Riven

Riven is one of the original four Specialists. Initially an uncooperative loner, he has since become a more amiable member of the team. He specializes in resourcefulness and stealth, and is a skilled fighter. Riven was best friends with Nabu and is Musa's boyfriend.

Appearance
Like other Specialists, Riven is a young man with an evidently muscular build. His skin is rosy with a slight tan, and his eyes are narrow and indigo-colored. He has short red-violet hair that is spiked back with only two bangs framing his face.

Civilian

 * In Season 1, Riven wears a white midriff muscle shirt with burgundy pants and slightly darker sneakers. He also wears a pair of gray wristbands.
 * In Season 2 and 3, he sports a British flag-inspired midriff with an upturned collar; boot cut jeans with an X-shaped gray waistband, and light gray shoes. On his wrists, he wears a pair of red-brown arm bracers.
 * In Season 4 and 5, his outfit consists of a blue shirt and a white collared vest, purple pants with a white belt, and dark slate-blue shoes that have white soles.
 * In Season 8, he wears a long sleeved, white button-up dresss shirt. He wears a black jacket with gold shoulder pads and ring detailing. He wears simple denim jeans with Black army style boots with black laces and white soles. He also has a purple poka-dot scarf.

Uniforms

 * For Seasons 1-5, Riven wears the original Red Fountain uniform for school and missions. It resembles a long-sleeved, dark blue and white unitard with knee-high blue boots and a sky blue cape. Riven's cape is held in place by a round magenta pink gem.
 * In Season 8, the standard uniform is completely upgraded and redesigned to exclude any capes. Riven's new uniform and is dark purple with blue and gray highlights.
 * In Seasons 6 and 7, the Specialists have a Linphea College uniform. It is another blue bodysuit but with more armor in the shoulder, chest, forearm and leg areas. Riven's uniform has a magenta pink diamond in the center of the chest.

Personality
Riven is the impulsive, competitive, realistic and goal-oriented member of the Specialists. He can be rather hot-headed, experiencing moments of envy and blind aggression; but he is also protective and caring. Riven has trouble expressing his emotions in a suitable manner, even when he is not putting up a cold front. This often leads to him clashing with Musa.

In Season 1, Riven was a bit of a lone wolf. He was arrogant and mean-spirited, which often put him at odds with the rest of the Winx and Specialists. However, he was also thin-skinned and sensitive to what people thought about him. As a result, he was easily affected when people laughed at or humiliated him — shown when Bloom dumped water on his head in "A Friendship Sundered". Riven's insecurities caused him to doubt the authenticity of those around him and question who his true friends were. Because of this, Darcy was able to take advantage of Riven's distrust of his team. He eventually recognizes his mistake, acknowledging the Specialists and Winx as his real friends, and begins to reconcile with them.

Despite his initially unfriendly attitude in Season 1, Riven is shown to have a conscience early on, though it is often overshadowed by his shortcomings. He is able to put aside his differences to cooperate with Brandon by the end of "The Black-Mud Swamp". He also assists Musa and Darcy when they are injured in "Friends in Need" and "Betrayed!", respectively. His compassion is not solely limited to his love interests, as he was extremely unwilling to leave Griffin and her students behind while they were imprisoned in their school's dungeon during the Trix's ongoing invasion in season 1. Even though the Army of Darkness's scrapers would have surely recaptured him, he did not budge until Griffin reasoned with him. And once he snuck back into Cloud Tower with his friends, she was the first thing he had thought of and went to release her with Brandon. He can also be reflective when not blinded by his anger. In the episode "Storming Cloud Tower," Riven expresses that there are many things he dislikes about himself, but denies the notion that he is a monster, claiming that even he "has a heart". He goes on to prove this statement through his gradual development as a character.

From late Season 1 onward, Riven slowly begins to improve as a person. Though he still struggles to express his emotions, he is noticeably friendlier and more cooperative throughout Season 2. As time goes on, he becomes more compassionate and relaxed, no longer taking his friends' jokes too seriously (even making some himself). He smiles a lot more and doesn’t mind engaging in some goofy behavior. In spite of this, Riven remains a straightforward and blunt person. He is very realistic and vocal about his opinions. This is shown in Season 3, when the Winx are heading to Eraklyon to get an explanation from Sky for his sudden decision to marry Diaspro. Riven reminds Bloom that she cannot force someone to love her or give her an explanation. He also attempted to knock some sense into Timmy when Tecna disappeared into the Omega Portal even if it was hard for the latter to hear it. Nonetheless, he listens to Timmy when he says he can still sense Tecna's magical vibe (indicating she is alive) and quietly comforts him.

Later on, in Season 4, Riven displays an even more vulnerable side. In "Morgana's Secrets", after Nabu's death, he goes to a quiet place away from the others and cries for the loss of his friend.

It is shown in the comics that Riven is extremely protective of his friends, going so far as to remain secretive of a dangerous mission for fear of their safety. Because of this, he unintentionally hurts the people who love him. Even so, he is willing to risk that in favor of their well being. This is also shown in the series as well. In season 3, though his main reason in confronting Nabu was about stealing Musa (a misunderstanding), Riven, without hesitation says "nobody takes down my buddies!" in a threatening tone. In Season 6, Riven's sudden return to his over-competitiveness and obsession with training was, in fact, to make sure he was strong enough to protect Musa. But when he sees that his training was not enough to protect her, he decides to venture out to continue his training, showing his determination.

Riven's initial wariness of people, especially women, is believed to have originated from his mother. She abandoned him when he was younger, supposedly in pursuit of money. As a result, he has come to hate her. It seems he used to project those feelings of disdain and distrust unto others, which led to his difficulty with maintaining relationships in the beginning.

Books
In Fairy Insider, he is mentioned to be hard to get to know, great at sports and cool, yet sometimes with a "crummy," unpleasant, attitude.

In Perle, his image can be seen in the end but he is not mentioned.

Skills
Riven is an excellent swordsman, wielding a scimitar-styled purple phantoblade and a bolas. He is also very good at dragon wrangling and is a very skilled thief and lock picker. This bit of knowledge served him well when he was trapped in the dungeons of Cloud Tower by the Trix as Riven picked the lock that had been put on his cell door to free himself. Riven seems to be the most knowledgeable in stealth and strategic planning. He is shown to be observant, adaptable and capable in constructing makeshift weapons. He also seems to use smoke bombs often.

He knows how to snowboard and his athleticism is on par with Sky but falls a bit short in comparison to Aisha. In Season 6, he is quite agile as he was seen scaling the walls of Aisha's gym (during a sparring session with Sky) to retrieve his fencing sword Sky had knocked out of his hands.

In Season 8, he utilizes another new weapon - a pair of nunchakus (karate sticks). The nunchaku can be used as both offensive and defensive weapons. Offensively, it is used to strike and whirling it makes the hard handles into a blunt force. The chains can be used wrap around something (e.g. a weapon) to disarm it or immobilize it. The handles can also be combined in single sticks and then combined further to make a four-stick projectile weapon.

Alongside fighting skills, Riven knows how to play the Chinese zither.

Etymology

 * Riven's name might have come from:
 * Rivendell, which is a place featured in the The Lord of the Rings books of J.R.R. Tolkien, since it seems that many alphabets, characters, names, objects and places in the Winx Club universe were inspired from Tolkien's fictional universe. It was one of the last outposts of the Elves in Middle-Earth and where the lord Elrond resides. Rivendell itself is the English/Old English translation of Sindarin Elvish Imladris, meaning "Deep Valley of the Cleft".
 * The Old English word Riven which means "to be torn in half".

Inspirations

 * Riven is also the name of a video game and a female character in League of Legends.
 * Riven makes a resemblance to Jin Kazama from the Tekken series.
 * His hairstyle may be inspired by Odd Della Robbia from Code Lyoko. Although it's not confirmed, their hairstyles look exactly the same but they have different hair colors.

Trivia

 * Riven's 4Kids voice actor (Michael Sinterklass) and Nickelodeon voice actor (Sam Riegel) both worked together in the 2003 version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".
 * Similar to Sky, Riven has been manipulated multiple times, and dated an antagonist.
 * Sky was once the fiancé of Diaspro, as Riven dated Darcy.
 * Sky was manipulated by Valtor's spell, as Riven was spelled by the Trix and the Ancestral Witches through Mandragora.
 * Riven's voice actor also voices Rumpelstiltskin and Acheron in the Nickelodeon dub.
 * On the official Winx Club website (2007), it is mentioned that Riven is a very good thief.