The 100: Everything You Need To Know About Octavia

While the CW sometimes gets flack for being full of teen drama,s one of its most highly acclaimed shows is The 100. A sci-fi saga based off a book series, this show follows several space station teens that fall to the surface and have to learn to survive. Though the show centers around teenagers, it's hardly the average teen drama. It's showed that when it brutally turned a fan favorite character, Finn, into a violent shooter and had his girlfriend mercifully execute him. All of the characters have gone through painful changes. Over the past 5 seasons, though, one of the characters that has changed the most has been once innocent Octavia Blake.

When the show started, Octavia was a pretty girl enamored by the new world around her. Wide-eyed and kind, she had few life experiences and now the chance to make up for that. She could become anything, anyone. However, over time, Octavia's evolution has hardly been butterflies and daisies. The sweet, naive girl she was turned into a complex, violent, vengeful woman who led an entire nation.

TRAGIC CHILDHOOD UNDER THE FLOORS

Unlike all the other Delinquents, Octavia didn't grow up in close quarters with them on the space station. The station only allowed each family one child. By having Octavia, her mother broke that rule. To keep their secret, Aurora Blake hid Octavia under their floor boards. She never could come out and whenever there was an inspection, she had to stay silent and hidden.

When she was a teenager, Bellamy tried to give her one night out during a masked party. Unfortunately, the space station demoted Bellamy and executed their mother. And Octavia? They marked her a Delinquent and she spent the rest of her teen years imprisoned. The surface was her first true taste of freedom.

RELATIONSHIP WITH HER BROTHER

While Bellamy and Octavia care for each other deeply, their relationship is problematic at best. Bellamy is too protective, willing to end lives to shelter her. Octavia is aggressively rebellious, after her mother trapped her away for years. With time, the gap between them only grows. Between Bellamy becoming a leader for Skaikru and Octavia becoming a Grounder, they are separated by cultures and, at times, wars.

When Octavia becomes the leader of Wonkru, their bond grows weaker. Bellamy comes back to the surface to see his baby sister a bloodthirsty red queen. Though he wants her safe, he doesn't support the person she's become. He even goes so far as to try and end her life. By the end of Season 5 they affirm, after so long, that they still love each other. However, that love is conditional, at least for Bellamy.

ROMANCE WITH LINCOLN

On the ground, life really changed for Octavia when she bonded with, and subsequently fell for, Lincoln. He was a Grounder that the Delinquents captured in hopes of gaining knowledge, but he fought hard against their torture tactics. Only Octavia's kindness got him talking. Eventually, she helped him escape and learned to love him.

While Lincoln appreciated her kindness and gentle heart, he also respected her strength to stand up to her brother and not be afraid of his people. Their relationship was a solid foundation in the first two seasons and brought the best out in Octavia.

That is, until Pike executed him and sent her on a long, dark path.

ADAPTATION TO GROUNDER LIFE

As she had few bonds with The Delinquents, Octavia was the first to bond with and adapt to the Grounders. With Lincoln, she began to understand their language and culture. She became the space crew's translator and guide when it came to Grounder culture and rapport.

However, though, after losing Lincoln she completely immersed herself in their world. She wasn't just a go-between, she became a member of them. Far more than she ever was a member of the space station.

With a rich, alien culture came also the Grounders violence. Octavia became a strong combatant and hunter, able to take on almost anything on the ground.

THIRST FOR VENGEANCE

Though Grounder culture gave her a home after losing Lincoln, that didn't fill the hole he left in her life. With time, that hole filled with hatred and vengeance for the ignorant and elitist men who preferred the man she love in the dirt. The leader, and the trigger-man, was none other than space-station guardsman Pike, a violent and protective man. He caused a lot of trouble the second he landed, putting station needs above everyone else's, to the point of murder.

As Octavia, him, and others fought to stop A.L.I.E.'s cult, she put her rage away to save her own life. The second the threat dropped, though, she turned back on Pike and enacted her revenge. He took her Lincoln, and she took his life. This moment traumatized Bellamy and changed their relationship forever.

SECOND TO INDRA

In Lincoln's absence, Octavia grew closer to another Grounder: Indra. Once, Lincoln had been close to Indra, coming from the same clan, Trikru. However, the man drifted from his people the closer he got to Octavia and the more time he spent away. When they both lost him, Octavia sought guidance and reassurance form Indra. She instead encouraged Octavia to grow strong.

Over time, Octavia trained her combat skills and her hunting intelligence. As her bond with Indra grew and her abilities increased, she became Indra's second. The young Blake then truly was a member of Trikru, fighting for their interests and supporting their leader. By Indra's side, Octavia turned away from Skaikru and found a people that never knew her as the sad girl under the floor. They only knew her as Skairipa, their warrior.

SACRIFICES TO REACH THE TOP

The deeper into Grounder culture and her own darkness Octavia walked, the more she had to sacrifice. To take revenge on Pike, she had to ignore her brother's feelings. In becoming Indra's Second, she abandoned Skaikru. During her bid for leader, she had to lose friends and even a lover. There were many sacrifices she had to make, but to make a difference she was willing to make all of them.

When Octavia lost her mother, it awoke a darker side to her, a bitter side angry with the situation life gave her. The harder and crueler life got, the angrier she felt.

Eventually, her goals superseded most anything else in her life. If she thought something was in her way or needed to be destroyed, she'd do it. What she went through made her strong, but it also made her ruthless.

WONKRU

Despite how fierce and aggressive Octavia could be, there was goodness in her. When the Grounders held the Final Conclave, she volunteered to represent Trikru. This battle would choose a new leader and they would decide who would survive Praimfaya. She knew other people had more selfish plans for the bunker, like using it for their clan only. Or there were people like Luna, who wanted to close off the bunker and let everyone perish. During the battle she caused a lot of bloodshed, but it was to save all of the cultures, not just her own.

When she won the Conclave, Octavia became the new leader and decided that 100 people from each clan would enter the bunker, saving each clan's best people. They would call this new clan Wonkru, a positive conglomeration of all the 13 clans. Though she spilled blood to get them there, she chose the most diplomatic solution in a terrible situation.

BLODREINA

While in the bunker, things got more heated than Octavia expected. These clans had only ever banded together for wars or conclaves, and now they had to live as one. Between various people, tensions and in-fighting grew rampant. To combat the bunker turning into an all out war, for their six years there Octavia ran regulated fights. This let her people get out their violent urges and decrease the amount of chaos. Also, she stomped out any opposition.

Meanwhile, though, her ruthless and violent tactics earned her the title of Blodreina, the Red Queen. She led the people, but it was with a blood-covered iron fist.

ADHERENCE TO CONCLAVE TRADITION

Though the Final Conclave made Octavia the new Grounder leader, she wasn't a true commander. By Grounder tradition, that title can only go to a Nightblood. Understandably, when it seemed like Nightbloods were extinct or unwilling, they had to pick a new leader. Particularly, because of the impending Praimfaya they didn't have much time or choice.

After Wonkru emerged from the bunker, though, they met Madi, a young Nightblood ready to rule.

Instead of fighting for her post, Octavia relented her reign and gave Madi command. While she fought for leadership, she did it to protect the people she cared about. She didn't do it because she felt a right to it. Ergo, once a true Grounder commander emerged, Octavia relented to tradition.

ON THE WAY TO A NEW WORLD

At the end of season 5, Earth was falling to ruin. All survivors entered a space ship and went into cryo-sleep, in hopes of finding a new, habitable world. The only people who stayed awake were Harper and Monty, to guide the ship and keep one another company. Despite her falling out with much of Skaikru, Octavia reunited with her brother and he was the one who put her in cryo-sleep.

Though the Grounders became her new home, that world is gone now. Octavia has to start anew all over again. After all she's experienced, all she's been through, all the pain she's caused, in the new world everything will change. As she even seems disappointed is her past atrocities, she might need this fresh start.

Only season 6 will reveal what Octavia becomes next.

NEXT: What To Expect From The 100 Season 6