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6x01 Raven Reyes - Some Thoughts about Emotional Avoidance and Sex

Anybody who follows this blog knows Raven is my favorite female character on The 100. I watched 6x01 early (no self control), and I have plenty of thoughts about what happened onscreen, but this is the first time I’m writing anything down. 

I’ll start with my conclusion and put the rest under the cut if you want to see how I get there -  Bottom line - Raven does deserve happiness, it just hasn’t happened for her yet because she goes looking for the exact things that WON’T bring it to her in order to protect her heart.

My fave doesn’t deal with emotion too well, does she? Upon seeing the video from Monty and hearing about her friends and being upset by this, she then takes complete offense at Abby’s comment (understandable after the way they left things between them in S5), and storms out of the room. Sh*w follows and Raven says the line “They left us”, which definitely gives some insight into where her mindset is - she’s mad at Monty & Harper, doesn’t understand the choice they made even when Sh*w offers insight, instead telling him “No more talking”. Now... where have I heard Raven and comments about “no more talking” before? Buckle up, because I’m gonna tell you. 

1x08 - in the space of a few days, she’s come to Earth, figured out Finn cheated on her, confronted Clarke about it, saw him poisoned and close to death and therefore tortured a Grounder for an antidote, and then Octavia heckles her over her actions because Octavia sides with Lincoln - Octavia says something like “must be hard coming down here only to discover your boyfriend has moved on”. Raven literally goes to Finn and initiates sex right then, actually telling him “I don’t want to talk” and when he tries again “I don’t want to talk about it EVER” - saying she knows about Clarke but asking if Finn loves her. He replies “always” and she proceeds to kiss him again. Things continue and the short view of the aftermath is that they are both lying awake and not talking. The scene feels awkward to me like they each have things to say but aren’t saying them. Then they are interrupted. Note the lack of talking and emotional distress that pushed her into the sex - it’s literally the overall tone. 

1x11 - Raven has very recently broken things off with Finn for good (in 1x10), but things are strained between them and she is not unaffected by seeing Finn & Clarke together. When Murphy replies to her to say that Finn & Clarke are still out hunting together and his words about it goad her into another bout of jealousy/unhappiness, it is no accident that the scene literally has Murphy ripping out fish guts - his words are tearing Raven’s guts out because it hurts to be set aside so easily (as a Murven shipper, I have a lot more to say with regard to this scene but let me shut up for now). She goes right for Bellamy, telling him ‘they don’t waste time’ re Finn/Clarke. Interesting convo here where Raven is determined to move on, and she seems to think that by moving on sexually, it may help her get past seeing Finn with someone else. Bellamy warns her he is not going to “talk her out of it” or “talk her down because she’s upset”. And I can add some armchair psychology here about Raven perhaps seeing Bellamy live that love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude at this point of the show, and maybe hoping that will rub off on her. Anyway, we find out it doesn’t work when she gets out of bed quickly and when Bell asks if it helped and she says no. Note the lack of talking and emotional distress - once again the tone is set. 

2x14 - in the days prior to this, Finn dies traumatically after killing innocent people, Raven is tortured by Grounders when she’s thought to have poisoned Heda, Jasper & Monty (among others) are trapped in Mt Weather and they know they’re taking out bone marrow, she’s trying to figure out the pain & limitations of her body with the leg brace, TonDC has blown up and she can’t figure out how to solve the acid fog which is what their whole plan to go into Mt. Weather depends on, including Bellamy who’s undercover there. She literally blames herself early in this episode - “...because I can’t figure this out.” So she’s stressed. Wick makes her laugh and together they solve the acid fog issue, which makes them both relieved and somewhat giddy. They leave each other after flirting but Raven soon returns and just kisses Wick. He says it’s a bad idea - she says “We’re going to war. Stop talking.” She chastises him again, saying “what did I say about talking” when he tries to. They have sex. Afterwards, she gets up quickly to dress and he tries to connect/reach out to her/says he’s in but she has to figure it out. He accuses her of shutting down. She does not respond. He says “this was too much” and she does not deny it. She only says “we have a war to win” - aka we can infer that either this was a mistake to her or that she tried, yet again, to use sex as a way to avoid emotional distress, but it didn’t really work out for her. Again with the lack of talking - at least on her part - and while I do think there was attraction and chemistry here, there was emotional distress involved and we have that confirmed with Wick’s comment of “this was too much”. 

And now we’re back at 6x01 -  Raven literally goes from near tears over Monty and Harper to rage at Abby to hurt that Monty and Harper “left us” to kissing Sh*w and saying “no more talking”. Aww, my poor little avoidance baby. For his part, Sh*w makes attempts at saying romantic sorts of things - saying “...spending a life... with someone you love...” sounds good to him, also insinuating that he would not go on a long-term mission then or now if he had her. Meanwhile, my fave girl is reading a book, talking about Becca’s accomplishments (I have so much crap to talk about here but once again I will shut up), wondering what Becca was like and then calling it sex (and not making love). At no time does she say her feelings to him or about him in this scene, but it does seem to have distracted her from what she was feeling on the Bridge. There’s talking, but for her part, the focus is Becca or suggesting more sex aka changing the subject. And do we really think the emotional distress is gone, or just put off in the moment? 

So what are we left with when we consider all of this? First, let me say that as a Murven shipper, I realize that I come to the table with some biases, but let me also say that I I am a fan of this character, not just my ship, and I rewatched EVERY SINGLE SEX SCENE IN THIS SHOW for comparison purposes and when we look at both Monty/Harper onscreen along with Kane/Abby, they both show conversations after sex that get them onto the same page, make a connection. Even Clarke/Finn have a revealing moment although there is some teasing there too. What was interesting to me was that Clarke/L*xa included a comment about “we don’t have to talk at all”, but I’m not touching that one with a 20ft pole. However - let’s note that Clarke/Niylah has Clarke saying “Niylah, would you mind not talking?” and gosh what does THAT remind us of?

Anyway, my girl Raven has been traumatised by the love she had for Finn and hasn’t allowed herself to get anywhere near that since he slept with Clarke and broke her heart. She was willing to forgive him, and they both agreed they’d always be each other’s family, and in a past post, I discussed why I think she really doesn’t hold some kind of a grudge towards Clarke about all this - as in, she doesn’t blame Clarke for Finn cheating, but she may still be hurt/sad that the whole thing happened, I guess we’ll see about that. Lemme know if you wanna read it. BUT even so, that doesn’t mean that she trusts love or even feels romantic love at this point, and I could do a whole other post on how I think she rushed herself into Sh*w just because he was there and it was even OOC for her, but it’s late and i’m tired and as you can see, I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff anyway. 

Let me say it again - Raven does deserve happiness, it just hasn’t happened for her yet because she goes looking for the exact things that WON’T bring it to her in order to protect her heart. All you have to do to see what will make her happy in the future is to look at what made her happy in the past *cough cough intimacy best friend & family, guy who looked out for her cough cough*. And BY THE WAY - even though it might fit with her arc, it still pissed me off that they had her sleep with this dude so fast just to increase her pain, damn it. Like - I see you, misogyny! Get outta here!