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mnemonicmadness-blog · 7 years ago

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Arrow - A brief and biased but (hopefully) comprehensive guide

I know I’m not the only one really looking forward to Michael Emerson as a supervillain. I’m probably also not the only one who found the prospect of watching all of Arrow... daunting. But I did make myself watch it all and thought I might as well summarise it for those who understandably don’t want to. Needless to say, Spoiler Warning!

Another warning: I personally don’t like Arrow, and that’s definitely reflected in this, but I encourage you to not let yourself be deterred from watching it and forming your own opinion.

Background Stuff:

Star City (renamed because why not; formerly Starling City): The main location of Arrow and the home of its characters.

Central City: The main location of The Flash, it’s often mentioned. Also, beware the crossover episodes! I recommend skipping those, unless you want to keep up with The Flash (imo The Flash is even worse than Arrow, so proceed at your own risk) as well. They tend to affect the other episodes in only minor ways.

Lian Yu (Mandarin for Purgatory, often only refered to as the island): The island Oliver was stranded on. It exploded in the last season finale.

A.R.G.U.S.: A secret special ops devision of the US government.

Metahumans: In the beginning of The Flash, some experimental reactor exploded, which gave random people all sorts of superpowers.

Palmer Technologies: Formerly Queen Consolidated, which used to be (surprise, surprise) the Queen family’s business empire. If I remember correctly Queen Consolidated went bankrupt and was boght by Palmer Technologies. PT belonged to a dude named Ray Palmer aka Captain Atom, who is alive but officially presumed dead after an accident with his shrinking suit.

League of Assassins: The name is pretty self-explanatory. They’re essentially ninjas, wear black outfits and mostly fight with swords. After a long leadership dispute, they were disbanded in s5. They used to have a thing called the Lazarus Pit, which can heal injuries and even revive dead people, but with some considerable drawbacks.

Helix: A powerful hacktivist group founded by a guy named Cayden James (probably ME’s character?). Felicity Smoak briefly worked with them.

Bratva: A Russian organised crime group.

Main Characters:

Original Team Arrow:

Oliver Queen/The Hood/Green Arrow: The protagonist, rich kid, former cast away, has a perpetual identity crisis. Whether or not he’s willing to kill people could so far be determined by number of season: In the odd-numbered ones he kills, in the even-numbered ones he doesn’t. His middle name should be ‘Drama‘. He slept around a lot before getting stranded and has a son with a one-night-stand about whom he didn’t know until s4, I think? He is skilled at archery and various typed of hand to hand combat, he was trained by various individuals on the island and was a temporary member of A.R.G.U.S., the League of Assassins, and the Bratva. Oliver changes his mind a lot despite having quite the self-righteous streak, nontheless he’s rather predictable, which the big bads like to take advantage of. He is also frequently melodramatic and prooobably needs a shitload of therapy.

John Diggle/Spartan: Oliver’s bodyguard, assigned to him after he returned from the island. Oliver kept ditching him until he found out Oliver is the Green Arrow (back then still known as the Hood) and subsequently became the first to join Oliver’s cause. He is married to Lyla Michaels (see: Recurring Characters) and has a son with her, who used to be a daughter until a timetravel crossover episode happened, which I skipped. He is loyal and veeery principled and considers Oliver his brother.

Felicity Smoak/Overwatch: The second person to join Oliver. First his friend, later his on-off girlfriend/love-interest/fiancée. I’m actually not sure whether or not they’re together at this point and I think they’re not sure either. After Ray Palmer’s “death” she became the CEO of Palmer Technologies until she was kicked out by the board. She’s the tech support and an excellent hacker, for which she has a bit of a reputation. Felicity is sweet, babbles a lot, but is one of the more reasonable characters. She was recently paralyzed, but regained the ability to walk due to a microchip in her spine.

Extended Team Arrow:

Thea Queen/Speedy: Oliver’s younger half-sister (although they didn’t know she’s only his half-sister until season 2, I think). Used to have a drug problem, but since she got her shit together, she’s probably the most reasonable member of Team Arrow (the bar really isn’t high there), despite being something of a hothead. She was almost killed and subsequently saved by the Lazarus Pit, which left her with a periodically occurring bloodlust that goes away once she murders someone. She received League of Assassins training by her father, Malcolm Merlyn (see: Recurring Characters).

Quentin Lance: On-off alcoholic. Former policeman. Father of two adult daughters (see: Recurring Characters), who both dated Oliver Queen, pre-series they did so simultaneously. Needless to say, he really hated Oliver’s guts at first, but has since warmed up to him. Is currently Oliver’s deputy mayor.

New Team Arrow:

Curtis Holt/Mr. Terrific: The Gay™ (I’m all for rep, but to me he seems a bit too much like the “Look at this gay character we made, look at him, aren’t we progressive???”-type of gay character.). He’s also a tech-savvy sweetheart who babbles a lot but has surprising moments of reason. Pretty much a male Felicity. He met Felicity while working for Palmer Technologies’ R&D department.

Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog: The superhero name reeaally suits him. He has a massive temper, zero chill and authority issues a mile wide. He means well though. He has a daughter, whose mother had a drug problem and was murdered in their home by a dealer. Rene really fell off the wagon after that and lost custody of his daughter, but he’s trying to get it back now, after being encouraged by Quentin Lance.

Dinah Drake/Black Canary: A metahuman and former polivewoman. She was working undercover when the reactor explosion thin occurred, was discovered and tortured and her partner/fwb was killed. Her superpower is the canary cry, aka weaponised screaming. Also one of the more reasonable characters, but also has a bit of a short fuse.

Recurring Characters:

Malcolm Merlyn/Dark Archer/The Magician: He’s played by John Barrowman so I like him. He’s an old family friend of the Queens and is Thea’s father, since he had an affair with Moira Queen. He’s been a long-standing nemesis of Team Arrow, and occasionally their mistrusted ally. Would do anything for Thea and proved that by stepping on a landmine in the last season finale, so he might be dead, but we haven’t seen his body yet, so... He was part of the League of Assassin and was their leader for a while, a position contested by Nyssa Al Ghul, the previous leader’s daughter.

Lyla Michaels: Ex-soldier, Diggle’s wife, works for A.R.G.U.S. Not much else to say, except she’s a badass and her morals are a tad more flexible than her husband’s, a frequent cause for friction between them.

Sara Lance/White Canary: BAMF. Bi af. Quentin Lance’s younger daughter, had an affair pre-series with Oliver, while he was together with her sister. She accompanied him on the boat ride that ended with him stranded of that island. She was long presumed dead, but was actually saved by the League of Assassins. Was together with Nyssa Al Ghul. She was killed by Thea Queen, more or less by accident. Her sister revived her using the Lazarus Pit, which ended with Sara being soulless for a while, but they fixed that. (Or rather, John Constantine, one of my favourite fictional characters ever, fixed that. Sadly, it was his only appearance on the show.)

Rory Regan/Ragman: Currently gone off, finding himself or something. Everyone gets identity crises on that show. Marginally less lame than ‘Ragman’ makes it sound, but really not by much. His town was destroyed by a nuke (Flicity’s fault, she steered it there to avoid hitting an even more populated area after s4′s big bad fired said nuke.) and he’s the only survivor thanks to his magical rags. Don’t question it.

Slade Wilson/Deathstroke: Australian. Badass. Pretty much the only cool character on this show so far and probably the most competent one. Ex-soldier. Ex A.S.I.S. (Australian Secret Intelligence Service) operative/assassin. Did I mention he’s a badass? Was stranded on that infamous island with Oliver, saved and trained him, because he’s a badass like that. Intelligent, competent, reeeaally smooth. He lost an eye after being shot by an arrow by Oliver and was dosed by some stuff called Mirakuru, which saved his life, gave him super strength, enhanced reflexes and senses, etc., but unfortunately also turned him insane, which ended with him trying to take over Starling City (he also murdered Moira Queen, Oliver’s and Thea’s mother). It wore off after a few years though and he tuned good again. He’s still a badass.

Alena: Hactivist, member of Helix, idolises Felicity. She’s friendly and carefree, but also intelligent and manipulative. She also appears to care deeply for Cayden James.

Anatoly Knyazev: Leader of the Russian Bratva/Brotherhood. Oliver saved his life but later also pissed him off, so they’re kind of friends but currently also enemies.

Nyssa Al Ghul: Daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul, the deceased leader of the League of Assassins. Arse-kicking lesbian. Technically, she’s Oliver’s wife, but that was an arranged marriage to their mutual benefit. Sara’s girlfriend. She really, really adores Sara and usually only refers to her as ‘my beloved’, it’s really quite sweet. She’s also a badass and usually Team Arrow’s ally, though occasionally their enemy.

Dead Characters that might get mentioned:

Laurel Lance: Ugh. Oliver’s ex-girlfriend and oldest friend. Alcoholic, boring, hypocritical, next-level annoying. Used to be the Black Canary before being killed in s4. She has an evil, parallel universe counterpart known as Black Siren who is also annoying but at least marginally more interesting. Black Siren is also a metahuman with the same ability as Dinah Drake, though she’s not very good at it, or at least not as good as Dinah. She ended up in the show’s universe due to some Flash crossover fuckery that I haven’t watched.

Tommy Merlyn: Oliver’s childhood best friend, Malcolm Merlyn’s son. He died way back in s1 but is still occasionally mentioned.

Shado Gulong: Also used to be stuck on the island with Oliver, Slade and her father whose name I don’t know how to spell (Yao Fe?? Something like that?). Helped train Oliver. Was briefly together with Oliver and killed on the island. Slade also had a crush on her at the time, which was the reason his chemically induced insanity focussed his revenge on Oliver.

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