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| “ | Raven: You may have created me, but you were never my father. Trigon: Wretched insignificant--ARRGH! Raven: Fathers are kind. Fathers protect you. Fathers raise you. I was protected by the monks of Azarath. I was raised by my friends. They are my family, this is my home, and you are NOT welcome here! Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS! |
„ |
| ~ Raven, as she denounces Trigon as her father while proceeding to completely destroying him. |
| “ | Evil beware, we have waffles. | „ |
| ~ Raven's famous line. |
| “ | Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos. | „ |
| ~ Raven's catchphrase. |
Rachel Roth, also known as Raven, is one of the five titular main protagonists of the Cartoon Network TV series Teen Titans, its 2006 series finale movie, Trouble in Tokyo, and the deuteragonist of the 2019 direct-to-video crossover film, Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans.
She is a half-demon, half-human hybrid from the inter-dimensional world Azarath, one of the five founding members of the Teen Titans, and the daughter of Trigon the Terrible. Initially, she is an aloof ally to the Titans, only with them because she has nowhere else to go. Overtime, however, she starts to open up to them, especially Starfire and Beast Boy, being lifelong best friends with the former and having an implied crush on the latter.
She is voiced by Tara Strong, who also voices her own 2015 & reboot incarnations, Ashi in Samurai Jack, Batgirl in Batman: The Killing Joke, Timmy Turner and Poof in The Fairly OddParents, Bubbles in the Powerpuff Girls, Ben Tennyson in the Ben 10 series, and Ilana in Sym-Bionic Titan.
Overview[]
Raven is the half-human daughter of Arella Roth, a human woman who managed to find her way to the other dimension of Azarath/a native of Azarath and Trigon the Terrible, a dread and powerful demon lord who intended to use his daughter to open a portal that would enable him to enslave Earth. As a result of her race, Raven has powerful telepathic and psychokinetic abilities that are destabilized by her emotional level. If she fails to keep her negative emotions tightly in check, her psychic power runs rampant, breaking and destroying her surroundings until she calms down. Presumably due to her birthplace, she is also versed in a wide variety of occult lore and a skilled practitioner of magic. She also has the power to astral project, dispatching her soul from her body to teleport herself or others, and to heal, though it's left unclear if these are Psychic Powers innate to her or mystical powers she has learned from her studies.
Appearance[]
Raven keeps a dark and mysterious appearance throughout the series. She is very slender, with pale gray skin, purple eyes, and somewhat thick black eyebrows. She has straight, angled, purple hair and a prominent widow's peak. She also has a red gemstone outlined in black located in the center of her forehead (or her "Ajna chakra", as Blackfire puts it). Raven, being half-demon, has used her demonic appearances on several occasions, though often the use of her demon form causes her to lose control. When Raven is in her 'demonic' state, a second pair of eyes appear where her eyebrows are.
Her superhero outfit primarily consists of her favorite color, navy blue. She usually wears a blue hooded cloak, matching ruffled ankle-boots with gray soles, and a black long-sleeved legless leotard with blue cuffs. Her cloak is decorated with a round, red jewel (similar to a brooch), which helps keep the cloak shut. It covers her T-communicator and it is fixed to beep/glow when there is trouble, as seen in some episodes. Occasionally, the silhouette of a raven head appears inside the jewel. She also wears a thin, gold belt with decorated with several of the same type of jewel.
Personality[]
| “ | I'm not creepy. I'm just different. | „ |
| ~ Raven about herself. |
Because of her background and powers, Raven is a solitary, quiet individual who prefers to avoid interacting with others much. She displays no emotion; knowing when she does it causes her power to go haywire and is normally very serious which counteracts with people like Beast Boy and Cyborg's upbeat and energetic demeanor. She rarely speaks, and when she does, it is a biting, acerbic wit at best and condescendingly scathing at worst.
One of Raven's notable traits is her constant broodiness and her tendency to almost never smile. She much more prefers to meditate in silence and can be cold to people like Terra or even her fellow Titans nor does she divulge about her past which they deem her as "creepy". However in later episodes she becomes more open with people she trusts such as Robin. Because of her purpose to bring her father to Earth, Raven can be intensely self-loathing and more than often isolates herself from the rest of the Titans. She also opens up to people whom she thinks to understand her such as Malchior, a character from an enchanted book who was, in reality, corrupting her with dark magic.
While inside her mind, Beast Boy and Cyborg discover Raven of her that she normally keeps hidden from the other Titans; despite her insistence otherwise, she actually does think Beast Boy is pretty funny, even if she doesn't laugh out loud at his jokes, though she also secretly worries that he doesn't like her. Additionally, although she insults them frequently, Raven is in fact very regretful and apologetic about every little thing she said to Cyborg and Beast Boy, to the point that she spends an entire journey through a maze apologizing for all of it (much to their annoyance).
Abilities[]
Raven is undeniably the most powerful member of the Titans. As the daughter of a supremely powerful and dangerous inter-dimensional demon, Raven has naturally inherited a number of mystical abilities. Her powers are controlled by emotion: the more she feels, the more energy is released. When overcome with anger, Raven’s body transforms. Sets of glowing, red eyes open on her forehead. In this form, Raven displays greater power — all at the cost of her control. In this form, Raven can be a pure destructive force. She often chants the incantation "Azarath Metrion Zinthos" to focus her abilities even further, allowing her to perform much greater feats; she also uses this phrase as a mantra while meditating.
- Empathy: Raven has the empathic ability to read and manipulate the emotions of others.
- Clairsentience: As an empath, Raven can sense things. She can sense people if they're nearby or have been in a place. She has also claimed that she could sense if someone's mind had been tampered with.
- Limited Empathic Healing: Raven can sense pain and disease and remove them from a person’s body and assimilate them into her own, where they are expunged. She can also heal herself by going into a trance of emotional calm.
- Empathic Precognition: Raven can receive precognitive flashes of the future when exposed to extreme emotion.
Raven projecting her soul-self.
- Soul-Self Projection: Raven can project her “soul-self,” a powerful bird-shaped astral form normally composed of dark energy. The soul-self separates from her body and possesses all her powers and more. It allows her to cover great distances, serves as a portal to other dimensions, can be used to enter the minds of others, pass through solid matter or through fire, and even alter her own appearance. Raven’s soul-self is also capable of absorbing all manner of weapons and sending them “elsewhere.” Her soul-self can't be outside her body for more than five minutes. Though normally composed of dark energy and bird-like in image, Raven's soul-self has been shaped in her normal image and manifested in different colors (most notably white).
- Spiritual Telekinesis: Raven can telekinetically manipulate objects by putting a little of her soul into whatever she is moving – she becomes a part of it and it becomes a part of her. Robin claimed that Raven's almost as good at moving Earth as Terra. The limit to how much matter she is able to control is unknown, though she can at least move close to two tons. Whenever she takes control of something, it is normally (though not always) encased in the same dark energy that composes her soul-self.
- Spirtual Energy Projection: Raven can mold her soul-self energy into any shape, from giant hands to razor-sharp blades. She can send solid bolts as projectiles and create force-field domes. Furthermore, she is able to use her soul-self to augment her physical strikes, either increasing their raw power or adding slashing damage to them.
- Spirtual Levitation: Raven can levitate off the ground and hover, normally without visible projection of her dark energy as is shown when she moves things. Her power is also sufficient to enable her to counter the gravitational pull of other planets as well as physically carry someone as heavy as Starfire.
- Spirtual Teleportation: Raven’s soul-self can transport herself and any other being to any place on Earth. At times, Raven has been shown creating portals with her dark energy in order to travel, rather than utilizing her soul-self. Teleportation can wear Raven out in according to the distance she is teleporting and how much she is carrying with her.
- Fear Projection: When Raven would not admit her fears, the fear found another way out through her powers. She proved able to manifest her fears as monsters, albeit unintentionally. When she found the bravery to admit her fear, Raven was able to banish all her creations into nothingness and restore her teammates.
- Power Bestowal: Raven could give others some of her power to use for themselves. The given power can seemingly be returned through touch.
- Temporal Stasis: Through a moment of sheer panic, Raven accidentally stopped time on a massive scale, apparently freezing all of Jump City. During this unusual phenomenon, Raven was able to selectively unfreeze Robin. After being tormented by Slade, she was able to unfreeze all that she placed under temporal stasis.
- Superhuman Durability: Raven is capable withstanding lethal physical damage to regular humans. Raven has been shown to survive being hit by boulders Terra geokinetically hurled, Doctor Light's energy beams and even Monsieur Mallah and Mammoth's physical attacks.
Raven using magic.
- Magic: Raven has been shown using spells and incantations for various effects. The dark magic she learned from Malchior allowed her to forcibly morph Beast Boy, discharge uncontrollable amounts of dark energy, and break Rorek's binding spell on Malchior. She later used a powerful curse to reimprison Malchior. She also employed spells when she wished to return to Azarath. Even when she switched powers with her teammates, Raven proved she could still perform magic, even while operating with Robin's lack of superpowers.
Other Skills[]
Raven displays her combat skills while fighting Monsieur Mallah.
- Capable Combatant: Though not the most physically talented of the quintet, Raven has been seen as a fairly good hand-to-hand combatant, although she only occasionally uses this skill during battle. Whenever Raven engages in hand-to-hand combat, she employs an open-palm fighting style that is very similar to many Eastern fighting styles, such as Two Chi and Wing Chun.
- Multilingualism: Raven claims to know English, German, Latin, Romanian, Ancient Sumerian, and Sanskrit.
- Occultism: Raven has considerable supernatural knowledge, keeping a library of numerous spell books in her room on the occult, and gained further sorcerous knowledge from Malchior.
Weaknesses[]
- Distraction: If Raven cannot concentrate or give full attention to her powers, they may be rendered ineffective. Additionally, certain spells require items, tools, and or special events during casting, therefore they can't be invoked on a mere whim.
- Emotions: Raven’s primary weakness is her own unbridled emotions, which could potentially prove dangerous. Anger seems to be her most volatile emotion and though she exhibits great power in an enraged state, she loses control and is left somewhat vulnerable. Additionally, when she suppressed her fears and they manifested as monsters through her powers, she herself was powerless until she admitted she was afraid. Raven herself admitted that she has to mediate every day to keep her powers under control. She also uses a special mirror, which acts as a portal into her mind, for meditation.
- Magic: Despite being versed in magic herself, Raven is still susceptible to the effects of magic. Raven has also encountered magic so powerful she could not undo it.
- Verbal Restraint: Under certain circumstances, Raven seems heavily dependent on the incantation, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos." If a gag is placed over Raven's mouth and she cannot recite her incantation intelligibly, she cannot connect with her powers until the gag is removed.
Trivia[]
- In the decades since this incarnation of Raven was created, her iconic incantation "Azarath Metrion Zinthos" has been used by her subsequent animated selves.
- This incarnation of Raven is also among the most iconic take on the character to the date.
- Being the first televised version of Raven, the popularity of her deadpan snarkiness has been adapted in future animated versions.
- There are exceptions like DC Super Hero Girls, where she is just shy and lonely.
- Raven's best friend is Starfire, although she was also close to Robin, who became one of her primary emotional supports during the Trigon arc in season 4.
- Contrary to the comics, Raven and Beast Boy never have a romantic connection, as in the show their relationship consistently remained akin to older sister and younger brother.
External Links[]
- Raven on the Teen Titans Wiki
- Raven on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Raven on the Ultimate Good Wiki
- Raven on the DC Database Wiki
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