Raven Lydia Baxter (portrayed by Raven-Symoné) is the main protagonist of the iconic That's So Raven franchise.
Background
Personality
Raven is strong, confident and loud. She loves to have fun but struggles with the burden of keeping her psychic abilities secret whilst at the same time trying to fit in with everybody else. She can be bossy and brutally honest when it comes to fashion, but has a heart of gold and has been shown to use her knowledge of future disasters to save the day.
Unfortunately, Raven's visions also have the uncanny ability to get both her and her family into bad situations. When this occurs; Raven often uses her acting skills and her talent for designing costumes to disguise herself as someone else, even though it is somewhat obvious to tell it's really her. This has led up to a number of positive and negative influences in her life; it got her a job for a weekly horoscope; it also got her fired; She pretended to be a bald male in his late fifties in order to undermine a racist shopping system; she has also been posing a Russian gymnast, a bride to her boyfriend’s father, an Arabian belly dancer, an overweight middle-aged woman, a stylish celebrity, a secret agent plumber, a dancing pirate working at a pizza parlor, and was once transformed into a cow.
Physical appearance
Raven is a fun, fresh and fashion savvy teenager with a love for outfits. She is African American and has almond-shaped eyes, and a winning smile. She likes to change her hairstyle throughout the series but it is most often black or dark brown and worn in various bunches and braids depending on her mood.
When having an episode, or in this case a vision, Raven tends to drop what she’s doing and stare into space in a trance-like state for a few moments; she then blinks when coming out of it and tends to react badly and/or excited depending on what she saw.
Powers and abilities
- Precognition: The main plot line revolves around Raven's psychic powers allowing her to catch brief glimpses into the future (premonitions). This is characterized by her going into a blank stare, and the TV audience seeing the "premonition". She has no real control over her premonitions, but they usually involve whatever she is thinking about at the moment when she gets her premonition.
- Enhanced Senses: When tapping deep into her psychic abilities, Raven has the power to see into the immediate future, though it requires concentration, and the image isn't as clear as her visions.
Former powers
- Telepathy: After catching a cold, Raven had a "psychic-cold", which temporarily gave her the ability to read minds, until she returned to her normal health.
Age
- Season 1: 14
- Season 2: 14-15
- Season 3: 15-17
- Season 4: 17-18
- Raven's Home: Early 30s
School Year
- Season 1: Freshman Year/9th Grade
- Season 2: Freshman & Sophomore Year/10th Grade
- Season 3: Sophomore-Junior Year/11th-12th Grade
- Season 4: Junior-Senior Year/12th Grade
Careers
Raven has had many jobs, such as a waitress and dog-groomer. But in Season 4, Raven lands an internship with (fictional) world-famous fashion designer Donna Cabonna (Anne-Marie Johnson).
Raven formerly worked for her former boss Paisley as a fashion designer for dogs. Until vest in show when her and Paisley parted ways
Sayings
Raven's catchphrases are "I'm okay!" (usually after a bad fall), "Ya nasty!" (usually to someone she dislikes), "Oh Snap!", "My Bad!", "Gotta go!", "How y'all doin'?", and "Gently!" In addition, she tends to scream hysterically when she's excited or panicked.
Raven's Home
Before the series begins, Raven moves to Chicago and marries Devon, having twins with him. At an unknown point in time, the pair divorce with Raven taking custody of the children. She gets a job working for Paisley, as a fashion designer for dogs. She later allows Chelsea and her son Levi to move in with her. During this time, she refuses to disclose to her family that she is psychic, with Chelsea being the only one to know. Although later, Raven changed her mind after hearing that Booker inherited her psychic abilities as she told her kids along with Levi and Tess about her own psychic abilitie.
Premonitions
Raven once learns that her Grandma Viv (Jennifer Lewis) is also a psychic. It is then shown that the "psychic gene" is on Tanya's side of the family, and assumed to be a "chick thing", passed down to every female, but this may not be an accurate description, as her mother didn't inherit the abilities, and Raven's son Booker later does.
People Who Know Raven is Psychic
- Tanya Baxter - Raven's mother
- Victor Baxter - Raven's father
- Cory Baxter - Raven's brother
- Chelsea Daniels - Raven's best female friend
- Eddie Thomas - Raven's best male friend
- Nicki Logan - a teenage actress
- Dr. Sleevemore - Doctor from an institute for psychics, who also are aware of Raven's psychic abilities. Dr. Sleevemore is also psychic
- Grandma Viv - Raven's maternal grandmother (note: Viv is also psychic and it's revealed in her debut episode that Raven's psychic abilities come from her mom's side of the family)
- Nana Loretta (only finds out at tihe end of her episode appearance)
- Ben - Chelsea's former crush (Note: Ben is also psychic)
- Zack and Cody Martin from The Suite Life with Zack and Cody
- President Richard Martinez
- Santa Claus
- Parachuter - Eddie and Chelsea casually mention Raven's vision of him crashing through the school's window, to which he nonchalantly responds why she didn't open it if she knew he was gonna to impact with it.
- Nia Baxter Carter
- Booker Baxter Carter
Known Disguises
That's So Raven
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Raven's Home
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Relationships
Gallery
Trivia
- Raven-Symoné played a parody of Raven Baxter in the Sonny with a Chance episode "That's So Sonny".
- Raven and her brother, Cory, are the only characters to appear in every single episode of the original series.
- Raven's ex-husband in Raven's Home was originally going to be a man named David, but then it was changed to be Raven's old boyfriend, Devon Carter.
- Despite being divorced, Raven and Devon seemed to have parted on good enough terms to have an amicable relationship.
- As seen in Raven's Home, Raven wears wigs.
- The only people who know about Raven’s psychic are her family and close friends, although their were a few other people she told, as she trusts them to keep her secret.
- Raven with Chelsea both tied of being the fourth person to know about Booker being psychic.
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