As much as I hate the way the writers have Oliver bouncing from girl to girl, it makes sense in a way. He's sort of... crossing off the wrong types of girls in order to put him in a better place when he's finally ready to be with the right one - who I still think is Felicity.
It's like the writers have a checklist for him and each new girl marks off a point on the list. All of them have had significant situational or character traits in common with Oliver. Helena was the poor little rich kid burdened by dark family secrets, Makenna put herself at risk fighting for justice, Laurel... well, let's just go with HISTORY, Shado was an island exile mourning her father, Isabel matched Oliver's business persona and Sara's a fellow vigilante badass. Every one of them has something in common with Oliver, but it's like they only match on one level (with the possible exception of Sara, who is almost like a mirror image of him and they are just too alike to make it work long-term.)
There are a lot of different facets to Oliver's personality - business man, playboy, vigilante, and so on - and whoever he ends up with will have to match him on all those levels, not just one. That's why I like Felicity with him - she has a legitimate role in more than one of his worlds and she belongs there on her own terms. Not to say that she is or ever will be exactly like him, but they do complement each other. For this reason I also appreciated the scene two episodes back where she confronted Moira in the Queen mansion about Thea's paternity; it felt like we were seeing the sort of strength and poise that Felicity could develop in the future (in terms of character, not morality.)
You are way kinder re: Oliver sleeping around than I am. At this point, I just think he's incapable of keeping it in his pants and the writers are doing some one-handed typing and filing their fantasies about getting to fuck every pretty girl that crosses their path.
Ha! No one has ever accused me of being kind before.
The problem with the way Oliver's romantic drama is portrayed is that it feels like the writers are determined to make it part of the plot every single time, and honestly, it's hard to take it seriously because it feels so disingenuous. If it were just some guy you knew, five different girls (Shado was way in the past) over the span of a year and a half isn't really that big of a deal. Oliver's a young, single guy, so he's not doing anything wrong on a moral level - it's not as if he's cheating on his girlfriend or anything in the current storyline, so I can appreaciate that at least. (Psychologically is another story - that boy is messed up.)
But every single time, Oliver's hook-ups have to be part of this huge plot twist and I'm so over it. Still, it's hard to condemn him for it because a) it feels more plot than character driven and b) Oliver still has a lot of growing to do and he's an emotionally traumatised mess. He's on a learning curve, and as boring and repetitive as all the faux-romantic drama can be (seriously, the writers need to find some other stuff to focus on) it highlights Oliver's development and without that potential for growth the show would be dead in the water. You can't have a lead who is fully functional and flawless - they have to be a little bit broken so the audience gets invested in what they could become.
There are a lot (so many) of books out in recent years in the young adult supernatural genre, mostly in the vein of human girl meets supernatural boy, they fall for each other and fight to overcome the odds as supernatural forces try to keep them apart, yada yada... Which has the potential to be really interesting, if it focussed more on the supernatural world and less on the angsty teen romance crap, and so many of these books are incredibly badly written to the point where I wonder how they managed to get published.
What do you think is the biggest (or most obvious) flaw of (books in) this genre? Where does it fail and how do you think it could be changed in order to strengthen the plot and succeed on its own narrative merits?
The biggest flaw is that it's "normal girl" meets supernatural creature. Where the fuck are supernatural girl meets normal boy (Blood & Chocolate), boy meets murderous girl-ghost (Girl of Nightmares), where is girl has supernatural destiny (Buffy)?
The problem is having a "main character" who's written to be "normal" instead of interesting, flawed, powerful, and vital to the plot.
What do you think about Divergent (upcoming movie and books)? (Fyi I don't really care either way so no opinion you can have will offend me in the slightest)
I found Divergent (the book) so fucking boring. I could not get past the idiocy of acting like people only had one dominate personality trait and the heroine being special because she *gasp* is well-balanced! And then I realized the entire first book was going to be, like her introductory tests? That said, I’m tempted to watch the movie because female led sci-fi and MAGGIE Q and KATE WINSLET.
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timeasmymeasure
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It's like the writers have a checklist for him and each new girl marks off a point on the list. All of them have had significant situational or character traits in common with Oliver. Helena was the poor little rich kid burdened by dark family secrets, Makenna put herself at risk fighting for justice, Laurel... well, let's just go with HISTORY, Shado was an island exile mourning her father, Isabel matched Oliver's business persona and Sara's a fellow vigilante badass. Every one of them has something in common with Oliver, but it's like they only match on one level (with the possible exception of Sara, who is almost like a mirror image of him and they are just too alike to make it work long-term.)
There are a lot of different facets to Oliver's personality - business man, playboy, vigilante, and so on - and whoever he ends up with will have to match him on all those levels, not just one. That's why I like Felicity with him - she has a legitimate role in more than one of his worlds and she belongs there on her own terms. Not to say that she is or ever will be exactly like him, but they do complement each other. For this reason I also appreciated the scene two episodes back where she confronted Moira in the Queen mansion about Thea's paternity; it felt like we were seeing the sort of strength and poise that Felicity could develop in the future (in terms of character, not morality.)
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The problem with the way Oliver's romantic drama is portrayed is that it feels like the writers are determined to make it part of the plot every single time, and honestly, it's hard to take it seriously because it feels so disingenuous. If it were just some guy you knew, five different girls (Shado was way in the past) over the span of a year and a half isn't really that big of a deal. Oliver's a young, single guy, so he's not doing anything wrong on a moral level - it's not as if he's cheating on his girlfriend or anything in the current storyline, so I can appreaciate that at least. (Psychologically is another story - that boy is messed up.)
But every single time, Oliver's hook-ups have to be part of this huge plot twist and I'm so over it. Still, it's hard to condemn him for it because a) it feels more plot than character driven and b) Oliver still has a lot of growing to do and he's an emotionally traumatised mess. He's on a learning curve, and as boring and repetitive as all the faux-romantic drama can be (seriously, the writers need to find some other stuff to focus on) it highlights Oliver's development and without that potential for growth the show would be dead in the water. You can't have a lead who is fully functional and flawless - they have to be a little bit broken so the audience gets invested in what they could become.
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What do you think is the biggest (or most obvious) flaw of (books in) this genre? Where does it fail and how do you think it could be changed in order to strengthen the plot and succeed on its own narrative merits?
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The problem is having a "main character" who's written to be "normal" instead of interesting, flawed, powerful, and vital to the plot.
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