#this has been : tonights wikipedia odyssey

[plant-ago]

I want to live in a world where the legacy of Robert Reich, US Labor Secretary under the Clinton administration influential liberal thinker, is overshadowed by that of his son, Sam Reich Dropout, who went into comedy and created the only good streaming platform

[purplesurveys]

1047

What’s the most historic thing that has happened in your lifetime? I can think of a few things. There’s 9/11 though I was barely conscious then, Osama Bin Laden’s death, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, 2011 Japan earthquake, and the H1N1 and Covid pandemics. In my country, there were typhoons Ondoy and Yolanda, the Manila hostage crisis, and the Hello Garci election corruption scandal. Out of these, though, I’d say the heaviest ones to bear have been 9/11 and Covid.

What happens in your country regularly that people in most countries would find strange or bizarre?

We use a spoon and fork to eat and only really fancy shmancy restaurants give you a knife and a fork. Many eat with their hands as well, though this is way more common in provinces.

Everyone is late to everything and punctuality isn’t a thing, which is a big culture pet peeve of mine and I still like arriving early/on time anywhere.

This applies to Asia in general lmao, but shoes typically aren’t allowed or at least frowned upon if they go beyond the main entrance of houses.

We start Christmas as early as September, and we end it by the last week of January

When families get together, aunts/uncles will usually greet their nieces/nephews by asking if they already have a boy/girlfriend and/or telling them that they got fat. Horror relatives will greet you with both.

People generally like to keep to themselves, so striking a friendly conversation with strangers even if you have the pure, genuine intention to be simply friendly will just lead them to think you’re being a creep lol

What has been blown way out of proportion? The effects of video games and the question of it increasing violence among kids. Sure there’ve been gruesome accounts and no one’s invalidating those, but the overwhelmingly vast amount of people who play video games end up okay. I had so many killing binges on GTA but to this day I can’t even look at a real gun without shuddering, lol. When was a time you acted nonchalant but were going crazy inside? This is me every morning at work. 9 AM-11 AM is always the busiest period and it’s a lot of shit happening at the same time and a lot of morning deadlines to meet, but unlike college I can’t exactly call for a timeout whenever I want and have panic attacks anymore.

What’s about to get much better? I hope my fucking life is next in line. I’m tired of being tired of being tired.

What are some clever examples of misdirection you’ve seen? Probably all the times WWE would mislead viewers on a rumored return or debut of a big name by saying they’re in another city, implying that there’s no way they’d be appearing on a WWE show. This happened with Ronda Rousey and it was so fucking exciting when she finally showed up, haha.

What’s your funniest story involving a car? I don’t know, really...I don’t try to be funny when I’m on the wheel lol. Probably the time I let Angela use my car on campus, and when she needed to make a u-turn she ended up doing an awkward 90º turn and had an SUV nearly crash towards us. She had only driven a handful of times at that point so she was a little clumsy, but neither of us had any idea she’d fuck up a simple u-turn as badly as she ended up doing lmao.

What would be the click-bait titles of some popular movies? I can think of more clickbait posters than titles, but I can’t seem to remember what those films are called right now.

If you built a themed hotel, what would the theme be and what would the rooms look like? Themed hotels generally make me cringe. The most theme-y place we ever stayed at was the lodge in Sagada and it was really just more homey than anything. I’m not into themes when it comes to hotels as I find it a little cheap lol and I’ve always preferred a straightforward experience in the places I stay at for vacations.

What scientific discovery would change the course of humanity overnight if it was discovered? A way to live forever. < This is a good one. Also, maybe a huge asteroid or meteor bound to hit the planet that will make widespread extinction a certainty? I can’t even begin to imagine the panic that will rise from something like that.

Do you think that humans will ever be able to live together in harmony? I doubt it. It sounds difficult especially when you realize we’re 7 billion in total.

What would your perfect bar look like? As long as there aren’t any annoying younger college kids, who are almost always the loudest crowd and not in a good way, I’m okay with any kind of bar.

What’s the scariest non-horror movie? Some shots in 2001: A Space Odyssey are freaky as fuck. There were several scenes that included sudden HAL shots, and I did not enjoy those. How the fuck Kubrick managed to make a computer scary is beyond me. I’ve also always skipped the vortex scene with the creepy face shots after seeing it once.

What’s the most amazing true story you’ve heard? This is a really vague question... a few months ago I watched this video diary of parents who had a child born at like 25 weeks. Just way too early, basically. And they recorded the kid’s weekly progress, how she kept fighting, and her journey of being transported from one machine to another while she still needed them. It was beautiful to see her get bigger and plumper with each week that passed and it was just such a feel-good story to watch. I was so relieved when they showed footage of her as a normal, healthy toddler by the end of the clip.

What’s the grossest food that you just can’t get enough of? I know balut is pretty unpopular in the Western part of the world, but I’ll gladly eat a dozen of them in one sitting. In general Asian street food is usually considered gross - pig intestines, chicken intestines, chicken feet, pig ears, etc., but all are normal in the culture I was raised in.

What brand are you most loyal to? It’s annoying and I can’t help it, but Apple.

What’s the most awkward thing that happens to you on a regular basis? I try not to make it regular, but sometimes a mistake on my end will slip through in an email I’m sending and I have to send another email correcting myself and apologizing for the oversight. One of my least favorite parts about work.

If you had to disappear and start a whole new life, what would you want your new life to look like? I’m not wishing for much. I just wish it was easier to remove any trace of me on social media sites and have it be as if I never existed because I think that would make it easier for me to move on from...well, you know what. I still have trouble verbalizing it and I don’t feel like mentioning it tonight.

But idk, I like staying connected to my family and friends, so idk if I can ever achieve that. And that said, I think I’m bound to always keep seeing her around.

What movie or book do you know the most quotes from? I memorize a pathetic amount of dialogue from Love Actually, Twilight, Titanic, and The Proposal.  What was one of the most interesting concerts you’ve been to? I guess Coldplay? They gave assigned lightsticks for each section and the crowd looked amazing when the production crew activated the lights for certain songs. I still have some of the clips because I posted them on Snapchat, so I’m really glad I did that; otherwise I would’ve lost the videos forever.

Where are you not welcome anymore? I’ve felt pretty unwelcome around her. How she could do a 180 and just not be interested in having anything to do with me is really soul-crushing.

What do you think could be done to improve the media? Fact fucking check, please. Also keeping sources balanced, avoiding clickbait headlines, being more objective than neutral, and don’t fucking sensationalize. How timely that this landed on a journalism graduate, hahaha.

What’s the most recent show you’ve binge watched? Start Up but I haven’t continued in the last two weeks :/ I think it’s because I know I’m nearing the finale and I subconsciously just don’t want to run out of Start Up episodes to watch lol but yeah, I still have four episodes left and I have no clue when I’ll watch it again.

What’s a common experience for many people that you’ve never experienced? Being close with their mom and considering them as their rock.

What are some misconceptions about your hobby? I don’t know enough about embroidery to know misconceptions about it.

What did you Google last? 2001: A Space Odyssey because I needed to be sure of the scenes I planned on citing in the question above that made me mention the movie.

What’s the dumbest thing someone has argued with you about? Not being able to find a restaurant to eat at. The backstory is a little complicated but it’s the same fight that led my younger brother to slap me across the face, and what subsequently led me to stop speaking to him.

If money and practicality weren’t a problem, what would be the most interesting way to get around town? Probably a tank.

What’s the longest rabbit hole you’ve been down? It’s always the ones on Wikipedia lol. I find weird and interesting articles on there all the time; there’s always something new to read.

What odd smell do you really enjoy? The rain, though sometimes it can be too overpowering when the humidity has been high. I like it for the most part, though.

What fashion trend makes you cringe or laugh every time you see it? Streetwear is so fucking dull to me. I never saw the appeal.

What’s your best story of you or someone else trying to be sneaky and failing miserably? Hahahaha this happened just a few weeks ago actually. My parents and I were headed out to have some ramen, and I opened the car door to hop onto the backseat. They didn’t prepare beforehand and they left the Christmas gift I asked for - a corkboard - in the backseat, so I was able to see the whole thing, unwrapped and with price tag and all. Their mortified faces knowing that their secret’s been blown were hilarious. They had no choice but to just give it up, and the corkboard has been on my wall since.

If you had a HUD that showed three stats about any person you looked at, what three stats would you want it to show? I guess the stability of our relationship, their general mood for the day, and erm how badly they need a hug because I’m always willing to give some.

What’s the best way you or someone you know has gotten out of a ticket / trouble with the law? My mom fake-cries her way out and it’s always been hilarious to see a grown ass woman do it and pull it off every time.

Tear gas makes people cry and laughing gas makes people giggle, what other kinds of gases do you wish existed? I don’t really want to manipulate people’s action in this way, so pass.

[octaviadblake]

Ὀδύσσεια + τό ἑκᾰτόν

OR The Odyssey + The 100, an in-depth look at parallels to Homeric canon in season 6, and how the themes and motifs present on Sanctum mirror Odysseus’s 10-year journey back to Ithaca.

DISCLAIMER: I was a Russian Lit major, not a Classics major, so I’m not an expert on this. I did study Ancient Greek and Ancient Greek Drama for 6 and 2 semesters in college, respectively, though, but my expertise is more on The Iliad than The Odyssey so just...cut me some slack lol

If you’re not down for this 2.7k word mini-dissertation, here’s your chance to turn back.

So for those of you who don’t know me, I’m a major Classics nerd. I studied The Iliad in the original in college (and yes, I will be writing a series of metas about how s1-5 are The Iliad so keep an eye out for that), but The Odyssey remains, arguably, Homer’s most prolific epic. I’ve never parsed the text in the original, so I’m not going to be doing any sort of text-to-quote analysis because I think using a translation would be a disservice to the text (major Classics nerd. cannot stress this enough.), but I’m gonna be doing a rundown of all the major stops on Odysseus’s journey and how The 100 has mimicked each and every one of those stops in season 6 thus far.

Still reading? Cool, let’s do this thing.

Some of you may have already read my theory on the anomaly and how I think what lies inside is something like the Island of the Lotus Eaters. If you haven’t read it, you can check it out here, but brief summary: the Lotus Eaters is the first stop Odysseus and his crew make. The Lotus plant is so entrancing that it makes people forget all about their lives outside the island and coerces them to stay there, stuck in a sort of opiate-like blissed out haze of chillness for the rest of their lives, and I think that may be what’s happening in the anomaly, not time travel like others have theorized. Cool, moving on.

The next stop of Odysseus’s journey is the island of Polyphemus, the cyclops who intends to eat him and his men. 

(Giulio Romano, Polyphemus)

They manage to escape when Odysseus (using the fake name of “Nobody”) blinds Polyphemus and they hide under the bellies of his sheep in order to avoid detection as they escape his cave.

Let’s think, how does this relate to our heroes? What’s happening right now on the show, going into episode 6x12? 

(gif credit: @commander-anya)

Clarke is pretending to be Josephine in order to blindside the Primes and help her people escape.

In The Odyssey, this is a continuation of the theme of “hosting” or “guest-friendship” (a term I’m borrowing from wikipedia since I’ve been out of school for over a year and don’t feel like actually thinking for this pseudo literary analysis). We saw this with the Lotus-Eaters, and we see it again with Polyphemus. But the Cyclops is a bad host. So are the Primes. 

Polyphemus’s host gift to Odysseus is that he tells him he’ll eat him last. He won’t spare him, but he’ll give him longer to live than the rest of his men. One of the drawbacks, is that means Odysseus is going to watch all of his people die, one by one, until he meets his demise. 

God, how many times have Clarke and Bellamy watched their people suffer? And now the Primes have a way to make nightblood. They’ve turned Echo into a nightblood. Who’s next? Presumably all of them, one by one, until all the Primes are brought back to life. And with Clarke masquerading as Josephine, how many of her people is she going to watch be tortured? How many might she lose in tonight’s episode and in next week’s episode before they manage to beat the Primes and escape? How much have they lost? How much more must they lose?

We also get our first hint of the theme of “cunning over strength” (a term I’m borrowing from SparkNotes because, again, I really don’t feel like putting more effort into this than I already am lmfao) at this point in The Odyssey. Odysseus devises a plan to escape the Cyclops that involves very little violence compared to the blood-soaked battles that we saw in The Iliad. Rather than brute force, he uses his cunning to escape. 

Clarke is going in as Josephine. She's not going for brute force. She’s not barging in with an army (that part comes later). This move is pure Clarke, all head. Going with the most cunning plan, not the most direct, not the most violent, the most strategic. 

Clarke Griffin is Odysseus.

GODDAMN IM LOVING THIS. I digress.

The next major plot point in The Odyssey is Odysseus running into Aeolus, the god of the winds. 

(source unknown by me, but this image is public domain)

He gives Odysseus a bag containing the four cardinal winds which, when opened at the right time, will send him straight home to Ithaca. His men think that the bag secretly contains a treasure that Odysseus is hoarding for himself and they open the bag, releasing the winds, and sending their ship even further off course than before, prolonging their journey.

I stumbled over this one for a second because it could be a few different moments in season 6. Gabriel giving Clarke info on how to take down the Primes? No, where’s the sabotage there? Murphy attempting to help Josephine to get mind drives for him and Emori? No, he ends up doing the right thing and puts them on the right track. Spacekru & friends devising a plan to defeat the Primes and Madi attacking them, sending them off the proverbial course? Hmm, sounds about right.

To make this easier for me, let’s call Bellamy, Echo, Emori, Murphy, Jordan, Miller, and Madi Spacekru 2.0. Well, they’re trying to make their plan to “work with” the Primes so they can get a compound, a home, for them and their people. But Madi is the crew to Spacekru 2.0′s Odysseus. She has her own agenda. She wants the treasure, she wants her revenge. 

She attacks the Primes, releases the winds as it were, and all hell breaks loose.

(gif credit: @bellamyblakepositivity)

They’re thrown off course. How will they ever get their compound now? How will they get their home? 

[Fun etymology fact break: Homecoming is stylized in The Odyssey as “νόστος” (nostos), when an epic hero returns home via voyage by sea, aka the MAIN theme in this epic. We get the word “nostalgia” from nostos, mixed with άλγος (algos) which means pain. Nostalgia is the pain of yearning for the past or for home. Is nostalgia/homecoming not one of the key themes of The 100? Is it not one of the key themes of The Odyssey? (also you could probably write an analysis of how nostos is a hero returning by sea and the way that space and the sea are often visually/metaphorically compared, the way you navigate both domains in a ship, the way you have an odyssey and a space odyssey....but that’s a discussion for another time)]

Next up on the journey? Aeaea, Circe’s island. 

(gif credit: ? if anyone knows, hmu so i can give credit please!)

Circe was a witch who turned men into animals (mainly pigs in The Odyssey, but in another myth, into a woodpecker, which isn’t relevant, I just think it’s funny). Here we get the motif of transformation and false appearances, a continuation of the Nobody plot, and a motif that we also see with the Primes taking over other people’s bodies, constantly transforming their appearances. 

While climbing a mountain to reach Circe’s palace, Hermes points Odysseus to a plant which will make him immune to Circe’s transformation magic. Why does this sound familiar......

The neural mesh in Clarke’s head gives her resistance to the mind drive allowing her consciousness to survive the “transformation.”

 Like the Island of the Lotus Eaters (and the anomaly) Circe has the ability to manipulate the passage of time, or rather, the perception of the passage of time. Odysseus loses quite a significant amount of time trapped on her island. (It’s not actually 5 years, the mini-series fudged that bit a little since Homer never specifies how long it is, but I’ll forgive you, The Odyssey mini-series, because I love you so very much that I cried when I found you on DVD in a tiny Wal-Mart in the backwoods of Tallahassee two years ago)

We also get another look at the complicated theme of guest-friendship on Circe’s island. She is, quite simply, a terrible host. She traps Odysseus’s men, just like the Primes trap Spacekru 2.0. Odysseus frees them. It’s on Clarke to free her people from the terrible hosts that are the Primes. There’s a joke in there about the Primes bodies being hosts to the mind-drives. Anyway.

Odysseus’s next stop is the land of the dead. He descends into Hades (a very perilous feat) to talk with the blind prophet Tiresias. He also talks to Anticlea, his deceased mother.

My god, if that stop isn’t exactly 6x07 Nevermind. 

Clarke talks to Jake Griffin, and tells him she thinks she’s dead, she’s ready to give up, she’s ready to let go. Odysseus tells Anticlea he feels the gods are against him, his journey is fruitless, he’ll never make it home. I don’t think that parallel could be more obvious if it punched you in the face.

I think maybe Monty is Tiresias in this scenario, giving Clarke advice and helping her navigate the mindspace so she can send a message to Bellamy that she’s alive which will give her the advantage of having an ally on her side. Odysseus promises Tiresias he’ll make a sacrifice to him once he gets back into the world of the living bc the dead feast on blood or something like that, but that’s like Clarke promising Monty she’ll do her best to continue to honor his challenge to her to do better. So cool. Love it.

(gif credit: @janemichaels)

Thematically, this mimics the theme of “testing” that’s present in The Odyssey (thank wikipedia again for helping me on this one lmao). You get Odysseus’s men’s loyalty being tested, and you get Odysseus’s identity itself being tested.

Clarke is tested when she is faced with the option of giving up and letting go. Spacekru 2.0 (and particularly Murphy and Emori) are tested when they learn Clarke is gone, then learn she’s alive. Will they be loyal enough to her to save her? Hint: yes, obviously, because Spacekru 2.0 is way better than Odysseus’s crew. Will Clarke decide to push forward and fight for her life? Hint: yeah, duh, because she’s just as badass as Odysseus. 

Next comes the sirens. 

Odysseus’s ship sails through the isle of the sirens, whose song lures sailors to their deaths. Odysseus makes his men stuff their ears with beeswax so they won’t be tempted by the song, but he ties himself to the mast, wanting to hear it. I kinda struggled with this one, but then I realized, at this point, we’re not looking at Clarke as Odysseus.

We’re looking at Octavia as Odysseus.

Octavia is faced with her greatest fear. She ends up running into the anomaly after Diyoza. If I’m right about the anomaly being sort of the Lotus Eaters, then we could assume that the anomaly holds Octavia’s deepest desires; that might have been what she’d have seen if she’d chosen the green box. She hears the call, and resists. The temptation and the overcoming thereof. 

I think that’s clear enough, so I’m gonna skip ahead to the passage between Scylla and Charybdis.

Earlier, Circe had warned Odysseus of this choice he would have to make. Choose the 6-headed monster on the left and lose at best, 6 of his men. Choose the whirlpool on the right, and lose them all.

[Sidenote: how interesting is it that the anomaly is associated with a spiral shape, mimicking that of a whirlpool? Should we believe that if they enter the anomaly it is, in fact, certain death that awaits them? Or is it a metaphoric whirlpool, and they’re just being sucked in, never to return to their original mission of returning home (*cough* Lotus Eaters again *cough*)?]

(gif credit: @aryastarktheshewolf)

So I think this choice is reminiscent of Octavia’s choices of the red box versus the green box. Presumably, face her greatest fears or her deepest desires. She chooses the red box. Better to face her fears and risk dying that way than face her desires (the same green of the anomaly anyone??) and risk getting sucked in like Diyoza was, never to return. 

She never saw her deepest desires in the forest (from what we saw) so it makes sense that she would choose the red box. She knows she can escape her fears. Blodreina no more. But if she faces her desires, who’s to say she could ever turn back? 

(gif credit: @daeneryskairipa)

Cool cool, so freaking cool, I love these parallels so much, y’all. 

Now we get to explore the most Prime-like example of “guest-friendship” in The Odyssey.

Ogygia. Calypso’s island. 

[Fun etymology fact break: “Kαλύπτω” (kalupto), the word that lends its root to Calypso’s name, means “to conceal” or “to deceive.” Calypso is “the one who conceals,” she’s “the deceiver.” “Ὠγύγιος” (ogugios), which lends its meaning to Ogygia, means “primeval” or “primal.” The Primes...the first settlers of Sanctum...the ones from the earliest ages (another interpretation of the word). The Primes, the deceivers. The Primes, the primeval ones. Hmmm.]

(screencap from The Odyssey mini-series, 1997. btw, Vanessa Williams will ALWAYS be Calypso in my mind)

Calypso offers Odysseus a home on Ogygia, but he will have to abandon his dream of returning to Ithaca, to his home, to his wife, Penelope, and to his son, Telemachus. She actually prevents him from leaving for seven years (more warped passage of time a la the anomaly), effectively keeping him prisoner. But he wants for nothing there. He is fed and clothed and bathed and sheltered. 

Our heroes are offered a home on Sanctum, but it’s not all it appears. It’s not the paradise they’re lead to believe it to be. They’re deceived. 

[EDIT: Leah @braveprincess offered an interesting take on Calypso, which I absolutely HAVE to share with y’all:

Anyway, let my rant continue]

In order to stay, they must sacrifice Clarke, Madi too, and well, now, all of their people the Primes want to make into nightbloods. They’re prisoners in Sanctum. They can’t leave, not only because the Primes won’t let them, but because what awaits them is the Children of Gabriel and the mysteries of this new planet. Their best chance at survival is with the Primes. But that also means compromising and losing people they refuse to be without.

Bellamy is Odysseus now. Clarke is his Penelope. 

(gif credit: @bellarkedaily)

He won’t negotiate with the Primes. He won’t sacrifice Clarke. Shut up, I’m not crying, you’re crying. 

Athena asks Zeus to intervene, so he sends Hermes to tell Calypso she must release Odysseus. Odysseus leaves to continue the next, and last, part of his journey. His return home. 

Bellamy leaves Sanctum to save Clarke. Once he has her back, they can continue their final journey, building a home on this new world. Or so we hope. 

But who knows? We haven’t seen the finale yet. Maybe they’ll stay on this world. Maybe not.

Some people have been theorizing that they’ll return to Earth (via time travel or whatever it is, which I don’t really buy but whatever), which would be a really nice conclusion to the theme of nostos, but the problem with that is right now, there is no Earth to return to. Nostos only works if there’s a home to go back to. And that home, usually, must be unchanged from when the hero left to fit into the proper meaning of the word.

So, what would be the best way for The 100 to get our heroes back to Earth to fulfill this Odyssey-esque narrative that they (probably unwittingly) have set up? 

SEND ‘EM INTO THE ANOMALY!

Let them chill there, enjoy a little bit of paradise, let time pass super fast in the outside world while it passes normally for them, let Earth recover, and send ‘em back. But that bit is more of a pipe dream than anything else and I doubt that’s what they’ll do. I’m not a big fan of most anomaly theories, but I think that could be a cool one. Who knows.

Anyway, that’s all I have for today. Next week post-finale, I’ll probably work through the rest of The Odyssey, with Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, defeating the suitors, and winning his wife back, if all goes to plan with beating the Primes. So if you liked this (admittedly rambling half-cocked mini thesis paper), keep an eye out for that one. 

After this season, I’m gonna be doing a series on how seasons 1-5 are actually The Iliad, so if you wanna scream about Classics & The 100 with me, just drop a line in my ask :)