#multiple interpretations

hi anon!! playing those songs in succession is a Very Interesting Choice on alex's part because they're all extremely milex coded skfhshfhs as simple as that. obviously this applies to the lyrics but i've also read somewhere that apparently star treatment is miles' favourite song off tbhc? (i don't have a source at hand rn so if anyone can find it feel free to add it + i'm ALMOST sure i've read something like that about fireside too but idk maybe i hallucinated it) (so please take this info with a HUGE grain of salt)

also, ever since the release of am people have been speculating about who arabella might really be about - and of course there's always been theories about it being about miles, no matter how adamant he's been lately in making sure EVERYONE knows that it's all FICTIONAL it's a CHARACTER that he MADE UP and DOESN'T EXIST !!!!!! like yeah okay why do you suddenly feel the need to clarify that after all this time lmao

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You have to be careful with using facial responses as canon. Because they aren’t explained. And the emotions could be read wrong. And they could mean something else or they could mean MULTIPLE things. Maybe she was concerned for his romantic feelings for Clarke, or maybe she was concerned for his non romantic obsession with getting his partner back safe? How can you tell? You have to look at the other clues. And even then, that’s you putting the puzzle pieces together. Until you get a clue that says it’s NOT true, you can think that. That’s why people have such different interpretations and they can all be right.

I, personally, am not sure that Bellamy REALIZED he had romantic feelings for Clarke until after Gina died, anyway. I’ve always headcanoned the argument at Hakeldama as when he realized he was in love with Clarke, NOT platonically. If we’re going by faces, then didn’t Monty’s face suggest that he was SHOCKED that Bellamy was so desperate to find Clarke he’d nearly die to do it? 

If you want to think that Gina knew Bellamy loved Clarke, there’s room to think that. But I am tending to NOT think that, and there’s room in the canon on screen to also interpret it my way. 

I also heard Gina’s actress say that Gina was confident in her relationship with Bellamy and wasn’t worried about his feelings for Clarke. So that makes me think, more so, that Gina did not think Bellamy had romantic feelings for Clarke. 

Maybe the Gina/Bellamy interactions are meant to show us how Bellamy is more in love with Clarke than with Gina, but that’s not how it looked to me. It looked sweet and tender and open and thoughtful… all good things. And it was only his actions OUTSIDE of his relationship that made me question his relationship with Gina… actions which Gina was not there to witness. And Raven’s comments, of course, which didn’t sound like something Bellamy hadn’t heard before. But if Raven was just telling him that he wasn’t good enough for Gina, not that he was more devoted to Clarke, then would that even be a clue for BELLAMY, who still wasn’t really aware of the intensity of his feelings for Clarke, that he was in love with her, rather than just being a reflection on his own self worth, which he has, in canon, had a problem with. I’m not sure why anyone would go to Gina and tell her that her boyfriend loved someone else unless they hated her, because that’s a terribly mean thing to say to someone. And I didn’t see anyone hating Gina in Arkadia. The only time anyone brought it up was when RavenALIE did, and SHE was the enemy there. But Gina was already gone by then.

When I see how he is with Echo, also, and how Echo doesn’t seem to have an inkling of how exactly he loves Clarke, thinking that it is sibling like? I’m going to take that as another piece of evidence. Because that’s TWO relationships that seem healthy, when Clarke is away, but when she comes back into his life, his feelings for her turn out to be bigger than he expects. CERTAINLY bigger than his girlfriends expect. They haven’t even really gotten to SEE him with Clarke, so they can’t see it for themselves.

I think because they are not witnessing his relationship with Clarke (the way the delinquents have) and he is not TELLING them about how he feels for his “non-romantic” partner, and he’s a trustworthy guy, I don’t think either Gina or Echo know that Bellamy is in love with Clarke. But, that’s all subjective interpretation. I’ve got multiple clues, so I’m good with it, until it’s stated or proven otherwise in canon.

That is totally your interpretation.  She never denied being in service to Nia. It was Nia’s plan and she followed it. She was loyal to Azgeda. She was raised to be loyal to Azgeda.

I’m not saying you have to like her. I just think the unrepentant hate towards a character who is basically doing the same as every other character is bullshit.

You know what? Clarke and Bellamy are both mass murderers. 

Echo isn’t. 

They are torturers. Echo just kills people. No torture.

I’m not saying that I think Echo is a hero. I don’t. Clarke and Bellamy are the heroes. They’re the ones who get better. They’re the ones who fight against the darkness and try to do better.

That IS what makes them the heroes.

But you know what?

Bellamy may have broken the cycle, but Clarke didn’t. Clarke sent Bellamy to DIE. Knowingly.

And worse. OCTAVIA became all the evil she fought against as a delinquent. She became the tyrant. She became the bigot. She became the warmonger.

Maybe you might want to look at the WHOLE story differently.

Clarke and Bellamy fought against the toxic cycle to become heroes and make the world better.

OCTAVIA embraced the toxic cycle to continue it and lead to the destruction of the world.

Echo, however, Echo stayed true. Playing the short game. Taking care of her people. Sacrificing those who aren’t her people. Trying to do no harm if she can but willing to kill if she has to. Echo is the MIDDLE ground. Her actions offer a choice of morality too.

But whatev.

You’re not interested in looking at anything but making excuses for more of your hate.

You people exhaust me. 

Did you know you don’t actually HAVE to hate anyone? I mean, Octavia– I think she’s evil, not crazy, evil. But I don’t hate her. There’s an interesting story there and I want to see where it goes and what happens to her. I’ve NEVER liked her, but I wasn’t going to erase her character and refuse to look at her story because she wasn’t my fave. 

Echo is a lot better than Octavia, imo, what’s the point of erasing her character so you can’t ENJOY Bellamy and Clarke and Octavia’s story.

Heck. If you hate Echo, you should hate MIller, too. How do you feel about him? He sided with his evil tyrant. He took Clarke to die. He betrayed Bellamy, too. 

Sorry y’all. I’m not buying your excuses and your anti-interpretation of Echo’s character and role is about as impressive as ANY anti interpretation.

It’s biased.

PT. 2 — need to understand this. Like some people hate O so much because of the bad things she’s done, and the darkness. Same with Bellamy. But like, these characters are so not black and white. They make bad decisions, evil even. But that doesnt mean they are awful people. This fandom would be so much more peaceful if we could all accept that.

I totally agree. It’s very easy to think only in black and white. We’ve been trained to. But this show is NOT black and white.

 And I think in connection with that is the understanding that all those gray characters are gray because they come from different perspectives and different backgrounds. They have different needs and different understandings of the world. Someone who is a villain to the main character is a hero to her people. That doesn’t mean that they are forgiven for hurting others or being selfish or cruel or abusing their powers, but it does mean that in order to understand them, you have to recognize the validity of their identities and humanity. Having a valid POV doesn’t mean you are right, but it means you have a right to consider your own perspective and needs.

And yet, that doesn’t mean that your perspective is the only right one, because all the others are valid, too. Your perspective might actually be both valid and wrong, like Octavia, in many cases. 

In short.

The 100 is full of multiple perspectives that change the way you can see the characters and story.

And the 100 fandom is full of multiple perspectives, and more than one can be valid and true at the same time. 

We need to practice accepting that there can be multiple interpretations of the same material and allowing other people their interpretations.

It might also be a good idea if we recognize that our OWN perspective might not be right just because it’s ours and we feel and believe in it. 

With all the gusto we go after how wrong other people are, we should use the same intensity, if not more, on our OWN judgment, questioning our own biases, double checking against canon or facts or the dictionary. If you reduce your argument down to attacks on the other person’s morality, chances are you’re not examining your own position at all. If you’re making them evil (or whatever term is your version of evil) for not agreeing with you, then you’ve somehow decided that your opinion must be the opposite of evil and all that is good and moral. Which means it’s black and white and unquestionable. Which doesn’t fit this show and doesn’t fit reality, either.

Our POVs are valid. But we can also be wrong. No one is immune from misinterpretation or jumping to conclusions or being emotionally compromised. I include myself in this. That’s why I try not to judge before I have the facts, and why I say stick to the text, and why I check the dictionary, and google everything I’m not certain of and sometimes things I am certain of. Just to make sure I’m not getting carried away with my own perspective. 

familiar. And some of them just wanna see the hot girls make out. That too. A lot of straight man’s gender/sexual equality is just about what gets them off. 2/2

I agree with that. And I think also they let the switch of gender in the relationship camouflage the fact that the CL romance was ALSO a traditional story and the only thing that made it “new” was that the dominating, masculine hero who won the not so perfect princess was a pretty, vulnerable looking girl. 

I prefer the story of the bad boy from the wrong side of the Ark creating an equal partnership with the not-so-perfect princess and righting the social wrongs of their people. Because it hits my buttons. I clearly did not like the story of the not-so-perfect princess being fixed and taken away from all her troubles by the dashing perfect commander.