Rising Leaders: Character Ascension and Transformation in The Expanse Season 3

As it did with the previous two seasons, The Expanse Season 3 turns out to be nothing less than an impressive blend of complex characters, an almost obsessive attention to hard science, intriguing political maneuvers, and certainly jaw-dropping visual effects. It’s a rather fast-paced season, too. Over the course of just a few episodes, you get to see some major puzzles resolved, tragedies unfold, and yet even more gritty mysteries lurking in the corner.

In between the major plot lines, it’s nice to see how some of the main characters have to go through difficult decision-making processes and develop even further into indispensable figures in the story. The Expanse involves a bounty of characters; all with their own developments and intertwining stories. Throughout Season 3, you can easily notice that at least three of them undergo big transformations worthy of a highlight.

A Betrayal, or Is It?

Let’s begin with Naomi, who’s now pretty much between a rock and a hard place. After she admitted to giving a protomolecule sample to Fred Johnson instead of destroying it as everybody thought, things get sour in the Rocinante. Amos, the mechanic, plainly said that Naomi is not the person he thought she was. And it’s not just Amos, both Alex and Holden feel like they’ve been betrayed.

Naomi’s diminished status among the crew members actually seems well-deserved, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole situation is disheartening to watch. It would take many episodes until Naomi gets to explain her reason to do what she did; Naomi even serves on the Behemoth (the OPA’s ship that fires torpedo at the Rocinante in the Slow Zone) for a time before she realizes that she only belongs with the old crew and gets back. Her journey ultimately leads to a heartfelt confession to Holden about her having a child with an OPA idealist and wanting to give the Belters some sort of fighting chance in their hard rebellion against the Earthers and Martians.

A New Leader

First appears in Season 3, Episode 2: IFF, Anna Volovodov – known as Pastor Anna in the novel series – suddenly becomes the biggest influence on Esteban Sorrento-Gillis, the former Secretary General of the UN, thanks to her history as speechwriter for him. Her presence brings a much-anticipated relief as she wins the attention of the UN leader at a crucial time during the UN-MCR War. Anna makes herself the voice of reasons in the leader’s head, preventing the man from making one destructive decision after another and risking an escalation of an already catastrophic conflict.

With high moral values grounded in a religious framework, Anna brings an unexpected perspective to shed some light on humans’ understanding of the alien substance. Anna’s point of view is simple and profound at the same time; she says there is power bigger than humans, referring to either God in the traditional belief system (a perspective ridiculed by the politicians in the show) or the intelligent alien species that came up with the protomolecule.

Now that Anna has the ears of the Secretary General, things are much more difficult for Errinwright, and that’s a nice thing to see after watching him practically running the UN for two seasons. Errinwright is the warmonger throughout the seasons, but now he has a formidable figure to put an end to his plan. At many points in Season 3, Anna is an even more effective delegation than Avasarala.

During the UN mission to study The Ring in which a civilian ship is destroyed, leaving many people killed and injured, Anna rises to the occasion by offering her nursing skill to treat the wounded. But since the lack of gravity essentially prevents typical treatments, she still contributes to boost morale by spiritual counseling. She even incapacitates Clarissa Mao at a critical time, rescuing Naomi. Everything she does showcases a quick trajectory of character development, from a mere speechwriter for the Secretary General to a major political figure to persuade the UN and MCR fleets in the Slow Zone to power down their reactors. As a result, The Ring lowers its defenses and prevents unnecessary casualties.

Out of Character and Back

Let’s not forget that The Expanse’s storyline revolves around the crew of the Rocinante, primarily Captain James Holden. Since early in the series, he has been the straightforward, righteous protagonist. You can even say he’s the old-school hero who always tries to do the right thing in every situation, even if it may put himself and the rest of the crew members to unknown dangers. Holden’s hero status is an established thing, so you certainly don’t believe him for a second when he seems to ignore an ongoing war and prioritizes saving Prax’s daughter instead; that’s Holden going out of character, and it’s a hard pill to swallow.

Being Holden, the unexpected shift to become a careless ignorant doesn’t last for too long. In fact, as the season approaches its final episode, he takes another step higher in the heroism pedestal by risking himself getting deconstructed in the Slow Zone as he makes contact with the structure inside the center of The Ring and eventually reactivates the wormholes that connect the Solar System to hundreds of other habitable planets across the galaxy.

We think the pace gets somehow moving a bit too fast as the show gets about halfway through Season 3. It rapidly proceeds through Naomi’s decision to leave the Rocinante and join the Behemoth on behalf of the Belters, and Clarissa’s almost entire character arc from being hellbent on destroying Holden to a complete 180-degree shift when she abandons her twisted personal vendetta for the greater good. Holden himself also undergoes some hasty turn-of-stance from giving little care of the UN-MCR war into saving the entire Solar System by visiting the center station inside The Ring. And with introducing The Ring, you can even say that the show itself is about to shift gears by opening the gateway to a massive number of habitable planets in the galaxy.

Do you think Clarissa Mao’s character development should be stretched out a bit more? The Expanse Season 3 is based on the last half of Caliban’s War and mostly an adaptation of Abaddon’s Gate, so can you point out the major differences between the series and the novels? We’d love to hear from you.

Other Things You Might Want to Know

Until this point, what are the differences between The Expanse TV series and the novel series?

The TV series is largely truthful to the source material in terms of major plot points, but there are many minor differences. Here are some easy examples:

Drummer isn’t introduced until Nemesis Games, which is the 5th book in the novel series

Naomi never served on the Behemoth
Anna isn’t connected at all to Esteban Sorrento-Gillis
Avasarala isn’t the Secretary General of the United Nations at this point in the story
Alex doesn’t have a kid

The differences do not have consequences for the storyline.