Teen Titans (Robin | Raven | Starfire | Cyborg | Beast Boy | Terra) | Supporting Characters
Enemies (Slade) (HIVE Academy) (One-shot Villains)
Starfire
Voiced by: Hynden Walch Other voice actors
Powers/Abilities: Flight, Super-Strength, Starbolts, Language Assimilation
"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am stronger than I look!"
"The greater the struggle against your power, the more it resists. Embrace what you have inside, let it become you, and you will find who you were meant to be."
Technically the reason the Teen Titans exist in this show, Starfire is the second of the three children of the Royal Family of Tamaran. When her planet was attacked and devastated by the Gordanians, Starfire's elder sister Blackfire made a peace settlement with the invaders by giving them her younger sibling as a slave. Unfortunately for her captors, Starfire, while apparently rather naive and gentle by Tamaranian standards, was too much for them to handle, breaking loose and flying to Earth. There, she had an... interesting meeting with the other future Teen Titans, who came to her defense against the Gordanians. Like all her species, Starfire can fly, is super strong, is extremely durable, and can hurl energy blasts called "starbolts."
Starfire is a strange mixture of personality traits; most of the time, she acts quite gentle and demure, possibly due to expectations of Earth culture and desire to better assimilate in her adopted home, but when the need arises she can be as much the fearsome warrior as any of her comrades. Starfire is deeply fascinated by Earth and enjoys learning new things... perhaps partially because it gives her an excuse to get closer to her leader.
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- Abdicate the Throne: The first thing Starfire does after winning the throne of Tamaran from her sister, is to abdicate and give the crown to her male nanny, Galfore.
- Abnormal Allergy: Exposure to metallic chromium causes her to sneeze starbolts.
- Action Girl: A Tamaranean warrior princess who can annihilate her foes with her Super-Strength and endless barrage of Starbolts and eye beams.
- Action Girlfriend: Becomes this in time for Robin.
- Adaptational Hairstyle Change: Starfire in the comics, until the existence of the cartoon, had rich, curly hair that was long beyond her waist. Cartoon Starfire has straight hair with short bangs, and her hair only goes down to her hips.
- Adaptational Modesty: Currently the trope picture. Starfire's outfit is tight and shows her midriff, as well as some Zettai Ryouiki, but it's positively tame compared to the beyond-Emma Frost-level Stripperiffic outfits of her comic book counterpart. In a prior New Teen Titan short for DC Nation, Mad Mod transformed the Titans back into their 80s incarnations. Starfire's outfit was once again more modest than what she actually wore in the comics, but was still skimpy enough that she covered herself up in embarrassment.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While she has always been a hero with a good heart in the comics, this version is significantly softer, nicer and more emotionally open, in contrast to her comic book counterpart who was an assertive Proud Warrior Race Girl with a volatile temper.
- Adaptational Slimness: Starfire was the curviest female Titan in the Wolfman/Perez run, but here, she was radically toned down to look more like a teenager rather than a young adult.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Out of all the Titans in the cartoon, Starfire's personality has probably undergone the most dramatic change from her comics counterpart. While she was a fierce, aggressive warrior in the comics, this version of Starfire is a naïve, modest, and often insecure princess. Her innocence serves as a recurring source of humor (
Word of God describes her as a Foreign Exchange Student), using her lack of understanding (and rather literal interpretations) of Earth's slang and customs for comedic effect. Additionally, the episode "Sisters" explores her vulnerability as she confronts feelings of inadequacy and jealousy toward her older sister, Blackfire. - Alien Blood: It's yellow, as seen in one episode where she blushes. However, in "Mother Mae-Eye", her cheeks turned red when she blushed.
- Alien Princess: Starfire is one of the most famous examples ever.
- Aliens Speaking English: Justified in both Season 5 and the Trouble in Tokyo TV movie. She can instantly learn any language by kissing someone who speaks it.
- All There in the Manual: It is the Teen Titans Go! (2003) comics that reveal why she was a Gordanian prisoner and the existence of her younger brother.
- Almost Kiss: Though the entirety of the show, there are many moments where Starfire and Robin are about to kiss only to be always interrupted by something.
- Aloof Archer: In the episode "Stranded", Starfire was shown being very proficient with the bow. Unusually to her, she was aloof and collected.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: She has bright orange skin.
- Ambiguously Bi: In the tie-in comics, when she asks what is Valentine's Day, both Raven and Cyborg explain to her that is a romantic event where people do romantic things. Raven is the first person she asks to exchange Valentine's Day cards, and not the guys, not even the very one she is in love with.
- Amusing Alien: An alien that doesn't get Earth slang or other customs, and has bizarre ones of her own.
- Apologetic Attacker: Often acts regretful when attacking people, such as wondering if she blasted Plasmus too hard.
- Arch-Enemy: Starfire and her evil sister, Blackfire, are arch-enemies.
- Arranged Marriage: Almost went through with one of these. She'd been told it would end a war, but in fact it was a ruse by Blackfire.
- Badass Adorable: A bubbly and naïve girl who is also super strong and shoots lasers from her hands.
- Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: She’s almost always wearing a crop top. Even while the rest of the team are all wearing Robin's costume in his absence, Starfire wears a midriff-baring version (which may be at least partly due to being so much taller than he is). She is generally more cheerful and girly than the brooding goth girl Raven, who always covers up her midriff.
- Barrier Warrior: She can create green energy shields.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: She's able to travel in the deep space to other planets with no equipment. Strangely, "Wavelength" implies that she can suffocate in water despite this.
- Battle Couple: With Robin. Their combos in battle were seamless before they became a couple.
- Beautiful Slave Girl: Starfire is beautiful, and the tie-in comics make it clear that Starfire was sold to the Gordanians as a slave by Blackfire, just like in the original comics.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Starfire is a kind-hearted superhero, as well as a gorgeous girl who attracts more guys than any other female character in the whole show.
- Berserk Button:
- She hates being pranked. After she becomes the unintentional recipient of a prank of Beast Boy's intended for Cyborg, she tells Beast Boy he's done a terrible thing, calling him a klorbag varblernelk.
- Don't flirt with Robin. She seethes whenever Kitten does so, taking out her anger on those around her.
- Beware the Nice Ones: She's a Nice Girl, no doubt about that, but she'll still kick your ass if you're a villain.
- Somewhat subtly, she's the only Titan besides Cyborg who never really has any sort of confrontation with Slade, and he never makes an attempt to manipulate her. Considering Starfire's care for Robin and overwhelming strength, he most likely knew that he would've been turned into a pancake if he tried that.
- The Big Damn Kiss: With Robin in The Movie.
- Big Eater: Shows she is this in "Betrothed" when she and her fellow Tamaranians engaged in a feeding frenzy during dinner.
- The Big Girl: As both a proud warrior race girl and the physically strongest Titan, although her preference for playing Flying Firepower over Flying Brick and bubbly disposition make it less noticeable.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: She has 9 stomachs, a three/four meter long prehensile tongue, and the ability to learn a language through oral contact. Also, she underwent a chrysalis phase and apparently has no navel.
- Bizarre Taste in Food:
- She loves mustard. No, she doesn't put it on food—she likes to drink it.
- She was the only one who enjoyed Raven's cooking of half-raw half-burnt pancakes.
- Blunt Metaphors Trauma: Can't quite get a handle on Earth slang. For instance, when asked if she "digs this party", she replied that "I didn't know we were supposed to bring shovels."
- Bond Breaker: A rare heroic example, and an unintentional one at that. After Starfire goes through time while fighting Warp, she disappears from the rest of the Titans' lives. What was a few seconds for her was twenty years for the rest of the team, and none of them handled her absence well since she balanced them out.
- Broken Hero: It may not seem at first because Starfire's past is not explored in the show at all, but the tie-in comics explore in depth her Dark and Troubled Past, revealing that behind her general joyfulness and optimism, Starfire herself dealt with a lot of hardships from a young age. Despite losing her parents, a brother, dealing with a nasty evil sister, watching her entire planet suffer from natural disasters to alien invasions and being enslaved, Starfire still manages to stay nice even to her enemies, and to have enough emotional strength to be happy all the time and provide support for her friends when they feel down.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gentle Girl to Robin's Brooding Boy; a kind ray of sunshine in her not-boyfriend's otherwise gloomy life.
- Brought Down to Badass: In "Stranded", she temporarily loses all of her powers, but she's far from helpless, being a Proud Warrior Race Girl and all.
- Burning with Anger: In "Date With Destiny", she literally burns up until she became a burnt match with eyes when Robin was forced to ask Kitten out.
- Butt-Monkey: Sometimes, Starfire can be a victim of the show's jokes (e.g. being forced to close Beast Boy's mouth with her hand making drool come through it, having a fish in her mouth, sneezing uncontrollably, getting her boot taken by the green dog the Titans were chasing, getting cream splattered in her face, being transformed into a tigress, and being chased by magic gloves).
- Cain and Abel: The Abel to Blackfire's Cain; they fight every time she shows up.
- Car Fu: In the episode "Go", she kicks a car at Robin and sends it into a building.
- Cat Fight: She fights Kitten on the prom's dessert table for forcing Robin to date her.
- Cat Girl: She is turned into a tiger by Mumbo Jumbo, and her people evolved from a species of felines in the comics. She is also shown licking Silkie like a cat mother does with a kitten.
- Character Exaggeration: Starfire was modeled after Foreign Exchange Student stereotypes. Unlike in the comics, she speaks in broken English due to not fully grasping the language or slang. Alas, some writers (including fans) don't seem to understand how to write her way of speaking like the original cartoon did. For example, in both Teen Titans Go! and DC Super Hero Girls she inappropriately overuses "the" a lot more than she does here, to the point where it's a Verbal Tic.
- Child-Like Voice: Starfire is given a cute, chirpy voice that highlights her innocence and joyous nature.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: She really doesn't like Kitten's interest in Robin in "Date with Destiny".
- Cloudcuckoolander: Justified; she is, after all, an alien adjusting to life on Earth.
- Clueless Dude Magnet: Starfire sometimes doesn’t notice when guys ogle her.
- In "Sisters", she doesn’t realize that two guys are hitting on her.
- In "Trouble in Tokyo", when playing video games in an arcade, she doesn’t notice that every nerd in the arcade is checking her out.
- Combo Platter Powers: Super-Strength, Eye Beams, Flight, starbolts and assimilating other languages by kissing people.
- Composite Character: This adaptation of Starfire is also pulling double-duty as a Nice Guy and The Heart of the team, which were roles filled by Donna Troy in the original comics.
- Cool Crown: Briefly wears one during her brief period as the Grand Ruler of Tamaran in "Betrothed."
- Cuddle Bug: "I would like to initiate a group hug!"
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Starfire absolutely stomps her sister in their fight for the throne of Tamaran.
- Cute Bruiser: The Cuddle Bug just might crush you.
- The Cutie: A high-energy and adorable Nice Girl that likes to give her friends hugs.
- Defeat by Modesty: In "Mother Mae Eye" while See-More is fighting Starfire, See-More reveals he had "see-through" vision and then gazes intently at Starfire, which prompts her to cover herself up while blushing. This allows her to be an easy target for See-More's next attack.
- Distress Ball: In Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. She forgets that she can fly and has to be snatched out of the air mid-drop by Robin, who has no superpowers. Her powers are emotion based and it wouldn't be the first time she lost them due to issues relating to Robin.
- Does Not Know Her Own Strength: On occasion, as seen whenever she hugs someone too hard. This is actually a plot point in "Go!", where she's just escaped the Gordanian slave ship with her handcuffs on and tries to break them off by smashing them into things; she isn't aware that things on Earth aren't built to handle people with Super-Strength, so between that and the Language Barrier, she looks like she's just on a rampage and destroying the city.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: 'If you wish not to be destroyed, you will leave me ALONE.' Starfire's first words in English, ladies and gentlemen.
- Dreadful Musician: In "Only Human", when she sings her "Tamaranean folk song", it consists mostly of screaming and it annoys Cyborg, and in the end, the others appear to be terrified of it.
- Dude Magnet: Robin is only her most consistent admirer. Larry, Control Freak, Mas, and Menos all have a crush on her as well, Glgrdsklechhh wanted to marry her in “Betrothed”, Red X flirted with her in “X”, two guys hit on her in “Sisters”, and she quickly became very popular with the boys in Tokyo.
- Elemental Punch; Starfire can cover her hands/fists with Starbolts to increase the power of her punches. The punches make the same sound her Starbolts do upon impact.
- Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Her English only sounds childish or broken because it's her second language. On Tamaran, the opposite is true.
- Emerald Power: Her powers glow green.
- Endearingly Dorky: Her awkwardness, strange way of speaking, and overall amusing behavior makes her even more endearing and lovable when combined with incredibly kind, idealistic, affectionate, and positive nature.
- Energy Ball: Starfire can constantly theow starbolts from her hands, but their effectiveness depends on the episode.
- Establishing Character Moment: Has two:
- Starfire's first appearance has her very cheerfully proclaiming that she is stronger than she looks...and proceeding to escape from the grasp of a villain made of cinder blocks.
- In the episode "Go" she is introduced screaming in rage for being held prisoner by Gordanians, with the guards utterly afraid of dealing with her. Than she breaks and Curb Stomp Battles her captors.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Happens to her in the two-parter episode, "Apprentice", when she discovers that Robin is working with Slade and was stealing the thermal blaster for him.
- Everyone Can See It: Her Unresolved Sexual Tension with Robin.
- Exposed to the Elements: When the other four Titans bundle up when in arctic areas, Starfire still wears her usual outfit with no discomfort. The only piece of winterwear she put on was a hat. This is because Tamarians can survive in space without protection, so Arctic areas are no trouble.
- Extreme Omnivore: With 9 stomachs, is little surprise that she can eat weirdest combinations of foods.
- Eye Beams: Puberty grants her the ability to shot star bolts from her eyes in addition to her hands.
- Fallen Princess: In the tie-in comics, is revealed it was her own sister who staged her kidnapping by the Gordanians.
- Fantastic Light Source: In any episodes where the Titans need to navigate a dark environment, her starbolts can function as an impromptu green torchlight.
- Fantastic Racism: Was a victim of it in "Troq". According to Val-Yor, Tamaranians are seen to a section of the universe as disposable workers for dangerous areas.
- Fantastic Slurs: Is on the receiving end of this when she is called "Troq" by Val-Yor. It means "nothing" or "worthless".
- Far-Out Foreigner's Favorite Food: Mustard. It's her favorite drink.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: She wears a metal band on one arm.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: While is more of an Informed Attribute, Starfire is apparently capable of achieving faster-than-light speeds by herself.
- Fiery Redhead: She doesn't have the fiery temper (unless you hurt her friends), but she's very passionate and energetic and also loves a good brawl. She even throws her starbolts by feeling "righteous fury!"
- First Girl Wins: She met Robin first and also ends up with him despite other characters trying to interfere between theme across the show.
- Fish Out of Water: She's a Tamaranian living on Earth.
- Flight, Strength, Heart: Starfire is a Flying Brick with Super Strength, capable to project energy blasts from her hands and eyes, and the ability to... learn languages by kissing a native speaker.
- Fluffy Tamer: Starfire managed to tame Silkie when he was a giant mutant moth capable of destruction.
- Flying Brick: Standard Tamaranian powers include flight and super-strength.
- Flying Firepower: She's like aerial artillery for the Titans due to her flight and starbolts.
- Foil: Provides a more lighthearted, sympathetic contrast to Robin's Hot-Blooded seriousness. This makes her a frequent partner of Robin's during fights.
- Forceful Kiss: She kisses Robin upon arriving on Earth to learn English and communicate with humans. She also kissed a Japanese boy in Trouble In Tokyo to learn Japanese.
- Foreign Fanservice: She came from another planet, and when she came to Earth, she shucked her partial armor in favor of a mini skirt and crop top.
- Forgot About His Powers: Sometimes, Starfire forgets that she can fly.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine, being the most compassionate and friendly of all the Titans.
- Genius Ditz: Starfire's understanding of human culture is all over the place, but she is very good at math and knows how to travel faster than the speed of light, mathematically speaking.
- Genki Girl: Justified; all that emotional energy is the source of her super powers. 'Joy' for Flight, 'confidence' for super strength, and general perkiness.
- Girly Bruiser: Starfire is The Heart of the team, her standard attire involves her rocking a mini-skirt, tank top and Zettai Ryouiki, she has a bubbly personality, and can beat down supervillains with super-strength or star bolts. According to the episode "Go", her "girliness" is something she's picked up since coming to Earth. Before then, she was more of a Proud Warrior Race Girl (though that might have also been partly from being imprisoned).
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Starfire is nice, cheery, and wears very girly attires. She is also well-versed in less girly things, like boxing, enjoys to compete with Cyborg for fun and shouts out swears in Tamaranean, and it's implied they are very dirty ones.
- Glomp: Hands out enthusiastic (and often painful) hugs quite readily.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Starfire is the sweet, beautiful, Genki Girl while Blackfire is smart and evil.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Whenever she fights. It's a Justified Trope because her Eye Beams are charging.
- Gone to the Future: In the episode "How Long Is Forever?", Starfire accidentally travels twenty years into the future. In her absence, the team splits up at some point and everyone is going their own way as adults.
- Good Costume Switch: In Starfire's origin episode, she escapes the Gordanians and comes to Earth. When the Titans meet her for the first time, she wears a black armored costume, invoking Dark Is Evil vibes. Over the course of the episode, the Titans learn she is good hearted and switches to her purple costume by the end of the episode.
- Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Starfire wears a purple top, mini skirt, and boots and is the Femme to both Terra and Raven.
- Granola Girl: As a girl belonging to an entirely different sentient species, Starfire can come off as rather bizarre. She is known for eating strange food and sharing with others her many unfamiliar traditions from Tamaran. She is also cheerful and very friendly.
- Gratuitous Princess: She's a princess of Tamaran, but this rarely comes up.
- Green-Eyed Monster: She’s literally green-eyed and gets extremely jealous if another girl pursues Robin, as shown in "Date With Destiny".
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: She is a cute alien girl with orange skin, green eyes, and cherry-red hair who wears a skimpy outfit.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The aversion among the team, as Starfire is physically the strongest and fastest titan, with Cyborg being a very distant second. As such, she is fully capable of either shooting or smashing.
- Hand Blast: Starfire shoots green starbolts with her hands.
- The Heart: "How Long Is Forever?" establishes that she's the emotional crutch holding the team together.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Graduates to such a stage with Raven during "Switched". Trapped in each others' bodies, they have to learn to understand each other just to access each others' powers.
- Human Outside, Alien Inside: Aside from her decidedly orange skin and her ability to fly and shoot energy from her hands and eyes, Starfire has nine separate stomachs, an Overly Long Tongue, a temporary but extensive Metamorphosis triggered by puberty, and a nasty allergy to metallic chromium.
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- I Am a Monster: In "Transformation", Starfire thinks herself as this during her metamorphosis, fearing that her final transformation will cause her to be too hideous to be seen with anyone else, even her friends. Afraid her friends will view her as a freak, she chose to isolate herself in outer space. Fortunately, she reverts back to her old self. (Mostly.)
- I Believe I Can Fly: One of three titans that can fly. In her case, it's a racial ability. "When you feel the joy of flight, you will fly."
- I Did What I Had to Do: In "Haunted", Starfire had no choice but to knock Robin out with a starbolt to the back when he went as far as to threaten the others that he'll take them down should they get in his way of finding Hallucination Slade.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Being an orange-skinned alien with superpowers, Starfire is very insecure about how different she is from people on Earth, and strongly desires to fit in. In "Transformation", when her metamorphosis makes her look ugly, she wants to go back to her original appearance not so she can be beautiful again, but so she can be seen as normal.
- Indifferent Beauty: Starfire's A Day in the Limelight episode, "Transformation", starts off with the narrator pointing out that she's "very beautiful, but thinks nothing of it". The entire time her transformation (Tamaranian puberty) occurs, she's less concerned with being pretty and more concerned with going back to her old self just so she can be seen as normal. Eventually she does, with the bonus of having laser eyes now.
- Informed Attractiveness: Starfire is constantly praised for how beautiful she is, and she attracts other heroes, villains, and civilians without even trying. While she does look quite attractive, the show’s art-style tends to give the female characters Generic Cuteness. So, despite Starfire being treated like the hottest girl on the show, most other female characters like Raven and Jinx are just as pretty as her.
- The Ingenue: No nudity taboo and innocent when it comes to the deeper meanings of a romantic relationship. She gets very confused when it comes to understanding the complexity of human emotions and bonds, mostly because she comes from people who wear their hearts in their sleeves.
- Innocent Aliens: Starfire is rather good-hearted and will even apologize for attacking you.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: She doesn't wear much. This is justified because she doesn’t need clothing for warmth or protection, and when the Titans visited Tamaran, it was revealed that all the women on Starfire’s planet wear equally revealing outfits, so she probably doesn’t realize how skimpy her outfit is by Earth standards.
- Interspecies Romance: With Robin, a human.
- Jabba Table Manners: An inverted heroic example. At least on her home planet. Though given the way all of her race eats when at a table (including the use of a battle axe to pulverize all the food into mush), it's required to get any of the food before someone else devours it.Robin: I'm guessing you picked up your table manners on Earth?
Starfire: (shoving food into her mouth with her bare hands) Hurry, or you will not get any! - Jerkass Ball: Despite her sweet demeanor, Starfire has had some unpleasant moments throughout the show, such as mischievous and wrathful moments.
- Just Friends: Even before their Relationship Upgrade, she considered Robin her best friend, to the point where she couldn't attack him when he was working for Slade.
- Lady Swears-a-Lot: Beside her habit to use Tamaranean insults, in the Teen Titans shorts, she says swear words that seems to be the Tamaranean version of an F-bomb.
- Language Barrier: When Starfire came for the first time on Earth, she could speak only her native language, which made the communication with the others impossible until Robin figured out she just wanted her cuffs off.
- Lethal Chef: At least by Earth standards.Cyborg: (delirious, squealing because he's had an idea) Starfire, remember that purple Tamaranian pie thingy that was full of bugs?
Starfire: My stewed grunthmek which made you physically sick?
Cyborg: Yeah! You gotta cook up some of that!- Subverted when Terra first comes to visit and Starfire serves her a dish of glorg (a gelatinous mass with what looks like worms embedded in it):
Terra: Tastes like sushi mixed with ice cream. (eagerly) Got any more?
Starfire: I shall go cultivate the fungus! - Light 'em Up: Her main superpower is firing off green bolts of light.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Light to Raven's Dark; bubbly, friendly and nice.
- Light Is Good: Her star bolts and glowing eyes are the bane of super villains.
- Lightning Bruiser: Not only is she fast and strong, she can take a lot without being pained.
- Literal-Minded: Often takes expressions as their literal interpretation.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: She has a feminine personality, and her hair is long enough that it goes down to her hips. She is also much more cheerful and girly than the brooding goth girl Raven, who wears her hair short.
- Lovely Assistant: In "Sum of His Parts", Mumbo forces Starfire to be his lovely assistant and prepares to do the Saw a Woman in Half trick on her, probably planning to saw her in half for real. Luckily, Cyborg intervenes.
- Made a Slave: She was enslaved by a group of Gordanians before escaping to Earth. The episode "Go!" shows the tail end of this.
- Magic Kiss: Starfire can learn new languages with a kiss, which makes her The Face. Unlike her comic and DCAMU incarnations, she doesn't explain why she kissed Robin when they first met, as she was under the considerable stress of fleeing from slave traders at the time, which is why he's so shocked in the movie when she kisses a Japanese boy to learn his language. (This version also seems to lack her comic counterpart's ability to assimilate languages through any form of touch as opposed to kissing specifically.)
- Magic Skirt: Despite her skirt being a mini and her frequent flying, there are very few panty shots.
- Malfunction Malady: Her chromium allergy causes her to sneeze starbolts.
- Minidress of Power: Starfire wears the midriff-exposing variation.
- Ms. Fanservice: She’s a tall, curvy, beautiful girl and her usual outfit is a tight crop top, miniskirt, and thigh-high boots. This is especially apparent next to Raven note , who is usually hiding her body in her cloak. However, it's much more downplayed in comparison to her comics counterpart, who had an even skimpier outfit.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: She's a lot stronger than she looks. A lot tougher, too. Robin's staff shattered against her in "Go!", and in "Betrothed", she's easily able to pick up a massive Tamaranean goblet, while Beast Boy and Cyborg struggle with theirs.
- Naïve Newcomer: From the planet of Tamaran.
- Nervous Tics: She has a habit of playing with her fingers whenever she feels embarrassed or unsure of something.
- Nice Girl: She's constantly friendly, even to the jerkass that calls her a racial slur.
- Noodle Incident: When Robin has her try cotton candy for the first time in "Sisters", she mentions that she once ate a piece of actual cotton. When and why isn't elaborated on.
- No Social Skills: Justified with her unfamiliarity with Earth.
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Starfire went on rampage when she arrived on Earth first time, destroying buildings and seemingly attacking everyone in sight. As it turns out, she was just scared and confused, as she'd just escaped from the Gordanians who had enslaved her and just wanted to break the handcuffs.
- Omniglot: She can learn any language by a kissing a speaker of it. By extension, this makes her The Face when they go somewhere that doesn't speak English.
- Only One Finds It Fun: Starfire is the only one who finds most of Beast Boy's jokes funny and enjoys things that the others may find boring or disgusting, like Raven's pancakes.
- Operation: Jealousy: She tries to make Robin jealous in the comics by constantly speaking about how handsome and talented is Aqualad.
- Opposites Attract: With Robin; he's serious and gloomy while she's outgoing and cheerful.
- Out of Focus: An interesting variation. She's a main character, obviously, and several episodes do focus on her, but out of the core group, Starfire is the only one who didn't get a season revolving around hernote .
- Pardon My Klingon: For a girl who's supposed to be sweet and innocent, she uses Tamaranian swears frequently.
- Partial Transformation: In "Transformation", Starfire slowly gains these, but reverts back to normal at the end.
- Percussive Prevention: In the episode "Haunted", the team finds a badly-injured Robin claiming that Slade is alive. Despite the team's clear evidence that Slade is not around, Robin angrily proclaims that Slade still is and rants that if they get in his way he'll fight them, forcing Starfire to hit him with an energy blast.
- Perpetual Smiler: She's rarely down and even when she is, she'll try to smile anyways. There's a practical reason for this: her flight powers are based on "joy" and she'll sink like a rock otherwise.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Beside the fact she can destroy entire buildings, she can create starbolts comparable to a small supernova.
- Pet Baby Wild Animal: Silkie.
- Ping Pong Naïveté: On occasion, it seems like she's learning and adapting to earth culture, only to be as naive as ever about it the next episode. Hilariously played with in one episode with a blatant example of Obfuscating Stupidity:Robin: [bewildered] Starfire, where's the sofa?
Starfire: Your Earth ways are strange to me. Please, what is this 'so-fa' of which you speak? - Please Kill Me If It Satisfies You: "Robin, you are my best friend. I cannot be in a world where we must fight. If you are truly evil, then go ahead, do what you must."
- Plot Allergy: Her allergy to chromium comes up in "Apprentice part 1" and is used to locate a bomb, but is never brought up again afterwards.
- Poirot Speak: Starfire has a habbit of adding articles (usually "the") before the names of villains ("the Cinderblock" or "the Mumbo") and is also an example of Pardon My Klingon with her use of untranslatable Tamaranian words in numerous contexts. The fact that Starfire does this is even more vexing, considering her entire understanding of the English language stems from a direct psychic download from a native speaker, meaning she should have instant and near-perfect understanding of the language. The only words from her own language she should be using are ones without direct translations. By contrast, her sister Blackfire also speaks English and has none of these issues.
- Positive Friend Influence: Starfire served as this for the team. Her ever-present kind cheeriness would help the other Titans through dark days. The episode "How Long is Forever?" reveals a Bad Future where Starfire's absence caused the team to break apart, but her return managed to bring them back together again.
- Power Incontinence: Considering how emotional she is, getting stuck in Raven's body during an episode basically makes her a Walking Disaster Area as windows shatter and cars explode around her as she gets more and more worked up.
- Power-Strain Blackout: In her introductory arc she faints after using her powers.
- Pretty Princess Powerhouse: On her home world of Tamaran, she's closer to Warrior Princess, given her initial outfit and rough manner of speaking, and how even meal times tend to be food-stealing battles, but moves towards this after settling on Earth. She changes her outfit to something more feminine, her natural kindness comes into prominence, and she still shows the "powerhouse" aspect as a superheroine.
- Princess Protagonist: She is a main character and a lot of episodes focus on her, but is the only character left without their own season because the show got cancelled after season 5.
- Proud Warrior Race Girl: The Whole Episode Flashback "Go!" which was how the team got together, shows this. She's far more angry and prone to violence than the Starfire we're used to (it helps that she's in the middle of escaping a life of slavery) and when she learns English, she says the closest word her race has to "kindness" is "weakness". It's disconcerting, considering that everyone on Tamaran besides her sister is a good-natured Boisterous Bruiser at the worst. Chalk it up to her understanding of English being far from perfect. Or trying to sound tough and intimidating.
- Psychoactive Powers: Starfire's powers are apparently triggered and/or powered by specific emotions, e.g., joy for flight, rage for Eye Beams etc. Naturally this little factoid first cropped up when she got bodyswapped with Raven, whose powers go haywire without tight emotional control. It comes up again later, when Starfire finds herself unable to fly because she's confused as to the status of her relationship with Robin.
- Psychosomatic Superpower Outage: She needs to feel happy to fly, so when she's depressed, she loses that ability.
- Puberty Superpower: She gained Eye-beams after her "transformation" period.
- Pupating Peril: Subverted in "Transformation". Starfire starts to exhibit all sorts of ugly deformations as a result of Tamaranean puberty that she tries to hide with bulky clothes. Eventually, she's unable to hide them anymore and flies off in fear that her teammates will reject her for being ugly. She ends up getting captured by a spider alien that feeds on Tamaraneans that go through this process, just as Starfire ends up immobilized in a cocoon. The other Titans show up to save her, with Robin reassuring Starfire that no matter how monstrous she might end up looking after the metamorphosis, she'll still be their friend. It ends up being moot, because Starfire looks just the same after emerging — the only difference being that she now has an extra power.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Starfire sadly compares Robin to Slade in "Masks", for not trusting her and the others enough.
- She gives another one to Raven in "Switched", about how she doesn't let herself feel.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: She is the red to Raven's blue, given how her superpowers require her to be in direct contact with her emotions and their expression.
- Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Aside from having cherry-red hair, green sclera, extra-large eyes, and slightly orange-tinted skin, she looks pretty human for an alien and certainly human enough for Earth boys to find her attractive. Note that her sister Blackfire actually looks much more human, with her black hair, white sclera, and normal-sized eyes.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Energetic Girl to Robin's Savvy Guy. As stated elsewhere, perkiness is her power source and she's just like that anyways.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Though she doesn’t look unattractive in the slightest in her usual outfit, she was quite stunning in her purple prom dress in "Date With Destiny". Robin certainly thought so.
- Shoe Size Angst: In "Transformation", she goes through a metamorphosis equivalent to puberty, during which she experiences several physical changes. One of those changes involves the massive growth of her feet. Fortunately for her, this is only temporary.
- Shoo the Dog: Starfire has no choice but to abandon Silkie when he becomes too much of a trouble.
- "Shut Up" Kiss:
- Downplayed in "Go!" Though her kiss of Robin shuts him up, it was given so that she could learn English.
- Played straight in the movie's ending, where she tells Robin to stop talking before snogging him.
- Sibling Rivalry: With Blackfire. In her introductory episode, Blackfire tried to steal her friends.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Again, with Blackfire who is cruel and sinister where Starfire is sweet and kind.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Her character design is evocative of this trope. When she's actively using her powers, she has solid green eyes like her comic book counterpart. When she's not, her eyes are more like normal human "green eyes", but the sclera (the "white" of the eye) is also green (a paler shade than the iris).
- Skilled, but Naive: Starfire in a nutshell. She's a skilled warrior and hero, but very naive to earth culture and social situations.
- Spock Speak:
- A rare version in that she doesn't speak this way due to a fascination with logic/science, but as a sign of her relative inexperience with Earth languages. She's not skilled enough with it yet for informal usage such as slang and contractions, but she does speak this way on (very) rare occasions.
- She's also royalty, so it's likely that she's used to speaking formally.
- Statuesque Stunner: Downplayed compared to her comic version (who is famously 6 feet, 4 inches tall without her heels), though she's the second-tallest Titan and taller than her primary love interest, Robin.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: "We might journey to the mall of shopping" and "Let us kick the butt!", among others.
- Stripperiffic: Her outfit is rather skimpy, but it's winterwear compared to her comic book version.
- Strong as They Need to Be: Starfire is pretty bad about this trope. She can survive extreme environments when the plot calls for it, and be totally helpless when it doesn't. In one episode, Starfire winds up wandering around frozen tundra, apparently in danger of freezing to death. Given her super speed and flight abilities, there was nothing in that episode stopping her from flying out of the area, or back to Titans Tower to get proper equipment if things get too hairy. The weirdest part is that Starfire has been shown to be able to comfortably survive in the vacuum of space several times. Then too there might be an explanation for both her (and Raven's) powers in that they're emotion based, which means that theoretically, a villain could defeat Starfire by getting her depressed enough. But the strangest would have to be in 'Haunted' where Robin (HUMAN!) manages to "hurt" her just by grabbing her arms?! Granted at that moment she is really shocked and confused at the way Robin was acting. But this is an alien that took a blast to her face in 'Troq' where she was also visibly upset at being discriminated by Val-Yor.
- Stronger Than They Look: Sure, she is a cute alien girl with no visible muscles, but she’s also physically the strongest member of the team. This is discussed not only by others, but by her as well.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Other than her hair color, eye color, and larger eyes, Starfire looks completely identical to her sister, Blackfire.
- Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Starfire is an alien Berserker, while Robin himself was trained by world's greatest detective.
- Super Gullible: Starfire lacks experience with Earth culture and tends to accept explanations without a second thought, since the culture difference is so large that it's hard to tell crazy from crazy.
- Super-Strength: Even beats Cyborg in this regard; she easily hefts a giant Tamaranian goblet that he struggled to budge. In another episode, Cyborg was stand pressing a huge load of weights, struggling a bit and feeling proud when he lifts them up. However, Starfire next to him effortlessly lifts her weights with only one arm, and it's revealed she was pressing at least four times the amount of weights Cyborg was doing.
- Super-Toughness: A natural feature of her species. She can take more punishment than even Cyborg, as she usually gets up quickly after being smashed through buildings and caught in explosions and such.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Starfire looks saddened when the Centuari police arrest Blackfire, even if it's no less than the latter deserves after her actions.
- Tamer and Chaster: Starfire goes from one of DC's top bombshells with a very skimpy leotard to a teenage cutie with a more modest outfit, though she still wears the skimpiest outfit out of all the female characters.
- Thematic Rogues Gallery: Starfire is almost always pitted against alien themed villains; Blackfire, the Gordanians, the Chrysalis Eater.
- Think Happy Thoughts: Having a "joyful thought" is a must for Starfire in order to use her powers.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Starfire feels this way about her teammates, enough to recite novel-length poetry with a brightly-colored floral background.
- Token Non-Human: She is the only alien in the team.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: When Starfire was undergoing metamorphosis, she retreats into space out of shame. On one of the planets she visits, she gets attacked by a giant alien carnivorous plant. Starfire wasn't able to fight it off and gets eaten... only to be spat back out. The alien plant leaves in disgust, making Starfire feel even more dejected.
- Town Girls: The Femme to Raven's Neither and Terra's Butch. She's the sweet, naive, and girly one of the titans.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: A lot with Robin. They finally get together in the movie.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Only really by comparison, but still is this among the Titans. This is her battle dynamic with Robin, and what keeps her from being a Story-Breaker Power despite being one of the physically strongest characters in the show, but also a contender for the fastest besides Kid Flash. While Robin makes this happen with anyone not named Slade, it's very prevalent with her. She's much faster, stronger, and tougher than Robin (and most of the people around her, hero or villain, for that matter), to the point he really wouldn't have stood any real chance against her if she fought seriously. But she's also not a master martial artist like Robin or her sister.
- Unusual Eyebrows: Her eyebrows are shaped like dots.
- Verbal Tic: She never uses contractions (so she will always say "I am" instead of "I'm" or "Is not" instead of "Isn't"), probably because she basically downloaded the language rather than learned it, only allowing her to process the most necessary elements of communication. (Although, she does say "Let's" instead of "Let us" in "The Lost Episode".) She also has a habit of using "the" in sentences where it's either unnecessary or where another word might sound more natural.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: The prom episode with Killer Moth and Kitten, though it was Fang who felt the brunt of Starfire's protective wrath."Keep your legs off my boy!"
- Waif-Fu: Starfire looks unimpressive most of the time, but she is the muscles of the team.
- Warrior Princess: She's second in line to the Tamaranian throne and the Tamaranian are a proud warrior race culture.
- Warrior Therapist: Starfire may be a ditzy alien girl, but she is very insightful about many things. She helps Red Star to accept his powers and not suppress them.
- "What Do They Fear?" Episode: In one of the comics. Her greatest fear is her friends betraying her and turning her back over to Blackfire and slavery.
- World's Strongest Woman: While Raven is more powerful than Starfire overall thanks to the sheer magic power that her demonic heritage gives her, Starfire fits this trope in terms of physical strength, being by far the physically strongest female character in the series (with only her sister matching her) and is stronger than the majority of the guys too.
- Yandere: Starfire was absolutely ready to kill Kitten for approaching Robin.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!:
- In "Go!", Starfire was a raging berserker at first, who nearly took out the other Titans and destroyed a good portion of the city, and that was with her restraints on. She eventually mellowed out.
- She does not take Kitten's crush on Robin lightly in "Date With Destiny".
"Stop talking."