Thread:Janus100/@comment-25205238-20190110032410/@comment-27794543-20190110084553

Eugene, you need to work on your communication skills. Trying to decipher what you wrote in that block of text is giving me a headache. This is not the first time I had to copy & paste your words into a word document so I could attempt to convert them to something that's actually coherent.

First scene, "The Dark Year" - Madi says Octavia bore the decision so the rest of them wouldn't. Neither of them say the decision broke Octavia or that she wasn't ruthless before that.

Second scene, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" - much better choice for your argument. Indra says, "The dark year broke us all," and that she scared of what Octavia has become. Octavia does not acknowledge if the dark year broke her, instead refusing to discuss it.

Third scene, "The Warriors Will" - Bellamy acknowledges that Octavia has changed and he says he wishes he'd been their to take the burden. Octavia acknowledges her change and says she's already dead, though obviously not in the literal sense. This scene does not name any specific past events, instead acknowledging the change over a period of six years.

Octavia was heavily impacted by Lincoln's death, become more ruthless & dark afterwards. This is seen throughout s3 & s4, including her callous assassination of Rafel. During the six years in the bunker, she grows even more ruthless and dark. We're shown two influencing events, Cooper's coup & the dark year.

Before the coup, she thought a thief should just give up the stolen goods without further punishment. After the coup, she sentenced the thief to a death match. Before the coup, she was a merciful champion who saved the Grounders (when as the champion in the conclave, she was expected to only save her clan). After the coup, she became the bloody queen who believed anyone stepping out of line should be sentenced to death.

This attitude is further reinforced in the dark year. The events impacted and hurt many people within the bunker. It is obvious that the decision was painful for Octavia, to the point she doesn't want the dark year mentioned. It was a heavy burden on her and at one point she referred to herself as a monster when speaking about the events. However, besides taking away this choice, there is no further impact on the group - the death matches already existed, Octavia was already the absolute ruler, things stayed more or less the same.

Yes, the dark year is painful for Octavia and a burden on her. But as far as her ruthlessness and authoritarianism goes, the coup had the much larger impact. She was already quite dark before the dark year, it made her darker. But overall, her changes did not happen over night, it was a six year process that made her who she was in s5.