buckle your seatbelts everyone!! this is going to be a wild ride.
THIS RANT CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL SEASONS. IT'S IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, SO IF YOU'RE NOT CAUGHT UP, STOP READING WHEN THINGS BECOME UNFAMILIAR IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED.
if you know me well enough, you'll also understand that octavia is one of my least favorite characters on the show. i would have appreciated her as a villain if she was actually well-written and we weren't constantly made to sympathize with her when she's actually ... the worst.
let's start off with her early life. octavia was literally raised under the floor, her only human interactions being with aurora and bellamy. this likely severely hindered her abilities to learn basic social skills, but it is not an excuse for her later actions, because there have actually been people who grew up cloistered like this and didn't end up being a person with the lack of empathy octavia eventually becomes. repeat: this can explain her behavior, not excuse it.
she's in the earth skills class with pike and her first interaction with other delinquents is pike strangling murphy. then, when they get on the ground, her first glimpse of the "real world" is her getting attacked by a river monster, jasper getting speared in the chest, and all of the violence that ensues afterward.
octavia has this mindset that she was an outcast in society among the sky people but ??? bitch where??? we have never, ever seen her be sidelined or discriminated against for being a second child while among the delinquents on the ground. she was accepted into the group and the only hindering came from bellamy's natural instincts to protect her (and the horrid amount of responsibility aurora placed on his shoulders, but moving on).
she subsequently joins the grounders, whose "culture" is basically nothing but war and violence and killing. she learns to sword fight for like 2 weeks and is suddenly able to do all of these insane tricks and whatnot?? sure, jan. she isn't even accepted into their group either— the sky people had treated her better than they do, which is why i still don't understand why she's so adamant about joining them.
and this is where my problems with her really start to manifest.
in 2x14, lincoln is struggling with his addiction to the reaper serum and tells octavia that he can't fight it. he's on his knees. octavia, fed up after, like, 30 seconds of trying to convince him that he can fight it, strikes him across the face and proceeds to lecture him on his own culture that he's been a part of his whole life!!! and she's been a "grounder" for like 2 weeks!!! what???
in case you don't understand why this is wrong: octavia just physically abused her significant other who was already in a vulnerable state (on his knees, posing her no threat) and suffering from an addiction. she absolutely did NOT need to hit him and it is not tough love and not something to root for. can you imagine if we just went around hitting people when they didn't listen to us to give them "tough love"??? or, imagine if, hypothetically, lincoln had done this, people would be RIOTING but since it's a white savior girl people are fine with it??
then season 3 happens. pike's faction battles with the grounder army and wins. bellamy leaves indra alive but wounded from pike. indra is haunted by being the only one left out of the entire army, after seeing all of her friends die, so she swings at octavia (to show her that she's still weak) and octavia slams her down. this could be taken as self-defense, but octavia waited a second and indra didn't strike again before she retaliated.
(notice her "we all die" monologue. apparently that doesn't apply to lincoln, whose death she uses as the "catalyst" and "excuse" for her spiral into darkness, when she's been on that path all along.)
now we get to the holy grail of bad octavia-ness: 3x09 and 3x10. let me give you a recap of what actually happens in case you forgot or got confused by the narrative that the fans like to pretend that happened.
at the end of 3x08, pike declares a death sentence on kane, sinclair, and lincoln after they are caught trying to stage an uprising. bellamy, who didn't suspect this would happen, confides in his sister to come up with a plan to get them all out. he poses no threat— in fact, octavia is the one who "goes for the hug" first when they meet (aka bellamy gives her the space to decide what to do). she tranquilizes him and chains him in some cave far away, not listening to his pleas to let him help. as an inside man, bellamy could have used pike's trust to steer him in the wrong direction and get the three prisoners out. did octavia listen? no! she wanted to play the hero and left him there with indra.
note: bellamy proves something like this would have worked when he leads pike straight to the grounders in 3x11 by pretending to still be on his side.
bellamy is often declared to be the "reason" why lincoln died, but, haha, monty is the reason they get caught. he intercepts their radio calls and sends the guards their way. they all could have made it, but lincoln gives himself up. he willingly walks into those guards, knowing he's going to die. nobody forces him away.
then they go back to the cave. bellamy asks where lincoln is. octavia hits her (chained, defenseless, who would never have laid a hand on her) brother in the face once. then, as the anger takes over, she proceeds to beat him to a bloody pulp, even slamming his head on her knee until he's coughing up blood and his face is covered in it.
again, octavia absolutely did not have to do this. many people argue "she had to take out her anger somehow!!" but uhhhh did she have to do that to her, again, chained, defenseless brother who would never have physically harmed her??? no! she could have gone outside and been alone for a bit, but that's what octavia does: hits people (particularly poc) when she's angry. (see: lincoln, illian, indra)
then bellamy tries to stick up for himself when they're on the beach by saying "i didn't kill lincoln" and mentions how he tried to help but she pushed him away. octavia throws a fit and doesn't have a valid argument. she gaslights him by saying it's still all his fault.
here's another thing to point out: octavia basically forces ilian to sleep with her or else she'll walk into the black rain and kill herself. this is a major red flag and a tactic used by abusers. ilian does not have a choice but to comply. (also, again, her pattern of mistreating poc. really strange, huh?)
then comes the whole contest or whatever to lead the bunker. octavia absolutely should not have won. luna was the most powerful grounder of them all and octavia has less than 6 months of training under her belt. luna was so strong that she could have beaten lexa in the conclave when they were kids but decided to flee instead (lexa was considered one of the best warriors). then she wears the freaking helm of awe bindi and adopts the "you are wonkru or you are the enemy of wonkru" mentality which takes away people's freedom and plunges them into living in fear, becoming no better than the government she grew up hating. or even worse than them.
in season 5, there is literally no reason for them to go to war. spacekru and clarke are open to trying to make peace with diyoza & eligius II, but it's octavia who wants to go to war. she burns monty's hard work on making edible plants in the algae farm because she doesn't want any other solution aside from war. she disregards clarke's warning about the dangers of the desert and is then injured, leaving everyone to risk their lives to cover her because of her decision. she is also willing to let the last habitable piece of land burn to prove a point.
while swordfighting bellamy and discussing his and echo's relationship, she throws a mention of gina in his face. this is incredibly ironic because we never ever saw octavia comforting bellamy after his loss or seeming even remotely upset about her death. she only uses her name to further upset bellamy and throw him off-kilter.
she grooms madi in an attempt to bend her to her will and thus have clarke wrapped around her finger, knowing that clarke will do anything for her daughter figure. she doesn't really care about madi— she just cares about the threat she poses to her power.
in summary, she makes me want to slam my head against a wall until i pass out and don't have to listen to her anymore. dark!octavia could have had so much more potential if she was written well and her plot line made sense. instead, she sounds like a whiney brat who throws tantrums when things don't go her way.
6x02 edit: it is evident that octavia still believes what she has done was right, even though she poses no effective argument against burning the algae farm. i'm definitely not saying that she's the only one in the wrong and that everyone else is right, but come on.
additionally, bellamy leaving octavia behind in the forest is understandable. octavia proved that she has not changed and apparently has no desire to change— monty told them to be better, and they're all trying to be... except her. they're technically trespassing in someone's else's territory, trying to prove themselves worthy of staying, and her go-to method of solving any conflict is still murder. she jumped on that chance without giving them time to come up with a plan. and her explanation that none of their people were lost truly shows her skewed sense of leadership: she won't hesitate to kill to save who she deems to be "her" people without considering any other options first. i think that is the stark difference between her and clarke, which is why i think it's funny that people can love o but hate clarke because she "kills people when she's in charge." at least she tends to think of other options beforehand.
*drops mic*