[image: a few comic panels from the new teen titans #16. first koriandr (starfire) is talking to donna troy (wonder girl) while raven watches them from behind a wall. kory says “On tamaran we always let our emotions guide us. If something feels right, we do it. Isn’t that all that’s important?” Donna says “It is, but there’s more to it than that. C’mon, sit down…” Then we focus on raven’s face. she thinks “the others… they can talk to each other about things personal… open up to each other in ways I can only dream. Why am I unable to tell them how I feel?” raven starts leaving the room, going into an elevator, and the camera pans to the outside of titans tower. Raven thinks “Why? I know why. All my life I’ve been taught to hide my emotions. Azarath trained me to deny the very emotions that I thrive upon as an empathy. I …. take in others’ pain and sorrow, but never their joy… And because I’ve been taught to bottle my own emotions within me – I can never experience joy of my own. Azar be damned! Because of you, my soul can never be fulfilled! And because of my own inhibitions – I can never tell anyone how terribly I suffer.” next panels are from the new teen titans #19. there are just two. we see raven behind a door, thinking “Starfire has known what it is like to care and be cared for. She has experienced all those emotions which have been denied me. I hate the temple azarath for what they did to me. insisting on perfection…refusing to condone emotion…” Dick grayson (robin, without his mask and cape) walks up to her and she asks “Richard?” end image]
The text says she’s emotionless sometimes, she thinks she hasto be emotionless, but she’s so clearly not. She’s outraged at the injustice of Azararth not helping defeat Trigon, she’s horrified by Trigon’s casual cruelty, she’s jealous and resentful of her friends for being able to have fulfilling relationships and let people in when she can’t.
and like in the above panels we can see she clearly DOESNT feel emotionless, she knows that she is hiding her emotions not getting rid of them… the only thing her training did was get rid of her ability to positively interact with them, not get rid of them period.
and she can clearly recognize that she needs help but cannot allow her friends to actually help her – right after this (when robin tries to check up on her) she zonks him into unconsciousness and leaves. she knows she has all these needs that are not being fulfilled but will not allow them to be fulfilled because she’s too scared of it!
she also can has been taught to be passive in azar’s total pacifism thing, and still practices pacifism and for the most part refuses to fight when she leaves… but she knows the teachings (of total passivity) won’t work to stop trigon and that she has to do something! so she who has been taught passivity all her life leaves her home dimension to put together a team to stop her evil all powerful father not once but TWICE because the first time she is rejected as evil (by the justice league)
