Breaking Free Of The Vines - Telling An Emotional Journey Through Music

Breaking Free of the Vines - Telling an Emotional Journey Through Music

The music starts out sad and loud while the vines are covering her. She is still fighting and the music becomes louder the more of her allies get taken by the vines while she still fights. 

It quiets as the fight in Adora starts to die down and it almost completely goes away once Adora gives in and says “I can’t do this on my own”. 

The music is still soft, but it shifts to Angella’s leitmotif and flashbacks to her sacrifice and everything that came after. Angella’s sacrifice is a huge motivating factor in this season and, while for most of the season it has been a source of Adora and Glimmer’s rift and respective spirals, in this moment Adora is realizing she can’t let it be in vain. Adora can’t give up on the people she cares about or herself because Angella’s last speech to her was about how Adora is the one who inspired her not she-ra and that it is Adora who makes she-ra a hero not the other way around. It’s Adora finally realizing what Angella really meant with her final speech instead of her guilt clouding her interpretation.

 The music grows in volume and turns triumphant when Adora snaps out of it and overcomes the signal to transform and save her friends. The music isn’t she-ra’s theme. It’s Adora’s theme because, while Adora does transform into she-ra in this moment, Adora’s own will is what overcomes the vines not she-ra’s power.

This is easily the most personal thing I’ve ever posted on this site, but it’s something that I really need to get off my chest. The last season of she-ra dropped and since then I've kind of been letting this fester. This show hit me a lot harder than I expected because I felt so validated in more ways than I was expecting. In ways I feel like I’d never been validated before.

I don’t really know why this show makes me so emotional whenever I think about it, but I do know that I haven’t connected to characters as deeply as I did Catra and Adora in any show other than Korra in the legend of Korra (another show that makes me deeply emotional). I understood their anxiety, depression, anger, fear, and desperation. I understood their darker emotions so well and seeing them finally be able to be happy and move in a healthier direction after all their struggles gave me hope. And it’s weird but it also felt so cathartic. I know a lot of people will both understand and many people won’t and I’m so mixed up because I’m not entirely sure how I can understand them so well. How come I felt the same emptiness and holes in my life that they did? How come I have the same struggles with lashing out and anxiety? How come I felt so understood by cartoon characters and yet never with real people? The root of their struggle is so different from mine or at least Catra’s is. I think my experience was a bit similar to Adora’s but even then my father has turned around and has been really trying to be better and more supportive so it is still different. So why do I get so emotional? My parents always said my life was so great, that I had so much more than other people, that I should just be grateful, but I always felt so sad and, if I’m being honest, like they didn’t like me. I don’t know if that’s true, but it felt that way. Everything I liked and showed interest in was weird and “corrupting” me (and I mean things like anime, comics, and cartoons). I would get in trouble from my mom for my brother and sister acting out because I was a “bad influence”. Whenever I would really piss my father off he would throw and kick my things, yell at me for extended periods of time, and take all of my possessions except for my bed claiming he owned everything as long as it was under my roof and if I didn’t learn to get in line I would never get anything back. When my brother and I would go to stick and puck for hockey I would be sent to the other end on the ice so my dad could work with my brother alone. And if I’m being honest there were many instances of “lower tier” physical abuse (not really sure what to call it) where he would shove or drag me around or throw me or pin me to the wall or my bed or throw things at/towards me and I was scared of him. Sometimes when in competition if I was losing and being a sore loser an “accident” would occur and I would end up injured (sprained wrist, busted nose, etc) and it would always be my fault for angering him by being a sore loser. I let my mom know but my mother victim blames and always found excuses for everything my father did and always pinned the blame on me or my siblings. This got worse the farther into high school I got until everything reached its boiling point my senior year and I cut off contact the next year. There were good times and since I cut off contact my dad has made a legitimate and genuine effort to change (my mom pretends those years never happened), but it still hurts and I still question whether or not my pain is valid. I’ve had so many people brush it off that it’s hard to acknowledge that it’s valid. And it’s just new, I think, having female characters being shown on screen having these same struggles and having them validated, but also being held accountable for how they react to their struggles and trauma. It made me feel validated for one of the first times in my life. And I mean really validated because now my father’s words ring sort of hollow after 19 years of not giving me really any validation.

 I just really needed to get this off my chest. I’ve never really talked to anyone about this. I’m still so scared that it will be brushed off because the bad times weren’t all the time. Scared of many things really. (If anyone read this and understood these feeling and experience I hope you know you’re not alone)

She-ra Season 5 Thoughts and Review

I believe that she-ra stuck the landing with its final season. I did have a few issues, but overall I really loved it. I remember when the first season initially released I watched it because I had just finished watching trollhunters and had just started voltron and was excited to see what dreamworks had in store next. The first season contained one of my favorite animated episodes of that year with “Promise”. I was struck by how good the character writing was for Catra, Adora, and their dynamic. That wasn’t the only surprise I experienced when it came to the character writing, Angella and Glimmer’s relationship also had more depth than I was expecting. It became one of my most anticipated animated shows right after that season and I’ve been on board ever since and I don’t regret the ride one bit. So of course I woke up at 2 am my time despite having to work in the morning to watch the entire 5th season of she-ra. Here are my thoughts and there are a lot.

I know the season is new so I’m putting my thoughts below the cut because there are spoilers. 

I want to start with what I loved most about the season. Catra’s redemption. This arc was easily my favorite part of the season, maybe even the whole series. This is what I’ve been waiting for since the series started and I wasn’t disappointed. Catra has been, in my opinion, the show's best and most consistently great character. She’s incredibly complex and trying to write about everything that makes her well written in a single paragraph would not do it justice. (That’s the subject of a meta that would need to split up season by season) I liked that we finally got to see Catra admit out loud what she must have been thinking for awhile. That she’s sorry and that she doesn’t want to be evil and have the bad actions define the rest of her life. This has felt like a long time coming. There have been multiple episodes dedicated to making it clear that her goal to conquer Etheria is superficial and not what she truly wants or needs. Catra has tried to gain power so that she can’t be hurt by people again. Physically by people like shadow weaver and emotionally, however unintentionally, by people like Adora. So when she finally acknowledged that she has been lying to herself the whole time and that she really does care about Adora I was relieved. She could finally start taking the steps to get the love and happiness that she has so desperately wanted this entire time and she does get it through Adora, Glimmer, and Bow. She finally starts expressing her emotions in a healthy manner. Through her arc we see that redemption isn’t just one big decision, but many decisions that have to be made every day. It is made clear that bettering herself is hard, that she has to work on it and she has the resolve to do just that. I really liked that they had her struggle to continuously work towards self betterment like when she initially pushes Adora away after “Save the Cat” and her attempt to leave after Adora accepts the failsafe, but in the end she does make the hard choice to own up to her shortcomings and face the things she fears. If she hadn’t had any obstacles after doing “that one good thing with [her] life” I would have had problems with her arc, but it was handled very well and realistically. I really liked Catra’s redemption arc and thought that it all came full circle in the end.

I really like the interactions between Glimmer and Catra early in the season. Their bonding over their shared connection to Adora was sweet. I liked how they integrated Glimmer as the good influence in Catra’s redemption arc. The good influence is a staple of the villain to hero arc typically. This one was interesting because this was after Catra’s wake up call from double trouble and because Glimmer herself is in need of a redemption of sorts after last season. They both are a “good” influence on each other. Catra has deep seeded doubts about her path in life, but she’s also scared to leave her path. It’s because she saw herself in glimmer last season that she starts to let Glimmer influence her. Glimmer made a huge mistake and pushed her friends away for the same/similar reasons as to why Catra does and it led to her making a rash decision that almost destroyed Etheria. Catra’s decision to open the portal and Glimmer’s decision to activate the heart of Etheria are directly paralleled with the key difference being how they dealt with realizing they made a terrible mistake. Glimmer acknowledged she made a mistake and struggled, despite the futility, to fix it whereas Catra drove herself deeper into denial. Catra got to see Glimmer strive to fix her mistake and regret over how she treated Adora and Bow and can no longer deny her own faults and care for Adora. Glimmer, through Catra’s sacrifice, realizes that she was wrong about pure goods and pure evils. That there is a shot at redemption even for people like Catra. That doesn’t necessarily mean forgiveness but working/trying to be a better person or doing the “one good thing in [their] life”. Both changed the other and I loved the new dynamic.

(On a semi side note I loved the interactions of the new best friends squad)

Catra and Adora’s relationship has been the heart of the show since season 1. Be it romantic or platonic or enemies they have always been driving each other’s character arcs. I don’t really ship but I am a fan of how their relationship intertwined with their character arcs. The way it played into Catra’s descent and redemption as well as Adora’s struggles was fantastic. Catra realizing that she really does care about Adora and regrets her actions played perfectly into how she was able to bring Adora’s arc to completion and get Adora to think of a future and what she wants instead of resigning herself to dying for others. And it was Adora never giving up on Catra that made it so that Catra can start moving forward from her abuse and fear of abandonment. The final decision where Catra tells Adora she won’t leave no matter what happens and Adora accepts her decision is what completed both characters' arcs.

The perfect summation of their relationship is their arc words and how they evolve. Their main arc word is “promise”. This has been echoed season after season with none of the previous ones being entirely kept. This season is different. The promises that Adora and Catra make are kept until the end. Their other arc words evolve from “come with me” to “stay with me” in this season. On the surface level they seem to have similar meanings but in the context of Adora and Catra’s relationship they have completely different meanings. “Come with me” is reminiscent of someone leaving, like Adora does in the beginning, because they aren’t happy with where they are and they have to move forward and they want someone to follow. This is what triggers the fractures in their relationship. Adora leaves and chooses something else over staying with Catra which is Catra’s biggest fear and causes her resentment towards Adora for breaking the promise to always be together. Catra isn’t at the point where she can follow Adora. She is too hurt emotionally and right then unable to move past her abuse. With the words changing to “stay with me” this season it’s about keeping someone from leaving rather than having someone leave with you. Catra has finally gotten to a point where she has finally come with Adora. She has opened up to others and started to move forward in spite of the abuse inflicted on her. She is “with” Adora. They are in the same place and Adora wants to sacrifice it and leave because she feels she has to, not because she wants to. So when Catra says “stay with me” she means don’t give up, don’t give in to the destiny thrown at you, keep fighting to the end with me. So the arc words come full circle as well. Catra’s greatest fear is being left so until that point she left people first and now she is holding on and fighting for the connections. It’s a great bookend to her arc. And Adora accepting Catra’s decision to stay marks the completion of her arc as well. Adora finally lets someone help her through to the end. Both these characters have come so far and I’m just happy that they got happy endings.

I really liked how they sort of inverted the typical heroic character arc with Adora this season. In a traditional hero arc the hero starts out selfish and then becomes selfless. Adora however has been selfless since the beginning. To the point of it being her fatal flaw. Adora has always sacrificed her happiness and well being for others and in this season she learns the limits to this self harming sort of selflessness. She’s always believed that to have worth she had to help others and solve all their problems even at cost to herself. This season she learns that it isn’t selfish to want a future, to not want to die saving everyone and how that can be a strength. That if you have something you want to live for it will help you power through in times where Hope seems lost.  “You’re worth more than what you can give to other people” It was a touching message that I was happy was given so much emphasis.

Adora’s arc is so well done. I really love how deep of a dive they decided to take into her character and trauma. Up until this season everyone seemed able to brush aside how deeply Adora’s abuse effected her and how her experiences in the show have just reinforced the toxic thought process that she is the most disposable person in every room and that she needs to be needed or no one will want her around. And how easily these traits can be misconstrued as heroic or overbearing by those around her rather than the mental scars that they are. I loved how it was all displayed and confronted. It was a very emotional journey and I wasn’t really expecting it when I went into the season, but I was really happy to be surprised by it. Mental abuse is frequently thought of as lesser and not as damaging, but this show took the time to show how horrible and pervasive the effects of mental abuse can be. Adora is a good person that has been hurt and screwed over by shadow weaver and led to believe that her life is meaningless unless given in service to a greater cause. This is a damaging mindset and one that is romanticized frequently in media, so I was really glad that it got addressed this season and that they came to such a satisfying conclusion. It’s okay to want to live, it’s okay to want a future, it’s okay to want to be happy, and that it’s these desires that give Adora the strength to power through and save everyone in the end.

Now onto the things I didn’t really like. There aren’t many. For one I felt like there was a bit more mood whiplash in this season than the last two. It didn’t bother me that often, but I thought it was strange how soon after the emotionally charged episodes of “save the cat” and “taking control” there was a mostly comedic one with “perils or peekablue” which pulled me out of the events of that episode until the end where Scorpio sacrificed herself. And how right after “Corridors”, another highly emotional episode, there was “stranded” which while not at all a bad episode didn’t have even close to the emotional weight of the previous one and was significantly more lighthearted. I just wish the tone was balanced a bit better in the comedic episodes.

Horde prime, while intimidating, wasn’t as compelling a villain to me as Catra, Shadow weaver, or Hordak. I will be rewatching the season so my opinion may change. During my first watch through I was mainly focusing on Adora, Catra, and Glimmer, so this time I’ll try and take in everything else.

 I want to make it clear that I don’t think shadow weaver was redeemed in her final act. Even then she put emphasis on the importance of destroying the heart to free the magic rather than on Catra and Adora’s survival. I’m not entirely sure what they were going for with her sacrifice, but I was at the very least glad that both Catra and Adora stood up to shadow weaver in this season in ways they had failed to do previously. Catra made it clear that she didn’t care about shadow weaver and her opinion and that it was Adora she cared about and Adora made it clear that Catra wasn’t a distraction or any of the things shadow weaver says about her. I’m not really a fan of her saying she was proud of Catra in the end because it felt really hollow. Shadow weaver wasn’t a good person at all and both Catra and Adora deserved much better than her.

I was overall a big fan of this season. I found it to be a much better ending than many of the cartoons I’ve seen recently and I will definitely rewatch it in the future. I really like the character writing present in she-ra. Catra, Adora, and Glimmer are some of the best written characters in recent memory. 

Addendum: I loved She-ra’s redesign! The animation and music in this season were superb. I just want to thank Noelle and everyone who worked on this show for all the hard work and love they put into this work.

The Symbolism and Motifs Behind Adora and Catra’s Designs/Looks

Adora 

(Hair down)

The biggest visual motif that is used for Adora is her hair. When she is Adora her hair being up symbolizes her being constrained by her destiny, obligations, responsibilities, past abuse, etc and every time she has a breakthrough or is freed from one of these her hair is let down. This first happens in Destiny part 2 when Adora breaks the sword and for the first time in 4 seasons Adora’s hair is down and she has “freed” herself from her horrible destiny. In season 5 this happens more frequently. In Save the Cat Adora’s hair comes out of her ponytail when she is saving Catra, when she has resolved herself to mend their relationship and reconnect. She has once again “freed” herself from the guilt and emotional pain that came from having to believe that Catra was lost, of being able to reconnect and keep childhood promises and make new ones. And another big one in Heart part 2 after Catra and Adora confess to each other her hair once again falls out of the ponytail symbolizing Adora finally being able to reach for a future that she wants and being “freed” from the obligations that she thought she had to neglect her needs and sacrifice herself for others. Adora’s hair coming loose is (clearly through the examples mentioned) meant to symbolize emotional breakthroughs that Adora has. Adora is a character that isn’t that in touch with her emotions and struggles to comprehend things beyond what she was raised for, battle and war, so each breakthrough is her gradually breaking free of her upbringing.

(She-ra’s look season 1-4)

(She-ra’s look in season 5)

It’s interesting to note that She-ra’s redesign follows the exact opposite motif with her hair, but symbolizes something similar. She-ra’s redesign looks a lot more like Adora does than her original design and this is meant to show how Adora has made she-ra her own. She-ra is no longer what the first ones intended, she is not the sword, she-ra is Adora. Another detail is how the new design incorporates certain aspects of each of the most important people in her life: the heart on her chest for Bow, the wings on her shoes for Glimmer, and her new mask for Catra. She-ra and her meaning have been altered by Adora and her experiences and I really love that fact. This is Adora taking back control over something that was supposed to be used to manipulate her. Which is a core part of her character because of the struggles she has with her abuse at shadow weaver’s hands. This is a part of the culmination of Adora’s arc of discovering she is more than what she can do for others. That her destiny, the destiny of she-ra, is in her own hands. That the manipulations of people trying to use her isn’t what has made Adora the person and hero she is today, but the personal connections she forged and her own personal drive to do what she believes is right.

Catra 

Season 1-3 look

season 4 (and beginning of season 5) look

Season 5 look

(under prime’s control)

(once she joins the rebellion)

One of my favorite recurring motifs with Catra is the literal mask that she wears and that in this season after she decides to save Glimmer the mask is gone from her design completely. The dark exterior that Catra uses to hide her feelings and pain is gone and she has finally decided to be true to herself. Same with her eyes. Catra has heterochromia which is used to outwardly display her dual nature and warring inner conflict between her love and hatred of Adora and in the 5th season it’s used to portray her struggle between self betterment and sliding into old habits and self destruction. This is shown very clearly in the episode “Taking Control”. Whenever Catra is lashing out at Adora she’s turned so that her blue eye is the only one in frame and when Catra is being vulnerable or showing regret her yellow eye is the one that’s in frame. When she decides to use the chip to discover Horde Prime’s plan and protect Adora her yellow eye is the one in frame further emphasizing her decision to change. I really liked this detail in the episode. There is also the very obvious one in the season 3 finale where the blue eye is the one covered by the corruption in season 3 symbolizing Catra’s decision to commit to her villain role. Her darkness had won over her light. And it comes full circle once again in the series finale. Once Catra makes the decision to go back for Adora and stands up to shadow weaver her blue eye is the one shown in side views. Showing that she has overcome what had been her biggest shortcoming in this series, pushing others away to protect herself.

I just really loved how they used Catra’s character design to its fullest and didn’t waste details. It’s really easy to just be like “wow this looks cool” and then do nothing with it, but the she-ra crew was like “wow this looks cool now let’s do something with it”. For example when Catra gets her redesign in season 4 her hair is a lot less poofy and her ear tufts are gone and it’s tied into her character progression. Catra got rid of her ear tufts because shadow weaver had used caressing them as a way to manipulate Catra and her feelings. Catra now associates them with negative emotions and weakness and wants to “cut off” any possibility of feeling that kind of emotional pain again. The darker colors of her clothes also reflect her decision in the previous season. Catra’s main colors before this season were much lighter reds, but now it’s a deep, dark red showing her descent into the darkness when she opened the portal and her denial. Her color scheme changes once again in season 5. Her shoulders have maintained the darker red, but the dark sleeves that she had are now gone making it so that the lighter reds overcome or overshadow the darker red symbolizing how the light inside of her has overcome the dark. Yet it’s still keeps the colors darker than season 1 because Catra has done things since then that have made it so that she can’t go back to being that same person before she committed her mistakes. She’s a much healthier person though and has come to accept her mistakes and try to move forward in a better healthier direction (again symbolized by the color of her clothes).

I also want to point out Catra’s design in save the cat. In Save the Cat Catra is in all white and grey with her hair slicked back perfectly in place. The more Catra comes to her senses and is freed from primes control the messier her hair gets. It is similar to Adora’s hair motif, but with Catra’s hair becoming messier it can also symbolize her embracing/remembering her mistakes and the messiness that comes from trying to move forward in a more positive direction. When brainwashed and under primes control she doesn’t even remember her mistakes because Prime has “washed” away the pain along with the memory. Also white is typically used to symbolize purity but in this context it feels very out of place. This isn’t who Catra is. The reason she goes back to the red is that once again it symbolizes her decisions and choices. Catra can’t undo the mistakes so she “wears” them and acknowledges them after this episode. This is why in the transition episode Catra is wearing grey undergarments. Catra isn’t at the point where she can face her mistakes even though she has admitted them, symbolized by the transfer from white to grey. Her clothing being undergarments alone shows how vulnerable and insecure Catra is feeling about these mistakes. The very next episode after she resolves to face her mistakes she goes back to her red color scheme, again with less of the dark red than in season 4 showing her decision to change and go down a “lighter” path.

Dororo (2019) The Tale of the Nue- Conflict of the Want and Need

The Tale of Nue is actually a great episode to watch for an example of character writing and the conflict of want and need they go through in an arc. This is a great example of a setback in a character’s arc. They do this by making it seem like the need necessitates the want. We see Hyakkimaru start to get and realize what he needs, connection and an understanding of others through his interaction with Dororo at the beginning of the episode. The lack that he has seems to have eased because of Dororo. The conflict of the episode creates a clash between the want and the need by having Dororo be in trouble and Hyakkimaru be unable to save her because of the limits of his prosthetics. If he had his real arms he would have been able to save Dororo. This makes him lean even more into his lie that to fill the lack he needs his real body. This pushes him even further into his descent than before despite being so close to discovering what he really needs. 

The Giraffe Scene in the Last of Us

This scene is probably the most well known and well regarded scene in the Last of Us. I recently replayed the game and somehow the emotions hit me even harder this time around. The Last of Us is largely a tragic tale about the loss of innocence. Ellie throughout the game has to commit increasingly horrible acts to survive and experiences tremendous loss. The toll on Ellie is incredibly noticeable during the opening of the spring chapter. She’s withdrawn and melancholy. Ellie seems to have lost a bit of herself after what happened at the close of the winter chapter. That moment when she first pets the giraffe you get to see the innocence that both the gamer and Ellie though was lost. Ellie is once again showing wonder and excitement with the world that was last seen at the beginning of her journey. No matter the trials and hardships she has gone through Ellie has managed to hold onto the part of her that finds the world worth living in. She still manages to see the beauty in what others would find mundane. The hope that this scene brought to the characters within the tragic tale was enough to make me and many others tear up. I don’t think I’ve seen a scene in a video game convey the emotions of the characters without dialogue as well as this one. This is just a part of why the Last of Us is considered great.