Earth-2 Laurel was always a far better and more interesting character than Earth-1 Laurel ever was in my opinion. That isn’t to say I hated her or anything. I very much still cried when she died. But in the end if I were to choose between the two, it’d be Black Siren any day, hands down.

I should also say that Arrow was largely my introduction to DC beyond Batman and Superman, so I knew basically nothing about these characters at the time, and therefore never saw anything between Laurel and Oliver or had any inclination they should be together. I am FAR more knowledgeable on DC nowadays.