Naomi’s Identity Reveal Made a Tired Superhero Trope Even More Boring

Naomi’s Identity Reveal Made a Tired Superhero Trope Even More Boring

The CW’s Naomi reveals her true identity to a major character, but the aftermath of her confession makes a superhero genre trope even worse.

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Naomi’s Identity Reveal Made a Tired Superhero Trope Even More Boring

The following contains spoilers for Naomi Season 1, Episode 11, “Worst Prom Ever,” which premiered Wednesday, May 3 on The CW.

One of the most tired concepts in superhero movies and television shows is the hero constantly hiding their identity — not wanting to pursue romance, breaking up with someone, or hiding the truth from loved ones because they’re worried enemies will harm the people close to them. It was dragged on too long in Smallville with Clark Kent and Lana Lang, while other CW shows such as Black Lightning and The Flash also spent too much time on the idea.

While that was understandable years ago, now it feels like unoriginal storytelling meant to add drama by creating tension between characters. Naomi used this same overdone narrative in its most recent episode. However, the predictable writing was made even worse because of the events that led up to Naomi finally deciding to reveal her identity.

Naomi’s Identity Reveal Made a Tired Superhero Trope Even More Boring

Throughout the first season, Naomi has been trying to hide that she’s an alien from her boyfriend Nathan. However, as her powers grew, Naomi struggled with keeping her secret and it started to come out to other people. She told her best friend Annabelle, while Annabelle’s geeky boyfriend Jacob figured the truth out pretty quickly when the trio started searching for relics and battled the sinister S.T.A.R. Labs. All the while, she ducked Nathan — until he finally picked up on the red flags and called Naomi out at their prom.

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The prom coming under attack forced Naomi to tell him the truth: she was a Chosen One destined to liberate her homeworld after her birth parents seemingly died as freedom fighters. It was a lot to take in, but Nathan handled it well — even doing his part to help Naomi figure out how to save the school. However, as they had their last dance afterward, Naomi went the boring, melodramatic route with her letting him know she couldn’t put him in harm’s way. She wanted to break their relationship off… only for Nathan to actually do it first because he felt like he wasn’t meant to be part of her galactic destiny.

But for most of the season, Naomi had no problem putting her friends and loved ones in danger while she unlocked clues regarding her alien history. They’ve been at risk many times — and she’s got a solid support system including her two mentors Zumbado and Dee, a few other friends, and even her adoptive parents. Her adoptive father Greg spent time trying to keep her secret from the U.S. military. She should at least try to make things work with Nathan.

Instead, the CW series forced worst case scenario dialogue and and ruined the relatability of her character. By Naomi’s logic, she shouldn’t have any human connections at all — which is counterintuitive to everything that the show has presented so far. Hopefully, the show fixes this in the last two episodes of the season, because Nathan and Naomi have good chemistry and both characters deserve better than this boring conclusion to their story.

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Naomi airs Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/naomi-identity-reveal-superhero-trope/

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