Felicity Smoak: Bitch With Wifi

[BkWurm1]

2 hours ago, Angel12d said:

Exactly. She had that whole scene where she wondered what was so wrong with her that her own father didn't stick around. That's a horrible consequence of Donna's lie, even if she was trying to protect her in the long run. I mean, Donna actually called Felicity a "pistachio" about how she never opens herself up and keeps her feelings to herself. Um, maybe that's because she was protecting herself as a result of her abandonment issues that Donna played a major part in creating? I'm just...I will never understand why Felicity forgave her so easily. It deserved more than that one moment.

Maybe it's the timing?  She was looking at the world possibly being destroyed. That's a hard time to start holding a grudge - even if being mad makes sense.  I think they could easily revisit the question and let Felicity get mad about it still.  She can have forgiven the past but get mad when she finds out history repeated itself with her mom sending Noah away again.  

[statsgirl]

They could do it still.  But I think this Dark Arc she's on this season supercedes her old issues of abandonment so I'm not sure it would be as relevant now.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, BkWurm1 said:

Maybe it's the timing?  She was looking at the world possibly being destroyed. That's a hard time to start holding a grudge - even if being mad makes sense.  I think they could easily revisit the question and let Felicity get mad about it still.  She can have forgiven the past but get mad when she finds out history repeated itself with her mom sending Noah away again.  

I think we can fanon that as an explanation but really I just don't think they cared enough to do it justice or give it more time.

[BkWurm1]

8 hours ago, statsgirl said:

They could do it still.  But I think this Dark Arc she's on this season supercedes her old issues of abandonment so I'm not sure it would be as relevant now.

It would have to be framed just as an issue with her mother if it's brought up again.  So if they ever get her parents back, I could see it coming up again, since like with Oliver, she was willing to be forgiving of the secret child but then he compounded it with not including her in the decision making and that's what Donna essentially did.  It's one thing to forgive the past when Donna thought she was doing the right thing and may have been since Noah was a sketchy guy ok with killing people if they got in the way of his work, but Felicity is an adult now, so Donna shoeing him away and really, Noah just going, is a brand new reason to be upset.  

But yeah, next season would probably be too late to address how Donna's actions contributed to Felcity's abandonment issues.  

[statsgirl]

Felicity may have come into Team Arrow with abandonment issues, but it feels like what Oliver has done to her since, from ignoring her for weeks after she told him she didn't want to lose him [if she told him about Thea being Malcolm's daughter] in season 2, to repeatedly telling her he loves her and then choosing someone else, something else in season 3, to the lies in season 4, is the big issue now.

[kismet]

I think they set it up for Donna to be potentially a bad guy - again. Prior to casting her, FSs mom seemed to be a little dodgy - especially when it came to her maternal duties. Now they have that option again. They have a previously on clip of her pseudo-betraying FS by making Noah scram. Now they have the option to bring either character back in either a negative or positive light.

They might have screwed over FS character development and her relationships, but hey they set up the game pieces for whatever future plot they so desire. And at the end of the day, that is their priority have a blank board with freshly washed game pieces. Even if it makes little sense and hurts more than it helps.

[BkWurm1]

I do remain grateful that Donna wasn't just a flat out bad mother.  

[BkWurm1]

Below is part of a post I made elsewhere but am posting here as well since I think it does a decent job of laying out what might be Felicity's reasoning in her involvement with Pandora and Helix and how it might tie back to walking in Oliver's shoes.  (I was disagreeing that what she was doing was the same as Oliver joining the LoA, which someone insisted was more noble since he was planning on taking it down) 

 

To be fair, she's only been involved with Pandora and Helix in order to save lives and help others. Pandora was just a cache of info from which she found a way to save Diggle and later blackmail a Russian bad guy into giving her access to a site that led her to a nuclear bomb. Information is not that same as a league of ninja killers. 

At the end of 515 after Oliver praised the team for being there as back up when he needed them most, Felicity decided to join Helix so the team would have even more resources and she'd be better back up. She says as much. So at least allow her to have noble reasons for her actions. 

Then in the span of a day or two depending on the timing of the episode, Felicity went from thinking Helix was a small but skilled group of hacktivists to realizing it was much larger in scope and power, probably too powerful, but she at this point doesn't actually know that they are doing anything so very wrong. I mean, everything Felicity does for Team Arrow is illegal so Curtis freaking out about over hacking some drones doesn't prove anything definitive. She hacked nukes last season and saved most of the world. Hacking in itself isn't by Arrow standards proof of evil. 

Of course since this is a TV show we know this is going to end badly and I'd agree that Felicity should have been more wary of them and their level of power, but since she's seen their scope, she's been busy trying to expose Chase and save Susan. And Oliver even says he didn't care how she got the info on Chase being an alias. 

She at that point didn't know what they wanted the drones for, but she'd at least convinced herself Helix was a force for good. So she trades what seems like a small thing for finding Susan. 

And now Oliver is gone and she's ready to do anything to save him. So now, she's at the point where she's not even trying to ask questions about the organization but she still doesn't have any proof that what they will want her to do will be bad. I mean, I'm not sure she'd care right now if it meant saving Oliver, but that's the dark place she'll go to and have to grapple with.

I do think she's going to have to face what her recklessness and vanity will lead her to do and I do think they could be some good parallels made out of how far she'd be willing to go and the dark paths Oliver has walked and how the losses and pain led to desperation getting the better of him and thus resorting to go it alone in a secretive manner and hopefully also have him point out the better choices he realized he needed to make, but it still won't make it the same as lying about having a kid to your fiance. 

Felicity should have let others in about what she was doing and I'd go so far as to say it doesn't really make sense that she didn't since I don't recall any of them ever caring how she got her info before. Maybe she figured she'd make some contacts on her own like Oliver and Diggle had contacts of their own, like a secret weapon. Or maybe she wanted to draw her own lines over how much she was willing to risk (and how much power she was going to juggle.) Or maybe she suspects she's blinding herself to the truth but didn't want Oliver or Dig or Lyla to disillusion her about what Helix really was.

Talking it out might have meant facing the truth but right now the only truth she wanted to face was how much Pandora and Helix was helping. But she has to come to the point of accepting that they ask too much and the cost of doing business that way is too high. And then she'll have to find another way to save the day. Cause that's what Team Arrow does. 

Edited March 18, 2017 by BkWurm1

[bijoux]

Another thing that I find worrying is that hacking the drones doesn't feel unsurmountable for the group Helix has been presented as. It feels like they're grooming Felicity for something else that's much bigger and more sinister - maybe hacking the codes to nuclear missiles to use them for their own purposes or the purposes of their contractor if they're mercenaries - and that's a scary thought.

[statsgirl]

I love the irony of Felicity deciding to back away from Helix after Diggle talked to her, and then going to them after Oliver's speech because she needs her own team.  I also like the name "Pandora", who opened up the box of all the bad things.

I think at this point though Felicity should realize that there is something wrong with Helix.  They stole tech from her company and it's rarely a justified reason to hack a border services drone.

13 hours ago, BkWurm1 said:

Felicity should have let others in about what she was doing and I'd go so far as to say it doesn't really make sense that she didn't since I don't recall any of them ever caring how she got her info before.

Maybe before but this is season 5 and Diggle didn't even thank her for getting him out of prison or go over and hug her when he finally showed up at the lair.  It's not so much a matter of them not caring how she got her info as to not caring about her.  Remember the hugs Oliver got after Billy died, and the ones Felicity didn't?

[BkWurm1]

Quote

I think at this point though Felicity should realize that there is something wrong with Helix.  They stole tech from her company and it's rarely a justified reason to hack a border services drone.

Stealing the tech could be them just trying to give it away like she wanted to do though, so there could be altruistic reasons.  As for Hacking the border service drone, it could easily be that they were trying to sneak someone in the country for some humanitarian reason and red tape was getting in the way.  This group doesn't worry about rules for rules sake.  So just the hacking doesn't send up flags for me but that they wouldn't tell her what it was for should have IMO put up her hackles.  

[Morrigan2575]

I'm probably not going to explain this right but, I don't think Helix is secretly evil or anything. Not in the sense that others do. I don't think they're working for Chase or Talia or part of some super dark organization like LoA or HIVE.

I think Helix is bad/evil in the sense that they believe in Anarchy and think giving power/knowledge to everyone, spying on everyone etc is good.  I think these "kids" truly believe that what they're doing is right/ best for everyone.  Power to the People!  However, they're probably very misguided and naive and arrogant but, not overtly evil.

[dtissagirl]

Yeah, that's the impression I got as well so far. It's not even that they think themselves above the law [which is the vigilante conundrum], but that they think that laws and rules and regulations are completely irrelevant if they have a goal to achieve, because they can easily circumvent everything that keeps society in check. Which makes them dangerous, but not inherently evil.

[Morrigan2575]

2 minutes ago, dtissagirl said:

Yeah, that's the impression I got as well so far. It's not even that they think themselves above the law [which is the vigilante conundrum], but that they think that laws and rules and regulations are completely irrelevant if they have a goal to achieve, because they can easily circumvent everything that keeps society in check. Which makes them dangerous, but not inherently evil.

Exactly! You explained it much better. I also think they serve Felicity's "dark" storyline well because she's in the same place. Right now, Felicity (starting with 510) is very ends justify the means.

I'm assuming that something will happen, either Felicity will do something for herself/TA or Helix that is a step to far and she wakes up.  For instance, she does something for Helix, doesn't realize or care what they need it for. Helix uses it for something that goes really bad and Felicity comes to the realization that she's "not this person"

I really don't know how her journey ends but, I think she either destroys Helix or takes it over.

[dtissagirl]

Yeah, agreed. Nobody at Helix seems to care about consequences of anything they do, and that is something that they can use as a narrative beat for Felicity to snap out of being reckless.

Also, I know people keep wondering who's the boss of Helix, but I'm gonna be disappointed if it turns out an anarchist hacker collective has a big boss. Which would segue well into Felicity taking over [yes, please], at whixh point they would STOP being anarchists [you can't be an anarchist with a boss setting rules], and give them more clear ideals and purposes that take consequences into consideration.

[BkWurm1]

1 hour ago, Morrigan2575 said:

Exactly! You explained it much better. I also think they serve Felicity's "dark" storyline well because she's in the same place. Right now, Felicity (starting with 510) is very ends justify the means.

I'm assuming that something will happen, either Felicity will do something for herself/TA or Helix that is a step to far and she wakes up.  For instance, she does something for Helix, doesn't realize or care what they need it for. Helix uses it for something that goes really bad and Felicity comes to the realization that she's "not this person"

I really don't know how her journey ends but, I think she either destroys Helix or takes it over.

If it is just a bumbling collective then Felicity taking it over would be an interesting twist.  Though given it's scope, that would be a full time job so yeah, then maybe imploding it would still be the answer.  But I tend to think that Helix is both the loose collective of hactavists thinking they are doing good but who are actually dangerous  AND someone/group that are pimping out Helix's brain power in order to support their overall goals and they just don't care about the costs of getting paid.  Aka they justify it as for the greater good.  

So not that Helix is led by anyone evil, but that the ones sort of in charge dabble in "evil" in a pragmatic manner to support their cause.    

Edited March 18, 2017 by BkWurm1

[statsgirl]

3 hours ago, BkWurm1 said:

But I tend to think that Helix is both the loose collective of hactavists thinking they are doing good but who are actually dangerous  AND someone/group that are pimping out Helix's brain power in order to support their overall goals and they just don't care about the costs of getting paid.

Yep, that's what I think. That organization is too big to just be a group of hacktivists no matter how dedicated.  Whether the show intended it or not, there's a lot of management required to keep something that big functioning.

I was more sanguine about Felicity getting involved with Helix before I heard this radio program on real-life hacker Karim Karato who is one of the four people accused of hacking 500 million Yahoo accounts for the Russian intelligence services, and paid $100 for each one hacked.

[Guest]

I just read MG's tumblr response about Felicity and Diggle's jobs...Felicity's living off her severance check and Diggle is supported by Lyla (which okay, he's been away and in prison, I get that for now). But a super intelligent woman who clearly likes to use and challenge her brain is just gonna do nothing for a whole year? Don't buy it. 

I'd accept it if it was written into the story, like she needed the break from everything or something, but this just feels so lazy. *humph*

Edited April 7, 2017 by Guest

[insomniadreams88]

22 minutes ago, Angel12d said:

I just read MG's tumblr response about Felicity and Diggle's jobs...Felicity's living off her severance check and Diggle is supported by Lyla (which okay, he's been away and in prison, I get that for now). But a super intelligent woman who clearly likes to use and challenge her brain is just gonna do nothing for a whole year? Don't buy it. 

I'd accept it if it was written into the story, like she needed the break from everything or something, but this just feels so lazy. *humph*

Yeah, it especially bothers me after her S2 "I didn't go to MIT to be a secretary." Shouldn't she also feel like she didn't go to MIT to sit around and just live off a severance check? Sure, now she's doing stuff with Helix and is busy, but during 5A? 

[Sunshine]

1 hour ago, insomniadreams88 said:

Yeah, it especially bothers me after her S2 "I didn't go to MIT to be a secretary." Shouldn't she also feel like she didn't go to MIT to sit around and just live off a severance check? Sure, now she's doing stuff with Helix and is busy, but during 5A? 

Team Arrow and a boyfriend.  Helix just replaced the boyfriend.

[kismet]

I have never been that big of a fan of how they have treated FS professionally once they destroyed Queen Consolidated. Sorry, but the way Ray recruited her was insulting and how they messed up the CEO gig really bother me. However, if they told me she wanted to take some time off, I would have totally believed it. She's been working hard both pre-TA to get into & succeed at MIT, as well as at QC - nevermind doing two jobs for last 5 years. She deserves some me time.

But here's a concept - put that in the actual script. And while I can see FS enjoying her vacation from the daily work grind - I really can't see her doing absolutely nothing with her free time. I see her doing far more than just sleeping with Mayo. She must have other hobbies or things to do. I would have loved to see her doing some charity work or even binging her favorite TV shows/Movies. Something beyond just Mayo & Team Arrow. 

Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that Arrow has moved away from characterization being a priority to them. What FS does professionally or outside of TA is not important. Her life outside of TA is no longer a priority, especially now that she is not with OQ in those scenes. Even Helix will probably fizzle into nothing once it serves it's plot purpose.

[Guest]

15 hours ago, insomniadreams88 said:

Yeah, it especially bothers me after her S2 "I didn't go to MIT to be a secretary." Shouldn't she also feel like she didn't go to MIT to sit around and just live off a severance check? Sure, now she's doing stuff with Helix and is busy, but during 5A? 

But the stuff with Helix isn't a job either? I just find it OOC for her not to want to work. She even worked at a computer store in 301, a job she could probably do in her sleep, but it made sense because that's who Felicity is and probably how she was raised. 

I know this isn't a reflection on her character or a character choice though. It's just bad writing. They just didn't want to bother writing her as having a job. Makes it worse somehow. They just don't care. 

[insomniadreams88]

2 minutes ago, Angel12d said:

But the stuff with Helix isn't a job either? I just find it OOC for her not to want to work. She even worked at a computer store in 301, a job she could probably do in her sleep, but it made sense because that's who Felicity is and probably how she was raised. 

I know this isn't a reflection on her character or a character choice though. It's just bad writing. They just didn't want to bother writing her as having a job. Makes it worse somehow. They just don't care. 

Oh it's definitely bad writing because they can spend time on other characters getting/having jobs but not Felicity, Diggle or Curtis. 

I look at Helix as something at least taking up her time and I could see her not juggling a job while with Helix because of what happened with PT last season. But before she had Helix to take up her time, there was no reason given why she didn't want a job. We can only make assumptions. And apparently take MG's "she has severance from PT" as the in-show reason that was never even mentioned on the show. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, insomniadreams88 said:

Oh it's definitely bad writing because they can spend time on other characters getting/having jobs but not Felicity, Diggle or Curtis. 

I look at Helix as something at least taking up her time and I could see her not juggling a job while with Helix because of what happened with PT last season. But before she had Helix to take up her time, there was no reason given why she didn't want a job. We can only make assumptions. And apparently take MG's "she has severance from PT" as the in-show reason that was never even mentioned on the show. 

Don't get me started! They have time to get Dinah and Rene settled into jobs but not Felicity or Diggle. The writers are gonna catch these hands!

But yeah. I can see her not wanting to juggle a job while at Helix but why don't they just write that into the script??? Just one line, maybe Alena asks where she works and Felicity says she's living off her severance because she can't focus on work right now. It would take 20 seconds. It's ridiculous. *shakes head*

[kismet]

1 hour ago, insomniadreams88 said:

And apparently take MG's "she has severance from PT" as the in-show reason that was never even mentioned on the show. 

Reminds me of their excuse OQ has money from his other holdings or accounts perhaps related to his mother or something. That somehow the big losing of QC in s2 amounted to nothing because rich people are never really poor according to that con panel even when they have lost everything. Totally bullocks in real life, but whatever. Apparently we should stop focusing on the details and be impressed with their masterful storytelling.... bleh :(.

It's just crappy writing. I get it that writing of jobs and the other nitty/gritties of life is not as exciting as writing Wild Dog insulting people again. But at least have the decency in script to throw the audience a bone as to how characters are funding their rather expensive lives. One line in the season premiere and the majority of people will be appeased.

Edited April 8, 2017 by kismet

[wonderwall]

11 hours ago, just4fun said:

I Like Felicity Smoak, she is the ideal hacker for me hahaha but not an ideal wife, she doesn't know how to cook "Blame Google for not giving her the way how to cook". And Mr. Queen is such a bad ass, he tastes all the girls in the story.

It's a good thing she's not going to be YOUR wife then huh?

[tv echo]

From Chapter 14 of the tie-in novel, Arrow: A Generation of Vipers by Susan & Clay Griffith:

Quote

Felicity sat in her office high inside Palmer Technologies. She never felt at home here, maybe because her path to this office had been so random. She had been satisfied as an IT manager at Queen Consolidated until the darkly handsome Oliver Queen asked her to do some off-the-record snooping in the company computers. It turned out darkly handsome Oliver was really the mysterious vigilante, the Hood, so she joined his war on corruption. She took a side trip to a relationship with Ray Palmer, genius entrepreneur who scooped up Queen Consolidated. It was Ray who anointed Felicity as CEO of his company. She knew she was capable of the task, but never felt completely deserving.

From Chapter 20 of the tie-in novel, Arrow: A Generation of Vipers by Susan & Clay Griffith:

Quote

”Robert Queen was good at finding talent and keeping it to himself,” Felicity looked up quickly at Oliver. “Nothing personal.”

“He didn’t build Queen Consolidated by accident,” Oliver replied. “And he hired you, didn’t he?”

“Very true,” Felicity raised a finger. “Your father was the only one who believed in Jackson Straub’s crazy ideas – wormholes, practical plasma generation – years before Harrison Wells opened S.T.A.R. Labs. Well, fake Harrison Wells. Reverse Harrison Wells.” Felicity squinted in annoyance. “I don’t know how you guys keep all your multi-versions straight.”

Edited April 15, 2017 by tv echo

[Mellowyellow]

That is really interesting @tv echo! Thanks for posting! 

I am confused though! I always thought she was a low level pleb in the IT Department by choice because of her past issues with Cooper etc. Her speech to Walter when she thought he was going to fire her seemed to indicate that. 

I'd prefer the IT Manager canon instead! 

[way2interested]

The books are a bit shaky with the canon in certain places, so I wouldn't take them as the end-all be-all canon even if MG says they're technically "canon." The math of Robert Queen even hiring Felicity is already questionable at best (he would have had to hired her before the Gambit, making her 17-19 when she started working for QC, which not completely impossible, but doesn't really kind of add up), but since the book already messed up Thea's age pre-Gambit as well, I'm kind of chalking it up to a math mistake rather than actual canon. Although, it's more entertaining their way.

[Morrigan2575]

Hmm, math problems on Arrow? Impossible! 

Let's see in 305 she was supposedly 19/20 in the 5 year flashback (since Donna was talking about a fake ID). However, according to the Bio Cards, Felicity was 25 in S2. 

[statsgirl]

As much as I like Susan and Clay Griffith's writing (I'm currently reading their magic/werewolf hunting books), I like Felicity being a low level plebe when Oliver went to her because it fits the canon that she went into a safe hold after Cooper died and it took Oliver to pull her out so that she could be more (tm John Crichton).

[Morrigan2575]

That's more fanon than canon, IMO.

[statsgirl]

Not entirely.  In s2 in City of Blood, when Felicity and Diggle are trying to stop Oliver from sacrificing himself to Slade, she says something about being involved with Oliver's crusade showing her that she can be more than a mere IT girl.

[Morrigan2575]

But that doesn't in anyway support the claim that Felicity became nothing more than a low level IT grunt to hide from Cooper's death.

Quote

I like Felicity being a low level plebe when Oliver went to her because it fits the canon that she went into a safe hold after Cooper died and it took Oliver to pull her out so that she could be more (tm John Crichton).

^^^^That is all fanon.

Canon shows that Felicity was a hacktivest.  After Cooper's death she went from Goth Hacktivest to Preppy Corporate Professional.  She worked at QC in IT at a level that had her on the personal Radar of the CEO (Walter). Odds of her being a low level grunt were never high.

All Felicity's comment in S2 supports is that being pulled into Oliver's crusade showed her that she could be more than an IT Girl (i.e. normal person)

Quote

You can't just accept things, Oliver. If I had accepted my life, I would be a cocktail waitress in Vegas like my mother, and I never would have gone to college, and I never would have moved a thousand miles away to work at Queen Consolidated, and I never would have believed some crazy guy in a hood when he told me I could be more than just some IT girl.

There is nothing in canon, AFAIK, that says Felicity was hiding in a grunt job because of Cooper. 

Here's an earlier conversation from 202 

Quote

Not my old job in the I. T. Department, but my new job as your executive assistant, which you think I'm going to accept. Your thinking could not be more wrong in this matter....

...Did you know I went to M. I. T. ? Guess what I majored in. Hint-- not the secretarial arts....And I love spending the night with you. I worked very hard to get where I am, and it wasn't so I could fetch you coffee! 

So she worked very hard to be a low level grunt?

[statsgirl]

Did Walter send Oliver to Felicity?  I thought that part was fanon.  I thought that Oliver stumbled on Felicity while he was looking for someone to fix the bullet-ridden laptop and he was the one who mentioned Felicity to Oliver. But it's also possible that Walter went looking through QC for the most innovative person when he wanted a discreet job done.

I can't believe that the office that Felicity was in during s1, especially after they built her a set for the episode where Oliver takes her the MM's arrow, was the office of an IT manager.  Nope, not that cubby hole.   Diggle and Oliver could barely fit into it in Dodger.

54 minutes ago, Morrigan2575 said:

So she worked very hard to be a low level grunt?

She worked very hard to MIT and then get her double MSc and Harrison Wells mentioned some competition that she'd won.  And no offense to administrative assistants (I've been one a few times) but with that education, even a low level IT grunt is better than being Oliver's AA because it's in the area she trained for.

Cooper's death explains why she went from being someone who knows she's outstanding and shows it off to someone content to be hidden in the bowels of the QC IT department.  It hasn't been talked about on the show but it is consistent with what we know of Felicity.

Edited April 15, 2017 by statsgirl

[tv echo]

We don't know who sent Oliver to Felicity. All we know is that Felicity debuted in 103, when someone(s) directed Oliver to her as the person who could help him with his computer problem. Felicity next appeared in 104, when Walter summoned her to his office...

From 103 (as aired):
Oliver: “Felicity Smoak? Hi. I'm Oliver Queen.”
Felicity: “Of course. I know who you are. You're Mr. Queen.”
Oliver: “No, Mr. Queen was my father.”
Felicity: “Right, but he's dead. I mean, he drowned. But you didn't. Which means you could come down to the I.T. Department. And listen to me babble. Which will end in three-two-one..."
Oliver: “I'm having some trouble with my computer and they told me that you were the person to come and see. I was at my coffee shop surfing the web and I spilt a latte on it.”

From 103 (as originally scripted):

From 104 (as aired):
Felicity: “I've got one question. Why am I being fired?”
Walter: “Ms. Smoak, isn't it?”
Felicity: “Yes. And I am without a doubt the single most valuable member of your technical division. That's including my so-called ‘supervisor.’ Letting me go would be a major error for this company.”
Walter: “I agree, which is why you're not being fired.”
Felicity: “Uh, I assumed when you brought me up here, it was because – (makes throat slitting gesture with hand)”
Walter: “It's because I wanted you to look into something for me. A variance of $2.6 million on a failed investment from three years ago. It was authorized by my wife. I was hoping you could find out some of the details of the transaction for me.” 
Felicity: “Find out –“
Walter: “Dig up discreetly.” 
Felicity: “I'm your girl. I mean, I'm not your girl. I wasn't making a pass at you. Thank you for not firing me.”

ETA: Without knowing the hierarchical structure of the IT Department at QC at the time, it's unclear exactly where Felicity sat in the chain of command. I suspect that she wasn't at the bottom, but she clearly wasn't at the top either, since she had a "supervisor." Regardless of her rank, it sounds like she had a genius reputation.

Edited April 15, 2017 by tv echo

[Morrigan2575]

1 hour ago, statsgirl said:

Did Walter send Oliver to Felicity?  I thought that part was fanon.

I never said Walter sent Oliver to Felicity. I said she was on Walter's Radar, i.e. he specifcally pulled her in to investigate the missing 2.6 million.  Which means he knew who she was, at least on a reputation level. 

Quote

can't believe that the office that Felicity was in during s1, especially after they built her a set for the episode where Oliver takes her the MM's arrow, was the office of an IT manager.  Nope, not that cubby hole.   Diggle and Oliver could barely fit into it in Dodger.

Manager's in my company sit in cubicles of that size. You don't get an office until you reach Director Level and we have 36k employees nationwide.

And BTW this is all irrelevant to your original post, which is what I replied to.

Quote

I like Felicity being a low level plebe when Oliver went to her because it fits the canon that she went into a safe hold after Cooper died and it took Oliver to pull her out so that she could be more (tm John Crichton).

^^^ That is fanon, not canon. Having Felicity be a manger in the book doesn't violate show canon because show canon never firmly established her position. 

[statsgirl]

Can we agree that she was grossly underemployed both in terms of her abilities and her previous ambition?

[Mellowyellow]

I'm going with Oliver went through the IT employee database to see who could pull data off the laptop and saw the girl who made him smile while wandering around talking to herself in the flashback. So he went to her for help and she was as charming in real life as when he was peeking at her. And she made him he smile again. 

Squeeeeeeeeeeee

[LeighAn]

Does fanon or canon really matter? Isn't it all just people interpreting things differently? Because it comes across like saying "I'm watching the show right and your watching it wrong", when really since there isn't anything explicitly stated in canon about why Felicity was in the position she was in, why she accepted a job beneath her talents and the extent or prestige of her job title, (and in show even what her job title was) really it's just different interpretations not right or wrong.

To me both interpretations fit and work: that she veiwed her job in IT as a respectable position and didn't see potential in herself for more until Oliver knocked on her door OR that after seeing what happened from her genius super virus she decided to accept a boring normal IT position in a respectable firm because she decided to box in her skills because of what she caused in the past and that it took Oliver coming into her life and showing her  or providing her a safe, useful way to hone her skills and intelligence  for good for her to test the limits of her skills again.

Coopers "death" and the reasons behind it was dramatic enough for Felicity to change her apperance and her personality to an extent, so it's not much of a stretch to believe it also  influenced her professional choices as well. 

Also @Mellowyellow I'm totally down with Oliver looked up all the IT professionals at QC and chose the cute blond because he recognised her  and also figured he could charm her and flirt her into doing what he needed without asking too many questions. Also that part of him kept going back to her not just because she was good at what she does but because he enjoyed seeing her. Until they explicitly tell me something to the contrary that's what I'm sticking to!

Edited April 16, 2017 by LeighAn

[statsgirl]

15 minutes ago, LeighAn said:

To me both interpretations fit and work: that she veiwed her job in IT as a respectable position and didn't see potential in herself for more until Oliver knocked on her door

This doesn't fit for me.  Felicity had to have had a lot of determination to aim higher than her social trajectory, to get out of her mother's life in Vegas and go to any good university much less MIT which is one of the top tech schools in the country and pay for it probably with scholarships and awards since Donna wouldn't have had that kind of money.  And then to not only take such a difficult program of study but earn a double masters, much less take a top spot in a national competition and earn the interest of Harrison Wells who expected great things from her.

Also at a school like MIT they tell you that you are the best of the best and you're going to change the world.  She wouldn't have thought that a lower level manager in IT was a respectable position for her unless something had happened to derail her..

[bijoux]

Cooper dying happened, so it makes sense to me. It doesn't make sense for hacktivist Felicity if her life had gone on uninterrpted, but it does for this Felicity after the trauma she went through.

[BkWurm1]

On 4/15/2017 at 8:11 PM, statsgirl said:

This doesn't fit for me.  Felicity had to have had a lot of determination to aim higher than her social trajectory, to get out of her mother's life in Vegas and go to any good university much less MIT which is one of the top tech schools in the country and pay for it probably with scholarships and awards since Donna wouldn't have had that kind of money.  And then to not only take such a difficult program of study but earn a double masters, much less take a top spot in a national competition and earn the interest of Harrison Wells who expected great things from her.

Also at a school like MIT they tell you that you are the best of the best and you're going to change the world.  She wouldn't have thought that a lower level manager in IT was a respectable position for her unless something had happened to derail her..

You and I share the same head canon, that she took a job in IT that let her just fade into the woodwork after the trauma that she went through with Cooper.  It just explained so much.  And the comment she made early on about her supervisor, wasn't the kind of comment I'd associate with a manager.  In my experience, managers have directors and VP's they answer to, not a "supervisor".  That's the kind of lingo associated with someone that is just part of the staff and not a boss of any kind.

 BUT I'm also pretty used to shows being careless about their canon and thus the need to mash the new "information" together with what we knew before so it can somehow make sense.  (On Smallville they said that Chloe's mother left when she was 5, 12 and 9, lol.  I translated that to she FIRST left when Chloe was five then came back til she was 9 and that the last time she saw her before she just vanished was when she was 12 so it's all still true. Yeah, I was proud of that one. )

So I have a few options.  Maybe the structure at Queen Industries was odd and had tiers of employees so that they had so many mangers that the managers actually had supervisors and the managers really didn't have much power so in that sense Felicity would still be a low level IT grunt.  Or maybe "IT Manager" was just sort of a honorary title (like janitors being called custodial engineers) and all the entry level IT workers were called IT Managers in the sense of managing the job not other employees.   

Robert Queen was dead before Felicity graduated MIT so the only way Robert could get credit for hiring her is if she was recruited before she graduated. Maybe she even had a bunch of offers and ended up taking the job in Starling City since it was as far from her life in Boston could be.  Maybe the job wasn't supposed to be just a grunt IT person but the job she was supposed to get when Robert Queen had his eye on her died when he did and she got forgotten in her entry level position (but that worked for her to just keep her head down and work).  Maybe she didn't originally plan on taking a job that went no where but rather one that was just solidly without risks.  

I'm never going to stop believing that Felicity was licking her wounds after Cooper died and that hugely influenced her choice to come to Starling but I'm flexible in adding in some new details about her past.    

[TrueMyth]

I believed the same regarding Felicity laying low post-Cooper's death, and thought that meant a deliberately beneathe her IT job.  However meeting Helix and incorporating the novel, I do think it may be possible that selling-out to any kind of corporate job was a kind of hiding out to a iconoclast hactivist like Ghost Fox Goddess, so maybe her position was higher up than we thought.

I like the idea of Felicity receiving many offers of internships or jobs before she graduated and her being flattered but unsure while Cooper made fun of them for being for "the man" (of course, he was mostly jealous that he wasn't head hunted as aggressively).  That makes her preppy look at the end of 3x05 have even more meaning for me.  But I really have strayed into the realm of fanon here.

[tv echo]

While reviewing my files, I came across this old 2013 EBR interview which I thought was interesting because it kinda relates to her abandonment issues (of course, this was just Emily's head canon back during S2)...

Quote

IGN: Let's talk about the Felicity/Oliver of it all. The past couple of episodes have been very interesting, because they have put your character more in a "What does she mean to Oliver?" sense and have built up that dynamic in a different way.
Rickards: What I really liked about the last episode "State v. Queen," was when she's wrapped up in a blanket, and she looks over and is sort of like, "What do I do when you're gone?" That sort of look. Not like she's expecting him to leave, but nothing's permanent, and I think she recognizes that. You know, it's funny, I feel like she recognizes that nothing's permanent, but I don't know why yet. There had to be something in her past. I just feel like she's a "nothing lasts forever" kind of girl. I feel like the end of that was sort of like, "What would I do without you?" Once again, that doesn't need to be romance, but that is a heavy thing to realize when you're looking at someone.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/12/03/arrow-emily-bett-rickards-on-barry-allens-introduction-the-evolving-felicity-and-oliver-dynamic-and-more

Edited April 17, 2017 by tv echo

[EmilyBettFan]

For someone so young at the time she sure knows how to answer a good question without sounding like she's repeating herself. Thank you for that never read it before.

[BkWurm1]

Her own canon really worked well with what ended up coming out much later.  That's kind of impressive.  

[Guest]

I'd never read that before as I wasn't in fandom at that time. But I always love hearing what EBR has to say about Felicity. She's pretty insightful and always gives great answers. (Aside from when she liked Raylicity. But I can ignore that, LMAO.)

[Mellowyellow]

Bahaha did she like Raylicity?

OK I officially like her more than I already did! 

[BkWurm1]

54 minutes ago, Mellowyellow said:

Bahaha did she like Raylicity?

OK I officially like her more than I already did! 

If I remember, she said for Felicity, she'd choose Oliver, but that personally she'd have picked Ray.  (or words to that effect)

Edited April 18, 2017 by BkWurm1