The 100...episode 3.5 - Hakeldama
Feb. 20th, 2016 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.)
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.)
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Date: 2016-02-21 06:00 pm (UTC)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.