The Lamentable Tragedy of the Death of Lexa

On March 3rd, "The Hundred" which had a stellar Season 2 last year, disposed of Lexa, a beloved character in a problematic way to push forward a what would have been a very fascinating plot. Many different analyses have already covered the different social implications, storytelling flaws and the ensuing furore that have not stopped. 

But seeing that the man who killed her is her father figure and his name is Titus here's what I'm going to focus on. The manner of death and how it relates to the theme of Tragedy for all three characters involved in that scene.  

It got me dusting off my Shakespeare notes from college to read up "The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" again over the weekend. Skimming through it quickly - Titus was a righteous and fair Roman general, who after wining the war against the Goths, was given the choice by the people to decide who should inherit the throne. The contenders - Saturninus (the first born of the late Emperor hence a more legit claim) vs Bassianus (Saturninus' brother who have the people's love hence support)

But before all this GOT worthy shit can start, Titus has held prisoner the Queen of Goths and to appease the Dead, he decides that her son should be sacrificed. (BLOOD MUST HAVE BLOOD ANYONE?)

Because of HIS particular set of actions, Queen of Goth, Tamora got so enraged she then sets in motion a series of events, which when also paired with Titus' own 'righteous' choices (choosing the 'right' king Saturninus although he is malicious towards Titus, etc, oh there's so much more) which led to the final act where Titus KILLS HIS OWN DAUGHTER though that's not the main focus of that act. (It's a pretty brutal play)

Before I jump into how this relates more specifically to The 100, lemme just put it out here the definition of A TRAGIC DEATH. In my point of view, it's a death that as undesired as it is, it still fulfills an emotional satisfaction for the audience for the character whose death is in mention. Also, in literature the definition of "Tragedy" is (ok it's from Wiki, bite me JR) "a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences."

Henceforth my argument as follows - the Death of Lexa serves as a tragedy for The 100's Titus because he thinks he's doing the right thing, for the person which whom he accidentally kills. We despair at his actions but the catharsis comes from the fact that he 'learnt' from his lessons or he had suffered just as much as the audience had, by his own actions.

The Death of Lexa also is a tragedy for Clarke because she was betrayed once by the girl (Lexa) who like/loves her and finally not only forgiving her (Lexa) but fully reciprocating emotionally and physically, only to have her (Lexa) die for her (again. may I add. *coughFinncough*) Plus, in 3x04 Lexa points out Clarke's tendency to 'fix things' while trying to make her accept that some things, like her death, are just not in her control. This gets revisited when Clarke desperately tries to save Lexa saying "I will fix you, just stay with me."

Now let me jump to some other past deaths that can be deemed 'tragic deaths' -

Death of Finn. Same as Titus. I can literally cut and paste the sentence with just some minor changes. We despair at his actions but the catharsis comes from the fact that he 'learnt' from his lessons and he has suffered just as much as by his own actions. Also fits into my argument of a tragic death, it's a death that as undesired as it is, it still fulfills an emotional satisfaction for the audience because it was done by the girl whom he did it for and for him to suffer a death less torturous.

Death of Finn for Clarke. Also a tragedy, she was the one whom he did it all for and she's the one who ended his life. Pretty straight (heh) forward here.

Even death of Anya (2x04) who died via stray bullet to the stomach (exact same spot and last words as Lexa too, mind you.) was tragic because if the radio balloon hadn't gone up, Clarke and Anya would have never found Camp Jaha. Yet it was the same radio balloon that had the Ark guards on high alert to shoot any and all grounders on sight. Final stab was the fact that Clarke and Anya had made peace and Anya agreed to get an audience with the commander after fighting and almost killing each other all ep long. Tragedy, Tragic Death.

But LEXA'S. "Tragic death - It's a death that as undesired as it is, it still fulfills an emotional satisfaction for the audience for the character whose death is in mention."

What catharsis did we get from her character's story when she died? What emotional satisfaction did we get in her death? That she died after finally having having the girl who she loves, love her back? That her father figure was after the girl she loves but ACCIDENTALLY shot her?

Where is the tragedy FOR her of HER death?

There is no tragedy for Lexa here. Her death doesn't even come close to tragic. Even Romeo's and Juliet's are more tragic than hers and theirs were barely tragic either. It's not tragic, it's just unfortunate and plain dumb luck. Even if she freaking cliched-ly jumped in front of the bullet slow motion style, it would have sufficed the tragic death requirements. LEXA'S DEATH DID NOT FULFILL AN EMOTIONAL SATISFACTION FOR THE AUDIENCE. 

And if someone try to interject with 'oh because she was such a warrior that's why for her to die such a banal death is a tragedy' then you really should really go take a Shakespeare 101 class. The word you might be looking for is 'misfortune'

Or 'oh the 100 is full of deaths and she's just one of the many' Excuse me. Even Sterling (oh who in the world is Sterling???? Well he's in 2x04 and he's the redshirt hero who tried to climb down the cliff to save his friend Mel from Factory station but tragically his rope tying skills were not that great) had a proper legit tragic death. How can Lexa, a fully fleshed out universally loved character, not have something decent? Her death was not a culmination/resolution of her character's story arc, she died as a plot device. At best, also to further the characterization of Clarke and Titus. But the point is, she was not granted the same death,the same respect as all the other characters in the show and plus the fact that she's so highly loved, it's a stab to the heart.

The whole scene was constructed as a tragedy for Titus and Clarke only. There's gut wrenching emotional satisfaction for Titus (serves you right asshole) and Clarke (poor girl not again and so soon after you finally let her in) And now reading up again on Shakespeare again, it's going to seem like someone who is the rightful heir (Saturninus/Ontari?) is going to give Titus more tragedy because Lexa did tell him to serve the next Heda well and yet she got him to swear to protect Clarke. 

Great fucking job Show, we would have cared/loved/gushed over this upcoming juiciness and your AI story if you didn't fuck up Lexa's death in BLIND pursuit of your need to prioritize your head over our heart as Lexa's Death was supposed to be her story, not Titus.

And THAT'S the real Tragedy of the Death of Lexa. 

Evil comes from within

Turn a blind eye so that you won't see the suffering,

feel the riches and your pride

Turn a blind eye so that you won't see the red

feel the warmth fading and the last sigh

Turn a blind eye so that you can close the other at night

feel the nothingness and the blackness

creep into your soul and mind.

Ludicrous

Do you know how apathetic or insensitive alot of people in Asia are to "accidental deaths"?

I was 16. Out of a homeroom of 40 students, there were only 9 girls. Naturally, we girls formed quite a bond and got very protective of each other although we may not know one as well as the other. The school had around 10 or so homerooms per grade. There were only 5 grades. Basically, it's a damn small school.

One day there was news spreading around that a girl from one of the lower grade passed away. Accidentally fell off her high rise apartment building. But not from her home apartment, rather, just outside her unit somewhere along the open-air corridor. For that to happen, she had to on-purposely climb over the solid smooth concrete safety barrier which was to the height of my neck and had no stepping-stone design whatsoever as my eyes had observed. That's one hell of a determined climb, if not probably made easier by a conscious act of physically moving something there to prop oneself up and over the barrier. And the barrier was not designed to be sat on while enjoying the glorious horizon - unless you have a death wish. It had a long horizontal metal rod on it which would make it very uncomfortable and more importantly, unstable, to sit on.

She was the younger sister of one of us 9 girls. My classmate's childhood friend was a close guy friend of mine. In fact, both girls were his childhood friends. He was there with the family all throughout the crisis and the media circus that followed after. The whole damn world including him claimed it was accidental, ludicrously trying to explain the mechanics of how it happened. Obviously I wasn't there, it wasn't decent to challenge grief stricken people and the family did not need to deal with the added burden/stigma especially since it would be blown up as the media was involved. So I respected what I was told/heard and told my inner Sherlock Holmes to let it go.

Few days later we had a physics class and the teacher was ill so we had the Substitute. She was a middle-aged lady who I can tell have no malice in her heart whatsoever. Eager to be liked and is the definition of "not jaded at all". Half way through teaching about mass, acceleration and force, we took a break and she decided it was a good time to ask the class if we knew about "the girl in the news".

Silence. You could hear the eyeballs looking at each other and then at this female classmate.

No one said a word. Lady then wondered out aloud if we knew which homeroom the girl was in or what her name was or if we knew anyone who knew the girl. Erm. Wow. The lady, ever so clueless, thought that we as kids probably were not as informed because we ain't the news watching kind of demographic so she decided to dish out the 'details' of this case to us and comment on the matter with her media molded opinion. In her defense, the media had never mentioned that 'the girl' had a sister in the same damn school. Her ramblings started to become a little judgmental and presumptuous and a mutual friend (we're still friends for a reason and you know who you are) decided it's enough by requesting to return to the physics. Lady was so perplexed by our unwillingness to listen to this juicy gossip and unexpected desire for physics. She started a few attempts for our interest and maybe engagement in the topic but my friend would just simply reply on behalf of the class, "Yeah, ok, you're right. Interesting. Now let's go back to the work" every single time.

Lady finally realized that something is up and is about to get back into the physics...or so we thought. She looked at the the drawing she drew on the board to illustrate how mass, acceleration and force worked and decided that using 'the girl from the news' would make understanding the concept easier. I kid you not - she literally joked about how if the girl was XX mass and gravity/acceleration/whathefuckever was XX, we could calculate the force.

Now, is this just being apathetic or insensitive? Does it mean that if we did not know the person, or people related to the person, it makes it ok to for us to belittle what happened? So what if we didn't know the person or didn't really know if it was an accidental death? What happened to common human decency, empathy and basic respect for the dead? How did we as a people, as a society become like...this? And don't you dare brush her off as an anomaly. Because convincing yourself that there isn't a problem isn't going to make the problem go away. It would just make it as ludicrous as failing to recognize the epidemic that is happening to our society/people by calling it/them "accidental deaths".

And then there were two

Last Monday, my favorite CW show moved from its 9pm slot to 8pm, thereby forcing me to decide between it and HOUSE on FOX. I was annoyed. In an unemployed world where life is dreary and friends' recent conversations failing to jolt my bored senses, these two television shows are the closest things resembling a form of a challenge to my masochistic brain. Yes, some people may say that I should start finding offscreen/real life/actual human forms of debate and interaction. I'll have you know that I am mildly successful in that department but one's opinion of insight towards an external subject ironically also tells a little too much about the internal workings of one's mind which can be easily twisted by well meaning but preconceiving friends. Sometimes it's nicer with a blank slate when you just want to try figure out an answer to a question instead of trying to manage expectations.

And so, when "Life Unexpected" opened up with a montage of Cate getting out of bed and spontaneously packing up reminders (loving photos and heart-shaped trinkets) of Ryan, the first thing that stuck me was...the big tin box in which everything was put in and then left in the closet. It wasn't just a simple brown cardboard box or a box that was originally used to pack plates. This box was unique, well kept and actually lying somewhere in the house, ready to be used someday. Like a crazy person, I asked her/my tv, "Where did that tin box come from?" Near the end of the episode, Ryan has an epiphany and asks Cate the next question I was planning to ask her/my tv, "The real question is, what the hell is wrong with you?" Now, let me just say that the closet feminist in me really DO NOT LIKE it when in tvland it seems that the female is always the one who screwed up (in this case, Cate cheated via drunk/tipsy sex with another consenting male who is the father of her possibly-one-night-stand-child and said male was unaware of the existence of her BF/fiancé aka Ryan) but this affliction, offscreen, is gender-blind. Ryan (or rather, the screenwriter) articulated it perfectly - "Don't bother trying to fix us Cate, just fix yourself."

People screw up. That's a given fact of life. No one is perfect and most of the time, no one really knows why they screwed up. Life is not an episode of HOUSE. People don't magically understand their own labyrinth of intentions, desires and fears perfectly. The lucky ones figure out why they screwed up. The smart ones learn from it, albeit after the fact. The well adjusted ones don't do it again. I wish I were all three about all my own screw ups. I believe that screwing up is just being human. But if one goes into something preparing oneself to screw up, preparing a big tin box somewhere in one's mind, that's when one needs some fixing.

So please, until you do or at least start to do, don't get into another relationship. Everyone has their own shit to deal with, making them deal with yours is unfair, cruel and selfish. Two had been hurt already, don't make it three.

Of Mice and Love

I have a friend. She can be quite the asshole, even to her friends at times. But I've always looked up to her because she's brave, fearless and beneath the asshole exterior, she's actually pretty just and sound in her convictions.

However, 4 years ago she got tangled up in a rather messy romantic predicament. The other day I called her and guess what? Status quo. Which made me wonder.

Why do people - smart strong and sturdy people - become blinded little mice when it comes to affairs of the heart (and/or chase of the orgasm?)

Let's talk about affairs of the heart in this case shall we? So some people call this phenomenon "Love" or rather, "Falling in Love." Ever since Man was able to sing, tell stories and write, epic songs, teary movies and cryptic poems of Love have been forced into existence. I don't think I need to repeat all the different types of reactions towards Love because it will take me probably a few more blog posts than blogger.com can handle. But one thing is common. It makes people...different from their usual self. It makes them way too happy, it hurts way too much and it changes them.

And that scare the shit out of me. Has anyone not gone through their teenage years, struggling with puberty and for the first time in their life trying to figure out their identity? The fundamental question of "Who am I?" resonate in our everyday life through our actions, our thoughts and our reactions to situations. When someone asks you who you are, do you say "I'm JW, college graduate." or do you say "I'm JW, 24." or do you say "I'm JW, girls frighten me." Remember when all these started? Yes, that moment of self awareness when you realized that you are not a jock or a cheerleader but neither are you the science geek or a social misfit. You were in fact the sporty friendly runner AND the antsy "woe is me and this cruel world" artist. Now, a homeless man asks you for change. Do you ignore his existence and walk away? What a jerk. Do you stop and talk to him? Wow, how kind. Do you give him all your change and more? Dude, schmuck much? All these little things you do tells you so much about who you are and who you don't want to be. It has taken you forever to somewhat figure out who you are and be somehow semi well adjusted with your identity when suddenly one day...

A person enters your life.

And you realized you started doing things you thought you will never do. You start saying mushy stuff in public ("It makes me all mushy inside my heart that you got jealous like that"), you start canceling on friends the last minute (thereby being a total DOUCHEBAG for breaking the BRO CODE) just because he/she wanted to see you and you spend a month's worth of income on an anniversary present. (so much money on anything that's not essential is vulgar no matter what.)

And that's the good part of it. Which is totally fine should it sit well in your soul and it makes you happy but when things go wrong, that's when you realize who you are. Do you do things he/she doesn't like on purpose just to get a reaction out of him/her? Do you let the lie slip? Do you risk letting her/him hurt you again after he/she apologizes? How do you deal with such... adversariness? Nothing can be more confusing than when dealing with matters of pain that is also a subject of affection.

Would the 'old' you choose the same choices? If not, then who are you now? Do you like who you've become? Are you really who you've become? Have you become a blinded little mouse or were you one all along?