Heartaches, Bromances, True Love and Team Arrow: the Relationships Thread

[scarynikki12]

I agree Felicity doesn't matter outside of the Arrowverse. If she had successfully crossed over to the comics (the version from the show) that would have been great but a lot of characters who work in one area of storytelling don't work in others. Characters like Harley Quinn who manage to cross over from one form to another and thrive are the exception more often than not and I think it's fine Felicity's importance ended up being just in the Arrowverse. 

[Featherhat]

On 4/29/2023 at 9:29 PM, legacyy said:

Yes, of course. Too bad I can't believe it. The little hysterics that the fandom do over a few throwaway lines tells something else. You still hasn't accepted that the blonde had no lasting effect whatsoever. The self-insert creator pet Mary Sue is over for good. The utter disrespect toward an actually strong character ended. Black Canary lives on. Felicity is over.

 

The disrespect to BC (Laurel version anyway) from Arrow started long before Felicity became Oliver's love interest. Starting with making her a knock off of Rachel Dawes rather than actual Dinah Lance. Although she still had the 4th most screentime of everyone when she was killed off. 

When they took a character that was actually *better* than fighting than Oliver, who's origins had nothing to do with him and turned her into a flip flopping CW character who went back and forward over a guy who cheated on her with *her sister* and then her sister died literally every episode mere days after he returned.... When I was watching S1 in 2012 I wish they had gotten Laurel right. Especially the casting but oh well. The closest they came was with Sara who became the lead on her own show. And she and Oliver loved each other to the end. 

Felicity's not really a self insert character for guys and you *can* actually see her comics origins when she first shows up. Even if it's just supposed to be an easter egg. Gerry Conway and Rafael Kayanan were actually paid royalties by the show to use her. Of course they changed and added things just like they did with every other character including Oliver, Barry and Kara. 

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And who cares when Black Canary is with Green Arrow? Only the Olicity fandom believes that a woman's worth is determined by whose dick she can rode. Black Canary never needed a man to be someone. Fefe wouldn't even have been a hero if it wasn't for Oliver. Almost all of her stories revolve around Oliver. She barely exists by herself. Pathetic.

 

Heh. Way to cherry pick what I actually said. I enjoy Dinah a lot with BOP in other media including comics but not so much with Ollie. However to answer your question: There are plenty of original or "Comics in name only" in the Arrowverse, many of whom became very popular, many of whom clearly became writers favourites, many of whom had some irritating qualities as well as good ones. Many of whom "took over the show". Is she so loathed by BC/comics purists because she's so obviously stand out terribad? No. It's because she's the one who's sleeping with Green Arrow. Many of them say they "liked Felicity when she was the geeky IT girl" ie when they didn't think there was a hope in hell of her actually getting together with Oliver. Laurel was "disrespected" by the writers in many ways (especially making her a sidekick FFS) but many of the arguments for said "disrespect" here and elsewhere focus on "it's supposed to be GA/BC!" meaning that yes, it is all about who's with Oliver for her fans. Felicity fans were *begging* for Felicity to have certain storylines of her own in later seasons and we sort of got them. 

Felicity would certainly have been a hero if Oliver didn't exist - we saw that in her backstory she already was. She was already trying to save the world via hacking. She didn't stop when he stopped and she carried on for 20 years in the FFs.

Every single character in Arrow revolves around Oliver. I mean even Lyla told Dig to put Oliver ahead of her at one point and Laurel ended up confessing that Oliver was the love of her life even though she knew he wasn't the love of hers on her death bed (which sucked for the character but was KC's own personal headcanon). It's the nature of an eponymous show but she certainly wasn't a doormat or a people pleaser.

Black Canary lives on and I will hopefully enjoy many projects with her in them but Arrow also isn't the first and may not be the last time that Oliver found true love/comradeship with a different character in a live action show. 

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Featherhat

[SaraLanceArrow]

I am reading the last pages here and here are my thoughts on the topics:

- Laurel and Oliver's fist meeting in the pilot - I understand Laurel should have been angry, and KC played it very. But why was Laurel's introduction scene this one, the one that doomed her by many fans as unlikable, even though she was in her rights? Because her story was told through Oliver's eyes, we see her when he sees her, and that was always her biggest problem. Felicity's biggest problem was this too. When Laurel and Felicity fans argue and hate the other, they fail to see that both characters were equally good but also equally butchered for the expense of the main male character, who was the only one being fleshed out and given point of view.

- And that is also another explanation why he barely talks to other female characters later on - because when he interacts with someone it is always about his story and never about theirs.

- In the crossovers he interacted more with Barry and Kara - two characters he has nothing in common, than Sara - his old time friend, because Kara and Barry were the other leads and part of the trinity and they needed to interact with some forced plot - see we are the big trio, while the way more organic scene where Oliver and Sara talk about Laurel's death, Damien Darhk, Quentin being drunk, the new Black Canary, Sara becoming a leader, what's happening in Star city and so on - never happened, because these conversations would be more contributing to Sara rather than Oliver.

- When people say Felicity is the Mary Sue, they also fail to see that she only is like that because the writers care less to actually give her substantial story which is only reserved for Oliver. I believe that a main character is only as good as the supporting characters are around them, but on Arrow the supporting characters are plot tools rather than real characters and if Oliver was a female character, he would have been called Mary Sue, not Felicity, whose fault is only that they do not write for her as a real person.

- So why was Black Canary mistreated. Well for me Black Canary was not mistreated, because Laurel was never Black Canary for me, but the irony is that fans also fail to see that they were the biggest part why Laurel ended the way she did. If people go back in time, they will see no one cared about Black Canary at the beginning. Sara Lance was called Black Canary by many, and had most of her comics characteristics, and still the majority of fans cared mainly about Oliver. Till her death no one also liked Laurel at all. She was constantly scrutinized by fans, even though some male characters were more badly written and had similar flaws, people tent to see hers. Of course KC had fans, and Sara Lance had some fans, but these people can hardly be called comics fans. The likability of Laurel just paralleled the downfall of Felicity. People needed to oppose their hate for Felicity with showing love to the character that they believed is her counterpart, while not seeing that they both were very similar characters.

- Black Canary in the comics is completely different character than Laurel, and when people celebrate her continuing to live on while Felicity is dead with Arrow, the same can be said about Laurel - she is also dead with Arrow, and her version will never be seen in the comics either.