Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-96.23.142.157-20140601175617/@comment-24.27.74.224-20141029222719

I am unsure about the timeline, however, I believe the writer's have carefully planned the topography of the story. Acording to Clarke's comment about being dropped on the wrong mountain in the first episode, that would indeed place the 100 west of Mount Weather, and at the North East corner of the Shenandoah Valley. There are also other quote's which confirm the validity of the general location of the 100's drop site.

First, Bellamy states in part 2 of We Are Grounders that from the drop site, it is a 120 miles walk to the 'ocean'. If you look at a map, it is roughly 120 miles from the drop site to a large bay that eventually opens into the ocean. There is the possibility that Lincoln expected them to understand and cross it to actually get to the coast, however, it could also mean that grounders believe that to be the ocean. The bay is quite large and if in the 97 years since the nuclear bombs went off, people stopped transocean travel, they could now be misinformed about the location of the sea, relying merely on oral history of its location a century ago.

As we saw in the first episode when the river snake attacked Octavia, we can only assume that many new, radiation afflicted beasts now occupy the earth. Imagine how much larger and more deadly the creatures are in bigger bodies of water than that small river area when we first encountered the river snake. This could be an explination as to why grounders have not yet crossed that bay to actually reach the sea. Again, this is just an idea.

Also, to answer A Wikia Contributor, I believe heading East is still a logical and correct course. Just because the path might be dangerous does not change the fact that it is the one the 100 should take. Further, Lincoln did try to spit this information out while about to face a dismal situation in a matter of seconds. Simply saying 'Go East' was probably the best directions he could give seeing as one of the reapers were about to be on top of them in moments.

As we can see from season 2 episode 1, this is indeed the path Lincoln is taking with Octavia as we see the ruins of the Lincoln Memorial which is halfway between the 100's origional drop site and the 'ocean'. Knowing this, we must assume that eats really is the correct path.

Finally, if you look at the assumed area of the 100's drop site, you will notice that it lies within the vicinity of what is currently Clarke County. Now if I were a writer for the show, I think that unique reference would too tempting to pass, thus I would have to name my lead after the name of the area. These are just a short list of reasons I believe the writers have a soild understanding of the location of their story. What do you think?