What would you change?

[u/Walkerbait1881]

Spoilers for all seasons here. If you could change one thing in the show what would it be. Could be a theory, the end, a character death, anything. Mine was I thought Bill was going to be A.L.I.E. 3. My theory came from what Becca said to A.L.I.E.

Perverse instantiation: the implementation of a benign final goal through deleterious methods unforeseen by a human program. Like killing 6.5 billion people to solve overpopulation. Or starting a war to transcend into greatness. The goal isn't everything, B.I.L.L. How you reach the goal matters, too. I'm sorry that I didn't teach you that

He had similar traits lol

[u/I_amnotreal]

There's a lot of stuff that I would change. Just season 7 needs some serious facelift. I am one of the few who actually liked the ending, could be because I always found fictional explorations of transhumanism interesting and the ending we got plays straight into it, but it's still chaotic and the timelines don't make sense (especially when you try to trace the time progression between Bardo, Sanctum and Earth). But it would take more than "one thing" to fix.

What's pretty easily fixable with minimal change is another of the issues I have with the show, which is the disconnect between season 1 and season 2 and, most notably, the threads of characterisation that get cut short.

So, with the full benefit of hindsight, I would make some changes to the events of s01 to make it fit better with what we got later.

Clarke in s01 is mostly fine, because her priorities don’t as much change as they expand. I actually like how she sounds idealistic and naïve in the early episodes, because it makes such a great contrast with who she becomes later. The only major thing I would change about her in s1 would be removing at least some of the cursed Clarke-Wells-Finn-Raven-Bellamy pentahedron, because it leads nowhere. Wells doesn’t have to be in love with her to want to be her friend, Raven doesn’t have to run into Bellamy’s arms to get back at Clarke or Finn (I’m not exactly sure who she wanted to piss off more). Clarke making out with Finn makes sense on paper for the drama of it, but doesn’t work that well with what we’re later see as Clarke’s defining character traits, nor does really do anything to justify Finn’s rather rapid descent into madness at the start of season 2. Clarke is duty-driven like nobody else around and Finn loves Raven to the point of potentially giving up his life for her. And yeah, s02 shows he isn't entirely right in his head, but it all strikes me as wholly unnecessary, especially since you can just as well use Raven getting hurt to send him on a spiral (I'll come back to it later). Besides, we all know Clarke/pulling levers is the only real canon ship.

Bellamy also works pretty well in season 1 – the core of who he is later is there and he comes off as a wildcard because there’s this whole mystery of “what did he do”, which is fun. Some of his actions are questionable, but I don't mind that, and it only gets confusing because the characters he interacts with aren't consistent.

First one is Octavia, who’s probably the one character I wasn’t sold on for the longest time and her portrayal in s1 has a lot to do with that. We are told that she’s the “girl from under the floor” and that she never got to experience… well, pretty much anything that wasn’t provided by Bellamy and their mother in their cabin. That she is the forbidden child, and that’s enough of a crime to be get a basically delayed death sentence. That everyone hates her because she represents the unforgivable offence of choosing one’s child survival over the wellbeing of many. That she was never accepted by the group even after ending in lock-up. Total social isolation sort of thing.

And yet she seems perfectly adjusted. She’s flirty, confident, gets along with people without issues, instantly has guys fawning at her. Nobody even brings up the floor thing after they step off the ship besides her and that’s only when she tries to get under Bellamy’s skin. And okay, defying stereotypes is fun, but not when you still try to build on them, so all this goes. So, she is this strange, shy girl who doesn’t speak much, who still gets the side-eye from everyone and who needs to be defended by Bellamy all the time. Even here, in this brand new world, she doesn’t belong. When there’s this one guy who’s actually nice to her, Bellamy steps in and puts an end to it, which sparks the first fight that’s then fuelled by his overt protectiveness even further, until she runs away and ends with Lincoln. We learn that he stays away from his people because he doesn’t belong with them, just like Octavia feels like she doesn’t belong with the 100, thus giving her the first real human contact besides her brother and their connection is sparked.

(cont'd)

[u/I_amnotreal → u/I_amnotreal]

The second character who's crucial for Bellamy's arc is Murphy. It isn't limited to season 1 but it's the season where it's the most prominent. Because season one Murphy is introduced to be a nuance for the main characters to solve and it's Bellamy who bears the brunt of that impact and it doesn't really work out that well in the long run. Which sounds like a weird thing to say, considering Murphy is by far the best character in the entire show and consistently the one with one of the most interesting story arcs across every season past season one. He works pretty well in season one too, if you look at it as a standalone story. What fails is the transition from s01 onwards, where we're getting the irredeemable-edgy-asshole Murphy in the last scene we see him in in s01 and then... maybe not a total one-eighty, but at least one-twenty-five to still-kind-of-an-asshole-but-actually-a-human-being Murphy in s02e01.

I have my guesses here – he was never meant to be a major part of season one or make it past it and it shows. He gets no scene that isn’t there to prop another character up, no zinger or any line that’s dedicated to anything but providing context/exposition for others, no single titbit of information on what got him to be on the ship or even a shred of backstory (minus the dead father part that I will come back to later). I don’t remember if we’re even given his name until the Charlotte event and the fallout from it takes place and it’s provided mostly so the others could dramatically scream it into the night with the audience realising who they meant. His initial  purpose is to be the (partially offscreen) ticking time bomb and a sacrificial lamb for Bellamy’s “big moment of truth”.

That needs fixing. Not the whole lot of it, but some adjustments can be made to make it fit more seamlessly together.

The first is relatively minor – I’d change the “one background information we get about Murphy until season two” from a dead father to his crime. It doesn’t really have any sort of impact as-is. The show itself is pretty much like “get in line” about that, it draws unnecessary parallels between Murphy’s and Clarke’s backstory and we don’t even need more reasons for people to be pissed at Wells because even if Jaha didn’t kill every other kid’s parent, he still was responsible for sentencing them, tearing them away from their families and dropping them onto an unknown land without any sort of warranty they’re going to survive the trip.

Instead we get Murphy’s reason to be among the prisoners. I’d even keep the same we get later because it’s a good one – an act of vandalism, setting guards’ room afire. It plays nicely into the edgy, violent teen persona and adds to the whole “running out of oxygen” situation, because a fire would make it even worse and this shithead’s selfish act of rebellion might have ended up costing even more people their lives. Just one more reason to hate him for the main characters and the audience both.

The next sequence I’d change is Murphy’s second confrontation with Bellamy after Murphy’s return from the grounders’ camp.

If Murphy was to be used effectively as a tool to boost Bellamy up, he should’ve died there, either right away to show that Bellamy isn’t to be messed with, or a moment later, after Bellamy spares his life because “Clarke was right” and Bellamy can “be a better man” and Murphy attacks him again immediately after, providing a solid moral conundrum about the merit of good deeds (which would also play nicely into the whole mountain people subplot later – because is mercy/leniency a virtue or a show of weakness/stupidity in this world?)

But if we’re keeping Murphy in the plot, the scene we got doesn’t work, because it actively a) introduces unnecessary inaccuracies, b) messes up the tension buildup for the finale and c) complicates stuff for when we need Murphy to be in the plot again and not under constant scrutiny of others in s02.

(cont'd)

[u/I_amnotreal → u/I_amnotreal]

The whole sequence, as-is, is messy. It doesn’t work on the very basic level of actual physics (setting off an explosive in an enclosed space is a big no-no if you want to keep your organs inside your body), it doesn’t work for the narrative flow, because instead of allowing the culmination to the conflict between the alpha male and the minor antagonist to come to a full fruition it just makes the tension fizzle out, too close to the finale when pieces should be already falling into place to set up the stage for the final battle, and it doesn’t work thematically as a part of an overarching story, as it makes Murphy into an even more unpredictable factor instead of pushing him into any concrete direction. “Unstable dirty bomb that can go off any minute” can be fun as a concept for a character, but it complicates any future plans if those plans in any way include making said character more ambiguous and redeemable who the others learn to trust without coming off as gullible morons. As-is, the tiny threads of trust between Murphy and Bellamy that develop early in season 2 compromise Bellamy’s character significantly, because there’s absolutely nothing to base them on that early, not if the other party flew off the handle two times already, reaping progressively more victims each time. Bellamy is being an idiot by allowing Murphy to first join them on the rescue mission (following a rather weak reasoning that could be replaced with two lines of dialogue) and then to go off with Finn alone (who should also be a lot more wary, because Murphy just shot his girlfriend and it’s not even certain she’ll recover yet), trusting that Murphy not acting like a criminally-insane piece of work for five minutes in a row is a sign that everything is fine, some two days after falling for the exact same scheme. It works out because the plot wants it to work out, not because it makes sense or is a logical progression for any of the involved characters.

The solution is quite simple imho. Keep everything until Murphy’s return from the grounders’ camp, keep Bellamy wanting to kick him out, keep Clarke being like “he’s hurt and also he might have some information we need” and Bellamy begrudgingly allowing him to stay until he’s better and he tells them what he knows. But then it’s made clear that it’s a boot again.

That’s gonna be Murphy’s motivation now – he kills two guys who tried to kill him before and then he tries to off Bellamy, because with them out of the picture he might be allowed to stay and that’s a much better alternative than the grounders. The sense of injustice might still play a role and all that, especially once he gets to Bellamy, but it’s mostly about survival chances. Clear cut and very in-line with what we know about Murphy from seasons 2 to 4.

I’d keep the two stealthy kills. Then we’re adding Raven walking in on him and him stabbing her before she realises what’s going on – it’s more personal, we’ve already seen he has a thing for going at people with knives, she can still survive but end up incapacitated later just like with a gunshot – stealing her gun (because why there even was one lying around?) and leaving her to die.

I’d move the attack on Bellamy into some more secluded space – maybe he’s gone off to check the perimeter before the battle - so there’s no option for outside intervention.

Bellamy has to deal with it on his own like the capable, natural leader he props himself up as, which gives you two possible outcomes: either he wins the physical struggle (which isn’t that much of a stretch – he is older, stronger, has undergone training as a guard and was already shown physically empowering Murphy before – making it the most obvious solution) or he talks his way out of it.

Bellamy chooses the latter. Well, he kinda tries that anyway, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, because he’s not that good at it. Let’s make him good at it. It doesn’t even require that many changes – we keep his motivation (“I was doing what people expected me to do”) and just make his apology sound more genuine, even if it leaves some ambiguity to whether he actually means it or not. That alone is enough to chip at Murphy’s rage and give him a momentary pause and Bellamy – an opportunity to get some good arguments in. The “you have no chances on your own, if you kill me the others will find out and you’re fucked anyway” and “we need all hands on deck to deal with this outside threat that you also have a bone to pick with, how about we put this thing between us on a pause at least until after we’ve dealt with it” kind of arguments, that speak directly to Murphy’s main motivation – his willingness to stay alive – and get him to lie down his weapon.

(cont'd)

[u/I_amnotreal → u/I_amnotreal]

That fixes two issues in one go. Bellamy now knows that he has a shot at talking Murphy down if he flips off his lid again, thus making his later decisions a little more sensible. It also gives his leader position more validation, because he showed his skills in conflict resolution, and justifies a bit better why he’s so pissed after the adults arrive and he’s no longer a top dog – he knows he can handle it because he already did. And Murphy is shown as someone who can shove his grievances aside if it benefits his chances to make it out unscathed.

They go back to the ship and oops, Raven isn’t dead and she is given medical attention and the odds are she’s gonna wake up any minute and tell everyone who did this and the camp is full of people getting ready for the battle with grounders and on high alert and there’s no way Murphy gets away with it, so he chooses to skip off, because at that point the forest looks like a safer bet, which lands him in the exact same situation as originally.

Raven wakes up the last possible moment to save the day and tell Jasper how to fire the engines (thus fixing another stupid contrivance about Jasper not knowing what to do while being explicitly told what to do and so much attention being focused on Raven trying to get down there and being unable to). The rest plays out like it did, end of season.

The last piece of the puzzle is the emotional manipulation scene with Raven and Murphy in s02e01. I mean, it works, but it’s such a blatant shortcut to making him a more relatable/redeemable character that I’m kinda ashamed that it worked so well on me.

First, let’s make his injuries at least look a little more serious, so he doesn’t come off as a dramatic, whiny bitch when he says he’s dying. Because clearly he’s not, if he can run around the forest within the next day or two (like, maybe a stomach wound? The kind that has the medics go “it missed all important parts and we patched him up, gave him enough fluids and some anti-inflammatory drugs and he’s good to go” about but would still be impossible to deal with on your own if you don’t know how to, have no supplies and you’re already dizzy from blood loss?)

Then we make the backstory drop better. Remember the only part we learned about Murphy thus far? The crime part? Only now we learn the details. We learn about the medicine, about father getting caught and executed, about mother drinking herself to death, about her blaming Murphy for it all. Then we learn that he was super fucking young when that happened – like ten or something. We start with the information we already have and turn it upside down and it explains everything that happened before all of sudden. Why he was so pissed at Wells – he had probably even more reasons than anybody else, as it broke his family apart and took away like over a half of his conscious life that he spent in lock-up. Why he got so angry when the crowd collectively decided to let Charlotte go and forgive her – Murphy wasn’t. And finally why he crawled back to the ship – he’s been alone for long enough, and even the company of a person who he tried to kill and who must hate him is better than nothing.

Bam, irredeemable prick to a sympathetic character any% speedrun done.

It works better on Raven, too, because – for some reason that even she doesn’t fully understand – she doesn’t tell anyone that it was Murphy who attacked her when help finally arrives. She does that anyway, but it doesn’t add up to much as it is general knowledge, so it’s a nice gesture but rather meaningless in the long run?

But if nobody else knows, it stays between them, and only them, adding this as a complication to their every single interaction for more angst and drama, to only be finally resolved in season six when he stays behind with her.

Bellamy can suspect something or can just get angry about Murphy being there after he ditched them right before the battle and get them both arrested and in the same place as they’d have been otherwise without that information being revealed.

More importantly though, it affects Finn’s state of knowledge. You see, now he has no idea that Murphy had anything to do with Raven’s (who is still his gf because we got rid of the whole Clarke romance thing) injuries. No, now it was the grounders that almost killed her, just like they killed so many other people. Now, Finn is properly angry and cannot curb his rage when they go searching for their missing friends and encounter a village. If he knew, he might have taken it out on Murphy, but he doesn’t and it’s all the innocent people he kills in that village who pay the price. And Murphy is there and he tries to stop it but he can’t and it doesn’t weigh on his consciousness in any way, not at all.