Marc Guggenheim’s assertion today that Felicity’s dark arc was to give her greater empathy towards Oliver reminded me that I have a lot to say on the subject. I’ll back up and start with this: the recurring idea that Felicity wronged Oliver somehow by leaving him after he lied to her about William’s existence is infuriating.
Could Felicity have stayed and listened to Oliver explain himself further? Yes, but she had absolutely no obligation to do so. She didn’t demonstrate a lack of empathy or understanding by leaving him, she demonstrated a very justified level of looking out for herself. Did Felicity’s dark arc make her undertand and empathize with Oliver more? Maybe, but that has nothing to do with why she left him. And even if she did further understand why he lied to her after going through her own dark arc herself, Felicity understanding and empathizing with Oliver’s choices in life ≠ Felicity not breaking up with him for those choices.
Felicity knew exactly why Oliver did what he did, but the writers twisted the narrative. They tried to make Oliver the poor misunderstood hero who was just doing his best, and Felicity the one who needed to understand him and empathize with him more. Instead of having Oliver apologize to Felicity, they wrote the opposite. How hard would it have been to have him say “listen, I screwed up, and I understand why you left, but I’m really sorry for what I did, I’m going to try to do better. Can we work on this?” and do something to prove to her that he was trying to fix the problem? Instead, they tried to portray Felicity as having acted rashly, as though her reaction to the lie wasn’t warranted, and that once her circumstances changed, she could empathize with Oliver more. (I won’t even get started on asking why this arc needed to be about Oliver???)
Felicity didn’t need to change herself/her perspective to fit in with the narrative of Oliver’s lie being okay because of his circumstances. Oliver was the one who needed to change, to reform, to apologize and understand why what he did was wrong, to understand why Felicity broke up with him afterwards (he demonstrated a CLEAR lack of understanding with almost everything he said afterwards, with hoping to get her back after asserting that he loves her without apologizing). Instead, they made it all about Felicity needing to just fix her viewpoint so that Olicity could get back together, without ever trying to fix the real problem. I love Olicity, but badly done, writers. Badly done.
