And earlier this very season, Kara disintegrated a couple White Martians.
You obviously haven't seen the Season 2 finale of Legends.
Why are we so sure Lena is evil now?
While I know it's cliche to complain about this
, still: super-speed. They should all have it if my guessing was right and Alura and Sam had the same powersets of Kara and Reign.
And Sam frankly should be ashamed. If the villain fires heat beams at you and you have the same powers as them, throw the heat beams back!
They had backups!
Heck, they had a villain whose shtick was killing people in the blink of an eye and he still only managed to kill Amaya and Palmer by the finale.
Since when were we was I not absolutely certain she was evil!? That's all I've said since she was introduced!
Maybe not puppy-kicking evil, but scheming definitely. That scene at the end with the glowing alien rock was an "oh crap, she's plotting something" kind of scene, not a, "hmm, Lena will probably use this mysterious alien rock for good" kind of scene.
edited 19th Jun '18 10:38:37 PM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!
This is a title.
Luthor. Not evil. And ne'er the two shall meet. But she's not Lex. On an evil scale of one to ten, Lex is an 11. Lena's a 3, tops.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!
What has she done throughout the show that can be considered evil? Yeah she keeps secrets. So does everybody in the Arrowverse. I'd argue the DEO is closer to being evil than her at times.
If being a schemer makes you evil, then every guile hero is a villain.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The original comic version of Lena wasn't a villain. Hell there have been herioc versions of Lex like with Injustice.
edited 20th Jun '18 6:32:16 AM by windleopard
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Yeah, Lena ain't necessarily a villain. She's arguably just doing the same thing she did when she teamed up with Mon-El's mom: taking an opportunity to better the world. It's one of her driving motivations.
As for Sam and Allura not using Super-Speed...well, they are both massively inexperienced with their powers, as Sam showed us when she got punked out even after catching Reign off guard with a Sneak Attack. Of course they'd both be too slow to dodge.
One Strip! One Strip!
She's taken over a company that made its name in corporate evil, she's a Luthor, she's conventionally attractive, and she's been conspicuously unaware of Kara's true identity this whole time.
Further warning signs:
- What reason is there for Lena to not know who Supergirl is when she's this far into the circle? (Granted, I skipped most of this season, did she figure it out?)
- They've deliberately set her up to break bad with her mother and pulled away, a common method to rear us up for a Face–Heel Turn later. It heightens the drama when a character has spent so much time towing the line as a Face, holding on their protagonist traits, that when they become a Heel, it hits much, much harder. You see this a lot in television: You see this a lot in television
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl, Brainy Brunette, Good Is Not Soft, Raven Hair, Ivory Skin, Black-and-White Morality, The Rich Have White Stuff = EEEEE-VILL
- This show lacks an obsessive, muggle villain since Max Lord was Put on a Bus and Lena fills that role easily
The only heroic Lex Luthor's I've seen were Smallville's (but he was still motivated by self-interest), and alternate versions of him from other realities like Injustice and Crisis on Two Earth's. There aren't that many good Lex Luthor's in the multiverse.
People keep secrets in the Arrowverse yes - but those secrets are different in scope and presentation.
- Oliver's secrets always come to light and always come back to haunt him, and we've already seen him pretend to be Brainwashed and Crazy, and a literal Nazi version of him, and we've seen him fight his own team. Plus we just got through an arc of Oliver trying to be the better vigilante and turning his friends against him. Oliver also doesn't come from a family that spawned half of one of the most famous rivalries in comic book history - he came from a family that was evil in their own way and died karmically for it. He checks out.
- We've seen Barry's evil doppelganger in the flesh so we've seen what sort of evil he can become (and therefore won't), plus he rarely keeps secrets outside of his crush on Iris.
- The Legends are made up of killers, thieves, and vagabonds to begin with. The show goes out of its way to make them as comically uncoordinated as possible. They might be incompetent screw-ups, but being Anti-Hero-ic is part and parcel with their show. Most of their big secrets came out in Season 2 anyway.
- Supergirl doesn't really do any of that - the secrets on this show are usually centered around emotional drama than any threat to public safety or some kind of . Alex's resentment towards her mother, Kara's buried feelings about her and Alex's childhood, Winn's parentage, J'onn's martian origins, James being Guardian, the president being an alien, Mon-El still having feelings for Kara.
The only thing that's signaled to me that Lena isn't going to be evil is that she wasn't in the comics, but to say that this show closely follows the Supergirl comics would be laughable
edited 20th Jun '18 7:59:39 AM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!
edited post.
edited 20th Jun '18 8:03:47 AM by windleopard
Because Kara's an even bigger idiot when it comes to secret identities than Oliver and Barry. I mean, Oliver and Barry didn’t even tell Laurel and Iris respectively. Laurel found out from Slade of all people and Iris figured it out on her own. In Smallville, Lois was the last to find out about Clark’s secret and he only confessed to it after she’d already deduced it.
That's not what a red herring is. The Red Herring would be if she was presented as evil originally only to be revealed as a villain later.
There's not drama in going for cheap and obvious choices. Lena being a villain has no basis other than her last name.
Also, Willow and Angel didn't stay villains and were never presented as villains from the beginning. Regina started out as a villain but pulled a face turn.
[[quoteblock]]Aloof Dark-Haired Girl, Brainy Brunette, Good Is Not Soft, Raven Hair, Ivory Skin, Black and White Morality, The Rich Have White Stuff = EEEEE-VILL
That's not how this works and what black and white morality? Sure you're not thinking about Kara?
Not the same as good Luthors not existing.
So do Lena's.
What do these have to do with anything?
Oh you mean the same arc he's had since the show began?
There's also him lying about being the Flash and changing the timeline the latter of which is far more egregious than anything Lena's done.
By this logic the show should make Kara a villain then. She's shown signs of being a liar, a hypocrite and a control freak.
Dude, I get that you desperately want her to be evil, I just don't see it.
You lost!
Foreign Troper
Ditto. The worst I can see Lena becoming is a Well-Intentioned Extremist / Anti-Hero opposing Kara, not out of malice, but because of different methods in dealing with villains.
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But it is? A red herring is a misleading clue. So I should have said it'd be two Red Herring's, or a double subversion - there'd be a clue that Lena will become evil because of her mother's influence, and another because the show outwardly portrayed Lena as a benevolent figure and really tried to lay this on before shifting her alignment later.
It's written right on Lena's section on the character page.
When you said "anybody who has secrets would also be evil" I don't consider it the same in Arrow's case because we've seen what form the evil versions of those characters takes. That's why I bring up Nazi Oliver and Brainwashed Oliver.
(1)
Comparatively:
- We've seen Butt-Monkey beta-male Winn and we've seen Four-Star Badass Winn and we've seen Winn with an alien girlfriend (whatever happened to her?)
- We've seen the James who was trying to find thrills/purpose in his life by being a vigilante and not caring about the risks, and we've seen the James who died fighting for a cause
- We've seen Alex as a competent agent who Kara relies on, and we've seen her as a drunken mess who Kara supports. We've seen her as a hopeless romantic and as a confident lesbian.
- We've seen Clark the well-regarded, All-Loving Hero, and we've seen the more paranoid, skeptical, and unwavering Clark who distrusted J'onn
- We've seen J'onn, capable leader of the DEO who scrutinizes Kara, and we've seen J'onn J'onnz, the man living under an alias because of which he has to deal with a great deal of scrutiny
And so forth. We see a lot of dimensions to these characters. With Lena, we've only seen the woman who was despearately trying to make a friend and found that friend, and now we're seeing the more scurupulous, less trustworthy side of her. We've seen her mother as another evil, female scientist, yes, but these two are not the same character, nor is Lillian a doppelganger
I also brought that up to point out that Oliver has had a longer time to develop and iron out his more negative traits.
(1)
Lena has been around for two seasons and hasn't had the same amount of time to develop. We've seen her stressed, we've seen her under scrutiny, we've seen her clear her name, we've seen her develop a powerful friendship, we've seen that friendship tested because of a betrayal of trust, and (apparently) we've seen her make a connection/hook up with James, a character going through an identity crisis of a slightly different sort.
As further evidence that Oliver being evil because he keeps secrets would have less purpose than Lena being evil because she keeps secrets would. Most of the conflicts and betrayals of trust on Supergirl aren't extremely dangerous breaches of trust like Oliver working for Ra's, or Barry changing the timeline, or Rip forming a team under false pretenses. Supergirl hasn't really done sort of conflict on her show, while Arrow has done so time and time again.
Kara's the main character. If she's evil, she won't stay evil. If she dies, she won't stay dead. She can be a hypocritical, lying control freak but as long as her name is in the title she will develop past this.
Lena is a supporting, Benevolent Boss character introduced in the second season who went through a character arc that deliberately set her up as a villain then flipped the script. She still has Good Is Not Soft traits, and she's the only member of the team AFAIK whose methods and morality were questionable this season.
revises above paragraphs to filter out weaker points and unnecessary information, strengthen certain points
checks thread
debates dropping this or abandoning half an hour worth of typing to the digital ether
tl;dr: Well alright then. I suppose that's fair but-
She's EEEEEEEVVVVV-IL. Evil, I tell you!
Why am I the only one who can see it? Just you wait and see. The moment she drops the friendly face and slams that heel down on Kara's back I'm going to come back here and laugh at you. All of you!
You'll all see I wasn't crazy!
-runs off screaming into the distance-
Oliver was being actively hunted by the police for several premeditated murders. Barry has been keeping prisoners in his secret laboratory for weeks to months without any sort of warrant or jurisdiction... I understand perfectly, well, I kind of understand why they didn't want to tell Laurel or Iris.
Smallville was a ball of Silver Age nonsense on a good day. Clark lost his powers because of a lightning strike, and once had Jor-El take them away and give them to Lois as a form of marriage counseling.
While I suppose it runs in her family, Kara is objectively the least excusable when it comes to not telling people. The city even forgave her for the Red Kryptonite incident.
edited 20th Jun '18 9:54:49 AM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!
At this point, Lena's been told that James is Guardian, that Sam is/was Reign, that Alex and Winn are agents for the DEO (an organization that civilians aren't even supposed to know exists), and I'm pretty sure that "Hank Henshaw" is actually J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter.
It kinda makes you wonder why Kara's secret is so special.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
I think it's because now that Lena is on the outs with Supergirl, Kara is afraid that revealing that secret will sink what's left of their friendship (and considering Lena's attitude towards Supergirl right now is never trust her ever again), she's not wrong.
Of course, it's her fault that they are in this situation, and Lillian Luthor flat out told her it would happen as well.
It's pretty clear she doesn't know what to do about revealing herself to Lena. I think she's afraid that knowing her secret would be used against Lena, but that's probably a poor excuse.
One Strip! One Strip!
Okay, I have no idea who wrote that but it doesn't fit Lena's personality at all. And didn't you admit you haven't watched the entire season? Might be best no to just go off what's said on her character page. The same character page, btw, also says Lena knows she doesn't have to be as manipulative as her mother and brother.
That still doesn't connect to the argument because I brought that up to show that Lena hasn't done anything anymore amoral than other CW heroes that aren't Jefferson Pierce.
You mean the guy who's had more appearances and who's show has been on for longer has had more character development? What a surprise!
And honestly I'd still put Lena above Oliver in terms of morality.
And these paragraphs...
Aren't convincing me otherwise. If these are the type of people the CW can call heroes then I can't see Lena as a villain
Thanks to the old CW show hypocrisy. You might have seen it in Vampire Diaries, The Originals and Smallville to a lesser extent.
edited 20th Jun '18 10:21:27 AM by windleopard
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
So, does Reign's Total Party Kill (well almost) count as a very extended Last Breath Bullet via Heat Vision?
One Strip! One Strip!
Finally caught up on this. Dunno why but none of the emotional moments landed for me. Not one. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood. Oh look, everyone's dead but the day is saved! Wait, time travel so that Kara doesn't have to kill and can let an enemy be tortured by demons instead! Oh look, James has revealed that he's Guardian! Let's just ignore the massive legal ramifications of the head of multi-billion dollar company acting as a vigilante! Oh look, J'onn is going on a walkabout! Two episodes after initiating a major change to his organization that his chosen successor has already shown little interest in continuing! Speaking of which, Winn is going to the future! Meaning that he's not around to make those non-lethal weapons he promised!
About the only thing I liked was the last scene. I don't know where my head is at today; I have never been so negative of a Supergirl episode before.
Emperor Palpatine.gif
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!
I quite enjoyed the finale, even if I had reservations about some of the developments in the back half of this season.
One thing though I'm pretty unhappy about it Alex becoming DEO Director.
She really needs to have a character arc sometime about her treatment of aliens, if they aren't just going to gloss over the brutality she's shown several times over the last three seasons.
My other major quibble is I wish the time travel was linked more strongly to the location or something about Reign. It's not good to introduce something like that without giving reasons why Kara can't do it again.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
To be fair, Kara knows exactly why she shouldn't do it again.
To say nothing of the fact that the Legion also show why screwing with time travel is a bad idea, with Brainy mistakenly reviving his evil ancestor.
And they don't even know about Kara's clone in Russia yet.
One Strip! One Strip!
All Kara knows is that Barry isn’t really allowed to do it. Her only real experience with Earth-1’s time travel is with the Legends, in which case her sister having a one night stand with a time traveler worked out fine for everybody involved.
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
She knows that he altered the timeline in ways that he doesn't fully understand, and that it got everyone pissed at him.
Though to be fair, she doesn't know if that result is a consequence of Time Travel itself, or of Barry's specific brand of time travel. I myself have always suspected that the difference between Speed Force style Time Travel and Time Masters / Time Bureau Time Travel is that computers like Gideon make it more stable since you can better see the results of your actions and know what you changed (or what you didn't change).
And of course, the Time Masters also knew how to manipulate things so that they got the results they wanted (keeping Rip's family dead and all).
One Strip! One Strip!
We don't know precisely why Legends time travel is different from speedster time travel, but it definitely is different. The Arrowverse has always been hilariously inconsistent about time travel, but they've been good at showing that the Waverider and similar technology is much safer, more stable, and has fewer side effects than just running so fast you break the timeline.
If I had to guess, I'd say the temporal anomalies used this season probably fall somewhere in the middle. They're not precise technology, but they are natural and thus less likely to accidentally break the universe.
Thawne kinda shows otherwise, he messed the timeline and managed to get by with a "close enough". Having Gideon or a variation is a big advantage in itself, but there never been a good explanation for why speedsters (or Barry specifically) are inherently more damaging even when putting things back on its proper course.
Heat Vision from a being who's super even compared to all of them, and more to the point, was in her death throes and probably not holding back as she used the last of his considerable power to fuck all of them up as much as possible.
Also remember Non was killed by Heat Vision straight to the eyes back in Season One (where was your No Kill Rule there Kara?), so Heat Vision can still be pretty deadly to them.
One Strip! One Strip!