When The 100 made its debut on the CW, Octavia Blake was the girl whose mother hid her under the floor on the space station. She evolved into a warrior and the leader of Wonkru before finding some semblance of peace on a planet far from Earth.
In her time on the series, Octavia has probably experienced the most change and upheaval as she searches to figure out who she really is and where she stands in the perpetually conflicted groups of people around her. Along the way, she’s dropped some very quotable lines on the series, and we’ve collected some of the most memorable.
10 “I HAVE BEEN LOCKED UP ONE WAY OR ANOTHER MY WHOLE LIFE. I AM DONE FOLLOWING ORDERS.”
When Octavia first gets to the ground, she finds herself with a sense of freedom she never thought she’d have. Her brother Bellamy promptly wants to dictate every move she makes, and that doesn’t sit well with her.
Octavia spent the last of her teenage years in a prison cell simply because she was born. Before that, her mother and her brother hid her in a secret compartment in the floor of their quarters. It’s no wonder she isn’t about to give up freedom the moment she has it.
9 “I AM NOT AFRAID.”
Though most fans remember Bellamy telling Charlotte to count to slay her demons, they might not remember where he learns that from. Octavia learns it from the same place: their mother.
Aurora calls fear itself a “demon” whenever Octavia expresses fear. She teaches her daughter to control her reaction just as she likely taught Bellamy. Octavia learns to close her eyes and tell herself, “I am not afraid,” when things get to be too much for her, which is likely the root of Octavia’s willingness to throw herself into any situation in the series.
8 “A WARRIOR DOESN’T MOURN THE DEAD UNTIL THE WAR IS OVER.”
After Octavia loses Lincoln to Pike’s fanaticism, her friends try to push her to express her grief. They expect their version of sadness and mourning, but that’s not what Octavia gives them.
Octavia sees Pike and his fanatical pursuit of getting rid of the Grounders as a kind of war, and she’s not entirely wrong. Pike nearly tears skaikru apart. Octavia doesn’t want to allow herself to mourn until Pike is no longer a threat, something her friends can’t understand.
7 “I DON’T TAKE ORDERS FROM YOU. I TAKE ORDERS FROM INDRA.”
In the span of a single season, Octavia goes from a teenager with her first taste of freedom to a young woman trying to figure out her place in a strange new world. She finds that Grounder life is truly what she wants. Octavia understands the ways of the trikru better than anything else in her life.
Training under Indra allows her to recant her earlier statement about not taking orders anymore. She realizes that, under the right circumstances, she understands the value of allowing someone else to have a plan. In this particular instance, however, she speaks to Clarke, angry at Clarke presuming she can order her around and place her in a position that won’t see combat in battle.
6 “GE SMAUK DAUN, GYON OP NODATAIM.”
Trigedasleng is the language of the Grounders, called Trig in the series for short. It doesn’t take long for the audience to start picking up certain words and phrases, and it takes Octavia even less time. This is one of the first phrases she learns, courtesy of Lincoln.
It means, “get knocked down, get back up again,” and might as well be a motto for the group of humanity at the center of The 100. The more the world throws at Octavia and the people around her, she has to keep going.
5 “I’M NOT PLAYING ANYTHING. THIS IS WHO I AM. YOU’RE MY BROTHER. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT.”
Octavia tries on a few personas early in the show while she’s trying to figure out who she is. Bellamy essentially sees that as his kid sister playing dress-up instead of a woman finding herself.
When he tells her to stop “playing Grounder,” Octavia doesn’t understand and responds with enough venom to prove that maybe she’s been growing up while he hasn’t been paying attention.
4 “I’M NOT TRIKRU. I’M NOT SKAIKRU. I’M NOTHING.”
Octavia never feels like she quite fits in with The 100, even though she tries to be her idea of a typical teenage girl. People constantly talk about the girl hidden under the floor as if she’s not standing right in front of them. Becoming a part of trikru with Lincoln and training under Indra gives her a sense of belonging.
When Lincoln dies and she’s no longer welcome amongst the Grounders, Octavia feels lost all over again. The difference is, this time around, she’s aware of that instead of pretending to be something she’s not.
3 “MY PEOPLE, MY RESPONSIBILITY.”
An early refrain in the series from Bellamy is, “my sister, my responsibility,” because his mother makes sure he’ll always keep his sister safe. Octavia has that mantra ingrained in her head, and once she wins the fight for the bunker, she understands the phrase even more.
Octavia finds herself responsible for the survival of the human race as their new leader. She makes the decision to arm the Grounders already in the bunker, ready to make sure skaikru complies with her rules of sharing the bunker equally amongst the clans. Octavia is ready to shoulder the burden of the people.
2 “YOU ARE WONKRU, OR YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF WONKRU. CHOOSE.”
Plenty of the audience is probably tired of hearing this particular quote after the events of season five. It did its job, however, holding a disconnected group of survivors together when it needed to.
Octavia begins to call the collection of clans in the bunker Wonkru to emphasize that the 13 different Grounder nations have to be united in order to survive. She first starts really using this phrase when she has to get her people to eat an unpleasant source of protein: their own fallen fighters. This is the phrase that solidifies Octavia as Bloodreina, and it’s the darkest part of Octavia’s time on the show, but also the phrase that shows she, like so many before her, is willing to be the bad guy to make sure people survive.
1 “TWO SERPENTS, ONE GARDEN. EDEN NEVER STOOD A CHANCE.”
This line is a pretty poetic one for Octavia. At face value, it references Octavia and Diyoza fighting over Shallow Valley on the eve of Earth’s destruction. The duo references it often as their friendship grows. It also speaks to the largest conflicts of the series.
Octavia is always on one side of a fight for humanity’s survival. That might be Grounders vs Sky People, the Coalition vs the Mountain Men, Wonkru vs Death, Humanity vs Second Dawn’s Final War, etc. There are always two serpents (leaders) fighting over whatever patch of land or planet they have.
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