Laurel Lance: Black Canary, Black Siren.

[wingster55]

She (and Thea) hid behind a couch, wisely, for all of 3 seconds.

[EmilyBettFan]

Laurel went up "against" MM Ra's al Ghul and lived. Yet somehow only Felicity gets called out for this. Or is it just because it's MM and she had Thea with her? Anyway this whole storyline was ridiculous.

[BkWurm1]

I said it about the previous Ra's and I think it still applies to MM Ra's, they don't need to put anyone in their place when they are in NP.  They are in complete control over everyone's life there.  If they so choose to allow someone to speak to them in a forceful manner, they have nothing they need to prove to anyone.  It's about their whim. 

 

Laurel was there with Thea so she was allowed a certain latitude just for that but really, that didn't have to go any farther than not killing her.  Any other "respect" shown her was because Malcolm wanted to or at least didn't care if he did or not.  A lot of voices said that Ra's, the "real" Ra's would have sliced off Felicity's head for speaking to him in such a manner but then and now I still say that having that much power also means not having to constantly make examples of other, especially when they in no way threaten anything of theirs. 

 

Laurel in her own clumsy way actually was of service to Malcolm since she provided him with the carrot to lure back Thea after she surely would have written him out of her life.  It was useful to Malcolm to not harm Laurel even though she showed up making all sorts of demands.  

 

The previous Ra's found Felicity useful too.  She let him play the part of the magnanimous ruler.  Let him pretend he was at all connected to the man he had been before he became the monster.  She was entertainment and played a part in his own ego driven play. 

Edited November 16, 2015 by BkWurm1

[kismet]

From above-posted Pajiba article:

Exactly.  The EPs should never have made Laurel change jobs from CNRI to the DA's Office if they were going to make her the BC.

IMO, the main reason they did was so they could link her back to OQ's s2 plot with his Mom's trial and milk the drama of her bringing his Mom to justice. Otherwise LL would have floated completely away from the plot into LaLaLand (where she spent a lot of time in s2 anyway) since there was no reason for her & OQ to interact once they had their graveside chat over Tommy. Also since TA was firmly established and highly functional in s2, there was no need for LL’s case load at CNRI to be part of the case of the week filler. Likewise, she no longer needed to be an informant to the Arrow. Henceforth CNRI and its plots/sets/extras no longer a needed expense of Arrow.

 

Besides the fact that somebody in the writers’ room seemed to think that LL being anti-Arrow in s2 provided better drama. So there was another reason for her to join the DA's office and be a part of the task force. Although YMMV on whether that was a smart or dumb idea. I side on a dumb idea.

[Sakura12]

All of Laurel's storylines have been a dumb ideas. 

[AyChihuahua]

All of Laurel's storylines have been a dumb ideas. 

Aww, come on.  There was that time she got all crabby about police protection when the Triad was after her.  Then that time she got kidnapped.  Then that other time she got kidnapped.  Then that time her stubbornness helped get Tommy killed.  And those times she tried to arrest Oliver.  And that time she got kidnapped.  And that other time she got kidnapped.  And that time she became an alcoholic.  And that time she claimed to know Oliver really well even though she knew nothing about him.  And that other other time she got kidnapped.  And that time she sent her "beloved" sister off to rejoin an evil group of assassins with a big smile on her face.  And that time she decided to become a vigilante after a couple weeks of boxing training.  And that time she resurrected her really really dead assassin sister.

 

Wait, what was I saying again?

[kismet]

To be fair at least they tried to be a little cheeky with calling the organization CNRI. So not all dumb :)

[Morrigan2575]

Of course not this season because this season is supposed to be #Yearofdiggle...

But if you look at seasons 1-3 it tells a different story.

Season 1: had more Laurel. Makes sense. She had her own arc and everything. Felicity and Diggle had less screen time and less development.

Season 2: Laurel had an individual arc and a Lance family arc that had little impact to the story and actually made her character hated throughout the fandom. Said screen time could've been given to Diggle/Felicity to expand their characters. I think Laurel/Lance family drama had more screentime than Diggle/Felicity in S2.

Season 3: Laurel had her individual arc that was ridiculously rushed. She had 3 episodes dedicated to her and during htis time Diggle was sidelined. She also had a fair bit of screentime in the first half of the season. Felicity was stuck on Palmer Island so I don't blame her lack of character development on the Lance family, I blame it on the Spinoff. But Diggle was most definitely affected in terms of screentime considering Laurel essentially replaced him on the field for a lot of episodes.

Basically every season had an arc just for the Lances when said arcs just made the Lances look like idiots/fools/shitty people. I wouldn't have minded if said arcs developed said characters but they never did. It just took away from the story and took away screen time from characters who actually deserved development.

But that's just my opinion.

Ignoring the quality vs quantity debate.

S1 screentime: Oliver > Diggle > Laurel

S2 screentime: Oliver > Diggle > Felicity > Laurel (although I'd bet good money Sara had more screentime than Diggle)

S3 screentime: Oliver > Felicity > Diggle > Laurel > Roy (Roy would have easily taken 4th place if they didn't get rid of him in 319)

S4 screentime (so far): Oliver > Felicity > Thea > Diggle > Laurel. (Dig just moved passed Laurel by a few seconds)

The problem is that even through Laurel has gotten less screentime than others in S1-3 her presence was more heavily felt because IMO her episodes/arcs didn't fit in to Arrow. They forced the story to stop and focus on a totally different show "That's So Laurel".

This is basically the same complaint that many had with Palmer and, Felicity being stuck on "Palmer Island".

Edited November 24, 2015 by Morrigan2575

[wonderwall]

Yeah I don't think I worded it correctly.

I think that while Laurel had less screentime than other characters, her screentime took away from the show because it did nothing to further the story and usually her screentime with the Lances usually made them more unlikable and regressed their characters. Said screentime (however much there was) would've been better if it were allocated to other characters more deserving of being developed like Diggle/Felicity.

This is why I've always hated hte Lance Family drama. Because those arcs always do more harm than good in terms of story/character.

Edited November 24, 2015 by wonderwall

[SmallScreenDiva]

I think it's because Laurel literally only had like 20 seconds of screentime. It'd be hard to make a character look bad in that amount of time. 

 

And yet they almost managed it by making her first interaction with a person she was meeting for the first time about getting him to do something for her :P

[wonderwall]

And yet they almost managed it by making her first interaction with a person she was meeting for the first time about getting him to do something for her :P

 

This is how she makes friends, don't you know??? I mean did you see how she ordered Felicity to dig up dirt on whoever in 3x03 and then suddenly they were close enough for Felicity to know that Laurel had light in her that Sara never had???

 

*forever bitter about that line*

[SmallScreenDiva]

This is how she makes friends, don't you know??? I mean did you see how she ordered Felicity to dig up dirt on whoever in 3x03 and then suddenly they were close enough for Felicity to know that Laurel had light in her that Sara never had???

 

*forever bitter about that line*

 

Yeah, I'm glad the writers have pretty much stayed away from that "friendship" this season. 7 episodes in and we haven't really seen it pop up except for that weird question about the ring. But going back to that line about Sara, Felicity got hammered for that line but she's actually not the first to say that, I believe. I seem to recall Nyssa saying something about Sara and darkness. It didn't generate a ripple because Nyssa's line wasn't meant to prop up anybody.

[AyChihuahua]

I sometimes see this argument about Laurel, that boils down to: yes, she's very poorly written, but if she were written properly she'd be great.  I do not understand this argument.  The writing IS the character.  Laurel Lance is not a real human being who deserves the benefit of the doubt.  She doesn't exist outside the writing, and acting.  Is the argument that sure, the writing sucks, but I like the acting?  I don't even get that, because a horrible person is a horrible person even if acted well.  Is it a BECUZ COMICZ argument?  Which is also absurd, bc Arrow ain't comics.

[tangerine95]

I agree.Laurel has actually been written this way from the start.I never felt like anything she did,even resurecting Sara the way she did, was out of character.That's who she is and its not likable character you root for or some inspiring hero.The problem is that we're not supposed to see her that way I guess though I think this season they went out of their way to make her horrible and I don't think they even tried to justify it really.

I don't know why she's the only one whose actions that are wrong are just bad writing and when they tell us she's an amazing hero without showing it then that's who she truly is.

[statsgirl]

That's who she is and its not likable character you root for or some inspiring hero.

I think that's the second problem with the character (the first being that because she doesn't fit naturally into the story about the Green Arrow, she has to have her own storylines and that stops the Arrow action.)

 

It's an old established principle in writing that if your character doesn't want to do what you have planned for him or her, go with what the character wants.  All of the characters on Arrow the producers have allowed to go beyond their initial idea (e.g. Tommy as the Dark Archer) and see what develops naturally for them.  Moira for example got more interesting the more morally grey the character got.

 

It's only with Laurel that they hang on to their pre-show image of her (except that she's no longer Oliver's love interest).

Edited November 24, 2015 by statsgirl

[dtissagirl]

I don't know why she's the only one whose actions that are wrong are just bad writing and when they tell us she's an amazing hero without showing it then that's who she truly is.

 

That's the crux of the bad writing for me.

 

When Laurel's doing all of the weird awful shit she does on the regular, the bad writing is at least more or less confined to her.

 

When the overall narrative tries to sell the weird awful shit she does as awesome, it means the other characters end up infected by the bad writing, because they have cognitive dissonance inducing reactions to the weird awful shit.

[looptab]

I want seminaries and classes about this. And a book. "The Laurel Lance problem".

[dtissagirl]

I want seminaries and classes about this. And a book. "The Laurel Lance problem".

 

Haha, me too. I'd even take a boring dissertation paper at this point.

 

And it's not like it's impossible to fix a character in an open-ended story -- it happens all the time on TV, some character is not tracking well enough with the audience, or it's problematic in a way the writers hadn't realized until the criticism started, so those writers figure out a way to fix the character. But the thing with Laurel -- which  405 made me realize -- is that these writers aren't trying to fix Laurel. They're trying to fix the audience's perception of Laurel. Which is equally hilarious and impossible.

[bethy]

But the thing with Laurel -- which  405 made me realize -- is that these writers aren't trying to fix Laurel. They're trying to fix the audience's perception of Laurel. Which is equally hilarious and impossible.

So true. It makes me think of Will on Alias. Fans were hating him, so they had him on less for a while then brought him back with a refocused story. What I remember about that was J.J. Abrams saying that they had not intended for Will to be hated with the way they were writing him at all and they'd been surprised by audience reaction to the character. But they made an effort to fix the character and were successful. It can be done. You just have to be willing to admit you, the writer, producer, creator, are the issue, not the audience.

[looptab]

I had never considered it from this perspective, but it's true. And I think that's also why in most cases these attempts are met with even more resistance. Stop telling me what to feel, show.

[dtissagirl]

It goes all the way back to saying people don't like Laurel because she isn't Black Canary yet. No, son.

[Starfish35]

But the thing with Laurel -- which 405 made me realize -- is that these writers aren't trying to fix Laurel. They're trying to fix the audience's perception of Laurel. Which is equally hilarious and impossible.

It can be done. You just have to be willing to admit you, the writer, producer, creator, are the issue, not the audience.

I had never considered it from this perspective, but it's true. And I think that's also why in most cases these attempts are met with even more resistance. Stop telling me what to feel, show.

Nailed it.

And this is why I won't believe Laurel is the one in the grave until I see it. :(

[kismet]

So true. It makes me think of Will on Alias. Fans were hating him, so they had him on less for a while then brought him back with a refocused story. What I remember about that was J.J. Abrams saying that they had not intended for Will to be hated with the way they were writing him at all and they'd been surprised by audience reaction to the character. But they made an effort to fix the character and were successful. It can be done. You just have to be willing to admit you, the writer, producer, creator, are the issue, not the audience.

I never realized that about Will. Then again, I never watched the beginning of s1 live. I marathoned it, after getting hooked during end of s1. And that happened in the summer after the finale since ALIAS was one before streaming & on=demand was a thing. So any discrepancies in his character I probably glossed over. I also knew where his character was going so that made it easier to understand him.

 

I also think in rewatches, I find I like his character with more exposure. The opposite occurs with me & LL. The more I’m exposed the more toxic she becomes. It’s disgusting sludge at this point between the writing and the acting, no amount of draino may clear the pipe again. And I do agree that a lot of that falls on the writers’ inability to see that the character’s problems are internal to the show. It’s been 4 seasons; it can’t just be that the audience is getting it. The problem at this point is the show is not getting it. And until they admit that they are part of the problem, LL will always remain a horribly written character.

 

Lastly, I believe a lot has to do with Bradley Cooper. YMMV on whether you think he is a good actor or not, but hands down he is a better actor than KC even on his worst day and KC’s best day.

Nailed it.

And this is why I won't believe Laurel is the one in the grave until I see it. :(

Ditto. I may not believe it until I see it. Never say never and all. But I'm damn well gonna HOPE & WISH that it is her until the day they reveal the unlucky winner.

[bethy]

I agree on Bradley Cooper. I do like his acting and part of that is probably due to how he played Will on Alias. I was never a fan of KC and Arrow hasn't helped at all.

[apinknightmare]

So true. It makes me think of Will on Alias. Fans were hating him, so they had him on less for a while then brought him back with a refocused story. What I remember about that was J.J. Abrams saying that they had not intended for Will to be hated with the way they were writing him at all and they'd been surprised by audience reaction to the character.

Ah, the Willage Idiot. Bless.

[statsgirl]

But the thing with Laurel -- which  405 made me realize -- is that these writers aren't trying to fix Laurel. They're trying to fix the audience's perception of Laurel. Which is equally hilarious and impossible.

Gaslighting is such a good desciptor.  Even when they have a bunch of people say that Laurel is wrong to revive Sara, the overall show still says that it was the right thing to do and Sara thanks her.

 

Kreisberg seemed to have a thing about Laurel (people don't like her because she's not wearing the black fishnets yet  eyeroll) but Berlanti is a very smart guy and WM seems to have a good sense of what works and what doesn't.

 

IMO the fix for Laurel is to have the response to her match her actions. When she's good, they can show that she's good (but not by saying that she has a light that Sara doesn't); when she does something wrong, make it wrong rather than right.  Have her be sorry for the actions she does wrong, not saying to her father "come on, we know you're going to forgive me, let's get it over with".

 

If the producers do decide that she's not working on the show, the speculation of the Black Canary appearing in one of upcoming movies,gives them an out other than putting her in the grave.  So far, Harley Quinn, Deadshot, The Suicide Squad and Amanda Waller have been lost to the movies and off the show, possibly also along with John Stewart Diggle and Ted Kord.  There's no reason why there can't be two Black Canaries as there are two Flashes but if they think Laurel isn't working, the movie gives them an excuse to keep her from the show for a while.

 

[KenyaJ]

I never realized that about Will. Then again, I never watched the beginning of s1 live. I marathoned it, after getting hooked during end of s1. And that happened in the summer after the finale since ALIAS was one before streaming & on=demand was a thing. So any discrepancies in his character I probably glossed over. I also knew where his character was going so that made it easier to understand him.

 

OMG, the Alias forum on TWoP was merciless about Will! I would dare say maybe even harsher on him than we are on Laurel. People hated him so much, but the character rehab worked for him because the writers actually took the criticism of him to heart and fixed both his character and his function on the show.  As mentioned above, the Arrow writers just assumed people didn't like Laurel because she wasn't Black Canary yet, and to this day, they've never bothered fixing the problem of who Laurel Lance is as a character, separate and apart from being BC, and how she fits into the show, other than being yet another body in the fight scenes.

 

Ah, the Willage Idiot. Bless.

 

One of my favorite nicknames ever. If someone had told me in 2001 how much I would love Bradley Cooper in 2015, I would have told them to stop smoking rocks.

Edited November 24, 2015 by KenyaJ

[thegirlsleuth]

Gaslighting is such a good desciptor.  Even when they have a bunch of people say that Laurel is wrong to revive Sara, the overall show still says that it was the right thing to do and Sara thanks her.

 

Kreisberg seemed to have a thing about Laurel (people don't like her because she's not wearing the black fishnets yet  eyeroll) but Berlanti is a very smart guy and WM seems to have a good sense of what works and what doesn't.

 

IMO the fix for Laurel is to have the response to her match her actions. When she's good, they can show that she's good (but not by saying that she has a light that Sara doesn't); when she does something wrong, make it wrong rather than right.  Have her be sorry for the actions she does wrong, not saying to her father "come on, we know you're going to forgive me, let's get it over with".

 

If the producers do decide that she's not working on the show, the speculation of the Black Canary appearing in one of upcoming movies,gives them an out other than putting her in the grave.  So far, Harley Quinn, Deadshot, The Suicide Squad and Amanda Waller have been lost to the movies and off the show, possibly also along with John Stewart Diggle and Ted Kord.  There's no reason why there can't be two Black Canaries as there are two Flashes but if they think Laurel isn't working, the movie gives them an excuse to keep her from the show for a while.

 

 

This!  And gaslighting is the perfect word. After reading Jennifer Crusie's article yesterday I typed "failed love interest tv shows" and the first five results were about Laurel exclusively or included references to her.  The producers and showrunners of this universe are pros who know what they are doing and like to make money.  They have proven willing in every other case to adapt stories/characters that don't work.  And as much as they are not writing The Wire and season three was disaster from start to finish, they have corrected almost every aspect of the show so that I'm pleased with the storylines of Diggle, Felicity, Oliver, and especially Thea.  Despite all this, Laurel continues to fail as a character and they continue to write themselves into a deeper hole, and when they've proven that they can cut/correct/fix other things, it makes me wonder why because it certainly couldn't be because of her story.  My theories (which are all my own) run from the sane business reasons (she helps sell the show in South American and Asia), to the slightly paranoid (the showrunners made certain promises to DC/Warner Brothers about her story, and they are locked into that) to the truly outrageous (Katie Cassidy has photos of ___ doing ___).  At this point I am more intrigued by the behind the scenes decisions around her character than the character itself.  At this point I've given up trying to puzzle out why they make the creative decisions about the character that they do.  I want to know why they make the corporate decisions about her character that they do.

[slayer2]

Now that the Arrowverse has seen Barry superspeed and Damien do...whatever it is he does and Hawkgirl and Hawkman have sprouted wings and flown, it's time to make Laurel a metahuman. I can appreciate the excellent device Cisco created but that was back when Arrow was keeping a boring human element. Now that it's fused to the two shows I want the real Canary cry, that shit's lethal and it can level a building, it's time to make it happen for realz. Also now that LoT is coming and the Atom can shrink and Firestorm can do whatever crazy fiery stuff and all that there's two show options for how she can get her powers. The Flash and LoT and since Harrison Wells exists again (the real one) there are plenty of particle accelerators to be had and weird superserums to be created that can cause this shit to happen, he can operate on her with weird Earth Two shit or whatever. They could even send her to Earth 2 to give it to her and that would be canon. Easy peasy. I want  the meta-human, if they can do it to Cisco they can do it to her.

Edited December 5, 2015 by slayer2

[kismet]

I think they are more likely to kill her before they made her a metahuman.... oh right wasn't there a graveyard tease?

Now if they fix the LL problem by shipping her permanently to Flash then I could see them making her a meta. Until then I think LL is just plain human.

[slayer2]

I think they are more likely to kill her before they made her a metahuman.... oh right wasn't there a graveyard tease?

Now if they fix the LL problem by shipping her permanently to Flash then I could see them making her a meta. Until then I think LL is just plain human.

 

 

 

To be honest there's not a snowball's chance in hell that Laurel is in that coffin, if they were going to kill her they would have done it already and likely done it before they killed Sara so that Sara could become Black Canary. She's also going to be on LoT so there's plenty of opportunity to do it there.

Edited December 5, 2015 by slayer2

[Starfish35]

She's only going to be on LoT to send Sara off. We've heard nothing yet about her involved in the show beyond that - certainly nothing yet to indicate that she'll be traveling with them.

[slayer2]

She's only going to be on LoT to send Sara off. We've heard nothing yet about her involved in the show beyond that - certainly nothing yet to indicate that she'll be traveling with them.

 

I didn't intimate that she was, just said she would be on the show so it's an opportunity for her to get her canary cry in a universe/show that uses meta-human powers or magic or whatnot, much more than Arrow does (or did), if that's what's holding the writers back.

[Starfish35]

But...she's not traveling with them. How is she supposed to get that opportunity if she's still in Star City with Team Arrow?

Edited December 5, 2015 by Starfish35

[slayer2]

I'm saying if she's on LoT, there seem to be different rules for LoT and Flash then there are for Arrow and we don't know yet whether she'll be in Star City some more. She already was in The Flash episode and Sara apparently is chilling there too so who knows what Wells, or Savage or Zoom for that matter, can cook up in that time.

Edited December 5, 2015 by slayer2

[Starfish35]

I guess I'm not following your train of logic at all - sorry. The LoT promo shows Laurel and Sara sparring in the new Arrow Lair. So yes, Laurel will show up in the first LoT episode, but there's no indication she's going to leave Star City to do it. Could she possibly, down the line somewhere? Sure. But for right now, just the fact that she's going to show up for a few scenes in the premiere to send Sara off doesn't mean she's going to be in any position to become a metahuman.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Starfish35

[slayer2]

I guess I'm not following your train of logic at all - sorry. The LoT promo shows Laurel and Sara sparring in the new Arrow Lair. So yes, Laurel will show up in the first LoT episode, but there's no indication she's going to leave Star City to do it. Could she possibly, down the line somewhere? Sure. But for right now, just the fact that she's going to show up for a few scenes in the premiere to send Sara off doesn't mean she's going to be in any position to become a metahuman.

 

 

Nothing that I've mentioned has anything to do with the promo, it has to do with KC saying she'll be popping up on LoT for a bit. I haven't even seen the promo you're referencing.

[Starfish35]

Hmm, well I think KC was just talking about her appearance in the premiere.

[statsgirl]

I like the idea of Laurel becoming a metahuman because it gives her something special. She's the least trained of Team Arrow (Thea has archery and swordplay on top of her fight skills) and they seem to have given up on her law career so it's always a problem how to write her into the storyline but she's the Black Canary.

 

But while metahumans fit in with The Flash and LoT, they don't belong on Arrow.  It negates the Green Arrow himself.

Edited December 6, 2015 by statsgirl

[Chaser]

BC's only meta human ability is the Cry. She has the bark collar. Her story arc would basically be "Hey cool! I don't need to wear this anymore." Scene.

[tangerine95]

lol exactly.There would be no storyline from getting a real canary cry,all it would to is give her an actual reason to open her mouth when she uses it.I don't think that's worth making her a metahuman over.

[kismet]

BC's only meta human ability is the Cry. She has the bark collar. Her story arc would basically be "Hey cool! I don't need to wear this anymore." Scene.

Which would be OOC since LL & KC both love their accessories. How many rings does she wear again? And most of the redesigns to BC were all about fashion. So unless it becomes unfashionable to accessorize, there is no need to get rid of the collar.

[Primal Slayer]

I would love for her to become a meta human. Having to learn how to deal with that kind of power could be fun, it wouldn't be something she can just take off. And then they could start giving it the umph that they are missing majority of the time.

[statsgirl]

I think it would be worth it if they finally gave her the learning curve to deal with her powers.

 

The problem in writing Laurel is that unlike Oliver, who has to face the consequences of his actions seemingly endlessly, the consequences for Laurel have never been enough to grow her character.  She was driving while intoxicated but she pulled her "Do you know who I am?" card and got off,  She lost Tommy but was hitting on Oliver by the fifth episode of the next season.  The worst that has happened to her was Quentin being angry at her hiding Sara's death but this season she did something even worse, dug up Sara and put her into the Lazarus Pit and the result was yay Laurel, you've brought back you sister.

 

So if Laurel gets an arc where she learns how to deal with the powers and the consequences of screwing up, that could be interesting.

[Primal Slayer]

They definitely halfassed any and all interesting development that should've come from the Sara storyline, I thought S2 was painful to watch but that just trumped it. I don't even know if I can rewatch it once the entire season is over.

[KirkB]

As much as I hate Laurel now, I could have come up with probably half a dozen different scenarios even sticking with KC, (who I think deserves a third of the blame for what's, IMO, wrong with Laurel, along with the writers and directors, obviously) that could have made Laurel Lance work as the Canary. The problem as I see it is that it's too late to salvage the character. They've spent too long digging the hole deeper as they tried to reinvent or fix the character. There is a disconnect between the show runners and those of us who don't like Laurel, in that while they recognize we have issues but they don't seem to understand what those issues are or they focus on the wrong ones. Didn't one of the show runners say something about thinking we didn't like her because she wasn't wearing the fishnets, and then being confused why we still didn't like her even once she was? She's a lost cause, IMO, but since I know she's not going anywhere (even if she happens to be in the grave I'm assuming it'll be undone before the season's finished anyway) I can just continue to do my best to ignore KC as she stumbles into a fight scene, screams, and then let's her stunt double take over.

Edited December 7, 2015 by KirkB

[BkWurm1]

it's time to make Laurel a metahuman. I can appreciate the excellent device Cisco created but that was back when Arrow was keeping a boring human element. Now that it's fused to the two shows I want the real Canary cry, that shit's lethal and it can level a building, it's time to make it happen for realz.

 

I don't have any solid objection to Laurel becoming a meta human (Though it seems lke if they were going to do that, they'd missed their logical time frame to do it -season two when the particle excelerator blew up) but if she did become a metahuman, I don't think that the show would allow for the cry to have the same kind of power that it had in the comics.  Or at least they'd have to put severe restrictions on how often she could use it since otherwise everyone else would be redundant. 

[KirkB]

Strictly speaking, if Laurel's cry was anything even remotely like the comics she could wipe out whole groups of bad guys by herself and Oliver could stay home and watch TV with Felicity. But that would make for pretty boring viewing even for Laurel fans since it would only be a question of which generic bad guys is she going to scream at this week? Whether the cry is her necklace (which I guess is supposed to be amplifying her voice, hence why she needs to open her mouth like that, when it makes more sense for Cisco just to have designed a sonic blaster that fits around her neck) or a metahuman ability it can't be all powerful. This last episode seems to indicate the sound is focused, in a specific direction and point, which is why she was moving her head around as she weakened the glass, which if I try not to think about it too much explains why no one else on the field, good or bad, ever gets affected by it, only the people or thing she is aiming at. But most of the time wouldn't martial arts or weapons be more useful in a combat situation anyway?

[tv echo]

Wasn't Oliver right in front of the glass?  If the Canary Cry could crack glass, then wouldn't it shatter his eardrums as well?

 

Since the rescue was planned, then I guess he could be wearing earplugs, but then how did he hear DD and anyone else talk to him?  Does he read lips?

Edited December 13, 2015 by tv echo

[dtissagirl]

The scream can shatter glass in one scene, but in the next a rando asks Laurel "is that all you got?" when she does it directly to his face, so, you know, it's as inconsistent as everything else they ever write for her.