#narrative development

As writers, we like to think we’re in complete control of our characters.

The Villain's Options:

-Repent: "I recognize that I have been acting wrong/causing harm; I regret those actions"

-Atone: "I will selflessly work to undo my actions/repay the debt/rebuild the destruction/heal the hurts I have caused"

-Seek Forgiveness: "This is what I have done to you, here is my sorrow, would you release me from this unpayable debt/shame/guilt I bear towards you?"

-Be Redeemed: "I may reenter the fellowship of those who were my enemies/those who I harmed, at their invitation. My identity is no longer Villain."

-Betray: "I have deceived the hero, I was never regretful and have no intention of changing my ways; I will now hurt them when they have offered mercy and trust"

-Regress: "I am Not Villain but old habits die hard; I am continuing to Make Mistakes and the cycle of personal development, atonement and need for mercy continues"

The Hero's Options:

-Forgive: "I am no longer holding your past actions against you, I have cleared the slate between us and am willing to start fresh. I will not seek revenge/you need not fear me."

-Seek Justice: "This sentence/punishment/fine is in proportion to your actions and your repayment to/removal from society is being enforced by authority outside your own conscience."

-Show Mercy: "You deserve this punishment/fine/sentence, but I will reduce it/not exact it from you."

-Offer Redemption: "In this way, you have regained our trust; we invite you into fellowship and no longer see you as Villain."

-Betray: "I never intended to forgive Villain, but offering it to them lulled them into a false sense of security and I can now defeat/imprison them."

-Refuse Forgiveness/Seek Vengence: "You will always be Villain; you are not permitted to attempt atonement, your actions demand Harshest Justice/banishment/execution/revenge and there is no recourse."

Depending on where characterization goes, the 'hero' and 'villain' role can flipflop mid-narrative very easily! Reader buy-in is necessary and what counts as a 'forgivable' versus 'unforgivable' act of villainy will change depending on story, setting and audience culture. An ensemble cast of heroes may all have a different response to a villain in this process, and an ensemble cast of villains may distribute themselves across multiple options as well.

You mean like how it was weird for Clarke to talk to him for 2199 days after sacrificing her life so he could survive, leaving her all alone except for a kid, and doing that whole romantic “the notebook” thing where he was basically her fantasy boyfriend for seven years and then have him come back down in a relationship with Echo?????

We gonna forget 2199 days and 7 seasons of narrative?

And ALSO season 6 where Echo was exploring her own identity and independence and not really satisfied with her king/spy relationship?

And ALSO that Bellamy is flat out in love with Clarke and abandoned his people to danger in order to have the possibility of saving Clarke from Josephine?

Do you never pay any attention to the larger narrative? Or do you just look at what’s happening currently? because if you do that, you might be fine for simple shows, but not for a narrative like this, which builds character development over time, over YEARS. 

I have seen this happen a lot in fandom.

People forget that stories are JOURNEYS. The one scene or episode is not the ONLY state. It’s not a static picture. It’s about getting the characters from here to there and how they grow and learn and change over the course of the story.

One of the reasons why I try not to judge before I get enough information, is because I need to see the context. I need to see where it comes from and where it’s going and what it means. How they grow or devolve. The cause and effect. How their choices create new situations. 

I do feel like 7a is a lot of development. AND I think it’s only part of the whole story which started in season 6.

So to really understand this season, I think we actually have to understand it from 6.01, and see how the story develops from THERE. If we consider it that way, then the whole story is missing bellamy for less of a percentage of the story, especially since it focused so much on him in season 5.

YES.

SO many things were left unresolved and I get why people felt stalled

Because LOTS of stories stopped in the middle.

That’s why I decided that they are doing a two season story with the characters. I’d say three, but no. The stories are stopped IN THE MIDDLE, not near the beginning. Like they started them and got them to their mid point and left us hanging for the conclusion.

But SOME people got the whole season, like Bellamy got his hero’s journey finally. But Octavia landed smack dab in the middle of her fall from grace, as now she has to climb back up to redemption! And Clarke? She never even got to reunite with anyone but Bellamy, although the Bellarke reunion did resolve. I mean she did have monty and harper, but that was not the story. They kept the spacekru reunion story for Raven and Murphy. Without that reunion, I knew something was seriously missing. Then I added up ALL the things that were missing or unfinished, and it turned out it was consistent across the board, so that means…. there’s more story based on the character arcs we had last season.

But don’t take my word for it. Look over the season again. You already see it with Bellamy. But Murphy got a story, though Raven didn’t. Kabby was left hanging. Princess Mechanic, my princess mechanic never even started!  Neither did Echo’s story, although JR said her story would be a thing… they just never got there, although you can see it’s set up to start. 

Because not only did he CONTINUE to tell the story of a Bellarke relationship, but every season the Bellarke relationship gets more and more romantic. That is the OPPOSITE of not doing romantic Bellarke, that is doubling DOWN on romantic bellarke. Track the romantic development across the five seasons. It did not stop with s2. Nor did it stop with CL, in fact she canonically, and literally turned from L towards Bellamy, and from then on it has been a dance that only brought them closer, DESPITE the obstacles and detours that seemed to take them away from romance.

s1. enemies to partners to friends. A crush.

s2. devotion. It just makes sense. You care about him more. 

s3. conflict then commitment. 

s4. mutual pining then 2199 radio calls for six years of hopeless love

s5. reunion and CANON love statements. Bellarke TOGETHER and on the edge of the future.

Please. Go ahead and track the development of B/E. I’ll give you a break and not ask you to track it for 4 seasons. All you need to do is track it in season 5.

Where does B/E start out? Where does it end up? Is their relationship EXPLORED during the season? No. They are nominally together, but what it is the connection that is seen? What is explored is a comparison between B/E and Bellarke. I don’t actually want to anti-ship b/e. If people love it, that’s awesome. I think B/E is actually pretty healthy and sweet, I just don’t think it can last, and I do think that Bellarke is the narrative center of the show. But this is an issue that keeps coming up. 

B/E begin romantically, tender and intimate. Family. 5.01. We see their partnership and Echo’s role in the family in 5.03. It is not romantic and doesn’t address their intimate relationship. 5.04 and 5.05 has no B/E at all until the last moment, and that is to WATCH as Clarke has Big Feelings about their kiss. 5.06 is the only episode that explores their relationship and it is defined by defending her against Octavia, and then focuses on their separation. It is a real relationship. They care about each other a lot. However, after Echo leaves, all mentions of Echo by Bellamy are not romantic in nature, but more about her mission, or about her being family. It is almost 7 episodes before we see a B/E reunion and it is awkward and not intimate. The only mention of B/E in that entire time is Emori telling Echo she’ll see him again and Echo responding vaguely. That’s it. By 5.13 after being separated for more than half of the season, they hug, are battlefield comrades, are in the same room during a council, and then he puts her to sleep-- although their goodnight is not significant enough to warrant an on-screen scene. If you can find more development of B/E in canon, on screen, whether they are together or apart, be my guest. Put the scenes together that tell the story of the B/E relationship. Use that storyline to show that B/E is being developed as something that will last. Show us how Bellamy’s 5.01 statement to Echo that “nothing will change,” is foreshadowing of B/E endgame, and not foreshadowing that B/E is doomed, and the return of the TWO women he loves, Octavia and Clarke, will be the end of B/E.

In contrast, s5 Bellarke begins with Clarke longing hopelessly for their return, and Bellamy thinking she is dead. But it ends with her concern for his safety, his anger and immediate forgiveness when he finds out she actually cares for him, him inviting her back into his life, flirting and smiles, nonverbal communication at the good night scene, tender and intimate good morning when they wake up, team back in place. Bellamy. Who technically is still with Echo, until we see proof that they are not together, even though we haven’t really seen them together-together since 5.06. BELLAMY pulls Clarke into his side in an intimate embrace, that, while it is still a platonic hug, is not something that he would have done if Echo were there in the room. AND as JR has stated, in the finale, 5.13, Bellamy is “complete.” So what makes him complete? Is it his girlfriend who is sleeping and we see no intimacy with? Or is it him standing at that window, a parallel to him standing at the window in 4.13, but this time, with Clarke at his side, in his arms. Clarke completes Bellamy. So, to sum up. The s5 development is this:

5.01 Bellarke is separated by space (he’s in space she’s on earth,) time (6 years or 2199 days,) and death (he thinks she’s dead.)-->5.13 Bellarke is together, through light years of space, 125 years of time, and the literal death of their planet. 

I am not delusional. I did not make this up. This is the story of Bellarke in season 5. DESPITE betrayals that nearly destroyed them. They came through, together. Little reminder. 5.01 had Echo telling Bellamy that it took 3 years for him to forgive her. 5.13 had Bellamy forgiving Clarke in 3 seconds when he found out she cared so much for him.

When B/E and Bellarke are compared directly, you can clearly see that Bellarke is endgame. I did NOT write this story. This is what is onscreen. 

So look. I do not want to write metas disproving someone else’s ship. But y’all keep sending me things telling me that Bellarke is dead and B/E is endgame. The rules of my inbox are to ship and let ship, and that means you’re not ALLOWED to hate on Bellarke or ANY ship in my inbox. (not even B/E) And if you come into my inbox telling me that Bellarke isn’t happening I will block you and you won’t be able to ask me any more questions. I decided to write this, to show you WHY I am not concerned with b/e, why Bellarke is STILL endgame, because these anons keep happening. I want to show you how I came to that conclusion according to the narrative development for EACH relationship. There is, indeed, a lot I did not bring up about Bellarke’s storyline, and that is actually more proof, because there is SO MUCH, that the narrative is directly addressing Bellarke and how much they love each other, even when Bellarke are not together, not in the same scene and have been separated for episodes. THIS is in stark contrast to what happens when B/E are not on screen together. Because then it’s like... “B/E? What’s that? Where? Huh? Who?” TWO mentions when they are not together and one of them is to point out how he loves Clarke, his other traitor. And the other is, you’ll be together again, *shrug* ok. 

A story is not just separate scenes strung together. It is a journey using the scenes as a stepping stone to take you to a certain place. You can map out the journey of the characters by paying attention to each scene and figuring out it’s place within the story. Where did it come from? What obstacles get in the way? How does it move to the next scene? What DON’T they talk about? What detours does it take? Where does it end up? Can you extrapolate the direction it is going in the future?

People have a really hard time remembering the whole storyline and looking at character development.

Not just their choice in the moment, but how that choice was formed by multiple choices and lessons in the past.

It helps to step back from the emotional weight of the scene or episode and compare it to past stories. To pay attention to where the characters started out and how they have changed because of past decisions.

There is A LOT of character development.

and that kind of eliminates the possible argument of “oh, they didn’t even let her be sad about it, she just jumped into another relationship’. Then, they avoided the “rebound” argument by giving that ‘part’ to Niylah. They also put a scene where Bellamy kinds of acknowledgeds C.lxa when Clarke is crying to her mom. And, to completely avoid the whole time situation between one relationship and another, the writers fast forward SIX years. Now, this is it, it’s Bellarke time to shine. - p. 2

I agree. I think it was unnecessary for the narrative, but it was necessary for the fandom. This means that the show runners ARE listening to the fans.

However, they’re still telling THEIR story. Because no matter how they delayed canon sexual Bellarke, they ended season 4 with canon love Bellarke. Canon feelings. Canon romantic pining. Canon together Bellarke who are ripped apart by the fates and gods–I mean praimfaya. *ahem.* 

I do stop to think about it. And I am considering what the story could have been if they didn’t delay consummation of Bellarke feelings… and you know what? It’s really not that different. There is a spot in the season where it could have been and would have fit, and would have changed NOTHING in the storyline except to make Bellamy’s feelings of betrayal more obvious and painful, rather than unstated. Because the girl who kidnapped him and pulled the gun on him would ALSO be the girl he’d made love with and maybe declared his feelings for, not just his bestfriend and partner who he trusted. BUT the feelings are still there even though they didn’t consummate or confess their feelings, so that’s why it’s canonically romantic to me.