The 100: It’s time for everyone to forgive Clarke Griffin

When it comes to The 100, everyone has a little blood on their hands. Clarke Griffin may have a lot to answer for, but so does everyone else.

It feels like a lifetime ago that Clarke Griffin was taking in one last look at Camp Jaha before walking away into the wilderness to live on her own as penance for her actions at Mount Weather. But here we are, 130 years or so later, and not a whole lot has changed when it comes to who bears the responsibility for tough decisions.

Despite saving everyone’s lives too many times to count, no one ever seems to hesitate to jump at the opportunity to rag on Clarke. And just as the blame game was starting to get old with some of fans of The 100, it was beginning to get old for Clarke, too — until her consciousness was overwritten with that of Josephine Lightbourne, that is.

Though Clarke’s mind is, for all intents and purposes, dead (at least for now), her conflicts with other characters have not disappeared and, assuming we get Clarke back by the end of the season, there are a lot of relationships that still need mending. But if her emotional arc at the start of the season was any indication, she is going to come back more determined to find happiness for herself than ever before.

The 100 — “Shifting Sands” — Pictured: Eliza Taylor as Clarke — Photo: Katie Yu/The CW — ©2018 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

With season 6 taking place immediately after the events of season 5, it’s no surprise that the premiere opened with tensions running just as high and wounds just as fresh as they were before our characters went into cryosleep. Raven is still traumatized by Abby’s use of the shock collar on her; Octavia is still engulfed in the wrath of Blodreina; and Bellamy hasn’t forgotten that Clarke left him to die in Polis. Everyone’s emotional baggage from earth coupled with the loss of Monty and Harper was never going to make for an easy transition into this Brave New World, but Clarke was ready for a fresh start.

In just the first five episodes of season 6, we saw her attempting to make amends with just about everyone from earth who’s out of cryo. And, as always, most of these interactions ended with Clarke getting blamed for, well, just about everything. Shaw, Raven, Murphy… even Clarke’s psychosis in 6×02 had her believe that her own mother had turned against her. And it took no less than a few hours in Sanctum for Russell and Simone to pretty much place all the blame for the end of the world on her shoulders.

Clarke absolutely has some decisions to answer for. And for the most part, when others have been angry with her for making those choices, that anger is completely justified. Shaw, for instance, (R.I.P.) knew Clarke as nothing more than the reason he and the girl he loved were tortured. His anger was valid, but was it fair of him to go so far as to say that she hasn’t done anything to redeem herself when he doesn’t know the sacrifices she’s made to do just that? (Please see: stayed behind in a death wave to save her friends.)

The 100 – “Praimfaya”. Pictured: Eliza Taylor as Clarke. Photo Credit: Diyah Pera/The CW

Clarke has certainly made some unfavorable decisions, but she also knows better than anyone that the cost of making those choices is living with them afterward and doing right by the people she hurts in the process.

While Clarke has made her fair share of mistakes — admitting herself in the first episode of this new season that she would’ve done things differently if she could — she has also been forced to make decisions that no one else has had to make, or that others didn’t have the emotional strength to make themselves. It’s easy for other characters we’ve seen lash out at Clarke, like Raven and Murphy, to judge her actions when they haven’t been put in her position. They haven’t been forced to choose between saving who they love or saving humanity.

Take the list from season 4, for example. Those who didn’t make the cut were obviously furious, but would they have been able to do much better? Could they have accepted responsibility for the fates of their friends and their neighbors? Clarke didn’t make the list because she wanted to. She did it because it had to be done and knew that if she didn’t, someone else would have had to carry the burden. Heeding the words of Dante Wallace, she always chooses to bear the weight of difficult decisions so others don’t have to.

The 100 – “Ye Who Enter Here”. Pictured: Eliza Taylor as Clarke. Photo Credit: Cate Cameron/The CW

The greatest obstacle standing between Clarke and forgiveness in the past has undoubtedly been her physical and emotional isolation from the core group: her escape from Mount Weather in season 2, her walkabout and time in Polis in season 3, and her sacrifice at the end of season 4 that resulted in six years spent on a scorched earth with only a child to keep her company. But on a new planet with the chance to start over, Clarke was ready to repair her broken relationships and take Monty’s message to heart.

Clarke always does what she thinks is best in the moment, and though she may not always be right, she knows that she’s responsible for living with her choices, even if it means the people she cares about will hate her for it.

But unlike in previous seasons where Clarke has accepted one emotional beating after another from those around her, the start of season 6 showed us the beginnings of a Clarke who is ready to stand by her decisions, atone, and move on. If other people won’t forgive her for past grievances, she’s going to learn to forgive herself.

I am desperately hoping that Clarke’s fight on The 100 isn’t over just yet so that when/if she returns, we’ll get to see her continue down the path toward salvation that the beginning of season 6 set up for her. She is not blameless, but in the wisdom of Maya from Mount Weather, no one is.