I Still Wanted To Share My Theory Though - Tumblr Posts

Raven isn't the one who ended the relationship.

Bold statement, I know, but I think I've got a good case here.

It's pretty well known that Garrae is a thing in the comics (and if anyone tries to say they only became a thing because of the TV show, I will drop kick your ass into the sun), but those who don't read the comics as religiously as I do probably won't know that they got together in issue #30 and then we learned that they broke up in issue #34.

It's a time skip thing, don't worry too much about. They were together for about a year before they fell out.

It always bothered me that Geoff Johns never said why they broke up. I had assumed that it was Raven who ended the relationship because she seems more likely to do so than Gar, but I'm not so sure now.

In this analysis I will be primarily focusing on the Johns (2003-2007) and Krul (2010-2011) era of Teen Titans, as they were the two most prolific Garrae writers. If you want to accept the Winick era of Titans in which a lot of Garrae stuff was retconned and Raven was a particularly nasty bitch to Gar, then you should also accept the fact that Winick tried to retcon Nightwing into not loving Starfire. 2008 era Titans was a bad time for everyone involved. Let's agree that that part of canon sucked ass and move on.

Here we have a little bit of why Gar left the team when he and Raven broke up, as "seen" by Cyborg when he was in a coma for a year.

His self-confidence at this point is pretty shattered. He's leaving after a year of being the leader of the Teen Titans, during a time in which they went through 20 members in a year. Everyone was at each others throats, and some kids were only in it for the fame that being a Titan would give them. Raven was the only member of the original Johns era lineup to stay on the team during this time.

"Tim's finally back. He'll be able to handle this" sounds to me like Gar didn't know how to handle a rowdy group of teenagers and is gladly giving over leadership to someone he thinks would do a better job than he had.

Plus a little bit of projecting. Gar didn't have a team of Titans that he could trust either. One of their members turned out to be a traitor, although he didn't know that at the time. There even was one former member who kept on trying to flirt with Raven behind Gar's back, and sometimes even while he was nearby.

The most important lines of dialogue actually comes from Raven, speaking to a comatose Cyborg.

Why would Raven say that both Gar and the rest of the team think she is leaving because of Gar if she was the one who ended their relationship? Something doesn't add up.

I doubt Raven would be openly wanting to spend time with and showing this much concern for Gar's wellbeing if she ended it. Looks to me like Gar is trying to avoid conversations about both them as a couple and encounters in general.

Finally, my smoking gun comes in the form of Krul's era of Teen Titans. I generally consider Krul's run to be a true spiritual successor to Johns' run, unlike all the other writers who came after Johns. Krul's run was the last few issues that this particular volume of Teen Titans ran for before Flashpoint fucked everything up.

Thus, I leave you with one final question.

What would she have to forgive him for?