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Arrow Character Spotlight: Damien Darhk

When I first learned that
Neal McDonough was going to be joining the
cast of Arrow, I was
ecstatic. Neal is a phenomenal
actor, and whatever
character he is portraying, he puts forth all of his
effort… and it pays

off.

Damien Darhk is the leader of H.I.V.E and a former member of the

League of Assassins. When
the former Ra’s Al Ghul was ordered to kill Darhk by
the even prior Ra’s
Al Ghul, Ra’s refused to kill his
best friend. With that,
Damien vanished from the league, taking some water
from the Lazarus Pit with
him.
Following this, Damien and Ra’s became sworn enemies. Damien developed his

own organization, and formed it
to be H.I.V.E. He continued to practice his
fighting skills just as he did
in the League of Assassins, but he
also grew
accustomed to the ways of sorcery. Because he became so involved
with his
sorcery, he became
extremely feared throughout the mystic realm. We saw in an
earlier episode
of Arrow that even
Constantine was afraid of
him.

In our Season premiere, Damien
compared Star City to a dog on the

streets. He believes that in order to build up something new, the old must
first
be torn down. Damien
expects all of his associates and subordinates to follow
his instructions,
without any issues. If his
instructions are not carried out as
he wishes, or if there are mishaps in
his plan, he will ruthlessly kill
the ones
who faulted his plan.

Arrow Character Spotlight: Damien Darhk
Image: The CW

 

His
abilities range from

longevity and extreme martial artist to telekinesis and teleportation. He’s

pretty a pretty epic badass,
with few flaws. The waters from the Lazarus Pit
have given him long life,
allowing him to walk the Earth for
centuries. He has
been able to disappear and reappear behind his enemies in
battle, and choke them
from a
distance away. I’m still in awe at the fact that he was able to choke
out a
man on television, even though
he was thousands of miles away. Talk about
having extreme abilities. Damien
has clearly has a firm grip on
the mystical
world.

Under the veil of wicked actions, we see that
Damien really does
have a sense
of honor. When Oliver and his team rescued Damien’s family from
Lonnie
Machin, Damien was more than capable
of killing Oliver and his team,
merely for the fact that they are
‘enemies’. Despite that, Damien let Team

Arrow go. When Damien’s wife stated that Damien should have killed the
Green
Arrow and his team, Damien
responded saying “As you said, he saved your life. It
would be bad form to
take him out now,”

Also, in
the Season 4 episode
‘The Candidate’ when Darhk found out that Lonnie
Machin had kidnapped Jessica

Danforth’s daughter, Darhk ended their ‘partnership’. Perhaps this was

because Damien himself has a
daughter, and he understands how truly painful it
would have been. He even
told Detective Lance to ‘put Sara
out of her misery’
from ‘one father to another’ when he learned how Sara
was reacting as a side
effect
of the Lazarus Pit.

It’s clear that family is extremely important
to
Damien, and I would say it is
probably one of his major weaknesses. When
Damien found out his family was
in danger in the episode ‘Blood
Debts’, he
immediately returned home to save them. Whether he has magic or
not, Damien’s
family is a
soft spot for him.

If you weren’t able to catch the Arrow
episode
‘Taken’, you can read my recap here. Where we cover the
‘fall’ of Damien
Darhk.

With
Damien now in prison, he looks to be in a fair bit of
trouble. I am more than

confident that even though Damien is without his abilities, he still has

multiple loyal followers who
will attempt to set him free.

If there is
anything we have learned
about Damien, it is that he is
patient and he is not a
quitter.

I really do enjoy this character,
and I hope we will get to see

more of him as the Seasons go on. Even though Damien did hold William
(Oliver’s
son) hostage, we learned
in ‘Taken’ that it was in fact, Malcolm Merlyn who
was the one who fed the
information to Darhk AND
kidnapped William. Who knows,
maybe we will see Darhk AND Oliver both work
together to take on Malcolm.
Darhk,
for reasons of revenge. Oliver, also for reasons of revenge
afterall… Malcolm
DID kidnap
Oliver’s son. I would say that’s pretty unforgivable. I mean, this
would
not be the first time we have seen
two ‘enemies’ team up
on Arrow even if it is for just a moment.
How cool would that

be??

I know that the writers, cast and crew of Arrow have
never
failed us, and have
always written fantastic storylines. I cannot wait to see
what they have in
store for us for the rest of this
season.

Damien’s
storyline will continue when Arrow returns
on Wednesday, March 23rd at

8PM/EST on The CW.

Trivia:

Did you know that
it
was Damien Darhk who paid
the Bronze Tiger to steal Malcolm Merlyn’s
confiscated ‘earthquake’
machine from Season 1? The plan was
foiled by Oliver
and Roy, but could you imagine what could have happened if
the Bronze Tiger was

successful in securing the device and took it back to Damien? Hmm…

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