I’m currently writing through a fanfic (True Face) that focuses on the implementation of Felicity Smoak as a vigilante in her own right in S1 and all the problems that come with it, before Oliver even returns to Starling (though it’s set episode 1). It’s very much an Olicity story.
As I was writing, I noticed something that interested me. Fans of season 1, LL stans specifically, promote that season like it’s their creed. I’m pretty sure that as far they are concerned, the subsequent seasons don’t exist. But, in writing this fic… honestly, how can they see it the way they do? LL was insulted so damn much in S1 ALONE, especially by the way the love triangle (Oliver/Tommy/LL) was handled. I know we’re all well aware by now that they started writing towards Olicity even then - even when it was platonic - and that they’d always planned on the triangle ending by 1.23, but …WOW.
It doesn’t matter how you feel about the relationships on Arrow, they happened. We moved on. The narrative tells us what’s coming and what’s ending.
So I was stunned to find that, throughout S1, we were being constantly told that Oliver was making a mistake with each woman he slept with. Each one. That includes LL.
I didn’t see this before.
I make it a rule to not only watch episodes of Arrow if I’m writing fiction about them, I also endeavour to remain unbiased (as difficult as that may be). So I watched a few episodes to give me insight into Oliver’s mental space.
We know he hated himself but even back then, Oliver was trying to establish a connection with a woman. It wasn’t just about loneliness, though that was the presiding factor. He was trying to find someone who fit him, as he was. The messed up vigilante killer. He wanted someone to receive him, his darkness and his flaws, even if it meant rejecting that person later. For their own safety. He wanted it. Yearned for it. He wanted to confirm that his current then self, could be loved.
To be proven wrongly about himself. I am worth loving.
But of course, anyone who loved him would have to be messed up too, right?
It explains why Helena’s departure hurt him. Not only had he failed to help this person who was so like him, he’d also realised that a relationship based on a connection with who he was then (who he thought he was), was doomed to failure. Which meant, his then self couldn’t be in a full and complete relationship with anybody.
Helena’s last straw was discovering that Oliver stilled loved Laurel, which puzzled me. Helena was in love with a dead man. Oliver, in love with the past. What was the difference? With time, Oliver’s affections could have changed. Did I want them to? No. Helena couldn’t give him what he wanted or needed, even without the drama. But I think Helena was looking for any reason really. She wanted her revenge. It took everything she had to hold her own darkness in check and when she realised she didn’t want to, her only obstacle was Oliver.
She chose her dark path over him. Did that mean he’d do the same?
And really, it didn’t matter who the woman was.
Oliver didn’t actively pursue a relationship with LL. He may have loved her. But he didn’t want to be with her. He was fine with her being with Tommy because in his head, he wasn’t good for her. I’m not the man you thought I was and I never will be. He couldn’t love her the way he should have but didn’t. The way she thought it did but was blind to. Compare the seasons. When Oliver wants someone, he never fought for it. Not really.
S3, 4, 5, 6 – They’ve been one big show and tell of who Oliver loves and why.
He was searching in season 1. For a partner.
Unfortunately, he ignored Diggle’s words but not because he dismissed them. That love doesn’t mean changing or saving a person, but finding someone who’s the right fit. After Helena - after being shown that the right fit for him was another monster, because he was one too - finding someone who was his right fit, another figure of violence, wasn’t an option. And he wanted desperately, to live in the light like everyone else, but didn’t feel like he deserved it.
(Sometimes, looking into Oliver’s mentality makes me want to curl up into a ball.)
So after this, he puts on a face. One that hides his darker side, showing only the man he wants to be, but it’s a shadow of who he is.
And he dates McKenna. And it’s so blissfully normal; it actually does something for him. Even though it’s clear, that it’s a lie.
And it’s no coincidence that he pursues this, after bringing Felicity on board. After all, in episode 3 - after meeting her - he’s gripped by the need to immediately bring Diggle in on his secret.
Because his IT girl, she’s… good. She IS light. She’s crazy smart, available and she SEES him. Somehow. Miraculously. She makes him aware of just how lonely and wanting that he is. And bless Emily, she was given very little to work with (understandable since she was supposed to be in the show at first), but managed to convey, subtly, that Felicity understood not only why Oliver was the way she was, but also accepted that he was the way he was. She may not have known how deep the darkness inside him went, but she knew it was there. And how it might have grown. It was why she could compartmentalise the violence.
She pushed him to be more – to allow himself to be what she saw in him – without actually pressuring him. She never expected a thing from him because he was already giving her everything. He just didn’t know it. It takes him so long to see that she loves him, even with all his faults, because he doesn’t see anything about himself that’s worthy of her.
Ad how is she able to fit him like that? Laurel is just as different from him as Felicity is, but there’s nothing there to link them. He and Felicity are opposite as opposites come, and yet so much connects them. There’s something there, spiritually. In their souls.
Felicity sees him. He sees her. But he doesn’t want to be seen and he doesn’t know enough of himself to risk anything more…
So, he thinks he can have ‘normal’ instead.
Normal isn’t what he is, nor is it all it’s chalked up to be. But it makes him think the worst once McKenna leaves him.
I can’t have normal, because who I am kills it. I can’t be with someone who’s like me – because who could understand me except someone like me – because we’ll either kill each other or hurt someone I care about. The only thing I can do is-
Fix the past, which we know, isn’t possible.
He isn’t Barry; he can’t rewind time whenever the urge comes.
But what he can do is try again with Laurel. What he can be is the kind of person who doesn’t cheat on his girlfriend. What he can attempt, is to heal what he broke. To fix history by being the person Ollie Queen should have been. Good. Right. Decent. Worthy.
Except, the moment he does go to her, they still hurt someone they love. They hurt Tommy. Because it wasn’t about a pair of star crossed lovers coming together. It was about two people who chose to not only ignore the problems they had/have and the reasons why they didn’t work before without fixing a thing, but to be their worst and most selfish selves. And going to her doesn’t fix them. In fact, he finds himself lying more than he did before; but that’s ok, right? To lie, because he’ll never be the vigilante again. He’ll bury selfish Ollie and the Hood deep inside himself and Laurel will never see them. Or know him completely.
But a life lived at 60% is good enough for season 1 Oliver. A life of penance to the woman he betrayed, sounded good to him because he didn’t think he could have a life at all before returning and he was all about penance. Anything to mitigate the guilt of being a dick, of starting the cycle of pain he felt being a dick caused (instead of Malcolm Merlyn) or loosing Sara… of killing his father. Until he realised they couldn’t, because sometimes there’s just TOO much history.
If Laurel had been THE woman for him, the one he could marry, he’d have never cheated.
In fact, going by ‘Ollie’ Queen’s profile, if Ollie met that woman, he’d have never started a relationship with her in the first place. He’d have known deep down, what she meant and he wouldn’t have touched her. Not even to spoil her. He’d have pushed her far away.
Like. He. Does. With. Felicity. In. Season. 2. And. 3.
Felicity, who isn’t dark, but has shadows that hurt her. A woman with enough light in her, that his own (that he thought had died) arose and responded to hers. A woman whose kindness, intelligence, PATIENCE, warmth and love made Oliver see the person he wanted to be, come to life in the mirror. Felicity Smoak, who made him look to the future for once and not see death, but life. Marriage. Children. A legacy.
Once S1 ends, Oliver stops searching for a connection, because it’s impossible to find.
Because, she’s in the Foundry with him.
But he can’t have what he wants. Not yet. He isn’t enough and probably never will be. And once that realisation dawns, he pushes her towards Barry and repeats his cycle with the Lance family.
Sara who he could be with because he doesn’t ‘really care about her or anyone else the way he would with Felicity’ (STEPHEN’S TRUE, REAL LIFE WORDS, I KID YOU NOT). Not knowing how much he hurts her by doing so, because Oliver is blind. It literally isn’t until their MARRIAGE that Oliver sees that Felicity’s love for him, actually matches the impossible depth of his own.
The point is this - In the history of Arrow, Oliver broke up with two women. Laurel and Susan.
Laurel, because they couldn’t change the past, because it was unfair to her to pretend and because the pain from their history was stronger than the love they once had.
Susan, because he knew that loneliness should never be the deciding factor in any relationship and because it was unfair to her to pretend it was more.
“I don’t know what I was thinking dating her…”
“You were lonely Oliver.”
And that’s never the reason why you being a relationship.
He left two women because it was unfair to them to pretend he was reaching for the same goal they were. That he could. That he wasn’t constantly lying to them. He had to tell them, it wasn’t real.
Because all Oliver has ever wanted, but never thought he could have, was real. Save with Felicity. And then he screwed it up. And she let him.
The other women have left him:
Helena left him because he wasn’t enough for her to stay and because his affections for her were conditional on her ability to change.
McKenna, because a) his ex-girlfriend destroyed her career and b) he wasn’t enough for her to stay.
Sara let him go… because she wasn’t enough for him. Wasn’t right for him. And, vice versa. Probably the only time this can be said. An equal standard.
(Isabel was sex, not a relationship. His thing with Shado fell to pieces. Tatiana who?).
Felicity dumped him, hard… and for the first time in history, Oliver followed and tried to show her the depth of his love and the everything that she was to him. But he’d hurt her too much, more than he’d ever hurt anyone.
Everything he’d learned over the years showed him that all he was worth was a half life. Ergo snoozan. Ergo, pushing his son away. Ergo, his decisions in S5 (which Stephen verified as being symptoms of the twisted way he saw himself). Ergo, trying to destroy his vigilante alter ego that he’d worked so hard to build up as a hero, all because he thought it was a symbol of his evil and that if he casted it off, everything would eventually be fine and he would never have to touch the piece of himself that scared him to death. That made him sure he’d lose not only Felicity’s love - he knew she still loved him and that any man she was with would never truly have her, and he knew that because it was the same with him - but her presence in his life.
For, it’s better, right, to have her there in some capacity than not at all??
Of course, thank God, he learns.
It’s better to risk it all than to live a half life. It’s the ultimate irony of 5.08’s ending. Oliver promises Barry that he’ll LIVE. What we DIDN’T know, was that Oliver’s idea of living meant hurting people. So he couldn’t really do that. And he knew it. So living meant, lying. It meant settling. Pretending. It meant, sort of.
It meant, no marriage. No kids. No legacy (he almost destroys it without Adrian’s help). No FULL life. No REAL love.
It all comes to a head in 5.20 and FINALLY, Oliver learns the lesson.
None of it ever mattered.
It didn’t matter who he was or what he’d done. That’s all in our own heads, all a matter of perception. What mattered was who is, and what he is doing. What’s real is a true and honest relationship with the woman who taught him how to be true and honest. So he has her, Felicity, as anchor after that. A guide, instead of his light. The hand in his grasp and the woman walking beside him, not ahead or away. With.
They become the pillar of Arrow.
It never mattered that he was dark. Or that he’d done bad things. What works on paper doesn’t always work in life.
So… I mean, the glorious thing about fiction is that you can play with plot points and progression but my point, was that Oliver was deeply unhappy in season 1 and that his idea of happiness, was no happiness at all. He’d forgotten what that meant or he never knew in the first place.
The so-called love triangle in S1 was a lesson. And a power-point presentation aptly titled: how messed up Oliver Queen really is. And even then it didn’t really tell us. The love he brought with him in S6 would - could - be the only love he can ever really have. A real love. A true love. A soulmate.
Looking at it that way, makes the mistakes of each season a tad more bearable. After all, no show is perfect. Arrow has mega faults but the pros make up for a lot of them.
Just something I noticed.
(you really can ignore this)
stormborns
yousharknotpass
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
areudirty
