New Teen Titans (1980) #4
honestly the Raven and Arella relationship is one of the most important and powerful ones in early NTT period. Raven acts as the driving force this early into the book, but Arella is representative of the forces driving Raven
theres something there, that its as Raven ages out of childhood and begins to move on her own she finds a struggle-and she goes to her family and she goes to the system to ask for help, only to find that the resources aren't there for her anymore. that she has to manage on her own now. because she's changed, because she won't follow the rules, because the rules don't work for her the way they worked for Arella
and all Raven does in these early issues is ask for help. over and over again, no matter how many times she's denied it. she asks her mother and the people of Azarath and they say she's lost her way, she asks the justice league and not only do they deny her they demonize and threaten her. its not until she asks her peers that she's able to get help. i cant help but compare it to Arella being denied help from state agencies before being offered a new community on Azarath.
its not until Raven's peers ask her to that Arella changes her mind. Arella isn't able to change her mind until she's confronted with immediate danger, and outside thought. And there's something there too, that Arella wouldn't help when it was Raven asking but did when it was someone else. theres an immense seperation between the two: with Raven driving herself beyond a reasonable point and Arella needing external input to move at all.
