In Defense of Bellamy Blake: His Season 3 Turn on The 100

Bellamy Blake explained: the tragic hero of The 100

The 100 has never been a slow-moving show, and season 3 went off the rails from the first episode. The CW drama, created by Jason Rothenberg from Kass Morgan's novels, ran for seven seasons and 100 episodes between March 19, 2014 and September 30, 2020. Season 3 aired from January 21 to May 19, 2016, and by its fourth episode, Watch the Thrones, it had already piled up more deaths and betrayals than most seasons of Game of Thrones.

For anyone catching up, the premise is simple. About a hundred juvenile detainees are sent from a space station to Earth, ninety-seven years after a nuclear apocalypse, and they run into several groups of survivors. Clarke and Bellamy lead the young arrivals in season one, and the two have been linked ever since. That pairing explains why Bellamy measures himself against her so often.

One of the things the series does best amid all that action is develop its characters. In Watch the Thrones, Bellamy Blake, played by Bob Morley, acts differently from the way viewers have come to expect. The first reaction might be shock. After some thought, the change makes sense, and it makes Bellamy an even more tragic hero.

A defense of Bellamy Blake has to start with where he began. In season one he was awful. He was not quite as bad as Finn, and he was frightened, but on any scale of Grounder-style violence he sat high. That is acceptable, because over thirteen episodes the audience watched him learn two things: that he is something of a coward, and that he got in way over his head.

He leaned on Clarke, played by Eliza Taylor, for her leadership and her refusal to indulge nonsense. He learned from her and grew into a character viewers could not help cheering for. That growth is real. It is also fragile, and season 3 shows how much of the insecure season one Bellamy is still inside the makeshift guard uniform.

A protector without anyone to protect

Octavia, played by Marie Avgeropoulos, was the lucky Blake. She got a clean slate on the ground. Bellamy had a role drilled into him as a child: protector. Without his sister to protect, he loses his sense of purpose, then wisely points that energy at saving his friends in Mount Weather.

Like his sister, Bellamy is more a soldier than a leader. When it counts he looks to those in charge, the ones he respects, before he decides anything, because in his world a decision made alone gets people hurt. Octavia was caught and imprisoned on the Ark. Scouting parties were impaled looking for her. Finn ran off, killed innocents at TonDC and got himself killed.

That history leaves Bellamy much more skittish about decisions than Clarke, and more comfortable letting others lead. When Kane and Abby arrive on the ground he looks almost relieved that someone else will make the hard choices. He rebels to rescue the 48 in Mount Weather, and he seems to be in charge, but he gets approval from a leadership figure first. Like many others he asks what Clarke would do.

Mount Weather and the weight left behind

At the end of season two, Clarke and Bellamy make the horrific decision to irradiate Mount Weather, killing everyone inside, men, women and children. The show does not spell out how that gnaws at him or how it has changed him since the story jumped ahead three months. It does not have to. The inference is easy.

Clarke, riddled with guilt, leaves Arkadia, hoping she takes the negativity with her. She does not rid anyone of guilt. She runs away. Someone had to stay: to watch Jasper fall deeper into madness, to see Raven's health decline, and to endure the infighting among Skaikru over the Grounders' betrayal. That someone was Bellamy.

He risked his life to infiltrate Mount Weather, hoping Lexa and the Grounder army would save his friends without killing the innocent. For all his anger and bluster, he is a good person and maybe one of the kindest on the show. Then Lexa betrayed Skaikru and left them to be tortured and slowly picked off. She and the Grounders left Clarke, Bellamy and Monty in a security room to watch loved ones chained to beds and drilled for bone marrow. They were left to make a horrific choice. In that sense, Lexa and the Grounders made them monsters.

Echo, Gina and the moment Bellamy gave up

In season 3, Echo approaches Bellamy at Mount Weather with a warning that Ice Nation plans to attack the Coalition at the capital, Polis. He believes her, because they were imprisoned together at Mount Weather and she saved his life. He goes to the capital to warn his friends, meaning to be a hero. The attack happens at Mount Weather instead and kills everyone inside, including his girlfriend, Gina. He is not the hero. He is the one who left them to die.

In his own eyes, that makes him as bad as Lexa and the Grounders. Gina matters less as a person than as a symbol, since the show never lets viewers know her well. What she represents is his hopelessness. He feels he cannot protect anyone, and his rash choices only cost more lives. So he gives up.

The comparison with Finn is useful. When Finn snapped, he went on a rampage and killed families. When Bellamy snapped, he just stopped making decisions. Pike sensed that and took advantage of a scared young man, molding him to his prejudices. Bellamy knows not all Grounders are murderers, but his experiences and his sense of ineptitude have shaken him so badly that he follows the loudest voice, the one that might get him killed.

Pike, Lincoln and a bad plan

The moment Pike suggests killing three hundred Grounders with ten armed men, Bellamy knows better than anyone how little guns matter in this war. He knows they will die if he agrees to shoot at a fully armed war party. By accepting, he accepts his own fate, since at least then he will not be responsible for killing anyone else. He will not be Bellamy the leader but Bellamy the soldier, taking orders.

Then Lincoln stops him from leaving, and whatever resolve Bellamy had to be the man viewers love drains away. In front of him stands a strong man who has endured torture, mental abuse and many near-death experiences and still comes out on top. Lincoln protected Octavia and helped shape her into a warrior, both things that were Bellamy's job. With Lincoln guarding Arkadia, Bellamy is useless to Kane and Abby. He is useful to Pike.

Why the turn fits: five threads from earlier seasons

• The role he inherited: protector of Octavia, a job drilled into him as a child.
• The habit of deferring: he looks to leaders he respects before deciding, and he asks what Clarke would do.
• The guilt: Mount Weather, and the choice made with Clarke at the end of season two.
• The failure: a warning that sends him to the capital while the attack hits Mount Weather and kills Gina.
• The replacement: Lincoln takes over the protector role, and Bellamy loses the one purpose he had left.

Is Bellamy Blake a villain? The verdict

At first, siding with Pike, procuring the gun and agreeing to the attack on the Grounders look like a complete turnaround from the Bellamy fans knew. A closer look says otherwise. He is not willing to kill Grounders simply because his girlfriend died. His actions have been building for a long time, and he has finally hit his limit of heartache. He is human, not a punching bag.

That is the defense. Bellamy is not a villain, and he is not a reversal. He is a frightened soldier who found the wrong commander at the worst possible time. The writers set this up from season one, when he first learned that his decisions could hurt people.

If things continue as they are, there is probably only one person who can pull him back: Clarke. That does not mean the two need to be together romantically, and the story is stronger if they stay friends. What matters is that someone gives Bellamy a reason to lead again, the way she once did.

Sources

• The 100 (TV series), Wikipedia — season 3 cast, characters and episode list