defending octavia blake and acknowledging her mistakes
(mostly about season five) a thread:

𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞; this isn’t made to force you to change your opinion about octavia. this is simply to go more into depth in 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 what octavia had to go through during this arc.

diving right into season five, octavia’s blodreina arc sparked controversy between the 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 and 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞.
many developing a sense of dislike and or hatred towards the character.

as you may recall, octavia won the conclave towards the season four finale. because of her victory, she earned the rights to claiming the bunker for herself and skaikru. because she was generous, she allowed all of the clans to unite, forming the clan, 𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐫𝐮. +

this meant allowing members of other clans to survive praimfaya under the bunker. she clearly stated that she wasn’t a leader but a 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫. but the title of “leader” was pressured onto her one way or another, making her a 17 year old in charge of leading 1200 people. +

six years later, we’re introduced to blodreina. the new arc of octavia.
she is portrayed as ruthless and cold.
which makes you wonder, what exactly went down those six years.

two years into praimfaya, wonkru began to run out of protein sources.
sparking a conversation to be held about possible solutions. if you pay attention to the flashbacks, like this one, you’ll notice that abby griffin mentions the idea of 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦.

discomfort and uneasiness is shown as this is a route that no one wants to go down. octavia helplessly asks kane for another solution. before kane could build up a response, abby interrupts by stating that there is no other way.

ultimately, abby began to 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 her into believing that cannibalism was the way to survive at this rate. she didn’t want to hear it. she couldn’t. it’s clear that she doesn’t want to convert to that alternative.

i won’t post the entire scene where she heartbreakingly began to off people off though after being manipulated, octavia followed abby’s words and made those who didn’t convert to cannibalism, a 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞.

frankly, after being so lost in manipulation, octavia began to slowly lose herself and began to develop a stone-cold, ruthless persona thoughout the years of punishing non-convertible people to just in general, anyone who committed crimes by throwing them into the fighting pits.

little side note; as mentioned in season six, octavia admitted that not having her brother by her side made her lost. bellamy was her rock and overall her moral-compass. this is one of the reasons she allowed the darkness to swallow her rather quickly throughout those dark years.

six years later, octavia is seen as a monster in the eyes of a few people.
she reunited with her brother but her brother sees her as somebody else.
she’s broken and refuses to allow her walls to tear down. she won’t allow herself to be seen as vulnerable.

she bore with the pain & allowed her people along with her brother to view her as a monster so they wouldn’t have to. in the end, she was broken inside and couldn’t find her way out of the darkness. she saw no light at the end of the ugly ass tunnel, so she learned to accept it.

i feel like this scene is not talked about as much as i’d like it to be. even after everything, after some mistakes, after believing her brother hated her, she was ready to sacrifice herself to save the lives of the ones she loved the most.

moving onto acknowledging her mistakes. octavia means the world to me and i love her with everything in me. but that doesn’t mean i kiss her ass whenever she commits a mistake.

𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐦
i didn’t agree with her decision in burning down the farm. kane was right. octavia simply did it for power.

𝐭𝐰 — 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐲
i didn’t and will never defend her for physically going over board in hurting her brother. she was angry, she was hurting, she was upset and one punch would’ve been enough. +

crossing the line and doing more damage than you should’ve, is absolutely wrong. i have siblings. if a sibling of mine pulled what bellamy pulled, hell i’d be angry as hell. but i would NEVER hurt them the way octavia hurt bellamy in that scene.

𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞
lincoln was in a tough state, overcoming the obstacle of what happened to him in MW. hitting him in his most vulnerable state was simply wrong, even if it wasn’t her intention to hurt him in that way.