#me with a humanities degree trying to read about Science: wow i suddenly miss my dense political philosophy readings

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sorry babe i can’t write right now i gotta research land surveying and what the future of the field looks like with regards to changes in the environment wrought by anthropogenic climate change

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 24: Thoughts on 4x04 and Clarke’s List

I tried to write something short and then it turned into 2.5k+ of ramble and now it’s 1 am. Forget Clarke it is I who am, in fact, The Worst.

tl;dr: Obviously Monty should have been on the list but I’m not that angry; I enjoyed the story line regardless. I’m glad we’re back to moral debates that don’t revolve around war and I think this latest complication to an old S1 debate about leadership provides a worthy twist. The fandom’s reaction to the list, at least as I saw it, was particularly interesting to me. The reactions of the Arkadians were reasonable but so, unfortunately, is the list. The list is still in existence and thus still (potentially) in play. I love Jaha.

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I wanted to write up my thoughts on 4x04 but I’m tired and I want to sleep and I have a feeling that it would get very rambly very fast so… I’m going to try to restrain myself and just talk about the Arkadia plot.

So I didn’t hate it, like I feel a lot of other people did? I thought it was interesting, I liked (actually really loved) a lot of the individual scenes that made up the plot, including every millisecond Jasper and Monty were on screen because you know I have my biases too. Also, even though I fully admit there was some lazy artificial-drama-creating fuckery, the underlying issues in the plot were meaningful to me and I think there were an equal number of subtleties there to offset, for me at least, the lazy bits.

It’s obviously very lazy to keep Monty off the list. It was clearly done to spur along the plot, to give these particular characters very immediate motives to do very dramatic things, and no, that’s not usually a writing method I’m going to praise. Not that I’m praising it here, I’m just being (uncharacteristically?) forgiving. I guess my general policy is that I’ll forgive plot holes if I feel like the bigger picture is compelling, entertaining, and generally well done (like the wonky faux-science in the Mt. Weather story line or, to use an example from another show, the reveal of the Big Bad in S2 of Dollhouse). The Monty plot hole here falls into that category for me. I just can’t get worked up about it even though it falls apart at the slightest inspection and immediately draws one out of the story.

Because it was clearly a plot hole. I think KS did a decent enough job explaining why he was off the list, but it’s not quite enough because, quite frankly, nothing will be. The Monty omission is jarring initially because he’s a member of The 100 but that’s not why it’s a plot hole. Harper not being on the list is also jarring and if Kane and Miller aren’t on it (and I kinda doubt they are, because I think Kane would be high enough on the list to have been read off by Monty if he were there and Miller…it’s just a feeling I have?), then that is jarring too. But it’s not hard to understand when you consider that Clarke’s in-universe view of the situation is VERY different from ours as audience members. We could easily list off every single still-living named Arkadian character and still not be anywhere near 100 names. Lol, we could probably save all the corpses too and still have room for some Grounders. And it’s always going to seem more important to the viewer to save the knowns than the unknowns (this is also the basis of my theory as to why Bellamy/Harper/Bryan’s decision to save the slaves in 4x02 was met with so much resistance—because we literally have never seen these enslaved characters before so it’s hard to care about them as individuals). But within the universe, from Clarke’s POV, mere allegiance to former delinquents, mere personal preference for her friends, isn’t going to be enough, nor really should it be.

(Another aside because this is a major sticking point for me with me right now: the insistence of prioritizing a few named Arkadians over everyone else is really working against the show right now imo. It’s very hard to get a handle on the larger community when it’s filled almost entirely by extras. There’s no sense of proportion. Why do the Arcadians accept Clarke as a leader when she has no moral authority whatsoever? Who are all of these names Monty is reading out and why are they important? How much information do the people actually have and what do they think is going on here? Everything we know about the Sky People comes from elites like Abby or Kane, or delinquents, whose experiences in this society are not representative at all given their incarceration and the events of the first two season. The show is desperately lacking a “grunt worker” perspective, a character like Gina or even Bryan, to balance this out. But they’re too busy introducing new Grounders every other day so I guess that won’t ever happen.)

Anyway, my point is that it’s easy enough to understand why Clarke would cut Harper, for example. (Even without the sick-Dad revelation, I still don’t really see what skill set she has that makes her high priority tbh…she barely has a personality imo. Sorry to abuse these parentheticals I have a lot of thoughts.) And I think, like I said, that a valiant effort was made to explain why Monty wasn’t on the list. But it absolutely doesn’t hold up. Yeah, he’s an apprentice engineer, but has Clarke forgotten everything he’s already accomplished, even with barely any training, even at 15, even after uncounted months spent in lock up instead of learning new skills? Boy’s a genius. He pretty much single-handedly took down Mt. Weather. He came up with the idea to use the Ark in the first place. He’s from Farm Station—a trait Clarke herself emphasized all the way back in 1x02—which is even more important now than it was before considering we have possibly as few as three Farm Station survivors and at least one of the others isn’t on the list either. I mean there’s literally no way around the nonsense of this omission so believe me I am 100% with people who are calling bullshit on this.

That said, it’s a reasonable price for me to pay for an entertaining and thought-provoking plot so I’m not that upset about it.

There are three things I really liked about this story line. Well, four, but the fourth is all of the opportunities to shine that Jasper and Monty had but that’s not a point of ~analysis.

The first is the parallel to the situation on the Ark in S1, which is obviously an ongoing one that became all the more obvious here, with Jasper and Monty taking on the roles of the Griffins in spreading the information. What I think is fascinating about this is that in S1, Jake, and later Abby’s, position was clearly portrayed as the morally right one. Jaha/Kane and their desire to keep things quiet was seen as the villainous position, and when Abby ultimately let everyone know just what was happening, the best of humanity immediately came forward in a tear-jerking moment of self-sacrifice that still makes me feel misty-eyed now, long after I first saw it.

But I don’t think the situation is as clear this time around. Yes, the narrative does push you to have an initial gut reaction that Jasper and Monty are right and Clarke is wrong, and that is generally the reaction I’ve seen among the fandom. It’s not that simple, though, because while no one rioted, man, they were pretty close. There is no way Clarke would have been able to hold back a rebellion against her illegitimate power if Jaha hadn’t stepped up when he did. I don’t think anyone would have sacrificed themselves; I think they would have destroyed each other. That doesn’t mean she was right to hide the information; maybe the problem isn’t even centered in the list, it’s centered in the secrecy. That’s a valid possibility. (It’s Monty’s position in fact: “Do you really think that’s what I’m mad about?) And, too, this isn’t the first time when the reckless sharing of information with the rabble has caused harm or potential harm: 1x04 Murphy’s Law happened, after all.

What I’m saying, or trying to say, is that this is another example of the leadership-problem ‘what information do I share, and what do I keep’ that I personally find interesting, a moral dilemma of the sort I initially fell in love with the show for, and which was pushed aside as the episodes went on in favor of story line after story line after story line about war. So I’m glad to be getting back to these debates about leadership/government/civic structure because this is my Area of Interest to the nth degree.

The second thing I liked about this story line is actually more about the fandom/viewer reaction I’ve seen in the last 24 hours. I think how people watching the show reacted to Clarke and her list was really interesting: suddenly it’s The Worst thing and she’s a Bad Person for writing it and oh gosh it was So Obvious this was Capital-B-Bad and it was inevitable that it was going to blow up in her face and we’re all in agreement it’s Morally Unconscionable to Play God and choose who lives and dies I mean wow Clarke the Fucking Nerve on you. Correct me if I’m missing something but I saw absolutely zero outrage about the list last week—you know, when she actually wrote it? I saw absolutely no anger toward Raven last week when she not only first mentioned the list but hounded Clarke about it, all but forcing her to write it (Clarke basically bargained for Raven’s blessing to go on the Jaha trip, promising to write the list if the mission didn’t pan out). In fact, I STILL don’t see anyone getting on Raven’s back about the list even though she was the one who, incredibly pragmatically and logically, insisted it would be a good idea. Not a single peep until we see the consequences of it, which, if they were so obvious, probably should have been foreseen. Similarly, Bellamy probably had some hand in writing it and while I know today would be a bad time to be outraged at Bellamy, given that both he as a person in-universe and he as a character were totally shafted this week, but he hasn’t exactly been the recipient of any flak either.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not necessarily defending Clarke here. She is pretty much The Worst at PR and this episode really showed off her most obnoxious character trait: her frankly astounding arrogance, which has always been the hardest Clarke trait for me to stomach personally. (Pride is the worst sin for a reason you know.) From a writing perspective, it’s good that Clarke continues to struggle with her more negative traits, but from a personal-investment-in-the-universe standard, yeah, it’s frustrating to watch. Jasper, Monty, and the rest of the Arkadians definitely have a reasonable reaction to the revelation of the list and I don’t fault them for it at all, nor do I fault viewers for revolting too. I just think it’s really interesting how the list looked so logical and unobjectionable a mere week ago, and now it’s becoming more real, all the emotions are welling up, and Clarke isn’t just doing something hard to stomach, she’s doing something Inarguably Morally Wrong.

The third reason I liked this story line is because the list isn’t wrong. It is, at most, ambiguous. IMO the best way to describe it is using Clarke’s response to the Arkadians: “It’s not fair, it’s logical.” I’ve seen some responses along the lines of ‘well everyone should have a say in who’s on the list,’ to which I can only say ‘lol are you for real?’ Everyone’s going to vote for themselves first, their friends second, and the list will never actually be written. Have you ever seen that Parks and Rec episode with the time capsule? It will be like that except instead of Twilight and pictures of people’s pets it will be real humans. If the list is to be made it has to be made by a few people alone (I will concede that maybe putting it on one or two people is a mistake—both because their biases might come through too much and because it’s unfair to put that pressure on even two individuals alone). It HAS to be top-down and it HAS to be secret.

And if the list doesn’t exist at all, what are your other options? With no system at all, it will be a free for all. Not only does that run the risk of a ship without doctors or engineers or fertile women, it also runs the risk of a ship without even a hundred people, because everyone just killed each other on the way in. The lottery system is possible but as Clarke points out, you’re not going to get a logical bunch. You could get a surplus of men or not enough farmers or whatever. If your interest is in using cold hard logic to give humanity as a whole the best chance of survival, the list as Clarke made it, dispassionate and practical and focused on the big picture, is absolutely your best bet and the fact that this startlingly unfair and even cruel to the people as individuals doesn’t really matter. Because no matter how you slice it 500 people are going to work together to save 100; there’s no fairness here.

Also as an aside: guess what other governmental structure was specifically created to save the human race as a whole even at the expense of imposing outrageously cruel and unfair conditions on individuals? That would be the Ark in case we’ve all forgotten.

Again, if I were Jasper or Monty or Harper or Riley I would be ready to depose Clarke too. Jaha’s statements to Clarke were 100% right: you can’t run this situation with logic; you need to understand the emotion at play.

But what I find absolutely the most interesting about the whole thing is Jaha’s solution and the subsequent exchange with Clarke. He saved her from being deposed, essentially, and he kept the camp going and he appeared to use transparency to do it but really that’s not what happened at all. The illusion of transparency was itself a trick. The list is still in play. I only watched the episode once but I caught a few very interesting phrases from Jaha. For example, when he takes the list from Clarke he tells the Arcadians to “consider it shredded” but he doesn’t shred it. Then he gives it back to her during their conversation. He doesn’t argue with her about the lottery being risky. He talks exclusively in terms of what the people need to believe and how a leader handles people. Jaha’s plan I am 100% certain is to pretend transparency while continuing to lie for the greater good: everyone will believe in the lottery, which (Jaha’s so fucking smart and pragmatic I love him) not only gives them a reason not to riot but an actual positive incentive to work, and hopefully a different solution is found in the meantime but if it’s not, when the time comes to close those doors, the option remains to pull Clarke’s 100 inside and leave all those other expendables out. Because what will they be able to do about it then?

I don’t mean this as an insult at all but Jaha was the same person who could give a speech about unity and working together one minute and in the next say ‘oh btw we don’t have space for all of you on the exodus ship whoops’ under his breath so no one can hear it. He is intensely pragmatic and a great liar with a really spot on sense of people and an excellent persuasive tone. If the lottery isn’t the best idea, and I think he knows it’s not, it’s not going into operation. It’s a tool, not an endgame.

…Not that I think the list is actually going to determine the end of the season. There is absolutely no way that any named character is going to be left outside whatever shelter/ship/machine/etc. ends up representing safety at the end of the season unless (1) that character is already dead or (2) it’s a cliffhanger situation along the lines of 1x13 and there’s at least some chance that the outside character(s) will be back next season.

Tl;dr: Clarke should have hid that list better.