Hey! I Just Found Your Blog And I've Gotta Say, Your Analysis For The Characters And Episodes Are Incredible!

Hey! I just found your blog and I've gotta say, your analysis for the characters and episodes are incredible! They're so engaging and interesting to read through-- the one about the promise episode hit close to home since I identify myself a lot with Catra. Is there a list of all the analysis posts you've done for She-Ra? I'd absolutely love to read anything else you have looking more in depth into the show!!!

Hi, thank you for your kind words of encouragement!! ... And for reading my blog!!! Also, thanks for asking this question... I've been meaning to make a proper list, I just keep forgetting to do it.. 💜🤔💜🚨

Here's an impromptu list for the meantime:

Shadow Weaver's Death, Her True Abusiveness, and Her Final, Beautiful Gift to Catra (A look at Shadow Weaver as the main villain of SPOP)

Promise... Why Can't You Just... Promise? (Discussing s1e11 as an extremely important episode of SPOP)

How Corrupted Catra Knows ALL of the Princesses Dirty Little Secrets (how Catra returning as Corrupted Catra gave her deep knowledge about She-ra's past, her present, and possibly, the future war with Horde Prime.)

The Catradora dream theory 1 & 2: (How Catra is able to appear in Adora's dream to ask her to dance again, and to save their love):: Short: Visual Parallels:: and How the Dream is Canon Catradora Romance 💞 (quick guide)

Long: What if it's Adora's... and Catra's, Dream? (Understanding Adora and Catra's shared dream simulation as a part of their epic love story!!! ❤️🏳️‍🌈💞).

All links are on Tumblr. Happy reading!! 😊🤞

That's about it for now, but I should have more analysis up soon!! Please feel free to keep sending me questions everyone! As always, keep it real, and Data Never Lies!!! 💜😁💜✌️

~EtheriaDearie

Hello! Absolutely love your analyses! I'd spend breaks during work reading through a piece and I appreciate all the evidence (data as Entrapta would state) you use. I see many people boil Catradora down to being abusive (aimed at Catra) and it's just so hard to argue since there's so much depth to their relationship. What are your thoughts? How would you respond to someone stating so?

:: ... Reflections on the emotional healthiness of Catradora, on Adora's arc, and on SPOP as a morally complex story-

Hi, and thank you so much for this question, I know that some SPOP fans have this kind of reaction, and while I get why they feel bad, I strongly believe such a reaction was not the intended outcome. Which is my first point:

To anyone who feels this way, Hey!!! Noelle wouldn't hurt us like that, and even though we see hurtful behaviors shown in SPOP, this isn't part of suggesting that we forgive our abusers- Noelle wouldn't do that!!

SPOP is unique in that it explores trauma as seriously as it does… this show is so many different things: it's beautiful, it's fun, it's kid friendly, and it's really meaningful. I really, really believe that both Catra and Adora’s stories are meant to be a comfort to people who grew up in situations like theirs… (I, for one, find Catra’s story very comforting).

My second point is that Adora is as much a product of hurtful abuse as Catra is, and this includes that she has some very hurtful behaviors towards Catra, especially as we see the two of them together starting well before her defection. For example-

We all know Adora is a sweetheart, and for her to even behave in hurtful ways is so against her own best nature that it's a sign that she's not really being herself. It's also very wrong in terms of her ability to be She-ra, as Etheria chose her for her ability to love- she is deep down an incredibly loving and generous person, and love is her power. Yet, when we see her with Catra in ep1, she's acting hurtful instead. This- is where their relationship becomes so complex- because Catra really isn't being hurtful, and Adora has a history...

...And, this is a much bigger problem than just her relationship with Catra, because Adora is also hurtful towards everyone in her past life, she vilifies them and fights them- never once does she make an honest attempt to help her former friends- Adora simply makes an assumption that fighting them is a necessary hurt of her 'destiny'.

Yet... this 'destiny' is a lie, and we cannot ignore how Adora's arc from s1-4 ends with her barely avoiding destroying all of Etheria... furthermore, with Horde Prime finding them all as a consequence. Despite Adora's attempts at being a hero through s1-4, it ends with her having betrayed all of her former friends for a 'destiny' which was evil all along- Light Hope never meant to make her a hero, only to use her and the rest of the princesses as a weapon. This is because Adora had followed her 'duty' and therefore failed to be her greatest good as a hero of love.

Her decision of duty and all that goes wrong results because of how Adora believes in duty before all else, including and especially love. This false belief system, where she simply fights rather than looks to help her former friends, and acts hurtfully to enact this false 'destiny', is because of how Adora was hurt by her abuser. And it makes her actions wrong- she isn't valuing love, and, she is being controlled by others, some which are evil, some which are unfair- through her false belief in duty.

This concept of duty, which is so wrong, is what Adora's entire struggles are about- this includes her hero's arc. Her perceived need to serve a false duty is the reason she justifies hurtful behavior and neglects to help her former friends, it's the reason her s1-4 arc ends in disaster with her destiny being revealed to have been false, (and that she's been manipulated for evil), and, it's the reason she's so hurtful to Catra- betraying all of their love, while failing to make any true effort to understand Catra's feelings.

We might not like Catra's reaction, or how terribly wrong the war is, but Adora wrongly believes in putting her duty so far ahead of all else that she's failing to look deeper. Adora does break promises, and she does hurt people- she hurts everyone in her old life, not just Catra, with her hurtful and blind prioritization of duty ahead of love and all else- her belief makes her vulnerable to further manipulations. Her entire concept of duty before love makes her miss how she's hurting them, and, how she's wrong to do this... ... it results in so much pain. (-in fact, Adora ends up hurting EVERYONE with her stubborn belief in enacting a false destiny, as we'll discuss.)

So, for the purposes of this question, we need to look at Adora's behavior, and how she's wrong to be so hurtful. Catra ends up very much more wrong- that's well documented- and which we all know- but, Adora is She-ra, Catra is not, and all of Adora's actions matter so much because she is at the center of all that happens as She-ra. And, she's got to learn to value love, going against the hurtful beliefs of duty that her abuser ingrained into her psyche to control her. Even though Adora is trying to do her best, she falls short of what that actually is, and it's all because of her false belief that duty must define her. She is a hero of love, not a hero of duty or destiny- because destiny cannot power her, nor guide her. Love is what must guide Adora, because love is her real power... and as a hero of love, she cannot "leave anyone behind" who needed her help...

Through s1-4, by acting hurtful, Adora is essentially creating a false equivalency by equating evil upon all of her former friends, in a hurtful way which all but ensures further division and misunderstanding. She-ra is supposed to be a uniter, a healer- yet Adora is making no effort to do so. Adora is such a extensive product of abuse that she doesn't even see that she's doing so, and she has to wake up to this in order to become a hero of love... so, in a word- Adora is a good example of how it's possible to want to do good, yet fall short of that by being unintentionally hurtful-

Also, in part: their division happens because when Adora leaves Catra and everyone else in her former life behind she does so having not once fought for them- like how she didn't fight for her and Catra's love against their abuser. As She-ra, Adora needs to be strong enough to fight for ALL of them, rebellion and the vulnerable people in the horde who are trapped in its abusive system alike- yet, Adora doesn't do so- instead she takes a simplified view of morality, and through it, justifies abandoning her and Catra's love and fighting against instead of helping everyone in her old life. This happens because of multiple complex factors, some dealing with her history as a being a survivor of abuse - but in reality, it's mostly because everyone around Adora also is not being their best, either... ...more later

As for Catra- her choices, while very very bad, come out of reactions to Adora's history of hurtful behaviors- her inability to trust Adora is a trauma reaction, just like Adora's, yet, that reaction comes in response to Adora's continued hurtful behaviors: Catra is trying to be apart from someone who has constantly hurt her by naively following duty while showing no effort to understand how she's hurtful or to fight for their love. Adora did this within the horde by playing favorite to Shadow Weaver, and Catra feels that Adora must be misguided, just like she was before, for leaving her- instead fighting against her so willingly and vilifying her... lumping her in with their abuser as evil.

Catra was constantly abused, and watched on as Adora played favorite to that abuser while ignoring how Catra was treated. So, Adora was betraying Catra all along, and had no awareness of it- it shows that Adora has a blind spot- something which she struggles with throughout her hero's arc: such as Light Hope using her for evil. Catra felt as though she had already lost the friend she thought she had years ago, and then Adora's continued hurtful behavior following her defection, while making no effort to save their love, is what causes Catra to feel she must part ways with Adora. By Catra's reasoning, Adora must not really love her- why else would Adora be so ready to hurt her, when she made a promise to love her? Catra doesn't think Adora is actually being a 'good' person by leaving like she does- and Adora's hurtful divisive actions confirm Catra is right- by choosing divisiveness and a false destiny while not valuing their love, Adora is indeed falling short of being the hero of love which Etheria chose her to be...

So, we can see Catra's distrust and Adora's being used by Light Hope as parallel, because Catra is right that Adora is letting people manipulate her, like she did within the horde- even if Catra is only basing this belief off of her gut feelings in s1. Adora ends up betraying her promises, and being used as a weapon by Light Hope, (and the rebellion, too) for the same reason: her belief in duty which blinds her to all else.

:: 🛑 There's also the matter of whether Adora and Catra are 'in a relationship' during the war. That's dubious- morality of the war aside, Adora divides their friendship for it, not Catra- so they aren't together anymore... And, as we'll discuss, Adora is coming up short of making the best decision by doing so. But, in regards to this question, what happens during the war between Catra and Adora should be considered separately, as apart from this time in their history, Catra was quite loving with Adora: both before, and then after, the war... and so it's important to not falsely equivalate Catra actions in this way (...again, morality of the war aside..) ....more later

We'll come back to Catra's motivations later, but here's the quick reference for the meantime- Catra doesn't do what she does out of wanting to hurt Adora, her love confession in s5 precludes that. And she also doesn't do it out of any great allegiance to the Horde- it's just all she knows, and she stays there because she's trying to be free of Adora- who is a constantly inadvertently hurtful person, as Adora had actually been betraying their love for many years. But: most importantly, Catra does what she does as part of her fight against their real abuser, whom Catra sees as the real evil in their lives. This starts as Catra taking down Shadow Weaver herself, and stays true within the meaning of her other actions through the rest of her arc as well. ...more later

All in all, this is part of how Noelle gave us a morally complex story with SPOP- it's not black and white like most stories we've seen (such as ATLA). The war, while terrible, has multiple sides to it, and with it moral grayness: The horde is wrong, yet isn't really made up of evil people. The rebellion is right to defend Etheria, but has a corrupted view of the horde where they summarily judge all horde as evil. That's an amoral belief, as we'll discuss, and it plays into Adora’s confusion over who she really must be, because their hurtful views block Adora's ability to be the hero of love she's meant to be.

... And, of course- the princesses are part of an evil super weapon, as naive enablers of a generational trauma so dark that it threatens them all... ...more later

Finally, the MAJOR PSA REGARDING ABUSIVENESS.. (and therefore this question)

Since we wish to discuss abusive relationships, we must recognize that there is indeed such a relationship at the forefront of SPOP, but it's not Catradora.

All of their bad behaviors- Catra’s isolationism and hurtfulness for self protection, and Adora’s hurtfulness in the name of false duty and vulnerability to naively trusting in false ideals set out for her by others, is because of how Shadow Weaver hurt them.

This story really IS about how they're been hurt by their abuser, and about learning to accept 💞love and getting past hurt, for both of them. 💢(a minor trauma warn- but nothing too dark in this post-) It's the real truth of Catra and Adora’s arcs, that they both act out hurtfully due to how their abuser has hurt them, and as such, they both contribute to their division, not just Catra. And, they both go through long arcs of self realization and healing to be better from how they've been hurt, to be their best selves and so they can be together again.

This journey of self realization is what allows Adora to start being a real hero in s5, and accepting Adora's flaws in her actions before then is an important part of understanding her story, because, as She-ra, everything Adora does matters- no matter how unfair what's done to her is, she's got to be her best, and she has to trust in love in order to win in the end...

That concludes the "short" explanation, but, since abusiveness is such an important issue, we'll cover some specifics it in greater detail. This- is Adora's hero's arc- her and Catra's love IS her hero's journey because she's not trusting in love by how she acts in s1-4.

So, apologies for how long this will be, but we'll be covering the following subjects as part of this discussion-

1- how and why Adora improperly continues hurtful behavior that started within the horde after she finds the sword, which Catra reacts to, and how Catra wasn't hurtful before then,

2- how Adora could have used She-ra as a liberator to help her former friends, and how the rebellion also being corrupt is why she misses it,

3- Adora's self realization of her love, and how it allows her to step past false destiny and manipulation,

4- how Adora was being a false hero during seasons 1-4 as told through Horde Prime forcing her to fight chipped Catra to save her during Save the Cat,

5- Catra’s wrongness and why she believes she's totally alone against her abusers evils,

6- how the love we see in s5 was always the truth.

Back to the topic of Adora’s hurtfulness, as we see it in ep1, that goes so deeply against her better, loving nature... (part 1)

From the moment we see Adora and Catra together in ep1, it's obvious that their relationship has already become very unhealthy-

This is almost entirely unhealthy on Adora’s side, not Catra’s, as every time Adora speaks to Catra, she does so with a tone- she's rude to her, she's hypercritical of Catra's actions, she's incredibly judgemental, and she acts as if superior to her.

Yet, Adora had become the puppet of their abuser- Shadow Weaver, making the mistake of trying to fulfill the false expectation of being perfect as she was told to do. And in doing so, her naive trust in fulfilling that duty made her an unintentional enabler of her own abuse, as well as Catra's.

So, all of Adora's judgments out of supposed superiority come out as false: she's devoted to a woman who means only to destroy them, it shows that she really didn't know what was going on with Shadow Weaver's abuse.

In contrast, when we look at Catra’s behavior, it's clear she thinks Shadow Weaver is evil. And, in terms of how she interacts with Adora, it's obvious that Catra is actually still being a very loving and supportive friend to Adora- we only see any of her negativity emerge in response to Adora’s own hurtfulness. As things stand in ep1, Catra isn't abusive, if anything, it's the opposite (although I wouldn't go that far).

So, we can start to see that Adora has an entire history of deeply hurtful behaviors towards Catra- starting well before the moment Catra refuses to follow her, or before her decision to go to war against her following “Promise”. There was no good reason for Adora’s hurtfulness, it was done in respect to a false duty made for her by their abuser.

This false belief of superiority is another way in which we can see that Adora was failing to see the true evil that was happening as she was playing the favorite- she blindly believed that being good, as measured by an ideal set out for her by their abuser, was her only way of solving her problems.

Yet, Adora always had a choice- her assumption shows a failure of reasoning, because fulfilling that duty as she was told to never would have resulted in anyone being safe- much like her trying to fulfill Light Hope's ‘destiny’. Shadow Weaver only made Adora think that as part of her plan to use and then destroy her.

Likewise, Adora always had a choice to intrinsically value her and Catra’s love above the corrupt duty forced on her by Shadow Weaver- she could have kept the faith in their love, with Catra. Instead, Adora became hurtful towards Catra...

Adora was a bad friend- and her being as such in the name of false duties is the same reason she ends up being used as part of Light Hope’s corrupt 'destiny'. Also, being a bad friend is a canon part of Adora's hero’s struggle, (spoiler warn, LotFP) as being a bad friend can also be seen in how Adora acts towards Glimmer in s4: (as Bow says in s4ep8: "...it's hard being friends sometimes... So why am I the only one who's willing to work at it?". (In LotFP, Scorpia outright calls Adora a bad friend, and rightly so..)

In regards to Adora’s failure in choice- she and Catra weren't children anymore, and standing up to Shadow Weaver was always a possibility. She could have refused to play along in a system where Catra was made to suffer while she was given praise. And, the real kicker is: judging by how easily Catra takes down Shadow Weaver without Adora’s help, it wouldn't have even been that hard.

This shows Adora really was guilty of blind devotion to Shadow Weaver, because Catra had been prepared to step free of that abuse, probably for years. So, when Adora leaves Catra, devaluing their love and instead vilifying and falsely accusing Catra of being evil like Shadow Weaver (which is an immensely hurtful thing to do after the years of torture Catra suffered), Catra decides to step free of her abusers control, while also stepping free of Adora’s continued hurtfulness.

So, we see that Adora has a dangerous level of blindness to the deeper evils that people mean to use her for, which we can see in other places throughout her arc, such as with Light Hope’s plans for her. She can't even see how she's been corrupted.

Catra, in contrast, shows us she knew all along about their abusers' true evil: she shows her awareness by her little rebellions against a corrupt system where she was constantly being hurt. Catra refused to stay weak, and prepared to protect herself from her abuser all along. Yet, all Adora ever did was act out towards Catra for refusing to conform like she did...

Let's jump forward to when Adora finds the sword, and we can apply Adora’s naive belief in enacting duty, while being hurtful in the name of it, to that decision as well:

Adora accepts the sword, and her new ‘destiny’, with blindness and devotion- believing it to be her ‘destiny’, she willingly accepts that it comes at the price of hurting Catra as well as everyone in her old life as part of fulfilling it.

This ‘destiny’, or duty, is actually nothing but a lie made to confuse Adora by Light Hope and the First Ones- it's just a manipulation to use Adora for their evil. Believing in her 'destiny', Adora then makes no real effort to understand the darker truth behind what is really being asked of her, instead trusting in that 'destiny' and betraying everyone in her old life with her hurtfulness, instead of helping them, in service to this ‘destiny’. (...more later)

Adora in effect swaps Shadow Weaver for Light Hope, (The rebellion also uses Adora as a weapon in a hurtful way, which we'll discuss), and in doing so Adora acts hurtful to someone she loves, she agrees to hurt and therefore fail a whole group of people who deserve better from her. Adora has no right to vilify them like she does, after all, she was one of them herself. Also, her vilification shows no concept of her own hurtfulness and previous role as an enabler in that system.

Sure, Adora could complain that it wasn't her fault because she was being unfairly manipulated, yet Adora continually shows that she is vulnerable to those very same manipulations, again and again, throughout s1-4. It's all to do with her false assumption of fulfilling duty at any cost.

... and it brings Adora’s entire supposed ‘moral awakening’ into question, because while she's right to stick up for the citizens of Thaymore, her entire hurtful and superior attitude towards Catra while she does it is false: it's just like how Adora was hurtful towards Catra as part of playing her role as the favorite of their abuser within the horde. She was blind to the real evil that was occurring.

She therefore has no business being so hurtful towards Catra throughout s1, even IF she didn't know about the continued evil abuse Catra suffered because of her. All that Adora’s supposed righteousness over her ‘destiny’ actually shows is that she’s blind to what is really happening, in the past, and then again when Light Hope uses her for evil.

Also, fun fact: Adora’s supposed 'holier than thou' newfound morality isn't even her own: we know she's vulnerable to others' expectations- in this case she's accepting Glimmer’s hardline view that all people in the horde must be evil. Adora takes this closed minded viewpoint and uses it as she tries to enact her false destiny all the way through s1-4, never once making an effort to help her former friends.

All in all, Adora falls short of being a real hero by doing this. And Adora really does take things too far in her stubborn pursuit of her destiny (LotFP spoiler warn). She's so willing to hurt Catra, and all of her former friends, and is so far removed from the hero of love we see in s5 by doing so. Catra is right that Adora isn't the friend she used to have- Shadow Weaver's abuse changed Adora into something hurtful instead. (In LotFP, Adora strait up attempts to terminate Catra’s life; ...in contrast, Catra only ever tries to capture Adora...)

Catra, meanwhile, has no reason to trust Adora because of her past history as an enabler of her (their) abuse. If Adora could hurt her, while being devoted to her abuser, what reason does Adora give Catra to think that anything will be different with her sudden new devotion to the rebellion? The answer is none, and as Catra had to look out for herself to protect herself from abuse, she won't trust Adora. Meanwhile, Adora can't even make an effort to understand Catra's feelings of being hurt by her actions...

Also- at least Catra had a plan- which we know this by how she takes down Shadow Weaver to be free of her abuse. ..Nor Catra does want to just leave everyone in her old life, accepting the believe that people like her are only worthy of being vilified and condemned by the princesses- Adora's self righteous judgements just makes Catra think that Adora is being hurtful and naive. Adora, meanwhile, had no plan- and even after her 'destiny' is revealed, she's still playing into the hands of her abusers while trying to fulfill her 'destiny'. It doesn't matter if Adora doesn't mean to, she's still got to be better than letting corrupt people use her for evil. She needs to learn to not be so naive.

The best theory for the way Adora behaves- by being so hurtful while ignoring the deeper truths- is that Adora has a deeply engrained hurtful world-view due to how she was hurt by Shadow Weaver towards her purpose of using and sacrificing Adora. Because of how Adora was treated, she believes that duty always comes at a cost, and that it will be painful- it's a corrupted, painful way of seeing the world where she just assumes pain comes as part of her reality of being charged with duty.

This is false, it's just what her abusers (Light Hope, too) want her to believe, and waking up to how this corrupt concept of duty is used against her by her abusers is something that must happen for Adora to be able to move past it, so that she can start being a hero of love like she's meant to be. She cannot let naive concepts manipulate her into being hurtful, and cloud her from seeing her path of love. Adora in s1 sees none of this, only her concept of duty which is wrong- she gets wiser throughout s1-4, setting up for her heroic reveal in s5, and her true She-ra form.

So, Adora's fighting Catra and all of her former friends, instead of looking to help or understand them, is a presumption that it is a necessary cost of her duty. Upholding her 'duty' was always painful for Adora, and so she thinks hurting her former friends is 'just how it has to be', because Shadow Weaver conditioned her to expect that duty would always feel painful. Her hurtful world view assumes evil on them all, while making no attempt to do better. That's not heroic- Adora is accepting doing a lesser evil as part of 'duty', just like when Catra was allowed to suffer within the horde while she was given promotion. A real hero faces evil at it's source... Adora is being no hero of love...

Which brings us to our next topic: why Adora fails everyone in her old life, and how she could have done better to help the people trapped within the horde’s abusive system. (Part 2)

Adora’s hurtful vilification of everyone in her old life, while never finding a way to help them, really is a failure to all of them. In particular, we can see how much Lonnie feels this way, much like Catra does-

Not finding any way to help them was always a failure of Adora as a hero, something which happens because of her trauma belief of duty before all else, and how her new allies in the rebellion wrongly influence her to believe that all horde are evil. Their corrupted, hurtful views makes Adora miss an obvious possibility:

Adora could have used She-ra as a liberator, rather than as a conqueror.

I realize that may sound like hyperbole, but there's plenty of evidence of how Adora fails her former friends, and even more about how the rebellion fails the people of the horde. ->see the following pics-

So, we need to talk about why Adora never tries to help her former friends, in order to open a path to freedom like she was offered because she was She-ra.

Even though the rebellion may have the moral high ground in this story, they still fall short of being their best with their derogatory views of the horde- it further divides themselves from what are essentially fellow native Etherians, it surrenders all further thought to what is essentially hate. One result of their flawed views is how we see its Glimmer that activates the super weapon: as she says “we’re the good guys, remember?”. Are they really being their best, though?

Glimmer and Angella have pain from the war, which gives them a corrupted view of the Horde where they summarily judge all Horde to be evil out of their pain. These are derogatory views which are based on their own personal feelings of injury, which leads to their views, as leaders, crossing over from needing to protect themselves, to enacting a unnecessarily hurtful exclusion of a group of vulnerable people who needed their help.

This isn't to say that their pain isn't real… it is, it just doesn't excuse an isolationist, closed minded view of their situation. Surrendering further thought out of emotional pain simply is never healthy, they take their feeling so far as up never show any understanding to any individuals within the horde, or to try to help them. As the leaders of free Etheria, this is a failure of their station as those leaders.

So enters our sweet Adora, who, while she does always mean well, is a lifelong product of abuse that makes her highly vulnerable to blindly going along with others' expectations of her. Afraid to fail her new allies, Adora accepts Glimmer and Angella’s ‘us versus them’ close minded view of the horde as evil as her own, she ignores her deeper knowledge of how this isn't true she has from her time as one of them. Because of it, Adora never considers how they deserve to be given the same chance to be better that she was granted because of her Princess powers.

In all of SPOP, Adora is the only person who is ever actually offered a chance to switch sides. This is a failure that happens because of the derogatory and closed minded views which predominate the rebellion's beliefs- it's no secret that they hate horde soldiers, and that no forgiveness is ever offered. It's derogatory and amoral.

In SPOP, the Horde isn't evil in the black and white sense that most stories present their villains. They are a combination of bad, but also good: we can see that good in the stories of Catra, Scorpia, Lonnie, etc- even Hordak, the supposed leader of the evil Horde, shows he can be better and gets a redemption.

So, Adora’s intimate connections to people from her former life always demanded more understanding from her than just being crushed under She-ra’s golden boot. ... Not that anybody in the rebellion is actually interested in considering this possibility- and Adora is far too concerned at failing in her new duties as She-ra to stop and see it, and so challenge those views.

It was another missed chance to help people, rather than divide, Adora misses seeing due to her traumas- her addition to their ranks should have been a chance to change the derogatory views of the rebellion for the better, to open a real path towards freedom for people within the horde who feel trapped by its abusive system, so they can find safety from it like she did when she switched sides.

It's a way in which she could have helped her former friends, and it might even have lead to resolving the war more peacefully- losing soldiers in such a way would have weakened the Horde, possibly even seen its collapse… also, Catra would have seen that Adora was no longer giving in to a blanket derogatory view of people like her... -> ->Adora's childhood best friend helms the Horde, and yet, Adora still cannot find common ground ? (it's because of Adora's own divisive behavior towards Catra. Also, Hordak is hardly the leader of the Horde- he hides in his lab and only emerges to makes snide comments.....)

Quick aside: yes, Adora does make a few weak offers of this in s1 to Catra, but always coming after Catra had been further abused because of Adora’s actions, and always with Adora acting in her superior way that shows no understanding of how she's hurtful. It makes Catra doubt Adora’s sincerity.

As it turns out, this derogatory view of the rebellion is a much larger failure: it fails the people of the horde, but very importantly, the way their hurtful views affects Adora equals a personal failure to her.

What's really so terribly wrong with the rebellion's close minded views is that we never see any quarter offered to the horde: there's no opportunity for such people to be better- no choice given to them to step free of their abusive situation, and to prove they don't really stand for that. Not having that offer in place is an immoral act, and an abandonment of duty.

Glimmer and Angella’s presumption of evil upon all horde with no path to forgiveness in itself traps those very people in the system which forces them to act in evil ways. War is never an easy thing to solve, but presuming the enemy as evil shuts down all possible further understanding, and perpetuates the violence: as leaders of their world, Glimmer and Angella needed to do better.

And, their hurtful views are also a enormous personal failure to Adora, because it frightens Adora and leads to her continued self hurting-

Adora accepts the rebellion's close minded views that are forced on her, she throws herself into battle continuously trying to make up for her failure to be perfect. She's so afraid to fail them that she acts in compromised ways- such as looking to sacrifice herself, or hurtfully protecting her concept of 'destiny' at the cost of brutalizing her former friends in battle, never looking to help them.

It's a hurtful way to live, and Adora does it because she's so afraid to fail her new allies as a former child soldier from the Horde, and so their views hurt her- Angella and Glimmer's views that being from the horde is synonymous with evil are a personal failure to Adora, particularly from Angella: as a mother, she could have helped Adora to understand her new role as She-ra, and to help Adora understand her trauma.

Instead, Angella judges Adora and treats her like she's evil unless she fights as she's told to... even though Adora, as an orphan, never had a choice in being from the horde. This is an emotionally hurtful failure to Adora as a friend, (Glimmer) and as a mother (Angella).

::This is also the beginning of a series of failures, one which ends with everyone being hurt, because of Adora’s betrayal of being a hero of love, in what could be considered a butterfly effect-

-> Adora takes the hurtful, close minded black and white view of morality of the rebellion, and applies it to her relationship with Catra- she ignores their intimate history and her promises, and implies that Catra must be evil like Shadow Weaver at multiple intervals following her defection. That is a failure of love, and of friendship.

Catra had been hurt her whole life, she watched as Adora turned from her as a friend to be the enabler of their abuser. She's had enough of being hurt in this way, and Adora isn't even making an effort to understand why Catra feels so hurt by her actions. So, Catra wants to be free of Adora, who hurts her.

Catra fails Adora as a friend- ending the generosity of love we see her have in ep1-2, that she kept giving despite Adora being so hurtful towards her. Catra is done with Adora’s double standards, she agrees to fight the war against them all, since Adora so seemingly wants it as part of her new life and a 'destiny' which ends up being fake, anyways.

And so, the rebellion's close minded views creates Adora’s failure to Catra, Catra goes to war against them, and so, the one enemy they simply cannot defeat is created by their own close minded views.

The rebellion fails Adora -> Adora fails Catra (plus all of her former friends) -> and in reverse, Adora fails ALL of them -> rebellion alike, by failing to make the choice of love of trying to make an effort to preserve her and Catra’s love, she turns Catra against them all with her lack of faith in their love, acting hurtfully instead. It is a failure of being the hero of love that Etheria chose her to be...

A chain reaction that starts with Glimmer and Angella’s own hurtful views ends with EVERYONE being hurt- it amplifies the war, because, Adora is at the center of all that happens, and isn't being the hero she should be... you could ever say it causes a butterfly effect...

Still, Adora had a choice to be better.

Just like she had a choice to stand up to Shadow Weaver in the horde. Just like she had a choice to not turn on everyone in her old life, judging them in such hurtful ways, while never looking to help them. And, just like she had a choice to value her and Catra’s love, and through seeing how her actions hurt their love, seen that the duty she was so blindly devoting herself to was wrongly making her hurt people that deserved better from her.

Adora in s1 has so little emotional presence to be able to see her own hurtfulness- it's due to how she was hurt- that she places her concept of duty so far ahead of love that she can't even see the value of a lifelong relationship of love she had with Catra. Why would Catra think Adora cares about her, when she so casually betrays her, infers evil upon her, implies that Catra must be like their abuser ?

If, Adora was a more emotionally present person, she would have recognized that she needed to find a better way that didn't just brutalizing everyone from her previous life. And the rebellion itself doesn't help her, they just place their unfair expectations upon her. Her trauma makes it hard for her to see why love is important- she can hardly see the bond of love that she has with Catra... so, she doesn't choose love out of false belief in duty and fails to be the hero she's meant to be.. and everyone suffers for it.

In the end, Angella and Glimmer are not in themselves blameless for creating the situation they face with Catra’s determined war against them, because as leaders of the rebellion, they had been failing the vulnerable people in the horde all along.

As the saying goes, hurt people hurt other people. It's true in life and it's true in SPOP. Mostly people hurt each other because of trauma, and in SPOP everyone's trauma adds to the sadness of the war they fight for 4 seasons, horde and rebellion alike, not just Catra... or Adora. It's not the war they needed to fight, it never was, and as such they are all mostly caught unawares when their mistakes in this way results in Horde Prime finding them- ie- the true enemy they all should have been preparing to face...

... Which, it must be acknowledged, results from Glimmer's choice of trying to use a despicable super weapon to win a war- one in which her own bad attitude hurtfully influences Adora and therefore helped to create. Her act nearly destroys them all, while exposing them to their true enemy all along.

Glimmer’s naive decision results in so much disaster that it really makes you wonder if the rebellion ever deserved to win the war with the way they conducted themselves...

I'd argue no…

Glimmer’s act, and how the princesses are caught so unaware of their true enemies- (ie, Horde Prime and the First Ones) shows them to be so naive that they likely would have inadvertently activated the Heart in time, and thus destroyed themselves, anyways.

They failed to be better, acting in way that added further trauma to the system. (..this is really a just commentary on the messiness of war in general) And, the princesses really have NO excuse for being caught unawares like they were- they don't know their own world's history- there's no real excuse for this. Especially when we see that it was possible- Shadow Weaver uncovered much of it as part of her evil plans to attain more power. (Shoutout to Bow’s dads, who made a heroic effort to understand it, while starting from scratch- 🥰)

Add to this that Glimmer’s corrupted choice to activate the heart happens much as a consequence of her listening to, you guessed it, Shadow Weaver, and we have all the proof we need that the princesses don't understand their own “hubris”.

Long story short, everyone messes up the first 4 seasons, nobody is being their best- and so, Adora has to go to great lengths and great personal risk to herself to repair all of their previous mistakes as part of her s5 arc. She does this in a very beautiful way- she does it through the power of her love- *not* out of destiny, or duty, or even sacrifice. (Part 3)

Adora was always a hero of love, love IS her power, and she should have seen it sooner. Trauma is what blocked her.

A bit of sympathy for Adora:

Even though I'm talking about how she's wrong, Adora constantly found herself unfairly forced into bad situations by others' expectations put on her, some of which are evil, others are at the least unfair and corrupted by hurt. So, she ends up making some wrong choices… yet she's She-ra, she's still got to be better than that.

And Adora shows great courage in getting free of her trauma cycle to trust in the power of love instead of duty, like she was always supposed to do. How she gets past this trauma mentality is by simply learning to reconnect to her best self- and her deepest feelings of love and generosity that she was chosen to be a hero for by Etheria.

... Nevermind the First Ones-- Adora was still chosen by Etheria, as she was as a loving child, before Shadow Weaver ever managed to hurt her and make her into something else.

And, Adora finds this truth within herself with almost no help from anyone with her best interests at heart- Angella tries her best for ~3 minutes in the portal reality, to make up for her own hurtfulness towards Adora. (..Bow and Glimmer do help her some, but are very much involved in their own concerns..) Adora is a hero, but not by destiny… love is her truth.

Now... Adora’s burden as She-ra is indeed incredibly unfair on a personal level, yet as She-ra, she's still got to be able to make the right choices to be able fix the big problems she faces, and making those choices must be guided by love, not by destiny or duty.

So it doesn't matter that she's not responsible for the First Ones original evil, for which she was innocently born into- Adora still won't quit trying to make it better, because that's who she is at heart. Love was always her guide, and her strength, that's why Etheria chose her, in late s4 into s5 Adora begins listening to her love.

So, Adora’s hurtfulness with Catra from s1-4 is just the most obvious symptom of how she's struggling with a trauma mindset that blocks her from being the true hero she's meant to be. This means that Adora and Catra's relationship issues and separation was always the real story of Adora's hero's arc, because Adora failed to look deeper and save their love because to her flawed concept of duty.

Being that hero requires not surrendering her reason to false judgements which require her to be hurtful to people who deserved her love and understanding, never mind if Catra makes everything worse with her own hurtful reactions. Adora always needed to be better than that, and being so isn't easy, but she learns to do it. Again, Catra isn't She-ra: Adora is.

::So, SPOP is one big story about people learning to not let their shitty attitudes control them, and of getting past them in order to become better people. Adora had a bad attitude in s1: it made everything worse, she turned on her former friends because of it. Catra’s attitude might be the worst of them all, but they all learn to be better- Glimmer, Angella, Mermista… the list goes on. Everyone needed to be better, and in s5 they are- it's what gives them the power to overcome Horde Prime together.

... Adora rescuing Catra is such an important part of her hero’s arc because of how she is a hero of love, but it's also important because she's making up for her previous mistakes of making hurtful and false judgements against her former friends... and against Catra. We also see Adora’s true powers emerge as she saves Catra, because she's trusting in love...

Speaking of Save the Cat… (part 4)

Still, if you're at all doubting that Adora struggles with being a false hero from s1-4, it's all well confirmed as Adora faces Horde Prime during Save the Cat in order to save Catra…

When Adora shows up to save Catra, and to save their love, Horde Prime pits chipped Catra against Adora, making her play out their entire history of hurting each other for false reasons in order for her to save Catra. This is meant to be a sly and forceful character assasination by Prime of Adora as a false hero, and as a bad friend. He wants Adora to feel weak, that her failures as a hero are so total, and her lack of love so hurtful, that it's much too late for her to fix her mistakes.

Because of his belief, he really isn't expecting Adora to succeed… yet, he doesn't know that Adora has found her truth of love…

He starts out by calling Adora a false hero, rubs it in that she's a First One, part of an evil empire that he easily defeated. And as she battles against chipped Catra, he tells her “you will destroy the ones you love in the process.”

This is supposed to be a scathing rebuke of Adora’s actions through s4. One where Adora, and the princesses at large, played into the hands of the First Ones manipulations, where she willingly hurt Catra in the name of her false destiny.

He reminds Adora of all of her failures, and how as a First One she's from an evil race of beings, she's totally at his mercy, just like the She-ra’s before her. He throws Catra at her, tauntingly, asking her to kill Catra, like she tried to do before in the service of Glimmer and Angella's corrupt expectations that she deliver them from the horde at any cost to herself.

Moments before Glimmer destroys the server, and Adora and Catra get their chance to talk, Prime rubs it in just how much Catra had to suffer for her sacrifice to protect Adora- “she was scared in the end, and she suffered”. A cruelty Catra shouldn't have had to experience, but for Adora’s long standing history of betraying her for false duty.

Adora tells Catra she's not giving up on her, something she did through the first 4 seasons of SPOP with her blind righteousness towards Catra, never stopping to consider how she herself might have been wrong, instead stubbornly trying to enact her false destiny.

Prime compels Adora- it's too late, the damage is done, he's all but assured to win. She is behind enemy lines, and weak.. “then you are a fool, you cannot stop Horde Prime… he will reign triumphant… it is destiny”.

Her and Catra finally get to talk to each other when the server is destroyed, and as Catra reaches out, nearly taking Adora’s hand to go home again, he steals it away and taunts Adora one more time: “some creatures are destined only for destruction”- like it always was… Catra was meant to fail from the beginning, to die. And Adora was the tool of her abusers, she threw Catra aside as part of their evil plan to make her fail for their corrupt purposes. He sends Catra plummeting to her near death..

Clutching Catra’s dying body to her chest, Prime tells Adora “it did not have to be like this”. He's telling Adora that it never had to be like this, all of her betrayals of Catra, her struggles in vain against her false destiny, were done in naive blindness and only ever made things worse.

Everyone was made to suffer because of her naive belief in that 'destiny', she's failed, and if she's lucky, perhaps Prime might save Catra. By submitting to his will, maybe she can spare Catra her death... or if not... perhaps Adora can at least forget her mistakes like Catra has been made to do…

We all know what happens next. Adora is not the naive girl who played by the rules of her abusers, she's stronger within herself and knows she cannot abandon love. As she says: "you miscalculated”.

And luckily for her, Catra, a true fighter for her own life, surviving against a lifetime of death threats and near death experiences, is able to hang on just long for Adora to be able to save her from the brink of death..

None of this makes Catra’s actions during the war ok, but keep in mind that Catra shows great remorse for all of her mistakes. She's learned her lessons, too… and her remorse and then total confession of love hints that Catra never did what she did as part of wanting to hurt Adora..

Still… what really makes Catra fight Adora like she does? After all… she had a choice, too, just like Adora did... (part 5)

Catra could have chosen to sympathize with Adora's views at the battle of Thaymore, after all, Adora was clearly right that what was happening to the civilians was wrong, yet she didn't.

As it so turns out, Catra isn't very impressed by some suffering of people who have lived their whole lives more privileged than she has, not when every day of her life had been a crime- surviving against abuse and torture with nowhere to run or anyone to turn to, Adora included.

Her life was that of an orphan, singled out for total destruction by their abuser, and as an orphan, the only way Catra knew for sure she could get free of that was through her own actions. She can't rely on anyone liking her or helping her because of innate magical powers like Adora does.

So, putting her life in the hands of the people who have only ever seen her as an enemy makes no sense, she's been hurt too many times before, including by Adora herself, to take Adora’s word for it.

But, she at least hoped that Adora could have chosen her out of love. Adora's willingness to abandon Catra so totally, and then continuing to behave so hurtfully in all of their further meetings, seems to tell another story.

All of Catra’s anger, and her worst actions through s4 can be summed up in one thing, of which never had to do with her wanting to hurt Adora:

Catra believes that she is totally alone in the world against her abuser, that nobody else properly sees Shadow Weaver's evil or will deal with it. And so it's up to her to do what must be done.

Everyone around her is an enabler in some way: Hordak didn't care to take a role in the Horde's everyday, only cared about results. Glimmer and the princesses become the worst kind of enablers of Shadow Weaver from s3 onward by taking her in, giving her total freedom in all but name. (And then there's the matter of Glimmer letting Shadow Weaver channel her power in s3ep4, which she uses to nearly take Catra’s life yet again...)

But the saddest example is how she thinks Adora is a naive enabler who will never learn any better. Catra feels that way because of Adora's hurtful behaviors towards her, and how Adora couldn't even choose Catra out of love, instead vilifying her and hurting her as part of her false belief in duty.

She's wrong about this- Adora sees Shadow Weaver’s evil, too, she just doesn't know what to do about it. Adora had hoped that leaving her old life behind would free her from Shadow Weaver's corrupt influence over her, and yet... we see Adora struggle with how she was hurt right up until the end. Still, if she had just had one decent talk with Catra, it could have cleared up so much hurt between them so much sooner. (but they never did...)

Adora, as we see her in ep1, is a person that is so incredibly naive that Catra doesn't even need to feel that Adora ever intentionally enabled- Adora's blind devotion to Shadow Weaver's plan, followed by total willingness to abandon their fight against their abuser, while instead assuming evil upon Catra while hurtfully lumping Catra in with said abuser, means, as far as Catra could tell, that Adora was never going to choose to help her at all.

Adora’s behavior in the horde was so atrociously bad, that her continued hurtfulness after leaving seems to confirm Catra’s worst fears: that Adora really didn't care about her, and only cared about her duty.

If true, Adora having had no plan to help her would have made Adora's continued naive enabling of Shadow Weaver a clear and present danger to Catra's life. Was playing the favorite to their abuser really Adora's only plan? Would she have just continued to enable Shadow Weaver right up until she pulled off whatever deceitful plan she had for the two of them, killing Catra, or them both? It sure would seem so.

Add to this the fact that Adora just ends up having enabled a different evil manipulator as part of her deserting her, 💖💖💖and Catra is done expecting anyone to ever help her with the realities of her abuser. If the princesses want to call her evil, while sheltering her abuser and further enabling Shadow Weaver’s evil, she won't feel bad if they all get hurt along the way.

Catra does a lot of dangerous and hurtful things in the name of this belief. But, this is a trauma state Catra learns to wake up from, because she's lost just like Adora is, and her trauma mentality is destructive to everyone around her.

It leaves her with nothing… no slice of happiness, nobody to call her a friend, a life of absolute loneliness with nothing to live for except her drive to punish her abuser at any cost, with little to no chance of forgiveness for her violence. She learns every lesson the hard way- that no matter how much your abusers continued existence hurts you, there's simply some things you just do not do… you're no good to anyone if you surrender your heart to that kind of anger.

Catra does show deep remorse for all of her worst actions. And, she's lucky that Adora saves her. (even if she's a bit pissed at Adora for risking herself like that… 🥺😥)

But, in regards to whether she's abusive… in s5 we don't see that. Catra does act out a little bit while coming to terms with why Adora saved her- she didn't think she would ever get a second chance. From that moment onward we only see love and devotion from Catra, she doesn't want to live in her hurtful ways anymore, even if she still has no idea how to feel safe with her abuser running wild. She can't keep living like she was, so living to help Adora makes much more sense.

My final appeal to people who have a hard time accepting Catradora… (part 6)

:: We should all strive to not let our personal hurt block us from appreciating people, and understanding them. I know it may seem like I'm targeting Adora harshly, but that's why I went to such lengths to show how her issues play out in the narrative. Adora struggles to be her best self, like Catra does, and that she does doesn't mean we should love her any less than we already do!

Adora is absolutely precious, as is Catra… they never should have been hurt like they were- Adora as the ‘hero’ and Catra as singled out for destruction because of how she loved Adora.

They were always sweet girls, like the innocent and loving children we see them as in their earliest memories, before that day when Shadow Weaver hurt them so badly.

The beautiful love we see in s5 is what they always deserved- they should have been allowed to grow up with innocence and then fallen in love, but instead they got hurt because of the corrupt intentions of others.

They both spend the arc of the series trying to get past how they've been hurt, to get back to each other. And how they do that is by remembering the way they loved each other before Shadow Weaver was ever able to hurt them and drive them apart.

That, was always their truth, their love is good and pure like it is in those childhood memories. They were always supposed to love each other, and their division was a mistake that happens out of how Shadow Weaver and others have hurt them.

Both of them show tremendous courage in working hard to be able to step past how trauma controls them to be better, it's not just Catra who has to do this.

Adora does, too, because she's got to trust in love, not duty or destiny or sacrifice to be incredibly strong in the way she needs to be to face the really scary things she has to do- such as stopping the Heart, and solving a millennia old war that was never her fault, plus more. Love was always what makes Adora strong enough to do the very hard things which she has to do.

When Catra is given a second chance in s5, she sees that Adora is being hurt, and how nobody really helps her… they just expect her to do whatever has to be done. And that's wrong, because it’s unfair and it hurts her. Catra knows Adora has been hurt all of her life, she just didn't realize how much...

Catra may have been made to suffer for Adora, but she survived that, and so she can be free of it. And Catra realizes she can help Adora, really really help her, to do the very hard things that are expected of her… Catra puts everything she has into helping Adora in s5. It's what Catra always thought she'd do, as the wiser child that knew how evil the world really was. She just got all mixed up inside, fearing that Adora would never really love her… and that was wrong of her.

Catra isn't really expecting redemption.. or even for Adora to return her feelings of romantic love back to her in the same way that she feels. But, all she has left is her love for Adora, and so she gives everything she has to her.

I think that's really courageous of her, and when she sees Adora is failing in the Heart chamber, she makes a dazzling series of romantic moves during the dream and the kiss- to show Adora that she's loved, that she's wanted, and that she's not alone. Brave, romantic moves which Catra didn't know for certain that Adora would reciprocate, but... she was still willing to do it, she loved her too much to let Adora fail, and die, while feeling so scared and alone. So, Catra does everything she can think of to let Adora know that she's loved. Catra deserves some credit for that.

We see that it works, as Adora has always loved her, too. Adora was just too blocked from expressing her love by her trauma. And Adora’s final test, as a hero of love, is quite simply to accept that she can be loved, not as a hero, but for who she is...

... I don't know what else to say to anyone who can't accept their love, or at least I won't here. I think it is the most beautiful love story I have ever seen.

In large part this is because it's not simplified. Catra and Adora’s love isn't assumed to be kismet, they have to work hard to be together. They are both really bad communicators, and had to learn to talk to each other. This is true in most relationships, and in doing so they become truly loving partners to each other.

... So, it might have been nice if there had been enough time for Noelle to give us even one more kiss between them... but, I think Noelle wanted to tell us a very mature, grown up story about overcoming adversity to embrace love. And I think that's really commendable of them.

Sorry that took so long… Anyways, Catradora is the best ship, I don't make the rules! 😅🚢 ✨ I realize I won't be able to convince everyone, but that kiss was beautiful, was it not?? So, I hope my words aren't a total loss, and that maybe I can convince just a few people to feel like I do.

Love is power. 💞🏳️‍🌈☺️

:: Hi!! - I will gladly answer anyone's questions, and feel free to let me know what you thought of this. Thank you. (hopefully I didn't just become lost in my writing halfway through somewhere ?? 😅😬 -let me know if I did...)

Also, if you've read this far, thank you for that- if you enjoyed it please consider giving it a ✨reblogg✨ or a like!! *humble thanks 🙇*

Peace and Love,

~EtheriaDearie 🕊

Some final notes:

Yes, I do realize these are fictional characters, but it's easier to talk about them this way- they are the nuanced creations of very creative people, meant for us to enjoy… in that way they might as well be real, because they have so much to teach us-

-all hyperlinks are on tumblr. Here's a list of my other analyses-

LotFP = Legend of the Fire Princess. It's canon, important, a lot of fun, and worth checking out!! 10/10 😉

-note: I will never use the term 'toxic' because of how I feel the word carries cultural connotations which detract from discussion. However, discuss as you wish! I have no issue with the word or the concept, I just seek to be very clear in my meanings-

Finally, here's a link to a YouTube video of Adora saying Catra's name (fast forward to 0:40). You can really hear how her tone changes through time... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f_WRT3D3n_I

Hello! Absolutely love your analyses! I'd spend breaks during work reading through a piece and I appreciate all the evidence (data as Entrapta would state) you use. I see many people boil Catradora down to being abusive (aimed at Catra) and it's just so hard to argue since there's so much depth to their relationship. What are your thoughts? How would you respond to someone stating so?

:: ... Reflections on the emotional healthiness of Catradora, on Adora's arc, and on SPOP as a morally complex story-

Hi, and thank you so much for this question, I know that some SPOP fans have this kind of reaction, and while I get why they feel bad, I strongly believe such a reaction was not the intended outcome. Which is my first point:

To anyone who feels this way, Hey!!! Noelle wouldn't hurt us like that, and even though we see hurtful behaviors shown in SPOP, this isn't part of suggesting that we forgive our abusers- Noelle wouldn't do that!!

SPOP is unique in that it explores trauma as seriously as it does… this show is so many different things: it's beautiful, it's fun, it's kid friendly, and it's really meaningful. I really, really believe that both Catra and Adora’s stories are meant to be a comfort to people who grew up in situations like theirs… (I, for one, find Catra’s story very comforting).

My second point is that Adora is as much a product of hurtful abuse as Catra is, and this includes that she has some very hurtful behaviors towards Catra, especially as we see the two of them together starting well before her defection. For example-

We all know Adora is a sweetheart, and for her to even behave in hurtful ways is so against her own best nature that it's a sign that she's not really being herself. It's also very wrong in terms of her ability to be She-ra, as Etheria chose her for her ability to love- she is deep down an incredibly loving and generous person, and love is her power. Yet, when we see her with Catra in ep1, she's acting hurtful instead. This- is where their relationship becomes so complex- because Catra really isn't being hurtful, and Adora has a history...

...And, this is a much bigger problem than just her relationship with Catra, because Adora is also hurtful towards everyone in her past life, she vilifies them and fights them- never once does she make an honest attempt to help her former friends- Adora simply makes an assumption that fighting them is a necessary hurt of her 'destiny'.

Yet... this 'destiny' is a lie, and we cannot ignore how Adora's arc from s1-4 ends with her barely avoiding destroying all of Etheria... furthermore, with Horde Prime finding them all as a consequence. Despite Adora's attempts at being a hero through s1-4, it ends with her having betrayed all of her former friends for a 'destiny' which was evil all along- Light Hope never meant to make her a hero, only to use her and the rest of the princesses as a weapon. This is because Adora had followed her 'duty' and therefore failed to be her greatest good as a hero of love.

Her decision of duty and all that goes wrong results because of how Adora believes in duty before all else, including and especially love. This false belief system, where she simply fights rather than looks to help her former friends, and acts hurtfully to enact this false 'destiny', is because of how Adora was hurt by her abuser. And it makes her actions wrong- she isn't valuing love, and, she is being controlled by others, some which are evil, some which are unfair- through her false belief in duty.

This concept of duty, which is so wrong, is what Adora's entire struggles are about- this includes her hero's arc. Her perceived need to serve a false duty is the reason she justifies hurtful behavior and neglects to help her former friends, it's the reason her s1-4 arc ends in disaster with her destiny being revealed to have been false, (and that she's been manipulated for evil), and, it's the reason she's so hurtful to Catra- betraying all of their love, while failing to make any true effort to understand Catra's feelings.

We might not like Catra's reaction, or how terribly wrong the war is, but Adora wrongly believes in putting her duty so far ahead of all else that she's failing to look deeper. Adora does break promises, and she does hurt people- she hurts everyone in her old life, not just Catra, with her hurtful and blind prioritization of duty ahead of love and all else- her belief makes her vulnerable to further manipulations. Her entire concept of duty before love makes her miss how she's hurting them, and, how she's wrong to do this... ... it results in so much pain. (-in fact, Adora ends up hurting EVERYONE with her stubborn belief in enacting a false destiny, as we'll discuss.)

So, for the purposes of this question, we need to look at Adora's behavior, and how she's wrong to be so hurtful. Catra ends up very much more wrong- that's well documented- and which we all know- but, Adora is She-ra, Catra is not, and all of Adora's actions matter so much because she is at the center of all that happens as She-ra. And, she's got to learn to value love, going against the hurtful beliefs of duty that her abuser ingrained into her psyche to control her. Even though Adora is trying to do her best, she falls short of what that actually is, and it's all because of her false belief that duty must define her. She is a hero of love, not a hero of duty or destiny- because destiny cannot power her, nor guide her. Love is what must guide Adora, because love is her real power... and as a hero of love, she cannot "leave anyone behind" who needed her help...

Through s1-4, by acting hurtful, Adora is essentially creating a false equivalency by equating evil upon all of her former friends, in a hurtful way which all but ensures further division and misunderstanding. She-ra is supposed to be a uniter, a healer- yet Adora is making no effort to do so. Adora is such a extensive product of abuse that she doesn't even see that she's doing so, and she has to wake up to this in order to become a hero of love... so, in a word- Adora is a good example of how it's possible to want to do good, yet fall short of that by being unintentionally hurtful-

Also, in part: their division happens because when Adora leaves Catra and everyone else in her former life behind she does so having not once fought for them- like how she didn't fight for her and Catra's love against their abuser. As She-ra, Adora needs to be strong enough to fight for ALL of them, rebellion and the vulnerable people in the horde who are trapped in its abusive system alike- yet, Adora doesn't do so- instead she takes a simplified view of morality, and through it, justifies abandoning her and Catra's love and fighting against instead of helping everyone in her old life. This happens because of multiple complex factors, some dealing with her history as a being a survivor of abuse - but in reality, it's mostly because everyone around Adora also is not being their best, either... ...more later

As for Catra- her choices, while very very bad, come out of reactions to Adora's history of hurtful behaviors- her inability to trust Adora is a trauma reaction, just like Adora's, yet, that reaction comes in response to Adora's continued hurtful behaviors: Catra is trying to be apart from someone who has constantly hurt her by naively following duty while showing no effort to understand how she's hurtful or to fight for their love. Adora did this within the horde by playing favorite to Shadow Weaver, and Catra feels that Adora must be misguided, just like she was before, for leaving her- instead fighting against her so willingly and vilifying her... lumping her in with their abuser as evil.

Catra was constantly abused, and watched on as Adora played favorite to that abuser while ignoring how Catra was treated. So, Adora was betraying Catra all along, and had no awareness of it- it shows that Adora has a blind spot- something which she struggles with throughout her hero's arc: such as Light Hope using her for evil. Catra felt as though she had already lost the friend she thought she had years ago, and then Adora's continued hurtful behavior following her defection, while making no effort to save their love, is what causes Catra to feel she must part ways with Adora. By Catra's reasoning, Adora must not really love her- why else would Adora be so ready to hurt her, when she made a promise to love her? Catra doesn't think Adora is actually being a 'good' person by leaving like she does- and Adora's hurtful divisive actions confirm Catra is right- by choosing divisiveness and a false destiny while not valuing their love, Adora is indeed falling short of being the hero of love which Etheria chose her to be...

So, we can see Catra's distrust and Adora's being used by Light Hope as parallel, because Catra is right that Adora is letting people manipulate her, like she did within the horde- even if Catra is only basing this belief off of her gut feelings in s1. Adora ends up betraying her promises, and being used as a weapon by Light Hope, (and the rebellion, too) for the same reason: her belief in duty which blinds her to all else.

:: 🛑 There's also the matter of whether Adora and Catra are 'in a relationship' during the war. That's dubious- morality of the war aside, Adora divides their friendship for it, not Catra- so they aren't together anymore... And, as we'll discuss, Adora is coming up short of making the best decision by doing so. But, in regards to this question, what happens during the war between Catra and Adora should be considered separately, as apart from this time in their history, Catra was quite loving with Adora: both before, and then after, the war... and so it's important to not falsely equivalate Catra actions in this way (...again, morality of the war aside..) ....more later

We'll come back to Catra's motivations later, but here's the quick reference for the meantime- Catra doesn't do what she does out of wanting to hurt Adora, her love confession in s5 precludes that. And she also doesn't do it out of any great allegiance to the Horde- it's just all she knows, and she stays there because she's trying to be free of Adora- who is a constantly inadvertently hurtful person, as Adora had actually been betraying their love for many years. But: most importantly, Catra does what she does as part of her fight against their real abuser, whom Catra sees as the real evil in their lives. This starts as Catra taking down Shadow Weaver herself, and stays true within the meaning of her other actions through the rest of her arc as well. ...more later

All in all, this is part of how Noelle gave us a morally complex story with SPOP- it's not black and white like most stories we've seen (such as ATLA). The war, while terrible, has multiple sides to it, and with it moral grayness: The horde is wrong, yet isn't really made up of evil people. The rebellion is right to defend Etheria, but has a corrupted view of the horde where they summarily judge all horde as evil. That's an amoral belief, as we'll discuss, and it plays into Adora’s confusion over who she really must be, because their hurtful views block Adora's ability to be the hero of love she's meant to be.

... And, of course- the princesses are part of an evil super weapon, as naive enablers of a generational trauma so dark that it threatens them all... ...more later

Finally, the MAJOR PSA REGARDING ABUSIVENESS.. (and therefore this question)

Since we wish to discuss abusive relationships, we must recognize that there is indeed such a relationship at the forefront of SPOP, but it's not Catradora.

All of their bad behaviors- Catra’s isolationism and hurtfulness for self protection, and Adora’s hurtfulness in the name of false duty and vulnerability to naively trusting in false ideals set out for her by others, is because of how Shadow Weaver hurt them.

This story is about accepting love, and it really is about both of their struggles with how their abuser hurt them, they have to get past that to embrace love: SPOP is all about love, and through their stories, why we as people often struggle to accept love.... 💢(a minor trauma warn- but nothing too dark in this post-) It's the real truth of Catra and Adora’s arcs, that they both act out hurtfully due to how their abuser has hurt them, and as such, they both contribute to their division, not just Catra. And, they both go through long arcs of self realization and healing to be better from how they've been hurt, to be their best selves and so they can be together again.

This journey of self realization is what allows Adora to start being a real hero in s5, and accepting Adora's flaws in her actions before then is an important part of understanding her story, because, as She-ra, everything Adora does matters- no matter how unfair what's done to her is, she's got to be her best, and she has to trust in love in order to win in the end...

That concludes the "short" explanation, but, since abusiveness is such an important issue, we'll cover some specifics it in greater detail. This- is Adora's hero's arc- her and Catra's love IS her hero's journey because she's not trusting in love by how she acts in s1-4.

So, apologies for how long this will be, but we'll be covering the following subjects as part of this discussion-

1- how and why Adora improperly continues hurtful behavior that started within the horde after she finds the sword, which Catra reacts to, and how Catra wasn't hurtful before then,

2- how Adora could have used She-ra as a liberator to help her former friends, and how the rebellion also being corrupt is why she misses it,

3- Adora's self realization of her love, and how it allows her to step past false destiny and manipulation,

4- how Adora was being a false hero during seasons 1-4 as told through Horde Prime forcing her to fight chipped Catra to save her during Save the Cat,

5- Catra’s wrongness and why she believes she's totally alone against her abusers evils,

6- how the love we see in s5 was always the truth.

Back to the topic of Adora’s hurtfulness, as we see it in ep1, that goes so deeply against her better, loving nature... (part 1)

From the moment we see Adora and Catra together in ep1, it's obvious that their relationship has already become very unhealthy-

This is almost entirely unhealthy on Adora’s side, not Catra’s, as every time Adora speaks to Catra, she does so with a tone- she's rude to her, she's hypercritical of Catra's actions, she's incredibly judgemental, and she acts as if superior to her.

Yet, Adora had become the puppet of their abuser- Shadow Weaver, making the mistake of trying to fulfill the false expectation of being perfect as she was told to do. And in doing so, her naive trust in fulfilling that duty made her an unintentional enabler of her own abuse, as well as Catra's.

So, all of Adora's judgments out of supposed superiority come out as false: she's devoted to a woman who means only to destroy them, it shows that she really didn't know what was going on with Shadow Weaver's abuse.

In contrast, when we look at Catra’s behavior, it's clear she thinks Shadow Weaver is evil. And, in terms of how she interacts with Adora, it's obvious that Catra is actually still being a very loving and supportive friend to Adora- we only see any of her negativity emerge in response to Adora’s own hurtfulness. As things stand in ep1, Catra isn't abusive, if anything, it's the opposite (although I wouldn't go that far).

So, we can start to see that Adora has an entire history of deeply hurtful behaviors towards Catra- starting well before the moment Catra refuses to follow her, or before her decision to go to war against her following “Promise”. There was no good reason for Adora’s hurtfulness, it was done in respect to a false duty made for her by their abuser.

This false belief of superiority is another way in which we can see that Adora was failing to see the true evil that was happening as she was playing the favorite- she blindly believed that being good, as measured by an ideal set out for her by their abuser, was her only way of solving her problems.

Yet, Adora always had a choice- her assumption shows a failure of reasoning, because fulfilling that duty as she was told to never would have resulted in anyone being safe- much like her trying to fulfill Light Hope's ‘destiny’. Shadow Weaver only made Adora think that as part of her plan to use and then destroy her.

Likewise, Adora always had a choice to intrinsically value her and Catra’s love above the corrupt duty forced on her by Shadow Weaver- she could have kept the faith in their love, with Catra. Instead, Adora became hurtful towards Catra...

Adora was a bad friend- and her being as such in the name of false duties is the same reason she ends up being used as part of Light Hope’s corrupt 'destiny'. Also, being a bad friend is a canon part of Adora's hero’s struggle, (spoiler warn, LotFP) as being a bad friend can also be seen in how Adora acts towards Glimmer in s4: (as Bow says in s4ep8: "...it's hard being friends sometimes... So why am I the only one who's willing to work at it?". (In LotFP, Scorpia outright calls Adora a bad friend, and rightly so..)

In regards to Adora’s failure in choice- she and Catra weren't children anymore, and standing up to Shadow Weaver was always a possibility. She could have refused to play along in a system where Catra was made to suffer while she was given praise. And, the real kicker is: judging by how easily Catra takes down Shadow Weaver without Adora’s help, it wouldn't have even been that hard.

This shows Adora really was guilty of blind devotion to Shadow Weaver, because Catra had been prepared to step free of that abuse, probably for years. So, when Adora leaves Catra, devaluing their love and instead vilifying and falsely accusing Catra of being evil like Shadow Weaver (which is an immensely hurtful thing to do after the years of torture Catra suffered), Catra decides to step free of her abusers control, while also stepping free of Adora’s continued hurtfulness.

So, we see that Adora has a dangerous level of blindness to the deeper evils that people mean to use her for, which we can see in other places throughout her arc, such as with Light Hope’s plans for her. She can't even see how she's been corrupted.

Catra, in contrast, shows us she knew all along about their abusers' true evil: she shows her awareness by her little rebellions against a corrupt system where she was constantly being hurt. Catra refused to stay weak, and prepared to protect herself from her abuser all along. Yet, all Adora ever did was act out towards Catra for refusing to conform like she did...

Let's jump forward to when Adora finds the sword, and we can apply Adora’s naive belief in enacting duty, while being hurtful in the name of it, to that decision as well:

Adora accepts the sword, and her new ‘destiny’, with blindness and devotion- believing it to be her ‘destiny’, she willingly accepts that it comes at the price of hurting Catra as well as everyone in her old life as part of fulfilling it.

This ‘destiny’, or duty, is actually nothing but a lie made to confuse Adora by Light Hope and the First Ones- it's just a manipulation to use Adora for their evil. Believing in her 'destiny', Adora then makes no real effort to understand the darker truth behind what is really being asked of her, instead trusting in that 'destiny' and betraying everyone in her old life with her hurtfulness, instead of helping them, in service to this ‘destiny’. (...more later)

Adora in effect swaps Shadow Weaver for Light Hope, (The rebellion also uses Adora as a weapon in a hurtful way, which we'll discuss), and in doing so Adora acts hurtful to someone she loves, she agrees to hurt and therefore fail a whole group of people who deserve better from her. Adora has no right to vilify them like she does, after all, she was one of them herself. Also, her vilification shows no concept of her own hurtfulness and previous role as an enabler in that system.

Sure, Adora could complain that it wasn't her fault because she was being unfairly manipulated, yet Adora continually shows that she is vulnerable to those very same manipulations, again and again, throughout s1-4. It's all to do with her false assumption of fulfilling duty at any cost.

... and it brings Adora’s entire supposed ‘moral awakening’ into question, because while she's right to stick up for the citizens of Thaymore, her entire hurtful and superior attitude towards Catra while she does it is false: it's just like how Adora was hurtful towards Catra as part of playing her role as the favorite of their abuser within the horde. She was blind to the real evil that was occurring.

She therefore has no business being so hurtful towards Catra throughout s1, even IF she didn't know about the continued evil abuse Catra suffered because of her. All that Adora’s supposed righteousness over her ‘destiny’ actually shows is that she’s blind to what is really happening, in the past, and then again when Light Hope uses her for evil.

Also, fun fact: Adora’s supposed 'holier than thou' newfound morality isn't even her own: we know she's vulnerable to others' expectations- in this case she's accepting Glimmer’s hardline view that all people in the horde must be evil. Adora takes this closed minded viewpoint and uses it as she tries to enact her false destiny all the way through s1-4, never once making an effort to help her former friends.

All in all, Adora falls short of being a real hero by doing this. And Adora really does take things too far in her stubborn pursuit of her destiny (LotFP spoiler warn). She's so willing to hurt Catra, and all of her former friends, and is so far removed from the hero of love we see in s5 by doing so. Catra is right that Adora isn't the friend she used to have- Shadow Weaver's abuse changed Adora into something hurtful instead. (In LotFP, Adora strait up attempts to terminate Catra’s life; ...in contrast, Catra only ever tries to capture Adora...)

Catra, meanwhile, has no reason to trust Adora because of her past history as an enabler of her (their) abuse. If Adora could hurt her, while being devoted to her abuser, what reason does Adora give Catra to think that anything will be different with her sudden new devotion to the rebellion? The answer is none, and as Catra had to look out for herself to protect herself from abuse, she won't trust Adora. Meanwhile, Adora can't even make an effort to understand Catra's feelings of being hurt by her actions...

Also- at least Catra had a plan- which we know this by how she takes down Shadow Weaver to be free of her abuse. ..Nor Catra does want to just leave everyone in her old life, accepting the believe that people like her are only worthy of being vilified and condemned by the princesses- Adora's self righteous judgements just makes Catra think that Adora is being hurtful and naive. Adora, meanwhile, had no plan- and even after her 'destiny' is revealed, she's still playing into the hands of her abusers while trying to fulfill her 'destiny'. It doesn't matter if Adora doesn't mean to, she's still got to be better than letting corrupt people use her for evil. She needs to learn to not be so naive.

The best theory for the way Adora behaves- by being so hurtful while ignoring the deeper truths- is that Adora has a deeply engrained hurtful world-view due to how she was hurt by Shadow Weaver towards her purpose of using and sacrificing Adora. Because of how Adora was treated, she believes that duty always comes at a cost, and that it will be painful- it's a corrupted, painful way of seeing the world where she just assumes pain comes as part of her reality of being charged with duty.

This is false, it's just what her abusers (Light Hope, too) want her to believe, and waking up to how this corrupt concept of duty is used against her by her abusers is something that must happen for Adora to be able to move past it, so that she can start being a hero of love like she's meant to be. She cannot let naive concepts manipulate her into being hurtful, and cloud her from seeing her path of love. Adora in s1 sees none of this, only her concept of duty which is wrong- she gets wiser throughout s1-4, setting up for her heroic reveal in s5, and her true She-ra form.

So, Adora's fighting Catra and all of her former friends, instead of looking to help or understand them, is a presumption that it is a necessary cost of her duty. Upholding her 'duty' was always painful for Adora, and so she thinks hurting her former friends is 'just how it has to be', because Shadow Weaver conditioned her to expect that duty would always feel painful. Her hurtful world view assumes evil on them all, while making no attempt to do better. That's not heroic- Adora is accepting doing a lesser evil as part of 'duty', just like when Catra was allowed to suffer within the horde while she was given promotion. A real hero faces evil at it's source... Adora is being no hero of love...

Which brings us to our next topic: why Adora fails everyone in her old life, and how she could have done better to help the people trapped within the horde’s abusive system. (Part 2)

Adora’s hurtful vilification of everyone in her old life, while never finding a way to help them, really is a failure to all of them. In particular, we can see how much Lonnie feels this way, much like Catra does-

Not finding any way to help them was always a failure of Adora as a hero, something which happens because of her trauma belief of duty before all else, and how her new allies in the rebellion wrongly influence her to believe that all horde are evil. Their corrupted, hurtful views makes Adora miss an obvious possibility:

Adora could have used She-ra as a liberator, rather than as a conqueror.

I realize that may sound like hyperbole, but there's plenty of evidence of how Adora fails her former friends, and even more about how the rebellion fails the people of the horde. ->see the following pics-

So, we need to talk about why Adora never tries to help her former friends, in order to open a path to freedom like she was offered because she was She-ra.

Even though the rebellion may have the moral high ground in this story, they still fall short of being their best with their derogatory views of the horde- it further divides themselves from what are essentially fellow native Etherians, it surrenders all further thought to what is essentially hate. One result of their flawed views is how we see its Glimmer that activates the super weapon: as she says “we’re the good guys, remember?”. Are they really being their best, though?

Glimmer and Angella have pain from the war, which gives them a corrupted view of the Horde where they summarily judge all Horde to be evil out of their pain. These are derogatory views which are based on their own personal feelings of injury, which leads to their views, as leaders, crossing over from needing to protect themselves, to enacting a unnecessarily hurtful exclusion of a group of vulnerable people who needed their help.

This isn't to say that their pain isn't real… it is, it just doesn't excuse an isolationist, closed minded view of their situation. Surrendering further thought out of emotional pain simply is never healthy, they take their feeling so far as up never show any understanding to any individuals within the horde, or to try to help them. As the leaders of free Etheria, this is a failure of their station as those leaders.

So enters our sweet Adora, who, while she does always mean well, is a lifelong product of abuse that makes her highly vulnerable to blindly going along with others' expectations of her. Afraid to fail her new allies, Adora accepts Glimmer and Angella’s ‘us versus them’ close minded view of the horde as evil as her own, she ignores her deeper knowledge of how this isn't true she has from her time as one of them. Because of it, Adora never considers how they deserve to be given the same chance to be better that she was granted because of her Princess powers.

In all of SPOP, Adora is the only person who is ever actually offered a chance to switch sides. This is a failure that happens because of the derogatory and closed minded views which predominate the rebellion's beliefs- it's no secret that they hate horde soldiers, and that no forgiveness is ever offered. It's derogatory and amoral.

In SPOP, the Horde isn't evil in the black and white sense that most stories present their villains. They are a combination of bad, but also good: we can see that good in the stories of Catra, Scorpia, Lonnie, etc- even Hordak, the supposed leader of the evil Horde, shows he can be better and gets a redemption.

So, Adora’s intimate connections to people from her former life always demanded more understanding from her than just being crushed under She-ra’s golden boot. ... Not that anybody in the rebellion is actually interested in considering this possibility- and Adora is far too concerned at failing in her new duties as She-ra to stop and see it, and so challenge those views.

It was another missed chance to help people, rather than divide, Adora misses seeing due to her traumas- her addition to their ranks should have been a chance to change the derogatory views of the rebellion for the better, to open a real path towards freedom for people within the horde who feel trapped by its abusive system, so they can find safety from it like she did when she switched sides.

It's a way in which she could have helped her former friends, and it might even have lead to resolving the war more peacefully- losing soldiers in such a way would have weakened the Horde, possibly even seen its collapse… also, Catra would have seen that Adora was no longer giving in to a blanket derogatory view of people like her... -> ->Adora's childhood best friend helms the Horde, and yet, Adora still cannot find common ground ? (it's because of Adora's own divisive behavior towards Catra. Also, Hordak is hardly the leader of the Horde- he hides in his lab and only emerges to makes snide comments.....)

Quick aside: yes, Adora does make a few weak offers of this in s1 to Catra, but always coming after Catra had been further abused because of Adora’s actions, and always with Adora acting in her superior way that shows no understanding of how she's hurtful. It makes Catra doubt Adora’s sincerity.

As it turns out, this derogatory view of the rebellion is a much larger failure: it fails the people of the horde, but very importantly, the way their hurtful views affects Adora equals a personal failure to her.

What's really so terribly wrong with the rebellion's close minded views is that we never see any quarter offered to the horde: there's no opportunity for such people to be better- no choice given to them to step free of their abusive situation, and to prove they don't really stand for that. Not having that offer in place is an immoral act, and an abandonment of duty.

Glimmer and Angella’s presumption of evil upon all horde with no path to forgiveness in itself traps those very people in the system which forces them to act in evil ways. War is never an easy thing to solve, but presuming the enemy as evil shuts down all possible further understanding, and perpetuates the violence: as leaders of their world, Glimmer and Angella needed to do better.

And, their hurtful views are also a enormous personal failure to Adora, because it frightens Adora and leads to her continued self hurting-

Adora accepts the rebellion's close minded views that are forced on her, she throws herself into battle continuously trying to make up for her failure to be perfect. She's so afraid to fail them that she acts in compromised ways- such as looking to sacrifice herself, or hurtfully protecting her concept of 'destiny' at the cost of brutalizing her former friends in battle, never looking to help them.

It's a hurtful way to live, and Adora does it because she's so afraid to fail her new allies as a former child soldier from the Horde, and so their views hurt her- Angella and Glimmer's views that being from the horde is synonymous with evil are a personal failure to Adora, particularly from Angella: as a mother, she could have helped Adora to understand her new role as She-ra, and to help Adora understand her trauma.

Instead, Angella judges Adora and treats her like she's evil unless she fights as she's told to... even though Adora, as an orphan, never had a choice in being from the horde. This is an emotionally hurtful failure to Adora as a friend, (Glimmer) and as a mother (Angella).

::This is also the beginning of a series of failures, one which ends with everyone being hurt, because of Adora’s betrayal of being a hero of love, in what could be considered a butterfly effect-

-> Adora takes the hurtful, close minded black and white view of morality of the rebellion, and applies it to her relationship with Catra- she ignores their intimate history and her promises, and implies that Catra must be evil like Shadow Weaver at multiple intervals following her defection. That is a failure of love, and of friendship.

Catra had been hurt her whole life, she watched as Adora turned from her as a friend to be the enabler of their abuser. She's had enough of being hurt in this way, and Adora isn't even making an effort to understand why Catra feels so hurt by her actions. So, Catra wants to be free of Adora, who hurts her.

Catra fails Adora as a friend- ending the generosity of love we see her have in ep1-2, that she kept giving despite Adora being so hurtful towards her. Catra is done with Adora’s double standards, she agrees to fight the war against them all, since Adora so seemingly wants it as part of her new life and a 'destiny' which ends up being fake, anyways.

And so, the rebellion's close minded views creates Adora’s failure to Catra, Catra goes to war against them, and so, the one enemy they simply cannot defeat is created by their own close minded views.

The rebellion fails Adora -> Adora fails Catra (plus all of her former friends) -> and in reverse, Adora fails ALL of them -> rebellion alike, by failing to make the choice of love of trying to make an effort to preserve her and Catra’s love, she turns Catra against them all with her lack of faith in their love, acting hurtfully instead. It is a failure of being the hero of love that Etheria chose her to be...

A chain reaction that starts with Glimmer and Angella’s own hurtful views ends with EVERYONE being hurt- it amplifies the war, because, Adora is at the center of all that happens, and isn't being the hero she should be... you could ever say it causes a butterfly effect...

Still, Adora had a choice to be better.

Just like she had a choice to stand up to Shadow Weaver in the horde. Just like she had a choice to not turn on everyone in her old life, judging them in such hurtful ways, while never looking to help them. And, just like she had a choice to value her and Catra’s love, and through seeing how her actions hurt their love, seen that the duty she was so blindly devoting herself to was wrongly making her hurt people that deserved better from her.

Adora in s1 has so little emotional presence to be able to see her own hurtfulness- it's due to how she was hurt- that she places her concept of duty so far ahead of love that she can't even see the value of a lifelong relationship of love she had with Catra. Why would Catra think Adora cares about her, when she so casually betrays her, infers evil upon her, implies that Catra must be like their abuser ?

If, Adora was a more emotionally present person, she would have recognized that she needed to find a better way that didn't just brutalizing everyone from her previous life. And the rebellion itself doesn't help her, they just place their unfair expectations upon her. Her trauma makes it hard for her to see why love is important- she can hardly see the bond of love that she has with Catra... so, she doesn't choose love out of false belief in duty and fails to be the hero she's meant to be.. and everyone suffers for it.

In the end, Angella and Glimmer are not in themselves blameless for creating the situation they face with Catra’s determined war against them, because as leaders of the rebellion, they had been failing the vulnerable people in the horde all along.

As the saying goes, hurt people hurt other people. It's true in life and it's true in SPOP. Mostly people hurt each other because of trauma, and in SPOP everyone's trauma adds to the sadness of the war they fight for 4 seasons, horde and rebellion alike, not just Catra... or Adora. It's not the war they needed to fight, it never was, and as such they are all mostly caught unawares when their mistakes in this way results in Horde Prime finding them- ie- the true enemy they all should have been preparing to face...

... Which, it must be acknowledged, results from Glimmer's choice of trying to use a despicable super weapon to win a war- one in which her own bad attitude hurtfully influences Adora and therefore helped to create. Her act nearly destroys them all, while exposing them to their true enemy all along.

Glimmer’s naive decision results in so much disaster that it really makes you wonder if the rebellion ever deserved to win the war with the way they conducted themselves...

I'd argue no…

Glimmer’s act, and how the princesses are caught so unaware of their true enemies- (ie, Horde Prime and the First Ones) shows them to be so naive that they likely would have inadvertently activated the Heart in time, and thus destroyed themselves, anyways.

They failed to be better, acting in way that added further trauma to the system. (..this is really a just commentary on the messiness of war in general) And, the princesses really have NO excuse for being caught unawares like they were- they don't know their own world's history- there's no real excuse for this. Especially when we see that it was possible- Shadow Weaver uncovered much of it as part of her evil plans to attain more power. (Shoutout to Bow’s dads, who made a heroic effort to understand it, while starting from scratch- 🥰)

Add to this that Glimmer’s corrupted choice to activate the heart happens much as a consequence of her listening to, you guessed it, Shadow Weaver, and we have all the proof we need that the princesses don't understand their own “hubris”.

Long story short, everyone messes up the first 4 seasons, nobody is being their best- and so, Adora has to go to great lengths and great personal risk to herself to repair all of their previous mistakes as part of her s5 arc. She does this in a very beautiful way- she does it through the power of her love- *not* out of destiny, or duty, or even sacrifice. (Part 3)

Adora was always a hero of love, love IS her power, and she should have seen it sooner. Trauma is what blocked her.

A bit of sympathy for Adora:

Even though I'm talking about how she's wrong, Adora constantly found herself unfairly forced into bad situations by others' expectations put on her, some of which are evil, others are at the least unfair and corrupted by hurt. So, she ends up making some wrong choices… yet she's She-ra, she's still got to be better than that.

And Adora shows great courage in getting free of her trauma cycle to trust in the power of love instead of duty, like she was always supposed to do. How she gets past this trauma mentality is by simply learning to reconnect to her best self- and her deepest feelings of love and generosity that she was chosen to be a hero for by Etheria.

... Nevermind the First Ones-- Adora was still chosen by Etheria, as she was as a loving child, before Shadow Weaver ever managed to hurt her and make her into something else.

And, Adora finds this truth within herself with almost no help from anyone with her best interests at heart- Angella tries her best for ~3 minutes in the portal reality, to make up for her own hurtfulness towards Adora. (..Bow and Glimmer do help her some, but are very much involved in their own concerns..) Adora is a hero, but not by destiny… love is her truth.

Now... Adora’s burden as She-ra is indeed incredibly unfair on a personal level, yet as She-ra, she's still got to be able to make the right choices to be able fix the big problems she faces, and making those choices must be guided by love, not by destiny or duty.

So it doesn't matter that she's not responsible for the First Ones original evil, for which she was innocently born into- Adora still won't quit trying to make it better, because that's who she is at heart. Love was always her guide, and her strength, that's why Etheria chose her, in late s4 into s5 Adora begins listening to her love.

So, Adora’s hurtfulness with Catra from s1-4 is just the most obvious symptom of how she's struggling with a trauma mindset that blocks her from being the true hero she's meant to be. This means that Adora and Catra's relationship issues and separation was always the real story of Adora's hero's arc, because Adora failed to look deeper and save their love because to her flawed concept of duty.

Being that hero requires not surrendering her reason to false judgements which require her to be hurtful to people who deserved her love and understanding, never mind if Catra makes everything worse with her own hurtful reactions. Adora always needed to be better than that, and being so isn't easy, but she learns to do it. Again, Catra isn't She-ra: Adora is.

::So, SPOP is one big story about people learning to not let their shitty attitudes control them, and of getting past them in order to become better people. Adora had a bad attitude in s1: it made everything worse, she turned on her former friends because of it. Catra’s attitude might be the worst of them all, but they all learn to be better- Glimmer, Angella, Mermista… the list goes on. Everyone needed to be better, and in s5 they are- it's what gives them the power to overcome Horde Prime together.

... Adora rescuing Catra is such an important part of her hero’s arc because of how she is a hero of love, but it's also important because she's making up for her previous mistakes of making hurtful and false judgements against her former friends... and against Catra. We also see Adora’s true powers emerge as she saves Catra, because she's trusting in love...

Speaking of Save the Cat… (part 4)

Still, if you're at all doubting that Adora struggles with being a false hero from s1-4, it's all well confirmed as Adora faces Horde Prime during Save the Cat in order to save Catra…

When Adora shows up to save Catra, and to save their love, Horde Prime pits chipped Catra against Adora, making her play out their entire history of hurting each other for false reasons in order for her to save Catra. This is meant to be a sly and forceful character assasination by Prime of Adora as a false hero, and as a bad friend. He wants Adora to feel weak, that her failures as a hero are so total, and her lack of love so hurtful, that it's much too late for her to fix her mistakes.

Because of his belief, he really isn't expecting Adora to succeed… yet, he doesn't know that Adora has found her truth of love…

He starts out by calling Adora a false hero, rubs it in that she's a First One, part of an evil empire that he easily defeated. And as she battles against chipped Catra, he tells her “you will destroy the ones you love in the process.”

This is supposed to be a scathing rebuke of Adora’s actions through s4. One where Adora, and the princesses at large, played into the hands of the First Ones manipulations, where she willingly hurt Catra in the name of her false destiny.

He reminds Adora of all of her failures, and how as a First One she's from an evil race of beings, she's totally at his mercy, just like the She-ra’s before her. He throws Catra at her, tauntingly, asking her to kill Catra, like she tried to do before in the service of Glimmer and Angella's corrupt expectations that she deliver them from the horde at any cost to herself.

Moments before Glimmer destroys the server, and Adora and Catra get their chance to talk, Prime rubs it in just how much Catra had to suffer for her sacrifice to protect Adora- “she was scared in the end, and she suffered”. A cruelty Catra shouldn't have had to experience, but for Adora’s long standing history of betraying her for false duty.

Adora tells Catra she's not giving up on her, something she did through the first 4 seasons of SPOP with her blind righteousness towards Catra, never stopping to consider how she herself might have been wrong, instead stubbornly trying to enact her false destiny.

Prime compels Adora- it's too late, the damage is done, he's all but assured to win. She is behind enemy lines, and weak.. “then you are a fool, you cannot stop Horde Prime… he will reign triumphant… it is destiny”.

Her and Catra finally get to talk to each other when the server is destroyed, and as Catra reaches out, nearly taking Adora’s hand to go home again, he steals it away and taunts Adora one more time: “some creatures are destined only for destruction”- like it always was… Catra was meant to fail from the beginning, to die. And Adora was the tool of her abusers, she threw Catra aside as part of their evil plan to make her fail for their corrupt purposes. He sends Catra plummeting to her near death..

Clutching Catra’s dying body to her chest, Prime tells Adora “it did not have to be like this”. He's telling Adora that it never had to be like this, all of her betrayals of Catra, her struggles in vain against her false destiny, were done in naive blindness and only ever made things worse.

Everyone was made to suffer because of her naive belief in that 'destiny', she's failed, and if she's lucky, perhaps Prime might save Catra. By submitting to his will, maybe she can spare Catra her death... or if not... perhaps Adora can at least forget her mistakes like Catra has been made to do…

We all know what happens next. Adora is not the naive girl who played by the rules of her abusers, she's stronger within herself and knows she cannot abandon love. As she says: "you miscalculated”.

And luckily for her, Catra, a true fighter for her own life, surviving against a lifetime of death threats and near death experiences, is able to hang on just long for Adora to be able to save her from the brink of death..

None of this makes Catra’s actions during the war ok, but keep in mind that Catra shows great remorse for all of her mistakes. She's learned her lessons, too… and her remorse and then total confession of love hints that Catra never did what she did as part of wanting to hurt Adora..

Still… what really makes Catra fight Adora like she does? After all… she had a choice, too, just like Adora did... (part 5)

Catra could have chosen to sympathize with Adora's views at the battle of Thaymore, after all, Adora was clearly right that what was happening to the civilians was wrong, yet she didn't.

As it so turns out, Catra isn't very impressed by some suffering of people who have lived their whole lives more privileged than she has, not when every day of her life had been a crime- surviving against abuse and torture with nowhere to run or anyone to turn to, Adora included.

Her life was that of an orphan, singled out for total destruction by their abuser, and as an orphan, the only way Catra knew for sure she could get free of that was through her own actions. She can't rely on anyone liking her or helping her because of innate magical powers like Adora does.

So, putting her life in the hands of the people who have only ever seen her as an enemy makes no sense, she's been hurt too many times before, including by Adora herself, to take Adora’s word for it.

But, she at least hoped that Adora could have chosen her out of love. Adora's willingness to abandon Catra so totally, and then continuing to behave so hurtfully in all of their further meetings, seems to tell another story.

All of Catra’s anger, and her worst actions through s4 can be summed up in one thing, of which never had to do with her wanting to hurt Adora:

Catra believes that she is totally alone in the world against her abuser, that nobody else properly sees Shadow Weaver's evil or will deal with it. And so it's up to her to do what must be done.

Everyone around her is an enabler in some way: Hordak didn't care to take a role in the Horde's everyday, only cared about results. Glimmer and the princesses become the worst kind of enablers of Shadow Weaver from s3 onward by taking her in, giving her total freedom in all but name. (And then there's the matter of Glimmer letting Shadow Weaver channel her power in s3ep4, which she uses to nearly take Catra’s life yet again...)

But the saddest example is how she thinks Adora is a naive enabler who will never learn any better. Catra feels that way because of Adora's hurtful behaviors towards her, and how Adora couldn't even choose Catra out of love, instead vilifying her and hurting her as part of her false belief in duty.

She's wrong about this- Adora sees Shadow Weaver’s evil, too, she just doesn't know what to do about it. Adora had hoped that leaving her old life behind would free her from Shadow Weaver's corrupt influence over her, and yet... we see Adora struggle with how she was hurt right up until the end. Still, if she had just had one decent talk with Catra, it could have cleared up so much hurt between them so much sooner. (but they never did...)

Adora, as we see her in ep1, is a person that is so incredibly naive that Catra doesn't even need to feel that Adora ever intentionally enabled- Adora's blind devotion to Shadow Weaver's plan, followed by total willingness to abandon their fight against their abuser, while instead assuming evil upon Catra while hurtfully lumping Catra in with said abuser, means, as far as Catra could tell, that Adora was never going to choose to help her at all.

Adora’s behavior in the horde was so atrociously bad, that her continued hurtfulness after leaving seems to confirm Catra’s worst fears: that Adora really didn't care about her, and only cared about her duty.

If true, Adora having had no plan to help her would have made Adora's continued naive enabling of Shadow Weaver a clear and present danger to Catra's life. Was playing the favorite to their abuser really Adora's only plan? Would she have just continued to enable Shadow Weaver right up until she pulled off whatever deceitful plan she had for the two of them, killing Catra, or them both? It sure would seem so.

Add to this the fact that Adora just ends up having enabled a different evil manipulator as part of her deserting her, 💖💖💖and Catra is done expecting anyone to ever help her with the realities of her abuser. If the princesses want to call her evil, while sheltering her abuser and further enabling Shadow Weaver’s evil, she won't feel bad if they all get hurt along the way.

Catra does a lot of dangerous and hurtful things in the name of this belief. But, this is a trauma state Catra learns to wake up from, because she's lost just like Adora is, and her trauma mentality is destructive to everyone around her.

It leaves her with nothing… no slice of happiness, nobody to call her a friend, a life of absolute loneliness with nothing to live for except her drive to punish her abuser at any cost, with little to no chance of forgiveness for her violence. She learns every lesson the hard way- that no matter how much your abusers continued existence hurts you, there's simply some things you just do not do… you're no good to anyone if you surrender your heart to that kind of anger.

Catra does show deep remorse for all of her worst actions. And, she's lucky that Adora saves her. (even if she's a bit pissed at Adora for risking herself like that… 🥺😥)

But, in regards to whether she's abusive… in s5 we don't see that. Catra does act out a little bit while coming to terms with why Adora saved her- she didn't think she would ever get a second chance. From that moment onward we only see love and devotion from Catra, she doesn't want to live in her hurtful ways anymore, even if she still has no idea how to feel safe with her abuser running wild. She can't keep living like she was, so living to help Adora makes much more sense.

My final appeal to people who have a hard time accepting Catradora… (part 6)

:: We should all strive to not let our personal hurt block us from appreciating people, and understanding them. I know it may seem like I'm targeting Adora harshly, but that's why I went to such lengths to show how her issues play out in the narrative. Adora struggles to be her best self, like Catra does, and that she does doesn't mean we should love her any less than we already do!

Adora is absolutely precious, as is Catra… they never should have been hurt like they were- Adora as the ‘hero’ and Catra as singled out for destruction because of how she loved Adora.

They were always sweet girls, like the innocent and loving children we see them as in their earliest memories, before that day when Shadow Weaver hurt them so badly.

The beautiful love we see in s5 is what they always deserved- they should have been allowed to grow up with innocence and then fallen in love, but instead they got hurt because of the corrupt intentions of others.

They both spend the arc of the series trying to get past how they've been hurt, to get back to each other. And how they do that is by remembering the way they loved each other before Shadow Weaver was ever able to hurt them and drive them apart.

That, was always their truth, their love is good and pure like it is in those childhood memories. They were always supposed to love each other, and their division was a mistake that happens out of how Shadow Weaver and others have hurt them.

Both of them show tremendous courage in working hard to be able to step past how trauma controls them to be better, it's not just Catra who has to do this.

Adora does, too, because she's got to trust in love, not duty or destiny or sacrifice to be incredibly strong in the way she needs to be to face the really scary things she has to do- such as stopping the Heart, and solving a millennia old war that was never her fault, plus more. Love was always what makes Adora strong enough to do the very hard things which she has to do.

When Catra is given a second chance in s5, she sees that Adora is being hurt, and how nobody really helps her… they just expect her to do whatever has to be done. And that's wrong, because it’s unfair and it hurts her. Catra knows Adora has been hurt all of her life, she just didn't realize how much...

Catra may have been made to suffer for Adora, but she survived that, and so she can be free of it. And Catra realizes she can help Adora, really really help her, to do the very hard things that are expected of her… Catra puts everything she has into helping Adora in s5. It's what Catra always thought she'd do, as the wiser child that knew how evil the world really was. She just got all mixed up inside, fearing that Adora would never really love her… and that was wrong of her.

Catra isn't really expecting redemption.. or even for Adora to return her feelings of romantic love back to her in the same way that she feels. But, all she has left is her love for Adora, and so she gives everything she has to her.

I think that's really courageous of her, and when she sees Adora is failing in the Heart chamber, she makes a dazzling series of romantic moves during the dream and the kiss- to show Adora that she's loved, that she's wanted, and that she's not alone. Brave, romantic moves which Catra didn't know for certain that Adora would reciprocate, but... she was still willing to do it, she loved her too much to let Adora fail, and die, while feeling so scared and alone. So, Catra does everything she can think of to let Adora know that she's loved. Catra deserves some credit for that.

We see that it works, as Adora has always loved her, too. Adora was just too blocked from expressing her love by her trauma. And Adora’s final test, as a hero of love, is quite simply to accept that she can be loved, not as a hero, but for who she is...

... I don't know what else to say to anyone who can't accept their love, or at least I won't here. I think it is the most beautiful love story I have ever seen.

In large part this is because it's not simplified. Catra and Adora’s love isn't assumed to be kismet, they have to work hard to be together. They are both really bad communicators, and had to learn to talk to each other. This is true in most relationships, and in doing so they become truly loving partners to each other.

... So, it might have been nice if there had been enough time for Noelle to give us even one more kiss between them... but, I think Noelle wanted to tell us a very mature, grown up story about overcoming adversity to embrace love. And I think that's really commendable of them.

Sorry that took so long… Anyways, Catradora is the best ship, I don't make the rules! 😅🚢 ✨ I realize I won't be able to convince everyone, but that kiss was beautiful, was it not?? So, I hope my words aren't a total loss, and that maybe I can convince just a few people to feel like I do.

Love is power. 💞🏳️‍🌈☺️

:: Hi!! - I will gladly answer anyone's questions, and feel free to let me know what you thought of this. Thank you. (hopefully I didn't just become lost in my writing halfway through somewhere ?? 😅😬 -let me know if I did...)

Also, if you've read this far, thank you for that- if you enjoyed it please consider giving it a ✨reblogg✨ or a like!! *humble thanks 🙇*

Peace and Love,

~EtheriaDearie 🕊

Some final notes:

Yes, I do realize these are fictional characters, but it's easier to talk about them this way- they are the nuanced creations of very creative people, meant for us to enjoy… in that way they might as well be real, because they have so much to teach us-

-all hyperlinks are on tumblr. Here's a list of my other analyses-

LotFP = Legend of the Fire Princess. It's canon, important, a lot of fun, and worth checking out!! 10/10 😉

-note: I will never use the term 'toxic' because of how I feel the word carries cultural connotations which detract from discussion. However, discuss as you wish! I have no issue with the word or the concept, I just seek to be very clear in my meanings-

Finally, here's a link to a YouTube video of Adora saying Catra's name (fast forward to 0:40). You can really hear how her tone changes through time... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f_WRT3D3n_I

Hello! Absolutely love your analyses! I'd spend breaks during work reading through a piece and I appreciate all the evidence (data as Entrapta would state) you use. I see many people boil Catradora down to being abusive (aimed at Catra) and it's just so hard to argue since there's so much depth to their relationship. What are your thoughts? How would you respond to someone stating so?

:: ... Reflections on the emotional healthiness of Catradora, on Adora's arc, and on SPOP as a morally complex story-

Hi, and thank you so much for this question, I know that some SPOP fans have this kind of reaction, and while I get why they feel bad, I strongly believe such a reaction was not the intended outcome. Which is my first point:

To anyone who feels this way, Hey!!! Noelle wouldn't hurt us like that, and even though we see hurtful behaviors shown in SPOP, this isn't part of suggesting that we forgive our abusers- Noelle wouldn't do that!!

SPOP is unique in that it explores trauma as seriously as it does… this show is so many different things: it's beautiful, it's fun, it's kid friendly, and it's really meaningful. I really, really believe that both Catra and Adora’s stories are meant to be a comfort to people who grew up in situations like theirs… (I, for one, find Catra’s story very comforting).

My second point is that Adora is as much a product of hurtful abuse as Catra is, and this includes that she has some very hurtful behaviors towards Catra, especially as we see the two of them together starting well before her defection. For example-

We all know Adora is a sweetheart, and for her to even behave in hurtful ways is so against her own best nature that it's a sign that she's not really being herself. It's also very wrong in terms of her ability to be She-ra, as Etheria chose her for her ability to love- she is deep down an incredibly loving and generous person, and love is her power. Yet, when we see her with Catra in ep1, she's acting hurtful instead. This- is where their relationship becomes so complex- because Catra really isn't being hurtful, and Adora has a history...

...And, this is a much bigger problem than just her relationship with Catra, because Adora is also hurtful towards everyone in her past life, she vilifies them and fights them- never once does she make an honest attempt to help her former friends- Adora simply makes an assumption that fighting them is a necessary hurt of her 'destiny'.

Yet... this 'destiny' is a lie, and we cannot ignore how Adora's arc from s1-4 ends with her barely avoiding destroying all of Etheria... furthermore, with Horde Prime finding them all as a consequence. Despite Adora's attempts at being a hero through s1-4, it ends with her having betrayed all of her former friends for a 'destiny' which was evil all along- Light Hope never meant to make her a hero, only to use her and the rest of the princesses as a weapon. This is because Adora had followed her 'duty' and therefore failed to be her greatest good as a hero of love.

Her decision of duty and all that goes wrong results because of how Adora believes in duty before all else, including and especially love. This false belief system, where she simply fights rather than looks to help her former friends, and acts hurtfully to enact this false 'destiny', is because of how Adora was hurt by her abuser. And it makes her actions wrong- she isn't valuing love, and, she is being controlled by others, some which are evil, some which are unfair- through her false belief in duty.

This concept of duty, which is so wrong, is what Adora's entire struggles are about- this includes her hero's arc. Her perceived need to serve a false duty is the reason she justifies hurtful behavior and neglects to help her former friends, it's the reason her s1-4 arc ends in disaster with her destiny being revealed to have been false, (and that she's been manipulated for evil), and, it's the reason she's so hurtful to Catra- betraying all of their love, while failing to make any true effort to understand Catra's feelings.

We might not like Catra's reaction, or how terribly wrong the war is, but Adora wrongly believes in putting her duty so far ahead of all else that she's failing to look deeper. Adora does break promises, and she does hurt people- she hurts everyone in her old life, not just Catra, with her hurtful and blind prioritization of duty ahead of love and all else- her belief makes her vulnerable to further manipulations. Her entire concept of duty before love makes her miss how she's hurting them, and, how she's wrong to do this... ... it results in so much pain. (-in fact, Adora ends up hurting EVERYONE with her stubborn belief in enacting a false destiny, as we'll discuss.)

So, for the purposes of this question, we need to look at Adora's behavior, and how she's wrong to be so hurtful. Catra ends up very much more wrong- that's well documented- and which we all know- but, Adora is She-ra, Catra is not, and all of Adora's actions matter so much because she is at the center of all that happens as She-ra. And, she's got to learn to value love, going against the hurtful beliefs of duty that her abuser ingrained into her psyche to control her. Even though Adora is trying to do her best, she falls short of what that actually is, and it's all because of her false belief that duty must define her. She is a hero of love, not a hero of duty or destiny- because destiny cannot power her, nor guide her. Love is what must guide Adora, because love is her real power... and as a hero of love, she cannot "leave anyone behind" who needed her help...

Through s1-4, by acting hurtful, Adora is essentially creating a false equivalency by equating evil upon all of her former friends, in a hurtful way which all but ensures further division and misunderstanding. She-ra is supposed to be a uniter, a healer- yet Adora is making no effort to do so. Adora is such a extensive product of abuse that she doesn't even see that she's doing so, and she has to wake up to this in order to become a hero of love... so, in a word- Adora is a good example of how it's possible to want to do good, yet fall short of that by being unintentionally hurtful-

Also, in part: their division happens because when Adora leaves Catra and everyone else in her former life behind she does so having not once fought for them- like how she didn't fight for her and Catra's love against their abuser. As She-ra, Adora needs to be strong enough to fight for ALL of them, rebellion and the vulnerable people in the horde who are trapped in its abusive system alike- yet, Adora doesn't do so- instead she takes a simplified view of morality, and through it, justifies abandoning her and Catra's love and fighting against instead of helping everyone in her old life. She doesn't help them... and that's hurtful enough to create division on it's own. Adora's choosing such a hurtful path happens out of multiple complex factors, some deal with her history as a abuse survivor- but in reality, it's mostly because everyone around Adora also is not being their best, either... ...more later

As for Catra- her choices, while very very bad, come out of reactions to Adora's history of hurtful behaviors- her inability to trust Adora is a trauma reaction, just like Adora's, yet, that reaction comes in response to Adora's continued hurtful behaviors: Catra is trying to be apart from someone who has constantly hurt her by naively following duty while showing no effort to understand how she's hurtful or to fight for their love. Adora did this within the horde by playing favorite to Shadow Weaver, and Catra feels that Adora must be misguided, just like she was before, for leaving her- instead fighting against her so willingly and vilifying her... lumping her in with their abuser as evil.

Catra was constantly abused, and watched on as Adora played favorite to that abuser while ignoring how Catra was treated. So, Adora was betraying Catra all along, and had no awareness of it- it shows that Adora has a blind spot- something which she struggles with throughout her hero's arc: such as Light Hope using her for evil. Catra felt as though she had already lost the friend she thought she had years ago, and then Adora's continued hurtful behavior following her defection, while making no effort to save their love, is what causes Catra to feel she must part ways with Adora. By Catra's reasoning, Adora must not really love her- why else would Adora be so ready to hurt her, when she made a promise to love her? Catra doesn't think Adora is actually being a 'good' person by leaving like she does- and Adora's hurtful divisive actions confirm Catra is right- by choosing divisiveness and a false destiny while not valuing their love, Adora is indeed falling short of being the hero of love which Etheria chose her to be...

So, we can see Catra's distrust and Adora's being used by Light Hope as parallel, because Catra is right that Adora is letting people manipulate her, like she did within the horde- even if Catra is only basing this belief off of her gut feelings in s1. Adora ends up betraying her promises, and being used as a weapon by Light Hope, (and the rebellion, too) for the same reason: her belief in duty which blinds her to all else.

:: 🛑 There's also the matter of whether Adora and Catra are 'in a relationship' during the war. That's dubious- morality of the war aside, Adora divides their friendship for it, not Catra- so they aren't together anymore... And, as we'll discuss, Adora is coming up short of making the best decision by doing so. But, in regards to this question, what happens during the war between Catra and Adora should be considered separately, as apart from this time in their history, Catra was quite loving with Adora: both before, and then after, the war... and so it's important to not falsely equivalate Catra actions in this way (...again, morality of the war aside..) ....more later

We'll come back to Catra's motivations later, but here's the quick reference for the meantime- Catra doesn't do what she does out of wanting to hurt Adora, her love confession in s5 precludes that. And she also doesn't do it out of any great allegiance to the Horde- it's just all she knows, and she stays there because she's trying to be free of Adora- who is a constantly inadvertently hurtful person, as Adora had actually been betraying their love for many years. But: most importantly, Catra does what she does as part of her fight against their real abuser, whom Catra sees as the real evil in their lives. This starts as Catra taking down Shadow Weaver herself, and stays true within the meaning of her other actions through the rest of her arc as well. ...more later

All in all, this is part of how Noelle gave us a morally complex story with SPOP- it's not black and white like most stories we've seen (such as ATLA). The war, while terrible, has multiple sides to it, and with it moral grayness: The horde is wrong, yet isn't really made up of evil people. The rebellion is right to defend Etheria, but has a corrupted view of the horde where they summarily judge all horde as evil. That's an amoral belief, as we'll discuss, and it plays into Adora’s confusion over who she really must be, because their hurtful views block Adora's ability to be the hero of love she's meant to be.

... And, of course- the princesses are part of an evil super weapon, as naive enablers of a generational trauma so dark that it threatens them all... ...more later

Finally, the MAJOR PSA REGARDING ABUSIVENESS.. (and therefore this question)

Since we wish to discuss abusive relationships, we must recognize that there is indeed such a relationship at the forefront of SPOP, but it's not Catradora.

All of their bad behaviors- Catra’s isolationism and hurtfulness for self protection, and Adora’s hurtfulness in the name of false duty and vulnerability to naively trusting in false ideals set out for her by others, is because of how Shadow Weaver hurt them.

SPOP as a series is all about accepting love, (even aside from Catradora-) and it really is about both of their struggles with how their abuser hurt them, which they have to get past to embrace love. Their story is all about how and why we ourselves sometimes struggle to accept love- many people struggle due to having been hurt like they were- and through them, Noelle tells us a story of our own lives. 💢(a minor trauma warn to readers: altho, I promise nothing too dark in this post). It's the real truth of Catra and Adora’s arcs: that they both act out hurtfully due to how their abuser has hurt them, and as such, they both contribute to their division, not just Catra. And, they both go through long arcs of self realization and healing to be better from how they've been hurt, to be their best selves and so they can be together again.

This journey of self realization is what allows Adora to start being a real hero in s5, and accepting Adora's flaws in her actions before then is an important part of understanding her story, because, as She-ra, everything Adora does matters- no matter how unfair what's done to her is, she's got to be her best, and she has to trust in love in order to win in the end...

That concludes the "short" explanation, but, since abusiveness is such an important issue, we'll cover some specifics it in greater detail. This- is Adora's hero's arc- her and Catra's love IS her hero's journey because she's not trusting in love by how she acts in s1-4.

So, apologies for how long this will be, but we'll be covering the following subjects as part of this discussion-

1- how and why Adora improperly continues hurtful behavior that started within the horde after she finds the sword, which Catra reacts to, and how Catra wasn't hurtful before then,

2- how Adora could have used She-ra as a liberator to help her former friends, and how the rebellion also being corrupt is why she misses it,

3- Adora's self realization of her love, and how it allows her to step past false destiny and manipulation,

4- how Adora was being a false hero during seasons 1-4 as told through Horde Prime forcing her to fight chipped Catra to save her during Save the Cat,

5- Catra’s wrongness and why she believes she's totally alone against her abusers evils,

6- how the love we see in s5 was always the truth.

Back to the topic of Adora’s hurtfulness, as we see it in ep1, that goes so deeply against her better, loving nature... (part 1)

From the moment we see Adora and Catra together in ep1, it's obvious that their relationship has already become very unhealthy-

This is almost entirely unhealthy on Adora’s side, not Catra’s, as every time Adora speaks to Catra, she does so with a tone- she's rude to her, she's hypercritical of Catra's actions, she's incredibly judgemental, and she acts as if superior to her.

Yet, Adora had become the puppet of their abuser- Shadow Weaver, making the mistake of trying to fulfill the false expectation of being perfect as she was told to do. And in doing so, her naive trust in fulfilling that duty made her an unintentional enabler of her own abuse, as well as Catra's.

So, all of Adora's judgments out of supposed superiority come out as false: she's devoted to a woman who means only to destroy them, it shows that she really didn't know what was going on with Shadow Weaver's abuse.

In contrast, when we look at Catra’s behavior, it's clear she thinks Shadow Weaver is evil. And, in terms of how she interacts with Adora, it's obvious that Catra is actually still being a very loving and supportive friend to Adora- we only see any of her negativity emerge in response to Adora’s own hurtfulness. As things stand in ep1, Catra isn't abusive, if anything, it's the opposite (although I wouldn't go that far).

So, we can start to see that Adora has an entire history of deeply hurtful behaviors towards Catra- starting well before the moment Catra refuses to follow her, or before her decision to go to war against her following “Promise”. There was no good reason for Adora’s hurtfulness, it was done in respect to a false duty made for her by their abuser.

This false belief of superiority is another way in which we can see that Adora was failing to see the true evil that was happening as she was playing the favorite- she blindly believed that being good, as measured by an ideal set out for her by their abuser, was her only way of solving her problems.

Yet, Adora always had a choice- her assumption shows a failure of reasoning, because fulfilling that duty as she was told to never would have resulted in anyone being safe- much like her trying to fulfill Light Hope's ‘destiny’. Shadow Weaver only made Adora think that as part of her plan to use and then destroy her.

Likewise, Adora always had a choice to intrinsically value her and Catra’s love above the corrupt duty forced on her by Shadow Weaver- she could have kept the faith in their love, with Catra. Instead, Adora became hurtful towards Catra...

Adora was a bad friend- and her being as such in the name of false duties is the same reason she ends up being used as part of Light Hope’s corrupt 'destiny'. Also, being a bad friend is a canon part of Adora's hero’s struggle, (spoiler warn, LotFP) as being a bad friend can also be seen in how Adora acts towards Glimmer in s4: (as Bow says in s4ep8: "...it's hard being friends sometimes... So why am I the only one who's willing to work at it?". (In LotFP, Scorpia outright calls Adora a bad friend, and rightly so..)

In regards to Adora’s failure in choice- she and Catra weren't children anymore, and standing up to Shadow Weaver was always a possibility. She could have refused to play along in a system where Catra was made to suffer while she was given praise. And, the real kicker is: judging by how easily Catra takes down Shadow Weaver without Adora’s help, it wouldn't have even been that hard.

This shows Adora really was guilty of blind devotion to Shadow Weaver, because Catra had been prepared to step free of that abuse, probably for years. So, when Adora leaves Catra, devaluing their love and instead vilifying and falsely accusing Catra of being evil like Shadow Weaver (which is an immensely hurtful thing to do after the years of torture Catra suffered), Catra decides to step free of her abusers control, while also stepping free of Adora’s continued hurtfulness.

So, we see that Adora has a dangerous level of blindness to the deeper evils that people mean to use her for, which we can see in other places throughout her arc, such as with Light Hope’s plans for her. She can't even see how she's been corrupted.

Catra, in contrast, shows us she knew all along about their abusers' true evil: she shows her awareness by her little rebellions against a corrupt system where she was constantly being hurt. Catra refused to stay weak, and prepared to protect herself from her abuser all along. Yet, all Adora ever did was act out towards Catra for refusing to conform like she did...

Let's jump forward to when Adora finds the sword, and we can apply Adora’s naive belief in enacting duty, while being hurtful in the name of it, to that decision as well:

Adora accepts the sword, and her new ‘destiny’, with blindness and devotion- believing it to be her ‘destiny’, she willingly accepts that it comes at the price of hurting Catra as well as everyone in her old life as part of fulfilling it.

This ‘destiny’, or duty, is actually nothing but a lie made to confuse Adora by Light Hope and the First Ones- it's just a manipulation to use Adora for their evil. Believing in her 'destiny', Adora then makes no real effort to understand the darker truth behind what is really being asked of her, instead trusting in that 'destiny' and betraying everyone in her old life with her hurtfulness, instead of helping them, in service to this ‘destiny’. (...more later)

Adora in effect swaps Shadow Weaver for Light Hope, (The rebellion also uses Adora as a weapon in a hurtful way, which we'll discuss), and in doing so Adora acts hurtful to someone she loves, she agrees to hurt and therefore fail a whole group of people who deserve better from her. Adora has no right to vilify them like she does, after all, she was one of them herself. Also, her vilification shows no concept of her own hurtfulness and previous role as an enabler in that system.

Sure, Adora could complain that it wasn't her fault because she was being unfairly manipulated, yet Adora continually shows that she is vulnerable to those very same manipulations, again and again, throughout s1-4. It's all to do with her false assumption of fulfilling duty at any cost.

... and it brings Adora’s entire supposed ‘moral awakening’ into question, because while she's right to stick up for the citizens of Thaymore, her entire hurtful and superior attitude towards Catra while she does it is false: it's just like how Adora was hurtful towards Catra as part of playing her role as the favorite of their abuser within the horde. She was blind to the real evil that was occurring.

She therefore has no business being so hurtful towards Catra throughout s1, even IF she didn't know about the continued evil abuse Catra suffered because of her. All that Adora’s supposed righteousness over her ‘destiny’ actually shows is that she’s blind to what is really happening, in the past, and then again when Light Hope uses her for evil.

Also, fun fact: Adora’s supposed 'holier than thou' newfound morality isn't even her own: we know she's vulnerable to others' expectations- in this case she's accepting Glimmer’s hardline view that all people in the horde must be evil. Adora takes this closed minded viewpoint and uses it as she tries to enact her false destiny all the way through s1-4, never once making an effort to help her former friends.

All in all, Adora falls short of being a real hero by doing this. And Adora really does take things too far in her stubborn pursuit of her destiny (LotFP spoiler warn). She's so willing to hurt Catra, and all of her former friends, and is so far removed from the hero of love we see in s5 by doing so. Catra is right that Adora isn't the friend she used to have- Shadow Weaver's abuse changed Adora into something hurtful instead. (In LotFP, Adora strait up attempts to terminate Catra’s life; ...in contrast, Catra only ever tries to capture Adora...)

Catra, meanwhile, has no reason to trust Adora because of her past history as an enabler of her (their) abuse. If Adora could hurt her, while being devoted to her abuser, what reason does Adora give Catra to think that anything will be different with her sudden new devotion to the rebellion? The answer is none, and as Catra had to look out for herself to protect herself from abuse, she won't trust Adora. Meanwhile, Adora can't even make an effort to understand Catra's feelings of being hurt by her actions...

Also- at least Catra had a plan- which we know this by how she takes down Shadow Weaver to be free of her abuse. ..Nor Catra does want to just leave everyone in her old life, accepting the believe that people like her are only worthy of being vilified and condemned by the princesses- Adora's self righteous judgements just makes Catra think that Adora is being hurtful and naive. Adora, meanwhile, had no plan- and even after her 'destiny' is revealed, she's still playing into the hands of her abusers while trying to fulfill her 'destiny'. It doesn't matter if Adora doesn't mean to, she's still got to be better than letting corrupt people use her for evil. She needs to learn to not be so naive.

The best theory for the way Adora behaves- by being so hurtful while ignoring the deeper truths- is that Adora has a deeply engrained hurtful world-view due to how she was hurt by Shadow Weaver towards her purpose of using and sacrificing Adora. Because of how Adora was treated, she believes that duty always comes at a cost, and that it will be painful- it's a corrupted, painful way of seeing the world where she just assumes pain comes as part of her reality of being charged with duty.

This is false, it's just what her abusers (Light Hope, too) want her to believe, and waking up to how this corrupt concept of duty is used against her by her abusers is something that must happen for Adora to be able to move past it, so that she can start being a hero of love like she's meant to be. She cannot let naive concepts manipulate her into being hurtful, and cloud her from seeing her path of love. Adora in s1 sees none of this, only her concept of duty which is wrong- she gets wiser throughout s1-4, setting up for her heroic reveal in s5, and her true She-ra form.

So, Adora's fighting Catra and all of her former friends, instead of looking to help or understand them, is a presumption that it is a necessary cost of her duty. Upholding her 'duty' was always painful for Adora, and so she thinks hurting her former friends is 'just how it has to be', because Shadow Weaver conditioned her to expect that duty would always feel painful. Her hurtful world view assumes evil on them all, while making no attempt to do better. That's not heroic- Adora is accepting doing a lesser evil as part of 'duty', just like when Catra was allowed to suffer within the horde while she was given promotion. A real hero faces evil at it's source... Adora is being no hero of love...

Which brings us to our next topic: why Adora fails everyone in her old life, and how she could have done better to help the people trapped within the horde’s abusive system. (Part 2)

Adora’s hurtful vilification of everyone in her old life, while never finding a way to help them, really is a failure to all of them. In particular, we can see how much Lonnie feels this way, much like Catra does-

Not finding any way to help them was always a failure of Adora as a hero, something which happens because of her trauma belief of duty before all else, and how her new allies in the rebellion wrongly influence her to believe that all horde are evil. Their corrupted, hurtful views makes Adora miss an obvious possibility:

Adora could have used She-ra as a liberator, rather than as a conqueror.

I realize that may sound like hyperbole, but there's plenty of evidence of how Adora fails her former friends, and even more about how the rebellion fails the people of the horde. ->see the following pics-

So, we need to talk about why Adora never tries to help her former friends, in order to open a path to freedom like she was offered because she was She-ra.

Even though the rebellion may have the moral high ground in this story, they still fall short of being their best with their derogatory views of the horde- it further divides themselves from what are essentially fellow native Etherians, it surrenders all further thought to what is essentially hate. One result of their flawed views is how we see its Glimmer that activates the super weapon: as she says “we’re the good guys, remember?”. Are they really being their best, though?

Glimmer and Angella have pain from the war, which gives them a corrupted view of the Horde where they summarily judge all Horde to be evil out of their pain. These are derogatory views which are based on their own personal feelings of injury, which leads to their views, as leaders, crossing over from needing to protect themselves, to enacting a unnecessarily hurtful exclusion of a group of vulnerable people who needed their help.

This isn't to say that their pain isn't real… it is, it just doesn't excuse an isolationist, closed minded view of their situation. Surrendering further thought out of emotional pain simply is never healthy, they take their feeling so far as up never show any understanding to any individuals within the horde, or to try to help them. As the leaders of free Etheria, this is a failure of their station as those leaders.

So enters our sweet Adora, who, while she does always mean well, is a lifelong product of abuse that makes her highly vulnerable to blindly going along with others' expectations of her. Afraid to fail her new allies, Adora accepts Glimmer and Angella’s ‘us versus them’ close minded view of the horde as evil as her own, she ignores her deeper knowledge of how this isn't true she has from her time as one of them. Because of it, Adora never considers how they deserve to be given the same chance to be better that she was granted because of her Princess powers.

In all of SPOP, Adora is the only person who is ever actually offered a chance to switch sides. This is a failure that happens because of the derogatory and closed minded views which predominate the rebellion's beliefs- it's no secret that they hate horde soldiers, and that no forgiveness is ever offered. It's derogatory and amoral.

In SPOP, the Horde isn't evil in the black and white sense that most stories present their villains. They are a combination of bad, but also good: we can see that good in the stories of Catra, Scorpia, Lonnie, etc- even Hordak, the supposed leader of the evil Horde, shows he can be better and gets a redemption.

So, Adora’s intimate connections to people from her former life always demanded more understanding from her than just being crushed under She-ra’s golden boot. ... Not that anybody in the rebellion is actually interested in considering this possibility- and Adora is far too concerned at failing in her new duties as She-ra to stop and see it, and so challenge those views.

It was another missed chance to help people, rather than divide, Adora misses seeing due to her traumas- her addition to their ranks should have been a chance to change the derogatory views of the rebellion for the better, to open a real path towards freedom for people within the horde who feel trapped by its abusive system, so they can find safety from it like she did when she switched sides.

It's a way in which she could have helped her former friends, and it might even have lead to resolving the war more peacefully- losing soldiers in such a way would have weakened the Horde, possibly even seen its collapse… also, Catra would have seen that Adora was no longer giving in to a blanket derogatory view of people like her... -> ->Adora's childhood best friend helms the Horde, and yet, Adora still cannot find common ground ? (it's because of Adora's own divisive behavior towards Catra. Also, Hordak is hardly the leader of the Horde- he hides in his lab and only emerges to makes snide comments.....)

Quick aside: yes, Adora does make a few weak offers of this in s1 to Catra, but always coming after Catra had been further abused because of Adora’s actions, and always with Adora acting in her superior way that shows no understanding of how she's hurtful. It makes Catra doubt Adora’s sincerity.

As it turns out, this derogatory view of the rebellion is a much larger failure: it fails the people of the horde, but very importantly, the way their hurtful views affects Adora equals a personal failure to her.

What's really so terribly wrong with the rebellion's close minded views is that we never see any quarter offered to the horde: there's no opportunity for such people to be better- no choice given to them to step free of their abusive situation, and to prove they don't really stand for that. Not having that offer in place is an immoral act, and an abandonment of duty.

Glimmer and Angella’s presumption of evil upon all horde with no path to forgiveness in itself traps those very people in the system which forces them to act in evil ways. War is never an easy thing to solve, but presuming the enemy as evil shuts down all possible further understanding, and perpetuates the violence: as leaders of their world, Glimmer and Angella needed to do better.

And, their hurtful views are also a enormous personal failure to Adora, because it frightens Adora and leads to her continued self hurting-

Adora accepts the rebellion's close minded views that are forced on her, she throws herself into battle continuously trying to make up for her failure to be perfect. She's so afraid to fail them that she acts in compromised ways- such as looking to sacrifice herself, or hurtfully protecting her concept of 'destiny' at the cost of brutalizing her former friends in battle, never looking to help them.

It's a hurtful way to live, and Adora does it because she's so afraid to fail her new allies as a former child soldier from the Horde, and so their views hurt her- Angella and Glimmer's views that being from the horde is synonymous with evil are a personal failure to Adora, particularly from Angella: as a mother, she could have helped Adora to understand her new role as She-ra, and to help Adora understand her trauma.

Instead, Angella judges Adora and treats her like she's evil unless she fights as she's told to... even though Adora, as an orphan, never had a choice in being from the horde. This is an emotionally hurtful failure to Adora as a friend, (Glimmer) and as a mother (Angella).

::This is also the beginning of a series of failures, one which ends with everyone being hurt, because of Adora’s betrayal of being a hero of love, in what could be considered a butterfly effect-

-> Adora takes the hurtful, close minded black and white view of morality of the rebellion, and applies it to her relationship with Catra- she ignores their intimate history and her promises, and implies that Catra must be evil like Shadow Weaver at multiple intervals following her defection. That is a failure of love, and of friendship.

Catra had been hurt her whole life, she watched as Adora turned from her as a friend to be the enabler of their abuser. She's had enough of being hurt in this way, and Adora isn't even making an effort to understand why Catra feels so hurt by her actions. So, Catra wants to be free of Adora, who hurts her.

Catra fails Adora as a friend- ending the generosity of love we see her have in ep1-2, that she kept giving despite Adora being so hurtful towards her. Catra is done with Adora’s double standards, she agrees to fight the war against them all, since Adora so seemingly wants it as part of her new life and a 'destiny' which ends up being fake, anyways.

And so, the rebellion's close minded views creates Adora’s failure to Catra, Catra goes to war against them, and so, the one enemy they simply cannot defeat is created by their own close minded views.

The rebellion fails Adora -> Adora fails Catra (plus all of her former friends) -> and in reverse, Adora fails ALL of them -> rebellion alike, by failing to make the choice of love of trying to make an effort to preserve her and Catra’s love, she turns Catra against them all with her lack of faith in their love, acting hurtfully instead. It is a failure of being the hero of love that Etheria chose her to be...

A chain reaction that starts with Glimmer and Angella’s own hurtful views ends with EVERYONE being hurt- it amplifies the war, because, Adora is at the center of all that happens, and isn't being the hero she should be... you could ever say it causes a butterfly effect...

Still, Adora had a choice to be better.

Just like she had a choice to stand up to Shadow Weaver in the horde. Just like she had a choice to not turn on everyone in her old life, judging them in such hurtful ways, while never looking to help them. And, just like she had a choice to value her and Catra’s love, and through seeing how her actions hurt their love, seen that the duty she was so blindly devoting herself to was wrongly making her hurt people that deserved better from her.

Adora in s1 has so little emotional presence to be able to see her own hurtfulness- it's due to how she was hurt- that she places her concept of duty so far ahead of love that she can't even see the value of a lifelong relationship of love she had with Catra. Why would Catra think Adora cares about her, when she so casually betrays her, infers evil upon her, implies that Catra must be like their abuser ?

If, Adora was a more emotionally present person, she would have recognized that she needed to find a better way that didn't just brutalizing everyone from her previous life. And the rebellion itself doesn't help her, they just place their unfair expectations upon her. Her trauma makes it hard for her to see why love is important- she can hardly see the bond of love that she has with Catra... so, she doesn't choose love out of false belief in duty and fails to be the hero she's meant to be.. and everyone suffers for it.

In the end, Angella and Glimmer are not in themselves blameless for creating the situation they face with Catra’s determined war against them, because as leaders of the rebellion, they had been failing the vulnerable people in the horde all along.

As the saying goes, hurt people hurt other people. It's true in life and it's true in SPOP. Mostly people hurt each other because of trauma, and in SPOP everyone's trauma adds to the sadness of the war they fight for 4 seasons, horde and rebellion alike, not just Catra... or Adora. It's not the war they needed to fight, it never was, and as such they are all mostly caught unawares when their mistakes in this way results in Horde Prime finding them- ie- the true enemy they all should have been preparing to face...

... Which, it must be acknowledged, results from Glimmer's choice of trying to use a despicable super weapon to win a war- one in which her own bad attitude hurtfully influences Adora and therefore helped to create. Her act nearly destroys them all, while exposing them to their true enemy all along.

Glimmer’s naive decision results in so much disaster that it really makes you wonder if the rebellion ever deserved to win the war with the way they conducted themselves...

I'd argue no…

Glimmer’s act, and how the princesses are caught so unaware of their true enemies- (ie, Horde Prime and the First Ones) shows them to be so naive that they likely would have inadvertently activated the Heart in time, and thus destroyed themselves, anyways.

They failed to be better, acting in way that added further trauma to the system. (..this is really a just commentary on the messiness of war in general) And, the princesses really have NO excuse for being caught unawares like they were- they don't know their own world's history- there's no real excuse for this. Especially when we see that it was possible- Shadow Weaver uncovered much of it as part of her evil plans to attain more power. (Shoutout to Bow’s dads, who made a heroic effort to understand it, while starting from scratch- 🥰)

Add to this that Glimmer’s corrupted choice to activate the heart happens much as a consequence of her listening to, you guessed it, Shadow Weaver, and we have all the proof we need that the princesses don't understand their own “hubris”.

Long story short, everyone messes up the first 4 seasons, nobody is being their best- and so, Adora has to go to great lengths and great personal risk to herself to repair all of their previous mistakes as part of her s5 arc. She does this in a very beautiful way- she does it through the power of her love- *not* out of destiny, or duty, or even sacrifice. (Part 3)

Adora was always a hero of love, love IS her power, and she should have seen it sooner. Trauma is what blocked her.

A bit of sympathy for Adora:

Even though I'm talking about how she's wrong, Adora constantly found herself unfairly forced into bad situations by others' expectations put on her, some of which are evil, others are at the least unfair and corrupted by hurt. So, she ends up making some wrong choices… yet she's She-ra, she's still got to be better than that.

And Adora shows great courage in getting free of her trauma cycle to trust in the power of love instead of duty, like she was always supposed to do. How she gets past this trauma mentality is by simply learning to reconnect to her best self- and her deepest feelings of love and generosity that she was chosen to be a hero for by Etheria.

... Nevermind the First Ones-- Adora was still chosen by Etheria, as she was as a loving child, before Shadow Weaver ever managed to hurt her and make her into something else.

And, Adora finds this truth within herself with almost no help from anyone with her best interests at heart- Angella tries her best for ~3 minutes in the portal reality, to make up for her own hurtfulness towards Adora. (..Bow and Glimmer do help her some, but are very much involved in their own concerns..) Adora is a hero, but not by destiny… love is her truth.

Now... Adora’s burden as She-ra is indeed incredibly unfair on a personal level, yet as She-ra, she's still got to be able to make the right choices to be able fix the big problems she faces, and making those choices must be guided by love, not by destiny or duty.

So it doesn't matter that she's not responsible for the First Ones original evil, for which she was innocently born into- Adora still won't quit trying to make it better, because that's who she is at heart. Love was always her guide, and her strength, that's why Etheria chose her, in late s4 into s5 Adora begins listening to her love.

So, Adora’s hurtfulness with Catra from s1-4 is just the most obvious symptom of how she's struggling with a trauma mindset that blocks her from being the true hero she's meant to be. This means that Adora and Catra's relationship issues and separation was always the real story of Adora's hero's arc, because Adora failed to look deeper and save their love because to her flawed concept of duty.

Being that hero requires not surrendering her reason to false judgements which require her to be hurtful to people who deserved her love and understanding, never mind if Catra makes everything worse with her own hurtful reactions. Adora always needed to be better than that, and being so isn't easy, but she learns to do it. Again, Catra isn't She-ra: Adora is.

::So, SPOP is one big story about people learning to not let their shitty attitudes control them, and of getting past them in order to become better people. Adora had a bad attitude in s1: it made everything worse, she turned on her former friends because of it. Catra’s attitude might be the worst of them all, but they all learn to be better- Glimmer, Angella, Mermista… the list goes on. Everyone needed to be better, and in s5 they are- it's what gives them the power to overcome Horde Prime together.

... Adora rescuing Catra is such an important part of her hero’s arc because of how she is a hero of love, but it's also important because she's making up for her previous mistakes of making hurtful and false judgements against her former friends... and against Catra. We also see Adora’s true powers emerge as she saves Catra, because she's trusting in love...

Speaking of Save the Cat… (part 4)

Still, if you're at all doubting that Adora struggles with being a false hero from s1-4, it's all well confirmed as Adora faces Horde Prime during Save the Cat in order to save Catra…

When Adora shows up to save Catra, and to save their love, Horde Prime pits chipped Catra against Adora, making her play out their entire history of hurting each other for false reasons in order for her to save Catra. This is meant to be a sly and forceful character assasination by Prime of Adora as a false hero, and as a bad friend. He wants Adora to feel weak, that her failures as a hero are so total, and her lack of love so hurtful, that it's much too late for her to fix her mistakes.

Because of his belief, he really isn't expecting Adora to succeed… yet, he doesn't know that Adora has found her truth of love…

He starts out by calling Adora a false hero, rubs it in that she's a First One, part of an evil empire that he easily defeated. And as she battles against chipped Catra, he tells her “you will destroy the ones you love in the process.”

This is supposed to be a scathing rebuke of Adora’s actions through s4. One where Adora, and the princesses at large, played into the hands of the First Ones manipulations, where she willingly hurt Catra in the name of her false destiny.

He reminds Adora of all of her failures, and how as a First One she's from an evil race of beings, she's totally at his mercy, just like the She-ra’s before her. He throws Catra at her, tauntingly, asking her to kill Catra, like she tried to do before in the service of Glimmer and Angella's corrupt expectations that she deliver them from the horde at any cost to herself.

Moments before Glimmer destroys the server, and Adora and Catra get their chance to talk, Prime rubs it in just how much Catra had to suffer for her sacrifice to protect Adora- “she was scared in the end, and she suffered”. A cruelty Catra shouldn't have had to experience, but for Adora’s long standing history of betraying her for false duty.

Adora tells Catra she's not giving up on her, something she did through the first 4 seasons of SPOP with her blind righteousness towards Catra, never stopping to consider how she herself might have been wrong, instead stubbornly trying to enact her false destiny.

Prime compels Adora- it's too late, the damage is done, he's all but assured to win. She is behind enemy lines, and weak.. “then you are a fool, you cannot stop Horde Prime… he will reign triumphant… it is destiny”.

Her and Catra finally get to talk to each other when the server is destroyed, and as Catra reaches out, nearly taking Adora’s hand to go home again, he steals it away and taunts Adora one more time: “some creatures are destined only for destruction”- like it always was… Catra was meant to fail from the beginning, to die. And Adora was the tool of her abusers, she threw Catra aside as part of their evil plan to make her fail for their corrupt purposes. He sends Catra plummeting to her near death..

Clutching Catra’s dying body to her chest, Prime tells Adora “it did not have to be like this”. He's telling Adora that it never had to be like this, all of her betrayals of Catra, her struggles in vain against her false destiny, were done in naive blindness and only ever made things worse.

Everyone was made to suffer because of her naive belief in that 'destiny', she's failed, and if she's lucky, perhaps Prime might save Catra. By submitting to his will, maybe she can spare Catra her death... or if not... perhaps Adora can at least forget her mistakes like Catra has been made to do…

We all know what happens next. Adora is not the naive girl who played by the rules of her abusers, she's stronger within herself and knows she cannot abandon love. As she says: "you miscalculated”.

And luckily for her, Catra, a true fighter for her own life, surviving against a lifetime of death threats and near death experiences, is able to hang on just long for Adora to be able to save her from the brink of death..

None of this makes Catra’s actions during the war ok, but keep in mind that Catra shows great remorse for all of her mistakes. She's learned her lessons, too… and her remorse and then total confession of love hints that Catra never did what she did as part of wanting to hurt Adora..

Still… what really makes Catra fight Adora like she does? After all… she had a choice, too, just like Adora did... (part 5)

Catra could have chosen to sympathize with Adora's views at the battle of Thaymore, after all, Adora was clearly right that what was happening to the civilians was wrong, yet she didn't.

As it so turns out, Catra isn't very impressed by some suffering of people who have lived their whole lives more privileged than she has, not when every day of her life had been a crime- surviving against abuse and torture with nowhere to run or anyone to turn to, Adora included.

Her life was that of an orphan, singled out for total destruction by their abuser, and as an orphan, the only way Catra knew for sure she could get free of that was through her own actions. She can't rely on anyone liking her or helping her because of innate magical powers like Adora does.

So, putting her life in the hands of the people who have only ever seen her as an enemy makes no sense, she's been hurt too many times before, including by Adora herself, to take Adora’s word for it.

But, she at least hoped that Adora could have chosen her out of love. Adora's willingness to abandon Catra so totally, and then continuing to behave so hurtfully in all of their further meetings, seems to tell another story.

All of Catra’s anger, and her worst actions through s4 can be summed up in one thing, of which never had to do with her wanting to hurt Adora:

Catra believes that she is totally alone in the world against her abuser, that nobody else properly sees Shadow Weaver's evil or will deal with it. And so it's up to her to do what must be done.

Everyone around her is an enabler in some way: Hordak didn't care to take a role in the Horde's everyday, only cared about results. Glimmer and the princesses become the worst kind of enablers of Shadow Weaver from s3 onward by taking her in, giving her total freedom in all but name. (And then there's the matter of Glimmer letting Shadow Weaver channel her power in s3ep4, which she uses to nearly take Catra’s life yet again...)

But the saddest example is how she thinks Adora is a naive enabler who will never learn any better. Catra feels that way because of Adora's hurtful behaviors towards her, and how Adora couldn't even choose Catra out of love, instead vilifying her and hurting her as part of her false belief in duty.

She's wrong about this- Adora sees Shadow Weaver’s evil, too, she just doesn't know what to do about it. Adora had hoped that leaving her old life behind would free her from Shadow Weaver's corrupt influence over her, and yet... we see Adora struggle with how she was hurt right up until the end. Still, if she had just had one decent talk with Catra, it could have cleared up so much hurt between them so much sooner. (but they never did...)

Adora, as we see her in ep1, is a person that is so incredibly naive that Catra doesn't even need to feel that Adora ever intentionally enabled- Adora's blind devotion to Shadow Weaver's plan, followed by total willingness to abandon their fight against their abuser, while instead assuming evil upon Catra while hurtfully lumping Catra in with said abuser, means, as far as Catra could tell, that Adora was never going to choose to help her at all.

Adora’s behavior in the horde was so atrociously bad, that her continued hurtfulness after leaving seems to confirm Catra’s worst fears: that Adora really didn't care about her, and only cared about her duty.

If true, Adora having had no plan to help her would have made Adora's continued naive enabling of Shadow Weaver a clear and present danger to Catra's life. Was playing the favorite to their abuser really Adora's only plan? Would she have just continued to enable Shadow Weaver right up until she pulled off whatever deceitful plan she had for the two of them, killing Catra, or them both? It sure would seem so.

Add to this the fact that Adora just ends up having enabled a different evil manipulator as part of her deserting her, 💖💖💖and Catra is done expecting anyone to ever help her with the realities of her abuser. If the princesses want to call her evil, while sheltering her abuser and further enabling Shadow Weaver’s evil, she won't feel bad if they all get hurt along the way.

Catra does a lot of dangerous and hurtful things in the name of this belief. But, this is a trauma state Catra learns to wake up from, because she's lost just like Adora is, and her trauma mentality is destructive to everyone around her.

It leaves her with nothing… no slice of happiness, nobody to call her a friend, a life of absolute loneliness with nothing to live for except her drive to punish her abuser at any cost, with little to no chance of forgiveness for her violence. She learns every lesson the hard way- that no matter how much your abusers continued existence hurts you, there's simply some things you just do not do… you're no good to anyone if you surrender your heart to that kind of anger.

Catra does show deep remorse for all of her worst actions. And, she's lucky that Adora saves her. (even if she's a bit pissed at Adora for risking herself like that… 🥺😥)

But, in regards to whether she's abusive… in s5 we don't see that. Catra does act out a little bit while coming to terms with why Adora saved her- she didn't think she would ever get a second chance. From that moment onward we only see love and devotion from Catra, she doesn't want to live in her hurtful ways anymore, even if she still has no idea how to feel safe with her abuser running wild. She can't keep living like she was, so living to help Adora makes much more sense.

My final appeal to people who have a hard time accepting Catradora… (part 6)

:: We should all strive to not let our personal hurt block us from appreciating people, and understanding them. I know it may seem like I'm targeting Adora harshly, but that's why I went to such lengths to show how her issues play out in the narrative. Adora struggles to be her best self, like Catra does, and that she does doesn't mean we should love her any less than we already do!

Adora is absolutely precious, as is Catra… they never should have been hurt like they were- Adora as the ‘hero’ and Catra as singled out for destruction because of how she loved Adora.

They were always sweet girls, like the innocent and loving children we see them as in their earliest memories, before that day when Shadow Weaver hurt them so badly.

The beautiful love we see in s5 is what they always deserved- they should have been allowed to grow up with innocence and then fallen in love, but instead they got hurt because of the corrupt intentions of others.

They both spend the arc of the series trying to get past how they've been hurt, to get back to each other. And how they do that is by remembering the way they loved each other before Shadow Weaver was ever able to hurt them and drive them apart.

That, was always their truth, their love is good and pure like it is in those childhood memories. They were always supposed to love each other, and their division was a mistake that happens out of how Shadow Weaver and others have hurt them.

Both of them show tremendous courage in working hard to be able to step past how trauma controls them to be better, it's not just Catra who has to do this.

Adora does, too, because she's got to trust in love, not duty or destiny or sacrifice to be incredibly strong in the way she needs to be to face the really scary things she has to do- such as stopping the Heart, and solving a millennia old war that was never her fault, plus more. Love was always what makes Adora strong enough to do the very hard things which she has to do.

When Catra is given a second chance in s5, she sees that Adora is being hurt, and how nobody really helps her… they just expect her to do whatever has to be done. And that's wrong, because it’s unfair and it hurts her. Catra knows Adora has been hurt all of her life, she just didn't realize how much...

Catra may have been made to suffer for Adora, but she survived that, and so she can be free of it. And Catra realizes she can help Adora, really really help her, to do the very hard things that are expected of her… Catra puts everything she has into helping Adora in s5. It's what Catra always thought she'd do, as the wiser child that knew how evil the world really was. She just got all mixed up inside, fearing that Adora would never really love her… and that was wrong of her.

Catra isn't really expecting redemption.. or even for Adora to return her feelings of romantic love back to her in the same way that she feels. She's a bit a of a pessimist, and has been waiting her whole life to have someone care to love her that much... But, all she has left is her love for Adora, and so she gives everything she has to her.

I think that's really courageous of her, and when she sees Adora is failing in the Heart chamber, she makes a dazzling series of romantic moves during the dream and the kiss- to show Adora that she's loved, that she's wanted, and that she's not alone. Brave, romantic moves which Catra didn't know for certain that Adora would reciprocate, but... she was still willing to do it, she loved her too much to let Adora fail, and die, while feeling so scared and alone. So, Catra does everything she can think of to let Adora know that she's loved. Catra deserves some credit for that.

We see that it works, as Adora has always loved her, too. Adora was just too blocked from expressing her love by her trauma. And Adora’s final test, as a hero of love, is quite simply to accept that she can be loved, not as a hero, but for who she is...

... I don't know what else to say to anyone who can't accept their love, or at least I won't here. I think it is the most beautiful love story I have ever seen.

In large part this is because it's not simplified. Catra and Adora’s love isn't assumed to be kismet, they have to work hard to be together. They are both really bad communicators, and had to learn to talk to each other. This is true in most relationships, and in doing so they become truly loving partners to each other.

... So, it might have been nice if there had been enough time for Noelle to give us even one more kiss between them... but, I think Noelle wanted to tell us a very mature, grown up story about overcoming adversity to embrace love. And I think that's really commendable of them.

Sorry that took so long… Anyways, Catradora is the best ship, I don't make the rules! 😅🚢 ✨ I realize I won't be able to convince everyone, but that kiss was beautiful, was it not?? So, I hope my words aren't a total loss, and that maybe I can convince just a few people to feel like I do.

Love is power. 💞🏳️‍🌈☺️

:: Hi!! - I will gladly answer anyone's questions, and feel free to let me know what you thought of this. Thank you. (hopefully I didn't just become lost in my writing halfway through somewhere ?? 😅😬 -let me know if I did...)

Also, if you've read this far, thank you for that- if you enjoyed it please consider giving it a ✨reblogg✨ or a like!! *humble thanks 🙇*

Peace and Love,

~EtheriaDearie 🕊

Some final notes:

Yes, I do realize these are fictional characters, but it's easier to talk about them this way- they are the nuanced creations of very creative people, meant for us to enjoy… in that way they might as well be real, because they have so much to teach us-

-all hyperlinks are on tumblr. Here's a list of my other analyses-

LotFP = Legend of the Fire Princess. It's canon, important, a lot of fun, and worth checking out!! 10/10 😉

-note: I will never use the term 'toxic' because of how I feel the word carries cultural connotations which detract from discussion. However, discuss as you wish! I have no issue with the word or the concept, I just seek to be very clear in my meanings-

Finally, here's a link to a YouTube video of Adora saying Catra's name (fast forward to 0:40). You can really hear how her tone changes through time... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f_WRT3D3n_I

What if it's Adora's... and Catra's- Dream?

::It's been eight months since The Kiss and Catradora becoming canon in one of the most breathtakingly romantic and beautiful endings of all time. Now that we've all throughly gotten to enjoy that, I'd like to take some time to explore how Adora's dream might tie into everything having to do with its ending, as well as the entire romantic arc of SPOP.

This post centers on Adora's dream, with the goal of exploring the dream as a part of the Catradora romance. Really, truely, as part of their romance. Pardon my vagueness, because it is out of kindness: if you haven't finished the series, THIS IS A SPOILER WARNING. 🚨🚨🚨 ... If you don't like spoilers, now is the time to scroll on by, Horde soldier // Rebellion fighter!! (and please, return when you do- <3)

If you have finished the show, please consider joining me below, as i'd love to hear your opinion on the following theory...

💜💙💚💛🧡❤️💜💙💚💛🧡❤️💜💙❤️🧡❤️💜💙💚💛🧡❤️💜💙💚💛🧡❤️💜💙❤️

Hey Adora ~❤️

Are you still with me?

Good, then let's get this started-

It is highly probable that Adora’s 'dream' is a canon romantic moment for each of them, which not only Adora experiences, but so does Catra.

The dream is, instead, a spontaneous reaction of Etheria’s deep magic and their love, in particular because Catra is with Adora as she tries to save Adora through her love for her. They both share in the creating of the dream, but it's meaning is that of Catra showing her love to Adora: they are connected within the dream by way of this Etherian magic, which they have shared in before.

I say this because what we’re actually seeing is a simulation, much like the ones that Catra and Adora shared together during Promise: these simulations are based on memories and on emotions: it is Catra’s emotions which are being channeled as Etheria creates the dream for them.

We will indeed discuss the arc of their love in this post, but, this theory is based on the use of a oft neglected, but powerful, mode of storytelling:: Known as ‘visual cues’ this method of storytelling is employed by Noelle and Friends as the way to tell us the deeper meanings behind the dream sequence. And the use of these cues tells us that this is intended to be seen as a shared romantic moment for both girls, showing their love for one another.

I know, this might seem like a lot to process, after all, isn't what we see during the dream supposedly Adora’s subconscious response to Mara’s words of wisdom about love, when she asked Adora what she wants, and tells her to not give up?

And how would it even be possible for Catra to be in the simulation with Adora? To the former, Adora still had no answer to Mara’s question, like she didn't when Catra asked her what she wanted the night before. And in the dream, we watch as Adora spends almost all of it denying what she's seeing, believing she has failed her duty to save everyone as She-ra. Considering Adora’s resistance to the dream, does it make sense for the dream to be self actualized by Adora, or is what she sees originating from somewhere else, and if so, how?

As to whether Catra can be there with Adora, the answer is a resounding yes: and that's because we already know that Catra is in the dream with Adora, for part of the time. How we know this is that after Horde Prime traps Adora, Catra intervenes to save Adora and they interact: Catra reaches down to try and save Adora, ending famously with her beautiful love confession, which helps Adora find the strength to reach out to take her hand.

That we see Catra do this, and that she does it so purposefully, tells us that this is something that actually happens between the two of them:: Catra must have seen Horde Prime trap Adora, and Adora can see and hear Catra in her mind as she calls for her- Adora really does reach up to take Catra’s hand, and as she takes it, is pulled from the edge of death. It's not a metaphor at all, even though we know Catra is holding Adora's body in the real.

And so, if Catra was with Adora then, why not before, too?

To put it simply, all of the visions that Adora has, including her meeting Mara before the dream, is Etheria’s deep magic trying to help her, and so it helps to bridge the gap that's needed for Catra to share her love with Adora. After all, Etheria "is a living creature" (s5ep8) and Catra, actually, has a strong connection to Etheria’s magic, and to magic in general (we will revisit this later).

All that happens is tied together, which we'll talk about below: what Adora sees in the dream is the true beginning of Catra’s love confession, because Catra is coming through for Adora as her best self to save her, much like Adora did for Catra during Save the Cat.

::And that's where our visual cues come in, because as it turns out, the Dream and Save the Cat are related: they are related in storytelling and in emotion, but most importantly:: they are related visually.

This post will cover these similarities starting below. We’ll also take a look at two separate and distinct visual cues having to do with how Catra acts in the Dream to further the discussion, and lastly we'll cover how, in fact, all of Save the Cat and Heart Part 2 are related, starting well before the dream, continuing right through it, and afterwards as well.

But, to get this started, let's take a look at visual cue #1: when Catra offers her hand to Adora in her dream.

::During the dream, Adora has such disbelief when she finds herself in it, and she keeps this disbelief right up until the critical moment: when Catra turns to her and offers her hand to Adora, lovingly asking her if she's ready to go. That, is the moment when we finally see Adora give herself over to the idea of their love, she suspends her disbelief… only to have the moment so cruelly ripped away by Horde Prime...

As it so turns out, this sequence of events has happened before, almost exactly down to the frame by frame:: it happened during Save the Cat, when Adora offered her hand to Catra. These moments are visually similar, emotionally parallel, and story parallel as well. Here are the two scenes, and while you look at them, consider how the girls are arranged compositionally with each other:

What we have here is visual parallels, many more of which we'll discuss later. But, it goes deeper than that:: because on closer consideration, we see that the girls are arranged ‘mirror’ to each other. For example:

::In Save the Cat, Adora offers her hand to Catra from the left, and in the dream Catra offers her hand to Adora from the right-

::When Prime electrocutes Catra after she reaches for Adora’s hand, she falls downward on the right; when Adora is trapped by Prime, she sinks downward on the left, with her tears showing the direction of her descent (note, Catra’s tears were not depicted, but she is crying as Prime shocks her). This mirroring is shown repeatedly throughout the two episodes, and not just during the dream itself.

So why are these moments mirrored?

That's what this theory aims to prove, with all the muster that it can:: this mirroring is a purposeful artistic collaboration between the art and writing teams, letting us know by way of it, that we're suppose to understand how these scenes are parallel: with the meaning of this being that one girl is mirroring the other’s actions in order to save them.

Therefore, in theory:: what we're seeing during the dream is Catra mirroring the heroic love Adora shows for Catra during Save the Cat, and all of what we see in the dream is actually Catra showing her true love, is the true beginning of her love confession, and is done to save Adora. As for the other deeper, more involved reason, it is that Adora and Catra are actually parallel characters throughout the series, who vary by circumstance, but are struggling with much the same issues. (a discussion for another time, however)

For instance:: consider how similar the virus that Adora is fighting during her time in the Heart chamber is to the mind control that Catra fought in Save the Cat:: Prime is using the virus to control Adora, and she ultimately is able to reject Prime's control because of Catra’s actions- much like Catra did, after Adora showed up in Save the Cat to restore their love, telling Catra to fight Prime’s control, so that they can be home together again.

And here's the thing: if the artists and writers go to such lengths to make these scenes parallel… even moreso, the characters are mirrored, doesn't the meaning of it therefore demand that Catra be with Adora during her dream, to help her fight free of Prime’s control by showing her love to Adora, just like Adora did for Catra during Save the Cat?

Now really, what confirms this theory is the entire arc of the show, which, *puffs up cheeks* is a bit too much to cover here, so I'll save us some time and stick to a couple of themes instead. One of these will be the Catradora love arc, as it is integral to the next visual cues.

And these cues are that Catra’s truest love is shown during Adora’s dream, something which we don't see Catra do before this moment. So, sit tight for a bit, because this'll take some explaining-

Visual cues #2 and #3: Catra’s most earnest love is shown in the dream, and it's both what Adora needs to survive, and is fundamental to Catra’s redemption-

Redemption arcs are popular for a reason, and because the next cues relate so strongly to Catra's redemption, I'll be talking about how Catra’s redemption is fully realized by the honest and earnest love she shows for Adora, inside the dream as well as right before it.

In order for Catra to complete her redemption, or since that's cliche, ::for Catra to realize her best self:: she has to accept her truth as the absolute total romantic that she is, who through the braveness of her confession of love, is the one who helps their dreams come true, and brings Catradora into canon.

This is because, in all seriousness, Catra is and always has been a romantic, she's just blocked by her own traumatic experiences (plz consult Princess Prom if confused about how Catra is a romantic, 😼😹). And, she's always known she was in love with Adora- who, unlike Catra, never quite realizes her full feelings until Catra’s confession. And Catra needs to redeem herself by showing this love, because she chose to deny her love to Adora, as well as to herself, at the end of Promise after seeing how very little love and understanding Adora had to give to her in season 1. This next set of visual cues is all about how we see Catra’s feelings and actions change to reflect her true feelings of love, and that through accepting her own love for Adora, is able to help Adora to succeed in her final task.

::As Adora faces down her final challenge of disabling the Heart, Catra makes what could best be described as a decision of ‘radical love’: that she's willing to give everything she has- to help, love, and support Adora. We first see Catra’s decision to show such love right before the dream when she swears to stay by Adora’s side, and she then fully completes this love during the dream when we see Catra show her precious love for Adora.

In the dream, the Catra we see is much more tender, vulnerable, and intimate, than we’ve ever seen her be at any other time previous to this point in the series… her love is even more earnest than during their earliest memories as children. That's because we’re seeing a completely novel and honest expression of Catra's love, one which Catra hasn't been willing to show before this. Catra really needs to show her full feelings to redeem herself, not just a last second love confession. What we're seeing during the dream is her truest feelings, without her own self doubt or fears of vulnerability blocking her.

And this new love we see is part of the decision which Catra makes, right before the dream, swearing that she will stay with Adora no matter what, letting Adora know she has her full love and support as Adora faces her final task. This decision is the other half of the visual cue #2, and here’s the two moments together::

Is Catra ending up positioned so similarly just coincidence, or does it have deeper meaning as well? A couple things for consideration:

Firstly: Adora probably doesn't notice this shift in Catra’s behavior, especially before the dream, as Adora is completely focused on her burden of saving-the-entire-universe-along-with-every-last-person-in-it, which is rather a lot to expect one girl to do... even if she is She-ra. Also note: Adora is a romantically oblivious person, so there's that, too. And since she's so preoccupied by mortal peril, it really doesn't make sense for the sweet and loving Catra we see in the dream to originate from Adora’s subconscious, as Catra has never shown Adora this tender, loving version of herself: and so, it makes more sense that the magic of the simulation would be drawing from somewhere else entirely: it draws on Catra’s own feelings of love.

I know, these scenes vary in mood significantly, but the difference we're seeing in the dream is actually a heightened version of the love Catra shows before it, one where Catra is not only showing Adora that she values and supports her, but that Catra quite literally feels precious love for Adora. Catra clings to her, letting her know that she is treasured above all else, which is really, really REALLY sweet, and also really really not in line with how Catra has acted up to this point in the series...

Catra loves Adora, this is central to her arc, even during the times when she's aligned so strongly against her. Her story is about learning to accept her love, and she's reestablishing her love for Adora during these scenes... this is the total truth of her love and affection, that is.

She’s already established that she's willing to risk herself to protect Adora, such as when she tackles Melog on Krytis. But, Catra protecting Adora from harm physically isn't enough to fully redeem herself: she's also got to show the romantic love she feels which she denied to Adora so long ago. This love she feels is something that Adora continuously teases Catra over, constantly ruining the moment by misinterpreting Catra’s feelings simply as attraction, never fully realizing or acting on the romantic implications. This happened as recently as when Catra jumped into the fire to save Adora... Adora is a romantic idiot. (don't you worry, I say this with fondness) This is part of Catra's test: even though Adora never gives her a sign that she feels romantic love as well, Catra has to show her love because that's what it has always been about for her. Loving Adora properly means Catra has to accept Adora as she is, and not let her own romantic frustration block her. It's also simply the right thing to do, as they are out of time, and could all die if Adora fails... Adora's story, on the other hand, has been about becoming the hero, and Catra has to accept that yes, in total reality, Adora simply has never considered what she wants because of her burdens.

As Adora faces her final task and is feeling crushed by the weight of her burdens and fears of failure, Catra has to show this love to counter Adora’s own obliviousness and internalized emotional barriers, as Catra realizes how Adora really doesn't "get it" right up until Catra’s love confession. Adora is not seeing what she has to live for, and Catra's fully accepting Adora as who she is helps Catra to see how she can help Adora, because Adora's romantic awkwardness is really more about her emotional trauma than her love for Catra- Adora loves Catra, that much is clear. But is it romantic love? Catra takes a risk and shows her true feelings, because she knows Adora is struggling, and they are out of time... so no matter what, Catra has to show her romantic love to Adora, and luckily she's able to do so during the dream (because of the help of Etheria's magic).

We also need to talk about how Catra stands with Adora: in both moments she chooses to stand behind Adora. Catra is showing her true support to Adora, and her most honest feelings of love- something I discussed in my Promise discussion is how Catra never wanted power for herself, she just wanted to be safe, and to be with Adora. Here we have Catra, definitively showing after all this time that she doesn't want power, she just wants to love Adora.

The Catra we see in seasons 1-4 rejected Adora as She-ra, seeing her as two faced for ignoring and then abandoning her to continued abuse while fighting for others, breaking her final promise as she did. This was a trauma decision, but Catra is done letting trauma control her life. So here we see Catra choose to support and love Adora no matter what, like she always wanted to do, and she's even choosing to support Adora as the hero. This is further demonstrated as true during the dream, as Catra (albeit jokingly) asks Adora to save her from a determined Glimmer.

All in all, the Catra we see in the dream is very unlike anything we’ve seen before, she's outwardly in love, feelings which Adora herself feels but struggles to understand. And that Catra ends up positioned so similarity is a cue that Catra is allowing her true love to be shown during the dream. It's exactly what Adora needs to feel coming from Catra, as years of being abused and new hardships have convinced Adora that sacrifice is the only thing that makes her worthy of love- Mara tells her “You're worth more than what you can give to other people, you deserve love, too”. Sadly, when you watch this scene you see that Adora has a hard time accepting Mara's words, she shys away from them instead.

Catra’s choosing to stay with Adora, and then show her most earnest love inside the dream, helps Adora to see how she deserves to be loved: as the person she is, and not only as a hero. Catra is the only person who loved Adora before she was She-ra, and her love for her has never been about her being a hero, like Adora was told she had to be by Shadow Weaver.

That was something done out of malicious intent, as Shadow Weaver did it to control Adora and to prepare her as her sacrifice. Young Catra was there when it happened to Adora, and always knew that it was done out of some dark intent (hence her frustration during the battle of Thaymore- “Duhhh did yah just figure that out??”). Catra constantly shows that she is wise to manipulations.

... And Adora is still stuck on this trauma: the love that Catra shows Adora helps her see past her own hurt.

::Ok. I say this next part with all the sincerity I can: expecting Catra to carry the entire burden of their romance all on her own is rather a lot to expect her to be able to do. And yet… she does it. She's the one who confesses her love, she's the one who kisses Adora, and in the dream, she shows Adora that she's in love with her. This is because Catra is a person who understands what she wants. She chooses to have faith that their love is real, and so she shows her heart to Adora. How does Catra trust enough in love, considering her past mistakes, and all trauma that she's been through?

People mostly think that Catra post season 5 would be a person who is still in a state of hurting from her past, that she constantly struggles with self hatred and doubts. But, ask yourself: is that how Catra is portrayed, or do we see a person who has faced her trauma so that she can live free of it?

That Catra would be able to do this so totally is what I think throws so many people about Catra. After all, most people who have trauma struggle with it continuously, so why wouldn't Catra struggle like this too… people have a hard time accepting that she is able to change her behavior so much for the better. But, don't let that stop you from seeing her as she is presented to be, there's powerful reasons why Catra is like she is, Noelle wouldn't take a shortcut in this. The reasons are there... it's just… complicated.

Probably too complicated to cover here, but I'll try to summarize a theme here: Catra is a survivor. That's what her attitude is, and her arc. She's survived ever since that day when Shadow Weaver threatened to kill her as only a small child, and she’s survived many other near deaths and hardships getting to this point. And because of that, she's found what she really wants to live for, and she's become too strong against others hurting her to let them control her. This strength includes against her own bias of self judgement over her past actions, because she understands how her actions were the product of manipulative abuses by others who wanted to control her. She knows trauma, in fact she's somewhat blessed in this ability (see this meta). What Catra does during the dream and her love confession is to reject ALL of the trauma, the falseness, the negativity, and hurt that's been put into both her AND Adora all of their lives. She's way too strong to let her own fears block her, and as she sees Adora struggling with her own fears, Catra gives her full heart to Adora because Catra knows how important it is to want to live and to love, and if she can just get Adora to understand that too, then she can save her.

... because Catra is brave, perhaps the bravest person in all of SPOP, she comes through to save Adora from Adora's own fears by showing her the power of love. Catra sees Adora for who she is better than anyone else can: she sees her humanity, and her struggles. And seeing is very important to our next cue::

Cue #3 ‘I’m YOUR idiot’

During Save the Cat, as Adora watches Catra teetering on the edge of the platform, she implores Catra to keep on fighting. She tells her: “you've never listened to anyone in your life, are you really going to start now?”

Catra responds by very fondly calling her an idiot.

And Adora freely accepts this, saying:

“I know.”

Then we get this frame, as shown above: Adora sees Catra, and how she's always tried to find safety from those that would hurt her by not letting them control her life.

Catra only ever listened to one person: she listened to Adora, and their promise... hence the ‘idiot’ part. And Adora is saying, as she accepts being called an idiot, that ‘I should have seen it sooner, and why my love was so important. You always felt like you had to fight to survive, and I was suppose to be different than those who hurt you. I was wrong not to understand sooner, and I shouldn't have hurt you like I did.'

And she proves it to Catra with her next words: “I'm going to take you home.”

Home. The thing Catra felt she had lost when Adora abandoned her at the Horde. Adora is saying: ‘I know this is what you want.’

‘So, live.’

::In the second frame, we see Catra show absolute acceptance of her love for Adora. It's just like Adora accepting being Catra’s idiot: Catra is telling Adora: 'Don't you see how I love you? You tease me, but this is not because I like you, it's because I'm crazy about you. I'm in love with you. And I want you to see this, my silly, beautiful love. Because I want you to know how I love you. I should have seen why my love was so important sooner, and I never should have left you."

‘I do freely admit that I am your idiot.’

‘And I know you. I know that this is what you really want. And that it hurts you that you were made the hero, and how everyone expects so much of you, but they never seem to see how much it hurts you.’

‘And I know that what you want is to be loved.’

‘I see you. I know you.’

‘So... live.”

It's exactly what Adora needs to see to accept love, and not let her trauma stop her. This is part of what helps Adora overcome Prime’s virus so she can absorb the Heart's power: she needed to see that she's loved. Much like Catra did, back on Prime’s ship.

Sidebar discussion 1: thoughts regarding this theory-

How exactly does the dream come to be, how does Catra experience its creation, all of these finer points we kinda hafta leave to the 'magic' that happens. We can't know exactly how it happened, but maybe we don't need to.

As to why didn't they didn't just tell us, *if* this theory is true, that is- probably because She-ra's ending is beautiful, it's hard to imagine it being any more beautiful than it already is. It's worth watching again and again: not having everything spelled out for us just makes us want to watch it more. -etheriadearie

Part 4: How everything is mirrored starting well before the dream, as well as after🪞♾🪞

All of Heart Part 2 is a mirror of Save the Cat, starting from the very beginning. And, if you look carefully you can see stylistic elements repeated throughout each (mirroring, compositional arrangements, use of green in both to represent Prime’s corruption, etc.) They are different enough that each is worthy of being called an artistic masterpiece of its own, but everything in them is related, and what happens as Catra saves Adora is very much the story of Save the Cat being retold.

Catra’s decision to return to help Adora inside the Heart chamber is synonymous with Adora’s decision to face Horde Prime on his flagship. Neither have a plan worth mentioning, both know they could fail, but they have to try, no matter what. They love each other too much not to try.

… and the other is totally dismayed when they show up to save them, knowing how perilous their situations are, as they had resigned themselves to their fates.

Oh, hey Shadow Weaver. Looks like you slipped in to be a stand in for Horde Prime ? Could this be because you were the real villain of SPOP all along ?

Even though the one is so unhappy that the other is risking themselves like they are, each girl continues to fight to free the other. They need the other to see how much they care.

Above: Adora makes a similar declaration of love to Catra's in cue #2, more mirroring 🪞

Sidebar discussion 2: Catra’s strong connection to magic-

A subplot of She-ra is how Catra unlearns her negative perception of magic she has from it being used against her as a child by Shadow Weaver, and instead comes to see magic as something beautiful. Even though Catra professes a strong dislike of it “why does everything have to be so weird with you guys ?” (s5ep8), magic constantly seeks her out.

It starts during Promise, when Catra’s subconscious seemingly guides the memories they see, ending with her seeing her inner child's hurt. It continues in the Portal episodes when she's given up hope, and after trying to destroy herself, instead returns as Corrupted Catra, a magical being with knowledge and purpose. Then, in season 5, Melog chooses Catra, she nervously accepts their friendship and is surprised to finds them to be very good friend to her.

And so, during the dream, as Catra and Adora lie mere feet from the center of Etheria’s magic, it reaches out to help them- it is a living thing, and Catra welcomes its help, proving she has incredible harmony with magic, and by allowing herself to work with it during the dream, she completes her journey of unlearning her bias- because the truth of Etheria’s magic is love.

Like Adora's jumping off the platform after Catra falls, Catra refuses to give up, and finds a way to get to Adora~

Sidebar discussion 3: Horde Prime’s virus

Another bridge between our girls is that when the monster attacks Catra, she's infected by Prime’s virus along with Adora. This is another route by which their minds can be connected (see Catra’s right hand, above) which begs the question: is everything that Adora sees in the dream just an elaborate cruelty of Horde Prime's?

I'm going with no, because of the visions which Adora has before the dream. Most of them happen well before the infection reaches Adora’s location, and their meanings don't really make sense as part of Prime’s deceit. He also says “So this is where you've run to hide" when he interrupts Adora's conversation with Mara.

It makes more sense that it is as Razz says: "You cannot control magic, magic simply is" and the magic is communicating with Adora and with Catra. It is rather, that Catra manages to use Prime's virus against him, as she's faced his control before. Her personal knowledge of his technology likely means Catra knows to help Adora overcome his control, and this along with her confession, helps Adora to break free of his control.

As Adora struggles with her final duty as She-ra to stop the heart, feeling alone in the face of it because she alone is She-ra, the only one who supposedly can do it, she's feeling crushed by the weight of a millennia old war and other's past cruelties forced onto her life. She believes it's too much for her to do alone, and that she's not a good enough hero.

Catra’s ultimate answer to Adora is: 'Don't be.’

Catra is telling Adora to stop being the hero just long enough to realize what she already has, because she's not alone. She needs help, but it's right there with her- she doesnt have to do it alone, no one should.

And so, by asking her to stay, Catra is telling Adora: 'Forget about being She-ra, and right now instead just focus on wanting to live... because if you don't live, then I can't help you. I know, this is hard. But if you can just accept that you want to be with me, then we can figure this out, together.'

And that's exactly what they do- they face the heart together.

Adora accepts love, and so Catra is able to help her absorb the Hearts power.... because love is the strongest thing in the entire universe... 💞

A few closing thoughts regarding this theory: We don't have a lot of time with the romance between Catra and Adora, as their kiss is the apex moment. But, by way of these cues perhaps us seeing them in the dream at their most romantic is real. When Adora wakes up, she doesn't even have to say anything about what she saw- Catra was there, helping her. One of the reasons why the kiss and Adora's confession of love back to Catra seems so pure is because she's understanding Catra perfectly. In fact they both are, because of the dream they shared together.

Considering how short She-ra is, for them to actually share this romantic moment together would be is key. And I feel it makes sense that they do, as such a beautiful moment deserves to live on in their (our) memories... and a way by which they could share this moment may very well exist, *if* this theory is correct.

Noelle and Friends may have cleverly given us this answer, and as beloved as the dream scene is, I'd like to think that they're together during it. Either way, She-ra's ending is beautiful.

As always, thanks for reading... I hope that you enjoyed it. Hopefully it's not just stating the obvious ? Feel free to let me know- 😅 And I couldn't get to all of the endings complexities here (for instance, Adora's confusion on love and needing someone like Catra to show her the way is very interesting, and worth exploring), and, believe me I, too, have questions. Feel free to ask questions or give me feedback, as always I will try to respond!! Also, I will be posting something related to this regarding their arcs in the near future~ hopefully. Until then...

"Don't you get it ? I love you. I always have. So please, just this once. Stay!" 🏳️‍🌈💞💋🏳️‍🌈

~EtheriaDearie

::As always, thanks for a like or reblogg!! I'm still new to tumblr, so thank you for reading- ❤️🙇

P.S. Here's the short version of this post. Yes, the "cliff notes" 😅. For a quick share with your friends!!

How Corrupted Catra knows ALL of the Princesses dirty little secrets..(and so does Catra)

Corrupted Catra is one of the most visually stunning sequences in She-ra. Her look is iconic, her anger has been seared into our minds... it's as though everything about her is just... pure... magic.

That's right, because Corrupted Catra is magic. She's Catra, and yet she's more... She has magical knowledge and power. Supernatural powers, you might say.

This makes her Catra... extra. Because Corrupted Catra... knows all.

That she knows all is made immediately clear::

She accuses Adora of being a portal baby, something Catra simply did not know at the time (explanations below) and then goes on to suggest that Adora is fantastically guilty of all that has happened. And the sneaky truth is that Corrupted Catra is exactly right: Adora really is the source of all that has happened. Because Adora... is She-ra...

Explanations can wait a bit, but the fact that Corrupted Catra knows Adora's She-ra history means Corrupted Catra is unique, different, than Catra herself. And this is what makes her so important. Once we hold this insight while considering all of Corrupted Catra's words, together, in relation to each other and to the story, it becomes clear that Corrupted Catra is talking to Adora about the totality of the She-ra story, even parts of Adora's own story she herself hasn't yet uncovered, and also weren't even revealed to us, the viewers, by the end of season 3. And Catra, too, has this knowledge, because Corrupted Catra is magic.

Now, the goal of this post is to establish theory, unlike my other posts which could be described as character studies. The intent here is to lay out how Corrupted Catra is unique, and because of it, she has importance to Catra’s arc as well as the story's overall arc. Understanding Corrupted Catra is important to further character analysis of Catra post portal episodes, hence the discussion. This certainly isn't the last you’ll hear of this, so for now, I hope you enjoy!! 📝

To start, we'll look at what is proven that Corrupted Catra knows, then we'll discuss how the butterfly effect is part of Adora's story, and finally I'll share a possible origin story for Corrupted Catra.

Let's get right to it ~

So here are Corrupted Catra's words, along with their simplified meanings: (*extended explanations to follow)

"It's always the same with you Adora. I have to do this, or-r we have to do that. Let's be honest: all of this... is your fault."

::This is Corrupted Catra's thesis, her divine message intended for Adora… and for Catra. Corrupted Catra is, in fact, revealing that Adora has caused a butterfly effect.

"If you hadn't gotten captured, your sword wouldn't have opened the portal."

::Adora was incredibly naive when she accepted the sword, she was foolish to give in to Light Hope's false narrative that she was destined to be a hero... Consequentially, Adora is now caught up in a dangerous sequence of events, for which she is woefully unprepared.

“If you hadn't found the sword, and been the world’s worst She-ra, none of this would have happened.”

::This statement is actually having to do with Adora's own fears: that she will fail at being She-ra, that she's been failing in her duty, and is about Adora's recent revalations that she is, like Mara, caught up in a dark First Ones plot.

“Admit it: the world would still be standing if you'd never come through that portal in the first place."

::Catra knows that Adora is a portal baby, that she's a First One, and that she's being used as their weapon. Also, once Adora was portaled into Despondos, becoming She-ra was inevitable.

“You… made me this! You took… everything from me!”

::The abuse Catra suffered by Shadow Weaver's hand was because of Adora being She-ra, which SW must have figured out back when they were only children. Young Catra loved Adora, which SW hated because it threatened her plan to sacrifice Adora for power, and so SW tried to break Catra's spirit.

“You broke the world… and it is all… your… fault.”

::Everything that’s happened… even what is yet to happen, including the activation of the portal by Catra... is part of a chain reaction of events which started when Adora was pulled through the portal as an infant: Adora's existence changed the timeline of Etheria, and is the origin of all of the conflict that's occurring… in the past, the present, and even the future. Because Adora was pulled through the portal to make her She-ra, the conflict which Mara put on hold by sacrificing herself has been restarted, with various forces now scrambling for control over She-ra.

… And Corrupted Catra knows ALL of this, including possible implications for the future. She therefore knows about the super weapon.. and likely it's intended use. (*explanations to follow)

Now, let's go over the proof that Catra does indeed know what she knows, as it is revealed within the story:

Firstly: Catra knows what Corrupted Catra knew because everyone retained their full memories of the portal dimension, as proven by Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio:

Next, Catra's emotions and reactions immediately after she returns to reality further confirm she remembers being Corrupted Catra, including Adora punching her out:

But most importantly... Catra's knowledge is confirmed later on in season 5 through Horde Prime:

Notice the similarities of how Adora reacts to Corrupted Catra's accusal, and then to Horde Prime's: she's as surprised as we are about their knowledge... (in pic1, Horde Prime calls Adora a First One, in pic2 Corrupted Catra tells Adora she's a bad She-ra >>because she's a First One)

Horde Prime might have been able to predict that Adora was a First One because of his past lives, but as their conversation continues it proves he knows her story. This is because Horde Prime didn't know Adora's She-ra story until Catra is chipped, as before this, he was still playing Glimmer and Catra against each other in order to gain information.

His chipping Catra is the how of his 'I see all, I know all', and that he gains such intimate knowledge about Adora, we then know Catra knew all of Adora's She-ra history. But since Catra never interacted with Adora in any way during season 4 where she would have learned Adora's She-ra story, Catra must have learned it somewhere we're not shown. Except, that we were... she knows it because of Corrupted Catra...

Also consider that he's telling Adora all this as he stands next to Catra, with his hand on her shoulder. Creepy in the least, it indicates where he gained this knowledge. Furthermore, the way he taunts Adora shows he has an outdated knowledge of She-ra, just like Catra would have had. He doesn't know that Adora broke the sword, and will instead tap into her primal She-ra powers as the true champion of Etheria...

Lastly, that surprising bit: Catra knows about the super weapon, as confirmed by what she says as well as her actions at the end of season 4 and beginning of season 5:

Catra knows- she isn't bluffing when she tells Horde Prime she can help him understand the weapon. This is because she already knows how it works. During her time as Corrupted Catra, she must have been given the big picture of everything to do with the First Ones and She-ra: and so she knows She-ra and the princesses are part of this weapon...

Ok, but Corrupted Catra doesn't talk about the weapon directly, right? What she says is vague, so how can we know? Well, because that part of the story was yet to be revealed: her omission was necessary from a storytelling perspective... and yet, later evidence indicates that Catra knew all along.

That's the basics of the theory, for now let's call it the Corrupted Catra theory: It is that Catra gained inside knowledge, by way of Etheria's magic, through Corrupted Catra, during the conclusion of season 3, having to do with the First Ones corruption of Etheria and of She-ra... and Catra knows all of this, even as Adora is yet to uncover the dark plots and manipulations herself, during season 4.

The implications of Catra knowing all of this is complicated, and as this isn't a character study, I won't get into them. But to briefly explain: Catra doesn't understand all of it immediately... she processes what she learned in a way that's very similar or even mirrors how she's processing her emotions and trauma throughout seasons 4 and 5. That Catra is so emotionally confused post portal contributes to her understanding of things also being confused, and so it takes her time to really understand the total implications of all that she knows...

But, I degress...

Hey, thanks so much for reading this far!! To let you know, what's up next is a descriptive readalong of Corrupted Catra's conversation with Adora, and how it's all one BIG discussion about the butterfly effect. If you want more information, feel free to keep reading… if not, you've got the gist of it. Thanks again!

Also, a bonus level: a possible origin story as to how Catra comes to be Corrupted Catra...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We take up the story in s3ep6... just as Corrupted Catra is going to encounter Adora... (obligatory CW: despair/death-)

::Adora kneels, crying... Bow and Glimmer have just faded away… they've given Adora all the love they could, telling her that they believe in her... and so Adora cries... fearful at the magnitude of what she now faces: a universe collapsing in on itself, a world she helped create through her careless treatment of her friendship with Catra. Despite Bow and Glimmer's encouragement, Adora is still fearful that she won't overcome, to be able to fix things. As we see later when she meets Angella at the sword, even then, Adora is still convinced she must pay for her mistakes with her life.

But Catra is about to return... her beautiful, lovesome friend, who before throwing herself into the fires of the collapsing reality, finally told Adora why it hurt her so deeply that Adora didn't stay. Not with words, but instead with an authentic display of emotional need and vulnerability that Adora could see and begin to understand. And yet Catra, in the end, rejected her, not willing to say those words, to confess her love to Adora... instead lashing out and cruely throwing Adora to the side. Catra was unable to overcome her hurt and fear of abandonment in that moment… seemingly choosing death instead... not willing to trust in Adora to fix their love…

And so... Catra returns... her voice corrupted, her features being consumed by darkness. She is Corrupted Catra, and she is the personification of Catra's anger and disappointment at Adora for breaking her heart. And yet, so very much more... she is a being of divine purpose, created by Etheria’s deep magic, who is meant to challenge Adora's entire world view... and make both girls see Adora in a new light…

>Adora is thrown back by Corrupted Catra, snapping to the bar in the Crimson Waste. It's not a place the two of them met, no, this place is meaningful to Catra. It is the point of Catra's deepest low after Hordak ‘kills’ her, rending her down to her very soul... and is the place of her epic speech about losing it all, being unwanted and persecuted.

Corrupted Catra straddles Adora, deep flirtation in her voice. Her desire is evident, Adora is a thing she wants but lashes out at, viciously protecting herself from her feelings of love for Adora...

She coos at Adora, asking her where her friends are, reminding her of the fact that Adora left her forsaken, and that the people which Catra believes don't care for her as much as Catra cared for Adora before she broke their promise, are gone... it's just the two of them now. She finally has Adora alone... and so she lashes out, wanting Adora to see her pain...

Adora dodges it, pulling Catra close, looking her in her eyes, trying to explain again the seriousness of the danger they face...

Catra pushes at her face, rejecting her plea: "It's always the same with you Adora. I have to do this, or-r we have to do that." Catra pulls her up by the hair, Adora at her mercy. "Let's be honest: all of this... is your fault." Adora looks at Catra, confused and yet... deeply ashamed...

What we are witnessing is an incredibly perceptive take down of Adora as a person. One that isn't really fair to her, but is based in the undeniable truths Corrupted Catra knows about Adora, knowledge that is entirely beyond what the present Catra knew, and reflects hard truths about the nature of their relationship that the present Catra had only seen glimpses of...

::Let's pause here to take a quick aside regarding the season 2 and 3 story arc~~

::In case there's any confusion: both of the portal episodes are about Adora's broken promise to Catra. That's what they represent in the narrative of the story: that once Catra decides she should separate herself from Adora at the end of "Promise", bad, traumatic things happen to Catra. Catra thought she could be strong on her own, strong for herself, without needing the Promise which Adora broke, but the universe, fate, whatever... doesn't let her, and she gets hurt very badly.

First by Shadow Weaver's manipulation and abandonment, then by Hordak handing her a death sentence because she tried to trust SW, and finally when SW reappeared in the fright zone, channeling Glimmer's power and nearly killing Catra yet again. She's reeling from a cruel world which keeps trying to kill her, while also feeling a deep sadness of loneliness in her heart from missing Adora which saps her will to live. And Adora knows that she's let Catra down... that something has gone very wrong with Catra, leaving her frightened for her friend... she is just beginning to understand the consequences of her having left Catra.

[pic cation: Catra as Hordak suffocates her, Catra feeling powerless to SW's abuse, Adora's realization]

The portal happening is a reflection of this broken promise: Adora isn't there, and so she can't look out for Catra… and really terrible things happen to Catra after Adora left her brokenhearted. And so, Catra pulls the switch, in desperation to change her life, no matter the cost, and also heartbrokenly sad and wanting to die from all of her loneliness and pain. She's in a terrible state, and Adora needs to see this, to understand the truth of her heartbreak, because they were once all that each other ever had...

Right from that moment when Adora tells Catra that Shadow Weaver is in Bright Moon, Adora sees the change in Catra... something broke inside Catra then, and now Adora must try to recover her friend, and the universe, before it all falls apart from her betrayal of Catra... all that is happening... is because of that broken promise, and the seemingly unending hurt that her friend is feeling...

>>>Again, all of this is important, as its part of the butterfly effect we have yet to discuss. Hopefully that all made sense... let me know if you'd like to see a s2-s3 summary along these lines. For now, moving on.<<

>Back to Corrupted Catra, who is holding Adora at her mercy...

Corrupted Catra has just accused Adora of being the source of all the misery that has occurred, and she is right. But it's a narrow minded view which ignores the bigger truths, and it's horribly unfair to Adora. We'll explain this more as we go along.

>Adora is thrown, landing at the scene of the ice base where they had their second fight.

"If you hadn't gotten captured, your sword wouldn't have opened the portal."

I'll just say this: when Catra comes after Adora in the Crimson Waste, she is uninhibited, whereas before she was fighting with a code (ie, fighting She-ra 1vs1), this time she didn't. As she says post dying to Hordak "It doesn't matter what I do, I don't get to win". Catra beats Adora so fast because she's done playing by rules, and she's done with the rules because of the trauma that happened after Adora left her. In that moment when Catra captures Adora, all of Adora’s shortcomings as She-ra and as a friend to Catra caught up to her.

>C.Catra brings Adora low, throws snow in her face, pins her to the guard rail... "If you hadn't gotten the sword and been the world's worst She-ra, none of this would have happened."

We see Adora's face show intense shame and internal realization at the mention of her failure as She-ra. Something interesting is happening: this judgement of Adora being She-ra isn't Catra's, although she probably doesn't think Adora is very good at being She-ra. These are the very doubts and fears Adora herself has been struggling with: about being the new She-ra, and needing to meet Light Hope's austere expectations of her, of her inability to understand Mara's 'failure', of her recent revelations about Mara's sacrifice to stop the weapon and what this means for her as the next She-ra. And so somehow, Corrupted Catra is intimately knowledgable of Adora’s ongoing stuggles...

>Adora is thrown, landing in the ocean near Salineas where they met be soon after her defection, only to be pulled up out of the water by the hair by Corrupted Catra, who sneers at her:

"Admit it: the world would still be standing if you never came through that portal in the first place."

Ok, wait, so we know Catra probably overheard Adora complain about being taken from her family, but at no point does she say she came through a portal. Could this have been general knowledge from their childhood? No. We know for certain that Adora has no knowledge of being a portal baby (s3ep1). Shadow Weaver took in baby Adora with the intention of using her for her own gain, likely predicting she was She-ra. For that reason alone SW would have made sure that Adora coming through the portal wasn't common knowledge, and as 2nd in command, SW had the influence to do it. Furthermore, when Adora attempts to confront Hordak on taking her from her family by opening the portal, he sneers at it, saying she's of so little consequence that he doesn't even remember her. Once again, Corrupted Catra shows us that she knows far too much, is too perceptive of Adora even when we take into consideration how intelligent Catra is.

>Adora is thrown again, snapping to Princess Prom. Now C.Catra says something VERY interesting, full of furious hurt and sorrow: "You... made me this!" Adora tries to run, is caught: "You took... everything from me!" This statement she’s making isn't some darkly warped manifestation of C.Catra's anger, no… it's the actual truth.

And so Catra’s object of desire isn't allowed to run from this, as Adora must come to understand this truth. Once again, C.Catra is saying something which shows supernatural perception: To really understand what that is, we need to understand the two other points in the story when Catra says remarkably similar things about Adora being the source of her pain…

::One is at the end of s3ep3: When captured Adora tells Catra that SW is in Bright Moon, Catra responds: "Shadow Weaver... left me... for you. All of this... happened... because of you..." There are many similarities in what she says here to what C.Catra has just said. All the pain of SW abandoning Catra to die and then Hordak 'killing' her for it, and then again when SW returns to the Fright Zone and nearly kills Catra yet again, all of that trauma happening is, in Catra's mind, because of SW abandoning her to go be with Adora.

But really, SW went to Bright Moon because Adora is She-ra and She-ra could heal her, and because SW knew she had to avoid the death sentence that Hordak was handing down to her. Yes, SW still has her goal of using Adora as a sacrifice, but the story doesn't prove out that Catra is right: SW mostly just switches prisons, and Adora gains not a whole lot from her presence other than her healing ability (which SW needed her to learn for her own benefit), knowledge of her origin as a portal baby (which SW wouldn't want to give up, but needed to), and some limited knowledge of the Horde's portal plan. But Catra, instead, only sees this as Adora receiving privilege from her abuser, again... Catra fails to see the bigger picture.

::Then, in s3ep4, Catra comes face to face with SW again: after trying to fight both her and Glimmer, Catra lies bound and at the mercy of SW, so she accuses SW: "You made me this way... and you get to be the good guy...?" And then: "You couldn't WAIT to get away from here, from me... but you came back... for Adora..." This statement is even closer to the truth, and the meaning of C.Catra's words.

Catra is blaming SW's abuse for her compromised mental state... the anger she's lashing out with in defense of herself, which has her unable to stop hurting herself and others while wanting to avenge herself against SW with no care of the collateral damage. Catra knows that somehow, Adora has always been the reason why SW hurts her... she just cannot see why. Yes, this angry vindictive person Catra is devolving into is the result of SW's abuse, but it doesn't get to the real truth of why she was abused, and ended up as this fearful, angry person who feels as though she can never trust anyone ever again...

>Back to the present: Corrupted Catra stands over her object of desire, telling Adora she is the source of all of the pain that makes her so hurtful... telling her that she took everything from her...

... And Corrupted Catra is telling the full truth of why Catra was abused as a child: it was because of SW trying to emotionally destroy Catra, when she saw that Catra's love for Adora was too strong… because SW was grooming Adora to make her weak so she could control and then sacrifice her, and SW didn't want Adora to have such a devoted source of love in Adora's life. (If you need more information, feel free to check out part 1 of my Shadow Weaver Death discussion post.)

Corrupted Catra’s choice of words are all about the real truth behind SW’s abuse, and it is now revealed that Adora really is the source of all of Catra's pain: If Adora hadn't been She-ra, Catra wouldn't have faced SW 's wrath and cruelty like she did, because SW has only ever cared about using Adora for her own selfish and depraved reasons...

... And so, when Adora then leaves Catra, breaking her promise to her, Catra stops believing that there is good in the world... her inner self panics as it's being consumed by heartbreak, and her outer, survivor self becomes more and more defensive of her own life, causing her to stoops to depraved levels like her abusers, SW and Hordak, in order to defend herself.

And ALL of this hurt originated because of Adora... in one... single... event...

> Adora is thrown again, ending up in the chair of Mara's ship, where Catra captured her, as Corrupted Catra cruelly accuses her: "You broke the world... and it is all... your... fault..."

So, let's combine these words with Corrupted Catra’s statement to Adora about her coming through the portal as being the cause of the world teetering on the edge of oblivion...

... And we a ‘beat of the butterfly's wing’ scenario. One where Catra's childhood was cruelly torn apart, as the consequence of Adora being She-ra… the events of which have lead up to the tragic creation of the collapsing portal, all because, as a child, Catra fell in love with the wrong little girl-

… A little girl... who was pulled through a portal from another dimension… to fulfill a dark purpose of wielding a super weapon capable of annihilating the First One's enemies or even the universe itself… who was then taken in by a abusive unfeeling monster in SW… who planned to weaken Adora and then corrupt She-ra, to use her for SW's own dark purpose… who then, recognizing Catra's incredible love and devotion towards her intended victim… abused and nearly destroyed Catra's spirit as punishment...

Everything bad that's happened to Catra happened as part of a series of events which began when Adora was pulled into Catra's plane of existence: Adora is the beat of the butterfly's wing which unleashed a hurricane of bad consequences, resulting in Catra being abused so cruelly...

… And that pain has continued right up to the present moment... where a emotionally lost and desperate Catra opened a portal… destabilizing reality… leaving Adora in the desperate position of trying to save reality… which will cost the life of her friend's mother… all while Adora faces down this angry, hurt, betrayed, confused, and heartbroken Catra who she left behind... hurting her so deeply.

::Now... is it personally Adora’s fault that this butterfly effect occurred? Of course not, I do not mean to suggest that!! (Also, even though it's not Adora's fault, she still accepts the burden of generational trauma and wants to help fix it..) But that's the point: Adora never had a choice in becoming She-ra, just like Catra never had a choice with the childhood trauma that happened to her. Adora played no part in SW’s decisions, and she has always tried to do the right thing all along… and Catra nee- WAIT NO jkbdbejbksjkb ahhhh ok I'm not going to get into it here! It would take too long…

👏🌺🙂 Let's shift gears instead~

In closing , I'd like to share one possible reason that Catra may have been able to become Corrupted Catra, instead of just disappearing like everyone else did... after she seemingly chose to end it all the episode before by falling into the fires of the collapsing reality:

This theory has to do with Madam Razz.

... So, when Catra falls into the light the episode before, Adora then runs, crying, and shortly finds Madame Razz, who tells her to "go back to the beginning". After her little inspirational speech to Adora, Razz then leaves Adora and purposefully walks into the burning light of the collapsing reality... only to have Corrupted Catra emerge moments later, who then tails Adora until the moment where she catches Adora and begins her monologue... Coincidence? Maybe, or maybe not...

In season 4, episode 10 we see Razz lament the fact that she wasn't able to help Mara overcome and survive the nefarious plan the First Ones made for her. The episode then ends with Razz leaving the pie for Mara, in remembrance of her sacrifice... Razz's struggle with her failure to Mara is very emotionally depicted...

... But, now Razz has a chance to help Adora succeed where Mara failed. So, how does she do that, when the First Ones plan for Adora, and the unstable power of the Heart, is so insidious?

Well… how about by making sure Adora has the one person who truly loves her and who she truly loves back there to help her ? Is it therefore possible, since it is apparent that Razz can travel through the portal realities as she wishes, that she might have encountered Catra, and then sent her back on her way to Adora, as Corrupted Catra, as a way of helping to heal the divide between the two girls ?

... Because the truth is that both girls are in sore need of a new understanding of their situations:

Adora needs to understand that she has to keep fighting, because she's She-ra and there's no going back, now. Dark plots and Catra’s broken heart can't stop her, she has to succeed now, or all is lost.

And Catra must come to understand how all of her anger is wrong: that it's corrupt, and is the product of malicious peoples attacks on both her and Adora, all of their entire lives, and so her anger, and the defensiveness she feels because of it, is a mistake. Catra also needs to break free of the trauma cycle and to figure out how to help Adora succeed in saving the universe, and Corrupted Catra's knowledge helps Catra do both of these things.

So, Corrupted Catra is the push in the right direction... that both girls need, in order to stop the Heart and defeat Horde Prime…

So this is my belief as to how Catra returns as this representative of the deep magic of Etheria: Catra is not allowed to die, like she wanted, and perhaps by Madame Razz’s intervention, she returns as Corrupted Catra, who then gives both girls guidance as to where their paths must now go so they can correct things...

Anyways, so, so hard prove, and I won't call it a theory... perhaps, it'll only ever be a dream... 🕊

That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this..!

As always, feedback is always welcome! And if you have questions, I will be happy to answer them!

Peace and Love 💫

~EtheriaDearie

P.S. :: as I am new to tumblr, if you enjoyed reading this, please consider giving me a reblogg! Thanks!! 🙇💛