Who Is Prometheus?
It's been awhile since I've done this, but I thought I'd dive back into the world of spec. Bear with me. We might be rusty, but this is a natural byproduct of talking Arrow with @callistawolf for over an hour. The brain swims with possibilities.
I've made no secret about my frustration over the Prometheus storyline.
Primarily because A) we didn't get a reveal in the midseason finale and B) the back story on Prometheus was, in my opinion, spectacularly lame.
My reasons are thus: The Big Bad is always a crucial element in Arrow's season arc. He/She is the dark half of Oliver's hero's journey for that season. It is monumentally important that the audience connect to the Big Bad. It is monumentally important that we are allowed to get to know him or her, so we can understand his or her motivations. This ultimately leads to a greater understanding of where Oliver needs to go in his overall evolution.
Not revealing who Prometheus is essentially keeps a wall between him and the audience. His more of an archetype. A voice box, with a skill level to match Oliver, who's more of an omnipresent figure than an actual "face to face" opponent. He's the Arrow equivalent of the Boogey Man. We saw some of this with Ra's Al Ghul in Season 3 and Slade in Season 2, but Arrow revealed their characters in both mid seasons finale to allow the audience to connect to the them and move beyond the omnipresent archetype. They have not done that with Prometheus us and failing to reveal his identity simply prolongs this disconnect.
Arrow then tries to temper this disconnect by providing us with some information about Prometheus. He is the son of Claybourne, a man who was on Robert Queen's list. A villain Oliver killed in Season 1. I had both my mother and husband, both ardent casual viewers, ask me if Claybourne was someone we knew about in Season 1. Nope. Never heard of him. They just plucked a name from obscurity. The connection to Season 1 is... thin. Even, Diggle's "you're killing can lead to unforeseen consequences" statement was so heavy handed it was cringe worthy. This all just feels plopped in.
And that's my beef. We've been told over and over and over again how Prometheus is a villain they had to wait FIVE YEARS to do. This places some mythological like level to S5′s Big Bad, like he's been lying in wait and Arrow has just been waiting for the right time to pull the trigger. So this all boils down to Prometheus needed five years to train? Eh.
Then, of course, there's how Team Arrow discovered Prometheus was Claybourne's son. They only discovered this information because Prometheus wanted them to.
It was like a play. He set up the scene and Oliver was merely an actor in the show Prometheus was directing. None of it felt real and yet... Oliver and team believed it hook line and sinker. Prometheus reenacts a kill from Season 1. He provides a baby photo and Claybourne's ashes and TA DA! We have the identity of our bad guy. There wasn't a lot of critical thinking from Team Arrow. This was all handed to them at a very specific time and in a very specific way. And everyone's just all, "Cool. Makes sense."
WHAT??? Where's my beloved Scooby Gang? Where's the examination? WHERE'S THE DISTRUST OLIVER? At the very least I'd expect that from you, but homeboy is "Prometheus is, above all things, an honest foe."
MADNESS I TELLL YOU. MADNESS. Hence the screaming and throwing things at my television. Then there's the overly dramatic, almost Greek like tragedy way, Prometheus orchestrated Billy's death.
True to his name! Dude is a Drama Queen. He's not particularly concerned with killing Oliver at the moment, but he's going to make his life a soap opera. Why? THE FUN.
So, I'm calm now. We've watched the aftermath of Billy's death. We're seeing the path Felicity is going down.
There's been some incredibly telling things revealed about that journey. So, instead of accepting Prometheus at face value (as Arrow so desperately wants us to do), I decided to actually acknowledge the man for who he is... a Puppet Master. This is all one, big, massive misdirect. It is elegant. It is cunning. It is twisted. And it will touch everyone in Oliver's life.
The reason why Arrow didn't reveal Prometheus' identity is because this is the season long mystery. The identity reveal is their big card. It's the "Who's in the grave?" reveal. It's the "What is the Undertaking?" reveal. They aren't letting us connect to the Big Bad because WE ALREADY KNOW HIM. And when he is revealed it will be a light bulb moment. A moment worth five years waiting for.
A lot of this has been theorized by many other people for many other months. I’ve seen so many specs I can’t remember them all, but this was the most recent. Added a layer to the Prometheus myth I missed and I loved it. However, I think Calli and I have pieced together a couple of the holes that were hanging us up on a few items. So, let's dig in...
