Kenni, Lee.
Thanks Lee, voting tomorrow morning once I'm back.
Random round of commenting again
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Back on the Pike subject - maybe it's 'cause I watched the entire season in like a day (after binge watching 1 and 2 the previous days) so perhaps I'm missing something but would any other choice have made sense for Bellamy? I mean, Clarke was gone, Lexa screwed them all over... it was very in character to me that he was not there for grounders. I actually kept waiting for Bellamy's supposedly dark turn~ and I felt like it never quite happened. Sure, he killed a shtload of people from Indra's army but let's not act like Indra & co wouldn't have blew them all up had she gotten the chance and means. The grounders were constantly bullshtting about how war is war and blood must have blood... well, there's your blood, motherfckers. |
This is something which I really had an issue with in 3A and I've since come to terms that it could be an action that Bellamy could partake in ... but what I didn't get was how rushed it was, it just didn't feel realistic to me that he would make such a crucial decision in a hot minute. Bellamy has always been impulsive but that came across as completely rash. Would Indra and co have turned on the Arkers in a second if they were commanded to? Yes most definitely (had it come to that), but personally where I felt the show failed was showing us the level of apprehension/fear that the Arkers had with the army standing guard outside their camp. And so it seems disingenuous that Bellamy would feel that they were in enough danger for them to strike before the Grounders did and whether or not the Grounders WERE about to attack them, there wasn't enough information that Bellamy/Pike knew at that point to even make that assessment.
I don't think I'll ever be NOT disappointed as to how that arc was executed. It was really rescued by Bob's fantastic acting because I really thought it was a hard one to salvage.
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We've had many good discussions about all of this.
To me it comes down to: I thought Bellamy was better and smarter than that.
During hiatus, for three months, Bellamy has had contact with other Grounders (I'm assuming this because he can speak some Trigedasleng, though you could argue he learned that from Lincoln. But also because Kane has clearly had contact with Grounders/Indra and since Kane had sort of become Bell's mentor, I assume Bell has had contact as well). During hiatus they were working on a truce. During hiatus plans for a summit were made.
Bellamy should've known Azgeda = Evil. Not Grounder = Evil.
I've never let Clarke off the hook on this. In fact, like I think everyone knows by now, I wasn't Clarke's biggest fan to begin with. And this was one of the things that ruined her even more for me. Bellamy though, did Not kill people that tried to kill them. He killed a field of sleeping people. I am not, in no way arguing that the Grounders are all good and well and nothing bad about them. Obviously not.
If they had given me more development on screen. If they had focused more on Bellamy, I might have felt it was "just" a regression of his character back to S1. But for now, at least until after a re-watch of S3, I really strongly feel it was OOC.
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I agree with part of your comments here, Paula. I've always said that it's disappointing that Bellamy should have been able to distinguish Grounders from Ice Nation but at the same time, I could see how he would lump them all in the same category after 3X03. Because they are capable of violence, clearly, and he saw that happening with Ice Nation too when he explicitly trusted Echo's words even knowing that she was from Ice Nation (who he had been told are even more brutal than Grounders) when it backfired on them and resulted in their people getting killed. Again, what I don't get is why we didn't see that moral struggle or anyone talking to him about it or him trying to reason it out with the group before coming to the decision etc.
April:
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And I love that you pointed out that Bellamy is the one who has never betrayed her trust. What he did during 3A may have frustrated her, enraged her even, disappointed her beyond belief . . . but he didn't betray her.
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Word. His actions never betrayed her EVER and she knew that even if she didn't agree with his actions there, that he had their people's interests in mind when he did it. Wonder who were the ones who truly betrayed her and got away with it easily
just with a few, simple meaningless gestures but again I digress. Nothing but bitter disappointments when it comes to that arc, unfortunately.
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Clarke needed someone as bull headed as Bellamy to teach her a thing or two about compromise and teamwork.
I liked Wells, but he was so smitten with Clarke that even if he'd stuck around I could see him just continually rolling over and letting Clarke have her way. And Finn was just a bit too passive. I appreciated that he voiced his opinions but he didn't exactly make himself heard if you know what I mean. I think Toni's caption here from Murphy's Law sums up Finn's place with Bellamy and Calrke fairly nicely.
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Agreed, Kenni. As much as I liked Wells, he was a bit too passive (a bit more assertive than say Finn) but still, he wouldn't have had the same influence on Clarke's decision making as Bellamy who has always had a keen eye/ear when it comes to observing people and knowing what course of action is likely to work and is able to articulate it to her in a way that Finn/Wells probably couldn't.
And that caption is spot on.
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Hey Ana(2) Eugh, so true. The fact that she had information that no one else had (except for Wells I guess) and yet just kept yelling at them instead of explaining and make them see reason? Very irritating. I would have totally been on the side of the 'whatever the hell we want' and 'Let's stick it to the privileged' group |
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Again, totally agree. This was glaringly apparent to me in 3x14, that Clarke just . . . didn't have the right sales pitch, to be honest. That's totally more of Bellamy's area of expertise. And notice the difference in the subsequent episode, 3x15, when they both go in to talk to Roan. Clarke's talking, and then Bellamy jumps in and says stuff, too, and all of a sudden, once they're both talking to him, then Roan agrees to help. Coincidence? I think not. |
Agreed, Kate/April. Clarke has the best ideas and overall plans and is obviously a big picture type of person but the way she goes about to execute it is usually not so well polished because she can't quite articulate to others as to why a plan will/won't work and why they need to listen to her. Bellamy can, he helps her fill in the blanks (so to speak) and work out the details and suss out potential implications from their actions. He knew that the alliance was a bad move and waste of time, but he wanted to support her anyway so he went along with it and gave his all in terms of executing the plan by becoming the inside man.
And that Roan discussion was certainly interesting, indeed. He's not an easy person to convince but
together; everything suddenly clicked into place and they were able to convince Roan - as a team.
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Having said that, I also remember identifying with Clarke in the pilot to a certain degree. When she is trying to figure out how to get to Mt. Weather etc and everyone else is more or less in party mode? I kept seeing things from her perspective and thinking 'agh, those stupid immature kids'  |
I agree with that too, Kate. She was the only one mature enough to immediately think of their next step instead of "WAHOOO, party!"