Dinah Lance | |
Alias(es) | Laurel Lance Black Canary |
Appeared in | Arrow: The Undertaking Arrow: Three Ghosts Arrow: Unthinkable The Flash/Arrow: Flash vs. Arrow/The Brave and the Bold Arrow: Uprising Vixen: The Movie The Flash/Arrow: Legends of Today/Legends of Yesterday Legends of Tomorrow Arrow: Sins of the Father |
Status | Deceased |
Actor | Katie Cassidy |
Dinah Laurel Lance was the ex-girlfriend of Oliver Queen, the daughter of Quentin Lance, the sister of Sara Lance and a member of Team Arrow. She replaced her sister's role as the vigilante Black Canary up until her death.
Biography[]
Arrow: The Undertaking[]
Laurel says that she wants to move in with Oliver, as they've been together awhile. This causes Oliver to panic and take Sara on board The Queen's Gambit with him while Laurel is unaware anything is wrong.
Laurel confronts Tommy over him leaving her, saying that she still loves him and believes he loves her so whatever the problem is, they can work to overcome it. He tells her that Oliver is still in love with her and she should be with him instead. When Laurel goes to Oliver and asks him to tell Tommy that he doesn't love her, he refuses, saying that he has too many lies in his life and that he still cares for her.
Oliver goes to Laurel and tells her he hopes he didn't wait too long. She kisses him and tells him he didn't. They end up sleeping together - which Tommy witnesses from the street below. Laurel is unaware that Oliver had previously encouraged Tommy to reconcile with her and he'd been on his way to do just that.
Laurel visits Oliver at the Queen Mansion because he left while she was sleeping (to investigate the Undertaking) He tells her to stay out of the Glades that night. But when Moira confesses in a press conference about the Undertaking, Laurel foes into CNRI to try and save valuable files for her clients livelihoods. While she's there her father calls her and tells her to get out. She leaves during the earthquake but is trapped under falling rubble when the building collapses. Tommy arrives to save her life but is tragically killed in the attempt while her father prevents her from trying to get back to him.
Arrow: Three Ghosts[]
Sin and Thea seek help from Laurel about Max Stanton. Laurel discovers that the Blood drive Max donated blood in required a psych test which is unusual but not illegal meaning that she cannot help Sin further.
Arrow: Unthinkable[]
Laurel resumes her investigation of Sebastian Blood, confiding her suspicions to her father and asking him to help her. She manages to plant a bug in the mayor's office, allowing the police to hack his computer and search his files. They discover proof of his involvement in Moira's death, in the form of a press release offering his condolences to the Queen family, dated the day before Moira was killed.
When Oliver disappears, Laurel contacts Diggle and Felicity. She appears at the Arrow's hideout and reveals to Oliver that Slade told her about his secret identity. She insists that Oliver continue fighting for the sake of his family and friends and not surrender to Slade, that she knows him better than anyone else and that he never gives up. When none of this seems to sway him, she informs him that Mayor Blood is working with Slade, and emphasizes that this is no longer just a personal conflict between him and Slade, but involves all of Starling City, which finally galvanizes him into action.
Later, when Team Arrow leaves to confront Slade's army, Laurel asks to join them, only for Oliver to refuse for her safety. Nonetheless, she ends up following them. When one of the Mirakuru-enhanced prisoners begins choking the Arrow, she bashes the prisoner with a pipe, distracting him and allowing the Arrow to gain the upper hand. When she and the Arrow are cornered by Slade's soldiers, Oliver shoots the ceiling with an explosive arrow, causing a cave-in.
Laurel is trapped by rubble from the cave-in, but manages to escape by shooting an explosive arrow with Oliver's bow, at his instruction. Oliver is reluctant to leave her, but she tells him the city needs him more than she does. On her way to the police station to meet her father, she is attacked by one of Slade's soldiers, but is rescued by the Canary. Laurel tells Sara that she knows she is the Canary, and encourages her dejected younger sister, who believes herself to be beyond redemption. She witnesses Sara rescue a child from a burning building, then the sisters reunite with their father at the police station.
Character traits[]
Laurel was idealistic, intelligent, hard-working and fought hard to get what she wanted. She was a competent, upstanding lawyer and works to stand up for the innocent and what was right, despite the corruption in Starling City. She can be stubborn, feisty, and independent and doesn't like to be told what to do. Laurel was 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, even though it almost never changes her mind. Laurel was 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, Laurel shows she had a big heart, being open-minded and inquisitive, having a tendency to see the best in the people around her. While her anger towards Oliver for supposedly getting Sara killed and cheating on her with Sara made her harsh towards him, at first, a situation exacerbated by the fact that there was still a spark between them. She humored Oliver when he admitted that she should hate him for what he did to her and her sister, but she eventually came around to forgiving him, realizing Sara was also as much to blame. She even wants to get along with her father again, after he used her as bait for the Hood. She was also one of the few people seeing the good person Oliver was inside, even through the snob-front he presents on the outside. When first meeting the Hood, she was disturbed by his methods, she could eventually realize he was, in his own way, trying to help Starling City.
Due to the events of the Undertaking, as well as her kidnapping and emotional dilemmas, her personality takes a harsh fall. She also didn't want to face her own guilt, for being partly responsible for Tommy's death, so she tried to blame the Arrow for something that wasn't his fault, until she was captured and almost killed by Barton Mathis. She starts using drugs and alcohol, like her father, to cope with her pain; eventually, she loses the respect of her father and Oliver, even losing her job as an ADA. She is reluctant to admit that she has a problem, and spirals deeper and deeper into her addiction.
When Sara returned alive and well, though she was shocked at first, Laurel viciously rejected her. Laurel kept on trying to blame people in general for ruining her life, this behavior of hers continued, until Oliver coldly criticized and corrected her on her actions, and, being pressured by her father, she began to go to AA meeting groups and tearfully reconciled with her sister, welcoming her back. Laurel began displaying her former personality, showing some bravery and stubbornness as she refused to leave without her colleagues who were being taken hostage by Helena. She managed to convince the Canary to help her free the hostages.
Although she eventually seeks help for her addiction and reconciles with her friends and family, it seems that her experiences have left their mark and brought out a darker, harder, manipulative side of her character, as demonstrated when she blackmails DA Kate Spencer into giving her her old job back, and to have her father released from conviction when he was arrested for aiding the Arrow. Later on after discovering Oliver and Sara were the respective vigilantes Arrow and the Canary Laurel not only accepted these facts she confronted them on her own terms; she comforted and inspired them to carry on their crusades during their crisis of faith when Oliver was depressed following Moira Queen's death, and Sara's self-depreciation believing she wasn't a hero due to her time with the League of Assassins while participating in the fight against Slade Wilson's siege of Starling City.
After Sara was killed, dying right in front of her, Laurel was struck with grief, shock and forced herself not to tell it to her father (out of fear it would cause him a heart attack). She became angrier, reckless, and was fueled with a desire for revenge; she sought to help people like her sister did as she tried to assault a man that abused his girlfriend to honor her sister's memory. Determined not to fall into addiction again, she needed "another way" and asked Oliver to train her in combat. When Oliver refused, she turned to boxing as an outlet, then learning of Ted Grant's vigilante past, she became his apprentice, asking him to train her. To deal with her pain, and with Oliver's supposed death being the catalyst, she decided to take up her sister's mask, began to actively fight crime out on the streets and acted as the Black Canary. Despite a lot of objections and being unsuccessful at first, she kept doing it and slowly became better.
After she was injected by one of Werner Zytle's Vertigo-filled throwing darts, which caused her to see a hallucination of Sara and was almost killed by the latter, she finally realized that Oliver was right (that she was using vigilantism and adrenaline to avoid facing the fact that Sara was dead and she was never coming back); Laurel finally came clean to her father about her sister's death, which cost her her relationship with him, though they admit they'll always love one another. Even after she learned Malcolm Merlyn was her sister's killer, and even attempted to take him down which ends very badly for as she is no match for Malcolm, she ultimately took Ted's advice not to train to defeat Sara's killer, but to train for herself, as well as Felicity's advice not to follow in Sara's footsteps but "to be herself". After striking up an unlikely friendship with Nyssa al Ghul who shared stories of Sara with her, and offered her further training, Laurel started to regain her sense of self-discipline and control. She ultimately became a proficient fighter in her own right effectively becoming an official member of Team Arrow, even impressing and being accepted by Oliver.
Laurel's success as the assistant district attorney of Star City and as a vigilante, ultimately made her extremely arrogant and overconfident towards opponents who were more skilled and powerful than she was, like Malcolm Merlyn and Damien Darhk; these traits of hers ultimately led to her downfall and death at the hands of Damien.
During her final appearances, her love for Oliver had resurfaced.
Abilities[]
- Skilled Hand-To-Hand Combatant: Laurel received extensive hand-to-hand combat training. This is because Quentin 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 Arrow.
- Expert Lawyer/Detective: These help Laurel to use 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. They also help her in her quest to find the truth about Sebastian Blood.
- Comfortable with Firearms: Laurel's father taught her how to use guns and Laurel is shown to possess several firearms. She uses the shotgun on Mr. Blank possibly to slow him down long enough for the Vigilante to rescue them. She later kills Officer Daily.
- The Canary Cry:
Relationships[]
- Oliver Queen/Arrow - Love interest and friend, deceased.
- Thea Queen - Friend and former intern.
- Quentin Lance - Father.
- Dinah Drake Lance - Mother.
- Sara Lance/The Canary/The White Canary - Sister.
- Sebastian Blood/Brother Blood - Enemy.
- Malcolm Merlyn/Dark Archer - Enemy.
- Tommy Merlyn - love interest and husband.
- Damien Darhk - Enemy and killer.
Appearances/Actresses[]
- Arrow (10 films)
- Arrow: The Undertaking - Katie Cassidy
- Arrow: Three Ghosts - Katie Cassidy
- Arrow: Unthinkable - Katie Cassidy
- The Flash/Arrow: Flash vs. Arrow/The Brave and the Bold - Katie Cassidy
- Arrow: Uprising - Katie Cassidy
- Vixen: The Movie - Katie Cassidy
- The Flash/Arrow: Legends of Today/Legends of Yesterday - Katie Cassidy
- Legends of Tomorrow - Katie Cassidy
- Arrow: Sins of the Father - Katie Cassidy
- Crisis on Infinite Earths - Katie Cassidy
Behind the scenes[]
To be added
Trivia[]
To be added