Does Octavia Die in The 100? Major Character Deaths Explained

Does Octavia die in The 100?

Does Octavia die in The 100? It is one of the most common questions about the CW series, and the answer is no. Marie Avgeropoulos's Octavia Blake lives to the end. In the series finale, "The Last War," which aired on September 30, 2020 and was written and directed by creator Jason Rothenberg, she steps between the warring sides and talks both of them down. Humanity passes the final test, and the survivors, Octavia among them, transcend.

The fear is understandable. Octavia lost Lincoln in season 3, spent long stretches in danger, and early in season 7 she was stranded until she was rescued from Skyring and returned to Bardo. Her brother Bellamy dies in season 7's "Blood Giant," which aired on September 9, 2020. A show that kills this many people in this many ways trains its audience to expect the worst for every favorite. So when people ask whether Octavia dies in The 100, they are really asking whether the writers will keep punishing her.

They do not take her life. They take almost everyone around her, and the pattern of those deaths is the more interesting question. A character's death can be about the person who dies, or about the people left behind, and The 100 does both. The four deaths below, from the show's first three seasons, show the difference, and they explain why one of them became the most argued-over moment in the series.

Octavia's survival matters more than a yes or no answer. She is introduced as the girl who spent her childhood hidden on the Ark, a sister no one was allowed to know about, and she becomes a warrior, a leader and finally the person who stops the last war. Every death on this page touches that arc in some way. Lincoln's loss reshapes her, Bellamy's loss in the final season tests her again, and her survival gives the ending a human face.

Wells Jaha: the death that set the rules

Wells is killed in the third episode, "Earth Kills," which aired on April 2, 2014. Charlotte, a young girl whose parents were executed, kills him, and the show's first big shock lands on the one character who believed in rules. As the chancellor's son, Wells was the golden boy: trusting, orderly, convinced that the ground would be kinder than the Ark had been.

That trust is what killed him. He extended it to the wrong person and overestimated how much his name would protect him. Like Ned Stark's execution in Game of Thrones, his death told the audience that nobody was safe, and he came to stand for innocence in a story about its loss. Eli Goree played him, and what is striking in hindsight is how little Wells did wrong. The death was done to him, and the show used it to establish its tone.

Finn Collins: a death he wrote himself

Finn's death is the opposite of Wells's. In season 2, after the massacre at Tondc, he faces execution under Grounder law. Lexa sentenced him, and Clarke killed him to spare him a slow death. Thomas McDonell played the part as a man convinced he was the hero of Clarke's story, and the massacre was the moment that conviction turned monstrous: he treated the killing of innocents as a way of finding her.

Once he understood what he had done, he surrendered. His death follows directly from his own choices, and the consequences land on the people who loved him, namely Clarke, who has to carry out the sentence, and Lexa, whose forgiveness is tested. Because Finn authored it, the death feels earned even when it hurts.

Lincoln: a sacrifice that fit the man

Lincoln dies in season 3, episode 9, "Stealing Fire," which aired on March 31, 2016. Ricky Whittle's Lincoln had been the bridge between Skaikru and the Grounders, and when Pike held the Grounders captive he surrendered to spare the others. Pike executed him while Octavia watched from a distance. For fans, the loss was no surprise: Whittle's casting as Shadow Moon in American Gods had made his exit look inevitable.

The writing earns the death on character grounds. Lincoln was never a man of casual violence, he understood that a fight would cost the people he loved, and he chose a quiet surrender over a loud one. It is painful to watch, and harder still to watch Octavia's reaction, but it fits who he was. He made the decision himself, and that is what separates it from the next entry.

There is a plain reason his exit still stings. Lincoln had been written as the show's gentlest fighter, so when the story took him it took a bit of its own hope as well. Octavia's own survival, set against that, reads as the show's answer to the question of what hope is still available to the people who stayed alive. Readers who want the wider picture of the series can start with the guide to The 100, and the case for a character who split fans is made in In defense of Bellamy Blake.

Lexa: a death that belonged to someone else

Lexa dies earlier in the same season, in episode 7, "Thirteen," which aired on March 3, 2016. Alycia Debnam-Carey's Commander is shot by Titus when he tries to kill Clarke, and the shot turns out to matter for another reason: the A.L.I.E. 2.0 chip is in her neck. The death moves three plot threads at once. It advances the A.I. storyline, restarts friction with the Ice Nation, and gives Titus his arc of anger and guilt.

Notice who is missing from that list: Lexa. Her death is about Titus's anguish and the machinery of the season, and she has almost no hand in it. A character who survived as a peacekeeper in a brutal world is turned into a delivery system for a piece of technology. Fans reacted loudly, and the complaint holds up. After weighing the other deaths, the manner of Lexa's is the only one that reads as out of character.

The main deaths in The 100 at a glance

Episode titles, numbers and air dates follow the series' broadcast on The CW.

Lexa's death evaluated: what the pattern says

Run the four deaths through one test and a pattern appears: did the character's own choices decide it? Finn and Lincoln did, in opposite ways. One chose cruelty and paid for it, and the other chose mercy and paid for it. Both deaths belong to the people who died. Wells and Lexa did not decide theirs. They were catalysts, and the story used them to move other characters.

That is why Lexa's death angered fans more than any of the others. A catalyst death is easy to forgive when it opens a show, as Wells's did, and much harder when it comes after the audience has spent two seasons learning why the character is worth keeping. Lexa had been the show's most compelling leader. Reducing her to a plot device while Titus's guilt took center stage turned the loss into a statement about priorities, and viewers read it that way.

The honest verdict is that The 100 handled Lincoln's death better than Lexa's, even if both devastated. Lincoln's end deepened the man and set up Octavia's grief. Lexa's end served the plot and left the character behind. The show survives that judgment because of what Octavia does afterward: she carries the weight of Lincoln's loss across the rest of the series and ends it on her feet.

A fair ranking of the four, by how well each death serves the story that contains it, runs Lincoln, Finn, Wells, Lexa. Lincoln's works because it fits him and wounds Octavia. Finn's works because it follows his actions. Wells's works because it teaches the audience the rules, even though he did nothing to deserve it. Lexa's is last because it was built to serve someone else's arc. None of this makes the show a lesser one, only a series whose writers sometimes forgot that a death is a final scene for the person who dies, not only a beginning for everyone else.

Sources

• The 100 (TV series), Wikipedia — cast, characters, season and episode details