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linkspooky · 1 year

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Do you think Batman could empathize with Terra?

Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: Oh, here we go again.

So, Terra is my favorite character of all time. I want her to live, recover from her trauma, and then become some anti-villain mercenary that just shows up to annoy the titans.

However, I will forever defend the decision to kill Terra at the end of Judas Contract. Her complexity as a bad victim and the tragedy that Terra was just too complicated a victim for anyone in her life to notice or save is what makes her character good. The whole point of the story is Terra should have been saved, but she wasn't. That gives the story it's punch. Terra is a teenage girl who joined the Teen Titans, put on a costume, and died. Her creators sort of half-realized this and half didn't when they made the decision to kill Terra.

"Hers was the power over the earth itself. She could have brought life to deserts, heat to the frozen tundra, food to starving millions, she could have damned raging rivers and funneled water to lands parched dry, and dead. Her powers were limited only by the mind that controlled them. A mind which sought not hope, not love, not life, but death."

Even the panels that narrate her death that call her a psychopath and victim blame her, also speculate on how much potential good for the world is lost by snuffing out life as young as Terra's. Hers is the story of a young girl who by the narrative is doomed to die hence why there is nothing, no hope, no love, no life just death in her mind.

That's what makes the question of "Could Batman have empathized with her" so compelling, because it makes you think and realize there was a chance for Terra, miss "Dead at the beginning of the story" to be saved. So, why wasn't she? Why couldn't anyone involved in her situation empathize with this troubled teenage girl?

Out of context of her creators intending her to be an irredeemable monster, don't these lines, the last one especially sound horribly tragic?

"A mind which sought not hope... not love... not life... but death."

Terra's life is so nihilistic and miserable. What exactly was she alive for? She was a sixteen-year-old mercenary who was cut off from her family due to being the bastard child. She thinks she's manipulating death stroke who she thinks is her equal when she's actually just getting manipulated by him. I mean the fact that Terra views relationships as transactions. That she views sex with Slade as using her body as a bargaining chip to gain leverage over them. The fact that she hates the titans, primarily because she doesn't understand them. She thinks all their goodwill for each other is fake, and that they can't possibly be as good as they pretend to be because, in Terra's mind, good people don't exist.

The best interpretation of Terra is to not make light of her crimes at all, she did not grow close to the titans, she was planning on betraying them and never wavered, she felt next to nothing about killing... but even if all that's true isn't she sympathetic regardless because her life's just miserable?

All of Terra's actions don't change the fact that a 50+ year old is not only raping her, and using her as a child soldier, but is good enough at manipulating that she thinks the relationship is consensual and she's somehow in on the partnership. These two things do not cancel out one another.

The reason I hammered this nail in so hard, is because this is what makes up the tragedy of Terra's character. Terra is a fifteen year old girl in a horrible situation and therefore deserves to be saved. Terra does not get saved. Why is that? That's the essential question of the tragedy.

Now to return to your question, would batman empathize with Terra?

Yes.

I would argue the Titans empathized with Terra too. However, empathizing with someone is different from having the emotional maturity to communicate with them. Which is the difference between Batman and the Teen Titans, he is an adult and they are children.

When I think about the Teen Titans who are unable to save a girl they've lived with for months from an adult man who's their mortal enemy and clearly exploiting her, I get frustrated until I realize the Teen Titans are just barely older than Terra. Terra's case so clearly needs adult intervention, and she doesn't have that she has a group of teenagers who all have the RESPONSIBILITIES of an adult, but don't have the requisite maturity to be able to handle those responsibilities.

There's a lot of reasons that Terra does not get saved, number one being that not a single Titan seemed to see through her act despite them all having suspicions. I know this wasn't the intent, but Terra's written as a pretty textbook CSA victim. She's aggressive, hypersexual, tries to pose as an adult, associates sexuality with violence (heck Beast Boy flirting with her during a training session makes her violently lash out, you could easy interpret that as her experiencing some kind of flashback). There was clearly something going on with Terra, everyone had an inkling, no one noticed.

It's because everyone around her just saw what they wanted to see of Terra.

Beast Boy only saw his own romantic feelings for her. He made up his own idealized version of Terra and pursued her. And let's be honest considering Beast Boy's weird relationship with women in early NTT he was probably just seeking a girlfriend to validate his low self esteem.Raven sensed something off with Terra, but projected her own situation onto her as well. Raven convinced herself that there was some kind of evil buried deep within Terra but was afraid to confront her because number one, Raven is convinced she is evil deep down inside, and number two Raven understands so little about humans she feels like she cannot judge them. Robin is frankly, too busy with the rest of the team to notice.

Terra is practically the Laura Palmer of the Teen Titans. For those who have never watched Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer is a young woman in the town of Twin Peaks who lives a double lie. By day she is a prom queen dating a kid on the football team and running a meals on wheels program. By night she is tricking her boyfriend into buying cocaine for her regularly, working at a whorehouse across the border, regularly sleeping with men twice her age. Laura has an ugly dark side that's hard to look at, but what's uglier is the source of all of this behavior. Laura's coping with being raped by her father on a semi-regular basis and keeping that secret, when every single person in town only sees what they want to see of her, they see a prom queen, or a girlfriend, or whatever.

Bobby Briggs: “You damn hypocrites. You make me sick! Everybody knew she was in trouble but we didn’t do anything. All you good people… You wanna know who killed Laura Palmer? You did! We all did.”

No one noticed because they all saw their own version of Terra. Terra herself played into that, because she was lying to everyone.

At the same time there's a difference between a child who is not fully emotionally developed or aware of their surroundings and an adult who should know better. An adult should be aware enough to pick up signs of abuse or even notice a child's distress, and if they ignore it that's a problem.

The question is should a kid reasonably be expected to do the same thing? I would say that's expecting too much emotional maturity out of a kid because that's asking them to do what should be an adult's job. At the same time, the Teen Titans are kids who put on masks and decided to make it their job to save heroes. This is what makes the Judas Contract such an effective tragedy, because it makes you ask these questions. If none of them were able to notice or save Terra, then will they be able to notice the next time someone like Terra is in danger but they're not a straightforward or easy-to-spot victim?

The complexity of Terra's victimhood is another reason why the titans failed to save her. There's a panel where Terra is telling Kory and Donna a fake version of her backstory to get sympathy and they deny it by going "Well, we all have dead parents." And Kory goes "I was a slave for five years."

Of course, Terra's lying about her backstory here but regardless it's dismissive to play tragedy olympics here. The fact Kory was a slave for five years doesn't really matter because we're talking about Terra's experiences here, and only Terra knows about her feelings.

Terra is a complicated victim, her trauma doesn't make her a hero, in fact she despises the idea she should have to use her powers to help others. Yet, she deserves saving because she's a fifteen year old girl getting raped. In fact you would think Kory if she learned that fact or even got an inkling of it would be the first to sympathize having gone through something herself. And hey, she might. I just want to point out, Starfire tends to suffer from black and white, them vs. us thinking. Especially NTT Starfire who's much more emotional and warlike. She also didn't even notice her own sister blackfire was being abused in the same household.

So why do usually extremely empathic heroes draw a line like that with more complicated victims like Terra? Why even bother to play Trauma Olympics in the first place?'

It's because once again they're teenagers. Teenagers have black and white thinking. Who would have thought? Teenagers don't realy have the emotional maturity to see outside of themselves and their own situation. Which is why we get one of two responses. The first being "Well, I went through this and I'm fine...." (Arguably, none of the Teen Titans are fine they're all drama queens). The second being "Well, just because that happened to her that doesn't justify her behavior."

Returning to the example of Laura Palmer, once again does Laura Palmer's dark side even matter? Does it matter she illegally buys cocaine, or helped kill a man? An Adult (Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks) would be able to see that literally none of that matters because Laura needs someone to notice what her father is doing to her and save her from it.

This is mostly a post about comic books Terra, because she's my baby darling but to bring one moment from the cartoon in. When faced with the weight of her guilt in the episode "Betrayal" Terra breaks down sobbing and starts apologizing to Beast Boy.

Terra: (from o.c.) Beast Boy...it's the truth.

Beast Boy: Terra...why?

Slade: Because you could never give her what she needs.

Terra: No! I won't let you hurt my friend! (Close-up of Slade.)

Slade: Dear child, you don't have any friends.

Terra: (sobbing) Beast Boy, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. (He moves partially into view near the camera.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Then why did you let it? (She stands up.)

Terra: I don't know, okay? I don't know.

Terra: Slade...he helped me, saved me from myself. (Pan to frame an upset Beast Boy in the other spot; she continues o.c.) He said I owed him, but--

Beast Boy: So it was all a game? You were just pretending? (Cut to frame both.)

Terra: (steps to him) No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

(She reaches out to touch his shoulder, but he gives her the hardest glare he can and turns away.)

Beast Boy: Slade was right. You don't have any friends.

Terra confesses everything, shows obvious signs of guilt, and basically begs and Beast Boy turns his back on her. There's no more obvious opportunity to save her or change her heart, and Beast Boy just doesn't. He jumps straight to the victim blaming, "Why did you let it happen?" Again and again, they empasize Terra's choices and of course those are important but it doesn't change the fact she's being abused. "Why did you let it happen?" I don't know why did she let an adult man groom her. Why do children get groomed? Shouldn't they know better?

However, in doing that Beast Boy basically repeats the same words as her abuser "You don't have any friends" and drives her right back to Slade.

Now, Beast Boy was hurt because he thought his friends were possibly dead or injured somewhere else and Terra lied to him the whole night about it. Beast Boy's also a teenager so it's ahrd for him to see past his own hurt feelings and show empathy for the person who hurt him no matter what her reasons would be.

At the same time Beast Boy decided to put on a mask and call himself a hero. Heroes save people. This begs the question, if he's too immature to handle a victim as complicated as Terra which he will come across in the job because the abuse that happens to Terra is more common than you think then is he really mature enough to be a hero?

Now, having gone through all of that Batman would be able to empathize with Terra, for the simple reason that he's an adult so he should be able to step out of the situation and realize this a child who desperately need adult help that he's dealing with.

One important detail is that Terra's death, and Jason's death happened pretty closely to one another in comic book time. Dick Grayson in fact had a pretty bad reaction to both of those where he felt responsible because he was the one who gave Jason his Robin costume and allowed Terra on his team, therefore in both cases it was like he was approving of them being superheroes when they were too young for it... the very thing that got them killed.

Batman regularly refers to Jason's death as his greatest failure, because Jason was just a child and Bruce wasn't the caretaker that Jason needed him to be. Jason Todd is also a character that once reviving from the dead becomes a morally grey victim, with behavior that's comparable to Terra. Some people believe that Talia dipping him in the Lazarus pit like a crouton in soup has rendered him insane, or incapable of feeling remorse.

He is a vigilante killer. Tutored by several years by a woman from the League of Assassins and taught several forms of murder. He's involved in the drug trade and selling his services out for protection money. He is more or less a teenage mercenary like Terra, just with a slight vigilante bent to his actions.

Heck, his trauma is similiar to Terra's, they were both basically separated from their families at a young age, lived apart from them for years, and then became mercenaries and used their powers / vigilante training for both survival and profit. However, Bruce unconditionally views what happened to Jason as a failure because he let it happen. As an adult it was his job to be there for Jason and he wasn't.

Bruce's dying will and testament in Battle for the Cowl is an admission for this, and an offer to help him get the treatment he needs. Of course, it's Bruce so he still says it in a victim blamey way. He probably should have said "I failed you" rather than "You have been my biggest failure" but he still took responsibility.

Which is the underyling point and also something Batman as an adult can realize, that Jason was a child dealing with all of that pain alone and he couldn't possibly have coped with it the way an adult would because he's not one. He needs adult and outside intervention to show him the proper way.

Batman has taken in former murderers as sidekicks before (though arguably Terra needs to learn how to just be herself, making her be a hero was part of the problem in the first place). There's Cassandra Cain who was trained from birth to kill, his own son was also raised by the League of Assassins. In the new 52 Batman and Robin Damian and Bruce have a complicated relationship, but there is one scene I think demonstrates how Bruce has great potential to be empathic and communicate with Damian. Damian murders a man in front of Bruce, and breaks the bat family rule of no killing. He murders Henri Ducard's son, because the man was threatening to come back and kill Bruce at a later date.

Bruce does not throw him out or fire him for being Robin. THis time, Batman takes a long time to explain the truth to Damian about what his relationship with Henri Ducard and his son was. How in the past he also felt a desire to kill both of them for what they did and what the danger represented.

Bruce doesn't hit Damian over the head with "murder is bad" or "cool motive still murder" he doesn't see the crimes first he sees the victim.

He takes the time to let Damian understand him better as a person so they can have a connection there, and then he explains to Damian why he does not kill, and that he also doesn't want Damian to kill so he won't have to bear the guilt of it. He does that for Damian's sake, because he's a child and won't understand these things unless told.

Bruce needs to communicate this with Damian because they won't magically understand and empathize with each other, which is why I'm emphasizing over and over again the necessity of adult

intervention in Terra's case. An older and more mature Dick Grayson in Batman and Robin 2009 also emphasizes that Dick is the grown up in the relationship and Damian is the child.

And as the adult it is his responsibility to take care of Damian, hence the "Who's gonna save him if we don't?"

Batman has encountered children turned murders in one way or another and he always emphasizes the fact that they are children. If you want a more recent example, in the James Tynion Iv run for Batman, issue #105 where Bruce is facing off with Ghostmaker / Minhkhoa. Ghostmaker sets up a situation where Clown Hunter a murderous vigilante who started killing crimminals after his parents were murdered by the joker at twelve has a chance to kill Harley Quinn in revenge while Bruce watches. Bruce intervenes for two reasons, which he tells Minhkhoa.

Which features one of my favorite Bruce lines "caring about people hasn't killed me yet..."

Which really demonstrates Batman's empathy for others. His goal is to not put villains away, but stop the cycle of violence in the streets of gotham.

"How easy it would have been to just eliminate the joker's closest associates? But then nobody learns, nobody changes, nothing is better in the end."

It's easy to dismiss Terra for her crimes and let her face the consequences alone. But then, nobody learns, nobody changes, and nothing is better in the end. Batman doesn't judge who deserves to be saved and who does not. He doesn't let "not everyone can be saved" work as an excuse to not try to save someone.

Hell, Minhkhoa himself is diagnosed as a psychopath in universe with extremely low or nonexistent empathy, which is what Wolfram and Perez's original vision for Terra was. A person who did not feel empathy, remorse, or love for others. Yet, Bruce still gives someone like Minhkhoa a chance to do good, and still tries to communicate with him and get him to understand why Bruce does things the way he does even if Minhkhoa can't empathize with him.

To tie this all up. The tragedy of the Judas Contract arc is Terra was a child who did not get saved. There are reasons for this. She was surrounded by other children who didn't have the maturity to save her. She was being taken advantage of by an adult man who has been manipulating people for years. She was a liar and manipulator herself.

If Batman, an adult, had been there to help the Titans would he have been able to reach out to her and save her? We don't know, but I can say this he definitely would have tried.

#tara markov #terra teen titans #terra #batman #bruce wayne #dick grayson #teen titans #tt meta #teen titans meta #dc comics #dc comics meta #jason todd #damian wayne #beast boy #ghostmaker #dc #rape tw #csa tw

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linkspooky · 1 year

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Hi! I saw your tags about Tara in Teen Titans comics--I'm only familiar with the cartoon series. How do your feelings about Tara compare in the show vs. the comics? I ask since I noticed you mentioned that Tara never really cared about BB, which I think is obviously changed in the show, and I wonder how you feel about that.

They're both good? They're both good! I think one thing people forget about comic book characters vs. adaptations of comic book characters, is that comic books were always intended to be a collaborative medium that builds on itself through the work of multiple authors and interpretations. Thus, you can have multiple versions of the same character who have the same core but don't really have to be exactly the same. This is why it is kind of silly when people get upset animated adaptations make changes from the original source material because that's kind of the point, in a collaborative medium, you're going to get another author's take on the same character.

Since you asked I can give you an analysis on the core ideas of Teen Cartoon Terra vs. Comics Terra, and also her relationship with Beast Boy in both versions.

1. GWEN STACY

So, I once talked about how Terra was always intended by her creators to die, but that's not necessarily offensive or fridging her character because Terra's still a character with a lot of narrative agency. Terra is the main character of her story, it's just her story happens to be a tragedy. That is true for both versions.

Before the start of the story her fate is sealed. This is what you call doomed by the narrative. George Wolfram and Glen Murakami have both given interviews explaining as such. Albeit, for different reasons.

Comics Terra was essentially made to deconstruct a lot of comic book tropes. I lovingly call her "Asshole Kitty Pryde." From conception she was going to be the spunky new kid with mutant powers who joined the titans at fifteen and immediately became friends with everyone... except she was evil all along.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.”

Of course this is where authorial intent differs from like, what actually ended up happening in the story. Worlfram's intent was to always make Terra have no reason for her actions, the tragic backstory she feeds the teen titans is kind of embellished and made up, she decided to become a mercenary all on her own, she wants to work with Slade and is even trying to seduce him. However, Terra still comes off as horribly tragic despite their intentions and other authors have since then picked up on their subtext.

Like, I genuienly think the intention was to just write her as pure evil, but instead what they got was writing her as a bad victim. That is, the kind of victim that presents incredibly unsavory and unlikable reactions to their abuse instead of either being kinder than their abusers, remaining pure and chaste like Cinderella or just waiting to be saved. Terra's not a passive victim nor is she waiting for sympathy, she hurts people the way she has been hurt, she maipulates the way she has been manipulated. Terra's been beaten down and now her goal is to come out on top. I believe the reason why she came out this way has a lot to do with Perez and Wolfram sticking to their guns and never giving her a redemption arc.

The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case.

First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. The fans had to accept what we were doing and not do the same stories that they had read 14,000 times before. You know, at Marvel, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were villains who became good guys and I could go through a whole list of ’em.

Their commitment to the bit meant that Terra’s story became what was essentially Greek tragedy at that point. Terra was always fall and because of that, Wolfram and Perez dedicate a lot of time in the story showing the audience exactly what all of her flaws are and why those flaws are the reason for that fall. They committed to their creative decisions when writing this character, which is why Terra ends up being such a strong character, especially for the time. Of course there were female villains, but they weren’t really allowed to be complex victims to the degree that Terra is, have her entire range of negative traits, have her flaws fully on display and then still have it be a tragic ending when she does not get saved.

Gwen Stacy was always going to die, and Terra was never going to be redeemed. I do not believe either of those cases are fridging because sometimes characters die in fiction, and sometimes they contribute more ot the story dead than they do alive. Terra’s the first real loss for the Teen Titans, it also came on the cusp of a time in DC where teenage superheroes and sidekicks started to die (Cough, Cough, Jason Todd). Under the Red Hood and Judas Contract are such effective and lasting comic book storylines because they are such tightly written tragedies yes... both of them depict a bad victim who does not get saved (even though that is the whole point of both arcs).

Terra is in fact, probably more comparable to Under the Red Hood Jason than she is Gwen Stacy because she is number one a teenager with problems who probably should not have been made a superhero in the first place, and two a trauma victim who copes by manipulation and violence to try to reclaim control of their lives. But, to bring the Gwen Stacy comparison back. Gwen Stacy was always going to die, Terra was always going to die, but unlike Gwen Stacy Terra is not anyone’s love interest she is the protagonist. Peter Parker fails to save Gwen because the Green Goblin attacked her, she was killed to hurt Peter Parker. Terra pulls the arena down on herself and buries herself alive in Samson and Delilah-esque fashion at the end of her own personal tragic arc.

To get to the real differences between the two characters though, characterization wise, I think both versions start with the same central concept, this is a troubled teenager who should never have been made a hero.

Terra is a deeply troubled teen, however the way she copes in both versions are wildly different, almost opposite. I like to say cartoon Terra has like, at any moment five different personalities, while comics Terra has no personality.

2. Runaway Girl

To elaborate on this, cartoon Terra’s entire character revolves around how unstable her sense of self is, due to never having any stability in her life. The cartoon is actually very purposeful in showing in both imagery and metaphor Terra’s splintered sense of self. The first few lines of dialogue introducing her are this.

“She’s not in trouble, she was leading it into a trap.” “Question is, who is she?” Slade: “Don’t get too attached my young friend, I saw her first.”

Said by the Titans and then Slade. Even in the first lines introducing her, not only is the question of who she is asked, but Slade immediately tries to claim her from the titans. Later on in the show, the way Terra acts around the Teen Titans as a group, the way Terra acts when she is with Slade, the way Terra acts when alone with Beast Boy, the way Terra acts when alone with Raven are all wildly different versions of herself, to the point where it’s hard to believe she’s the same girl sometimes.

This is even apparent in the first episode before Slade even gets to her. Terra insists that she enjoys sleeping outside, she enjoys running from place to place, she doesn’t really want a place to stay for the night, she’s presenting herself as some sort of self-reliant and worldly traveler instead of what she really is, a homeless runaway kid. Terra is attempting to appear calm, cool, and responsible and she is absolutely none of these things, and she’s pretty transparent about it too. She cool girls herself so people will like her. The second she is alone in Beast Boy and loses control of her powers for 30 seconds, she immediately crashes, starts berating herself and her self esteem sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Trust, is something constantly brought up again and again with Terra’s character though I would say Terra despite literally being the main character of an arc called the Judas Contract, despite betrayal being the one thing she is known for... always sees herself as getting betrayed first. Which is why she overreacts to the perception that Beast Boy broke a promise to keep her powers safe in the first episode. Terra doesn’t trust people at all. Though, to trust people and form healthy relationships with them, you actually have to be a fully developed and well-rounded person which Terra is not. Terra is basically a foster kid who has been through several families before this, waiting for her current one to dump her. She has interanlized the idea that there is something wrong with her that makes this rejection happen, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to be better the kind of person that can have those healthy friendships so she dedicates herself into hiding those flaws instead.

Terra: You don’t belong with the Titans. Terra: You don’t know anything about you. Slade: On the contrary Terra, I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for some time. I know why you’re always running away. I know your secret, little girl.

This is also why she runs from the Titans to Slade. It’s a question I see commonly asked about cartoon Terra, if she’s meant to be more sympathetic than comic books Terra why does she willingly go to Slade instead of staying with the Titans? Which is a silly question, because you might as well be asking why do grooming victims get groomed? Why don’t they just know that groomers are bad people?

Teenagers are not grownups. Especially not Terra, a bastard child rejected by her parents who has been on the run for however many years. Terra is a teenager and a severely underdeveloped teenager at that, and she has learned to survive on the streets yes, but that’s not really the same as learning to be a functional person, who can have healthy relationships with people, and control their emotions. Children actually require parents to nurture and teach them and raise them up to be more functional adults, and they also require the stability adults in their lives provide them.

Terra goes to Slade because he is an adult who is promising to be there for her, and give her control and stability which are things adults in her life have failed to give her. She can’t trust the Titans to give her these things because they are children one as Slade needles her into believing they cannot understand or help her, and two the way Terra has lived her life up to this point a transactional relationship with Slade makes more sense to her head than the found family the Teen Titans have based on love and trust because Terra is a stranger to both of those concepts.

Terra is also someone who has little control over her life in general, which is why cartoon Terra is so passive in comparison to comic book Terra. In the episode Betrayal itself, Terra keeps her foot in the door about the actual betrayal the whole way, and seems to change her mind on what she wants several time. Because Terra has five different personalities. Ginger Terra, Sporty Terra, Posh Terra, Scary Terra, and Baby Terra. Terra doesn't have a cohesive sense of self so she's entirely reactive, she just does what she thinks will keep her safe in the moment. Terra wants safety and control of her powers so she goes to Slade. Terra feels guilty about what she does for the Titans so she tries to run away from Slade for the moment. Beast Boy asks her out on a date, but because Terra's betraying the Titans that night Terra says no. Five minutes later, Terra says yes. She is constantly changing her mind and contradicting herself like this.

Which is where we get to the greatest contradiction this episode, Terra betrays the titans and clearly feels guilty about it,b ut instead of say telling the Titans what she did or coming clean she just runs away. Which is where we get to the extremely subtle imagery of Terra in a house of mirrors.

Terra can't face her reflection over and over again, because she can't face herself, because she has no sense of self. She doesn't know why she does these things, but she's done them now, and she's stuck with those choices.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

This is also Terra's most honest display of remorse, and the exact moment Terra gets rejected, crying and begging for forgiveness for what she's done and after that is the point where she goes full villain. Terra goes from baby Terra, to Scary Terra. A lot of who cartoon Terra is born from fear of moments like this where she is rejected. Terra was the one who tricked Beast Boy and Beast Boy is rightfully upset of course, but in Terra's mind only able to see her own hurt feelings Beast Boy is the one who broke the promise to her. Terra internalizes the fact she cannot be forgiven at that point and seeing no other recourse goes full villain and insists she feels no guilt, she wanted to destroy the titans to begin with, it was all a lie. The complete inversion of how she acted in the betrayal episode. Terra is manipulative, spiteful, hungry for power and yes she's capable of being all of those things but one important thing is.

The second, the second Slade starts mistreating her and beating her Terra immediately wants out. It turns out it's not power or control Terra wanted at all with Slade, but the idea of safety he provided her. The moment it becomes unsafe for her she tries to leave again, because Terra is a child desperately seeking safety in a world that feels unsafe for her, and she'll find it by crushing people she perceives to be a threat if she has to.

That is Terra in a nutshell, she doesn't feel safe anywhere, or with anybody. She has no stable foundation. She is the human embodiment of the tower card in Tarot. No matter how hard she tries to trust others and trust in return, because those are basic human urges we all have, she ends up falling down. It's interesting for a character who is so famous for betrayal, how much of her arc shows she clearly wants to be accepted and trusted by others, and gets hurt at the idea of their rejection. Even the day she literally betrayed Beast Boy before taking him out on a date she asks him this.

Terra: Do you trust me? Beast Boy: More than anyone I've ever met.

I would say Terra's inability to trust doesn't come from the fact she's a bad person or a bad victim, but because she doesn't have the tools to form healthy relationships because of how seriously neglected a child she is. A part of the tragedy of Terra is because Terra cannot save herself, because she is a child. Just like how the Titans have such difficulty saving her, because they are children too and they're not really emotionally prepared to save a person as morally grey and as in need as Terra, and the only adult in the situation is Slade who is there to take advantage.

Transitioning too. Comics Terra, while cartoon Terra has too much personality, Comics Terra has too little. She was written to be a sociopath, and that's not really my term that's how the writers describe her though I can dig up evidence she shows clear signs of being capable of having attachment to people. I'd say rather than a sociopath she's more written as an enigma. Terra's motives are spurious, her actions are inconsistent, she seems to be driven by spite. She is an incredibly angry kid with a chip on her shoulder who seems to be capable of anything.

Cartoon Terra is trying to play along with other peopel's expectations to her, while comics Terra rejects everyone's expectations. She loathes cute teenage girl superheroes. She finds dressing up in costumes and fighting crime to be ridiculous in the first place. Though, I would say despite saying she clearly hates the titans, literally the next panel she displays some affection for Kid Flash.

Comics Terra isn't completely unfeeling, she's capable of forming connections to people, she has a fondness for Geo-Force her brother, Kid Flash, and sort of for Beast Boy she just never fully forms relationships with them.

Terra's not really even maintaining much of a cover with the Titans, because both with Slade and the Titans she is a rude, belligerent raunchy kid who is trying to constantly get into other people's faces. Terra is all of those things, she just when she is alone with Slade also pretends she is an adult, in an adult relationship with him. (Cough, cough, grooming victim. A victim of sexual grooming in this sense too).

Terra's written to be a sociopath yeah, or at least her writers tried too but I'd say she's more a character who the audience has little to no idea what is going on in her head. A lot of her is left ambiguous. Considering her backstory though, the rejected bastard of a king, someone who is working as a mercenary at fifteen, she clearly has not had a good life. Just like cartoon Terra she is lacking a sense of self.

However, instead of eschewing her agency, Terra takes her agency from other people. Cartoon Terra is good at manipulating when she wants to be, but Comics Terra sees the world in terms of every relatonship is transactional and based on manipulation, the world is winners and losers, the world is about who is on top and who is on the bottom. Terra lacks no real goal, or purpose, no friend, no home no loved ones she really only wants to crawl up on top of others if she has to.

Which is exactly why she gets into a relationship with Slade. Comics Terra seems to think her and Slade are equals, and that she is manipulating and using him as much as he is using her. The tragedy in this case arises from the fact that you know, Terra is a fifteen year old girl and Slade is three times her age.

There's an entire chapter where we follow around Terra montiofring people with contacts, and she's going about the titans daily lives just, telling Slade how much she hates them the whole time, but then she stops to ask Garfield why he's constantly being rude to other people and seems genuinely interested in listening to him talk about his feelings.

Terra's only out for herself, she is out to define herself and not let anyone else tell her who she is and who she should be. Terra's selfishness makes sense though considering the situation she is, she's either made to feel nothing like how she was with her family, or she is being sexually groomed by a guy three times her age. Her response to that, her extreme self interest and only caring about her own survival really is her way of fighting back against a world that she sees as trying to wear her down.

And that's a key part of her character Terra is a grooming victim who is also a bad victim. She's being groomed and her way of reclaiming her agency is to insist she wants sex, she wants to hurt people, that actually she's the one manipulating Slade. It's all Terra trying to assert control in a situation where she has none. I don't know if you know this, but a fifteen year old can't manipulate a guy in his fifties who has been doing this for years. Terra also, projects a lot of her hate for her situation and her lot at life at the Titans.

They did not do anything wrong to her, but at the same time she's pretty cosntantly unhappy with them, she complains none of them like her, she complains about their lack of trust, I believe that's less Terra trying to infiltrate them and more Terra herself either believing she cannot fit in anyhwere or as a person who only believes in transactional relationships and manipulation just not understanding how family works.

Terra also acts like dangerously unstable at all times, there's a point in the comics where Beast Boy gets way too aggressive with his flriting, that he full on triggers what resembles a PTSD response in her and she tries to bury him alive.

At times like this when Terra is made to feel she's either not the one with the power here, or being looked down upon she asserts herself with violence to desperately try to regain control. It is not healthy by any means, but it is still the behavior of someone who is coping incredibly poorly. Terra relies on fear and control to make herself feel safe at times like this, because she's not been shown love early on in her life and by this point she genuinely does not understand it. And also I cannot emphasize this enough as a victim of sexual grooming, Terra is pretty much not ever safe, or in a situation where she has bodily agency or control.

Terra in the cartoon dies in a heroic sacrifice, whereas Terra in the comics dies because she loses control of her power and essentially suicides. If anything the tragedy here is that Terra is someone who never learned to be a girl properly, nor was she appreciated as a human being and because of that she formed her entire sense of self around her powers. She is a child, and never having been allowed to be one, and not knowing how to live in this world, form relationships with people, trust and be trusted she dies as a child. Terra once again has nothing solid to build herself on, and because of that the tower falls down.

3. Terra and Beast Boy

In the cartoon Terra and Beast Boy are clearly meant to be in a relatoinship, in the comics Terra claims to have hated him all along, but arguably she could have been fond of him.

In both versions the relationship is entirely wrong headed from the start. A lot of it has to do with Beast Boy's flaws as a character. I wrote on and on how immature of an individual Terra is, and Beast Boy as the youngest on the team shares many of those immature and selfish traits. IN the comic itself that seems to be the reason why Beast Boy and Terra are paired together, they are the closest in age, she is the new girl and the trope Terra is made to deconstruct is the cute comic book love interest.

Comic book Garfield is almost more immature than cartoon Garfield, and on top of that is a full blown male chauvinist. A lot of people do not like Wolfram/Perez Beast Boy, I kind of love him because he doesn't understand woman's boundaries and thinks he desperately needs to get into a relationship and makes them uncomfortable because he sees his flriting as harmless to them... you know like a teenage boy. Unlike most characters like this that appear in media, this quality of Beast Boy's is something that gets called out on all the time.

Terra and Beast Boy do have something in common in that they are both outsiders to the group, they are the youngest so no one takes them seriously, they are almost always stuck together, there's a scene where they're both getting tutored by a tutor Garfield's rich father hired and they're both such ADD kids no one wants to be there. She does have at least one genuine moment of connection like this one.

Their immaturity is what makes them the most similiar, but they go about the inferiority they feel towards other people in opposite ways, Terra sets out to try to prove that she is better than other people by asserting herself, while Beast Boy tries to bend over backwards to win their love.

Terra sympathizes with Beast Boy because they share the same root cause of the issue, but they cope in opposite ways and because of that she looks down on him as just another kid. Which is something Terra is desperately trying to prove she is not. Terra genuinely does go out of her way to kiss him which shows this conversation at least affected her, she has moments of being genuine around Beast Boy, but I think this and every version of Beast Boy is too immature to ever reach her. Because to return to the male chauvinist aspect of Beast Boy's character, not long after this scene he full on triggers Terra by coming on way too hard to her.

Beast Boy wants a girlfriend, to validate his feelings, to make him feel special when he feels like he is the only kid, and the one most often left behind in a group of adults. He tries to make Terra into his love interest and Terra does not want to play that role at all. There are moments where Terra is genuine with Beast Boy, and he might have been able to reach her, but Beast Boy is so obssessed with the image of Terra he has built in his head and the idea of having her he's never able to even come close to her.

Beast Boy cannot understand Terra with any sort of nuance whatsoever, because she's a woman who doesn't really want to play along with any image of her in his mind.

Their cartoon relationship is much less destructive, but really suffers from the same fundamental problem. Both the episode "Terra" and the episode "Betrayal" feature Beast Boy trying to make Terra a promise that he cannot keep. The first time he promises to keep her powers a secret, he actually keeps that one but the perception that he's betrayed her is what makes Terra run. The second time Beast Boy promises to accept her no matter what she does, only to reject her when she is openly weeping and apologizing at his feet out of remorse.

Like, if you wanted to save Terra. To convince her to turn back to the side of good there was never a time more ideal than that but Beast Boy spits in her face. Because while he's a hero he's also a fifteen year old boy feeling hurt and betrayed. This is Beast Boy's Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice moment.

Beast Boy's attraction to Terra is sort of instant and a kiddie crush, but any relationship they might have had is broken by the time Terra runs away at the end of their first episode together. Afterwards Terra has already betrayed the Titans, and Beast Boy is clinging to the girl Terra appeared to be the first time they met.

Beast Boy doesn't really fully comprehend Terra, which is why the literal last episode of the series is Beast Boy stalking Terra all day long and insisting that he knows her best, and he knows certain things about her and acting confused when she tells him that she was never that way, she never liked sleeping outside, she wasn't the girl he thought she was.

I went to great length to show how Terra's emotional immaturity results in her constant flip-flopping and contradiction, but Beast Boy shows the exact same behavior. Beast Boy in the cartoon tries to play roles to Terra that he is not emotionally mature enough to play. While at the same time. The first is he tries to be the one protecting her, the one guaranteeing her stability. In the first episode he is the one who stays with Terra and calms her down after Slade triggers her into nearly causing an earthquake.

At the same time by the end of that episode he's unable to make Terra stay because she's so hurt at the idea he betrayed one secret. Beast Boy is also the same person who one episode ago told Terra that she didn't have any friends to her face when she was crying and apologizing and just left her there, and the very next episode gets angry when the titans say Terra is irredeemable. Beast Boy that was you. You said that, to her face.

Beast Boy: Terra, you're our friend. Terra: I don't have any friends, remember?

Beast Boy wants to act like a hero saving Terra, but he's not that great of a hero, nor is he emotionally mature enough to do that. Which is why we get this behavior of Beast Boy, first reaching out to save her, and then resorting to victim blaming when he feels like he can't save her. He jumps between I am Terra's best friend, I know she was there all along, to just Terra doesn't have any friends. Terra you wanted to do these things, it was your choice. There's no consistency in Beast Boy's actions, because Beast Boy doesn't really know what to do he is vulnerable and desperate, because a person who he cares about has hurt him, and is also hurting.

Beast Boy is once again trying to put Terra into a simple and easy to understand box. He is acting like the hero of the story, and she flips between his villain and his love interest when that's not the case. Terra's more focused on Terra herself, she cares about Beast Boy but she's also just trying to survive. Beast Boy is a little bit too focused on his relationship with Terra, and like the validation he wants to get from her that he can't look at Terra as a whole person, or realize from an outsider's perspective she's a kid in dire need of saving. Well he does at times, but like I said he flips between advocating for never giving up on her, and victim blaming her because Terra is not easy to understand and he cannot make up his mind.

Terra is the main character of her own story and Beast Boy doesn't know how to comprehend her that way, or set himself aside to look at things from Terra's perspective because he's fifteen and stuck inside his own head with all those adolescent feelings and hormones.

In both versions, I think Beast Boy mistakes what could have been a strong friendship for romance because he is obsessed with getting into a relationship without really understanding what that entails. Beast Boy not being a good boyfriend at fifteen is actually perfectly understandable, the whole tragedy of the Judas Contract in general is that just like Terra is too immature to save herself from her situation, the Titans also just being kids are too young to save her.

They also both try to jump into a relationship without building a solid friendship first, because they both need love and stability and have no idea how relationships are supposed to work. It's like they both fell in love with the people they were when they first met and the relationship never evolved. They are similar and there is a connection, but rather than the things they have in common bringing them together, it drives them apart.

#beast boy #tara markov #terra #teen titans #teen titans meta #tt meta #new teen titans #terra markov #terra teen titans #garfield logan #bbterra #beast boy x terra #judas contract #metasks

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