Raven (The Haunted Mansion)

The Raven is a character from The Haunted Mansion and associated media. It appears throughout the attraction at many points.
==Background==
===Development===
The Raven was incorporated into the attraction as a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe (after his narrative poem of the same name) and was to serve as the attraction's narrator, being the physical form that the Ghost Host would take. Eventually, this was toned down to the Raven cawing and speaking in addition to an unseen Ghost Host narration, going as far as the Raven's voice being recorded for the Stretching Room ("Caw, Caw, he took the coward's way!") and the Conservatory (Caw! Caw! You've disturbed another guest!").
Ultimately, the Raven would just have no dialogue at all beyond his cawing.
==Appearances==
===The Haunted Mansion===
The Raven appears in several rooms: The Conservatory, the Seance Room, the descent from the Attic in the trees and above the crypt of the Hitchhiking Ghosts. With his appearance in the conservatory, fans often associate the Raven as belonging to Madame Leota.
===Phantom Manor===
The Raven appears in the Music Room, the Seance Room, the Ballroom, the Graveyard, and Phantom Canyon.
===The Haunted Mansion (film)===
The Raven appears in several scenes of the film, watching the Evers when they enter the house and appearing in the Seance room by Leota's crystal ball when Ramsley looks into it to spy on Jim. It is revealed in a commentary by director Rob Minkoff that the producers did not use an actual raven to play the film's raven but instead, a harmless bird with African origins and similar characteristics to the raven due to the strict application of California's laws on domesticated birds of prey.
===Haunted Mansion===
The raven appeared as part of a chair in Madame Leota's seance room, normally used by Master Gracey. When Bruce Davis sat on the chair, after revealing to his team that the Hatbox Ghost had 999 souls and needed one more to complete his ritual, the raven came to life and flew off.
===The Ghost Gallery===
The Raven appears in the cast-member made backstory to Disney World's Haunted Mansion where it is given the name of Richard Belle. In the story, Richard Belle was once the maternal uncle of George Gracey Jr. (a composite character of Master Gracey and the Ghost Host); however, George never knew him, as he died a year after his own birth. Years later when George became the master of Gracey Manor, Richard's widow Elma moved into Gracey Manor to become closer to the family. It was around this time that Elma had acquired a pet raven who she referred to as Richard and would often have long conversations with it, at one point even painting a portrait of it only for the family to realize that she had painted a portrait of her late husband. In 1920, a scream was heard from Elma's chambers, and when the family entered they found her dead, pointing towards her raven who then flew into the night.
===Other Appearances===
The Raven makes a cameo appearance in the Mickey Mouse episode "Canned", perched on a branch and ominously crowing at Mickey as he enters the backyard.
==Gallery==
Haunted-mansion-disneyscreencaps.com-4253.jpg|The Raven as seen in the film
File:Haunted-Mansion-Raven-Outside.jpg
MickeyMouseCrow.png
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Category:Characters
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