r/arrow • u/Amazing_Trace • 5h ago
Felicity's Trolley Problem with the nukes
Ive been thinking about the trolley problem they gave felicity where she chose to kill the one (havenrock) to save the five (monument point).
As a programmer trolley problem has been brought up in real-life scenarios for me before although the stakes were not death.
Since I first saw the trolley problem in college I believed that not doing anything was the choice that would most ease my concience. If 5 die, someone else killed them. If I kill the one, it is my fault. So I believe Felicity did commit mass murder of ragman's entire town. Theres ofcourse schools of philisophy that consider inaction to saving lives to be bad, but that would blame the entire planet other than Dahrk, had nobody diverted the Nuke.
Theres also excellent theories about how 5 people's lives are not more important than one, its not the math we should do. Afterall, we do not simply condone cannibalism if it could feed 5 people.
I found Curtis specially saying that Dahrk was to blame for Havenrock to be a terrible exchange. Out of all them Curtis's character seemed to respect life most and it didn't seem that respectful in that moment.
Ofcourse the whole Dahrk Nukes and Noah's ark storyline was dumb af. But their handling of the aftermath in an otherwise good season 5 bothers me more every rewatch. I think the writers truly did a garbage job with such an insanely high-stakes event.
