Sara Lance

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Character
Name: Sara Lance
Occupation: Leader of Team Legends; part of Team Arrow, Vigilante
formerly: Babysitter, Bartender at Verdant, Member of the League of Assassins, Bartender at Oblivion,
Relationships: Quentin Lance (father), Dinah Lance (mother),
Laurel Lance (sister),
Oliver Queen (love interest), Nyssa al Ghul (love interest), Leonard Snart (love interest), Alex Danvers (love interest), Ava Sharpe (love interest)
Sin (confidant)
Fandom: Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow (Arrowverse)
Other: Portrayed by Caity Lotz
Portrayed by Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (Season 1 only)
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Sara Lance is a reccurring character in Arrow television series and is one of the main characters in the spin-off, Legends of Tomorrow.

Canon Overview

Sara is the younger sister of Laurel and daughter to Dinah and Quentin Lance. While her sister dated Oliver Queen off and on, she had a crush on him. Because of this, she joins him on a trip on the Queen's Gambit despite the fact that he was actually still in a relationship with Laurel. Sara was presumed dead after the Queen's Gambit went down, however like Oliver she managed to survive - by getting picked up by another boat led by Dr. Anthony Ivo. A year later, she meets Oliver on the island after Ivo and his men capture him. After Oliver is rescued by Shado and Slade Wilson, he brings her along - releasing her from Ivo. Sometime later, Oliver and Sara separated and both believed the other dead, Sara was found by Nyssa al Ghul and was taken to the League of Assassins. She trained under them and became an assassin for them - and she and Nyssa became lovers within those years.

After the "Undertaking", Sara left the LoA to go back to Starling City to make sure her family was safe. Sometime between then and rescuing Roy Harper[1] from a bunch of attackers, she found Sin who also knows her secret identity of "The Canary". Oliver manages to find out The Canary's identity[2] and is surprised that it was Sara. After an attack from the LoA who are trying to get her return, Sara decides to tell her father that she is indeed alive[3]. Sometime after returning to save her sister, Nyssa comes to Starling[4] looking for Sara. Angered by Sara's refusal, Nyssa kidnaps Dinah and swears to kill her if Sara doesn't rejoin the league. With the help of Oliver as the Arrow and her father, Sara manages to save her mother - revealing she's alive to her mother and later her sister. She also manages to convince Nyssa to release her from the league. Later after Laurel blames her for everything going wrong within the last six years, Sara and Oliver kiss and start a relationship together. She becomes part of Team Arrow. Eventually Oliver and Sara break up.

In the Season 3 premiere[5], Sara returns to Starling City to visit Laurel and unknown to anyone at the time except for the league - to keep an eye out for Malcolm Merlyn[6]. Sara is then killed with three arrows by a mysterious assailant (although she knew who it was). Laurel was there when Sara's body fell down onto the street[5]. Since her death, the mystery behind her killer is Team Arrow's and Laurel Lance's top priority.

To honor her, John Diggle and Lyla Michaels named their baby daughter after Sara. It was later revealed that she was killed by Thea Queen under Malcolm Merlyn's control.

In Season 4, she is resurrected by the Lazarus Pit. Due to this resurrection she at first soulless - a mindless killing machine, before Oliver called in a favor with John Constantine (NBC's Constantine) who help brings back her soul. Despite being back and no longer mindless, she has a uncontrollable bloodlust that did not go away. She leaves Team Arrow to find herself and is later recruited by Rip Hunter to become a legend and defeat Vandal Savage, her sister encouraged her to join the time-traveling team and gives her a new costume and name "White Canary".

Fandom

Fandom for Sara is generally positive, although many fans have mixed feelings about her romantic relationship with Oliver. As the first openly bisexual character on Arrow, her relationship with Nyssa al Ghul is more liked - also many fans enjoy shipping her with Felicity Smoak due to their interactions on screen. This line of discussion continues to appear and has since expanded to include arguments for and against her Legends of Tomorrow ships with Leonard Snart, Lindsay Carlisle, Kendra Saunders, Rip Hunter and Ray Palmer.

Many fans do not like the idea Sara Lance was killed; often believing that it was done just so Laurel could become Black Canary with no problem and another example of Women in Refrigerators. However, unlike when Tommy died, there haven't been a lot of "Sara!Lives" fanworks. Although there are a few petitions going around to get her back (1, 2). Various gifs and picspams are reblogged on Tumblr to honor her.

With the announcement of Sara Lance's codename change for Legends of Tomorrow after her resurrection into "White Canary" caused some stir as well. Many hated the fact that it took away the character of color that bore the name in the comics. Similar protests happened when Sara fans use "Black Canary" in their posts to represent her instead of her sister.

Shipping

While appearing on Arrow the pairings of Sara/Felicity and Sara/Nyssa were the most popular ships for Sara[7]. Sara/Oliver is fairly common[8], and its tag is deceptive since most of the time they are a past relationship or a break up fic. The threesomes of Oliver/Felicity/Sara started to gain followers after Sara first appeared in the series and met Felicity, and is still so far the most popular Sara threesome in the fandom since Sara/Felicity/Nyssa and Sara/Helena/Laurel are still rare[9].

Rarer pairings also exist, such as Sara/Helena Bertinelli, Sara/Laurel, Sara/Shado, Sara/Slade Wilson, and Sara/Thea Queen.

In crossover pairings, she's been shipped with Sarah Walker (of Chuck), Melinda May (of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Kevin Tran (of Supernatural). After Captain Marvel (film) was released, many fans of both fandoms noticed the similarities between Carol Danvers and Sara (bi!Captains), and ship them. Within the arrowverse crossovers Sara/Kara and Sara/Alex gained the most interest, followed by the rarepairs Sara/Caitlin, Sara/Barry and Sara/Cisco.

Since the Legends of Tomorrow first look/trailer was released Sara was shipped with Ray Palmer, Leonard Snart, and Kendra Saunders. While Sara/Ray was more common in the beginning since the release of the pilot Sara/Leonard gained more traction. The threesome/brot3 of Sara/Leonard/Mick is also shipped. Some fans also ship Sara/Mick, Sara/Jax, Sara/Martin, Sara/Rip, Sara/Lindsay, Sara/Nate, Sara/Amaya, Sara/Zari, Sara/Constantine and Sara/Ava. Sara/Constantine and Sara/Ava are both canon. Before Sara/Ava got together, Sara often had flings with female characters of various time periods/episodes such as Queen Guinevere, Queen Anne of Austria, and had romantic flings with several women in a pilgrim community during the Salem Witch Trials. Due to this, many fans jokingly refer it as her superpower[10].

As of 2019 (Arrow S7/LoT S4) Sara's most popular ships are: Sara/Leonard, Sara/Ava, and Sara/Nyssa[11].

Common Tropes & Themes

Terminology

Fanworks

Fics

Arts

Vids

Meta

Archives and Fannish Links

Tumblr

Resources

References

<references>

  1. ^ Arrow Season 2 Episode 1 "City of Heroes"
  2. ^ Arrow Season 2 Episode 4 "Crucible"
  3. ^ Arrow Season 2 Episode 5 "League of Assassins"
  4. ^ Arrow Season 2 Episode 13 "Heir to the Demon"
  5. ^ a b Arrow Season 3 Episode 1 "The Calm"
  6. ^ Arrow Season 3 Episode 4 "The Magician"
  7. ^ As of October 4, 2014: Sara/Felicity has 122 and Sara/Nyssa has 110 at AO3
  8. ^ As of October 4, 2014: Sara/Oliver has 67 works at AO3
  9. ^ Sara/Oliver/Felicity has 23 works at AO3, while Nyssa/Sara/Felicity has 8 works
  10. ^ Tumblr post that says: Gay Woman: *exists* Sara Lance: {gif of Sara winking and giving a thumbs up} Her superpower is discovering lesbians
  11. ^ As of July 25, 2019 Sara/Leonard has 1.9k, Sara/Ava has 1.5k and Sara/Nyssa has 992 works.
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