The 100

The Redemption of Bellamy Blake

(CW/The 100)

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The 100:The Redemption of Bellamy Blake

Here's why the redemption of Bellamy Blake is a favorite storyline on #The100. Share on X

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of reaction videos when it comes to The 100. I watch them all: shippers, lovers, semi-casual viewers, hate-watchers, all of them. I love seeing peoples various reactions to all of the scenes, especially scenes that made me react, and I am rarely disappointed. Since I watch all of the reactions from all of the people, I’m able to pick up on common themes. In this previous episode it isn’t hard to guess which scenes got the biggest reactions: Nyko’s death, Abby’s almost sacrifice, Octavia’s ‘death’, and Bellamy’s breakdown.

(I said last week that these two are my favorites and fun fact: apparently whoever is behind the official writers twitter account loves them too)

A positive thing about watching everybody’s reactions is that I can easily get a feel about how they feel about characters. A character that gets mixed reactions is Bellamy Blake. Some love him, some tolerate him, some hate him, all for various reasons. One of those reasons is that a lot of them won’t or can’t forgive him for the not!Bellamy action of assisting in slaughtering the army of three hundred grounders that Lexa sent to help Arkadia. Since the action took place the show has been working overtime to help recover the character, from that very episode. It was pointed out by an injured Indra that Bellamy wanted to spare the wounded and even Bellamy himself told Pike that they went too far. They had Octavia unleash her rage on him by allowing her to beat him almost unconscious while he was chained to the wall, Bellamy not allowing anybody come to his defense or rescue. She even spit out to him that he was dead to her, an action that has caused a yet repaired riff between the once close siblings.

This season is certainly putting Bellamy on the path to redemption once more. Every single one of his actions is in atonement for the bad choices he made as not!Bellamy. The writers are also driving the point home through not only Bellamy, but also of the characters that surround him. A common theme of this season is forgiveness and redemption. In 4×01 you had Kane telling Bellamy to turn the page, do better today than he did yesterday, and one day he’ll be deserving of survival. In 4×02, Bellamy had to make a difficult (and much debated) choice: save twenty-five slaves now at the cost of ensuring that the Ark had drinkable water or leave the slaves to their fate and take the part they needed to survive. In the end, he went with his conscious, saving the slaves and putting more of the world’s weight on his, Clarke’s, and Raven’s shoulders. 4×03 brought Jaha and all of his wisdom telling him that as long as his actions were for the good of his people, he had nothing to feel guilty about. Honestly, this was probably more about how Jaha feels in regards to himself than anything to do with Bellamy. Alas, the point was brought up point blank and Jaha wanted to know just how many lives he would have to save to forgive himself. 4×03  also brought Bellamy saying that he wouldn’t be starving with the rest of the new 100 because he wouldn’t be one of them, much to Clarke’s ire.  Which brings us to 4×04.

https://twitter.com/BellarkeItalia/status/835975206971838464

In perhaps the greatest effort to re-humanize Bellamy for his past actions, we were shown his complete and utter grief at losing his sister. While the audience learns that Octavia is not actually dead, Bellamy doesn’t know this, and it shattered him. His screams of anguish were chilling, blood-curdling, and tear inducing. It was a brilliant move on the part of the writers/producers/creators to  add this to his path of redemption. It takes Bellamy out of all of his other roles of leader, soldier, love interest, and cast him in only the role of brother. We’re forced to remember all of the actions that he has taken to protect Octavia to the best of his ability, even if not always using his best judgment (sorry, Atom). He came down to Earth to protect Octavia, he promised his mother he would always take care of her, and now he thinks he’s failed not only himself and Octavia, but Aurora as well.

Watching the reaction videos, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear: Bellamy is on the path to being cleared. Every reaction from the shippers, lovers, casual watchers, and yes, even the hate-watchers, was sympathetic, if not flat out sobbing and pleading. One watcher who doesn’t favor Bellamy had a reaction video from 4×03 saying he would only feel that Bellamy was redeemed by sacrificing his own life to 4×04 begging Echo to not tell him that his sister was dead, and tears were shed.

Only time will tell if these audience feelings of sympathy and reprieve will last in the characters ark this season. Regardless, it was certainly a Neil Armstrong move in the right direction. I look forward to seeing how else the character will develop over the next few weeks. But also, I love Bellamy and his pain brought me to literal tears, I have the pictures to prove it.

 

 

Don’t forget to tune in to The 100 on Wednesdays on The CW at 9/8c. If you miss an episode, you can stream it on Amazon here.

Like what you read? Heather will be writing more about The 100 regularly for Post Apocalyptic Media. Join our email list to stay updated by clicking here and be sure to follow us on Twitter. 

    Heather is a twenty-something wine drinker and coffee lover who tweets too much and sleeps too little. She resides near the beaches in Mississippi where she annoys her family and friends with her obsessions of fictional people. She has a full time job with a health package and everything but she always finds time to over-invest in TV Shows and is thrilled that she now gets to share these obsessions with the world.

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