Clarke Griffin

Novels

Clarke Griffin was born and raised in a space colony above Earth to Dr. David and Mary Griffin. She is a medical student who hopes to follow her parents’ footsteps as a physician, taught by the Council's chief medical adviser Dr. Lahiri. She is also in a relationship with the colony's Chancellor’s son, Wells Jaha. Clarke discovers that her parents are conducting illegal experiments on children under threat of the corrupt Vice Chancellor Rhodes. She confides in Wells, who despite swearing his secrecy, tells his father, hoping to save the Griffins from Rhodes. However, due to the lack of evidence of Rhodes’ involvement, the Griffins are arrested, which also ends Clarke’s relationship with Wells; Clarke assumes that her parents are executed following their arrest, leading her to hate Wells.

Two years later, the Colony decides to send one hundred of its teenage prisoners to investigate whether Earth is habitable. Among the one hundred are Clarke, Wells, Octavia Blake, her older brother Bellamy Blake, and Clarke's friend, Thalia. After arriving on Earth, Clarke and Bellamy become attracted to each other and eventually develop a romantic relationship while co-leading the 100 with Wells.

Eventually, someone sets fires on the camp they are at, ultimately they discover that they are not alone on Earth. The 100 captured an Earth-born girl, Sasha Walgrove, and she reveals there are people from the Colony who arrived before the 100. Clarke eventually meets Sasha’s father, Max, who is a leader of an underground colony underneath the ruins of Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. Max reveals that he helped Clarke’s parents two years ago, giving her hope that they are still alive. She also discovers that Wells and Bellamy are paternal half-brothers after Wells realizes that Bellamy is his father's secret son from a previous relationship.

After drop ships from the Colony arrive, Vice Chancellor Rhodes attempts to take control over the community Clarke built with Bellamy and Wells on Earth. With Sasha's help, Clarke, Wells and Bellamy escaped, but Sasha is killed when she tries to help Octavia. As Mount Weather’s and Rhodes’ forces battle, Clarke, Bellamy and Wells are captured during the initial exchange, but their allies defeat and capture Rhodes before he can execute the trio.

During Sasha's funeral, Clarke reunites with her parents and reconcile with Wells since her parents are actually alive, but will not resume their past relationship because she is now in love with Bellamy, whom she felt happier to be with than when she was with Wells.

Background

Clarke was born in the year of 2131 and raised on the Ark to Jake and Abigail Griffin. Before her imprisonment, Clarke's father discovered that the Ark space station was running out of oxygen, and had an estimated 6 months worth left. He shared this information with Clarke and planned on going public with the information, only to have Abigail report him to the Chancellor in fears it might scare the public after the Chancellor ordered him not to. He was later 'floated', an act in which he is put in an airlock room and the oxygen is released, thus killing him. Clarke acting as an accomplice was imprisoned for treason instead of being 'floated', because she was under the age of 18. Because of her statues of prisoner she was considered to be expendable by the council and was volunteered by her mother to be sent down to Earth to test the air to see if it was livable again with 99 other delinquents.

Storyline

In the first season, Clarke and the other 99 delinquents are sent down in an exodus ship which crash lands after Earth's atmosphere cuts all communication and nearly fries the ship. After the ship lands Clarke soon realizes that they landed in the wrong location. They were originally aimed for the Mount Weather complex, a quarantine zone that had food and supplies, only to find out that they were dropped on the wrong mountain.

In 2015, it was confirmed that Clarke is bisexual, making her the first lead character to be LGBT on The CW and making her the first bisexual lead on network television (in reference to the five major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, The CW and Fox).

Reception

The character of Clarke Griffin has received extremely positive praise with some describing her as the "heart and drive" of the show. Clarke was placed in Buzzfeed's "29 amazingly Badass Female characters of 2015 and third on Tell-Tale's 5 "TV Heroes Who Crushed It" in 2015.