the-gayest-pathfinder:

msmayhem1515:

the-gayest-pathfinder:

Lexa betraying Clarke on the Mountain makes absolutely no sense and I am 100% not referring to her feelings for Clarke. I’m saying that from a tactical stand point, Lexa made the worst possible decision by simply leaving the Mountain. Lexa is an intelligent leader, talented soldier, and brilliant tactician. She would need to be for her to unite 12 warring clans under her banner. Those warrior cultures would not allow someone who didn’t know anything about war, tactics, or fighting to lead their armies. In canon, Lexa is shown to be a shrewd, intelligent leader who can inspire both fear and hope in her warriors and people.

So someone who is so smart and has the tentative trust of 12 societies in her hands would not make such a terrible tactical decision at the climax of the battle as there is only one of two results that can come from her making the deal.

One, which was probably the most likely scenario in Lexa’s mind, is the Mountain Men successfully capturing the necessary amount of Skaikru and harvesting their bone marrow, which obviously means killing them. This is giving the Grounder’s greatest enemy the one thing they didn’t have before the war, which was agency. The Mount Weather Fortress was both a blessing and a curse to Lexa’s people. Sure, the Grounders couldn’t get inside of it, but it was a prison for the Mountain Men. They could not leave it without their suits and oxygen tanks. This severely limited their mobility while Lexa and her army had the freedom to move around wherever necessary to fight.

Lexa now has the ability to make it inside the Mountain, thanks to the truce and technology of the Skaikru. She has eliminated the greatest obstacle in her path to defeat the Mountain Men and free her people from their reign of terror. But by accepting this deal, she is handing her greatest enemy, on a silver platter, the ability to permanently leave their prison without any fear of radiation poisoning. Lexa is not naive. She would know that the Mountain Men would need land to build their new civilization on and that they already think of her and her people as savages, as less than human, as expendable. She knows they would leave their fortress and then kill and/or forcibly move her people from their homes. This would mean more of her people would be killed, certainly more than the number of those who had been trapped in the mountain that she had saved. 

The second scenario would be that the Skaikru (which ends up happening) somehow defeat the Mountain Men. This is almost worse than the first scenario because Lexa has, through betrayal, created a new enemy for her people, one who would now have access to the safety of the fortress, its technology and weapons, and the Skaikru would not be restricted to Mount Weather since they do not get radiation poisoning. And she just gave them a perfect reason to hate and distrust her.

There could possibly be a third scenario, however quite unlikely, in which the Mountain Men and Skaikru simply destroy each other, but that would only eliminate a small portion of the Skaikru, allowing the majority of them to plot their revenge against Lexa and her people if they wished to.

So her making this decision to take the deal offered by the Mountain Men makes no sense. I understand that she is being weighed down heavily by the guilt from sacrificing all those people in Ton DC, but she tells Clarke that she is making this deal with her head and not her heart. In no way is her taking that deal logical or good for her people in the long run. I admit that it’s good drama and it sets up a juicy obstacle for her and Clarke to overcome in the next season, but it makes Lexa look unintelligent and that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Former military officer, military operations planner, and doctrinally-trained military academy graduate here.

*cracks knuckles* Let’s talk hypothetical military strategy here. All in fun, nothing personal here. And also, hopefully I’m not too fuzzy on remembering the sequence of plot events 🙂

Actually, Lexa leaving Clarke at the Mountain is strategically and tactically the best option to her with the resources and military intelligence she has at the time. She essentially has three options available to her before the military campaign:

Option 1: Do nothing.

As awful as it is, Mount Weather and its inhabitants are a known entity. She knows how they fight, move, and what they have access to. Their strengths and weaknesses. You’re totally right, if Lexa does not intervene, the Mountain Men will gain radiation immunity and be able to leave their prison and have greater range of movement. However, she’s not going to sit idly by if they do, obviously, and even immune to radiation, once they leave the mountain they are incredibly vulnerable. Why?

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I just schooled in the most polite and knowledgeable way imaginable. I am honestly thanking you. I can’t even be mad cuz that was too interesting to read. *Bows down to the new heda*

I’ve been meaning to post some follow-up thoughts on this for awhile and I’m so behind – I, too have been of the mind that Lexa’s actions were designed to shock the audience vs. being of any real use (aside from the idea of maintaining the status quo with the Mountain and just waiting them out – great analysis here from @msmayhem1515) – but I look less at the military aspect of it and how the narrative built this in to give Clarke a terrible decision to make more or less alone (thus a moment of shock) and make Lexa’s talk about weakness reach some kind of fulfillment.

I think it is still a ‘weak’ move for Lexa (not an unintelligent one, though) simply because her people would find it so: we are led to believe that she’s created a personal mandate as Commander to build a coalition with an attendant army specifically for the purpose of taking down the Mountain and freeing their people. This is literally what she is all about: we see her on more than one occasion urging her army to the fight (kom war!) – only to lead them away at the last minute.   If we followed the rules of their society, the next thing we should have heard about was how Lexa was tied to a tree and hacked to bits and a new Commander has been chosen.  

But it begs another question: what WAS Lexa’s plan BEFORE the Sky people ever showed up?  She has an army, yes, but what good is it against the Mountain people who have all sorts of advantages?  What was she going to do?  It doesn’t seem to have been thought out by the writers, which is frustrating (unless there is something in the story I missed).  

It got me thinking how Lexa (who is supposed to be connected to an advanced AI that is designed to help humanity make good decisions) could have used the arrival of the Sky people to a greater advantage by giving a reverse angle to the ‘deal’ she made on Mt. Weather (and keep her from looking weak).  Imagine if she’s had some foresight:

• Lexa orders dozens of her warriors to a large tent to wait, then orders remaining soldiers to round up all of Skaikru and bring them to the tent as well, making a big show of it (in case *anyone* is watching, ahem).  
• Once all are in the tent, together, she reveals her scheme (perhaps already shared with Clarke) – the Skaikru in the tent will trade clothes with the warriors Lexa selected earlier (those without facial tattoos or braids).  
• Lexa cuts her own hair and has one of her female warriors put in her clothes and wear her warpaint, whilst Lexa dresses in Skaikru clothing.  
• The plan is, ‘Heda’ will march this group of Skaikru ‘prisoners’ to the mountain to make her own deal: she knows the Mountain want Skaikru for the blood, so she threatens to kill them all then and there if her people are not released immediately.  She knows she can’t fight from the outside – she has to get in somehow. 
• The Wallaces, not wanting to lose their one chance at freedom, agree to the terms (though there should be some in-fighting over it).  They recognise enough of the Skaikru prisoners (Clarke, et al) and agree to the deal.  
• ‘Heda’ takes the freed prisoners off the mountain and ‘Skaikru’ enter the Mountain (with hidden weapons, of course and the other Skaikru in the mountain forewarned) – aka a Trojan Horse approach.  

This avoids that awkward and unnecessary ‘betrayal’ and making Lexa look ‘weak’ – but you can still wind up with a tricky situation that ends in mayhem and explosions and…who knows what.  

I always thought they missed the boat with Lexa being a cyborg, with Becca’s memories and the AI’s enhancement – and how she should have been aware of Alie and perhaps concerned the Mt. Men were in collusion with her or with Ice Nation somehow (imagine a scene where Lexa steals off to a private office after the battle, and watch her use a computer as she searches for a sign of Alie’s code. With the audience not knowing what the ‘Flame’ is – this would be a shocking revelation).  

With deal coming from Mt. Weather’s end (instead of Lexa taking advantage of knowledge she already had), it forces everyone up a chimney (and this show loves writing its characters up chimneys).  

So, hope this isn’t a completely insensible mess.  Excellent insights, both @the-gayest-pathfinder, @msmayhem1515.