Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-26814591-20150724030749/@comment-76.17.103.248-20150725185615

I guess that's one way to look at things, but frankly, what confuses ME is that people can be this blood thirsty. It's one thing to believe Finn deserved execution. I don't agree, but I get it. "An eye for an eye" still rules in the minds of the self righteous as justice. But to be angered because the grounders didn't get a chance to burn Finn,cut off his hands, his tongue, gouge out his eyes, and slash up his body (if he was still alive). . .  is this kind of barbarism still a part of mankind's identity?

You talk about Finn as if a villain is all he ever was. You don't care about analyzing the character to determine why he would behave this way. You just allow your outrage and anger to  take over so that you totally miss the point.

Did you know, according to psychological studies, that under certain circumstances, we are all capable of kiling? And I don't think they just meant self defense. Many soldiers, most of whom had no history of violence, have committed massacres of civilians in the context of war. That doesn't mean it's okay to behave that way just because they were in a war zone. What it does mean is this. War is not natural. It is traumatizing, and it acts on our psyches. Some of us are resilient; some of us are fragile. But we are all flawed, and those flaws, when exacerbated by war, can take us down dark paths.

So instead of summarily passing judgement, you should be asking yourself why a boy like Finn who didn't believe in war or violence, who respected human life and believed that the world could be a better place would do such a thing. What were the pressures put upon him? What were his human flaws, and what part did they play? Then all of us should look at ourselves and see some of those same imperfections. It should humble us and teach us compassion.

And before you go giving the grounders a pass, you should consider that they had plenty of innocent blood on their hands, too. When the 100 landed, they presented no threat to the grounders. They too were innocent (of any crime against the grounders), unarmed civilians, just kids. Yet, the grounders started slaughtering them under that self righteous vice of territoriality. As human beings, we can bring out the best or the worst in each other. It's their violence and hatred that brought out the worst in Finn.

The writers did a poor job of depicting a gradual unraveling of the character  They just sent him into a 180 much too fast. Still, it's clear that Finn was not an evil villain who set out to slaughter innocent people. He was always just a human being, flawed like all of us, and too fragile to cope with the harsh environment he was thrust into. That doesn't mean he gets off, but it sure as hell means he didn't deserve to be tortured to death by the hypocritical grounders.

Abraham Lincoln said that if you look for the worst in people expecting to find it, you surely will. You define Finn by the so call cheating, and the massacre. I prefer to look at the goodness in him. I see how kind and thoughtful he was to Raven on the Ark. I see how he stayed by her side during the surgery. I see how he tried to stop a lynching and protect Charlotte. I see how he tried to make peace. I see his pain and suffering over what he had done. And most of all, I see the tremendous courage and love he displayed by turning himself in. I see how he loved.