A shrine preserving the glory of the greatest character from the 2003-2006 Teen Titans cartoon.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Defending Raven

First published online Feb 12, 2015.

There's a myth/misconception among some that I'd like to dismiss on Raven's behalf for anyone who may actually believe in it.

The truth is: Raven's not in love with Beast Boy.

Yes, I know similar situations have happened in comic books and a hardly similar show, but let's face it: The 2003-2006 cartoon Raven would never love Beast Boy. Sure, she can see him as a friend (albeit not the most relatable one), but how could she see him as anything more? There are some people who can't seem to accept that not everyone is the same on the inside, but it's a reality -- some of us think and act different from the norm, and Raven is one of these different people, whereas Beast Boy is just indicative of someone with more commonplace behavior and wisdom.

Beast Boy said to her in the episode "Spellbound", "Raven, c'mon! Why can't you just have fun like normal people? Why are you always locked in your dark room reading your nasty, old books? Why do you have to be so creepy?" and she feels hurt by it. Later in the episode, she says how only one person (not Beast Boy) ever seemed to understand her and make her not feel creepy. Beast Boy still maintains his position and insists that she should start conforming with others. That doesn't sound like someone she would love or even should love. Beast Boy's the kind of person to say to her "What's wrong with you?" (as seen in the episode "Spellbound") instead of just asking "What's happening? Are you okay?". Raven even felt comfortable enough to call him "a jerk" in the episode "The Beast Within". In the same episode, Beast Boy said "Y'know, Raven, I've been a really nice guy for a really long time. I've put up with your insults and your attitude and I've had it." The problem is, he's blind to the fact that him following the golden rule and treating others how he'd want to be treated doesn't make him a "nice guy". Like I said earlier, some of us are different, and we don't want to be treated how others apparently do -- being bothered with jokes and such, so him trying to be a "nice guy" by inconsiderate, normal people standards is in fact a large part of what makes him such a moron. The biggest reason Raven even ends up giving him "insults" and "attitude" is because he's offsetting the balance of how a good friendship could work by disrespecting her desire to be left out of his immature doings. It's an opposite and equal reaction of sorts spurred by his own actions.

It's well known that Raven has to control her emotions as her powers are affected by them, and though this concept could try to be used to form the excuse that she's simply masking her love for Beast Boy, it leaves open one significant flaw: just because she has to pretend not to like him, why would she be additionally pretending that she detests him? Why would she want to risk faking emotions anymore than she'd want to experience real ones? What continues to discount this theory is that Raven is indeed capable of showing emotions such as desire, loneliness, and love, as proven in such scenes as her crushed reaction to the loss of Terra's "friendship" ("Aftershock (Part 1)"), her spending time with the team at parks and at rooftop volley ball games ("The Sum of His Parts" and "Titan Rising"), and many from the episode "Spellbound" alone. Thus, if she really had any feelings for Beast Boy, it seems more than likely she would have made it apparent at some point in the series if even only to the audience -- but she never does. A rebuttal statement might include something like, "But remember when she hugged him that one time in 'Spellbound'?" Well, let's analyze that action. Raven was lonely and heartbroken and there aren't many people she can see as being able to understand her. She can often be seen present for a lot of pretty meaningless events, which is likely just for a sense of companionship to help subside too much depressive loneliness. At the time of the hug, Beast Boy was there to reassure her (fairly poorly, I might add), and I believe that at that moment she would have hugged any member of the team who did so just as a gesture of thanks and appreciation towards the act, particularly as it was a very emotional day for her. Even her participating in Cyborg and Beast Boy's dumb game for a bit soon after is more likely her just trying to reconcile within her own self the lack of socializing with like-minded individuals she's had and then faced. Furthermore, at the end of the episode "The End (Part III)" she hugs Robin -- does that mean she's in love with both Beast Boy and Robin? No, it doesn't. Hugging is evidently just something she does out of gratitude. As a side note, after hugging Robin, Beast Boy hugs her, to which she reacts by saying with a serious, smile-less face "Quit it" with no hint of her just protecting her image or anything.

Another potentially misleading scene that can be similarly explained away is when Raven and Beast Boy have what she calls "a moment" together in the episode "The Beast Within", when she encourages him to feel better about who he is inside. Once again, this is something that could have conspired between any two characters and shouldn't be taken as anything more. This scene is comparable to the one between Raven and Cyborg when they discuss his car by the curbside in the episode "Car Trouble"; It's not her trying to spend time with someone she loves, it's just her trying to raise a team-member's low spirits. By the end of the conversation we saw between her and Beast Boy, anyway, it was clear from Raven's moan that she still felt he was an unsalvageable idiot.

An additional scene that almost seems to prove the myth correct but falls short is in the episode "Nevermore" when Raven says to Beast Boy, "I thought you didn't like me." in which he replies, "I thought you didn't like me." Cyborg sums up perfectly how this exchange should be taken when he says "I like both of you" -- the "like"s were meant only in a manner of plain friendship. Furthermore in relation to this line-of-thought, Raven later says in that episode "Thank you, friends." Beast Boy questions back, "So, we really are friends?", which Raven answers with, "Mm-hm." This confirms that it was all referring to "friends" and friendship, not love, especially when it's observed that Raven said "friends" in plural, including Cyborg.

Next, a determined refuter may refer to the episode "Go!", saying, "But not long after they met, she said he was kinda funny!" Well, that couldn't directly be misinterpreted as her revealing love for him, but I see how it could be seen as proving that she secretly feels ways about him on the inside that she denies on the outside... but it's not. Think about it -- to us the episode is a flashback, so we have the luxury of hindsight to know what Beast Boy's like, but Raven had just met him earlier, right? She hadn't yet learned the truth that he was an obnoxious, joke-spewing annoyance, and probably thought he would only be making occasional jokes. And let's not ignore that humor was probably an exciting new thing to her as she likely hadn't experienced much (if any) of it before. These factors combined with the fact that she was much less secure about herself and her ability to make friends and be accepted by others leads to the conclusion that she was just a little caught in the moment and just sorta blurted it out due to the barrage of new experiences that day, not really meaning anything by it or expecting any repercussions. Plus, she sure has said he's not funny a lot of times since. If her saying he's funny once means something, wouldn't her saying he's not funny multiple times mean something?

Another instance that sorta makes it seem she thinks he's funny is when Beast Boy and Cyborg travel into Raven's mind in the episode "Nevermore" and meet multicolored garbed "Ravens". The pink-clad one laughs at his joke, but several things can dismiss this moment as any sort of proof. First off, it's entirely possible that the pink-clad one doesn't even think that Beast Boy's funny at all and is simply saying so as a set up for her own joke, "I've always thought you were funny, BB. But hey, looks aren't everything!" Besides, although Cyborg theorized that these Ravens represented "different sides of Raven's personality", this remains only a theory that's never confirmed by Raven, and judging by how some act, I think they merely represent different personality options in general, not the ones she necessarily draws from herself, or at least in any notable quantity. Thus, whatever these multicolored entities say is irrelevant to Raven's feelings towards Beast Boy. A more concrete proof that what this pink-clad one voices is meaningless is that she says her favorite color is pink, which contradicts with the reveal of Raven's favorite color in the episode "The End (Part III)" as being blue.

I don't think there is any evidence that should cause people to believe that Raven loves Beast Boy and it's sad that the myth is prevalent enough for me to feel inclined to write this in the first place. I believe there are two main driving forces behind the myth, and the first is the simple reality that people want to be deceived because they see themselves in Beast Boy (being the commonplace idiots they are) and subsequently want to see acceptance and good fortune towards him. The second is that there are too many viewers who come in with preconceived ideas due to false-Raven bearing sources, and probably a fair deal of kids who come in late and just repeat these dumb notions they read others say (The episode "For Real" has a great parody of this sort of issue).

Seriously, just watch the show; Raven clearly thinks Beast Boy's an obnoxious imbecile that means well, and though I'm sure she doesn't hate him, she obviously doesn't love him. If you think the show doesn't speak for itself, then here's an excerpt from an interview with David Slack, a developer, writer, and producer for the show that was conducted by Titanstower.com's Bill Walko in October 2004. Walko asked "Have you seen the fans that are in favor of a Raven/Beast Boy romantic pairing?", Slack replied frankly "I’m fascinated by the ‘shippers.’ Utterly fascinated by that. They will take the tiniest clue – the tiniest smile between two characters – and see that as evidence for something ... Glen [Murakami -- series creator and producer] always laughs at that stuff. I mean, they’re friends. Just because they had a nice conversation and shared something emotional doesn’t mean they’re in love or anything."

Raven smacking Beast Boy. Source: Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo

Raven slapping Beast Boy. Source: Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo

One last thing I'd like to say in defense of Raven's character but unrelated to Beast Boy is that in those few unsettling moments when she's shown doing something that doesn't seem right (such as her occasional prejudicial remarks like when she said "Tourists" in response to a visitor's odd behavior), you can trust that it was just the story's writer messing up on her characterization in a failed attempt to inject some humor into the show.

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