Due to recent comments such as
“Clexas are so petty”, “Let it go already” and many others because we are
downvoting the new trailer, celebrating our trend yesterday and that article
dragging the show, I think we need to make one thing clear here:
What people outside the Clexa
fandom don’t know (or simply don’t want to know in most cases and ignore it)
it’s that the loo situation goes way beyond “not liking something” and most
important: it goes way beyond Lexa’s death itself!!
the
writers/actors/staff of the show started tweeting SUICIDE HELP NUMBERS right
after the episode of Lexa’s death aired. You all think that happened “just because”?
Many others known characters (especially LGBT ones) were killed this year and
none of them had a reaction that came any close to this. Did you ever stop to
wonder why?? Why this backlash was so huge and still is? I am telling you now
why: because the LGBT fandom was used, played with and queerbaited in the worst
way possible on SM by Jason and the writers every since that first Clexa
kiss.
And all the receipts of it, so you don’t say we are being “extra” and
making things up, are all here, in details and organized in a timeline of
events. This is actually the best link because that Variety article does not
address all the things that happened, only a few of them in a general view, so if
you want to pick one this is better: http://wedeservedbetter.com (btw kudos to
the people that did this).
Please take 1 hour
of your time and read it all (it’s really long I know, but it’s all there)…try
to understand why this fandom is so angry at Jason, CW and writers, why 9
months later this fandom STILL feels like this and is so aggressive and petty.
We were all actually expecting Lexa to die after the end of S2 and Jason and the
writers literally went out of their way to convince us the contrary for buzz
and ratings (even if her death was already planned and filmed).
You think the
fandom WANT to feel like this? That the fandom doesn’t want to move on and be
able to ignore it all? If you think like that you are, forgive my language,
stupid! NO ONE wants to fell like this, to feel stuck as if the only way of
being 100% free and having closure is seeing the show cancelled, and none of
this would have happened if they didn’t behave like that on SM or even if the
CW had done “damage control” the right way. Guess what? Jason, Shawna and
others didn’t face ANY CONSEQUENCES for their actions. They didn’t even get
called out by CW superiors or pushed away from their involvement on the show.
No, on the contraire, Pedowitz says he completely trusts his showrunners and
gives them the freedom they want to tell the stories they want…hell Jason even
got a new show on the network next year. I guarantee you all that if Jason was not part of the show anymore no one in the fandom would still be
doing any of this, because it would feel like justice was done.
If Lexa had
died the EXACT SAME WAY but none of this had happened on SM, the backlash would
have lasted a couple of weeks at most (because she was a beloved character, fan
favorite, and the death was stupid and fell into the trope). The baiting and
the SM behavior are responsible for at least 80% of the backlash/anger. Period.
The funny thing is that the
only person, among the people responsible, that we are ok with is actually
Javi. The writer who wrote Lexa’s death. You know why? Because that night and
the days after, he took a lot of his own time to listen to fans and acknowledge
all theirs mistakes. He answered all his asks on tumblr/twitter with respect
and, most important, with the TRUTH. Such as:
You know what
Jason did? Nothing! He tweeted the few reviews that were good from that episode
and hid behind a 22 year old actress and another network to put the blame on.
He denied knowing enough about the trope, he denied knowing that Shawna
infiltrated a LGBT forum and lied to the fans, he denied knowing about Lexa’s
real affect on people and what her death would cause, even if fans tweeted him
about it every day since the end of S2 and even made many WW trends about it
too (his twitter icon up until the episode was a fan art of his saying “don’t kill Lexa” on the background). He hid behind a horrible PR apology letter released 2 weeks later only because
of the con he would participate. Not only that he actually retweeted a tweet on
the following day of the episode calling fans “bullies”. The same ones that
were crying, desperate and even calling help lines because of their pain. And
you know what else added salt to the wound: CW renewed the show the WEEK AFTER
her death!! Wow talk about a slap to the face to all the fans that were already
in so much pain. If there was any doubt left that they were used, that was the
proof of it.
So go ahead
and defend a person like him. Pretend that nothing serious happened and we are
all exaggerating. Pretend that our salty posts/tweets (that actually function
as a coping mechanism and help us deal with our irritation/stress regarding the
show) are only bitter fans with no reason and we are “pissbabies”. Pretend that a person that says that
“leading without feelings is the same as being asexual” and that “the bisexual
character can get with any other character on the show (except her own mother because that
would be weird)”, is a person that actually gives a fuck about the fans and the
LGBT community that gave him and his show media attention. Pretend that all the receipts of their SM behaviour (baiting and lies that went beyond just answering fan questions and interacting with them) does not exist, so you can still defend them. Be blind still and only see the things that you want to see and ignore it all.
Actions have
consequences and as Jason said “The pain will be delicious”. Well Jason here it
is the fandom’s pain, it turned into anger, pettiness and a lot of salt…I hope
you are all enjoying it.
I thought the trailer looked messy and derivative and thought the choices for some scene spoilers was questionable. They started with the bit about the nuclear power plants melting down. Embarrassing, especially if you know a little of how those things work. So the science doesn’t look like it’s being corrected. Shame if that’s the case. Bellamy not wanting to sacrifice any more lives? Didn’t he slaughter innocent people? It sounds odd coming from him. A little…revisionism in his history going on, maybe? By placing two intimate-looking scenes with Clarke in the trailer, I’d say they’ve embraced that more than half their fandom is gone and they’ll give what remains something of what they want. It does reek of a little spitefulness. Even if there is no romance between Clarke and Bellamy, the trailer is certainly implying something. Who is being baited now? We’ll see. I’ve written below why such a pairing would be outright offensive at this point.
As for Clarke…and I’ll put this in as it answers a couple of similar asks right now (regarding her legitimacy as a bisexual character):
A fictional bisexual character created by a straight male, who is given a brief romance with a lesbian character who is then killed off to make way for the fictional bisexual to have a romance with the male hero is the problem, if it happens, not that she’s bisexual or offers good (or bad) representation on her own.
It upholds the heteronormative VISUAL that demeans f/f relationships time and again. Another toxic trope. “She was just experimenting.” “It’s just a phase.” “She really belongs with him.” Clarke Griffin becomes a prize that Bellamy ‘deserves’ to win. It’s an appalling stereotype. Ask why it’s ‘okay’ that she ‘belongs with him,’ but not ‘her.’
Answering a previous ask about ‘salty Clexas’: Fans who want Clarke to be reunited with Lexa are fighting against the heteronormative they are constantly slammed with. The constant degradation of their own fantasies and desires to see just a tiny bit of positive representation on-screen. They are also fighting back against the deliberate queerbaiting they went through at the hands of the showrunner and members of his team throughout 2015 and early 2016.
Add with the disgusting amount of homophobic taunting that went on with certain members of another end of the fandom (who are now revelling in what they feel is their triumph over the ‘Clexughs’) there is more going on here than just whether or not Clarke’s bisexuality is valid and good representation. A lot more.
throwback to season 2 where Lexa had already lowkey sworn fealty to Clarke + highkey took care of her wifey (▰˘◡˘▰)
This is what gets me about Lexa’s storyline. She was never written to be a romantic hero/foil for Clarke. She was written to be the Betrayer. The tribal leader who capitulates to the desires/needs of the would-be colonialist overlords. Gustus and Titus both see what the Skaikru are or what they could be (the end of the Grounder’s way of life) and are desperate for Lexa to uphold the will of their people instead of being swayed by Clarke. They know it will end badly.
Lexa was never intended to be anything but a tragic figure who betrays her people and must be punished by them for it. Her relationship with Clarke is the heart of that betrayal. Only when she is offered the ‘deal’ is she forced to return to the path of putting her people first. She means well. She wants peace. But her people will not accept Skaikru. In series 3, she tries to pull her people into her way of thinking, but Titus recognises she is so besotted with Clarke, she will not put her people first (even if she sees a bigger picture than he does). That he becomes the one to mete out her ‘punishment,’ adds another layer to her pointless tragedy.
And the fans saw something so much bigger and better in that storyline and completely rewrote the narrative to suit themselves. It created a disconnect between the audience and the show – which is a shame. The producers could have looked through the eyes of this audience and seen how much bigger their show could have been. Such a shame. A waste.
Love this.
I think it’s clear that Jason never intended for Clexa to be this massive thing that took over the show. Once he realized how popular it was becoming in season 2, he saw $$$ and brought Lexa back in season 3 to bask in the hype and positive press that Clexa was getting during the hiatus.
The problem was that he never actually cared about the character or the relationship the way the fans did. Storylinewise, Jason brought back Lexa SOLELY to kill her and reveal his “brilliant” AI plot twist. That was it. All the clexa stuff that happened before that was just for ratings and media hype.
Very well put.
The differences between ‘show Lexa’ and ‘fan Lexa’ are jarring. On one hand you have The Commander who is only a tiny sliver of the overall narrative, on the other, you have fans building an entire universe around all the possibilities of her character and her relationship with Clarke. The show isn’t going to explore those possibilities, likely not even if there was time to do so. I doubt the producers were ignorant of how the fans saw her, it was simply, as you say, nothing they cared about. A writer is going to write the story he wants, not the one his viewers want.
Where it took such a cruel turn was the naked greed of using and manipulating that vulnerable audience to increase numbers and achieve renewal.
Every showrunner looks for a hook to grab an audience. Lexa/Clexa was JR’s unlikely hook. He and his team played into it. They weren’t interested in investing anything real into Lexa – her death was assured from the first time she was seen on-screen – but they were going to play up the fan’s love of her. They wrote the first half of series 3 in the manner of total fan fiction: all of it designed to please a Clexa fan. All of it designed to keep them watching, keep them hooked. Big, crowd-pleasing moments like Lexa kicking the Azgeda ambassador off her tower or kneeling to Clarke or fighting Roan and killing the Ice Queen. Clarke sketching sleeping Lexa (how did that scene come about?). Nothing real. It was all fantasy-within-a-fantasy. If substance had been involved, we would have been given the Ice Nation as the big foe, we would have been given backstory on their history, on Nia and Lexa’s feud. It would have somehow paralleled all that was happening with the sky people and their struggle. All of it would have tied together into the greater narrative.
The AI storyline should have been the ‘filler’ for how the Grounders became what they became. Their origin story. Instead, it was given pride of place and wasn’t terribly well-thought out enough to make enough sense, to tie in to the Grounders fully.
How, in such a short period of time, did the Grounders go from being within living memory of technology, democracy and scientific learning to a haphazard grouping of ‘clans?’ How did people who had known Becca and learned of her AI and took her ‘nightblood’ serum not pass on their knowledge of her? How could Lexa not have known she was connected to a piece of advanced technology (especially if she had Becca’s memories)? How did a religion form around Becca’s invention? Anything that gave us a greater idea of Grounder history and culture would have made sense. But that wasn’t the story they were interested in telling. Lexa and her people were just pretty smoke, extras. It’s a terrible shame because the potential is all there and they didn’t look to explore it.
Is this necessarily a fault? No, not under ordinary circumstances. Under ordinary terms, we’d just be disappointed at poor storytelling and move on. But the unusual and (perhaps unintentionally) cruel manipulation of the audience put this failure on a completely new level. Now that they’ve been thoroughly called out for it by those fans and various media, their party is somewhat over. The exuberance of their earlier social media shenanigans are no more. Their show is forever tainted by their arrogant invocation of an offensive trope – one they should have had greater insight about (an insight the fans are now determined the entire industry will never ignore again). After paying sycophantic fan service they might have thought would net them greater rewards, they’re having to scale back in various ways, including the diminishing of their series from 16 episodes to 13, even less space to tell their already limited story. Instead of building up and outwards, they wrote themselves into one corner too many.
I find these disconnects interesting as they speak to greater problems in our culture, namely the unquestioned supremacy of the male authority figure, protected by a male dominated industry that continues to marginalise minorities.
If fans will continue to make noise, if the audience asserts itself as something other than passive, the industry must shift – and, perhaps, an active audience creating positive change will have positive effects in other areas of society.
do they just… carry lexa’s throne around wherever she goes? like that’s definitely the exact same throne that was in the tent when she and clarke first met but now it’s up like 97 floors at the top of the tower in polis. who is in charge of throne transportation? who had to drag it up all those stairs??? that can’t be fun.
but also it’s just pretty inefficient to have her throne room or whatever all the way up there in the first place, like… there are no elevators?? they have to walk up and down all that way every time they want to do anything and maintaining all those stairs when the whole building is pretty much a skeleton must be a lot of work. i know it’s visually cool for her to be able to look out over her entire kingdom a la simba looking over the pride lands (“everything the light touches!!”) but like. damn. that’s a lot of stairs. did roan drag clarke up all those stairs with a bag over her head? did someone carry her? i know this is so not important but it’s just REALLY HIGH UP!!!!
DO YOU EVEN ROPE AND PULLEY SYSTEM, BRO
OKAY BUT IT’S REALLY FUCKING HIGH UP LIKE LOOK. let’s measure how tall this huge ass tower is… let’s do it in lexas because we can (and idk what other unit of measurement to use here)
that topmost section is roughly 10 lexas (or one “decalexa,” let’s call it)
once we pan out, we see that the whole tower is a little over 10 decalexas (one “hectolexa”)
1 lexa = 67 inches
100 lexas = 6700 inches = 558′4″ (which is a conservative estimate)
i mean i know my physics is a bit rusty but CAN YOU MAKE A ROPE AND PULLEY SYSTEM THAT CAN EFFECTIVELY TRANSPORT PEOPLE UP AND DOWN OVER 550 FEET ON A REGULAR BASIS??? IDK BRO THAT’S REALLY FUCKING HIGH UP
It had to be reblogged after I got to decalexa.
This is now a unit of measurement.
Right there with you on the decalexa. The math here is flawless.
Friendly reminder that your fandom once invented its own system of measurement.
I answered this a bit recently – no, I don’t think they’ll bring Lexa back. I think they want to get as far away from her as possible. Not discussing her, not bringing her up, hoping to move on from the media/fan fiasco. It’s a common strategy (not a kind one, but common). I believe part of the (Clexa) fan disconnect with the show stemmed from an unusual problem: the difference between ‘Lexa of the show’ and ‘Lexa the fan creation.’ But I’ll discuss that at another time.
I’ve been asked about series 4 theories and while I don’t think there’s enough to go on, I’ll pull this out of my head for you and try to keep it simple (over-thinking it always leads to disappointment):
In spite of the many scientific inaccuracies regarding nuclear plants, we’ll agree that there’s a major radiation problem looming and they’ve got to figure out how to survive it. That’s a given.
There will be disagreements over what to do.
Raven will be key to forming a plan.
Octavia will want no part of anything.
Bellamy will try to convince her otherwise, all part of his search for redemption.
The Grounders will be a mess without leadership and angry over the CoL business, some, perhaps, wanting to return to it.
Clarke will somehow reconnect with Luna and renegotiate with her since, I don’t know, they need her leadership (and, likely, her boats).
There will be Difficult Discussions over who will survive or is worthy of such (Luna only has so many boats). Lots of soul-searching moments.
Maybe Luna will take the flame, maybe no one will. Maybe it’ll wind up a keepsake that is never really mentioned again (what was the point of that thing anyway).
Clarke and Luna will work together to make Raven’s suggestions possible, in order to save as many people as they can. Hard going: Luna has no reason to trust Clarke.
Roan will help somehow or be a hinderance.
Octavia will not be on the journey. She will choose to stay behind, with the Grounders that refuse to leave. So will Indra. Raven and Jaha may not be on the journey, either. Bellamy will resist going, but someone will talk him into it, y’know, cause they need him or something.
Clarke, too, may resist the journey, feeling unworthy – and we think she’ll stay behind, but her mum convinces her.
I imagine the survivors will leave North America and travel elsewhere (because there are enough random Classical and Biblical allegories, why not) via Luna’s fleet of boats, to some spot that Raven will have figured out will be relatively ‘safe’ and a good place to start over. The last episode will be of them setting sail or arriving to their new destination.
This finale I think works because if there is no series 5, you can just leave it there and assume whatever you want and if there is a series 5, say goodbye to the 12 clans and their storyline (we hardly knew ye) and ever having a Clexa reunion (Lexa will be completely forgotten by then). It’ll be a whole new paradigm, as the survivors build a new world…together (swell of dramatic music).
Thank you for writing. Sorry I’ve not replied sooner but had to think about your question a bit.
There’s so much to appreciate about the character, and so much covered elsewhere, not sure what I can add (but if I think of something, I’ll certain ‘ramble’ about it).
One thing I’d like to mention though: there’s lots of talk about Lexa being the poster child of consent. She doesn’t touch Clarke without permission, she’s gentle, she’s respectful. I think this is interesting, especially since a common image in some films/telly is a distraught woman, forcibly comforted by another person (usually, a man). He holds on to her while she pushes him away, screaming sometimes, until she’s too tired to fight anymore and submits and this is often suggestive that she is accepting of him (in spite of her earlier struggle and rejection) and that this is something she needs, it just takes his unyielding (and uninvited) strength to help her see that.
Related, there are those scenes that show a woman struggling against a man’s unwanted advances (a kiss, sometimes more), until his hold is too much and, again, she submits, because, the subtext goes, she really wants this.
I’ve always found that sort of scene/imagery to be deeply offensive and sexist. If anyone ever tried to do that to you in real life, he’s not likely to get away with it and no one would see it as ‘romantic.’ As someone who has trouble receiving touch, it would be nightmarish.
So I appreciate that they wrote Lexa this way: even though we might all agree that Clarke needs comforting, maybe even Clarke would agree, too, it is up to Clarke what form that comfort takes. Lexa knows this and holds herself away. She’d never disrespect Clarke’s boundaries. It’s a nice touch that we rarely see in other media.
It’s a little hard to write a fluffy chapter in mwtw when Lexa’s victory speech in the previous chapter resembles so much of Hillary’s concession speech. Ergo apologies for the delay.
BUT I’m instead funneling my rage and distress into a trope-y President!Lexa AU. So there’s that… 🙂
Current status: scrolling through dozens of photos and floor plans of the presidential bedroom. Just for funsies.
I found that speech – the whole chapter really – to be incredibly inspiring, moving, brilliant – and I’ve said before, this should be a cherished work on young women’s bookshelves (would that I’d had a book like this when I was teen).
If you’re feeling low about all that’s happened, I recommend giving this story a read, especially chapter 21. It’s the sort of story women can be inspired by to help rouse themselves to action (as well as find comfort in).
The Doctor Is Out 