The 100: Apparently Love IS Weakness

I thought I’d never get over the pain, but I did.

How?

By recognizing it for what it is… weakness.

What is? Love? So you just stopped caring about everyone? I could never do that.

Then you put the people you care about in danger, and the pain will never go away.

(Lexa and Clarke, 2×09)

After watching episode 2×09, I thought the idea behind “love is weakness” was tragically beautiful: the reason Lexa distanced herself from love was because she cared too much and was afraid to lose or hurt someone else because of it. It was an intriguing idea, one I thought the show would combat. Little did I know that Lexa’s beautiful mantra would become an overused theme of the show.

Instead of showing how love can be strength, it seems that most episodes of The 100 follows a similar pattern: whether a relationship or connection has been developed, is just beginning, or even hinted at, there’s a very good chance that, somehow, it will be threatened or used as leverage. Once you’re aware of the pattern, it can be both amusing and frustrating to predict how the episode will play out. For example, Monty and Harper’s relationship was strategically planned: right after they got together, there’s Chipped-Jasper to threaten Harper’s life.

I’m not saying the exploitation of relationships is exclusive to The 100. There are many other shows that do this, but on The 100, it seems like every relationship is threatened in every single episode.

No relationship is safe from this pattern either. Here are just some of the relationships that have recently been used as leverage for some larger goal: Abby’s love for Raven, Clarke’s love for Abby and for her friends, and Kane’s love for Abby.

Not only are these relationships used and threatened, but they also seem to be used as weapons to force someone to act against their will.

The latest episodes used the theme of love being a weapon multiple times, but the most problematic, disturbing example was Abby torturing her own daughter for information. It was utterly uncomfortable to watch a mother-daughter relationship being exploited like that, especially when the threat of suicide was used to get Clarke to reveal how to activate the Flame. Any and all relationships on the show are exploited and threatened, no matter how insensitive it may be to present.

Love is a downfall I guess, at least that’s what the show is promoting. Any type of relationship or connection is dangerous. I thought they were going to show how love isn’t weakness. After hearing that the strong force this season would be love, I assumed there would be at least ONE relationship that isn’t tragic or destroyed, but so far, we haven’t been so lucky.