Terra Markov and Evie Zamora Mirror Each Other.
When Tracy’s mother puts her foot down with Evie and her behavior, she begins to resent the found family she had. Evie lives with Tracy’s kin and, doing nasty things with Tracy just as well, is the closest she has ever gotten to having a family. In the end, she moves away with her cousin.
On the other hand, Terra Markov is entirely different in personality than Evie. While Terra has issues with her anger, she’s kind and bubbly. It’s apparent that she wanted friends. When she connected with (most of) The Titans, we can pick up that she doesn’t have them. She was off on her own, and The Titans worried about her because of that. Terra leaves because of her trust issues, then comes back later in the season with The Titans being glad to see her and Raven, the one who was skeptical of her warming up to her. When it looks like things have improved for Terra, we find out that during her time away, she began associating with Slade, a man who manipulates and takes advantage of her. He gets her to betray The Titans (which she does succeed at), but she feels guilty because The Titans are something that she desperately wants and needs. It's very ambiguous what Terra’s fate is. Ultimately, later on, we see a girl in town who looks exactly like her. I think that it was Terra because of her expressions. She was able to find a family to take her in, go back to school, and live everyday life.
Both of these girls needed a better support system. It’s sad because they both became friends with decent people but betrayed them because of their trauma and pain. Evie and Terra both wanted a family; no, they needed one—loneliness for someone that young is detrimental to them. I can attest to that; I went through a period of my teen years where I felt that I had no friends and couldn’t trust anyone. It led to me being caught up in terrible situations. While the families they found were dysfunctional and had their issues (as The Titans didn’t get along at times), it was better than what they had before, which was little to nothing. And in the end, they ruined it because their pain affected their actions. It can be hard to see that Evie and Terra are misunderstood because their acts were so heinous and caused severe harm; we must also have some nuance. Both were failed and needed help but did not get it in time, and everything worsened.
Were the bad things they did ok? Absolutely not! We all make mistakes as teenagers. I can even attest that the leading group in Teen Titans slipped up from now and then, with some characters messing up more than others. Our teen years are a time in our lives when many are failed by their communities when that’s a period where it’s crucial to have a good one.
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