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Okay here it is.
Ravens character arc in Teen Titans has consistently been the same, all of her personal growth episodes have followed an identical formula. She is shut off from the team, there is a misunderstanding and she pushes the team away when they come to check on her or try to include her. Then by doing that if she's already fighting a villain, it makes it worse and she can't win on her own. Or she creates a whole new one by being closed off and can't defeat it. Then a member of the team comes along (like 80% of the time Beast Boy) and forces her to open up, at which point she gains the strength to overcome the obstacle of the episode. Then they bond at the end.
This also applies to her battle with Trigon in the end, but it's the same formula in all of her other episodes too. The more she feels, the more energy she unleashes. The energy she uses to defeat her father, comes from ignoring the teachings of Azarath and embracing her emotions.
This is most succinctly represented by the ring of Azar. An item that bears the name of the spiritual leader and most powerful person in Azarath. And therefore is a physical representation of her entire culture and philosophy. It only grants the Titans the ability to resist Trigons power for a short time, not defeat him. This is also true of Raven, if she continues pushing people away and locking her self in her room, in an attempt to keep perfect control. She will never be able to defeat her father. At best only keeping him at bay. She needs to open up enough to grow as a person, to find the strength she needs.
In fact this is what we see in the dark future where the Titans broke up without Starfire. She's way older than 16, so the prophecy has passed. But she has gone the opposite direction, embraced the teachings of Azarath 100%, pushed all of her friends away and severed all of her emotions entirely, feeling nothing. This has allowed her to stop Trigon coming to earth as with no emotions, he had nothing to threaten her with to force her to. But in doing so, she never defeated him and freed herself of his influence.
I will apply the formula to each of her growth episodes.
The body swap episode: Initially after they she switches bodies with Starfire, they are both useless and she is constantly rude to Star pushing her away and creating emotional distance. It's only when she opens up about some of her past and the nature of her powers, that they are able to be victorious.
Nevermore: She gets so mad in her fight with doctor light, that her rage breaks free of her control and threatens to take over her mind. She's unsuccessfully waging an internal war into the next day, trying to regain control. Which she fails to do. Beast Boy offers her breakfast in an attempt to cheer her up and makes a joke to show that the team don't judge her for going demon mode on doctor light. Making light of it, to show that it's all still okay and in an attempt to cheer her up. She either misunderstands his intentions, or because she's under rages influence, overreacts. Blowing up breakfast and pushing everyone away. (Starfire also says that the breakfast would mark a betrothal on her planet and asks BB who he's engaged to. The only team member we see him offer the eggs to is Raven, who at the end of the episode goes out of her way to accept them)
BB goes to her room with cyborg, ignoring her personal boundaries and wind up getting sucked into her mind. Robin this whole episode is begging the team to respect Ravens boundaries and leave her alone. Robin is firmly on team Azarath and remains so until the end of season 4. He represents order, control, maintaining secrets and Raven not growing as a person because of it. Once in her mind they interact with her emotions, eliciting large emotional responses from her on the outside, but with no negative consequences for doing so.
(while in her mind her happiness confirms that she for the most part, does find him funny and enjoy his company)
They see her fighting rage and she is unable to win. Then they suggest that she embrace her emotions, combine with them and use their power to defeat rage. While also landing some hits of their own. This whole encounter foreshadows her whole conflict with her father. In the end she defeats rage and Trigon the same way. By embracing her emotions and not pushing her friends away. If BB and CY had respected the teachings of Azarath/Robins wishes and left her alone, she would have lost this fight with rage.
Fear itself: After defeating control freak and taking his remote, the team watch a horror movie together. The other Titans admit that they were afraid and bond over the common emotion/experience. When BB repeatedly invites Raven to join in with the group and express her fear then laugh at it. She refuses. She shuts down the conversation, pulls up her hood and uses aggression/sarcasm to push everyone away. In this episode her denying her emotions creates a villain, the fear monster that attacks the team. She tries to fight it but is unable to until she does what BB tried the whole episode to do. Get her to express herself. She admits/accepts her fear, rather than repressing it and is victorious. Then she makes a joke and the episode ends. But again BB is the main force trying to get her to open up and include herself in the team.
Spellbound: Raven gets a new book and locks herself away to read it. She's pretty near the end and it's a large book, so we can infer she has been reading it constantly for days if not a week. The team keep interrupting her, trying to include her in group activities but she keeps shutting them down. Even Robin checks on her, which is something we never see in the show. If even he's worried, it must have been a long time, that she has isolated herself for. He's mister privacy after all. But she tells him nothing, and he lets her push him away. This is generally what their interactions are like.
The lads try and get her to play a game so ridiculous and obviously not to her taste; that it has to be a hail Mary. They've tried all the normal stuff and she's rebuffed them all. Stankball seems like a desperate last resort. A game that obviously doesn't require a referee as there are only two players, but they went to the effort of making her a special cloak for the position. Again she rebuffs them, without opening up about what she's doing.
At this point BB has had enough, frustrated that he hasn't seen his friend for days he gets mad at the constant rejections, lashing out and calling her creepy. (This is part of his character arc. Growing up and getting better at communicating) This really gets to her as she cares what he thinks of her, already feeling alone on some level due to her recent increased self isolation, this adds to it. She wishes someone on the team understood her, which implies that she doesn't think anyone on the team currently does, neither BB or Robin. This is where Malchior preys on her loneliness and demonstrates that he understands her (although he's been spying on her for days, so that wouldn't be hard to do). He encourages her to spend all her time with him and isolate herself further from the others. (The first compliment she give Malchior and what gets her to start 'liking' him, is that he makes a joke and makes her laugh. Which is also the first compliment she gives to BB in the episode GO! when they first meet.)
In a way he's another villain she 'creates' by pushing the team away. Like any grmer, he's only able to prey on her so effectively because she is so isolated in the first place. It takes two to tango and she's also not opening up about her hobbies to the others. Or trying to let them in to do things she likes either.
BB is still worried about her and spies on her to let the team know what's going on. Turns out he's right to be concerned about the adult man in the teenage girls bedroom. Malchior escapes and the team fight him together and win. Then when Raven is still isolating herself and broken hearted BB comes to say sorry and try to console her. Which is super effective. What he says here is really important. It's what his actions have been saying the whole show, but that she has previously misunderstood "you think you are alone Raven, but you're not" She finally sees him and his actions for who he is, someone who just wants to spend time with her. They hug and she joins in with a game, getting revenge on cyborg for interrupting the moment.
This is also the first time we see her actively engage with one of these activities. Previously she has refereed or been sat off to the side while it went on, this is progress/growth.
Birthmark: It's Raven's Birthday and the prophecy is supposed to start. She's hiding everything from her friends, not letting them help her bear the burden emotionally. In fact she's likely had at least one birthday already, which wasn't celebrated, as she hasn't told any of them when it is. BB can tell something is off in her behaviour and wonders what's so special about the next day. So he goes digging for answers, finding some restricted birth certificate or something. Putting in the work to get to know her better.
He gets excited to celebrate her and convinces the rest of the team that they simply must have a party for her. Which they gladly do. She comes to the ops room, and is horrified by the idea. Unable to untangle the idea of celebrating her, from celebrating what she is destined to do. Deep down she believes that the world would be better off without her. She explodes, destroys the party and storms off. Robin chases after her, his role as leader clear. But she refuses to open up to him. She tells him everything is fine, when it clearly isn't. He asks again, saying that she owes him as she has seen some of his past already; When she was in his mind previously. It was clearly a one way connection though, as he knows nothing of her past now and has to ask her for details. She refuses to tell him anything and shuts herself away.
Then slade reappears. She is unable to defeat him. Had she told her team what she was up against, this might not have been the case. They could have prepared a prison for him and locked him away. She also defeats slade the second time they fight, in the episode prophecy, after she shows them who she really is and comes clean about her past. The only difference between the first and second slade fight, is that she embraces her emotions/friends instead of running away, and she is able to beat him because of that.
At the end of the episode her friends try again and BB clarifies "You may not like your birthday, but we're all glad you were born" and this time she understands. They want to celebrate her. She has the first somewhat positive memories on her birthday in her life.
same pattern in the prophecy episode. She still refuses to open up about what she is destined to do and who her father is. Up until the end of the episode, she keeps pushing the team away.
The end of this episode BB says confidently that they will kick Trigons butt. An idea Raven never thought possible before.
The End: We've covered the ring of Azar. Each of the Titans fight a dark mirror. The clones are all of their insecurities about themselves, they can't defeat them on their own. It's only by being open with their friends, that their friends defeat each others insecurities. Which is also what slade is to Robin, he defeats him by letting him and his obsession go. And Trigon is Ravens dark mirror/insecurities she's afraid she's just like him. She doesn't believe she can even hurt him, let alone defeat him.
It's only after she hears the hope her team has and sees them fighting so hard for her and even hurting Trigon. She finally starts to believe. She feels so much love for them/hatred for her father that she becomes strong enough to vaporise him
It's only right at the end that Robin stops letting her push him away. In the pit when she's a child she physically runs away from him, kicking him. Telling him to leave her alone. And finally he doesn't let her. The last member of the team to get her to open up and he does the same.
Through out the whole show it was 75% BB pushing her to open up/trying to include her in the group. 10% Starfire and 10% Cyborg and now finally 5% Robin.
BB was always the hopeful one. Making jokes to lighten the mood, make it not seem so bad. In the Terra arc he was convinced that anyone with even a shred of good in them can change for the better. That there is always hope. He was willing to die to prove it. Whereas Robin didn't want to give her a chance. Robin has always been the cynical/pragmatic one. It's crazy to me that he stole BB's narrative role right at the end. Everyone on the team believed in Raven. Everyone fought, everyone would have died for her. But BB's been the one constantly there, getting Raven to feel things. Not only positive emotions but the whole spectrum, building up her emotional muscles/tolerances. So that she can live a little more each day than the last. So that she doesn't relapse and isolate herself again. The others do too, but he never takes no for an answer. Unlike Robin who has done the least of that.
That's why she's a tragic character. She's so terrified of what she is and what she's destined to do. That she meditates more than she needs to. Always plays it safe. Locks herself away and slowly starts to think that she doesn't deserve any good things in her life. She won't test her limits, because she's afraid to find out where they end. BB's not, he'll suffer insults, getting kicked in the head. Thrown out the window. All because he believes she deserves to be happy and he won't let her not be.
Here's my Teen Titans playlist of songs and analysis: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiuBJkBSR1OJB_uWtAQJTlelmiVCJmm3M&si=JzAuNEKABUN_PEev