#the100analysis

There is a chance. I have written previously about how an implanted commander “communicates” with the Flame, and it wouldn’t be like how Clarke communicated with Lexa in the COL. it would be more of her feeling Lexa’s presence with her more than just the memory of her. It would be feeling the warmth and comfort and clarity she felt when she was implanted before with the Flame – how she just smiled and had a sense of clarity and “you can do this” wash over her. “The flame will protect me. I don’t know how I know; i just know.”

In the story right now, the flame does not have much purpose. The only other purpose it has is that it does house the spirit of the commanders – of Becca. In a theory I wrote in May 2016 I wrote how they could possibly access the Flame and talk with Becca possibly using the Mansions’ hologram system because it hs that “virtual reality” platform that the CoL had. They could have possibly asked Becca how she made the nightblood without having to waste all this time with trials – or possibly ask her if she stored a sample of nightblood for them to replicate. Now, I don’t think this will happen…but it could. All parts are still in play in the show. Having Clarke implant herself with the Flame in the end would also complete the “you were born for this Clarke, same as me.” and the line Niylah said “she lives on through you”. There are things planted in the show that way that makes me think that Clarke implanting herself with the Flame is a great possibility. Plus, people already think it is destroyed and it doesn’t have much play in the narrative at this point. Clarke implanting herself with the Flame would also be a great way to complete the “I will always be with you” line. Lexa’s presence will now always be with Clarke…not just the memories she has.  Now, Lexa won’t be in the show again. There could be a flood of previously shot scenes that they use – like they did with Lincoln being shot while Octavia was holding the gun to Ilian’s head. 

As mentioned in my analysis linked above, Clarke couldn’t communicate with Lexa in the same way she did in the City of Light – the second AI lacks the virtual reality platform. However, when she is dreaming her mind would be able to create a “CoL” type of landscape where she could talk to Lexa, but it still would not be as ‘real’ as the CoL. This would be in kinda of a lucid dreaming state…but her mind wouldn’t be creating images of Lexa…the flame would. This would be like how Lexa saw the deaths of the previous commanders, but couldn’t directly have a conversation. Now, another thing in play right now is that Clarke still has the ALIE 1 chip in her body, that might play a role in this too. 

“I said I wanted you alive” 

Actually, I can explain this… or at least how I have conceptualized the Flame (ALIE 2.0), ALIE 1.0, and the City of Light.

Yeah, the Flame still works and still is storing the consciousness of all the previous commanders it was implanted with. However, as of right now, not being implanted into a Nightblood it is “dormant” and is not currently “learning” or is having any influence. The Flame works by being implanted into people and it co-exists with humanity and learns from it. It learns by being a part of it. Becca in 3x07: It will know our wants and needs because they’re its wants and needs. The Flame stores the memories and other data of the person that makes a person “who they are”. Your experiences and your decisions make you who you are. By being implanted in multiple people, the Flame is able to learn what it is to be human from multiple sources. It isn’t told what makes a human “human”. We all think and process things differently, and this allows the AI to grasp more of what makes a human a human by coexisting with human. It learns and “feels” the emotions that the Commander feels. 

Now, the Flame does not have a virtual reality platform where the Commander who is implanted with it can “go”. The City of Light was a virtual platform that ALIE 1 created and people could consciously go and “interact” with things. This is why we saw that Clarke was able to interact with Lexa, who was inside the Flame, when she took the City of Light chip….it gave the Flame a virtual reality platform in which it could protect the storied consciousness of the previous commanders into. 

The Commanders can interact with the Flame without a virtual reality platform. The Flame gives the Commander an “increased intuition” and wisdom in making decision making. You know how you sometimes have a “gut feeling”? Well, the Flame does this for the Commander. Becca 3x07: “ALIE 1 didn’t understand what it meant to be human, yes, but ALIE 2 will. It’s designed to interface with humanity on a biological level. It will understand the value of life by coexisting with us.” “ALIE 2 will run all the possibilities. She’ll see the mistakes before we ever make them.” I believe the Flame played a role in Lexa’s decision to leave the Skaikru at Mount Weather. “I made this choice with my head and not my heart.” The Flame that was literally connected to Lexa’s brain gave her increased insight and wisdom into making the best decision. Leaving the Skaikru to save hundreds of her people and save thousands more was the smart move. The Flame didn’t make Lexa make the decisions she made… it just gave her increased wisdom and “gut feelings” to make the best decisions. Wisdom it had learned by being implanted in previous Commanders and seeing mistakes they have made and the consequences of those actions.  Another way the Flame can interact with Commanders is when they are asleep. We saw Lexa get “visions” and “messages” from past Commander when she slept and she had to figure out what the meaning of those messages were. My belief is that ALIE 2.0 was able to use the unconscious brain and use it like a virtual reality platform, but with limitations. 

For example, Lexa saw the past deaths of the Commanders. However, what did this mean? What was the Flame trying to “tell” her with giving her these memories of previous Commanders? Lexa concluded that the “Commanders/Flame” were giving her a message to NOT enact Blood must not have blood because she would suffer the same fate. However, all these past Commanders had died due to Blood must have Blood being part of Grounder law. I believe that the Flame became attached to the Commanders, co-existing with them, and each death affected it. The last moments the Flame had with each Commander were the final moments before their death, moments that it showed Lexa. Lexa mentioned that she saw the death of one by an assassin and another by war. The opposing “deciphering” of what the Flame was trying to subconsciously tell Lexa is that she will suffer the same fate as the past Commanders if she DOES NOT end Blood must have Blood. The Flame doesn’t want to lose another Commander. The Flame becomes “human like” by learning about the value of life and coexisting with humans. So, the Flame could be telling Lexa that she will die, just like the other Commanders have, if she does not continue her plans of ending “Blood must have Blood”….so move her people even further down a road of peace. A road she started to build when she formed the Coalition. And as Clarke offered, “[Lexa’s] legacy will be peace”, when you are at peace…you will not be at war. In war, people die…Commanders die.  

I hope this helped answer some questions you have about the AIs :) 

I saw that it came out in digital copy today…but I didn’t buy a copy so I only have seen some of the artwork posted by the clexacomic team. 

I will agree with you that it is kinda a plot hole and Lexa should have been able to piece a few things together with the images the Flame gave her with Clarke’s account of things from the Ark. I think one way to semi fill-in the hole is that Lexa had outside influences, like Titus, influencing how she interpreted memories she saw. Having a setup belief system that allows you to make sense of the world around you, is hard to let go, even if you are given evidence to contradict it. 

The Flame doesn’t have a ‘digital reality platform’ that would allow a person implanted with the Flame can’t have a convo with previous commanders like Clarke did with Becca in the season 3 finale. The Flame was connected to the City of Light in 3x16, which was a digital reality platform that allowed her to have that direct access to Becca. Lexa couldn’t communicate with Becca or the other commanders directly…she had to interpret the memories they gave her in her dreams or when she enacted the command ‘my mind is your mind’. For instance, in 3x06 the past commanders gave her memories of them being killed by war and by the hands of an assassin. Lexa interpreted it as a warning…that if she does not continue ‘blood must have blood’ she will have an uprising on her hands and her people will try to kill her. We saw this happen in the following episode with Semet trying to kill her and Titus ultimately killing her by accident. The other interpretation was what Clarke brought to the table. Part of her interpretation was that all the previous commanders died because of blood must have blood and to ‘break the cycle’ of violence that ended up in them being killed by war and by an assassin…it will bring peace. 

The Flame doesn’t control you and make decisions for you like ALIE did. ALIE saw humans as creatures that are horrible decision makers that needed to be protected from themselves. Col!Jasper: “Human beings are the only species that act against their own self-interest. We torture each other, we fight, hurt each other, break each other’s hearts. None of that exists here. ALIE is protecting us from ourselves”. The Flame gives the person free will to take the information the Flame gives them in the form of memories. For instance, in season 5 we saw the command ‘my mind is your mind’ which allowed the Flame direct access into the visual cortex of the brain that showed Madi a way to win get them through the gorge with her own memories. I think that Lexa did the same thing with Mt. Weather. She had the Flame run the possibilities, saw more of her people being mowed down by mt. weather’s machine guns, or sacrificing the <50 skaikru inside mt. weather to save her people. If the Mt. Men came into trikru territory, she could attack them and wipe them out. It ran the possibilities, showed her images that she previously saw, and she made a decision with that information. She saved hundreds of her people inside mt. weather, prevented more from being reaped, and no more had to die in the war… it would only cost her betraying Clarke and Skaikru.

We also see Lexa’s back tattoo (imo) depict Becca’s pod falling to earth (x). Now, to me, I see Lexa tattooing that on her back because she was filled with the same feelings Becca was about atonement, saving the human race, etc when Becca can down to earth. When Lexa was implanted with the Flame, while it was bonding with her mind, she saw this image (of becca’s pod descending and Polaris being blown up)…one of the first memories Becca had after implanting herself with the Flame. Lexa couldn’t comprehend the images she was seeing but wanted to remember it and the feeling it gave her…so she had it tattooed on her back. 

Lexa wasn’t told flat out by Becca about Polaris, ALIE, the Ark, etc. She may have been shown memories, but due to the context of it all, couldn’t comprehend it. The other possibility is that the Flame had once shown previous commanders to Lexa in-depth memories of Becca and it ended up with the commander going ‘mad’ or being seen as ‘mad’ by the other grounders and they were killed because of it. So, to protect Lexa, it didn’t show her certain memories. Or it may have shown her, but she may have interpreted it as having the feelings of saving her people and humanity from a ‘threat’... ‘the ark’ did shoot Polaris out of the sky. There are a few ‘work arounds’ you could think of to fill in the plot holes somewhat. 

so, you’ve been replying to a few of my things, and I’ve responded in the notes of the other post. You seem to not like Echo, but i hope you’ll read this. First, Echo and Bellamy didn’t know Murphy was shot. They were outside of the rover when Murphy started shooting the gatlin gun, then after Bellamy and Echo took out the canons, Madi yelled “charge” and we can assume Bellamy and Echo just followed Madi without checking up on Emori and Murphy. It is then clarified that Bellamy and Echo didn’t know Murphy was hurt when Harper told Bellamy that Murphy was shot.  

You better believe that if Bellamy and Echo knew Murphy, Emori, and Monty were struggling to get to the ship... they would not have just been standing outside the transport ship waiting for them. Second, she didn’t know Bellamy wasn’t getting inside the ship.. he told them all to go and that he was right behind them. And she didn’t have access to a radio to overhear Clarke telling Raven that Bellamy was outside the ship. 

The grounders aren’t anti-tech, they actually worship it. In the temple, you can see old computers, laptops, copiers, DVD players, monitors, and other tech piled up. For instance, Clarke was hiding behid one of the ‘shrine piles’ in 3x09:

When Murphy and Emori were inside of the temple in 3x12 (after she had been chipped) Emori said: “i recognize some of this tech.” and Murphy said: “Oh, let me guess, Flame keeper was one of your customers?”. Which was the answer to the question posed in 3x02 about who Emori’s other customers were besides ALIE when she was about to steal Jaha’s backpack that had the ALIE tech in it. 

It wasn’t until after the City of Light that a bunch of people started to destroy all of the tech and saw it as evil. People like Ilian. They ransacked the temple and tried to destroy the Flame. 

I got it on my Ascension day...

I can’t help but think back to Lexa’s tattoo and her ascension day after seeing Madi’s ascension in 5x09. Madi, upon receiving the Flame, passed out and didn’t wake up quite a while after as the Flame was bonding with her mind. The same thing most likely happened with Lexa on her ascension day. 

In episode 3x07, we find out that Lexa got her back tattoo done on her ascension day. Looking at her tattoo, it looks like it is showing Becca’s journey in her pod to earth after Polaris was shot out of the sky. This memory was most likely the first memory shown to Lexa by Becca. However, Lexa had no idea what it meant and could not understand what was happening. Space? Ships? what?? But, it was substantial enough for her to draw it out and have it tattooed on her – along with 7 black circles to symbolize the 7 nightbloods that died in her conclave.