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sonjasullivan · 5 years

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So, I don’t know how many people picked up on the symbolic meaning behind Luna drowning Roan and how that scene ties to her own drowning scene in 3x14, but there is an important connection I’d like to point out.

Here is the thing, repetition carries weight, as you know, because when you see a certain type of scene play out more than once, there’s a connection between them formed by association. The connection I’m about to make isn’t strictly between the scenes though, but how they affect Luna as a character.

When Luna experiences the big threat on her rig in 3x14, we witness the fighter she was trained to be (the night blood who fled her conclave) unleashed for the first time. Notably, we also come to see that during the entire torture procedure Luna is not only exposed to the threat of ALIE destroying her peaceful world alone, but also brings forth the killer Luna thought she sealed away.

She starts to come face to face with that issue when one of her own people (chipped) forcibly holds her down, brings ALIE’s chip close to her mouth and tells her to take it - to which she shockingly reacts “What’s happened to you?!”.

It’s Jasper, who is tied up close to her, who tells Luna that the chip is the one thing that makes her friend commit violence against her, a brutal reality Luna never thought she would relive - especially not here - but is exposed to nonetheless. Not only that, but she’s faced with the one thing she never wanted to do again - fight. It’s a realization for her as much as it acts like a new wound in her heart, because Luna is slowly coming to lose the peaceful armor that is coating her body, and forced to embrace the darkness she so desperately wanted to escape. The interplay between how the chip is there to take the pain away and how Luna eventually ends up doing the most painful thing is therefore horrible as it is supposed to represent the catalyst, but doesn’t end up being the thing that breaks her demeanor - Luna breaks by fighting back.

When her peaceful armor comes off completely and is replaced by a skin that carries pure instinct, it’s not because of her boyfriend (who has taken the chip himself for her), but for a little girl - Adria - whom ALIE threatens to kill. So, the torture in itself and the fact that Adria is in danger - two things that break down Luna’s choices - are the reasons why she surrenders and gives in to fighting.

In that way, we don’t only experience what Luna looks like as a fighter, but what her entire traumatic backstory has been - she trained, she struggled and she fled only to end up in a position in which she’d hurt and get hurt again.

In less than seconds we see the night blood take down four of her own people. And by doing so, she comes to a close understanding of her victims humanity by looking it right in the face… yet again. Luna’s hands are dirty, she’s never had the chance to have it otherwise, with guilt always rippling through her body, because this is exactly what she looked like when she killed her own brother.

The transition from the past to the present and even future is crazy, because this image is exactly what she will look like in 4x10 - all soaked up and lethal and fearless. Only this time the game will have completely changed, as Luna is not forced to embrace the darkness anymore, but literally chooses to do so.

When Luna breaks for a second time, it’s because she has no one left, because she’s a person defined only by her blood “your blood can save us”, a tool who’s supposed to keep people alive that she considers cruel to their core.

You know, it’s revelatory for her to acknowledge that she can’t bear to think about humanity anymore, considering everything that has happened to her and her loved ones, and that her only escape is to surrender to the sense of touch that makes her both powerful and weak, mixed with the rightful anger towards the people who literally used her - I fully am against what happened to Luna in the last episode (most of all how her choices/death were portrayed - I literally despise these aspects), but her turn in itself is understandable.

So, In 4x10 she happens to be both - Sealed away and fully there.

Black rain creates an image to her state of mind and the one thing that sets her apart, because 1. it represents the skin that she unleashed during ALIE’s presence on the rig; only this time she uses it to fight for death (for all mankind no less) and 2. for once, she is actually protected by something stronger than her own skin, the one thing she thought a curse - her blood.

‘Cause here is the thing: Echo was wrong. Luna does not bleed like everyone else. Not even slightly. Even if her blood has lost significance within their own culture, she is the only one (besides Clarke I guess) who’s able to walk through black rain without dying - the water in which her fight with Roan takes place.

Black rain is literally the testament of Luna’s being here. She’s a nightblood.

And she drowns Roan in it - ‘Honoring’ him with her last words not because he was good to her, but because - to her - he and mankind don’t deserve better.

From where she is standing she’s got nothing to lose “They are all gone”. In other words, she deserved to survive, be saved and see the change.

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sonjasullivan · 5 years

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