guys.

That shift transition from ***** *** (I can’t type it out - this is supposed to be a HIGHLIGHT post) to Clarke packing ... with the same music playing. aasqkqisnsksks I ain’t gonna say a word

“Six years is a long time. Octavia is not the girl from the stories I told you.” Madi’s hero worship is mildly cute but indulging it can’t possibly lead to anything good. I really appreciated this line. And I don’t blame Clarke one bit for feeling like she needs to leave.

“If anything happens to me ...” Give me a moment to recover. I’m Triggered.

But seriously that Madi x Clarke scene was just so beautiful and emotional and heartbreaking. Eliza is slaying the game. and why does lola’s face remind me so much of bellamy in THAT scene y’all know the one. the resemblance is real i said what i said

Clarke looking over to ***** ******* like a wounded puppy ... for the second episode in a row. I AIN’T GONNA SAY A WORD

“W h a t?” THE PAIN IN HIS VOICE i’ll take my crumbs

“No, YOU don’t understand.” GO OFF CLARKE !!! Also, WHO’S READY FOR HAKELDAMA 2.0 

BUT CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HE STILL HELPS HER FIND MADI WITHOUT EITHER OF THEM NEEDING TO SAY A WORD EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE IN THE MIDST OF A FIGHT BECAUSE EVEN WHEN THEY ARE ANGRY THEY ARE STILL EACH OTHER’S PERSON AND GOD HELP ME SIX YEARS CANNOT CHANGE THAT AND I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE 

^^^ THIS SCREENCAP RIGHT HERE OFFICER

“On me.” *sigh* it almost feels like old times

Bellarke kicking down a door = hawt

I stan one (1) power couple

Is anyone gonna talk about the Kara Cooper/Echo parallels? Cause, like, they’re Real fam

I cannot express how much I loved that they showed Madi reacting to having her hand slit open realistically. Like that girl is trying so hard not to show pain but she FEELS it, and she was whimpering. Like, damn, I felt that. Lola did such a good job showing how a child would realistically react to that happening. 

Not to be That Person. But. Bellamy’s hair game marginally improved in his scenes with Clarke. I only know Truth.

THE SLOW-MO OF CLARKE RUNNING TOWARDS MADI AS OCTAVIA’S VOICE ECHOES IN TRIGADESLENG. Y’ALL ARE COMING FOR MY LIFE THAT WAS SO CREEPY AND COOL

“I understand why you lied Clarke. You were just trying to protect her. But Madi no longer needs your protection - she has mine.” I LOVE antagonist Octavia. Seriously. I’m so happy they decided to go the villain origin story route for her, it just makes her so much more interesting. AND SHE’S SO DAMN CREEPY

“I executed traitors. And I made it look like a real defection.” Okay, okay, okay, so was shooting the defectors cold-blooded as shit? Yes. But was it smart? YES. I think Octavia is a bad person but damn girl. Dammmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnn.

Don’t come for my life but I HONEST TO GOD ENJOYED OCTAVIA IN THIS EPISODE. And not because I like her as a person but because she made sense to me with pretty much every move she made. And I’m not used to that feeling with her.

Echo hiding the piece in Karina’s wound. F u c k i n g hell mate. AND WHAT WAS THAT LOOK AT THE END. I dunno but I’m intrigued. 

Sooooooo in case y’all were wondering. I do think 5x06 holds up better on rewatch (as most episodes do). Not all of the episode was bad, as my initial highlight crackpost made it out to be - there were still some good moments. I thought the last ten minutes of the episode were particularly strong, and to be honest all the stuff with Clarke and Memori was A+++. So, definitely not bad all around. And it has a good set-up for the episodes to follow which I am genuinely looking forward to.

Hope you enjoyed this newly revised highlight post! I’ll see ya in a week for 5x07. 

[ragnarssons]

I know it's super dumb, but Echo wearing Bellamy's jacket honestly bothers me so much? I think because there's no real story-relevant reason to do it, so it feels like the writers sitting around laughing about things that would specifically crush just one group of fans.

Ok so I’ve watched the sneak peek so let’s say I can answer this now. Ok. So, it’s raining, he gives her his jacket, big deal. It’s apparently because they tried to get to Octagon by getting inside the Bunker and they were refused the entry. That’s basically it. But on a symbolic level, I think the jacket is meant to represent Bellamy shielding E on this episode. But regarding the whole story, I don’t think the story will be about E vs Octagon. What they tease most is Bellamy vs Octagon and E being the thing that just… pushes them towards confrontation. It’s a difficult episode for Octagon it seems, as in, she CANNOT let defiance go unpunished, even if it’s her brother - it would be EASY for her to punish E so I think this episode will be about her and Bellamy, and her facing the fact that Blodreina “should” punish Bellamy because he defied her in the desert and now back at Polis he’s literally shouting in front of EVERYONE to defy her once again (for once, let’s give that to Octagon, she kinda tried to do it discretly and according to the rules she set up in the Bunker). I think the peak of this episode will be Bellamy and Octagon fighting, and it’s gonna be a big tear in Octagon and Bellamy’s relationship. Let’s say something clearly, it’s NOT about BE vs Octagon, it’s about setting Octagon on a path where no one can reason with her, not even her brother. Where she’ll have to be alone because they clearly are putting her on a very dark spot now. I do see Bellamy and Clarke joining Charmaine (not necessarly all Eligius but Charmaine as the leader she is, who is able to placate and lead her people) over Octagon. And not because they want to kill Octagon or what, but in a way of “preserving the peace” (for Bellamy) and “saving Eden/protecting Madi” (for Clarke). Idk, it does seem like E will go around Eligius on ep7, so she won’t be in the Bunker or around Octagon. They will split up and Bellamy and Clarke seem to engage on a road that’ll go explicitely against Wunkru. We cannot buy Bellamy’s defense for E because we’ve never seen it, most of the audience doesn’t care, the medias don’t care, outside of the conflict that it will create between two mains, who are Bellamy and Octagon. So yeah, it won’t be about E, actually it seems that E’s situation is already settled on ep7 and she’s off somewhere else. It’ll be about Bellamy and his sister.Now I never saw the writers as mean and devious people who just put details on screen being like “nihihi it’ll piss them off” - we were warned that this season would be rough for us. Don’t throw a hissy because Bellamy gave his jacket to E- like, who cares? It’s apparently an off-screen gesture (again lol) soooo? *shrugs* It just shows that Bellamy is a gentleman, which is not a surprise tbh *sends kisses*. The more the season goes, the more I see BE being a plot device, to have someone caring for E outside of “friends” (cuz apparently friends can’t care enough idk, JRoth mentality tbh) and thus, having E’s presence creating a tension between said characters. All in all, it’s just logic that she would be in a relationship with Bellamy and it would create with the most unstable character on the show - Octagon. It’s just… drama logic. Still, the writers STILL have not cared about showing us the romantic depths of their relationship so far, they haven’t taken the time to do so, or to make us EMPHACIZE with the idea of them being in a relationship (and whoever says “the previous seasons served as a build-up to that” are just straight up liars and fools, they were HATING each other ok? ok bye JRoth with ur stupid arguments). I don’t know. Seeing the “Inside” video, it really DOES seem explicit that E’s tensions with Octagon will just be a way of creating MORE tensions between Bellamy and Octagon. Not because of “you don’t like my gf” but because of who they have become as people. Which is inherent to them and not concerning E, at the end of the day. So yeah, idc about Octagon and E, so I’m not looking forward for that episode in particular. But still, there is a story that is told, and tbh if it leads to Bellamy kicking his sister’s ass, I’m all for it (at least she won’t be chained to a rock, on HER side of things).

[aion-rsa]

Clarke Griffin Deserved Better Than The 100’s Final Season

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This THE 100 article contains MAJOR spoilers for the ending of the series.

For The 100 fans, our fight is finally over. The series wrapped up its seven-season run with an hour that saw Lexa return (sort of), Octavia save the day (sort of), and most of humanity choose to completely abandon corporeal existence entirely rather than continue to suffer through life on the ground (again…sort of). Long story short: If you can’t entirely explain what really happened at the end of this show, you’re probably not alone.

As a proper ending, The 100 series finale hedges its bets in multiple directions, counting on years’ worth of viewer affection for these characters to do a heck of a lot of emotional lifting and narrative gap-filling that the writing doesn’t support. Technically, everyone dies, but also (almost) everyone lives. Beloved characters return, but aren’t really themselves, they just sport familiar faces. Our favorites get a happy ending, of a sort, but they are also the last of the human race.

Whew.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Such a bleak conclusion is par for the course for this show, which loves to remind us that every joy can only be achieved through the application of intense pain. And, to be honest, this finale is probably the best ending we could have expected for most of these characters. It’s peace, of a sort, even if The 100 doesn’t do much in the way of interrogating or explaining why the characters who chose to reject apparent eternal peace in a hive mind consciousness in favor of one last lifetime on Earth.

But it’s also a final condemnation of Clarke Griffin, which feels deeply wrong – and quite frankly, cruel – after her journey thus far. Her character honestly deserves better than this, and so do the fans that love her. Clarke’s seven-season arc doesn’t really conclude so much as just stop, and her pseudo-happy ending only comes about because the other characters recognize the breadth of her sacrifice rather than the show itself. Clarke herself is, once again, denied anything like real interiority in the show’s final hour, and other than a line about not wanting to be alone we have precious little insight into her final decisions or feelings about anything.

Read more

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Season 7, as a whole, has struggled to figure out what to do with Clarke in this final run of episodes, frequently forcing her character to the sidelines of the narrative and generally ignoring her perspective. We still don’t really have a clear idea of the fallout from all her various traumas in Season 6 – Sanctum, Josephine, the Primes, Abby’s death – let alone how everything that’s happened this season (Bellamy, Madi, dooming all of humanity to die) has impacted her. (Will I be bitter forever that we got roughly four minutes of screen time dedicated to her decision to kill Bellamy? Yes. Yes, I will.)

Instead, it feels as though The 100 simply gives up on her character entirely and, let me be clear: I hate it.

On paper, the idea of Clarke as a Biblical-type figure, a Moses who fights to get her people to the promised land but who is barred from entering it herself makes a certain amount of sense. But in actuality, it feels as though Clarke is being punished in ways that others in the same universe are not, and her final judgment is just one more heaping dose of suffering dumped on a woman who’s already seen more than her fair share.

Every other major character on The 100 has done terrible things. As much as we all love Octavia, you don’t earn a nickname like Blodreina without going full dark, no stars a lot. Echo, Raven, and Murphy are all guilty of what the religious among us might call fairly mortal sins.  And poor, dead Bellamy stood beside Clarke, offering moral support and tacit approval during some of her darkest moments, which makes him complicit. No one who came to the ground back in Season 1 is innocent, is what I’m saying, and everyone has done things they wish they could take back.

There’s certainly an argument to be made that Clarke’s lack of repentance – she’d absolutely commit genocide again, if she had to – is what dooms her. But other than the Lexa-faced god-judge commenting on the fact that Clarke shot a man in the middle of a moral test she never signed up for in the first place, it is not really one that The 100 makes on its own or that holds up to much scrutiny.

Though Clarke ultimately ends the series on Earth, surrounded by the found family she’s formed over the course of the show, it’s an ending that rings hollow. They’re literally the last of humanity, and when they die, the human race will vanish with them. She’ll never see the daughter she loved so much again, and it turns out she killed her best friend in cold blood for nothing. (And he turned out to be right, after all.)

Though showrunner Jason Rothenberg has insisted in post-finale interviews that Clarke isn’t a hero, it’s hard to square that analysis with the character we’ve spent the last seven years watching. We’ve watched Clarke grow up on this show, becoming a leader, a fighter, and a mother by turns. She’s done terrible things – by accident, vaguely on purpose, and by deliberate choice. She’s made mistakes. But she also never stopped fighting for the things she cared about, and she’s the reason humanity even made it to their judgment day, multiple times over.

Part of the reason that The 100 finale feels so off for me is that the episode suddenly becomes about judging Clarke for all that she’s done wrong, without ever bothering to celebrate the things she did right – or even extend the character any grace for the countless impossible choices she’s had to make over the series’ run. Is Clarke Griffin perfect? Of course not. But she does deserve to be applauded for her strength and resilience, as well as her constant willingness to sacrifice herself – whether that means her physical body, her moral compass, or her inner well-being – in the name of others.

We’ve watched her keep fighting no matter what dire situation she found herself in, and struggle to build meaning out of the ashes of destructions both large and small. In the series’ final season, viewers might well have thought that she’d earned some modicum of peace. Instead, there’s simply more suffering, as Clarke is forced to shoot her best friend, watch her daughter be tortured until she can no longer move or speak, and scrabble to hold together the last vestiges of her people on an alien series of planets.

As The 100 approached its end, many viewers were likely hoping that Clarke would get the chance to experience a real reckoning of sorts in its final hours, one that might allow her to fully internalize the things she’s done, realize their cost, and choose the path of healing. Instead, The 100’s primary heroine is judged and found wanting, and punished accordingly. This isn’t how any of us saw her story ending – and even if the final destination was an ultimately acceptable one, it’s difficult not to be disappointed in how we got there.

The post Clarke Griffin Deserved Better Than The 100’s Final Season appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[osleyakomwonkru]

Day 4 (Thursday May 9) - For Those Who Need Hope: Octavia Blake

(The 100 Mental Health Awareness Week, prompts here)

Why did I choose this week for mental health awareness? It’s all right there in the picture above. After seeing the clips from 6x02, I knew that we couldn’t ignore mental health in this show anymore. Especially Clarke’s and Octavia’s. But Clarke has many people standing up for her. Octavia doesn’t.

So who will stand up for her? I will.

Octavia’s never had a chance to be completely mentally stable, and it has never been her fault. Her environment and the people around her have been able to mitigate many of her mental struggles for much of her life, until season 5, when they exacerbated them. And now in season 6 we’re seeing every last bit of supports and familiarity that she had stripped away, leaving bare her rawest most damaged self, and I really really hope that someone on this new planet will realize that and give her the help she needs.

But let’s go back to the beginning, and a very important conversation in 1x02:

Monty: How is someone raised beneath the floor not a total basket case?

Octavia: Who says I’m not?

Atom: It’s because he loves you. Your brother. You’re not a basket case because you were loved.

Atom wasn’t wrong - due to growing up as a legal non-person in isolation with only her mother and brother for human contact, right out of the gate Octavia was primed for maladjustment and a range of social and behavioural disorders, but Bellamy’s intense love and care for her did a lot to mitigate that. Not 100%, but well enough that she wasn’t completely lost. Still though, this early trauma, combined with the Blakes’ extreme co-dependency, provided a fertile ground for the seeds of Octavia’s first breaking point, which then brought all of her potential disorders directly to the forefront of her life.

That first breaking point? Lincoln’s death.

But it wasn’t just Lincoln’s death by itself - it was that Bellamy was in part responsible for it. With one bullet, Octavia lost both of the people she’d been dependent on for her emotional stability.

Wikipedia defines borderline personality disorder as a “long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by unstable relationships with other people, unstable sense of self and unstable emotions. There is often dangerous behavior and self-harm. People may also struggle with a feeling of emptiness and a fear of abandonment.” (here)

Sounds like Octavia, doesn’t it? Her sense of self has always been defined by others, either by an association - Bellamy’s sister, Lincoln’s lover, Indra’s second - or by a title - Skairipa, Osleya, Blodreina. Very rarely has she ever just been “Octavia”, and it is in the aftermath of Lincoln’s death where Octavia even struggles with that sort of idea - she tells Monty “I’m not Trikru, I’m not Skaikru. I’m nothing.”

If she had a mission that she could dedicate herself to, such as the fight against ALIE, or keeping Roan on the throne, or leading Wonkru - then she was again able to find footing and not lose herself. But any moment that the mission faltered or disappeared - she’d be back free falling into depression and self-destructive tendencies, unless someone was there to catch her.

Ilian caught her in season 4. But during the Dark Year, and in season 5, no one did. And what’s more, not only did no one catch her, but they laid their own burdens onto a girl who was already suffering from depression and PTSD, with no way out, which gave rise to Blodreina - officially a mask to protect her vulnerability, but perhaps also a separate identity that Octavia herself may not have been aware of until the very last days of Earth, and thus the possibility of dissociative identity disorder on top of everything else.

So that brings us to 6x02, where we witness Octavia’s fourth on-screen suicide attempt as she goads Skaikru into attacking her (first: walking out into the black rain in 4x07; second: contemplating slitting her wrists in 5x10; third: stepping out in front of Eligius’ guns in 5x12. This list does not include her reckless disregard for her own life in almost every battle she’s fought since Lincoln’s death, which is also of concern but not the same as active attempts on one’s life). At this point I think Octavia’s surpassed every other character in terms of number of unsuccessful suicide attempts, yet still no one save for Niylah is seeing the troubled girl behind the mask.

This worries me. This worries me a lot. Especially considering that Octavia coped with the fallout of her mess hall breakdown by again setting herself a mission (save her brother) and stowing away on the transport ship, leaving behind the only person in her corner (Niylah).

She finds her brother alive. He asks what the hell she’s doing there, and she’s visibly disappointed. He clearly doesn’t want to see her. But the mission is done.

So what now? Does she free fall again, or does someone finally realize that she needs help, and extends an olive branch so that she can begin healing?

Clarke’s also struggling, will she realize that they’re better off together, helping each other? Will it be Jordan, the pure soul who might not understand who Octavia is now, but will have heard stories from Monty and Harper about the innocent girl who chased butterflies, and whose upbringing was not entirely dissimilar to his own? Will it be Madi, who was already in Octavia’s corner at the end of season 5, going against Abby’s and Gaia’s desires and extending a helping hand to the former Red Queen? Will it be Echo, who has already stood up for Octavia to Bellamy several times in season 6? Will it be Diyoza, who perhaps sees a younger version of herself in Octavia, and is able to provide the wisdom that hypocrites like Abby and Kane won’t?

Or maybe it will be someone we haven’t even met yet. I have to hope that there will be someone. I have to hope that there will be someone who will give her validation and support as she learns how to just be Octavia, without the associations, without the nicknames, without the titles. Someone she doesn’t know how to be. Someone she’s never learned to be. Someone she’s never had the opportunity to be.

Yu gonplei nou ste odon, Octavia Blake kom Wonkru. You have a whole new world to discover, and I hope that it will bring you healing.

[sometimesrosy]

I don’t know if you’ve already answered this but, which character/s had the most development and growth? for me? Octavia. I feel like her story line was one of the most logical. What she’s been through, has led her to the character we saw in s5. Damage, broken and lost. She was, no doubt, well portait. And I hate it we pp say she’s horrible. She just need help.

I cannot agree that Octavia had the most growth. The opposite actually. She refused to grow. It’s not her fault because it came from being unsocialized as the girl under the floor. But she never took responsibility for her actions, and instead just blamed others and decided people were either good or evil. Learning to fight and kill was a substitution for character growth. She is immature, in the sense that her maturity and growth did not keep face with her life. I used to think they did that just to give us a “bad ass female character” who kicked ass with swords. A stereotypical YA heroine. But watching her character arc now, I think they did that so down the line she would have to confront her lack of growth. So that she would have a fall into darkness, and need to WORK to redeem herself. I mean, when she got power, she created a dark child’s fantasy of violence and retribution and made herself the all powerful queen. Yes, she took on the burden of making the hard choices, but she never tried to be better, to change things. She just dove head first into the darkness.

Now, Octavia has layers that are under the surface, but she is at the whim of life. She doesn’t go from weak to strong. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes. She doesn’t get better. She gains power on the outside, but inside she is weaker, she is dead already. 

Clarke and Bellamy are the heroes and the story is about them. In a way, Octavia is the princess in need of rescuing. Which is CRAZY because she’s the Osleya, the fighter, blodreina. It’s because it’s not her body that needs to be saved anymore, it’s her SOUL. Octavia represents HUMANITY, and while she survived Praimfaya, like humanity, she is blackened and vindictive and xenophobic and the reason for the apocalypse. Octavia must be REDEEMED. She must take responsibility for her monster. I don’t know if Clarke and Bellamy can do it for her. She’s Anakin Skywalker, but we have to see her redeemed if we want to see humanity redeemed. 

For the best character development? It’s Bellamy Blake, no doubt. Look at where he started and who he’s become. The demons that he has ALREADY faced on a regular basis and how he’s become stronger and better because of facing them, and thus managed to save humanity from themselves again and set them on a better path for the future. 

[osleyakomwonkru]

For Octavia: The Loyalists of Wonkru

Nothing makes me more angry about S5 than almost everyone betraying Octavia, precisely at the times she needed them the most. 

But three people didn’t betray her - and I firmly believe that they were her true inner circle in the bunker, and the only ones she ever opened up to about anything. They didn’t have ulterior motives or agendas. They were her friends. That’s why, when Octavia is unconscious in 5x09, they’re the ones crowded around her bed - they are the ones who care about her, as a person, not as Blodreina, not as their leader, but as their friend.

Other people have noticed their loyalty as well, and many seem to question it - what reason would they have to be loyal to Octavia, when after the bunker was opened there’s Bellamy or Clarke or whoever else to follow?

Leaving aside the obvious of saving their lives and keeping them alive (as Miller states in 5x10, “she kept us strong through six years of hell”) and them being together for six years as opposed to the 6-8 months on the ground with the others, each of them has their own reasons for being a friend and being a loyalist - not to Blodreina, but to Octavia. And perhaps being the only ones who know the difference, including why Blodreina exists (this is a topic for another post, but I don’t believe the flashbacks in 5x02 and 5x11 serve to explain the supposed “Blodreina cult”, but I’ll get into that then).

They all saw what S5 did to Octavia. What S5 did to them, because they were in it with her. They’re all bruised and broken, they all have their pain and demons that they need time to deal with. All four of them need some good healing time in peace and quiet away from everyone else, especially adventure squad, who only bring them more pain and death. (But alas it doesn’t seem like they’re going to get that, based on promo shots. But my fic series gives them that peace.)

Niylah

Putting down my Niytavia shipping goggles for a moment, I’m just going to focus on what we are clearly shown onscreen.

One of Niylah’s key character traits is compassion, we see that from her from the very beginning of her appearances - how she provides safe harbour for Clarke, doesn’t ask too many questions, can sense when someone is hurting, always caring for the injured or sending the dead on their final journey.

Niylah first met Octavia when the latter was in the throes of grief and despair after Lincoln’s death. We must also remember that Niylah is also grieving at that time - her father was killed in the massacre committed by Bellamy and Farm Station. Niylah is angry that Skaikru takes over her home, and the only one to show her any kindness or acknowledgement is Octavia, making a trade rather than just taking and taking like the others.

They meet again a few weeks/months later in Arkadia, after Octavia is severely wounded by Echo, and Niylah helps save her life and recuperate. She also helps an injured Octavia search for Ilian and try to stop him from destroying the Ark. Here she learns how brave, stubborn and reckless Octavia is, and that she’ll stop at nothing to protect the people she cares about. She also sees Octavia’s dark side for the first time, when Octavia tries to but ultimately doesn’t execute Ilian.

Octavia remembers all of this kindness and compassion that Niylah showed her when, after she’s won the bunker, Skaikru is trying to choose their survivors and want to throw Niylah to the (radioactive) wolves because she isn’t one of them. Octavia steps in and saves her life, cementing their friendship and commitment to keeping each other alive, come what may.

When the bunker is opened, Clarke can’t understand why Niylah is so loyal to Octavia - even though Niylah clearly tells her in two different ways: One, “Looks like we both found new families”. Octavia is family to Niylah, but still somehow Clarke can’t believe this, can’t believe that kind and compassionate Niylah would drink the Kool-Aid for what she sees as a violent cult. But there’s no Kool-Aid, Niylah knows Octavia in a way that Clarke couldn’t ever hope to. Which is why she tries again when Clarke scoffs “You mean Blodreina” - Niylah replies “How do you explain the sun to someone who has never seen it?” Clarke still doesn’t get the hint, that there are things she won’t ever understand about Octavia and about Wonkru because she wasn’t there. But Niylah knows the broken and lonely girl behind the mask, and knows that Blodreina is not who Octavia is. She knows Octavia’s big heart is still there.

Miller

Heading into bunker life, Miller perhaps more than anyone else had reasons to hate Octavia - after all, he’d been safe in the bunker just hours earlier, with his father, with Jackson, and with most of the rest of Skaikru. After Bellamy and Abby opened the bunker, Miller survived, but his father was left out for dead.

So why does he later become Octavia’s right hand?

There’s a two-fold theory here - one, that someone (likely Kane) tells him that his father had written his name down instead of his own for the lottery. That David had already made his peace with death, but wanted his son to live, to “rebuild the world”, as he said during the lottery. Miller takes his father’s words to heart, doesn’t stew in anger, but does what he can to make sure he can follow through on his father’s desire for him to survive and rebuild the world.

But there is a problem here - while Miller’s name was chosen in the lottery, after gassing Skaikru, Kane and Jaha go with Clarke’s list instead.

And neither Nathan nor David Miller were on that list. So how did Miller get into the bunker?

I believe that when adventure squad made the decision to go for Raven and go to space, Bellamy and Clarke radioed back to the bunker to tell them they weren’t going to make it back, and thus three spots opened up - Bellamy’s, Clarke’s and Raven’s. At which point Kane would have put it to Octavia to choose who would take those spots.

How does she choose? Terrified about how she’s going to survive five years in the bunker without her brother - her brother who is headed on a risky expedition he might not even survive - she immediately knows who she can choose, who would have been left out to die otherwise.

She chooses Miller.

The boy who was her brother’s loyal right hand back at the drop ship. The boy who was the second person (after her) to join Kane’s resistance against Pike, committed to stopping war and saving their friends, even if it came at the cost of his relationship with Bryan. The boy who defended Niylah when Skaikru wanted to throw her out into the fire.

He wasn’t her brother, but he was the next best thing. And as time went on in the bunker, he became the brother she desperately needed - I don’t think it is any coincidence that there are so many brief Bellamy and Miller moments in S5, meant to contrast her brother of blood and her brother of choice. Octavia knows she can count on only one now, and that one is Miller.

Jackson

Now, Jackson is a bit trickier, because I don’t think we ever really see Octavia and Jackson interact prior to S5. But since Octavia and Miller had been on Earth together since the time of the delinquents, he would have surely heard the stories from Miller, and thus his loyalty to her became their loyalty to her.

He would have heard the stories about the brave and reckless girl who cut her arm open with a poisoned knife to get a Grounder to give up the antidote, because she was sure he wouldn’t let her die. The girl who rode alone into a Grounder village to warn them of an impending attack, and then doing what she could to save both Skaikru and Trikru when they struck back with an ambush.

There was enough violence in the bunker that he would have had to patch her up on numerous occasions, especially after Abby dropped out of the picture as far as reliable medical professionals went. He would have seen that reckless bravery that Miller told him about. He would have seen that she wouldn’t ask of anyone anything she wasn’t willing to do herself. He would have seen her take on more and more of Wonkru’s burdens, and hoped that they weren’t going to break her. And I believe that with him, Miller and Niylah there - Octavia was perhaps a bit less broken than she could have been.

I think the question we should be asking isn’t “Why were Niylah, Miller and Jackson loyalists?” but rather “Why was everyone else not?” - because from what we were shown, I don’t see a reason for why any of the people who betrayed her should have done so (save perhaps for Gaia). But that’s the topic of another post - where what we were shown in flashbacks does not explain the present, and how the presentation of Octavia and Wonkru to the audience (and to bunker outsiders) scarily resembles modern-day political propaganda tactics.

(Line for image caption is from “Ricochet” by Starset.)