The 100 Winter Finale...1 vs. the 100

So, I saw the 100 Winter Season Finale, which oddly reminded me a little of the Buffy S2 Finale...except I think this one was better done and had more complex and adult themes. Also, the results will be more permanent and less romantic. The 100 unlike Buffy is sci-fi realism, not dramedy, there's very little humor in the series - which may be a weakness...for some. It's also fairly brutal, which makes it difficult for me to want to re-watch. (I don't re-watch brutal television series and movies, I do not need torture scenes imprinted on my mind or soul, and well, I have a visual memory.) That does not however mean that I do not watch these series/films, nor that I don't appreciate their brilliance. Do not get me wrong - some of the best written films and television series are brutally violent and handle difficult themes regarding violence, because let's face it we are a violent species, and our culture is a reflection of what we are. The better films and series depict the consequences of that, show what we are losing, and explore what lead us to these decisions and what decisions we may have made instead. The 100 is amongst the better series. The lesser films and series turn violence into pop-corn entertainment, do not comment on it, and do not show the consequences of these actions - instead they romanticize them. I'd rather watch The 100 than say Agents of Shield for that very reason, Agents of Shield glamorizes violence, it's pop-corn entertainment, shiny, while the 100 shows the lasting consequences. When people die on The 100, they stay dead. It's my problem with a lot of television series - they kill off characters only to continuously resurrect them, to the point that the death has no meaning and its hard to care. That ...I think belittles violence and death, and I sort of want to take the writers to task for that. It was one of my issues with Buffy and Angel actually, granted you could handwave it to some extent, hello vampires, but it annoyed me that some characters (the supporting less sexy ones) died, and others were continuously resurrected. Heck, Whedon resurrected almost all the villains at one point or another. You just can't keep a good villain down.

In the midst of an interview with the creators of The 100 regarding their decision to kill off a major character in a heartbreaking way, there's a little advertisement about 100 villains that wouldn't stay dead. And I was struck by that.

I will not state that The 100 is the best thing out there, it's not. And I've watched a wide enough variety of television to know that it is flawed in places and would turn many an academic television snob away, snoot fully in air, shaking their head in bewilderment...for it does have some of the trappings of your typical CW series. i.e: it is melodramatic, and it does focus at times on youthal romance, and the lead characters are astonishingly pretty...and yes there are bits and pieces here that don't quite work. So yes, I've seen better television series. Thank you. Felt more or less the same way in regards to Buffy actually. It's odd but the television series that I feel are the best written and most likely appeal to the critical television snobs who ahem, deign to study television for a living...are often the ones I find the least memorable and I forget. They fade rapidly. And I don't feel an overpowering need to write about. Oh there are a few, that I have and went nutty over when they aired...but I'm not sure they grabbed me by the gonads in quite the same way, not that I necessarily have any gonads but you know what I mean.

The 100 admittedly hits a lot of my story kinks rather hard. The survival trope, the tough, yet reluctant female leader trope (not hero, leader - different thing), the female warrior trope, the male damsel, and difficult themes about difficult human actions and emotions - that people don't necessarily want to examine too closely. But I feel, rather vehemently that we must.

Here...the 100 examines the difficult and dueling issues of vengence, justice and mercy. Along with ...well it's title 1 vs. the 100, or "the needs of the many outdo the needs of the few". Along with taking responsibility for our own actions and finding a way to forgive ourselves for them.

Humans, I've long thought should not be allowed to make decisions regarding justice or vengeance. Don't get me wrong - if someone is a threat, they do need to be put away. But that's not justice, that's security. Not the same thing. Justice is used in tandem with execution or the death penalty, which...again I think is actually much closer to vengeance than most people want to admit. The eye for an eye, the tooth for the tooth has never worked that well. Sooner or later you find yourself on the other side of that there fence...and, well, turning the other cheek most likely would have worked a heck of a lot better.

( spoilers in them there woods )