#raven: daughter of darkness

[ravensvirginity]

Why don't you like Raven's 2018 solo? The Daughter of Darkness series i mean.

Oh my god, where do I even begin with Daughter of Darkness.

Getting the basic stuff out of the way first:

I don't like high schooler Raven. I don't think Raven in the comics should ever be under 18 and I hate that she was deaged for something like 15 years. Furthermore, Marv Wolfman specifically just does not write young teenagers well. All the scenes that try to show Raven acting like a normal teenager came off awkward to me.

Raven's design isn't my favorite and the art is just so-so so none of the panels really spoke to me.

There's this weird Christian undertone in the comic for some reason? Marv Wolfman isn't even a Christian, but I thought that Raven's family's insistence on her coming to Mass was kind of annoying and not handled the way I'd want it to be.

Connected to that, the way Arella was written was weirdly victim-blaming towards her, especially in contrast to older works of Wolfman's about her. She's painted as a rebellious child who didn't love her parents and ran away out of spite, and then had a lot of casual sex (which could be fine, but it felt like it was included just to make her look worse) before got sucked into the Trigon cult. Even though there are other things in the comic as well as in past comics that make it seem far more likely that Arella's parents were abusive to her and she ran away due to that, and joined a satanic cult due to her trauma with Christianity as well as being vulnerable and manipulated by its members.

Now, onto the biggest problem: the main plot of Raven: Daughter of Darkness is that Trigon does eugenics on his kids.

Yes, Trigon is evil and doesn't care if he hurts people, even his own children. That being said, I still think the way he acted in this comic was out of character. In NTT and in most other comics, he does have some level of fondness for his children, especially Raven. He definitely doesn't want any of them dead. In ToT, he outright mourns Raven after she's killed by the corrupted Titans and decides to destroy the entire dimension in revenge. With all that in mind, him being willing to kill Raven in order to come to Earth feels really out of character.

The 'monstrous' children of Trigon is a whole other problem. Why is he mad that his kids are turning out looking like he does??? Again, in past comics, when Raven is corrupted by him she begins to look more monstrous and resembles him. He seems to want his children to look like him, so why is it suddenly a problem? The problem doesn't seem to be that they're not fit to be soldiers or not powerful or whatever, it seems to be specifically appearance based. Why does he care?

And again, the eugenics. Just bizarre. Yeah, I guess genetically engineering women so that they can give birth to better children would be something Trigon would do, but it doesn't feel on brand for the kind of story you'd expect with Trigon. He's a demon from another dimension who does crazy feats of magic, he doesn't feel like the kind of guy who would employ a team of mad scientists. And the weird emphasis on perfect genes vs imperfect in his kids is uncomfortable and completely inconsistent with past depictions of him.

All that being said, I don't hate Raven: DoD with a passion or anything. It does have some moments I do like. Wolfman understands Raven's lore wayyyy better than most other writers (obviously, he created that lore, and even though he writes modern Raven here he still sticks to a lot of traditional Raven elements). But the overall story is not it for me.

There didn't end up being a natural place to put this with my thoughts but I wanted to mention this panel because I think it's hilarious

How is that obvious. Maybe he thinks people should just assume whenever Trigon is involved with anything it'll include his breeding kink

[manufagtured]

Raven: Daughter of Darkness Vol. 1 #5 (2018)

Cover by Emanuela Lupacchino

[goryhorroor]

“horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. sound revolutionized cinema across the board and had a huge impact on the horror genre— and not just in the form of dialogue. sound effects added an extra dimension to terror, from creaking doors to echoing footsteps to the rumbling of castle thunder. music cues built suspense or signaled the presence of a threat. as screen storytelling moved away from symbolism towards realism, the dreamlike wraiths of silent cinema were replaced by monsters that grunted, groaned and howled.”

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Just reread a fanfiction that I haaaated twenty years ago when I first read it, and though I find myself not hating it As Much as I did back then (there are elements that are Good, I see now!), I'm still not fond of it. But it's mostly for characterization and worldbuilding.

~ Even before I Actually Went Neopagan, I was miffed at Azar scoffing at other religious beliefs. At the time I was like "Azar was a good person! She wouldn't be bigoted like that!" (Colored more by fondness for Azar over the way she seemed to treat Raven decently. I was like 10 years old when I first read this thing and Didn't Want to Entertain Her Having Flaws.)

Now I just think she wouldn't care enough to scoff at xmas? Maybe she'd be like "When you came to Azarath you swore to leave your old life behind" or something, but not like... leveraging letting Arella celebrate it as a bargaining chip???

~ The take on Azarathean religion never sat well with me. It's hard to quantify (especially now, today, when I've just finished my sixth event of socializing on 30 days, which happened while I'm barely recovered from my stomach Being Awful^tm and I'm mentally exhausted). But Azar was both the High Priestess AND the one they were following / worshiping. She was their matriarch. Her Word was Law. Her citing a Higher Power being the reason she did what she did with Raven just feels... weird to me. Seemed to be conflating it a lot with xtianity, despite her spitting on xmas. Even used capitalized-g God. That's SO mostly unique to Abrahamic religions!

~ This one was there when I was a kid but has only grown STRONGER! I really don't understand why the entire fandom is CONVINCED that ALL OF AZARATH is emotionless and every bit as strictly disciplined as Raven? Like?? That training was specific TO RAVEN. Raven was the ONLY PERSON in Azarath who had to control her emotions or destroy worlds. Sure, I believe they had SOME meditations and scheduled prayer time, theocratic societies usually do. I believe they studied mental discipline for how to uphold peace and not give in to violence and fear. But not strict, emotionless, absolutely-eradicating-all-emotions training. That was RAVEN. Just RAVEN!

Why are people so convinced that The Entire Society functioned the way they trained RAVEN?????? They lacked compassion and violent urges, but that doesn't mean they lacked other aspects of humanity like rage and fear. Those were Very Much There. That doesn't mean they didn't get to enjoy their food, or they all had to live an ascetic life. Raven being raised the way she was without any Meaningful Interpersonal Bonds (arguably, aside from Azar) doesn't mean there weren't meaningful bonds between everyone else. In fact, Arella talks about having friends that died when Trigon destroyed Azarath. In every page we've seen, the Azaratheans knew each other.

And I know, Different Canons, blah blah blah, but in the comics, Raven flat-out said something about children playing in TotNTT #2. Contrasting it against her training. Other children WERE raised DIFFERENTLY! Allowed to play! Raven wasn't because she was RAVEN!

I dunno, it's a generalization that just absolutely BAFFLES me. Maybe because I've studied enough about other religions to understand that There's Nuance and Ways to Practice Meditative Discipline Without Being Entirely Emotionless??? Maybe when other people think of monks, they don't think of Buddhism like I do, but ascetic Catholic monks? But surely even THOSE guys don't mercilessly restrict their emotions, do they???

[not-so-mundane-after-all]

Still not over the fact that THIS is what truly snaps Dick out of hypnosis. A reminder of the exact moment his life had changed forever and the face and the voice of the one who did it 🥹

[raventhedarkqueen]

[anddreil]

mary firth from dark water daughter is so blue sargent coded. like sometimes a girl is a tree and that's okay

[theotherbackgrounder]

Raven, getting onto her Son: We don’t use that kind of language in this castle!

Faybelle walks by: Anyone seen my fucking jacket!

Raven: …

Later, Faybelle in the timeout spot: I … hate this place…

[skullssy]

YIPPIE

[zvmz]

Something I can’t get off my mind…. eah Jedi au

[ur-fave-is-plural]

Raven from the Daughter of Darkness DCU comic run is a mixed origins median system :)

[mpdltrr]

Rachel Roth aka Raven

[wandixx]

[strawberrytalia]

really love that traci is a force of chaos when she’s around non-magic peers her age, or around whoever she’s dating

but when she’s around the night force or JLD, she’s like the only voice of reason. that’s how fucking weird they are 😭

[dark-raven-feathers]

there is no canon. Only fanon

fandoms purists have never watched doctor who and it SHOWS

[raventhedarkqueen]