The 100 | Why You Should Watch the TV Show and Not Read the Books

"Good writing is clear thinking made visible," -Bill Wheeler

So, if you're not up with the times, I am LOVING the CW's show, The 100. It takes the spot below my favorite show of all time, ABC's Lost. 

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The 100 is amazing in it's depth. In it's characters. Just about everything in it is perfect and I enjoy every second of it. 

So, of course, when I heard it was a book, I felt obligated to read it. It just wouldn't feel right without reading the source material. 

Truthfully, I hadn't heard many good things about the book, and I didn't expect it to be better than the TV show, because, well, the TV show was phenomenal. 

And, oh boy, have I never been more right. 

So, these are the reasons why you should watch the TV show and NOT read the books. 

1. The Characters

Finn. Raven. Jasper. Monty. Lexa. Murphy. Lincoln. Abby and Kane and even Jaha. 

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All of the amazingly complex characters we fell in love with in the show are nowhere to be found in the books. The amazing cast of characters made the show all the more diverse and interesting. 

But what other characters do we get in place of them? 

Whiny, weak, and stupid Glass and her one dimentional boyfriend Luke and their fabricated drama. 

Not only that, but the book strips the characters of their dimentions. Funny enough, the TV or movie adaption normally does this, but in this case, the TV show builds upon and expands these bare-bones characters into beautiful people. 

For example, two amazing examples are Clarke and Octavia. Heroic and no-nonsense Clarke that clashes and yet somehow mixes with hothead Bellamy is replaced with a quiet damsel-in-distress. She nearly becomes an object of Wells' and Bellamy's attention, and the relationship between her and Thalia is pathetic. However, she still remains the most developed female character, which is saying something. 

 Octavia (or should I say Oct-slay-via) has beautiful character development over the first two seasons, and I must admit that I kind of hated her at first. She was whiny and stupid and promiscuous, but comes into her own via Lincoln, the absence of Bellamy, and her influence from the Grounders. Her fight for Lincoln is admirable and shows that she can be, and is, so much more. And besides, she kicks ass. However, Octavia and her character is pretty much gone. Nowhere to be found. Her only purpose is to further Bellamy's plot-line.

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Surprisingly, TV Wells, who dies in the third episode of the first season, is more developed in that short period of time than through an entire book. In the show, he is unflinchingly moral and kind and loyal to a fault, and I was enraged when he died. But the Wells of the book has no other character, no other motivation than his selfish love of Clarke. 

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2. Depth 

Of which this book has none.

All of the amazing themes of the TV show, such as loyalty, good and evil being two sides of the same coin, moral ambiguity, and conflicting ideologies are nowhere to be found in the book.

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The author of this book seems to believe that luurrrrve is the only motivation teenagers can ever have. Other than Octavia stealing some medicine and some snide comments from Graham, Murphy's far inferior book counterpart, there's not much conflict outside of Glass's feeeeeeeeeeeelings, Wells trying to win back Clarke, and Clarke's flip-flopping feelings about Bellamy and Wells. 

There's just a great balance of coupley-love, platonic friendships, arguments, morality, action, and everything amazing about a show in The 100, while the book is jam packed full of shitty one lines about luurrrrve. 

Exhibit A: "To save the girl he loved, he'd have to endanger the entire human race."

Exhibit B: "There was no drug strong enough to repair a broken heart."

Exhibit C: "Without Luke, life would be as empty and cold as space itself."

Need I go on?

Good Lord, give me a break. There are character motivations other than the fleeting infatuation of teenage love. 

I can't even. 

3. Pacing 

This section will also talk about plot. 

So much more happens in Season 1 than even in the first book, and I feel that this is an issue of style. This book has four points-of-view, and this means the plot will move four times as slow because four different characters can be doing four different things in one day, which can take up a huge chunk of the book. This, in turn, causes lots of pages and words but little action. 

While I don't think this is detrimental, it's nowhere near as gripping as the TV show. There's just so much more going on in the show, versus the book. 

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Like I said, the show has a great mix of survival, action, and relationships, which I think is an important ratio to get right in shows like this. However, the book is like a terrible soap opera for teenagers. 

I would not recommend the books, even though I'm probably going to still read all of them. However, I highly encourage you to read them so we can bitch about them together. It's not the worst book I've ever read; it has some good aspects, but compared to the TV show, it's crap. 

~

I could probably talk forever about how the show is better than the book, but that might keep you from watching the amazing show. 


In other news, I SHIP BELLARKE SO FREAKING HARD I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP SCREW CLEXA. 

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Now all I have to do is wait for Season 3 to come out on Netflix. 

*sigh*

~The WordShaker