Why Felicity is the Oliver's girl

Understanding Olicity
A Psychological Analysis

Here are some experts roughly translated into English of an article I published recently on my blog: 

Oliver Queen returned after 5 years in “hell” with a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a dissociative personality disorder. These two disorders were treated when Oliver returned, because he never wanted to seek therapy or to talk about those five years that the flashbacks revealed. Oliver back on season one was more concerned with nurturing his double personality, for feeding The Hood.


But his other personality, Oliver Queen, clung desperately to return to his life. Psychologically, it makes sense, because Oliver Queen was aware of the problem, but The Hood was stronger, so the only way for Oliver Queen to "win" over The Hood was to return to normal life, to his life before the shipwreck, his last "healthy" and non-traumatic memory, was his life before the accident. In a way, Oliver transformed his life before those five years out, into his comfort zone.

Back in season one, Oliver Queen tried desperately to return to normal, and that normal for him was Laurel.



Laurel on the other hand, was madly in love with "Ollie", the Oliver without those two psychological disorders.

But Oliver was no longer the same, and he knew it, so he decided to stay away from her and allow her to choose Tommy, since he believed she could never be happy with him because of his double personality. And this applies to every girl who went through Oliver's life, because no one fell in love with his "complete self".

That’s why, the love life of Oliver, during the first season revolved around this dissociation. Oliver's first personality was affected by post-traumatic stress (PTSD), and the second personality (The Hood) for dissociative disorder.

Mckenna was dating the first personality, Oliver Queen that was affected by post-traumatic stress (PTSD). Helena was liked the second personality, that of dissociation, The Hood. Sara loved Oliver Queen, but left The Hood fearing for her own demons and two sick people do not do well, because they only feed their disorders in a negative reinforcement loop.

None of these women came into Oliver's life knowing the truth. None was in love with his complete "self." They all came into his life because of Oliver's desperate attempt to get back to normal. But returning to normal does not mean the cure. If he had stayed with Mckenna, or Helena, or Laurel, dissociation would still be there and he would have never been happy or make his partner happy. It would have been a difficult relationship and unfair for both of them.

At the time when the writers of the series, created an Oliver Queen with these two disorders, they left the comic canon behind. Also, psychologically speaking, they purposely or by accident made impossible for the Oliver to find in Laurel or another person cited above, happiness and cure. 

Then Felicity arrived.

Felicity is different. Why? She is in love with all Oliver’s personas. She had a crush on Oliver before the shipwreck and when he came back she fell in love with him as a whole, with his first personality (Oliver) and his second (The Hood)

Felicity loves Oliver as a whole person; she is in love at the same time with a traumatized Oliver and a dissociative killer.



But Felicity was the cure. Diggle helped too, but Felicity was much more key. She has been in charge of ending the Oliver / The Hood dissociation. How did she do that? Transforming that killer into a hero.

From the moment Felicity confronted Oliver and asked him to find another way in season one, Felicity was already attacking dissociation as if it were therapy. She accepted the challenge and turned things around.


I guess she thought: "OK, this is you, you have two personalities, but I love you anyway. So, let's try to change your killer persona into a positive thing and little by little you’ll close the gap between him and Oliver Queen, and at the end you’ll be only one person" .

And she put him a hero’s mask to The Hood, gave him a new bow, remodeled the lair, gave him the fern to humanize the context where Oliver operated and encouraged him to put on another nickname, and pushed him to follow other more ethical methods. Also she helped him open up, trust people and confront  his fears ...



Felicity tamed the beast. He tamed The Hood practicing acceptance and understanding so The Hood began to disappear.

In spite of being in love with Oliver, Felicity did not pursue a romantic relationship with him, because she saw Oliver as someone inaccessible, occupied with his crusade. 

Oliver eventually became aware that The Hood no longer existed as strongly as before. Then it was called Arrow, now that side of his personality was different and he knew it was all thanks to the person who accepted him as he was. But due to his post-traumatic stress, Oliver Queen was afraid to relapsing to his original killer dissociation and to admit that he was in love with Felicity. He was afraid to hurt the only person who was in love with him in every way, and more than that, he was scared to disappoint her if he could not get out of his psychological illness.

So he sabotaged his own relationship with Felicity with absurd lies and strange behavior because, internally, it was easier for him to escape than to confront, something that PTSD-Oliver always did.

Throughout the seasons, Olicity was necessary; this relationship has been the therapeutic cure to the dissociation of Oliver’s personality. Olicity has been the parallel journey to the cure of Oliver’s post-traumatic stress. That is why we have been presented with seasons heavier on Olicity content than centered on his traumatic journey.

Why? Because to reach the final cure in S5, it was necessary to end first with the dissociation of personality, and with all that it entailed.

Maybe they could have explained an presented it in the series in a different way, but that does not matter now because Oliver’s journey as it is, from a psychological point of view makes sense.

This explained why Olicity was a center topic with the theme of identity in season three.  In that season, we saw Oliver’s tragic memories in China and Maseo gave us the key to why Olicity was important that season: "A man can not live with two names." The writers gave us the key to that season’s theme: an attack the dissociation of Oliver's personality. That dissociation Felicity had been attacking for two years.

I that same season, the double personality, turned into three, the disorder worsened, because Oliver acquired another new personality: Al Sa-him.  Interestingly, Ra's al Ghul taught Oliver how a dissociative personality disorder can actually nullify a person.



That's why Felicity was so devastated on season three, she saw her groundwork destroyed and she felt that Oliver was really lost.

The theme of the S3 was the dissociation of Oliver. A season that in my opinion had a thousand mistakes (not my favorite) but undoubtedly, necessary for the Oliver’s journey to his final cure.

At the end of S3 Oliver was able to fake a third personality and kill it. He killed Al Sahim himself. Psychologically, Oliver was exposed to his illness with a third “bait-personality".

But Oliver felt strong, "if I could kill Al Sahim and not become him, I can finish The Hood." At the end of the season Oliver leaves with Felicity almost completely cured of his dissolution disorder.

So…Do you understand everything? Do you understand Olicity now?

Felicity has been the cure. She has been Oliver’s light. Felicity is the girl Oliver needs.
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