Arrow. Green Arrow tv show.

"I hate you Ollie for now telling me you are an ax crazy archer for 3 years!!"

"Well Thea you haven't told me about being a badass archerette for...six months?...too!!"

Malcom:"Fuck this, time for some action therapy!" *dumps them on Lian Yu* "And now for the action" *opens Slade's cage*

edited 30th Jan '15 11:38:58 AM by 3of4

I just hope this doesn't end with Deathstroke Back for the Dead.

I would like for the dctverse to have an active Slade running around. I would also like it to have the Shade show up and do Shade-y things like make funny sarcastic comments, reminisce about stealing things for giggles, appreciate fine art and imply he goes out drinking with Ras Al Ghul.

Slade/Malcom Buddy Villain Spinoff?

Ollie knew Thea had Archery training she had trophies in her room. He just didn't know about the sword fighting and hand to hand combat.

One of the things I want to see is Barry and Flash having some of their serious enemies' plans filter over onto the other, even in a minor way while the main plot without making the actual plotlines be taken over by them too much. It makes sense for them to at least be up to speed with what the others are up to (more sense on Ollie's side than Barry's, admittedly).

Something like the Rogues, once they get their numbers up, pulling a job in Star City - which is the kind of thing Ollie's never really had to face before.

Or, eventually, a plot where Barry and Ollie face a threat more important than a oneshot villain/scheme together.

They already did this. Twice.

You mean the two oneshot villains with oneshot schemes?

edited 30th Jan '15 1:21:03 PM by KnownUnknown

I honestly don't get why people have a problem with Laurel doing things that other characters on this show receive relative less flak for. I remember how during the second episode of this season we had people chewing her out for torturing the guy ignoring that earlier we had Oliver stringing up someone and hitting him in the stomach to get information.

Oliver is a vigilante anyway. Laurel is a fully vested Prosecutor and Agent of the Law. Maybe people expect someone who chose that profession to have higher standards than the guy shooting other people full of arrows.

Perhaps but said guy is/was the face of billion dollar company. Why does he get to act screwed up when Laurel doesn't.

Because he's ultimately still a private citizen. Laurel is not. Again higher standards apply.

To be fair, Laurel spent two seasons being more or less inefficient in bringing justice to Starling City, while witnessing her little sister, who was always supposed to be the failure of the two, make more good than her by donning a mask and a wig and kicking bad guys in the nuts. That had to make her think.

Also, most vigilantes who do the "threaten the thugs" shtick are The Stoic, whereas Laurel is very... err... vocal about her emotions, to put it kindly...

Because they don't like her so everything she does is wrong.

edited 1st Feb '15 3:04:17 PM by tricksterson

Hey, I'm at best indifferent to her right now :P I can dislike actions without blanket dislike.

I would like Laurel better if they actually wrote her character well instead of clumsily trying to turn her into Black Canary out of nowhere.

This.

I've heard everything from 'Her character is clumsily written and poorly executed' to 'She's a massive horrifying bitch, look at how she did something seemingly innocuous or that everyone else is doing' to 'She is fucking ugly, look at her chicken legs' to 'She reminds me of a woman who dumped me so I hate her'. People just really hate Laurel.

edited 1st Feb '15 3:43:55 PM by oppyu

I did hate her, back in S1 where there was the terrible romance plot with Oliver. It is all but gone now, she's far from my favorite character, but I find her development to be really interesting. More than Oliver shecan show how you go from normal person to superhero - Oliver already was a badass mfer from the Pilot onwards.

But Fandom Development is always more complicated than Character Development.

I just don't understand what Laurel contributes to the story that wasn't already being contributed by Sarah. Really, it seems weird to write it so there are two sisters, one is already Black Canary, and then she dies so the other one can be Black Canary. What's the point? Why not just have one Composite Character of Sarah and Laurel?

And, of course, since Sarah's death came out of nowhere with no foreshadowing or buildup and now Laurel's automatically the new Canary, the sisters are falling victim to They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character and Replacement Scrappy.

edited 1st Feb '15 4:18:33 PM by spashthebandragon

Before season 2 all we knew about Sara was that she was Laurel's sister who died on a boat while she was sleeping with Oliver. If Sara could live that down then I think Laurel deserves a chance to win people over as Black Canary. And she's far from the only character whose arc was advanced by the death of a loved one. Hell, Oliver's had four of them!

Sarah's appearance as Black Canary was more of a mystery, though. When she first showed up, it was a Shocking Swerve that brought in the League of Assassins and took the entire show in an interesting new direction. With Laurel, we get to see her transformation into Black Canary in extreme detail, and, frankly, it's just not as interesting.

I mean, which of these sounds like the more interesting and sympathetic character?

-Girl who was on the boat with Oliver and was cheating on her sister with him, basically making her Oliver's Distaff Counterpart since they went through similar experiences together on the island. Then she got tied up with the League of Assassins, apparently killing people and doing things she's not proud of (and getting Ra's al Ghul's daughter as a love interest) before returning to Starling.

-Girl who lounged around Starling for years being a regular person. When Oliver returned, she spent most of her screentime being (rightfully) angry with him and getting involved in a love triangle. When her boyfriend died, she spiraled into drug addiction and acted like a jerk to everyone. Eventually, she got over herself and was happy to find out her sister was alive- oops, nope, her sister died again. She responded to this by becoming so angry that the only possible response was to dress as a vigilante to beat up criminals in honor of her sister. But she sucked at it, so she had to get boxing lessons. After Oliver's apparent death, she finally decided to don a costume and fight crime... only she still sucks at it and has gotten her butt handed to her practically every time she puts on the costume. Maybe in time she'll learn to suck less and become a valuable member of Team Arrow. Oh boy. I can't wait.

edited 1st Feb '15 4:52:59 PM by spashthebandragon

Wait a minute, wasn't there a scene back in season one where Laurel beat up a bunch of thugs to establish she already had fighting skills? Have all those boxing lessons made her worse at fighting?

Well I can turn it around

- Girl goes on a boating trip with her sister's boyfriend that neither are supposed to be on. She is rescued and held hostage by a mad scientist and through a series of contrivances joins a terrorist organization and begins a relationship with the head of said organization's daughter. She returns to her hometown bringing with her a team of assassins which puts her family in danger which she was fully aware would happen. Then she jumps back into be with the guy she was initially sleeping with despite knowing the amount of grief this relationship brought on her family.

- Girl loses her boyfriend and sister to an accident at sea. She watches her parents' relationship go down the toilet as her father loses himself to the bottle and her mother stubbornly refuses to believe Sara is dead. Meanwhile, she is torn between hating her sister and mourning her loss. Eventually, she graduates law school and gets a job at a law firm which helps the less fortunate. Then her boyfriend resurfaces and he alternates between wanting to be friends and telling her to stay away from him. We later learn that her mom knew about the affair yet encouraged it. Then her current boyfriend dies in an earthquake and she falls into depression and alcoholism (given Quentin had a similar reaction to Sara's 'death' we can assume Laurel is genetically predisposed to such behavior). She cleans herself up but then her mom gets kidnapped because her sister got in bed (literally and metaphorically) with some bad people. Said sister is also screwing her ex which is how this situation started in the first place. Eventually she makes peace her sister only for her to die. Now she takes up her code name to honor her.

And this is just with Laurel and Sara. I'm sure you can find equal amount of negatives and positives with just about any character on this show.

I was emphasizing "sympathetic and interesting," not "negative and positive." Sarah's island-and-ninja adventures strike me as distinctly more interesting than Laurel's lounging around Starling, doing drugs, and learning boxing. Although you're right that Sarah's also done some unsympathetic things, but then again, which characters on this show haven't held the Idiot Ball at some point or other?