YMMV / Arrow

A

• Abandon Shipping:
  • The relatively-popular ship of Thea/Tommy from Season 1 died a quiet death in Season 2; both because of Thea/Roy, and because Tommy was (posthumously) revealed to be Thea's half-brother on their biological father Malcolm's side. Of course, this also means that Tommy's already-existing Big Brother Instinct towards Thea can be explored further in fan works, assuming they don't kill him off as per canon). Or, y'know, Incest Yay.
  • Several supporters of Oliver/Felicity have been steadily jumping ship across Seasons 3 and 4 as their relationship became more and more toxic. For some, this is because of the increasing drama and angst in a formerly subdued, drama-free relationship, as well as because they feel Olicity takes up screen time better spent on other plots and characters. The characters' unnecessary conflict concerning Oliver's secret son William has also has turned off a lot of fans, with the audience divided over blaming Oliver for lying to his fiancée when he specifically promised he'd stop or blaming Felicity for breaking up with him when she's kept secrets herself. What killed the pairing's popularity for many fans was the ending to the 2017 crossover Crisis on Earth-X: the infamous double wedding, which was hated by everyone except the most diehard of Olicity shippers.
• Actor Shipping: Some Olicity shippers also ship their actors Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards even if they're just friends and Amell already married. Reportedly, some of the less-stable ones have gone so far as to harass both Katie Cassidy and Amell's real-life wife for "getting in the way" of the two.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Well technically, it's more of "Alas, Poor Base-Breaking Character," but since said character hadn't fully been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for some fans they still qualify for this. While many people had their reasons to dislike Laurel Lance/Black Canary due to her Adaptational Wimp and frequent Unintentionally Unsympathetic behaviour, her death at the hands of Damien Darhk in order for him to remind Team Arrow (and the audience) that he's still a serious threat sent the internet ballistic. To this day it's still one of the most universally-despised writing decisions in the history of the entire show, to the point that the showrunners brought back Katie Cassidy as a series regular in Season Six as Black Siren and subsequently redeemed her over the next two seasons and made her the new Black Canary just to quell the outrage.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • To some fans, Laurel's efforts to become the Black Canary during Season 3 were born not out of a desire to honor her fallen sister but Sibling Rivalry and a desire to prove herself to be "The Good Daughter."
    • Likewise, her Love Confession to Oliver in Season 4, puts into question how many of her actions were motivated by her feelings for Oliver. When attempting to join Team Arrow, was she trying to save the city or was it just a way to stay in Oliver's life or get him back, or — as she didn't actually become the Black Canary until she thought he was dead — a means to honour the man she loved when she thought she lost him? Additionally, whether she privately held her feelings to herself as she encouraged him to be happy or was she privately holding out hope he'd eventually come back to her? Given how poorly Oliver treated Laurel — cheating on her while they were together, flaunting his relationship with her sister in front of her, lying to her about his identity for years and treating her harshly after Sara's death — there's also the question of whether Laurel remaining so close to him makes her the stronger, kinder person letting go of past mistakes or a doormat who can't get over a terrible relationship.
    • There's also the flashbacks of the end of Season 1 directly after Tommy's death. Despite Laurel spiraling and grieving during Season 2, in these the flashbacks Laurel is upbeat and hopeful, pushing to get back together with Oliver, eagerly planning their lives together and even talking about how excited she is for the future. In fact she only breaks down when Oliver leaves again. So was her breakdown in Season 2 really over Tommy's death or just triggered by Oliver ditching her again?
  • Would Slade have accepted it if Oliver had been the one to tell him about Shado's death? Or would his reaction have been the same? Slade was raging on Mirakuru at the time, who knows what his reaction would've been. While in season 3's The Return Slade claims he might've accepted it if Oliver told him, Slade just as easily could've been talking out of his ass, since he was still detoxing from Mirakuru at the time. Either way, by the time he returns in season 5 he's clearly gotten over it.
  • Some fans see Felicity having an It's All About Me complex because she was jealous over Oliver marrying Nyssa even though they were both forced into it, she considered risking the city catching a deathly virus to save Oliver's life and she wasn't willing to put Thea in the Lazarus pit in exchange for Oliver joining the league. Was that because she cared about Oliver's soul and didn't trust Malcolm Merlyn, or because she wanted to keep him Oliver with her?
    • Felicity breaking up with Oliver because he hid William from her. Was she being unsympathetic because he did it because of Samantha's ultimatum and Felicity broke up with him barely a day after Oliver discovered the truth in the original timeline? Or was Felicity justifiably hurt as Oliver could easily have lied to the unreasonable Samantha instead of his fiancee? Also Felicity hiding the fact she was helping Team Arrow while living a normal life with Oliver. Was it because Felicity wanted to allow Oliver a peace of mind to recover and put her own wants on the backburner but Diggle, Laurel and Thea really needed her help so she was trying to keep them happy and Oliver guilt-free? Or was she just being a hypocrite and secret keeping herself? (And in Season 3 she knew both the Atom and Team Arrow at the same time yet kept them secret from each other.) Felicity's character is a big YMMV.
    • After Crisis on Earth-X, a lot of people question whether or not Felicity truly loves Oliver or loves the idea of being the Green Arrow's significant other. This is because during the crossover, Eobard Thawne gave her a "Reason You Suck" Speech revealing that no one remembers her in the heroic tales of Green Arrow, Black Canary, and the Flash, inadvertently casting a very dark pall over her actions from then out. Felicity, who had spent the majority of her screen time during the crossover bitching about how she didn't want to marry Oliver, then changed her mind at the end and tacked on their wedding to Barry and Iris', going as far as to interrupt their wedding vows. Many strongly believe she did this because she wanted to be remembered as the Green Arrow's wife rather than any earnest desire to marry Oliver. Considering the sheer selfishness of the act, and many of Felicity's past attention-seeking antics (such as her jealousy for Sara after she first joined the team and Dig having to reassure her that she'll always be "special" to Oliver, in addition due to her constant need for flattery), this interpretation of her actions was not entirely rooted in the bias her already sizable hatedom had against her.
  • Malcolm Merlyn. We know he's a Manipulative Bastard, but for awhile it was unclear whether he really cares about Thea at all or he's just a bastard who'll say and do absolutely anything to get his own way. Season 4 finally confirmed both are true, as while he does care for Thea, he places himself and his power above everything including her.
  • As of the 100th episode is Oliver still in love with Laurel? While it makes sense in his version of a perfect world that he never went on the boat and never became a vigilante with his parents alive, it's notable that in the perfect world the simulation gives him, he's engaged to Laurel and not Felicity. At one point during the episode, when he's beginning to question everything about the illusion, he outright tells Laurel that the only thing he was sure of was that he loved her. Even after he understands that the world is fake, and after he says his goodbyes to his parents, when the goodbye comes to Laurel, he is shown to be reluctant to go. He tells her that he loves her, but that he wasn't the man she loved, and that she always deserved better than him. When he goes to leave, he looks back for a few seconds as if he is considering staying before he finally goes. All of this has led fans to questioning whether Oliver only said all of that stuff to try and give this Laurel (who to her knowledge has been in love with the simulation version of Oliver and dating him for years) some closure on the fact the man that she loves is vanishing rather than just going without a word, or if this is Oliver telling all the words he wishes he could have said to the actual Laurel before her death and the whole situation was a realization for him that even with her death, he still has feelings for her. "Who Are You?" continues on this, as Oliver tries to see the light in Black Siren—even when she's adamant on proving otherwise—with the rationale that he won't fail her like he did his Laurel.
  • Black Siren: An unrepentent criminal who revels in her evilhood and has no intention of turning good, or someone who feels sorry for her downward spiral into villainy and wants a way out into a better happier life?
  • Sara, despite initially being one of the most popular characters of the series, has gotten this in recent years thanks to many reevaluating both her and Laurel's characters. Many people note that while Sara does feel guilt for what she put her family through by betraying Laurel and for her time in the League, she also does a lot to avoid actually apologizing to Laurel for what she did despite the fact that it was unquestionably wrong. This, combined with her constant attempts to justify her relationship with Oliver in Season Two (including making a claim that Laurel has no right to be angry at her because she had "six years" to get over it, and saying that Oliver and her would've gotten together earlier had Laurel not gotten in the way, when there is no actual evidence to suggest this) suggests that, on some level, Sara doesn't actually feel sorry for how she betrayed Laurel and thinks she's entitled to her sister's forgiveness just because of the terrible things that happened to her.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Some claim that Deathstroke and his followers are these, as after all the build-up behind them and the fact that it took three hand grenades to kill one of them, they're defeated in a few minutes with Mirakuru cure arrows and rope arrows; then again, Deathstroke himself is able to push through the debilitating effects of the cure and give Oliver one hell of a one-on-one fight.
  • For all the selling of Sebastian Blood as truly evil in killing his own father, imprisoning his mother in an institution, and wanting to tear down the city, he ended up being overshadowed by Slade and pulled a Heel–Face Turn in a Death Equals Redemption moment.
  • Ra's Al Ghul goes down pretty easily in the Season 3 finale, with his big plan being handled like a regular threat of the week, and his personal duel with Oliver in the finale is leagues below the one handed and unarmed beatdown he delivered in The Climb: he pauses to taunt Oliver, and Oliver just grabs his sword and stabs him fatally. It says a lot that a police sniper is more of a threat to Oliver than the actual Big Bad, and the former isn't even known to him until he fires.
  • Played with concerning Damien Darhk; the final confrontation isn't as bad as Ra's, but the way the show hyped up Darhk's power given all Oliver needed to do to remove his power advantage was rally up the city against him, the final fight just doesn't live up (and in large part, suffers heavy Fight Scene Failure). It doesn't help that they'd earlier had Darhk's power get neutralised when he kidnapped William Oliver and gave him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, which raises the question as to why Oliver struggles to fight him again. We then also have the ease of which Felicity disables the warheads once she has the chance to, which after all the hype about the potential end-of-the-world nature of the attack, ends up being quite a let down.
• Arc Fatigue: Unfortunately, enough to have its own page.
• Ass Pull:
  • The revelation that Merlyn survived his "final" duel with Oliver at the end of Season 1. It turned out that Merlyn decided to do Faking the Dead because he learned how to make death an "illusion" for himself from his time with the League of Assassins. His survival isn't explained much beyond that, and it isn't even touched on when the League finally takes center stage as the main villains. This was one of the many reasons as to why Sara Lance's death in the beginning of Season 3 wasn't well-received, as she suffered a similar fate to him yet couldn't survive.
  • In Season 3, it's hard to believe that Oliver survived his Curb-Stomp Battle with Ra's al Ghul. Which included being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice, kicked off a cliff, and bleeding out while Exposed to the Elements. The explanation being that he survived with Heroic Willpower. Heck, most fans actually thought reviving him with the Lazarus Pit was a more believable explanation. As noted below, it's even less believable given the fact Sara's death was considered overkill, yet is miles less gruesome than Oliver's, yet he survives. This is worsened in Season 4 when Laurel is killed after being stabbed with a single arrow, even though it would have done far less internal damage and she had access to actual medical aid, which isn't helped when one remembers a few episodes earlier Felicity similarly suffered grievous injuries but survived.
  • The solution to the Sara Lance murder mystery requires Malcolm Merlyn having access to a perfect, amnesia-inducing mind control drug, a bit of Phlebotinum whose existence was never even hinted at until the episode the mystery is solved, and that would have presumably come in handy for him during the first season.
  • The Season 3 finale has a few:
    • Oliver's "League Armor" saving his life from the gunshots he sustained on the dam. His armor is the same armor that League members have been wearing since their first appearance on the show and several of them have been gunned down wearing it, and they were shot with handguns, while Oliver was shot with a police sniper rifle. Though, see Reality Is Unrealistic on the main page concerning this.
    • Felicity piloting the ATOM suit to save Oliver comes across as more than a little contrived and ridiculous when she is able to fly it well enough to save Oliver while Ray still has issues piloting it (assuming Ray wasn't remotely piloting it, though that's unlikely given the reason why he didn't do it himself). Nevermind the fact that the suit fits Felicity perfectly, despite the fact that there is a significant height difference between her and Ray...
  • Samantha forcing Oliver to not tell anyone about William as the only way to spend time with him, for little reason except to make Oliver not look like a complete jerk for keeping the secret. Felicity even points out how little sense it makes once she finds out.
  • Curtis working on technology to enable Felicity to walk again is not foreshadowed in the slightest and not even giving anything of an explanation on how it could happen, and the show doesn't even bother trying to develop it as the next episode after the idea is brought up, Felicity can suddenly walk.
  • Midway through Season 5, a woman named Tina Boland, who has the exact powers as Laurel's Earth-2 counterpart, was directly shoehorned into the plot with tons of Contrived Coincidences exactly when Oliver is searching for a new Black Canary. But the real kicker is this Tina actually being "Dinah Drake", despite the fact that said character has already appeared.
  • The only semblance of explanation we get for Prometheus' seemingly preternatural knowledge of Oliver and his friends is that Talia al Ghul investigated him. While one can certainly expect a daughter of Ra's al Ghul to be highly competent, this doesn't explain how Prometheus learned about the Legends (and time travel even existing, for that matter), Black Siren, or the circumstances of Shado's death.
  • The crew openly admitted this was the case with Diaz becoming the true Big Bad of Season 6 who'd been manipulating Cayden James. The twist had to be hastily thrown together when they couldn't get Michael Emerson to commit to a full season as the Big Bad.
  • Black Siren gaining a conscience in Season 6, starting with the murder of Vigilante, has been met with this response by a portion of the fanbase. Mainly because it felt like a pretty drastic change, considering her Ax-Crazy behavior just a few episodes back, where she gleefully murdered security guards to fulfill her personal kill quota during missions (previously complaining to Cayden James about not having killed anybody that day) and even killed an innocent woman for her shoes.
• Author's Saving Throw: Has its own page
• Awesome Ego: Ray Palmer; he's like the less Casanova, more Adorkable Arrowverse equivalent of Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark.

B

• Badass Decay:
  • Malcolm Merlyn in Season 3 has been downgraded from the Crazy-Prepared man he was in Season 1 to a Dirty Coward willing to idiotically sacrifice the daughter he wants to love in order to save himself, and eventually sinks low enough to beg for his life in front of Ra's al Ghul. While things turn out quite well for him, during Season 4 Oliver quite effortlessly beats him in a fight. This one's at least justified though as Oliver had spent weeks being trained intensively with Ra's Al Ghul in preparation for him to succeed him, so Ollie being a bigger badass at this point makes sense.
  • Slade Wilson got a rather nasty case of this in season 3. Although it may be somewhat justifiable given that the Mirakuru is no longer in his system and he was imprisoned for quite a while, it's still quite baffling to see him defeated by Oliver and Thea in one episode, which is also the only appearance he has for the entire season. This was bad enough to the point that even his actor complained about it.
  • Ra's al Ghul has this in the Season 3 finale. His second Duel to the Death with Oliver acts as a complete mirror of how they fought in "The Climb", which while likely intended to show Oliver is back, really just showed how stupid Ra's is for falling for the exact same tricks he himself used.
  • Ollie himself seems to be getting hit with this in Season 4. At least some of it is justified, what with him not having fought for the last six months before the beginning of the season, not wanting to even cripple people anymore, which he was still more than willing to do as the Arrow, and trusting his comrades to have his back. Also, a good part of his defeats this season are against Damien Darhk, who is basically Ra's Al Ghul on magical steroids. Out of universe, it's largely due to the show now having to coordinate four fighters in stunt scenes and give new members Laurel and Thea something to do, which means Oliver looks less competent given he used to be able to take on missions alone or with back up from just Diggle or Roy.
  • Nyssa as well. By all rights, she should be a better fighter than both Merlyn and Oliver. She's been training her entire life as a member of the League of Assassins, and in this universe, she's apparently Ra's al Ghul's only child, and in her first few appearances she fights Oliver to a draw, and is shown holding her own against Malcolm and Ollie at the same time. By Season 4 though, she needs Oliver's help to fight Malcolm, and it's acknowledged that he would kill her in a fair fight. Seemingly the only justification for this is the two Took a Level in Badass without her (for Ollie, we know this happened since he can now effortlessly curb-stomp Malcolm, but Malcolm doesn't seem to have, unless exposure to the Lazarus Pit made him a better fighter... somehow), her time as a prisoner weakened her skills (as she was apparently starving herself, but this is unlikely as she appears healthy and well-kept, and is still able fight Katana without effort), or she was never as badass as she appeared (though their fight ended in a draw, Oliver was winning beforehand, and it's entirely likely Ra's didn't give her as intensive training as he gave Malcolm and Oliver, given his sexism).
• Base-Breaking Character: Has its own page.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The closing scene in Broken Hearts. After not speaking for the entire episode, Damien Darhk is last seen being forced into his prison cell, but reveals that he secretly hid a ring in his mouth the entire time. However, this ring he stashed away does absolutely nothing plot-relevant since he utilizes his magic without it and has never required anything outside his enchanted idol to grow his powers. So what was the point of showing that he brought a ring with him into prison in The Stinger seeing as how it never gets referenced ever again?
  • Wild Dog's Fantastic Racism towards Flash, Supergirl, and just about any metahuman came off as this in the 100th episode Invasion, especially considering how before this episode, there was absolutely no foreshadowing at all that Wild Dog was prejudiced against people with superpowers. The fact that he also magically gets over his hatred of metahumans after being saved by Flash and Supergirl in just a few short minutes further makes the Wild Dog subplot come off as immensely out-of-place, especially since it just came completely out of left-field and had absolutely nothing to do with the main alien invasion plot.
  • Season 3's opening episode briefly shows Oliver showcasing that his bow has upgraded, allowing it to fold up and be concealed within his hand. This feature is never shown again, after also never being mentioned or referenced outside the single usage. This is also notably before the verse began using Cisco as a handwave for any weird tech stuff, making Oliver's magically folding-up bow apparently something he had constructed without any outside help, during a time where he's financially without funding.
• Broken Base: During the first two seasons, the chemistry between its two actors made the pairing of Olicity (Oliver/Felicity) quickly overtook the creators' intended pairing of Oliver/Laurel in popularity, which led to them eventually making it canon. However, it became incredibly controversial between fans believing that it took over the plot of the show and Felicity's actions in Crisis on Earth-X. While it's still unquestionably popular on Twitter, Tumblr, and Fan Fic sites such as FFN and AO3, bashing Olicity is also a popular past time on the likes of Reddit and 4Chan, and by fans that are a part of other Arrowverse show fandoms.

C

• Canon Defilement: While the entire Arrowverse is subjected to this, Arrow is widely believed to be the most guilty of for taking several liberties from the source material, especially under Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle's tenure as showrunners. This got so bad that Arrow is essentially considered an In Name Only adaptation of Green Arrow.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Nyssa snapping the neck of Isabel Rochev, just after the latter had her butt kicked.
  • Malcolm Merlyn catching up to Brick and giving him a Curb-Stomp Battle after most other fighters had struggled to take him down.
  • Considering that all of the terrible things that happened to Oliver in the first season's flashbacks were all her fault, how she unnecessary forced Oliver to work for her in the third season's flashbacks, all the terrible things she did while running Task Force X, and that she tried to nuke Starling City, seeing Joyner shoot Waller in the face can come as a huge relief.
  • Oliver dishing out a Curb-Stomp Battle to Merlyn, finishing by cutting off his hand.
  • Two episodes later, after spending all this season curb-stomping Oliver and co, the totem that Darhk draws his power from is destroyed, and Oliver effortlessly beats him unconscious. His Oh, Crap! expression before it happens sells it.
  • The announcement that Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle will finally leave the series after Season 6, since the show dropped in quality during their reign as showrunners.
  • After all the damage Diaz did over a season and a half, watching Oliver beat him down and personally throw him in jail is a definite pleasure. Watching our hero limp out of the prison gates a free man is just icing on the cake.
    • Later in "Brothers And Sisters", considering after all he did and how cowardly he acted in his final hours, seeing Diaz die is extremely satisfying, even if it's extremely horrifying to see it.
  • In "The Slabside Redemption", seeing Brick die such an inglorious death after he's spent his every appearance acting like a smug, sadistic bastard is quite satisfying, even if it was a scumbag like Stanley who killed him.
  • Seeing Dinah Laurel Lance, even if it's an Alternate Self, as the Black Canary again put a lot of smiles on fans' faces after the original Laurel's infamous death in Season 4.
• Character Perception Evolution:
  • Felicity Smoak was originally the show's Breakout Character, with fans loving her for being an Adorkable Genki Girl who served as The Heart of Team Arrow, with many even shipping her and Oliver over the source material's pairing of Oliver and Laurel. When Season 3 actually made this canon however, many fans started to think that Felicity had become a Creator's Pet, with too much focus being put on her at the expense of other characters, her romance with Oliver being seen as a Romantic Plot Tumor, and her actions occasionally coming across as self-centered and hypocritical. By Season 4, these traits had become so exaggerated that Felicity ended becoming the biggest Base-Breaking Character in the entire series. However, it wasn't until her actions in Crisis on Earth-X resulting in the infamous "double wedding" that finally killed off whatever remaining popularity she had and resulted in her being The Scrappy of the entire Arrowverse, with her character now being seen as perhaps the biggest example of what happens when an originally popular character gets way too much exposure. However, a few years after the show has ended, there's been some fans who have considered the hatred towards her to be overblown, helped by the fact that the writers had taken strides to redeem the character in the last few seasons, along with giving her a rather somber send-off. As a result, she's moved back to being a Base-Breaking Character, albeit one that plenty of fans will admit could have been handled way better.
  • Back during Season 1 and 2, Laurel was seen as The Scrappy due to her Drama Queen tendencies and constantly being a Damsel in Distress, to say nothing of her descent into alcoholism and drug addiction during Season 2. These days, when people re-watch these seasons they view her in a more positive light, as these trials helped her develop into the Black Canary and put everything into perspective. Granted, part of this is Nostalgia Filter, due to Laurel's premature and widely despised death in Season 4, which even detractors hated.
  • Helena Bertinelli/Huntress was not very popular when she first debuted, being seen as a poor man's Catwoman. However, as the series entered some Seasonal Rot later on, not helped by the addition of several divisive characters, she became one of the most missed characters on the show, along with the likes of Walter Steele, Roy Harper, Slade Wilson, and Thea Queen (Tommy Merlyn, Moira Queen, and Laurel Lance, too, if you count dead characters).
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Crack Pairing: Oliver's salmon ladder and Barry's treadmill.
• Creator's Pet:
  • Felicity Smoak in Seasons 1 and 2 was an Adorkable IT Girl and the source of a lot of the show's humor. As of the third season, she has taken on several of the traits that once led to Laurel and Thea being polarizing, is consistently depicted as being in the right, and has had large amount of screen-time dedicated to her subplots. In comparison, Diggle (Oliver's longest running ally) only received a proper subplot in Season 4 because it was tied so closely to the main plot. The showrunners and most of the writers openly acknowledge that she's their favorite character. This treatment continued until Season 6, even as Felicity became more controversial, and culminated in the ultimate Never Live It Down moment: the double wedding, which many fans still haven't forgiven the character for to this very day.
  • Malcolm Merlyn is a villainous example. While he was pretty popular as the Big Bad of Season 1, his subsequent appearances in the series after his "death" have been received with far less praise by the fans. Especially as of Season 3, where he keeps finding new ways of being an absolute asshole to the team, most notably his own daughter Thea, yet for some contrived reasons he is allowed to stick around, even getting a promotion by Oliver himself. In Season 4, it reached a whole new level, with Malcolm giving up Oliver's son out of spite and still getting away with it, with most viewers being annoyed by him at best and outright repulsed at worst. The producers definitely liked keeping him around for far longer than it was believable.
  • Season 5 gives us Tina Boland. She is set to become Laurel's successor as the Black Canary and was immediately introduced after the appearance of Black Siren, the fan-favorite to take the mantle, and was given tons of Character Shilling by other characters at the expense of continuity (she is revealed to be Dinah Drake, who is already introduced as Laurel and Sara's mother). The writers also prop her in social media a lot and would defend her against detractors by going out of their way to build her up there. The Season 5 finale even had Earth-1 Laurel's father saving Dinah from Black Siren and props her as Black Canary. Season 6 then had Vigilante's Secret Identity compromised to a lackluster degree just to prop her even more. It really does not help that her presence blocks at least two infinitely more popular characters from joining the team (Ragman and Black Siren, the former of whom was Put on a Bus so Dinah could take his spot on the team) and was responsible for a third ( Vigilante) being killed off in a Senseless Sacrifice just to provide Dinah with additional angst. Then when she, Curtis, and Rene split from the main Team Arrow, she is made leader over the latter two despite Curtis having the most seniority of them and even Rene who is a former Private Officer in the U.S. Marines.
• Crossover Ship: The second most popular ship (or at least the one with the second most fanfics) involving Oliver is Olivarry (Oliver/Barry).

D

• Damsel Scrappy:
  • Laurel for a lot of fans, particularly in Season 1 and 2. Granted, it's somewhat justified by her job, her father's job, and her known association with the Arrow, making her a target for lowlifes in their attempts at revenge but some fans would prefer other characters don't rescue her at all. This has been toned down through Character Development and gaining experience and training as the Black Canary, enough that she graduated from taking beatings from everyday thugs to being capable of taking on League assassins.
  • Somewhat subverted with Thea; she's the second most-likely target for kidnapping in the show and was the show's original Scrappy, but this tendency largely cropped up after she was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap due to Character Development, and she evolved into a Damsel out of Distress who'd be able to defend herself a lot better than most CW damsels, including nearly killing Slade Wilson ^note he was depowered at this point and had spent a year in a prison cell putting him out of experience, and she was fighting alongside Oliver, but still and holding off an attack from one of Ra's assassins.
  • One of the reasons William Clayton (in his child/teen age at least) is hated is because a huge chunk of his appearances consist of him being kidnapped or in need of saving.
• Designated Hero: A good chunk of characters in Season 3, who for various reasons feel the need to keep secrets from each other and form elaborate webs of deceit out of misguided love for others.
  • Oliver spends a good deal treading in this territory by protecting Malcolm Merlyn, a mass murderer who has long-since crossed the Moral Event Horizon; first based on some distorted sense of honour (that Malcolm is a citizen of Starling and Ollie must protect all life), and later after finding out the guy brainwashed Thea into killing Sara Lance for the most cowardly of reasons his friends become incredulous that he's so ready to pull an Enemy Mine (especially since Ra's al Ghul is only Oliver's enemy because he's defending Malcolm), even if to him the reasoning makes sense: only a student of the Demon can teach him to defeat him, and he must in order to guarantee Thea's safety since he fears Ra's will hold her responsible for Sara's death even if she was unwilling. Ollie constantly defends Malcolm no matter what, even to the point that he gets angry over others attacking Malcolm, until it finally comes to a head in "Nanda Parbat" where everyone calls him on it; he finally admits that he wants to prove himself against Ra's rather than any noble reasoning for his actions.
  • Laurel keeps her dad in the dark about Sara's death. Her reason for becoming the Canary is that its a way to feed her adrenaline addiction rather than out of a desire to do good. She also goes to Nanda Parbat to revive Sara via the Lazarus Pit while keeping it a secret from Team Arrow and ignoring the warnings of both Nyssa and Merlyn. Despite the fact this leads to multiple deaths, she doesn't even tell the team when Sara gets out, leading to further deaths and making it difficult for the team to handle the situation. While Oliver does call her out on this, she fires back with the Double Standard about his own past mistakes, and in the end it's him apologizing. While Oliver was being hypocritical, Laurel should have accepted guilt in the situation, which led to her sister ending up in the hospital.
  • A lot of fans have a hard time seeing Felicity as a hero when she lies to both Ray and Oliver about the other being a superhero, along with her saying in the season 3 finale that she thinks Ray should go save Oliver instead of saving the entire city from a bioweapon. Subsequently, she continues to work behind Oliver's back with the team when the two were supposed to be retired, only to break up with Oliver when she discovers he kept a secret of his own. Then she quits the team when they need her after ruining missions because she was too busy punishing him. Felicity continuously preforms increasingly selfish acts and is never called out on it. In Crisis on Earth-X, she suddenly decides to add her and Oliver's wedding onto Barry and Iris' without warning or discussing it with them first.
  • Dinah Drake. When Oliver spies on her and discovers that she has been meeting with Vigilante aka Vincent Sobel, she accuses him of violating her trust, ignoring the fact that she had been lying to him for weeks. Later, after the team go their separate ways, Dinah and the other recruits rush to the aid of Vincent instead of helping Oliver secure the bomb that could destroy the city. After Vincent is murdered by Black Siren, Dinah swears vengeance on her despite learning Vengeance Feels Empty from the last time she was in this exact scenario. After being forced to spare Laurel-2 for the time being, Dinah swears multiple times to Quintin's face that she will kill her. Later, Dinah twice uses her canary cry on Quintin to get to Laurel-2 while Lance begs Dinah to stop. She is only talked down from killing Laurel by Curtis.

• Designated Villain:
  • Helena Bertinelli/Huntress, in her first appearances at least, when she is actively going out of her way to kill the members of her father's crime family. Oliver treats her as being in the wrong for this, as she's acting out of a desire for revenge rather than to get justice, and as such her methods are leaving a pile of bodies in her wake rather than trying to put her fiancé's killers behind bars. However, his own motivation is to avenge his father, and he also racks up quite a body count. She loses the Designated part later on, when she becomes so obsessed with revenge that she's willing to hurt innocent people for it, something Oliver clearly doesn't do.
  • The show rather bizarrely tries to turn Sara into one after her death in a desperate and futile attempt to make Laurel more palatable as the new Canary, with Felicity saying out of nowhere that she wasn't a hero and was only hiding from her inner demons (in direct conflict with her entire storyline in season two).
  • Ra's al Ghul (and by extension the League). On the surface, he appears to be pretty textbook Well-Intentioned Extremist. He outright says his mission is to "replace evil with death". While not the worst thing, that's also not the most moral path. However, the problem arises when you consider that not only did Team Arrow do the same thing for the first season, but when offered the opportunity to take Ra's' place and informed that should he do so the League would renounce killing and stick to his designated morality, it's still treated as if he'd be turning evil doing so. Of course, the end of "The Offer" has Ra's truly show he's a bastard; it still wouldn't have hurt to have him do it earlier.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Laurel was frequently hated by Olicity fans, declaring her incompetent, "unworthy" of being Black Canary, and weak for her drug addiction despite having a pretty good reason to drink at this point. For many, the fact she developed out of many of these issues over the seasons until her death tends to be ignored.
  • While most Olicity and Lauriver fans tend to at least like Sara, there are some who just hate her, complain about her getting too much attention and screentime to the point it was taken away from others, or accuse her of being put on a pedestal (dubbing her "Saint Sara"), accuse her of never adequately apologizing for the harm she caused her family while ignoring her self-loathing, and basically trash her for things the other two are far more guilty of doing than she is. In the case of Lauriver fans, at least part of the issue is that Sara actually never did apologize to Laurel for her betrayal and tried to downplay her actions, which, while deserving of criticism, is no justification for much of the poor treatment her character gets.
  • Felicity gets a lot of hate in the later seasons from those who ship Oliver with anyone else. A lot of shippers want Felicity to be Killed Off for Real, writing fanfics where she dies unloved as Oliver moves on with Laurel or Sara. These shippers like to take any slightly selfish action that Felicity performs, even if it comes as a result of Oliver being selfish as well, and treat it like her turning pure evil. A lot of these fans write fanfics where Felicity is a supervillain who is only pretending to be nice and manipulating or brainwashing Oliver, who needs to be saved from by one of his far better love interests. These shippers also like to portray her as a Clingy Jealous Girl who attacks anyone who gets close to Oliver, despite this rarely actually happening on the show. While a Base-Breaking Character in the fandom, the extent many fans go to rip her apart for her actions can be extreme.
  • Ray Palmer, due to being teased with Felicity once he came in, has already gotten flack from Olicity shippers. Its noted by a few people that Brandon Routh has a habit of moving in on people's ships.

E

• Ensemble Dark Horse: See here.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • A common fan theory is that Detective Lance has already figured out Oliver's the Arrow, but doesn't confront him about it so he can retain plausible deniability if questioned on the matter.
  • Another theory is that John Diggle is actually John Stewart. This theory has been so prevalent that in the Elseworlds (2018) crossover the showrunners decided to hint it's true in a parallel Earth (actually the one from The Flash (1990)) and he would later receive a Green Lantern ring in the series finale.
  • Regarding the identities of Prometheus and Vigilante, once Adrian was revealed as the former, his being the latter in the comics plus an apparent lack of viable suspects for the latter caused some fans to suspect he was actually both and suffering from a split personality, as the only scene they were both in had no one else around and ended with Vigilante mysteriously disappearing after falling off a high roof. The major hole with it is that Adrian is standing next to Oliver during his press conference at the same time Vigilante is fighting the rest of the team.
  • Who killed Cayden James' son, Owen Post? This is the big question present in Arrow Season 6 that fans have been busy theorizing over. Popular contenders are: Ricardo Diaz^note Press material cited him as the Big Bad even though he lacked focus early in the season, Adrian Chase^note Chessmaster from last season who was always ten steps ahead
  • Who is Fake Arrow? The main candidates included Future William or Roy Harper. Once her identity was revealed to be Emiko Queen, the estranged daughter and half-sister of Oliver, the theorists immediately turned to figuring out who her mother was.
• Escapist Character: Oliver himself. He's just a guy with no powers, puts on a hood and dons a bow, then goes out at night fighting criminals. Not too uncommon of a fantasy, especially for avid comic readers familiar with Batman.
• Evil Is Cool: Many Big Bads have their own impressive badass cred.
  • Before Season 3, Malcolm Merlyn was a slick, savvy operator, ex-League of Assassins warrior, and a sharp-dressed, Affably Evil villain with an understandably tragic backstory.
  • Slade Wilson, an Implacable Man, Genius Bruiser, Awesome Aussie Super-Soldier who comes off as a cross between Jason Voorhees and Bane.
  • Ra's al Ghul is, as ever, a Warrior Poet of the highest order, leads a cabal of assassins, and damn near killed Oliver in their first duel with ease. Unfortunately, he later suffers a large case of Villain Decay, which causes him to lose some of this.
  • Damien Darhk has his fair share of fans thanks to his hilarious personality and for essentially being a James Bond villain with magic powers.
  • Prometheus, on top of being an intimidating antagonist with a cool voice, manages to become Paranoia Fuel incarnate for Oliver, who's left reeling from Prometheus' manipulations.
  • Ricardo Diaz has managed to become this for some after he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, thanks to his planning skills and being able to hold his own against Team Arrow despite lacking any special powers or abilities.

F

• Fan-Disliked Explanation:
  • Isabel Rochev's motivation for her villainy against the Queens? She was Robert Queen's mistress, and hated that Robert chose his own family over her. This received quite a bit of backlash since it turns a super-competent corrupt businesswoman struggling in a male-dominated world into another Woman Scorned, an outdated and fairly sexist trope. Of course, this was based on her villainous motivation from the comics, and at least this version removed Yandere traits (as far as we can see) and her former life as a slave.
  • The reveal of who killed Sara: Malcolm flew back to Starling City, and is the reason Sara showed up in the city to start with. He had the foresight to bring with him a drugged and brainwashed Thea, who would be able to catch Sara by surprise and kill her without question. Thea remained completely unaware of what happened and Malcolm had the perfect blackmail to pit Oliver against the League of Assassins. It was a fairly stretched out Gambit Roulette and it didn't help either that it was vital to the season's story arc.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Fans have started calling The Huntress of this show "Catwoman with a Crossbow."
  • Before Diggle and Lyla's child was born, they had been called Diglett.
  • Sally the Salmon Ladder.
  • Deathstroke and Brother Blood's Mirikuru-empowered minions are referred to as the Deathstrokes, or some variant of, by many fans, though aren't actually named in the show itself. One of the alternative names is 'The Blood Cult'.
  • Laurel has been given the nickname Buckles (thanks to the endless straps on her Black Canary costume).
  • Stephen Amell himself has been nicknamed 'Captain Amell' or 'The Captain' by Olicity supporters, thanks to his enthusiasm for Oliver and Felicity's relationship. Other parts of the fandom are now picking it up out of pure affection.
  • The universe or continuity itself which also includes The Flash (2014) has been nicknamed "the Arrowverse", in similar vein to the "Nolanverse".
    • Both "the DCCWU" and the "DCW" are also used.
  • Brother Eye, a hacktivist group using a flaming eye for a symbol, is "Sauronymous"
  • Ra's Amell for Oliver wearing the League of Assassins attire that was spoiled by ''Flash's'' PaleyFest trailer.
  • In some countries, Quentin Lance and (his ex-wife) Dinah Drake are called "Papa Canary" and "Mama Canary" for obvious reasons.
  • The Power Trio of Oliver, Diggle and Felicity have been labelled 'Original Team Arrow' - a lot of the cast have picked it up as well and the writers made the phrase canon in Season 4.
  • The dreamworld featured in the "Invasion!" crossover and Arrow's 100th episode, is frequently dubbed "Arrowpoint", in reference to its sister show's Flashpoint.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fandom in a "Marvel vs DC: Live Action TV edition" match.
  • Also with Daredevil (2015), for the same reasons. Although Arrow has more in common with DD than S.H.I.E.L.D., due to them both being Darker and Edgier superhero shows.
  • There's also a little bit of grumbling from the Teen Wolf fandom, as they would really like Colton Haynes back.
  • With the addition of The Flash in a spinoff and a pre-Atom Ray Palmer, there's one starting up with the DC Extended Universe, similar to the MCU's with the Amazing Spider-Man and X-Men films. For starters, Arrow is only able to use Amanda Waller because DC decided to scrap the 2011 Green Lantern film from the 'verse. This got worse when the powers that be at DC Comics made it clear that the show would not be a part of their DC Extended Universe, with the final confirmation being a new actor to play the movie version of the Flash. Alongside the simple arguments of which is better, Arrow or Man of Steel, it's also created some frustration from people who feel like it's a strange move to not take advantage of the universe the show has already been building vs. people who feel like forcing the movie and TV verses together will only be a hindrance to both and prefer they stay separate. More fuel got thrown with the deaths of Deadshot and later Waller, with many suspecting they were forced to do it thanks to the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. This also raises questions as to what will happen to The Flash (2014) by the time the Flash movie comes out.
    • The rivalry popped up again when Deathstroke's cameo in Justice League (2017) meant Slade having to be written out of Arrow, leading to his whole character arc having to be aborted.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • After the introduction of Mia Smoak, Oliver and Felicity's canon daughter, there's an increase in fan fic where she's the daughter of Oliver and Sara instead. This is due to Olicity's unpopularity and Mia resembling Sara more, both physically and personality-wise. There's also a few fics that have her as the daughter of Oliver and Laurel instead (most notably Infinity Crisis), which makes sense as Laurel is Sara's sister, so having a daughter that resembles Sara isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.
  • Another frequent story is someone else other than Sara being on the Gambit with Oliver before it sank. Laurel is the most common substitution, in order to facilitate her transformation into Black Canary sooner, with Tommy and/or Thea coming in close second.
  • The number of stories where Laurel survives past her canonical death and/or is allowed more time to properly develop into being the Black Canary are so many that they're almost a fandom of their own. Most of those stories also see her somehow awaken the Canary Cry (usually by being present during the Particle Accelerator Explosion or by having her metagene activated by some kind of stressful event) as a symptom of that.
• Fandom VIP: Lord Mesa, a semi-professional artist who regularly posts Arrowverse related art on his Instagram page following episodes has been embraced by the cast and staff of the shows. He's contributed special designs for show milestones and got a shout out in the penultimate episode of season five.
• Fanon: In the second episode, Tommy mentions that one of Oliver's previous indiscretions that landed him in a courtroom was peeing on a cop. Naturally, if the incident comes up in a fan work, it's almost always Quentin who suffered that particular indignity, even though it would be odd for Tommy to refer to him as "the cop" instead of by name.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • A lot of people pretend that the show ended after Season 2. The farthest many will accept is the Season 3 episode "The Climb", or the Season 5 finale. Some even like to believe the show ended after Season 1, as Season 2 is when many of the show's frequently criticized flaws in its later seasons first showed up.
  • The existence of Dinah Drake, Laurel's supposed successor as Black Canary. This becomes Harsher in Hindsight in the penultimate episode.
  • Many, many fans like to pretend that Oliver and Felicity broke up permanently in Season Four and that Oliver ended up with either Laurel or Sara (or just stayed celibate).
  • The deaths of Sara in Season Three and Laurel in Season Four are also both heavily despised, Sara's so much so that it was undone in Season Four and she was made the main character of the Spin-Off Legends of Tomorrow. Laurel's death in particular is one of the reasons why Season Four is regarded an Audience-Alienating Era, and many like to pretend it never happened or that the show ended after Season Four because of it, since it also marked a shift in character dynamics with the main cast that many disliked (from a family-like dynamic to a rowdy-classroom/coworker one). While the writers refused to bring Laurel back despite the controversy, they eventually relented somewhat by allowing Laurel's Earth-2 counterpart Black Siren to make a Heel–Face Turn and become one of her successors as the Black Canary as something of a compromise.

• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Oliver/Felicity started out as this trope, becoming so popular with fans compared to Oliver's canonical romance with Laurel that the show made it canon in season 3. However, their promotion to Official Couple caused them to suffer from Shipping Bed Death, which led to it falling out of favor with several fans who came to want Oliver to be with Sara or Laurel instead.
  • Tommy/Laurel was popular, since they actually had something resembling chemistry. Or at least, that was the case Seasons One and Two — Merlance's continued popularity was a result of being Ship Mates with Olicity or Canarrow (Oliver/Sara).
  • Surprisingly, despite everything that happened between them in season six (or in some ways because of it), Dinah/Earth-2 Laurel is incredibly popular, especially in comparison to any other ship involving the two (including Dinah's canon one with Vigilante). Them going from enemies to genuinely really close friends helps. The fact that the canceled spin-off, Green Arrow and the Canaries, was very heavily pushing them as main characters also helps. Even Dinah's actress Julianna Harkavy seems to ship them together.
• Fandom Rivalry:
• Faux Symbolism: In "Salvation", the way the Hood and Dark Archer kill their targets is pretty much exactly the same — from behind, straight through the chest. The third person in the vicinity is left with a marker of the encounter in their hand.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Ivo and Sara exhibit signs of this in "Blind Spot"; their chat via walkie-talkie sounds eerily like Ivo is trying to sweet-talk her back into joining him. It's all but stated after the fact that Sara was in an abusive relationship with him.
  • And then there's her relationship with Nyssa, which is less foe and more yay.
  • While Sara and Felicity aren't enemies, Felicity's inferiority complex in "Time of Death" makes them a bit adversarial for a short while. Sara takes a Hands-On Approach when teaching Felicity how to throw a punch, and Felicity later wears Sara's leather jacket during a mission. Oh, and during this same episode and in "League of Assassins" earlier, Sara calls Felicity cute.
  • Oliver and Isabel Rochev, which is somewhat canon given the fact they slept together, but it's helped by the fact she almost flirts with him while threatening his family and stealing his company. By the same token, him and Helena, though in a Dating Catwoman kind of way, and it appears she's on her way to a Heel–Face Turn by now.
  • There really was no reason Malcolm had to have Oliver's shirt removed when he had him captured, other than to honor an agreement with his actor to have one scene of him with Stephen Amell while he's naked.
  • Nyssa and Laurel have a lot of chemistry in season three as they bond over Sara, to the point that they go out to eat together. And lets not even get started on how protective of each other the two have gotten by the end.
• Franchise Original Sin: Due to being the launching series of the Arrowverse, the first two seasons had to do quite a few rather blatant fan-pandering in order to gain an audience. While it's understandable at first, the show's constant (and blatant) Pandering to the Fanbase ultimately stunted the show's quality in the long run, especially under the helms of its second showrunners Marc Guggenheim (who coincidentally or not has a very negative reputation regarding adaptational works and is seemingly delighted to take the reigns of a then popular work for once in his career) and Wendy Mericle.

G

• Genius Bonus: A two-fer in "Time of Death". William Tockman quotes from War and Peace a line that he says is on the 1440th page in the book. 1440 is the exact number of minutes in a day.
  "The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience. Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace, on the 1440th page. It takes a while, but it's worth the read."
• Growing the Beard: Many feel this happened in mid-to-late Season One. At the very least, "The Odyssey", when Oliver's Power Trio of him, Diggle, and Felicity is first formed and when Island Oliver has his first adventure with Slade Wilson.
  • Some people think it grew the beard at the beginning of Season Two when Oliver decided to stop killing in order to honor Tommy's memory, bringing him more in line with his comic book counterpart.

H

• Ham and Cheese: Much like Season 3, Season 4's reception has been somewhat mixed (compared to the positive reception for the first two seasons), but many reviewers have consistently praised Neal McDonough's hammy performance as the season's Big Bad, Damien Darhk, while also not being afraid to criticize how the character is written. It is likely that the character's charismatic portrayal was a direct response to the generally negative reception for the Season 3 main antagonist, who was often considered a dull and boring character.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Quentin and Laurel's struggles with alcoholism, given that Katie Cassidy's father David Cassidy has since experienced his own troubles, including a DUI arrest. It's also believed that David's alcoholism contributed to his death in 2017.
  • In the Season One finale, Fyers holds Shado captive with a gun to her head. In Season Two, she is offed by a Boom, Headshot! from Ivo.
  • Isabel having a one night stand with Oliver. It later turns out she was a Yandere for his father, making this come off as a symbolic reclaiming of the family as hers.
  • "The Climb" begins with Laurel and Thea having a sweet conversation about Sara's death, which becomes a lot darker later in the episode when we found out that Thea killed Sara under the influence of a drug administered by Malcolm and has no memory of it.
  • The altered arrow in Season 3's title card is ultimately revealed to be the brand put on Oliver when he joins the League of Assassins.
  • Laurel and Oliver's more toxic interactions during Season 2 and 3 - in particular Oliver saying he's done with Laurel and getting together with Sara, Laurel repeatedly trying to join Team Arrow while Oliver pushes her out of his vigilante life, and Laurel watching Oliver fall in love with Felicity - look lot worse after Laurel admits she's been in love with him the whole time.
    • Though Laurel's spiral into alcoholism in season 2 is hard to watch in itself, the reveal that one of the things that tipped her over was Oliver ending what chance they had at a relationship by leaving her for the island casts a darker light on her resentment towards him.
  • Before Laurel died in season 4, she admitted she knew she wasn't the one that Oliver loved and pushed Oliver to be with Felicity instead. However, in the 100th episode, Oliver tells the dream version of her that he still loves her and that she deserved better. Not only did Laurel die thinking Oliver didn't love her, but Oliver never had the chance to tell the real her this.
  • Katie Cassidy's father David died shortly after Black Siren tried to kill Quentin. Adding further is The Reveal of Earth-2 Quentin being dead since she was thirteen years old.
  • Throughout the series Oliver is a near Death Seeker, has frequent depressed episodes and is definitely willing to sacrifice himself at the drop of a hat. Diggle and the others have to constantly talk him out of and even pull him out of occasionally. This is an attitude that Oliver eventually outgrows, truly letting his Determinator nature shine. In Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019), not only does Oliver die twice by sacrifices, he spends an episode being effectively badgered by the Monitor into accepting that he HAS to sacrifice himself and stop trying to find another way around it.
  • Season 3's flashback storyline revolves around a deadly virus being released in China. It's hard not to think about COVID-19 when watching the episodes.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • When Oliver first comes home and everyone welcomes him back, it's sweet in and of itself, because the idea of a man returning home after five years lost at sea would naturally be a heartwarming experience. However, later in the series, we actually see Oliver's relationship with each character, so seeing that scene again after watching a few episodes has even more kick.
  • The friendship between Thea and Tommy, which features numerous moments where he looks out for her as if she were his own sister, in light of the second season revelation that they actually were half-siblings.
  • Oliver and Felicity's first meeting was already adorable enough, but gets even sweeter in Season 3 when Oliver admits that she was the only one he saw as a person rather than a threat or target.
  • The deleted scene from season two where Oliver imagines fighting Slade off to save Moira's life ended up being included in the final episode where it's now become reality after Oliver remakes the universe and ensures his mother survives in the new timeline.
• He Really Can Act: "Time of Death" was this for Stephen Amell. Having spent the previous season and a half playing The Stoic, he's usually stiff and emotionless. But in this episode, Oliver snaps at Laurel, revealing both the anguish that Oliver has constantly bubbling beneath the surface and that Amell can give a great emotional performance when he needs to. It's also notable as one of the very few times Oliver really loses his temper, and the first time he cries that's not in response to a character's death. Not a dry eye in the house.
  • He gets a second moment in "Beyond Redemption," when he chews out Lance for working with Damien Darhk. Coming off the previous season, where Amell was probably at his least emotional, it's both a highlight of Amell and the writers for managing to come out of the previous season's slump.
  • While Willa Holland's acting was never called into question, "The Return" is where she really shines, including her breakdown over Sara's death and her vicious verbal beatdown of Malcolm.
  • Paul Blackthorne gets his moment to shine in "Beyond Redemption," when he breaks down after almost shooting Sara alongside a very similar moment in "Canary Cry". Truly, while season 4 is unambiguously the most hated season among the fandom, Blackthorne's acting is considered one of the finer points of the season from beginning to end.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • A bit of an odd case with Sara. While she's quite unambiguously killed on screen, some fans suspect that the Lazarus Pits used by Ra's al Ghul in the comics could revive her. These suspicions seem to be confirmed with Caity Lotz being cast in Legends of Tomorrow, as Sara with her character being brought back by a Lazarus Pit.
  • Deadshot in "Suicidal Tendencies".
  • Not many actually believe that Felicity is dead. Reasons being stated range from we never do see any proper fatal bullet wounds on her, the preview for the next episode of the season shows that she is alive but in critical condition, and that her actress has been spotted recently on set as well as in cast photos posted online. In fact many theories are actually springing up on how she ''will' be hiding, and that Oliver will keep her being alive a secret from the public to keep Darhk off his back temporarily. This turned out to be the case as she was only paralyzed, and not even permanently.
  • The payoff to Season 4's "Who's in the grave" story being Laurel. Many fans latched on to how oddly the death scene was filmed, with our not getting to hear a promise that Oliver made to her, followed by an abrupt cut to her in a violent seizure despite getting a positive prognosis just minutes earlier. Plus, the show runners had admitted by this point that they made the flashforward not knowing how they would resolve it. On the other hand, there's the accusations that if she did fake her death, it would be incredibly cruel to keep the secret from the rest of the team, especially her father Quentin (who already went through this with his other daughter, even), and Diggle (who blames himself for her death thanks to refusing to suspect his brother). Aditionally, Word of God has stated repeatedly that Laurel is really gone as they want death to actually mean something again, thanks to all the previously mentioned characters that didn't stay dead.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Oliver mentions that he's considering putting an arrow in Barry after the latter discovers his secret identity. Lo and behold, guess what happens not long after in Flash Season One, when Oliver first trains Barry...
  • In an interview prior to Season 5, Stephen Amell (the Arrow) says "I don't know what happened. He got shot with an Arrow... don't look at me" when discussing Felicity's new boyfriend. Come the mid-season finale for Arrow, and Oliver has accidentally shot Billy with arrows three times...
  • McKenna Hall's comment that Fall Out Boy broke up, in response to Oliver's questioning if they are still cool in "Dead to Rights". They had actually announced their reunion nearly a month earlier.
  • In the pilot, Oliver's disapproval of Tommy pursuing Thea when we learn that Thea is also Tommy's sister.
  • Felicity blurting out "Tahiti!" in "Keep Your Enemies Closer".
  • The show had an arc wherein Roy's exposure to Mirakuru made him unstable and a threat, right around the same time as that OTHER work featuring a hero reluctantly fighting his unstable, erstwhile sidekick.
  • In the Japanese dub, Satoshi Hino voices the archer Oliver, who also previously voiced Saito Hiiraga: In the first season of The Familiar of Zero, Saito almost got killed by a Rain of Arrows.
  • In the Blackest Night crossover event, the Flash tells Ray Palmer that he is now Superman. Palmer's actor Brandon Routh previously played Superman in Superman Returns, making the inverse true.
  • Neal McDonough plays Damien Darhk, the Big Bad of Season 4. He previously played Oliver himself in DC Showcase: Green Arrow.
  • On a similar note, this isn't the first time Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen has fought Neal McDonough, as in Injustice: Gods Among Us Neal voiced the Flash while Stephen voiced Green Arrow's premium skin.
  • In Season 4, Felicity finally got a codename, Overwatch. Later that year, a video game of the same name was released.
  • The montage of Oliver interrogating Ghosts at the beginning of "Blood Debts" became giggle-worthy a month later, when Deadpool was released and featured a montage that was pretty much the same scene, were it Played for Laughs.
  • Stephen Amell plays Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Not only is he another masked vigilante, but Oliver's long hair from the island flashbacks actually would have fit better with him.
  • Constantly, when characters talk about working with Malcolm Merlyn, they refer to it as 'getting into bed with' him, which, if taken out of context, implies that Malcolm Really Gets Around. John Barrowman is more well known for playing Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and Torchwood, a character who was known for, well, how he Really Gets Around.
  • This show has typically had a Fandom Rivalry with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Season 4 of Arrow and season 3 of S.H.I.E.L.D. are both airing concurrently, and the Big Bad happens to have the same name in both cases: Hive. Taken further when it turns out both Hives' final plot towards the end of the season involves a giant missile.
  • Thanks to this series, by almost complete coincidence, this is at present count the second incarnation of Oliver Queen to end up with a blonde, computer-savvy female who became popular amongst the show's fandom and who were (largely) created for their respective series', instead of his canonical Love Interest from the comics. Unfortunately crosses over into Harsher in Hindsight as of the Season 4 finale, since the method in which they apparently sealed it here was by killing off said canon character.
  • "Checkmate" aired the week after 4chan determined the location of Shia LaBeouf's "He Will Not Divide Us" flag based on very scanty information from a video stream. In this episode, a hacktivist group totally not based on Anonymous helps Felicity find Prometheus using clues in a video.
  • As mentioned in the main page, Ollie is considered an Expy of Batman. Then, in the Brazilian dub, he is voiced by Eduardo "Duda" Ribeiro, who voiced Batman in The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and some animated films.
  • In "Honor Thy Fathers", Chase appears almost literally ten steps ahead of Oliver, on a staircase, just like the meme.
  • One of the most popular theories behind the identity of Prometheus, the Season 5 Big Bad, was that he was Tommy Merlyn. In "Crisis on Earth-X", Prometheus-X is revealed to be Earth-X Tommy Merlyn, so those fans were right after all.
  • In the Deathstroke comics, a character remarks that the packaging for a Deathstroke toy set needs to be redone because it refers to the English Wintergreen as Australian. In Arrow, Wintergreen is Australian.
  • "Honor Thy Father" had Felicity remark to Oliver that she could never picture him as a "master of the universe". Come Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019), Oliver's first death leads to him becoming the Spectre, who is powerful enough to reboot the entire multiverse after the Anti-Monitor destroyed it.
  • Throughout its run, Arrow was frequently criticized for borrowing story ideas, characterizations and even characters from the Batman franchise. The trailer for The Batman shows that this new iteration of Batman wears "raccoon eyes" makeup under his mask just like Oliver did before he started wearing a mask. In other words, a Batman adaptation is using one of the few original ideas a TV show starring a character known for ripping him off invented.
  • Chad L. Coleman first appeared in the Arrowverse as Tobias Church, a Canon Foreigner who happened to be a crime boss opposing Green Arrow. Many years later during the third season of Superman & Lois, Coleman would return to play Bruno Mannheim, an actual canonical DC crime boss who's part of Superman's Rogues Gallery
• Ho Yay:
  • Roy's interactions with Oliver can come across as a little "Man Crush" from time to time.
  • When Barry first shows up on Arrow, before he became the Flash, he's endlessly fanboying over and praising the Arrow/Oliver Queen. When he mentions to Felicity he can understand if she wants to date Oliver, Felicity comments "Sounds like you want to date him."

I

• I Am Not Shazam: Oliver was regularly called "Arrow" or "The Arrow" during Season One by some reviewers despite not using that name, though he does pick it up during Season Two. Comes back to the fore again in Season 4, with him taking on Green Arrow as his code name to distance himself from the Arrow.
• I Knew It!:
  • Sebastian Blood is Brother Blood.
  • Sara Lance survived the sinking of the Queen's Gambit. Her being Black Canary was also a popular crack-theory not even five episodes into Season 1.
  • A number of people suggested that due to her brown hair not being a trait inherited from two blonde parents, Thea wasn't Robert and Moira Queen's daughter. It was revealed in "State v. Queen" that Thea was conceived after an affair between Moira and Malcolm Merlyn.
  • Malcolm is Back from the Dead. Okay, technically he never died in the first place, but the point stands.
  • As soon as Sara asked Oliver "What happened to Slade?" without mentioning Shado, people correctly assumed she was killed.
  • Slade's return. Given the character's popularity, most fans knew he wouldn't be killed like he was. Also, since the character is known for being a villain, as soon as they mentioned what Ivo was looking for and what Brother Blood was doing, many worked out he would be used on Slade and that he was the Big Bad well ahead of the reveal.
  • Malcolm Merlyn being involved in Sara's death in Season 3; not as obvious and many had their doubts, but some still expected The Reveal just the same.
  • Akio, Maseo and Tatu's son, dies.
  • When Marc Guggenheim revealed a second wedding in Season 3, a lot of people accurately predicted that it would be between Oliver and Nyssa.
  • Thea Dearden Queen being the show's version of Mia Dearden was accurately predicted by majority of the fans as early as the pilot.
  • Pretty much everyone figured out that Nyssa will be the one who will complete Laurel's training to be Black Canary the moment Sara dies in the Season 3 premiere.
  • A lot a people figured out that the Calculator was Felicity's father.
  • The Promo of Who are you confirms that Laurel returning from the dead is really just Black Siren.
  • Many fans were right that Slade would return in the season five finale.
  • Most fans called it that Ricardo Diaz was the real Big Bad of Season 6 and the one who killed Owen Post's son. Turns out the trailers didn't lie after all.
  • Many fans were right that Thea will leave during or after Season 6. She did during the middle of the season.
  • Many fans called Quentin dying in the Season 6 finale, and that it will complete Black Siren's Heel–Face Turn.
  • Diaz surviving Season 6 is a popular fan theory.
  • Black Siren becoming the Black Canary is one of the most popular theories regarding the character.
  • Mia/Blackstar being Oliver and Felicity's daughter was something people figured out as soon as she appeared.
• Incest Yay Shipping:
  • Right from the pilot, fans have already been commenting that Oliver has more chemistry with his sister than with his ex-girlfriend. Doesn't help that by giving her the nickname "Speedy" the writers seem to have destined her to be his sidekick.
  • A canon instance between Thea and Tommy, though neither of them knew it and it's only revealed several months after Tommy's death.
• Informed Wrongness: A lot is brought up about how wrong it is for Moira and Oliver to keep lying to Thea to protect her. However, the moment she found out about Roy, she sent him a message leading him right to her, endangering the lives of a lot of innocent people. Thea is repeatedly shown not to be able to handle the truth well, so it’s understandable why they would keep it from her.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Yao-Fei was betrayed by his country and used as a scapegoat in a massacre, resulting in him being sent to a prison island where he was forced to fight for his life. Then, as the only remaining person on the island, he was forced to deal with Edward Fyers and his men by himself before Slade arrived to save him, but he gets stuck too. He befriends and takes care of a shipwrecked Oliver, but he's captured protecting him and forced to betray him in order to protect his daughter, who's dragged into this because of him. He then gets killed by Fyers, courtesy of a bullet to the head.
  • Slade was a special forces commando sent to an island to rescue a prisoner, only to be captured at some point, with his best friend, and god father to his child, betraying him in a heart beat. He's forced to hide out as he struggles to try and take down Fyers, or at least escape the island, where he's been for years, unable to leave and see his family. He gets one shot at escape, but ends up losing it to save Oliver's ass when he fails to rescue Yao-Fei. He still then sticks around to train the kid the best he can. He also loses the woman he was starting to fall in love with after she tried to save him, and at some point he and Oliver turn on one another, resulting in him becoming a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
  • Shado spent her life looking for her father, who she knew was wrongfully imprisoned. When she believed she could save him, instead she got captured and used as a bargaining chip to make her father betray Oliver. She's stuck on an island with Oliver and Slade, but still remains, mostly, chipper and happy, even joyfully training Oliver in how to use a bow. Then she gets a bullet to the head thanks to Ivo.
  • Diggle fought in Afghanistan, until his brother Andy, whom he was close to, was killed by Floyd Lawton, Deadshot, with no arrests made following. He grew close to his brother's widow, but is unable to make a move at first and act on his feelings because she's his sister in law, and it'd be too taboo to do so. When he finally believes his brother's killer has been brought to justice, they find out he's still alive. And when he finds out his former CO is on the list, he tries to prove he's innocent, only to be proven wrong.
  • Oliver himself: Watched Sara die then had to witness his father kill another man and himself to save him, before then spending five years in hell-on-earth, struggling to survive while plagued by guilt over what he did to Laurel, a time that has ruined his ability to connect with people. He's forced to hide who he is from everyone, and it is not something he's enjoying. In spite of all this, he keeps fighting the good fight. As of Season Two, his best friend is dead (on the day before his birthday no less), his mother is facing the death penalty, the family company is nearly bankrupt, and everything he fought for in the first season was for nothing, as half the Glades has been destroyed. And then we learn that he lied about Sara dying on the boat; he did think she died, but only after their reunion one year after the wreck of the Queen's Gambit. His reason for hiding it? He didn't want to tell Laurel and her father what really happened to Sara, as he implies that it was nothing good.
  • The Canary aka Sara Lance. She nearly drowns in the wreck of the Queen's Gambit, only to end up on the Amazo prison ship, hardened by a year of fighting to survive. Whatever happened with her on the island, Oliver did not believe she came out of it alive until they meet again, and this time she seems to be running from the League of Assassins and can't go back to her family for their safety and because she is no longer the Sara that they remember. And since they lacked the manpower to stop Deathstroke's Mirakuru army, Sara had to make a deal with the League of Assassins: in exchange for their help, Sara has to go back to Nanda Parbat and return to a life she is not happy living. She returns to Starling City in Season Three, just in time to be killed off and buried in the grave they made when she disappeared six years prior. Especially since she can catch arrows fired by much better/faster archers than Thea.

J

• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Thea. Sure, she's selfish, annoying, and a huge Jerkass, but she did also lose both her fathers, have her brother return from an island emotionally and mentally distant, and have her entire family keep secrets from her. She gets better later in Season One and during Season Two.
  • Roy to a lesser extent. He resents the rich and successful, refuses to let people help him, steals from people (at one point planning to rob a liquor store with a gun), and in general does what he can to alienate people. But he's got no family, he's so poor he'll be lucky to live past 21, everyone judges and writes him off as a thug, and when held at gun point and told to give a reason to be spared, he can't think of one, or anyone who'll miss him, instead telling the Savior to Get It Over With. When he's saved, he's visibly surprised that anyone would bother to save him.
  • Malcolm Merlyn. It goes without say that his plan to level The Glades is a horrible thing to do to people, but his genuine love of his wife, the entire situation with her, and his frustration with his inability to improve The Glades with his previous efforts are all sympathetic elements. He then finds out that he killed the wrong man and that her killer is still out there.
  • As of Season Two, Laurel to some extent has crossed into this. She is VERY vicious about the Hood, having seemingly forgotten all the good he's done, but when he finally goes to see her, she recounts how she went back into CNRI after it collapsed and found Tommy dead, and saw the Hood leaving, believing he left him to die. The fandom is split on this, with the half saying that it's not a real reason for her to be angry while the other half say that Laurel has some justification to be angry at the Hood. However, she herself stops blaming the Hood at the end of the next episode and instead goes into a huge guilt spiral. Unfortunately, the Woobie part is applying less of late.
  • Sebastian Blood and his followers. They almost attack Oliver on the street, but they've also lost their loved ones and their homes, and the only hospital they have access to is being robbed by China White's Triad faction because the police can't protect them, making them take out their rage on the "elitists", especially the Queens.
  • Nyssa al-Ghul becomes this in Season 3. She loses her girlfriend Sara, struggles to cope with her grief, gets coldly brushed off by her father, then imprisoned and finally disowned by her father.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Laurel Lance was a divisive character for audiences ever since she told Oliver in the pilot that it was difficult for her to deal with the fact that he was alive while her sister, with whom Oliver was cheating on Laurel with, died. Her standing with the fandom only got worse when Laurel's sister Sara was revealed to be alive in season 2 and Laurel had fallen into alcoholism because of tragedies (such as the death of her friend Tommy Merlyn) which caused Laurel to lash out at her sister and Oliver. Laurel got far more hate than Malcolm Merlyn, the Big Bad of the first season, to the point that some fans held her responsible for Tommy's death since he died trying to save her even though Tommy and Laurel were only in danger in the first place because of Malcolm's Evil Plan to destroy the Glades. Thankfully, the hate for Laurel died down after she was killed off.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Slade tends to get this treatment post-season 2, where fans eagerly watch on for any of his appearances. The most hyped up ones would be "Lian Yu" in Season 5 and "Deathstroke Returns" in Season 6.
  • The ratings spike for the season 4 episode "Haunted," which featured a guest appearance by John Constantine can probably be attributed to this.
  • After the poorly received first half of Season 6, numerous people stated they would keep watching just to see Colton Haynes return as Roy for a Story Arc.

L

• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Felicity. In addition to the constant Ship Tease with Oliver, there have been hints of stronger feelings between her and Walter, her and Dig ("You're irreplaceable, Felicity"), and her and Sara (the former saved the latter's life, and the latter thinks the former is cute, AND is Bisexual in canon). She's somewhat this in universe, in a much darker way, as she casually hinted a couple of times at having problems with stalkers in the past. To take this even further, there is a sizable portion of the fandom that wants fellow DCU fandom bicycle Dick Grayson to show up, mainly to be a love interest for her. Even Oliver/Felicity shippers support this Crossover Ship, if only to invoke jealousy in Oliver. It also does not help that the show creators as well as Stephen Amell have stated that they would love to have Nightwing on the show.
  • Oliver himself. Thanks to the gradual and massive decline of Olicity's popularity post-Season Two, most fans now prefer shipping him with anyone and everyone but Felicity. While his most common ships are with the Lance sisters (including Laurel's Earth-2 counterpart Black Siren), he's also been shipped with Nyssa, Kara, Thea, Tommy, Diggle, Roy, Slade and Barry, to just name a few.
  • Sara Lance who's canonically bisexual has been with Oliver, Ava, Alex Danvers, Nyssa, and John Constantine in canon and has also been paired with Felicity, Thea, Kara, and Barry in fanfiction.
• Les Yay: In "Al Sahhim", given the fervor with which Laurel insists that Team Arrow protect Nyssa, her Selective Obliviousness in claiming Nyssa is a good person (Nyssa poisoned Laurel and kidnapped Laurel's mother in her introductory episode), coupled with Nyssa's canon homosexuality and the enjoyment she takes in doing even the most mundane things with her Beloved's sister, it looks like both women have developed a mutual crush on each other to cope with their grief over Sara's death.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • "The Climb" ends with Ra's al Ghul stabbing Oliver and pushing off a cliff, seemingly killing him. Sure enough, he's alive by the end of the next episode.
  • "Suicidal Tendencies" ends with Maseo aiming an arrow at Felicity, then it cuts to black just as he releases. Yeah, sure.
  • "Broken Arrow" gives us two separate incidents with the apparent death of Roy, the actual death of Thea. One is resolved by episode's end (though he is off the show as a regular). The other is resolved in the next episode.
  • "This Is Your Sword" ends on Laurel, Diggle, Felicity, Malcolm, and Ray all being exposed to the Alpha/Omega bioweapon and seemingly dying. Aside from the simple fact that it would mean killing off the majority of the show's supporting cast, everyone already knew Ray was in the Legends of Tomorrow cast, and then the teaser for the next episode immediately revealed that they survived as it played next to the episode's end credits.
  • The mid season 4 finale ends with Felicity getting shot by Damien's men and Oliver frantically checking her for a pulse. Although the grave mystery was still front and center, the events of the episode took place months before Oliver's "six month later" scene so unless Felicity was in a coma for the whole second half of the season she was clearly going to survive.
  • The mid season 5 finale ends with Laurel seemingly coming back from the dead, despite the producers confirming she will not be revived. The promo to the next episode shows that it's really just Black Siren. Nobody was really surprised.
  • The Season 5 finale ends with a cliffhanger ending in which everyone except Oliver is apparently killed in a massive explosion. While people could buy just one major character dying no one believes for a second that nearly everyone in the main cast would be killed at once, or that characters confirmed to be promoted to the main cast for the following season like Dinah Drake or Black Siren would be killed easily. Indeed, the Season 6 premiere revealed that Samantha was the only casualty.
  • "All for Nothing" has Vigilante being killed by Black Siren hitting him with a sonic scream point blank, but given that this is the same guy who survived a gunshot to the head last season before gaining a Healing Factor, a lot of people aren't convinced this will stick.
  • The Flash Forward scenes in Season 7 state Felicity to have perished after committing a Face–Heel Turn, off-screen. Aside from her more passionate haters, who are clinging to hope more than anything, nobody really buys it. And sure enough, she is revealed to be alive.
• Love to Hate:
  • As divisive as Season 4 is, many agree that Neal McDonough's charismatic and occasionally hilarious performance as Damien Darhk is one of the highlights of the season.
  • Prometheus, aka Adrian Chase/Simon Morrison once he's de-masked. His arrogance and smarminess, combined with his sociopathy, make for a very hate-able yet entertaining antagonist.
  • Stanley Dover was embraced by the fandom once he was revealed to be Evil All Along, thanks to Brendan Fletcher's completely unhinged performance.

M

• Magnificent Bastard: See here.

• Memetic Mutation:
  • Variations of the "My name is Oliver Queen..." opening narration.
  • Pictures of Diggle accompanied by "I can dig it".
  • "You have failed this city!" = the Hood's original catchphrase.
    • It's become common to change the person Oliver is referring to someone else random, like Slade Wilson, Harrison Wells, or Donald Trump.
    • Initially it was supposed to be a major trademark, but is now solely used by fans who still remember the first season's formula. Although Olive has started using it again more frequently as of season 5.
  • "LAME!"^note Oliver's response to Malcolm's suggestion of changing the Hood's nickname to "Green Arrow"
  • The nicknames "Black Driver" and "Bitch with Wi-Fi" were originally throwaway remarks by those two respective characters, the first as a gag, the second as a Badass Boast. Fans have since taken these remarks and run with them, to the point of making them into pseudo-aliases as superheroes.
  • A common response on Reddit to the frequent absence of Roy in the middle of the second season was that Roy was busy shopping for hoodies.
  • Some of Slade's lines:
    • "Don't forget who taught you how to fight, kid."
    • "I keep my promises, kid."
  • The Deathstroke Dance.
  • During Season Three, Roy and his flips became memetic.
  • During Season Three, Austin Butler's Jerkass character, Chase, has been collectively known as Douchebag DJ and is jokingly treated as a Greater-Scope Villain to everything happening during Season Three. More so than the Reverse-Flash.
  • A few hours after the first official picture of Dig's helmet came out on the Internet, fans have already taken to calling him Digneto or variants of that name.
  • "I'm Cupid, stupid!"
  • "It's Iron Atom", a reference to how the Atom is an obvious copy of Iron Man. There's also "Iron Ant" as his appearance comes fairly close to the announcement of Marvel's Ant-Man.
  • After several characters seemed to go out of their way to shill Felicity, many started to go out of their way to refer to her as a "strong, beautiful, powerful woman".
  • It became common to joke about or just point out the name of a writer and co-executive producer of several later episodes: Speed Weed.
  • "What? No! Ray! Olibur!"^Explanation One of Felicity's lines in the Season 3 finale. It is often cited as one of the worst lines of the show due to its depiction of Felicity and Emily Bett Rickards's delivery of the line.
    • Shēngcún.
  • "This comment has made Felicity emotional." A sarcastic reply in social media regarding criticisms on Felicity using pictures of her crying in reference to her infamous Wangsting in Seasons 3 and 4.
  • "You have failed this omelet."
  • "Tom. C'mon."^note A reference to Stephen Amell's response to a joke made about the quality of Season Three on his Facebook page. It became popular on Reddit following the Season Four finale, and has since become a common response to shitposts.
    • Echo Kellum's angry responses to a couple of fans on Twitter have sparked a very similar reaction.
  • "Remember when..." followed by phrases like "Oliver was a badass?" or "this show was about killing millionaires?", used by fans nostalgic of the first season.
  • "This is your overlord, Felicity Smoak"^note Felicity's messing with the Arrowcave's new intercoms. The line was popular enough to end up on T-shirts
  • The mystery of Prometheus's true identity has become a meme in itself, with guesses ranging from plausible (Tommy, Yao Fei, Billy, Roy, Slade, to name a few) to outright ridiculous (such as Raisa, Sara's original actress and even the Queen's Gambit, of all things). "What We Leave Behind" did strongly imply him to be Justin Claybourne's illegitimate son, before being confirmed in "Fighting Fire With Fire".
    • The reveal of his identity as Adrian Chase has done little to quell the speculations, as they are now focused on the identity of Vigilante, who was actually Chase in the comics.
    • On another note, with the many comparisons of Prometheus to Zoom, there are theories that Prometheus will also pull a Jay Garrick and turn out to be a "fake Adrian Chase", while Vigilante turns out to be the real one. This is supported by the fact that Adrian Chase isn't his real name.
  • "Everyone but Laurel." The reply to whenever a character in the Arrowverse returns from the dead who isn't Laurel. And in the second half of the 2016-2017 season, there's a lot of them.
  • "Scimitar, another big DC universe character" ^note Statement by Wendy Mericle, a writer for the show, despite there being no such character existing in DC comics.
  • The reporter from the pilot who announces Oliver's return has become this, largely due to the clip of him saying "Oliver Queen is alive!" being used as part of the first season's intro. Fans often respond to his appearances in later seasons with his Catchphrase or variations of it.
  • "This doesn't change anything, Hoss."
  • Curtis is gay^note Due to the sheer number of times Curtis brings this up in the show, fans jokingly use this response as if it was a major reveal or spoiler.
  • "I'm ten steps ahead of you and you haven't even figured out what game we're playing yet!" ^note A quote from Chase during a heated conversation between him and the Green Arrow. Josh Segarra's delivery of the line received considerable praise following its first appearance in the promotional video for "Checkmate" and has since become the character's most referenced line, usually by taking the picture of him saying the line and editing someone else's face on top of it.
    • This meme then lead to comparisons with Savitar over on The Flash (2014) who characters say is "one step ahead", as well as Eobard Thawne, who was mentioned in the first season to be "a thousand steps ahead".
    • It then accelerated when Merlyn mentioned in "Missing" that Chase was not ten, but fifty steps ahead.
    • There have also been several analyses of which step several characters are on using other quotes about being steps ahead, like this one. This trend has grown to include Flash, Supergirl, Injustice 2 and even Sherlock Holmes◊, of all things.
  • "I did X because I WANTED TO! AND I LIKED IT!".^note Following "Kapushion", and Oliver's confession to Prometheus that he, unknown to everyone, himself included, enjoys or enjoyed killing.
  • NANITES COURTESY OF RAY PALMER. THEY'RE EMITTING A HIGH FREQUENCY PULSE THAT'S DISABLING YOUR SPEED. YOU WON'T BE RUNNING AROUND FOR QUITE A WHILE. ^note A line by Oliver from the Flash episode "Rogue Air" in which he explains to the Reverse-Flash how the arrow that he just shot him with is temporarily keeping him from using his super-speed. Despite its debut near the end of the 2014-2015 season, it attained memetic status two years later on Reddit.
  • Felicity running like the Flash in "Fundamentals" gained memetic status.
  • "Yanny"^note a soundbite uploaded on social media had people divided over whether it is saying "Yanny" or "Laurel". It naturally got milked of every memetic cent it's worth by the Arrow fandom
  • "Obviously this particular comment didn't age too well."^note a line said by Diggle used as a response to any Harsher in Hindsight moments from earlier in the series

• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Despite the attempt to make Helena look colder than Oliver, most fans considered her a Designated Villain until she turned up again later in the season, at which point she crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Sara was only intended to set up the Black Canary mantle for Laurel to take it later after some Character Development. Instead, she ended up becoming so beloved that, save for some pockets of fans, most had wished she stayed the Canary rather than passing the mantle to Laurel.
• Misblamed: Marc Guggenheim was heavily criticized for making Laurel's last scene a declaration of love to Oliver and focusing on their relationship in the flashbacks after her death. (With Olicity fans also getting flack because Laurel's final scene was about shipping.) However subsequent interviews revealed it was actually Katie Cassidy — Laurel's actress — who pushed for the Oliver/Laurel love declaration and wanted more of a Oliver/Felicity/Laurel love triangle while Guggenheim was reluctant to do so. He also is not actually to blame for the infamous double wedding from Crisis on Earth-X, with that particular honor going to producer Greg Berlanti.
• Moe: Thought Felicity was already the epitome of Adorkable? Just look at her when she's hopped up on painkillers in "Time of Death". The sight of her giggling and slurring her speech in an oversized shirt is cute enough, but her pure joy at Oliver stroking her face and telling her "You will always be my girl" is just Cuteness Overload.
  • Against the Action Girl training montages of Laurel and Thea, Felicity is happy to do five sit-ups in her jammies.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• More Popular Replacement:
  • Caity Lotz took over from Jacqueline MacInnes Wood in playing Sarah/Sara Lance. In her initial appearance she was a fairly forgettable throwaway character serving simply as the sister of female lead Laurel. But upon her return and recast to Caity Lotz, she became a Breakout Character who was beloved by the fandom to the point where her Popularity Power had be brought Back from the Dead and given her own spin-off show.
  • Katie Cassidy as Earth-2 Laurel Lance. While the original Earth-1 Laurel was eventually vindicated and Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, she was originally met with a lot of naysayers and only really enjoyed fan-appreciation during her last few episodes and posthumously during her aforementioned vindication. Black Siren, meanwhile, is a fan-favorite from the get-go, even in-spite of her questionable actions . Her Popularity Power eventually leads to her Heel–Face Turn. This is reason why the show runners opts to not resurrect the original Earth-1 Laurel in the Grand Finale like most of the deceased good characters, claiming the Earth-2 Laurel is more interesting and nuanced.

N

• Narm: Enough to have its own page.
• Narm Charm:
  • Malcolm's Suddenly Shouting moment just before the Undertaking. It's over the top, the line itself is cheesy, and it comes out of absolute nowhere - and it's done so seriously that it highlights both how far Malcolm has fallen and how much he genuinely believes that he's doing the right thing.
  • The Arrow taking out Ted Grant by shooting a boxing glove into his face. An image straight out of a Silver Age comic book, yet it's still low-key enough to work in the show's tone.
  • Every single second Carrie Cutter is on screen. While she, like Al-Owal, is a legitimate threat, her insanity can be hard to not find funny, which is probably intentional.
  • Quentin spends at least a quarter of each season crying, and unlike other examples where it devolves into Wangst, Paul Blackthorne sells it every time and makes you just wanna give him a hug.
  • In the Season 3 finale, Oliver's "MY NAME IS OLIVER QUEEN!" response would otherwise be cheesy, but Amell's delivery sells it.
  • Neal McDonough's Ham and Cheese delivery of just about every single one of his lines would be the worst part of the show if he weren't so committed to all of them that they actually become genuinely entertaining.
  • The finale of Season 4 features a mob of civilians charging the soldiers of HIVE for a big battle in the streets. Complete and utter Hollywood Tactics, but the buildup to it is so intense that it's hard not to cheer as the citizens of Star City take their city back.
  • Oliver calling Curtis terrific is incredibly cheesy but the sincerity of it sells it.
  • Adrian Chase's hammy personality after he's reveled to be Prometheus is borderline ridiculous, but it all underscores his utter hatred of Oliver and contributes to him being one of the most terrifying characters on the show.
  • Oliver's conversation with a hallucination of Tommy in Season Seven is filled with so much Dull Surprise that it only showcases just how messed up Oliver's head is and how he's become accustomed to disturbing things.
  • Oliver almost bawling his eyes out in the Season Seven finale is so sudden, out of character, and insanely intense that it makes an already tragic scene absolutely heart wrenching.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Oliver is often described by fans as a cheating bastard even by the time he's atoning for it.
  • Laurel's alcoholism and drug addiction are always used against her by detractors to paint her as "weak-willed", even long after she cleans up.
  • Felicity's constant Wangst in Seasons 3 and 4 is often used by her detractors to paint her in the same manner as Laurel. Also, in Crisis on Earth-X, her abrupt decision to tack on their wedding to Barry and Iris's, which permanently characterized her as "selfish" and helped kill the popularity of the Olicity ship for several portions of the fandom.
  • Dinah Drake's introduction and the circumstances behind her creation (full details written in Replacement Scrappy below) are major factors on why it took a very long time for her to finally win some fans over. In general, it's been universally agreed upon by fans that she should have been a different comic character instead of Black Canary (Lady Blackhawk being the most popular).
  • The New Recruits' decision to try and save Vigilante instead of helping Oliver and Diggle secure Cayden James' hypothermal bomb. The result is that both teams fail in their missions. The New Recruits' insistence that they did nothing wrong, and Oliver is to blame for Vigilante's death makes it more infamous — it's the moment when they all went into The Scrappy territory.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle's tenure as showrunners are largely defined by this. They make blatant fan-pandering, blatant retaliation against their critics, and relentlessly push for a Romantic Plot Tumor involving the Creator's Pet whose fanbase are mostly the ones who praise their work. This backfired on them, as the bad publicity only tanked the ratings — after they dropped below a million, Berlanti was finally forced to replace them. Mericle was fired outright and Guggenheim was Kicked Upstairs.

O

• Older Than They Think: Some people initially accused this series of being a rip-off of Hawkeye from The Avengers (2012). This is despite the fact that the show is based off Green Arrow, a comic book character that has existed since the 40's and who predates Hawkeye by over two decades. The use of a hacking arrow does not help matters, but that was probably cribbed from the New 52 reboot of Green Arrow, where it's central to the plot of the first issue. Not to mention that all of these characters homage Robin Hood to one extent or another.
  • The Darker and Edgier tone, too. A lot of people accuse the show of derailing Green Arrow to make him a darker character to justify the tone, but Green Arrow being a dark antihero willing to kill and torture isn't a new idea, and had been played with before hand during the Mike Grell run and other subsequent runs. The only thing the show can really be called on is making Oliver so somber and stoic, given Ollie is typically a loudmouth who wears his emotions on his sleeve.
  • The similarities to Batman. While the darker tone, use of Batman villains, and many of the similarities to Batman have been present with Green Arrow comics for years at different points, Oliver's more reserved personality tends to make him much more along the lines of Bruce Wayne, and with Season 3 now Ra's Al Ghul trying to encourage him to take his place, something he often does with Batman, it's getting glaringly obvious that the writers of the show are wishing they were writing a Batman series.
  • The show has gotten flak from comic fans for using a large number of Batman villains, and many other DCU villains (particularly Deathstroke) rather than sticking to Green Arrow's rogues gallery. This is despite the fact that Green Arrow has regularly gone up against most of the villains featured himself (with Deathstroke and him in particular having a long-standing mutual hatred for one-another that lasted several years; in fact, all the show did was give their mutual hatred a legitimate reason for existing rather than the poorly explained reason in the comic), and that Green Arrow and Batman have regularly shared villains (with several of Batman's villains actually starting off as Green Arrow villains before transplanting onto Batman, and vice-versa).
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Harley Quinn in "Suicide Squad" gets a five-second one-line bit part with her back turned to the screen.
  • Slade Wilson in "The Return" where he breaks out of his ARGUS prison and fights Oliver and Thea.
  • Andy Diggle in "The Return" who briefly appears with his brother in a flashback.
  • Prometheus' return in Season Six episode "Fundamentals" as a Vertigo induced hallucination to haunt Oliver.
  • Any time Colin Donnell returns as Tommy Merlyn, be it flashback, illusion, evil doppelganger, Human Target in disguise, morally ambiguous doppelgänger, or resurrected.
• Only the Creator Does It Right:
  • Many fans of Arrow feel the show was at its best under Andrew Kreisberg's hands, and feel Marc Guggenheim is responsible for the Seasonal Rot that plagued the show afterwards.
  • For many fans, Black Siren's credibility as a character took a huge hit once she was transplanted from The Flash (2014). For context, she was written as a badass Dark Action Girl with standards in The Flash, whereas here she suffered Badass Decay to prop-up two Creator's Pets and is reduced to being content serving as a minion to considerably weaker men. It does not help that the showrunners has a track record of treating her late Earth-1 counterpart as a Creator's Pest.

P

• Pandering to the Base:
  • Visible among the episodes, given that each one is produced only shortly before it airs. Characters that audiences responded well to were given more screen time and development (while Diggle being brought into the fold was likely planned from the start due to how relatively early it happened, Slade, and Roy being promoted to main cast for Season Two is likely because of audience reaction), while aspects that were critiqued (Thea's Jerkass and It's All About Me tendencies, and Oliver's occasional cold-blooded killing) were toned down and more focus was put on the positive aspects.
  • There's the most common form of base pandering, which the show delights in doing. One such example is the first scene in "Identity", which shows Oliver working out for roughly a minute with no relevance to the episode, as the scene immediately cuts away to Roy trying to stop the Triad from stealing hospital supplies.
  • The posters released to promote the second season consist almost entirely of the show's male cast standing shirtless.
  • Making Laurel the target of a few What the Hell, Hero? rants concerning her attitude to her problems and drug use seems to be a bit of this (for the fans who resented the subtle tendency for the female cast members, especially Laurel, to give these out to the male characters) and Take That, Scrappy! for the fans who consider her as such.
  • Felicity and Oliver's many Ship Tease moments in the second season, to the point she was eventually Promoted to Love Interest thanks to the popularity of Olicity; ironically, this got to the point that the rest of the fandom has largely turned on the couple over it.
  • Laurel's Dying Declaration of Love to Oliver is seen as an attempt to throw a bone to the comics and Lauriver fandom, but given there's been no evidence of Laurel's feelings for several seasons, she actually gave her blessing to Olicity and fans would have preferred her to say goodbye to Quentin, Sara or one of her friends, the scene is actually viewed as a disservice to her character. Likewise the flashbacks next episode with Oliver and Laurel reuniting after Tommy's death, have annoyed her fans more than pleased them thanks to the retcon and unsympathetic context.
  • Unfortunately, this very trope becomes a major factor in the show's decline in quality as it's evident (especially in social media) that the show runners can be swayed by fan opinions.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Prometheus embodies this more and more as Season 5 goes on. After learning Oliver's true identity, he seems to know almost everything about the extended cast of Arrowverse heroes (he knew about Black Siren, and knew enough about Sara and the Legends to feed her a convincing story about "Laurel's" return), and even turned one of Oliver's new recruits into his mole. The Reveal that he's Adrian Chase just makes this worse; imagine that someone you've come to rely on, and even consider a friend, is actually a serial killer out to ruin your life, and you have no idea that your enemy has been right by your side all along.
  • The latter half of season 6 shows us that the SCPD, the DA, and city officials on virtually every level are working for local drug lord Ricardo Diaz, either willingly due to being on his payroll, or because they are Trapped in Villainy because he has their loved ones held hostage. Virtually anyone could be working for Diaz, showing just what a Wretched Hive Star City is.
• Popularity Polynomial: Seasons 3 and 4 especially the latter are widely considered as the series' low point due to the show losing quality and credibility. However, Season 5 (despite literally introducing a few problems) was able to breathe new life into the show, mainly thanks to a critically acclaimed Crossover which also served as the show's Milestone Celebration and a very memorable Big Bad.
• Protection from Editors: It's clear that the only reason Marc Guggenheim remained as showrunner despite his glaring incompetence at the job as a storyteller is he and Arrowverse founder Greg Berlanti go way back. Guggenheim also had a habit of giving Plot Armor to his favorite characters, notably Felicity Smoak. Eventually, this backfired as Guggenheim and Mericle's incompetence caused Arrow's ratings to dip below a million, forcing Berlanti to finally give them the boot.

Q

• Questionable Casting:
  • Matt Nable as Ra's al Ghul. Not necessarily directed at the actor himself, but the fact that they're casting a white guy to play Ra's Al-Ghul. Again. Of course, when he appears for the first time on the show, and instead of the traditional Ra's Al-Ghul look or even Liam Neeson's look, he's some scruffy white guy with an awkward accent, the criticism becomes more understandable. Then he goes and proves himself a villain who easily defeats Oliver yet shows no malice toward him, which may well lessen the skepticism.
  • There was a similar reaction to the casting of Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Amanda Waller. Again, not at the actress herself, who does a fine job playing her, but rather, casting a slimly built woman in her twenties, rather than one with the Wall's traditional build and age. While this is largely due to Waller on the show being modelled after her New 52 counterpart, who is younger and thinner, her New 52 counterpart's design was controversial when it came in, so modeling her after it raises some questions.
  • The casting of Bex Taylor-Klaus as Sin and Vinnie Jones as Brick has been criticized as whitewashing, given the Sin and Brick of the comics are respectively Asian and African-American, and Taylor-Klaus and Jones are white. The news that Madison McLaughlin's character, Evelyn Sharp, would become Artemis in Season 5 also caused this, as many figured this was based on the Young Justice (2010) Artemis, who was half-Asian, and was called out as another case of whitewashing, though others are defending the choice, pointing out that the YJ character was a case of Race Lift herself and both Evelyn Crawford (Sharp's comic counterpart) and the comics' Artemis Crock are white.

R

• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Evelyn Sharp, a teen wunderkind who stole Laurel's identity as Black Canary (including the Canary Cry which In-Universe was made only for Laurel to use per Cisco's design) to kill Ruve Darhk as revenge for Hive killing her family, nearly destroying Black Canary's legacy in the process. Many were hoping she'd never been seen again, only for it to be announced she'd be joining Team Arrow in Season 5 as Artemis. However, she has been gradually redeeming herself due to the fact that she's the only member of the new team not named Rory—who has magical powers—to realize her limitations as a rookie vigilante. Then "Vigilante" establishes Artemis as a Mole for Prometheus, and we're right back to square one. Her smug behaviour in the rest of the season, to say nothing of helping Prometheus torture Oliver until his spirit breaks, only increase her hatedom.
  • Season 5 sees all of the Team Arrow members apart from Oliver and Felicity being replaced with brand new people (Except for Curtis, who was introduced last season), which brought in many complaints that they are not as likeable as the original Team Arrow. It doesn't help that the writers basically threw away the family dynamic that many fans like in favor of something you could compare to a pair of teachers and a misbehaving class.
  • Tina Boland, who replaced Laurel as the new Black Canary. It does not help that she was introduced immediately after Laurel's Earth-2 counterpart Black Siren's debut in this show, who a majority of the fans wanted to see take a redemption arc to take up her late Earth-1 counterpart's mantle, since the writers stubbornly refused to bring her back to life. And then came the Wham Line: Tina is just her alias for undercover work; her real name is Dinah Drake, making her yet another Decomposite Character of the Black Canary. The coincidences of her skillset and name reeks of the writers trying to present the character as "better" than either Laurel and thus perfect for the role. Also not helping her case are: A.) Rory Regan aka Ragman, the most (and only one since the get go) popular of the Season 5 recruits, was Put on a Bus immediately after her introduction. And B.) There's already an established Dinah Drake introduced since then first season, meaning that this Dinah serves as an inferior replacement for not one, not two, but four characters. She also becomes more abrasive in Season 6 by falling victim to Revenge Before Reason. It really didn't help that Vincent Sobel/Vigilante was killed off pretty much solely for the sake of Tina having a revenge story (against Black Siren, no less) that gave her more screentime, something the fans very much did not want.
  • In Season 7, there is Joe Wilson being used as a member of the Ghost Initiave, instead of his far more popular father Slade, who can't be used due to the DCEU's current usage of Deathstroke.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Thea: she danced between this and The Scrappy during the first two seasons. Thea was off-putting at first, having an It's All About Me mindset. She got some much needed Character Development by having her begin working with Laurel at C.N.R.I. and her relationship with Roy Harper. Her relationship with Oliver had become less frosty as the season went on, as they both began understanding what the other had been through in the five years that Oliver was missing. What kept her from being fully rescued was how easily she relapsed into being a whiny brat whenever she thought people were hurting to her feelings. By mid Season 3, she was rescued for good, with Oliver telling her the whole truth (except for her having killed Sara) at last, her lovingly accepting him and even thanking him for saving her life, and her coming to her senses about Malcolm and turning against him for having manipulated her into abandoning the people she loves.
  • A lot of fans feel that this show rescues Nyssa Al-Ghul. Nyssa debuted in the "Death and the Maidens" story arc in 2003 as a previously unknown daughter of Ra's who becomes his "true heir." The storyline was very unpopular for a number of reasons, most of all for killing off a beloved Batman villain for a short time. Nyssa rarely appeared after becoming the new Demon's Head, and was killed quietly in four panels during the "One Year Later" event. However, fans seem to like her character here much better. It helps that the show's version of Nyssa is not her father's enemy, but is instead a loyal and honor-driven character more like the classic version of her sister Talia, a much more popular character in the comics.
  • After her Character Development in Season Three, Laurel appears to have achieved this status in parts of the fandom. It initially faltered back during the the first half of Season 4, but ultimately seems to have stabilized in the second half Season 4 as she became the Cool Big Sis of the group and didn't get any plots of her own. Since Felicity… well, more on that below, Laurel conversely got more popular for being more supporting of the rest of the team. When she finally turned out to be the person in the grave, most of the fandom was TREMENDOUSLY displeased, whereas a season and a half ago fans would have been all too happy to have Laurel killed instead of Sara, and not nearly as many would've complained about her dying just half a season ago.
  • Helena Bertinelli/Huntress in Season 1, mainly due to her portrayal and her actress' initially dull performance. When she came back in Season 2, her actress' acting greatly improved allowing her to sell Helena's misery much better. It also helps that the character is having remorse over her actions by the end of her return episode.
  • Season 3 introduced Chase, an obnoxious, cocky DJ working at Verdant who was teased as a love interest for Thea. Nobody wanted another Romantic Plot Tumor when there were way more interesting storylines developing, so fans were thrilled when it was revealed that Chase works for the League of Assassins.
  • Rene's initial dislike got toned down after his early Leeroy Jenkins characterization subsided and he underwent Character Development into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold with a snarky sense of humor. In addition to the fact he never truly replaced Diggle as Oliver's main gunner field support, since Diggle rejoined the team as an on-off member, Rene even strikes up a pretty good friendship with Diggle by the time of "Vigilante". He got even more popular after he struck up a friendship with Quentin as well, due to his actor's great chemistry with Paul Blackthorne, to the point that Rene was easily the most popular of the new recruits heading into season six. However, Rene ended up falling right back into scrappy status as of season six which seems to have made him WORSE than his original characterization which made him the scrappy as seen below. But further down the lines Rene manages to redeem himself in the eyes of the fandom yet again in "Docket No. 11-19-41-73", where not only does he admit to his faults, but he atones for them, helping Oliver escape the law that he had thrown Oliver into earlier, by recruiting Human Target.
  • Ricardo Diaz/The Dragon started off disliked due to being a generic, undeveloped gangster who worked for Cayden James; a waste of one of the comic's biggest villains. His unpopularity actually further rose after the reveal that he used Cayden and was the true Big Bad of the season with many feeling it was an Ass Pull, the character continuing to not do much and remaining undeveloped as the season started to enter its late stages and fans simply feeling he was underwhelming and a step down in threat level from past Big Bad's, even compared to the already divisive Cayden James. Then "The Dragon" aired and many people got much more invested in his character and impressed by his drive, patience and intensity, meaning many fans were happy to see that he survived the season 6 finale and would return for season 7.
  • Dinah, probably the most controversial addition to the cast in Season 5, got received far better after letting go of her vengeful ways and becoming the new Police Captain in Season 7, developing a unique dynamic with Rene as a Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist torn between her duty and her friendships, and later changing roles with Oliver, technically being his boss after he got deputized. She also seems to be on her way of forgiving Black Siren and developing a bond with her.
  • Felicity was received a lot warmer during Season 7, due to her interesting dynamic with Earth-2 Laurel and being a lot more supportive and less critical of Oliver than before. The finale in particular had many people feel sorry for her, and her presence has been missed by some fans during Season 8. The Season 8 / Series finale did have many people being very overjoyed about her return and they were glad for her and Oliver finally receiving a happy ending, despite all the issues before.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: A common criticism of the show is how much unneeded drama is mined from romantic foibles, especially Oliver Queen's, mostly because a lot of it comes down to one party lecturing the other (often with them presented as right to do so, while the audience often disagrees) or them arguing over issues that could be avoided by talking it out like adults. Oliver/Laurel was the first to get flak for this with cheating, sleeping with the sibling, love triangles, and romantic angst. Oliver/Felicity got this after becoming canon, becoming a huge part of the show and many finding it causing a negative effect on Felicity's character. In fact, Oliver/Felicity became so controversial that many jumped ship to Oliver/Laurel. It's an oft-cited reason for the extremely poor quality of Arrow Season Four, which is oft-regarded as the worst season of not just Arrow, but the entire franchise, as their romantic drama completely dominated that season.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • As of Season 3, Oliver's been getting this from certain parts of the fandom. While he is being rather idiotic in his willingness to work with and protect Malcolm, some act like he's became completely devoted to it even at the cost of the others, despite the fact that one of the primary reasons he's doing this is to protect Thea.
  • Felicity, despite having more than her fair share of flaws that rightfully deserve to be criticized, is still a heroic figure acting out of love towards Oliver and loyalty towards her friends. Ask parts of her hatedom and they'll probably make her out to be worse than the actual villains of the show. Some even act as if she's the worst person to have ever lived.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • More than a few fans support Malcolm's plan to destroy the Glades, mostly because of how everyone there seems to be a crook and a criminal.
  • The Season 5 finale is a literal showcase of the show's notable living villains, most of which are fan-favorite characters. Many critics even pointed out that they are the episode's main attraction.

S

• The Scrappy:
  • Donna Smoak, Felicity's mother. Outside of her daughter's fanbase, who love her for the dynamic she has with Felicity, most of the fandom at large quickly grew to despise her when she became a more reoccurring character, especially when she developed a relationship with Quentin that personified a lot of the same The Unfair Sex problems Felicity has with Oliver.
  • William, Oliver's son. Mainly because he's less a character and more of a plot device to create unnecessary drama between Felicity and Oliver. And it doesn't help that he's mostly portrayed as a sulky teen with no small degree of It's All About Me, which may be typical for a kid his age who's been through what he has, but it doesn't make it any more fun to watch. Not to mention that he won't carry on his father's legacy as the Green Arrow. That honor goes to John Diggle Jr., at least in one timeline. The Scrappy status only applies to present!William, not future William.
  • Ra's al Ghul. Much of the disdain for season three could be attributed to his ineffectiveness as a villain. Initially built up to be a fearsome Diabolical Mastermind with a massive diabolical orgainzation and near-superhuman fighting ability, as demonstrated when he effortlessly defeats Oliver himself in the episode "The Climb," Badass Decay in the season's second half lead to an overall lack of tension. In the final few episodes, he is easily tricked by Oliver's false Face–Heel Turn as his apprentice and is bested in physical combat in a battle that is nearly-identical to the one earlier in the season. Not to mention, unlike Merlyn and Deathstroke, Ra's operates under a tell, don't show principle, never even coming to Starling City until well into the show's second half and, as mentioned, is easily tricked by the protagonist in the finale. What's more, he has almost no background, none of the tragic sympathy of past Big Bads, and very little is revealed of his or the League's real goals.
  • Nobody likes Andy Diggle. Not only was he a re-tread of the tired Back from the Dead cliche, but his entire character was portrayed as inexplicably evil, just so John could have a bit of character drama. The audience was clearly supposed to feel something when John was forced to shoot his brother to protect his family, but Andy had been built up to be so cartoonishly diabolical that it came as a relief that he was finally dead. The fact that Andy is directly responsible for Laurel's death doesn't help.
  • Emiko, the true Big Bad Of Season 7. Like Cicada from The Flash, she is a bland villain and In Name Only version of their comic counterpart, given Age Lift and massive Adaptational Villainy. Her evil plans felt like rehashes of past Big Bads to destroy a city (Merlyn, Ra's, and Darhk) or to hurt Oliver personally (Slade and Prometheus). Her role could have easily been delegated to Dante or anyone else. The final nail was how unearned her Death Equals Redemption moment feels, cementing her as one of Arrow's worst Big Bads.
  • The Hoffmans or Oliver and Felicity's friends from Ivy Town. They serve no purpose other than shilling Olicity, and do so in the most blatant, sappy, and corny manner with their discussion of marriage and kids. The fact that they of all characters returned in season 6 (for the Olicity wedding of course) makes this even more obvious and cements their status as nothing but plot devices.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • After a well-received first season and even better second season, the fans turned on the show in droves during Season 3. Starting out with Bury Your Gays with Sara was bad enough, but they followed it up with Laurel's attempts to become the new Canary, which could swing from narmy to downright unsympathetic, not helped by Felicity telling Laurel she has a light that Sara never did and several characters pointing out that Sara was previously a member of the League of Assassins, and was trying to gain redemption by being the Canary, in what's basically a canonical Ron the Death Eater. Then they added in an In Name Only take on the Atom, that tried to piggyback on the popularity of the MCU's Iron Man by turning him into an expy of him, and Malcolm Merlyn finally becoming a full-blown Karma Houdini. The main threat, Ra's Al Ghul, was given a weak, inconsistent characterisation that had no internal logic, not helped by Matt Nable's What the Hell Is That Accent? and Race Lift on-top. The romantic drama between Oliver and Felicity becomes the fore-front of the show, propped up by everyone (even Ra's Al Ghul) despite their quickly apparent problems, not helped by Felicity's character taking a major nosedive, becoming a wangsty and unsympathetic mess. The final episode of the season capped all this off with an Anti-Climax Boss, more pointless drama, and a weak finish for the season.
  • Season 4 unfortunately continued this. Initially it was well-received, with Oliver finally taking the identity of the Green Arrow, a well paced plot, a fantastic villain and the writers seemed to be going out of their way to avoid everything that made Season 3 so hated. But then, they brought Ollie's secret son William into mix during the season's crossover with the Flash, a storyline that brought so much pointless drama for Oliver and Felicity, who's Romantic Plot Tumor more-or-less swallowed the plot, along with Felicity's Spotlight-Stealing Squad nature getting so out of control it fully turned her into Base-Breaking Character and a Creator's Pet so bad it lead to jokes about how Ollie had become a supporting character on his own show. As well as this was the resolution of the 'grave' flash-forward, which resulted in the controversial death of Laurel Lance after half-a-season of her being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, having picked her at random as they'd began the plot without thinking ahead. Other points of contention were the decaying fight choreography, all of this culminating in the Season 4 finale, almost universally regarded as the worst in the show's history. While Season 3 may be So Okay, It's Average in the eyes of many fans, Season 4 was decreed as horrible by almost all fans and even by Stephen Amell himself: when he ranked the show's seasons from best to worst, he did not even mention season 4.
  • Season 6, which has the unenviable task of coming after the well-received Season 5. The first sign of trouble came with the season premiere revealing that the entirety of Team Arrow survived, with the only casualty on Lian Yu being Samantha Clayton, a character no one particularly cared for, thus invalidating season 5's big cliffhanger. Other criticisms are too much focus on Oliver's son William whom doesn't serve much purpose other than to distract Oliver his duty in keeping the city safe, Warner Bros forcing Slade into exile because of the DCEU, polarizing villains in the form of Michael Emerson's Cayden James, and later Richardo Diaz, who simply don't have the menace or charisma that Prometheus had. The New Recruits sinking even into more unpopularity by breaking off from Team Arrow and forming their own team and acting like petulant brats any time they have to work with their own comrades — Dinah in particular after her former boyfriend Vigilante is killed and she's only obsessed with killing Black Siren and will attack anyone who gets in her way, even Quentin. The whole schism arc simply drags well pass its welcome and consumes the second half of the season. In fact episode 6x17: "Brother in Arms" has the dubious distinction of being the first episode where less than a million people tuned into watch (ironically, though, it is seen as one of the season's best episodes and a potential return to form by many critics). If there is a silver lining, it's that the season was so negatively received that it was announced that Guggenheim and Mericle would not be show runners for Season 7; Mericle is leaving the franchise completely while Guggenheim is being Kicked Upstairs to the role of "executive consultant".
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Over the years Felicity/Tommy has grown a reasonable fanbase of its own (it is currently the second most popular Felicity pairing on AO3) despite having never spoken to each other and the latter having been dead since the season 1 finale. This likely due to the years of growing frustration at Oliver/Felicity leading to a lot of fans preferring Oliver with Laurel, Sara, or maybe even Barry Allen, but still wanting Felicity and Tommy in relationships.
  • People have already started shipping Quentin with Felicity's mom Donna even though they've never met, including Paul Blackthorne himself. They finally meet in the ending of "Lost Souls" in Season 4, and a romance does indeed develop. However, Quentin's grief over Laurel's death and recurring alcohol problems (among other issues) slowly drive a wedge between them, and by Season 5, the relationship appears to have been permanently sunk.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat:
  • During the second season, fans were split between Oliver/Sara and Oliver/Felicity: Sara and Oliver were made canon during the season but the writers weren't very subtle with hinting at both Felicity's and Oliver's strong feelings towards each other, so both sides argued quite a bit about it. Sara's death in Season 3 effectively sinks that ship, leaving Laurel to pick up the slack for the Lances. And then Laurel herself bites it the following season.
  • Felicity/Oliver shippers have been at war with comic!Oliver/Black Canary shippers since the beginning of the third season, as Arrow moved further away from the source material and towards Felicity. The Olicity fandom's tendency to celebrate the deaths of Sara and especially Laurel and their often antagonistic attitude towards comic fans helped contribute to the overall toxic reputation of the Arrow fandom at large, and it's not helped by Olicity fans mocking the comics for the late 2000s comics which soiled the Canary/Arrow ship while ignoring the much better written depictions of them, as if Arrow itself doesn't have it's own share of Canon Discontinuity or share of toxic moments between Oliver and Felicity. It's gotten to the point that the most vocal of Felicity's hatedom are comic!Black Canary fans who have taken more issue with her fandom then the character herself.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Stephen Amell said way back that Episode Sixteen of Season One, "Dead to Rights", was unofficially called "The Holy Shitballs Episode" due to having a large amount of this. Since then, it's been clear that he gave away that title way too soon, as following episodes have made that episode look tame by comparison.
  • The Season One finale, "Sacrifice", is made of this. Basically, take everything that comes to mind with a blockbuster action movie and condense it into 45 minutes.
  • "State v. Queen" manages to cram two HUGE shockers into the final three minutes.
  • The last ten minutes of "Three Ghosts", with Tommy's hallucination encouraging Oliver to defeat Cyrus Gold, Slade Wilson/Deathstroke revealed as the true Big Bad, Roy being injected with Mirakuru, the Flash's origin, and Oliver getting a Domino Mask.
  • "Deathstroke" lives up to its name by having FIVE (if not more) major developments: Detective Lance is put under arrest for helping Oliver, Slade tells Thea about her true parentage and Laurel about Oliver's secret identity, Roy leaves Starling City, and Isabel Rochev is revealed as a cohort of Slade's JUST AFTER taking over as Queen Consolidated's CEO due to Oliver's multiple absences, then turns their Applied Sciences department entirely towards replicating the Mirakuru from Slade's blood in order to create a planned army of soldiers. Holy Shit, indeed.
  • "Seeing Red" has the revelation that the Mirakuru in Roy's blood has driven him insane; Sara leaves Starling City because of how badly she wanted to kill Roy just to keep Oliver safe, and knowing Oliver abides by a strict "no-kill" policy with only few exceptions, she backs out believing she isn't right for him; Moira reveals to Oliver that she's suspected he's the Arrow ever since the Undertaking, and his newly broken leg has convinced her of it and that she's proud of him; it's revealed that seven years prior, Oliver had an illegitimate child and Moira, par for the course, bribed the mother with $2 million to fake a miscarriage and leave for Central City, with Oliver none the wiser. This will likely be the last secret of Moira Queen we will ever know because at the very end of the episode, Slade kidnaps the three Queens and forces Oliver to make the same choice that got Shado killed, this time between Moira and Thea, but Moira being Moira, she takes that choice out of his hands and sacrifices herself.
  • "Unthinkable" lives up to its name, too. By the end, Isabel is dead, the Mirakuru army has been cured and captured, Oliver has defeated Slade by tricking him into taking Felicity hostage so she can get close enough to inject him with the cure (and, in the process, told her that her feelings for him are mutual after all), Sara has returned to the League of Assassins willingly, Quentin has collapsed from injuries sustained while fighting a Mirakuru soldier, Slade has been imprisoned in an A.R.G.U.S. cell on Lian Yu, and we've seen in the flashbacks that after the destruction of the Amazo, Oliver wound up in Hong Kong under Amanda Waller's custody.
  • The Season Three premiere, ironically named "The Calm", really sets the tone for the whole season. In the final scene, Sara is killed when an unknown assailant shoots three arrows into her stomach and sends her plummeting off the roof, landing right near a horrified Laurel.
  • The Season Three finale packs four different cliffhangers into four minutes: Malcolm Merlyn is the new Ra's al Ghul (a development that Nyssa is clearly not happy with), Oliver and Felicity "retire" and leave Diggle in charge of the team, the past timeline reveals that Oliver is still off the island and is now Walking the Earth with no mention of how he will return, and Ray's office explodes with him inside it (with only fans of the source material knowing what's inevitably coming.
  • The Season 4 crossover episode with The Flash (2014), "Legends of Yesterday", has Vandal Savage using the Staff of Horus to fire a blast of energy that disintegrates Oliver, before spreading to kill all of Team Arrow and Flash, and destroying all of Central City. Only Barry remains and is saved due to performing a time jump.
  • In Season 4, "Eleven-Fifty-Nine", Damien Darhk stabs Laurel with an arrow and kills her.
  • In Season 5, "Fighting Fire With Fire", reveals Prometheus is Adrian Chase.
  • In the Season 5 finale, "Lian Yu", the mere reveal that Slade Wilson would be coming back was enough to make the fandom go crazy, but this was followed up with the prospect that Slade would be having an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny with Prometheus! To further add on, the two Canaries, Dinah Drake and Black Siren would be having a Designated Girl Fight.
  • The Season 8 premiere has the biggest one yet: all of Earth-2 getting disintegrated by antimatter!
• Signature Scene:
  • In "The Undertaking", Oliver/The Hood vs. about twenty or so mooks and beats all of them, especially the guy who Oliver repeatedly slams their head into the wall, which is featured in the monologue opening for a large number of Season 2 episodes.
  • In "Three Ghosts", Slade Wilson making his official debut in the present day where he gives his speech on what he will do to Oliver.
  • In "Unthinkable", Oliver and Slade's Final Battle, continuously switching back and forth between flashback and present day.
  • In "The Climb", Oliver's duel with Ra's al Ghul, as well as his following "death".
  • Although Season 4 is widely considered the worst season of the show's history, Quentin's monologue to Oliver about how much Laurel meant to him before crying in his arms in "Canary Cry" is considered one of the finer parts of the season.
  • While the entire 100th episode celebration in the "Invasion!" crossover is considered iconic, Oliver and Sara's goodbye to "Laurel" at the end of the episode is still regarded as one of the most heartwrenching scenes in the entire series.
  • In "Missing", The Reveal that Oliver is turning to Slade for help to defeat Prometheus.
  • In "Starling City", the complete destruction of Earth-2 by the Anti-Monitor.
• So Okay, It's Average:
  • Some fans have this reaction to Season 3, arguing that it's simply "okay" in comparison to Seasons 1 and 2, with some strong moments and weak moments in equal measure.
  • The second half of Season 7; while no means bad it did feel aimless for quite a while until the true Big Bad revealed themselves.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • When Island!Ollie is carrying a wounded Slade away from a fight with Fyers, he's shooting a gun. The muzzle flashes are clearly fake, though this may very well have been done for safety's sake since shooting one-handed with a heavy load in the other hand isn't exactly a good position to be shooting from.
  • Unlike Smallville and Daredevil^note  the movie not the series, which both heavily used it for some of their main casts, this is averted when it comes to the free running bits; likely since the actors themselves are actually very good at it while Smallville took obvious advantage of strings and Daredevil CGI, and the show's realistic tone means that they use realistic stunts rather than the more over-the-top stunts the other two used.
  • In "City of Heroes", when Oliver and Felicity smash through a window and fall to the floor, you can see the pieces of "broken glass" bouncing up and down; they are actually made of transparent rubber.
  • In "Heir to the Demon", two characters are poisoned with a venom which causes a hemorrhage in the eye. Rather than portray this realistically (a blood-red patch would appear on the victim's eye), it's shown by some crudely CG-ed golden sparkles.
  • And "Suicide Squad" has the drone strike. The noticeable CGI of the drone might be excusable, given the budget, but the idea that a drone missile would go off with as little force as a firecracker has raised a few eyebrows.
  • Oliver swimming to the sunken Amazo in "Dark Waters". It looks like something out of a Tomb Raider game, and not one of the modern ones...
  • Most of the CG in "Taken", with Oliver's zip-lining and Vixen using her totem to fly and leap like a cat all rendered with very obvious, rubbery CGI.
  • For some unknown reason, in certain scenes the Green Arrow suit is given a highly unnatural green filter towards it that is very noticeable and stands out like a sore thumb (especially so given the suit comes off as near black in color during scenes set at night or in dark areas and even when in regular lighting it is a very dark green). Particularly in the episode "Broken Hearts" during a scene between Oliver and Diggle where the brightness is obviously done and hard to not notice to the point it's as if the whole thing was CGI. And in the next episode in a moment where Laurel places a hand to the shoulder of said outfit you can see her gloves turn green the moment she touches it. It makes you wonder why they didn't just design the suit originally with a lighter green if they are so determined to make it stand out more with such a color.
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • Even leaving aside the Like You Would Really Do It factor, Oliver joining the League of Assassins doesn't hold much tension thanks to a preview of the rest of The Flash's first season showing that the Arrow would be making another appearance on that show.
  • As well as Diggle, Laurel, Malcolm, Ray and Felicity supposedly being infected/killed by the Alpha/Omega virus. Fans might have believed that if the preview for the finale didn't show them all appearing in it. Plus Ray has his own approaching spin-off to appear in.
  • Nicely averted by Ray blowing himself up at the end of Season 3. His presence in the upcoming spinoff, Legends of Tomorrow, gives away his survival, but fans of the source material knew what was coming either way.
• Squick:
  • Some feel this way about the idea of Diggle dating his sister-in-law. Others just think it's quite awkward of him to do so, considering that she's the widow of his dead brother. They break up between Seasons One and Two, so it's not really an issue anymore.
  • Going back and watching Season One after "State v. Queen" might make some scenes with Tommy and Thea uncomfortable, such as his comment to Oliver about how hot Thea has gotten.
  • Watching Sin pose as a prostitute in order to draw out a serial killer gets a little creepier when you see "Time of Death" and realize that she's only seventeen.
  • The ending shot of "The Promise" is a deliberate case; it shows Slade Wilson facing the camera without his eyepatch, and his missing eye is not covered by shadow.
  • The Reveal in "The Man Under The Hood," meaning that Oliver had sex with Isabel, who had sex with his father. He himself is visibly horrified and disgusted by this.
  • In "Seeing Red," Oliver's leg gets broken at an extremely painful angle, on screen. To the point where it's almost 90 degrees at the knee... sideways.
  • Oliver's Nightmare Sequence in "Left Behind," which has him spit Blood from the Mouth while kissing Felicity. Which means he may have spit blood into Felicity's mouth.
  • In "The Candidate," Laurel opening Sara's coffin so the audience can see inside it.
  • Quentin's quest of redeeming Black Siren in Seasons 6 and 7 already has some people rolling their eyes due to how Black Siren was in previous seasons, but Paul Blackthorne's Large Ham tendencies tend to make him oversell his desire for Laurel-2's redemption. It ends up looking less like a father wanting his daughter (from another dimension) to turn good and more like he really wants to get in his daughter's pants.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • A lot of people didn't like the attention that the romance between Laurel and Oliver was given in season 1, particularly due to the lack of chemistry between them during that season. It largely isn't helped by how the show pushed their romantic development to the back-burner during the first season due to the lack of fan interest combined with her and Tommy being much better received, thus making the sudden hook-up during the final few episodes of the season feel completely forced. Another part of this issue is that Oliver and Laurel were a couple in the backstory, meaning they technically already had their romantic buildup, so the issue wasn't so much resolving the sexual tension between them as it was reconciling with the baggage of their first relationship. Ironically, it was the seasons after Laurel had been replaced as Oliver's love interest by Felicity that fixed that problem, and by the time of her death, people actually wanted to see them get back together. Oliver's tearful goodbye to "Laurel" in the Invasion! crossover (which is considered the definitive end to the ship, now that it's confirmed that E-1 Laurel won't be revived) is still regarded as one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire series.
  • Despite Oliver/Felicity's initial popularity, many of its detractors point out it suffers a degree of this. While the two had a lot of flirtatious chemistry in the beginning, there was not a lot of evidence to suggest the idea of a serious romance or that Oliver actually was in love with Felicity like he claimed to have been at the end of Season Two; Oliver spent the majority of the first two seasons either pining after Laurel or Sara (or both), which made his Love Confession to Felicity come out of the left field for a lot of fans. The treatment of the pairing in the later seasons only worsened the problem, as their relationship was partially built up through a number of retcons that downplayed or ignored parts of Oliver's romances with Laurel and Sara rather than build off the characters' existing chemistry, making it come off as shoehorned and forced, on top of becoming toxic due to the forced drama the writers injected into the pairing to make it more interesting. In addition, the writing accidentally highlighted how little Oliver and Felicity actually had in common; take, for example, Felicity recommending Oliver let Thea die rather than become Ra's al Ghul's heir, so they would be able to continue their burgeoning relationship, which was out of alignment with Oliver's consistent portrayal of putting his family, particularly Thea, first. By the time the two got married in Season Six, many fans honestly failed to understand how they were even still together, as the show did a poor job of building up their relationship to a point where a lifelong commitment made sense.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • In the second episode, Oliver is shocked by Moira advising him to take a leadership position in the company, playing up his playboy persona to pretend that he just doesn't care enough to take the job. Moira criticizes him for this decision, seemingly uncaring that he has only been back in civilization for a few weeks at most. While the audience knows that it's because a position like that would interfere with his work as the Hood, that doesn't mean his points are any less valid considering he was stranded away from civilization for five whole years (as far as she knows, anyway) and flunked out of every business school he attended before that.
    Oliver: [Why is] everyone fantasizing that I got my MBA on that island?
  • Moira's campaign for mayor has been seen as ill-advised by several people, most of whom are either villains (Sebastian Blood) or at the least considered in the moral gray area (Moira herself), whereas several of the good guys (Walter, Thea) see it as a great idea. She initially brings up the very valid point that she was involved in the Undertaking that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. After some prodding, she relents, then Blood brings up the (again, very valid) point that during her trial, she painted herself as a fragile creature living under Malcolm Merlyn's thumb, which won't help people believe she's strong enough to hold public office. The points that convinced her to run? Being told that she has high name recognition (to which she snarks "so does Charles Manson"), that she was able to successfully run Queen Consolidated, and that people love redemption stories. A lot of people seem to agree those justifications are a little thin and wonder how anybody thinks it's a good idea.
  • As Starling City descends into riots in "The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak," Laurel (as Acting District Attorney) makes the order to send a riot squad to an riot outside a bank, which is roundly criticised by her father and (not knowing it was Laurel's order) Team Arrow for escalating the situation, and is supposed to be another sign of her anger issues. A number of people have pointed out that the crowd were already trying to break into the bank before the SCPD arrived, so it feels unjustified to criticize Laurel for sending a riot squad to do their job.

T

• Tainted by the Preview:
  • The Darker and Edgier feel from the first trailer caused many to call this a bad attempt at adapting Green Arrow.
  • On a more specific level, news spread that the beginning of Season 3.B would be very Laurel centric following her Black Canary arc, which discouraged a lot of fans interest. (Reviewer John Campea even dubbed it the 'Laurel-pocalypse). Leading to the producers assuring everyone other characters would have their moments and they weren't sure where the Laurel-focus idea came from. This was averted, of course, as the episodes had good ratings.
  • When infamous former showrunner Marc Guggenheim was announced to write the show's 150th episode, majority of fans from all sides of the show's very Broken Base were discouraged, as the show is doing good after he finally left the position.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • The verbal beatdown that Oliver delivers to Laurel in "Time of Death" is essentially a list of the fandom's biggest complaints about her.
  • When it finally comes time for Laurel to don the Canary outfit, she has an impressive first outing... and then the following episode makes it clear over and over that she sucks at being a vigilante and that first success was only due to surprising the guys with a Canary Cry.
  • "The Return" keeps it going as Quentin gets to lambast her for real about concealing Sara's death from him, saying she broke a trust that had built over a lifetime, and ending by forbidding her to come to the same AA meetings as him.
  • In "Lian Yu", Malcolm Merlyn is apparently killed in an unceremonious (albeit selfless) manner, and Evelyn Sharp is abandoned by Prometheus and left to die when he destroys Lian Yu.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The city has been renamed Starling City. This changed with the fourth season premiere.
  • Oliver not being called Green Arrow. Word of God states that this is because they intend to show Oliver's growth from vigilante to hero, and as such he's not Green Arrow yet - as such, Oliver finally took the name in the first episode of season four.
  • Oliver's mask being painted on. Mostly averted when Oliver finally donned a mask in Season Two's mid-season finale. Whilst the reception was positive, you can still find people disappointed that Oliver dropped the face paint in favor of the mask.
  • The Huntress being an Anti-Villain who Jumps Off The Slippery Slope rather being a hero.
  • Dinah "Laurel" Lance isn't the Black Canary, despite the possibility she could become take up the identity as the show progresses. As the show progressed, fans actually began to turn on the idea of Laurel ever becoming the Black Canary, and would rather the show strayed from the comics and kept Sara Lance in the role.
  • In Season 3, Team Arrow changing from the Oliver/Diggle/Felicity trio to including heroes-in-training Roy and Laurel as well. The change has definitely caused some unease as "Original Team Arrow" was considered one of the strongest aspects of Season 1 and 2.
  • Changing The Atom from a Sizeshifter into a man in generic Powered Armor has a few fans miffed. Fortunately, he can now change his size.
  • Taking Anarky, an Anti-Villain who's known to be a deconstruction of the typical violent sociopathic Bomb Throwing Anarchist villain type who shows the pros and cons to an anarchist political view, subverting the idea that anarchy is about chaos and violence, and turning him into... a typical violent sociopathic Bomb Throwing Anarchist type played completely straight, focused entirely on spreading chaos and violence rather than expressing any political views.
  • The direction that the show has taken since Marc Guggenheim took over as its main showrunner in Season 3. The episodes that have been produced under then are often criticized for shoddy writing, poor fight choreography, and especially the increasing focus on Felicity and her romance with Oliver. The biggest breaking points have been introducing Oliver's long-lost secret son William, the decision to kill off Laurel, and the Season 4 finale, which was so heavily disliked that the Arrow subreddit turned into a Daredevil subreddit in protest.
  • Averted ultimately in Prometheus' case. At first, quite a number of comic fans were really disappointed that the villain looked absolutely nothing like his original counterpart's cyber-Knight look, but a few agreed that Green Arrow deserves to face off against a major villain who has had a serious impact on his life from the source material. By the conclusion of the fifth season, this show's incarnation of Prometheus was widely praised as being one of the best villains of the show and is seen as a major reason for why the fifth season was able to Win Back the Crowd, despite this Prometheus heavily deviating from his comic books counterpart.
  • Eddie Fyers, one of the most prominent characters in the Green Arrow comics and Oliver's best frenemy, is reduced to a Starter Villain with none of the original character's snark or charm.
  • Some have expressed dislike over the Grand Finale showing that Oliver got to revive Moira, Tommy and Quentin, arguing that it undermines their impact on Oliver and the plot.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Constantine Drakon is one of DC's greatest martial artists and one of Green Arrow's greatest enemies. Here? He's merely a Starter Villain and Adaptational Wimp who gets defeated and killed in the very first episode.
  • Count Vertigo is one of Green Arrow's more prolific and frequent villains, being something of DC's own Doctor Doom, and a member of the Suicide Squad; however, the show used him as a small, minor threat that fans are split on either being entertaining or annoying. So, given that he's killed off after his third appearance, it's a bit wasteful. This is probably the reason Vertigo was made into a Legacy Character with Werner Zytle taking on the mantle. However, Zytle turns out to be almost as much of a waste, simply being another drug dealer, if a bit more of a threat than the first Count. Neither version of the character has Count Vertigo's manic-depressive issues either, nor are they nobility at all.
  • Sebastian Blood. Having a lot of build up as being a Dark Messiah and a monster who experimented on humans, while covering up his past of having killed his father, it's really a pity that he turned out to be just a patsy to Slade Wilson, and the real drive behind everything that happened is so that Slade can get his revenge rather than Blood's distorted vision of the future for Starling City.
  • After spending a season kicking ass, having actual chemistry with Oliver and making friends with all of Oliver's allies, and slowly coming to terms with her own low view of herself, Sara deciding to leave with Nyssa, forgoing her Character Development so Laurel can start to take her place as Black Canary, is a pretty lame way of leaving her character, especially since it makes the build-up of her story arc all for nothing. And then she's killed off anyway at the start of Season Three. Subverted with the news that Caity Lotz will be a regular on a second spin-off series, Legends of Tomorrow, with Sara being brought back by a Lazarus Pit.
  • Felicity:
    • While Felicity was still popular at the moment, there are a good few fans who feel she was wasted during Season 2. While she was easily one of the best parts of Season 1, Season 2 had her Promoted to Love Interest due to writers reaction to Stephen and Emily's chemistry; however, they spent very little time actually developing her character during the season, resulting in her having very little character development compared to the rest of the cast, despite having the second most screen time, after Oliver. Almost every conversation she had with anyone in the season was to do with Oliver, rather than herself or any other topic (the exceptions being Sara, Diggle, and Caitlin and Cisco in their guest episode). While Diggle, Sara, and Laurel all had story arcs and subplots about themselves and their personal development, Felicity spent most of the season just being "Oliver's girl." Severely fixed with Season 3, however, with Felicity getting her own romantic interests outside of Oliver (primarily Ray Palmer, along with building on her past Ship Tease with Barry Allen into making them a potential canon Crossover Ship), along with her own story arcs and fleshing out her backstory. In only five episodes, Felicity has gained more depth than she got in the entirety of the second season.
    • Unfortunately the complaints are back after the first few episodes, as Felicity has spent most of the season propping up other less popular characters rather than getting her own character arc. Between helping Ray build his Atom Suit and her Character Shilling of Laurel, she's had little chance to shine on her own. Even her Love Triangle between Ray and Oliver has been more about their respective issues and decisions than her own agency. It's an improvement but not by much.
    • This carried over to the end of season 3, even after Ray leaves and the Love Triangle between her, Oliver, and Ray is resolved. Felicity's own development takes a backseat to her position of Love Interest and most of her scenes are relegated to being about her relationship with Oliver, which follows straight into Season 4.
  • Diggle's also been hit with this in Season 3. Despite the possibilities of his links to Argus and H.I.V.E, relationship with Lyla, new-born daughter and the fact he's the longest-standing member of Team Arrow he's been relegated to a background presence while Laurel and later Ray take center stage. (The pair being Base-Breaking Characters does not help matters.)
  • Captain Boomerang. A prominent member of The Flash Rogues in the comics is reduced to a standard Villain of the Week during the crossover between the two shows and his beef is more with Team Arrow than Team Flash. And because this character appears in then-upcoming Suicide Squad (2016), this is probably the last we'll ever see of him. At least he wasn't killed off like Deadshot and Amanda Waller. Not until "Lian Yu", anyway.
  • The League of Assassins as a whole are this. We never find out exactly what their beliefs or mission are — save they are never allowed to leave the League without Ra's permission. Most of their conflict with Team Arrow stems from them trying to get Sara back and punish Malcolm for the Undertaking, what they do outside of their interactions with Team Arrow we never know, and considering Nyssa disbanded the League we probably will never know.
  • Laurel. Especially grating since the writers killed her off only to fill out a random plot point and because they felt her story was done. Yes, the Black Canary, a character with more history than the Green Arrow himself, has nothing to show.
  • Vigilante, especially during Season 6 is mostly just a one-note and extremely hypocritical Knight Templar despite being revealed as a rather pitiful Fallen Hero and Dinah's ex-lover Vince. When it finally seems like he'll get a chance to shine as he turns out to be much more like his Anti-Hero comic counterpart after being revealed as a Double Agent working to take down Cayden's group from within, he is killed to push Dinah's quest to avenge his death aka the exact same arc she had already completed in Season 5.
  • The Longbow Hunters get a fair amount of hype for Season 7, being made out to be so dangerous that even the League of Assassins feared them. Once they actually appear, most of their appearances mostly amount to having a few back-and-forth exchanges with an Oliver-less Team Arrow before disappearing. And once one of them, Kodiak, reappears and has a confrontation with Oliver, he's basically just tranquilized and interrogated like he's nothing more than a footnote. With the character buildup they got at the end of the sixth season, one has to seriously wonder why the Longbow Hunters were even used if most of their sporadic appearances basically amounted to nothing in the end and all their members were treated as an afterthought.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Some fans are disappointed in the Season 2 finale because despite Malcolm appearing in it, he never did much aside from persuading Thea to join him and never encountered Deathstroke himself. Of course, with John Barrowman recently being promoted to a series regular and Slade definitely still around, even though he's heavily incarcerated at the moment, that doesn't mean they won't still be able to meet up sometime in the future...
  • Thanks to killing her off, Sara's character arc becomes this as they get no real conclusion to it. Thankfully this is saved by the spin-off.
  • The Reveal that Malcolm actually was the one who orchestrated Sara's death, with a drugged Thea being the actual killer was met with this; largely because Laurel's arc throughout the first half of the season was her desire to avenge her sister's death, and the reveal essentially robs Laurel of the logical conclusion to her becoming Black Canary since she won't gain vengeance against the title character's archenemy.
  • Oliver's recovery from the events of the Climb (namely, being stabbed twice, once in the side and Impaled with Extreme Prejudice through the upper chest, by Ra's al Ghul and then kicked off a mountain over what must have been at least a one hundred foot drop, all exposed to the elements of a snowy mountain peak) is too quick and "normal" considering the grievous nature of his wounds. While the show has constantly shifted between "realistic" and "fantastical," this situation has dual disappointments: in a "realistic" setting, Oliver's wounds should be fatal, or at least seriously debilitating, while in a "fantastic" setting, they neglect to use either the Lazarus Pits or Mirakuru, both of which come with major and engaging caveats to their usage. Instead, he just gets a bandage and some nursing and he's fine.
  • Ra's and Merlyn's plotlines are getting this from a lot of people in Season 3:
    • In spite of Merlyn's habit of tap dancing over the Moral Event Horizon, and the numerous personal injuries he inflicts on Ollie and co., he's never really confronted or fought by the heroes, in spite of being the instigator of the entire Season 3 conflict, instead being in an Enemy Mine with them throughout. While he ends the season promoted to leadership of the LOA, it doesn't come off as any real grand plan, and required the heroes to hold the Idiot Ball for the majority of it.
    • Ra's, meanwhile, has a strong start to his storyline, but ends up just being Strictly Formula, both for the character and the show: like in the majority of his old Batman stories, he tries to marry a daughter to the protagonist and force them to take his place in the organization while threatening a cataclysmic terrorist attack on the heroes' city. There's no attempt to subvert or twist his tale at all, unlike with Merlyn's Season One plan or Slade's visceral feud with Oliver. He does everything he's done in other shows and comics, causes the least amount of damage, and loses a confusing fight with little build-up.
  • Arguably Oliver's supposed Face–Heel Turn and brainwashing into becoming Al Sah-him. Despite the fact that the writers could have very easily done this earlier in the season, which in turn would have increased the conflict between the heroes and the League, as well as make the audience second guess whether Oliver was truly good or crazy, he instead adopts the alias in the twentieth episode of the season, does some evil acts in the next episode and then the episode after that reveal he was faking it all along. Marc Guggenheim and co. admitted that they wished they had made Oliver join the league sooner.
  • After having been written out of the show, Roy Harper returns for a single episode in Season 4. His former girlfriend, Thea, has since taken up his mantle and costume, and is now struggling with a bloodthirst nearly identical to the rage issues Roy experienced under Mirikuru. Do the showrunners let Arsenal and Speedy go into battle side by side? Does Roy give Thea advice on how to control her rage? Do these Star-Crossed Lovers experience any sort of resolving arc to their relationship? No, because Thea spends nearly the entire episode in a coma, and they only get a brief conversation.
  • Chances for the return of Laurel Lance/Black Canary were dashed with the reveal that this Laurel is the villainous Earth-2 Black Siren, as seen in Season 2 of The Flash. Even then, while the character proved to have more depth than all of the new recruits combined, the idea of a reformed Black Siren becoming more like the natural Black Canary was also thrown out the window, with Black Siren being Evil All Along and Oliver and Felicity swearing to find someone worthy of filling their beloved Laurel's place on the team.
    • Laurel's death also destroys all the potential Sibling Team storylines for the Black and White Canary, which is a shame since the actresses and characters have great chemistry together. Sara's actress, Caity Lotz, feels the same way and is very vocal about it.
  • Ironically, although Rory Regan/Ragman addressed and resolved his personal issues with Felicity calmly and without any of the pointless drama that the Arrowverse has frequently been beset with, some fans wished that he actually had stayed angry at her longer (since she's responsible for the destruction of his entire city), if only so we could have someone with cause aggressively question Felicity.
  • Using Flashpoint could have helped with a Cosmic Retcon to negate all the negative aspects of the two consecutive Seasonal Rots but the majority of the showrunners' egos just won't let them budge. Marc Guggenheim later admitting to this does not help his case.
  • Some fans were disappointed that there wasn't a confrontation between Oliver's half sisters Thea and Emiko in season seven due to the former being Put on a Bus the previous season. The two finally did meet in the series finale though.
  • The series finale was the first time both Thea and Tommy were in an episode since it was revealed they were siblings, but the two of them don't really interact with each other.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The Flash Forward Arc in Season 7. No matter what the heroes do in the present, it'll be be pointless in twenty years, where Team Arrow has broken up (again!), Star City has collapsed into a Wretched Hive, while the Glades has become an independent municipality and refuses to help Star City as payback for years of mistreatment, and worse still the general population blames Oliver and the other vigilantes for Star City's fall. However, three episodes into season 8 and three of the heroes from the future storyline—Mia, William, and Connor—are mysteriously transported to 2019, with the ultimate hope that they can change the timeline to avert this dystopia from coming to pass to begin with.

U

• Unexpected Character:
  • John Constantine, a magical DC character from a cancelled show on another network, appears in the fourth season to introduce magic to a show mainly concerned with Badass Normals.
  • It was assumed Nyssa was the permanent stand-in for Talia al-Ghul in the Arrowverse, since Nyssa took Talia's role as Heir to the Demon, a foe-romantic interest of the hero, and one of the world's assassins. Then, three seasons after Nyssa first appeared, Talia popped into the show long after the League of Assassins had lost relevance.
  • Batwoman's announcement caught a lot of people off-guard, as the Batfamily are traditionally off-limits to the Arrowverse.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Thea and Felicity ruining the reputation of Susan Williams to protect Oliver's identity as the Green Arrow. Not only were they doing it for the sake of protecting Oliver, but given that he has lied, manipulated, and even killed people to keep his identity secret, this is extremely mild in comparison to what Oliver has done. Plus, Susan has in fact done things on the show that would have gotten her reputation destroyed if it were to come to light, such as sleeping with Oliver who she also happened to be investigating. If nothing else it's extremely hypocritical of Oliver to call Thea and Felicity out on it.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • In general, Season 1 forgets that the 'public' version of Oliver's story is still an incredibly traumatic experience for a person to go through, and that his friends and family should not expect to have the old Oliver back. Instead, it's played entirely as though Oliver's mission is what is affecting his relationship with his family, and since his family are unaware of it, they're justified in being upset at his erratic behaviour. Almost nobody seems willing to cut the man rescued from 5 years on a deserted Chinese island any slack at all for not being well-adjusted.
  • In the early part of the series, Oliver's main targets generally were corrupt businessmen rather than mobsters or supervillains, implying that the Mooks he killed were not career criminals but legitimate security personnel, which made the fact he left the corrupt businessmen alive quite questionable. This was likely the reason they had an episode taking on a corrupt security company who's leader was on The List, thus implying that the security personnel were similarly corrupt.
  • Early in Season 1, Oliver has a date with McKenna Hall. It goes well until she asks about Lian Yu. Oliver closes off at that point. McKenna (and by extension, the show) call Oliver a jerk for this, despite the fact it's barely been six months since he was rescued from being shipwrecked for half a decade. Apparently, being unwilling to talk about a 5 year Trauma Conga Line on a first date makes one a jerk.
  • While Helena was by no means sympathetic, her Villainous Breakdown and discovery that Vengeance Feels Empty was obviously invoked for sympathy and possible foreshadowing to a Heel–Face Turn. However, her cold-blooded acts (including torturing Tommy), Smug Snake attitude, and the Arc Fatigue that came with her made it not work for most fans. The fact that she's also more trigger-happy has resulted in some fans going "No, seriously, why doesn't someone just shoot her?"
  • There are some pockets of Laurel fans who feel this way about Sara. Despite the hell she went through, many of them feel Sara brought it on herself by going on a sex-filled getaway with her sister's boyfriend even though she knew Laurel wanted something serious with Oliver, and accuse her of ignoring the way her actions affected Laurel, not helped by the fact that Sara does attempt to downplay her betrayal of Laurel to justify her own relationship with Oliver. She also never actually properly apologizes to Laurel for said betrayal, which just highlights the problems these fans are calling her out on.
  • And, in contrast to that, everyone but Laurel fans feel this way about Laurel during Season 3. Many feel that her constant bitterness and Holier Than Thou attitude makes it hard to sympathize with her, especially considering that a lot of the crap she goes through is brought on by herself (after all, she did kind of know that Oliver was an infamous womanizer with commitment issues, and everyone, including Sara, pointed this out to her). It doesn't help that she's quick to blame others (with incredibly twisted logic and reasoning) and finds incredibly self-destructive ways to vent her angst. Hell, even when she's grieving for Sara's death, many have found it hard to sympathize with her because of how much she's acting like a villain with it (such as trying to kill Komodo, torturing a man who was nearly assassinated, and urging Nyssa to go behind Oliver's back to kill Malcolm, which puts Thea in danger, not that she would know that as by this point she was not aware that Malcolm was Thea's father). However, it does turn out that she was right about Malcolm being responsible for Sara's death. And the first thing Oliver does when he finds out? He tries to kill Malcolm anyway.
  • Felicity slipped into this as well. While some support her standing up to Oliver, even making snide little insults, over his decision to join forces with Malcolm Merlyn in order to defeat Ra's Al Guhl, others feel she's being both self-righteous and insensitive to what Oliver is going through.
    • Fans also find it hard to see her point on the subject of Oliver's son. Many feel like it is just another instance of Felicity being jealous that Oliver's life exists outside of her, or that once again Oliver has a bond with a pretty girl.
  • Near the end of Season 4, a father in the HIVE dome blames Oliver for joining HIVE, since he no longer had any hope Star City could be saved, with the implication being that this is actually a valid point. Except that the man is willingly part of the nuclear annihilation of the entire world, which is not only far beyond the scope of just Star City, but also utterly monstrous. The show treats him as innocent and he escapes scott-free.
  • The new recruits as of Season 6, especially since they have done nothing but act petty and hypocritical to Oliver, Diggle and Felicity. Special mention goes to Rene, who keeps pointlessly telling Oliver that nothing has changed, when he was the one who betrayed Oliver in the first place. Dinah choosing to go after Vincent instead of helping to stop Cayden James from blowing up the city and blaming Oliver for wanting to save millions instead of Vigilante, the man who tried to kill him and everyone else, is also problematic.
  • Curtis's anger at the original Team Arrow for Oliver putting Rene in the hospital comes off as extremely hypocritical when he almost did the exact same thing to Diggle, not to mention Oliver's fight with Rene started with Rene coming at Oliver with an axe. Had Oliver not been the better fighter, Rene could have killed him.
  • Team Arrow attempting to cover-up Roy Harper's bloodlust-induced murder of two security guards during the latest parts of Season 7 is glossed over despite being blatantly at odds with their approach as deputized agents of the law and them being under scrutiny.

V

• Values Dissonance: In the second episode of Series 3, the gang is illicitly burying a person. Felicity takes a handful of dirt and tosses it on top of the coffin. Upon spotting the confusion on everyone else's faces, she explains that it's a Jewish custom. The scene falls flat for British audiences because the mainstream British funerary custom is for the closest people to the deceased to toss the first handfuls of soil onto the coffin before the grave is filled in. In Britain, Felicity's act therefore does not stand out as unusual but the behaviour of the characters creates a dissonance between what a British audience would expect to see at a funeral and what the show's creators seem to think an American audience would expect to see.
• Vindicated by History:
  • Believe it or not, as revered as season 1 is now, reception was a lot more mixed when it was airing. Looking through IMDb reviews of early episodes, you would find that viewers loathed the show, with much criticism being directed at the actors' dull performances and lack of chemistry, the show being hit with typical CW clichés harder than usual, and a large number of characters from the comics being In Name Only, though the same users agree that the quality picked up around mid-season. Fast-forward to present day, after poorly-received seasons 3 and 4, and season 1's reputation is much better, with many saying season 1's fight scenes are some of the best in the Arrowverse.
  • Season 3 as of 2018. While not by any means perfect, it had a good share of strengths such as Roy's run as Arsenal, Thea's Character Development, Laurel and Ray's Hero's Journey, the Flash team up, the Brick trilogy, and Katana. The weak points of the season still include Sara's death being part of Malcolm's overly convoluted scheme, and Ra's al Ghul becoming a bland generic villain after his first fight in the midseason. Felicity's emotional outbursts are frustrating to watch, but are justified and tolerable. She wasn't quite The Scrappy yet, and had a chance to be fixed by the writers..
  • For some Season 4 is this to the more controversial parts of Season 6. It will still be infamously remembered as the one where Laurel died (at the time when she began owning the Black Canary mantle, no less). But, some good things came from the season. Diggle got a costume to call his own (helmet notwithstanding). Thea had a bad ass tenure as Speedy. Sara was revived to undo the fridge stuffing in Season 3. Ray gained his shrinking ability. Team Arrow consisted of the show's original and established characters (Curtis wasn't an official member yet). Damien Darhk, though a poor fit for Arrow, was still a very entertaining villain nonetheless. Constantine and his show were retroactively made part of the Arrowverse. And, Oliver adopted the name Green Arrow.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Ray Palmer's ATOM suit.

W

• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: After the infamous double wedding in Crisis on Earth-X, many fans openly began to wonder why Oliver continued to stay with Felicity despite her consistently selfish behavior over the past four seasons, which contributed significantly to the continuing decline of Olicity's popularity.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • Reception for Matt Nable as Ra's Al-Ghul was initially mixed, but come "The Climb" his performance and first fight scene won back many of the critics. By the end of the season, fan consensus was They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character, but Nable himself was held in extremely high regard.
  • Season 4 tried doing this when they had Oliver become the Green Arrow, and brought Sara back to life. Unfortunately the drama caused by William, Oliver's son coupled with Laurel's death, another tedious flashback arc, and a lackluster finale means Season 4 comes off worse than Season 3 ever was.
  • Season 5 luckily has it happening for real, with a large infusion of fresh blood on the team, a pointed end to everyone keeping secrets from each other (perfectly exemplified by Felicity only taking one episode to admit to Ragman her role in his hometown's destruction), and even the flashbacks becoming engaging again as they finally cover Oliver's introduction into the Bratva and have regular direct connections to the present day story. By the end of the season, many fans and critics are hailing it as the best yet, due in no small part to the higher emotional stakes, compelling villain, the return of beloved characters, and an explosive finale that was quickly considered one of the series' best episodes.
  • Season 7 started off strong. The original status quo was completely obliterated by the end of Season 6, so the Beth Schwartz and her team hit the ground running by using it as a clean slate to play with characters differently from Diggle and Curtis working for ARGUS to Siren, Dinah and Felicity teaming up. The Slabside story arc has been well received. And, cathartically, dismissing Wendy Mericle and reassigning Uncle Guggie into a hands off position. The later half of the season had issues and fell into okay-average territory, but for the most part Season 7 did win fans back.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • Diggle's new costume in season 4 became pretty divisive rather quickly, in large part because it looks like Magneto. Which veers straight into Hilarious in Hindsight (if not Teasing Creator) when he uses some kind of magnetic device to deflect an enemy's hammer attack. The crew took notice and a redesign was teased in a Flash crossover episode halfway through the season. Notably, Cisco doesn't even have to ask what should be changed, like he already knew he didn't do his best with it.
  • Prometheus's costume looks absolutely nothing like his comic book counterpart, lacking his iconic helmet and replacing it with a Scarecrow-esque mask.
  • Dinah's "official" Black Canary costume, it bares no resemblance to anything Black Canary wore in the comics and looks like an extremely generic cosplay.
• The Woobie: Dear lord, yes. An incomplete list of characters who qualify:
  • Tommy's a guy with good intentions but at every turn, people just seem to shoot him down and don't look at what he's trying to be. For starters, he loses his best friend to a shipwreck, and when he goes to Hong Kong to find him, he gets kidnapped by said best friend as part of a plot to cover up the fact that he's still alive. His dad cuts him off from his trust fund, without so much as an advance warning, purely because he's fed up with Tommy being an Upper-Class Twit, which in a positive turn of events, leads to Tommy moving in with Laurel and taking a job at Oliver's club. Only that all blows up in his face when he learns that Oliver is the Hood, as he can't look at his best friend since childhood anymore and his own insecurities in comparison to Ollie result in him breaking up with Laurel because he thinks that if Laurel knew what he knew, she'd return to Ollie without a second thought. Oh, and his dad is also the Big Bad. Worse, when Ollie himself tells Tommy to go see Laurel, he sees them making out. Any attempt he makes to become a better person is shot down! And to top it all off, he dies in the Season One finale... by an earthquake caused by his dad. However, he got an opportunity of finding happiness since his death was undone and he got to marry Laurel.
  • Quentin: His daughter died while sleeping with his other daughter's boyfriend, resulting in his wife leaving him. He's spent the time since blaming himself, and now he's so consumed with anger he's unable to let anything go. His remaining daughter not only insists on dating the kind of men he hates, but then she started working with the Vigilante he's trying to take down; as far as he can see it, he's slowly losing the only family he has left and he can't stop it happening. He's briefly reunited with Sara, and learns she's the Canary, but has to tearfully keep her secret and watch her go back on the run, because if she stays her family will be in the League's crossfire. What's more now that Sara's dead, Laurel can't bring herself to tell him the truth out of a justifiable fear that, thanks to his poor heart, the stress will literally kill him.
    • Season Four doesn't make this any better by killing off Laurel too. Quentin has now buried his daughters 3 times, and he only had 2 to begin with.
    • Season Five takes this even further by having him relapse into alcoholism and even suggesting that he is Prometheus. He isn't, but it nonetheless could have served as yet another example of his misfortune.
    • The comedy/parody series CW Slamfest highlights this in the episode "The Empty Quiver" by pointing that not only has the show killed off both of his daughters (sure, Sara is revived, and Laurel has an Earth-2 metahuman doppelganger, but still), it has also put him in a relationship with Donna Smoak, one of the most unpopular characters in the show. It's heartbreaking to see him break down into tears because of what the show has done to him.
  • Laurel: Boyfriend cheated on her with her sister and possibly others as well, then both of them got lost on a boat trip, meaning that she wasn't able to grieve or be mad at them. She finds herself drawn to the wrong type of men, her father's protectiveness borders on manipulation, and she's unable to really help anyone without breaking the law by aiding and abetting a killer and vigilante. Then her new boyfriend (Tommy) breaks up with her for no good reason she can see, and she winds up sleeping with Oliver, only for Tommy to die in the Glades, and Oliver to disappear for a few months. She is also manipulated into thinking she is crazy about Sebastian Blood during her addiction arc in Season Two. And just when things look like they're about to pick up for her in Season Three, having coming to terms with Tommy's death, learning about Oliver's identity as the Arrow, helping him, and making up with Sara, it comes to an abrupt end: someone kills Sara and Laurel is there to see her fall to her death, if hitting her head or three arrows to the stomach didn't do the job already.
  • Moira's only trying to protect her family, but to do so, she has to cross so many lines that its killing her. She had to allow her husband to be killed, an incident that also nearly killed her beloved son, and left him missing for five years. Her second husband then tried to dig into what she was doing, forcing her to sit back and allow him to be abducted. When she tried to end all of this, it ended up resulting in innocents dying in a crossfire, then forcing her to rat out her friend Frank to avoid being implicated and her family being killed.
  • Thea, despite coming off as bratty, had to suffer the deaths of her father and beloved big brother at 12, and with little support due to how grief stricken her mother was, wound up turning to drugs. Her brother returns home 5 years later, and doesn't seem to want anything to do with her whilst at the same time treating her like he did 5 years earlier. And to top it off, she found out that she's the product of an affair between her mother and the Big Bad Malcolm Merlyn. On top of that she was brainwashed and forced to murder Sara, who she considered a friend, by Malcolm.
  • Tatsu, who watched her son die, soon after which her husband abandoned her to join the League of Assassins. She is so distraught by these events she goes in to self exile, living years in solitude. She only comes out of the solitude to help Oliver and Maseo. To help Oliver's friend's she is forced to kill Maseo and is taken prisoner by the League. When she is freed she decides to simply go back into her life of solitude. It's clear that she has hit the Despair Event Horizon.
  • Billy Malone, an enthusiastic and well-meaning detective who unfortunately gets caught up in the conflict between Oliver and Prometheus. At first things are going pretty great for him: his new position in the Anti-Crime Unit and his relationship with Felicity allow him to join the fight against crime alongside his idol, the Green Arrow. All of that changes, however, when he is kidnapped by Prometheus on the job, and in a cruel twist, is killed without hesitation by- you guessed it- the Green Arrow.

---