The 100’s final season failed Clarke Griffin as a character and a lead

The 100’s final season was its weakest and ultimately failed its lead, Clarke Griffin.

Clarke Griffin is arguably one of the most iconic characters in sci-fi television. Ruled by a pragmatism that saw her grabbing the reins of leadership and influence at the tender age of 17, Clarke had been a powerhouse, the driving force behind what made The 100 great in its earlier seasons. She also made history as the first LGBTQ+ lead on The CW and the first bisexual lead on network television.

No one, however, could have foreseen the way her character would deteriorate after the season four finale forced a time jump and displaced Clarke as the de facto leader of her motley crew. Season six appeared to correct the turn season five took by remembering Clarke’s sense of found family goes beyond that of her adoptive daughter, Madi.

In season five, despite a strong opening that showcased the trials Clarke weathered as one of the only humans above the surface after Praimfiya, the majority of Clarke’s arc had been distilled down into that of a protective “mama bear.”

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Obviously, she was traumatized by her experience of being extremely isolated and separated from her loved ones. However, the writers only scratched the surface of this trauma, and instead focused on having her make increasingly dire decisions that put the lives of her friends and Madi in danger.

In season six, she acknowledges the ways in which she hurt her friends and apologizes. They should have done the same, in terms of their actions that hurt her, but it wouldn’t be The 100 if Clarke weren’t held to loftier standards by everyone besides Bellamy.

Still, she seemed to be finding her footing again as a leader before she was body-snatched and the rest of the season was spent focusing on her death, the meaning of her loss, and her subsequent resurrection.

In typical fashion, Clarke swooped in to save the day, losing her mother in the process because she is quite literally a tragic hero.

At a loss for what to do next and shaken over another bout of trauma heaped upon her character, Clarke asked Bellamy if trying to do better is worth it. It’s the kind of question asked in a season finale that sets the scene for the following season.

Unfortunately, season seven’s answer is frustratingly disappointing because it’s essentially a non-answer for her. For much of the season, she plays second fiddle to nearly everyone including minor characters the audience just met.

Clarke is determined not to lose anyone else in season seven, but her anxiety over the potential loss of more of her family is not explored with any real depth. In fact, most of Eliza Taylor’s talent in the final season of The 100 is reserved for grief. She spends a full season grieving, each loss building on top of one another, and by the end I found myself asking, “Why?”

An extended grief arc that devolves into a regression of Clarke’s character back to the worst traits of her fifth-season depiction — all in the same season during which she barely talks about Madi once they’re no longer on the same planet, mind you — is in the running for one of the worst character assassinations done for the sake of plot that I’ve ever seen. It’s so bad it overloads sentences.

And after all of this, Clarke’s arc across the series amounts to nothing. She didn’t learn anything besides loss begets loss, which is something she learned in season one and actively worked against. Her actions in the final season had consequences by evidence of her loss of Madi, but by the end, it didn’t matter. She still got to have a conclusion surrounded by the people she loves.

While I’m not advocating for an alternative series ending where Clarke is once again left alone, the ending she got didn’t feel earned. Nearly all of the main characters with exception to her spent the series finale fighting to do better despite being on the brink of war.

Somehow, despite having killed her best friend and executing Cadogan in the middle of the test, Clarke thought she was still capable of saving the human race. It’s a nonsensical plot point that ignores the fact that the test is meant to be taken to see if humanity is worth saving. Presenting herself before the judge after an act of revenge was not a mark in her favor.

There is a narrative argument to make that Clarke is a leader who ensures the survival of her people. In bearing the weight of the atrocities she has committed and would commit again, to save them, she has barred herself from salvation. It’s, however, not the argument the series should have been making in its finale if it wasn’t going to back it up with her trying to save everyone even if it meant she couldn’t be saved, too.

Clarke, uncharacteristically, accepts the fate of annihilation. She does so angrily, rightfully accuses the judge of hypocrisy, and questions why they get to decide who is worthy of salvation and who is not. But she still accepts it.

In the last fight for humanity, Clarke sits in the M-Cap room with a catatonic Madi as Raven and Octavia work to save everyone. She is not involved at all. As a Clarke fan, it was jarring for her not to be a part of what was happening.

The Clarke that I love has always fought to keep her people safe. She stumbled in season five as she searched for her place among the family who’d left her behind and assumed she’d died, but at her core, she has always cared. But in the end, she didn’t.

I don’t mind that the rest of the team picked up the slack. I don’t mind that Clarke ultimately wasn’t the one to save everyone. I mind that poor storytelling betrayed her character.

Yes, she was tired of fighting and losing, but the Clarke Griffin that The 100 introduced us to and developed over six years would never go down without swinging to the rafters first. She would never let some strange alien entity tell her that humanity is doomed and there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s Clarke Griffin.

If her narrative point was to show the toll perpetual sacrifice can have on a person, then the writers needed to get us there organically. They had the material. She was grieving the loss of her mother, she thought Bellamy was dead and then she killed him herself, and Madi was taken from her, too. But barely anything was explored because the plot usurped her character development.

The audience knows more about Hope Diyoza‘s grief and how it shaped her life and decisions than we do about our own lead’s. We met Hope in the final season, and yet she has a stronger character arc and more impactful significance to the overall narrative of season seven than Clarke does.

It is painful to acknowledge that fact because it speaks to how displaced Clarke was from her own series in its final airing. The Clarke Griffin of season seven is nearly unrecognizable. She’s shunted to the side in the story, her emotions hold very little weight when it comes to importance, her poor decisions are glossed over, and she’s a shell of herself.

Season seven fails Clarke as both a lead and a character. It’s the final season of the show, and it ruins any ability to rewatch Clarke’s arc in its entirety. Sure, she got as happy an ending as one could expect from The 100, but it feels like plot armor. A tacked-on exception made for her that would keep the show from ending on a grim note. It is an ending that I am thankful for because Clarke is not alone, but it’s also one I despise because the events leading up to it taint her reunion with her found family.

As a Clarke fan, I want to erase season seven from canon. I’d rather return her, even in her immediate grief, to her sunrise hug with Bellamy in “The Blood of Sanctum.” At least then there would be hope that doing better could be an actual possibility for her, rather than an increasing hopelessness that’s rewarded by the series’ end.

What do you think about Clarke Griffin’s character de-evolution in season seven? Serve up your thoughts in the comments below!