2. Who Raven is, in canon and in vibe
At her core, Raven is a character of capability. She is built like someone capable of fixing, building, engineering, improvising, and holding whole systems while others are still trying to understand what broke. But the show doesn't leave her only in the role of "the technical genius." She is also warm, vulnerable, proud, irritable, sometimes judgmental, and lives in a constant tension between morality, loyalty, and pain.
What stands out about her very strongly from the start:
- She is not one of the original 100, but quickly becomes one of the most essential characters at the group's core. [1]
- She acts through problem-solving. If something breaks, she will try to build, work around, blow up, or invent a new solution.
- She has ego, but not the empty kind. It's the pride of someone who knows she's good at what she does.
- She doesn't tolerate pity.
- She experiences chronic pain, loss, betrayal, and repeated injuries — and still refuses to disappear.
- She is also a very emotional person, just one who covers her softness through hardness, sarcasm, and work.
The 100 Wiki strongly emphasizes her background: she grew up on Mecha Station, with an alcoholic mother who traded food rations for alcohol, and Finn was the one who watched over her and shared food with her from a young age. This matters because it explains why Raven is both so independent and how deeply she attaches when someone becomes "family" to her. [1]
The important part for writing: Raven is not "the lively technician" and nothing more. If you write her correctly, you have to feel in her both metal and flesh, both sharp humor and real vulnerability, both ego and heart.