"The 100," Character Deaths, and Loss

Fictional character deaths matter. They matter intensely, in fact. 

There’s an intimacy that comes with television as a medium; the characters on television are, after all, fictional people that we invite into our living rooms and bedrooms on a weekly basis. For some viewers, television characters might feel as real — if not more real — than the actual people around them. 

The relationship we have with television is inherently personal. These are characters that we see change and grow from the comfort of our couches and our beds, and with whom we spend countless hours week after week, year after year. If the cinema is popular culture’s church — a holy place of silence and darkness (which has sadly now been invaded by cell phones and loud talkers) — then television is the equivalent of popular culture’s confessional, a place where we can see ourselves reflected. It’s personal, it’s private, and yet we use it to commune with something larger than ourselves. 

All of this is to say that I’m not surprised that fans of The CW’s dystopian drama The 100 were shocked and angered and saddened by the death of one of its breakout characters on the March 3 episode (“Thirteen”). Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) — the fierce and ferocious commander of the 12 tribes of Grounders that our main characters have encountered since returning to Earth — was a phenomenal character: strong and gritty, powerful and mysterious. She had so much potential in terms of story, both in terms of learning about the nature of mercy and how her leadership could change the century-old ways of the Grounders (how forgiveness could be more powerful than vengeance) and her relationship with the similarly flinty Clarke (Eliza Taylor), the teenage de facto leader of the Sky People, whose own sacrifices have powered the series to become one of the most brutal and uncompromising explorations of power structures and survival in the face of unspeakable horror.

The two leaders were in love, their scenes throughout the past two seasons sparking with the chemistry of sexual attraction, and their feelings were finally consummated in “Thirteen,” as when faced with the notion of separation, they fell into bed together. It was only through the machinations of Lexa’s chief counsel Titus (Neil Sandilands) that Lexa died inadvertently by his own hand, an ironic twist of fate as Lexa, hearing gunshots from Clarke’s chambers, rushed to her lover’s side to save her, only to be felled by a bullet from her own protector’s hand.

It was, like all things on The 100, brutal and bloody, though Taylor and Debham-Carey turned out remarkable performances for both the love scene between Clarke and Lexa and for Lexa’s heartbreaking death scene, one that unlocked a primary mystery about The 100’s backstory and resolved several questions about Grounder culture and customs while tying into the underlying mythology of the show. It was an immensely powerful scene of death and loss and love.

The dead lesbian trope has been well-played out on television and I couldn’t help but think about the murder of Tara (Amber Benson) on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, (who is similarly killed in the crossfire by a man who wasn’t specifically targeting her) when watching Titus accidentally kill Lexa on The 100. But I don’t feel that The 100 falls into this trope, per se. Yes, Lexa dies because of her relationship with Clarke, but only because she tries to save Clarke because they’re in a relationship. She’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she dies a hero, rather than a tragic victim. And the show has pushed Clarke to deal with the loss of a lover before; in Season 2, the show killed off her male lover, Finn (Thomas McDonell), by having Clarke herself murder him to prevent Lexa (!) from ritualistically and painfully killing him.

Neither Clarke nor Lexa’s defining characteristic was their sexuality — in fact, sexuality is always treated on The 100 as an aside rather than the sole thing that defined the characters. Lexa and Clarke’s relationship made no one blink twice, other than the political ramifications of their union. Their romance was problematic only because of the political, rather than sexual lines that it crossed. Lexa believed that feelings were weakness, but gave into her passion and sentiment for Clarke. She obtained a moment of happiness before her life was so cruelly cut short. I do believe that there are an immense number of story possibilities for Clarke that will emerge from Lexa’s death, which will leave a vacuum in the power struggle among the Grounders (and the Skaikru). I believe that Clarke will have to find the strength to live again, just as she did after Finn’s death. And I believe that the show will eventually find another romantic match for Clarke, although I do hope it’s another woman as strong and commanding as Lexa.

Would Lexa’s death have cut so deeply had she and Clarke not consummated their relationship? Absolutely. The show dangled their love in front of the viewer — look how beautiful, look how tender!, it said — before hermetically sealing it off, making the sting of Lexa’s death all the more palpable as Lexa and Clarke’s romance, after a season and a half of simmering, smolders with passion and then explodes into pain and grief and rage. All we’re left with is dust. But that’s all that anyone is left with, The 100 would seem to say: Life is short and survival is hard. But I also wouldn’t have wanted Lexa to die before she and Clarke could have been together. If she had been killed without having that sumptuous, gorgeous bedroom scene, wouldn’t that have been even worse? It might be cold comfort to think that Lexa went to her grave happy, but she had at least those moments of bliss with Clarke before her life was snuffed out.

Couples — whether gay or straight — rarely stay together on The 100. If the reverse were true, I’d have a far bigger issue with the killing of Lexa. But life on the Earth of The 100 is nasty, brutish, and short… and so are the romances between the show’s characters. To date, only one couple (Octavia/Lincoln) has made it through the last two and a half seasons with both characters intact, and with Ricky Whittle set to star in Starz’s American Gods, I can’t help but feel that Clarke will soon have someone else with whom to grieve before long...