Understanding Felicity Smoak

I've watched again some of   the early Arrow episodes, and I think I am understanding Felicity better.  Felicity is funny, quirky, kind, caring, direct and  to the point, honest, and those are some of the things the viewers love about her.  She connects on-screen  with Oliver in real and personal ways.  They light up the screen.  But underneath all that humor, kindness, and joy that she has for life, lays a person that's afraid those she loves will walk away from her.

In the second season, Felicity finds out that Malcom is Thea's father.  Because she is honest, she feels Oliver has a right to know, so goes to Moria asking her to tell her son about Thea's father.  Moria trys to convince Felicity that if Felicity told Oliver he would hate her.  Probably Felicity debated within herself about telling him, but in the end she decides to tell, reluctantly.  She begins by telling him, "You might have noticed that I talk a lot," and then she tells him about being abandoned by her father as a young child.  She tells Oliver that she doesn't want to lose him. He reassures her, and then she tells him what she knows.

The abandonment by her  father as a young child  has lasting long-term affects on her relationships.  It's not just being left behind, it's feeling unloved, unwanted, and dishonest.  She has all these issues fighting  within her.  She loves Oliver, but she worries that he will do to her what her father  did.  Perhaps it's something she sees in Oliver that she  relates back to father.  I think she struggles with separating the hurt child inside herself with the reality she knows as an adult.

Don't get me  wrong, Oliver was wrong not tell Felicity something so important as having a son. I think she would have forgiven him that, especially after William's mother tells her that she made Oliver not tell, and that Oliver really wanted to.  But when she overheard  the message to William, and that he and he alone made the decision to let William  go without telling him that Oliver was his father, then I think Felicity felt abandoned all over again.  She could step into William's shoes and feel for him, but also, she felt shut out of Oliver's life, just like her  father  shut her out of his life.So it was easier and less painful to walk out of Oliver's life rather than have him walk out of hers, which I  think  she really believed he would do.

I know someone who has dealt with the issue of feeling abandoned, and it causes very intense feelings that never completely go  away.  I think  when we see episode 20, we will find out some of the things that both Oliver and Felicity have dealt with and I think it will be more than the issue  of William. They need to talk; they need to share how they really feel; and then we can have the Olicity back that we all want.  Arrow is very good about talking about feelings that lie beneath the actions.

Oliver feels he deserved to have Felicity walk away, and so he didn't try to get her back, though I think, at first she was so wanting that.  Felicity needs to understand, and will after Oliver gets her away from Helix, that she can trust her, and that he will not leave her  like her father did.

These next episode are  going to be so intense  and so good.