But more important, the writers created — completely by accident — the character of Felicity Smoak for Arrow’s third episode, and cast Emily Bett Rickards to play her. It was just a brief role for an IT person, stemming from story necessity. But it ended up changing the show. “Andrew Kreisberg, Greg Berlanti, and I, we all come from the same school of writing, which is very quippy and bantery and funny,” said Guggenheim. “Basically, we designed a show we couldn’t write. The voice of the characters is completely opposite to our voices as writers. Oliver doesn’t talk that much! Dig is a man of few words. It’s a very dark show.” Exhausted from work, Kreisberg and Guggenheim, who were writing the episode, used their own voice to create an ancillary character. “That turned out to be Felicity,” Guggenheim said. Rickards’ Felicity was a scene-stealer from the jump — and she’s that exact nerdy, smart, appealing person a portion of the audience wants to imagine as its stand-in. Her chemistry with Amell was obvious as well (Google “Olicity fanfiction” if you dare). “We discovered that the show needed an element that we didn’t realize it needed, and that was this levity — this other point of view for Oliver,” Guggenheim said. “And it really opened the show up.”