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 1985) is a legal aid attorney. She is the daughter of Quentin Lance and Dinah, the older sister of the late Sara Lance, the girlfriend and love interest of Oliver Queen, the ex-girlfriend of the late Tommy Merlyn, and the best friend of Joanna De La Vega. Sometime in the past, Laurel had a romantic relationship with Oliver until he was unfaithful to her with her sister, Sara. Laurel is part of a group called the City Necessary Resources Initiative, or CNRI, that helps people in need. She is also one of The Hood's supporters, unaware that he is her current boyfriend, Oliver.

Biography
Laurel is a lawyer and works for a legal aid office. 5 years prior to the pilot, her sister Sara dies in a violent shipwreck which, also strands Oliver on a remote island. After a while she forgives him and they become best friends again. It is also shown that she has been involved with Tommy in the past.

Season 1
In "Lone Gunman", they agree to give their relationship a try.

In "An Innocent Man",



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 for Sara's death or the fact that her mother left them afterwards.

In "Legacies",

In "Muse of Fire",

In "Year's End",

In "Burned",

In "Vendetta",

In "Vertigo", 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.

In "Betrayal", 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 causes a strain between her and her father. After this, The Hood told her goodbye.

In "The Odyssey",

In "Dodger",

In "Dead to Rights", Laurel gets a visit from her mother, telling her that Sara may still be alive.

In "The Huntress Returns",

In "Salvation", Laurel proves that Sara is indeed dead.

In "Unfinished Business",

In "The Undertaking",

In "Darkness on the Edge of Town",

In "Sacrifice",

Season 2
In "City of Heroes",

Personality
At first her anger towards Oliver for getting her sister killed made her harsh towards him.

Laurel is hard working and fights hard to get what she wants. She is a great lawyer and lives to stand up for the innocent and what is right despite the corruption in Starling City. She can be feisty and doesn't like to be told what to do. Laurel is attracted to troublemakers, as shown when she dated both Oliver and Tommy. She gets annoyed when her father tries to get in the way, always forming his opinion of her boyfriends known even though it almost never changes her mind. Laurel is tough and knows how to take care of herself. She takes risks like contacting the Vigilante, and can't resist saving people from tough situations from when Tommy and Oliver were going to get beat up in the night club Poison, to innocent people on trial.

However she has a big heart and tends to see the best in the people around her. This is shown in where Oliver states that she should hate him for what he did to her and her sister, but she did not. She even wants to get along with her father again, after he used her as bait for The Hood, even though stating that it will take some time. Also, she is one of the few people seeing the good person Oliver is inside even through the snob-front he presents on the outside, the other one being Raisa, his housemaid.

Abilities

 * Skilled hand-to-hand combatant: Laurel received extensive hand-to-hand combat training. This is because her father made her take self-defense classes. Still, she is nowhere near the level of Oliver and all the other felons he goes up against as The Hood.
 * Expert lawyer/Detective: These help Laurel to uses the system of the court to her knowledge. It also makes her look at every aspect before making up her mind and to see the bright side of everyone.

Appearances
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Comics
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 * Arrow #14
 * Arrow #18
 * Arrow #26

Trivia

 * With the insistence of her father, Laurel received extensive hand-to-hand combat training allowing her to defend herself very effectively.
 * She is efficient with firearms as she has an gun permit and also has used a shotgun to protect herself in .
 * Being the daughter of a police detective, she learned how police badges were serialized.
 * Dinah Lance is Black Canary in the original comic. She possesses the meta-human ability of a super sonic scream in which she can deploy to shatter objects and incapacitate her opponent: the "Canary Cry".
 * During San Diego Comic Con 2012, the show's producers said that Laurel will become Black Canary "later than you hope but sooner than you expect".
 * In, 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.
 * Laurel at first has mixed feelings about Arrow, stating that he goes against everything that she was taught but is still doing good. This is evidenced when she in a moment of shock accidentally and impulsively calls him a killer with no remorse but defends him when she's reminded of her statement.
 * When she sees Arrow in, Oliver (under the guise of Arrow) tells her that he heard what she said to her father, calling him a killer, with no remorse, she apologizes to Arrow for what she said.
 * However she begins to trust him later, shown In, Where she's more frightened by her father charging out with a gun than with Arrow for holding a blade to her neck.
 * Laurel is mentioned to be a bad cook, with the only thing she is actually capable of making is macaroni and cheese.
 * She mentions her sister owning a black canary, which references to her alter-ego, Black Canary.
 * In, Laurel and Oliver become a couple again.
 * Like Thea, Laurel rarely call's Oliver, by his nickname "Ollie".
 * In the Season 2 trailer of Arrow, Laurel tells Oliver, "There only one archer left and i'm going to help my boss catch him", implying that Laurel Has lost faith in Arrow, and possibly blames him for Tommy's death.