The Felicity Smoak Discussion Thread

[Halberdier17]

In the "Inside DC's Legends: Shogun" video from tonight's Legends of Tomorrow episode [SPOILER]it has a scene with Ray explaining why a Shogun can pilot Ray's Atom Suit. He said that he designed the suit so that an idiot could pilot it.[/SPOILER]

You think this is the writers trying to retroactively erase fan complaints of how Felicity was able to pilot Ray's Atom Suit in the Season 3 Finale?

Edit* Here is the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxBqqrSn84

Sorry if this doesn't belong here since it is Legends of Tomorrow. It also doesn't relate to Felicity but it could explain why Felicity was able to pilot the Atom suit.

[DoubleDevil]

In the "Inside DC's Legends: Shogun" video from tonight's Legends of Tomorrow episode [SPOILER]it has a scene with Ray explaining why a Shogun can pilot Ray's Atom Suit. He said that he designed the suit so that an idiot could pilot it.[/SPOILER]

You think this is the writers trying to retroactively erase fan complaints of how Felicity was able to pilot Ray's Atom Suit in the Season 3 Finale?

Edit* Here is the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxBqqrSn84

Sorry if this doesn't belong here since it is Legends of Tomorrow. It also doesn't relate to Felicity but it could explain why Felicity was able to pilot the Atom suit.

First I'd say only fans of that season 3 finale would see this as an explanation to contradict nay-sayers of the scene. Felicity is supposed to be super intelligent in tech things so why suddenly treat her like an idiot?

Second I'd have to question Ray, why in the world make it so extremely easy for something as powerful as his suit to be so easily misused?

Again poor writing in my opinion simply to move the crappy storyline in the limited time they have in the show. We've seen Ray loose his suit on multiple occasions, why hasn't it been highjacked more often if any idiot can use it?

[JDBentz]

To quote Caitlin Snow in "Plastique": "Didn't think this one through, did ya?"

[canaryalive]

The whole Ray suit thing in Legends episode was so contradicting
[SPOILER]First he says: That he design this suit only for hid body, so no one can wear it.
Next thing Shogun is wearing it. Not only that but operates it. [/SPOILER]

I think the whole Legends scene [SPOILER]where Shogun wears the suit[/SPOILER] was meant to be fun part of the episode and has nothing to do with Felicity wearing the suit in season 3. I think the writers who wrote that are just messing around with Ray's character, to make him look like a complete idiot, but probably they don't even remember or know that scene in Arrow s3.

[TheSecretVampire]

We have to remember that Felicity can do anything she sets her mind to. Whether it seems impossible for her to do, if she puts her mind to it, she can do it!

[JDBentz]

I was recently over on r/Arrow and saw a post that actually made me think. A rarity there, I know, which is probably why it got down-voted so much. That, or the fact it was offering a plausible defense for Felicity was the reason.

The post was about whether or not Felicity was autistic. Anyways, it got me thinking, and I ended up doing a video about it. Long story short, I do think Felicity has Asperger's Syndrome, the same form of autism I do, and its possible EBR has it to since she's so similar to her character. My reasons for believing so are in the video.

[evaba]

@JD, first of all I really admire you for posting something this personal on a general discussion forum. It takes courage, and I think it shows that you are not as timid as you claim you are! I have been reading your posts here for many years, and I would say that you are an excellent communicator and very capable of expressing your thoughts. I would never have guessed that you have problems communicating or interacting with others....but on the other hand, my own experiences tell me that it's sometimes easier to interact with people on the Internet than it is to interact in face-to-face social situations (even for those of us who don't have Aspberger). It's one of the nice things about the interwebs (there are many bad things as well!)...there is a sense of ease and equality of expression that might not be as common in Real Life interaction.

Having said this, I'm afraid that I don't really agree with you concerning Felicity as a person with Aspberger, and I also find your speculation that EBR might have Aspberger somewhat hard to embrace. IMHO there is a problem with doing psychological analysis on (or attributing Real Life mental traits to) fictional persons, in the sense that they are synthetic constructs rather than real people. Fictional characters do resemble real people, and if they are well-written they can be very convincing and believable. On the other hand, in reality they're just puppets in the hands of the writers, which means that whatever character traits they're supposed to possess are put there by the writers. Since you are an (aspiring?) writer yourself, I think you can see my point.

As much as I agree with you that the "Arrow" writers are hacks (at least lately!), I don't think they ever intended Felicity to be perceived as a person with Aspbergers. TBH, I sometimes get the feeling that they did far too LITTLE work when it comes to getting under the skin of Felicity's character and presenting her as a complex human-like being. In the earlier seasons she was mostly used as comic relief/audience avatar/a Deus ex machina-like tool to provide exposition and move the plot from A to B with her hacking. I perceived the social awkwardness more as a trope or a cliché ....I mean, the insecure, foot-in-the mouth "nerdy genius" is a very common trope in popular culture.

I have the impression that Felicity's early fan favorite status actually hindered the writers from working on her character portrayal, since it seemed that they didn't have to do much with her in order to satisfy her hordes of enthusiastic fans. So, she basically went from a not very developed side character to female lead, but her increased screen time/importance wasn't really devoted to HER development as an independent character, but mostly to her role as Oliver's love interest (and her several love affairs with other men were mostly introduced to serve Olicity, so they didn't benefit her either).

I think it may be this "flatness" in her character portrayal, combined with EBR's somewhat limited range as an actress, that makes it hard to regard or feel Felicity as a rounded and interesting fictional character. This is just my opinion, of course, and I know that others feel differently. Thea and Laurel may also be confined by the same cliché mode of the Berlanti-verse/CW female writing, but they do feel more "real" and complex to me. Laurel's substance abuse arc could have been better written and executed, but at least the writers/producers allowed some real pain and complexity to seep into their portrayal of the Laurel/Sara/Oliver story. This is IMHO something that we haven't seen in Felicity's storylines, where her trials and tribulations are mostly glossed over (which makes you wonder why they were introduced in the first place). The most blatant example was when she did high fives with Diggle and chirped about #OTA a short time after Laurel died and after she inadvertedly nuked a whole town. It may be this disconnect between the difficult things that happen to her, and her reactions to them that makes Felicity seem as though she is a bit disoriented or cut off from reality sometimes.

As for EBR and actors in general, I think it's hard to say anything about their personalities, demeanor etc., since we know next to nothing about them, apart from the carefully orchestrated snippets of their private life that we get on their social media. There is a tendency in some parts of the "Arrow" fandom to glorify SOME female actors and demonize others (and that includes actors' wives as well) which I find highly problematic. Maybe that's why I feel that the actors should be left out of the equation when discussing the characters and their traits. I'm not saying this to slam you, I just feel that good actors are able to portray characters who are very different from their own everyday selves, and that there is no necessary connection or identity between the actor and the character s/he portrays.

As for not going to conventions, some actors just don't feel comfortable appearing at conventions or doing much promo stuff. For example, Grant Gustin doesn't appear at conventions either.

I could write another essay on this matter, but I'll stop here. BTW, have you read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time"? It's about a boy with Aspberger's syndrome. I haven't read it myself, but I found a PDF online, so I might give it a try. Judging by what I have read about this novel, it's probably one of the best fictional representations of how people with Aspberger/autism relate to their surrounding world.

Anyway, although I don't agree with your opinions, I enjoyed your video!

https://jessbarga.wikispaces.com/file/view/The+Curious+Incident+of+the+Dog+In+the+night+time.pdf

[GreenArrowOliverQueen]

It was great that she finally got her own codename.

[Kal El's Equal]

It would be even better if Prometheus kills her.

[evaba]

Here is an interesting post which shows that Felicity Smoak is really a composite character, with many features taken from an earlier comic book DC heroine:

http://dianedanger007.tumblr.com/post/139040333791/the-slight-ick-with-overwatch

http://youngjustice.*****.com/wiki/Wendy_Harris

This makes sense, considering Guggenheim's tendency to borrow from comic book lore outside of the GA mythos. I mean, if Oliver Queen is basically Green Batman, it's not surprising that Felicity Smoak is a mix of earlier DC females with similar skills and life stories.

[BkWurm1]

Moved from the spoiler thread (no spoilers)

It's a constant problem with writing on the show, they tell us one thing but shows us another. Felicity is one of the characters that suffers from this problem the most, since the writers want her to be perfect but make her do things that are highly questionable.I still chuckle at the hospital scene where Oliver tells Laurel that Felicity "is stronger than all of us". Really?
She is stronger than someone that had been lost at sea, saw Sara drown in front of him, saw his father kill himself in front of him in order for him to survive, been on a desert island and had to learn to survive for 5 years, saw his island girlfriend be killed in front of him, saw his mother being killed in front of him, saw his best friend die in front of him, saw Sara die again, saw Sara die another time, and many other things.
She is also stronger than Laurel? Got the news that both her boyfriend and her sister died at the same time, while also learning that they were cheating on her with each other, saw her mother descend into paranoia (at the time it was paranoia) believing that Sara was alive, saw her parents's marriage fall apart, saw her father descent into alcoholism, saw her boyfriend die, was kidnapped multiple times, had her house broken in multiple times, had addiction issues, saw her sister die again in front of her, and many many other things.
Should I even mention Sara's struggles, and Diggle's and maybe Thea's and Roy's?
All of them had many more issues in life that they had to overcome and that shows how strong they are. But yet the show tells us time and time again that Felicity is stronger than all of them.

I honestly think the strength Oliver was referring to was not letting the bad things that happened in her life take her to a dark place and or fundamentally change her or turn her into a different person. Everyone has endured horrible things but it radically altered everyone else.

Oliver had horrid things happen to him and he feels it turned him into a monster. Same with Sara. Laurel, when faced with the death of her sister was consumed with anger and was willing to kill an innocent man she was so changed. Quentin fell into the bottle. So did Laurel for a while after losing Tommy. Thea abandoned all her principles and aligned herself with a murderer after her mother's death. Diggle came back from war and found he couldn't function without it anymore. His marriage fell apart. He didn't know how to be himself or think for himself anymore until he went back into the military and without running into Oliver, he might still not have managed to make it in the civilian world. Later he caved to fear and anger and killed his brother and then basically abandoned his family to return to the rigid structure of the military life.

Felicity grew up thinking her father abandoned her, she saw her boyfriend who she loved taken to jail partly because of something she did and lived for years with the misplaced guilt of him taking his own life, she was alone in the first Arrow cave while the Earthquake machine went off and parts of it started falling down around her, she's been kidnapped and attacked multiple times, almost killed multiple times while kidnapped, got gassed with everyone else thinking they were betrayed and dying, was shot up and told by doctors that she'd never walk again.


Everyone on this show has been exposed to trauma and life altering events. Everyone has changed in ways but at least on the surface and in her outlook on life, Felicity didn't let the bad things in her life change her or rob her of her positive personality. That's the strength IMO that Oliver was referring to and that others agreed on, that she'd just gone through something hugely traumatic, something that could have her consumed by the unfairness of what happened to her and yet she was still herself, still optimistic, still looking out for the ones around her that she loved.

From Oliver's viewpoint she remained true to herself after something awful whereas he became someone else from his trauma. So did most everyone else on the show. So from that standpoint, she did show herself to be stronger.

But I also think expecting her not to be affected places a unfair double standard on her shoulders that didn't allow her to be angry and upset without her getting vilified.

Plus, her "strength" is not exactly what it seems. She's not unaffected by bad things that happen to or around her, she just keeps most of her emotions to herself while presenting a strong front and pushing to move forward. Her deeper, more troubling feelings, she copes with on her own, like where she never mentioned to anyone her struggles with self doubt (and her own mocking doppelganger) after being stuck in the wheelchair or like we saw after Billy died (and also going back to when Oliver was supposed to have been gone after being brainwashed by Ra's), crying alone.

We also know that after Cooper's death she DID radically change who she was, but Oliver and Co don't know about that. But if they did, I'm not sure if they'd have changed their minds about her strength since she retained and even expanded on her open, cheery demeanor.

If she was the main character of the show, they'd do more to show her feelings beneath the smile and we'd see more cracks in her composure over things like Havenrock or any of the other traumas she's also gone through but she's not the title character so we only get her feelings when it is plot relevant, but that doesn't mean she's being portrayed as not feeling anything, just that she in her own way is just as good at compartmentalizing as Oliver. We see a few hints of what lies beneath but mostly what we are shown is Felicity's almost relentless drive to keep moving forward and keep smiling and keep cracking jokes, but also to now in the fifth year, also to take more risks and be willing to pay a higher price to keep her team safe and do what is needed to be done.

And that is what the Helix arc is about. It's HER version of being tempted by the darkness. She's not going to get a new personality. She's not going to start killing people. She's still going to find joy and wonder and things to smile about like sleep deprived, witness protection pie conspiracies, but she's also going to be more willing to cross more lines and get her hands personally even more dirty if the means to the end are justified. She mentioned that her hacker days were a power trip and that it was too easy to get caught up in it and that's the kind of thing her dark arc is about so it was never going to be anything that turned her evil or turned her into a radically different person. It's never been about that.

[BkWurm1]

Just felt like bumping this to the top. After all, Felicity and EBR are per SA supposed to especially shine in tonight's episode.