Josephine Lightbourne

Josephine Ada Lightbourne is a recurring character in the sixth season. She is portrayed by actresses Sara Thompson, Skylar Radzion, Gwynyth Walsh and Eliza Taylor and debuts in "Red Sun Rising". She is the main antagonist of Season Six.

Josephine is one of Sanctum's Primes. She was one of the original Alpha colonists. Using a Mind Drive and Royal Blood hosts, Josephine has been reborn seven times. Her current host is Clarke Griffin's body.

Early Life
Josephine was born on Earth to Simone and Russell Lightbourne.

In December 2043, she and her friend Olivia were in a diner in Boston, Massachusetts, when her boyfriend Dave came in and shot himself in the head. This left Josephine horrified. She originally wasn't going to go with her parents on the Mission, but this event caused her to go.

Josephine and her parents went aboard Eligius III to travel to the moon Alpha. They arrived there in 2045 and were original members of Mission Team Alpha. Josephine was one of the biologists for the team. She was in charge of classifying lifeforms on their new world. It was Josephine who suggested naming the place "Sanctum" - the Latin-root for sanctuary.

On day 21 of the mission, the team endured an eclipse of the two suns. Unknown to them, the eclipse triggers the release of a psychosis-inducing toxin from the plants. Josephine was killed by her father, who was suffering from the psychosis.

The pain of losing Josephine pushed her father and her boyfriend, Gabriel Santiago, to start exploring ways to bring her back. In 2070, after 25 years of failed experiments, Gabriel was able to figure out how to use the Mind Drives to bring their loved ones back by uploading their entire consciousness into the a host with black blood. Josephine was the first person to be brought back using this technology.

Her family became three of the Primes and used various hosts for the next two centuries to be reborn after each death. Josephine is currently on her seventh host, making her Josephine VIII.

Throughout the Series

 * -|Season Six =

In Red Sun Rising, 236 years ago, Josephine and her family were among the original families (the Primes) to settle on Sanctum as part of Mission Team Alpha. As a taxomy biologist, Josie's primary task was studying and classifying plants and animals on the moon. She found the place to be peaceful and safe and therefore suggested naming it "Sanctum" - the Latin root for "sanctuary." While making out with her boyfriend during their first encounter with the red sun eclipse, Josephine was the first to notice that something wasn't right when all insects stopped moving. She ran back towards their house just as a swarm of bugs started to attack. Unfortunately, she found her father suffering from the eclipse-induced psychosis which caused him to turn against his own family. Mr. Lightbourne started killing people including his own daughter, Josephine.

Over the years, Josephine and other Primes have been brought back several times using the Mind Drive technology that transfers the memories and personalities of the Primes into the host bodies of people with Royal Blood.

In The Children of Gabriel, Russell Lightbourne reveals to Clarke Griffin that his daughter, Josephine was killed in a tragic fall six years prior to Clarke's arrival.

In The Face Behind the Glass, Josephine's parents, now occupying Russell and Simone Lightbourne bodies as hosts are desperate to bring her back. They had been waiting for Rose to become of age so that they can use her as Josie's host; but Rose is kidnapped and killed by the Children of Gabriel. After discovering that Clarke has royal blood, the Lightbournes' take advantage of her when she's paralyzed to bring Josephine back. They insert Josie's A.I. into Clarke, replacing her memories and personality with Josephine's. Josephine wakes up in Clarke's body, scared at first, thinking she was falling. She starts playing with her hair just like the original Josie used to.

In The Gospel of Josephine, Josie reveals to her parents that it was Kaylee who killed her last host. This is why Kaylee's family stole the Gagarin to escape Sanctum before they're caught. Russell and Simone summon Kaylee to question her about it. Josie kills Kaylee to get even with her. After that, Josie's parents ask her to keep a low profile and pretend to be Clarke in order to spy on Wonkru and figure out how many others have royal blood. She is assigned Jade as her personal guard as she mingles with Clarke's friends. Clarke's friend start to become suspicious when Josephine, pretending to be Clarke, allows Madi to go to school despite Clarke and Gaia having agreed that it was too risky. She goes to see Clarke's mother, Abby where she almost blows her cover by taking notes with the right-hand since Clarke is left-handed.

When Josie notices Clarke's friends headed to the room where the Naming Ceremony ritual takes place, she follows them to keep them in check. She tries to urge them to leave but Jordan, Bellamy and Gaia remain persistent. She watches them uncover the room filled with skeletons for all the past Primes. They find a secret door to a lab in which they find a computer with video logs. One of them is an experiment video log in which Josie's ex-boyfriend Gabriel Santiago finally figured out how to bring Josie back using her Mind Drive.

After watching how Gabriel forced unwilling Nightbloods to become hosts for the Primes, Josephine doesn't seem concerned which worries Clarke's friends. She learns that Madi is a nightblood but sticks around to figure out how many more they have. When Murphy mentions that Clarke was turned into a nightblood in a lab, Josephine figures out they can use that to make more hosts for the Primes. When she gets up to tell her parents, Bellamy becomes suspicious and confronts her. Bellamy's suspicions are confirmed when she struggles to understand Trigedasleng. Bellamy pins her against the wall and asks her who she is. Josie knocks him out with a paralytic dart and reveals that she is Josephine Lightbourne. Afterwards, Josie comes up with a plan to use Murphy for information. She gets Murphy drunk before helping him figure out she's Josephine. To get Murphy on her side, she asks him if he wants immortality.

In Nevermind, Clarke, who survived due to her experiences with A.L.I.E., works to wrest control of her body back from Josephine while she is sleeping by traveling through Josephine's memories with a manifestation of Monty Green. Clarke finds the one traumatic memory Josephine couldn't face, where her boyfriend committed suicide when Josephine wouldn't stay with him, Clarke is confronted by Josephine who shoves Clarke back into her mind palace and wakes up with a nosebleed. Josephine attends a meeting with her father, Bellamy and Nathan Miller, but fails to realize that Clarke has managed to retake control of one finger and make Josephine tap out a Morse code message on her arm that Clarke is still alive. Bellamy sees the message and quickly grasps the significance while Josephine warns Russell that Clarke is still alive. However, she now knows how to get rid of Clarke for good.

In The Old Man and the Anomaly, Russell determines that they have 36 hours before Clarke's body burns out from the strain. Josephine decides to stay awake until they can get rid of Clarke for good, but Russell instead sees it as an opportunity to restore the wrong they did by resurrecting Josephine through Clarke. Russell suggests removing Josephine's Mind Drive and restoring Clarke to her own body while they find a new willing host for Josephine as Abby has replicated the Nightblood serum. Josephine, however, is unwilling to give up her host and attempts to talk Russell out of it without success.

Unwilling to give up Clarke's body, Josephine enlists Murphy, Emori and Ryker to help her in secret and blackmails Ryker with the knowledge that he helped Gabriel escape to force his compliance. Though Emori originally agrees to help, she eventually betrays Josephine and lures her and Murphy into a field where they are joined by Bellamy and Echo who plan to use an EMP to disable Josephine and have Eric Jackson remove the Mind Drive. Josephine takes Murphy hostage to force them to back down, but Murphy directs them instead to take Josephine to the Children of Gabriel to get rid of her. With Sanctum guards approaching, Josephine slices open Murphy's leg and tries to use the distraction to escape but is caught be Bellamy and restrained. As the others remain behind, Bellamy uses the EMP to temporarily disable the radiation fence and drags a resisting Josephine through to take her to the Children of Gabriel.

At the same time, on his approach to the temporal anomaly, Gabriel has various hallucinations of Josephine in her original body. Gabriel implies that Josephine is both his darkest fear and deepest desire.

In What You Take With You, Bellamy seeks out the Children of Gabriel to remove Josephine from Clarke. However, Josephine's condition continues to deteriorate, causing a seizure. The two are captured shortly thereafter by the Children of Gabriel who leave to send a message to Gabriel. Bellamy notes Josephine's reaction to that name and Josephine admits to being in love with Gabriel for 236 years despite the fact that Gabriel has been trying to kill her for the last 70 of those years. Due to wall in their mind being almost gone, Clarke is able to hear their conversation and uses Morse code to tap out "boohoo" to Josephine which she now understands. However, Josephine refuses to relinquish control so that Bellamy can talk with Clarke. With their minds beginning the merge, Josephine gains some of Clarke's knowledge in regards to Bellamy and their relationship. Bellamy explains that he intends to trade Josephine's Mind Drive to Russell for peace with the Sanctum citizens, something Josephine sees as impossible.

With Sanctum guards approaching, the Children return and realize that Josephine is a Nightblood and a Prime. After Bellamy identifies her, the Children prepare to execute Josephine. At the last moment, Josephine relinquishes control to Clarke who is able to break free. Clarke explains to Bellamy that Josephine recognized that her choices were give Clarke control or get her head chopped off. After Clarke knocks Jade unconscious, a manifestation of Josephine in her original body appears to her. Josephine explains that due to how far their minds are merging, Clarke can now see her in the waking world. Josephine urges Clarke to relinquish control so Josephine can return to Sanctum, but she refuses. Instead, Clarke sends a message to Gabriel who receives it alongside Octavia Blake. Tapping into Josephine's knowledge of motorcycles, Clarke drives off to find Gabriel taunting Josephine "sucks doesn't it?" in Mandarin.

Personality
Josephine is a biologist. She is multilingual, speaking at least three foreign languages: German, Portuguese, and Mandarin. In her first appearance, she seemed pretty optimistic and generally happy to be where she was. She was also very smart. As seen while hosting Clarke's body she seems to really enjoy music and painting.

As one of the Primes, Josephine has a dim view of those beneath her. She is willing to do whatever it takes to survive, unwilling to give Clarke Griffin up as a host even though she could potentially gain a willing host and give Clarke her life back. Josephine is willing to go so far as blackmail to get what she wants. However, she doesn't appear to be a good fighter as she relies on blackmail and threats when confronted by Clarke's friends and had to relinquish control to Clarke to escape decapitation even though she was unchained. Unlike Josephine, Clarke was able to easily break free and told Bellamy that Josephine chose to give her control so that she could save them. Josephine admitted to being impressed with Clarke's skill at fighting afterwards.

Physical Appearance
In her original body she had semi-long blonde hair, brown eyes, and fair skin, with a slim figure.

Gabriel Santiago
In "Red Sun Rising", Josephine is shown to be in a relationship with Gabriel Santiago, but their relationship ended when he disagreed with the Primes' own ways and, possibly due to Josephine's true nature.

In "What You Take With You," Josephine tells Bellamy Blake that she's been in love with Gabriel for 236 years even though he's been trying to kill her for the last 70 years of that time.

Mr. and Mrs. Lightbourne
Her parents are Russell and Simone Lightbourne.

Kaylee
Kaylee was Josephine's friend. Josie was mad that Kaylee abandoned the group at Ryker's Keep that she stabbed her recent host, but it's heavily implied it was payback for ending the last life of her host.

Quotes

 * Josephine Lightbourne: "No insect sounds. 10:1 it's the eclipse. Think about it. Animal behavior on Earth is affected by them, too. Crickets go silent when they feel threatened, right before they swarm."
 * -- Red Sun Rising


 * Delilah: "We call it-"
 * Blythe Ann: "Delilah..."
 * Delilah: "Oh Relax mother, I don't think they'll steal your recipe. We call it 'Jo Juice' after Josephine Prime. Hallowed be her Name."
 * Blythe Ann, Guards and Jae: "Hallowed be her Name."


 * Russell Lightbourne and Simone Lightbourne: "Josie!"
 * Josephine Lightbourne: "What, she killed me first."
 * Josephine: "Now I'm going to go take a shower, and get out of this hideous dress."


 * Josephine Lightbourne: What else did you steal of mine?
 * Clarke Griffin: Sucks, doesn't it?
 * -- What You Take With You

Killed Victims

 * Isaac
 * Unnamed baby
 * Kaylee's most recent host

Notes and Trivia

 * In "Red Sun Rising", she is called Josephine Ada Lightbourne by her father. This makes her the second person in the series with their middle name stated in the series.  (The first being Jordan Jasper Green.)
 * Josephine suggested the name "Sanctum" for Alpha, the latin root for "sanctuary".
 * Her ancestors named a drink after her and call it "Jo Juice". Blythe Ann is supposedly the recipe holder.
 * She wrote several books.
 * Red Sun Rising, the book found by Clarke Griffin in "Sanctum", was written by Josephine.
 * She doesn't know Trigedasleng, which makes her vulnerable to others finding out her parents killed Clarke, whose body she is now inhabiting. (Bellamy finds out when she asks him to repeat his last phase in Trig, and drugs him.)
 * She calls John Murphy "John" in front of several: Bellamy, Gaia, Jordan and Madi, they all look confused when she does this - though no-one says anything. When she later calls him John a second time, he figures out she is not Clarke.
 * She thinks John Murphy is "kinda cute" and revealed her "true self" to him by revealing Clarke is dead and she now inhabits her body - before he can tell anyone, she offers him what he wants most: immortality. He accepts, showing she was right about him.
 * Her first host was a six month old girl and her second host was 15 year old girl, named Savannah.
 * Josephine speaks Portuguese with a Spanish accent in "Memento Mori". She is also multilingual as she speaks at different foreign languages, including German, and Mandarin.