Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-13022928-20180109024620/@comment-108.31.158.50-20180110021110

The difference with hypothetically killing off Octavia and killing off just any lgbt character is that there is no trope for randomly killing off a straight, white, cis woman in media. It happens sure, but the trope with lesbian and bisexual women, especially if they're trans or of color, is a whole other magnitude. 156 lesbian and bisexual women have been killed off, and that was just in 2016. And straight, cis, white girls don't need the representation. Gay people who watch these shows need to know that they can have happy endings. But watching Clarke and Lexa, it doesn't really seem possible. (Or Octavia and Lincoln because apparently black people can't get happy endings too, that's a trope that I know less about however so I won't go into it further.)

Allow me to elaborate. As the trope goes, two women (typically a lesbian and bisexual) get together after a long period of battling it out and fighting against it, finally they kiss, have sex, and then the lesbian dies the next scene. The bisexual ends up with her male love interest who didn't like the lesbian from the beginning because the lesbian was a little more morally ambiguous and the gay people watching turn on some crap youtube webshows. Because that's about all they can do.

This is in no uncertain terms exactly what happened in the 100. But so many things made the show did exaggerated it to the point that we couldn't just watch more youtube, and actually had to make our voices heard.

First of all, Lexa - the most powerful warrior alive, who destroyed Roan the Ice Prince in a battle to the death, died from a stray gun shot. That's weak story telling and I think we can agree on that. Not only that but her medically trained girlfriend and her faithful servant were both there, and did nothing. Jasper survived being impaled, Raven getting shot in the back and having surgery while awake- but Lexa, the greatest warrior alive, got shot in the stomach and suddenly she's dead. That's laziness, it's pure laziness. Also, she got killed 64 seconds after having sex with Clarke, 64 seconds. Like the trope doesn't have to go that hard.

Second of all, the 100 producers baited us. They gave us hints of a happy ending while they were working filming, just to toy with us. Jason Rothberg tweeted multiple images of Lexa on set of the season 3 finale and invited fans to come watch the filming. From their pictures, videos, and accounts Alicia Debnam Carrey was there- lexa it seemed, would survive season 3. But looking back during season 2, when it was first said that Lexa was lesbian and had an ex girlfriend who died many gay women were unhappy with this as well- another lesbian not getting her happy ending. In response the writer's tweeted: "She's the representation, and she's not going anywhere." One even tweeted "watch the 100 if you like Xena, it has great lesbian representation!" Xena was another perpetrator of the bury your gays trope. Thus the writer was hinting "watch this! the gay woman won't die!"

The CW has made a gamble as a network to make shows that will have fandoms, and encourage these fandoms as much as possible because they believed the stronger the fandom the stronger the show. And they're right. But if they make shows specifically for the fandom then add gay characters they have to take care of those characters. LGBT people are so desperate for representation that they will watch anything as soon as there's gay people. Why? 6.4% of shows have a gay character in them, very few of those have screentime, fewer have happy endings. And here was the 100 promising us both. So when we get behind a show- we get behind a show. We can't afford to have it cancelled, there isn't something to take it's place. So we get everyone and their mother to start watching, and we watch it on the day, and live tweet, and rewatch it on netflix to up the ratings. We advertise so we can have some people to relate to. But as soon as they got the viewership, as soon as they got us hooked, Jason Rothberg pulled the rug out from under us and killed the arguably best representation at that point of time currently on TV. The show was designed to make a fandom, they encouraged the fandom, they encouraged gay people to watch, and then they killed the gay character. So we fought back. We didn't watch a you tube webshow or rewatch the glee gay wedding episode, we raised hundred of thousands for charity, we stopped watching, we told and everyone and their mother to stop watching, we made Lexa pledges for future writers so it would never happen again. What Jason did was queerbaiting and could've cost actual lives. I know that back in seventh grade when I was questioning my sexuality and desperately watching whatever I could get my hands on to figure it out this would've broken me. I knew plenty of people with worse mental health at the time where if it had happened then it might've been the nail in the coffin that killed them.

The it's get better movement tries to teach young depressed gay kids to keep hoping because they will get their happy endings. But how can they believe that if in everything they see everywhere the lesbians are being killed off right and left?

And listen I can agree with you to some degree that Miller's boyfriend fading out is sort of stupid. I can agree. But Bellamy being alive is plot armor too. How many times has he nearly died? How many people has he needlessly killed? Finn died after killing 18, but Bellamy's count is in the hundred's and he's alive. Why? Could it be because he's the male love interest?

I'm telling you that in season five Clarke and Madi are going to be like a tight nit family that won't trust him, then Madi will have some good moments with him, he might save her life, and then she'll talk him up to Clarke. He'll try to get with Clarke but she'll turn him down because she's still not over Lexa. They'll have a moment where he'll make her feel better about Lexa. They'll get together at the end of season 5 with another lesbian's death furthering a straight couples romance. The show will end, and gay fans will keep fighting to raise money. Also Niylah probably will be dead either at the beginning of the season or midway through, or will fade away too.

Because lgbt characters only exist to further the storylines of straight ones, and there are kids out there who need representation, who are just starting to figure themselves out and they're getting a very clear message. Gay people don't get happy endings, they just don't.

Did you know that Clarke saying 'I love you' to Lexa was ad libbed by Eliza? Jason Rothberg didn't even give us that, Eliza did. And it was cut out of the DVDs.

What Jason Rotherberg did warrented the extreme reaction, hell I don't think it was enough in a lot of ways. There were other social problems (class, race) in the show that were coming up too that he handled badly. And when lgbt fans got heartbroken this time they organized. Don't be mad at us, be mad at the man who brought us in to up his ratings and then took away the only thing that was keeping us there in such an offensive way that we couldn't be silent.

Here's an artical with some of the tweets and points I've made above, I could probably find more stuff corroborating this if you'd like but here's what I have on hand. I hope this clears up why we were so angry and why we did what we did. Just put yourself in our shoes. The vast majority of the world hates us, we're being put in concentration camps in russia, killed in a ton of countries all over the world, and whenever we meet someone we think "is this person going to hate my guts? Is it safe to be myself?" All our shows are filled with people we can't relate to, and sometimes make comments against us "as a joke!" Is it any surprise that we escape to tv shows, books, and movies, as an escape? Is it any surprise that when the little representation we have dies we get pissed? Think about it, I'm serious, you're typing out a response pause a second. Seriously think about how you would feel if you didn't feel safe being yourself around anyone, sometimes your family or your closest friends. Think about feeling that isolated and seeing on TV a leader, a hero of her people getting the girl that you've watched her pine over for a season. It gives you hope that someday you'll get that too. And then watching that same badass, powerful woman, the one you look up to and aspire to be, dying 64 seconds later at the hands of a stray bullet while her medic girlfriend watched. And you can't help but think- if she was a guy this never would've happened, or maybe it would've but it wouldn't have mattered because you can tune the channel once to find another show with a straight romance.

But we can't. We hide in shadows and hope that when people say 'it get's better' they mean it, even if a hundred other shows and badass warrior women who can survive anything- dying, says differently.

Think about what that would do to you over time, watching that happen to 156 of these characters. And it getting to the point where you see a gay woman on tv and you say "She's dying next season" and you being right. Think about it for a second. Please.

Thanks for taking the time to read- here's the link. I hope this is a reasonable explanation to your question.

https://lgbtfansdeservebetter.com/character/lexa-the-100/

(Sorry if there are grammer or spelling issues, I'm exhausted. Finals are this week man and that means sleeping is a thing of the past!)