Arrow s1

[schneefink]

I keep meaning to post things and then forgetting.

I watched season 1 of Arrow recently.
I enjoyed parts of it. It's a weird mix of Batman and probably Robin Hood, especially in the beginning that was funny. Only Olli still has family left.

I liked Moira a lot: she's doing terrible things out of fear, but that happens. I liked how she tried but didn't really know how to have a good relationship with her children, how she saw Walter as pure and hoped their love would help save her only then she had to give him up and loses him int he end, and she knew what she was doing was wrong but she was too scared to stop. And then in the end she publicly confesses to save thousands.

I also liked Tommy, trying to figure out how to live his own life, weighed down by his insecurities and his family bullshit and Olli's stupid vigilante stuff, and I'm sorry he died.

I liked Walter, Digg, and Felicity, but I didn't find the latter two particularly interesting. I didn't particularly like Laurel, but that wasn't her fault, it was more that she always seemed to be in the middle of other characters' stories and hers didn't really have any direction.

I didn't like Helena Bertinelli because as soon as she appeared I knew how her story was going to end (the only question I had was if she'd die or appear again) and I also know that it would have gone completely differently had she been male, and I hate how it played out. Oliver is the biggest hypocrite.

I thought Thea was okay in the beginning, but found her sudden intense romance with Roy Harper completely unrealistic. That she has a crush on him, fine, but it went way too fast for me to buy her strong attachment. I'm also not particularly fond of Roy Harper, so that doesn't help.

My biggest problem with the show is that I don't like Oliver Queen. His code of ethics is basically "what I feel like at the moment." He's traumatized from his stay at the island and his father killing himself etc., and everybody should have been much more cognizant of that, but that's just one more reason why he shouldn't do what he's doing. He keeps changing what he's doing and how he's doing it and that just emphasizes that he never actually sat down and thought about it. He's going out and killing people, I liked how Laurel's dad kept talking about that. He's willing to give the big bad guys a chance for remorse, but has no problem killing their hired security, wut. And most times it's not like it's necessary! We're shown so early that he could just steal their money, or get the evidence and make it public. But no, he feels better as a vigilante in a silly costume inflicting violence. Perhaps the most stupid example is when he threatens Moira instead of doing the smart thing you can do when you find out that a person you have easy access to is involved in a dangerous conspiracy that you need more information on: you bug them to get that information. Torture - and yes, that's basically what he's doing - is not only morally repulsive, it's also unreliable.

And the people that the show presents as the ones keeping an eye on him to ground him: Diggles, Felicity, and Lance. Diggles basically goes "I don't want to stop you because I think the bad guys deserve it, I know you'll continue so I might as well try to make sure you're not going more crazy." Which is not a good position to start from! Diggles is someone who completely understands the concept of personally taking revenge and has no problem with it. Not really the best moral authority.
Felicity: I like that she started with "I want to find Walter so I'll help you." And okay, it can be easy to be tempted to think what he's doing is the right thing if you can see that he accomplishes some good things. But then she says to Lance that he sacrifices a lot and that makes him a hero, which, NO. Stockholm Syndrome or something. Admittedly Oliver can be very charismatic, and the easy way to punish bad guys can be tempting.
I don't even really put Laurel in this category because she accepts the bad with the good pretty early on.
And then there's Lance, who for the longest time is seemingly the only guy who remember that the Hood kills people and that's not justice. (Even Batman is basically only a bounty hunter!) He seems a bit fixated, granted. And there's nothing wrong with saying that the Hood does some useful stuff, but that doesn't make everything else okay, and in the end even Lance seems to forget that.
I liked Tommy's reaction - mostly hurt and confusion - but then he died.

So while I mostly enjoyed the first season, I won't watch the second one. I heard the Oliver/Felicity relationship becomes even more fun, and some interesting people show up (Black Canary!), but there are so many other things that I'm a lot more interested in and where I don't want someone to punch the main character all the time. (I don't even know where to start, currently debating between Young Justice and several comic series.)

Comments

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I read S2 centers a lot on Oliver deciding he shouldn't kill people and repercussions of those choices and his struggles with it as a direct result of many of the poor choices he made in S1. The reviews I read (I couldn't decide if I wanted to watch S2) said both seasons were one long storyline which is interesting enough for me to give S2 a try because it sounds like they're trying to build upon what they started out with and have character growth as a result.

The show has too many subplot and soap-operaish themes which kind of turned me off, but I had to remind myself a majority of comic-books really are big soap operas...lol Not to mention I found certain characters very annoying.

I saved S2 for summer viewing when nothing else is on. We'll see.

Re:

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

A friend told me that season 1 is basically the origin story for s2!Oliver. Character growth in that area would be very little very late, but better than nothing? And the spoilers I got from wikipedia about s2 didn't make me more inclined to watch it tbh. So yeah, I'm not ruling out that I'll watch it one day, but only when there's nothing better.