Why Felicity Smoak of ‘Arrow’ is TV’s most polarizing character

When you associate the word “polarizing” with characters on major network television, odds are that you, more often than not, think of people like a Negan on “The Walking Dead” on the Man in Black on “Lost” — villains. You’re thinking about people who you re told in some inherent way that you are not supposed to like, even though you are meant to still be compelled enough to watch their journeys play out.

Now that we’ve said this, it is certainly odd to be writing an article instead about how a peppy, nerdy IT specialist-turned technology CEO is in our view the most polarizing character on television. It’s a weird spot to be with Felicity Smoak, a name that draws an almost immediate reaction to any “Arrow” fan you communicate with. There are some people out there who love her and consider her iconic — they demand more Felicity screen time, more of the “Olicity” relationship between her and Oliver, and for the focus to be almost entirely on the original team of her, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), and John Diggle (David Ramsey).

Then, there are the other people, who will proclaim such (often-nasty) things as “I hope she’s written off the show” without blinking. These are people who find her frustrating, annoying, or somewhere in between. They don’t want to see more of her, and probably complained every time she said “best team-up ever” in any of the previews for the DC superhero crossover.

Before we get any further, we want to make it clear that we’re not saying anyone is right or wrong for feeling the way that they do about Felicity. We’re just trying to get to the bottom of the phenomenon and share our own insight. Also, this is not meant to say anything about Emily Bett Rickards, who seems lovely and does a very good job. The issues that we’ll be discussing here have more to do with story direction than anything performance-based.

Why Felicity was popular

In the early going of “Arrow,” it felt like the sentiment towards this character was almost universally-positive, and it was easy to understand why. The writers did a tremendous job flipping an old character-type of the nerdy office employee. This was one of the few shows to make the character a woman, and have a man in Oliver fill the role of the attractive, super-confident love interest — typically, this is a female role. The whole “geek gets the girl” / “geek gets the guy” story is one that is consistently beloved, but in flipping genders the show made it feel fresh. Felicity was fun, good at her job, and brought some levity to what was at times a serious show.

Perhaps most importantly, some of her feelings for Oliver were a little more muted. You got a sense as to who she was as a person, and occasionally also a little bit of how she may feel about Oliver. Occasionally, he had his moments hinting at some feelings of his own. It wasn’t an issue that the show was necessarily trying to force, and that still made it fun. It wasn’t forbidden love, but it felt so much to the imagination that made it unlikely love. It was the sort of thing that you wanted to root for since we as viewers tend to want what we cannot have. Oliver / Laurel was more of the natural trend early on, so this was an alternative to that.

Then came season 2, which in our mind was the best Felicity year. Having the whole showdown with Slade Wilson include a component of Oliver and Feliciy’s feelings for each other gave the relationship some weight, but not so much that it required the two of them to be together right away. The fun, flirty aspect of their relationship persisted, but we could still picture the Felicity character beyond Oliver and see some of her pursuits and root for her. We clamored for more of her, and you’re always doing something right when that happened

Then, season 3 happened

This is where for some, things really started to go off-balance. Her feelings for him, and at times his complicated feelings for her, were shoved almost to the forefront as though the writers became deeply invested in making a percentage of their fan base satisfied more so than telling a cohesive story. More than that, it felt like the writing swayed more towards her love for him rather than his love for her. She put herself out there for him time and time again, and it didn’t feel like he did enough to really earn it. There was one moment that really compounded this further, which was back when it seemed as though Felicity was about to die via the gas chamber at Nanda Parbat, and seemed more preoccupied with Oliver potentially getting married than saving her own life. The fun side of the character we so appreciated was gone, and from here started off a trajectory that was significantly more one-note.

Through most of season 4, the sentiment didn’t change: Felicity and Oliver’s relationship was too much about trying to suit each other’s interests, and not enough about who they were as people. We jumped over the whole part of time in which they were initially dating, which seems like a huge mistake in retrospect, and went right in on the serious stuff. It all felt rushed and unnatural, and while we wanted to be happy for the proposal, it didn’t seem right. The writers seemed to almost understand that when they decided to end the relationship late in season 4.

Picking up the pieces

What went wrong specifically? We do think that the show tried a little too hard to cater to demands in the present rather than thinking about the future. If we’d had another couple of seasons of casual conversations and build-up, pairing Oliver and Felicity up could have been something that felt natural and earned. One of the reasons why Felicity is so disliked by some people is because they feel like the show’s become too much more about her, but if they’d made the idea of her and Oliver together a little more under-the-radar as opposed to something that happened in the midst of the Ra’s al Ghul hysteria, it may not have felt that way. It felt like we got the characters together, and took something away from them in the process. Oliver’s roguish side was gone, and some of Felicity’s humor and her independence did as well.

If we were to compare Oliver and Felicity’s trajectory to another relationship in Barry and Iris on “The Flash,” we’d say that at around the midway point of season 2, Oliver and Felicity had a rapport and a love that Barry and Iris had at around the pilot of “The Flash,” where not all of the feelings were out in the open. If it took two more years after that for Barry and Iris to come together, maybe “Arrow” should have waited until at least the midway point of season 4. What “The Flash” did was perfect — they told a story that was based on the characters rather than an event, and now Barry and Iris together is just an extension of the story as opposed to the main one.

There are easy ways to fix both the character and the relationship, and “Arrow” is well on their way. Felicity now has more of a life about herself, she and Oliver aren’t talking constantly about their past, and while she’s not always the fun character she once was, circumstances dictate that she acts the way that she is. It didn’t spring up out of nowhere. Fans who hate Felicity need to give the character another chance, and try to remember that she was such a source of light and relief during the earlier seasons of the show. Meanwhile, those who love the character and want her with Oliver also need to have some patience. If half of the audience doesn’t like something, odds are those behind the scenes are not doing something right. You want the moment of the two characters coming together to happen — we do, too — but you want it to happen in the right way. The show’s got a chance now to let it build again, and to make the relationship what it always should have been: An addition to a great story about a masked vigilante and his incredible team. Also, Felicity’s story needs to be “badass CEO who can save the world with a few keystrokes” — really, her relationship should only be the third or fourth most interesting thing about her rather than a defining characteristic.

Here’s to hoping that the “Arrow” team can find a way to bring these dueling fandoms together. Even for the most polarizing character out there, we like to envision some sort of hope.

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