Arrow executive producers Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim discuss the shocking end of Arrow season 3, episode 15, “Nanda Parbat.”

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the end of Arrow season 3, episode 15, “Nanda Parbat.”

At the end of this week’s episode, Ra’s asked Oliver to become the next Ra’s al Ghul, leader of the League of Assassins. Saying that this was an unexpected twist would be a major understatement.

But what brought this twist on? “To have Ra’s presented as this giant malevolent force, but then to come up and basically offer the keys to the kingdom felt like such a different way to go and a different relationship to have with the villain,” Kreisberg explains. “What Oliver’s reaction to Ra’s’ offer, what Nyssa’s [Katrina Law] reaction to it is makes up the bulk of the next run of episodes.”

The mythology of the League will be key in the final run of episodes this season. “One of the things that we reveal in [episode] 320 is where the name League of Assassins came from and what it means to be an assassin,” Guggenheim says. “If you’re a historian, it has a different meaning than what it’s become in the modern day.”

Nyssa, unsurprisingly, will be a key player in this arc. Because she’s the Heir to the Demon, “you can imagine how she feels when she finds out that what she would consider to be her birthright is being handed to Oliver,” Kreisberg teases.

As for what motivates Ra’s to shortchange his daughter, Guggenheim says that will be addressed. “From Nyssa’s perspective, it has everything to do with Sara. From Ra’s’ perspective, maybe or maybe not.”

So what comes next for Nyssa, now that she no longer has her birthright? “Nyssa’s journey going forward is going to be really interesting because she was so dead set on who she was, what she was going to be, how she had laid out her future for herself, then everything has been thrown up in the air,” actress Katrina Law says.

“She is no longer the Heir to the Demon, she no longer has her lover, who I’m sure she was thinking about keeping around forever, so she’s essentially lost everything. For the first time in her life, she’s vulnerable and feels weak, useless and doesn’t know where she stands or who she is at the moment.

“It’s very jarring for her because she’s never had to go through that ever in any capacity in her life before. You’re going to see Nyssa seeing who she is and what she stands for now.”

She will, however, find an ally in Laurel. The seeds of a relationship were sewn in “Nanda Parbat,” as the two shared a fond memory of Sara’s laugh. “Journey-wise, between the characters, the two of them may have more in common than Nyssa had originally thought,” Law explains.

“Laurel had kind of lived a semi-smooth life of going through the ins and outs of growing up, life was good and all of a sudden she lost her sister and her father and she’s trying to become something she’s not necessarily good at, which is the Black Canary, but she will be.

“Nyssa is going through the same journey and trying to figure out who she is. Now that she’s lost everything, she’s trying to become a softer human being with compassion and sympathy and all of these things that she didn’t have to think about before and making choices on her own without her father or the League’s guidance. Between the two of them, they may have more similarities than they think. Plus, they’re both having daddy issues right now.”

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.