And The AS Is The Only Bb Characterization They Know - Tumblr Posts

Beast Boy Thoughts

I came to a realization about Beast Boy from the 2003 animated Teen Titans series and how people view him and his relationships. Anyone who knows me, (If you don’t know me; hi! I’m Robyn!) knows that Beast Boy is my all time favorite character in anything ever. He is a comfort character, of sorts. I can fall back on writing or drawing him to make me feel content. It always baffled me how people could dislike Beast Boy as a character. I know people have different tastes, but the way some describe him felt to me as though they didn’t even know who he was. It only recently hit me as to why some people see him the way they do. Teen Titans, as a show, was great. That being said, it wasn’t flawless. I think its biggest flaw, while intentional, was little character development. They wanted the show to be one you could tune into at nearly any episode and not be lost. To have a character act too differently from one episode to the next risked losing the casual viewer. We see bits and pieces of development here and there, the occasional callback to another episode, but major growth is not seen. I think the biggest victim of this flaw is Beast Boy. While he did have his own arc in season five, we don’t really see him grow. He basically acts the same from episode to episode, despite what happened in previous episodes. He managed to lead his own team to free the other Titans and defeat the Brotherhood of Evil, but he was no different the next episode. He was never allowed to grow. This extends to his relationships with others. His relationship with each Titan remained the same throughout the entire series. His relationships with the main Titans were rarely delved into, save for Raven, whose interactions were immediately forgotten by the next episode. Beast Boy got the short end of the stick when it came to writing in general. More often than not, he was written solely as comic relief and even a punching bag, often the target of slapstick. He got the occasional moment to shine, but this was often downplayed with a joke of some sort. Things Change, despite what happened the episode prior, had the Titans all looking down on Beast Boy. They scolded him for leaving the battle, refused to believe he saw Terra, and insisted he was wrong, even after telling them her statue was gone. Keep in mind, almost all the team sympathized with Cyborg when his CAR was stolen and they didn’t scold him for abandoning the team to find it. There is so much we don’t get to see of Beast Boy, so much we have to dig for. And that’s why Beast Boy can be thought so little of; we have to dig for more of his character and growth. We have to read between the lines and speculate. It’s not given to us in strict canon terms. He can be a deep and troubled character who covers his insecurities and pain with jokes and false bravado. He can have a great potential for growth. He can have deep and meaningful interactions with his family and friends. But we almost never see that. Beast Boy can be a really good character. We just have to look a little harder.