User blog:KurvaShpee/Is Bellamy redeemable?

Hello everyone!

I have only recently joined The 100 fandom. Obviously, I am a big fan of the show but just like with any other TV show I liked, I stayed away from the community. The passion that die hard fans have is not always a good thing so I always chose to stay away from it all. But The 100 became very dear to me. I fell in love with all the characters and to put it simply I was curious what other people have to say about my beloved characters from the show.

So I joined the community with the third season well underway and straigh away, I have noticed the wide spread hate towards Bellamy and his actions. Now I would be the last one to admit that I am not angry at him. In fact I am furious with him. But do I hate him? No way. I very much doubt that everybody genuinely hates him, after all he has been such a great character throughout the show.

After the last episode (S03 E10) many people finally started to accept Bellamy back as a "lovable" character which I found kinda funny as he did nothing that major. That sort of pushed me to write this since I always felt very defensive about him.

Now then, why do people all of the sudden hate Bellamy? Mainly because he betrays his sister and his friends from the original dropship and joins Pyke in this crazy vendetta war against the grounders. But why does Bellamy join Pyke?

First of all, Bellamy never trusted the grounders, all except one. And why should he? Ever since they land, they are under attack. And since Bellamy assumes the leadership role, it's his task to protect his friends and thus he first hand sees the actions of the Grounder army. He is the one to brutally torture Lincoln, he is the one that wants to fight them to the bitter end. He never tried the diplomatic route, neither has he any reason to do so because the grounders seem to only understand strenght and violence. Only because Finn is so determined to find a peaceful way, do they agree on a meeting. Which utterly fails because Anya brings soldiers. Just another reason to distrust them all. In the second season, Bellamy is clearly against the coalition. And once again, he is proven right when Lexa leaves Clarke and company at the gates of Mount Weather. Yet another reason to not ever trust a grounder. Now we come to the third season. After 3 months of calm and peace, Bellamy finds himself in a nice relationship and everything seems nice and dandy. He even befriends a grounder, Lincoln. But does he trust Lincoln only because his sister does? I believe so. There are no other ties between them other than mutual respect. But then everything goes to hell when he finds out that Clarke is hunted by the grounders. Why, when she helped them release their people from Mount Weather and destroyed their arch nemesis. Again another reason to distrust them. Then they meet Pyke, who immidately tells them stories filled with hate of the grounders. And finally Bellemy makes the crucial mistake of trusting a grounder. He believes the story about the attack on the meeting in Polis. When Bellamy finds out that it was a lie and that his misplaced trust cost the lives of 40ish people plus his beloved girlfriend, he immidiately blames himself. As he should, he should not have trusted a grounder. Bellamy is grieving, he gives up his uniform. And in this very vulnerable state, Pyke appears with the sweet, sweet talk of vengeance. After all, blood must have blood, that is the grounder way so why not repay them in full. And as neither Pyke nor Bellamy make the difference between Trikru and Azgeda, the victims of their wrath become the grounder army sent to help them. And the disaster starts. Bellamy cant back now. We cant also forget that he feels betrayed by Clarke who seems to have chosen the grounders over her own people just like his sister did. Thats why he tries to take Clarke in as a prisoner, in order to save her. After her betrayal at Mount Weather, he distrusts Lexa and thus Clarke. He feels the same way about Kane. In his eyes, they all abandoned their people to join with the grounders. It is only when Pyke goes berskerk and decides to execute Kane, Sinclair and Lincoln that Bellamy sees Pyke in a different light, as a murdering madman. But is Bellamy back? Nope, as Kane said "Did you do it because of your sister or because it was the right thing to do? It is important and until you see that, you will still be lost". Is he redeemable? That is up to you to decide. In my opinion, Bellamy has nothing to redeem for. Yes he made bad choices but he is not the only one. People failed to realized why he is doing what he is doing and hated him for not developing in the way they wanted him to. Pyke is very much at fault with what happened to Bellamy and sure you can say that he is responsible for his actions but unlike Raven, Bellamy is not strong mentally. He was very easily manipulated by the cunning Pyke without Bellamy seeing it.

I do hope this kinda clears Bellamy's actions and will maybe make you rethink the way you feel about him. I was very sad to see so much hate being directed towards my favorite character of the show. He is great in that he never was black&white. You never could guess what he is going to do. Is he gonna be a jerk or a noble hero? You couldnt tell. The only thing certain about Bellamy is that he will protect his sister and his friends whether they like it or not.