Talk:Finn Collins/@comment-24.99.67.19-20141121184507

I've been reading these comments about Finn...how he can never be forgiven; that there is nothing for his character now but to die; Clarke should never go back to him; I hate him. These are natural emotional responses, but you're completely missing the intellectural point the writers are making. This is classic tragedy when you take a good man and put him through a series of events that lead to his downfall. Through the tragic hero, a writer brings to light the tragic flaws in human nature. In this instance, the writers are demonstrating the effects of war on the human psyche. Finn was the perfect character for this because he was the good guy, the pacifist and the optimist. He believed that humans could do better.

However, the horrors of war began to erode his more gentle nature. He watched his people get senselessly slaughtered. He witnessed the vicious cruelty and violence of the warrior grounders; and he, himself, was brutalized. Finn was coping as well as anyone under the circumstances until he lost Clarke. The idea of her meeting some torturous and violent death was more than he could handle. So he was desperate to get to her in time. And as sometimes happens to people in war, he reached a breaking point. Not being able to find Clarke sent him over the edge. All of his fear, feelings of helplessness, and rage just spilled over. His reason was not in control. Nothing displayed Finn's sense of helplessness more than his expression after he let up off the woman he had pinned under his foot. Take a look at that again if you can. Thomas Mcdonelll did an excellent job here.

Finn's tragic flaw, I'd suppose, was allowing himself to be ruled by emotion rather than reason. It's easy to stand back and call Finn a monster or a lunatic when it's not you whose living in constant fear for your life and the life of someone you love. But the fact is that we all have our breaking points. We all have our tragic flaws. If someone was a monster, it was Tristan. Finn is basically a decent human being who got broken under the stress of war.

As for comparing Finn to Bellamy, I think there is a valid point to be made here. Understand that I'm not trying to condemn Bellamy or justify Finn's transgressions. Finn behaved badly; so he has to accept responsibility and suffer the consequences of his actions. I wouldn't go so far as to put him to death as some of you would though. That would even be a cope out if the writers did that. Better to see if and how he can cope with the guilt and redeem himself. What I would like to argue here is that Finn is not so much worse than Bellamy.

We're seeing a new and improved Bellamy now. We've gotten some distance from the "Whatever the hell we want" Bellamy at the beginning of season 1. Although still not perfect, he has become more caring, sensible and mature. No doubt the guilt of his own misdeeds have served to turn his behavior around. So it's easy to decide that Bellamy's sins are not as bad as Finn's when we only have the horrific image in our minds of Finn holding an automatic weapon with bullet casings flying out and innocent, unarmed civilians being gunned down. We saw Finn's victims lying dead in the mud. Bellamy's victims twinkled through the sky like a light show of shooting stars. The impact was not as shocking and harsh. But Bellamy is just as much a killer as Finn. He didn't turn off the air on those people on the Ark, but he's just as guilty if not more because he had knowledge that Kane didn't. And If you want to count bodies, it's about a half dozen to more than 300.

One might argue that Bellamy didn't know that the culling would happen. Still, he knew that the Ark was dying and that everyone on it would perish if he didnt allow them to find out that the earth was surviable. So you could call it negligent homicide. And Bellamy wasn't having an emotional break down either. He was deliberate, calculating and incredibly selfish. Furthermore, was Bellamy's torture of Lincoln any less inexcusable than Finn's pistol whipping the one eyed grounder? So why does Bellamy deserve Clarke now more than Finn? If anything, Finn is in more need of Clarke's  support in what will likely be a long hard road back to the light. Doesn't Finn deserve a chance to redeem himself just as much as Bellamy is trying to do?

Clarke lamented that they all had done things that they never thought they would do, and they had all changed. That's the effects of war. That's the writers' point. I don't hate Finn or Bellamy. I'm watching human nature through these characters, and I'm eager to see how they develop from this point on.