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Arrow: A ‘Grave’ Epiphany

When Arrow first
returned this season the fan-base was sure
of quite a few things. First, we
were going to be getting a new
villain this
season; Damien Darhk. Neal McDonough has certainly delivered
his part and has
wow’d us
throughout his villainous dialogue and occasional dark humor. Second,
we
knew that we would be getting a hero
back. Sara Lance was predicted to be
resurrected. Sara has always been a fan
favorite, and it brought us
great joy to
see her come back to the screens. Finally, we knew that Team
Arrow at some point
and time
during the duration of this season would be getting back together. Not
just
because we saw clips, previews
and photos of them all fighting side by side
either. It was because that is
just who they are and
what Team Arrow
is. Despite their consistent faults, this Team has
always held together come

hell or high water. Sure, Oliver left Star City to go and try to live a

‘happily-ever-after’ tale with
Felicity. Sure, he seemingly ‘left’ the team
to go and try to have his own
life away from the darkness. But
think about it,
did Oliver ever really leave? I mean honest to god,
truly leave. I’m
sure he
did his best to forget about the hard times, but Oliver has never really

been the person to quit on something
he started. Especially when it involves
people he cares about.

But
I’m not here to talk about what
Oliver’s
thoughts and feelings are in regards to what he wants or chooses
to forget. I’m
here to,
briefly, discuss his morals and how this upcoming episode ‘Eleven-Fifty-
Nine’ will cause Oliver to have an
‘Epiphany’ and reconsider the current

path that he is taking.

Arrow: A 'Grave' Epiphany
Image: The CW

Aside from the obvious costume change,

Oliver’s character has been
written completely different this season. When we
first met Oliver in Season
1, he had completely succumbed
to the darkness.
Gradually, we saw him come away from that all thanks to the
help of his team, in

particular Felicity
Smoak.

In fact Marc Guggenheim stated the following
in an
interview about Oliver and his
‘vigilante’ style of doing things in
earlier seasons:

“We’re exploring
the nature
of vigilantism … and well get into those [moral] issues,”
Guggenheim said. “The
Arrow always
gives the bad guy the opportunity to do the right thing … when he
kills, he
kills for necessity … it’s not
just random violence … we’ll face the
issues of his morality head on…that’s
part of the fun quite, frankly,
when
telling a story about a vigilante.”


Marc Guggenheim to
EW Magazine

This
season, when
Oliver returns to reborn Star City
as ‘The Green Arrow’ he aims
to be a sign of hope for Star City and to
fight alongside the heroes who took
up
‘The Arrow’s’ mantle following his death. As ‘The Green Arrow’,
Oliver
would be focusing more on
saving the city by combating the darkness with hope
and light. He would
focus on improving his abilities, his
team and taking up his
mantle as a hero and not as a vigilante.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sP69d9-
YiQ[/embedyt]

So what does all this have to do with the grave scene.
may you ask?
Well, given all the buildup we have
seen so far this season, and
after seeing Oliver’s frustration multiple
times that light vs darkness isn’t

working… we may have to consider the possibility, and
brace ourselves for the fact that this death,
this ‘epiphany’ Oliver feels
following who is in that grave

may lead Oliver back down a path he swore to never

return. The deaths caused
on behalf of ‘The Green Arrow’ compared to ‘The
Arrow’ have a HUGE range
of difference. We have seen how
Oliver has reacted
when someone within his inner circle is taken from him.
There is a consistent on
and
off pattern in Oliver’s life of how he reacts to loss.

Merlyn killed
Tommy- Oliver ‘killed’ Merlyn.
(Dark)

Slade killed his

mother-Oliver retaliated by sending him off to
prison
(Light)

Ra’s Al Ghul
attempted to kill both Oliver himself AND Thea-
Oliver killed
Ra’s
(Dark).

Damien Darhk

kidnapped William (Oliver’s son)
and nearly killed Oliver and his team- Oliver
let the SCPD take him in
(Light)

In this upcoming episode, we have seen Oliver state
that he’s going
to
‘kill him’.

[embedyt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axt0nGiDucE[/embedyt]

Now, we have seen
Oliver handle ‘revenge’ all kinds of ways in
just a few of the examples I
mentioned above. However, this
time, it is very
different. Oliver tried to be a ‘beacon of hope’ for Star
City and it seems as
though
Oliver feels that in taking the path of ‘light and hope’ versus
darkness
from the very beginning, someone
very close to him is now dead. When
Felicity was in the hospital Oliver
stated that he thought the reason
Darhk was
winning was because Oliver wasn’t willing to go ‘far enough’
and that he
didn’t know if the
point of what he is doing as ‘The Green Arrow’ is, if he
can’t protect
those closest to him.

Perhaps
tonight, we will see Oliver face a
challenge even greater than life itself.
Will
he continue to do his original mission as ‘The Green Arrow’ and be
that beacon
of hope? Or will he
find himself so hell-bent on revenge over this death that he
falls to the
darkness once more? Or perhaps,
some sort of in between?

I’m favoring
the ‘somewhere in between’
option. I
think until this ‘war’ is over, we are going to be seeing a much
darker side
of Oliver. Once
it ends, I think we will see Oliver surround himself with the
members of his
team in such a way that he finds
the light once more.

Give me your
thoughts. How do you think that this
death
tonight will chance Oliver?

Eleven-Fifty-Nine airs
tonight at
8PM/EST on The
CW.

Are you ready, Arrow fans?

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