I had a dream last night in which I was Barry Allen (or acting in his stead as myself) at a social gathering of the heroes in the midst of some sort of crossover/team-up (maybe the reception for the upcoming Barry-Iris wedding?), and Mick Rory was chilling in an armchair, and I/Barry went up to him and tried to engage him in a conversation about the morality of robbing banks. Rory was simply unable or unwilling to understand why anyone would object to him robbing banks, or why he should care if they did. Eventually, faced with his complete impenetrability but aware that I still had to accept him as a colleague in the greater heroing community, I/Barry ended up with a feeble request that he just avoid robbing banks in Central City. I don't recall how he responded, but I imagine it would've been something like "No promises."
Though after I posted, I thought of one significant sticking point: Iris West. The character only appeared in the first episode of the old Flash show, but she was played by a different actress, of a different race, and she was "our" Iris's age a quarter-century ago. She's actually harder to reconcile than the Flash himself, since it's easy enough to theorize that the man known as Henry Allen on Earth 1 was instead named Bartholomew on Earth pick-a-number, and became the Flash on that Earth just as his son did on the present series.
The '90 show also had its own different versions of Captain Cold (called Leonard Wynters instead of Snart) and Mirror Master/Sam Scudder.
^ And didn't we see Batman '89 posters?
Both Batman and Superman. However, sometimes you just have to ignore such details.
Static Shock had an early episode where Superman/Clark Kent was discussed as a fictional character, but later on it was integrated into the DC Animated Universe and eventually had Superman appear in it as a real person. In turn,
Superman: TAS had Lois Lane refer to Wonder Woman years before Wonder Woman first came to the outside world in
Justice League.
Personally, I tend to think that the '90
Flash is actually
in the DC Animated Universe, since Mark Hamill's Trickster showed up in a JLU episode, and since
The Flash and
Batman: TAS shared a similar retro/Art Deco aesthetic combined with modern technology. (And since the S:TAS Flash episode reused Shirley Walker's Flash leitmotif from the live-action series.) If that were so, then that Earth would have a lot of incompatible versions of characters from the Arrowverse -- Wally, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Superman, Supergirl, Atom, you name it.
ARGUS' anti-methuman regime in 2042 reminded me of the premise of FOX's The Gifted: mutants are treated as criminals and are hunted down by a government entity, i.e., Sentinel Services.
Not to mention The CW's
The Tomorrow People remake from a few years back, which was Berlanti-produced and showrun by LoT's showrunner Phil Klemmer. Although that was a covert agency hunting them rather than overt government crackdown. But that's been seen in previous franchises too, and of course it's been a common X-Men trope ever since the first Sentinel stories in the '60s and the original "Days of Future Past" comics storyline in 1981. Even
The Incredibles is set in a world where superheroes are outlawed, although they're just registered, monitored, and proscribed from using their powers rather than imprisoned and experimented on.
If Zari's native timeline is the mid 21st century, then she doesn't really belong with the Legends. But then again, neither should Amaya.
I don't see how being taken out of 2042 is any different from being taken out of the 2010s, as far as the greater flow of time is concerned. "Now" is only "now" to us. It doesn't have any greater innate cosmic now-ness than any other time. The relevant issue seems to be, is someone's presence in their own time necessary for future events? Rip chose the Legends because they
weren't actually going to become legends in their own time, because none of them would have a meaningful destiny if they stayed in the 2010s, and thus they could be safely taken out of the timeline without disrupting it. Amaya, on the other hand, has an important destiny because of her role as Zambesi's defender and the forerunner of future generations of Vixens. So taking her out of her time is disruptive to the future.
So the question is, does taking Zari out of her time disrupt the future? I'd say it probably doesn't, because if she'd stayed in her time, she probably would've been captured and killed by Evil ARGUS before much longer.
Ballsy move by Sara. Was she really willing to sacrifice the Waverider, or did she know deep down that Agent Sharpe was going to back down?
Sara's fought both with and against Sharpe. That gave her the opportunity to size up Sharpe's character and judge how she'd react. Also, she knows that Sharpe is a trained and disciplined company woman, not an ex-assassin. When it came down to it, she'd never be crazy enough to sacrifice herself, her crew, and an expensive piece of Time Bureau hardware just to win a game of chicken. And, given her opinion of the Legends, she'd believe that Sara
was crazy enough.