The first part of Netflix’s TV series adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude highlighted the growth of the BuendÃa family, which became synonymous with the prosperity of the city of Macondo. Hidden in the swampy wilderness, Macondo was as free and liberated as its founding family wanted the city to be. But eventually, as the bitter realities of the outside world started pressing into the mystical city, it started to transform into a troubled, war-ravaged version of itself and the Buendia family’s downfall almost started in synchronization as well. By the end of the first season, the city and its founding family have changed into something unrecognizable when their past is taken into context. Although the story hasn’t ended yet, as a second part consisting of eight more episodes is to be released next year, it doesn’t seem either the city or the family will be able to attain their former glory ever again. There are multiple plot points left unresolved, which will make their way to the final part and offer answers regarding the Buendia family and Macondo’s future.
Spoilers Ahead
The Future of Macondo and the BuendÃa Family
One might say the Buendia family’s fall from grace started with the arrival in Macondo of Apolinar Moscote, the shrewd conservative aristocrat who wanted to change Macondo according to the liking of the Colombian government. Jose Arcadio Buendia protested, along with his followers—the founding families—but his son Aureliano’s relations with Apolinar’s daughter Remedios created an unexpected alliance with the Moscote family, which Buendia couldn’t avert. Things went from bad to worse when Buendia himself lost his sanity following Melquiades’ demise; by then Aureliano had forgotten his roots and had become subservient to Apolinar—and as a result there was no one to stand in Apolinar’s way. After this, aside from a few fleeting moments of happiness, the Buendia family didn’t experience much happiness, and even with Jose Arcadio’s return to the family, things remained as dicey as ever. Politics make Macondo bleed by introducing hatred, corruption, and segregation—changing the city for the worse as a result. The Buendia family gets broken up; every male member of the family goes their own way, leaving Ursula and Amaranta alone in the house. Even Aureliano Jose, young son of Aureliano and Pilar, whom Amaranta had raised as her own child, leaves after Amaranta rejects his romantic advances. By the end of the first season, Buendia, his son Jose Arcadio, and grandson Arcadio are dead; General Aureliano is waging war against his own people to take back Macondo; Rebeca lives alone as a grieving widow; Amaranta and Ursula live together, facing adversities and possibly hoping for a better future. The three children of Arcadio and his wife Sofia Santa—Remedios the beauty, Aureliano Segundo, and Jose Arcadio Segundo—are the future of the Buendia family, who might be able to protect the city from its inevitable doom and save their family from their gradual decline as well.
Melquiades’ Book and Prediction for the Future
The progression of time is a key theme in One Hundred Years of Solitude, which highlights how history is doomed to repeat itself, and this is exemplified really well with the book written by the mysterious gypsy, Melquiades. The opening scene of the series shows a dilapidated Buendia villa, where daguerreotypes of the family bear testament to a peaceful, happy past, while the corpse of a deceased pregnant woman and a crib full of ants hint at a dark, disturbing reality by which the family was marred. A person, whom viewers will much later recognize to be Aureliano Babilonia, a descendent of Macondo’s founder, Jose Arcadio Buendia, is seen searching for answers in Melquiades’ book, written in Sanskrit, where the old gypsy had predicted the future of the Buendia family in cryptic ways. Melquiades’ sketch of Ouroboros, the imagery of a snake eating its own tail, which symbolizes the unending cycle of time and death, conveys everything you need to know about the future of the Buendia family. If the first season was any indication, the members of the Buendia family will try to find their own way to peace and happiness, but the lack of a sense of identity and inability to find a place of belonging will always torment them. The cycle started when Buendia and Ursula left their hometown to get away from social prejudice and the guilt of Prudencio’s death, to start their life anew, but the past always catches up with them at the end—as Ursula had realized in the final moments of the first part of the series. Ursula’s mother had warned that her progeny with Buendia would become abominations, and in a way, fate arranged the means to validate her words at the end. Aureliano, the first human born in Macondo, who was supposed to be the best of what the city had to offer, eventually became its biggest threat—and the tragic irony showed Ursula the inevitable truth she was trying to escape for so long. There is no conventional family life for the Buendia family; in fact, the only direct descendants of the family are the children of Arcadio, who himself was the illegitimate son of Pilar and Jose Arcadio.
As chief of the family, Buendia met his final fate, he witnessed past, present, and future amalgamating—proving the assessment made by his old friend to be true. Melquiades’ secret knowledge, which is chronicled in the book he had written before his death, holds the key to learning the future of the BuendÃa family.
