Bellamy and Echo are a surprising couple in The 100, but some fans think he'd be a better match for Clarke.
Since Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin first became adversaries at the start of The 100, fans have been fascinated watching their relationship develop. When Echo joined the series, she added a new component - an Azgeda spy who might not be able to be trusted, but who trusted Bellamy completely. While Echo and Bellamy became a couple while living in space, Clarke and Bellamy remain co-leaders of their people without ever acting on the romantic tension the audience sees between them.
As The 100 heads into its final stretch of episodes, there are still fans holding out hope for Bellamy and Clarke to find their way into each other's arms. Others are content that Bellamy and Echo found each other. Which couple would work best?
Echo has done a lot of bad things in her past - just like Bellamy and Clarke. Like the two of them, she's always done what she had to do to survive and make sure the people she cared about survived. When she and Bellamy discuss those bad past actions, they understand one another.
They don't cling to those past mistakes and blame one another for them. Instead, they help one another try to move on from them. With Bellamy, Echo has a life where she doesn't have to hurt other people on behalf of a leader she has blind loyalty to. Bellamy doesn't have to constantly be reminded of sharing the responsibility for the deaths of others.
There is, however, something to be said for sharing that responsibility. Most of the major tragic moments, the difficult decisions, and the lever pulls, are moments shared between Clarke and Bellamy.
While Bellamy and Echo can swap stories and offer a chance to move on, Clarke and Bellamy have actually experienced those same stories first hand. No one else will understand Clarke's decision to pull the lever at Mount Weather the way Bellamy will, and no one will ever bear the weight of that decision like the two of them.
The 100 has taken place over the course of more than a century. Clarke and Bellamy, however, maybe spent a year or two living on Earth amongst their people. For as long as they've known one another, they haven't spent all that much time together.
Bellamy and Echo, on the other hand, live in close quarters on what was left of the space station above Earth when Praimfaya ravages the world again. Echo and Bellamy don't start a romantic relationship until three years into their stay in space. That also means they've been together for over three years in season six - Bellamy's longest relationship in the show.
Part of the reason some fans don't love Bellamy and Echo together is because they're not actually on screen together very much. The audience is told more about Bellamy and Echo's relationship than they're actually shown.
Though the show take place in a very condensed time frame in the first three seasons, during those three, Clarke and Bellamy share a lot of screen time. Since then, their moments on screen together have remained significant as they continue to make decisions for their people and talk things through together. A lot of Echo's scenes with them involve her simply observing and waiting for the outcome of their discussion.
Some fans might argue that Bellamy and Clarke have no secrets, but they don't spend a lot of time talking about their past together because so many of their interactions are adrenaline fueled conflict resolutions.
Bellamy and Echo have moments to sit and talk. Echo tells Bellamy her biggest secret of all: that her name is actually stolen from someone she killed to survive as a child. They feel secure enough in their relationship to share information they share with no one else.
The Clarke and Bellamy of the pilot episode are very different people from the Clarke and Bellamy of the final season of the show. They've grown up a lot, and a lot of that growing is a direct result of their interactions.
Despite Bellamy being older than the rest of the delinquents on the ground in the beginning, he is also the most selfish, manipulating events to benefit him, while Clarke is all about helping everyone without entirely knowing how. They're working together eventually allows Clarke to see that sometimes, she's allowed to be selfish and do things for herself. It also allows Bellamy to realize he can help keep humanity together. They become well rounded and well balanced leaders as a result.
Bellamy has forgiven a lot of former enemies over the course of the series, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how to hold a grudge. Some seasons of the show have seen him at odds with Clarke for almost the entire stretch of episodes. That hasn't happened with Echo.
Echo and Bellamy usually find ways to talk out their issues right away. Even when Bellamy thinks that Echo is being cold and unfeeling in the sixth season, calling her out on it in his grief, he and Echo talk things out in the very same episode. There isn't any lingering animosity.
One of the reasons fans have focused on the journey of Clarke and Bellamy's relationship is the way their scenes are filmed. Discounting lingering looks or tactile body language, there have been some very specific choices for their scenes.
The duo are the ones most commonly seen in the "reunion hug" trope. After long battles or dramatic sequences, they literally run to one another. Bellamy even gives more attention to Clarke in those instances than his own sister. Likewise, many of those scenes have been in what look like a stereotypical romance-drama setting with rising or setting suns behind them to paint the scene in a romantic light.
If there's one thing that Echo and Clarke have in common, it's their belief in fighting for survival. Echo might have been a spy before, but she's all in when it comes to protecting her people.
There is absolutely nothing Clarke, Bellamy, and Echo won't do to give humanity a fighting chance and to make sure the people they love live on.
Most of Bellamy's time on the show has actually been defined by his relationships with female characters. His rocky childhood with his mother leaves him as Octavia's caretaker. He only comes to Earth to protect his little sister.
He becomes a leader of his people because of his relationship with Clarke. His relationship with Gina pushes him to become anti-Grounder. He goes missing in the final season because of his desire to save Octavia. Bellamy has done a lot of growing on the show, but he doesn't have to end it with a romantic partner.
