#when the grounders were truly the most interesting and intriguing part of the show

[commandervalyria]

"The ground, to the Grounders, is a statement of the tenacity of their people to survive the insurmountable."

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

I was thinking that one of the reasons why the Grounders don't really like Sky People is because they felt like these are the people that had it easy, by living in the space stations and never had to endure the hardship of living on Earth after the nuclear holocaust. Generations after generations, the resentment would have been passed down, besides they wouldn't know all the problems of living in space.

It’s obviously no secret that the Grounders immediately saw the Sky People as enemy the second the 100 arrived, but I believe it has nothing to do with resentment and everything to do with a classic colonialism narrative. 

As far as we know, the 100 landing on Earth, and then later the Arkers, is the first encounter that the Grounders—at least those in the locations we’ve explored in the world so far— have had with people outside of their own clans, aside from the Mountain Men who have hunted them for 97 years. There’s no reason to believe that the majority of Grounders would have any idea that there were people living in space, so I’m hesitant to say that there would be any sort of generational resentment (especially because the Grounders are incredibly proud and ferociously protective of their customs and methods of survival—they have survived all these years despite continued attempts at eradication of their people from the Mountain Men, and that is due to the primal, hardened tactics they’ve developed). 

What makes far more sense is that the Grounders have laid claim to this land for almost 100 years, expanding and creating a culture that has evolved and divided into clans, with only Mt. Weather as a force of opposition. And then suddenly, there are people coming from the sky saying that the Earth is their birthright, their homeland, and it belongs to them. And that doesn’t sit right.

We see the Grounders first through the eyes of the Delinquents as a terrifying enemy, watching as the characters we know are hunted and mowed down by a force they never expected to encounter, because everything the Ark has believed and observed for almost a century has told them that the Earth would be deserted should they ever return; like Columbus sailing to find the New World and expecting it to be a magical new land undiscovered by humans only to find a rich, established culture of indigenous Americans, the discovery is a shock to the Delinquents, who never thought to imagine they might not be alone. 

Once we see more of the Grounders, we get to see far more pieces of the puzzle as attempts to make peace begin. At the meeting on the bridge in S01E09 Unity Day, Clarke is taken aback when Anya tells her the Sky People started a war they can’t finish, saying “We didn’t start anything, you attacked us for no reason”, to which Anya responds by telling her about the village destroyed by the Delinquent’s flares signaling the Ark. She then lands perhaps the most important line to understanding the Grounders’ motivations in this war and everything to come for the rest of the season: 

Imagine instead, if we had seen the arrival of the Delinquents through the eyes of the Grounders rather than through Clarke’s experience. You live in a small village, going about your business and living life the way you always have. Suddenly a huge piece of machinery falls out of the sky, creating a great shaking, rumbling and destruction of vegetation. People storm out, start hunting your food, running around like they own the place, and soon after their arrival, destroy a village using technology you’ve only seen used by the enemy your people have been hunted by for years. People you know, care about, love, die in burning flames or see the only homes they’ve ever known destroyed. Are there more of the Mountain Men coming? Or are these people some new, unforeseen threat that could somehow be worse? You begin to fight back, make them realize that you will not give up your home without a fight, and they capture one of your most esteemed warriors, only to return him after days of brutal torture. 

To these people, the Delinquents and the Arkers are nothing more than a new group of colonizers trying to destroy their way of life. And when Clarke meets Lexa offering an alliance in season 2, the situation has only escalated– Lexa’s knowledge of the Sky People goes so far as to know that 300 of her warriors were recently killed, and the last attempt at an alliance was squashed by the Delinquents shooting first during a ceasefire. The war is about protecting what is rightfully theirs, not by any inherent resentment of an “easy life” not on the ground. The ground, to the Grounders, is a statement of the tenacity of their people to survive the insurmountable.

-Leigh

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 2: Thoughts on The 100 2x05, Human Trials

Thoughts on Human Trials

They set up an electronic gate really fast, didn’t they? An efficient people. I think of the big Arkadia wall as really being a S3 thing, but they had to specifically unlock the entrance to get Clarke in.

Clarke & Abby was another relationship they really destroyed, huh? “That’s not a prisoner. That’s my daughter.”

Omg, Clarke thought Abby was dead this whole time. I completely forgot about that. I mean, I remember that she saw the Exodus ship explode, but I forgot that she had no way of knowing up until now that Abby wasn’t on it. Technically, Abby should have been a bit of a surprise to Bellamy and Finn, too, but I guess they had bigger surprises to deal with at the time.

I kind of miss Byrne tbh.

Six people made it to Camp Jaha. That’s Bellamy, Finn, Monroe, Sterling (RIP), Raven, and I guess Murphy is the last one, although as far as I can remember, the last Clarke saw him he was blasting a hole in the dropship and running away into the woods. So she probably wouldn’t guess he was one.

Jasper looking for Clarke 3-4 times a day in medical just tears me up inside. He’s so loyal. He feels all emotions on such a large scale. And his disbelief that Clarke would abandon them.... Who was it who theorized that Jasper was more upset about Clarke abandoning them in Mount Weather than abandoning them in 2x16 because I’ve never been certain I agree but I am intrigued.

Raymond J. Berry is so underrated.

I tend to think that Dante is sincere in offering Jasper the chance to leave and come back but I also think that this is a perhaps unintentionally cruel test because of all of the 48, Jasper is the one for whom it would be hardest to step back outside the bunker even on a mission of great personal importance.

“I have to believe they didn’t survive here all this time by fighting.” But like, actually.... didn’t they? RIP to my mom’s theory that ALIE kept the Grounders in a constant state of war to discourage population growth.

“In Grounder Creole.” I mean I guess that’s one word for it.

Clarke’s incredulousness that her mother is Chancellor is semi-hllarious.

She keeps on mentioning Finn and Bellamy as the most important people--were they among the six who made it? Where are they?

And yet RAVEN was the one who was waiting outside for her all night. Outside that shitty little medical tent. With her little tablet, reading. RIP Princess Mechanic.

Too bad Clarke put on pants before The Hug or think how much better it could have been lol.

I could watch them hug all day. Just this scene man. The best. I’m such a simple person. This is all I want. People smiling and being fond of each other.

Bellamy’s face when Clarke says she’s the only one who came back.

That Mount Weather/Reaper stuff is fully fucked up and I don’t think the show ever did anything more outrageous than this season. Which is why it should have stepped back from trying to be outrageous.

I really like scenes like this one with Bellarke and Abby, the tension in the power structure being so uncertain. Kane is the Chancellor, but Abby is also, and there are multiple groups of people out there with different levels of information, working toward different ends, and different ideas about who should be prioritized, and why, and Bellamy and Clarke are used to having the power to make those decision but now they don’t--just the intricacy of the plot at this point in the narrative. I love it. I love power dynamics and stuff like that. Also, while I get why Abby doesn’t want Clarke to leave, Bellamy is 100% right that she owes aid to Murphy and Finn, and Clarke is 100% right that, tactically speaking, cutting them loose is dumb, because they could easily create problems with the Grounders--which, in fact, they do.

Clarke’s “We’re gonna need guns” is so hot.

Adventure Squad to the rescue!

Electric fence. And Wick helping them out. I love Octavia actually looks younger than them here even though objectively speaking Marie is not. ALSO the massacre happens at Lincoln’s village but isn’t he from TonDC, which also had that bomb drop on it? Or am I confusing things? Because if so, damn, that’s a lot of bad luck lol.

So Monty would have left immediately to go after Clarke and Jasper wouldn’t--in part because he’s afraid but I also think he does feel betrayed that she left them, which Monty really doesn’t seem to care about. Interesting. And then of course the containment breach, organized to distract them and keep them from leaving. Not sure how to fully unpack that. I will note that Monty sees Maya being irradiated, which is to say that when he opens the vents in 2x16, he knows what that will do, down to the details, what it looks like, everything, and Jasper does too. Also interesting that Maya doesn’t want Jasper to leave, thinks it’s “smart” to stay. Because she doesn’t like Clarke? Because she fears the outsiders? Yet isn’t the greatest wish of her people to see the ground?

Also looks like they’re already prisoners given that you need a keycard to get out of the dorms.

I find it intensely suspicious that the Grounder blood didn’t work on Maya, since I’m sure they’ve seen radiation that bad before--the guy Clarke saw was pretty well covered if I remember correctly. I think they just weren’t doing anything, to try to get Jasper to volunteer as a subject. But is this done with or without Dante’s knowledge? I am going to say without personally.

“I know that look.” Monty knows Jasper’s ‘I’m gonna do something stupid’ look lol. Also, he is brave! He is!!

Bellamy looking at Clarke by the fire is so capital-R Romantic. They’re so efficient at comforting each other that he literally does the entire conversation re: guilt over closing the dropship door on him by himself. Don’t worry babe, I got this forgiveness narrative down.

Finn... is such a weird character. I don’t actually dislike his arc but it’s so hard to tell, for example, how smart he is, the details of him. He’s certainly very weak. Cracks under pressure, loses whatever moral compass he had at the first convenience. And what of Murphy? He’s uncomfortable with what is happening but for whatever reason seems to find himself unable to stop Finn even as he inches closer and closer to something terrible.

Is their leader... Indra?

Jasper’s “heavily sedated” face and Monty’s reaction lol. “Nothing, I feel nice.” And Monty’s eye roll. Bitch why are you so judgemental? Like you haven’t heavily sedated yourself for fun. And the classic ‘no, not going anywhere’ Monty gesture. Truly an Icon.

Ooh, I like this little outdoor cafeteria/bar. Forgot about that. Forgot about how much in S2 was outdoors or in tents.

I remember when Doctor Mechanic was a significant rare pair/side ship and you know what, I rather miss it. I was never really on board but I can see the appeal.

Minus the slapping, obviously. Which doesn’t even really fit in this scene imo.

“She stopped being a kid the day you sent her down here to die” is of course an iconic line but tbh it’s not really fair. More fair since Abby just slapped her but like--it’s a little late to be pulling that card. If they’d stayed on the Ark, more of them would have died than died in S1 on the ground, imo. And at this point that’s basically already known.

I wonder what all the ‘warning radiation area’ signs are from. Was there a post-bomb period where survivors lived on the ground and divided the worst radiation sites from the more habitable areas? Also the “no weapons beyond this point” sign clearly pre-dates the Grounders. And it’s in English.

Kane’s optimism/pacifism is really halfway and to that extent, what does he expect. Also is there prison a subway station? What a ridiculous but great way to bring Kane and Jaha back together again.

Yet again floored by this set design at the Grounder village.

Tbh I find it highly unrealistic that that amount of forest could have grown up on the National Mall in 100 years. And where are the other monuments?

Bellamy’s handdddddddddddddddddds.

Or maybe they just made Maya extra sick. So the treatment of circulating her blood through Jasper’s system is the same one they use with the Grounders, so it isn’t so much taking Grounder blood, as I tended to think of it, as using the Grounder circulatory system. But obviously this can be done without kiillng the person--so do they just use each body repeatedly until it... dies? I realize trying to find order in this is futile but I’m curious anyway.

“We all have jobs to do. Mine is to be obeyed” should have gone down in the canon of great lines. It’s certainly much better than some others I can think of.

I don’t believe Dante took the kids to experiment on them, what with his intense aversion to the experiments, and the way he gets attached first to Clarke and then to Jasper. But then, truly, as Tsing says, why take them? What was the endgame here?

“We have no choice but to move ahead with the 47″ is truly one of the weakest forms of ‘no choice’ on this show. Because, I mean, you do have a choice. You’ve discovered that they’re useful to you, but that doesn’t mean you HAVE to do the useful but completely immoral thing, that’s quite an obvious example of wanting, not needing.

No one can convince me that Dante is straight with scarves like that.

So in other words, Delano, of one-eyed Delano fame, was like the Murphy of TonDC. Don’t cast people out, nothing good comes of exile.

Finn’s “I found you” at the end is top 5 creepiest moments in this series and no I am not taking criticism on this post.

[aion-rsa]

Does The 100 Need a Spinoff?

https://ift.tt/3gNSu7i

With “Anaconda,” The 100 has joined the pantheon of TV shows (including Supernatural, Gossip Girl, and The Office) that have introduced a backdoor pilot in the hopes that it will be greenlit to a full spinoff series. Now that we’ve re-met Bill Cadogan, his Second Dawn cult, and his family (whose clashes and burgeoning Grounder culture will be the heart of the series) we debate: Is The 100 a show that really needs a spinoff? After seven seasons, can we say “your fight is over,” or are there as many story ideas as there are symbol combinations on the Anomaly Stone?

Pro: Yes, “Anaconda” proves there are still stories worth telling in The 100 universe.

Prior to watching “Anaconda,” the backdoor pilot episode meant to sell us all on the value of a The 100 prequel series, I’ll admit that I wasn’t completely sold on the need for one. But this hour did one important thing right: It reminded me how great this universe is at telling stories about characters struggling through their darkest hours, and how that duress can forge heroes  – or monsters – from ordinary people.  

And there isn’t much that’s darker than life in a nuclear wasteland. Except maybe a nuclear wasteland that we already know will only grow much darker, more divided, and more terrifying as the story continues. 

Thanks to a luck of timing – or “our current hellscape nightmare scenario” depending on how you look at it – “Anaconda” also illustrates why right now is the perfect moment to tell a story like this, positioned to begin at the end of all things. Though we’re only given a brief glimpse into the show’s world of 2052, it certainly has an uncomfortably familiar feel, with its climate protests, police brutality and worries of overpopulation. Not to imply we’re all headed for bunker life anytime soon, but the overtones of a world we can recognize do make the hour feel more timely and relevant than its predecessor generally does. 

Though we already know what Calliope Cadogan’s world will look like a century after she and her merry band of Nightblood teens climb out of the Second Dawn bunker hatch, we’re less clear on how exactly that will come to pass. And suddenly, I really want to know. How does this group of relatively familiar-seeming twentysomethings who want to save the remnants of humanity eventually turn into the violent and combative Grounder clans we met back in The 100’s initial seasons?

By the time our The 100 faves reach the ground, the world on post-apocalyptic Earth feels pretty well established. But “Anaconda” shows us that wasn’t always the case and now I desperately want to know how humanity got from one extreme to the other. What other kinds of survivors are out there? How do these people, so firmly united at the outset of this story, inevitably split apart? And where do other familiar horrors like the Mountain Men and the Reapers come in? 

Full disclosure: I want to see this prequel get dark. I want the Bunker teens to struggle with the basics of survival, and pay the price for not knowing how to do things like hunt or forage. And beyond that: I want betrayal and horror. I want the full and complete breakdown of everything we understood as humanity in our world before the one the Grounders inhabit rises to take its place. 

As a character, I really liked Callie, who seems to be a mix of Clarke’s bravery and Abby’s savior complex, topped off with an activist mentality/morality that feels entirely new to this universe. It’ll be interesting to see how a character like Callie adjusts to life in a world that’s almost exclusively focused on survival and the sort of hard choices she’s likely never had to make. She’s much more optimistic and hopeful than any character currently on The 100 and she has yet to embrace the tribalism that will come to define her people in the years to come. 

However, for all that Callie is the “good” one in her family – if you define good by simply the act of not embracing a weird and creepy cult – she’s still been raised in a life of relative privilege and luxury, and even in the bunker her status as Cadogan’s daughter likely protected her from the worst of post-apocalyptic life. What sacrifices will she be asked to make, and how will they change her? (It feels as though she’s started down this path of darkness pretty definitively by shooting her brother.)

The idea of placing Callie at the center of what will essentially become Grounder culture as the first true Flamekeeper is also intriguing. To be fair, the idea of that entire culture tracking its roots back to things like Callie’s made-up childhood language or the fact that “Tree Crew” was originally an environmental activist group does seem a bit convenient. (It also feels a bit “chosen one”-ish, as well, which is admittedly tiresome.) But it’s never actually made a lot of sense that Grounder language would have changed so thoroughly in what is essentially three generations, max, so most of this really works for me. And it makes me wonder what other answers I didn’t know I needed that a The 100 prequel series based on “Anaconda” might give me.

– Lacy Baugher 

Read more

TV

The 100 Prequel: Would Any of The 100 Cast Crossover?

By Natalie Zutter and 1 other

TV

The 100 Prequel Series Would Use a Lost-Like Flashback Format

By Lacy Baugher and 1 other

Con: No, “Anaconda” is not the way to expand The 100 universe.

It kills me to say no, because I love this show and want to see its mythology live on beyond seven seasons. I’m just not convinced that this particular prequel series is the way to go.

It’s not personal; I have trouble justifying prequels in general, because I often find that they rely overmuch on dramatic irony and other established knowledge rather than finding ways to tell a good story that doesn’t rely on knowledge and emotional attachment to a different show. Prequels are often working within worldbuilding constraints when it comes to characters, in-show mythology, and the in-universe timeline—which doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In the case of The 100, we know that the Ark fails and that the Grounders ultimately suffer when they first cross paths with Skaikru. Prequel spinoffs can either adjust to the limits of a canon that was entrenched years earlier, or retcon it.

Unfortunately, it feels like “Anaconda” has done the latter. While I can’t make sweeping judgments based on one backdoor pilot, the reveal that Trigedasleng is, at least in part, a whimsical language that Calliope Cadogan made up as a child undercuts so much of what we’ve learned about Grounder culture over the past seven seasons. I’m in complete agreement with Lacy that it’s just too convenient that this Special Girl is at the center of everything, when the series had already explained how Trig came out of desperate years of survival and attempts to reunify after the world seemingly tore itself apart. Remember that the survivors all think various world leaders pointed nuclear warhead at each other; only Becca seems to know A.L.I.E.’s dirty secret.

Speaking of—Becca already somewhat occupied the too-convenient role of being a key player in so much of the series’ history! From A.L.I.E. to Polis to Nightblood to being the first Heda, this character was already centered in a half-dozen preexisting plotlines, a ready-made protagonist in whom the audience was emotionally invested. To jump ahead to her death (that we already knew was coming) and pass on the Flame to Callie seems like The 100 prequel is trying to forcibly justify its own existence through new, untested characters for the sake of having unfamiliar faces.

What could save this narrative choice, to Lacy’s other great point, is the possibility of Callie confronting her own privilege as she voluntarily moves through the nuclear post-apocalypse. It’s one thing to bravely decide to shrug off the comforts of the bunker and to go looking for the people who weren’t considered “worth” saving. It’s another to actually survive: learn to hunt and forage, set up the necessary hierarchies so their ragtag group doesn’t devolve into anarchy, and make the difficult decisions (about laws, about justice, about consequences) when people stop cooperating.

In many ways, it could be a poetic parallel to the early days of the original 100, as the delinquents debated whether they were in an eternal, no-parents-allowed party, or their own futuristic Lord of the Flies. And as we all know, the party was over when Jasper got speared by a Grounder.

Even if Callie is the creator of Trig, and even if she and August establish clans inspired by his Tree Crew tattoo, they need their own foil, the way the Grounders were for the 100. That could be some sort of survivalists or militia, to foreshadow the bloodier side of Grounder society; or people like her friend Lucy, who were left behind to die but didn’t, and who have had two years of resentment to take out on these Second Dawn defectors. But none of that is in the backdoor pilot, so it’s difficult to judge if the series might go that route.

My biggest mental block is that I’m just not emotionally invested in Callie or the Cadogans. Despite “Anaconda” setting up broad strokes for their different relationship dynamics, none of Callie’s decisions seemed truly difficult. Again, she was privileged enough to decide to leave, even if it were for the noble cause of finding other people who deserved to be saved more than she did. I’m just not sure that that noble thinking is enough to justify an entire TV series.

“Anaconda” took too many narrative gymnastics to recontextualize the show’s mythology that was already pretty well-established. I would rather see a The 100 spinoff that takes place in the future. We’ve already done a six-year time jump in real-time and a 125-year jump thanks to cryogenics, and now there’s a quintet of planets with convenient wormholes and screwy timezones—the show has established various routes to tell a story even farther in the future than its own future! We don’t know how The 100 will end, with the Disciples’ great war or the fates of the handful of survivors that started out as the original 100; but I would rather see their descendants’ adventures, covering entirely new ground as opposed to retracing old steps.

– Natalie Zutter

What do you think? Does The 100 justify a spinoff? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The post Does The 100 Need a Spinoff? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3ehvFHp