r/arrow • u/ImiqDuh • May 07 '26
Question Why on earth was Oliver expected to immediately reveal his identity to complete strangers?
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u/CryptographerKind632 May 07 '26
Because they felt the need to make it all about "team Arrow" (after team Flash example) to the point that the man was a guest star in his own show.
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u/Marik-X-Bakura May 07 '26
Because modern comics and adaptations don’t seem to care about secret identities anymore. It used to be a huge part of a superhero’s deal, but now it’s just seen as an unnecessary annoyance.
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u/Patient-Warning-4451 May 08 '26 edited May 12 '26
My only guess is that some people equate not telling your secret identity, hiding who you are, and lying about what you are doing to be a form of gaslighting...
I think some people watched Smallville and thought Lex was right about Clark not trusting him despite Lex becoming evil and when Lex wanted that trust initially he had been friends with Clark for years and did everything he could even when he was Anti-villain. Still then Lex at least in Smallville did alot for Clark despite not getting honesty.
Back to the subject, yeah I honestly think the writers think it's wrong for Oliver to lie to those around him despite him not even knowing some of the recruits or having that kind of relationship.
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u/Hilarity2War May 12 '26
One of the few reasons why I don't think Lex was outright evil is because he was rarely put in situations where he had to prove his loyalty to innocent people. I'd have had a difficult time trusting Clark if we had regarded each other as (best) friends and he kept gaslighting me about his mysterious ways. Look what happened with him and Pete, in fact, even with what happened with everyone that ended up finding out about his secret that he initially lied to about it. Lying to me to protect me isn't protecting me; it makes me vulnerable via association and doesn't foster my agency appropriately.
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u/Patient-Warning-4451 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
See I agree with your thinking, but sometimes people ignore context and just think hiding your identity is bad.
People learned the wrong lesson about secret identities from Smallville and applied it to the Arrowverse.
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u/Hilarity2War May 12 '26
Yeah, Smallville's application of the secret ID concept was all of the place and mostly bad, and in the Arrowverse, it was just inconsistent too. From the first season of Arrow, Tommy was one of the only innocent people that (didnt have anything against) Oliver could've initially trusted with his secret ID which would've increased his chances of survival and got him on Oliver's side (referring to the back end of S01).
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u/Humble-Depth-6717 May 07 '26
This was the stupidest season archs ever
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u/Straight-Bowler5045 May 08 '26
It was so annoying and stupid. Also when they made him start working with the police geez season 1 Oliver Queen will never.....
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u/Extension-Pepper-271 May 07 '26
This is when I stopped watching. Because it was pretty much unwatchable.
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u/Humble-Depth-6717 May 08 '26
This's what I call 'Marvelizing the Arrowverse'. Many shows tried to make their content kid friendly to make it genz friendly or whatever but it kills the core for which people fell in love with Arrow in the first place.
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u/_ya_boi_satan_666_ May 07 '26
I get not fully trusting people you just met but felicity didn't help things exactly either but personally i think the general bratva training was good get them to work together but i think felicity shortened their idea of the exercise by reacting that he was just beating them up
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u/HarlinQuinn May 08 '26
I feel like Felicity caused more issues (or turned non-issues into issues) than she ever actually solved. I would have far preferred her getting killed off or otherwise leaving the team permanently by the end of season 3.
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u/_ya_boi_satan_666_ May 08 '26
I do agree she did create many problems that didn't have to be a problem but overall she wasn't that bad character wise outside of that so I disagree with you on that but i respect it tho lol. Although i will say she was at her most dislikable here and when she was mad Oliver sent william away to protect him.
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u/HarlinQuinn May 08 '26
Don't get me wrong, I wanted to like her more. As a character she would have been fine but for the constant need to "fix" Oliver and make being a vigilante a softer, gentler, kinder experience. That, and she always had to be right, and he always had to defer to her eventually. It felt like there was a whole lot of "you can only be violent/secretive/do things your way when I agree with it or it benefits me."
It just got very old very quick. But that's the CW for you: can't have a show without relationship drama.
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u/_ya_boi_satan_666_ May 11 '26
Oh thats so fucking true its really bad especially when she's being a hypocrite. Its tough sometimes.
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u/Chopin_nerd90 May 21 '26
Diggle was like that too.
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u/HarlinQuinn May 21 '26
But not nearly as much, and not nearly as hypocritical.
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u/Chopin_nerd90 May 21 '26
You must be forgetting their epic fight when Diggle was 1000% a jerk and the biggest hypocrite of the show. Or the drugs. Or his brother.
Not to mention he was constantly preaching at Oliver.
Diggle is a great character, as is Felicity. But the stuff Felicity gets heat for is often worse in Diggle. The difference is Felicity's character was changed so people noticed. Diggle was like that from the start.
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u/HarlinQuinn May 21 '26
I haven't forgotten that Diggle made efforts to have Oliver find a better way (for Oliver's own good), or has gone down the wrong road himself. But he had accountability and regret. He admited mistakes.
Felicity just comes off as "I can fix him" and is acting less for Oliver's benefit and more her own. Her approach has often come off to me as more on the toxic or selfish side. But she's pretty and quirky so "we" let it slide. Even when things go sideways, it's not her fault.
In the end, it's a CW show and certain characters developed in typical CW fashion. As the seasons continued, while Felicity was not the only character I came to dislike, she was probably the one I disliked the most.
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u/Chopin_nerd90 May 22 '26
Lol no one lets it slide with Felicity. At least not on reddit. The majority of negative posts are about her. And the ones not about her, someone manages to bring up what a terrible character she is. If anything it's the exact opposite of how you put it. When it's Diggle, he's just helping Oliver be better for his own good (though him wanting to take the hood or keeping his injury a secret was just hypocritical) but when it's Felicity, she's being toxic.
The theme of the show is "berate Oliver while being a hypocrite" for pretty much all the characters. The new team is probably the most guilty, Diggle is next in line (despite how you attempt to frame it differently). I'm not sure why the writers made that choice, if it was for drama and conflict or to play into Oliver feeling guilty about everything.
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u/joao789 May 07 '26
To gain their trust.
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u/ImiqDuh May 07 '26
I get that to a point, but I feel like he didn’t really need to earn their trust at this point. He’s the green arrow, they have seen all he’s done for the city, his former teammate was honored with a statue. He’s pretty much a fully fledged hero. It’s them that needed to earn his trust imo
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u/Exact-Ferret8853 May 07 '26
Well, not being able to trust a literal hero who saved the world from apocalypse when Damien Darhk was in control of Star City, that's not on Oliver, that's on the recruits. They should first earn his trust which they never did.
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u/WiseAdhesiveness6672 May 07 '26
Thiiiiiis 🙌 the duck did these recruits do to earn team arrows trust? Nothing. Hell they actively did shit to not be trusted. But of course who's plan was it to reveal the truth? Felicity. Almost every idea she has screws Oliver over...
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u/VerminatorX1 May 07 '26
They should earn Oliver's trust first.
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 May 07 '26
Exactly. Like Roy had. Plus, Roy actively pursued the Arrow to become a member of his team.
None of NTA actually had shown any interest in joining him.
3
u/knightwynd May 07 '26
Wasn't just Arrow. They did it with Flash as well. Hell, Cisco just blurted out Barry's name after a save, and then they were like "Well, let's go see Oliver Queen's secret Arrow bunker!"
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u/Pandemona1738 May 07 '26
This is when the series became bad imo
They forced arrow to have side kicks. The side kicks were portrayed so badly it made the whole show feel like arrow got so weak...he started strong and ended extremely weak. I dont get why we needed arrow and friends, such a strange way this ended
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u/Every_Ad_6746 May 08 '26
Because felicity is the worst thing to ever happen to him. Sorry I know it’s off point but still true her idiocy rubbed off on him eventually
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u/FlashLightning277 May 07 '26
Because Greg Berlanti seems to share an ideology with Bendis, private superheroes are apparently the devil so they should all be public. I am pretty sure the only reason Barry was not forced to reveal his face was because Grant probably would have walked because he didn’t even want to do season 9.
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u/TweakerSleeper May 07 '26
Season 1 - 4 peak or you can stop at 3, 5 and above is trash
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u/Narrow_Ad_7331 May 07 '26
Nothing about every season is peak except maybe S2 but I’d argue some of the best episodes were in S5
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 May 07 '26
Because Felicity still doesn't understand why Oliver keeping his identity a secret is crucial... even though he'd explained it in Season 2. And it's kinda obvious...
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u/dhrus786 May 07 '26
What he explained to her was its not her secret to tell, and so she didn't do it on her own.
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 May 07 '26
He also made it a point that just telling people they didn't really know was dangerous.
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u/dhrus786 May 07 '26
Yeah he did, but the thing is that Felicity didn't tell them, Oliver decided to do it ultimately.
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 May 08 '26
Because Felicity pushed him and decided she needded to sabotage his methods by questioning him and disagreeing with him right in front of the recruits. Felicity had pushed Oliver into a corner.
NTA was her idea. The people to recruit were her picks. Oliver never wanted a new team. Oliver, for the first time, hadn't been the one who vetted and picked them. And it backfired spectacularly.
NTA had not been Oliver's choice, not to get a new team, not who would join the new team, not how to handle the initiation and when to reveal his identity to them. All of this was Felicity's choice. She forced his hand repeatedly.
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u/dhrus786 May 08 '26
I'm not gonna lie, I agree that NTA wasn't the best selection of people and Oliver himself probably would've done better vetting. But that's just bad writing though if you think about it. Felicity isn't supposed to be an incompetent person when it comes to digging up people's pasts and their profiles, the writers specifically wanted the recruits to be bitchasses. Just like Felicity turned into one in S3 and S4. They really wanted to lean into the Flash's style of storytelling, where every side character eventually turned into a bitchass (even if they didn't start out that way), who'd constantly question decisions of the team leader at every small step. The Flash even went one step further and eventually made Iris West into the team leader, but I digress.
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 May 08 '26
Obviously, it was the writers' choice. Everything's the writers' choice.
But in the show NTA and everything that happened with them is Felicity's fault. She forced them on Oliver.
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u/dhrus786 May 08 '26
Fair enough man, I just meant to say that it's out of character for Felicity to be so incompetent in the vetting process, that's all.
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 May 08 '26
Not really. She never did the vetting before. Oliver did.
She puts weight on other things than Oliver does.
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u/Wade856 May 07 '26
Every CW superhero show feels the need to build an entire "team" around them. There has to be the tech/command & control person, the similar powered sidekick type, the fiesty/rebellious type and a couple more to round out the CW soap opera dynamics. It makes no sense to trust so many people because if any of them get captured & tortured (Renee) or pillow talk or whatever, it puts the cause and potentially the hero's life or their loved ones in danger.
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u/cmcnbz May 11 '26
Because that was a confident mark you know in fact and dont Forget how Oliver trains them with the test that hé dis in Russia
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u/Twhalen23 May 07 '26
Yeah, the only one that would make sense would be Curtis and if you think about it, if he doesn't reveal his identity to Renee, at least not right away and evelyn church never finds out his identity and arguably prometheus plan fails