MakeShift

This is an aforementioned update that we'll be working on amending in the future; keep an eye on announcements in the future for a bit more clarification.

Ok, thanks

Speaking of the Oa articles, was "(Earth-# (old/new multiverse))" a widely accepted clarification?

I wanted to suggest maybe "(Pre-Crisis Earth-#)" or "(Post-Crisis Earth-#)" to make it look a little less...awkward.

We had quite a discussion in the past regarding this, and "pre-Crisis" and "post-Crisis" are inaccurate in their descriptions, as the Crisis was still going on after the multiverse was rebooted. It's been used in the shows, admittedly, but from memory that was more contextual and made sense, not in relation to the physical rebooting of the multiverse.

So to summarise, while it is currently clunky and we're definitely open to suggestions, it's really the best option we have at the moment.

Generally speaking I believe we've agreed that robots count as characters, thus the Samuroid would be a character and the Leviathan would be an object, if I recall correctly.

On robots though, wouldn't it be better to do it case by case? This is just my opinion, but personally I don't think we should call Samuroid a character since it was controlled by DeVoe and did not really have a personality.

I agree. Samuroid is not a character but more of a remote control object...

Ah yes, you would be correct there, it was indeed controlled - I'd forgotten that. But yes, if there is sentience, they are a character, if not then it's simply a robot (thus, an object).

Alright. Should The Leviathan get changed back to object too? Someone argued that it can be considered a character since it was not shown to be directly controlled by Savage.

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned as being just a plain robot, not a sentient robot though, wasn't it? It's been a while since I've watched that episode, if I'm being honest.

Their point was that since it was not shown to be controlled, it probably has a sentience, but yeah, I have not watched it in a while either.

No, he won't, you are saying that Caitlin Snow is the whore of Zoom, she isn't. So please stop messing with the Caitlin Snow page.

China Anne McClain played three different versions of herself in the same episode; Tom Cavanagh does the same almost weekly. Use them as a guide, imo.

What does this have to do with what I said?

I believe she should. We technically saw present Zari in "Hey, World!"

The actress? I mean... yes? She definitely played both of them?

I don't mean the main actress, I meant the one who played her present day self in S4.

Ahhh I see your point. In which case I'd say yeah, definitely.

No hard feelings - happy to hear you're doing well! :)

This discussion has already occurred. For now, no. It has its own wiki. You're about the hundredth person to ask. We've discussed pros and cons, and for now, it's staying separate.

Specifically referring to the current names, I believe they were actually used in dialog.

As for casting, that's really not enough reason to rename a character page, as they're still based off of those characters and will inevitably be named as such in those sort of sources, especially as they'll be in early development.

For subtitles, it's a hard line to walk. I believe early season home media uses "Deathstroke" at some point to refer to Billy Wintergreen, when canonically the name is only used in present-day to refer to Slade, so it's inaccurate in that the canonicity comes into question.

With regard to the current names, they were only said when translating the name of the consulting firm, which, if we're being strict about it, gave no indication of which one was which (besides the obvious Silentum - Silencer). So while yes, they were spoken on-screen, it is a reach to assume who is who based off just that mention.

Casting and subtitles I understand aren't a foolproof source, but these names they use are consistently used as the official names of these characters. For example if you look at interviews such as https://hiddenremote.com/2018/12/25/michael-jonsson-interview/ and http://starrymag.com/michael-jonsson-arrow/ and https://telltaletv.com/2018/12/michael-jonsson-on-arrow-van-helsing-and-kicking-butt-in-general-exclusive-interview/ it seems evident and mutually understood between the interviewer and interviewee that the character is named Kodiak.

Now while all of this may be out-of-universe, I don't see anything that would contradict it holding true in-universe, and I believe there is precedent here for names used here being derived from out-of-universe. For example, "Accelerated Man", which comes from episode credits. Now, episode credits are just another fallible out-of-universe source because Billy Wintergreen was referred to as "Deathstroke" in credits as well. There's also all the unnamed cameos in Crisis and while I understand that was a special occasion, it further evidences that sometimes getting in-universe canon from out-of-universe is a reasonable option when it doesn't contradict anything else, and there's nothing wrong with that.

No, what I meant was I believe there was episodes that actually had them referred to by such names; I wouldn't be able to give you the episode or confirm this, but if I recall from back when the episodes aired, that was the case - I'd obviously have to double check this, but I'm pretty sure it was true.

You make a fair point about the credits, but I see that case as technically it's an episodic source, while still being out-of-universe. Of course, there's a bit of canon being disputed in such cases as Deathstroke, but it's a matter of it simply having later been retconned. The case of the Crisis characters, we were using our current policy of naming characters as they have been on-screen, and just applying that logic to their appearance in their respective media.

Again, I'd have to double check the Longbow Hunters' naming, but I'm pretty sure they were named like that respectively in dialog. It gets really risky when using what is effectively source material (as that's where they draw these names from) to name the Arrowverse characters on the wiki, as they're adaptations, rather than direct translations, and so I'm not really of a mind to integrate such sources into pages.

Oh, I understand now! I binged the series not too long ago and I can confirm that was the only mention of those names. If you would like to verify this for yourself, take a look at the wiki pages "Red" and "Bear"- the last mention of them is in the episode "Unmasked" which is the one where Diggle translates the firm's name. If you'd rather not waste time rewatching the episode there's plenty of transcripts you can quickly look up the names in with Ctrl+F such as this one: https://subslikescript.com/series/Arrow-2193021/season-7/episode-8-Episode_78 And yes, the latter Longbow Hunter does briefly reappear much later in the "Lost Canary" episode, but it is only him, no name is given, and no mention was made of the others. Strictly in-universe, he could be Red or Bear, there's no indication to which.

You make a fair point about using the original comics as a source for this wiki, and I completely agree! There is always unpredictable changes made in these adaptations so comics aren't reliable for information about the shows. My point is that in this case, different names (from the comics or not) are consistently used out-of-universe and in the subtitles as what would appear to be official names for these characters, and with nothing in-universe indicating otherwise. Wintergreen may have been subject to an unforeseen retcon, but it seems quite unlikely that it'll happen to these guys... or that the writers will even remember them!

Speaking of the Crisis cameos, not to derail the topic, but it looks like Swamp Thing's page was left unnamed. His and Stargirl's shows are coming to the CW while the Arrowverse is on break for the next 6 months, couldn't we at least grace his page with a name?

Watching that episode back, Diggle specifically says "That's Latin for 'red', 'silent', and 'bear', the Longbow Hunters". Apart from "silent", as we know her full alter ego is Silencer, this is effectively Diggle saying "this is what they're known as"; while we don't have full, 100% confirmation that that is their actual names (given the silent/Silencer discrepancy), it's about as close as we could possibly get. For this reason, we chose to go with Red and Bear.

In the case of Wintergreen, frankly you never know - admittedly, they probably won't be retconned in any detail, but it's still a similar situation. More than anything, the naming policy we use isn't perfect, but it's about as close as we could hope to get, so as to maintain consistency across all of the pages on the wiki.

As for the Crisis cameos, Swamp Thing I believe largely had to do with none of us were sure if he's ever actually referred to as "Swamp Thing" in his series (as he is, spoilers, not actually Alec Holland). As for the Stargirl pages, if that is an issue, I'd imagine we will inevitably rename them, we're just trying our best to follow our own policies.

Right, but that still doesn't give any correlation between the names and the characters- "Bear" could be referring to Kodiak or Red Dart, we have no way of knowing which if we're strictly going off of that line of dialogue. Isn't it inconsistent to make an assumption like that?

My understanding is that despite the instance of Wintergreen being named Deathstroke in subs/credits, we can still use such in-episode-but-out-of-universe sources for names, as we did with Accelerated Man (which seems to me this situation is more like- we'll likely never see/hear of him again either!)

And thanks for clearing that up! i would've thought a name as simple as Swamp Thing would be easy to work into a script, haha

Well of course, we don't specifically have any clue, but there's got to be a line where we infer which is which. Granted yes, it is based off their original names, but that's as simple as us looking at how they're adapting said characters (choosing not to use their names in-show), and running with it.

Accelerated Man was still named as such in the credits, and there's never been any contradiction or retcon to the fact, so that's a moot point.

And yeahhhh I guess they were hoping they'd get a second season, haha!

That makes sense, this case just strikes me as an outlier, what with the strict policies about assumptions and disregarding the source material and whatnot.

With regards to Accelerated Man, the Longbow Hunters' case is similar- if they're credited with actual names in the official in-episode subtitles, and we know from the Silentum/Silencer discrepancy that the Latin was inaccurate but similar to them, it's not much of a contradiction. The only difference is subs vs credits, but if the worst that can be said about the subs is that they once listed Wintergreen as Deathstroke, well, that's just what the credits did too!

It's also worth noting Guggenheim confirmed on Twitter that the character's named Kodiak and they just never got the chance to put the name in dialogue!

Subtitles is a hard line to take, as they're as official as we could get in this instance, for sure, but then if it's not straight up in dialog then it just feels appended for the fans.

As for Guggenheim actually confirming that on Twitter, though, if you can source it, then it's probably likely we'd be open to changing it! That's pretty "Word of God" to me!

Oh alrighty then here's the tweet! https://twitter.com/mguggenheim/status/1262584444910571520?s=20

Hmmm I can definitely see how that might come across as confirmation. To me that reads more as "the character is based on Kodiak, so we did try to name drop, but just couldn't", ergo it's not necessarily confirmed as his name.

He's not saying they tried and couldn't, he's saying they could've and would've but just felt writing lines for the sake of naming him was unnecessary. He also deems it unecessary to give the character any other name in writing that tweet, which coupled with this tweet from Kodiak's actor explicitly naming the character https://twitter.com/mjonssonactor/status/1103805364598800384?s=20 it seems very much like "Word of God" confirmation overall

It's also worth noting that Jonsson consistently refers to the character he portrays as Kodiak in his tweets, such as https://twitter.com/mjonssonactor/status/1054465486526676992?s=20 and https://twitter.com/mjonssonactor/status/1117955266643783681?s=20 and https://twitter.com/mjonssonactor/status/1057318872930385925?s=20

Furthermore, here are some tweets establishing Holly Elissa's character as Red Dart, although not as solid as the Kodiak ones now that her account (@tundrawild) has become private now: https://twitter.com/westsidekickbox/status/1041781280176726016?s=20 and https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DqyrwmnXgAEwidF?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 and https://twitter.com/tmsruge/status/1200445273090199553?s=20

I think there's a tricky fine line with them in general, as he obviously wouldn't just be like "the male/female Longbow Hunter". As for those sources, though, I'm not sure they're really that official or reliable in that sense.

There's no reason for him to go with "male longbow hunters" when the name Kodiak has been established by all these subtitles, articles, interviews, other tweets, etc. Speaking of which, any casual viewer who would come to this wiki after being informed of the name Kodiak in subtitles/articles/interviews/tweets/etc would search for his article under that name; didn't you mention the priority here is being accessible and user-friendly?

I stand by what I previously said. Accessibility is key, sure, but we're not going to use a name that isn't official within the confines of the actual Arrowverse, as credibility is also key. Subtitles I'm honestly not sure on; as far as I know they're usually outsourced, so any old person would be creating them for official releases, but at the same time, I think there's credibility to agreeing that they're the official subtitles, and so they're official canon. I can't personally see a middle ground there, though, but I'd be more than happy for you to initiate a public discussion on the matter, I'd be interested to see others' opinions on it.

Done!

thanx