| “ | I was trying to take down a system dedicated to the worship of false gods. I became a false god all over again. | „ |
Gabriel Santiago is an antagonist in the post-apocalyptic TV series The 100, serving as an antagonist in the first half of the sixth season and part of the seventh season, although he appears primarily as a protagonist.
Gabriel was one of the original colonists of the inhabitable moon Sanctum, a geneticist who was in a romantic relationship with Josephine Lightbourne when an eclipse caused Russell Lightbourne to slaughter most of the colonists in a psychotic state. Gabriel would spend twenty-five years working on a way to resurrect those lost in the eclipse and he subsequently became on the Primes, the tyrannical rulers of Sanctum. Gabriel's moral concerns caused him to abandon the Primes and form the Children of Gabriel militia as a resistance force. Over time, Gabriel became known as the near-mythical Old Man, eventually vanishing to even his own followers.
In the sixth season, Octavia Blake and Charmaine Diyoza agree to hunt down Gabriel for Russell and his followers in exchange for being allowed to settle in Sanctum. The two come up against and eventually work with Xavier, a Children of Gabriel member who escaped an earlier skirmish with the faction. The hunt for Gabriel comes to an end when Xavier proves to be Gabriel himself in a new host, having abandoned his leadership out of shame following his unwilling resurrection ten years before. With Russell and the Primes proving to be the truth threat, Clarke Griffin and her friends ultimately ally with Gabriel and his followers to take down the Primes once and for all.
In the seventh season, during the conflict with Bill Cadogan and his Disciples, Gabriel is presented with the opportunity to finally decipher the mystery of the Anomaly, something that he has spent 150 years trying to do. Often accused of being more interested in finding his answers than rescuing his friends, Gabriel betrays the others and joins the Disciples, working with them to solve the mystery of the Anomaly. However, his defection proves to ultimately be a ruse as he rejoins Clarke when she arrives and doesn't reveal the secret of the Flame AI's destruction to the Disciples. Goaded by a hallucination of Josephine, Gabriel later considers helping the Disciples get exactly what they want as a way of redeeming himself for his past, but changes his mind at the last minute. Ultimately, Gabriel sacrifices himself to save Madi Griffin from Sheidheda and welcomes his final death, surrounded by his friends.
Gabriel was portrayed by Ian Pala, Donald Heng, and Chuku Modu in his original body and his two on-screen hosts with Chuku Modu primarily portraying Gabriel.
Biography[]
Background[]
According to Gabriel himself, his grandmother is Colombian. While on Earth, he knew of Bill Cadogan and had a crush on Becca Franko. He was eventually selected for the Eligius III colony mission sent to colonize five potentially inhabitable worlds.
Loss of Josephine Lightbourne[]
21 days after arriving on the habitable moon Sanctum, Gabriel is in a romantic relationship with fellow colonist Josephine Lightbourne when a Red Sun eclipse strikes, driving Russell Lightbourne into a psychotic state. In this state, Russell kills his wife, daughter and many of the other colonists, although Gabriel survives.
For the next twenty-five years, Gabriel and Russell work on a way to resurrect those that they have lost by modifying their Memory Drives into Mind Drives, devices capable of storing an entire consciousness. Gabriel and Russell eventually manage to succeed, but in order to resurrect someone, they discover that they have to mind wipe a Nightblood host, effectively killing the host, before downloading their mind. Their first successful resurrection is Josephine herself and they are then able to bring back everyone else. However, by the time that Gabriel figures out how to bring back Josephine, he himself is dying of cancer. After Gabriel's death, Josephine, unable to lose him any more than he could lose her, resurrects Gabriel in a host body.
Ruler of Sanctum[]
Along with the rest of the original colonists, Gabriel becomes one of the Primes, the rulers of Sanctum who become deified by their followers. Gabriel comes up with many of the scientific advancements that define Sanctum, including the early warning system for the Red Sun eclipse. Along with Russell, Gabriel studies the Red Sun toxin, but instead of weaponizing it, he focuses on creating an anti-toxin and other beneficial effects and studies the mysterious Anomaly on the planet.
However, Gabriel starts to become disillusioned with the Primes and their methods, particularly when they keep sacrificing innocent people to extend their own lives. Gabriel eventually rebels against the Primes, destroying the remaining Nightblood embryos in the hopes of ending the cycle of resurrections. For this crime, Gabriel is imprisoned to be burned at the stake, but he escapes with the help of fellow Prime Ryker Desai who leaves Gabriel's cell door open for him.
Leader of the Children of Gabriel[]
After his escape, Gabriel founds the Children of Gabriel militia, a rebellion dedicated to destroying the Primes and the system that Gabriel had helped to create. Despite being on opposing sides of the war and trying to kill each other, Gabriel retains his love for Josephine and vice versa. Over the next seventy-six years, Gabriel and his followers rescue infants that Josephine sacrifices to the forest because they are Nulls, neither Nightbloods nor carriers of the gene. Due to the advanced age of his host, Gabriel becomes known as the Old Man, a near-mythical figure.
Ten years before the people from Earth arrive, Gabriel vanishes and his followers believe that he has abandoned them. In reality, Gabriel's host has died of old age which Gabriel had intended to be the end of him. However, Eduardo, who Gabriel had loved like a son, is determined not to allow Gabriel to perish. Gabriel had taught Eduardo how to remove the Mind Drive in order to ensure that his end would be permanent, but Eduardo had refused, particularly when a Nightblood, Xavier, was born amongst the Children of Gabriel. By the time of his death, Gabriel believes that he has managed to talk Eduardo out of his plan, but he proves to be wrong. Against Gabriel's wishes, Eduardo mind wipes Xavier and resurrects Gabriel in his body. Enraged, Gabriel kills Eduardo and assumes Xavier's identity out of shame that he has once again become the thing that he has been trying to destroy.
As Xavier[]
For the next ten years, Gabriel poses as Xavier, with his followers, including Xavier's own sister Layla, having no idea that he is anyone else. When Clarke Griffin and Wonkru arrive from Earth, they come into conflict with the Children of Gabriel who abduct Octavia Blake as well as Rose, a young Nightblood destined to be the next host to Jasmine Mason. Gabriel is amongst the group that abducts the two and argues with Tosh over their harsh methods, stating that the Old Man wouldn't approve and going so far as to pull a gun on her. Octavia and Rose are able to escape using a knife left by Gabriel in a pack that he dropped near them shortly before Charmaine Diyoza arrives with backup to rescue them. However, Rose is killed by Tosh while Gabriel escapes. With Jade promising them that if they kill the Old Man they will be welcomed back in Sanctum, Octavia and Diyoza dedicate themselves to hunting down both Xavier and Gabriel, unaware that they are one and the same.
Despite their best efforts, Octavia and Diyoza are unable to catch Gabriel who lures the two women into a trap and offers to save them if they tell him who amongst their people has Nightblood. The two refuse to listen, but when their lives genuinely fall into danger, he throws them a rope to escape with. Gabriel then watches from a distance as they continue their chase after the Old Man, but intervenes when he notices that Octavia's hand has become withered. Approaching the two, Gabriel treats Octavia's hand as best he can and tries to convince Diyoza that she's on the wrong side due to how her unborn child would be viewed in Sanctum society. With Octavia and Diyoza showing a connection to the Anomaly, Gabriel agrees to take them to it and to the Old Man for help.
Identity Revealed[]
As Gabriel prepares to take the two women to the Anomaly, he visits his camp to disarm them. While Gabriel is treating Octavia's worsening condition, Diyoza notices his Mind Drive scar and correctly deduces "Xavier's" identity as Gabriel. Gabriel drops the act, but continues to help the two, explaining how he came to be Xavier.
With the revelation that the Primes are the true threat on Sanctum, Clarke and her friends instead align themselves with Gabriel to take them down, ending his time as their enemy. During this time, Gabriel is reunited with Josephine for the first time in 76 years when Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia enlist his help to remove Josephine's consciousness from Clarke's body. Josephine suggests to Gabriel that they remove their Mind Drives and live out the rest of their lives together in their current hosts, but a saddened Gabriel rejects the offer. After Gabriel's attempt to remove Josephine's consciousness on her Mind Drive fails, Clarke is forced to kill Josephine for good, leaving Gabriel visibly saddened as he watches Josephine's EEG readings flatline.
Shortly thereafter, the group is found by the Children of Gabriel and Gabriel finally reveals the truth about his identity to his followers, including Xavier's devastated sister Layla. Due to his deception and Clarke being Josephine's host the last that they knew, the Children of Gabriel prove reluctant to trust them, but agree to work together to use Gabriel's abilities as both a scientist and a Nightblood as well as Clarke posing as Josephine to finally bring the Primes down. With the help of Clarke and her friends, Gabriel and his followers' goal is finally accomplished with Clarke killing most of the Primes beyond resurrection and Russell, the only survivor aside from Gabriel himself, being arrested and imprisoned for the time being.
The Disciples[]
Shortly after the Primes are defeated, Diyoza's now-adult daughter Hope sends Octavia through the Anomaly and Bellamy is abducted by a group known as the Disciples. Following the Disciples, Gabriel, Hope and Echo spend five years on another planet dubbed Skyring, a planet that had been selected as a possible colony by the same colony mission that had settled Sanctum, where Gabriel develops an increasing fascination with the Anomaly and his chance to explore its secrets. Following their arrival on Bardo, this increases to the point that Echo accuses him of prioritizing his scientific curiosity over their rescue mission. Gabriel later betrays his friends over concerns with their escape plan, stunning them and then surrendering himself to the Disciples.
Gabriel subsequently accepts an offer to join the team studying the secrets of the Anomaly Stone, combining his own knowledge with that of the Disciples in an effort to unlock its secrets. When Clarke's group arrives, Gabriel is amongst the Disciples to greet them and is present when they meet with Bill Cadogan. However, it quickly becomes clear that Gabriel is still on their side as he hasn't informed the Disciples that the Flame AI has actually been destroyed and is not in fact still in Clarke's head. After Jordan Green deduces that the Disciples mistranslated the texts talking about Transcendence, Gabriel chooses to keep the knowledge from Cadogan. After the truth about the Flame comes out, Cadogan confronts Gabriel over his supposedly lying to them, but Gabriel defends himself by pointing out that he simply didn't correct the assumption that the Disciples were operating under.
After returning to Sanctum, a hallucination of Josephine under another Red Sun eclipse urges Gabriel to use the technology on Sanctum to fix the Flame and help the Disciples to get the code they need to start their Last War which Jordan believes to be actually be a test undertaken by a single person. Driven by the chance to make up for his past by potentially becoming the savior of humanity through taking the test himself, Gabriel agrees. Gabriel starts repairing the Flame and Josephine urges Gabriel to volunteer to act as its host as Cadogan needs a Nightblood for that. However, at the last moment, Gabriel changes his mind and destroys the Flame forever instead and takes an anti-toxin to end his hallucinations of Josephine.
Self-Sacrifice[]
Shortly thereafter, while back on Earth, Sheidheda attacks on Cadogan's behalf in order to retrieve Madi. Gabriel attacks the Dark Commander in order to buy Madi time to get away and is fatally stabbed in the process, sacrificing himself for Madi. After Indra and Gaia force Sheidheda to flee, Gabriel refuses any medical treatment in order to finally have the death that has been long denied him. After the others recite a blessing over him, Gabriel peacefully dies of his wounds his final words being "death is life" in Spanish.
Trivia[]
- It is unknown exactly how many bodies that Gabriel has gone through as, unlike the other Primes, he's not identified by a number such as Russell Lightbourne VII or Josephine Lightbourne VIII, referencing to them being on their sixth and seventh hosts respectively. When reunited with Gabriel, Russell suggests that Xavier is probably his fifth or sixth host, but Gabriel doesn't clarify the matter.
- Given comments throughout the sixth season, Gabriel's previous host, the one that he was known as the Old Man in, was approximately 96 years old when he died.
- Chuku Modu, who portrays Gabriel and Dylan Kingwell who portrays Luca, one of the Children of Gabriel, both previously appeared together in an episode of The Good Doctor. However, in both shows, their characters never actually share a scene together.
- Gabriel and Josephine Lightbourne's love for each other lasted for 236 years despite the two trying to kill each other for the last 76 of those years.
 Villains
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