Headscratchers / Teen Titans (2003)

Future Cyborg leaving the tower

In "How Long is Forever", future Cyborg had to plug himself into the Tower just to function, as his last battery burned out years ago. How was he able to join the others in the final battle, since he specifically said he couldn't leave the tower?

Slade and Terra

Slade said he could help Terra control her power in return for her allegiance. What I don't get is HOW. I mean, he doesn't have Terra's powers, so how could he, a villainous Badass Normal, POSSIBLY help somebody like her?

• He likely taught her to focus.

Why doesn't the Doom Patrol fight against the Brotherhood of Evil in the finale?

I know the Brotherhood was seeking to destroy the younger generation, but seriously. Do you mean to tell me that none of them even cared that their archenemies were trying to kill one of their former members?

• Because they're already dead. The Brotherhood killed them sometime before "Titans Together."
  • I don't know where you heard that, but I hope that's not canon.
  • It's the Doom Patrol, they ALWAYS die.
• Perhaps the Brain set up a decoy operation to keep the occupied and make sure they didn't interfere until he was ready to turn everything he had on them? Seems the sort of thing he'd do...

Raven's "Azarath, metrion, zinthos!" chant... does she have to say it to use her powers?

Sometimes, it seems mandatory... like in that episode "Masks", where Robin, disguised as Red X, managed to make Raven's powers completely useless by sealing her lips... but in some episodes, like "Fear Itself", she's rendered unable to speak (in this case, completely mummified by video tape), and is still able to fire off powerful magic.

• "Azarath metrion zinthos" is more of a mantra than anything. Raven's powers are inherent due to her interesting heritage. It probably just helps her concentrate, hence her use of it while meditating.
• Yeah. Raven doesn't need to say the words, but they help her concentrate and focus, which she does need to do. If she's cut off mid-sentence or has something sticky and painful slapped on her face, that makes concentrating...difficult.

How the did Terra come back in "Things Change"?

Is it even really her, or is it an Identical Stranger?

• Given some of the things she says combined with the fact that her statue is gone, it's incredibly unlikely to be an Identical Stranger. Presumably something happened to change her back, but of course we'll never get an explanation now.
  • A popular theory is that Raven's mass stone-returns-to-flesh healing spell (from "The End- Part 3") revived Terra as well. She remembers everything, and as such, feels incredible guilt for her actions; though she has already been redeemed. She also wisely realizes that she really can't continue on as things were, since she's made many enemies, and permanently alienated the few friends she had, save for Starfire (naturally) and Beast Boy, who still believes she's practically a saint. But her ultimate reason for living as a normal schoolgirl is the fact that—despite the fans protests—from day one, all she ever really wanted was a normal life, without having to use her powers.
    • To add a detail to this interesting speculation - Trigon turned every living thing on earth to stone, including Terra. It didn't matter that she was already stone, his magic still worked on her (she was turned from one kind of stone to another kind of stone, from a transformation mediated by her own power to one controlled by Trigon's magic). Thus, when Raven reversed Trigon's spell, it changed Terra back.
  • They still haven't figured it out in the comics.
    • The original (it was settled) or the ones based on the cartoon (no info on that)?
    • In the "GO!" (animated universe) comics, Terra's brother, Geo-force, stops by, looking for her. He explains that, as a child, Terra was constantly shouted down, and never given a chance to assert herself or develop her own personality-- "She didn't know who she was supposed to be." She struggled against the royal family of Markovia's restrictive control, and, like her brother, she was forcibly converted into a bio-weapon. After hearing her backstory, the gang fill Geo-force in on the events of Season Two... and Beast Boy takes him to the Murakami School, explaining that he met a girl who looked like Terra, but who said that she didn't remember him...or, he thinks, she didn't want to. He explains that Starfire has a theory about Terra, that Terra's trials had transformed her, from a caterpillar, to a chrysalis, to a butterfly. While Beast Boy waxes philosophic, Geo-force shouts, It's HER! and points at The Schoolgirl/Terra, busily laughing and chatting with her two friends. He takes this sight in for a moment, and says, "I've never seen her so... happy." He and BB leave, deciding that Terra is far better off in her new life than anywhere else. Terra catches sight of them as they leave, and tells her friends—and the readers—that everything's gonna be fine.
    • I don't believe that's going to be possible. No one is ever really 'free' from their past because it's a part of them. What Terra is doing isn't 'moving on', it's running from her problems and essentially lying to herself. There is a real chance of her still being in danger. What about the scientists who gave Terra and her brother their powers? You think they were happy when one of their 'experiments' ran off? What about Slade, who no doubt knows she's still alive. You think he forgot who was responsible for making him Trigon's 'errand boy'? And don't forget: there was a familiar 'shadowed' figure watching over when Terra and Geo-Force were undergoing the experiments that granted them their powers that looked suspiciously like General Immortus. It's quite possible that they played a part in her getting her powers. Ten-to-One says the Brotherhood of Evil make a grab for Terra when the opportunity presents itself. Somehow, someway, someday.... Terra's past will rear its head and she'll have no other choice BUT to deal with it and thus result in a Can't Stay Normal situation. I also find the 'Butterfly' analogy oddly appropriate-as everyone knows, Butterflies have very short lifespans. (Note: Geo-Force said it's been 'a long time' since he'd seen her laughing and smiling like she was, so at one point prior, she WAS happy but something clearly happened in their lives prior that ruined it.
    • Movie sequel plot! Movie sequel plot! Ah, a man can dream, no?
    • That episode ticked me off to no end. They knew the show was going to be cancelled, they could have AT LEAST explained how Terra got un-petrified (although Raven's actions at the end of the whole Trigon thing is a great theory, and I applaud you for that) and what exactly that weird matter-absorbing monster was.
    • Incidentally, I always thought that the monster had somehow changed her back, and that the whole thing was a plot by Slade. At least, that's what I thought before I found out that the series had just...died.
    • It seems the writers themselves neither know nor care how Terra came back, given repeated statements to the effect of "that's not what the episode is about." A common sentiment seems to be that anyone who has a problem with the episode must have just wanted a standard Hollywood happy ending, never mind a sensical one.
    • Word of God states that while they knew Season 5 would be the last season, they were initially told they would have more episodes then they ended up with. So, that episode was not intended to be the finale, but they were Screwed by the Network and so they didn't have much of a choice.
    • The original DC comic-book version of Terra wasn't so lucky. After the original Psycho For Hire version killed herself in a fit of rage, a woman bearing a strong resemblance to her appeared. This woman was later revealed to have the original Terra's DNA. Rather than explain the whys and hows of this new development, DC Editorial consigned the character to a decade's worth of obscurity before killing her off via Black Adam's punch through her gut. Now, in DC Comics, a dark-haired, purple-eyed young woman calling herself Terra III has appeared, Despite the aforementioned cosmetic changes, she bears a major physical resemblance to both of her forbearers. She also possesses their geokinetic abilities... and an apparent guilt complex. She also is a perfect genetic match to both of her previous namesakes.
  • Given that the episode's about letting go of the past and moving on, actually getting resolution about Terra wouldn't have fit. The whole thing's told from Beast Boy's perspective, and since he never gets a definite answer and has to live with that fact, so too does the audience.
    • There are ways to do that WITHOUT over-loading an episode with symbolism, first of all. Secondly, Terra isn't 'moving on'; she is, by all accounts, still running away from her past and who she is. This is something that, somewhere down the line she'll have to confront. You don't tell kids that the way to let go and move on is to run away from your past and everyone who cares for you. This is the sort of situation where getting resolution is a must. You don't put in a character of such significance, then essentially get rid of them like they did with this. The writers were trying too hard to be 'deep and meaningful' but they came off as pretentious and self-serving; like it wasn't worth their time. If they started out the series the same way they ended it, how many people would have honestly watched it?
    • While I totally agree that the inconclusive closure to the whole Terra story was frustrating as hell, I don't think she was 'running away from her past'. Terra's tragedy was that no matter where she went and how many friends she made, her powers would go berserk and she would have to run away. With the Titans, she had a chance at normalcy, but she was already too emotionally messed up to take that chance and we all know what happened afterwards. At the end, as a School Girl, either she now has complete control over her powers, or does not have them any more. I opt for the latter and if so, moving on and living the normal life with normal friends she's always wanted is something she has every right to pursue. She redeemed herself at the end there and while in real life that counts for little for criminal chargers, it's good enough for an animated show. She isn't 'running' from the Titans. She's made her peace with that past and she now lives a new life.
    • Explain how lying to Beast Boy about who she is and everything that happened is 'making peace with her past'. Making peace entails acknowledgement and acceptance of the past, not denying its existence. Like I said before, if Slade knows she's alive (and there's no question he does), who can honestly expect him to not rear his head again and make her miserable? Look what happened to him in the comics when his own past came back. Who's to say the same thing won't happen to Terra? She can play pretend all she wants, but sooner or later, the time will come when she will have to actually deal with it. No amount of denial on her part will ever change that. I don't deny Terra was a messed up kid, but really... what we want and what we need are often two totally separate things. She want to live a normal life as a normal person, but at some point down the line, it is not going to be possible for her to pretend it never happened. She needs to confront it and deal with it.
    • Because she is a freaking teenager who is trying to live a normal life, but is being followed by a green skinned superhero who she was friends with and formerly betrayed. Perhaps, in her own way, she thought it would be better for Beast Boy to think she forgot. It wasn't healthy for Beast Boy to continue chasing after her like he did anyway. The whole episode was about Beast Boy letting go, and Terra gets a life where she is actually happy. Even Slade was telling Beast Boy to back off.
    • Maybe so, maybe not, but either way, Beast Boy can't force her to do it. That's the point, and the episode's metaphor for anyone who's lost a relationship of some sort that they didn't want to lose. Sometimes you don't get closure, sometimes you don't find out why things have to end, and sometimes you think the other person's wrong and needs to listen to you. But unless you're planning on enslaving them, you have to respect their decision and let go sooner or later. And Beast Boy finally did.
    • She doesn't have her powers anymore. I thought the episode kind of established that? She wouldn't be useful to the Brotherhood and the most Slade could get out of coming after her is petty revenge. (And he seemed to get more of a kick out of psychologically tormenting Beast Boy about Terra than in getting said revenge.) And IIRC, didn't Geo-Force say the experiments that gave him and Terra their powers were supposed to make them heroes and that he'd been busy purging Markovia of corruption and evil long before coming to look for Terra? That seems to imply that the Markovian scientists were either not evil or had been taken care of to me. And another thing; the Titans (and Geo-Force and Slade) are the only ones who know that Terra is alive and not a statue anymore. If Slade really wanted to come after Terra he had ample time to do it during Season Five while the Titans were away and spread out all over the globe. As far as any other villains know, Terra is still dead. The Titans certainly aren't going to tell them otherwise.
    • The Markovian scientists may not be evil, but they were definitely not good and were self-serving and corrupt, hence their ties with General Immortus (Geo-Force is fighting Markovian corruption; don't you think he started with them?) Geo-Force and Terra both did not WANT these powers or to be heroes, this was something that was forced on them, not their choice. Note that a big motive behind Geo-Force's decision to let Terra be is that she's truly HAPPY now, and his reaction indicates that he would love the same kind of peace in his life that she has now, and thus wouldn't dare deprive her of it.
    • Actually, it hasn't exactly been confirmed. She may not have her powers anymore or she could have just been holding back so she wouldn't give Beast Boy any confirmation that she is Terra. Also; there is nothing to stop the Brotherhood of Evil or anyone else involved in the attempted coup in Markovia from looking for her. They're not stupid. They won't settle with simple hearsay, they will want confirmation that Terra is dead. They'll track down her last known whereabouts and investigate from there. Once they find the cave empty, they'll know somethings up and look for her. The Brotherhood/Markovian scientists could easily use her as bait/leverage against the Titans (particularly Beast Boy) and Geo-Force. The other villains would have no interest in Terra. On Slade: attacking her at any time during the 5th season, while the Titans are away from the city is something we would expect IF Slade were anyone else. But since when has Slade ever acted in a predictable manner? He's not Mumbo, the HIVE, and certainly not Dr. Light. He is a tactical genius and completely unpredictable. When the Titans first encountered him, none of them expected that all the crimes he committed were actually a 'test'. He was searching for an apprentice and he specifically chose Robin. Everything he does is for a reason. He plans ahead and is nothing if not patient. Should he be plotting to go after Terra (and it's very likely that he will at some point in the future), he will do it in a way that is completely unexpected and in a way that will not allow the Titans to interfere and make them feel powerless to do anything. For all Terra knows, Slade is dead. She won't expect him to suddenly appear into her life again. Her defenses are down and she is, for all intents and purposes, completely defenseless. He'll wait and when the opportunity presents itself... he'll strike.
    • Or her powers could be dormant. For psychological reasons she can't access them anymore, but they are still present. Or, alternately, she deliberately suppressed her powers permanently (and if so, this would count as partial resolution of some of her personal conflict, as the deliberate and permanent relinquishing of one's previously uncontained powers would count as the ultimate form of self-control). If any of this is possible, then as a matter of course she would remain a potential target (sequel movie plot! Schoolgirl Terra is abducted by someone planning to extract her dormant powers to power some sort of doomsday device). She is probably under constant 24/7 secret surveillance by the Teen Titans as a precaution against this eventuality.
    • Her powers being dormant is also a possibility. Which means there's also the possibility of them resurfacing again. One guess is that one possible way for them to 'reactivate' is if her body undergoes extreme stress or changes and her powers re-surface in reaction to these changes. Like say, down the road as an adult she gets married and becomes pregnant and her powers start to surface again. With all the hormonal changes her body would go through, it would stand to reason that a pregnancy would trigger her dormant powers. Which means when she goes into labor, she could cause an earthquake.(I'm actually working on a fic where that happens). So in other words, her issues aren't really resolved. She just gives the impression they are. Things like that tend to backfire. As for the 24/7 surveillance; none of the Titans seemed ready to believe Beast Boy and in any case, they may have decided to keep away for one, out of respect for her wishes (because she did go through a lot and time away as life as a regular teen would benefit her) and concern that their presence could be detected and put her in danger.
    • She did have amnesia, her powers were gone, and she wasn't wanting to remember her past because some crazy green guy was trying to force her to and drag her away from a life she was perfectly fine with.
    • It just bugs me that people couldn't grasp that Terra was faking amnesia. How much more blunt than "Things Were Never the Way you Remember Them", can you get?
    • It's entirely possible that she remembered some things, but not everything, or that she was just saying what she felt Beast Boy needed to hear with no memory at all. Honestly, I find Terra a lot less sympathetic if she remembers everything and is just faking it, because it means a). rather than facing her problems she's still just running from them and b). it makes her out as a real jerk to Beast Boy, since she should have just told him the moment they were alone "yes, I am the person you knew, but I did some really bad things and am trying to move on from that life" or something to that effect, rather than vaguely hinting at it. Also, if she's faking it it doesn't explain what happened to her powers- if she still has them and knows about it, she should have deflected the mud Beast Boy threw at her on sheer instinct, much the same way a non-powered person would shield themselves with their hands.
    • The Slade-bot said that if Terra does not remember her past, it is because she is "choosing not to." Which to me implies that she did forget a lot of stuff, she could have remembered if she tried, but she's choosing to not remember because she's happy with the life she's started. Beast Boy coming along and basically telling her everything probably made her remember and she did not like that, which is why she was so cold to him for the remainder of the episode until the end where she more or less told him straight what she wanted.
    • Terra remembers, feels guilt for what she did, but took responsibility for all of it when she saved the city. She got the closure she needed, even if BB didn't. Now she's in school. She's moved on. She's metamorphosed. She is a different person now. There is a marked difference between forgetting and not wanting to remember: Terra repeatedly warns Beast Boy against romanticizing her past self's bad traits, and even tries to give the relationship a second and third chance, but decides against it when BB keeps bringing up bad memories of the person she used to be. It's akin to a boyfriend telling you that you were a better person and didn't hurt anybody when you were shooting up / on the sauce / in the grips of an eating disorder, when you're clean, sane, and sober enough to know otherwise. The last time she saw them, she had bid them all heartfelt goodbyes. (Yes, Raven too. In a different reality, she could have called her... friend!) It's a shame BB couldn't have left it at that.
    • It seems more likely by far that Terra is living the life she's yearned for: One where she can learn who she she actually is, and find some stability and even a measure of happiness. At very worst, her problems aren't getting worse, and at best, she's getting better. It's not really in the realm of probability that she'll never need to take up the mantle of Terra again, but maybe next time, she'll be able to deal with it more gracefully.

I have problem with the whole universe of Teen Titans.

I can accept that none of the Titans have any secret identities, Three of Titans has obvious alien skin features, one is a cyborg, and Robin probably does not reveal his identity to protect Bruce Wayne from rumors of him being Batman. However the main thing that bugs me is that we don't see much cultural effects the Titans have to their city and the world they protect. In other shows with young superheroes (I.E Danny Phantom, Static Shock, X-Men, Spectacular Spider-man, and Avatar: The Last Airbender) We see a lot of political, social, cultural effects that these superhero has afflicted on the world and its people they protect.

• If you'll take a close look at most episodes of the Teen Titans animated series, you hardly ever see any civilians at all. It's hardly surprising that the team's actions have few consequences when, unless it's to punctuate a joke or essential to the plot, Jump City often seems like it's uninhabited.
• Are we supposed to believe that the politicians of Jump City and Steel Cities just allow superheroes teens to take care of their cities automatically and let them build a large tower looming over the city while supplying them financial support? Either that or Bruce Wayne pays the bills. The most we get is a chat room conversation with Control Freak. The people do enjoy the heroes. I always wanted to see News coverage of the Titans, politicians' responses, maybe companies making merchandising exploiting their likeness. The normal people of this show are just shallow background characters that needs to be saved and nothing else, similar to the Muggles of the Harry Potter universe, but at least there was a reason why Muggles were in the background since they were not even aware of wizards. What I'm essentially saying is that the Teen Titans universe is a bit too fake and shallow, not the characters themselves, but the world itself just feels hollow to me at times. I don't want an Alan Moore's version of the show, but I want something to ground the world to make a bit more believable.
• Not saying I seriously disagree with your point, but... that's not really the point of the show. TT isn't trying to be realistic in any way- it's clearly set in a 'verse that runs on pure Rule of Cool and/or Rule of Funny. Could grounding it in reality have improved the show? Quite possibly- but it might also have taken a lot of its charm and uniqueness.
• Actually, we are shown how the public reacts to the Teen Titans; it's just that their reaction is mostly indifference. The Titans do normal stuff in public all the time, like go to the park or buy some pizza, and while people are certainly aware they're superheroes (people have commented on Beast Boy being green, and one random guy called Starfire a "hot alien girl"), no one seems to think much of it unless there's immediate danger involved. Heck, at one point Beast Boy is invited to beta-test a video-game because they need "regular kids, like you" for the testing. The idea seems to be that the Teen Titans universe is filled with so much weird stuff that teenage superheroes get, at most, the same amount of attention you'd give your local TV meteorologist if you met them on the street.

How'd Red Star come back to join in on the battle royal in "Titans Together"?

Didn't we last see him drifting off into space, ya'know, exploding?

• Well, it is a comic book cartoon.
  • You can't use that as an excuse for everything, my friend.
• No one stays dead in comics.
• Maybe he didn't actually die in the explosion? It seems that that's what the writers were trying to convey.
• Let's see, maybe exactly the same way he did the first time he exploded? Because he didn't physically explode, he merely vented all the energy filling him through his skin (hence the skin turning all red and weird), thus causing an explosion all around him, but not actually hurting him?
  • I just assumed that the Justice League scooped up the energy and smooshed him back together, like they did for Captain Atom in that one episode of JLU.
• Well, there are a LOT of "dead" (or otherwise left in some kind of unbreakable prison) characters in that scene, including the puppet master, the dragon from Raven's book, and several other villains. In one scene you even see the Tofu alien, who was EATEN. BY CYBORG. Red Star is in many ways the most forgivable of returns.
• The problem isn't just the explosion. There was no air for him to breathe.
  • Who ever said he needed air? Or that he couldn't hold his breath long enough to blow off steam and re-enter the atmosphere?

Okay fine, the mask is kinda cool, now which of the Boy Wonders is Robin?

Dick Grayson. Next question?

• Yeah, it is pretty obvious. Even if they never say it, there's a good chance that the guy who has Dick Grayson's Batmanesque work ethic, has Dick Grayson's love interest, goes on to become Nightwing, is in the lineup from the comics that included Dick Grayson as they went through storylines from the comics that were Graysons', wears the costume of Dick Grayson (yeah, in the comics, Tim Drake is the first to wear that costume as opposed to Dick's pants-less version, but in '90s-2000s animated series, only Dick wears green and red. Tim wears black and red.) and has a Parallel Universe counterpart whose name is Dick Grayson spelled backwards is in fact Dick Grayson. As for Batman's saying Tim/Robin was with the Titans that time in Static Shock - don't forget that in Teen Titans, Flash is Kid Flash and Speedy is younger than his Justice League appearance. So Drake will be a Titan when Dick is Nightwing and Wally West (how do we know he's TT's Kid Flash? Same actor, he was the only Kid Flash at the time of that lineup, these storylines, etc.) is the Flash - in other words, a whole lot like in current comics.
  • He's none of them, while at the same time, all of them. a Composite Character.
    • Wrongo, but I reckon that's what the writers want you to think. Except that they put all those hints that just scream "THIS IS DICK GRAYSON, YO."
    • Not according to David Slack: http://www.titanstower.com/source/animated/behindcomiconpanel2005.html Another fan asked "What's Robin's real name?" and David answered, "Watch FRACTURED."
    • Also, the fact that every single hint and continuity nod points to Dick Grayson (becoming Nightwing, relationship with Starfire, brief flashback to trapezes, backwards-named counterpart) tends to lend credence to... yeah, it's Dick. Personally, I find it odder that Starfire's real name was the only one never mentioned. Cyborg's name was hinted at in the episode Deception (he was undercover as "Stone" - his real name in comics was Victor Stone), Beast Boy's was mentioned by Mento (Garfield), and Dick of course got his spelled (and said) backwards by 'Larry'. And, of course, Raven's real name was... well, Raven.
    • Her real name is "Starfire". She said so in the episode where it showed them starting the team.
    • Her birth name is mentioned—in "Betrothed", while she and Galfore are speaking to each other in Tamaranean, you can hear Galfore say "Koriand'r". She just doesn't mention it because in this continuity, "Starfire" is the English translation.
    • Word of God also has it that the reason they didn't deal with secret identities much is that the producers felt it would be confusing for kids if the characters had two names. This carries underestimating the audience's intelligence to the point of insult, given that generations of children have had no problem understanding the notion of dual identities.
    • Ultimately though, it makes sense that these characters wouldn't use their real names. Raven's superhero name is her real name, and Starfire's is the English translation of hers; Beast Boy plainly finds his real name embarrassing, going by "Homecoming II"; this Robin takes enough after Batman that he likely considers Robin to be his "real" identity; and considering Cyborg's angst about being less human, it's not out of the realm of possibility that there's a bit of That Man Is Dead going on, at least subconsciously.
    • There's also the fact that Robin is a fairly well-known hero by this point—when Beast Boy meets him in "Go!", he's totally starstruck, and even a low-level street thug all the way across the country from Gotham recognized him as Batman's partner. Robin likely doesn't tell anyone that he's Dick Grayson, or let anyone call him that even in his downtime, because Dick Grayson is the adopted son of Bruce Wayne, and if Dick Grayson is Robin, there's a good chance that Bruce Wayne is Batman. He's trying to protect Bruce's identity as much as his own out of respect for his mentor and father figure. (In the tie-in comic, the team is clearly aware of his identity and backstory, but we don't know when he finally told them. Even though he's learned more about trusting his team since "Masks", it's not just his mission at stake, so it's much more understandable that he'd withhold that information until he believed he could risk it.)
    • And even if that's not enough to convince/satisfy you, the first half of Teen Titans Go!! issue 47, Regarding Robin, starts with the eponymous Titan reminiscing about The Flying Graysons and mentioning to Cyborg a move his father taught him that he hadn't quite nailed himself just yet. (And a nice little cameo from a certain Gothamite at the end.)

What are Slade's origins and the motives behind his plots?

Did any of them even have actual origins and motives?

• In the comics? Yes, he did. It was a stupid origin, taken because the son he didn't like took an assassin gig he couldn't pull off and Slade picked it up on his behalf, chasing them down for ages and then just giving up after a while. In the cartoon? He's a Magnificent Bastard Wannabe and alternates between having a Man Crush on Robin and just wanting him out of the way.
  • That's not doing the character justice. Slade (Full name Slade Joseph Wilson) started out as a soldier in the military where he would meet his future wife. He was part of some experiments that ended up enhancing him physically and mentally while also giving him regenerative powers. After the military, he settled down with with his wife and had three kids, Joseph (who would later become the hero Jericho), Grant and Rose (Rose I believe was added to his back story later). However, not wanting to give up the action, he became a mercenary although he had a strict code of only killing enemies of the United States. Eventually, one of his targets kidnapped his sons, causing his wife to find out about his profession. When he tracked down his target, he held a knife to Joey's throat and told Slade to surrender. Slade refused and killed the man, but Joey's throat was cut, rendering him mute. After this, his wife tried to kill him by shooting him in the head. His enhanced reflexes saved his life, but he lost his right eye. Years later, his son Grant became a costumed mercenary who took a contract from HIVE on the Titans. It lead to his death, although I don't remember how. After this, Slade took up the contract and tried to deliver the Titans to the HIVE in the original "Judas Contract". Slade, or Deathstroke as he's commonly known, often plays the role of an anti-villain in the DC universe. He's not a nice person, but he has his own code of honor and has his own fair share of regrets, not the least of which is his family. He's allied with the Titans before, and even helped Beast Boy work through some of his emotional problems, including those brought on by Terra's betrayal and death.
    • I had this theory going once that Slade was Batman, who went insane for some reason, & that Robin would eventually bring him back from the brink. As such, I was a little disappointed to find out about the comic book version, and even more so when I found out that he never had an origin story planned out in the first place, and all the "foreshadowing" I'd found was completely coincidental. The final, crushing blow was when I found out that the next movie (which still hasn't come out...I'm thinking the series is dead) planned to aim for an older age demographic, & therefore use the original Slade.
    • Grant died because (if I recall correctly) the HIVE inflicted some sort of treatment on him to turn him into this badass mercenary guy at the cost of his own life (he may or may not have been aware of the cost at the time). That's why I specified that his grudge against the Titans was stupid; they weren't at fault, and the people he was working for were. Rose, incidentally, happened long after Joey and Grant.
  • All that's about the comics version, who is explicitly defined by the producers as a separate character. The TV Slade is just there to be the Bad Guy.
  • For the second and fourth seasons, it's safe to say he was after power. At least half of the first season can be attributed to getting Robin as an apprentice. Granted, that still doesn't cover all of it. Many of the show's villains seem to have an irrational desire to destroy the city. (At least The Source came up with a wonderfully creepy anti-reason.) Robin himself wonders what the heck Slade was trying to accomplish in "Forces of Nature", and never gets an answer. I've always enjoyed imagining Robin asking him about this point blank, and hearing, "To make you ask questions..."
  • "Forces of Nature" could easily be interpreted as a test for the Titans, and it seems to be after it that Slade decides on Robin as the pick of the litter and focuses on making him his apprentice. Really, the only episode where we know nothing about what Slade was trying to immediately accomplish was "Divide and Conquer", but he seems to have scrapped whatever that plan was anyway. As for not knowing about his ultimate goals and motivations? Simple- he doesn't want us (or anyone) to. Whatever's really going on in that mind, it's something Slade is playing very close to the chest.
• It's extreme Wild Mass Guessing, of course, but I'd speculate that Slade had a terminal illness, and knew he only had a few years left to find and train someone to follow in his footsteps. Robin was the young candidate who most reminded him of himself, so that was his first choice. He decided on Terra as his apprentice and heir once Robin proved too much to handle, but that went badly too - but if he was dying anyway, it helps explain why he was able to look at her killing him with self-deprecating amusement rather than anger. It'd be interesting to see if, now that he apparently has a new lease on life thanks to the events in "The End", he's still interested in gaining an apprentice.
• My theory is that he's been in the "plot to Take Over the World, or a good chunk of it anyway" game for a while, but, by the time the series starts, he's started to realize all that power isn't that interesting without anyone to share it with (mindless Mooks don't count). Hence his desire to have an apprentice, someone who, while still subservient to him, he can have something resembling a real human relationship. Having Terra attack the Titans and take over the city? His idea of a fun father/daughter activity.
• It's been stated a bit subtly in canon that Slade wants to build a totalarist empire by taking over cities and whatnot, probably so that he can eventually rule the world. It was said in his line in the season 2 finale: "This city is only the first of many." As for why he wants an apprentice, I'll go with the above and the fact that someone needs to take over his empire once he's gone.
• Glen Murakami stated in an interview that Slade's motivations were made unclear on purpose: "A lot of times, I think it's more interesting to just make the bad guy the bad guy. Sometimes when you explain the villains, they end up being sympathetic. So if you find out things about Slade, you could end up sympathizing with him - and maybe that makes the character more emotional or more human... But he's the bad guy. He doesn't need to be more human."

  • In the same interview he says that Slade was meant to be an analogue of Batman to Robin. Robin was becoming more independent by separating himself from his "good" father-figure, so a natural choice for Slade's motivation would be to threaten this development by being an "evil" father-figure. As an explanation of "Apprentice", at the very least, "Here you have Robin working so hard to move away from Batman and become his own man. So it makes perfect sense for the villain to look for a son."

• I kind of assumed that Slade was looking for a challenge, like the Riddler. He's smart enough that he could run a criminal empire and make tons of cash (quite possible in his past, given his sheer resources) but that isn't enough for him. He has to beat someone in the process. So he started trying to find someone who could possibly keep up with him. Hearing about the Teen Titans, he had Cinderblock break out Plasmus to see them in action. When they were both able to beat Plasmus and Cinderblock (proving they were smarter than the average cape) he decided to "play" with them some more, sending the H.I.V.E. kids after them and creating other threats like the fire elemental. (I'm confused about the episode order, so that might be different). After that, when Robin was the one who actually fought him instead of the elemental, Slade became intrigued and decides to make Robin his apprentice. After all, killing a hero is easy(ish). Turning one is hard. As time goes on Slade becomes more and more obsessed with beating the Titans and finally (around "Betrayal") trying to destroy them utterly. He clearly wasn't grooming Terra to be a successor: He was treating her like a slave because he didn't care about her. He just wanted to beat the Titans. After he died and got resurrected he decided enough was enough and moved on to torment someone else.
• Slade works on getting an apprentice to inherit his legacy even before he has a proper legacy. When he gets one in Robin and later Terra he spends all his time watching and micromanaging them from his lair rather than lead the charge himself. When Terra flees from a fight he stops everything to discipline her even when his mooks are being destroyed and the enemy is at his door. Finally, he takes to tormenting Raven with glee despite the relative simplicity of the task he's given. As creepy as it sounds, I think acquiring, tormenting, and breaking heroic teenagers is more the end than the means to one. Slade is motivated by a dry ephebophilia to which power and conquest are a distant second.

How is it possible for Malchior to have showed up with the Brotherhood of Evil when he was both sealed inside a book and locked in a chest in Raven's room?

Even if someone managed to sneak raid Raven's room and steal the book without her noticing, the spell to break to seal requires a hair from a beautiful girl... and no one from the Brotherhood of Evil fits that description.

• Well, by then, the Brotherhood includes the overwhelming majority of villains faced by the Titans thus far, and everyone else wants to be part of it (like the HIVE FIVE in Lightspeed.) So if Madame Rouge isn't his type, there's no shortage of girls who could have done it. (And then, what was the source of the "fact" that a pretty girl's hair is needed? Malchior could have been lying, and if Robin had found the book, it would have turned out that only a brave warrior could do it... it would've flattered whoever found it.)
• The Titans were away from their tower for an extended period of time to fight the Brotherhood; someone could have come in during that time and released Malchior.
• Easy! Madam Rouge supplied the hair and General Immortus provided the magic. I wouldn't be surprised if Immortus picked up some magic skills in the thousands of years he's been alive, in fact I can picture him saying something like "I did teach Merlin everything he knew..."
• I blamed it on floppy writing for Season 5. Plot holes everywhere.
• I'm not sure it actually has to be a beautiful girl. I thought he was just saying that. In any case, beautiful girls aren't hard to come by, and I don't think the Brotherhood of Evil is above stealing a lock of hair.
• Madame Rogue is a shape-shifter. She could have taken Raven's form and used a lock of her hair. Plenty of people in this show probably know magic. Hell, we have a character who causes bad luck. It isn't unlikely that someone could have done it. Hell, we are treated to a point in time where the Titans are supposedly all handled, including Titans East. It is very likely that that is when the book is taken.

What's Kyd Wykkyd's story?

His powers seem identical to Raven's. Sadly, he never gets any focus in the show, being the least-seen of whatever group he happens to be with in an episode, and the one issue of Teen Titans Go!! to feature him turned out to be a TT-ification of the Batman episode "Almost Got Him," and Wykkyd was the impostor.

• Repeated emphasis on "children-oriented" aside, the show wasn't big on explaining things. A good chunk of the Brotherhood of Evil hadn't been seen prior, and most of the existing ones didn't really have a story beyond their clashes with the Titans. In short, Wykkyd's a one-shot villain among other villains - a cool one that might have benefited from more exposition, but it's not that kind of show.
  • The show being family-rated doesn't explain the fact that Kyd Wykkyd didn't get an explanation. Anyhoo, Wykkyd got way more screen time than Private Hobbs. Remember Private Hobbs? Didn't think so. He was in one scene (blink and you miss him) from "Deception" and then a little bit later he somehow replaces Billy Numerous as the sixth member of the HIVE Five. Horsesh*t!
• Or maybe we're all making a big fuss over a phenomenally unimportant background villain, perhaps? And he and Billy replaced Private HIVE. Just doing my part to keep the HIVE lineup straight.

What the hell happened to Starfire?

In the episode "Go" she was an armor-plated badass who was kicking much Titan ass even though she was shackled and denied her star bolts. For the bulk of the series she was primarily The Ditz. Was it something in the atmosphere?

• She's a girl.
• Maybe she just naturally softened up? Maybe her rage when she was cultured was like a triggered Berserk Button, then she calmed down once she was happy and free,
• In the comics canon, her gradual shift to naive redhead from bad ass warrior chick was explained as her acclimating to her new surroundings. Given that she's perpetually surrounded by warriors who exhibit a very non-warrior-like code, it may well be that she instead chose to embrace the more emotional *
• Her incredible powers were the result of her unbound rage, which also made her a threat to innocent people. To become a hero, she had to learn self-control.
• Tamaranians have a warrior culture, so Starfire would know how to act the part, especially in a hostile situation on an alien planet. It's only since living on Earth that she's learned to let her hair down and be her giddy, idealistic self. Sometimes she ends up with the Idiot Ball, but we do see her go into righteous fury mode (or even sarcastic asskicking mode, such as her "I'm sorry to disappoint you" line) enough to believe that her Action Girl side's still there.
• Plus, Starfire did ask at the end of Go! if she looked "nice" switching out of her badass appearance to someone less threatening in order to assimilate better. More than likely she's also doing the "cardboard" speech and holding back.

Okay, does this show take place in the DC Animated Universe or what? Why hasn't this ever been Jossed or confirmed by the Word of God?

• Confirmed to not be part of the DCAU. It stands by itself.
• There's never been the slightest reason to assume it was part of the DCAU aside from wishful thinking. The two settings simply don't match up.
  • ACTUALLY if you really really want to fit it in the DCAU you can put it before Batman:TAS because in B:TAS Robin is college age but in Teen Titans he's about high school age. And we know from the B:TAS episode "Robin's Reckoning" that Dick Grayson has been Robin since he was like 9. It's entirely possible that around the time he was 15 he decided to go solo and move to Jump City and then he went back to Gotham to attend college at Gotham University at the time B:TAS takes place. To add to that, in the episode "Lightspeed," Kid Flash is voiced by Michael Rosenbaum, the same actor who voiced Flash in the Justice League which builds on the idea of Teen Titans being a prequel to the DCAU.

Tamareneans learn languages by lip contact and Starfire had to kiss Robin to learn English. Yet everyone on Tamaran seems to speak English fluently. Who exactly could have kissed that many Tamareneans?

• I've heard that the writers have stated that they were going to show a scene of Beast Boy and Cyborg teaching them English, but didn't have the time.
  • I believe that one Tamaranean learned English, then kissed a bunch of other Tamaraneans so they know English too. Then it just spread.

Just a little one, but why does Blackfire look so different from Starfire and the rest of the Tamaraneans?

Cosmetic surgery? Sister from another mother (or father)? Automatic dark side makeover? I like to think Blackfire is Starfire's half-sister and her parent came from a black-haired, human-eyed ethnic group that was beaten by dark-skinned, redheaded Tamareneans and given to as tribute.

• Maybe she just dyed her hair and wore contacts either to fit in with humans more/to reflect her human side/just cause she can.
• Evidently in Tamarenean culture black hair is considered bad luck and might have directly led to her attitude problems.
  • Actually, one of the comics delves a bit into the past of the Tamaranian royal family, and the king and queen of Tamaran are seen in a flashback. Blackfire appears to be the only one of the three children who gets more of her looks from their mother than their father. Another guess: it could be a result of her Transformation. She did turn purple for two days, and it's possible she (and her mother?) just paled up afterwards.

Terra befriending Titans and then betraying them after learning their secrets - BAD. Cyborg doing the SAME THING to the H.I.V.E. - we're supposed to cheer? Go To HELL Titans. If it's so despicable when used against you, why do you get use it as a strategy?

• Excuse you? There's an enormous difference between a Face–Heel Turn and a Heel–Face Turn, which is what Terra and Cyborg did respectively. Go read those articles.
• Because the strategies were being used to very different ends. In this case, it's the difference between fighting (on behalf of a self-interested madman) to betray a superhero team and take over the world for personal gain vs. fighting to prevent known criminals from carrying out a plan to hurt other people. Not much of a "Go to Hell" moment.
• The Titans treated the Terra event as a Moral Event Horizon moment. They had been fighting Slade before, but it was clearly the means and not the objective which were treated as horrible here. Hurting people's bodies in open confrontation is one thing; hurting people's minds and hearts by gaining their trust and betraying them is another. Besides, if there was an Aesop to the episode where Robin disguises himself as Red X, it is that using certain means to fight crime (such as betraying people's trust, his friends' in that case) is wrong, and that in fighting crime one should be careful not to become like that against which one is supposed to be fighting. The first troper is right; H.I.V.E. never did something so horrible to the Titans as what they did to them by infiltrating Cyborg. The hell with them.
• ...Are you seriously getting mad at law enforcing heroes for performing a sting operation?
  • Moral Event Horizon moments usually don't entail repeated, highly emotional attempts to get through to the perpetrator. When it first becomes obvious that she has betrayed them, they are simply shocked, and (apart from Raven, who immediately bolts down on "just another criminal") rather confused. It's only after she cements her position by nearly killing them all that they drop all hesitation and fight with everything they have, which is appropriate. By contrast, Cyborg didn't intend form any emotional attachments in H.I.V.E., and he certainly had no intention of killing anybody. To say nothing of their status as super villains bent on power, loot and destruction. The two situations and "betrayals" are extremely different.
    • It would have really been bad if Cyborg had broken Jinx's heart in the betrayal like Terra did with Beast Boy. However, their last exchange was Jinx saying that he could've been one of us, and Cyborg sadly replying "I could've been a lot of things." Jinx just shakes her head, shrugs it off, and leaves. No real emotional damage was done to anyone in the HIVE (unless you count Brother Blood becoming obsessed with knowing how Cyborg resisted him.)
    • Jinx totally had a crush on "Stone". She has him carry her books, she has the little hearts flying out of her in 1 scene, when her, Gizmo, and Mammoth give "Stone" a Hive communicator and say "you're one of us", she is clearly happy as can be, and finally, Cyborg takes her to the school dance.
    • This isn't high school. It's not like the underclassmen just trashed the Jocks' party for no reason. The Titans are law enforcement. Terra was working for a man who wants to rule the world and is happy to use indiscriminate violence to do it. The HIVE trio may be friendly enough when they aren't working, but they're still mercenaries willing to work for whomever pays them. Their first appearance involved them trying to kill the Titans. You know where all that money they were stealing was going to go? It was going to Brother Blood, who later built a sonic tsunami generator to destroy the city and everyone in it. Terra's mission was to set the Titans up for Slade to kill them. Cyborg's mission was to find out what HIVE was trying to do and allow the Titans to stop it. According to the original argument, it's wrong for the police to run sting operations, because it involves some level of lies and betrayal. It's wrong for Batman to join Two-Face's gang as "Matches Malone," and then foil the plot to kill Commissioner Gordon. Are you really unable to spot the difference?
    • Plus, Terra tried to kill them. Yeah, they focused on the emotional betrayal aspect, but she betrayed them by trying to kill them. That alone puts her way, way past the moral line Cyborg crossed by going undercover and, at worst, breaking Jinx's heart. That part's comparable to what Terra did to Beast Boy, but it's the being attacked and left for dead part that the Titans held against her.
    • Means to an end. Same means, different ends. Terra's ends were the Titans' deaths and hostile city takeover. Cyborg's ends were information gathering for evil plots and the end of the H.I.V.E. organization, but not its members. The big difference here, my friend, is the villain wanted people to die and the heroes didn't. Plus, H.I.V.E. had tried to kill the Titans before, but Terra's betrayal was unprovoked. They had accepted her and wished to help her with her powers for goodness sake.
    • Does the OP thing that cops that go undercover to bust child prostitution rings are bad people too?
  • Jinx's heart doesn't even seem to have been broken that bad- she's fine the next time we see her, and was certainly sad when Cyborg stayed with the Titans, but not nearly as angry/broken up as Beast Boy was over Terra.]]

Mammoth and Gizmo never liked him anyway, he doesn't seem to have been close to anyone else at the HIVE, and as for making Brother Blood angry- the man's a criminal psychopath.

• This is so ridiculously simple, I don't understand why it's being asked. The Hive is EVIL. Any dirty trick the Titans want to use on them is justified.
• A season has passed off screen between these two events. And in that time the Titans have come to terms with Terra's betrayal, have thought deeply (probably a lot of painful soul searching here) about the reasons she did what she did, about what parts of what she did was wrong and what parts were understandable, and have forgiven her. In short character development. Therefore they no longer have any hesitation in using similar tactics when the situation justifies it.
• Remember HIVE's first time on the show? They had been hired to kill the Titans, and almost succeeded. They're thieves and assassins- and at the time, they were working for Brother Blood, a man who ended up building a sonic generator that would create a tidal wave to take out the city. So, the Titans dealt with this threat by infiltrating the HIVE.

Why did Raven keep insisting that there was nothing she could do to stop Trigon from destroying the world, even though Trigon couldn't even get to Earth had she simply refused to cooperate and become his portal?

She probably knew that Trigon would, well, do exactly the kind of thing he did and force her into it. Hence, why when the Titans' all-out effort to fend off his forces failed — and, to her credit, she at least gave it a fair chance until it became obvious her friends were about to be killed — she resigned herself to the act itself and instead left an ace-in-the-hole to undo the damage after the fact.

• One interesting detail from Slade's flash-forward to the post-Trigon world is that the Titans had been turned to stone right outside the tower, in the middle of a battle with Slade's monsters . When Slade summoned the same monsters right outside the tower in "The End, Part 1" and the Titans began fighting them, Raven must have realized that she's already seen how this will end. Trigon will somehow use her anyway, and the Titans will die fighting, along with the rest of the world. So she quickly came up with a different plan: go open the portal willingly and, while doing so, also make sure her friends survive the destruction and have some hope of reversing it.
• Also, just as Raven was beginning to accept hope that maybe her friends could Hold the Line, Trigon engaged in Mind Rape; he reveals he can get into her mind whenever he likes because of their relation, and starts browbeating her about how her friends will die for nothing. Raven starts begging for her friends' lives, and isn't in the most rational state of mind when she surrenders to Slade's army; it's highly possible that Trigon could have done worse to her mind. It's her love for her friends that saves them, because she uses her last bit of power to protect them.

Okay, so Starfire knows the definition of boyfriend and girlfriend. Wasn't she still being a bit presumptuous on her and Robin's status as a couple in Stranded? They did ride on the Ferris wheel, and there was that time at Kitty's prom, and they may have done some other things not shown in episodes. But they never really did couple date-date stuff.

• Why is this even a question? Isn't the answer obvious?
  • Hint: the obvious answer is character development and relationship development. It's a great thing that Robin and Starfire's relationship progressed the way they did, or their hook-up in The Movie could've lead to Willing Suspension of Disbelief that they would be friends one day and a couple the next. Also, Starfire isn't an idiot, she can learn, ya' know?
• It's a kiddie cartoon. What is there to show, really?
  • Incorrect, Person Above Me. It's a family-rated cartoon. It's got plenty of artistic merit beyond the purely functional purposes of an actual cartoon for preschoolers and has shown itself to be elegant and clever as often as it's been childish. There are plenty of "kiddie" cartoons that feature full-out dating. So please stop using that as an excuse for everything.
  • Let's see, Starfire's definition of 'girlfriend' was "A female with whom you have a pleasant and special association including the sharing of enjoyable recreation and occasionally the buying of bountiful floral arrangements." About the only thing we haven't seen Robin do in some form was the floral arrangements part. Starfire naturally assumed some kind of romantic or otherwise "special" relationship, based on the behavior she'd been presented with. This happens a LOT in other media and is Truth in Television actually... (See Not a Date, the Tropers Tales for She Is Not My Girlfriend, etc.)
  • Starfire has got a mostly technical definition of "girlfriend" based on actions she has seen couples perform. I am not sure she understands the associated concepts of emotions, romance, physical affection, attraction, sexuality, monogamy, (possible) marriage, etc... that are traditionally attached to the modern western idea of the thing and whether she would be so ready to classify herself as Robin's girlfriend in that case. Of course, it is possible she really has a good comprehension of the idea, considered herself and Robin to be in a romantic relationship despite the lack of verbal confirmation (and enjoyed the idea to boot), and got sad and angry when Robin cleared what he considered a misunderstanding.
• Starfire simply believed her relationship with Robin had progressed into a romantic area only for Robin to throw the whole thing into doubt by very vocally, and angrily denying it. Later they talk it over and she realizes she'd only been a little ahead of him and so things are fine.

Raven's power level bugs me.

She's got a ridiculously long list of powers and could, in theory, take on half the rest of the cast at once! Shouldn't the writers have realized that A. Giving someone a backstory about her being the daughter of a world-destroying god (making Raven a demi-goddess!) and putting her on a low-powered superhero team was a very bad idea and B. That they shouldn't add New Powers as the Plot Demands? To compensate they have her conveniently forgetting various abilities every episode and deliberately weakening herself (her powers are powered by emotions, right?). The only conclusion that makes sense is that she's completely immortal and if something goes wrong she can just go back in time to correct it.

• Her powers in the comics Teen Titans is based on were pretty weak sauce for an action cartoon: she was empathic, psychic, had healing powers, flight, teleportation, and astral projection. There might have been more, but regardless, she was a strict pacifist, so it made little difference. She was the White Mage of the team. And she was a demigoddess (demoness, rather) over there as well. Moreover, she doesn't really get new powers as the plot demands. She's got telekinesis and ill-defined darkness-based powers. She doesn't use the latter because they're evil. I'm not seeing the problem.
• Her powers require focus and concentration, usually requiring her to step back from the action while the rest of the team distracts the villains. Note that she usually has to go on the defensive when an enemy gets right up in her face. Her more powerful spells, like time travel, could be hand-waved as needing rare and expensive material components.
• Just thought I'd list her powers: Telekinesis capable of crushing steel (auto-win against most enemies, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin and Terra). Portal forming. Teleportation (as seen in Go it's easy to teleport the entire team almost a mile away). Intangibility. The ability to make other objects intangible at range (imagine phasing someone underground to render them helpless). Black energy constructs. Precognition. Telepathy. Time manipulation (Time-stop in particular). Changing form into demons and whatnot (and she doesn't even have to be evil to do it!). Astral projection (why does she even need a body? she can affect the mortal plane without it). Healing of herself and others. Creating monsters. Flight. And I'm sure I've missed something. Then there's her magic. And apparently her father can devastate the world in a few seconds, defeating every superhero on the planet simultaneously yet gets badly hurt by a team that Raven could easily destroy (she subconsciously created monsters that beat them) especially if you remove the killing inhibitions (TK is nasty if used properly and phasing someone's brain out should be lethal). From this it's obvious the only reason they lasted a second must have been Raven's protection.
  • Raven might have an incredibly long list of powers, but all of them come with a price. Most of her limitations have already been discussed, but one I wanted to add was her healing powers. Raven rarely uses her healing powers (I believe only once in the entire animated series) because the price of taking someone else's pain away is that she has to live with that pain for the rest of her life.
  • Raven is not capable of telekinesis, she summons and manipulates a form of darkness/black magical "matter", which can move or damage what it holds on the requirement that it isn't alive/conscious/intelligent enough for dialogue/any of the above, since it's only shown, not explained. Really, her darkness can, as you say, crush steel, but cannot hurt anything directly, biological or otherwise. Again, it's not telekinesis, because she actually calls fort something tangible that can cause or hinder impact with other objects, making it different from telekinesis, which is simply moving something without involvement of anything but one's thoughts.
• Raven's powers are fairly broad but far from unbeatable. Most of the more extreme examples occur only when she gets extremely emotional, something she regularly tries to prevent. And while it's revealed that she could become considerably more powerful by studying magic, she seems to have been turned off to the idea.
• Might be worth noting that her two of her most extreme powers - stopping time and creating monster hordes - were purely by accident, and took even her by surprise. As for why she doesn't do deadlier things with her other powers, it could be that she's actively resisting any excessive force out of fear it could fuel the evil inside her. Recall how horrified she was after she totally curb stomped Slade in "Prophecy."
  • It was heavily implied in the episode where Raven stopped time that her ability to freeze time was a "birthday wish", not something she can normally pull off. I haven't seen the episode in a while, but I believe Slade suggested the theory, plus I've seen it thrown around in a lot of different places.
  • I've watched the episode a lot, and the closest it comes to being suggested is Slade's line "you can stop time, birthday girl, but you can't stop me". Personally, Raven's surge of emotions coming with a surge of power makes the most sense, as it fits with what was established about her before.
• Raven seems to show a lot more power as of Season 4. A theory thrown around a lot is Raven's power level fluctuates depending on her father - basically, the closer she gets to her father, the stronger she is. It would make sense.
• On the note of not using all of their powers: this is actually true for each of the Titans, with the possible exception of Beast Boy. Cyborg can shoot missiles and has a super-powered mode for when he can take energy from the Titans Tower, Robin uses his ice-based explosives and Red-X toys way less then you'd think based on how effective they are and Starfire has that energy blast with the huge radius she hardly ever uses. Really, ALL the Titans has powers that fluctuate like crazy and abilities they almost never use, which is why they always get defeated in the beginning of an episode/arc only for a single Titan to defeat the threat easily as opposed to it being impossible to beat with the entire team. Very clear case of conservation of ninjutsu where the only exceptions are for the teamwork-is-important episodes.
• It bugs me that so many fans think that Raven SHOULD have used all of her power for most of the series. That would creator a greater chance of Trigon coming and destroying the world! Her powers and her emotions are very connected; repressing her emotions is how she controls her powers. If she went all out, she'd lose control.
• There's also the chance that if she over-used her powers it would draw the attention of villains like Slade who would want to manipulate her or specifically start targeting her, she might have purposefully weakened herself to avoid drawing attention! Raven was always very secretive, even around her best friends, she would definitely not want her worst enemies knowing everything she was capable of.

Why does Brother Blood never return after the third season? He's probably the only villain in the show who can't escape from prison. When I think about it, it would've made more sense if Brother Blood became Trigon's servant in the fourth season instead of Slade.

• He's native to Steel City, he's Titans East's responsibility unless and until he heads west.
• Then there's the fact that his arms were, you know...SHATTERED LIKE A STAINED-GLASS WINDOW!
• While we never see what happened to Blood, he was presumably tried, convicted, sent to a prison with facilities capable of holding him, and hasn't managed to effect an escape. As for him versus Slade as Trigon's minion, Blood's powers and personality are certainly more in line with Trigon's, but he lacks the almost boogey-man like status Slade managed to reach in the Titans' minds. Blood reappearing would just mean the team had to take him down, and he already has flashy, quasi-mystical powers. Slade rising from the grave armed with demon magic when he was just a Badass Normal before is a lot more of a Nightmare Fuel gut punch.

Doom Patrol related gripe. Basically, they were portrayed as amateurs. Seriously. Mento's Leeroy Jenkins-esque style saw his teammates barge headfirst into heroic sacrifice after heroic sacrifice, only to have it all undone offscreen. They weren't even there to beat their own bag guys. Also, Negative Man was made a stereotypical emo and the uniforms looked even worse on the men of Doom Patrol than it does on Beast Boy.

• Well, what do you expect from a group calling itself the "Doom" patrol? Clearly self-preservation isn't part of their agenda.
• For all the emphasis Mento puts on thinking strategically, he really comes across as a suicidal, emotionally abusive idiot. Twice he yells at Beast Boy for saving them rather than stopping the villains' latest plan. Okay, let's put emotions aside: what exactly was he expecting to happen after Beast Boy destroyed their doomsday weapon? Oh right, they'll just escape and build another doomsday weapon... and this time, because Beast Boy let his teammates die, there's nobody to stop them! And in neither situation was saving them and stopping the bad guys mutually exclusive. Once the Doom Patrol's been saved, they now have four extra people to go capture the Brotherhood of Evil, which is much better odds that Beast Boy trying to do it alone. Or at least it would be, if Mento would stop standing around and lecturing people and, you know, go chase the Brotherhood of Evil like he keeps telling them to.
• The impression that Brain left on Mento = Robin vs. Slade- in other words, the otherwise levelheaded and competent leader becomes highly irrational where his personal nemesis is concerned. As we only ever see Mento when he's pitted against Brain, it's hard to get a good picture of his overall leadership.
  • I've gotta admit, that actually helps put things into perspective: Robin acts pretty much the same way with Slade, right down to chewing out the Titans for helping him rather than continuing the fight. And Mento does start to show signs of being a good leader later on, once he realizes how he's acting and starts accepting advice, so the idea that Brain can get under his skin the way Slade does with Robin makes sense.
• For bonus points the way the Doom Patrol were portrayed isn't entirely inappropriate given their comic book incarnations. The Doom Patrol have always been seesawing between being a team of super heroes and a support group for the horribly mutilated, at least one incarnation of the team has been killed off, or comic book dead at least, in a suicidal last stand.
• In the comics, Mento is a suicidal, emotionally abusive idiot. It's part of the reason Beast Boy left.
• The Doom Patrol were meant to be seen as negative counterparts to the Titans, what they could be if they grew up the wrong way. (Mento = Robin as a total Jerkass of a leader, Elasti-girl = Starfire as completely submissive, Robot Man = Cyborg without humanity, and Negative Man = Raven as truly gloomy and without emotional development. And then there's Beast Boy, who's problem is that he's played both teams.)
• Not to mention that in the comics, Mento's helmet, which amplifies his latent psychic abilities and gives him his powers literally makes him demented and paranoid.

Given than he's a massive racist and we only see the Locrix attacking him, why are the Titans so happy to accept Val-Yor's word that the Locrix are horrible monsters that must be destroyed? They didn't believe him when he was being an arse to Starfire, but suddenly his word is gospel about how bad these other creatures are, so they happily help him commit genocide? Something doesn't add up here...

• This one bugged me too. Especially at the beginning of the episode. I may not remember correctly, but I remember the episode beginning with a Locrix ship flying over their city without actually doing anything bad- no shooting, no bombing, nothing. Val-Yor suddenly starts ripping the ship apart and the Titans automatically assume he's a hero, despite the fact that he was attacking a seemingly defenseless ship that was otherwise doing nothing wrong.
• The Titans assuming he's the good guy when they first meet him and taking his word about the Locrix doesn't make a lot of sense, but in the long run his actions are far more consistent with him being a hero with a giant character flaw rather than a genocidal psycho. He doesn't put Starfire in danger except as tactically warranted by her abilities, nor seek to harm her in any way other than racial insults. (Besides, if he was really a villain manipulating the Titans into helping him commit genocide, being up-front about his prejudice towards one of them would make no sense.)
• Ordos Xenos Codex Sect.21 Para.33 And low the servants of the Emperor did measure the bust of the females of the orange skinned and found them to be acceptable. However the lumpy pale xenos were found wanting and were cast down(exterminated).
• I noticed two things here: First, every thing he says that makes them bad applies just as well to himself. He says that they think they're superior to organics, but her refers to them as "machines" in a manner that shows that he thinks himself superior to machines. He calls them a race of vicious fighting machines. He also brags about his own fighting ability, and implies that it's significantly greater. He says that they're determined to wipe his race out, just before outlining his plan to wipe out theirs. If you take everything he says at face value, there is no way to tell which, if any, is the good guys. Second, the Titans never do anything to verify a thing he says. The only evidence that he didn't make everything up whole cloth is that if he did, he would have painted himself as the hero.

The use of 'otaku' in the Trouble in Tokyo movie. It's supposed to be bad in Japan, so was she just relying on Beast Boy knowing no Japanese? And if he didn't, how would he be reading his book right before the girl comes to him since the cover is shown to be in Japanese? Does he just not know that word?

• Oh my god, why is this even being asked.
• It may be bad in Japan, but it's a term embraced by many American anime fans, and BB's an American anime fan. I don't see any problem: the girl was playfully insulting him, and he took it as a compliment.
• Yep, she was counting on him not being able to speak Japanese. Given that he's often seen as barely smart enough to speak English, it wasn't a big stretch. Most of the things she said to him were either insulting or creepy and she was counting on him not understanding any of it.
  • Fridge Brilliance: don't know what experts in language learning have to say, but reading how a foreign word is spelt on a wiki and actually hearing it spoken, accent and all, is pretty different to me.
• Two things, 1 is that Otaku is a bad thing depending on the person, with the success of anime and oriental culture in other areas of the world (US, UK) over the years it's been more acceptable in Japan, even the prime minister of Japan openly admitted he was an Otaku and that it's something the country should praise and not discriminate. Second of all the problem about Otaku was that it was deemed childish and or improper and unprofessional, meaning the biggest concern was young adult or full grown adults having a big fascination for a certain thing (anime, tech, actors, etc.) BB is a teenager, as was the girl, so maybe she was just pointing out that he was an Otaku, or calling him a insult that pretty much means geek or nerd, not a slur.

This is a minor gripe: Why are the Teen Titans the first ones to grab that island? It looks like it was just sitting there completely empty before they decided to build their headquarters on it. Why didn't anyone else build something there first?

• Maybe it was owned by Wayne Industries. Or someone planned to develop it, never got the chance, and the titans bought it.
• Robin, with Cyborg and/or Raven along, talked to the local government. Because of the nature of the world they live in, they weren't hard to sell on the benefits of having the Titans call their city home, and once that was decided, Robin convinced them that the currently-unoccupied island was the ideal site, giving the Titans enough room to live, and placing them where any attacks on their home would not cause collateral damage to the city itself.
  • The question wasn't how they got permission to build there, it was why someone else hadn't beaten them to it. It's prime real estate in the middle of the harbor, it should have been developed years before they were even born.
    • Well for starters, it's kinda on an island in the middle of that river/lake/sea. Also, it's not like every single available piece of available land is taken up.
    • Maybe because it's out in the open? Jump City is portrayed as a den of crime and villainy. Anything that they put on the island would be robbed blind by any of the super villains.
    • Maybe it's an example of Truth in Television, considering most islands in the middle of major cities are city-owned. And they did, after all, save the entire city from complete obliteration.
  • It would take a ton of cash to make such an island workable from a commercial standpoint, and that's just minimal infrastructure. Inconvenience makes it unattractive from a mass-residential standpoint. So you're very limited in who would have a reasonable need for such an island.

Beast Boy's choices in animal forms never cease to bother me.

When pure brute strength is the best option in a fight, he almost never chooses an outright gigantic animal. And no matter how often he faces alien, mutated, or otherwise bizarre forms of animals, he never chooses to be anything besides a regular, realistic animal to fight them. This is most egregious in the episode where he turns into a lycanthrope-esque animal. He turns into a Sasquatch at least TWICE. Clearly, he CAN be animals that aren't real or he hasn't seen, but usually just chooses not to.

• I'd chalk it up to BB still learning how to use his powers: it's probably easier to change into animals he's very familiar with, and takes more focus and stamina to change into something unfamiliar (remember how big a deal it was in the Doom Patrol flashback when he turned into a dinosaur for the first time). He probably has about ten animals that he can flip effortlessly between in battle, and is still training to improve his shape-shifting skills and add more to the list.
• Also Beast Boy can only turn into real animals (either alive or extinct). This includes alien animals he has seen or come in contact with, but if he has no knowledge of them he obviously can't turn into them. A recent development in the comics is that now he can turn into animals either much larger or smaller than their actual size, but this is a recent development that he didn't have at the Teen Titans show takes place. He can turn into the were-wolf-like creature from The Beast Within because of the accident he was caught in but due to fear of losing control of its more primal nature he keeps it solely in reserve for only the most dire threats (like in Titans Together). That said he does seem to show a preference for certain animals (with a pterodactyl being his most commonly chosen form).
• A related gripe, in "Mother Mae-eye", his suit was too tight, so he transforms into big animals, but only big animals. Why not be a snake and escape that suit?
  • Considering all the other weird things Mother Mae-Eye did, it wouldn't be surprising if the suit changed size to match Beast Boy's animal form, making it too tight regardless of the animal he was at the time.
  • Alternatively, he just panicked. They're in the middle of a heated battle, and something big and strong is needed right now, so he might not have been thinking clearly.

It's clear that the Red X suit is much more powerful than Robin's gadgets. So why doesn't Robin use the suit all the time? Even if he couldn't use the exact same gadgets, he could use their technology to enhance his original ones.

• The second Red X episode ("X") establishes that it relies on some very dangerous and unstable Applied Phlebotinum. It was useful for a quick run, but either Robin realized how dangerous it was soon afterward, or he always knew and just let his Slade obsession get the best of him when he built it. That's also why the guy who stole the suit and became the new Red X doesn't have such powers.
  • Also, wasn't that stuff illegal? Didn't Robin steal it?
    • Based on the conversation in the second Red X episode, it sounds like there were previously people selling it, but they have since stopped. He could have bought it originally. Although him stealing it would explain why nobody deals with it anymore.
• Well technically, the second Red X did have at least some of the original's powers (and indeed, his first appearance revolves around him trying to steal some of that same Phlebotinum to make the suit run). But that same episode has Cyborg (the team's resident tech-genius) freak when he finds out what Robin used to power the suit. The Xenothium fuel is both very rare and (apparently) very dangerous- more than enough reason not to use the thing on a daily basis. After it gets stolen, this becomes a moot point.
• Plus keep in mind that Robin didn't want to use the suit again, since it was a constant reminder of his failure to get close to Slade, and of him letting his obsession take over him to the point that he betrayed his friends' trust.

In some ways, the fact that every future Titan except Robin (and Starfire by virtue of not having a future counterpart) kinda got screwed over in "How Long is Forever?" bugs me, but Beast Boy seemed to really get the short end of the stick.

He's presented as a balding, chubby, apparently homeless middle-aged man. Okay, that is damn harsh! And after giving it some thought, I realized, even if he's going to go bald (which they made a pretty big deal out of, even using it as the closing punchline), that's no reason for him to not be a badass hero. Imagine BB with his head shaved rather than a Danny Devito ring of hair, in perfect shape, trained in martial arts and perhaps sporting a Buddhist monk theme to emphasize his oneness with nature. And imagine him fully mastering his abilities, so that he can change between countless forms in the blink of an eye during a fight: punching as a gorilla, dodging as a hummingbird, pouncing as a tiger and then changing back into a spinning jump-kick as a human, all within a few seconds. We see hints of that sort of combat potential in the show, but it's a shame that, when we could have seen the Titans all grown up, we instead got an aesop about how worthless they are without Starfire as the heart of the team. Cyborg and Raven got that treatment too, but they get enough crowning moments on their own that the impact's a little lessened... and the aesop didn't apply to Robin at all, who still got to be badass future hero Nightwing even while his fellow Titans were homeless, insane and rusting apart.

• In fact, Future Beast Boy referenced his attempt to be a solo hero as a failure that needed no further explanation, like the very idea of him fighting crime on his own is a joke... when, with his powers and experience, he could easily be just as much a superhero as Robin became. Perhaps the reason his failure stings the most is that there's little explanation for it. Cyborg is falling apart because Technology Marches On and Raven somehow slipped into a Heroic BSoD (I'd guess it could've been the price she paid for saving the world from Trigon in this new timeline), but the only reason Beast Boy turned out to be a mess is that, if we're to believe that episode, he just plain sucks. He can't handle life on his own, since he's always had people (his parents, Doom Patrol, Teen Titans) to support him.
  • Alternately, the Beast Boy of that future just hadn't undergone the Character Development he needed to be a successful solo hero. Beast Boy is the one character who matures and develops the most over the series, going from attention-starved and insecure Plucky Comic Relief to self-assured, genuine hero, but he needed the other Titans around him in order to reach his potential. Since the break-up of the group happened in Season Two, before BB had undergone much development, he just didn't get the support he needed in order to develop confidence, tried to go solo when he wasn't ready for it, and then gave up after having failed a few times. If Starfire's trip to the future had happened later in the show, we probably would have seen a more successful Beast Boy.
  • Likewise, Raven needs the support of her friends to keep from slipping inside her own mind, and Cyborg needs their influence to keep the man/machine thing in perspective. Even without them, Robin has the example of Batman to follow. But with them around he can perhaps be a different kind of hero: less dark and brooding, better with teamwork, just plain happier.
  • I'm the original troper, and just wanted to say that those are really good explanations, and I feel a little better about that episode now. When you put it that way, it does play to each of the Titans' weaknesses: without their friendship, Raven became completely isolated, Cyborg lost touch with his humanity, Beast Boy lost all his confidence, and Robin went back to being a jaded loner. Thanks!
    • Another possibility is that Beast Boy just needed companionship to avoid slipping into depression. He is a Sad Clown that has lost a LOT in his life, trying to make people laugh is and being the but of jokes is the only way he knows how to cling to the few friends he has. Without a team, he just can't function.
• Remember the future was altered by Starfire leaving at that precise point in their lives. Remember also that most of the team has a tendency to withdraw from others when upset and Beast Boy lacks the maturity and sensitivity to reunite them after such a devastating loss. Cyborg got depressed and fell behind on his upgrades because he didn't see the point anymore, perfectly in character. Raven withdrew, likely after they were forced to deal with Trigon and the others just let her go because their relationship had degraded to the point where they couldn't really claim a close bond anymore. Beast Boy and Robin, lacking the other three just went back to what they were doing before. However while Robin was raised to be competent and independent, Beast Boy was....not. He's hideously insecure, has very poor judgement, requires outside validation and is used to working with others. It makes perfect sense for Robin to succeed and for Beast Boy to fail and give up.

* Okay, so "Stranded" took place right after the Titans find out that Raven is supposed to bring about the end of the world. Very next episode. And yet in the next after that, Raven is...back on Earth? She was treated like a goddess by the little white aliens, and staying on their planet would mean she couldn't destroy Earth. Seriously, WTF?!

• That would only mean Trigon would destroy the little white aliens' planet instead. And part 3 of "The End" implied that Trigon would make it to Earth anyway.
  • Couple problems there, though: Raven seemed to need to be specifically in that chamber under the old library, and it's pretty obvious that's not located anywhere near that other planet. Plus, Trigon didn't really seem to have too organized an invasion. He just sent the fire-demons off into the cosmos in random directions. It would at least give the Titans plenty more time to come up with a strategy, and there wouldn't have been anything Slade or even Trigon could do about Raven not being on Earth. So...
• She can't stay on another planet forever. Plus the Titans can't be the only ones with a space shuttle, so Slade could probably take one too and find her anyway.
  • Slade can fly, with Trigon's help, and as an undead he doesn't even need to breathe. For that matter, Trigon can teleport him! Safe bet that no matter how far Raven ran, he'd have caught up to her eventually.

Why is it that Mother Mae-Eye has no problem mind-controlling Cyborg, while Brother Blood has no chance?

• Magic?
• Also the fact that she was basically drugging the team via the pies, rather than using a direct psychic assault like Blood did. The end result might be the same, but if the mechanic of how it happens is different enough, there's no reason to think Cyborg's resistance to one would mean he could also resist the other.
• And maybe the fact that she kept giving him more pies, whereas Blood just did his mind-control glare every once in a while.
• It's Cyborg. Sure he's pretty resistant to mind control, but consider how many pies he'd eat even without a good reason. He probably just ate too many to resist her.

As awesome as "The End" was all around, Raven's overpowering of Trigon seemed to come from nowhere.

Even if that was simply a raw blast of her unfettered magical power, it's hard to buy that a half-demon/god could overpower a 100% Physical God. The only other explanation I've got is that she realized she'd been suppressing Trigon's influence in her own soul all her life, and somehow turned that force of will outward to banish him from the earth, but that's just an Ass Pull on my part. Even Cyborg gave a throwaway explanation in the previous season about how he was able to beat Brother Blood with his own powers.

• I'd say that a big part of it was that Trigon was just overconfident- he wasn't expecting that Raven could even come close to matching his power, so his defenses weren't up (keep in mind that the implication is that nobody has ever managed to resist him effectively before, and this mindset becomes a lot more understandable). After she did hit him, he was in too much pain/too angry to think clearly and fight back. In any event, the fact that she's back to normal next season indicates that Raven cannot keep that level of power up for long, so if Trigon had kept his wits about him he could have just waited her out and then fried her while she was weakened.
  • An answer could be found in the white energy she used, as opposed to the normal black energy. It represented a force of pure light, something a literal devil like Trigon would never stand a chance against, especially in such great quantity.
  • Also, a common Wild Mass Guessing theory is that Trigon's powers were weakened when Slade lopped off his antlers with that ax, since many demonic entities in mythology derive power from their horns.
  • I took the white light to be a manifestation of her emotions: of her human side which Trigon lacked. This ties into Cyborg's defeat of Bro. Blood because he still possessed a human element that seems to be a supernatural factor. Raven's demonic abilities were no match for Trigon but her human half lent her strength. And on the subject of Trigon's Physical Godliness: "You assume that humans are weak. Okay, yeah, their bodies lack the physical ability of a demon. But humans possess something that demons don't."
  • It's magic; I don't have to explain it!
  • Okay. This is how this troper sees it: once Trigon had used Raven as a portal, he didn't need her any more. So, he got rid of the part of her that he had influence over her. As Slade put it: "That part of her existence is over." But young Raven represented her potential, what she could be without Trigon. She believed that she was nothing without Trigon - Trigon created her, Trigon gave her powers. Without Trigon, she's "lost". But when she fought back, she'd realized that she didn't need Trigon - she could be powerful on her own. She allowed her potential to grow. As for where these white powers came from... There, this troper is slightly stuck, and has resorted to a slightly Ass Pull-y solution that she gained them from growing up in Azarath.
• There's one more possible explanation: heterosis. Simply put, hybrid children tend to be stronger and better than their pureblood parents. Probably Trigon never had biology lessons, otherwise he wouldn't be so overconfident and arrogant.

Does the ending of the third season arc bother anyone else?

Not the Deus ex Machina (which is annoying, but I can live with it from a kids' superhero show), but the way it seems to reverse the Aesop of "Deception"? I mean, that episode essentially had the moral that sometimes ones differences come in handy (Cyborg is angsting about being half-robot, and in the end this very fact proves the only reason Blood can't control him- a nice counterpoint to other episodes that stressed the importance of his human half). This is weakened when Bumblebee shows up and can apparently resist Blood for no real reason at all, and then it turns out that Cyborg's half-mechanical mind had nothing to do with resisting Blood in the first place, because it was his spirit that was unbreakable. Now this is all well and good, except for the fact that it goes contrary to what was presented in "Deception" (and also remember that there, Blood was able to control the organic part of Cyborg's mind, convincing him that his arm was flesh-and-blood again- presumably it was the machine that rejected this information as false). It also just makes Blood a lot less scary- early on, the impression is he can mind-control anyone given enough time with them, and Cyborg is safe only because of what he is, only for it to turn out that anyone with a strong will can resist. All the core Titans have strong spirits (yes, even Beast Boy), meaning that it should be difficult or impossible for Blood to control any of them (and if Cyborg is still the only one who can resist, it's just even weirder).

• Possibly it doesn't just take a strong will, but a strong-enough will. Or maybe Blood just wasn't really as powerful as he seemed/thought.
• Even though it breaks the aesop the writers seemed to be going for, I like to think that it was Cyborg's nature that was making him so hard to control. Cyborg's Hand Wave of his Blood-like powers was that Blood was trying to hard to get into Cyborg's mind that Cyborg got into Blood's mind too (and, presumably, was turning his own mental powers against him). So when Cyborg started glowing and smirked that maybe it's not the machine, it's the man, it's because he could sense Brother Blood's deepest fear (that he really is just too weak to control Cyborg) and was taunting him with the idea that it might be true to make him doubt himself. As for Bumblebee, we could chalk it up to her mutation, powers or whatever, but as said, the idea that it's just willpower is kind of a slam against Aqualad, Speedy, Mas and Menos, and everyone else Blood ever controlled.
  • Alternately, and maybe in addition to the above, maybe Bumblebee got loose because Blood was trying to control too many people all at once. At the HIVE Academy he only briefly took control of the students, and they were villains who didn't have much of an issue with his orders anyway. The strain of constantly trying to keep the heroic Titans East from disobeying his orders was too much, and the strongest willed member, Bumblebee, kept slipping through his fingers because of it.
• The whole thing was as much a realization to Cyborg as it was to Blood. He realized it wasn't his machine side or his human side that mattered; it was just him. His spirit, his complete being. Cyborg simply refused to be broken and that's what allowed him to hack into Blood when Blood was hacking into him. As for Bumblebee, I'd be willing to believe that it's just because the girl's got a very strong will.
  • While I can agree with the troper about Bumblebee's will (she did say there wasn't a man alive who could tell her what to do) I will personally give the tropers here some credit for none of them seeing the race angle. I do not think the writers intended this at all but I find it interesting that the two people that we know can resist being controlled by Brother Blood, are the only two black characters we see on the show. Think about that. The two black characters, who, if they're like this troper, is VERY aware of THAT bit of history, will not allow themselves to become slaves.
    • With respect, you're ignoring the entire rest of history with that statement. EVERY race has been enslaved at some point or another, often by their own race (if you use 'race' as the equivalent of skin color). Such a focus on skin color I'd argue degrades the characters' achievements, making them seem like those achievements were nothing more than affirmative action on the writers' part rather than traits of the characters.

One little thing about Plasmus.

Whenever he's acting on his own, and even in his first appearance when he was working for Slade, all he ever seems to do is...want to eat toxic waste. I don't recall Plasmus ever actively trying to hurt anyone, until the Titans show up, and even then it's only them, once they attack him first. All he wants to do is eat toxic waste! What's the big deal?!

• THANK YOU! That has NEVER stopped bugging me! We see countless examples that the in-universe industries produce a lot of toxic waste that Plasmus enjoys. We also never see Plasmus willfully do ANYTHING more serious than destroying cheap, easily replaceable equipment for the sake of getting to that toxic waste. Essentially, he has the mentality of an animal. And I'm supposed to believe that NO ONE thought of just giving him a stretch of desert and diverting industrial byproducts to him? You solve your pollution crisis, AND you remove any reason for a large animal to become dangerous.
• The deal is that he's big and ugly. Perhaps the Titans object to his breaking into buildings to get his toxic waste? And IIRC, he terrorized people at a football game in "Transformation."
  • But he never actually made an attempt to hurt any of those people. He just wanted a drink from the sewer pipe.
    • Which could be termed destruction of property and general terrorizing of the populace.
    • Yeah, Plasmus isn't truly evil, but he is incredibly dangerous and destructive, like a wild animal. We've never seen him actually hurt anyone, but his rampage could easily injure any bystanders.
• In the first episode Plasmus is shown to already be in jail, so presumably he did something bad before the series started. Probably the Titans want to put him back in jail because he shouldn't have been out of it in the first place, we don't know how long his sentence was.
  • Also, there's a human being trapped inside Plasmus, and he made it clear that he doesn't want to change into Plasmus. When we first saw him, he was floating in a stasis tank with equipment and computers hooked up to his body; I'd assume that, in addition to keeping him asleep, the authorities were also trying to cure him. They're just doing so at the prison because, if he wakes up and transforms, they also need to keep him contained. In Plasmus's case, the Titans capturing him isn't like apprehending a criminal so much as it's like subduing an out-of-control patient who needs to be taken back to the hospital for treatment.
• I always contented myself with the same logic Spidey followed when he first fought Electro/Molten Man in Spectacular Spider-man. Technically, they weren't doing anything wrong. But they were (accidentally) freaking people out, and didn't look normal. So the heroes jumped to the conclusion that they're a villain, or at least a threat, and attacked. I'm betting those aren't the only times that sort of thing has happened either.
• I always assumed that because he ate toxic waste, Plasmus himself is toxic. It's not so much that Plasmus is bad, but that he's bad for the health of general populace and is too animalistic to listen to reason. Sure, the heroes get exposed without hesitation and no real consequences, but 1) they're heroes and risking their lives and lifespan is part of the job and 2) since this isn't Plasmus' first breakout, maybe there was a detox medicine or procedure already in existence?
• Plasmus just comes off as Lethally Stupid. If he was just to roam free, he would (unintentionally) hurt people. So he has to be stopped.

Was this troper the only one disappointed we didn't actually SEE Adult Raven in How long is Forever?

Already adding to the predictable, uncreative, cliche personality her future self was given, her involvement in the future was a big waste.

• How so? It was a Starfire-centric episode, not like Raven was going to be all that important to the plot. And what exactly do you mean by we didn't "see" Adult Raven? Do you mean she kept her hood up the whole time so we didn't see how her face and hair had changed? I think how she looked is kind of irrelevant, the main thing we needed to know about Future Raven was just that without her support system her mind collapsed in on itself. Part of the whole underlying theme that the Titans are stronger together than they are apart.
• I don't think it even matters? I'd say it was better not seeing her face.
• It wasn't any more of a waste than a lot of things they didn't delve into over the show's run. Yes, like many other glossed-over plot points, dwelling on Crazy Future Raven would been interesting and worthwhile. However, in terms of storytelling style, the show just didn't bend that way.

Speaking of Raven in "How Long is Forever", why hasn't the world gone to hell? Why isn't Trigon ruling the place? Surely the end of the world would have happened regardless of whether Starfire was present or not.

• Raven relied on the support of her friends to help her beat Trigon in The End. Without all of them, she still managed to do it, but she lost part of her sanity in the final battle.
• Raven's locked in a white room, wearing a white cloak, with diminishing sanity. I think the audience is meant to assume she went to extreme measures to make sure Trigon wouldn't come, ignoring the toll it would take on her.

Terra. Could that "amnesia" Terra be the TT version of Terra II from the comics

?It's the same Terra from season ,

Am I the only one bothered by Aqualad's little story in his first episode? He says he and Trident are from Atlantis. If that's true, what the hell are they doing on the West Coast?

• I'd always just assumed that Trident had fled Atlantis at some point previous and set up shop near Jump City's coastline; Aqualad simply followed him to bring him to justice.
  • Sure, sure, but to get to the Pacific Ocean, they would've had to travel hundreds of miles either way; it seriously took him that long to catch him? And why would Trident set up his cloning nest on the other side of the continent?
    • Probably just to get as far away from Atlantis as possible. The harder it is for him to get from Atlantis to where he is now, the harder it is for them to figure out where he went and get there in time to stop him.

General Immortus.

He's introduced with great fanfare along with Madame Rouge (who gets a further role in that episode, is main villain in two more episodes, and has a climactic fight with Robin in Calling All Titans) and the reintroduction of Brain (the Big Bad) and Mallah (The Dragon). He has a very cool concept, is shown in Homecoming II to pretty much command the Brotherhood's army of Mooks and Mecha-Mooks- and then nothing. He doesn't even get any lines in subsequent appearances. Now I get that having two physically frail evil geniuses in one team is kind of redundant, but why introduce such a potentially awesome character and then do nothing with him? Of course, I've heard a rumor that Season Five was originally supposed to be twice as long, which might explain it- his episodes simply ended up on the cutting room floor. Still annoying, though.

• I think Immortus suffered from a lack of, to put it bluntly, flashiness with his advantage. The writers would've had to write stories revolving around military strategies and gambits to show off his expertise, and they might have figured it wouldn't go over as well with the audience compared to more the typical villains in the lineup. But yeah, at least one Immortus-themed episode, focusing on the general getting into a Gambit Pileup with the Titans over the course of an episode, really could have been awesome.
  • I've heard that season five was originally going to be longer. Immortus probably had a few episodes that didn't make the cut.

When the Titans are defeated in "Aftershock", how did they end up in the underground hole? Terra got stuck with a huge Idiot Ball if she did that consciously.

• This was unfortunately never explained and the subject of much Fix Fic. Terra probably didn't do it consciously though, if her reaction in the second part is any indicator.
• A little unconscious self-sabotage wouldn't be all that out of character, considering Terra's fragile-at-best mental state. It does, however, reflect pretty badly on Slade, who was watching over her shoulder the whole time and is generally portrayed as smart enough to know better (unless, of course, he still wanted the Titans alive for reasons he never shared with Terra or the viewer...).
• Probably because they're the main characters and are therefore immortal as far as the plot is concerned.
• Odds are Terra, who grew close to the Titans for some time and with the flashbacks of the following episode, believed that they would be able to stop her and Slade.

The Brain's performance in the final battle of "Titans Together" bugs me.

We're repeatedly told that he's a superhuman genius, repeatedly shown a competent Chessmaster, but suddenly when the chips are down he's so totally confident in his own victory that he doesn't even try to coordinate his minions and just lets the Titans mow over them? I get that his ego is his biggest weakness, but even so, for someone who's supposed to be "intellect personified" that's just pathetically sloppy. What gives, Brain?

• He's a disembodied brain. Regardless of whether or not he's objectively smart, one can't deny that his very physical state makes him "intellect personified."
  • Well, how was he supposed to know his army of super villains would fall prey to Conservation of Ninjutsu and get curb stomped? Ahem. That aside, I don't think his last-ditch plan to destroy everyone was too bad.
  • I agree about the plan, but a Chessmaster that good shouldn't have to skip straight to his nuke booby-trap when things go south; mostly, it just irritates me because the build-up during "Calling All Titans and the first half of Titans Together'' is really good, but the fight itself is rather anticlimactic, with the heroes not really feeling like they have to work for their victory after Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire show up with reinforcements.
  • It's most likely that Brain was a Smug Snake when he was a human and the arrogance is something that still remains in his brain?
  • Might also be the fact that most of the Brotherhood at this point are relative newbies to the organization motivated more by a desire to get revenge on the Titans than by loyalty to the Brain. As such, most of the troops would likely just use whatever tactic they wanted instead of taking direct orders. It is possible that Brain just realized any chance of real coordination was likely hopeless.

This happens in a lot of western Kid Hero medias but..How exactly is it that they don't go to school or have any guardians? They're still underaged. Just because they're super-heroes they can drop out of school, or never go, and live on their own?

• From a Doylist perspective, it's a creative decision the writers made to focus exclusively on their superhero roles with no mention of their civilian lives: it's also why they sleep in their uniforms and never go by any names apart from their superhero aliases. Going Watsonian, though, Robin and Cyborg may have earned their diplomas early: Robin from studying like crazy under Bruce Wayne and Alfred, Cyborg by uploading the relevant data into his brain. Starfire and Raven are basically cosmic tourists hailing from separate alien cultures: they're both likely finished with their own version of secondary education, and even trying to enroll them in an American high-school would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Beast Boy's the odd one out, since he seems to be (mostly) human and immature enough to still belong in high school, but perhaps Mento (who's nothing if not intellectually strict) had him finish his equivalent degree way back when he was with the Doom Patrol.
  • As for custody, I'd say Bruce filed all the paperwork Robin needs, Cyborg probably had himself legally emancipated, Starfire and Raven are off in legal limbo anyway (the military might have questions, but Robin, Batman and the Justice League could probably satisfy them), and Beast Boy... is the odd one out again. Mento might still be his legal guardian, at least on paper.
• If you were superintendent for a school district, responsible for thousands of students daily, would you want superheroes attending your school? Answer: No, you wouldn't.
• I think part of it is The City realizing that nobody else can protect the city from super villains, so they tolerate their truancy and independence (and probably help fund their operation).

"Haunted". I mean... who activated that mask if Slade was dead at the time?

They never even reference this again, so you're left hanging. Even Raven, of all people, was a bit spooked when Cyborg tells them that whoever triggered that mask was outside the Tower. And this wasn't an episode you'd forget so easily, considering that this was by far one of the creepiest ones out there.

• It's purposely left open-ended like that so as to be creepy.
  • My guess is that it was either remote activated or Wintergreen (butler guy from Divide and Conquer) did it.
    • It's possible Slade himself did it- if he'd already done his Deal with the Devil with Trigon, but wasn't yet ready to be sent back to the mortal world because the time of the prophecy wasn't at hand yet, he may just have had the opportunity to play around a bit. The glowing red light in the eye-hole of the mask seems to imply there's something out of the ordinary going on there.
• come on, it was so obviously Scarecrow
• Even when I still thought Slade was probably alive (until he was confirmed to have been Dead for Real by his resurrection), some sort of context-sensitive Dead Man's Switch seemed far more likely than a haunting.
• This troper read a very good fanfic where this was the main point of the story, and it turned out to be a huge Batman Gambit set up by Slade before he'd died, to try and press Robin into becoming his apprentice again.
• Word of God said at one point that it WAS Slade who activated it from the underworld, not directly outside the tower like some seem to think. Hence why the mask's eye glowed red like Trigon's eyes. Honestly, I still don't know why this is so hard to figure out. Why would any other villain activate Slade's mask?
  • No Word of God never said that. Don't pull things out of your ass.
  • What is "activated" suppossed to mean? Robin exposed himself to the dust, a chemical agent, in the mask all on his own. There was no signal to BE activatted.

What happened to Jinx, Gizmo, and Mammoth during the Brother Blood arc? They escape with him in "Deception", apparently still under his mind-control, but are nowhere to be found in "Wavelength" or "Titans East"? None of them seem like they could escape on their own, or would particularly want to, so why did he stop using them? At that point Villain Decay hadn't set in for him or them, so why would Blood get rid of a badass when given proper direction Quirky Miniboss Squad?

• Pure speculation, but I imagine that after one too many failures, he decided he would be better off doing his plan all on his own, and told the remaining students he had left to get lost. Alternatively, they left on their own and he didn't bother to chase after them because he was too busy lusting after Cyborg.

In "Go!", how is it that 5 teenagers able to beat the lizard aliens, but a planet of Tamaraneans (assuming each of them had similar powers as Starfire) couldn't?

If that was just their leader's ship, then what happened to the rest of the army? I find it implausible that Blackfire selling Starfire to the lizard aliens "saved" Tamaran, she probably set them up and tricked them like in "Betrothed".

• The ship in "Go!" was just transporting one (if important) prisoner- no need for the whole fleet for that. I would imagine that Tamaran was attacked by a whole lot more, though Blackfire being Blackfire there was probably some trickery on her part involved as well.
  • If the ship carrying their important prisoner went missing, wouldn't the rest of the army go looking for it and eventually end up at Earth?
    • My guess is that they saw Starfire as so dangerous, and Earth so remote and primitive, that they took one look at how far away the transport ship's last known coordinates were and considered the problem of what to do with her solved. Better to just leave her stranded in a faraway corner of the galaxy than to lose even more ships and soldiers trying to recapture her.

In 'Switched' why do Raven and Starfire have their own voices, despite having each others bodies?

Not just in Teen Titans either, almost all shows with body swaps have the swapped people having each others voices. It makes no sense, since the voice is controlled by the vocal cords which are part of the BODY. And don't say it's so you can tell them apart, because I've seen plenty of shows where they do the switch properly and you can tell the people apart easily.

• The meta reason is that they tried to have the voice actresses switch roles, but they did such a good job that there wasn't really any way to tell the difference, so they just swapped them back to normal. Personally, I wish they'd gone ahead and done it anyway, just as a closing credits gag if nothing else. As for the in-story reason, the Puppet King's using magic... this one of those times we really can say A Wizard Did It. Think of it this way: the Puppet King switched the boys into wooden puppets, but they kept their voices even without vocal cords. That's probably just how the spell works.
  • There is a trope, though, for this very situation. It always seems more interesting to me when the voices are reversed too, but for some reason, it's especially common in animation.
  • It's common in animation because you don't have to deal with matching a live-action person's mouth movements with the words spoken, you just animate the 'wrong' character talking along with the voice. Furthermore, it's easier to tell what's going on if you have the helpful hint of the voices being switched; otherwise you just have what seems to be Raven and Starfire just acting weirdly.
  • Personally, this troper is more bugged by the powers situation. Sure, it served to bring the two girls closer together by learning to control the others powers, but whilst Raven having to use Starfire's powers is understandable - her powers are linked to her Tamaranean biology - aren't Raven's powers a mental thing?
    • They're controlled by her emotions, but they come at least in large part from her being Trigon's daughter, which is definitely a physical thing.

How did Mad Mod become young again after the episode Revolution?

Robin broke his cane, which is how he regained his youth in that episode in the first place. Does he have more than one of those or something?

• The first episode with Mad Mod, everything was an illusion, which was why it was such a Mind Screw. The second time, it was actually magic... for some reason. Also, Revolution was one of those "lolrandom" episodes they get every season. Don't think too much into it.
  • While Mod has no powers, he does use advanced technology (not sure if he makes it himself or gets it from somewhere else). The age-draining cane could easily be a piece of technology he acquired between appearances, and it isn't out of the realm of possibility something like that could exist in the Titans 'verse. A lot of the rest of the episode, though, doesn't make much sense, since as has been mentioned, Mod's a Master of Illusion, not a Reality Warper. It's fun- but don't try to figure it out.

Comparatively minor to the other issues brought up here, but is Raven's favorite color blue or pink (see "Nevermore")?

Easy. Pink is the favorite color of Raven's pink emoticlone, but blue is her dominant personality's favorite color.

How old is Beast Boy?

People usually say he's twelve - fourteen, but I always thought he was sixteen like his comic version.

• As far as I'm aware, none of the team's ages were ever outright stated (though it seems fairly obvious to me that Cyborg is the oldest and Beast Boy is the youngest). Fourteen for him (and Terra) is the age I usually seen tossed around, though.
  • Beast Boy is definitely not 16 on the show
    • Why not? He looks old enough.
    • No he doesn't.
• Cartoon Beast Boy is certainly at the absolutely very oldest 15 by the end of the series, as his voice still hasn't broken. I've actually read an anecdote that Greg Cipes had his voice deepen after recording the first few episodes and was forced to change how he acted the character in order to keep Beast Boy convincingly young-sounding.

Since Starfire kissed a boy in The Movie to learn Japanese, which has gendered pronouns, would it cause to talk like a Bokukko?

• The Japanese boy would still KNOW the opposite gender pronouns, even if he doesn't USE them. Also, Starfire doesn't speak English normally, why would it be strange for her to speak Japanese oddly? She'd still be understandable, just sound (and look) like an outsider.

If they're the H.I.V.E. F.I.V.E., then why is there six of them? (More if you count Billy's clones.) Lampshaded by Kid Flash.

• "Because it sounds cool."
  • Alternatively... When they first created the HIVE FIVE there really were only five of them (Jinx, Gizmo, Mammoth, Private Hive, and See-more) but, over time, they changed members which resulted in there being six. By then they have already been calling themselves HIVE FIVE. The reason Kid Flash asks is to point out that there are six of them, and to further drive his point that Jinx does not belong. Once she leaves there really are only five members left. Kid Flash just had the insight to realize that, even in name, Jinx didn't belong on the team,
• I just figured it was because they're not very smart

Starfire

• Considerable Fridge Logic when it comes to Tamaranean physiology. Not only can Starfire escape Earth's gravity under her own power, she apparently never needs to breathe while in space, and can somehow also survive the fact that no air pressure in space usually equals Ludicrous Gibs, at least for humans. I used to be bugged by how Starfire can wander from planet to inhabited planet as easily as one would wander a large city, but maybe Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale.
  • First of all, the vacuum of space does not reduce humans to Ludicrous Gibs. That's a common misconception. Second, her being able to survive unprotected in space is a carry-over from the comics where she could do the same thing. Frankly her ability to survive in space is a pretty mundane power by comic book standards. Her magic language-learning-kisses are much weirder. Though her ability to fly interstellar differences under her own power is definitely a case of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale. But again, this is also normal for the superhero genre.

Weird how it hasn't been asked yet. Who is Red X? (the non-robin one)

• We don't know. Personally, I've always been of the opinion that it doesn't matter; X works as a character because he's unpredictable, he's a foil for Robin, and he's the living embodiment of one of Robin's greatest mistakes. The person behind the mask is ultimately irrelevant.
• See the Wild Mass Guessing page for a detailed breakdown.

A bit of Fridge Logic bothered me, I.E. if the Mad Mod the Titan's deal with in his debut is an illusion created by the real Mod, then How did he smack Cyborg?

• Mod may have the tech to temporarily overlay his holograms with force-fields, thereby allowing them to briefly become solid.
  • Or if that doesn't work for you, there are some types of air cannon that would feel like a hefty smack if hit by one, and Mad Mod could probably pull off that sort of timing for the sake of keeping up the illusion.

The Titans Names

• Do the Titans know each others birth names? It seems they always refer to each other by their nicknames. The gang apparently never knew Gar's name until it was mentioned, but I figured he thought it was embarrassing.
  • Let's run through the team, shall we:
    • Raven is Raven's birth name.
    • Starfire is the English translation of her Tamaranean name (since it's what she uses, I would guess Tamaraneans have a thing for Meaningful Names)
    • Beast Boy, as mentioned, is embarrassed by his real name and unlikely to share it.
    • Robin, since in this incarnation he really takes after Batman, may well think of himself as Robin, so that even if his teammates know his real name, they also know he prefers his codename.
    • Cyborg, considering his fear of losing his humanity, may have a bit of That Man Is Dead going on subconsciously, leading him to consider himself "Cyborg" rather than "Vic Stone".
    • So ultimately, regardless of who knows whose names, I think most of the team have a reason for sticking to their codename for daily use.
  • If you read the Teen Titans Go!! comics - particularly, issues #45 (Cyborg and Beast Boy's origin issue), #46 (Starfire's origin issue) and #47 (Robin's origin issue) - it's evident that they know at least about Beast Boy's, Starfire's and Robin's pasts, presumably Cyborg's. It's not a stretch that they all know each others backstories and real names, but choose not to use them.
    • If you WATCH the episode Homecoming when Elastigirl reveals Beast Boy's real name its clear the other Titans didn't know it before

• Why exactly did Terra betray everyone? I understand that she got Slade's help with her powers, but was there a reason for her giving out the info and such? Couldn't she have just gone training somewhere else instead? What did she expect to get out of all this?
  • Slade was, seemingly, the only person who ever successfully help Terra control her powers; at first, she probably just felt she owed him (and he, no doubt, would have emphasized this, in an "I'm helping you, but I have my price" way). Then, in "Betrayal", we see him play her against Beast Boy to turn her against the Titan she was closest to; after tearing them apart, making her hate everyone else probably wasn't that hard.
  • Exactly. Why did Terra betray the Titans? Because Slade. That's all you need to know.
• The Centauri police featured in "Sisters" were, being brutally honest, complete morons. They were supposed to be going after Blackfire for her widespread crimes, to the point where they're prepared to search across whole galaxies to find her. So if capturing Blackfire is that big a deal, how the hell did they get Starfire mixed up with her? OK, so the hair could be hand-waved through hair dye or whatever (and Blackfire DID don a pink wig, so...), but what about the eyes? You can't change eye color. All in all, Starfire really doesn't look enough like Blackfire to justify that sort of mix-up, especially since "Betrothed" shows that most female Tamaraneans look very similar. At first, I assumed that the Centauri Moon diamond that Starfire wore throughout the episode could be seen as proof that she's a thief, but that still doesn't explain why she was attacked by the probe before Blackfire came along and gave it to her.
  • Starfire and Blackfire are sisters, so if they were tracking Blackfire by her DNA (presumably they're using something more advanced than just appearance) it's possible that the probe confused the two and set the police on the wrong trail (especially after she starts wearing the necklace). Even if they were going on flat appearances, I'm going to have to disagree with you and say that Starfire and Blackfire are pretty much identical. If you take and compare the production cels for that episode, the only things that separate Star from Blackfire are body language and facial expression. When you take color out of the equation (maybe the police are color-blind?), it's easier to justify the mix-up.
  • Or maybe the Centauri Police just wanted the reward for her capture and went for the Tamaranean that was easier to catch.
  • My theory: they knew Blackfire was on Earth, but were only given a rough overall description of her. Earth is not exactly a popular destination for aliens, so they assumed she was the only Tamaranian there. Add to that Blackfire planting the stolen goods on Starfire and familial resemblance, and it's a natural mistake to make.
• In "Switched", it's explained that Starfire and Raven both rely on emotions to control their powers. However, the way in which they're described show up a lot of inconsistencies, both with the continuity and with the nature of emotions in general.
  • Let's start with Starfire. In order to fly, you have to think of something joyful. To use starbolts, you need "righteous fury", and for her superhuman strength, "boundless confidence". It's easy to imagine how confidence and joy could go hand-in-hand, but what about starbolts? Is it even possible to feel righteous fury and joy simultaneously? At any rate, Starfire has flown/used starbolts whilst clearly feeling other emotions as well. A very good example is "Can I keep him?" when she leaves Silky - she's clearly upset and confused, yet she's still able to fly? Now Raven's powers. It's shown that they're very volatile, and can easily go out of control. For the most part, this remains consistent (with the notable exception of "Deep Six"). However, in "Car Trouble" she tells Cyborg that she has to put part of her soul into whatever she's manipulating. But if that's the case, Starfire shouldn't have been able to use her powers at all! After all, Raven's soul wasn't inside her body, and her soul does represent her dark powers, so how could Starfire have access to them? If anything, Raven should have been able to "control" Starfire by using her soul and focusing it on her...
    • "Switched" was primarily meant to establish the personalities of Raven and Starfire and that they are foils to each other. Forcing them them to perform opposite to how they normally would forges a mutual respect between them and therefore Character Development, which was probably more important to the creators than explaining the hows and whys of flying and blowing crap up.
    • Emotions are complex, and you can certainly feel more than one at any given time. Anger and happiness, or even sadness and happiness, can be incongruent (logically) but are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In Starfire's case, at least, it just speaks towards the amazing amount of control she must have to be able to juggle her actual feelings with the emotions needed to use her powers.
    • As another thought, Raven and Starfire were born with these powers. Trying to explain how they use their powers was probably like trying to explain how to walk or blink. Starfire probably doesn't have to focus to much on feeling things. They're probably just built in mentally like raising your arm for a normal person. Raven's powers are mostly mystic in nature supplemented by her demonic heritage. I think we can safely say A Wizard Did It in her case. The "a piece of my soul," is most likely just a way for her to visualize what she's doing.
    • If I remember correctly, Starfire specifically says to fly, you have to feel "the joy of flight," not just plain joy. Even if it is just joy in general, it's entirely possible she can feel joy from the sensation of flying around at the same time as she feels righteous fury towards the person she's fighting.
    • Tamaranians are a warrior society, to them "joy" and "rightous fury" might as well be the same word, and even a human can certainly feel both rightous anger and joy at the same time, in particular if they get to beat the crap out of the source of that anger, and Ravens power might be based on manipulating her soul but the origin of those powers are her demonic ancestry, putting Starfire in her body would change the soul being manipulated but it could still be manipulated into doing the same things Raven, think about it how a Pyrokinetic manipulates fire,it doesent matter if its a different fire they can manipulate it all the same

• In "Employee of the Month", Beast Boy manages to get three different jobs with ease. But isn't he meant to be 14/15? How can someone that young find jobs so easily? Most employers want you to be at least 16 before they'll even consider you, and even then many of them tend to prefer applicants aged 18 and upwards (fewer restrictions on working hours an safety regulations = less hassle to hire). Yet Beast Boy seems to literally just walk into vacancies... But perhaps more importantly, why do the gang let him take a job in the first place? His duty is, first and foremost, protecting the city - that's the whole reason the Titans exist. Surely having a job would interfere with that duty, and thus put the city at risk?
  • His employers were aliens. All of them.
  • The team were actually the ones to suggest that Beast Boy get a job, IIRC, to get him to shut up about wanting a moped (which he shouldn't be allowed either, assuming he's 14/15). It's not like they were expecting him to take a civilian job more seriously than his duties as a hero. Besides, working in the city instead of chilling on a secluded little island would actually put him closer to the action, should anything be amiss.
• In "Quest" why does the snake have arms?
  • He doesn't. He's wearing a cloak make for humans- it has sleeves, but I don't think there's any evidence that there are actual arms in there.
  • But the sleeves were bent as though he had arms in there, and he reached over and put out the lantern with one of them.
  • The sleeves are sewn or starched into that shape, and he manipulates them by moving his body. Of course, normal snakes don't grow that big and don't talk, either, so it's possible A Wizard Did It.
  • Perhaps he was a Mexican mole lizard. They have two limbs that are positioned in roughly the right place.
• Regarding "How Long Is Forever", Starfire is launched twenty years into the future, and we see every Titan's future counterpart... except for Starfire's. On the surface, that seems obvious, because Starfire has disappeared from the present and suddenly re-appeared in the future. However, there should in fact have been Starfire's future self there as well. The only way her future wouldn't appear is if she never returned to her own time. Yet at the end of the episode she does just that, and from the team's point of view she's only gone for about three seconds. Therefore, the future that Starfire saw inherently wasn't the real future. What Starfire should have seen is totally different to what she actually saw.
  • The whole point of the episode is that the future is uncertain and changeable: Starfire only visited a potential future. That particular series of events was averted and a new potential future was created (the "real" future, as you said) when she returned to her original timeline.
  • There wasn't a future version of her because she wasn't there. She disappeared, she was taken out of the timeline, and returned to it 20 years later.
• Minor gripe, but in "Haunted", since Slade was only able to affect Robin, how was he able to cut Robin's restraints? Was he also able to affect things that Robin was physically touching or something?
  • Simple answer- he didn't. Robin, with adrenaline on his side, burst free of the restraints, but his drugged imagination produced the image of Slade having cut them.
  • This troper never thought that he'd cut them. The thing was electrified. I always thought that he'd tortured Robin, and it was the pain and desperation that gave him the adrenaline to escape his bonds.
  • I thought it was that he that Slade was about to vivisect him, and that, along with whatever was making him hallucinate, gave him the adrenaline rush he needed to break free. Also, he's strong enough to punch through rock. Why did they ever think the restraints would work?
  • Seriously, you're asking how Robin could get loose from restraints? Robin, as in the guy who learned everything he knows about combat, infiltration, and evasion from freakin' Batman? Better chance of keeping Houdini himself strapped down. Robin probably cut himself loose with some sharp tool from his gloves or utility belt while hallucinating he was fending off Slade's own cutting/shock implement, same as he beat himself to hell charging into walls and stuff.
• When does Trouble in Tokyo take place?
  • I don't think it's ever been officially stated, but either between season four and five or post-season five is what I usually see speculated.
  • I think Robin and Starfire's Relationship Upgrade means it has to take place after season 5.
• Regarding "How Long Is Forever," Jump City is supposedly supposed to take place in southern California if the movie indicated anything. If that's the case, why is it snowing when Starfire goes to the future?
  • If the future's aesthetic resembling that of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is more than a Shout-Out, then I'd say climate change via nuclear winter would do the trick.
  • If you want to go for an explanation that's a little less depressing, a villain with weather-altering powers did it, and the climate hasn't gone back to normal yet.
  • Global warming?
• In "Stranded", Starfire first shows up on the alien planet with a bow and arrows. Where did she get them and why was she using them? Even weirder, they disappear for the rest of the episode.
  • I always assumed she made it (remember, she may act like The Ditz, but she's still a Proud Warrior Race Girl and probably has training in all sorts of weapons) and was using it because her starbolts weren't working due to her emotional distress. As for why it disappeared, that always bugged me too.
  • Maybe it's my shipper side talking here but perhaps she didn't need the bow after she was reunited with Robin, knowing that in spite of the fact that they were having a tiff, he'd always protect her and keep her safe?
• In "Crash," was it ever explained how Beast Boy talked as an amoeba? It's been a while, but I don't recall an explanation.
  • No, and that's always bugged me, since he normally can't talk in animal forms (except on occasion when he's in the process of transforming). Still, "Crash" is one of the silliest and kiddy-est episodes of the series- it wasn't supposed to make a lot of sense.
• Robin's Clothing Damage in Haunted: If what he was fighting was a hallucination of Slade created by the reagent in Slade's mask, then how did his clothing get ripped. I mean, the damage to his body makes sense, as he was under great physical and psychological stress at the time, but hallucinations can't rip clothing.
  • He was getting tossed around (or rather, tossing himself around) a fair bit, particularly in Slade's old lair and the Tower basement. I'd guess that did it.
• At the end of "Betrayal," when Terra and Beast Boy talk in the house of mirrors, Terra reminds Beast Boy that he said he'd be her friend no matter what. Then he just gives her the cold shoulder? I mean, he was in the right, but that seems pretty out of character for someone like BB to just completely disregard something like that he told his would-be girlfriend in her most sensitive moment.
  • He just found out that his girlfriend was working for the Big Bad, had been all along, had been spying on him and his friends in order to produce information that would be ultimately used to try and kill them all. It's completely understandable that BB would be remarkably ticked off at that. It's also exactly the kind of reaction that would push Terra even deeper into Slade's camp, which honestly just shows the whole tragedy of the situation. And it's treated like a huge mistake in-show, Beast Boy is shown agonizing over it in Aftershock Part 1 after Terra throws it back in his face.
• Where exactly did Slade get the Ring Of Azar? The Teen Titans Wiki says Trigon gave it to him, but why would Trigon give Slade something that would protect him from getting killed by him (since I doubt Trigon ever planned to hold up Slade's deal)?
  • We don't know - Slade never shares that little bit of info. I always figured that he was genre savvy enough to know that Trigon would either cheat him out of the deal or try to grant it in a really horrible way, so he scrounged around Trigon's domain until he found an artifact that would protect him. Honestly, it's something that should probably have been elaborated on more.
    • This makes sense, as Slade remarks to Robin that one should "never make a deal with an inter-dimensional demon without a little protection." How Trigon let that slip under his nose I'll never know, but he seems kind of negligent anyway.
    • Trigon, if you hadn't noticed, is monstrously arrogant. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he knew full well that Slade had the ring, but simply didn't consider it worth paying much attention to- after all, even if Slade survives, Trigon can always stomp him later, and he's got places to be, planets to destroy, and universes to conquer. Of course, the fact that he massively underestimates both Slade and the Titans is kind of the point of the character...

• Another "Haunted" one. I'm still trying to figure out how Robin might have unwittingly, whilst believing Slade to be doing it, have tossed himself about and lifted himself up into the air with his mind.
  • We were only seeing Robin's fights with Slade from Robin's own eyes. In reality, he probably wasn't really being lifted or moved around that way at all - he was throwing himself against the walls in a way that only vaguely resembled what he thought was happening.

• And, to go with the above one - in "Haunted", what was destroying him? Was he attacking himself? Was it the reagent attacking him from the inside out? When they showed it from the other Titan's POV, he didn't seem to be attacking himself, merely jerking backwards as Slade's imaginary blows hit him.
  • He was attacking and hurting himself (maybe directly, or maybe just by collateral damage via slamming around and hitting things), but the fatal risk was a heart attack. The hallucinations were triggering so much unrelenting stress that his heart was threatening to give out.
  • I'm wondering if the dust that Robin was exposed to was magical in nature. We saw Slade dabble in magic in Season 1 when he used Thunder and Lightning to create a fire monster, and he had enough knowledge of how magic works to figure out he needed a ring of Azar to protect himself from Trigon and knew where to find a place to restore his lost flesh during Season 4.

• In "The End Part II", Trigon makes Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg fight their evil sides. But Starfire's powers are controlled by certain emotions. So how is her evil side able to feel things like righteous fury and unbridled joy?
  • Being evil doesn't bar you from having emotions. Righteous fury and unbridled joy were emotions that Starfire had such control over that she was capable of juggling them simultaneously, so who's to say that her dark side couldn't use self-righteousness and joy to her own advantage as well?
  • I wouldn't rule out that starbolts just require fury, and Star uses "righteous" fury specifically because well, she's one of the good guys. But at the end of the day, none of the emotions she needs are hero-specific (Blackfire gets by just fine, after all), and even if they were, creating a Starfire-clone powered by negative emotion would be well within Trigon's capabilities.

• In some episodes, Cyborg in particular is shown throwing cars or even buildings at villains. Does he not stop to consider that innocent people might be inside them?
  • By the time the Teen Titans got there, the villains usually been rampaging for some time, and people would have quickly noticed and fled. Plus, I'm sure part of their routine in throwing objects is making sure no one's inside them.
    • They donate quite liberally to the DA office.

• Giant ass tower. Five people. What do they need all that room for?
  • Training rooms, trophy room, storage, garage for team vehicles, and Cyborg's workshop are all things we explicitly see in the show. I wouldn't rule out holding cells for bad guys the Titans have caught but the police lack the facilities to hold, either. But it's probably as big as it is for the same reason the Bat-Signal is projected into the clouds- to remind the bad guys that they're there.
  • Also, Jump City wants the Teen Titans to stay in their city and not decide that another city looks more attractive. Consider it a fringe benefit.
  • Luxurious accommodations as compensation for risking their lives on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis would be my guess.
  • More importantly, why do they only have one bathroom? How often is someone stuck waiting for the bathroom, but they can't use it because someone else is using the elevator?

• If Beast boy can turn into alien animals, and has human (albeit his natural green human form) why doesn't he turn into a sentient alien, say Tamaranian or even more impressively a Kryptonian. Is there a rule in his powers he can't turn into sentient species? I know he probably has not met Superman and Supergirl (if they exist in this universe) but at the very least he met many Tamaranians, that would be a very useful transformation, and Starfire could help teach him the ropes.
  • He has no trouble thinking even when morphed into a species that doesn't have room for his brain. Perhaps it's like Animorphs, and his animal forms have minds of their own. Turning into a sentient species would mean that either he can never turn back, or he has to commit murder.
  • many alternate versions of beastboys in different continuetys gain the ability to morph into various things beyond regular animals, they can become chimeras of other animals, or mythical creatures, or even multiple animals at once(such as a full pack of wolves) more then likely the limitations on his powers are entirely a subconcious mental block, he cant turn into sentient species because he doesent consider them beasts, or possibly out of fear if he turned into something with equal, or greater, intellegence then him then the new form might be in control rather then him controlling it, its also possible he did try at one point, but because visibly both look human and he wouldent be able to use there powers(for kryptonian not having spent enough time in the form to absorb enough solar energy, for tamaranians not understaning the emotions needed) he thought he failed and just concluded it was impossible

• Beast Boy and Tofu...hasn't he heard of falafel or hummus? At least those two had enough flavor that even Cyborg would like.
  • My guess is that tofu would be more widely recognized by the show's intended demographic. Beast Boy's vegetarianism is also only relevant when it's used to grate Cyborg and Raven.

• How come throughout most the show Starfire doesn't have a navel despite revealing her stomach all the time, but there are rare instances where she is shown with a navel? Was it slip ups or mistakes by the staff? Were they easter-eggs the staff put in on purpose that you had to pay close attention to?
  • Well, she is an alien, it's possible she might not have one.
    • Alternately, it could just not be in the same place, so it's covered by her clothes.
  • Terra and Bumblebee don't have them either. It's just a quirk of the art style, albeit a weird one.

How did the Teen Titans NOT know about Raven's past by the time season 4 came around....?

Looking back on earlier episodes she clearly tells them several things that are later treated as big revelations, she never explicitly states that Trigon is her father, but it should have been obvious by that point.

• In the first Raven-centric episode "Nevermore" Beast boy and Cyborg go into her head and see Raven's mental manifestation of her father, Trigon, inside her mind. Raven even tells them "Let's just say, I have issues with my father" to explain the giant demon in her mind. Shouldn't that have been a BIG HINT?
  • Pretty much everything else they encounter in Raven's mind is dressed up in metaphor or symbolism. Why would they assume that the father Raven "has issues with" isn't just some brutal, abusive creep whom she merely pictures as demonic?
• Also in the next episode "Switched" Raven and Starfire agree that they have to know more about each other, Raven begins to explain with "I was born in a place called Azarath...." then we cut to them knowing how to use each others powers. Did Raven just tell Starfire about her past? How come this was never brought up again? Didn't Starfire think to inform her team if Raven was potentially dangerous (being half-demon and all)? Yet by season 4 none of them have even bothered to guess at what she was? None of them have figured it out by then? These episodes were all the way back in season 1 and after all that time.... It just bothered me thats all...
  • All Cyborg and Beast Boy know is that Raven's father is a giant red demon (and for all they know, that's not what he really looks like and is just how her mindscape portrays him). Somehow I doubt either of them is well-versed enough in demonology to recognize Trigon on sight. As for Starfire, we never see what exactly Raven told her, and somehow I tend to think Star got the highly edited version that explained how Raven's powers worked without going into the whole apocalypse thing (Raven probably just told Starfire her father was someone very bad who had powerful dark magic and left it at that). Alternately, Raven swore Star to secrecy regarding the more sinister things.
• While we're talking about Raven and how thick the other Titans were when it came to her past, uh... the ending of Birthmark anyone? None of the other Titans reacted as if Slade had done anything worse than fight her, weren't any of them worried or weirded out by the fact that all her clothes had been ripped off and her hair was somehow almost a foot longer than normal...? They just go back to the tower and throw a party like they didn't notice anything at all suspicious about Raven's ability to stop time or ANYTHING! It's pretty clear that the vision Slade forced on her was fairly traumatic, but none of them make a big deal out of it aside from Robin briefly wondering why Slade was after Raven in "The Prophecy".
  • As far as we know, only Robin noticed/was told about Raven's time-freezing. Remember, there was much chaos when the spell activated; hard for the other Titans to get a bead on anything with time passing as normal for them. As for her state of dress and hair length, that might be another tidbit exclusive to Robin. He's stated as knowing her better than anyone else, so he may've taken her back to Titans Tower before the others got back. But let's say that when Robin brought her home, the others saw her with long hair and her uniform tattered into a fringe bikini. She likely didn't divulge details, so they'd just assume she was in an intense fight (Terra's suit got mangled when she turned on Slade, and Robin got messed up fighting his own mind) and let the mystery of the hair alone. Furthermore, they all know how Raven prefers to keep things to herself. Her friends have her back when she's ready, but she's never been the most open person; it's largely a matter of trust (yes, that trust is questionable given how S4 plays out, but they understand she was trying to protect them). As for the party...it's (the day after) her birthday, they care about her and they want to cheer her up. Comforting her seemed better than grilling her for answers about her hair, and out of all the Titans, Cy BB and Star are the most likely to lighten the mood rather than focus on doom-and-gloom.
  • Having her hair magically double in length would hardly be the worst side effect of Raven's magic or her assorted mystical bric-a-brac having gotten botched up on this show. The others have surely learned that pressing for details when freaky but trivial shit happens around her only earns them a snarky comeback and/or some arcane gobbledygook they can't even translate, let alone follow.

How did the Titans survive terra's attacks in Aftershock? Robin was crushed, and raven almost drowned. Yet when we see them again they don't have a scratch on them?

• Well, Raven, being half-demon, could well be capable of surviving things that would kill a 100% human. Generally, though, I assume more than a little unconscious self-sabotage on Terra's part. It'd hardly be out of character, after all.
  • On the other cases... Starfire fell to her doom, but we never see her hit anything. She could have flown just before going-SPLAT Beast Boy and Cyborg were thrown into a chasm of some sort, We don't know what was at the bottom, they could have survived that. In fact, the only person that I can actually question as to how they survived is Robin...
  • Robin probably had something up his sleeve, heck, in an interview on one of the DVDs one of the writers specifically described Robin's character as "He's the kind of kid who will jump off a building and figure out how to survive on his way down."
  • Notably, Robin has jumped off buildings and landed unharmed. I'm pretty sure all the Titans can survive falls at terminal velocity.
• The bigger question is how Terra could be sure she killed them all, but not kill any of them. Maybe I'm reading too much Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but I expect the characters' beliefs to be fairly well-calibrated. If they're 99% sure of something, they might not be right 99% of the time. They are human, after all. But they should be right at least 90% of the time. Instead, it looks like Terra was right about 9% of the time. (Yes, I got 9% from being right zero times out of five. I was using the Jeffreys prior.)
• Because Terra isn't good at making choices or thinking things through. It's her Fatal Flaw that she can't take responsibility for her mistakes, up unto the very end. She tries to bury Cyborg and Beast Boy alive, forgetting that Beast Boy can turn into any animal that digs, which means he could have easily tunneled himself and Cyborg out. Raven can't die yet because Trigon needs her alive for his prophecy. Robin probably saved Starfire after she fell into the ocean, and she's shown to be Made of Iron, so the only one unaccounted for is Robin, who probably showed up at the fight with insurance.
• Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Raven the first to be beaten by Terra? And she's clearly shown regaining her emotional control right before she gets sucked under the mud. Raven is capable of using her powers to phase through objects. She escaped and decided to lay low and rescued the others as Terra defeated them and gathered them out of sight. I'm pretty sure she's even shown snatching Robin.

Why do we care who Slade is? Or Red X, for that matter?

I mean, it's not like this is Spider-Man, where we've got a large enough civilian cast for a shocking reveal. In fact, no one has civilian identities on this show. We've got two plot arcs rotating around secret identities on a show where no one has secret identities. There's literally no potential for a satisfying resolution here.

• Slade is, well Slade, that's his name. Red X was made-up for the show and I don't think anyone really cares about who he is. The fact that we don't know who Red X is even referenced jokingly during one of the Teen Titans Go! shorts where they take off his mask multiple times to reveal lots of different characters.
• The purpose of Robin becoming obsessed with finding and unmasking Slade is to show how dangerously obsessed he's becoming with Slade in general, not to create any kind of mystery for the audience- as mentioned above, anyone who was familiar with the original comics or did a bit of research would know exactly who he was. Note that the "who is Slade" plot thread gets dropped after "Apprentice"- in other words, the same time that Robin realizes that his fixation on Slade was a dangerous mistake. Red X's identity was never really important at all, I feel- the suit is important because it represents one of Robin's mistakes come back to haunt him; the person inside the suit is irrelevant. In my head canon, X was a nobody street tough before he either managed to break into the Tower himself (probably during "Aftershock", when the whole city was falling apart) and steal the suit, or somebody else stole the suit and sold it on the black market.
  • Did they specify that the suit was in the tower? I suspected that it was somewhere where the unstable power source wouldn't be such a huge risk, at the cost of lowering security.

Why can't Beast Boy afford a moped?

• Cyborg's maintenance costs must be through the roof. The Cool Car is probably at least comparable. They not only have their own tower, but they paid extra to give it the structural support necessary to have it be top-heavy, just to go with their T theme. A moped is pocket change. Why not just give Beast Boy one?
  • Robin, who is presumably the team's financial guy, lays it out: "Beast Boy, you don't need a moped. You can fly."
  • But his arms get tired.
  • Rule of Funny?
• The simple answer: Beast Boy doesn't want to use the Titans' funds for his moped. He wants to earn it.

What happened to the rest of the Beast Boy culture?

• Beast boy reproduced enough while he was a single-celled organism that the culture was easily seen on the macro scale. One of the cells turned back into Beast Boy. What happened to the rest?
  • Cyborg sneezed out most of BB if I remember correctly, I assume the microbes that were left inside him quickly deteriorated/disappeared once Beast Boy was back to normal or were eventually destroyed by Cyborg's immune system.

Why didn't Raven know Trigon could be defeated?

• Unless I got the order of the episodes wrong, she had met a time traveler from a hundred years in the future, and Starfire went twenty years in the future and came back. If Trigon was defeated in a timeline in which Starfire went missing and the Titans broke up, why would he be undefeatable in this timeline?
  • Raven didn't know the details of how Trigon would eventually get out until her birthday in S4, She knew something bad would happen, she knew Trigon would get to Earth through her and that her emotions led to evil. She didn't know how soon it would happen, even after Trigon and Slade started haunting her. Plus alternate timelines aren't set in stone, Starfire's adventure was specifically about how she changed what was supposedly unchangeable.
    • She knew that in the original timeline, the world was okay for a hundred years. Since Raven isn't human, I'll ignore the fact that she shouldn't live that long. That's still a huge change in how fast Trigon arrived. You'd think that would be enough for Raven to at least consider that Trigon was beatable. Also, given how much the Future Titans knew she worried about that, you'd think they'd have told Starfire to tell her they'd defeat Trigon. And maybe give some pointers on how to do it. And maybe a few later villains while they're at it.
  • The future isn't necessarily set, as Starfire's experiences in her own time-travel story established. For all Raven knew, those possible futures might be ones in which Raven, herself, didn't survive to reach that fatal birthday. Starfire may not have had the heart to tell her that she'd seen future-Raven as a solipsistic basket case.

Is the design of the creature in "Things Change" significant?

The completely unnamed, unexplained creature has the exact same design as the Highbreed — not similar, but exactly the same... except that it has the powers of an Osmosian... Had the two shows aired closer together, I might think this was a clever Shout-Out to a future show of the network's, but over two years apart? Was it an Easter egg designed to make Alien Force viewers go "Hey..." in retrospect, were the Highbreed a (very odd type of) Shout-Out to Teen Titans, or did the animators run out of designs?

• This is a confusing entry because the creature and the highbreed only barely resemble one another.

Why does Slade's demeanor change when he is resurrected by Trigon?

When Slade comes back from the dead in season four, he seems to have become much snarkier than before. Although he certainly indulged in a dark sense of humor before, he spends most of the fight verbally taunting the Titans, egging them on, compared to before where he would usually only speak during a fight to make a point or try to break his target down. Was he just high off his new power and resurrection?

• IIRC, the official explanation basically boils down to "Slade has no particular attachment to Trigon's plans (after all, he doesn't actually want the world to end, he just wants his mortal life back and Trigon can give it to him) and was basically invincible, so he wasn't taking it very seriously."

Cyborg leaving the Team in season 3

Is it me or there's a bit of Designated Villain involved? Cyborg deciding to leave the Team to become the leader of the Titans East is treated as a selfish decision and an act of betrayal by the rest of the Titans (We're supposed to side with them) yet earlier, in the same season, when Starfire gleefully decided to return to her home planet to marry a complete stranger, everyone' was supportive (except Robin being jealous).

• It could be that since Starfire was her planet's princess, she was duty bound to go and didn't have much of a choice in the matter, whereas Cyborg was leaving of his own free volition.
  • Except that the Titans were supportive of her decision to leave the team before she told them that she was the princess.
    • While they didn't know she was the princess, she still made it clear that this was an arranged marriage, thus she didn't have much of a choice in the matter, Even if they gave her their support, they still didn't seem particularly happy about it and would have preferred if she didn't leave at all. As for Cyborg, a good chunk of why Robin was mad at him was because he seemingly left the team when they were in a time of need, apprehending criminals. Not to mention that Robin was the only one really angry at Cyborg; the rest were merely disheartened by his departure. To add to that, by leaving to take charge of "his own team", Cyborg appeared to the other Titans to be repudiating their friendship so he could have the glory of being leader, since they don't know the whole story about why he decided to stay.
  • The Fridge Horror pages posits that it might be a sore spot for Robin due to its similarities to his own implied falling out with Batman.

Why is Starfire jealous?

Date With Destiny is a (personally) very annoying episode to watch because of the A plot. Why on Earth is Starfire jealous of Robin going to prom with Kitten even though he's made it very clear that he doesn't like her and he doesn't want to be there?

• While they may be superheroes, they're still teenagers and thus prone to irrational jealously.
  • Also, the jealousy must have been added for humor.

Why did Starfire ignore Beastboy throughout the episode "Forces of Nature"

I can understand Starfire's anger at Beast Boy's prank, but what Beast Boy did to Starfire was a complete ACCIDENT. He was targeting Cyborg and he was completely shocked when he found out that it was Starfire walking in the hallway.

• Beast Boy did not completely express that it was an accident, in addition, he never gave Starfire a real apology until later on in the episode.

About the "The End" finale...

WHERE THE HELL WERE THE JUSTICE LEAGUE WHEN TRIGON NEARLY DESTROYED THE PLANET?!?! Superman alone should be enough for Trigon!

• Trigon's spell is instantaneous, after it activated only the Titans and Slade survived. As for Superman, we don't know what his power level is like in this continuity so we can't really say one way or the other if he could beat Trigon.
• Trigon's usually depicted as a universe-buster in the comics, requiring acts of God or Plot to bring him down. Superman's powers vary between writers and arcs, but it'd probably be a tall order to ask him to solo a god powered by one of the three things he's specifically vulnerable to.

Why did Robin hold back on Terra.

In "Aftershock" during their one on one, why did Robin go down so easy? I have no doubt that Terra could've beaten him, but Robin spent the better part of their fight talking to her. To Robin's knowledge Terra had just killed all his friends, her final chance should've been long gone. Robin should've wanted nothing more than to bring her down.

• It's implied that Robin saved Starfire before going after Terra, so he knew that at least one of his friends was alive. He was also showing mercy to her because he knew what it was like to be under Slade's hold, and was offering her one last chance at redemption. Given he survived her attempt to murder him, Robin probably went with some insurance — say a demon girl in blue with healing powers, or the Titan that can shapeshift into digging animals.
• He promised Beast Boy that he'd give Terra one last chance, and that's what he was doing.

Why didn't Slade let the Titans die when he had the chance?

In The Apprentice Part 2, when the Titans arrived at Slade's hideout to rescue Robin, Slade told Robin to attack the Titans, and when he refused, Slade activated the probes again. Robin responded by getting the probes inside himself as well. As Robin stated: "If I lose my friends, you lose your apprentice, and I know how you hate to lose!" At this point, there were two options: Let the probes kill all the Titans, including Robin. Or stop the controller and remove his only hold over Robin. Either way, he no longer has Robin as an apprentice, so why did Slade choose the latter option? Had he opted for the former, he still would've ultimately won. So why didn't Slade do it?

• True, he would have lost an apprentice, but he still could have searched for a new one like Terra. And with the Teen Titans gone, there would've been nothing stopping him from taking over the city. And if Terra never met the Titans, she would have had no friendship bonds with them, and no reason to turn on Slade.
  • Robin's gambit revolves around believing that Slade would consider being forced to kill Robin as a greater concession of defeat than letting them go. That is, Robin put Slade in a lose-lose situation and made him pick which defeat was less humiliating for him. Luckily enough for the team, Slade chose to spare them.

In Fractured, why were only Beast Boy and Starfire affected by reality breaking?

• Random chance, nothing makes sense when reality is broken. It is worth noting however that the ways in which they were affected are meant to poke fun at their flaws, for example Beast Boy loses his mouth because he talks too much and doesn’t always think twice before saying something. As for Starfire, her head grows wings and pops loose from her body because she’s an airhead, and in this case quite literally has her head in the clouds. This is why her head doesn’t seem to care all that much when it flies away, meanwhile her body is desperately jumping up and down trying to get her head back: it’s like she knows she’s doing it again and wants to “get back to reality” by literally putting her head back on her shoulders. This even extends to Raven, who gets a silly Marge Simpson hairdo to point out that Raven is too serious and should lighten up a little bit. As for why Cyborg and Robin weren’t affected, it could possibly be because they’re the leaders of the Titans, and in some ways more level-headed as a result.

Why does Cyborg bother with weight training?

• In Only Human, Cyborg believes his physical limits are tied to his mechanical body. So why does he train with weights? His cybernetic limbs can't rebuild themselves like organic ones can, and without that feature he's just putting unnecessary wear on his body.
  • A, just because he has cybernetic limbs doesn't mean that he ignores exercise for his human ones. Oracle mentions that she had to train for a year after the Joker shot her to keep her muscles from atrophying, and she was paralyzed from the waist down.
  • B, Cyborg makes it clear he misses his old life before the accident that turned him into "Robotman 2.0" as an excited Beast Boy put it. Doing weights allows him to regain some semblance of routine. We could argue that Starfire doesn't need to train because her strength comes from feeling confidence, but she still exercises with the team.

Raven acting as Trigon's Portal

• Ok, one of your team-mates is a key to gate of hell dimension prison. Her own father is inter-dimensional space demon whose release from aforementioned prison would cause the End of the World as We Know It on universe scale. You have a few months to prepare. The whole team comes with a perfectly safe room, in which Father cannot get. You are well aware that the demon has an army of lesser demons on his disposal. The team is consisting of former member of Doom patrol and a Flying Brick princess of the whole planet of flying bricks. What do you do? If your answer is: face the army of demons alone, then congratulations, because you are a Teen Titan.
  • Counterpoint: Raven is a one-woman Dysfunction Junction. The room is theoretically perfectly safe.
    • Counter-counterpoint: That's missing the original point. The only reason why Raven got out of the room was because she was worried about her friends' safety. And the only reason why she was worried is because they were four super-powered teens fighting against lava monsters/demons outnumbering them hundred to one lead by undead villain mastermind. Four heroes vs 1000+ villains, when there was nothing preventing said heroes from simply telling "Hey, Starfire? Your dad is a king of the whole warrior planet. Can you ask him to send a couple hundred of his soldiers (all of which have the same powers as you do, only mature ones by the way.) to help us keep the line until bad omens pass?"
      
      The only reason why Raven could open the portal was because stars aligned, the only reason why she did it is because she was worried for her friends' safety. Now, imagine fifty adult, Tamaranean soldiers, all of them having same or stronger powers as teen Starfire, kicking demonic arses and taking names until planetary alignment passes. Hell, you could leave Beast Boy in the tower, acting like a radio commentator to Raven and telling her how the battle in the outside world is going, since he was pretty useless in that fight anyway.Heck, why stop at fifty? They have the whole Tamaran of adult Starfires to choose from. You'd think that preventing God of Evil from getting out of his prison and transforming the whole planet into giant lake of fire, every single sentient being into stone statue and threatening the whole galaxy would be higher on the Titans' to do list... I mean, there's trying to be independent from your adult superhero mentor and there's just being over your head in trouble and being too stupid to ask for help.
    • There's one problem with asking the Tamarians for help: they're on other planet entirely. Even if they could have contacted them directly from Earth, it's still a long way to travel between both planets, despite most of the travel time being off-screen. It's more likely that not that the Teen Titans minus Raven were all that stood in the way... and despite their skills, they would've been overwhelmed eventually, and the tower would have been destroyed (and by doing so, indirectly destroying the room and breaking the protective spells). So really, Raven simply gave into the inevitable, and prevented her friends from being hurt before it was too late.
    • Why didn't the titans just take raven off-world?
    • And on a side-note, the room was claimed to be safe. We never got to see if it truly was... it could've just as easily not been safe.
• Not to mention that end of the world would destroy both heroes and villains alike, so there is absolutely no way for there ever to be better Enemy Mine situation. Is there actually a trope for not bothering your much more powerful ally when the whole world is at stake?
  • Which is exactly what happens (Enemy Mine that is) when Slade, the one responsible adult not turned into stone, switches sides and helps Titans.
• Trigon's entire plan for resurrection is completely dependent on Raven not dying. Had she, there was no back-up plan, and he would be permanently stuck under the Earth.
  • Raven's destiny was to become the portal for Trigon. He either looked into the future and saw that, or maybe even set that part of the future himself- he didn't need to worry about her dying before doing something she was fated to do. Really, he should have paid more attention to what happened to her after she became the potal...
  • However, Trigon is, as far as we know a immortal demon. If he could create Raven to be a portal,(as far as I'm aware, it's never explained how he managed to create Raven, especially if he can't even enter the TT dimension without someone like her) presumably he could do so as many times as it requires for it to stick. In fact, why Trigon even bothers to use an obviously heroic and not willing teenager as this portal instead of starting over until he gets a willing spawn is a bigger question.
    • One thing I, and after bringing it up and being told that it was obvious by others, noticed was that, surprisingly, Trigon actually did care about his daughter. Hell, judging by the fact Arella survived whatever he did to Azarath according to the tie in comics, he probably cared about her in some fashion as well, but then, in the comics, they did actually get married... And I don't think they ever actually got divorced, Arella just ran away screaming when she found out which demon specifically she was married to. Trigon seems to just be the Demon version of the bumbling dad who has no idea what the hell he's doing with his kid. Hell, he's a Reality Warper and demonstrated that he could pierce the defensive spell Raven put on her friends effortlessly, so the only possible reason for them not being turned to stone is him just not turning them to stone. Also note, it was pretty clear Raven was supposed to die making the portal, Trigon essentially admitted that he had saved her. Also note Trigon's method, and compare to what Raven wanted specifically, she wanted her friends not hurt (they weren't, and Trigon could have easily done so in countless ways), she didn't want anyone to die or get hurt, (Trigon turning everyone to stone neatly accomplished both, as statues don't feel pain.) and she probably wanted to live, which she did, because Trigon made it so.
      
      Of course, this might just be Tiny Titans Trigon coloring my perceptions...
  • A couple issues with that theory, though: First, when he attacks Raven in "Birthmark", a super-powered Slade mentions flesh becoming stone like it was part of the prophecy. Secondly, Trigon told her a couple times that the only reason she exists is to release him. She pleaded with him like an emotionally fatigued daughter would her stern father, and he basically said, "too bad, so sad". Third, allowing the Titans to live was more an agreement with Slade (when they were trying to protect her), and that was pretty much to move things along. Remember, Raven had accepted her role as inevitable and wanted to spare the only four people who cared about her the pain of a losing battle. Lastly, Trigon is supremely arrogant. The Titans throw everything they have at him, and the damage is negligible. So what if four or (with Slade) five mortals still roam the Earth? So what if his "Gem" is still alive? What can they possibly do? Oh, wait...

WHERE DO THEY GET ALL OF THEIR MONEY!?

• Robin is the adopted son of Bruce Wayne, one of the richest people in the world. You do the math.
• The same is more or less also true for Beast Boy.
  • But didn't Robin split from Bruce Wayne because he wanted to be his own man? I can believe Bruce being generous with Robin's allowance prior to that, but not so generous they can build a tower with all the latest tech, a plane/space ship/submarine, and the T car. (It's difficult for me to believe Cyborg paid for all the parts by himself.) And wasn't Beast Boy kicked out of the Doom Patrol for his own safety? I doubt he was able to stay in contact.
  • It's never been explained why they split. Robin once joked (probably) in the comics that he got a Batmobile by hiding it in the Batarang budget. There's no real reason Dick couldn't get his own discretionary funds from Bruce. I doubt he's so proud as to turn down free money. Bruce gives him the money, and he does what he wants with it.
  • Knowing Robin and Batman, that's probably how it happens... And it's the result of a big fight: Batman wanted to help more, but in the end he 'only' managed to supply money.
• In the comics, Cyborg's dad pays for the Titans, or at least the Tower.
• Also, what Jump City is getting from the Titans is a team of people specializing in taking down threats that the police would be useless against (even Dr. Light and the Hive Five would have the run of the place, and otherwise far more devastating equipment would have to be used. Oh, and said team is lead by the apprentice of Batman, who clearly is emotionally mature and can take responsibility. On the other hand, if they went criminal, the city would have essentially a princess of a warrior planet, a shapeshifting, emotionally immature goblin, a martial artist who can take out things entire squads of police wouldn't stand a chance against, a hulking killer robot-man, and the Antichrist to deal with. To say nothing of a team-up... Jump City would be forced to pay for them.
• One episode reveals the Titans actually did sponsorship with some brands ("Cooking with Cy-BQ!") so... yeah, brand revenues.

---

• Uh... How in the name of sanity did the "computer virus" that made Cyborg think everything was food work? It can apparently be downloaded onto a disc, be uploaded to someone... but also is a nanite infection, is spread by touching other machines, and can be transmitted via transmitter. That's not a virus, that's magic. A COMPUTER VIRUS AND A NANITE INFESTATION ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Yet the episode treats them like both.
  • "Crash" is one of the silliest episodes in the entire series (though interestingly, it comes immediately before "Haunted", which has an almost identical premise- one of the team gets infected with a mind altering agent and starts hallucinating- but is one of the darkest episodes in the entire series), so you probably shouldn't think too hard on it. For a possible explanation, let's assume that under normal circumstances the virus is just an ordinary (albeit nasty) computer virus, but it gained the ability to infect other machines through touch/create nanites/transmit itself through signals as a result of hijacking Cyborg's extremely advanced systems. But ultimately, it's not supposed to make sense.
• The ending of "Employee of the Month" where Cyborg apparently eats The Source doesn't make a lot of sense. Firstly, Cyborg absolutely hates tofu and anything tofu-related; he can even tell soy-eggs and soy-milk at a single taste and reacts with disgust, so why would he take a bite out of what is quite obviously a block of raw tofu? Secondly, the Source is a sapient being in its own right and quite capable of talking; how the heck could Cyborg have even looked at it hungrily before it started screaming for mercy? Unless being refrigerated put it to sleep or something... even then, that doesn't count for the fact it looks like a block of tofu, which Cyborg regards as "inedible".
  • Well, it was established throughout the episode that The Source wasn't producing tofu, it was producing "nufu", which is presumably a much more accurate meat substitute made from something alien. Cyborg had eaten at their cover restaurant several times, so, presumably, he couldn't tell the difference.
    • Except when Cyborg ate "nufu", it was in the shape of fried burger patties (and "meat chips"), so he didn't realize what it was. The Source, in comparison, looks like a stereotypical block of raw cold tofu, something Cyborg should be very familiar with, seeing as how he sees them in the fridge all the time because of Beast Boy. Even with barbeque sauce on it, Cyborg ought to take one look at it and then pass it over in disgust.
  • Nufu may not smell anything like tofu. Cyborg might've assumed it was some kind of cheese.
• Slade's choice of a Supervillain Lair in season 2 was really stupid, if you think about it. First, he builds it on a volcano. Alright, evil lairs on volcanos are cool, and it might not be an active volcano, but then he proceeds to bring into that lair a girl with earth manipulation powers, who CANNOT CONTROL THOSE POWERS VERY WELL, and train her there. Then he starts using the place as mission control, and also as a place to beat her up if she failed him, which is totally a good idea because if she ever tries to kill him she has a goddamn volcano below them that she can use. Really, Slade?
  • It's possible that his choice of lair wasn't as stupid as it seems. First, he gave Terra that special suit which interfaced with her nervous system and allowed him control over her body. Much like with Robin and the nanites, he probably didn't expect her to be able to overcome that. Indeed, the first time we see Terra try to remove the suit, she's unable to do so. Second, choosing an extinct volcano was part of helping Terra learn to control her powers. Terra has two options when they first move in to their little cave: control her powers, or else.

How did Sarasim recognize Krall in his monster form?

In "Cyborg The Barbarian", when Cyborg tries to tell Sarasim that Krall's behind the monster attacks, she says she already knows because he was seen leading the monsters. But how did she (or for that matter, anyone) know it was Krall? He'd been turned into a monster, and only Cyborg and the witch were there to see it.

The Titans have hologram technology in one episode...

• That they used precisely once, to take down a villain who can duplicate himself almost infinitely... and never uses it again. Imagine using it in the end of Season 4. Let Slade and his fire-demons go on a wild-goose-chase rampage trying to capture Raven for Trigon... only to reveal in the last minute that the "Raven" captured by Slade is a hologram. And then it's sunrise again, way pass the deadline for Trigon's revival. Bye, Trigon! Or Season 5, where trust and paranoia is a constant issue thanks to the Brotherhood of Evil having a shapeshifter amongst their ranks, and that entire legions of heroes are being hunted. Imagine if the Titans repeatedly use their hologram machine to outsmart the Brotherhood? Actually, there's so many opportunities in the last two season where they could use the holograms to their advantage. They just... don't. It Only Works Once, Forgot About His Powers, Too Awesome to Use, or all three of the above?

Control Freak

• When following Control Freak into TV, I can understand how they interact with things that are obviously fictional like the monster movie or the bird looking for his hippo. But how the hell does that work with stuff that is obviously involving real people in their world? At several points we see the Titans and Control Freak appear on a set as it's being filmed, with the celebrities acknowledging they're in the middle of filming, like that french chef who quits when Beast Boy and Control Freak show up, or when they all show up in the studio with the news anchor, or Raven showing up on the football-field in the middle of the game as the commentators note. Those aren't fictional settings, they're happening live, yet the Titans and Control Freak are supposed to be in the TV and able to switch channels just by going to the edge of the screen. But there isn't an edge of the screen in the real world, so what exactly happens then? Do they just pop into reality briefly, then pop back into the TV upon leaving the range of the camera? Is it not actually reality but just a recreation in the TV they're in? Is it Leaning on the Fourth Wall since everything is a tv show technically meaning there should be no issue hoping in and out of reality?

Red X and Security Issues

I know I've already posted this several times (partially because it boggles my mind and partially because I want to start up a conversation), but just to get it out the way. Not to be rude or anything, but I'm just a little surprised how no one seems to bring it up. Again, no offense.

The Titans decide not to pursue investigating Red X's identity further, with Raven summing him up, as she put it, "anyone smart enough to find the suit and dumb enough to take it for a joyride". Likewise, Robin dismisses X's identity as irrelevant, citing that regardless of who's inside the suit, they're his responsibility. However, the Titans are ignoring several critical factors:

Whoever stole the suit knew the layout of the Tower. They also knew how to get past the Tower's security systems, as they were able to sneak in and steal the suit without so much as triggering an alarm.

The thief had to have brought heavy equipment with them, as the suit's vault door was ripped completely off the hinges.

Point being, shouldn't the Titans worried about their security being compromised?

• They don't actually show the vault where the Red X suit being in Titans Tower. In fact, Starfire says "when Robin returns, he will help us to discover who...", so it's plausible that the Red X suit was stored elsewhere (which makes sense, with the fact that its power source is highly unstable and dangerous). The security there may have been far lesser than in the actual Tower because Robin never expected that anyone would find it or try to steal it.

How is the Bat-family affected by Robin leaving Gotham?

(Presuming that the show isn't in the DCAU) Is there another Robin? Has Batgirl been promoted to main sidekick? Or is it Stephanie Brown as The Spoiler? Someone else?