felicity, the hero we deserve

  

Arrow does a great job of featuring whole, flawed, wonderful women. Nyssa, Thea, Sara, Laurel, Felicity, Moira, and Mama Smoak are SEVEN women off the top of my head from this world, and I could name three facts about each of them. That is a deep bench of interesting women characters. It’s a whole quidditch team (one I’d really like to see play btw–they’d probably win every game). 

The Arrow women are many things, but none of them are one-note, they don’t blindly follow without questioning, and they aren’t helpless waifs who need protection. This alone makes them different from many other women on TV, but Felicity in particular bucks superhero stereotypes and kicks ass while doing it.

She doesn’t literally kick ass–she leaves that to just about everyone else in a city with a glut of masked fighters. No, Felicity has different skills. IT skills. With a master’s from MIT and experience working for Queen Consolidated, she has real-life credentials to be the IT department of Team Arrow. Oliver is smart to want her for his team. Felicity and Oliver know how good she is, and so does the rest of Starling City. That’s why Ray looks for her and hires her to help run his company. And that’s why Felicity is able to get other jobs on her own, and not rely on Oliver for her employment. She doesn’t need *him*, he needs *her*. Rather than being the secret source her career depends on, for example, he is her friend and partner. 

And the way he gets her on his team is by showing her what they do, and asking her to be a part of it. So many superhero shows depend on the people close to the hero being huge dummies who don’t recognize the voice and body of someone they grew up with or that their SO is MIA at all the times the hero is out and about. Felicity is smart enough to see through Oliver’s excuses and put two and two together, so when he confirms that he’s the Arrow, she isn’t surprised. When he needs her help and wants her to join his team, Oliver lays it all out for her and lets Felicity decide what to do. (This is my fave part of their relationship tbh. I am SO TIRED of the boring reasons men keep lying to women on TV for their own “safety.”) 

And because Felicity isn’t lied to or tricked into getting involved, and because she chooses to participate and knows she could leave at any time (and sometimes does!), her role in Team Arrow is a bright, wonderful beacon of feminism. Felicity doesn’t need protection, and she doesn’t need a cover story–just the facts, plz, and she can decide what she wants to do for herself.

When Oliver is presumed dead–I think the third time, but who can keep count–Felicity and the rest of the team need to decide to keep working in his stead or give up without their leader. Diggle, Ray, and Felicity come to their own conclusion and re-commit to their cause. They each have had plenty of options to quit or leave before and have chosen to stay, but when the Arrow disappeared, possibly forever, Diggle, Ray, and Felicity independently decide to continue and contribute what they can to saving Starling City. This means a lot to all the members of Team Arrow, but it’s especially notable for Felicity. She is in love with Oliver, sure, and she believes in him, sure, but she stays for *herself*, even when Oliver isn’t there. 

Felicity isn’t defined by her relationship to Oliver. She is her own person who is valuable, and *valued*, for who she is–not because she fits some superhero trope or because she’s a damsel in distress or because she’s a serious hottie (even though she is). She is whole, she makes mistakes, and she is more than one thing.

For example, when Felicity meets Sara, Oliver’s on-and-off lady friend and Laurel’s sister, Felicity LIKES her (sigh, I do too), and she isn’t instantly turned into a jealous woman spurned. When Sara turns out to be good at computers as well as super hot and a kick-ass crime fighter, Felicity feels normal insecurity at being replaced on the team, but she never turns into a calculating bitch who wants to sabotage Sara and Oliver’s relationship. And when Sara dies (rip Sara I MISS YOU), Felicity is devastated to lose a friend, not gleeful that an obstacle to her relationship with Oliver is out of the way. 

She isn’t defined by fashion either–her style isn’t sex kitten or prude. She dresses appropriately for work, and she dresses differently for dates–as opposed to the Super Hot Board President who wears dresses that’s that are too risque for work and too board-room-ish for dates. (Arrow’s not totally exempt from cliches–I do remember Isabel.) And when Felicity is feeling a little sassy, she even shows a little midriff. She does wear glasses, often an indicator of being smart and nerdy, but even this shows realism in her case: There’s a lucky few who could spend all day and all night looking at computers and *not* need glasses.

The best part of Felicity’s more realistic fashion sense is that when she’s working, she wears her hair up in a ponytail–unlike the other Arrow women who seem to be able to run all over the city with their long locks flowing. Felicity is practical, and bless her for it. 

Felicity has long been the best part of Arrow, and she is the biggest reason I love to ship #olicity. The other reason, of course, is that Oliver sees her for all that she is, and he loves and respects her for it. He trusts her decisions, and in a superhero world where lying to your gf is the “romantic” norm, this is a ship I’ll gladly go down with. 

If you haven’t yet, check out the preview for this week’s Arrow and watch with me on Wednesday night!