User blog comment:Squaredomo214/The Guggenheim Paradox/@comment-3221148-20160601144636/@comment-3221148-20160601145239

On Felicity: I think the problem is with how the show handles romantic leads. Aside from Sara, who was pretty chill in the present but had a dramatic arc in the flashbacks, every other heroine has to have big bad DRAMA as the source of story for any romance arc. And since, unlike Laurel, Felicity didn't have that much reasons to hate on Oliver (and "lack of trust" seemed pretty shallow), the drama in their relationship just seemed arbitrary and made for the sake of providing another conflict. Oliver himself has completely lost agency: if in S1 he CHOSE to evade Laurel to not let it interfere with his mission, in S4 he's been doing nothing but constant apologizing, being TOLD by Dig to apologize some more, even for the things that he was probably correct about (like making the decision on the final fate of his relationship with Willian with his mother, rather than with Felicity, who for some reason decided she wanted to have a say in it).