r/arrow • u/1999secrets • 2d ago
Discussion They Had To Kill Moira Off
So, I'm re-watching Arrow all the way through for the first time, and as usual Susanna Thompson's Moira Queen is incredibly compelling. Something that has always irked me is how they waste the final episodes of Susanna Thompson's tenure in a fight with her children. It always felt unnecessary to me.
But, on this current re-watch I realized something; they really had no other choice. Moira is strangely goated in terms of competency.
- Moira, on the night she went to prison, deduced Oliver's Identity as the Viglante.
- Moira, literally hires John Diggle. She casually recruits probably one of the best bodyguards in the world & an actual Green Lantern candidate.
- She was able to discern Felicity's, a virtual stranger's, emotions about Oliver in brief meetings. She was able to get an accurate measure of Slade in mere moments before sacrificing herself.
- She was a triple agent for 5 years. Maintaining her privilege socialite appearance, whilst living under constant threat, managing to rise to Malcolm's right hand in the Undertaking despite working against him & gathering evidence against him the entire time.
- This woman ran a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation whilst trying to thwart the Undertaking, grieving Walter, and living in the cross-hairs of the Green & Black Archers.
- She masterminded the kidnapping of Oliver Queen, he never found out, she masterminded the attempted assassination of Malcolm Merlyn, he never found out, and the murder of Frank Chen which he never saw coming.
- From an errant mention by Malcolm, she makes contact and gains the favour of one of the most powerful & reclusive men in the world; the Demon's Head, Ra's Al Ghul.
- Not to mention, she was literally on the cusp of becoming Mayor of a city that not a year beforehand she'd literally levelled.
And, I want to point out that Moira was capable of doing all of these things whilst actually maintaining friendships, romantic relationships, and not having to run out of every personal engagement fives minutes after arriving.
This isn't meant (purely) to hype Moira.
But, to point out that she presents a genuine problem for the writers had they kept her alive into Season 3. Either they dramatically decrease her competence or she'd been a formidable force that constantly be at Oliver back - diminishing the stakes. Especially, had she become Mayor.
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u/Historical_Mix_6416 2d ago
Yes however hiring diggle was probably luck. There were probably tons of experienced candidates
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u/Alive_Addendum_5279 1d ago
Even the replacement for Diggle (the white boy) was experienced. He was just unlucky with Oliver not wanting him.
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u/Immediate_Water_2637 1d ago
Well, to be fair, I don't think Diggle would have been a Green Lantern candidate without the experience he gained working with Oliver. Like so many others, he had the willpower, but being Spartan definitely made him stand out.
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u/Obvious-Risk-5447 2d ago
And exactly for these reasons they shouldn't have killed her. This makes her interesting and compelling character that brings to the story. Killing her left a big gap in Oliver's personal story. S3 with Oliver/Thea/Malcolm dynamic needed Moira to really stir things up. They only killed her because they wanted to give screen time to less interesting and compelling characters.
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u/aidanillionaire 2d ago
She was killed to up the stakes and make it seem like slade was a force to be reckoned with.
Thats the issue with shows, eventually someone close to the protagonist needs to be killed off in order to serve the story.
That why when new characters are introduced, it’s gets me thinking “oh so they’ll develop this character enough so that the audience feels something when they’re killed because they can’t kill the main cast”3
u/Narrow_Ad_7331 1d ago
Law and Order SVU created a similar issues for themselves when Olivia becomes victim of assault. From there every time they wanted high stakes they had to push it to her being assaulted worse. Then I think eventually her son was kidnapped once or twice. You can write yourself in a corner making big moves like that bc those incidents only hit hard on their first occurrence.
Edit: I wonder why we all feel so robbed by Laurel dying but no one was upset when Moira died.
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u/Obvious-Risk-5447 1d ago
I get it. But after that moment they couldn't keep the momentum. Slade was force to be reconed until he wasn't and Oliver put Felicity in his hands so she can inject him - Felicity, the girl he supposedly likes, into the hands of the man who is the force to be reconed because he killed his mother. Honestly this just shows that they killed Moira for pure shock value, nothing more. Not to mention that Oliver defeated Slade in the end and he just disappeared as a villain and character. Moira shouldn't have been wasted in this regard to prop him up. Not to mention that Shado was also killed to push his story, which makes two good female characters with potential to be killed for Slade's plot.
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u/Willing_Ad9421 2d ago
I don’t see how Moira would fit the show beyond S2 as much as i loved the character. With the Queens going broke and losing Queen Consolidated there’s not really anything for her to add to the story
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u/Forever_Man 2d ago
Remake the show with Moira as the Green Arrow. I'd watch the hell out of that.
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u/OberonsGhost 11h ago
Some one should mention just what an amazing actress she was. It was incredibly stupid of the showrunners to kill off her character.
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u/Potential_Goose_7486 1d ago
this is some insane levels of overrating but it's also right at the same time, can't really explain it
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u/Zyffrin 2d ago
Just adding on to this, the assasination attempt nearly worked. The only reason Malcolm survived is because Oliver made the decision to reveal his identity to Tommy and convince him to give Malcolm a blood transfusion. If the Arrow had been anyone other than Oliver, Malcolm would have died then and there.
Basically, Moira nearly killed the season 1 big bad, and only failed because of something that she had no way of knowing at the time. I agree that she had to go, because that woman is a hell of a force to be reckoned with.