History Arrow / TropesHToM

* ManOnFire: "Burned" is about a presumed-dead firefighter taking revenge.

** Likewise the ComicBook/BlackCanary doesn't have the Canary Cry at first. Sara Lance (the first Canary) uses a throw-down sonic device. Her sister Laurel Lance gets a friend from Star Labs to make her a collar-worn version, but it's only when metahumans join Team Arrow that we finally end up with a Black Canary who can MakeMeWannaShout.

** Oliver’s party boy image. Even when he's trying to project an air of carefree [[{{RichIdiotWithNoDayJob}} uselessness and indifference]], he's either frighteningly intense or inhumanly calm. Indifferent? Not so much. [[note]]Although in this case, it's more of an in-universe InformedAttribute since the problem actually lies with Oliver's inability to pass himself off as the party boy he used to be.[[/note]]

* HourglassPlot: Since the show follows two different timelines at once, with the first one starting [[HowWeGotHere where the other is going to end,]] Oliver manages to have one of these ''with himself.'' In the current timeline, we see him grow from a [[NinetiesAntiHero merciless, homicidal vigilante]] to [[TheCape a true hero.]] Meanwhile, in the flashback timeline, we see him gradually change from an amiable RichIdiotWithNoDayJob into, well, [[ForegoneConclusion a merciless, homicidal vigilante.]]

* HouseHusband: Oliver plays this role for Felicity during their time away.

* InformedJudaism: Felicity is Jewish, but she only mentions it during a throwaway line during each of the first two seasons' Christmas episodes. It wasn't until the third season when her faith came up in non-Christmas situations, notably her throwing dirt into a newly dug grave because it is a Jewish custom.
* InNameOnly: The series uses a ''lot'' of names from Franchise/TheDCU, most of them minor, but the majority of them don't resemble their original counterparts at all. For example, Anatoli Knyazev ([=KGBeast=]) was changed from a Soviet SuperSoldier to the leader of a Russian organized criminal group, and Mark Scheffer (Shrapnel) was changed from a man transformed into living metal to a {{Bomb Throwing Anarchist|s}}. There's also Laurel "Dinah" Lance in the show, the name of the comic book Black Canary. However a lot of the comic book Black Canary's attributes - world-class martial arts master, BattleCouple with Oliver, bisexual and mentor to a street orphan named Sin - are present in Sara Lance, while Laurel's character is a civilian lawyer and frequent DamselInDistress in Season One and Two. :Although Laurel eventually becomes a vigilante, she doesn't live long enough to develop the skills of the comic book Black Canary.

* HairTodayGoneTomorrow: Pretty much '''everybody''' has different hair in the flashback scenes. Oliver's is longer, Slade's is shorter, Moira's is straighter, Sara has bangs, Dinah has [[Creator/AlexKingston Alex Kingston's]] signature curls whereas her hair is straight now, and Quentin's hair is darker. The few aversions include Laurel and Malcolm Merlyn. Felicity takes it UpToEleven when it was revealed she was a dark-haired Goth in her flashbacks.

** Thea, in classic teenager fashion but UpToEleven. When Oliver first returns, she's actively trying to be like her brother was before he disappeared, which causes friction between the two of them as Oliver doesn't want Thea to go down the same path he did whilst Thea just sees her brother's disapproval as hypocritical and overbearing. Her role in pretty much every episode before Roy shows up being limited to getting drunk and/or doing drugs and then telling Oliver it's all his fault for ''getting stranded on an island for five years.'' As the season goes on, it emerges that the reason Thea acts like this is because after the Queen's Gambit sank, Moira was so grief stricken that she closed herself off from Thea, who was 12 years old & had just lost her father & brother, and Thea's actions were just a cry for attention. It takes Moira finally opening up to Thea, and both Queen siblings beginning to understand how the past 5 years had affected each other, for Thea to begin to grow out of it. Finding someone else to care about helped, too: she really starts to grow when she has to help Roy Harper do so as well.

* KnifeNut:
** China White. Not only does she use a knife for everyday things like executing a witness who'd seen too much, but when she goes to kill Laurel in episode 2 she brings along gun-toting mooks... not to ''shoot'' the target, but for the express purpose of corralling Laurel (and Oliver) so that she can use her knives on them.
** The way he suggests Oliver train with a sword as his main weapon implies that Slade Wilson is a Sword Nut.

* HiddenBadass: Malcolm Merlyn.

** Thea, in classic teenager fashion but UpToEleven. When Oliver first returns, she's actively trying to be like her brother was before he disappeared, which causes friction between the two of them as Oliver doesn't want Thea to go down the same path he did whilst Thea just sees her brother's disapproval as hypocritical and overbearing. She starts out as TheScrappy, her role in pretty much every episode before Roy shows up being limited to getting drunk and/or doing drugs and then telling Oliver it's all his fault for ''getting stranded on an island for five years.'' As the season goes on, it emerges that the reason Thea acts like this is because after the Queen's Gambit sank, Moira was so grief stricken that she closed herself off from Thea, who was 12 years old & had just lost her father & brother, and Thea's actions were just a cry for attention. It takes Moira finally opening up to Thea, and both Queen siblings beginning to understand how the past 5 years had affected each other, for Thea to begin to grow out of it. Finding someone else to care about helped, too: she really starts to grow when she has to help Roy Harper do so as well.

*** Oliver, Felicity, Susan

* MoralDissonance: Ollie preaches to the Huntress quite a bit about her blasé attitude toward killing, pointing out that he only kills when it's necessary and only after giving his target a chance to do the right thing. This is true when it comes to his high-profile targets, but [[WhatMeasureIsAMook he extends no such niceties to the mooks in their employ]], dropping a half-dozen hired guards in a typical episode with seemingly little care whether they live or die from the grievous arrow wounds he inflicts.

* HollywoodNerd: Felicity Smoak.

* IdentityImpersonator: When Oliver is arrested for being the Hood, his bodyguard Diggle puts on the costume and beats up some bad guys. The police have to release Oliver and apologize to him.

** Laurel's initial motivation to assume the mantle of the Canary is this - with Sara, the original Canary, dead, and Oliver presumed dead, she reasons that by impersonating her sister, she will be able to inspire fear in Starling City's criminals. She also more explicitly impersonated Sara when she uses a voice-modifier to mimic Sara's voice and trick her father into believing that Sara is still alive.

* MercyKill: Dr. Antony Ivo. Suffering from gangrene, he asks Sara and Oliver to end his life in exchange for valuable information about Mirakuru's cure.
* MethodActing: [[invoked]]When Diggle acts as the Arrow to convince Moira to reveal what she knows about the Undertaking. In doing so, he rather convincingly beats up Oliver to get her to talk.