"The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you did not write," -Ellen Jackson
PSA: Sorry there was no blog post last week. Life caught up with me, and I ended up having NO time. Hopefully that won't happen again. On to this week's post!
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It's more fun if they die at the end.
While this isn't always the case, in many post-apocalyptic or science fiction stories, it should be the case, especially when the situation is hopeless.
Where shows and books write themselves into a corner, is that they set up this hopeless situation, creating this plotline that drives the story. However, what all too often happens is that the infamous plot device deus ex machina quite literally pops up.
A deus ex machina is where a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of a new event. Thanks, Wikipedia.
The way that Season 4 of the 100 is progressing is that the radiation is exponentially growing, and will wipe out 99% of life on earth, as claimed by the show. The main plot involves them trying to find ways to either stop the radiation or protect everyone from it as it ravages the earth. Our favorite flawed leaders, Clarke and Bellamy, are trying to save the day, along with a neurotic Raven.
In this past week's episode, there is almost a hope of having another bunker, built by a religious zealot. My initial thoughts during the episode consisted of "oh no, this place is going to be habitable, and then the rest of the season is just going to be them fixing it up and making it usable."
What the episode beautifully pulls off is convincing the audience that this place would be intact and able to support the earth's populous. When this doesn't end up working out for our fatal heroes, I felt almost a relief.
Why? Don't I want everything to work out peachy and for everyone to survive?
No, not in this case. Because if another deus ex machina comes in and saves everyone, then there will be no point, the cycle of surviving and killing that The 100 has found itself in will only perpetuate.
My projection is that this season will be The 100's last. I almost want it to be it's last season, because it will create a beautiful story arc with my predictions.
1a. Clarke and Bellamy are unable to find another place except the Ark to hold 100 people, almost poetically.
1b. 100 people, hopefully not our main characters, hole up in the Ark and survive the nuclear meltdowns. Our main characters die happily, having fulfilled their mission and resolved the conflict, and the human race lives on.
2a. The Ark is somehow damaged beyond the repair of fixing in time. There is no place to hide.
2b. 99% of the human population dies. However, our characters accept their death and live their last, sick days to the fullest. Or, they put themselves out of their misery via group suicide.
I want my beloved characters to die because it will wrap up the story. Truly, I see almost no way out of this situation. The only other avenue I could see is if Season 5 would cover the straggling survivors on the Ark.
However, the ending of the series would be much more impactful if it ended here, and in the two scenarios I provided above.
It would be more impactful because if everyone or our beloved characters died, then it would give the message that you can't just live life by surviving, and sometimes dying can be more fulfilling than living. If everyone died, it would be poetic justice. The Arkadians sent down the 100 to die, they didn't die, but later, they ended up dying from radiation fallout, having learned all they could on the ground. It would be a fulfilling and timely death for all of our original 100.
Compare this to the movie Passengers, starring Christ Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. They are faced with a spaceship that is breaking down, and they have woken up about eighty years too early to arrive at their destination. After fixing the ship, and, of course, realizing they love each other, they accept their fate, which is that they won't be able to reenter cryogenic sleep. So, Pratt's and Lawrence's characters 'bloom where they're planted' so to speak, and live out the rest of their lives, alone on the ship. This is the impactful, deep, and emotional ending I have envisioned for this series.
I suppose I wouldn't be mad if Season 5 continued on with some of our main characters inside of the ark riding out the radiation, but then, that would definitely have to be the end, with the remaining survivors barely scraping by to rebuild civilization. However, Jasper, everyone's favorite drug addict alongside Charlie Pace, has been the ringleader of what I want to happen.
The characters learn to live, not just to survive, accept their inevitable death, and find peace within themselves.
A hesitant watcher because Jason Rothenberg has hurt me too much already,
~The WordShaker
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