The idea is that ravens are used to picture death, crime, sorrow and the like. It gives a sort of dark feel to whatever it pictures. And yet ravens carry themselves in an almost noble way.
Gas masks are used to avoid breathing in poison even if it is all around you. They also give off a rather dark feel when used in imagery.
I have a weird kind of fascination with dark imagery so that's why I went with dark things. But I wanted to use the dark imagery to demonstrate something totally opposite. You see, the raven has a gas mask, it avoids the poison all around it. It will wear the gas mask until the poison is gone. What the raven sees in the poison is part of itself, yet he has hope of escaping it. That is why he even wears the gas mask, that is why there are traces of nobility in his make up. The raven wants what's around him to change and he wants himself to change, but he can't do it himself. So until someone does it for him he wears the gas mask, not getting any worse, just aiming for nobility even though he can't get all the way there in his current state.
