Themes (2024)

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Moral Ambiguity[]

"Maybe there are no good guys." --Abby

The 100 challenges its viewers' morality by allowing the show's protagonists to make questionable decisions. It's up to us to determine how far our goodwill reaches, and how much it takes before a character's past crimes can be forgiven.^[1]

It's very clear that, although everyone on The 100has done some shady and/or mass-murderous things over the course of the show's sevenseasons, our main protagonists ultimately want to do the right thing. But the further we get into the brutal world of the show, the less the characters are concerned with doing the right thing, as opposed to doing the right thing for their own people. In that sense, Shatner is right — after all, even villains usually see themselves as the heroes of their own stories.^[2]

It's not just the characters that are left wondering whether their choices were right, the viewer is forced to ask the same question. Would we go to such a dark and brutal place? Could we? ^[3]

Even the antagonists are never truly "evil". When it comes down to it, they use the same reasoning as our main characters to justify their actions 'I'm doing what's best for my people'. Dante Wallace, despite being the leader of Mount Weather and allowing his staff to experiment on grounders, tried to protect the Delinquents on several occasions, as long ashis people remained safe and secure. In the final episodes of Season 3, Mount Weather has already been compromised. Only then does he allow Cage to drill the Sky People for bone marrow, as his final resort. This can be paralleled to Season 4, when Abby tests Nightblood on "Baylis", and almost on Emori, to save their people from Praimfaya. In both situations, the leader has taken the lives of innocent people, in order to save those of their own. In "The 100", the lines between hero and villain are blurred, and often a matter of perspective rather than true morality.^{[citationneeded]} However, A.L.I.E., the major antagonist of Season Three, is purely evil, and has no remorse of killing innocent people. This is debatable, as A.L.I.E.'s plan was to make life better, human life is not the only type of life worth valuing.

"The 100" doesn't pretend that its protagonists are heroes. It never glorifies violence, no matter who is perpetuating it or however valid its logic is given the protagonists' goals. Even when "The 100" convinces us that we would probably do exactly the same thing in these characters' terrible positions, it never shies away from the unbearable weight of it all.^[4]

This perhaps best exemplified in Blood Must Have Blood (Part 2), where The 100 show its protagonists do terrible things in the name of saving the ones they love, having Clarke and Bellamy kill every single person in Mount Weather (except for Carl Emerson) to save their people from Cage's bone marrow harvesting. This includes Maya Vie, the girl who made their continued survival possible. It includes all of the Mountain Men who harbored Sky Teens at risk to their own lives. It includes the many innocent children who called Mount Weather home. This decision isn't presented as the only option (because there are always other options), but it is presented as necessary if Clarke and Bellamy want to save their loved ones -- and this is an important distinction.^[4] In the following episode, Wanheda (Part 1), interesting subtext comes into play during the Niylah and Clarke story. While Clarke is burdened with guilt over the events of Mount Weather, Niylah sees her as a folk hero of sorts. Not only does she protect Clarke from Grounders searching for her, but she tells her that she supports her previous deadly decision. "You ended the reaping," she says. It's an interesting and complicated thread, about how violence and war creates heroes, villains, and antiheroes.^[5]

In Book One, i.e. the first five seasons, the main theme is doing whatever it takes to survive. In Book Two, which starts with Season Six, the main theme is about trying to become good guys.^[6]

Themes in Dialogue[]

Are there Good Guys?[]

Whether or not so-called "good guys" exist in their world is a question pondered by multiple people throughout the show, most of all Clarke.

This theme first appears in episode 2x13, Resurrection, when Abby says to Clarke "I need you to do something for me — don’t forget that we’re the good guys." In 2x16, Blood Must Have Blood (Part 2), after killing almost the entire population of Mount Weather, Clarke cries in her mother's arms, "I tried. I tried to be the good guy." to which Abby replies, "Maybe there are no good guys."Clarke later repeats this statement to Bellamy in 3x11, Nevermore, after he asks her "What do you do when you realize you might not be the good guy."Clarke's continuous fight for their people throughout seasons 3 and 4 make Abby rethink this, however, as by 4x12, The Chosen, she says to her daughter, "I told you there were no good guys, but that's not true, there are, you are."Clarke does not appear to fully believe her as six years later, when Madi suggests one of the newly-arrived Eligius Prisoners might be a "good guy", Clarke shoots him without blinking an eye and matter-of-factly tells her daughter that "There are no good guys".

With Monty telling them in his last video message to "be the good guys" on Sanctum, the intentions of most main characters from earth, especially Clarke, turns from survival to fulfilling Monty's wish and so, statements that call for a better way to handle things change from directly saying something like "we should be the good guys" to something along the lines of "What would Monty do?".

Is Humanity deserving of survival?[]

Interactions that broadly circle this question happen between Abby and Marcus Kane throughout the entire range of their relationship, from a discussion as early as the Pilot over them becoming a romantic relationship until Kane's death.

In the Pilot, Kane publicly arrests Abby for exceeding the maximum medical supplies allowed per patient while saving the life of Chancellor Jaha. Abby takes it in stride, explaining that it was worth it to break the law in order to prevent Kane from becoming Chancellor. Kane, as acting Chancellor, sentences her to death. Explaining his political motivations, he states "I choose at every turn and at any cost to make sure that the human race stays alive.” To this, Abby replies, "That's the difference between us, Kane, I choose to make sure we deserve to stay alive."

Faced with their mortality in Resurrection as they are buried under the rubble of Tondc, Kane and Abby talk about the worst decisions they have had to make, naming the Culling and Abby letting her husband be executed. After this, Abby wonders, "After everything we've done, do we even deserve to survive?".

Two seasons later, in Gimme Shelter, faced with the prospect of likely fatal human trials for Nightblood, Abby talks to Kane, whom she is by now in a relationship with, to ask for his advice. "If I take a life to find a cure does that make me a murderer?" she asks. He replies that he does not have an answer. She continues, "What if it can save us all, would I be able to live with myself then?" He takes a second and then, "Taking a life should never be easy, I hope it's not easy for you. Your humanity is your greatest strength but sometimes we need a different kind of strength, we need to survive, then we can all find our humanity again."

When proceeding with the procedure an episode later, Abby says to Raven, "First, we survive. Then we find our humanity again."

In What You Take With You, after Abby has transferred the dying Kane's consciousness into another man's body because she believed he most of all deserved to live a peaceful life on Sanctum, Kane decides that he does not want to live like this and asks Raven and Indra to help him kill himself. Finding this out, Abby rushes to stop him but cannot convince him to change his mind. Some of their last words to each other pick up this theme of theirs once again. Kane explains that the body snatching of the [[Primes]] is wrong but Abby keeps begging him to stay alive, telling him that they can start over now. Kane tells her "Not like this. You told me once that your job was to make sure that we deserve to survive. You remember?" Abby nods. "That's what I'm doing now." After Kane assures Abby of her strength and they say their last I love yous, Kane finishes by saying, "This is how we get our humanity back."

Identity[]

"Who we are and who we need to be to survive are two very different things" --Bellamy

The idea of who people are and what makes them who they are is a prominent theme throughout the series, becoming more prominent as the series goes on. The 100 has never been about vilifying people because of their actions – however horrible.^[7]

This perhaps best exemplified in the character of Bellamy, who goes through a number of changes related to power, morality, and loyalty since the show's beginning. Notably in his Season Three finale explanation, of his partially responsible for the massacre of 300 Grounders, in that he needed to think in black and white terms in order to survive in a world that's anything but, and now all he can do is work for forgiveness.^[7]

Free will and the loss of one's agency has been a recurring theme on The 100 since the beginning. ^[1]

Sexuality[]

Unlike many shows, sex and sexuality isn't a dominant theme on the 100. For example, it's the aspect of love and intimacy, rather than lust and sexuality, which makes Clarke's part in Finn's demise so difficult–the show plays with the idea that human connection, whether it's through friendship, family, alliance or romance, is painful because it matters, not because it is fundamentally wrong.^[8]

Equality[]

In the futuristic world of The 100, discrimination has become a non-issue. The only way to differentiate between people is what clan you're part of. Everything else just simply doesn't matter. It's the shows modern approach to gender, race, and sexuality that allows us a wealth of well-written characters, both male and female, who encompass violence in different ways.^[3]

The show has an impressive amount of women in leadership roles, and much of its exploration of violence is around the lengths they will go to ensure the survival of their individual communities. In the world of The 100, which seems to be implicitly a world which has moved beyond modern prejudice, this is removed from gender… but as viewers now, in a world which very much still has issues with gender inequality, these make for complex women with strong and uncompromising characterisation. They are allowed to make decisions which affect the plot as well as their own emotional state and relationships.^[9]

Suicide/Sacrifice[]

Self sacrifice is unfortunately a common theme in the post-apocalytic world where survival becomes the biggest objective. This hard decision is mostly done by characters in 2 types of situations. The first one is being depressed and disappointed in the future when you are tired of constant fighting for survival. Characters just out of options to continue their way to the better world when they realize that there won't be one.And the second is made mostly by selfless people. It's a sacrifice for somewhat or someone. This happens when characters understand that giving up their life is the only option for someone else to survive or to prevent something even worse from happening.

Notes and Trivia[]

• After Nevermore episode, Stephen King was inspired to tweet about the show.^[10][11] Sparking a mini-debate with William Shatner over twitter on morality in Arkadia.^[2][12]

References[]