The 100: Does Octavia’s redemption arc feel genuine?
Octavia Blake has one of the most compelling villain arcs on The 100. But this season, she begins to make her way toward redemption — and we’re just not sure if we’re convinced yet.
With four or five different storylines happening at any given moment, the sixth season of The 100 is one of the show’s most complex seasons yet. But with any series that covers multiple plotlines at once, certain ones sometimes fall on the back burner.
That’s something we’re hoping doesn’t happen with Octavia Blake’s redemption arc. Her fifth season descent into villainy is one of the most compelling storylines of the entire series, and we’re sad that it’s coming to an end regardless of how it happens. But if Octavia is going to make her way back to becoming the girl beneath the floor, we at least want it to feel genuine.
Plenty of fans were curious to find out how Octavia would redeem herself during season six, and for a while, things seemed promising. Throughout the early episodes, Wonkru’s former leader struggles to overcome the darkness inside of her, always inclined to choose violence over finding a better way. It seems like she’ll never choose to “be the good guy,” but then she runs into the anomaly. She comes out of that experience with a purpose: to find redemption for all she’s done.
On this week’s episode, however, Octavia feels a bit too back to normal. Yes, she’s working her way toward becoming a better person, and yes, she obviously still cares about Clarke and Bellamy. But the darkness that plagued Blodreina seems wholly gone during “Matryoshka,” and we have to ask: Can Octavia really erase that part of herself so easily after everything that’s happened?
We don’t think so, and judging by Bellamy’s reaction to seeing her again, neither does he. Don’t get us wrong, Octavia completely deserves forgiveness from herself and the others. We want to see her redeem herself, but we want to see her work a bit harder for it. With her emerging from a mysterious wall of fire with no memory, it just doesn’t feel earned yet.
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What do you think of Octavia’s redemption story on The 100? Let us know in the comments.