The 100: The 10 Best Couples (& The 10 Worst)

Based on the young adult novel series with the same name, The 100 aired seven strong seasons. Fans have been holding their breath ever since the group of youths was dropped in the harsh environment of Earth from their space station. Fans have suffered with them and for them, and each new season brings along its fair share of mystery, drama, and, of course, romantic tension.

Fans’ favorite brave adventurers have seen some terrible things. Some of them didn’t survive to tell the tale, while others are still going strong. As it would be expected when dropping 100 teenagers in any environment–even an incredibly hostile one–the sparks of love and lust are bound to start popping up everywhere. The 100 blessed fans plentifully on this matter, and we’ve seen couples come and go at the speed of light throughout the entire run of the show.

Updated on July 24th, 2021 by Amanda Bruce: It seems that fans will never tire of watching the relationship drama and the survival instincts of The 100 in action. With the series available on streaming sites, new fans continue to discover the show while old fans long for a spin-off to resolve lingering questions. There aren’t any lingering questions, however, about these particular couples appearing in the series.

20 Worst: Clarke & Niylah

Niylah is a very interesting character. She runs a trading post out in the middle of nowhere, the daughter of Grounders from two very different clans (Trikru and Azgeda). She also happens to be the person Clarke spends a lot of quality time with when she’s on the run from everyone else in the Grounder nation.

The trouble with this relationship is that it never feels fully formed. Clarke and Niylah rarely interact after the fact, even in large group scenes that make it clear Niylah is an ally. It’s never clear what draws them together outside of Clarke’s loneliness while she’s on the run.

19 Best: Maya & Jasper

Jasper spends the first season hung up on Octavia, though she is mostly oblivious to his feelings. That’s why the second season, in which he connects with Maya at Mount Weather, marks a nice change – until their relationship ends in tragedy.

Maya is someone Jasper is able to bond with over music and art and just getting the chance to be a teenager. Despite the dire circumstances of Jasper and his friends being held prisoner, Maya brings out a lightness in him. They’re good for one another, and it’s a shame that Maya ends up as a sacrifice when Clarke, Bellamy, and Monty irradiate Mount Weather.

18 Worst: Raven & Wick

Raven is very much not lucky in the relationship department. Her longest relationship takes place before the events of the series and falls apart as soon as she comes to Earth. It might as well have been prophetic because none of her romantic encounters after that one go well for her.

When Raven and Wick are forced to work together, they can’t agree on anything. While some audience members might consider that to be the sparks in their burgeoning relationship, it’s nearly impossible to see them lasting since they have very different approaches to everything in life – not just in his engineering and her mechanic fields.

17 Best: Miller & Bryan

Bryan doesn’t appear in the series for long, but he and Miller were together before Miller became a prisoner, and they attempt to rekindle their relationship once the inhabitants of the Ark make their way to Earth. Unfortunately, they end up on opposite sides of a very big problem – Pike being in charge of their people.

What’s great about this pairing, however, is that despite them disagreeing about Pike, they try to push through their differences. Miller understands that Bryan has a deep sense of loyalty to the man that saved his life. Bryan’s respect for Pike doesn’t outweigh his love for Miller either. When Bryan makes decisions he regrets in Pike’s name, he has Miller to talk to about it. It’s a shame Bryan meets his end off-screen.

16 Worst: Jordan & Hope

Jordan and Hope don’t make the most questionable of dating choices in the series, but they are certainly a surprising pair, placed together at the end of the human race. Jordan and Hope have both grown up in places where they’re literally the only children before becoming embroiled in the conflict of Clarke Griffin and her friends. That does give them quite a bit in common. Where Jordan approaches life from a place of compassion and understanding, however, Hope approaches it from a place of anger and combat.

When the two of them end up together, it feels more like they’ve gravitated to one another because they’re the only ones in the same age group left in the world – literally – not because they actually want to be together.

15 Best: Monty & Harper

Monty and Harper connect during a time when they’re both held captive at Mount Weather. It’s a stressful environment, but they find solace in one another – and continue to do so for the rest of their lives.

They’re one of the few pairings in the series that make it for the long haul. Not only do Monty and Harper come to the mutual agreement that they want to stay out of any more violent encounters, but they also are the ones who actively work toward a peaceful existence for humanity. They live out their days in a spaceship, guarding what they believe is the last of humanity in cryosleep, imparting their philosophy of peace to their son.

14 Worst: Ontari & Murphy

It’s hard to even consider Ontari and Murphy a couple – because they aren’t a real one. Ontari captures Murphy and holds him prisoner when she intends to become the new heda. Murphy uses all of his con artist ways to make sure he keeps her occupied.

That includes being available to Ontari physically. It’s a pretty gross situation that no fan of the show–even if they love to hate John Murphy–enjoys.

13 Best: Murphy & Emori

Murphy’s slow trek toward becoming a hero on The 100 begins when he meets Emori. He’s immediately intrigued by her, and they have a lot of similar skills.

Murphy and Emori are both survivors. They steal when they have to, con who they have to, and unite to keep each other from getting hurt. Along the way, they fall in love. They make one another better people as a result, both willing to sacrifice themselves for the other and even humanity.

12 Worst: Gabriel & Josephine

Gabriel is not a bad person. He just loves to learn and pursue the farthest reaches of humanity. Gabriel also, however, tends to use his worst judgment where Josephine is concerned.

Josephine’s selfish behavior in addition to her genius-level intellect makes for a dangerous combination. Gabriel tries to do the right thing, but she often seems to compromise what his idea of the right thing is. After all, he creates the entire program to allow the Primes to live forever when he loses her. It’s that program that sets in motion the downfall of his people.

11 Best: Octavia & Diyoza

Octavia and Diyoza are not a conventional couple. For all the audience knows, they never had a romantic relationship. They might as well have.

These two meet on opposite ends of a war for the planet, but end up having to survive, just the two of them and Diyoza’s daughter Hope, on a planet away from everyone else they know. During that time, they’re a family. They parent Hope together. Diyoza trusts Octavia, and only Octavia, with Hope. Octavia learns to attempt to move forward from all of the horrible things she’s done in her past, and Diyoza gets the chance to be more than her prison sentence. This is one duo The 100 fans would have loved to see more of.

10 Worst: Clarke & Finn

It’s hard to find a soul out there that enjoyed watching the relationship between Clarke and Finn develop into a romantic one. While Clarke has been involved with her fair share of partners, these two just lacked chemistry, and it just seemed like they were pushed together because it looked good on paper.

The love triangle that eventually emerges when Finn’s girlfriend lands on Earth is messy and uncalled for, and Finn’s behavior towards Clarke screams obsessive and erratic. Out of all the romantic partners Clarke has been linked within the show, Finn is by far the least compatible and undesirable.

9 Best: Octavia & Lincoln

Octavia and Lincoln’s relationship made history on the show for being the first one depicting a romantic link between a Grounder and one of the Sky people. Besides, it was always wonderful to witness the deep connection between the two, and the impact Lincoln’s presence had on Octavia, acting almost as her guiding light.

The two proved time and time again how far they were willing to go for each other, and it was just as heart-warming witnessing Octavia and Lincoln take care of each other as it was heart-shattering to see them apart and suffer because of their love. Lincoln’s death was one of the saddest fans were forced to witness, but his relationship with Octavia will remain in fans’ memories as one of the purest and most beautiful on the show.

8 Worst: Raven & Finn

It’s bad enough that Raven was forced into a love triangle because Finn fell in love with Clarke in the first place. The cheating was awful and grants these two a spot on the list of the worst couples to exist on the show. Raven and Finn as romantic partners could have been something if it wasn’t for this unnecessary Twilightesque twist, that sent Finn into the arms of someone he had no chemistry with (and it’s hard for someone like Clarke to lack chemistry with another character on-screen).

It doesn’t help that his character development took a turn for the worse when he started using violence and killed almost two dozen unarmed people in his quest to find Clarke – the same person he cheated on Raven with, and who was oh so apologetic when he was reunited with her. It’s just safe to assume Finn wasn’t good for anyone he was paired with on the show, and his death wasn’t received with much grief by fans.

7 Best: Clarke & Bellamy

The relationship between Clarke and Bellamy is a strong one, forged through friendship and trust. Although these two aren’t a romantic couple in the show, their relationship is one of the most beloved by fans of The 100, who hoped to see these two follow the path of their characters in the books in at least one way.

Even though it’s a strictly platonic thing, these two have shared more chemistry and romantic tension than many pairs on the show who were actually supposed to be linked in that way (yes, Clarke and Finn comes to mind immediately). When in season 4 Clarke breaks down when making the decision on which 100 people should go on the list of those to be saved, she puts down Bellamy’s name. Once he sees this, he refuses to go unless her name is written along with his – something he does with no shred of hesitation, proving the beautiful and powerful bond the two share.

6 Worst: Raven & Shaw

This show is known for continuously killing off major characters, in almost the same heartbreaking fashion as Game of Thrones has gotten viewers accustomed with. This means that, inevitably, new characters will be introduced and the main characters that remain will get most of the screen time, while the new ones have the necessary time to be introduced, and those who weren’t so important in the beginning tend to be forgotten by the showrunners.

Now, there’s nothing particularly terrible about Raven and Shaw’s relationship. The problem with these two is that they suffered from the show’s decision to further develop other character’s storylines in a much deeper fashion, making the relationship between these two characters seem unbelievably rushed, forced, and overall hard to root for.

5 Best: Kane & Abby

In a show ruled by teenagers, it’s a breath of fresh air to see more mature couples as well – after all, love isn’t exclusive to a certain age group, and fans couldn’t have been happier when the show decided to depict that through Kane and Abby. Granted, as individuals, they have developed into very different people from the ones that were first introduced to fans in the first season of The 100, but their relationship was a great one to see blossom.

The two always had a little something going on, and it was clear from the very beginning. Fans finally saw them give in to the attraction in season 3, when Abby kisses him for “hope”, and when Kane saves her life, against her will but keeping her best interests in mind, it just added another wonderful layer to their relationship.

4 Worst: Octavia & Ilian

Lincoln and Octavia fans weren’t exactly happy with the new pairing. It’s not that they don’t think Octavia deserves to find love again after tragically losing Lincoln, but the way it was done didn’t leave much room for her relationship with Ilian to be enjoyed as fully as it had the potential to be. Putting two characters together just because they seem to share the same level of messed up and demons tends to be a recipe for disaster.

Besides, the fact that they had Octavia and Ilian have sex when she was clearly in pain was completely uncalled for. The two don’t even share that much chemistry together, they seem to have more dislike for each other than anything else, and it just seems a bit too forced on the part of the showrunners. Again, if they had had more time to develop on-screen as a couple, perhaps this could have been different. As it is, however, just doesn’t work.

3 Best: Miller & Jackson

They aren’t exactly major characters in the overall scheme of things, but Miller and Jackson’s relationship did a wonderful job at melting everyone’s hearts. Sometimes a love story can be portrayed as so unbelievably pure that it overshadows other plot points that should be considered super important, and for many people, that happens for Miller and Jackson.

It was obvious throughout the fourth season of the show that these two felt something for each other, something that went way past the realms of friendship. When Miller told Jackson he loved him at the beginning of season 5, no one could remain indifferent even if they tried to. The actors have beautiful chemistry and not a single thing about these two seems forced.

2 Worst: Bellamy & Echo

This whole relationship just doesn’t sit well with fans. Not because it’s terrible, it’s just because it’s so very…meh. It’s lukewarm, it came out of pretty much nothing, the substance just isn’t there. Bellamy and Echo just seem like a whole lot of nothing. The showrunners didn’t put much effort into making fans care about Echo and none at all in making them care about her relationship with Bellamy.

Besides, just as it happens with many couples on the show, the relationship between these two is too forced to come off as anything special. The realness and rawness, along with the chemistry that usually makes fans root for a couple aren’t a part of Bellamy and Echo at all. All in all, it was just sort of there for the sake of being there, and that usually doesn’t make a very solid foundation for an interesting relationship that fans care for.

1 Best: Clarke & Lexa

These two will forever be the relationship on the show. Fans are still mourning the loss of Lexa, and consequently, the loss of the beautiful relationship she shared with Clarke. The trope of former antagonists that end up falling in love is an all-time favorite, but it needs to be executed to perfection. Thankfully, the showrunners hit the nail on the head with Clarke and Lexa and made for one of the most iconic couples on TV.

Romeo and Juliet have nothing on these two, who joined forces, and through love managed to make peace happen between their respective people. Lexa’s death marked Clarke deeply and forever, and although she had to move on as a character, the love story will live forever in her, as well as in fans’ hearts.