The 100...episode 3.5 - Hakeldama

[shadowkat]

Well, I went online and found an interview with the actor portraying Bellamy, and the writer, which explains what they are doing with the character this season. Because it felt a bit like they were flipping him backwards. When in reality, they were having him struggle with two leadership models, the pragmatic one espoused by Kane, and the emotional one espoused by Pike. He was always a fighter or solider, and this season...he's come face to face with his old mentor and teacher, who speaks to his emotions. The actor is rather interesting -- the show's violence bothers him and he's had to walk out of scenes to clear his head. He can't stand guns or any of that, while his character is the opposite. Now that's acting. And he's gotten good at playing the dilemma - or internal war over which side he should go with. He doesn't see either as good or bad per se, so much as which is more likely to result in their survival.

In the episode Hakeldama, it is ironically Clarke's discussion with Bellamy that inspires her to ask Lexa to change her ways. It is also to a degree, her discussion with Kane and Abby, when Octavia and Clark tell them to hand over Pike - for the Grounders to achieve justice and peace, and Kane and Abby state -- "that is not our way." Octavia responds..."maybe it's time we started changing our ways."

Meanwhile we have Allia hovering with Thelonious in the background, Allia had set off all the bombs - destroyed the world - in response to what had been going on back then, and is happening again, now.

Pike's speeches to the Arkadians are eerily similar to Donald Trump's current rhetoris of us vs them, let's build walls between us. It's a pure emotional response to pain and suffering, fueled by fear, guilt, and hate. Pike had lost half his crew, farmers, not fighters, to grounders. Then, the other half in Mount Weather, as did Bellamy, when they went off on a wild-goose chase to save people.
They are reacting on pure emotion at the moment - similar in a way to Finn in S2. Bellamy also felt abandoned by Clarke, he wasn't ready to take the reigns quite yet, and pushed around by Kane.

I still think this story could have been built a bit better -- feels a bit abrupt. And a little too black and white in some respects. For example - there was no indication that the Grounder army was a threat, they were told that they'd been sent to protect the 13th Clan. I like the significance of 13...13th Tribe...of Abraham, that resided with Cain.

Anyhow, Clarke attempts to reason with Bellamy, thinking there is a chance, but Bellamy is too filled with pain to hear her -- and while he seems to have mixed feelings about Pike's methods, he's struggling to argue with them. As he tells Clarke - from the very beginning they've been attacking us and trying to kill us. They struck first. And it never seems to end. Perhaps Pike is right.

Clark takes that information along with what her mother and Kane have been stating all along to Lexa, and states "maybe we need to find a way that isn't blood takes blood. Maybe we should step up to the plate first. Get across to them...that the violence can stop and find peace. Otherwise, we'll just have continuous war. Yes, you're right this was an act of war, but what does fighting back get us?
Except more violence and more grief? And where does it end? With everyone dead? No one left standing?
Do you want to be a leader of a dead people or a leader with the courage to take a stand, and garner peace?"

Meanwhile, we have Theolonous offering people Allia's way out...which is to escape to the City of Light, the virtual reality world created by Allia, where life and death don't matter, or so it seems.

Better episode than the last one, in some respects. And managed to renew my faith in the writing, which felt a bit offkilter in episode 3.4.

Still hands down the best science fiction series on television at the moment. And under the radar.
In part due to the channel it's on, and in part due to the subject matter.

Oh, in case anyone is interested - here's the link to the article I read:

* Bob Morely who plays Bellamy talks about his Character

* EW interview with the actor playing Bellamy.

He also states that he stays off the internet, because when he was on it during the first season - he found that various statements influenced how he viewed his character which interfered with how he played him -- which is a bad idea. So he backed off of it.

He did manage to sell the character's arc to me.

As an aside? I don't really ship anyone in this series. Nor do I care that much who they kill off.
I've watched daytime soaps most of my life, I used to character deaths. And know that only the characters that the writers don't know what to do with or feel will further the show better with their death, die. Writers don't kill characters they like. (Tyrion will never be killed off by GRRM for example, because the writer likes the character too much.) They aren't killing Clark, Kane, Bellamy, Octavia, Abby, Murphy, or Raven any time soon, the writers like them too much. LOL! (Although I did wonder after this episode if Bellamy would die next.)

Comments

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, we have Theolonous offering people Allia's way out...which is to escape to the City of Light, the virtual reality world created by Allia, where life and death don't matter, or so it seems.

One of the questions another interviewer brought up was whether or not Raven's leg was actually healed by the CoL Pill, or if it simply removed the pain sensations along with, presumably, allowing her to visit the City of Light.

I'll be extremely interested to see how they answer this question in upcoming episodes. If I were writing it, the pill would release nanomachines into the body of the person swallowing it. This would enable a number of things to become possible, with really violating any currently understood laws of physics, chemistry, etc.

The nanomachines could, in fact, repair the damage to Raven's body. They could also create alterations in her brain that would allow the virtual reality world to be created, or linked to if it's a remote server, so to speak (Perhaps that pack that Jaha clings to so fervently?)

And-- if, a la Battlestar Galactica / the Cylons, download someone's brain data to a remote storage facility, thereby effectively creating a literal life after death experience.

We shall see. I do freely admit to a fascination with the concept of humans eventually creating-- deliberately or accidentally-- a literal god. NBC's sadly cancelled Revolution was just getting into this during the latter part of their second season, also employing the nanomachines concept.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where they are going with Allia. So far the show has steered clear of religion, delving into it here and there, but not in too much depth.

Religion is tricky. There's a tendency to get on a soapbox with it. Also to fall into cliche, overdone tropes, and get a wee bit extreme. (Sigh, see Joss Whedon, Ron Moore, and the writers of Lost) The trick is not to write about anything you don't understand yourself -- which is tricky with religion, because everyone assumes they understand other's religions and are therefore qualified to judge them. Hence the tricky.

And how we perceive God is both a cultural and individual thing that varies.

That said, I've seen it done well in a few places. Star Wars handles religion rather well, as did Star Trek.
Which may explain the continued popularity of both. Like I said, tricky. Lost, BSG, Caprica, and Revolution made the mistake of going the cliche route and turned off a good portion of the audience, myself included.

They could do it with Allia, but I fear they will either fall into the Jasmine (the loving God who devours you) trope and/or the controlling authoritarian where there is no free-will trope (which is also in a way Jasmine),
or the out-to-lunch, do what you will on earth, in heaven you can just frolick trope. Both of which have been done to death and aren't that interesting to me. So if they go that route, I may go wander to another tv show.

I'm hoping it doesn't become too cliche.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

As he tells Clarke - from the very beginning they've been attacking us and trying to kill us. They struck first.

But which isn't entirely true. The first grounder attack occurs because the 100 landed in there territory, sure... but then they started to talk. At several points, the grounders were willing to negotiate but hotheaded actions by "The 100" provoked wider conflicts. Like when Clark and the grounders are supposed to meet discuss a treaty but Jasper fires on them with guns.

The show is something of a solid example of Huntington (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Huntington)'s "Clash of Civilizations" - but also an example of a critique of Huntington as well. Because it's not just the civilizational differences that lead to conflict but also stupidity that is specific to decisionmakers - like Pike's unwillingness to consider that the "Tree People" might be different from the "Ice Nation" or not even really consider what the other nations' interests or plans are.

But aside from being a good show on it's own, it's a very fun sandbox for political theorists.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

But which isn't entirely true. The first grounder attack occurs because the 100 landed in there territory, sure... but then they started to talk.

This niggled at me as well. I remember thinking as Bellamy was stating -- "they've always tried to kill us" -- uh, no that's not exactly true. An example of how the human mind has a tendency to shift to extremes to justify emotional decisions. "Everybody does this," or "Nobody thinks that way" or " They always do that" or "You always do this" -- often seeing one pattern of events, but conveniently ignoring any exceptions or deviations.
Doesn't mean that all decisions based on emotion are necessarily wrong or stupid - ad demonstrated by Clark and Octavia, and to a degree Abby and Kane -- who have begun to see the Grounders as individuals and care about them as individuals -- so their decision to push for peace over war is to a degree emotionally based.

But, Bellamy has to see that way. In a way, he's managed to demonize the Grounders in his head. If they were always trying to kill him, always a threat, and it was never the reverse -- then killing the 300 Grounders saved lives and was just part of an on-going war for survival. If, however, he sees it the opposite way -- then he aided in the massacre of 300 Grounders for no reason and escalated tensions between the two parties.

I see this a lot in historical and political discussions, where people will often conveniently ignore events that deviate from their argument.

So emphasis is placed on the first Grounder attack, ignoring the attempts at peace, the actions of the 100, and the blast that the Sky People set off to kill their opponents. Just like we ignore what we did during various wars, it was all the other guy's fault. We're the good guys. When it's really neither. And many of the actions that escalated the war really weren't rational but hotheaded emotional responses.

When I was watching the previous episodes --- I thought okay, why are they doing this? This makes no rational sense. But it does when you look at from the perspective...that it's not supposed to, and really how many wars were rational?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The show is something of a solid example of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" - but also an example of a critique of Huntington as well. Because it's not just the civilizational differences that lead to conflict but also stupidity that is specific to decisionmakers - like Pike's unwillingness to consider that the "Tree People" might be different from the "Ice Nation" or not even really consider what the other nations' interests or plans are.

I agree. Political theorists don't always take into account emotion and the fact that human beings aren't robots.;-) So don't tend to always think rationally or logically. (It's what I did love about Star Trek and the Star Trek universe -- the critique of scientific rational mind and/or pure logic. That sometimes the best strategies were not necessarily logical. Showing that rational thought was not always right or pure.)

It's interesting when you think about it -- how similar Pike's stance on the Grounders is to well Trump's on immigrants from Mexico and Muslims, or the US during the Cold War. Both make the mistake of generalizing.

Grounders killed my friends.

Lincoln is a Grounder therefore he is responsible for killing my friends.

Which refuses to look at Lincoln as an individual or the fact that he had zip to do with Echo and the Ice People's actions.

The people who blew up the World Trade Center were Muslim and did for an Islamic State.

My next door neighbors are Muslim therefore they are terrorists.

Refuses to acknowledge the flaw in the syllogism.

And in both cases the thinking behind the response that the leader makes - is ironically similar to the flaw in thinking resulting in the original attack.

The Ice Nation, and Echo sort of parallel Pike's Farm Group and Bellamy. Bellamy and Echo had been allies, they did for a time get past the us vs. them thinking.

Echo decides along with her people, the Ice Nation, that the Sky People moving to MT Weather is an affront to their people and an indication that they are no different than the people who were in Mount Weather. So, to ensure that there isn't another Mt. Weather, the best approach is to blow up Mt. Weather - killing everyone inside.

This action, instead of increasing their power base, results in their Queen's death and 300 Grounders being killed. So probably not such a great idea in hindsight.

Bellamy who had begun to trust Grounders, with the betrayal of Echo, stops and begins to trust Pike. Like Echo, he ensures that Pike's crew is able to attack the Grounders. And like the Ice Nation, neither Pike nor Bellamy make the distinction between the Ice Nation and the Tree People, as the Ice Nation didn't make a distinction between the Sky People and Mount Weather. Which was the flaw in both groups thinking.

And digging deeper, there's the tendency to put people in groups. Pike sees all Grounders as a problem, don't save the wounded, don't save any of them. Bellamy questions that...is it ethical not to treat the wounded?
To clear a village of women and children? Innocents? Pike states that this sends a clearer message. He refuses to see them as individuals and cautions against doing so -- as a weakness they can't afford. Indira and Lexa, Indira believes all Sky People are the same, just take them all out, but Lexa realizes this isn't true and that Clark is right.

Both are to an extent emotional responses, but one is able to see the trees and not just the forest. It's I think the flaw in a lot of thinking - the tendency to generalize, to not see people or any living thing for that matter as a unique individual entity that is part of group, but also separate from that group. (Okay with the exception of hive insects.) And a tendency to not question one's perceptions of things - which is also being explored in the series - via Thelonious and Allia's arc.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I'm still not very happy with this development, though. While the parallel to current-day politics is pretty obvious, so you can hardly claim that they're being unrealistic (though I wish just ONE character would ask Pike and Bellamy "And then what? How does this keep us safe in the long run?"). But it feels way too much like a repeat of the Finn storyline from s2. For all the show does right, it treats the sky people vs grounders conflict way too much like the Western cliché of homesteaders vs wild injuns, and keeps going back to having the "civilized" characters murder innocent "savages" only so the "civilized" characters will have something to brood about. That was skeevy when John Wayne did it, and it's no less skeevy here.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You're welcome ;-)

Yup, that's my difficulty with it as well. (Not helped by the fact that the villains in the Arkadia group (Pike, Bellamy and Theolonus) just happen to be POC, while the heroes (Abby, Clark, and Kane) just happen to be White, which grated, although they probably did that in the hopes of making it look less cliche? I don't know.)

American Television and Film still relies far too heavily on over-done WWII and Western tropes (ie. settlers vs. innocent savages or white hats vs. Nazis). It's actually my quibble with the film The Revenant. It's been so overdone that it is sliding towards cliche.

I kept hoping during the last episode that Bellamy and Pike would have THAT discussion ie. "And then what? How does this keep us safe in the long run?" or a more snarky response..."Uhm, how's that been working for us so far? Not that great, has it?" (Where's Murphy when you need him?) Or Clark and Bellamy would have had it. Instead, she has it with Lexa, which was not good enough.

And I hunted spoilers to see how long I had to put up with this story arc, which was not working for me, and if it was going the same route as the Finn story did. The Finn story worked, we do not however need a repeat with Bellamy. But according to the spoilers, they are apparently going a different route with it. So, I'm keeping an open mind for now. This show can turn on a dime, as we saw in S1.

There's two story arcs that I'm a little wary of - this one, and the whole Allia/City of Lights arc (that could easily fall into cliche), but I'm keeping an open mind and seeing where it goes. Last season was sooo good. Also, according to the spoilers the emphasis for the rest of the season will be on supplies and food.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

That's the thing though, I loathed the Finn storyline. He snapped and murdered a bunch of innocent people, OK, that's a valid storytelling move. What almost made me stop watching the series, though, is how everyone else reacted, and how the writers seemed to expect the viewers to react; the other "civilized"/"white" characters, after being horrified for about five minutes, all treated it like an accident that happened to him, rather than a crime for which he should be held accountable. Again, his murder of grounders became all about his trauma, not that of the people who actually suffered for it, because they didn't quite count. The conflict between either feeling sorry for him (as the sky crew all seemed to do) or torturing him to death (as, of course, the savage grounders wanted) rang so ridiculously false; if you're so civilized, and you want to prove it, defuse the situation and put him on trial yourselves.

It bugs me all the more because The 100 is, on a surface level, one of the best shows on TV when it comes to diversity. Ethnicity, gender, sexuality, even age seem like non-issues among both sky crew and grounders. And yet, again and again, the conflicts they set up seem to hinge on the viewers not being expected to award the same level of humanity to grounders as to our "heroes", and it's reinforced with some very dodgy stereotypes (right down to having the grounders speak an incomprehensible language even though they all speak English fluently). Season 3 started out a lot better in that regard, so them back-pedalling into this now is just... well, we'll see where it goes, I guess.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say that I disagree. But alas, I don't. The Finn storyline worked up to a point. Where it failed is like you state...the decision to emphasize the pain of the Sky People over the Grounders. Unfortunately, the show is set up that way -- we're in the point of view of the Sky People, so we will always get their side over the Grounders. If you look at it from the perspective that you are in one point of view not the other, and you should as a viewer be questioning that point of view/perspective...it sort of works. (Point of view fascinates me in stories.) Here, our point of view is split between various post-adolescent protagonists - Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia, Jasper, Raven, and Murphy. And a few adult protagonists - Kane, Abby, and Theolonius. Everyone else, with the possible exception of Lincoln -- is secondary point of view, although I think Lincoln is as well.

So the story tellers are telling the story through the perspective of the settlers or the astronauts coming back down to earth after being in the sky for decades. And like most people, they see it as being all about them, their pain, their needs, their issues, and they've cast themselves as the heroes.

I think the Finn arc was supposed to question that perspective. Yet at the same time add a layer of ambiguity to it -- in that the Sky People weren't permitted to put him on trial themselves and had to follow the Grounder's ways. This feels largely unfair, considering that the Grounders were permitted to try the Ice Nation themselves and not let the Sky People enact their brand of justice. Perhaps if they had turned over the Ice Nation to the Sky People to enact justice...things would have gone differently? Who knows.

Anyhow that's how I've made it work for myself. Take it or leave it. Because I'm not sure it entirely works. And like you, I don't like the repetition of the story arc. I feel like we've done this three times now. The best was Mount Weather -- that was the best of the three and the most ambiguous and horrific. After that, I didn't think it needed to be explored again...but I guess the writers felt they needed to make a much bigger point about the Grounder's being less monsterous in some respects than our protagonists, or rather make that point to the protagonists -(who consider themselves they advanced culture)- you sought the violent remedy, not the Grounders who you accuse of being uncivilized. (Which is true. Sure the Grounders have attacked, but their attacks are nothing compared to :1) the nuclear explosion in S1, Finn's massacre of the village - S2, Clarke and Bellamy's massacre of Mount Weather -S2, and Bellamy/Pike's massacre of the 300 Grounder army that was there to protect them.) To put this into historical perspective? The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor pales in comparison to the two bombs the US dropped on the Japanese. Just as the various Native American/indian attacks in America pale in comparison to how the European settlers almost massacred them with their bigger weapons. (There's a lot guilt in my country over that by the way, hence the reason the trope keeps popping up.)

I think that's why they are doing it. I'm just hoping they move on soon.