Barry Allen Really Is The Worst

This piece has major spoilers in regards to the reveal of Savitar, the big bad in this season of The Flash.

If you’ve tuned into The Flash this season, you have ought to know that Savitar has been the big bad.Calling himself the God of Speed, the character is the fastest speedster Team Flash has ever come across.Not just that, but thanks to his uncanny time-traveling abilities, Barry stumbled upon a future in which Savitar murdered the love of his life — Iris West — before his very own eyes.

The identity of Savitar was kept under lock and key as if it were a matter of national security with not even the slightest of peep of who the character could be.During the events of the latest episode of The Flash, ‘I Know Who You Are,’ the true identity of Savitar was finally revealed.

Savitar isn’t another Harrison Wells from some different Earth as a part of the multiverse.Nor is the character Joe West — or Wally West.The character isn’t Julian or Cisco and even after the cliffhanger that last week’s episode ended on, the character wasn’t revealed to be Ronnie Raymond in a post-Flashpoint world.

Are you tired of holding your breath yet?Here goes: Savitar was revealed to be none other than Barry Allen and yes, before you ask, it’s THAT Barry Allen. (We think.)

Before tonight’s big reveal, the internet had already banded together to joke that Barry was the worst. Throughout the series, Barry had repeatedly hurt — or in the worst cases, killed — those he loved through a series of well-meaning errors and time-travel mishaps that meme-makers, looking for the punchline, had deemed instead as selfishness and carelessness.

All through this Flashpoint-driven season, in particular, there has been a recurring joke among fans that anything that goes wrong is Barry Allen’s fault, whether it’s the “Doomworld” episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, or the aliens attacking Earth in the “Invasion!” crossover, or even things like the results of the Super Bowl and the U.S. Presidential Election.

Now that the show has revealed that Savitar was Barry Allen the whole time, the joke becomes a little deeper: This plot twist can be said to have made all those jokes in-universe canon and reaffirmed the thoughts people across the internet had: Barry Allen is the worst.

Let’s take a second and wrap our minds around this situation.Barry Allen went back in time to save his mother from being murdered at the hand of Eobard Thawne, which created the Flashpoint timeline of events.A timeline that seriously messed with the lives of others; Cisco’s brother was murdered in this new timeline and instead of having a daughter, Arrow’s John Diggle now had a son, and those are just a few cases of people we knew personally within this universe, not even considering the normal, everyday people Barry and Iris walk by on the street on their way to get a frappucino at Jitters.

After a pep talk from fellow speedster Jay Garrick, Barry tried his damnedest to right his wrongs and make the timeline what it was before he created Flashpoint, to no avail.In this new timeline, which we’ll call post-Flashpoint, a character named Dr. Alchemy — who just so happened to be a pawn of Savitar — was able to give people the powers they had in Flashpoint.

Now, let’s look at it from the perspective of any random person actually living in the CW’s DC Universe: Barry Allen has become the character that has wreaked havoc all across Central City.Sure, it may be unfair to judge Barry for going back in time to save his mother from being murdered, but now, he’s come back without saving his mother and you still have to live with the fallout. Not only that, he’s now responsible for being the one that takes away a beloved daughter and sister. He’s now become the person who murders the only girl he’s ever loved.

Yes, they’re likely crafting a hero story here that will redeem him in the end, but after months of jokes and innuendo, it’s hard to ignore that the only person responsible for the horrors Team Flash faces right now…is Barry Allen. In-universe, at this moment? Barry Allen is the reason that Team Flash has been suffering many sleepless nights.Barry Allen is the reason future Iris dies.Barry Allen is the root of all evil.