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so i know raven went to the JL for help when she came to earth and zatanna sensed the evil in her so convinced the others not to trust her

my question is how much did raven tell the JL and how much did zatanna sense?

i ask this because i would assume if JL had any knowledge or suspicion that raven was a DEMONNN or knew about the end of the world being a thing, they would've at least told the team she then went on to join, led by BATMAN'S SON???

so i have to assume that the JL didn't really know much and only felt they couldn't trust her, but i don't wanna assume anything. i want to know.

so i guess my question is, why were the titans only finding out about raven for the first time from raven?

Short answer: Not much, but Raven DOES tell them she's trying to stop Trigon, and she says the evil Zatanna sensed is "in my heritage", but I don't think she explicitly tells them Trigon is her father. It's revealed pretty early in NTT v1, but not juuust then. (I think it's revealed in the immediately next issue? But the JL probably doesn't know.)

Full story:

My websites for grabbing panels have gone offline (RIP readcomicsonline), panel shots at the end are my own. (Free to use for any other readers, of course; I certainly don't own the copyright!) That does, however, mean they're not perfectly pretty scans. :P I'm taking them with a $60 smartphone. I AM taking them from the 1999 Archive Edition though, so it should be relatively legible!

So the biggest points are:

Context: Raven had a vision that Trigon is coming to Earth, and wanted to stop him. (The prophecized element the cartoon uses wouldn't come into play in the comics until a brief mention by Azar in Terror of Trigon.)

Weeks before forming the Titans, Raven sought the Justice League for help stopping Trigon.

Zatanna was the one who sensed the Evil in Raven.

(For context, Zatanna in the 80's leaned a bit more psychic/mystical than just being a powerful mage.)

Zee tells the other JL members, and they're like "Evil?! NO THANK YOU."

They think she's lying.

Raven begged them to understand that the evil she sensed came from her father, but of course the JL trusted Zatanna over Raven.

Raven actually tried MULTIPLE TIMES to get the JL to Do Something to help her stop Trigon! -> In the comics, the first time we learn about that whole conflict is when there are sorcerers trying to stop Trigon's coming to Earth, which was the very first plotline of the New Teen Titans (but NOT the time Trigon visits that s4 is based on; that's the time Trigon actually SUCCEEDS in coming to Earth), and the Justice League also tries to stop the sorcerers because they think THEY'RE evil too. Raven tries to get the JL to leave those guys alone, but they're like "We already told you, we don't trust you!" They interrupt a ceremony to stop Trigon (despite the Titans trying to stop them stopping the sorcerers), Trigon "appears" (manifests? He's in a pentagram proclaiming his imminent arrival), and the Titans are like "You guys fucked up big time."

Back to bullet-points: it's actually the Justice League's fault Trigon got as far as he did that first time.

For an extra zip of angst, Raven also canonically tried very, very hard to convince the Azaratheans to help, but of course they refused to help her. (The extreme pacifism, nonresistance, no compassion for others' lives, not caring what happens outside their borders, etc.)

There are other extraneous bits in that confrontation; the Titans fight the JLA before following them to the sorcerers, because they were brainwashed, for instance. Raven has to cast an illusion to make the Titans think the JL died to break it. And in that issue, Zatanna also reveals that Raven used her abilities to make Kid Flash think he loved her -- that's a whole other can of worms, but the important part is that the Titans doubted if ANYTHING Raven said was true, and left because they no longer trusted her word. You could leverage that if you wanted to, but that would probably depend on Raven being the lynchpin of the Titans' formation.

So it's really complicated and a LOT happened, is what I'm saying. There was always a lot happening in those issues.

But tl;dr, Raven came to them for help stopping Trigon. It was Zatanna's idea to reject her, and the JL simply wouldn't listen to Raven after Zatanna diagnosed her with "evil". I don't think they know Trigon is her father?

(Though it's ALSO canon in later stories that the Teen Titans have files that people with clearance can access. Raven's file DOES list her father being Trigon. Batman could probably hack it and find out, hell I'm sure he HAS considering the Tower of Babel story, but I don't think it's common knowledge.)

P.S.: For what it's worth, I don't think this tenuous thread to the Justice League has had much impact on the Titans team, especially not in the wider DC universe, multiverse, or continuity at all. The main reason they were brought on was because George Perez, the original artist of that version of the Teen Titans, really, really wanted to draw the Justice League. ;P (I think the DCAMU did Titans vs. JL a little better, personally, because I really prefer the motivation taht they were fighting to protect Raven, but yes, that precedent was set in the 80's!)

P.P.S.: It does make for a nice bit of angst though, don't you think? Raven being rejected for what she is, for who her father is, for what she can't help?

Panels of interest below the cut! Amateurish photos because I only have two hands to hold my phone and the heavy hardback book straight, and even the natural sunlight from our big living room window is dimmed by the wildfire smoke we're currently experiencing.

i did think a lot of the truth would've had to be omitted for this to make sense. and for zatanna to be restricted in how much she could gauge also. so her merely "sensing evil" makes it a lot more believable. i guess after that, you'd want to assume everything she was saying was some kind of trick.

DAMNNN THE JUSTICE LEAGUE ARE A LIABILITY, hahahahaha

i think i have to reject the idea that ANYONE knows she's trigon's daughter, at least in the '03 show, because it just makes no sense to me why they wouldn't tell anyone--especially her team. i also dunno how batman would ever find that info out

like, i really don't mean to sound abrasive or condescending here, but whilst the show didn't spoon-feed the answer to us, i feel like with a bit of critical thinking we can outright confirm that that was terra and she hadn't lost her memory. not her memory of beast boy, at the very very least

like please think about it. her words at the end of the ep was her giving up the pretense. her saying "things change, the girl you want me to be is just a memory" is her outright acknowledging that THINGS HAVE CHANGED and SHE IS NOT THAT GIRL ANYMORE, and in order to acknowledge that you first have to concede that there was something to be changed in the first place and a girl she used to be in the first place.

if you genuinely were being harassed (sorry bb it's true) by someone you had zero recollection of, why would you say something like that. ok MAYBE just to get the guy off your back, like fine if i finally play along then he'll go away. but i feel like with all the other context clues the episode gave us, it was pretty clear that that wasn't the case here. by the end of the ep, she realised that the only way to make him leave her alone was to hear it FROM HER. FROM TERRA. so she let the mask slip to show him this is what HIS TERRA wants, and it worked. there was a shared understanding between them in that moment, in that hallway. it worked, and he left.

i always thought it was pretty damn clear that, even if her memory is a bit foggy, she remembers him and simply doesn't want to revisit that part of her life. like even slade made this abundantly clear to the audience through beast boy

Plus, the tone was so dismal, and it focused on TERRA of all people, and I didn't like its message, so I never rewatched it. And I do mean NEVER. I've seen The Prophecy upwards of 200 times, printed out a transcript so I could read it whenever I couldn't watch it, printed out screenshots to look at when I wanted to draw Azarath... all that. And I literally, not once, never, never ever re-watched Things Changed.

I was, I believe, 12 years old when I watched it live as it aired, and also I'm Probably Autistic so that becomes a problem when you have to "read between the lines" for things like this sometimes. I can be very media literate when it delves into detail and shows emotional response and gives you insight into Why the characters are Doing That. Worldbuilding, politics, all that stuff, I can deep-dive with INFORMATION. But take away that clear understanding of their motivation, and I'm left floundering like "Why did she say that? I don't know, man. That's Unclear." My brain doesn't like to fill in the blanks. I'm bad at assuming.

But I'm sure I'm an outlier in having Not Ever Once Rewatched It. lD;;; Like, surely there are adult people claiming to "not get it" who've rewatched it at LEAST once since then?

But I also think it was OOC of the writers (like, the people behind the show) to be so vague and "gesture in the general direction" of that conclusion? Usually they stated things VERY blatantly. Flat-out putting it in dialogue so someone literally SAYS it, that kind of thing. I don't blame people for not getting it back when the audience was 10 year olds. :P (But that doesn't excuse the people who are no longer ten years old...)

I have no desire to rewatch it because I really, REALLY don't like the way it shifted the tone to something very somber, sad, and defeated. I like angst, I love it in fact, but I like my angst with a happy ending. That episode just........ wasn't.

And I have never forgiven the showrunners for making that our very last piece of that show. Maybe it's still childish and maybe I'm more bitter about that than I need to be, but I'm happier if I just pretend it ended with a great big victory over a worldwide villain organization and Beast Boy got to grow up and take charge (and stick it to Mento!), and all the Titans had a network around the world to help young heroes.

It's why it is one of only THREE things I ignore in canon when I write my stories. Because I simply don't like that ending.

I don't blame you for never watching it again. I hate it also, yes because it was a crappy final episode but mainly because of Beast Boy.

What a massive slap in the face to his character growth to have him go through a whole arc of gaining self respect and self worth and confidence, just to go back to fawning over the girl who tried to murder him and is now actively telling him to get lost. They made him look like a fucking pathetic creeeep and I HATE it, I totally reject it.

In my head, if I had to accept that he followed her, it would be to warn her. She's still in Jump City and he KNOWS Slade is alive. How the hell did the writers miss that little tidbit; in what world would he not have mentioned this to her and been actively encouraging her to leave?

It's horrible to think the writers had just given up by this episode, but my god, it really is a mess. Let's just collectively pretend it doesn't exist. 😂 It added nothing to anyone's character and in fact made their development go backwards, and it was completely unnecessary. Like it achieved nothing except to tell us that Terra is now alive (probably from when Raven reverted everyone in the world back from stone), and she wants to forget the hero life and be a normal person. Ok, cool. Why did we need to know that?

Whilst the TONE of it is sad and dismal, I personally wouldn't call it that overall, but that's because I'm so happy we have solid evidence of BB finally letting go. Like boy, probably should've done that when you were sent down a chasm, but nevermind. 😐

Anyway yes, I have so much criticism for the ep itself, but I think the "mystery" of whether that truly was Terra or she truly lost her memory isn't a mystery at all.

I also never personally felt a need to know about the monster. I fully believe it was just being used as a device to: 1) represent something that's constantly changing and you can't stop, like life, as is the message of the episode 2) show us that even after the defeat of the BOE, there will always be a new villain around the corner and the team will continue as they were even after the curtain closes on the show

Oh gosh, that would've been so much better! I mean, taking "no" for an answer was never Beast Boy's strong suit, let's face that right now. But the stalking vibe IS a little creepy, even for him.*

Now I'm bowled over wondering why they DIDN'T have him warn her about Slade! I mean, in s5 there's not much in the way of Slade obsessing over the Titans, so one could argue that he textually moved on and did other things... (I mean, he did that in the comics. Had his own solo run and everything. Multiple times!) But it's hard to say that with the way s5 was structured so tightly around the central arc (the Brotherhood of Evil and worldwide expansion for both heroes and villains), especially compared to the first four seasons...

And that's a really good point actually, that so much of it wasn't NEEDED! I feel like it has the same characterization pitfall that the movie has, where the Titans were each kind of reduced to one character trait, one thing they liked (that had changed), and basically written off besides that. Which runs really contrary to how

You can show a character letting go and have it be happier, though. Or at least bittersweet. I remember the end of Things Change being Beast Boy watching Terra leave, looking sad, and then he runs off into a bright light (hallway maybe?) to join the others in... whatever they're doing, probably fighting the mystery monster. That's one of the things I consider a dangling plot thread; we don't even get to see them overcome it? Like, if it's a metaphor for accepting change, shouldn't they have changed their strategy or something and been able to beat it? The way it is, it just feels like resignation to me.

Which is, generally speaking, NOT something I associate with the Teen Titans. o-o;;

You're probably right that the monster was a metaphor. But like. The metaphors in prior episodes were more elegant, in my opinion. lD More satisfying resolutions. And if I remember correctly (if I remember... 20 years ago... correctly), the monster freakin' CREAMED them? That also wasn't explained and that's another criticism I have. This thing was given no backstory, no motivation, nothing but the capacity to suddenly kick the whole team's butt. What Was That About.

Guh. This whole conversation has me wondering, for the first time in my life, if maybe the writing team was starting to lose touch with what they wanted their show to say and who they wanted their characters to be, and if maybe seasons 6+ would've had these same problems........

I'm sure they were HOPING for a sixth season, and maybe that's part of the problem. But gods, that episode didn't hold up.

--

I think whether Slade was "around" is irrelevant, tbh. Terra would've been under the impression he was dead, and BB had knowledge he very much wasn't. She deserved to know that, especially since she was choosing to hang around in the same city. Like Slade could've easily wanted revenge, which would've meant killing her.

THEN Gar was literally attacked by a Slade-bot who all but confirmed that Slade was watching and privy to Terra's current situation, and he STILL went back to her and mentioned NOTHING about it. The writers just really truly dropped the ball on this episode, UGH.

Yep, it totally wasn't needed, except to maybe set up Terra being used in potential future seasons... which of course never happened, and I don't think it would've been a good thing to bring her back regardless. I mean, she's literally never been a fan-favourite (the opposite in fact, even back then), so I don't know why they would've wanted to do that, especially when they ended on the message that she wanted nothing to do with the hero world? The other alternative is the whole episode was made to just give BB closure. Which... yeah, fine. But execute it better and do the characters justice, please.

See, this is where a lot of this episode is down to interpretation, because whilst the overall tone is sombre, I'd argue the ending IS bittersweet. I don't think BB looked sad when he chose to leave. To me, you see him process what she said, watch her vanish through the crowd, then something more like acceptance comes over his face. You see his expression literally shift. Then as he's running away, he looks determined. Like his game face is back on. And I think him running from the school into a WHITE LIGHT represents him running towards a better future; one where he's let go of his troubled past with Terra. If he'd been running into blackness, it'd mean something different to me. But he's running into brightness to join his friends -- the ones who truly matter & want him in their lives. I thought that was a very clear "He's learnt to let go for the better" ending. The process of doing so is sad, but in the long-term it's best for everyone involved.

I also disagree about the handling of the creature. I don't think we were ever going to see them defeat it onscreen, because that would negate the episode's message. The creature symbolises Change Itself. It's untouchable, and they're not able to stop it. It's not even meant to be a villain, it's a plot device. It causes destruction & fights them because Change can dismantle your life & it hurts. Its form even literally transforms, taking on the essence of everything it touches, because Change & Adaptation go hand-in-hand.

So the creature is Change. And you can try to fight Change, but you can never overcome it. So I think any audience member who wanted to see a resolution to this battle was always going to be disappointed; it was never going to happen, because it can't happen. There's no clean conclusion in life, things will keep changing and the future will remain ambiguous, like the ending. You won't get a satisfying ending when you're in the thick of life, and the same applies here. Change is what we make of it, and so is the episode's end. Maybe the creature got away, and they'll come to discover in the future that it meant no harm & they misunderstood it. Like how we think Change means us harm and we misunderstand it at first, until we learn it can be good.

I didn't see it as resignation at all but probably the most clever aspect of the episode, and one I definitely vibe with.

It did cream them! Because you can't beat Change! Change is inevitable, it will win no matter who you are! In my opinion the monster didn't need a backstory; it didn't need an explanation or a motivation. What motivation does Change have? It's not a person, it's a force. I think many of the fandom took this episode too on the nose when it was a very experimental art piece that relied heavily on symbolism over literalism. Yes, very dissimilar to what the writing team have done before, but if even the writing approach changes as seasons progress, then it just drives the message home further.

like, i really don't mean to sound abrasive or condescending here, but whilst the show didn't spoon-feed the answer to us, i feel like with a bit of critical thinking we can outright confirm that that was terra and she hadn't lost her memory. not her memory of beast boy, at the very very least

like please think about it. her words at the end of the ep was her giving up the pretense. her saying "things change, the girl you want me to be is just a memory" is her outright acknowledging that THINGS HAVE CHANGED and SHE IS NOT THAT GIRL ANYMORE, and in order to acknowledge that you first have to concede that there was something to be changed in the first place and a girl she used to be in the first place.

if you genuinely were being harassed (sorry bb it's true) by someone you had zero recollection of, why would you say something like that. ok MAYBE just to get the guy off your back, like fine if i finally play along then he'll go away. but i feel like with all the other context clues the episode gave us, it was pretty clear that that wasn't the case here. by the end of the ep, she realised that the only way to make him leave her alone was to hear it FROM HER. FROM TERRA. so she let the mask slip to show him this is what HIS TERRA wants, and it worked. there was a shared understanding between them in that moment, in that hallway. it worked, and he left.

i always thought it was pretty damn clear that, even if her memory is a bit foggy, she remembers him and simply doesn't want to revisit that part of her life. like even slade made this abundantly clear to the audience through beast boy

Plus, the tone was so dismal, and it focused on TERRA of all people, and I didn't like its message, so I never rewatched it. And I do mean NEVER. I've seen The Prophecy upwards of 200 times, printed out a transcript so I could read it whenever I couldn't watch it, printed out screenshots to look at when I wanted to draw Azarath... all that. And I literally, not once, never, never ever re-watched Things Changed.

I was, I believe, 12 years old when I watched it live as it aired, and also I'm Probably Autistic so that becomes a problem when you have to "read between the lines" for things like this sometimes. I can be very media literate when it delves into detail and shows emotional response and gives you insight into Why the characters are Doing That. Worldbuilding, politics, all that stuff, I can deep-dive with INFORMATION. But take away that clear understanding of their motivation, and I'm left floundering like "Why did she say that? I don't know, man. That's Unclear." My brain doesn't like to fill in the blanks. I'm bad at assuming.

But I'm sure I'm an outlier in having Not Ever Once Rewatched It. lD;;; Like, surely there are adult people claiming to "not get it" who've rewatched it at LEAST once since then?

But I also think it was OOC of the writers (like, the people behind the show) to be so vague and "gesture in the general direction" of that conclusion? Usually they stated things VERY blatantly. Flat-out putting it in dialogue so someone literally SAYS it, that kind of thing. I don't blame people for not getting it back when the audience was 10 year olds. :P (But that doesn't excuse the people who are no longer ten years old...)

I have no desire to rewatch it because I really, REALLY don't like the way it shifted the tone to something very somber, sad, and defeated. I like angst, I love it in fact, but I like my angst with a happy ending. That episode just........ wasn't.

And I have never forgiven the showrunners for making that our very last piece of that show. Maybe it's still childish and maybe I'm more bitter about that than I need to be, but I'm happier if I just pretend it ended with a great big victory over a worldwide villain organization and Beast Boy got to grow up and take charge (and stick it to Mento!), and all the Titans had a network around the world to help young heroes.

It's why it is one of only THREE things I ignore in canon when I write my stories. Because I simply don't like that ending.

I don't blame you for never watching it again. I hate it also, yes because it was a crappy final episode but mainly because of Beast Boy.

What a massive slap in the face to his character growth to have him go through a whole arc of gaining self respect and self worth and confidence, just to go back to fawning over the girl who tried to murder him and is now actively telling him to get lost. They made him look like a fucking pathetic creeeep and I HATE it, I totally reject it.

In my head, if I had to accept that he followed her, it would be to warn her. She's still in Jump City and he KNOWS Slade is alive. How the hell did the writers miss that little tidbit; in what world would he not have mentioned this to her and been actively encouraging her to leave?

It's horrible to think the writers had just given up by this episode, but my god, it really is a mess. Let's just collectively pretend it doesn't exist. 😂 It added nothing to anyone's character and in fact made their development go backwards, and it was completely unnecessary. Like it achieved nothing except to tell us that Terra is now alive (probably from when Raven reverted everyone in the world back from stone), and she wants to forget the hero life and be a normal person. Ok, cool. Why did we need to know that?

Whilst the TONE of it is sad and dismal, I personally wouldn't call it that overall, but that's because I'm so happy we have solid evidence of BB finally letting go. Like boy, probably should've done that when you were sent down a chasm, but nevermind. 😐

Anyway yes, I have so much criticism for the ep itself, but I think the "mystery" of whether that truly was Terra or she truly lost her memory isn't a mystery at all.

I also never personally felt a need to know about the monster. I fully believe it was just being used as a device to: 1) represent something that's constantly changing and you can't stop, like life, as is the message of the episode 2) show us that even after the defeat of the BOE, there will always be a new villain around the corner and the team will continue as they were even after the curtain closes on the show

Lying to the reader

Lying to themselves

Simply misinformed

Not paying attention

Has weird priorities

Assumed you knew

Hates you personally

Bad at communicating

Easily sidetracked

Will believe anything

Has weird prejudices

a fic, if you even care.

Trouble

She was going to kill him.

“I love your hands…” Raven purred, tracing slender fingers over his broad knuckles with absent fascination. For a moment, her hand rested atop his, lingering there as she admired the striking difference in size.

“They’re so much bigger than mine.”