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Trauma Holodeck - Asking Questions

I’m on vacation and can’t sleep - which apparently means it’s time for another Problematic Adora post!

Let’s travel back to Promise. Specifically, let’s look at ~ 10 minutes in, when Adora asks a question about asking a question:

Adora: “Can I ask you a question?”

Catra: “Can I stop you?”

Adora: “Why did you help me escape, after Shadow Weaver captured us?”

Catra: “Not this again.”

Catra is still very emotionally closed here - she’s trying to shut down the conversation, keep it safely away from her feelings and motivations. ( “Can I stop you?” , “Not this again.”). All Catra wants is to get out of Creepy Ruined Temple, and go home. She doesn’t want to indulge Adora, or Adora’s prying.

Which is to say: Adora is the driving force here. She’s the one who initiated this conversation, who is forcing it to happen in spite of Catra’s discomfort.

And if Adora is driving this, we should be concerned with her motivations. Why is she demanding Catra explain herself? What does she hope to gain?

What do you want, Adora?

Her own short-term survival?

Nah, Adora just needed to walk away for that; the spiders are only after her because she’s insisting on “protecting” Catra.

Catra’s safety?

Also no. If anything, by pushing Catra’s buttons she’s increasing the risk of Catra running off alone and coming to harm.

An apology?

That’s what she wanted a moment ago, when she was looming and screaming about how Catra had gotten Glimmer cursed.

But it’s not what she wants now; in fact, she’s completely reversed tack here - she’s flipped from blaming Catra for the curse Shadow Weaver placed on Glimmer, to laying all accountability for the capture Catra orchestrated at Shadow Weaver’s feet.

With this changed framing, there’s nothing for Catra to apologize for - Adora has removed her culpability, reducing her to an innocent bystander.

(These rapidly changing moods and framings do so remind me of another character on this show…)

Genuine bafflement?

Adora can be dense, but she isn’t that dense. When she says “It’s the one thing I can’t figure out.”, she is not expressing confusion; it’s a rhetorical device to finish setting up a leading question.

Let’s follow the bouncing ball here. Starting from the open question of “Why did you help me escape?”:

She fixes accountability solely on Shadow Weaver - “after Shadow Weaver captured us“ As mentioned above - this strips Catra of culpability (and agency), framing her as a victim and not a participant.

She inserts a pair of declarative statements - “You didn’t have to do that.You could’ve gotten caught”). This cuts Catra off from answers that Adora doesn’t want ( “I had to.”, “No one was going to stop me.” )

She asks a loaded question - “Why risk it?” The assertion that Catra took a great personal risk is baked in here, in a way Catra can’t easily reject, again shaping her response.

She equates the original question - “Why did you help me escape[…]?” - with the newly constructed one - “[Why, as an innocent bystander, did you risk helping me escape, when you didn’t have to and you could have been caught?]” 

And just like that, a (relatively) open question - one where Catra could have responded or deflected in myriad ways - has been seamlessly transformed into one where, really, there’s only one possible answer.

An answer we already know Adora wants.

Adora wants Catra to say she needs “likes” her.

That’s what she’s looking for here - she so much as says so a few minutes later, after Catra seems to have cracked.

Adora wants Catra’s dependence love, but is unable to admit that, even to herself - she needs Catra to be the one to do the confessing.

And some of the tools she uses to get that result … well. :| This isn’t all I have to say about this scene, but this is already quite long, so I’ll save the discussion of why Catra cracks for it’s own post.

[ETA]

Which can now be found here: PART 2