One of the best things The 100 has going for it is that it features a ton of genuinely badass women. The show features women from all walks of life and forces them to make hard decisions for the betterment of themselves and their people.
Given that it’s Women’s History Month and we just passed the 20th anniversary of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiere, it seems appropriate to feature some of the women of The 100 in this week’s post.
The following list is a chronological ranking of moments on The 100 featuring ladies who get things done. It’s by no means exhaustive — choosing episodes for this list was hard — but it’s a nice sampling of just how tough these women have to be.
Episode 1×03, “Earth Kills”
When Atom is caught outside during a wave of acid fog, he ends up suffering on the forest floor, covered in boils with his eyes clouded over. He begs Bellamy for death; while Bellamy tries to work up the courage to give him that mercy, Clarke arrives and quietly shakes her head to tell Bellamy she can’t save Atom.
She takes the knife from Bellamy’s hand and tells Atom she’s going to help him. She begins to hum and slices through Atom’s carotid artery, continuing to hum as he bleeds out. The death is quick, efficient, and merciful. It’s also the first time we see Clarke Griffin do what someone else can’t.
Episode 1×10, “I Am Become Death”
As the Grounders wage biological warfare on the hundred, Raven builds a three-part bomb to blow up the bridge that the Grounders will have to cross in order to attack. When Bellamy argues that the bridge has survived a nuclear war and 97 years of weather, Raven swears, “It won’t survive me.”
In the midst of taking the bomb to the bridge, Raven falls sick with the same symptoms as everyone else at camp and struggles through finishing the bomb in time to stop the attack, but she manages it despite how weak she feels. It’s not the first time Raven pushes through something like illness to save her friends, but it’s one of the most nerve-wracking.
Episode 2×02, “Inclement Weather”
After being shot by Murphy at the end of season one, Raven learns that the bullet has traveled up to her spine. Emergency surgery could kill her, because they have no anesthesia, but the alternative is never being able to walk again. Despite Finn telling her not to do it, Raven says it’s worth the risk and asks Abby to perform the surgery.
Just before the first cut, Raven screams at Abby to stop and panics. Once she’s talked down, she grits her teeth and tells Abby to go ahead, then gives into the pain and screams as she’s cut open. Once again, Raven pushes through what seems like it should be impossible in order to have a future where she might be able to walk.
Episode 2×03, “Reapercussions”
Abby allows several of the delinquents to escape Camp Jaha to go after the others who they believe have been captured by the Grounders (but are actually being held hostage inside Mt. Weather). When it’s discovered that the delinquents are missing, Kane accuses Abby of letting them go. Rather than deny it, she tells him off.
For “aiding known criminals,” Kane sentences Abby to ten shock lashes which she receives in broad daylight in front of the whole camp. For helping the delinquents find their friends — her daughter among them — Abby is made an example of and takes the punishment, then swears that she would do it ten times over if it would help find her daughter.
Episode 2×04, “Many Happy Returns”
After Clarke and Anya escape Mt. Weather together, Anya tells Clarke she’s now her prisoner and knocks her out. As the two of them make their way through the woods, they’re followed by Mountain Men. Anya blames Clarke for being loud and smelly, covering her in mud to throw off the scent.
When Clarke realizes that they’re not just being followed, but tracked, she tells Anya to look for a bump under her skin and says she’ll cut out the tracker if Anya unties her. Instead, Anya rips the tracker out of her own arm using her teeth — one of the most disturbing, but arguably most badass, things that has ever happened on this show.
Episode 2×10, “Survival of the Fittest”
Following an alliance made between Indra’s people and Camp Jaha, she brings her warriors to train behind Camp Jaha’s walls. When Octavia insists on being next in the ring, Indra refuses to let her fight. Later, as Indra and her warriors prepare to leave, Octavia refuses to move until she’s been allowed a turn in the ring.
When Kane asks what Octavia is trying to prove, after she’s been nearly killed by one of Indra’s warriors, she says, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It’s this mentality — this determination to become a warrior — that makes Indra take Octavia under her wing later in the episode.
Episode 3×04, “Watch the Thrones”
When she’s challenged by Queen Nia of the Ice Nation to battle her son Roan to the death, Commander Lexa refuses to name a champion and takes the challenge herself. During her duel with Roan, he nearly impales her but she rolls out of the way and holds a spear to him.
In a twist, rather than kill Roan, Lexa throws the spear at Nia, killing her, before declaring Roan the new king of the Ice Nation. This is hardly Lexa’s only badass moment on this series, but it’s one of my favorites because it demonstrates her skill in combat as well as her skills as a ruler.
Episode 3×10, “Fallen”
Realizing that taking the A.L.I.E. chip and entering the “City of Light” has made her forget all of her pain — including her memories of Finn — Raven attempts to overstimulate her senses in order to drive A.L.I.E. out of her head. She manages it briefly, but A.L.I.E. reappears to tell Raven that this level of sensory overload is unsustainable.
Still, Raven tries. Even when A.L.I.E. floods her with painful memories, so fast that it’s overwhelming, Raven still doesn’t give in at first, indicating once again how incredibly strong and determined she is.
Episode 3×14, “Red Sky At Morning”
Clarke finds Luna on the oil rig she and her peaceful people have claimed as a home, telling her that Lexa was working toward peace before her death. If Luna takes the chip with the Commander’s memories, she can finish what Lexa started. When Luna refuses, Clarke attempts to force it on her, which is a mistake.
Luna overpowers Clarke and reveals that the reason she fled the conclave wasn’t because she feared she wouldn’t win. It was because she knew she would, and she didn’t want that much blood on her hands. A peaceful life for Luna is one she wants and has worked hard to cultivate. She won’t allow Clarke or her friends to threaten that.
Episode 4×04, “A Lie Guarded”
After an intense battle with the Ice Nation in which the audience assumes Octavia has been killed, she “rises from the dead.” Her horse seeks her out where she’s half-submerged in a river and Octavia drags herself up with bleeding hands, onto the back of her horse, telling him to take her home.
Although I mocked this sequence for being lifted straight out of The Lord of the Rings, the whole sequence of events is still super badass. Octavia is one of the most resilient characters on this show; I suspect that if she ever does die, it will take a lot more than a mortal wound and a fall over a cliff to kill her off.
