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Allen Family

Barry Allen / The Flash

See Arrowverse: Barry Allen

Henry Allen

Dr. Henry Allen

Species: Human

First Appearance: "Pilot" (The Flash 1x1)

Appearances: The Flash

"When you need me, I will be here. But right now, Central City doesn't need you to be Henry Allen's son. It needs you to be The Flash."

Barry Allen's father, a physician who is doing a life sentence in Iron Heights Prison for the murder of Barry's mother Nora.

see the Arrowverse: Earth-2 page for his pre-Crisis Earth-2 counterpart

see the Stargirl (2020) page for Jay Garrick, the post-Crisis Earth-2 character who bears his physical likeness.

see the Arrowverse: Team Flash page for Jay Garrick, the Earth-3 character who bears his physical likeness

see the The Flash (1990) page for more info on two Earth-90 characters; one who has his name, the other who bears his physical likeness

see the DCEU Other Americans page for the character in an undesignated Earth who bears his name and background

Abled in the Adaptation: In the comics, he died due to heart illness while still in prison. Here he died (murdered) with good health.
Adaptation Dye-Job: Like his son and wife, he's originally blonde in the comics. Here he is Tall, Dark, and Handsome in his youth.
Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: In three realities there is a superhero who looks just like him: on Earth-3 and the post-Crisis Earth-2 it's Jay Garrick, on Earth-90 it's his own son.
And Starring: While not given a "Special Guest Star" citation, he gets the "And" billing in the regular guest stars lineup.
Back from the Dead: Subverted; despite Barry going back in time in the Season 2 finale it seems a butterfly effect happened and Henry was still killed by Hunter Zolomon.
But Now I Must Go: When he's finally released from Iron Heights in the first episode of season 2, he decides not to stay in Central City for fear that he'll interfere with Team Flash's work.
Celebrity Paradox:
- A Season 3 episode of The Flash (2014) has his Earth-3 counterpart briefly taking Barry to 1998 to give him a pep talk. The place where they go to has Dawson's Creek currently airing on the TV. His actor is a main character there, specifically the father of the eponymous main character.
- Felicity mockingly calls Lian Yu "Fantasy Island" during the second part of Barry's Early-Bird Cameo on Arrow Season 2. Henry's actor guest-starred on that show.
Clear My Name: Barry is determined to do this for Henry, though Henry would rather he not and just live his own life.
Composite Character: His Alternate Self is Jay Garrick. In the comics, they are completely separate characters.
Cool Old Guy: Barry's father and is one of the most well-meaning and positive characters in the series, if not the most.
Dead Alternate Counterpart: For (the real) Jay Garrick. Learning about him and his family's Dark and Troubled Past is what pushes Jay to be closer to Barry. He is also this to his as of yet unseen Earth-2 counterpart, as well as Earth-90 Barry.
Deadpan Snarker: Has an amusingly droll sense of humor, being content with his current situation.
A Death in the Limelight: He gets a significant amount of screentime and focus in a number of episodes before his death.
Defiant to the End: It is still unclear if he was doing it intentionally or not, but his final words to Barry before being Killed Mid-Sentence are having a psychological effect on Zoom, implying a last ditched psychological spiting/torturing on Henry's part. ^Explanation
Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the comics, he died due to illness while still in prison. Here he was murdered by Zoom long after he was released.
Dies Wide Open: Given the literally fast-paced circumstances surrounding his death, he goes out with both a shocked and surprised stare.
Disappeared Dad: In prison since Barry's childhood. Disappears again in Season 2 as soon as he is let out of prison, believing that he'll get in the way of his son's role as the Flash.
Face Death with Dignity: Doesn't panic or let Barry take his place when Zoom kidnaps him, he just tells Barry he's proud of him and that he and his mother loves him before getting killed.
Good Parents: Even though he's not in Barry's life for obvious reasons, it's quite clear he's a loving and caring father. To the point he doesn't want his son to sacrifice his own life and opportunities in trying to clear his name; he even (initially) told Joe to prevent Barry seeing him for his son's sake, a questionable action but done out of love.
Iconic Sequel Character: While he was introduced at the series premiere of The Flash (2014), he was technically only introduced during the third year of the Arrowverse.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Zoom kills him via a vibrating hand through the chest.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: An obviously non-romantic example. As noted below, he encourages all of Barry's relationships, wanting his son to find someone.
Killed Mid-Sentence: "Your mother and I love y-" are his last words before Zoom kills him.
Kill the Cutie: Zoom kills him in the penultimate episode of Season 2.
The Medic: Formerly worked as a doctor, though his (former) specialty isn't specified. He healed Big Sir in prison and after being released, he substitutes Caitlin as the team medic after she got kidnapped.
Mistaken for Murderer: The very reason why he is locked up, as well as his son's motivation/drive to clear his name.
Nice Guy: One of the most genuinely good person in the show. And come on, where do you think Barry got his good heart?
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His attempt to save his wife was rewarded with more than a decade in prison.
Not Helping Your Case: He picked up the knife that was used to kill Nora, so he could try to stabilize her heart. Unfortunately, leaving his fingerprints on the murder weapon (and the fact that there was no one else around) gave the cops other ideas.
One True Love: Nora. If one looks at his five alternate selves above, they’re all married to their version of Nora.
The Pollyanna: He still retains his positive outlook in life despite being fully aware of how serious and unjust his situation is.
Remake Cameo: John Wesley Shipp played Barry Allen in the previous Flash TV series.
Related in the Adaptation: He's related to the Garricks through his mother which also results in Jay Garrick being his Alternate Universe counterpart.
Sacrificial Lion: Like his late wife, he was murdered by a speedster, but in the penultimate episode of a season instead of the start of one.
The Scapegoat: He was essentially framed by the Reverse-Flash for the murder of his wife.
Secret-Keeper: He figured out Barry was the Flash after seeing him save Joe and after he broke out a mob henchman (who stabbed him) to be interrogated, but doesn't state it directly. In the Tricksters, he learns for real.
Shipper on Deck: He's primarily to Barry/Iris, though he was open to Barry's relationships with Linda and Patty.
Sixth Ranger: Serving as Team Flash's back-up doctor while Caitlin is Zoom's captive. Had it not been for Zoom, he might have remained this.
So Proud of You: In Crazy For You Henry hints that he knows Barry is the Flash, and he's damn proud of the hero his son has become. He repeats this statement before being killed by Zoom.
Spared by the Adaptation: In the comics, he died in prison a year or two before his son became the Flash. Here, he lived to be cleared of murder. Though in pre-Flash: Rebirth, he lived a long life as well, until he and his wife passed away soon after the Crisis. Sadly, he winds up getting Zoom's hand through his chest at the end of the penultimate episode of Season 2 while Barry was Forced to Watch.
Team Dad: For as brief as it was, he shared this role with Joe in regards to Team Flash.
Too Good for This Sinful Earth: One of the most genuinely good-hearted and moral people in the show, only to be brutally killed-off by the Season 2 Big Bad.
Two First Names: Being a DC Comics based character, he has a last name that is traditionally used as a first name.
Yank the Dog's Chain: Just barely a year of being free after serving nearly two decades in prison for a crime he didn't even commit, he gets brutally killed-off.

Nora Allen

Nora Allen (née Thompson)

Species: Human

First Appearance: "Pilot" (The Flash 1x1)

Appearances: The Flash

Barry Allen's mother and Henry Allen's wife. Her death at the hands of the Reverse-Flash continues to haunt Barry as an adult.

see the Arrowverse: Earth-2 page for her Earth-2 counterpart

see the Arrowverse: Other Earths page for Joan Williams, the Earth-3 character who bears her physical likeness

see the The Flash (1990) page for more info on the Earth-90 character who bears her name and background

see the DCEU Other Americans page for the character in an undesignated Earth who bears her name and background

Adaptation Dye-Job: Like Barry, she's blonde in the comics and most adaptations. Here, she's a redhead.
Affectionate Nickname: To Barry, "My Beautiful Boy," even the Speed Force knew to use this as a reassurance to him.
All-Loving Hero: She introduces this sentiment to Barry.
Back from the Dead: Thanks to Barry going back in time in the Season 2 finale, Nora is saved from being killed by Eobard Thawne... until Barry realizes it's not meant to be.
Butterfly of Doom: It matters a great deal if this one woman lives or dies.
Dead Alternate Counterpart: The Nora Allen from pre-Crisis Earth-2 lived until 2019, while her Earth-3 counterpart Joan Williams is still alive.
Death by Origin Story: She was killed by a mysterious man in a blur of light when Barry was eleven.
Died in Your Arms Tonight: When Barry was finally able to time-travel, he opted not to save her (following the advice of his 2024 self) so he wouldn't mess with the timeline. Still, he was able to say goodbye to her unlike before and stayed with her until she dies, and doing so finally gave him some closure in his life.
Dies Wide Open: Barry finds her corpse with a shocked look on her face.
God in Human Form: The Speed Force uses her the most often as its Avatar when speaking with Barry.
Go Out with a Smile: In the Season 1 finale. Barry ultimately didn't save her, but he gladly revealed to her who he is and that he and his dad would be OK. Hearing this, she leaves the world more peacefully and with pride on what her son will become. This contradicts the usual flashbacks Barry had of her where she had a shocked look on her face. She still Dies Wide Open, however.
Heart Is an Awesome Power: Instills this belief in Barry, pointing out that Barry's kindness and compassion for others is much more important than being strong physically. Years later when he becomes "The Flash," Nora's teachings still remain true.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: She died from a knife to the heart.
Killed Offscreen: Everyone knows her cause of death, but the stabbing happened offscreen. It was shown in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot during the first season finale.
Missing Mom: To Barry.
Mythology Gag: Her overall appearance is very similar to Iris's in the source material. Incidentally (or not), her husband's actor played the previous live-action incarnation of Barry Allen.
Named by the Adaptation: Her maiden name is never revealed in the comics or any adaptations. Here, it was Thompson.
Plot-Triggering Death: While not the absolute key to everything, her murder is what drove Barry into a job in police forensics and into using his newly-gained powers to help people.
Posthumous Character: Killed 14 years prior to the events of the pilot.
Revenge by Proxy: It is later revealed that the Reverse-Flash killed her as a consolation prize because he wasn't able to kill young Barry. Eobard Thawne figured that if he couldn't erase the Flash from existence, then he would force his younger self to suffer a life-defining tragedy that would hopefully prevent him from becoming the Flash in the first place (which Thawne quickly regretted since it meant he lost his connection to the Speed Force, just as he was traveling in time to go home).
Sacrificial Lamb: She was fated to die so her son would become a hero, something which causes Barry no end of grief and resentment; that fact there was a timeline where she lived and Barry still became the Flash only makes it worse, especially since that was the original timeline.
Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Averted. Despite there being a timeline where she lived and Barry still became the Flash that timeline is never coming back because of how time travel works: time is malleable to an extent, but after a while it'll harden like concrete. She's been dead too long to make any change. When Barry does save her he creates a whole new timeline — Flashpoint.
Shipper on Deck: In the flashpoint timeline she gleefully supports Barry's relationship with Iris.
Silver Vixen: While no doubt lovely in all the flashbacks and times we see her, in the Flashpoint timeline, in which she was allowed to age past the time of her initial death, we find she would have aged gracefully into a comely matron.
So Proud of You: Before dying in his arms, Nora shares her joy that Barry has grown into a fine young man. The Speed Force, speaking on her behalf, assures Barry that even from the other side, his mother delights in his bravery and valiant nature as a hero.
Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Like her husband, the brief glimpses we get of her, she demonstrates her loving nature, always reminding Barry that a persons virtues and the strength of the heart are what make a true hero, not the physical strength of one's body.
Two First Names: Being a DC Comics based character, she has a last name that is traditionally used as a first name.
White Shirt of Death: Was wearing an ivory colored blouse the night the Reverse-Flash killed her.

Iris West-Allen

See Arrowverse: Iris West-Allen

West Family

Joe West

Detective/Captain Joseph "Joe" West

"Our greatest weapon against darkness isn't our superpowers. It's our humanity and our love for each other."

Species: Human

First Appearance: "Pilot" (The Flash 1x1)

Appearances: The Flash | Flash vs. Arrow!^note(The Flash) | Heroes Join Forces^note(The Flash) | Invasion!^note(The Flash) | Crisis on Earth-X ^note(Supergirl)

"You always want to be the person who sees the best in people. I've been a cop for 25 years. All I can see is the flaws, the lies, the dark thoughts that people think I don't see. I wish I could be you. As fast as you are, that is your real power."

A detective in the Central City PD, Iris and Wally's father and Barry's foster father. Joe was a realist, often trying to get Barry to see the world same way, hoping one day that Barry would accept that Henry did kill Nora and abandon his pursuit of "The Impossible," for his own good. After the particle accelerators exploded however, Joe is now often a front and center spectator of "The Impossible," finally opening up to the possibility that the Henry Allen case may not have been as black-and-white as he initially believed.

see the Arrowverse: Future Characters page for his possible future versions

see the Arrowverse: Earth-2 page for his Earth-2 counterpart

Action Dad: Father of three, adoptive father of a fourth, and the show's resident Badass Normal.
Adaptational Badass: This version of the West father is a Badass Normal capable of gunning and killing Metahumans. He actively participates in fights and has even saved Team Flash's ass a few times.
Adaptational Heroism:
- The New 52 version of the West patriarch was an Abusive Parent, enough that his own son Daniel crippled him in an attempt to end his life. Joe West however is a good man and a great father (and father-figure) to both his daughter and his foster son... His pre-Flashpoint self wasn't as bad it seems, but Iris and Wally make it clear that all the other Wests were assholes.
- Wally's father Rudy was an abusive bastard who sold out the entire Earth to the Manhunters, tried to murder his ex-wife as part of a ploy to recruit Wally to their cause, and after they were defeated became a con man who faked his death multiple times to avoid the consequences for his actions, which involved stoking paranoia of shapeshifting Durlan invaders and literal child slavery. Needless to say, Joe hasn't done anything close to what Rudy did.
Adaptational Dumbass: He didn't actually became dumb in this version per se. However, most versions of him are scientists similar to the likes of the S.T.A.R. Labs crew in this show. His main role on Team Flash aside from skills as a cop or being the Team Dad is to play The Watson and ask questions to the scientists.
Adaptation Name Change: Was named Ira (New Earth) or William (Prime Earth) in the comics.
Aesop Amnesia: In Season 2, he seems to have forgotten why keeping secrets sucks since he refuses to let Patty know Barry's the Flash.
Agent Scully: Doesn't take much stock in Barry's more "creative" theories. Until he sees Barry and Mardon fight, that is. Even after that he's still skeptical about the Man In Yellow until he actually sees him.
Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He resorts to pleading for Iris's life and apologizing for his future self's actions when Savitar corners them in pre-Crisis Earth-2.
And Starring: In the series OBB.
Arch-Enemy: He's been chasing the Mardon brothers for a long time, and it just got personal when his partner was killed.
Badass in a Nice Suit: He mostly fights while wearing suits.
Badass in Distress: Weather Wizard, Grodd, Zoom and Ragdoll have all taken him hostage.
Badass Normal: A veteran detective, he is still skilled enough to go against metahuman threats like if they were normal everyday crooks. Armed with a custom rifle he joins Team Flash in taking down troublesome metas. In "Lose Yourself" he takes on a Samuroid off-screen by himself and wins.
Beware the Nice Ones: Things you do not fuck with include Iris, Barry and Wally (and later Cecile and, presumably, Nora); the man is trained to use a gun! He will shoot you if necessary.
Break the Badass: Joe has been pretty brave with other super criminals but Grodd is the first one to reduce him to a weeping wreck.
The Bus Came Back: After being in Tibet to visit Wally for the first half of Season 5, he comes back to Central City in "King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd".
The Cassandra: He's the very first member of Team Flash to be suspicious of Eobard Thawne. It took about a quarter of the season before anyone of them started to consider his suspicions.
Celebrity Paradox: A Villain of the Week in Season 2 mentions the Law & Order franchise. His actor was one of the longest-serving cast members of the parent series, which also happens to be his Star-Making Role as a screen actor.
Composite Character:
- Right from the outset, he's a combination of Joe Jackham, who was the partner of Fred Chyre, and Eric Russell father of Iris West.
- He is actually much more similar to the New 52 version of Darryl Frye (introduced after this Joe's debut) than to any version of the West father (who originally was a scientist who designed his special suit, much like the S.T.A.R. Labs crew in the show).
- His adopting of Barry after his mother's murder and father's arrest is taken from New Earth's Ira West, who is the adoptive father of Iris (who in that version of the story was born in the 30th century).
- As the father of Wally, he takes after Rudy West, though he (thankfully) has little else in common with him.
Cultured Badass: He was able to recite quotes from classic literature, something that impresses the Clock King as he was also a fan of it.
The Cynic: He is mostly civil, but having been a cop for almost 30 years, he's more suspicious and distrusting of people than most of the other main characters. This actually serves the team well, as he's the first to (correctly) suspect that something is off with "Harrison Wells".
Deadpan Snarker:
- As evidenced by his Shut Up, Hannibal! moment with Clyde Mardon.
  Mardon: DO YOU THINK YOUR GUNS CAN STOP GOD?
  Joe: Why in the hell would God need to rob banks?!
- Which unfortunately blows back on him when Mardon decides he's right and tries to destroy Central City instead.
Dead Sidekick: Two of his four partners have bit the dust. His second was KIA in pursuit of the Mardon brothers, while the third and previous one made a Heroic Suicide to beat the Season 1 Big Bad. The fourth resigns to be a CSI.
Distressed Dude: He's been kidnapped in Season 1 twice. First by Mark Mardon which was negated by Barry's Time Travel, then by Grodd.
Fair Cop: His looks have been complimented by Eliza Harmon and Cecile.
Fantasy-Forbidding Father: He tries to get Barry to stop his extra-curricular heroics, but he eventually relents when he realizes how much the city needs Barry.
Foil: Towards Quentin Lance, the other main cop dad in The 'Verse. Both Joe and Quentin are easily some of the best examples of Good Parents in the whole Arrowverse and incredibly canny and intelligent investigators and cops in thier own right, but thier relationship with the strange happenings in thier series is the main difference: Quentin is a Deconstructed Character Archetype of the Commissioner Gordon, with all the moral hangups and inflexibilities that makes him a grayer character than Joe. Joe, on the other hand, despite having his own elements to overcome, has a considerably healthier mindset about the happening in his city, grows to be lot more openly understanding about the role his children play in as heroes and is a integral member of the superhero team he works with. Not to mention that Joe is notably friendlier and more openly warmhearted to Barry's friends and allies (treating them as extended members of his own family, as especially seen with Cisco and Catlyn) than Quentin Lance's professionally polite and aloof relationship with most members of Team Arrow.
Friend on the Force: To S.T.A.R. Labs, though he is a much more active member of Team Flash compared to most examples of the trope.
Good Is Not Soft: One of the most morally good characters in the show, don't underestimate Joe from harming or shooting a villain.
Good Parents: Really, we shouldn't have to explain this one. Just look at this page and check how many Joe moments are on there.
Heroic Will Power: In "We Are The Flash", DeVoe tries to make him perform a Psychic-Assisted Suicide, but Joe overcomes the mental control by thinking about the love for his family and turns the gun back on DeVoe. Though DeVoe simply overpowers him with his gravity powers for his trouble.
Hidden Depths:
- He was able to name each of the people that coined the quotes Clock King was reciting.
- Joe's often smarter than people think. There's a lot of Underestimating Badassery around him.
Hope Bringer: When Iris was about to abandon hers, after the return of mentally off Barry drove her even farther into her depression, Joe instills that she should never give up believing. His wise words not only inadvertently lead to both Barry and Iris saving each other, but also saving Central City.
Joe: (to Iris) You've certainly got strength, baby girl. What you need is a little faith.
Horrible Judge of Character: Notably one of the few characters to avert this as he is the first to suspect Thawne. It's due to him being an experienced detective able to notice small details and be Properly Paranoid while the rest of the characters are Naive Newcomers who trust a bit too easily.
Hypocrite : Joe resigns because of the use of the Meta-Human "Cure" (Suppressant) being used by Central City Police with government authorization . But not once does he reprimand any of Team Flash for inventing the "cure" and using it on his enemies .
- Joe tears into Barry and Iris for considering allowing Thawne's latest RetGone to catch up to him and wipe himself out of existence, after Thawne comes to them, seeking aid, with Joe arguing that they are obligated to actively save him and not let him die. However, Joe, himself, previously shot at Harry Wells for simply sharing the same face that Thawne wore, and Harry was only saved, because Barry stopped the bullets from hitting him.
Iconic Sequel Character: While he was introduced at the series premiere of The Flash (2014), he was technically only introduced during the third year of the Arrowverse.
I Have No Daughter!: In the post-Flashpoint timeline, he disowns Iris after she takes her mother's side after discovering that she's still alive. They eventually got better. Before the Cosmic Retcon, Iris has an Undying Loyalty to him and didn't forgive her mother until the latter's last days.
Intergenerational Friendship: He is friends with Cisco and Caitlin, who are young adults, and later with Ralph.
The Lancer: His role in Team Flash. He possesses authority over the group second only to Wells (which may have something to do with them being the adult figures of the relatively young group) and most times acts as Wells' de-facto Number Two, especially concerning Barry.
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Not that dissimilar from Law & Order's Ed Green, even down to the same actor. Which is interesting, since Green and his partner Joe Fontana had a cameo in a Batman comic.
Like a Son to Me: He raised Barry like his own son, and he considers him as such, casually referring to him as "my kid" a couple of times.
Manly Facial Hair: Sports a goatee and the show's resident Action Dad. His beard becomes fuller after Season 6.
My God, What Have I Done?: When he learns about Wally, he admits to Barry he lied about Francine not to protect Iris, but because he gave up on her and wanted her out of their lives. He regrets doing this because it meant his son grew up without a father.
My Greatest Failure: Aside from those mentioned under That One Case, one example that doesn't involve his police work involves Barry's coma: he was so desperate to see his son awake again that he willingly surrenders Barry's body to Eobard Thawne (a man who Joe already had trust issues with) after the latter tells Joe that he's the only one who can help save Barry.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Iris is impersonated by a Mirror version of herself, Barry starts being feeling distrustful of the new Iris due to her aggressive demeanor and out of character moments. However, Joe makes Barry dispel these doubts and leads Barry to trust Mirror Iris, who is in a secret agenda to depower Barry.
No Sympathy: Towards Francine, believing her genuine pleas to be an attempt at guilt trip, and trying to pay her off instead of letting her near Iris.
Not So Above It All:
- He's usually stern and the Only Sane Man, but when Barry shows him he can vibrate his vocal cords to throw his voice, he can't help but geek out.
- When Cisco is in a state of a lucid dreaming and comments how he's wearing his favorite shirt that he thought the dryer ate, and Joe just giggles uncontrollably.
Old Cop, Young Cop: Two of his most prominent partners (Eddie and Patty) are around the age range of his daughter. Both even dated his (surrogate, in Barry's case) children.
Out of Focus: In Season 5, his screen time is very reduced and almost all of it is at the West House with him never standing - this is a case of Real Life Writes the Plot as Jesse suffered a back injury during the break and was eventually granted a medical leave of absence to deal with it.Even beforehand, while he remained an informant to Team Flash, after seeing that the younger members of Team Flash mature and find their sync with one another early season 4, his time at S.T.A.R. Labs began to dwindle and he focused more on his contribution to the team through his police work.
Papa Wolf: He is protective of his family and the Team Flash members. Despite being mostly nice, he is not afraid to become more aggressive if any of them is in danger.
The Paragon: In season 7 he puts in a great deal of time and effort to try and make Kristen Kramer into a genuinely good person who can discard her anti-metahuman prejudices, which seems to ultimately pay off.
Parental Marriage Veto: When Eddie gave him the courtesy of knowing first that he plans on proposing to his daughter, Joe bluntly shuts him down. He is unsupportive of this due to knowing that Iris's actual One True Love is Barry.
Parental Hypocrisy: He wanted to be a policeman since his childhood, but is unwilling to let his daughter involve in police work.
Parental Substitute:
- Took Barry in after his dad went to jail, and will occasionally refer to him as "son" or "my kid" without even thinking about it.
- Joe also takes on a fatherly role for Joanie, the daughter of his girlfriend Cecile, whose biological father isn't in the picture.
Parents as People:
- Joe genuinely loves Iris and Barry and does his best to help them and keep them safe but this is offset by flaws in his own character such as being stubborn in the face of problems where he has to relent, Because I Said So tendencies that are invalidated by his lack of ability to enforce his statements, and some Innocently Insensitive moments that show with Barry.
- When Wally started developing superpowers, he initially tried to dissuade him from using them to help Barry.
Police Are Useless: Joe utterly averts this, which is borderline unheard-of in superhero media. Even meta-human threats, which you could excuse normal police from being able to handle, are all but another day on the job for Joe West.
Pragmatic Hero: In contrast to Barry's Ideal Hero and Harry's Unscrupulous Hero.
Properly Paranoid: Can you blame him for not trusting Eobard Thawne when the two men's first encounter consisted of Thawne raising alarm bells in Joe's head with his every word while still posing a better chance to save Barry than the doctors at St. Andrews?
Put on a Bus:
- In Season 5 due to his actor taking a medical leave of absence to deal with his back problems beginning with "All Doll'd Up"; early on their was a Hand Wave excuse for his absence, but eventually his absence was explained by going to Tibet to visit Wally.
- In Season 6 he has to leave to witness protection since he is being hunted down by Joseph Carver.
- In Season 9 he and Jenna choose to move away from Central City for her protection, after an incident with the Red Death, with Cecile staying behind to continue her duties as both an Attorney for Metas and as a Super Hero part of Team Flash.
Race Lift: He's white in the comics, but black in the show. In fact, the reason why the entire West family was adjusted like this was because the showrunners really wanted Jesse L. Martin for Joe.
Related in the Adaptation:
- In this version, he's Barry most influential father figure after becoming his legal guardian because of his father's imprisonment.
Related Differently in the Adaptation: He becomes Wally's father instead of granduncle.
Religious Bruiser: After meeting Cecile, he became more religious. He is also a Badass Normal.
Secret-Keeper: The first person outside S.T.A.R. Labs and Oliver Queen who knows about Barry's powers. While initially wary of Oliver, he keeps his identity as Arrow/Green Arrow secret.
Shipper on Deck: For Barry and Iris, as revealed in Plastique. It's why he can't give Eddie his blessing when the latter wishes to marry Iris, because he knows deep down she loves Barry and will realize she'll make a mistake marrying him. One can even infer that Barry is the only love interest of Iris that Joe has ever fully approved of, being already family in all but blood anyway.
Skeptic No Longer: He doesn't believe Barry until he sees that Clyde Mardon is alive and can control the weather, and that Barry can run fast enough to unravel a potential F-5 class tornado.
Silver Fox: He is visibly older than the rest of Team Flash and he still has been regarded as attractive by Eliza Harmon and Cecile Horton.
Supreme Chef: Iris and Cecile mention that Joe is good at cooking when discussing about Cecile's relationship with Joe.
Team Dad: Shared this role with Eobard Thawne for Team Flash, and unlike Thawne there can be no doubts that he genuinely cares for them all. When it looked liked Thawne would kill Cisco, Joe shot Thawne (actually a disguised Hannibal Bates) dead without hesitation.
The Team Normal: By Season Four, Joe is the only core member of Team Flash who has never had superpowers (excluding one-season temporary members). Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, are all powerful metas, Thawne was secretly a depowered speedster, while Iris and Harry Wells temporarily gained powers. This leaves Joe as the only Badass Normal veteran member.
That One Case:
- Nora Allen's murder. A murder that ruined the lives of his friends, resulting in him effectively adopting their child? Yes.
- The Mardon brothers' case since he'd been pursuing them for a long time and they killed his partner before Eddie.
Underestimating Badassery: In terms of intelligence, anyway. Joe is surrounded by scientific geniuses it seems, yet he is knowledgeable enough to know every person Clock King quoted and makes up for it by way of being the savviest character in the show.
What the Hell, Hero?: Joe delivers these occasionally, when he believes a member of the team is misguided, but most prominently in "Armageddon," when he rips into Barry and Iris for considering to let Thawne's mistakes catch up to him and wipe himself out of existence. Joe argues that Barry and Iris cannot possible let Thawne die and are obligated to actively save him.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He mentions when they discover Grodd's existence that he finds ordinary non-superpowered gorillas scary enough. Not long after, he meets Grodd himself, whom is murderous, gigantic, incredibly strong and telepathic. Joe is so terrified by the ordeal that it brings him to tears.
You Are in Command Now: Becomes Captain of the CCPD at the end of Season 5.

Wally West / Kid Flash

Wallace "Wally" West

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wally_west.png

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kid_flash_2.png

" Last time I checked, I have a whole lot to make up for, and that's what I intend to do!"

Species: Metahuman^noteBriefly empowered via Water Totem

Known Aliases: Kid Flash, Taillights, The Flash (Flashpoint timeline)

Affiliations: Team Flash, The Legends

Played By: Keiynan Lonsdale

First Appearance: "Running to Stand Still" (The Flash 2x9)

Appearances: The Flash | Invasion!^note(The Flash) | Crisis on Earth-X ^note(Supergirl) | Legends of Tomorrow

Wally is Iris's long-lost brother, whom Francine was pregnant with shortly before leaving her and Joe. Wally winds up getting introduced to them after Francine discovers that she's terminally ill and while after a rocky start, becomes fully integrated into the West family. An adrenaline junkie, with a love for automobiles, after being saved by the Flash's sacrifice, Wally earned a longing to become a hero just like him, unaware at the time that the Flash was Barry Allen, a man he wasn't entirely fond of.

After Barry caused the Flashpoint timeline Wally's wish came true when he became a speedster himself because of Alchemy's actions, in the reset timeline regaining the powers he held in Flashpoint. Now taking the moniker Kid Flash, he is a protege of Barry's, whom Barry believes has the possibility of becoming an even greater hero than himself.

However, Wally would eventually leave Central City as he was tired of being stuck in Barry's shadow. He traveled the world saving people (and fought a starfish from space). While taking some time to meditate in China, Rip Hunter found and recruited him in his fight against Mallus, which led to Wally joining the Legends. After his stint there, Wally went back to traveling the world.

see the Arrowverse: Future Characters page for his possible future versions

Aborted Arc: His joining of the Legends becomes this due to Keiynan Lonsdale leaving the role.
The Ace: Implied in season 3, as Wally develops at a much faster rate than Barry. He surpasses Barry's years of development in a few months. Subverted in S4 where a returned Barry has been significantly sped up by his time in the Speed Force.
Adaptation Dye-Job: While Wally is traditionally known as a Caucasian redhead, the show is using his half African-American cousin, also called Wally, who was introduced in the New 52.^note The TV series takes it one step farther, making both of his parents African-American.
Adaptation Origin Connection: In the comics, he got his powers from a freak accident identical to the one that gave Barry his powers. Here his powers come from the Philosopher's Stone via Savitar.
Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Linda Park, Hartley Rathaway, and Roy Harper are among Wally's closest associates in the comics- Linda being his wife and Hartley and Roy being two of his best friends. In the Arrowverse, Wally has yet to interact with any of them.
- In the comics, Magenta/Frankie Kane is Wally's Psycho Ex-Girlfriend. Here, that's not the case, likely due to her Age Lift.
- Comics Zoom is Wally’s Evil Former Friend, with Wally seeing his fall from grace as his greatest failure. Here, Wally and Zoom never were friends to begin with.
- Fred Chyre in the comics was a major part of Wally's supporting cast. Here, Chyre dies a full season before Wally is introduced and they never meet as a result.
Adaptational Jerkass: Originally came of this way due to his uneasy relationship with Barry and Iris who his comic counterpart considered Parental Substitute's, he grew out of it shortly after Barry gave up his powers for him.
Advertised Extra: He was made a member of The Flash main cast an episode after his first appearance. Outside of his relations with Joe and Iris, he hasn't been a part of Season Two's overarching plot of "Team Flash vs Zoom". Considering that he is still Locked Out of the Loop when it comes to the Flash, and that 80-90% of the scenes deal with this, especially in later episodes of Season Two, he usually appears shortly in the opening few scenes then disappears for the rest of the episode. Finally averted in Season 3 once he becomes Kid Flash.
Age Lift: He's only a few years younger than Barry and Iris in the show, giving him a much smaller age gap from them as opposed to the original comics, where they were in their late 20's/early 30's and he was originally a preteen.
Alliterative Name: Wally West.
Ascended Fanboy: He is a fan of speed and The Flash. He becomes a speedster and one of Team Flash's member and ally.
The Atoner: Feels that he needs to make up for his past mistakes and develops Chronic Hero Syndrome as a result. Joe isn't too pleased.
Atrocious Alias: In the Season 3 trailer, Barry recommends Wally calls himself Kid Flash.
Barry: How about Kid Flash?
Wally: Don't call me that.
- Once he actually becomes Kid Flash he embraces the name.
Badass Driver: He's a drag racer, and a very good one at that. He's even willing to use Car Fu if necessary.
Badass Normal: His main skill is being a Badass Driver. Later subverted when he becomes The Flash in the Flashpoint timeline.
Bash Brothers: He becomes quite chummy with Nate. Even before he joined the Legends, the two of them were forming a Dynamic Duo of sorts on the streets while Barry was locked in the Speed Force and the Legends took a break.
Battle Couple: He and Jesse everytime they fight together. At least before Jesse breaks up with him in favor of her missions on Earth-2.
The Big Guy: Serves as this for the Legends, being the resident speedster and the powerhouse of the team.
Big Little Brother: He's 6'0, while Iris is only 5'4. He was born after Iris was; Francine was pregnant before abandoning Joe and Iris.
Bromance: Apparently developed one offscreen with Nate, even serving as his "wingman," as Wally puts it, after the latter was left by Amaya.
But Now I Must Go: He leaves Team Flash early in Season 4, so he can finally stop being in Barry's shadow.
Character Death: In the tie-in comic to Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019), he was killed during the battle against the Anti-Monitor. The Cosmic Retcon brought him back.
Car Fu: Wally shows himself to be a Badass Driver by using his car to ram Black Siren over with the side of his car, while she was beating down the Flash.
Character Development: When we first meet him, Wally is more heavily based off the New 52 version, being an angsty, rebellious young man who doesn't gel with his family and is generally rubbed the wrong way by Barry. As the series progresses, he becomes more and more like the original Wally. He becomes closer to his dad and sister, he gets on much better with Barry, and he's not only begun idolizing the Flash, but also developed a strong desire to help people.
Children Raise You: It is implied that raising him is what really reformed Francine.
Chronic Hero Syndrome: After The Flash/Barry Allen sacrifices his speed to save Wally's life, he wants to atone for his jerkishness and show gratefulness for being saved by being a hero.
Composite Character:
- Since in this version, he's Iris's little brother instead of nephew, this makes him one with Daniel West, Iris's brother of the New 52.
- He has elements of both the original Wally West, who the actor did research on for the role, as well as the current Kid Flash, Wally West III. Most notably, TV Wally also got trapped in the Speed Force follwing a Flashpoint event, which was what happened with DC Rebirth Wally, who had disappeared during New 52 and was replaced by Wally West II (the one based on the TV version).
- After his time on Legends of Tomorrow, this Wally has even taken on traits from the Young Justice version, with his habit of collecting souvenirs.
- After leaving the show and briefly returning, Wally's "zen master of speed" characterisation seems to be taken from Max Mercury, though it could just be flanderising his own comic self's spiritual understanding of the Speed Force.
Commuting on a Bus: Since Barry returned stronger from the Speed Force and Jesse broke up with Wally, Wally decided to leave the team to find himself. He returned for a while to attend Barry and Iris's wedding and then leaves. Wally was recruited by Rip Hunter and joined the Legends until Mallus was defeated. He goes to Central City to meet his new sister Jenna and departs again. He helps during the Crisis on Infinite Earths only to die, and after being Back from the Dead due to the timeline changes, he returns to speak with Barry about something wrong with the Speed Force and then goes again.
Convenient Replacement Character: When he joins the Legends he largely fills Firestorm's role as the metahuman big guy with a Story-Breaker Power.
Cool Uncle: His niece certainly seems to think so, given how much pride she has in relaying stories to her grandfather about some of Wally's exploits with The Legends. It's clear Nora really looks up to her Uncle.
Dance Battler: Has elements of breakdance with his Bullet Catch maneuver in Crisis On Earth-X.
Death Is Cheap: He get's killed by Outkast, Nash Wells' antimatter doppelganger, in the official tie-in comic Crisis on Infinite Earths Giant #1. However, he is already slated to return after the recreation of the multiverse.
Demoted to Extra: In Season 4 he no longer feels at home with Team Flash, so he leaves Central City to find his own path.
- Even before this, Wally West played a much smaller role in the show than his comic self did. Many of the storylines from seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5 are directly taken from the time when Wally was the lead character of the comics. Suffice to say he plays a much smaller role in the show's version.
Disappeared Dad: Grew up without his father, although it was actually a case of Disappeared Son since Joe was around when Wally wasn't.
Doppelgänger Attack: He can create speed force duplicates without relying on the ethically questionable and problematic technique of creating time remnants.
Dude, Where's My Respect?: Due to being the baby of the family he's very insecure about his place in the West household. It gets worse when he gets speed powers and Joe and Iris are very reluctant for him to be a hero. They come around by Christmas though.
11th-Hour Ranger: Joins the Legends quite late in Season 3 (Episode 13 out of 18 in total).
Empowered Badass Normal: He's already a Badass Driver when introduced. Season 3 shows him gaining Super-Speed.
The Engineer: He's something of a wizard with engines and anything to do with speed. Before deciding he needed to make a difference, he was training to be an engineer.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He's a street racer who risks getting arrested to win bets and pay for his mother's hospital bills. Unfortunately, it's not enough to make him want Joe's help.
Foregone Conclusion: Why the reveal of his powers isn't being hidden with spoiler tags.
Fun Personified: He still is a bit angsty but has become more cheerful with time.
Future Badass: Barry mentions to Joe that he has no doubt Wally is destined to become a hero. Turns out he was more right than he thought, when Wally gains speedster powers.
Good Counterpart: Both Wally and Eobard Thawne have Super-Speed, wear yellow suits, and wanted to be heroes. But while Eobard devoted his life to ruining Barry's when he realized he could never be completely like him, Wally has a genuine sense of justice and becomes Barry's friend. His work alongside the Legends contrasts him with Thawne in that Thawne was the sole speedster of a group that damaged the timeline.
Green-Eyed Monster: Initially treats Barry coldly for the seemingly perfect pedestal both Iris and Joe have placed him on. Additionally, he's not too thrilled that Jesse developed powers and he didn't. He's not a Jerkass about it though.
Healing Factor: As with any other Speedster or meta. Sometimes it is shown to be unreliable, leading it to appear occasionally as if he lacks one. This is most likely due to gaining the powers from the Philosopher Stone and not the Speed Force, therefore having a weaker connection than either Barry or Jesse have to it. Another possibility was Joe's irresponsible breaking of his cocoon.
Heroic Wannabe: After Barry rescues him from Zoom, he develops a Chronic Hero Syndrome and charges in dangerous situations to help him, much to Joe's terror.
Hero of Another Story: He is the Flash in the Flashpoint timeline. In the meantime between his exit from Team Flash and his transference to "Legends", he has done offscreen heroics (fighting Starro, solving some situation in Cambodia).
Hidden Depths: He can speak Japanese.
Iconic Sequel Character: Does not appear in the series until the mid-season finale of The Flash Season 2, which was during the fourth year of the Arrowverse.
Idiot Ball: Like Barry, he tends to grab this on occasion. He's just as reckless as Barry was in his early days, unfortunately without Barry's genius level intellect to keep his ego in check, leading Wally to make some very poor decisions.
I Just Want to Be Badass: His character arc in Season 3 is his desire to be a good speedster like Barry and Jesse. He ultimately gets his wish.
I Owe You My Life: The Flash saved his life twice now; first from Tar Pit, second from Zoom. Because of the latter, he begins idolizing the Flash.
It's All About Me: His hostility toward the Wests is revealed to be a case of this in "Potential Energy", as he is angry with them and his terminally ill mother because the latter didn't tell him about his father or the fact that he had a sister until near his mother's death. As Iris points out to him, they didn't know about him either.
It's Personal: Savitar is his most personal enemy in Season Three, both for killing Iris in the future and sentencing him to a Mind Rape both in and outside of the Speed Force. He spends his spare time training in order to fight him.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He starts out this way; he's got some anger issues and isn't always the most reliable, but he's not a bad person at heart. He grows out of this by the end of the season.
Locked Out of the Loop: Because Wally is not aware of Barry being the Flash, his first impression of him is as someone who is aloof and unreliable. He finds out that Barry is the Flash in the penultimate episode of Season 2.
Long-Lost Relative: Never mentioned in Season One because Iris's mother left before Joe knew she was pregnant.
Loves My Alter Ego: He has a tense relationship with Barry but greatly idolizes The Flash, not knowing they're the same person. They eventually got better, though. By the time he finally finds out about Barry's Secret Identity, he already considers him his brother.
Mythology Gag: Wally getting trapped in the Speed Force following a Flashpoint event is exactly what happened in New 52, before it was revealed in DC Rebirth.
Noodle Incident: Fought a giant starfish alien during his self-discovery trip in Blue Valley.
Odd Friendship: With H.R. who agrees to train him after The Team refuses to. Both connect due to the rejection they got from Team Flash.
- Played even straighter with Rip Hunter. Rip originally intended to simply manipulate him into getting what he wanted, but after a night of drinking and some karaoke in Tokyo, the two seem to have genuinely become good friends.
Overshadowed by Awesome: Why he eventually leaves Team Flash, feeling like an outsider on a team of geniuses and a very upgraded Barry, since his vehicle engineering and his super speed are of no use there. He gets better after joining the Legends, perhaps a little too well.
Wally: (to Kuasa) What I am is the fastest man alive.
Nate: Second fastest.
Wally: (meekly) She didn't need to know that.
Passing the Torch: Barry names him his successor when he leaves to go into the Speed Force. However out of respect towards Barry he refuses the moniker "The Flash," opting to remain Kid Flash.
Put on a Bus: After the Season 5 premiere of The Flash Wally decides to leave Central City again to complete his journey of self-discovery that was interrupted when Rip asked him to join the Legends, because his actor wanted to take a sabbatical for personal reasons.
Promotion to Opening Titles: He's immediately added to the OBB in the episode after his introduction.
Race Lift: The original Wally is Caucasian, while his New 52 cousin is half-Caucasian half-African-American; however, like the rest of the West family, this version is fully African-American.
Red Baron: His drag racing monicker is "Taillights".
Related Differently in the Adaptation: He was already related to Iris in the comics, but in the show he's now her brother rather than her nephew. This, in-turn, makes him, Barry's brother-in-law.
Ret-Canon: Wally West already existed in the comics, but after this version was given a Race Lift, an African-American version of Wally West got brought into New 52 because of the show. Later it's revealed that this version of Wally West is different to the original one, and is the original's cousin.
Retired Badass: He gives super-heroics after his stint with the Legends to spend his days relaxing and meditating in Tibet.
Shipper on Deck: He encourages Joe to go on his date with DA Cecile, even when Alchemy starts calling out to him.
Story-Breaker Power: In the Flash, Wally is generally playing second fiddle to Barry. Once he joins the Legends, this changes as his powers far outstrip that of any individual legend. He's often able to solve an episode's worth of problems in a few seconds, by speeding in and snatching whatever the Legends are after. In the finale, he's the only one who's able to keep Mallus distracted while the other Legends escape.
Strong Family Resemblance: He is very similar to Joe and Iris.
Superhero Speciation: He was written off The Flash because the writers found it hard to write for two speedsters without nerfing one or both of them.
Superior Successor: Has the potential for it anyway, becoming faster much quicker than Barry progressed in his early days, but he still lacks the training and discipline. In fact Barry's plan to prevent Savitar from killing Iris is to use Wally's superior speed. However, the Speed Force discourages Barry from using Wally to help him. And after Barry returns, it becomes very apparent that his time in the Speed Force has made the man in red "The Fastest Man Alive" once again.
Super-Speed: Has them starting The Flash Season 3.
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: He has some issues with Joe, and possibly Iris, for not being there growing up and not helping his mom when she came back, so he's understandably not interested in bonding with anyone when Joe welcomes him with open arms and even offers money. It's also suggested he's slightly hurt that they took Barry in. Fortunately, he and Joe bond at the end of "Potential Energy", and he becomes quite close to Iris and gets along relatively well with Barry.
- When he rushes to Barry and Oliver's rescue in "Invasion", he ends up getting his ass handed to him due to not having anywhere near the level of experience the other Arrow-Verse heroes have.
Took a Level in Badass: He is a much more powerful speedster as of "Death of the Speed Force", since he can enter in the Speed Force and has tricks with the Speed Force that Barry cannot do.
Took a Level in Kindness: After his initial hostility towards The Wests and Barry in particular, he begins to finally open up to all of them after realizing they all care about him very much.
Too Dumb to Live: Fortunately a non-lethal example. In "Magenta," Wally has hope that he may be a speedster too, so he tests his theory by secretly having superpowers by jumping in front of a speeding car in the hope that something supernatural would happen. When Barry calls him out on this display of blatant stupidity, Wally admits that he had no idea what would happen by doing this plan.
The Unchosen One: In a sense; Wally wants to be a hero more than anything, but despite being caught in the same Dark Matter wave as Jesse, he didn't get powers from the Speed Force. He did however get them artificially from the Philosopher's Stone, which had its drawbacks.
The Un-Favourite: How he views himself; Joe and Iris's refusal to let train him as a hero, and Barry's reluctance to allow him in the field, also fuels that belief. He grows out of it after his brief tenure with the Legends.
Transplant: Joins Legends of Tomorrow as a series regular in the latter half of the third season, after disappearing early in The Flash Season 4.
Unskilled, but Strong: Surpassed even a rookie Barry in a speed test, but has no proper training with it.
- Comes to be a true hurdle that when the two are preparing for the night that Iris dies, Barry realizes he's allowed Wally to coast by on his natural talents, instead of challenging and improving his skills.
Unwitting Pawn: Turns out that, after observing the events of Flashpoint through the Speed Force, Savitar came up with the idea to turn Wally into Kid Flash counting on his youth and inexperience to be the factors needed in order to eventually escape his prison and place Wally in there instead.
Walking Spoiler: If you weren't on track with Season Two, chances are you had no idea that he existed.
Walking the Earth: After Barry returns from the Speed Force, Wally decides to embark on a Journey to Find Oneself by performing superheroics globally.

Francine West

Species: Human

Played By: Vanessa A. Williams

First Appearance: "Flash of Two Worlds" (The Flash 2x2)

Appearances: The Flash

Iris West's mother and Joe's estranged wife. She has a son that is also Joe's.

Adaptational Angst Upgrade: The drug-addict and estranged Long-Lost Relative storyline is native in the show, though it's justified since she's mostly a Posthumous Character in the comics anyway.
Adaptation Name Change: Iris's mother is named Fran or Nadine (New Earth) in DC Comics.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Averted, Joe views her appearing out of nowhere and attempts at reconnecting with Iris a ploy for money, and given her history, it is hard not to believe him. Then she reveals she's dying...
Children Raise You: It is implied that raising Wally is what really reformed her.
Composite Character: Most likely a combination of Fran Russel (Iris's biological mother) and Nadine West (Ira's wife) from DC Comics. She is also a combination of Mary West, Wally's mother in the comics, as Wally in this series is Iris's brother rather than nephew.
Easily Forgiven: Double Subverted. She really had to work hard to eventually earn Joe and Iris's forgiveness. Wally also did not take kindly that she hid him from his father and sister all his life. Thanks to Barry's Cosmic Retcon, however, her daughter forgives her on the spot and her son either forgave her much quickly than he originally did or did not held any resentment against her at all.
I Have No Son!: Both Joe and Iris disowned her and want her out of their lives. In the post-Flashpoint timeline, she's Easily Forgiven by the latter.
Killed Offscreen: Succumbs to her disease in between episodes 11 and 12 after having made peace with both Iris and Wally.
Long-Lost Relative: She disappeared from Joe and Iris's lives for more than twenty years.
Metaphorically True: Joe tells Iris that she's dead. Given that Francine was systematically destroying her own life before her disappearance, Joe was somehow right.
Missing Mom: She left when Iris was a little kid. Joe had to tell her she died, out of fear that Francine would never beat her addiction, sparing Iris what he believed, future heartbreak.
Morality Pet: She's the only person that Wally so far cares for. He gets into illegal street races to pay for her hospital bills.
Never Got to Say Goodbye: Subverted. Originally Wally was absent during her final hours out of anger over Francine hiding him from his father and sister, which he later regrets. However, Barry's Cosmic Retcon changed that.
One True Love: Never moved on from Joe, and openly admits to him, he is the love of her life.
Parents as People: She has a great capacity of love for her children, Wally turning out to be a fine, if rebellious, young man is proof of that, but her early dalliances with addiction made her less than a suitable mother.
Race Lift: She's Caucasian in the comics like the rest of her family.
Recovered Addict: The reason she disappeared from her family's life.
Redemption Equals Death: She's trying to make amends to both Joe and Iris, and ultimately succeeds, before finally succumbing to her illness.
Second Episode Introduction: Makes her debut at the second episode of Season 2.
Small Role, Big Impact: Was only in a few episodes in The Flash Season 2, but those appearances directly lead to Wally's introduction.
Spared by the Adaptation: She's almost always a Posthumous Character in the comics. Subverted when she later succumbs to her disease.
White Shirt of Death: Heavily invoked. Last time she was shown alive, she's wearing a white hospital gown. Other characters then state that she died on the hospital, meaning she's probably wearing a similar if not the same gown.
You See, I'm Dying: From a disease, as a result of her life as a negligent drug addict. This is the reason she came back to her family's life, to get closure. Unfortunately for her, this doesn't change how Iris initially feels about her. While she's sorry she's dying, Iris tells her to never come back. Later on, Iris becomes more sympathetic and makes peace with her.

Jenna West

Jenna Marie West

Species: Human(?)

Played By: N/A

First Appearance: "We Are The Flash" (The Flash 4x23)

Appearances: The Flash

Joe West and Cecile Horton's daughter and half-sister to both Iris, Wally (both paternal), and Joanie (maternal).

Canon Foreigner: She has no corresponding counterpart among the canonical The Flash family from the comicbooks, though whether or not she's a Canon Character All Along remains to be seen.
Expansion Pack: Being pregnant with her gave her mother Telepathy.
Heroic Bastard: Joe and Cecile are not married when she was born.
Last Episode, New Character: She's born during the Season 4 finale of The Flash.
Mythology Gag: Her name is very similar to Jenni Ognats aka XS, the daughter of Dawn Allen (whose counterpart, ironically, is officially introduced shortly after Jenna's birth).
Put on a Bus: After an incident with the Red Death, both Joe and Cecile agree for her safety that Jenna and Joe move away from Central City's craziness and Metahumans.

Grandma Esther

Esther

Species: Human

Played By: N/A

Appearances: The Flash

Joe West's grandmother and great-grandmother to Iris, Wally and Jenna West.

The Alcoholic: Implied as her eggnog recipe contains excessive amounts of alcohol.
The Ghost: Mentioned a lot but has never appeared in person.
Named by the Adaptation: Iris or/and Wally's great-grandparents are never mentioned in the comics. This one at least has a first name.
Supreme Chef: Joe West seems to think of her as one, taking great pride in her eggnog and meatloaf. Though everyone else has other ideas - well, everyone else except Barry, who makes an almost orgasmic noise when told by Joe that there's "grandma Esther's meatloaf" made for him after his release from prison. Both Barry and Joe glare at Cisco when he badmouths the meatloaf.

Extended West-Allen Family

Cecile Horton / Virtue

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cecile_horton.png

Species: Metahuman

Played By: Danielle Nicolet

First Appearance: "Who is Harrison Wells?" (The Flash 1x19)

Appearances: The Flash | Crisis on Earth-X ^note( Supergirl)

The District Attorney of Central City, live-in girlfriend of Joe West and mother of Jenna West. She eventually quits her job and starts legally defending metahumans instead.

Eventually she ended up becoming a meta-human herself, with her powers manifesting during her pregnancy. As her powers developed, Cecile eventually joined Team Flash herself.

Adaptational Badass: While the Virtue of the comics had similar empath powers, she did not possesses telekinesis and Mental Time Travel.
Almighty Mom: Or Almighty Step-Grandmother. After having had enough of Nora bashing her mother, Mama Cecile puts her foot down with Nora's bratty behavior and sets the record straight about Iris.
Ascended Extra: Introduced as Team Flash's unknowing legal consultant (similar to Laurel Lance in the first two seasons of Arrow but a far less important character) who disappears for a whole season then comes back as Joe's Second Love and an ally and member of Team Flash.
Ascended Fangirl: Unknowingly admitted to Barry she was a Flash fan in "Who Is Harrison Wells?" and even had a playful Team Flash vs. Team Kid Flash rivalry with her daughter. Eventually, she is allowed into the circle on Barry's identity, even gaining metahuman powers of her own, which she often uses to help him and the team out.
Black Boss Lady: She is the District Attorney of Central City, after all.
Blessed with Suck: While she usually loves being an empath, as it helps her and her clients out. However, due to the death of Joe in Negative Flash-Point, she not only had to deal with her own grief over losing the love of her life, she had spent several months feeling Iris and Barry's grief over losing Joe too.
The Bus Came Back: After being absent for the entire second season, she comes back in the third and becomes increasingly prominent in the following seasons.
Chekhov's Skill: Cecile's telepathy, while seemingly a casually thrown in joke, turns out to be crucial in the Season Four finale.
The Confidant: She's the first person outside of Team Flash that Joe tells about the Pipeline prison.
Composite Character: In the comics, Cecile Horton and the superhero Virtue are two completely separate, unrelated characters, with the comics Virtue being named Holly Ann Fields.
Crusading Lawyer: She eventually quits her job as the District Attorney and becomes a lawyer defending metahumans instead.
Dark and Troubled Past: She had a nervous breakdown after the stress from her job and dealing with her mother's death, and spent time in a psychiatric facility.
The Empath: After giving birth, her telepathy becomes unreliable until it eventually fades. However, she soon discovers that she has retained some ability to sense and mirror the emotions of others.
First-Name Basis: Joe and other characters always refer to her given name, sometimes with her job title. Her last name is only revealed in Season 3. The one exception is Harry Wells, who calls her "DA Cecile Horton".
Good Counterpart: To DeVoe, she fist develops powers in season four, during his stint as Big Bad. He has mental powers that cause him to become devoid of empathy, while she has mental powers that run on empathy and her powers are ultimately responsible for his defeat, demonstrating the seasons Central Theme that empathy and emotional intelligence are more important that cold, emotionless logic. Later in the show she also uses his chair on numerous occasions and frequently gains new powers, though hers are natural while his were stolen from others.
- After DeVoe was defeated, Top and Rainbow Raider II were presented as her Shadow Archetype's with them being said to have similar power sets to her but use them violently and for selfish means.
Good Stepmother: She gets along with Iris and treats her with the same love she treats her own daughters.
Hello, Attorney!: She's definitely not bad looking.
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: At only five feet, she is a full foot shorter than Joe (6' 1'').
Informed Ability: We're constantly told what a great lawyer Cecile is but each time we see her in a courtroom it's a disaster for her client. Furthermore, she has no apparent problem violating her sworn oath as a DA or the canons of legal ethics to help Team Flash with an investigation. The show's heaping helpings of Hollywood Law don't really help.
Jumped at the Call: Is very excited about having gained powers.
Mind over Manners: Averted. One of the main struggles Cecile had with her telpathy was ivasion of privacy of other people's minds.
Mind over Matter: In Season 9, she has gained the power to telekinetically move objects.
New Powers as the Plot Demands: Cecile picks up new powers every season, with Season 9 having her develop new powers every few episodes.
Nice Girl: Despite sometimes being a bit inconsiderate with her powers, Cecile is a pure and kind-hearted soul.
No Sense of Personal Space: Telepathically, as she often uses her powers without any regards for people's privacy.
Out of Focus: She's absent for the entire second season. She comes back in the third.
Power Incontinence: She can't turn off her telepathy. She still functions reasonably well, except when she's trying to sleep and gets blasted awake by Joe's dreams.
Promotion to Opening Titles: Come Season 5.
Race Lift: Like a majority of the cast. She is an Irish red-head in the comics named Cecile O'Malley, before marrying her ex-Garret Horton. Here she is played by African-American Danielle Nicolet.
Relationship Upgrade: She and Joe began as friends but began dating after she returns in The Flash Season 3. Come Season 4 she's on the cusp of moving in with him, and mother of his third child. Season 5 Nora affectionately recognizes her as "Mama Cecile".
Second Love: The first real relationship Joe has had since Francine.
Secret-Keeper: She knows about the Pipeline prison. She also learns the identities of the Flash and Kid Flash once she and Joe become an Official Couple.
Ship Tease: With Joe. He finally starts making a move in The Flash Season 3.
Sixth Ranger: After Joe, she is the Team's closest companion in the government and city politics.
Story-Breaker Power: After gaining powers, she is treated as a powerhouse and one of the most vital members of Team Flash.
Team Mom: She is the only female member of Team Flash to have raised a child, and treats the younger members with the same tenderness and understanding she would show Jenna or Joanie.
Telepathy: Gains the ability to read thoughts during her pregnancy. She loses those abilities after giving birth to Jenna. However she may have retained some of her abilities, as she is able to read Jenna's mind, to Joe's chagrin. Her abilities often come in handy when she is assisting the team, as being able to read minds helps often to point them in the right direction to solving their case.
Took a Level in Badass: Her powers as an Empath have grown exponentially so, that when Psyche, the Sage Force with the powers to make peoples worst fears come to life, Cecile was able to project her empathy all across Central City as a shield, to prevent Psyche from doing so. Later on due to being able to seemingly tap into her empathy she can form physical shields and manipulate energy around her.
What the Hell, Hero?: Gives one to Joe after telling her about his involvement about keeping Metahuman prisoners in the Pipeline.
Wrong Genre Savvy: When the team needs to exorcise Thawne from Nash's mind, she shows up with holy water, a cross, and an Ouija board.

Nora West-Allen / XS

Nora West-Allen

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/xs_9.png

"I'm XS! How schway is that!?!"

Species: Metahuman

Known Aliases: XS, "Dawn"

Played By: Jessica Parker Kennedy

First Appearance: "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1" (Supergirl 3x8)

Appearances: Crisis on Earth-X ^note(Supergirl) | The Flash

In a possible future, the child of Barry and Iris, who first appeared as a mysterious young woman that not only follows the members of Team Flash. Like her father (and briefly for a short while, her mother) and maternal uncle, she is a speedster. Coming from a timeline where her father has disappeared, and sharing a somewhat fractured relationship with her mother, she comes back to the present to finally have a chance at getting to know Barry, as well as prevent the incident that caused him to go missing.

Unfortunately, in attempting to prevent her father's disappearance, she struck an accord with the man who murdered her paternal grandmother, Eobard Thawne. In the course of these visits, Thawne taught Nora how to use her newly-discovered powers to travel back to see her dad as a young man, eventually helping him with stopping Clifford DeVoe's Enlightenment. However, she inadvertently sets forth a chain of events that not only sped up the events of her father's disappearance, but also led to her own erasure from existence.

However, the Timey-Wimey Ball is a key element of The Flash, and due to a combination of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, as well as certain changes caused by the Legends of Tomorrow, a new, more well adjusted version of Nora arrived in the past to assist her father with defeating a speedster known as Godspeed, a villain her previous self dealt with in the course of gaining her powers.

see the Smallville: Government page for Bette Sans Souci, the Earth-167 character who bears her physical likeness

Achievements in Ignorance: She does not find out until later that her actions wiped the original Cicada, Future David Hirsch, from existence.
Adaptation Name Change: Her name being changed from Dawn to Nora is partly this and partly from being a Composite Character. Except in the Flash 100th episode, Eobard refers to her as Dawn. It seems she is Dawn Allen, but her name changed when Eobard killed Barry's mother, making this an In-Universe version of the trope.
All for Nothing: She never had a chance of stopping Barry's disappearance, which Thawne knew all along but kept secret from her. To make it worse not only do her attempts to stop it result in her being erased from existence but she moved the Crisis up five years!
Alternate Self: As mentioned, the Nora we see in Season 7 is much more well-adjusted than the Nora who ceased to exist at the end of Season 5.
Affectionate Nickname:
- Thawne refers to her as "Little Runner".
- Cisco often playfully calls her "Fan Girl" due to her giddy admiration of her dad and his accomplishments as The Flash.
- Her codename was partially coined by her mother, as Iris would always say she did everything in "XS".
Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Subverted. While Iris makes an adorably embarrassing effort to appear cool to Nora and while both Barry and Iris's insistent gushing over the new XS drink at CC Jitters leads to Nora telling her parents that they're embarrassing her, Nora seems to find her parents' awkward parenting endearing. She also believes them to be super cool, in general, because of their heroic endeavors.
Back from the Dead: She returns from the future in season 7, with the implication that the events of Crisis reversed her erasure from existence.
Badass Adorable: She is as cute as her parents and a powerful speedster.
The Beautiful Elite: She is the offspring of verified hotties Barry Allen and Iris West, and quite easy on the eyes as well, with men and women alike commenting on her beauty. That's on top of inheriting her father's speed.
Big Damn Heroes: Pulls one in the Season Four finale where she helps stop the satellite from crashing into the city.
Break the Cutie: Nora was already dealing with some deep-seated emotional issues when she travelled to the past. Barry banishing her back to the future without even giving her a chance to explain why she was working with Thawne leaves her hurt, infuriated, and vulnerable to being corrupted by the Negative Speed Force.
Broken Pedestal:
- Barry abandoning her in the future leaves her furious enough, that she ends up being consumed by her hatred.
- Since she lost trust on her biological family, she relied on Thawne, who was fatherly to her. However, like Barry before her, she realizes that her mentor has been using her for his own agenda.
Chekhov's Gunman: She had a scattering of minor appearances before being revealed to be an extremely important character.
Color Motif: The fact that she emits both purple and yellow lightning essentially confirms that she is Barry and Iris's Kid from the Future, as her mother emitted purple lightning during her brief stint as a speedster.
Composite Character: She's a daughter of Barry and Iris like Dawn Allen, but her name being changed to Nora to honor Barry's mother was taken from Barry and Jessica Cruz's daughter in a different continuity. Her superhero codename XS comes from Dawn's daughter Jenni Ognats. Furthermore her giddy personality and time-traveling escapades are taken from Dawn's nephew, Bart Allen/Impulse. Later it's revealed her name was Dawn in the original timeline that Eobard came from, and she got renamed only after Barry's mother was killed. In the later stage of Season 5, her storyline of being a loved one of the Flash who gets corrupted by the Negative Speed Force is taken from Meena Dhawan, the Negative Flash.
The Corruptible: Thanks to Thawne, Nora gets connected to the Negative Speed Force, with the result that it warps her personality whenever she taps into it.
Daddy's Girl: When she comes back in time, she's much closer to her father than her mother. A large part of this is because she's mad at Iris for a variety of reasons while having no such baggage with Barry, but the fact remains that she and Barry have nearly identical skills and interests.
Dark and Troubled Past: Nora grew up without her father and she was hidden by his family about being a speedster. It gets worse when Godspeed indirectly shows Nora the truth about her powers and kills her friend Lia.
Dark Secret: It's implied a few times that someone is pulling her strings; in particular, Sherloque notes how odd it is that she chose that particular moment to help the Flash and reveal who she is. She gets very worried when he suggests that someone else gave her the idea. In the 100th episode, that person is revealed to be Eobard Thawne in the future.
Dead Guy Junior: She is named after Barry's late mother. She confirms it when presenting herself to Team Flash. Eobard makes it clear that her name was supposed to be Dawn, but when he killed Nora Allen that changed.
Deceased Parents Are the Best: Subverted, in that Barry isn't dead (maybe...), but missing, and while she certainly doesn't hate Iris, she seems to have some deep seated issues with her mother, and seems to idolize her father.
Defeating the Undefeatable: Unintentionally. By changing history on the night of the Enlightenment and removing him from existence, she was able to do the one thing no other hero in the verse could do; defeat the David Hersch version of Cicada.
Despair Event Horizon: Being banished by Barry was the last straw for her.
Deuteragonist: Season 5's central plot thread seems to be building up around the mystery of her future, and her attempts at preventing Barry's disappearance in 2024.
Domino Mask: She has a domino mask as a part of her costume, much like her mother.
Dying as Yourself: Even after Barry, Iris, even Thawne, tells her to hide in the Negative Speed Force, she refuses, and chooses to be erased as the kind, loving girl her parents raised her to be.
Early-Bird Cameo:
- She was technically first alluded to in the "The Flash Reborn", when Speed-Force-deluded Barry said, "Nora shouldn't be here".
- Her appearance at Barry and Iris's wedding and the other four appearances she had are important to her role in Season 5.
Face–Heel Turn: Subverted. Her time in the Negative Speed Force makes her more aggressive and she mimics Reverse-Flash's powers when angry, but not evil. Though her parents intervening before she could go too far off the deep end probably helped. But she's aware that another stint in the Negative Speed Force would turn her evil and she lets herself die rather than let that happen.
Failure Hero: Nora really wants to be a hero just like her dad. But unfortunately for her, powers alone do not a hero make. She has good intentions, but she's also too impulsive and too trusting of the wrong people because she wants to see good in everybody. Indeed these very traits are what Thawne exploited to manipulate her into getting erased from existence.
Fatal Flaw: Nora's impulsiveness (a flaw Dawn Allen is infamous for incidentally) causes catastrophes of varying degrees Once per Episode.
Finding Judas: In a rare sympathetic example, she is working with Eobard Thawne in hopes of overturn Barry's disappearance in the Crisis and to stop Cicada, a villain Barry could never defeat. Problem is that Thawne is using her as a pawn to escape prison.
Foreshadowing:
- She was first alluded to when the Speed Force induced delusional Barry said "Nora shouldn't be here", which was well before her first appearance.
- Her knowledge but initial inability about phasing hints that she was trained by a speedster. Thawne was revealed to be said speedster and he attempted to teach her to phase when she was fighting Godspeed.
Future Slang: She describes awesome things as being "schway" and cusses by saying "shrap".
Genki Girl: Her default mood is bubbly and talkative.
Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Nora generally tries to see the good in people, and is even willing to believe the likes of Eobard Thawne might want to do some good. Thawne rewards her company and support by letting her suffer a Ret-Gone twice over.
Good Counterpart: To Eobard Thawne. Both are time travelers from the future who meddled with history, especially in relation to Barry Allen's life. However Eobard did so for his own evil selfish means, while Nora aided Team Flash along the way and even saved her father's life. Furthermore, Eobard hated being stuck in the past while Nora meeting her parents' younger selves acts like an Ascended Fangirl. Even at her worst, she remained interested on defeating the villain.
Good Running Evil: Since she had a falling out with her parents, she decides to recruit a group of rogues to steal a gun to defeat Cicada. Too bad all of them betrayed her.
Half-Human Hybrid: She is born to Barry Allen, a meta-human, and to Iris West-Allen, a human, and she inherits her father's super speed. She is the first child born to a meta-human, at least from what is known within the narrative, and thus is evidence that the meta-human gene is inheritable.
Horrible Judge of Character:
- Nora does her best to give people the benefit of the doubt, even if she knows they did terrible things. This leaves her initially ignorant of Thawne's atrocities and blindsided when the Rogues backstab her when she briefly joins them.
- Or it goes the other way- when Weather Witch genuinely wanted to repent, Nora was convinced it was a "show" and threw her in prison, which led to Joss becoming a full-time villain.
I Die Free: Rather than risk the Negative Speed Force corrupting her, she chooses to die as herself and accept her erasure as a punishment.
Idiot Hero: If Nora would just stop and think for a minute, or at the very least learn from her mistakes instead of making the same one constantly, she wouldn’t screw up all the time and would actually benefit the team.
Important Haircut: She gets one at some point between giving a gift at Joe and Cecile's baby shower and helping to save the city in the season 4 finale. She also appears to have dyed it a lighter shade of brown.
Keeping Secrets Sucks: Unknown to her parents and her friends she is working with Eobard Thawne which she hates keeping from them, but is too frightened of their reaction to reveal it. Unfortunately, before she had a chance to tell them on her own terms, Sherloque makes it his mission to discover her secret, and rather cruelly and coldly informs The Team of Nora's secret, leading to an enraged Barry to lock her in the Pipeline, to Iris's distress.
Kick the Dog: Nora might have been just trying to find a way to stop Cicada II and was corrupted by the Negative Speed Force, but threatening Cisco with a Tele-Frag was still uncalled for.
Kill the Cutie: Gets erased from existence since stopping Cicada apparently keeps her from being born in the first place.
Kid from the Future: Nora time travels from her present to before she was born in Season Four, meeting her parents and extended family.
Lamarck Was Right: It's implied her Super-Speed was inherited from her father. She even has her father's yellow lightning and her mother's purple lightning, which Iris takes as proof of her identity.
Like Parent, Like Child:
- Not only is she a speedster like her dad, put she also seems to resemble him in terms of personality and tendency to accidentally mess up the timeline. She's also a CSI and enjoys the same flavor of ice cream Barry does.
- She ended up being manipulated by Eobard Thawne in a similar way to her father.
Lipstick Lesbian: Nora only shows attraction to women, almost botching an incredibly simple mission over being too transfixed by the female target's good looks. Later confirmed by Eric Wallace, Season 5's writer, explicitly referring to her as a lesbian. It's to the point that she puts on purple lipstick at super speed as part of her costume change. Overall she's feminine and girly.
The Load: a common criticism of Nora is that she causes more problems than she solves, she even admits that Team Flash defeated Gridlock on their first try before she interfered.
Locked Out of the Loop: In the future, all Team Flash members agreed to be mum about her powers and Barry's life as the Flash at Iris's request. This comes back to haunt them when Nora discovers her powers and how she's been deceived her whole life; feeling betrayed she seeks a mentor in the only person in Central City who knows how to coach a speedster — Eobard Thawne in death row in Iron Heights. All Nora knows is the man was the Flash's Arch-Enemy, anything else has been redacted; Nora didn't even realize she was the Flash's daughter until she discovered Gideon. It isn't until Nora went back in time with Barry that she finds just how monstrous Thawne is / was.
Morality Pet: Her relationship with Thawne was the closest he's come to genuinely caring about someone else in a way he couldn't muster, even for Cisco and Caitlin. Of course, Thawne being Thawne, even she isn't safe from his manipulations — in fact he knew that if Cicada were stopped she'd be erased. That said before running off, he makes it clear he still wants her to survive, telling her to hide in the Negative Speed Force to avoid erasure, but she refuses to let herself feel that much hatred again. Thawne later shows no compunction in wiping her from existence again when he creates the Reverse-Flashpoint.
Most Common Super Power: Though it's not obvious from her costume, she's a well-stacked speedster.
Mysterious Past: In her first few appearances, nothing is known about her. Just who is she? Why is she so interested in Barry and Team Flash? Where/when did she come from? How does she know so much about the Speed Force? By the end of Season Four all we know is that she's from the future and is Barry and Iris's daughter.
My God, What Have I Done?: The look on her face says it all after her father banishes her to the future for keeping continued correspondence with Thawne, even after learning what he did to her Grandmother.
Naïve Newcomer: She can be rather naive for a grown woman, for example being surprised to learn that being a superhero is dangerous. Possibly justified since it's implied that Future Iris sheltered her to a large extent.
Nice Girl: While she is mysterious, she is very sweet and friendly in her interactions with Team Flash, even charming the likes of Harry after their very brief encounter.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Her helping to destroy the Satellite created the current version of Cicada and also created the meta-tech that becomes a recurring problem in Season 5. Her plan to defeat Cicada was a setup from Thawne so her and Team Flash destroyed the Power Nullifier that allows his imprisonment.
- Her refusal to give Weather Witch the benefit of the doubt about her attempt to reform just drives Weather Witch to join Silver Ghost's gang. She is still able to reach Weather Witch later, though.
No Name Given: She never identifies herself until the season four finale, wherein she is revealed to be Nora Allen.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: She drops her giddy disposition twice, first when Caitlin wishes her luck on her "meeting" and then when she sees Iris after delivering diapers to Cecile and Joe.
Parental Abandonment: Barry exiles her to the future, forbidding her from ever returning to the past. Given that she was already having abandonment issues over Barry's disappearance in the future, this understandably breaks her.
Parental Favoritism: Inverted. She is much closer to Barry than she is to Iris, likely because they both have super speed, but also possibly because Barry disappeared while she was younger, or maybe before she was even born. Turns out that Nora resents Iris for trying to hide her powers, seeing her as controlling and emotionally distant, and she projects that resentment onto Present!Iris. She's like that for about five episodes until Cecile manages to get her to see how unfair she's being.
Power Of Hate: Barry's actions leave her so furious, she is corrupted by her anger.
Promotion to Opening Titles: Becomes a regular cast member for The Flash Season 5 after spending the entire fourth season as a Recurring Character.
Purple Is Powerful: Half of the lightning she emits is purple and she's wearing the same purple costume her mother wore when she was a speedster for a day.
Pyrrhic Victory: She achieves to get Cicada defeated and Barry did ultimately survive the Crisis, but it comes with the price of her own existence and of releasing Thawne.
Race Lift: Barry and Iris's daughter in the comics is Caucasian. Here, she's mixed as a result of Iris's own Race Lift. Additionally, the Nora who is Barry's daughter in the comics is also mixed, but half Hispanic.
Rage Breaking Point: With Iris comes to the future, she is upset then furious that Barry didn't come with her, finally allowing her to connect to the Negative Speed Force.
Real Name as an Alias: In her job as a CCPD forensic intern, she goes by "Nora West." We don't see how the cops initially reacted to that name, but "West" isn't particularly rare.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Sports the same sinister Red Eyes of the Reverse Flash, after giving in to her hatred.
Ret-Gone:
- Thawne neglected to tell her that stopping Cicada would also mean she'd never exist. She could've survived by hiding in the Negative Speed Force but it would've corrupted her, so she opts to accept her fate as the consequences of the fallout of her working with Thawne.
- During the eight season, Thawne sets up the Reverse-Flashpoint, knowing full well that manipulating Iris into a relationship would make it impossible for Nora to be born.
Related in the Adaptation: Thank to being a Composite Character whose components include Dawn Allen and her daughter, Jenni Ognats/XS, this version of XS is Barry's daughter, not his granddaughter. Likewise, with Bart being a composite of his namesake and his father, Don, this XS is Impulse's sister, not his niece (Don) or cousin (Impulse).
Rule of Empathy: In "Godspeed," Team Flash learns about how Nora came to work with Eobard Thawne, including how she discovered her powers, when a lightning bolt from Godspeed fries the power-dampening chip, and how she subsequently lost her best friend, Lia, the one person she trusted fully, to Godspeed. Both the Team and the audience empathize with Nora's Sympathetic P.O.V.. Iris, in particular, firmly believes in giving Nora the chance to tell her story.
Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Nora had a suspicious attitude in her earlier episodes and it is revealed she was working with Thawne, but her intentions to meet her father and to defeat Cicada are genuinely good.
Shipper on Deck:
- For her parents. Justified, as she is Barry and Iris's Kid from the Future, and she never got to experience her parents' love, due to Barry's disappearance when she was a child.
- In her first appearance, she tells Barry to make sure to accept his wedding vows to Iris and comments that that marriage would be important.
- In "What's Past is Prologue," while in her father's past, Nora stumbles upon an intimate moment between her parents, prior to them having officially gotten together, where Iris is comforting Barry. Nora watches on with a soft smile on her face.
- In "Time Bomb," Sherloque successfully translates Nora's journal entries from the time language into English, and her journal entries demonstrate how in awe she is of her parents' love.
  Nora's journal entry: Everything I'm seeing of my mom and dad... they're the perfect couple. I catch them sometimes just looking at one another across the room. Dad smiles and mom can't help but smile back.
- She left a farewell message in which she commented on her admiration of her parents' love.
Shipper with an Agenda: To get Sherloque of her trail, she tries to set him up with Renee Adler. When his attempts to flirt scare her off, she goes to his ex-wives for help, revealing all of them are Renee's doppelgangers. After this, she apologizes and decides to help him genuinely earn Earth-1 Renee's interest.
Stepford Smiler: It was revealed that her initial light demeanor is not as light as she makes it appear to be. Season 5 revealed why.
Strong Family Resemblance: She looks a lot like her mother, Iris, and her eyes have the same penetrating effect of Barry.
Super-Speed: It's revealed at the end of "Therefore She Is", she's a speedster.
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In her memories she believes that Iris was a cruel and callous woman who suppressed all mention of her father and what he stood for. In reality, Iris was indeed a good and kind mother who loved Nora more than anything on earth and encouraged her fascination with The Flash, yet due to the disappearance of her husband, took great pains to ensure she wouldn't follow in Barry's footsteps too closely. In the end it's Nora's abandonment issues since Barry disappeared before she ever got a chance to know him, that projects the malicious and controlling image she had of her mother.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: At the wedding, Barry asks her if they knew each other. But she's insistent she is a complete stranger and they had never met before.
- In "The Death of Vibe," Sherloque asks Nora if she had any help in coming the past to meet her parents. Her quick, "No," in response is highly suspicious.
Sympathetic P.O.V.: Played with. Although Nora was never an antagonist, the fact that she was working with Eobard Thawne, the man who killed her grandmother, made it unclear whether her naïveté precluded her ability to be a hero. However, "Godspeed" provides a sympathetic perspective for Nora, as we see how things unfolded from her eyes.
This Is Unforgivable!:
- When Nora discovers that Iris placed a power-dampening chip in her, she informs her mother that she lost her daughter for good.
- After Barry runs Nora back to the future, alienating her from her mother who was empathetic towards her, despite Nora pleading with him, and leaves her there, Nora is devastated and turns back to Thawne, leading to that devastation slowly becoming fury, as she thinks her father doesn't love her anymore because of what he did to her.
Time Rewind Mechanic: A unique quality of her speed is that at a certain velocity time starts running backwards relative to her. Demonstrated first when she helped Barry destroy the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite.
Timey-Wimey Ball: The changes to the timeline caused by the Legends, specifically the ones pertaining to the Tomaz/Tarazi family, also affected Nora; in the future the original Nora came from, ARGUS outlawed metahumans, forcing Iris, with a touch of bitternesss over Barry dying in Crisis, to suppress Nora's powers. Now, the current Nora is from a future where metas are allowed to be metas, allowing her and Bart to be heroes in the open.
Too Dumb to Live: She never stopped to think that going back to a time before she was conceived and meeting her parents could wind up being her literal undoing.
Trapped in the Past: She's revealed to be stuck in the past during Season Five; having been hit with Negative Tachyons which prevent her from running fast enough to breach the temporal barrier. The trailer for the first episode shows the others attempting to help her return to her time, but it's likely to fail since she was announced as a regular for that season. This is just her cover story, she's not actually trapped at all. She lies to Barry in order to stay in the present in order to know them and to prevent Barry from disappearing in the Crisis of 2024.
Tricked to Death: Thawne sends her to the past so she can change the timeline in a way that she would be Ret-Gone. While Thawne grew to see Nora as a daughter, he was completely aware of what would happen.
Twofer Token Minority: Nora turns out to be the child of Barry (who's White) and Iris (Black) making her biracial, while she's also a lesbian. She's the only biracial person in the cast, and of course a woman, plus the only lesbian.
Unreliable Narrator:
- An unmalicious example, as Nora is largely misguided, which leads her to keeping massive secrets to protect those she loves, particularly her parents.
- In her opening monologue in the season 5 premiere, "Nora", she claims that like Barry is, in his time, she is the guardian of Central City, in her time. It quickly becomes apparent that this is a lie, seeing as she does not know how to do basic things with her speed, such as phase or create wind funnels with her arms, the former which Barry eventually teaches her and the latter which Iris eventually guides her to do. Furthermore, she was actually unaware of her speed, due to the meta-human dampening chip Iris placed in her, until six months ago.
- Nora appears to be, however, highly skilled in time-travel, to the point that time wraiths do not chase her, and she has demonstrated that she can vibrate her arm through someone's chest, which she does to Barry in "News Flash," when she is under the influence of Spin's meta technology. As revealed in "What's Past is Prologue," she is working with the Reverse Flash, and he has been training her.
- In "News Flash" and "All Doll'd Up," Nora makes her mother out to be highly-controlling and cold in the future, to the point that she stifled Nora's independent growth. In "Memorabilia," it is revealed that Nora's memories of Iris were clouded by the anger and devastation she constantly felt from losing her father, and Iris is, in fact, a loving and kind mother who would do anything for Nora, and who took measures to ensure her daughter would not suffer the same fate as Barry did; although "Godspeed" reveals Nora's initial description wasn't entirely inaccurate as Iris gradually turned into a My Beloved Smother as Nora grew older and she did indeed get more cynical and dismissive about Nora's obsession with the Flash Museum.
  Nora: It didn't matter what you said or did, Mom, I was always going to be angry with you, because you were there.
  Iris: You were going through a lot, Nora.
  Nora: But so were you. I mean, I thought you were trying to stop me from being me, but you were trying to stop me from being dad. I mean, ending up like him. You guys had a whole life together, and a child, and he vanished. I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you. From that day, you were protecting me, and I get that now. I'm so sorry for the way that I treated you, both back then and when I got here. You didn't deserve that.
Unskilled, but Strong: She has a strong connection to the Speed Force, but is still a rookie in terms of mastering her powers. She's able to tap into the Negative Speed Force as well, but does not understand the full implications of using it.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her going back in time to stop Barry from disappearing not only fails and results in her erasing herself from that timeline's existence, but it moves the Crisis—the event that caused Barry's disappearance in the first place—up-time from 2024 to 2019, the current year.
Unwitting Pawn: The Eobard Thawne in her time is manipulating her for some unknown purpose. He apparently gave her the idea to help Barry punch the satellite, which changed who Cicada was. Furthermore, Nora never even knew that Eobard killed her grandmother. Thawne however denies having any malevolent intentions, claiming his motives basically come down to Villain's Dying Grace, and says he just didn't bring up killing her grandmother because he figured Iris already told her. It becomes more complicated when Barry and Iris agree that Thawne is manipulating her, but that he also actually cares about her too. It's revealed in "The Girl with the Red Lightning" that helping her stop Cicada is all part of an elaborate Batman Gambit to save himself from execution.
Walking Spoiler: Her real identity is kept in the dark for the majority of the season and The Reveal is one giant spoiler.
Womanchild: Played for tragedy as her emotional development seems stunted for a number of reasons. Future Iris was controlling (from her perspective) after Barry disappeared, and on top of that Nora took her anger of not having a dad out on her (something which is Truth in Television). Since Iris wouldn't talk about Barry, all Nora had to go on was the Flash Museum, which gave her the impression that her dad was an Invincible Hero who always saved the day, without any casualties or tragedy. The realities of super heroics are a big shock to her, and initially she's not able to handle it, but luckily she learns pretty quickly.

Bart Allen / Impulse

Bart Allen

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bart_3.jpg

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/imp_4.jpg

Species: Metahuman

Known Aliases: Impulse

Played By: Jordan Fisher

First Appearance: "P.O.W." (The Flash 7x16)

Appearances: The Flash

Barry and Iris's son from a post-Crisis future.

see the Smallville: Clark's Allies page for the Earth-167 character who bears his name and comic book connections

The Beautiful Elite: Much like Nora, not only has he inherited his father's speed, but also Barry and Iris's good looks.
Big Little Brother: Doing the math of Nora's and Bart's ages, he is half a head taller than Nora despite being seven years younger.
Composite Character: This version of Bart Allen/Impulse is Barry's son rather than his grandson, taking the place of Don Allen.
Endearingly Dorky: Take Barry's lovable awkwardness, then multiply it by about 100, add in a tendency to be The Knights Who Say "Squee!", and you get Bart Allen.
Mythology Gag: Bart likes to describe good things with the phrase "Crash!" much like the version of him from Young Justice.
Race Lift: As with Nora, Bart is Caucasian in the comics, but of mixed race here due to Iris having received a Race Lift of her own.
Related Differently in the Adaptation: Thank to being a Composite Character of his father, Don Allen, this version of Bart is Barry and Iris' son and not their grandson. Similarly, thanks to Nora West-Allen being a composite of (among others) Dawn Allen and her daughter Jenni Ognats/XS, this universe's XS is his sister rather than his aunt like Dawn or cousin like Jenni.
Sad Clown: Bart often comes off as goofy and lighthearted, but on the inside he too is hurting and griefstricken.

Characters / Arrowverse: West/Allen Family

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Allen Family

Dr. Henry Allen

Species: Human

Played By: John Wesley Shipp

First Appearance: "Pilot" (The Flash 1x1)

Appearances: The Flash

Nora Allen (née Thompson)

Species: Human

Played By: Michelle Harrison

First Appearance: "Pilot" (The Flash 1x1)

Appearances: The Flash

West Family

Detective/Captain Joseph "Joe" West

Species: Human

Played By: Jesse L. Martin

First Appearance: "Pilot" (The Flash 1x1)

Appearances: The Flash | Flash vs. Arrow!note (The Flash) | Heroes Join Forcesnote (The Flash) | Invasion!note (The Flash) | Crisis on Earth-X note (Supergirl)

Wallace "Wally" West

Species: Metahumannote Briefly empowered via Water Totem

Known Aliases: Kid Flash, Taillights, The Flash (Flashpoint timeline)

Affiliations: Team Flash, The Legends

Played By: Keiynan Lonsdale

First Appearance: "Running to Stand Still" (The Flash 2x9)

Appearances: The Flash | Invasion!note (The Flash) | Crisis on Earth-X note (Supergirl) | Legends of Tomorrow

Francine West

Species: Human

Played By: Vanessa A. Williams

First Appearance: "Flash of Two Worlds" (The Flash 2x2)

Appearances: The Flash

Jenna Marie West

Species: Human(?)

Played By: N/A

First Appearance: "We Are The Flash" (The Flash 4x23)

Appearances: The Flash

Esther

Species: Human

Played By: N/A

Appearances: The Flash

Extended West-Allen Family

Cecile Horton / Virtue

Species: Metahuman

Played By: Danielle Nicolet

First Appearance: "Who is Harrison Wells?" (The Flash 1x19)

Appearances: The Flash | Crisis on Earth-X note ( Supergirl)

Nora West-Allen

Species: Metahuman

Known Aliases: XS, "Dawn"

Played By: Jessica Parker Kennedy

First Appearance: "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1" (Supergirl 3x8)

Appearances: Crisis on Earth-X note (Supergirl) | The Flash

Bart Allen

Species: Metahuman

Known Aliases: Impulse

Played By: Jordan Fisher

First Appearance: "P.O.W." (The Flash 7x16)

Appearances: The Flash

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Appearances: The Flash | Flash vs. Arrow!^note(The Flash) | Heroes Join Forces^note(The Flash) | Invasion!^note(The Flash) | Crisis on Earth-X ^note(Supergirl)

Species: Metahuman^noteBriefly empowered via Water Totem

Appearances: The Flash | Invasion!^note(The Flash) | Crisis on Earth-X ^note(Supergirl) | Legends of Tomorrow

Appearances: The Flash | Crisis on Earth-X ^note( Supergirl)

Appearances: Crisis on Earth-X ^note(Supergirl) | The Flash