Laurel Lance: Black Canary, Black Siren.

[yellowfred]

I thought she's just been posting rando Arrow tweets to mock the folks who keep telling her to watch Arrow? Been going on for a few weeks now.

 

She said she's watched at least the first episode, but I don't know if she's watched any more than that.

[Guest]

I guess she's talking about Sara then, because Sara's THE CANARY and Laurel's the Black Canary as I've been told multiple times on multiple different forums and social media platforms that there is a ginormous difference. 

 

No, I think she's only just started so she doesn't know there's two canaries yet. 

[Sakura12]

I know, I was joking about how adding the color doesn't make it a different name.

[Guest]

Ah, okay! Haha, sorry! 

[tarotx]

I think she's not amused with Laurel the first season. There's nothing really leading to her being the black Canary. An awesome comic women Little more then a love interest for Oliver and Tommy.

 

Though maybe she's at the point Sara becomes Oliver's Love interest. That could be a worry for her...

Edited September 16, 2015 by tarotx

[Primal Slayer]

I know, I was joking about how adding the color doesn't make it a different name.

So then why change Canary to White Canary?

[dtissagirl]

She said she's watched at least the first episode, but I don't know if she's watched any more than that.

She's changed her story several times about that. I've seen her saying she has watched part of S1, and then a couple of months later she said she had never watched the show. This was during S2, btw.

[Delphi]

I think she probably watches the pilots of most shows. She only watched the pilot of Birds of Prey. I think she watched the pilot of the Flash.

But oh boy, she is going go batshit after watching Helena and the ascension of the Black Canary.

[manbearpig]

Interesting. Why would she change her story at all though?

[Primal Slayer]

I think she probably watches the pilots of most shows. She only watched the pilot of Birds of Prey. I think she watched the pilot of the Flash.

But oh boy, she is going go batshit after watching Helena and the ascension of the Black Canary.

 

Well she will probably be thinking it is deja vu all over again if she watched the BoP pilot. 

Interesting. Why would she change her story at all though?

She probably gets hounded by fans to watch the show and if she has watched it and doesn't enjoy it, puts her in an awkward place since she works for DC. So might as well just jump around.

[dtissagirl]

I think because people keep bugging her to watch Arrow, so each time she says something different. I mean, she has never really hidden her EXTREME DISLIKE for comic book Oliver Queen, so it IS probably super annoying to keep getting randos asking her about the show?

[Sakura12]

So then why change Canary to White Canary?

Don't know why don't you ask the writers that? Or all the Laurel fans that loudly shouted how Sara's The Canary and Laurel's the Black Canary and how that makes it so different.

[Primal Slayer]

Don't know why don't you ask the writers that? Or all the Laurel fans that loudly shouted how Sara's The Canary and Laurel's the Black Canary and how that makes it so different.

It must make a difference if the show only called Sara the Canary, Laurel the Black Canary and then Sara White Canary. It differentiates them. Just as Oliver is on his 3rd name in the show.

[BkWurm1]

It must make a difference if the show only called Sara the Canary, Laurel the Black Canary and then Sara White Canary. It differentiates them. Just as Oliver is on his 3rd name in the show.

And yet he is still the same person no matter what name he bears. 

[Primal Slayer]

Well yes and no. The Hood vs. The Arrow vs. The Green Arrow are/will be totally different from one another. Oliver as The Green Arrow will handle things totally different from the way he would've as The Hood.

[Sakura12]

A comic writer is calling her just The Canary. Adding the color of both their outfits makes no difference. Sara was the first Black Canary and Laurel's the second.

[Guest]

Well, to be fair, the only reason Sara will be called the White Canary is because Laurel is now called Black Canary. That's the only reason to differentiate them. Oliver's steps from the Hood to the Arrow to GA are part of his character evolution which is totally different.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Guest

[Primal Slayer]

A comic writer is calling her just The Canary. Adding the color of both their outfits makes no difference. Sara was the first Black Canary and Laurel's the second.

It is easy for a comic writer to refer to Dinah as The Canary because no one is going to get confused about who she is talking about. The show went out of their way to call Sara The Canary and Laurel, The Black Canary. Roy/Thea have been called Red Arrow to differentiate them from The Arrow and Green Arrow.

Well, to be fair, the only reason Sara will be called the White Canary is because Laurel is now called Black Canary. That's the only reason to differentiate them. Oliver's steps from the Hood to the Arrow to GA are part of his character evolution which is totally different.

The writers seem to want to show a difference with Sara going from The Canary to White Canary. Of course we will have to wait to see if they actually implement any actual changes. Could've very easily just brought her back and called her The Canary again.

[yellowfred]

I think the difference is that Oliver goes by a lot of names, but there's always the understanding (for those familiar with his comic book version) that he is "Green Arrow."  He doesn't need to be called that, on the show, for it to be who he is.  I would argue that Sara didn't need to be called "Black Canary" in order for her to be considered a version of that character from the comics.  However, there seems to be a pervasive argument that, because she was never called that on the actual show, she lacks a level of legitimacy as a version of that character, thus making her somehow the lesser.  I feel like that argument ignores both the fact that many people involved with the show have referred to her as being a version of "Black Canary" and that the comics often refer to Black Canary simply as "Canary."

[Primal Slayer]

Of course she is a version of Black Canary since they went out of their way to give her many Black Canary attributes but the show has called her The Canary to differentiate her from Laurel who goes by a slightly altered name. Basically a spin off. But now we run into the problem of not being able to be lazy and call Laurel, Canary because it is more synonymous with Sara now.

[Guest]

Well, I can't speak for everyone but personally, I've always called Sara 'Black Canary' even when the show just called her Canary because she was given so many of comic BC's attributes. 

 

And I think she'll be called White Canary as part of her rebirth with maybe some new character traits? I don't know. It's really not that big of a deal tbh. I mean, all through SDCC, CL was called BC by the media, even by CP from The Flash. It's just how she was presented as a character initially.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Guest

[Sakura12]

Then we also have how they got their names, Sara chose her name because she had a pet Canary as a kid and saw/hallucinated one whilst floating around on the ocean after nearly dying. Quentin spit out Laurel's name in anger after she lied to him about Sara's death for months and even pretended to be her by dressing up and using a voice modifier. 

 

The CCO of DC Comics called Sara, Black Canary. That's why I see no difference. Sara was first, Laurel is second, now Sara's coming back with a different colored outfit which is why she's now White Canary. 

[yellowfred]

But now we run into the problem of not being able to be lazy and call Laurel, Canary because it is more synonymous with Sara now.

 

That's fair.  To me, though, under the circumstances, it would have made more sense for them to hold off on calling her "Black Canary" until there was another not-dead Canary that she needed to be differentiated from.  

[Sakura12]

There names should actually be switched since Laurel has all the light in her that Sara doesn't have. She should be going by White Canary since white is associated with light and goodness and all that. While dark, damaged and probably even more traumatized Sara should be called Black Canary. 

 

But I know it's Because Comics. ;D

Edited September 16, 2015 by Sakura12

[Primal Slayer]

Well Laurel is less damaged of the two. But hey, people were talking about her being White Canary during season 2, even a good fan art piece of her as it.  But Laurel is no different then Roy/Oliver/Ray when it comes becoming their comic personas. 

Edited September 16, 2015 by Primal Slayer

[Delphi]

Well she will probably be thinking it is deja vu all over again if she watched the BoP pilot.

I'm pretty sure she thought the show was okay but wasted it's potential. I'm sure her love for Babs affected her view. Just like I'm sure hatred of Oliver affected her enjoyment of Arrow.

[Primal Slayer]

Well Babs was PERFECTION in BoP. It's a shame that Dina didn't get to do more with the character. Would love it if she could take up the character again.

[statsgirl]

I think the names are just utility aka oh, shit, what do we do now?

 

Sara was intended to be a prototype, just as Yao Fei was a prototype of the archer with the green hood, and so she got called The Canary with a backstory explaining it.  Laurel was always intended to be the real Black Canary  They weren't expecting Sara to fit the comics character so well or to be so popular that they revived her.  And when they did, they went looking around for something else to name her since Laurel was now suiting up in the black leather and blonde wig and Sara couldn't be called The Canary any more.  Luckily the comics had a character called the White Canary and so they gave that name to Sara  The characters are nothing alike but hey, who's going to notice?

[Primal Slayer]

I agree for the most part though they totally meant Sara to fit because there is no way it is a coincidence that they give her the canary bombs, a faithful yet realistic adaption of BC, a Sin. Whereas Yao Fei was treated as an actual prototype that didn't really come close to the actual Arrow/Green Arrow. They got carried away with their shiny new toy, they don't seem to really think long term.

[Sakura12]

They made Sara fit the part of comic BC, how can that be unexpected? They had to know what they were doing. Laurel's now getting the hand me downs and barely any story to make her accession make sense. It like they went here's some glue and Popsicle sticks, all done for Laurel and for Sara they build a real house from the foundation up. 

[tarotx]

Well they pretty much created a great Arrow version BC with Sara. When you create something that works you have to play with it. The issue with the BC is that there are two of them. But it works so much better when it's mother and daughter instead of adversarial sisters.

[dtissagirl]

I really needed a narrative bridge between --

Lance calls Laurel "Black Canary" in mockery -----> ??????? ------> PALMER uses the name "Black Canary" as if it were of general public knowledge for awhile.

That was extremely dumbass hero naming. Everyone else basically got ~knighted by receiving their name. Laurel got plot holes.

[Delphi]

Well Babs was PERFECTION in BoP. It's a shame that Dina didn't get to do more with the character. Would love it if she could take up the character again.

My avatar begs to agree with you. Fortunately Dina seems to have refused to age do I don't think it's s problem

In other regards. I don't think the problem is that Laurel aND Sara are sisters. It's the writing. They made Laurel far too aggressive to Sara, which is a mistake. If they had spent the season bonding then it wouldn't have come off as Laurel being insane. If they didn't write the fighting as an addiction for her it could have looked more like Laurel trying to honor Sara.

Back in season one the producers said that Laurel would become Black Canary later then we'd like, but sooner than we'd expect. I didn't think they'd change their mind. But, Damn, the writing could have tried to service the girl.

[Primal Slayer]

I really needed a narrative bridge between --

Lance calls Laurel "Black Canary" in mockery -----> ??????? ------> PALMER uses the name "Black Canary" as if it were of general public knowledge for awhile.

That was extremely dumbass hero naming. Everyone else basically got ~knighted by receiving their name. Laurel got plot holes.

That's season 3 for you. We didn't get to see Olivers initial reaction to finding out about Laurel suiting up, we didn't see Laurel even suiting up. So many things just appeared out of a magic hat. Hopefully that is all corrected this season.

 

I really want to sit down with MG and co. ask them all these questions, but they just wanted more hype for the show and they went the biggest way they knew how. Sara should've been in some LoA gear, lacked the Canary cry, among other things.

[dtissagirl]

I don't enjoy KC's performance as Laurel, but the mess they made of Laurel in S3 I blame on the writing *way more*. Just the complete lack of awareness of how Laurel's actions came off, it's maddening.

I mean. Her sister died in front of her, and instead of calling her father THE COP or her ex THE HERO, she tampered with a crime scene, and started a chain of events that SUCCESSFULLY got rid of the body. And then she put on her sister's clothes and started emulating her. And they wanted me to see this as a hero's journey. Instead I was creeped out.

And then it turns out I wasn't supposed to think there was some serious single white femaling going on, because Felicity said a thing. WHAT.

[Primal Slayer]

If they meant for her to be in Sara's clothes they FAILED, but they had her take on a completely new costume thankfully so it wasn't that creepy. I am fine with her moving the body since I can only imagine all the thoughts going through her head and all the questions it would've raised. Not telling Quentin about it was dumb as hell, that I'll give you 100%.

 

I think they just chose the wrong words for Felicity (which isn't a surprise because these writers aren't good at deep) but to me Felicity just meant that Sara was more of a tortured soul then Laurel was which was true. 

[apinknightmare]

If she wasn't a DA, I wouldn't have minded her moving the body so much. She is a woman of the law, she had yet to be even remotely "disillusioned" with it, her father is a freaking cop who knew about Sara's identity, so there isn't any reason whatsoever, if she wanted to find Sara's killer, she wouldn't have called at least her father. 

 

The only reason she didn't was because he needed to be in the dark for plot, which just ended up making Laurel look awful for a) not telling him, and b) dressing up and pretending to be her sister. 

 

And it sucks, because they had a built-in bone of contention between Laurel and Quentin. Naturally he wouldn't want to lose his living daughter, so he'd be fucking pissed as hell that she decided to vigilante it up. Boom! Excellent drama. He could've gotten angry at Oliver for some other non-stupid reason.

Edited September 17, 2015 by apinknightmare

[Starfish35]

There is no good reason, none whatsoever as far as I'm concerned, for her not calling Oliver. The only reason for it is that they wanted their dramatic moment with everyone walking in to find Sara dead on the table,but to me it totally destroyed any sense of plausibility about it that she somehow dragged/carried the body all the way down there by herself, sat there with her for hours, and never once tried to call ANYONE!

That's why, for me, it's the worst episode of the season, because nothing about her reactions to Sara's death made sense at all to me. It was just a mess.

[AyChihuahua]

He could have gotten angry at Oliver for protecting Malcolm, who killed Sara. And Robert, and Tommy, and the Unidac employees, and Frank Chen, various Queen security guards, the crew of the Gambit, 502 innocent people in the Glades, various people as the Dark Archer, several cops when they came to arrest him for the Undertaking...

But no, have him be mad bc Oliver didn't tell him Sara was dead bc Laurel, his actual daughter, said not to. And something weird about Sara not having died on the Gambit but instead later on the Amazo (as far as Oliver knew). So many totally inexplicable but entirely stupid writing choices.

[dtissagirl]

The way they planned the season meant Laurel couldn't do any DA type things during the first nine episodes. If she used her position as a DA [and her direct access to the police] to investigate Sara's death and/or to go after Merlyn, that would be her main storyline instead of becoming Buckles, and it would possibly undermine the ~twists that got Oliver killed and into the LoA part of the narrative.

Which basically made Laurel narratively useless until Oliver died.

[Primal Slayer]

There is no good reason, none whatsoever as far as I'm concerned, for her not calling Oliver. The only reason for it is that they wanted their dramatic moment with everyone walking in to find Sara dead on the table,but to me it totally destroyed any sense of plausibility about it that she somehow dragged/carried the body all the way down there by herself, sat there with her for hours, and never once tried to call ANYONE!

That's why, for me, it's the worst episode of the season, because nothing about her reactions to Sara's death made sense at all to me. It was just a mess.

As far her sitting there without calling anyone, she could've been (and looked like) she was in shock and just couldn't operate properly. Not everyone is in the right state of mind when someone close to them dies.

The way they planned the season meant Laurel couldn't do any DA type things during the first nine episodes. If she used her position as a DA [and her direct access to the police] to investigate Sara's death and/or to go after Merlyn, that would be her main storyline instead of becoming Buckles, and it would possibly undermine the ~twists that got Oliver killed and into the LoA part of the narrative.

Which basically made Laurel narratively useless until Oliver died.

Oliver probably would've bitten the temporary dust either way. The writers wanted a real shocker and for the team to struggle with his absence. But they could've had Laurel do all those things you mentioned and have it not work which causes her to suit up and try to take things into her own hands.

[AyChihuahua]

I know I give BkWurm1 a hard time, but I am genuinely bummed about the total asshole they've turned Quentin into. Because yeah, he could have had fantastic reasons for being enraged at Oliver. That wouldn't fix the hypocrisy of going after Oliver while Laurel happily vigilantes away, and it wouldn't fix his basically evil behavior re Roy's death, but they also made him dumb. He didn't recognize Laurel vs. Sara? His own daughters? He apparently really never did figure out that Oliver was the Arrow? (Really?!?) But they picked the dumbest reasons for him to be enraged instead, and made him dumb. In 2.05 he figured out that Sara was the woman who'd been beating up bad guys, and immediately jumped to the fact that she'd been home for weeks and hadn't let anyone know she was alive. It was kind of a thing of beauty to watch him quickly put it all together from probably a few vague police reports of a female badass. But in S3 he suffered a dumbing-down that, while not as bad as Oliver's epic stupidity injection, was really disheartening.

[Starfish35]

As far her sitting there without calling anyone, she could've been (and looked like) she was in shock and just couldn't operate properly. Not everyone is in the right state of mind when someone close to them dies.

She wasn't in so much shock that she couldn't jump up and throw herself into Oliver's arms when he walked in. If they'd wanted to play it that way, that she was sitting there practically catatonic with shock, not even hardly remembering bringing Sara there....sure. I could see that working. But that's not what they did. So I'm left thinking...what the hell? WHY DIDNT YOU CALL SOMEONE???

Edited September 17, 2015 by Starfish35

[AyChihuahua]

And you know what, maybe the police, or specifically a good forensics person, could have figured it out sooner and given them time to come up with a plan beyond "Panic and challenge RAG to a duel Oliver cannot possibly win." Barry checked dirt that Cyrus Gold had tracked in, found sugar crystals, and he and Felicity figured out he was holed out in a sugar refinery. You never know what a good forensics person will find. Felicity did her best, but, as we know, "forensic science isn't exactly [her] forte."

[dtissagirl]

But they could've had Laurel do all those things you mentioned and have it not work which causes her to suit up and try to take things into her own hands.

So I'll revise my point: The fact that the writing *chose* not to have her do any DA type things in the first nine made her narratively useless. And they really went out of their way in not letting her be a DA. Like the episode with Ted Grant, she goes into the gym to investigate something, he lies to her face... And she stops investigating whatever it was that gave her an actual DA storyline.

If you can't give a character narrative purpose within basic parameters you set for them, like them having a job, why are you even writing this character?

Edited September 17, 2015 by dtissagirl

[Primal Slayer]

That would've been a better way to do the scene, but to me Laurel clearly wasn't thinking straight, she just stood there when O/F/R came in. If anything they should've had Oliver walk over to her instead of her to him.

She wasn't in so much shock that she couldn't jump up and throw herself into Oliver's arms when he walked in. If they'd wanted to play it that way, that she was sitting there practically catatonic with shock, not even hardly remembering bringing Sara there....sure. I could see that working. But that's not what they did. So I'm left thinking...what the hell? WHY DIDNT YOU CALL SOMEONE???

[statsgirl]

It makes a lot of sense that she sat there in shock. The problem was that she took the effort to take Sara's body to the Arrow cave.  If she were in shock, she would have sat by Sara's body where it fell.  The effort to move Sara would have dispelled the shock.

 

It was writing for effect, having everyone come in and see Sara's body there on the table, and it did a disservice to Laurel, Sara and the viewers.

[Primal Slayer]

To me, from the moment Saras body fell in front of her, she was in shock, grieving, and not thinking rationally. It should've been written better but it didn't bug me.

[apinknightmare]

I've never heard of anyone hysterically dragging a corpse through the streets, but there's a first time for everything, I guess. Generally people only move bodies when they've got something to hide, and she clearly didn't. It was stupid.

[statsgirl]

I don't think people in shock can plan out moving a body though.  Being in shock implies an immobility, mental and physical.  She would have called someone for support, probably Oliver if not her father, and sat there shivering till he arrived.

Edited September 17, 2015 by statsgirl