Episode 7: Switched

This episode focuses heavily on Raven and Starfire. (Hey! That's two episodes in a row for Raven! No fair!...Nah, I don't care, I'm enjoying it. WOO HOO!!) Their bodies are switched, hilarity ensues. I think this is another good episode, so without further ado! Let's be on our way!

We begin with...a puppet show. Somebody is narrating a puppet show about a villain defeating the titans. He drops the puppets, the curtains close, aaand-
(Everybody say it now!)
"Opening credits!" We've got our old English opening back, but this episode is still relatively lighthearted.

Now we actually begin with Raven meditating. She's floating over a rock in a vast and quiet space-until Starfire interrupts her thoughts. She can't find the other Titans, Raven hasn't seen them, because she was meditating until a second ago. Starfire suggests that they can do "the hanging out" because "conceivably it could be fun.". Raven's reaction is priceless.

"You wish to be left alone?"
"How could you tell?"

Obviously she wants to be left alone. Starfire leaves her and she begins to meditate again. Seconds later, the boys return, snapping her out of her trance once again. They have fan mail, a box full of little Teen Titan puppets. (the ones we saw in the opening). They're pretty impressed at the detail that was put into them, (Cyborg's has a light-up eye, Robin's has little gadgets on the belt, etc). The boys make their puppets fight, but when Starfire suggest that she and Raven do the same, Raven tosses the puppet to her and walks away, unimpressed.

Later that night....
Something else comes out of the box.

Dun. Dun. DUUNNNNN!

All the titans are asleep, their puppets near their bedsides. Starfire wakes up when she hears the Puppet Master walking around the tower. He uses his control to take the spirits (or something) of the sleeping Titans and put them into the puppets. Starfire wanders around, unable to find where the sounds are coming from while he puts Beast Boy, Cyborg and Robin's into their respective puppets. Starfire's wandering around has also woken Raven, who comes out into the hallway to investigate.  Suddenly they're attacked by Cyborg, Beast boy, and Robin for no reason. They are restrained by Cyborg while the Puppet Master (PM from here on out unless I feel like it) approaches, intending to put their spirits into their puppets like he has already done with the guys. PM reveals to them that he has put the titan's into puppets and taken control of their real bodies. As he tries to take out their spirits, Raven begins a spell of her own, which interrupts the process. Starfire and Raven's spirits are released, but they reenter the wrong bodies (shown by Starfire's spirit being orange/yellow and Raven's being blue) They escape, but quickly discover their predicament: They're stuck in the wrong bodies. (Shown by Raven speaking in Starfire's voice and Starfire speaking in Raven's voice.) Since all they did was switch bodies I will still refer to them as the character they are, not the body they're in. Starfire accidently breaks the light with Raven's powers, and they are left in darkness as the scene fades to black.

...This is either going to be really funny, or really awful

They reemerge on the streets, Starfire making a manhole explode, which they crawl out of. (Stealthy.) Starfire is ranting and panicking as they walk down the street, making everything go to heck. This would be fine, except that Raven's powers are way out of control with Starfire acting the way she is. Parking meters are bent in half, newspaper bins open and fly papers everywhere, and she melts a mailbox before Raven tries to calm her down. Raven's powers are driven by emotion, which Starfire is having a lot of. Starfire continues to panic ("But what if they find us? What if our friends are doomed? What if I am stuck looking like this forever?!") She makes a traffic light explode during this, and realizes that Raven is right and she should calm down to prevent further destruction. Of course, while she tries to calm down, a car explodes, flips over, and lands upside down.

"Screwed" doesn't even begin to cover it. 

They see Beast boy-or rather mind-controlled Beast Boy and have to run. More problems, Raven can't use Starfire's powers either. Starfire explains that her powers are also tied to emotion, albeit different ones. She must 'feel' flight, that is, be really happy, in order to fly. Needless to say, 'unbridled joy' isn't really something Raven's good at. They go through a few more power options for Raven's use, (Starbolts= righteous fury, Super-Strength= boundless confidence) this obviously isn't going to work. They run down an alley and are met by zombie-Robin, however it seems the puppets don't have quite the coordination that the actual Titans do, so all it took was an easy dodge to send Robin into Beast Boy. However the three zombie-titans do manage to corner Raven and Starfire. Raven instructs Starfire to levitate them out of there, she enthusiastically shouts Raven's mantra and they shoot up into the air flying erratically and badly. Starfire wants to stop flying, seeing as she can barely control it. As Raven begins to explain, Starfire reacts too quickly, sending them plummeting into a bunch of trash bags. They hide there until the boys pass on, unable to find them. Starfire almost gives them away with her lack of control, but hangs on long enough for them to leave. PM decides that they don't need to catch Raven and Starfire before a cryptic 'ceremony' that will make him have control over the titan's bodies forever.

He's not really that important though,
the episode is mostly about Raven and Starfire

Starfire wants to go and rescue the boys, but Raven points out how stupid that would be, seeing as they can't use each other's powers at all. Starfire gets angry and emits a dark aura of energy, yelling at Raven for being unable to do, to her point of view, the simplest act of flying. ("Even a newborn infant can feel the joy of flight, but you are too busy being grumpy and rude to feel anything at all!"). Raven points out that her emotions are pretty destructive, so there is a reason for that. They may be in each other's bodies, but they don't really know anything about each other. So they begin explaining their pasts to each other (presumably, we don't see anything beyond Raven beginning with "I was born in a place called Azarath..."* )

Of course, this seems a little strange after we actually learn more about Raven's past and origins, and the fact that she doesn't really want anyone to know about it in any great detail, so Starfire must have gotten the heavily edited version or something. I wonder what exactly they told each other. Starfire's past and origins aren't greatly expanded on at all during the show's run from what I can remember, aside from the one episode they go to Tamaran, and the episode where she goes through alien puberty. Raven gets half a season dedicated to her! Come on! Oh well...

MORE STARFIRE BACKSTORY!!

They've apparently finished their little chat and are ready for some action to save the boys! They see BB guarding the entrance and decide they'll have to go to the roof. Starfire tells Raven to fly them up there with a joyful thought. Raven sighs, but must have come up with something, because they gently float up to the roof and land a few moments later. Starfire wonders what made Raven joyful enough to fly, Raven sheepishly evades the question and sarcastically replies that it was the thought of Starfire not talking. (At least that's how it seemed to me. Come on, Raven has emotion and she has been shown to genuinely like all the titans, I know she had a legit happy thought, it was just too mushy for her to say aloud.). Next Raven instructs Starfire on focusing her energy on a lock so they can get down to where the boys are being held inside. She carefully snaps the lock, she gets excited at her success and jumps for joy, flinging the door open.

PM is about to get his ceremony underway. He makes some sort of magic fire that's supposed to destroy the puppets the titan's spirits are held in forever. Starfire manages to levitate them away, and hugs them joyfully. They seem a bit confused at Raven speaking in Starfire's voice and hugging them, but now is not the time nor place for explanations. Now they'll have to fight the three other titans using each others powers. This is probably a lot more difficult than what they had been doing, as in a fight you have to act on a moment's notice instead of being able to focus on a specific task.

Anyway, despite the fact that they only just learned how to control each other's powers, Starfire is fairing remarkably well, just seeming a little more clumsy than usual, but not really incompetent, she is able to subdue Robin with a rope and sand bag. Raven has trouble summoning Starbolts (though it looks like she's got the hang of flying) She does get to use Starfire's super-strength though. Score one for Raven! Starfire levitates Cyborg away from the puppets and into a mind-controlled Robin. Starfire asks Raven for help and she mangages to grab Robin away from her fight, but it's not Starfire that needs help! PM has the puppets again and is about to drop them into the fire.

NOBODY MESSES WITH MY FRIENDS!
See? She really does care!

Okay, this moment, to me is really sweet. Raven still can't get her Starbolts to work, but as soon as she see's PM about to drop her friends into the fire. BLAM! The explosion knocks the Puppet King's controller into the fire, releasing the spirits of the other Titans and defeating him for good. Raven and Starfire are happily put back into their own bodies. Starfire hugs Raven in celebration. The PM meanwhile, goes back to being a sad little puppet, not that any cares or anything.

Later, Raven is meditating in the living room again. Starfire approaches, but not to bother her or ask where the boys are, this time she wants to join her. As they both begin meditating, Raven mentions that she wouldn't mind going to the mall with Starfire later. They continue meditating as the sun rises.

Seeing Starfire mediate is both hilarious and heartwarming

The end!

While my last post was pic-heavy, due to all the awesomely hilarious expressions and wackiness going on, this one will be rather text-heavy because there's a lot to discuss. Yes, this is just a funny little episode about a Freaky-Friday switch with Starfire and Raven, but you can look at it to find out a lot about them as characters. They're as different as night and day, and they're the only two girls on the team. Raven must keep herself in constant control of her emotion, while Starfire's unrestrained emotions give her power. Also does anyone else think it's interesting that as soon as Raven loses control of her abilities (when Starfire has her body), her powers immediately destroy everything around her, like maybe..that was their intended purpose? Also due to the descriptions that Starfire gave of her powers, she probably enjoys battle, seeing as she must feel joy to fly, and is constantly flying during pretty much all her fight scenes... Seeing as how often her super-strength flings things around even in comedic scenes, she's probably pretty confident too (this is more obvious though). This all may be reading a little too much into things though.

I would also like to point out that while their powers are completely different in the story, in most visually, their powers look very similar, almost to the point of Raven and Starfire being pallet-swaps of each other. They both fly, they both can shoot energy from their hands, their main difference in most small battles involves Raven throwing things and making energy shields and Starfire's super-strength. In episodes that focus more on Raven she often uses other abilities like astral projection (her "soul self") teleportation, and mental abilities and magic that pretty much allow her to do anything the writers call for. (....but more on that later)
Also, if you think about it, they were both born with their powers so there's that...(It probably affected their personalities growing up into who they are today!)
Well, then Raven's story arc goes and screws up any notion that they're alike in any way whatsoever.

Also if anyone noticed, I have been linking to TV Tropes because I can. Get used to it.

My other comments on this episode involve the animation, while in each other's bodies Starfire's eyes and mouth were animated to be more like Raven's since Raven was in her body, Raven's expressions were much more exaggerated than normal due to Starfire being in her body (her head even spins around comically while she was in distress). It was a nice touch, and definitively helped show more how obviously different they were from each other.

Anyway, I can spend all day reading into this episode and look for character foreshadowing, but I won't torment you any longer.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! I'll be up north for Christmas and my grandma has no internet, so have an awesome winter break and I'll see you all after the end of the world, or the new year, whichever comes first.