Octavia Blake and Impulsive Behaviour
Unpredictable. A loose cannon. Reckless.
All words often used to describe Octavia Blake.
And all tied back to one word that comes up even more: impulsive.
Now, I don’t think Octavia is unpredictable or a loose cannon. If you understand her, she’s actually quite predictable. Unfortunately, most people don’t bother, so she just seems unpredictable to them. But I digress. That’s a topic for another post.
Back to this one - reckless is closer to impulsive, and yes, those are often words that are suited for our dear Octavia Blake - but not always, and the reasons behind their applicability are different as the seasons go on.
Octavia in seasons 1 through 3 is what we’d typically classify as impulsive or reckless behaviour - she dives headlong into anything and everything, especially new situations, because for the first time in her life she’s actually able to have these sorts of experiences. Sure, the Earth is new for all of the 100, but when you’ve only ever known two rooms in your life - first the cell of your upbringing and then the cell of your imprisonment - it’s not hard to understand why she embraces the possibilities of Earth a lot more recklessly than everyone else.
This marks the beginning of Octavia’s first shift out of her impulsive behaviour - she begins trying to separate herself from the group, because she recognizes that being around her brother isn’t helping her cope with her grief. She puts this on the back burner to help take down ALIE, though being forced to work with Pike tests her patience greatly. But given how quickly she’s been known to lash out previously, she does show remarkable restraint, only slipping once to injure him during the fight. After that one instance, she does again wait until the fight against ALIE is over before taking Pike out - and again separates herself from the group, as she’d tried episodes before.
She goes to Indra, and then stays in Polis with her, Kane and Abby to keep Roan on the throne. In her role as an assassin, she plans. Takes the measure of a room before acting. She’s careful, meticulous, leaves no trace behind. Comes up with a plan to save Gaia and the Flame and is able to sell it to Roan.
And what does all of this get her? Dismissed from Kane’s security detail.
She returns to Arkadia injured, flees after not executing Ilian, lives with him for awhile and then returns to Polis, knowing that walking away from violence wasn’t as easy as she thought it could be.
Bellamy gives her the plan and strategy she needs to survive the Conclave - and it works. She is declared the Champion, and declares that the clans will survive together.
And what does all of this get her? Locked out of the bunker as Clarke and Jaha steal it.
When it is opened, she presents her terms to Skaikru, based on the plan of Wonkru - 100 places for each clan.
Again, this plan is almost stymied, had it not been for the timely intervention of Kane and Jaha.
In the bunker, Octavia plans - with her advisors at first, as much as possible. But as time went on, and the plans that her advisors recommended to her ended up costing her more and more of her soul, and they abandoned her even when she did as they asked - and from that she learned, if she was going to carry out a plan, it would be hers - with no one to answer to but herself, no one else could disappoint her.
New variables were introduced into the equation. But Octavia plans, obsessively so - Indra’s concerned that she isn’t sleeping, because all she’s doing is planning. And she’s right to - because each plan she comes up with that comes to the knowledge of others gets blocked in some fashion. Plan after plan after plan, stopped by enemies or friends or family. Each time, someone would interfere with her plan and causes losses and destruction on a scale that wouldn’t have happened had she gone ahead with them impulsively.
Even the final plans ended up for naught - for all of their fighting over the valley, the valley was obliterated.
Which brings us to season six, and Octavia’s being impulsive again. But this is a very different impulsivity from the one she had in seasons 1-3, and the above details about her planning phase of seasons 4-5 tell us why - she can’t rely on others - betrayals of Team Adults proved that - so she can only rely on herself, and doing what she needs to do. So with nothing to lose and a death wish, impulsivity is the only thing she can rely on.
Is this behaviour healthy? No, but very little about Octavia is right now. The point is that she has very valid reasons for not trusting or relying on others, and planning ahead has proven to just make things worse.
Diyoza keeping her promise to come back for her in 6x05 is the first time in who knows how long that someone has kept their word to her, and that’s powerful.
Will it curb her current impulsive behaviour? Probably not entirely, but along with her new desire to live and Diyoza’s acceptance rather than the condemnation she’s received from everyone else, it will begin to help Octavia see a middle road to feel comfortable in the greys unlike the black and white perspective that has always been her hallmark.
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