Laurel Lance (Earth-1)


 * For her mother of the same name, see Dinah Lance.

"We don't need to go outside the law ... to find justice."

- Laurel Lance

Dinah "Laurel" Lance (born 1984) is the daugther of Detective Quentin Lance and the sister of the late Sara Lance. Sometime in the past, Laurel had a romantic relationship with Oliver Queen. Laurel is part of a group called the City Necessary Resources Initiative, or CNRI, that helps people in need.

Season 1
Laurel is a lawyer and works for a legal aid office. She appears to be close friends with Tommy Merlyn, Oliver's best-friend. Five years prior to the pilot, her sister Sara dies in a violent shipwreck which, also strands Oliver on a remote island. It is also shown that she has been involved with Tommy in the past. In Lone Gunman, they agree to give their relationship a try.



In Damaged, Laurel and Oliver kiss. She admits that she still has feelings for him but makes it clear that nothing can ever happen between them. She argues with her father when she chooses to defend Oliver in his trial. Moira Queen requests her to be Oliver's lawyer on his insistence. She tells her father that he can't blame Oliver fully for Sara's death or the fact that her mother left them afterwards.

When Thea gets in legal trouble to get her out of a long jail sentence Laurel gets her father to get her a deal, meaning as part of her plea bargain, Thea will work at CNRI.

When she calls the Hood, she unwittingly helps her father track him down and is furious with him as it gets her kidnapped. The Hood saves her, but this cause a break between her and her father. After this, Arrow told her goodbye.

Abilities
Expert hand-to-hand combatant: Laurel received extensive hand-to-hand combat training. This is because her father made her take self-defense classes.

Trivia

 * With the insistence of her father, Laurel received extensive hand-to-hand combat training allowing her to defend herself very effectively.
 * Dinah Lance is Black Canary in the original comic. She possesses the metahuman ability of a sonic scream in which she can deploy to shatter objects and incapacitate her opponents, the "Canary Cry"
 * During San Diego Comic Con 2012, the shows producers said that Laurel will become Black Canary "later than you hope but sooner than you expect".
 * In "Damaged", when Oliver and Laurel go alone to talk, Laurel mentions to Oliver that she wore fishnets to a Halloween party they attended together in 2005. This is a reference to Laurel's comic book alter ego's costume, Black Canary.
 * It is possible from the way that Laurel has acted with the vigilante is that she is, to some degree, in love with him more so than she is with Tommy Merlyn. It is possible that the show creators are subtly foreshadowing this with the Robin Hood/Maid Marion quip as well as the way she looked after him whilst Quentin secured Cyrus Vanch and the way she wanted to continue working with Arrow despite the danger. Also she when she, was distracted by Tommy's arrival she seemed more concerned with finding Arrow than she did with reconciling with Tommy.
 * If/When she discovers that Oliver is in fact Arrow, provided the above is correct, she may end her relationship with Tommy which would provide the catalyst for his possible later transformation into the second Dark Archer.
 * During Oliver's recovery period he wakes up in bed with Laurel. This works with what is expressed above because she asks him what it felt like to die, meaning that the old Oliver (the one afraid of responsibilty and commitment) is dead and a more adult Oliver lives in his place.