Definitely agree about the acting. There are some amazing actors on this show and the guy who played Finn was not one of them.
In retrospect, I don't know that the show PTB was necessarily trying to push him as a romantic hero (though it's definitely what I thought at the time), I just think they were really trying to make people be sad when he died. Which clearly worked for lots of people! It did not work for me.
Thoughtless is a good word for him. Not thinking through the consequences of his actions. That's been true from moment one-- he was partially responsible for 2 kids dying during the dropship descent back in the pilot, when they followed his lead by unfastening their restraints. I think he really wented to be the mature responsible leader guy (think of his pacifist phase in season 1) but didn't know how to then carry through with it.
And yeah, good intentions. The issue with Finn was that he believed that having good intentions (or at least not having bad intentions) absolved him of consequences. He didn't mean to hurt anyone, so he can't be blamed if he did hurt someone. That's a fine character type to explore. I wish they'd been able to pull it off a little better.
So much comes down to how the narrative frames something. Like, Murphy's a full on murderer, but he gets to stay and most everybody's fine with it because no one, including him, pretends he's anything other than what he is. When Bellamy busted the radio, that was painted as a stupid, selfish action, not "oh, well you had a good reason for it so okay." Framing is everything.
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In retrospect, I don't know that the show PTB was necessarily trying to push him as a romantic hero (though it's definitely what I thought at the time), I just think they were really trying to make people be sad when he died. Which clearly worked for lots of people! It did not work for me.
Thoughtless is a good word for him. Not thinking through the consequences of his actions. That's been true from moment one-- he was partially responsible for 2 kids dying during the dropship descent back in the pilot, when they followed his lead by unfastening their restraints. I think he really wented to be the mature responsible leader guy (think of his pacifist phase in season 1) but didn't know how to then carry through with it.
And yeah, good intentions. The issue with Finn was that he believed that having good intentions (or at least not having bad intentions) absolved him of consequences. He didn't mean to hurt anyone, so he can't be blamed if he did hurt someone. That's a fine character type to explore. I wish they'd been able to pull it off a little better.
So much comes down to how the narrative frames something. Like, Murphy's a full on murderer, but he gets to stay and most everybody's fine with it because no one, including him, pretends he's anything other than what he is. When Bellamy busted the radio, that was painted as a stupid, selfish action, not "oh, well you had a good reason for it so okay." Framing is everything.