From the very first episode of Season 4, Arrow began teasing an important death for the good guys. A flashforward in the premiere featured Oliver declaring vengeance against a mysterious "him" while shedding a few tears over a headstone.

It wasn't hard to figure out that the death had to be somebody major on the vigilante scene, and the only Flarrow-verse characters who would be ruled out were Oliver Queen, Barry Allen, and eventually Felicity Smoak. The person to die would have to be a big enough presence in Oliver's life to move him to tears and a quest for vengeance, but not so major a character that the show couldn't survive his or her death.

Well, it was seventeen episodes before we found out who was to die: the Black Canary herself. Laurel Lance was murdered by Damien Darhk, and the show will never be the same now that she is out of the picture. It's not entirely easy to imagine an Arrow without Laurel; now that Season 4 has come to an end and showed what Arrow will look like without her as a member of Team Arrow, however, it's safe to say that her death was objectively a good thing for Arrow as well as the other two shows in the Arrow universe on The CW.

Here are six reasons why her death - however sad it may have been - in Season 4 will work out for the greater good in Season 5 and beyond.