"The Original Team"

[evaba]

For those who like to claim that the Diggle/Felicity/Oliver team is somehow endorsed by the writers and producers as more "canon" and "special" than other constellations, I'd like to offer the following counter-evidence from the latest episode:

Oliver: Laurel, Thea, Dig, even Roy, I let them into my crusade...I let them in!
Felicity: And they left...
Oliver: I was protecting myself.
Felicity: The reason The Original Team worked to well was because of the trust and respect that everyone had for Oliver Queen, not the Green Arrow.

So, it is very obvious that the WRITERS, as opposed to the oliciter fanbase, regard Laurel, Thea and Roy as equal members of the Original Team....

[Lipzo]

I think a lot of this comes down to your definition of the original team as it can be argued either way who it really is.

Dig/Felicity/Oliver can easily be seen as either the original team or a trio of people working together, given that it really was only Oliver in the field and Felicity played a minor tech role so it wasn't a true team. But at the same time as they were the 3 original members of 'Team Arrow' and they all played their own very distinct roles you can consider them the original team.

Laurel, Roy & Thea were the first additions that actively took part in the field, but even during them Dig/Felicity both still had their distinct roles.


To me personally the way the it all has went is this;
1.0 - Oliver solo
1.1 - Oliver & Dig
1.1a - Oliver, Dig & Felicity
1.2 - Oliver, Dig, Felicity & Roy
1.2a - Oliver, Dig, Felicity, Roy & Laurel (when she was support not in the field)
1.2b - Oliver, Dig, Felicity, Roy & Laurel
1.3 - Oliver, Dig, Felicity, Laurel & Thea
2.0 - Oliver, Felicity and the new trio

I would say that up until the latest additions, they are all part of the original team but at different stages though it would be very easy (and understandable) that someone would look at each addition/removal of a member as a new team.

[Halberdier17]

I thought the original team was Yao Fei and Slade Wilson; Before Oliver even joined the team.

Then it was Oliver, Yao Fei, and Slade, then Oliver, Slade, and Shado.

But that is on the Island.

[Shelby Kent]

Oliver: Laurel, Thea, Dig, even Roy, I let them into my crusade...I let them in!
Felicity: And they left...
Oliver: I was protecting myself.
Felicity: The reason The Original Team worked to well was because of the trust and respect that everyone had for Oliver Queen, not the Green Arrow.

I thought that whole last sentence was kind of weird.

First, to have Felicity say this seems to contradict her earlier characterization of Original Team Arrow as consisting of her, Dig & Ollie. Unless she is using "original team" here to describe what Oliver's idea of what the original team was.

Second, I was really interested in her idea that the basis of everyone's trust and respect was credited to Oliver Queen the man, and not GA the vigilante-hero. I've been trying to think what Oliver was doing as Oliver Queen, and not vigilante, that possibly earned all these people's respect. I thought once they knew Oliver was trying to save a city (in his own vigilante-type way) THAT's what earned their respect. When OQ first came back from island I don't recall Laurel or Thea feeling a lot of respect and Ollie made a point of acting like the jerk son of a rich bilionaire for a while so no one, including Diggle would know what he was up to and also b/c he didn't want the pressure of being expected to take over Queen Industries. Did Roy feel respect for Oliver Queen the Starling City citizen or was it the Hood/Arrow/GA that first brought Roy into the fold and the team? What has Oliver Queen actually done as Oliver Queen except again pretended to be a worthless jerk for a while, then took over and lost the family company, then I guess lived off trust fund/Felicity's money, somewhere in there moved to Ivy Town to live the good life and put aside all cares about Star City, and okay finally did run for mayor. Was Felicity impressed with Oliver Queen before she knew he was the hero-vigilante? I tend to think it was Oliver's donning of the vigilante-role that led to the maturation of Oliver by giving him purpose & mission, and not that Oliver Queen without the vigilante-role has done anything deserving of a lot of respect?

[evaba]

@Shelby, I share your confusion, but do you RHEALLY expect the "Arrow" writers to maintain even a modicum of internal cohesion or coherence in their writing, after at least two seasons of retconning and disregarding character consistency??? I mean, they made Laurel confess that she KNOWS that Oliver never loved her the way she loves him on her death bed, totally forgetting that Oliver was portrayed as hardcore pining for Laurel throughout season one, and that he declared to her that she is the woman he cares most about in the whole world in 1X22? And even if Oliver was misjudging his own feelings for Laurel at the time (i.e. he was more in love with the idea of Laurel that had kept him alive during his years in hell than with the real woman), they were still true for him THEN. So, Laurel's words doesn't make sense from a storytelling perspective, which makes you wonder if the writers willingly "forgot" their own season one writing in order to prop Olicity as the show's one and only OTP.

Anyway, it seems to me that Gugs and company are fully prepared to change their characters' established in show history in order to make them tally with the current plot. In the above scene they probably wanted to make the show's resident hero whisperer Felicity impart some words of wisdom to Oliver and make him change his approach. And since Felicity is hardly ever wrong, we just have to accept what she says as a story-internal truth.....even if it doesn't make much sense to those of us who actually remember what went down in the early seasons.

[Shelby Kent]

@Shelby, I share your confusion, but do you RHEALLY expect the "Arrow" writers to maintain even a modicum of internal cohesion or coherence in their writing, after at least two seasons of retconning and disregarding character consistency???

Not really, lol.
Yeah why do I even bother to wonder about these things? I think it was the fact that 5.01 showed some promise of getting back on track to some extent. But that doesn't mean that I should expect them to drop all their deeply ingrained bad habits. I do know better. Just have to remind myself of it.

[Amarice]

#ByebyeOTA

But seriously, despite my positive reviews of 5x01 and 5x02 I don't believe that Arrow-getting-back-to-the-roots will last. With every episode (especially after the mid-season break if the first half of the season is going to be okay) I'll expect them to relapse to pandering to the specyfic fanbase and retcon everything again.

But still, it was nice to hear that dialogue within the show. Not to mention that there is no Original Team Arrow - the team was always changing, people joined and left, and there was even Arrow Team without the Arrow at some point!

[Aquahyde]

So, it is very obvious that the WRITERS, as opposed to the oliciter fanbase, regard Laurel, Thea and Roy as equal members of the Original Team....

Exactly

but is us who are denying canon

[canaryalive]

was Sara - Canary never part of the team? I remember Arrow and Canary team up a lot in season two. In Deathstroke episode there was one fabulous scene where Canary, Arsenal and Arrow get Slade. This for me was the perfect team. Diggle and Felicity were more interesting as a background characters who stay more in the liar.

[JDBentz]

Sara probably would have had a longer time on the team if they hadn't decided to retcon the hell out of her character and have her return to the League after spending over half the season (plus the summer break) on the run from them. I count her as part of the team, personally.

[canaryalive]

Sara probably would have had a longer time on the team if they hadn't decided to retcon the hell out of her character and have her return to the League after spending over half the season (plus the summer break) on the run from them. I count her as part of the team, personally.

Yes they totally put her character run in circles with the going back to the league decision. She proved to be a hero and not a killer in the Birds of Pray episode and then suddenly they decided to give her all this insecurity of 'I am a killer' with the Roy on a mirakuru situation. And the fact, that killing Roy at that point, while he was on a mirakuru, was actually the right choice, makes it even more ridiculous, why she felt so bad about it. Roy killed a policeman and would have killed Thea or Sin. The other plot whole in the situation was also the fact that Sara actually couldn't kill him in the first place, because he was on a mirakuru and they've established with Slade, that the only way is to cure him first and then kill him. So yes, I guess the whole I am happily returning to the league thing, because I am a killer was only to make a room for Laurel to step into her shoes.