#novelistic

(2) of a romantic narrative. I look back and see Bellarke as a three-sided dynamic- partnership, friendship, and romance, with each side of the triangle pushing and influencing the others and each season deepening the dynamic. Even season 1 had elements of all three. I’d say progression is the most accurate term to describe their story. Strangers of different hierarchical classes to political rivals to co-leaders to friends to lovers separated by trauma, politics, death, time, other partners to

(3) future couple. Not a single step exists in a vacuum. Their relationship and individual character development are pieces fit to form a complete puzzle over time. Or as I’ve come to see, a seamless 100-episode tale with interconnected threads from start to finish. The only right way to decipher meaning is to look beyond a collection of scenes to the full picture of what we have so far. All stories are chronicles of progression from one point to the next and romance plots are no exception. JR

(4) didn’t invent some newfangled revolutionary storytelling protocol. His story just requires us to look beneath the surface and connect the dots across a seven season sequence. By 6x10, there are no layers needed to be looked under. The romance is smack dab in the middle of the room for all to witness, figuratively and literally. Even the nonshippers can see it, it’s not exclusive to the trained eye of the romance lover. I thought I signed up for a great story years ago. But I never would’ve

(5) known HOW great it was without the thought-provoking, deep-dive analyses by you, jeanie205 and the 3rd in the triumvirate of fandom heroes, travllingbunny, the kind of insights that bring an accompanying joy to the show itself and leave one stupefied in awe. Thank you all, truly. I don’t have sure plans to watch the prequel yet but if the 3 of you will, it may just tip the scales for me into the affirmative. It’d be fun to geek out with you guys on a new-ish adventure from the start.

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I got chills when you said, 

Not a single step exists in a vacuum. Their relationship and individual character development are pieces fit to form a complete puzzle over time. Or as I’ve come to see, a seamless 100-episode tale with interconnected threads from start to finish.

That was the most unexpected thing about this show. That it wasn’t just another fun show with hot people in the apocalypse with shocking twists dealing with complex questions-- which would be good enough, you know? Lots of fun. No, it was more. I did NOT figure out that it was a novelistic show until we got to season 3 and even then I didn’t understand how LONG TERM a novel was being told here. Not a novel, more like a series. A novel would be season long, but the narratives here have lasted for 7 seasons. 

It is seamless. Subplots weaving in and out of the 7 seasons. Character arcs taking the whole series to complete. That actually really confused me in season 3, because I expected both Clarke and Bellamy to finish their hero’s journeys in that season, and instead, there I was, feeling like it was unfinished because they HADN’T returned from their journeys wiser and stronger, ready to change their worlds. Nope. They were still struggling and learning. 

Just because I SAW the hero’s journeys in season 3 (a little late, mind you, since they started in s1 in the ‘hot people in the apocalypse’ phase,) doesn’t mean THAT was the entirety of the hero’s journey. It actually stands to reason that if they’re on a hero’s journey, that it’s a whole series long journey. Oooh. But then this hiatus, someone was like... are you sure Clarke isn’t on a HEROINE’S journey? And I, not really being an expert on the heroine’s journey and only seeing the hero’s part of it (which is like the first half of the heroine’s journey?) had to go research it and LO AND BEHOLD, her journey was the HEROINE’S journey, which TOTALLY fits with the dual protagonist, yin/yang, dark/light, head/heart, binary stars, feminist, mythic, epic love story of it all. NOW it all makes sense, why I couldn’t understand that her hero’s journey hadn’t finished yet (because it shifted into the more unexpected heroine’s journey.)

It always frustrates me when people say I can’t admit I’m wrong and am delusional about bellarke, because I have continually adjusted my theories as the story has gone on, changing them when something is off and doesn’t match canon and THAT’S why my theories are still holding up, which they are. Because I keep checking them back against canon. And when canon confirms the theories I have, I keep using them. When canon josses my theories and headcanons, I adjust. I ask myself, okay where did I go wrong? what is he really saying here? I’ve been struggling, particularly with Raven and Murphy’s roles in the show, and talked to various people about them, because I couldn’t grab ahold of them. With shipping, particularly, things can get confused. I’m wondering if Raven’s love story is not for another person at all, what if it’s self love? Because her most consistent relationships have actually been with familial relationships. Clarke as sister. Bellamy as big brother. Abby as mom. Sinclair as dad. While the romances have failed her. (whether they intended to start out this way or not idk, since all the actors who played her love interests asked to leave or were fired.) And I’m wondering if Murphy’s main love story is actually a spiritual love story. His romance with Emori is a good one, but here he is now wondering about immortality and morality, and he’s always been concerned with that just not secure enough to have answers. Maybe spirituality is his route to finding peace within his soul and coping with his mental illness and trauma? IDK. ANYWAY

I don’t think this show is flawless, and maybe they’ve had to franken-stitch some of their plotlines together to fit when things didn’t work out, and maybe some of their subplots ended in a way that didn’t satisfy us because we wanted something BETTER for those characters even though the tragic ending was part of the larger narrative, but I agree that it is seamless, one leading to the other to the next. When I look back at the storylines I didn’t understand or didn’t like as much, I can see how they fit with the larger narrative. How they lead to the ending the whole show is heading towards.

It’s actually very exciting. It’s not a new way to tell stories, it’s an old one, but it’s not one we see on tv very often, with its ratings and early cancellations and dependence on seasonal !POW! endings to keep people watching, and it’s impatience with slow story telling. They COMMITTED to a long term story despite the risk, and that must have been really hard with the pressures from hollywood and the money people and fandom and reviewers and even the cast. it’s remarkable and I can’t wait to see how it’s wrapped up. No matter what the endings are for our fave characters, I think it will be fascinating to see. And being able to watch the whole show, knowing how it ends, and that it was all crafted to be that way, is going to be really cool. It’s impressive, actually. I think the future will actually be much kinder to this show than the present is. Watching it week to week, you can’t see the development so much, but when we get the whole thing, everyone will be able to see it. I think this series is going to count as a future classic. 

It’s like the reverse of GOT. We expected GOT to be novelistic, based on the epic ASOIAF novels as it was, we expected it to have a grand structure that pulled everything together and gave it a bigger meaning, and in the end, it was trash shlock with no meaning past boobies, action, trauma porn, and dragons. HOWEVER, The 100 was thought to be some trash teen scifi soap with no meaning but hooking up, action, trauma porn and apocalypses, and it’s ending up being an epic novelistic series with a grand structure that pulls everything together and gives it meaning. Basically, if JR had been hired by HBO to do GOT, he would have done it right. But D&D were hollywood hacks and flim flam men who only know how to do surface and don’t understand story. (and are also racist and misogynistic bullies.)

NOVELISTIC IS A WORD.

I JUST REFERRED TO WRITING AS THE "NOVELISTIC ARTS" IN THIS ESSAY.