Arrow. Green Arrow tv show.

Uhh I...guess so? And it's nothing against those people. They are entitled to their very valid opinions.

I just personally don't get the hate. Never have. I think Felicity is a very strong, well-defined character. It was the same when Laurel was the fandom's punching bag. I didn't understand it back then, either.

edited 19th Aug '17 4:24:19 PM by deuteragonist

I am not sure what is not to get. I can understand if you mean I understand they don't like Felicity, but do not agree with them on the matter. Not understanding why they dislike Felicity when people explained why just does not make sense or am I missing something in regards to what you are saying?

edited 19th Aug '17 5:42:00 PM by Darthwyn

Um... I think we are misunderstanding each other? I do understand why people dislike Felicity's character in terms of not liking her personality, her relationship with Oliver, or her just not being a person's cup of tea. But the venomous rage and hatred people have for a fictional human being (such as fan pages, blogs, youtube videos, and hashtags dedicated to said character) is just ridiculous to me. And that goes for any show, not just Arrow.

Also, "not getting" an opinion and "disagreeing" with one are not two different things. And it doesn't help that the arguments made against Felicity make very little sense most of the time. So I guess...agree to disagree?

edited 19th Aug '17 9:37:26 PM by deuteragonist

I also never shared the dislike for Felicity, especially not in Season 5 where she was indeed shown as a very, very flawed individual instead of the Mary Sue many people claim her to be. Especially loved the scene with her and Oliver in the bunker.

Liam Hall cast as Joe Wilson[1]

‘Arrow’ Is Doing a ‘Black Lives Matter’ Episode in Season 6: http://screencrush.com/arrow-black-lives-matter-season-6/

It occurs to me that Vandal Savage probably would've worked better on Arrow than as a crossover/Legends villain.

His skillset would make him a credible threat to Oliver's team and he could have filled the same role of immortal, long-lived warlord that Damien Darhk filled - his vicious, malevolent personality combined with Darhk's connections and sense of humor would have made for a more cunning, charismatic Vandal Savage and spared us the incompetent, Card-Carrying Villain behavior of Darhk. His daughter, Scandal Savage, could have taken on a bigger role in the plot and supplied the same emotional asset to Vandal's character without Savage opting to blow up the world and spend his last moments with her - she'd be his Morality Pet, or worse, a Les Enfants Terrible. Better than being erased from the timeline and her only significant role being the recipient of a Breaking Speech from Leonard Snart of all people.

Savage would've fit the show's Sliding Scale Of Villain Threat better - from master archer who underwent superior training to Oliver's, to mercenary super soldier who trained Oliver, to ancient warlord with an organization of people equal to Oliver in skill, to immortal conqueror whose ages of experience have made him superior to Oliver both in skill and resources. Savage actually has lived since ancient times through a cosmic event - I'd say that puts his pedigree higher than "rich Aryan with a magic totem." It wouldn't be hard to imagine Savage gaining access to a few nukes/fission material over the years.

I don't know, maybe it's just rambling, but Savage just feels more "thematically appropriate" as an Arrow villain than a Flash or Legends villain. He would've/could've hit the same personality traits and plot beats that Darhk did, and hit them better as an established character from the comics over some C-list extra with Force powers.

We wouldn't have stupid scenes like Savage managing to throw knives faster than Barry can dodge them, or need to give him a staff that can magically fight off 8 people with shockwaves and lasers. The Staff of Horus would've A) been a better introduction of magic into Arrow than Darhk's mysterious totem BS, and B) would've given Team Arrow something to hunt for/hide/assemble/protect for a good portion of the season.

Of course this would probably leave Legends Season 1 without a villain - unless you had Merlyn revive Savage through some last-minute ritual of some kind. But I doubt the writers would do something stupid like that just to keep Savage in play.

edited 9th Sep '17 12:42:44 PM by Soble

...

Well.

I know right. It's actually damned funny - out of all of the shows, you'd expect Arrow to tackle social issues. It's bizarre that it was the one superhero show that wasn't doing that and pretty ballsy considering, IIRC, GA is known as the "political superhero." That's his main shtick, that's his hook. It almost invalidates the first four seasons when you take that away from the character.

Now they're just concentrating it in small, 1-episode doses.

A BLM episode. On Arrow. See this could work if it had been back in Season 1 or 2 back when we still gave a crap about these people and their pedestrian lives actually mattered. But seeing as:

• They've just survived an exploding island.
• Oliver survived years in hell and has since become SUPER SOMETHING ELSE
• Lance has seen both of his daughters die TWICE
• Felicity has been shot and paralyzed (clearly she's suffered the msot)
• Diggle has been shot, stabbed, blown up, imprisoned and framed
• Lyla is in charge of ARGUS and running all kinds of shady crap off-screen

The relevance and the timeliness of a BLM episode seems minimal. It's like if Lord of the Rings was followed by a sequel about Aragorn trying to raise a family. Like, who the hell cares? Or if after Batman v Superman we suddenly followed up with Batgirl or Nightwing solo films instead of Justice League. Like, what?

At this point the cast and their various developments have long since passed the point where intermittent social issues feel relevant towards any of them. Maybe if there were a genuine subplot about them trying to reintegrate into society but, even then, we just got them off of an exploding island.

They'd be better off doing this on either Black Lightning or Legends where the setting shifts to different time periods on every episode.

But, I guess between the archers and the ninjas and Felicity Smoak we're getting a Black Lives Matter episode. On a show with two black characters of importance, total.

The gun control episode almost works because there are two members of the cast who have dynamically opposed views - even if it's a bit hypocritical in regards to what these characters do for a living - at least there's a conflict.

You know what, I'm actually curious as to how or what they're going to make this relevant to Team Arrow in the slightest.

edited 9th Sep '17 1:01:32 PM by Soble

The show about a rich, white, violent vigilante with a history of torture and a trail of bodies is going to have an episode about Black Lives Matter. And the episode was inspired by Spectre of the Gun.

I... I don't know what to say. I have no words to describe how idiotic that sounds.

How about really idiotic.

There are some words right there.

I mean, the main character is a mayor (assuming he's managed to hold onto his job), and the main cast includes two ex-cops and two black men, and they're involved in violent shootout scenarios all the time, so it makes sense this would be something they'd deal with at some point in some capacity. And them tackling that sort of real world issue could be interesting. But "Spectre of the Gun" definitely had a Very Special Episode feel to it, and based on what Guggenheim said, it sounds like they're steering into that rather than dialing back on it.

I'm not really casual fan of the Green Arrow, but isn't one of his defining character traits being a huge liberal?

A BLM episode wouldn't be the worst thing the show has done (as long as its tasteful). And I don't think it's idiotic necessarily, just...odd. I say this as a black man in America, though, so of course I'm heavily biased. But still, Arrow could do worse things.

I'm hoping that they find a creative way to address BLM in that episode. Perhaps this could be one of those episodes where we can see the better side of Curtis, he definitely needs some better writing. He needs to become more competent, he finally made the T-Spheres which is good, it'd be nice if he became a better fighter as well.

Does he have to be a better fighter? Not every male character has to kick ass in combat.

My worry with more political episodes so that they're going to half ass "both sides have a point" them, which is what they did with the one last season.

Green Arrow is a very political hero, he's a very left wing figure, so doing a half assed "well both sides have a point and are reasonable people" on issues where that's not true is not going to go over well.

Mr. Terrific is a top-tier martial artist in the DC Universe last I checked.

Also, his superpower is literally "being better than you at everything," or, quoted more accurately, "having an aptitude for having aptitudes."

Because this is a TV show where superpowers and magic are usually downplayed (and probably because of how broken that ability sounds), having Curtis just be a master hacker and aspiring vigilante works. And he was slowly getting better over the course of the season (glacially, but he was improving). They even gave him his T-Spheres. What I wanted to see was him being the most promising trainee on New Team Arrow.

The problem is that they haven't faithfully recreated the character's skill set and, with him happening to be gay in this depiction, making him the second-least competent combatant is kind of messed up. But given that they made the Black Canary rely on a sonic device before finally giving us a Canary who was an actual metahuman, and they turned The Atom suit into a wannabe Iron Man suit, I suppose it's not that surprising.

edited 10th Sep '17 7:41:50 AM by Soble

Really? I always thought it was just because he was a nerd. I mean, the best fighter in this universe is Badass Bisexual Sara Lance.

But no, in all seriousness Curtis does need better writing.

I don't know, the gun control-centric episode last season was fairly weak in its presentation. It was a magical "We talked things out civilly and came to a solution everyone is happy with" ending. The early seasons were more about calling attention to social injustices (primarily corporate corruption) as a backstory for Oliver's motivation rather than trying to offer a trite solution to the whole problem. Supergirl also had a reference to the gun control issue when criminals started using advanced alien weapons for their crimes, and when people said they should arm themselves the hero's response was the real world claim "That is not the solution" when it's pretty obvious regular law enforcement is outmatched there, ruining any realistic commentary or discussion.

Another thing too is that the various Arrowverse shows have made efforts to portray various minority groups as being well respected and accepted in the community in the modern day, with openly gay characters, people of color and women all having various positions of power and notoriety and their particular "minority" qualities are non-issues. I mean, Curtis is a gay black man and no one has commented on that being unusual.

So I'm not too interested in anything they have to say regarding Black Lives Matters because I don't think they'll be able to do it properly. I'll admit though, if they took a stance to be critical of the movement (not the cause) rather than find some sort of middle ground that would be ballsy and earn my respect.

Yeah, but if done incorrectly it'll piss me a lot of people off.

edited 10th Sep '17 10:12:17 AM by deuteragonist

I can't stand Curtis. His constant cringe comedy and adorkable moments in the middle of tense situations have gotten really grating IMO. This is all a damn shame cause I think he has a lot of potential to be a great everyman. Being one of the few characters that's not a cinematic master of combat, struggling to fit in with his teammates, and not having a backstory of tragedy would have made him unique and refreshing, but he's just annoying to me.

One route they could go is have an officer unjustly shoot a black man, but Star City's government is conspicuously not charging him with anything, which would raise two dilemmas: (1) how much of Oliver's political leverage as mayor is he willing to expend trying to make this one guy face charges, and (2) is this the sort of case where, as vigilantes, Team Arrow should deal out some sort of punishment if the legal system isn't going to (or, if Vigilante is still at large, how much effort should they put into stopping him from doing the vigilante justice thing).

Yeah, that bothers me too. I know there are people who like levity and all that, but for me, I'm like "Take this serious because this is serious." There's a time and a place.

Anyway, BLM episode, I'm...slightly dreading this, but I'm hoping for it to turn out well. I'm in a similar camp where I'm a black guy going into this wondering just how will they address this. I'm glad for this stuff if it'll lean towards Ollie picking up even more of his comic's liberal leanings.

Yeah, I'm not a Curtis fan either. Cisco and Felicity are extremely good at geeky comic relief, but Curtis' comic relief just doesn't feel earned because the writers don't seem to know what to do with him half of the time.

The only way I would see the second scenario working is if said black man was Diggle. I hope they don't do that because I would be furious.

edited 10th Sep '17 11:56:47 AM by deuteragonist

Diggle would be best, certainly better than a random black extra that we'll never see again. Perhaps Mayor Queen wants to apply the same Both Sides Have a Point philosophy as he had on gun control, and ends up learning that racism hidden behind politics is still racism so he has just as much a duty to fight it as gangs and supervillains.

Count me in for the black man wondering just how they'll handle this list.

I'm not excited for it to be honest, but lets hope they surprise us.

It would provide great character drama, but it would also be incredibly tone-deaf. Using Diggle as a plot device for a Black Lives Matter episode just sounds awful. The only way I can actually see it working on some level is if it's Diggle's Episode. However, if it's an episode with Diggle getting shot and lying in a hospital bed unconscious for a majority of the episode while the other character's scream and cry and attempt to get some vigilante justice on the cops then I will lose my mind. And if he dies, I will never watch this show again.

Not to mention, Diggle is awesome and I'm really sick of the writers putting him in danger just to develop Oliver's character. He deserves better than that. The writers don't even do that with Felicity as much as they do it with Diggle.

edited 10th Sep '17 12:47:40 PM by deuteragonist