“ | Hello, Mr. Queen. My name is Talia. I’ve been looking for you. | „ |
~ Talia introducing herself to Oliver after single-handedly massacring his captors and rescuing him. |
“ | You need to give the monster an identity. It is only when the monster becomes someone else, some…thing…else that you’re free to be Oliver Queen. | „ |
~ Talia convincing Oliver to become a vigilante. |
“ | Talia: You killed his father and I helped him in his pursuit of vengeance because by then you’d killed mine! I never told my full name did I? Oliver: No, you didn’t. Talia: It’s Talia al Ghul. |
„ |
~ Talia revealing her true identity and her motivation for helping Prometheus to avenge her fallen father. |
Talia al Ghul is a major character in the Arrowverse, serving as one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside Black Siren) of Season 5, a minor character in Season 7, and a supporting character in Season 8 of Arrow. She was the estranged daughter of Ra’s Al-Ghul who trained Oliver Queen to embrace his inner demons and start his violent vigilante crusade, later allying with Prometheus in the present to avenge her father's death at Queen’s hands.
What Makes Her Magnificent?[]
- She was a skilled assassin from an early age and left her family to create her own cult of followers after realizing her father would never allow a woman even his own daughters to succeed him and lead the League of Assassins. Despite this, she still cared for her sister and even her father.
- She has a enjoyable snarky side and has memorable sarcastic remarks.
- She trained Oliver’s first mentor on Lian Yu, Yao Fei, into the skilled warrior he became.
- She figured out that Yao Fei had died and figured out that Oliver Queen had been his student, expertly tracking down Oliver Queen throughout all his adventures while stranded abroad for five years and learning of his father’s book of the corrupt elite of Star City.
- She single-handedly slaughtered all of Oliver Queen’s Bratva captors to rescue him and demonstrated her medical skill through nursing him back to health.
- She gives Oliver info on Misha Yurievich, a trafficker of young girls and whose top customer was Oliver’s archenemy Konstantin Kovar, convincing Oliver to let her help him take down Yurievich and cut off Kovar’s key revenue stream in exchange for hearing her out.
- She took down Yurievich’s men with just a bow and arrow despite Oliver’s skepticism, telling him how a bow and arrow bred patience and discipline and after Oliver tortured Yurievich to death, he realized Talia had baited him with Yurievich and wanted this to happen with Talia admitting so because she wanted to remind Oliver of who he was.
- She convinced Oliver to stop constantly looking for new fights, but instead fight the battle his father had laid out for him by giving him a list of all the corrupt elite destroying Star City, convincing Queen to become a vigilante to use the darkness in him for righteous causes, giving him a green hood and bow and arrow to train him to make him ready to start his crusade.
- She informs Oliver about Hideo Yamane, the man on the list responsible for much of the designer drug trade in Star City including the drugs Oliver’s sister used and had killed her dealer, showing him how he couldn’t simply target a symptom, but had to tackle the larger problem and giving him Yamane’s whereabouts to take him down. She then gave him the list so he could leave the Bratva and return to Star City.
- She learned Oliver Queen had killed her father and trained Adrian Chase in martial arts to help his mission to utterly destroy Oliver Queen to avenge their father’s deaths, being impressed with Chase’s skill.
- She revealed why she had trained Prometheus when Oliver tracked her down years later and revealed Prometheus’ identity to him as Adrian Chase. Later, she secretly ambushed Oliver while he was fighting Prometheus to tranquilize him to and get him captured.
- She is by far the most sympathetic member of “Team Prometheus” compared to the smug hate sink Evelyn Sharp, the sadistic, card carrying villain and follower of Zoom Black Siren (who hadn’t really developed redeeming qualities yet), and the spiteful and extremely sadistic and unstable Prometheus.
- She ambushed Oliver, Slade, and Digger on Lian Yu with Evelyn when they tried to rescue the captive Team Arrow, offering Slade a chance to join them after Digger revealed his true colors and turned on them and escaping with a smoke bomb when Oliver’s reinforcements arrived.
- She offered her sister to settle her score with her in an honorable duel of combat, telling her students not to interfere and putting up a good fight against Nyssa. When Nyssa beat her, she accepted her defeat with dignity and was willing to die.
- She escaped the destruction of Lian Yu and upon being imprisoned in Slabside, reluctantly allied with Ricardo Diaz to stage prison attacks on Oliver in order to get drugs to treat her wounds. However, it turns out she got Oliver sent down to Level Two in order to break into his cell and offered an alliance between them to escape the horrific prison.
- She correctly suspected Oliver’s agreement to an alliance came with conditions and despite being initially skeptical to help him expose Dr. Parker and save the inmates he was abusing and torturing, she agreed to do it after Oliver apologizes for killing her father and convinces her they needed to trust each other as they once did.
- She stages a fight with Oliver to get sent to Dr. Parker’s patient room and easily breaks free of her bonds after Oliver took down Parker and the guards, acknowledging with respect on how Oliver had learned some new tricks without her.
- She finds a tool able to disable her shock bracelet and gives it to Oliver to disable his as well before giving him some weapons after he had downloaded info from Dr. Parker’s computer onto a USB drive and taking down several guards with him. She leads Oliver to a chute that also doubled as a morgue which was their way to escape while also pointing out how it was a shameful way to treat the dead.
- She reconciles with Oliver after he told her how he wasn’t going to escape a fugitive and subject his family to a life on the run, but instead would get out the legal way, assuring Oliver when he gave her the USB drive that he would get this to Felicity and tell her how stubborn her husband was before bidding her former student farewell, successfully getting the drive to Felicity and exposing Dr. Parker to get Level Two of Slabside shut down and save Oliver and the inmates.
- She ambushes Dr. Parker as he was walking out of the prison, swiftly placing one of his shock bracelets onto him to give him a taste of his own medicine before sarcastically telling him that she could provide the cure and killing the corrupt and vile doctor once and for all.
- She instantly restarts her cult after escaping from prison and upon meeting Oliver and Thea who requested her aid to find out everything the League knew about Mar Novu to resettle the debt she had to Oliver, she manipulated Oliver into getting the map to the tomb of Al-Faith, the first Ra’s al Ghul who Mar Novu had bestowed knowledge upon before tranquillizing Oliver, genuinely apologizing to him, but telling him he couldn’t let him or her blood enemy Athena get the sword of Al-Fatih.
- She took advantage of the chaos of Oliver and Thea fighting Athena and her forces to escape from Athena’s captivity and claim the sword of Al-Fatih for herself. However, when Thea challenged her to a duel for the sword, she accepted and put up a good fight, accepting her defeat by Thea.
- She apologized to Thea and Oliver for her actions and pain she caused, acknowledging that she had betrayed the honor and traditions of the League and that Thea was the rightful heir to the League of Assassin, revealing she had released her students who would gladly follow Thea if she took up the mantle. When Thea told her though that she had just made a mistake like everyone else and that the world didn’t need another League of Assassins, but could use a League of Heroes, she was grateful for Thea’s forgiveness and accepted Thea’s offer to start the League of Heroes with her, fully redeeming herself.
- She attend Oliver’s funeral in the finale to honor her former student after he sacrificed himself to rebirth the multiverse, reconciling with her sister and being introduced to her love Sara and father Quentin who Oliver had revived.
What Makes Her a Baddie?[]
- While it was out of good intentions, she ultimately turned Oliver into an extremist vigilante willing to kill and torture in cold-blood in his crusade.
- She aided Adrian Chase’s efforts to utterly destroy Oliver and kidnapped Oliver to hand him over to Adrian, simply telling Adrian to make Oliver suffer before leaving, thus being complicit in Adrian’s brutal torture and breaking of Oliver.
- She helped Team Prometheus kidnap Team Arrow and threatened to kill the mother of Oliver’s son to get him to stand down.
- She staged prison attacks on Oliver with Ricardo Diaz.
- She betrayed Oliver and Thea in an attempt to claim the sword of Al-Fatih for herself and dueled Thea.
Trivia[]
- She and the Nolanverse incarnation are the only versions of Talia al Ghul to be a MB.
External Links[]
- Talia al Ghul on the Villains Wiki.
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