That was strange--I just read Green Arrow #7 last night, one day after I wrote this Psychology Today blog post on self-loathing, and what do I find Ollie and the mysterious Lady of the Forest discussing?
No big spoilers here, particularly concering the Lady's identity, which is tangentially relevant but not essential to exploring Ollie's attitude toward himself. After some discussion between them, the Lady says to Ollie, "Even you have some faith. In people if nothing else," to which Ollie replies, "People can fail. Disappoint." The Lady responds, insightfully, "And yet, you only seem to hold that view of yourself." Ollie reasons, "Maybe I'm just beating them to the punch," to which the Lady says, "Or maybe you feel you don't deserve such people in your life."
The last two lines especially point to self-loathing on Ollie's part, feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness which he projects onto other people; if he doesn't think he's good enough, he assumes other people feel the same way about him ("maybe I'm just beating them to the punch"). Check out the Psychology Today blog post for more on this...
Of course, it is easy to understand why Ollie feels this way, having lost so much since Cry for Justice: Lian, Dinah, Roy, and a huge star-shaped chuck of Star City, not to mention a certain degree of respect among his colleagues for executing Prometheus (an act which, by the way, is discussed in several chapters in Green Lantern and Philosophy, in the context of discussing the difference between Ollie's and Hal's moral reasoning as well as retributivist justice). I hope that part of Ollie's current stay in the Brightest Day-Enchanted Forest will involve dealing with his recent lapses (as well as his older ones) and reflecting on his character.
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