Let’s face it, Nora’s death on The Flash is going to happen, and a lot sooner than we’d like. The speedster’s departure will probably be much like every other season-long supporting character: brief and boring.

Nora West-Allen, or XS, has the potential to be a great character on The Flash. She’s the first female speedster that’s actually getting time to shine, her skills are growing, yet it feels like we’ve seen too much of her.

Part of the disinterest on my behalf toward Nora is her grudges against Iris and Barry for things we have yet to even see. Time travel is a complicated thing, but so much time should not be spent on negative events that didn’t even occur on the show.

Iris and Nora have worked through their shit, and Barry is beginning to understand and comprehend why Nora behaves in such an obnoxious, yet hopeful, manner.

However, does it really matter to see how Iris and Barry handle being the sudden parents of a fully grown woman? Nora has been around for decades, inserted herself in their lives, and she’s changed things, which is why I’m certain Nora’s death on The Flash is inevitable.

With how much Nora has changed of her mother and father’s lives, she might not even exist in the future (though, she probably will, but you get the point).

Like Flashpoint, Nora would be returning to a future that she didn’t recognize, except it would be worse than Barry’s experience. She’s changed Iris’ viewpoint on certain things and bonded with her mother in a way that will have Iris refraining from being such a cold, distant woman in the future.

Whether Barry still goes missing or not, Nora has learned things about him and changed events in the past that shaped his future as she saw it in the Flash museum in her time.

Love her or hate her, Nora made the conscious decision to come back to the past, get to know her parents, and stay for the foreseeable future. One day would have changed enough to make her life unrecognizable in the future; she has been present for months.

It’s difficult to gauge just how much would be different, obviously, but it seems unlikely that Nora would even have the chance to go back to her time and reassimilate.

As the theme of the Thanksgiving episode was fathers and daughters, it was just highly emphasized compared to other The Flash season 5 episodes that have the same theme.

Team Flash has focused heavily on Cicada being a father and tracking him down that way, which they finally have, but that’s such an important part to this Big Bad’s story the writers have even shown us flashbacks of him and his faux daughter.

Nora’s introduction to the story isn’t just a coincidence; there’s going to be a tie between Barry’s relationship with his daughter and Cicada’s with his.

Nora’s death on The Flash would help Barry relate to Cicada on a personal level, leading to a touching takedown in the season finale after Cicada loses Grace.

Her death would also propel Iris and Barry into the future and lead them toward new choices. How will Barry handle being in the field knowing his disappearance is inevitable, or that he could die at any point and fail to fulfill his future?

Meanwhile, Iris can decide to move forward with her career or to start a family with Barry before he might disappear forever.

More so than before, the characters are going to be very aware of Barry’s impending doom, and Nora is just the catalyst to propel the story into the future (no pun intended).

Regardless of the future, it’s hard to really become attached to Nora or care for the story involving her. I want to like Nora, to root for her, but this Nora won’t be around much longer.

Whether she returns to the future or we see Nora’s death on The Flash, this isn’t how her story will play out. Nora’s going to get her happy ending, even amid the ultimate ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ story the series is headed to.

So, given Nora’s inevitable death or departure, why should we care for Nora or her backstory?

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.