April7739

There are plenty of people who still dislike Kane and Murphy, though, Sonja, so . . . don’t be surprised when it is still very possible to dislike Echo and when plenty of people still do.

Becks, I appreciate you knowing that polarizing reactions are part of characters. For what it’s worth, I think she will gain some more fans this season, and even though I won’t be one of them . . . oh, well. You like her, and I don’t, and that’s all fine.

Fuzzy, I think by the time 1x06 rolled around and we got Bellamy’s backstory, there was no way he could be a pure antagonist then. But I also do remember everything he did, since he’s my favorite character and all. I just always saw layers, even from episode 1 when he didn’t shoot Wells. And especially in 1x03 when he couldn’t kill Atom. So yes, he caused conflict, but I don’t think that merely causing conflict for the protagonist is enough to automatically be classified as an antagonist. Plus, since the Grounders were introduced right away in the Pilot, they kind of served that role for a while.

a little chaos

April, did you see Damon as an antagonist in 1A of TVD? And if so, how does that differ to Bellamy for you?

Everything you say here is how I feel about Echo, even when she was doing bad things I saw something more.

Fuzzy Dunlop

I'm never going to understand this mindset. To me, there is absolutely no question that Bellamy was an antagonist for the first half of S1. He literally tried to kill several people. I'm pretty sure that opposing the protagonist makes one an antagonist by definition. And there can be multiple antagonists in a story. And it's perfectly okay to like antagonists. But whatever....

April7739

We’ll have to agree to disagree then.

There are definitely some similarities. I feel like having vampires in the story makes it harder to compare, though. I think Damon was antagonistic at times, but he had moments of goodness and softness, too. Although more of those were in 1B. So overall, I thought of him as more of an anti-hero, I guess. Kind of like Bellamy. But again, it’s hard to compare since one is human and one is a vampire.

Yep, I do remember that you’ve always liked her. Just as I’ve always disliked her. Hey, at least we’re consistent.

CanIcallYouKate

So, about the eligius people in Sanctum. I agree that their mission was to find habitable planets for humanity. At least I think that was mentioned somehow, right?

The first mission unmanned, and there was a mining mission, and these dudes were to colonize or at least find another planet capable of sustaining human life.

The fact that they brought a geneticist AND embryos (!), means the plan at least for a while was to colonize, not come back and report on their findings?

I'm still a bit fuzzy on what the deal with the embryos is supposed to be. But then again, my confusion might be because they're applying "Show Science" and I'm thinking real science

Were they planning to have these embryos carried by surrogates? Probably not. Do they have a doodad (scientific term, see also doohickey, thing-a-majig) for having these develop in an artificial womb? Also were these embryos created from random donors or from genetic material of the eligius colony members? I have questions.

Is saving "THE BODIES" so important because they harvest genetic material from them? Seems silly, you could do that from living people. Do they revive them somehow? Zombies, like Sonja suggested? Is it because the trees will eat them?

I have questions. So many questions. And I love it.

What was Gabriel up to after the flashback scenes we saw in 6x02? How was Josephine able to write a childrens' book after dying? Or maybe she didn't die after all. Did he save her? Clone her? :O

Can't wait to find out

Loved reading about the whole antagonist/ villain discussion in here.

For what it's worth, I think the show did a great job for the most part to show multifaceted characters. I didn't buy the Bellamy = villain in season 1 precisely because even from very early on, they showed other sides than simply him being a jerk who spared no second thought for other people (other than Octavia at that point).

And for Pike, I remember being one of the few people back then, who "defended" his point of view. I didn't agree with his actions but they made sense from his vantage point. It was a mistake to show his flashback this late in the season, too late for most of the audience, who were never going to be swayed into empathizing with this character after seeing the things he had done up to that point.

A couple of things though. They were immediately attacked, kids were killed and whoever did not escape was enslaved by Azgeda. If I were Pike, I would have had an equally hard time trusting "grounders". Given his backstory with the Ark's leadership cadre, I would not have trusted Kane's assessment to see nuances and not condemn ALL grounders either. Yes, we're meant to see the "condemn all people based on a few people's actions" for what it is. Bigotry. But be fair, if you were in Pike's shoes, would you really have been open-minded about this?

And second, Pike's decision to kill the sleeping army, as morally repugnant and ethically wrong this "pre-emptive strike" was, his decision was kind of vindicated by the fact that after Lexa died, there is a high probability that that army WOULD have attacked skikru. As Pike pointed out on the show, actually. So while that can never retroactively excuse his actions, it's nevertheless something to consider.

As for Echo, I've argued this point last season. She was always a very capable individual, not hindered by morals in the pursuit of her goals. She was always shown to be extremely loyal to the point where she defied codified ethics (such as not to interfere in the conclave) to protect the interest of her leader and people. She now employs all those awesome abilities to further the interests of skikru. Yay for "our guys", right?

But I have issues with certain aspects of her character arc because it directly resulted in harm to "our side". The assassin in Mt. Weather (killing a ton of people, including Gina), trying to kill Octavia, trying to kill Clarke, to name just a few.

And then there is the off-screen development of her being forgiven and being in a relationship with Bellamy that seems oddly hollow to me. It simply doesn't work for me.

But I get that others on here can take that we were told that she has been forgiven and developed a bond with skikru and it's enough for them. Not for me. Without being shown , I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Bellamy could be in a loving relationship with someone who tried to murder his sister (I am here for the inevitable "but Clarke let a bomb drop on tonDC and was forgiven" discussion) . Just doesn't compute for me. But hey, that is also the beauty of this show, everyone can have a different take on things and love different characters.

Wow, this got way too long

girl under the floor

Oh wow
The good discussions always happen when I'm asleep
I'll get into it later in this post
But first. I rewatched Episode 1 last night.
Murphy was the first one to get stung by an insect, but having rewatched, I don't think he was the only one. When they run away, we hear people screaming and saying "it hurts". And then Emori gets cut off from the group, they find her with a swarm around her. I no longer think he was the only one who got bitten

As for Josephine still being alive. I don't think I'm on that theory boat right now. Why would her picture be at the shrine if she was still alive?
Also, there was a bowl with (red) blood in front of the shrine. Was that human blood? Does that mean not everyone on this moon is a nightblood?
Lastly, the shrine said "Our all for the grace and glory of the primes".
That reminds me so much of "All of me for all of us". And as usual on this show, that is not likely to be an accident. Intriguing!

Also, I wish they leave Octavia alone romantic wise. I'd much rather see her heal than see her have yet another love interest.

About Pike & Echo etc.
I'd like to add that I differentiate between emotional and rational.
Emotionally, it was too little too late for me with Pike.
Dudes, he killed Lincoln. He killed my all-time favorite ship. Kinda hard for me to get past And before he did that, there wasn't a whole lot of redeeming qualities to him. So when the show finally gave us those flashbacks, I was like "nope, show, this is not gonna happen. You won't be able to make me like him / forgive him now, it's just simply too late." And he didn't get it. Like Becks said, he died before he could properly be redeemed. Had he not died, I might've changed my mind later on, if they had given him a good story, who knows
Adding to that, I think on TV shows, stuff needs to be visual. Stuff needs to be seen. Telling us that Azgeda killed those children, didn't have the emotional impact for me as it would/could've had, had they shown us. Therefor, I understood his (their) reasoning, but I couldn't empathise with it. So I know I started it off by saying I never understood Pike. I should've said that it just was too late for me to feel any positive feelings towards him at all. But rational wise, I completely understood.
(Side note: having things visual. This also goes back to when Octavia beat up Bellamy. I never was TOO opposed against that. Because I think on shows sometimes a break like that needs to be visual. By having her physically beat him up, the show gave us a true break between them. It had way more impact than her just saying the words "you're dead to me." and stalking off. Which is NOT saying I agreed with her beating him up like that! But it 'worked' for me.)

I agree that Echo and Pike as people can not be compared.
But the fact remains that we didn't get to see anything of Echo's development on the Ark with Spacekru. And to me it's still hard to grasp that Bellamy ended up in a relationship with the person who freaking straight up tried to murder his sister and is (maybe indirectly) responsible for his girlfriend's death. I have trouble moving past that. Because we didn't get to see how Bellamy moved past that. The show told us that, instead of showing it to us.
Having said that, I do not hate Echo by any means I ain't her biggest fan, but I don't hate her. And I do agree with Becks that Pike after the flashbacks didn't really get a storyline / change to actually "redeem" himself in the eyes of the viewers. With Echo, there's plenty of time to still do that.
More people have done horrible things on this show, and if I can love Octavia still, I can see myself moving past this major issue with Echo too (provided the show shows it to me, gives us a good story)

Fuzzy Dunlop

I'm pretty sure an antagonist is still an antagonist, regardless of whether you think they have layers or reasons for what they're doing, or if they aren't a jerk 100% of the time, or if you think they're cute or whatever. It's entirely based on the role they're playing in the story. They're opposing the protagonist? That makes them an antagonist. They can make a heel-face turn and become good guys, but that doesn't mean they weren't ever an antagonist in the first place.

a little chaos

I do really love Niytavia, it's nice to see Niylah have her back and maybe be a source of comfort, even if just as a friendship, I think Octavia could really use a friend right now.

Paula, I hadn't considered it from an emotional vs rational standpoint, I know I hate Ontari more than any other character because the things she did hit me on a personal level.

A lot of people assume Echo fans started to like Echo after the time jump and started shipping Becho post Season 4, but that wasn't the case for me, I started liking Echo during Season 4 and it wasn't until Bellamy stopped Echo from committing suicide that I started shipping them, thats why I never needed all that development in space, because I had already jumped aboard the ship.

Echo only tried to killing Octavia once, the cliff was an accident. As for the conclave, they were in war and Echo was trying to save her Clan, how is that any different to Clarke leaving Octavia outside the bunker, basically sentencing her to death and the worst part is she had Bellamy on the other side separating the Blakes forever? people act as though Becho is this nasty toxic ship, but Bellarke aint perfect, Clarke has done many unhealthy things to Bellamy, threatening his sisters life multiple times, putting a gun to Bellamy, leaving him in a fighting pit.

Just to be clear, I am not judging Bellarke here, I ship Bellarke and I fully support their relationship, I just don't like how hypocritical everyone is toward Becho, there is such a double standard when both ships have had their toxic moments. What I am trying to say is, both are unhealthy at times, but Bellarke is the better written, better developed ship with the two leads that is the heart of the show and drives to narrative so obviously gets judged less harshly than Becho which is a much smaller ship.


I agree. I think Bellamy was an antagonist during the first few episodes. especially when he threw away the radio. But he didn't stay an antagonist for long. I think that is the beauty of this show though, how fast things can change, characters switch roles constantly.

CanIcallYouKate

Look maybe this discussion is not really constructive, maybe it simply cannot be. People have likes and dislikes and I was not being hypocritical nor judging becho as a ship. I said it doesn't work for me, because I didn't see it. As Paula said, some things (again for me and me alone) need to be shown not told.


I also posted this, it's not like I am blind to who Echo is and what she has done:
A mathematical calculation of who did what to whom and comparing the two will never have a satisfying outcome imo.

I could argue against your specific examples but what would be the point? There is no right or wrong here. All these people have done horrifying things to each other and some are forgiven and some are not, by the characters and by the audience. Depending on what one's personal preferences are, you will see that as fair or not (you as in the general audience).

I see no point in being defensive about other people not having the same likes or dislikes as myself.



Fuzzy
I think we're down to semantics at this point.

sonny1

Love all your theories, Kate ... Can't wait to find out what the real reason for "Take care of the dead bodies" is
My feeling says that Josephine is still alive somehow. A lot of things in the new world have to do with her, like the book for example. I have the impression that she's playing a bigger part in Season 6 than only appearing in flashbacks.

There's nothing left to say ... I full agree!

BrooklynFan

Maybe the Sanctum folks reproduce only by cloning? So the “glory of the primes” refers to the original individuals from who the current Sanctum residents are cloned.

Fuzzy Dunlop

Yeah, he's definitely not an antagonist anymore. Bellamy's character arc in the first season was really cool and I don't think it's a bad thing to point out that he started the show as an antagonist, you know? I feel like maybe some of us may feel a little defensive about it because he's such a fan favorite, but it really doesn't take away anything from him or make him a Bad Guy. Most good characters have an arc and that was his.

It's one of the most basic concepts of literary theory, so it seems weird to me that we have to debate it like this. Words have meanings and that's what "antagonist" means.

That crossed my mind, too. Like maybe we're dealing with some sort of Children of Men scenario on Sanctum and they're cloning all the original embryos they brought over from Earth. Or that maybe even all those little kids were kidnapped from one of the other planets to keep the population going? Were all those children girls? I would go back and check, but I'm lazy.

April7739

If we want to slap an antagonist role into Bellamy, I can only see it for the first two episodes at the most. After that, we got the 1x03 scene where he couldn’t kill Atom, and the scene where he was talking to Charlotte, him trying to save Charlotte in 1x04, and a whole lot of development after that. There were too many early layers and too much early development for such a cut and dried label to be applied to him for an entire season, IMO. It doesn’t mean he didn’t have his antagonistic moments throughout season 1 and beyond. Also, I’d like to point out that discussing this doesn’t mean anyone here is getting defensive over a character. Hell, Bellamy’s problematic choices are part of what I love about his character, because it adds depth to him.

Becks, I get where you’re going with your comparisons, but I don’t think you’ll find many people here who disagree that Clarke has made mistakes where Bellamy is concerened, too. I think more so what this comes down to is the writing and the amount of evolution/development shown with one ship versus a time jump for the other. Also, I don’t think present day Becho is toxic. I just think it’s a writing disaster. But like you said, you were already a fan of Echo and a fan of the ship, so it makes sense that it would work for you but not for people who weren’t already fans of either.

Fuzzy Dunlop

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p.../TheAntagonist

I think Bellamy was an antagonist at least until the part where he destroys the radio (episode 5?) because at that point everyone else on the show is trying to save humanity and prevent the culling by communicating between the ground and the Ark and Bellamy is opposing it for personal reasons (he doesn't want to be punished for shooting Jaha.) He's still clearly opposed to the protagonists at that point, so he's an antagonist. Arguably he's still an antagonist as he's kidnapping and torturing Lincoln because it's in opposition to Octavia (who I consider a secondary protagonist at this stage) and Clarke.

sonny1

I just rewatched the scene with the children. Most of them are girls, but there are some boys among them.