Characters / Forging a Better Future

Starling City

The Queens

Oliver Queen

Oliver "Ollie" Jonas Queen | Green Arrow

Tropes:

• 100% Heroism Rating: After Legend. He has this even more so than he does in Rebirth due to his Thou Shalt Not Kill rule.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: This Oliver is a rape victim, like the original Rebirth Oliver before the rewrites. However, the person who raped him was actually Future Felicity, who had been brainwashed him (and the rest of the superhero community) to force him into a relationship with her. Oliver is understandably horrified to learn this, especially when he realizes that same brainwashing is what really killed Laurel and not Darhk.
• Adaptational Badass: A rare non-combat example. He's a much better businessman than canon and Rebirth Oliver, with both Ned Foster and Emiko commenting that he has the ability to surpass his father one day with the kinds of ideas he has.
• Adaptational Job Change: Word of God confirms that, unlike in Rebirth, Oliver will be staying as CEO of Queen Consolidated for the majority of Forging.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Played with. While his skillset is the same, the reason he has it is not just because of training, but also because he's a metahuman with increased muscle memory, which allows him to master fighting techniques faster than the average person.
• Awful Truth: His entire relationship with Future Felicity was fraudulent, as she was really a brainwashing metahuman who forced him to be into a relationship with her and brainwashed everyone else to help make it believable — the latter of which caused the death of Laurel, the person Oliver really loved. He's horrified to learn this, which is what finally prompts him to tell his therapist everything about him (including his Time Travel) so he can get proper treatment to work through it.
• Big Good: He is slowly shaping up to be this as the leader of the Justice League.
• Cool Big Bro:
  • To Emiko. He even names a company after Kazumi and her, something that clearly touches her.
  • He wants to be this to Thea, but despite all his efforts (including saving her from sexual slavery in the League), Thea is too much of a Spoiled Brat to appreciate him. This is later played straight in Perils/House, after Thea returns from rehab.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: He manages to defeat and kill Ra's al Ghul in a one-on-one duel at the end of Legend.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He's an awakened metahuman, with more subtle powers: increased muscle memory, senses, and reflexes.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Tommy. While Legend is the low point of their friendship, they manage to reconcile by the end, and by Dawn are as close as ever as they try to do their best to raise Thea.
• Honest Corporate Executive: As CEO of Queen Consolidated.
• Hope Bringer: He is this to the people of Starling City as both CEO of Queen Consolidate and the Green arrow. Even beyond he serves as an example of the very best of what humanity has to offer, even inspiring Superman to finally step out into the public.
• Implausible Deniability: He keeps insisting that he's not Robin Hood, despite all evidence to the contrary.
• Just Like Robin Hood: Not that he would ever admit it.
• Official Couple: With Laurel.
• Promotion to Parent: He becomes Thea's permanent guardian at the end of Legend, as Tommy can't commit to the job now that he's currently the city pariah.
• Shoot the Dog: In Perils, he's forced to let his little sister Thea be taken by the League of Assassins, because he can't risk destabilizing the League further and hastening Crisis as a result. Admittedly, this was after months of trying to convince Thea to train as a vigilante, including forcing her to go to rehab to both get clean and deprogram her of Malcolm's indoctrination.
• Trophy Husband: To Felicity in the previous timeline, which is one of the reasons he chose not to pursue her in any fashion after going back in time.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Unlike Rebirth Oliver, this Oliver is committed to not killing. He's only killed twice so far, and both were situations where all other options had been exhausted.
• Tough Love: His treatment of Thea in Dawn is much harsher than it was in Age, to the point that under different circumstances it would be borderline abusive. However, Thea is a Spoiled Brat who goes out of her way to antagonize and disparage everyone who is trying to keep her safe, and keeps blowing off vigilante training even with the League's threat looming over her, so it's hard to blame him.

Thea Queen

Thea Queen (formerly Merlyn, Dearden)

Tropes:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Her relationship with Oliver is terrible in Legend, due to Oliver never rescuing her and thus, never having to reveal himself as Green Arrow. Combined with accidentally traumatizing her as Green Arrow and Malcolm's influence, Thea becomes determined to blame him for all her problems regardless of all the evidence suggesting otherwise, even after finally coming to accept that Malcolm is a monster who never cared about her. It doesn't get much better in Dawn; it's only after rehab that they're back to normal, with Thea opting to take back the Queen name.
  • Because she found out about Malcolm being her father much earlier, she's much closer to him. Malcolm spoiling her and encouraging her elitist mindset didn't help matters, and it takes learning he almost caused her to become a sex slave for Thea to stop defending him.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Takes Thea's worst traits from Season One, before she had the chance to meet Roy, turn them up to eleven, and add some classism in there, and you have this Thea. An elitist, entitled Spoiled Brat who's convinced she's untouchable just because she got lucky enough to be born to two rich and powerful families, not realizing the extreme lengths others go to keep her safe.
• Adaptational Job Change: She never works at Lance Floral. In Perils, this is due to being forced to join the League of Assassins. In Perils/House, this is because she takes a job at Russo's at Oliver's suggestion (as that's where Roy Harper is currently working).
• Adaptational Villainy: In Perils. Whereas Tommy becomes a vigilante and a staunch ally of Oliver, Thea is forced to join the League and swears vengeance on her brother, with Word of God confirming that she was the one destined to become the second Dark Archer and Oliver's true Arch-Enemy. This is subverted in Perils/House, where she rehab works and she returns to being a hero from that point on.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Dear Lord...
• Break the Haughty: The end of Legend and the beginning of the Dawn is dedicated to bringing Thea down notch after notch. First her biological father is exposed as a terrorist who tried to murder thousands of people by destroying an entire city district. Then she's nearly slammed with a federal charge that could've seen her in jail for years, nearly nabbed by the League of Assassins to be inducted into their ranks, and learns the father she's been so desperately defending nearly got her turned into a sex slave. A month later, after making some very poor remarks to the press, both her brothers permanently cut her off from both of the family fortunes and ship her to rehab.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Returns from rehab at the start of Perils, clean but attitude as terrible as ever.
  • Since Perils/House is a rewrite of Perils, she also returns at the start of that. However, her attitude is much better and she's basically back to her old self.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Come Dawn, she regularly blows off training to go clubbing with her friends.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: She had the option of regaining access to the Queen fortune in Perils due to the encroaching deadline of the League's extension on her training approaching causing Oliver to grow desperate in getting her to train. However, she decided to withhold her answer until literally the last minute in order to extort more money from him, torture him and the others for sending her to rehab, and to prove that the League wasn't all-powerful. Lo and behold, the League shows up to take her, and Thea's decision to finally train once they have her in hand is not taken seriously due to her previous behavior.
• Humiliation Conga: Dawn. First she's publicly dragged away from Club Poison by Oliver and Sara, with Sara even slapping her at one point, then her subsequent meltdown is filmed and aired live by Channel 52 News, and then both Oliver and Tommy cut her off, causing her to lose face in front of her friends when she tries to buy drinks for them after her credit and debit cards are rejected. When a furious Thea travels to the Quiver to confront Tommy, Tommy coldly tells her that she's no longer getting a cent from him, and that if she wants money, she can get an after-school job like any other teenager her age. Her final appearance in the volume then sees her crying and moaning over the fact that she's been sent to rehab.
• Hypocrite: She disparages Emiko for being an illegitimate child of Robert's, when she herself is an illegitimate child of Moira and Malcolm's.
• I Reject Your Reality: Thanks to Malcolm's influence, she becomes increasingly out of touch with reality, rejecting any facts she doesn't like no matter the evidence supporting them. By the beginning of Dawn, it had gotten to the point where Oliver and Tommy and were forced to send her to rehab to break Malcolm's conditioning over her. It didn't work. In Perils, she is even more resolute in her imagined untouchability than ever which finally bites her in the ass when the League come to collect and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
• It's All About Me: Her spoiled and indulgent upbringing has given her an inflated sense of self-importance. She repeatedly brings up how Green Arrow's attack on the Queen Mansion traumatized her, but everyone can tell that she is just playing the victim to garner sympathy and attention. She expects her guardians to cater to her every whim no matter how unreasonable or selfish, all while gleefully disparaging and antagonizing them. And when they don't, she acts like she has been wronged.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • She's technically correct in that most of her problems are the result of the actions of other people, namely Malcolm, but she also blames everyone who angers her or doesn't indulge her for those same problems, even when they had nothing to do with them (like Laurel and Sara). On top of that, she doesn't seem to understand that the League of Assassins doesn't care about who she chooses to blame since they believe in blood debts, so she might as well just shut up and do what she's told.
  • She's also correct in that she is too public of a figure for the League of Assassin to kidnap her without anyone looking^note Of course, when Oliver covers it up with the story that she took her inheritance and ran off, no questions it given her well-known poor attitude.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Tries to injure Laurel during training after Oliver and Sara drag her out of Club Poison. What's make it worse is that Laurel has been nothing but kind and supportive to Thea, being the most sympathetic to her plight.
  • The following day, she makes several disparaging remarks about Emiko and Kazumi to the paparazzi and shows absolutely no regret about it, even relishing in her actions. This backfires on her, as it finally prompts Oliver and Tommy to completely cut her off financially and send her to rehab in hopes of getting her clean and deprogramming her of Malcolm's brainwashing.
  • In Perils, after Oliver offers to give her inheritance back in exchange for training with him as a vigilante, Thea decides to twist the knife further and extort more money from him by delaying her answer, as a revenge for sending her to rehab. This backfires on her.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Thea has inherited much of her poor attitude from Malcolm, which includes her horribly elitist mindset, being prone temper tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants, and denying facts she doesn't like no matter the evidence presented. Even after denouncing him as her father, she continues to act out just like said father much to Oliver and Tommy's growing concern.
• Never My Fault: She never takes responsibilities for her choices and keeps on blaming others (particularly Oliver) for her problems. She still hasn't learned her lesson after she's forced to join the League, instead blaming her current predicament on Oliver becoming Green Arrow and swearing to kill him in revenge.
• Put on a Bus: After being cut off by Tommy, Oliver sends her to rehab to get clean. She doesn't reappear again until Perils, where she lasts about five chapters before being put on the bus again, this time to the League of Assassins. Subverted in Perils/House, where rehab works and she sticks around as a hero.
• Princess in Rags: She refuses to change her behavior even as she's being continually punished for it. After she makes a bunch of nasty comments about Emiko and Kazumi to the paparazzi, Oliver finally hits his breaking point with her and cuts her off permanently, before deciding to send her to rehab. Tommy, who is similarly unhappy with her actions, agrees to do the same leaving her with no money to fuel her irresponsible lifestyle. While she does get an allowance in Perils/House after returning from rehab, it's a relatively small amount so she won't fall back into bad habits, with Oliver promising to only give her back full access to both fortunes once she's fully proven herself mature enough to use the money responsibly.
• Riches to Rags: Both of her brothers cut her off from their respective family fortunes to force her to shape up. She doesn't until after rehab, which causes Oliver to give her an allowance with promises to increase the amount the more she proves her maturity.
• School Is for Losers: She starts blowing off her homework in Dawn so she can forget her troubles and keep partying with her friends. The expected happens when the new headmistress calls Oliver to tell him that she's in danger of flunking which, as Berlanti Prep doesn't do repeat years, means she would have to finish out her credits in a public high school instead.
• Selective Obliviousness: In Perils, she blames all her current problems on Oliver becoming Green Arrow, particularly the part about being forced to join the League. She completely ignores the fact that Oliver did everything in his power to prevent that from happening, and that Thea only has herself to blame for what happened due to her refusal to train as a vigilante.
• Sins of Our Fathers: On top of being forced to become a vigilante, she can't even go to school without Oliver escorting her everyday.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Thinks that as a daughter of the Queen and Merlyn families, she's untouchable to even the League of Assassins — the same League of Assassins that once orchestrated the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to trigger World War I. She gets over herself in Perils/House.
• Spoiled Brat: She sees no problem breaking an expensive computer tablet if she doesn't like what she read on it — even when it's not her tablet. Even Tommy is aghast at her behavior. Her behavior only improves after spending months in rehab.
• Tantrum Throwing: She has a habit of throwing tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Malcolm didn't mind and even outright encouraged it sometimes, which has made her prone to doing it more often. Understandably, neither Oliver nor Tommy are impressed when she falls into their care, and are pushed to their limits in trying to break this habit of hers.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Thea remains determined to blame Oliver for her problems even after he saves her life twice, one of which involved a Duel to the Death with one of the greatest killers in the world, and after learning that particular duel saved her from being turned into a sex slave. It is a product of poor parenting by both Moira and Malcolm that she takes everything for granted and thinks that getting her way is simply the natural order of things.
• Walking Spoiler: In Perils, it became impossible to talk about Thea without revealing that her antagonistic nature and refusal to train eventually sees her forced to join the League of Assassins. Subverted in Perils/House, where she returns back to her normal self and agrees to train to become a vigilante.

Emiko Queen

Emiko Adachi-Queen

Tropes:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Only slightly so. She's initially unwilling to speak with Oliver in Legend or hear him out. However, she begins to warm up to him after he brings her to Robert's funeral despite his mother's protests, and so accepts his job offer to join the Applied Sciences division for QC much quicker. Eventually, thanks to Oliver's relationship with Thea falling apart, she becomes the sibling closest to him, and he frequently has dinner with her and her mother at their new apartment.
• Adaptational Job Change: She's going to remain the head of QC's Applied Sciences longer since Oliver plans to remain CEO of QC for a while so the company can have some stability.
• Big Brother Worship: Comes to adore Oliver by the end of Legend for everything he's done for her and her mother.
• Everyone Has Standards: She already had little reason to have a good disposition towards Thea for both being Moira's daughter and making nasty comments about Emiko and Kazumi to the press, but when Emiko learns that Thea still continued to treat their brother horribly even after he saved her from sexual slavery, even she can't help but be disgusted, and resolves herself to be a good sister to Oliver in turn.
• Rags to Riches: She goes from just barely making by in the Glades to being one of the richest women in the city after Oliver welcomes her into the Queen family and gives her access to the family accounts.

Moira Queen

Moira Queen

Tropes:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Her relationship with Oliver ends on bad terms (even if Word of God confirms she does still love him), due to her finding out about him being Green Arrow before she died.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Only slightly. In canon, it's implied that she kept Thea's parentage secret from her largely out of self-interest and that Malcolm being an utter bastard just gave her an excuse. Here, it's confirmed that she considered telling everyone as soon as Malcolm came back but decided not to when Malcolm began showing his true colors.
• Broken Pedestal: To both her children.
  • Her past as a former street rat and thief, her treatment of Emiko and Kazumi her refusal to turn against Malcolm all soured Oliver's opinion of her (even if he still loves her), and he has no problems acknowledging that she was a terrorist and that he no longer cares for her wishes anymore.
  • Thea, due to her tendency to blame everyone for all her problems, also blames her for not turning against Malcolm when she still had the chance, because it was Thea's last chance to avoid a life in vigilantism.
  • Even Tommy, who still has a good opinion of her, acknowledges that Moira wasn't perfect and that she has her own sins to atone for in whatever afterlife she landed in.
• Parental Substitute: Robert and her essentially raised Tommy after Rebecca died and Malcolm skipped town. Tommy admits he sees them as his parents more than he ever did Malcolm, and it's clear from everyone's recollections of them that they both loved Tommy as if he were their own child.
• Parents as People: As much as Moira loved her children, she wasn't a good parent to either of them. Even Tommy, who owes Moira for taking him in after Malcolm all but abandoned him, acknowledges that she wasn't as a strict a parent as she should've been, and that a lot of Thea's behavior stemmed from Moira's refusal to discipline her daughter.
• Related in the Adaptation: She's the bastard child of Lachlan Luthor and thus the half-sister of Lionel Luthor and the aunt of Lex Luthor.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In Perils, her bad parenting of Thea is one of the driving forces behind Thea eventually being forcibly inducted into the League of Assassins, as it led to her daughter becoming spoiled and having an inflated sense of self-importance. However, unlike Malcolm, who deliberately corrupted Thea for his own plans, her actions were unintentional and a result of incompetency more than anything else.

The Lances

General

• Blue Blood: As it turns out, Dinah, Laurel, and Sara are technically part of the wealthy elite like Oliver and Tommy, being descended from the wealthy Gotham City Drakes. That's how Laurel and Sara managed to attend Berlanti Prep in the first place.
• Dysfunctional Family: Despite what Quentin and Dinah would like to believe, the Lances are this, as both Laurel and Sara bitterly come to realize over the course of Legend. This becomes even more obvious after the second half of Perils/House reveals that Dinah lied about her parents being dead and had been financially abusing her daughters by withholding the trust accounts their grandparents set up for them and using the money on herself instead. After that, even Quentin can't deny it anymore, and demands that Dinah remove "Lance" from her name because she obviously doesn't care about their family.
• Rags to Riches: The Lances go from your standard middle-class family to one of the richest families in Star City after Laurel and Sara gain access to the trust accounts that their grandparents set up for them (and that their mother stole from them), giving them both approximately $300 million dollars each.

Laurel Lance

Dinah Laurel Lance | Black Canary

Tropes:

• Adaptational Badass: Only slightly so. By the time of Dawn, she's already completed her basic League training, where as it took her several more weeks in Age to do the same. That's because she began training with Sara much earlier than she originally did.
• Adaptational Job Change:
  • After she's disbarred, she elects to work Oliver's PA instead of at Lance Floral so she can keep using some of the skills she developed during college and law school.
  • At the end of the first half of Perils/House, she decides to run for mayor like Oliver did in the last timeline and in Rebirth, both because she's not impressed by how the city officials have been running the city, and because it allows her to use her law degree in a way that won't see her disbarred.
• Awful Truth:
  • She's horrified to learn her sister was raped during the fives years she was gone. It's what finally pushes her into forgiving Sara for choosing to go on the Gambit with Oliver in the first place.
  • Her original timeline's self was not murdered by Damien Darhk. She actually died when she broke the brainwashing of Future Felicity to confess her love to Oliver, causing the seizure that killed her. Her boyfriend was also under similar programming for years, and that is the real reason they never got back together in that timeline.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With her sister Sara, to the point that the two live together for the vast majority of Legend and a quarter through Dawn, before Laurel moves in with Oliver.
• Official Couple: With Oliver.
• Promotion to Parent: One of the more sobering realizations that the Lance sisters make in Legend is that Laurel actually did more to genuinely parent Sara than their own parents, as Quentin and Dinah only spoiled her. Unfortunately, this caused Sara to unfairly resent Laurel, which led to her taking Oliver's offer to go on the Gambit. While this Awful Truth is painful for them both, it allows them to reconcile fully and brings them closer together than ever before.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Sara's Red. While Laurel does have anger in her, it's much more subdued and manageable than Sara's violent outbursts, and she typically prefers more diplomatic solutions to conflict.
• Trauma Conga Line: While it's not as bad as it was in Rise, Laurel still suffers a lot in Legend, including being kidnapped several times and almost killed, and even almost suffering an Attempted Rape.

Sara Lance

Sara Lance | The Canary | White Canary

Tropes:

• Adaptational Job Change: With Word of God confirming that the Legends storyline has been cut and that the Council of Time Masters do not exist in the Forging-verse, Sara will never become a Legend (as the team will never exist), and instead will remain in Starling with Team Arrow. That means she maintains her job as owner and manager of Lance Floral, with her decision to eventually attend medical school and become a doctor mostly regelated to the background.
• Better as Friends: With Oliver.
• But Not Too Bi: Justified. Sara is bisexual, but prefers women because she has suffered horribly at the hands of men. While she still finds men attractive, the only man she currently trusts to be in a relationship with is Oliver, who ultimately loves Laurel more than he does Sara, at least in a romantic sense — and while she eventually begins a relationship with Tommy, it takes a lot of time for her to get there.
• Childhood Friend Romance: With Tommy Swann.
• Empowered Badass Normal: It turns out Sara is a metahuman like her sister Laurel and Oliver, and fully awakens her power during the Siege of Starling after being thrown out a twenty-story window by a Mirakuru soldier.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With her sister Laurel.
• Hidden Depths: Apparently, she's bad at Poker, and even five years away from Starling and training from the League of Assassins haven't changed that.
• I Hate Past Me: See Spoiled Brat below. Understandably, Sara does not get along with Thea at all for this reason.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Oliver, being his vigilante partner in Legend and helping him on his quest with Tempest.
• Promoted to Love Interest: She becomes Tommy's love interest in this series.
• Rape as Backstory: Sara was gang-raped by the survivors of the Amazo and had relationships of questionable consent with both Anthony Ivo and Nyssa al Ghul. Honestly, the only genuine relationship she had during her five years away was with Oliver, and she admits to Laurel that if Oliver and her hadn't gotten back together, Sara would've pursued him for that reason alone.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Laurel's Blue. Sara is a compassionate young woman at heart, but has a firecracker temper and tends to lean towards more violent solutions for her problems.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Admits one of the main reasons she was still attracted to Oliver was because he's the only man she trusts to be in a relationship with. Later on, she falls in love with her dorky Childhood Friend Tommy, who is an even bigger Nice Guy than Oliver.
• Super-Toughness: Her metahuman ability gives her enhanced durability, allowing her to survive a twenty-story fall with no injury.
• Spoiled Brat: Sara comes to the bitter realization that the only real parent she had in her life was her older sister Laurel, while Quentin and Dinah just spoiled her, not unlike how Moira and Malcolm spoiled Thea.
• Take Me Instead: She tried to trade herself to the League for Thea after Ra's refused Oliver the right of blood. Ra's refused her offer because her soul was divided and she would never be truly and completely loyal to the League.
• Tough Love: While Sara is annoyed by Thea's behavior and does enjoy the younger girl's misery at times, in the end her harsh treatment of Thea has the end goal of trying to force the girl to grow up so she won't be taken by the League. When Oliver decides to send Thea to rehab, Sara tells him he's making the right choice because she knows the League, even without their sexual slavery practices, is no place for an underage girl like Thea.
• Unequal Pairing:
  • Her relationship with Anthony Ivo was definitely a case of Stockholm Syndrome, as he was the only thing standing in the way between a beautiful woman like her and a ship full of lonely, violent men. When Anthony inevitably died and Sara was separated from Oliver, it didn't end well for everyone involved.
  • Her relationship with Nyssa. While Nyssa genuinely did love Sara, Sara was never able to love her back (or, at least not as much as Nyssa did her), as Nyssa's protection was the only thing keeping her from becoming a sex slave like the other women of the League. Sara was well aware of what would happen if Nyssa ever got bored of her, which means she had to do her best to please her, even if it was something Sara herself didn't want or enjoy.
  • Downplayed in her growing relationship with Tommy. While Tommy is significantly richer than Sara, the two have known each other since childhood so it's hardly a factor in their relationship. In addition, Sara has been in a position of greater authority and power than Tommy herself, as she was one of his two main teachers when he first began vigilante training.
• Violence is the Only Option: Sara is a very violent person, as a result of her time in the League of Assassins. While she's calmed down for the most part, violence does tend to be her go-to solution whenever dealing with a difficult problem.

Quentin Lance

Quentin Larry Lance

Tropes:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Because he never found out Sara was gang-raped and never worked with Oliver at his most lethal, he's unable to reconcile with his daughter's past as an assassin. This destroys his relationships with both Laurel and Sara.
  • He openly loses any interest he has in restoring his relationship with Dinah after finding out she's been stealing from their daughters' trust accounts for years.
• Badass in Distress: He's kidnapped by Cadmus at the start of the second half of Perils/House and experimented on for several chapters before being rescued by the Justice League.
• The Empath: His metahuman power is empathy, which he learns after being able to literally feel the love Laurel and Sara have for him.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Laurel and Sara inherited their metagene from him. Quentin's own metagene remains dormant until he's kidnapped by and experimented on by Cadmus, after which he becomes an empath.
• Everyone Has Standards: Regardless of his estrangement from Laurel and Sara, when he finds out that Dinah stole their trust accounts from them and has been using the money on herself, he firmly sides with them. He later on states that it's clear that problem with their family has never been either of their daughters, but Dinah, and that is the real reason they can never be a family again.
• Handicapped Badass: He still has heart problems. If anything, the stress of the events of Legend made them worse, as he manages to get his heart attack over a year earlier than he did in the original timeline.
• Off the Wagon: He manages to fall off even faster than he did in Rebirth, due to learning about Sara's past as an assassin.
• Parents as People: Quentin honestly does love his daughters, but he has a narrow worldview due to his dedication to being a cop and thus, can't reconcile with the more morally ambiguous decisions his girls make. He eventually comes around to their viewpoint during his time with Cadmus, and reconciles with Team Arrow upon his rescue.
• Passed-Over Promotion: His partner Lucas is promoted over him to become the new Captain of the MCU after Pike is promoted to Commissioner because of Quentin's drinking problem. Unlike most examples of this trope, Quentin doesn't care, preferring field work as a detective to being a desk jockey. This is later subverted, once it becomes clear his health is impeding him, and he ends up becoming the new head of the SCPD's Internal Affairs Bureau.

The Swanns/Merlyns

Tommy Swann

Thomas "Tommy" Swann (formerly Merlyn) | Azure Blade

Tropes:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Since his Character Development wasn't stalled and Oliver managed to save him from the League, Tommy and Oliver manage to reconcile at the end of the first volume, unlike in Rebirth. By the time Dawn begins, they're as tight as ever, with Tommy serving as one of Oliver's students in vigilante training and later becoming one of his teammates on Team Arrow.
  • Sara and him cut ties early on in Rebirth due to Sara siding with Oliver during the conflict between Tommy and him in Rise. Here, while their friendship does go through a rough patch, the two manage to reconcile by the end of Legend. Dawn sees them becoming closer, and Perils confirms they are attracted to each other, culminating them becoming a couple.
• Adaptational Badass: The Earth-1 Tommy was a civilian, and only alternate versions of him had any combat aptitude. This Tommy, however, ends up becoming a vigilante who is well on his way to becoming an equal combatant to Oliver, Sara, and Laurel.
• Adaptational Heroism: The biggest example in the series. Thanks to finding out about Thea's parentage under different circumstances and never reconciling with Malcolm, Tommy's Character Development is never stalled but instead accelerated, leading him to become more like the Tommy at the end of Season One, who died trying to save Laurel. Combined with Oliver managing to save him from the League, and this Tommy ends the first volume on the path to redemption and into becoming a hero in his own right. He becomes a full-fledged hero after the Battle of Amnesty Bay where his noble actions in defending the townsfolk earn him a spot in the Justice League.
• Adaptational Job Change:
  • Since he never reconciled with Malcolm, Tommy had no reason to become an executive at Merlyn Global. He ends up caring about the company so little, in fact, that he sells it to Oliver after Malcolm is exposed as a terrorist.
  • Tommy's new job as a vigilante means it's highly unlikely he'll become a nightclub owner/manager, like he was in canon and in Children. Instead, he becomes the stock boy and co-cashier of Sara's flower shop.
• Affluent Ascetic: Post-Legend. Tommy is just as rich, if not richer than he was before due to selling Merlyn Global to Oliver and reinvesting the money into Queen Industries and other companies in the city, but is living a relatively modest lifestyle as a cashier and co-manager of Lance Floral. He also continues to room with Sara at Laurel's old apartment even after it becomes safe for him to be seen in the city again, despite the fact that he can clearly afford to get his own place.
• Big Brother Instinct: For Thea, especially after learning she's his biological sister. The main reason he opposed Oliver's crusade is because he thought Oliver would've made a better guardian for her than Malcolm, and he even tried to trade himself for Thea when Ra's tried to induct her into the League. He loves her so much, what finally killed his remaining affection for Malcolm was learning that his father's actions nearly forced her into sexual slavery.
• Childhood Friend Romance: With Sara Lance.
• Dork Knight: Endearingly so, judging by how Sara tends to smile whenever she calls him that. Not to mention he's a huge Star Wars nerd, and he chose a superhero name like Azure Blade because Blue Blade wasn't "epic enough."
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Tommy hardly had an austere upbringing, but even he thinks Thea's habit of breaking computer tablets (even those that aren't hers) just because she didn't like what she read on them is ridiculously petty and wasteful. He notes that if this is the kind of behavior Moira and Malcolm have been letting Thea get away with, then it's no wonder she's taken a turn for the worse in such a short amount of time.
  • He's more lenient on Thea than Oliver but her nasty comments about Emiko to the press are so horrible that even he can't find it in himself to let them slide. It pushes him to finally cut her off from the Swann estate with Oliver doing the same with Queens' and leaving her with absolutely no funds to fuel her irresponsible lifestyle.
• Family of Choice: He outright states multiple times that the only real family he had after his mother died were the Queens, as Malcolm had effectively abandoned him for two years and then ignored him when he got back. As he puts it, for all their faults, Robert and Moira were the ones who raised him and loved him, and he sees them as his parents as much as he does Rebecca.
• Fatal Flaw: Naïveté, by his own admission. Out of his four friends, Tommy had the most sheltered upbringing, despite suffering the earliest tragedy, namely the death of his mother. It's what led to his decision to expose Oliver. After he's forced become a vigilante, part of his training is studying up on historical and current events to break him out of his sheltered worldview. By the time of Dawn, he's wizened up considerably.
• Genre Savvy: Right before the Amnesty Bay arc, he calls out Oliver for Tempting Fate, solidifying him as this.
• Grew a Spine: One of the reasons Malcolm favored Thea over Tommy is because he viewed Tommy as weak-willed, which is why Thea wasn't worried about being cut off for her behavior in Dawn. Unfortunately for her, the events of Legend have strengthened Tommy's confidence and resolve — enough to cut Thea off after her behavior spends his patience.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Tommy starts out Dawn being Hated by All due to the events of Legend. However, this begins to change during the Battle of Amnesty Bay, after he's televised defending innocent lives from the Trench, fighting side-by-side with Oliver, and officially joining the Justice League. It dies entirely after Oliver's testimony during the Trial of Tempest, after it's revealed Malcolm nearly got him turned into an indentured assassin and Thea into a broodmare. Now, even the people of the Glades recognize that he's as much of a victim of Malcolm as they are.
• Heroes Prefer Swords. In only a month, he manages to become proficient enough in swordplay to earn Oliver's praise, and he admits that swordplay in general comes easier to him than everything else Oliver and Sara have been teaching him. This is what causes Oliver to suggest he use swords as his chosen weapon, like how Oliver prefers using a bow and arrows.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Oliver. While their friendship takes a real beating in Legend, they manage to reconcile by the end of the story and their friendship is fully patched up by Dawn.
• Hidden Depths: He's apparently a huge Star Wars nerd.
• Like Father, Unlike Son:
  • The only thing Tommy seems to have inherited from Malcolm is his natural combat prowess. Otherwise, he's such a better person than Malcolm it's not even funny. If anything, he takes far more after his mother Rebecca, who was renowned for her unflinching compassion.
  • Additionally, he favors swords in combat while his father prefers the bow-and-arrow.
• Only Sane Man: For the Merlyn family, seeing as his dad is a psychopath with a god complex and his sister is a Spoiled Brat who is borderline delusional. Tommy — for all his naiveté — is a relatively down-to-earth man who takes after his mother more than anyone else, being compassionate and capable of sympathy for the problems of others.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Laurel, acknowledging they are Better as Friends and remaining her male best friend instead. Laurel is even the first to forgive him for actions in Legend.
• Promoted to Love Interest: He becomes Sara's love interest in this series, supplanting Barry, who is instead paired with Iris like in canon.
• Promotion to Parent: He became Thea's de facto guardian after Malcolm was exposed, defeated, and arrested. While he gives up official guardianship to Oliver, he still shares the responsibility of raising her with his best friend and, to a lesser extent, Laurel and Sara.
• Settle for Sibling: While he had feelings for Laurel first, the woman he eventually falls in love with for real is Laurel's younger sister, Sara. It's played realistically in that Tommy didn't actively pursue Sara; instead, his attraction to her was a result of spending so much time with her while Oliver and Laurel were out on dates.
• Shed the Family Name: He sheds the Merlyn name at the end of Legend and takes on his mother's maiden name of Swann. In fact, he wants to divorce himself from the Merlyn name so badly that he sells everything connected to it, including Merlyn Global, Merlyn Manor, the Corto Maltese vacation house, and even his own apartment. As the final nail in the coffin, he has his mother's headstone changed so it is marked with her maiden name rather than Merlyn so her memory isn't tarnished.
• Sins of Our Fathers:
  • He nearly got press-ganged by the League of Assassins thanks to Malcolm. While Oliver was able to save him from that fate, first by trading Malcolm for him and then by defeating and killing Ra's al Ghul, Malcolm's sins were so severe that Tommy was still forced to become a vigilante just to pay off the blood debt.
  • Come Dawn, Tommy's been holed up in the Quiver for at least a month because he'll be attacked otherwise if he's seen outside in public without protection. He's only able to leave after the Battle of Amnesty Bay, as he proved himself on live television to be both a dangerous combatant and a far better person than Malcolm.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He survives the series' equivalent of Season One.
• Take Me Instead: He tried to offer himself in exchange for Thea when Ra's tried to induct her into the League. It didn't take, because Ra's was determined to induct Thea no matter what and so refused Tommy on the grounds that he had already been traded for Malcolm.
• Team Member in the Adaptation: He joins Team Arrow and the Justice League in this series, which is change from both canon and Rebirth.
• The Unfavorite: To Malcolm, for not parroting his worldview like Thea and acting like a decent human being. Understandably, Tommy doesn't care for his father's approval and wears the badge of being Malcolm's least favorite child with pride.
• Walking Spoiler: It becomes impossible to talk about any volume after Legend without spoiling the twist at the end of that volume, where Tommy isn't taken by the League like he was in Rebirth and instead becomes a student of Oliver like Thea was.

Malcolm Merlyn

Malcolm Merlyn | Al Sa-Her | The Dark Archer

Tropes:

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: For all his skill and pride, he's not afraid to beg for his life when faced with the prospect of being left at Ra's al Ghul's mercy.
• Angrish: After learning about the Green Lantern Corps, and realizing that Oliver is allied with them.
• Arch-Enemy: To Oliver. On top of sinking the Gambit and ruining both Oliver and Sara's lives, he murders Walter to force Oliver into Tempest, corrupts Thea into turning against Oliver, and murders Felicity out of spite, unknowingly preventing Oliver's daughter Mia from being born.
• Archnemesis Dad:
  • To Tommy. All of Malcolm's actions in Legend — especially nearly causing Tommy and Thea to be press-ganged into the League of Assassins — has caused Tommy to despise his father with a passion. Malcolm begins returning the sentiment after seeing his son side with Oliver and openly join the Justice League, and after he's given the death penalty, he actively threatens to kill Tommy.
  • To Thea as well. After her stint in rehab cures her of his brainwashing, Thea blatantly hates Malcolm as much as Tommy does.
• Big Bad: Of Legend.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Much like in Rise, Malcolm is only a threat to Oliver's loved ones rather than Oliver himself. Oliver even admits that he could've killed Malcolm any time he wanted, but chose not to both because it didn't fit with his plans to inspire heroes and because he honestly thought Malcolm wasn't worth killing.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Tommy gradually grows more disgusted with him over the course of Legend, first due to his lack of care for his godson Oliver, who is Tommy's best friend, then because of the number of his associates who proved to be excessively corrupt, and then finally because his own exposure as the leader of Tempest and a trained assassin. What finally kills what little esteem and affection Tommy had for him, however, is learning that Malcolm nearly made Thea a sex slave for the League with his actions — Tommy can't even see him as a person after that, and promptly commits to renouncing the Merlyn name for good. And even after that, Tommy's opinion lowers further when he learns that, in the original timeline where Oliver came from, Malcolm was indirectly responsible for his death.
  • Thea's defense of him reaches the point of delusion, up until she finds out about the sexual slavery he nearly forced her into. After that, she wants nothing to do with him.
• The Corrupter: To Thea, encouraging her worst traits both to drive Oliver and her further apart and so Thea can continue his work after he's dead. His brainwashing of her was so effective that even after she comes to reject him, she still can't help but keep parroting his opinions and worldview.
• Disc-One Final Boss: While he's the official Big Bad of Legend, he isn't the True Final Boss — that would be Ra's al Ghul.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. Despite all his claims otherwise, Oliver correctly concludes that Malcolm has never really loved anyone except himself.
• Evil Is Petty: He has Felicity murdered for no other reason than because Oliver decided to throw the CNRI gala against his orders, after originally promising to spare her. And this was after Oliver gave several viable reasons as to why he had to go through with throwing the gala.
• A God Am I: Both Oliver and Alex Danvers recognize he has a god complex, the latter only after a couple interactions with him.
• Hated by All: Following his exposure as the Dark Archer and leader of Tempest, he becomes universally despised by everyone, even his own children. Agent Trimble goes as far as to call him "the most hated man in America." Against all odds, his reputation sinks even further during his trial as more of his crimes and horrid personality traits come to light. When he receives the death sentence no one argues against it, with several groups (such as all of the Glades, the Wayne Manor residents, and even the Wests and Allens) actively celebrating it.
• I Have Your Wife: He murdered Walter so he could invoke this trope to force Oliver into Tempest, via threatening the lives of Laurel, Sara (who he hadn't known was a former member of the League at the time), and William.
• It's All About Me: Oliver notes that the man is incredibly narcissistic and that his Undertaking is more about himself than it is about honoring his dead wife. He never considers how his actions affect others, or that his wife would be horrified that Malcolm is killing people in her name. Finally, when Ra's finally comes to collect his blood debt, Malcolm pleads only for his own life and not those of his children, who he knows will be made to suffer for Malcolm's sins as well.
• Parental Favoritism: Favors Thea over Tommy because Thea is easier to manipulate and corrupt towards his point-of-view. The only time he shows even the slightest bit of pride in Tommy is when he sees Tommy has inherited his combat skill and a degree of his ruthlessness, and even that ends after Tommy joins the Justice League. He's left screaming at the television, wishing he had disowned Tommy when he still had the chance and left everything to Thea instead.
• Sanity Slippage: At the end of Legend, he snaps so badly that he starts psychotically ranting to a picture of his dead wife about his upcoming revenge against Oliver.
• Spared By Adaptation: Since Oliver has a Thou Shalt Not Kill rule and the trade with Ra's al Ghul didn't go through, Malcolm isn't killed at the end of Legend like he was in Rise, and lives to face society's justice.
• Tantrum Throwing: Like his daughter, he has a habit of throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way. The one he throws after Tommy's first interview as Azure Blade is particularly spectacular; he flat-out wishes he had drowned Tommy at birth.
• Too Dumb to Live: You'd think willingly exposing the League of Assassins on a livestream was bad enough, but Malcolm just had to dig himself deeper during his trial, where he tried to discredit Oliver using Oliver's attempt to trade him to Ra's al Ghul to save Tommy and Thea. Instead, it forces Oliver to publicly expose the League even further, not only completely crushing Tempest's defense for the trial before it can even begin, but also ensuring that even if he does, somehow, escape, Talia will have the League hunt him down to the ends of the earth and deliver him a slow, painful death.
• Underestimating Badassery: He constantly underestimates Oliver throughout Legend, but doesn't realize it until he sees Oliver kill Ra's al Ghul in a duel. Afterward, Oliver point-blank admits he could've killed Malcolm and Tempest whenever he wanted, but chose not to because, in the end, they were Not Worth Killing, and spares Malcolm again to hammer that fact in.
• Villainous Breakdown: He has one in Legend that is arguably worse than the one in Rise. On top of appearing as the Dark Archer on a livestream trying to murder three innocent people, he also deliberately exposes the League of Assassins on said livestream, screwing over not just him but his innocent children as well.
• Villainous Legacy:
  • Much like Rebirth, his defeat has massive consequences for the rest of the series. His actions indirectly inspire Laurel to become the Black Canary years earlier, force Thea and Tommy into vigilantism, lead to the death of the current Ra's al Ghul (causing the unification of the League of Assassins and the League of Shadows, with Talia becoming Ra's al Ghul), and, of course, prompt the President to task Oliver with establishing the Justice League.
  • In Perils, his indoctrination of Thea leads to her refusing to train as a vigilante, which eventually culminates in her being forced to join the League. Had the series gone on with that plot point, Thea would've eventually killed Malcolm and replaced him as the Dark Archer and Oliver's Arch-Enemy, ensuring that none of Team Arrow would ever escape the shadow of his actions.
• Walking Spoiler: The fact that he survives the first volume at all is a major spoiler as it is a huge deviation from Rebirth, as it all but guarantees that he will one day return to somehow antagonize the protagonists.

Team Arrow

John Diggle

John Diggle | Spartan

Tropes:

• Adaptational Personality Change: He's more supportive of Oliver (while still willing to call him out if he thinks his friend is doing something wrong), and less dismissive of his other teammates, especially Laurel. As it later turns out, this is actually his real personality — the personality he had in the original timeline was mostly a result of Felicity's programming, where she reduced him to being the main cheerleader of Oliver and hers 'relationship' and forced him to ignore any action of hers he might find reprehensible.
• Ascended Extra: He sticks around this time, instead of leaving like in Rebirth.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: One of the reasons why his identity of Spartan becomes an Open Secret after Oliver is exposed as Green Arrow. It's highly unlikely Oliver's bodyguard, who was known to go everywhere with him, wouldn't know about his vigilante activities, and the fact that he still kept Diggle around even after he was pardoned and quite obviously didn't need a bodyguard for appearances anymore made it even more obvious.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Oliver, being his primary field partner during Legend.
• Open Secret: After Oliver is exposed as Green Arrow and later pardoned, it's not really much of a secret that John Diggle, his bodyguard, is Spartan. John actually discusses this with Carly, making plans for AJ and her to live with him if he ever has to officially go public like Oliver. He is forced to do this after the Battle of Amnesty Bay when he joins the Justice League.

Naomi Singh

Naomi Singh | Insight

Tropes:

• Consummate Professional: She was initially lent to Oliver by A.R.G.U.S. so she only treated him as her employer, addressing him "Mr. Queen." Over time though, she begins to consider him a friend and after Oliver is granted a pardon, elects to stay on as his tech support of her own volition^note but she still calls him "Mr. Queen".
• Hidden Depths: She is a proud "Trekkie," and even gets into a playful rivalry with Tommy who is a Star Wars nerd.
• Mission Control: For Team Arrow.

Metropolis

The Daily Planet

Clark Kent

Clark Kent | Kal-El | Superman

Tropes:

• All-Loving Hero: This guy saves cats from trees for crying out loud!
• Alternate Self: Of the canon Superman, a.k.a. Earth-38 Superman.
• Clark Kenting: The trope namer. Laurel and Sara immediately know that Superman is Clark upon his debut, recognizing him from just their few meetings beforehand.
• Official Couple: With Lois Lane, his reporting partner.
• The World Is Not Ready: Clark was initially very wary about when and how he used his powers, as he didn't believe that the world was ready to handle the existence of a being like him. This, combined with his fear of being experimented on^note see They Would Cut You Up below, kept him from intervening in certain situations, such as when Merlyn's men came to abduct Laurel. But by Dawn, he has become inspired by Oliver's success as Green Arrow and finally steps out into the light^note Though he is still cautious about who he reveals his major weaknesses to.
• They Would Cut You Up: The biggest reason for him waiting so long to debut as Superman is his intense fear of being dragged off to Area 51 to be experimented on. Oliver's success as Green Arrow however, inspires him to believe in the best of humanity and reveal himself to the world.

Lois Lane

Lois Lane

Tropes:

• Alternate Self: Of the canon Lois Lane, a.k.a. Earth-38 Lois.
• Intrepid Reporter: She's Lois Lane, what do you expect? Her sheer tenacity both impresses and frightens Oliver. It's also gotten her, Clark, and Jimmy into more than a few sticky situations.
• Official Couple: With Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman.

Lexcorp

Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor

• Bald of Evil/Beard of Evil: He is of course completely bald, sports a goatee, very evil.
• Cain and Abel: Is very much the Cain to his cousin Oliver's Abel. After exposing his human experimentation operations in Starling, as well as his fame eclipsing Lex's own, Lex has been seething for an opportunity to get back at his cousin.
• Cassandra Truth: He refuses to accept that he and Oliver are cousins.
• Evil Genius: He's Lex Luthor; 'nuff said.
• It's All About Me: This guy might be the biggest narcissist in the entire story. He is annoyed with Oliver and Superman for exposing his company's dirty laundry, but loathes them for getting more attention than him.
• Related in the Adaptation: In this story, Moira is his father's half-sister making her his aunt, and Oliver and Thea his cousins.
• World's Smartest Man: Once again, he's Lex Luthor.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Initially at least, but as the story develops, more and more of his crimes get exposed. He's not very happy that his name keeps taking a hit.

Washington D.C.

Diana Prince

Diana Prince | Wonder Woman

• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Slade tries to kill Oliver at the celebratory gala for the new alliance between the United States and Atlantis, she takes him out with one punch.
• Even the Girls Want Her: She's so beautiful that Laurel, who is by all accounts straight, is attracted to her. Sara (who's bisexual) didn't hesitate to flirt with her.
• This Is Unforgivable!: non-verbal version; her EXACT opinion on The League’s (former) sexual slavery that lasted for millenia.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: She bewitches the entire room when she appears at the celebratory gala for the new alliance between the United States and Atlantis. When the Justice League and their press friends meet her, the men are gobsmacked, the women (including Laurel) are stunned, and Sara doesn't hesitate and immediately hits on her.

Gotham City

The Waynes

Bruce Wayne

Bruce Wayne | Batman

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: This Bruce has a much more amicable relationship with Oliver and an overall higher opinion of him due to them sharing a Thou Shalt Not Kill rule. He's also grateful to Oliver for getting rid of Ra's, which freed up a significant amount of Batman's time to focus on the organized crime in Gotham.
• Adaptational Personality Change: This version of Bruce Wayne is a lot more emotionally stable with a more conventional sense of morality, rather than the borderline Black-and-White Insanity the more extreme interpretations of him tend to have. For one thing, while he is still strict about not killing, he recognizes there are acceptable limits and exceptions to that rule; such as Oliver killing Ra's al Ghul to protect his sister from sexual slavery. Bruce acknowledges he wouldn't have done any differently in that situation.
• Everyone Has Standards: He had no idea about the League's sexual slavery practices until Oliver's testimony at the Trial of Tempest revealed them to the public and admits he would've found a way for Talia to replace Ra's years ago if he had. Even if it meant killing Ra's himself.
• Good Parents: He has his issues, but he is this to Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. Case in point, he respects that Jason may want to leave Gotham one day like Dick and thus, won't burden him with defending the city in case he disappears.
• I Work Alone: Part of the reason he initially turned down Oliver's offer to join the Justice League. His primary reason is that he doesn't want anything pulling him away from his duties in Gotham. Of course, the Battle of Gotham ends ups changing his mind and he joins anyway, like he did in Rebirth.
• Parental Substitute: To Dick Grayson and Jason Todd.
• Shrouded in Myth: Most people outside Gotham don't think Batman exists. It isn't until Oliver outright confirms to have met him that this begins to change, until his existence is officially confirmed during the Battle of Gotham when he joins the Justice League.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: It's Batman, so it's kind of his thing. Though he is slightly less sanctimonious about it than the usual interpretation, as he doesn't condemn Oliver for his choice to kill Ra's al Ghul when he tried to induct his sister as a sex slave for the League of Assassins. He even admits he would've done the exact same thing if Ra's tried take any of the important women in his life to force them into the League for a similar purpose, such as Barbara or his cousin Kate.

Jason Todd

Jason Todd | Robin II

• Happily Adopted: By Bruce Wayne.
• Harmful to Minors: Jason did not have a happy childhood to say the least, which is why he became so violent before Bruce took him in and started training him as the second Robin.
• Rape as Backstory: He used to be a child prostitute for a time while on streets in addition to being a thief before Bruce took him in. He understandably takes it hard when he learns about the League's sexual slavery practices, and is very pleased when Malcom Merlyn — a former member of the League who more than likely enforced those same practices as Ra's' Horseman — is given the death penalty at his trial.

Alfred Pennyworth

Alfred Pennyworth

• Everyone Has Standards: Like Bruce, he admits that if he had known about the League's sexual slavery practices, he would've given Ra's a face full of lead. If only so Bruce wouldn't have to bear that burden himself.
• Parental Substitute: To Bruce Wayne after his parents were murdered.

Nanda Parbat

The League of Assassins

General

General Tropes

• Been There, Shaped History: Having existed for thousands of years, they are responsible for numerous high-profile assassinations that shaped the course of human history. One these assassinations include Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in order to deliberately trigger World War I as part of Ra's' feud with Damien Darhk.
• Heir Club for Men: They only allowed men to become the Demon's Head before Talia took over.
• Sexual Slavery: They engaged in this horrific practice until Talia took over and abolished it.
• Training from Hell: Their training is extremely brutal with many trainess dying in the process.

Ra's al Ghul

Ra's al Ghul

Tropes:

• Adaptational Villainy: Unlike the original Ra's, who merely expected an heir from Nyssa and Oliver's marriage, here he allows and encourages sexual slavery across the entire League
• Arch-Enemy: Not to Oliver, but to Bruce Wayne. As Bruce tells Jason, Ra's is responsible for a significant number of tragedy in Gotham due to being unwilling to give up forcing Bruce into the League as his heir. One of the reasons why Bruce hasn't been able to make a decent dent into Gotham's crime rate despite being at this longer than Oliver by several years, is because Ra's kept interfering with his work.
• An Arm and a Leg: Before Oliver decapitates him, he cuts off Ra's' sword hand.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Posthumously, in Perils. In the end, he still achieves his goal of forcing Thea to join the League, as Oliver's decision to kill Ra's to save Thea from her initial forced induction is partially responsible for convincing her that she was untouchable to even them. This results in her blowing off her vigilante training, reneging on Talia's deal with Oliver and forcing Talia to have her dragged to Nanda Parbat to pay off her father's blood debt.
• Been There, Shaped History: As confirmed by Sara, Ra's did indeed train the assassin that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started World War I; possibly as part of his ongoing war with Damien Darhk.
• Death by Adaptation: He is killed at the end of Legend in a duel with Oliver.
• The Dreaded: He's easily the most feared character in Legend, with his mere existence looming over the story until the very end, where he appears. Both Oliver and Malcolm are terrified of him, with Malcolm — a proud man in his own right — willing to beg for his life if it means Ra's will show him some form of mercy.
• Evil Is Petty: It's implied that the real reason he refused all the offers made to him for Thea's life is so he could punish Oliver for disrespecting him.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Pride. His arrogance cost him his life in his duel with Oliver. Ra's had the upper hand for most of the fight but let his guard down when he thought he'd won and that Oliver didn't have the will to kill him. This gives Oliver the opening he needed to do just that. In fact, Oliver was counting on Ra's' arrogance getting the best of him.
  • Cruelty. The only reason the duel with Oliver happened in the first place is because Ra's kept on insisting in inducting Thea into the League, despite no less than three people offering themselves in Thea's place, all to spite Oliver for disrespecting him. Even Talia recognizes that he only has himself to blame for his death.
• Make Sure He's Dead: Oliver opts to decapitate him so that way he can't be brought back with a Lazarus Pit.
• Off with His Head!: How Oliver kills him.
• True Final Boss: Of Legend. While Malcolm is the main villain, Ra's is the last and most dangerous enemy Oliver faces.
• Villainous Legacy: His son Dusan still loves him and has sworn to avenge his death by killing Oliver.
• Villain Respect: He finally gains a small measure of this for Oliver when the younger warrior proves his willingness to kill him and wins their Duel to the Death.

Talia al Ghul

Talia al Ghul | Ra's al Ghul

Tropes:

• Adaptational Heroism: Since Oliver handed the control of the League to her after killing her father, Talia remains a staunch ally of him in this timeline.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Played with. While Talia is the League of Assassins' best warrior, she faces problems during the early phases of her tenure as the new Ra's, because it was Oliver that defeated and killed her father in a duel, and then simply handed authority to her. Because of this many of the traditionalists see her as unworthy of her position; not helped by how many changes she makes to League to adapt to their exposure to the modern world. Talia is thus forced to make some unsavory decisions to cement her position, including refusing to give Oliver more extensions on Thea's training so he soldiers won't view her as his puppet.
• Dating Catwoman: Word of God confirms that Bruce and her are still very much in love, but Bruce's devotion to Gotham and Talia's devotion to the League prevents them from being together.
• The Leader: Becomes the leader of the League of Assassins after Oliver kills her father and passes leadership to her. She was also the leader of the offshoot League of Shadows which is merged back into the League of Assassins.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: To her father, when she becomes leader of the League of Assassins. She abolishes the League's long-standing misogynistic and patriarchal traditions, but maintains its commitment to killing to achieve justice, and training its members through torture.
• Old Flame: To Bruce Wayne/Batman. They drifted apart over their different approaches to pursuing justice, but it is clear they still have strong feelings for each other.
• Pet the Dog: In Perils. As her men are dragging Thea away to join the League in Nanda Parbat, she comforts Oliver over the phone, telling him that it's not his fault this happened but Malcolm's, that she will do everything in her power to constantly remind Thea of that fact, and that Thea's tenure in the League will only last five years, as previously agreed upon. It's a cold comfort to Oliver as he knows that Thea's training will involve excruciating torture and breaking down her psyche to make her a remorseless assassin.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: In comparison to her father anyway. She grants a lot of leeway to Oliver in regards to the blood debt on Malcolm and his children. She agrees to allow Malcolm to face society's justice, and promising to kill him only if he escapes. She allows Oliver to train Malcolm's children as vigilantes that don't have to kill, instead of forcing them to become assassins where they won't have a choice. And, she even grants Oliver an extension on the time he has to train Thea, so she can first spend time in rehab to break her of Malcolm's brainwashing. In fact, it's implied she would drop the blood debt entirely if she didn't have to make a display of strength to maintain control of the League. When she finally comes to collect Thea after her refusal to honor Oliver's deal in Perils, Talia promises she will only serve the League for five years; the same period of time she would've had to serve as a vigilante.
• Redeeming Replacement: Regardless of her own crimes, she is this to her father. Not only is she more reasonable in her dealings with Oliver and Bruce, one of her first acts was to end the League's sexual slavery practices.