Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-25176701-20150119013621/@comment-26247132-20150528184153

First off, Finn was a terrible moral compass. The whole Raven-Clarke lying game is enough to make me gag. He also had very little respect for Clarke as a person and a leader and treated her as little more than his romantic love interest because she decided to be co-leaders with Bellamy and not with him. Add on the whole secrecy game he played with the Unity Day meeting, it's no wonder things went south. My friends and I have a nickname for people like him, "Information gate-keepers." These are people who won't tell you the full story EVER because they always want to hold a little something back in order to control and manipulate the situation if the need arises.

On top of that, there was plenty of build-up for Finn's descent into PTSD or whatever: from getting stabbed and poisoned and almost killed by a Grounder (Lincoln) to all the times Bellamy called him a coward to when Clarke told him to run away in IABD because that's who he was to Raven calling him out for not stepping up with the bridge bomb.

At the very least, it started with Finn's first killing, the Reaper in WAG1. He continued bashing the guy's head in even after the guy stopped moving. Totally understandable that he was panicking and just killed someone and overreacted. But then, instead of dealing with what he'd just done, he uses the time to tell Clarke he's in love with her and gets rejected by her. This is a really important point because Finn is unhealthily obsessed with Clarke (which probably needs its own separate post).

Later, in WAG2, he's forced to pick up a gun to save Bellamy because that's what he thinks Clarke wants (he's always trying to please Clarke). After the battle, he's captured by Tristan and watches as Tristan brutally murders another Delinquent in front of him because the Delinquent couldn't keep up. (Btw, when Jaha killed Craig, I immediately thought of this scene.)

I think the moment he finds Clarke's watch is the moment that Finn loses his full grasp on reality. He starts to become even more moody and unpredictable, pulling a gun on Bellamy and executing Delano because he has nothing to lose since Clarke is probably dead even if he won't truly admit that to himself. He becomes single-minded in his determination to find Clarke (or at least find out what happened to her) as evidenced by wanting to leave Mel behind in MHR. Even Bellamy saw his deteriorating mental state and discussed it with Finn and others multiple times in Reapercussions, MHR, HT, and FoW. Add in Finn's obsession with Clarke, being told you're a coward by multiple people, a bunch of Grounders, and some bad information and you have a recipe for a massacre.

All that being said, yes, I do think it was a bit rushed (then again, everything is a bit rushed because they've only been on the ground for a couple of months) but there was plenty of set-up and it didn't just come out of nowhere. It had been building since at least IABD, maybe even as far back as Day Trip when Clarke tells Finn she trusts Bellamy, maybe all the way back to HSK when Lincoln stabs him. There was enough build-up to make it justified and he didn't change dramatically; he just believably lost control of his already fragile self.