Season 5 - Tumblr Posts
She-ra Season 5 Thoughts and Review
I believe that she-ra stuck the landing with its final season. I did have a few issues, but overall I really loved it. I remember when the first season initially released I watched it because I had just finished watching trollhunters and had just started voltron and was excited to see what dreamworks had in store next. The first season contained one of my favorite animated episodes of that year with “Promise”. I was struck by how good the character writing was for Catra, Adora, and their dynamic. That wasn’t the only surprise I experienced when it came to the character writing, Angella and Glimmer’s relationship also had more depth than I was expecting. It became one of my most anticipated animated shows right after that season and I’ve been on board ever since and I don’t regret the ride one bit. So of course I woke up at 2 am my time despite having to work in the morning to watch the entire 5th season of she-ra. Here are my thoughts and there are a lot.
I know the season is new so I’m putting my thoughts below the cut because there are spoilers.
I want to start with what I loved most about the season. Catra’s redemption. This arc was easily my favorite part of the season, maybe even the whole series. This is what I’ve been waiting for since the series started and I wasn’t disappointed. Catra has been, in my opinion, the show's best and most consistently great character. She’s incredibly complex and trying to write about everything that makes her well written in a single paragraph would not do it justice. (That’s the subject of a meta that would need to split up season by season) I liked that we finally got to see Catra admit out loud what she must have been thinking for awhile. That she’s sorry and that she doesn’t want to be evil and have the bad actions define the rest of her life. This has felt like a long time coming. There have been multiple episodes dedicated to making it clear that her goal to conquer Etheria is superficial and not what she truly wants or needs. Catra has tried to gain power so that she can’t be hurt by people again. Physically by people like shadow weaver and emotionally, however unintentionally, by people like Adora. So when she finally acknowledged that she has been lying to herself the whole time and that she really does care about Adora I was relieved. She could finally start taking the steps to get the love and happiness that she has so desperately wanted this entire time and she does get it through Adora, Glimmer, and Bow. She finally starts expressing her emotions in a healthy manner. Through her arc we see that redemption isn’t just one big decision, but many decisions that have to be made every day. It is made clear that bettering herself is hard, that she has to work on it and she has the resolve to do just that. I really liked that they had her struggle to continuously work towards self betterment like when she initially pushes Adora away after “Save the Cat” and her attempt to leave after Adora accepts the failsafe, but in the end she does make the hard choice to own up to her shortcomings and face the things she fears. If she hadn’t had any obstacles after doing “that one good thing with [her] life” I would have had problems with her arc, but it was handled very well and realistically. I really liked Catra’s redemption arc and thought that it all came full circle in the end.
I really like the interactions between Glimmer and Catra early in the season. Their bonding over their shared connection to Adora was sweet. I liked how they integrated Glimmer as the good influence in Catra’s redemption arc. The good influence is a staple of the villain to hero arc typically. This one was interesting because this was after Catra’s wake up call from double trouble and because Glimmer herself is in need of a redemption of sorts after last season. They both are a “good” influence on each other. Catra has deep seeded doubts about her path in life, but she’s also scared to leave her path. It’s because she saw herself in glimmer last season that she starts to let Glimmer influence her. Glimmer made a huge mistake and pushed her friends away for the same/similar reasons as to why Catra does and it led to her making a rash decision that almost destroyed Etheria. Catra’s decision to open the portal and Glimmer’s decision to activate the heart of Etheria are directly paralleled with the key difference being how they dealt with realizing they made a terrible mistake. Glimmer acknowledged she made a mistake and struggled, despite the futility, to fix it whereas Catra drove herself deeper into denial. Catra got to see Glimmer strive to fix her mistake and regret over how she treated Adora and Bow and can no longer deny her own faults and care for Adora. Glimmer, through Catra’s sacrifice, realizes that she was wrong about pure goods and pure evils. That there is a shot at redemption even for people like Catra. That doesn’t necessarily mean forgiveness but working/trying to be a better person or doing the “one good thing in [their] life”. Both changed the other and I loved the new dynamic.
(On a semi side note I loved the interactions of the new best friends squad)
Catra and Adora’s relationship has been the heart of the show since season 1. Be it romantic or platonic or enemies they have always been driving each other’s character arcs. I don’t really ship but I am a fan of how their relationship intertwined with their character arcs. The way it played into Catra’s descent and redemption as well as Adora’s struggles was fantastic. Catra realizing that she really does care about Adora and regrets her actions played perfectly into how she was able to bring Adora’s arc to completion and get Adora to think of a future and what she wants instead of resigning herself to dying for others. And it was Adora never giving up on Catra that made it so that Catra can start moving forward from her abuse and fear of abandonment. The final decision where Catra tells Adora she won’t leave no matter what happens and Adora accepts her decision is what completed both characters' arcs.
The perfect summation of their relationship is their arc words and how they evolve. Their main arc word is “promise”. This has been echoed season after season with none of the previous ones being entirely kept. This season is different. The promises that Adora and Catra make are kept until the end. Their other arc words evolve from “come with me” to “stay with me” in this season. On the surface level they seem to have similar meanings but in the context of Adora and Catra’s relationship they have completely different meanings. “Come with me” is reminiscent of someone leaving, like Adora does in the beginning, because they aren’t happy with where they are and they have to move forward and they want someone to follow. This is what triggers the fractures in their relationship. Adora leaves and chooses something else over staying with Catra which is Catra’s biggest fear and causes her resentment towards Adora for breaking the promise to always be together. Catra isn’t at the point where she can follow Adora. She is too hurt emotionally and right then unable to move past her abuse. With the words changing to “stay with me” this season it’s about keeping someone from leaving rather than having someone leave with you. Catra has finally gotten to a point where she has finally come with Adora. She has opened up to others and started to move forward in spite of the abuse inflicted on her. She is “with” Adora. They are in the same place and Adora wants to sacrifice it and leave because she feels she has to, not because she wants to. So when Catra says “stay with me” she means don’t give up, don’t give in to the destiny thrown at you, keep fighting to the end with me. So the arc words come full circle as well. Catra’s greatest fear is being left so until that point she left people first and now she is holding on and fighting for the connections. It’s a great bookend to her arc. And Adora accepting Catra’s decision to stay marks the completion of her arc as well. Adora finally lets someone help her through to the end. Both these characters have come so far and I’m just happy that they got happy endings.
I really liked how they sort of inverted the typical heroic character arc with Adora this season. In a traditional hero arc the hero starts out selfish and then becomes selfless. Adora however has been selfless since the beginning. To the point of it being her fatal flaw. Adora has always sacrificed her happiness and well being for others and in this season she learns the limits to this self harming sort of selflessness. She’s always believed that to have worth she had to help others and solve all their problems even at cost to herself. This season she learns that it isn’t selfish to want a future, to not want to die saving everyone and how that can be a strength. That if you have something you want to live for it will help you power through in times where Hope seems lost. “You’re worth more than what you can give to other people” It was a touching message that I was happy was given so much emphasis.
Adora’s arc is so well done. I really love how deep of a dive they decided to take into her character and trauma. Up until this season everyone seemed able to brush aside how deeply Adora’s abuse effected her and how her experiences in the show have just reinforced the toxic thought process that she is the most disposable person in every room and that she needs to be needed or no one will want her around. And how easily these traits can be misconstrued as heroic or overbearing by those around her rather than the mental scars that they are. I loved how it was all displayed and confronted. It was a very emotional journey and I wasn’t really expecting it when I went into the season, but I was really happy to be surprised by it. Mental abuse is frequently thought of as lesser and not as damaging, but this show took the time to show how horrible and pervasive the effects of mental abuse can be. Adora is a good person that has been hurt and screwed over by shadow weaver and led to believe that her life is meaningless unless given in service to a greater cause. This is a damaging mindset and one that is romanticized frequently in media, so I was really glad that it got addressed this season and that they came to such a satisfying conclusion. It’s okay to want to live, it’s okay to want a future, it’s okay to want to be happy, and that it’s these desires that give Adora the strength to power through and save everyone in the end.
Now onto the things I didn’t really like. There aren’t many. For one I felt like there was a bit more mood whiplash in this season than the last two. It didn’t bother me that often, but I thought it was strange how soon after the emotionally charged episodes of “save the cat” and “taking control” there was a mostly comedic one with “perils or peekablue” which pulled me out of the events of that episode until the end where Scorpio sacrificed herself. And how right after “Corridors”, another highly emotional episode, there was “stranded” which while not at all a bad episode didn’t have even close to the emotional weight of the previous one and was significantly more lighthearted. I just wish the tone was balanced a bit better in the comedic episodes.
Horde prime, while intimidating, wasn’t as compelling a villain to me as Catra, Shadow weaver, or Hordak. I will be rewatching the season so my opinion may change. During my first watch through I was mainly focusing on Adora, Catra, and Glimmer, so this time I’ll try and take in everything else.
I want to make it clear that I don’t think shadow weaver was redeemed in her final act. Even then she put emphasis on the importance of destroying the heart to free the magic rather than on Catra and Adora’s survival. I’m not entirely sure what they were going for with her sacrifice, but I was at the very least glad that both Catra and Adora stood up to shadow weaver in this season in ways they had failed to do previously. Catra made it clear that she didn’t care about shadow weaver and her opinion and that it was Adora she cared about and Adora made it clear that Catra wasn’t a distraction or any of the things shadow weaver says about her. I’m not really a fan of her saying she was proud of Catra in the end because it felt really hollow. Shadow weaver wasn’t a good person at all and both Catra and Adora deserved much better than her.
I was overall a big fan of this season. I found it to be a much better ending than many of the cartoons I’ve seen recently and I will definitely rewatch it in the future. I really like the character writing present in she-ra. Catra, Adora, and Glimmer are some of the best written characters in recent memory.
Addendum: I loved She-ra’s redesign! The animation and music in this season were superb. I just want to thank Noelle and everyone who worked on this show for all the hard work and love they put into this work.
Catra and Adora - the Importance of the “Cliff” Scenes
What have now been dubbed the cliff scenes are all very important to Catra and Adora’s relationship development. And I want to talk about four of them in particular. The one in “Promise”, the one in “Remember”, the one in “Save the Cat”, and the one in “Heart Part 2″. All of these are perfect examples of Adora and Catra both as individual characters and their relationship.
In the first cliff scene Catra returns and cuts Adora loose. She lets Adora fall. Deciding to stop oscillating between wanting Adora back and hating Adora for “leaving” and commit fully to her role as Adora’s opposition. She’s giving into the anger symbolized by her walking away from the cliff and into the black nothingness of the virtual world disappearing, like their friendship. Adora is left hanging onto the thin ledge of the cliff with everything crashing down around her. This is Adora trying desperately to hang onto her friendship with Catra even when it’s all crashing down. Despite the fact that Catra is trying to sever their friendship, when Catra cuts the web.
In the second cliff scene Adora reaches out to Catra trying desperately to save Catra from herself, but Catra once again denies Adora’s help and lets go of the ledge herself. She’s gotten to the point where her jealousy has become so all consuming that she would rather fall to her destruction than accept Adora’s help. Adora can't save Catra from herself. She’s done all she can. If Catra wants to get off the metaphorical ledge she has to decide to help herself.
It’s important to mention that in both situations Adora feels bad about how everything turned out. In “Promise” Adora apologizes to Catra for things that were out of her control such as the other cadets and shadow weaver showing her preferential treatment in comparison to Catra. In the one from “Remember” Adora tells Catra she won’t leave her again. But Catra also decided not to go with Adora. It was a two way street. It’s not just Adora’s fault for the crumbling of their relationship despite that Adora herself believes this to be the case. On Catra’s end her responses in these scenes come from a place of pain and hurt. Catra will not be able to reach out or grab Adora’s hand until she admits acknowledges the real source of her pain instead of blaming Adora alone. With the final two the necessary shift happen on both sides.
In “Save the Cat” the “cliff” scene is when Catra, controlled by horde prime, jumps from the ledge and Adora quickly follows and jumps as well. There is no reaching out for one another but there is a marked difference in that when one falls the other follows. There’s still a gap, as symbolized by them falling at different times and not being able to grab each other’s hand, but they are making an attempt to bridge that gap. This is the closest they have come to an understanding and it’s a start to being able to fully reconnect and be honest with themselves and each other. Right before the fall Catra tries to reach out to Adora, she is done pushing her away, but she still has things to resolve before she can reach Adora.
Then there is this fourth and final one. Catra is now the one reaching out for Adora who is in a helpless situation. Catra is the one asking for Adora to stay and for the first time since the start of the series one saves the other from the cliff. They finally come to an understanding. Neither is lying to themselves anymore and they’ve decided to stop lying to each other. The most important difference between this time and the past three is that Catra is the one reaching out. In the past three scenes it is Adora trying to reach out to Catra (or is the first to reach out) and Catra is the one to refrain from doing so. This is why Noelle said the bravest thing Catra does this season is ask Adora to stay because until this point Catra has been too afraid to actually reach out to Adora and decide to stay herself. Catra in this scene has already decided to stay with Adora this time no matter the outcome. She’s decided that she won’t leave whereas the past few times she was the one who left. This is Catra’s most emotionally vulnerable moment. She’s laying herself bare despite the fact that there may be rejection. That Adora will leave before Catra. That Adora may, like Catra did before, refuse to take her hand. And Adora is, for the first time in the series, reaching out her hand to allow someone to stay with her in a dangerous situation. Adora up until this point has pushed people away and tried to shoulder the dangerous burdens all on her own. Right here she is accepting that she can’t do this alone. That it’s okay that she can’t. And that wanting to not be alone when everything is crashing down is okay. That wanting a future, which she has just decided to reach for, is okay. Adora is more than what she can do for others and Catra is more than what others think of her. It’s a very beautiful resolution to their arcs.
The Symbolism and Motifs Behind Adora and Catra’s Designs/Looks
Adora
(Hair down)
The biggest visual motif that is used for Adora is her hair. When she is Adora her hair being up symbolizes her being constrained by her destiny, obligations, responsibilities, past abuse, etc and every time she has a breakthrough or is freed from one of these her hair is let down. This first happens in Destiny part 2 when Adora breaks the sword and for the first time in 4 seasons Adora’s hair is down and she has “freed” herself from her horrible destiny. In season 5 this happens more frequently. In Save the Cat Adora’s hair comes out of her ponytail when she is saving Catra, when she has resolved herself to mend their relationship and reconnect. She has once again “freed” herself from the guilt and emotional pain that came from having to believe that Catra was lost, of being able to reconnect and keep childhood promises and make new ones. And another big one in Heart part 2 after Catra and Adora confess to each other her hair once again falls out of the ponytail symbolizing Adora finally being able to reach for a future that she wants and being “freed” from the obligations that she thought she had to neglect her needs and sacrifice herself for others. Adora’s hair coming loose is (clearly through the examples mentioned) meant to symbolize emotional breakthroughs that Adora has. Adora is a character that isn’t that in touch with her emotions and struggles to comprehend things beyond what she was raised for, battle and war, so each breakthrough is her gradually breaking free of her upbringing.
(She-ra’s look season 1-4)
(She-ra’s look in season 5)
It’s interesting to note that She-ra’s redesign follows the exact opposite motif with her hair, but symbolizes something similar. She-ra’s redesign looks a lot more like Adora does than her original design and this is meant to show how Adora has made she-ra her own. She-ra is no longer what the first ones intended, she is not the sword, she-ra is Adora. Another detail is how the new design incorporates certain aspects of each of the most important people in her life: the heart on her chest for Bow, the wings on her shoes for Glimmer, and her new mask for Catra. She-ra and her meaning have been altered by Adora and her experiences and I really love that fact. This is Adora taking back control over something that was supposed to be used to manipulate her. Which is a core part of her character because of the struggles she has with her abuse at shadow weaver’s hands. This is a part of the culmination of Adora’s arc of discovering she is more than what she can do for others. That her destiny, the destiny of she-ra, is in her own hands. That the manipulations of people trying to use her isn’t what has made Adora the person and hero she is today, but the personal connections she forged and her own personal drive to do what she believes is right.
Catra
Season 1-3 look
season 4 (and beginning of season 5) look
Season 5 look
(under prime’s control)
(once she joins the rebellion)
One of my favorite recurring motifs with Catra is the literal mask that she wears and that in this season after she decides to save Glimmer the mask is gone from her design completely. The dark exterior that Catra uses to hide her feelings and pain is gone and she has finally decided to be true to herself. Same with her eyes. Catra has heterochromia which is used to outwardly display her dual nature and warring inner conflict between her love and hatred of Adora and in the 5th season it’s used to portray her struggle between self betterment and sliding into old habits and self destruction. This is shown very clearly in the episode “Taking Control”. Whenever Catra is lashing out at Adora she’s turned so that her blue eye is the only one in frame and when Catra is being vulnerable or showing regret her yellow eye is the one that’s in frame. When she decides to use the chip to discover Horde Prime’s plan and protect Adora her yellow eye is the one in frame further emphasizing her decision to change. I really liked this detail in the episode. There is also the very obvious one in the season 3 finale where the blue eye is the one covered by the corruption in season 3 symbolizing Catra’s decision to commit to her villain role. Her darkness had won over her light. And it comes full circle once again in the series finale. Once Catra makes the decision to go back for Adora and stands up to shadow weaver her blue eye is the one shown in side views. Showing that she has overcome what had been her biggest shortcoming in this series, pushing others away to protect herself.
I just really loved how they used Catra’s character design to its fullest and didn’t waste details. It’s really easy to just be like “wow this looks cool” and then do nothing with it, but the she-ra crew was like “wow this looks cool now let’s do something with it”. For example when Catra gets her redesign in season 4 her hair is a lot less poofy and her ear tufts are gone and it’s tied into her character progression. Catra got rid of her ear tufts because shadow weaver had used caressing them as a way to manipulate Catra and her feelings. Catra now associates them with negative emotions and weakness and wants to “cut off” any possibility of feeling that kind of emotional pain again. The darker colors of her clothes also reflect her decision in the previous season. Catra’s main colors before this season were much lighter reds, but now it’s a deep, dark red showing her descent into the darkness when she opened the portal and her denial. Her color scheme changes once again in season 5. Her shoulders have maintained the darker red, but the dark sleeves that she had are now gone making it so that the lighter reds overcome or overshadow the darker red symbolizing how the light inside of her has overcome the dark. Yet it’s still keeps the colors darker than season 1 because Catra has done things since then that have made it so that she can’t go back to being that same person before she committed her mistakes. She’s a much healthier person though and has come to accept her mistakes and try to move forward in a better healthier direction (again symbolized by the color of her clothes).
I also want to point out Catra’s design in save the cat. In Save the Cat Catra is in all white and grey with her hair slicked back perfectly in place. The more Catra comes to her senses and is freed from primes control the messier her hair gets. It is similar to Adora’s hair motif, but with Catra’s hair becoming messier it can also symbolize her embracing/remembering her mistakes and the messiness that comes from trying to move forward in a more positive direction. When brainwashed and under primes control she doesn’t even remember her mistakes because Prime has “washed” away the pain along with the memory. Also white is typically used to symbolize purity but in this context it feels very out of place. This isn’t who Catra is. The reason she goes back to the red is that once again it symbolizes her decisions and choices. Catra can’t undo the mistakes so she “wears” them and acknowledges them after this episode. This is why in the transition episode Catra is wearing grey undergarments. Catra isn’t at the point where she can face her mistakes even though she has admitted them, symbolized by the transfer from white to grey. Her clothing being undergarments alone shows how vulnerable and insecure Catra is feeling about these mistakes. The very next episode after she resolves to face her mistakes she goes back to her red color scheme, again with less of the dark red than in season 4 showing her decision to change and go down a “lighter” path.
Just to add on I would also like to note that Adora’s hair doesn’t come down during the scene where she fights Catra and for the first time in the series acknowledges that she isn’t at fault for what happens. Considering how her hair coming down usually happens during emotional breakthroughs for Adora this would be a fitting scene for this to happen, but I think it’s important to realize that Adora herself most likely doesn’t feel like this breakthrough is freeing like all the other ones. She, in this moment, has to face the fact that she can’t save Catra from herself. And considering the fact that Adora feels like she has to fix everything and save everyone to prove that she has worth this probably felt, at least somewhat, hollow to her.
The Symbolism and Motifs Behind Adora and Catra’s Designs/Looks
Adora
(Hair down)
The biggest visual motif that is used for Adora is her hair. When she is Adora her hair being up symbolizes her being constrained by her destiny, obligations, responsibilities, past abuse, etc and every time she has a breakthrough or is freed from one of these her hair is let down. This first happens in Destiny part 2 when Adora breaks the sword and for the first time in 4 seasons Adora’s hair is down and she has “freed” herself from her horrible destiny. In season 5 this happens more frequently. In Save the Cat Adora’s hair comes out of her ponytail when she is saving Catra, when she has resolved herself to mend their relationship and reconnect. She has once again “freed” herself from the guilt and emotional pain that came from having to believe that Catra was lost, of being able to reconnect and keep childhood promises and make new ones. And another big one in Heart part 2 after Catra and Adora confess to each other her hair once again falls out of the ponytail symbolizing Adora finally being able to reach for a future that she wants and being “freed” from the obligations that she thought she had to neglect her needs and sacrifice herself for others. Adora’s hair coming loose is (clearly through the examples mentioned) meant to symbolize emotional breakthroughs that Adora has. Adora is a character that isn’t that in touch with her emotions and struggles to comprehend things beyond what she was raised for, battle and war, so each breakthrough is her gradually breaking free of her upbringing.
(She-ra’s look season 1-4)
(She-ra’s look in season 5)
It’s interesting to note that She-ra’s redesign follows the exact opposite motif with her hair, but symbolizes something similar. She-ra’s redesign looks a lot more like Adora does than her original design and this is meant to show how Adora has made she-ra her own. She-ra is no longer what the first ones intended, she is not the sword, she-ra is Adora. Another detail is how the new design incorporates certain aspects of each of the most important people in her life: the heart on her chest for Bow, the wings on her shoes for Glimmer, and her new mask for Catra. She-ra and her meaning have been altered by Adora and her experiences and I really love that fact. This is Adora taking back control over something that was supposed to be used to manipulate her. Which is a core part of her character because of the struggles she has with her abuse at shadow weaver’s hands. This is a part of the culmination of Adora’s arc of discovering she is more than what she can do for others. That her destiny, the destiny of she-ra, is in her own hands. That the manipulations of people trying to use her isn’t what has made Adora the person and hero she is today, but the personal connections she forged and her own personal drive to do what she believes is right.
Catra
Season 1-3 look
season 4 (and beginning of season 5) look
Season 5 look
(under prime’s control)
(once she joins the rebellion)
One of my favorite recurring motifs with Catra is the literal mask that she wears and that in this season after she decides to save Glimmer the mask is gone from her design completely. The dark exterior that Catra uses to hide her feelings and pain is gone and she has finally decided to be true to herself. Same with her eyes. Catra has heterochromia which is used to outwardly display her dual nature and warring inner conflict between her love and hatred of Adora and in the 5th season it’s used to portray her struggle between self betterment and sliding into old habits and self destruction. This is shown very clearly in the episode “Taking Control”. Whenever Catra is lashing out at Adora she’s turned so that her blue eye is the only one in frame and when Catra is being vulnerable or showing regret her yellow eye is the one that’s in frame. When she decides to use the chip to discover Horde Prime’s plan and protect Adora her yellow eye is the one in frame further emphasizing her decision to change. I really liked this detail in the episode. There is also the very obvious one in the season 3 finale where the blue eye is the one covered by the corruption in season 3 symbolizing Catra’s decision to commit to her villain role. Her darkness had won over her light. And it comes full circle once again in the series finale. Once Catra makes the decision to go back for Adora and stands up to shadow weaver her blue eye is the one shown in side views. Showing that she has overcome what had been her biggest shortcoming in this series, pushing others away to protect herself.
I just really loved how they used Catra’s character design to its fullest and didn’t waste details. It’s really easy to just be like “wow this looks cool” and then do nothing with it, but the she-ra crew was like “wow this looks cool now let’s do something with it”. For example when Catra gets her redesign in season 4 her hair is a lot less poofy and her ear tufts are gone and it’s tied into her character progression. Catra got rid of her ear tufts because shadow weaver had used caressing them as a way to manipulate Catra and her feelings. Catra now associates them with negative emotions and weakness and wants to “cut off” any possibility of feeling that kind of emotional pain again. The darker colors of her clothes also reflect her decision in the previous season. Catra’s main colors before this season were much lighter reds, but now it’s a deep, dark red showing her descent into the darkness when she opened the portal and her denial. Her color scheme changes once again in season 5. Her shoulders have maintained the darker red, but the dark sleeves that she had are now gone making it so that the lighter reds overcome or overshadow the darker red symbolizing how the light inside of her has overcome the dark. Yet it’s still keeps the colors darker than season 1 because Catra has done things since then that have made it so that she can’t go back to being that same person before she committed her mistakes. She’s a much healthier person though and has come to accept her mistakes and try to move forward in a better healthier direction (again symbolized by the color of her clothes).
I also want to point out Catra’s design in save the cat. In Save the Cat Catra is in all white and grey with her hair slicked back perfectly in place. The more Catra comes to her senses and is freed from primes control the messier her hair gets. It is similar to Adora’s hair motif, but with Catra’s hair becoming messier it can also symbolize her embracing/remembering her mistakes and the messiness that comes from trying to move forward in a more positive direction. When brainwashed and under primes control she doesn’t even remember her mistakes because Prime has “washed” away the pain along with the memory. Also white is typically used to symbolize purity but in this context it feels very out of place. This isn’t who Catra is. The reason she goes back to the red is that once again it symbolizes her decisions and choices. Catra can’t undo the mistakes so she “wears” them and acknowledges them after this episode. This is why in the transition episode Catra is wearing grey undergarments. Catra isn’t at the point where she can face her mistakes even though she has admitted them, symbolized by the transfer from white to grey. Her clothing being undergarments alone shows how vulnerable and insecure Catra is feeling about these mistakes. The very next episode after she resolves to face her mistakes she goes back to her red color scheme, again with less of the dark red than in season 4 showing her decision to change and go down a “lighter” path.
Observations and Thoughts on She-ra 5x03 Corridors
Reflections are an important motif in this episode. It’s like Catra is looking at herself and trying to really see herself and what she wants. In the opening scene her reflection is visible but it is obscured by the explosions on the planet surface happening past it. Catra is confused. What she really wants isn’t clear to her. Right before she decides to save Glimmer she looks once again at her reflection and it is clear with no obstructions and she hits a breakthrough. She knows what she really wants.
There’s also the obvious parallel with promise that these flashbacks end up bringing with Catra deciding to forgo self preservation and accept her feelings for adora and decide to save Adora when she makes eye contact with young Adora saying “I will always be your friend.” This is mirrored against Catra deciding to abandon Adora and commit to being her opponent after seeing the promise they made as children and making eye contact with her younger self.
Who she makes eye contact with portrays her shift in perspective. In promise she makes eye contact with her younger self and at that point she isn’t able to see Adora’s perspective, that Adora still cares for her and that her decision to leave the horde wasn’t a decision to leave her. Catra at this time is still the hurt little kid in that she was in the memory. She has been so traumatized that seeing outside that perspective is difficult. When she makes eye contact with young Adora it is her finally seeing Adora’s perspective. She can acknowledge that Adora still cared about her even when she left. That she always cared about Catra and that she didn’t want to leave Catra.
I absolutely love the scores that play when Catra is seeing the flashback of her and Adora in the Corridor and also when Catra is trying to save Glimmer and Glimmer says “what are you doing? Are you saving me?” and Catra responds “not you, Adora.” I have rewatched this scene multiple times and I would love it if this score would be released. (If it has, can someone tell me which track it’s on?) These tracks were so intense and just listening to them alone evokes really strong emotions.
I also would like to point out that the flashbacks within this episode sum up Catra and Adora’s entire relationship arc. Catra feels that Adora has chosen something/someone over her and she pushes Adora away. Hurting Adora in the process. Adora keeps coming back and reaffirms that she will always be Catra’s friend until Catra can no longer deny that she feels the same way about Adora and decides to come back to her. It also displays her growth because within the flashback Catra claims she will never apologize to anyone ever but present Catra, in what she believes will be her final act, apologizes for everything to Adora.
This episode probably had the most difficult job of all the episodes this season, believably kick starting Catra’s redemption. I really liked how they handled Catra doing "that one good thing with [her] life" because if her redemption was kick started by her just realizing that the horde was wrong after 4 season of her rising through the ranks I would not have bought into it, but instead it was motivated by her realizing that she can't let horde prime get Adora. This is her realizing the truth that was obscured by her “lie”. Her lie was that she hate Adora and Adora doesn’t truly care for her. Realizing her lie made it so that she could move past her denial and start actually working towards what she needs instead of fake wants.
She-ra Season 5 Re-watch Thoughts
This season the animation and art design is easily at its most beautiful. The actions are more fluid, the use of color is phenomenal, and the character’s faces and bodies are at their most expressive yet. I really loved the She-ra redesign and prefer it over the original design they had by quite a lot. I loved the scenes where softer colors were used. This is especially prevalent in the final episode after Adora defeats Horde Prime. The colors were breathtaking and it’s clear the time and effort that went into making the final shots be ingrained in your memory. I know it will be ingrained in mine. I thought the animation bumps between seasons 2 and 3 and seasons 3 and 4 were impressive but this is on a different level. It’s like everything was taken up to 11.
She-ra never lost sight of its characters and always managed to keep the focus on them and their struggles despite the larger than life stakes that were happening around them. This season paid off the character arcs of Adora, Catra, and Entrapta really well. My favorite episodes were the ones that were intensely character focused (corridors, save the cat, failsafe, heart). The show knows what its strength is and holds to it.
I came into this series not sure what to expect. I wasn’t familiar with she-ra (I had seen he-man) or the characters and hadn’t read Noelle’s work. So when I watched the first season and saw how nuanced and complicated the characters and their relationships were I was enthralled. I woke up every night that a new season dropped at 2 or 3 in the morning (based on which time zone I was in) to binge the season. I was so impressed with the character work of the show. There aren’t many shows that manage to blow me away with its characters. A large part of that is the fact that I could connect with a lot of the characters and understand them. This show managed to help me in ways I didn’t know I needed at the time and helped me distance myself from a toxic family situation. My thoughts on the show are biased because of this but that’s the case with everyone when it comes to media. There are going to be certain things that connect more with some people than others.
There’s a good and bad way of a show knowing what it is. This show takes knowing what it is in a good direction. It knows it’s a character drama that has the relationships and individual character arcs front and center and it uses the war setting as a vehicle for these things. Not everyone will like this because this makes it so the show focuses on consequences for personal actions more frequently than for war related actions. It isn't a war story. This worked for me, but won't for everyone.
In this season it uses Horde Prime and his “cult” as a metaphor for organized religion which is used to complete Catra, Adora, and Hordak’s arcs of self actualization and coming to terms with what you want and that you have a choice. This I think is done well because of how it matches with it's themes of working through programming and unlearning toxic behavior ingrained by your upbringing. I can easily say that She-ra has produced some of my favorite characters and I loved the conclusions to their arcs.
My one real issue with this season is that I think the tonal issues were jarring. To break it down it went from the premiere “Horde Prime” which was pretty dark showing the hopeless position of the rebellion and Adora’s struggle with her identity now that she-ra is gone and her suicidal drive to push herself to be useful to “Launch” which has a lot of things that are played for laughs and just felt like an odd shift especially considering that it is followed by “Corridors” which is an intense character study of Catra and her pain and loneliness and deals with her coming to terms with the fact that a lot of her anger and pain was misdirected at Adora all these years and that Adora has truly cared about her.
Then “Corridors” is followed by “Stranded” which is much more lighthearted and while it does deal with Adora coming to the decision to go back for Catra and her conflict over doing what she wants over what would be best for Etheria while Glimmer and Bow reconcile (or start to) a lot of the episode is used for levity. Catra is in a life threatening situation so while the reasoning for the main characters making this stop make sense the shift and lack of urgency at times doesn't work well in the context of the season.
Then that episode is followed by “Save the Cat” which is one of the most emotionally charged episodes of the show which has Adora refusing to make the same mistake she made in the pilot and refuses to leave horde prime’s ship without Catra even if it is the death of her. Adora places Catra above everything else. This episode is heartbreaking and calls back to all their misunderstandings, pain, history, and disconnects. This episode is followed by “Taking Control” which I think does a much better job of keeping the tone of “Save the Cat” and moving the plot and character arcs along. But then it’s followed by “Perils of Peekablue” which, while it’s a fun episode, it is very jarring to be pulled out of the very dramatic and dark episodes that came previously. Scorpia's sacrifice at the end worked really well as a precursor to what is waiting for our heroes when they get back to Etheria though so this episode had a better transition to the next than the ones that came before.
I am usually pretty good at being able to switch tones with a show and I think the balance between dark and light has been done very well in this show before in “Princess Prom”, “Roll with It”, “Mer-Mysteries”, “Pulse”, and “Princess Scorpia” to name a few. These episodes however didn’t mesh as well for me. I still enjoy watching them, but I think watching season 5 as a whole makes it clear that these episodes break up the tension too much. I will admit I am a bigger fan of drama than I am of comedy so I gravitated towards the much more serious episodes within the show like "Hero", "Promise", "Remember", "Failsafe", "Light Spinner", etc. I understand why there’s comedy, but I think that instead of having entire episodes dedicated to comedy they should have mixed it in like they do with the ones I named above. I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent because, while She-ra does almost everything else I want from a show, I think this is easily its biggest problem.
I think this season is my favorite season. (It’s a very close race between this season, season 4, and season 3) This season managed to pay off just about everything that was set up in the previous seasons and that is a near insurmountable task for any show. I haven’t felt this satisfied by a series finale in a very long time. The final episode tandem heart parts 1 and 2 left me speechless and I immediately started re-watching the series. I don’t know exactly what it was and how to put it into words, but that finale really hit me. It really felt like what the show was always building towards.
The fact that this big grand war ended not with a big battle, but with Adora and Catra finally coming to an understanding of both themselves and each other felt true to the show. Catra and Adora’s love-hate relationship has been the heart of the show since the beginning and it was their falling out due to their disconnect that kicked the show off in “The Sword” so it’s fitting that it’s them fully reconnecting and understanding each other that ends the series. The emphasis and climax of the show isn’t the big epic battle above, but the love confession happening below. The fact that the show manages to stay so personal and focused despite the stakes being the fate of the universe is a testament to how well written this season is in my opinion. The show comes full circle and I couldn’t have been happier with the result.
“YIELD!”
Cold water stings at the front of Kai’s gi, his ankle sore and swollen. Sand manages to squeeze its way past the small holes in the fabric. It scratches, burning against cuts and bruises, and does not relent.
Neither does Kai.
He braces his hand against a rock outcrop poking out of the water, stretching so far with his other hand his muscles strain and scream at his sides. A hand, nails sharp, digs into his upper back, a few fingers grabbed his hair in a brutal pinch. A knee jabs into his lower back.
“I,” Kai grits out through clenched teeth, reaching for the sword hilt so tantalizingly close, “do not yield.”
His little brother— no, Morro possessing his little brother, his hair black, eyes cold and merciless— tightens his grip. He raises the axe in his free hand.
“Last chance,” Morro snarls. “Your little brother here doesn’t want me to swing, but I’ll do it if I have to, even if he won’t shut up after. Yield, or die.”
The tips of Kai’s fingers brush the sword hilt, pushing it ever so slightly further from his grasp. He closes one eye and strains so far something in his side seems to rip.
“Go... to the ducking Cursed Realm.”
Morro’s eyes narrow. “I’ve been there. You’ll enjoy it.”
The axe rises above his head, blade a glinting guillotine. Kai’s head is pushed to the rock like a butcher’s cutting board. Fog settles around them, the air dense as the whole world holds its breath.
“So long, fire ninja.”
The axe swings down—
—only to meet the blade of a weapon, Kai holding the Sword Sanctuary above his head. He catches a glimpse of a vision of Morro pulling his knee back to kick his ribs in along the glimmering metal and rolls just as Morro lifts the pressure from his lower back. Water splashes out of his way as he frees himself, pushing himself to one knee.
His eyes narrow. “You give my brother back.”
Morro laughs. “Or what? You’re alone, injured, surrounded by water— you have no hope. Give up and die with honour.”
Fog seems to hiss from Kai’s mouth. No— the faint wisps of white smoke, like an extinguished candle.
But it isn’t Kai’s candle of life that’s been extinguished. Small sparks of embers snap at the hilt of his sword, burning brighter and brighter. The tips of his hair turn to flames, hands ablaze, eyes glowing pools of bonfires.
The flickering embers transform into a fiery dragon behind him, sizzling steam rising from where it’s claws touch the shallow water.
“Give up?” Kai snarls, and the dragon snarls with him. “I’ll never give up on my little brother.”
And he leaps into battle, fire snapping around him as it crashes into the furious storm, sword against axe, flames against wind, brother against brother, protector against ghost.
------
@demm-210
I wrote a short thing for this amazing drawing, hope it’s good!
literally a scene that never happened in the series, but let me dream.
Tartarus Jingwei by PTimm
Official concept art
SMITE Demonic Thanatos by Scebiqu
I can’t wait to binge watch it-
The Vampire Diaries / Season 5 photoshoot
Ok but when Chloe in ep 8 was saying like “you did it without me” it really hit me how much Lucifer has changed because season 1 his answer would have been like been something vain and self-aggrandizing, but now “it’s because I channeled you” i love it so much
yes yes yes yes
One of the most interesting things this (1/2) season was seeing the ways Lucifer has actually incorporated the things he’s been learning all this time into who he is now (and who he wants to be moving forward).
I mean, look at earth time/hell time. To Lucifer, the years in LA were like the tiniest, tiniest blip on his radar even just compared to the thousands of years he spent in hell afterwards (i.e., after the S4 finale), let alone the entirety of his existence.
Michael shows up and plays on Chloe’s fears (essentially, the ones she voices in the S4 finale: that Lucifer would forget her or get caught up in cosmic-scale stuff). Michael is the one who relies on ideas that Lucifer would backslide, would go dark, would forget.
But when Lucifer comes back thousands of years later, he doesn’t struggle to remember who he was or what was important to him. If anything, he seems to have abandoned the crutches he had before (drinking, partying, drugs, sex, etc.) and he focuses more on the people he cares about.
In the beginning, this is mostly Chloe, sure, but actually accepting and wearing that bracelet from Dan? Not once implying he didn’t want Trixie hanging around if she didn’t come with her mom? Being genuinely concerned that Michael and his fear had got to Linda? Initiating touch and hugs??? Making a joke of his Devil face to make Charlie laugh? Comforting Ella???
He didn’t spend that time in Hell sitting around feeling sorry for himself (at least not all the time) and (most importantly) blaming everyone else for his being there. He spent that time remembering everything good that he’d lost; he spent that time missing them so much that he ditched a lot of his pride and superiority when he got back.
Obviously, he’s not a different person entirely. He’s still got anger and resentment; he still lashes out when struck; he’s still really good at thinking up scary punishments. But that’s not his primary motivator anymore.
Also the parallel between Lucifer trying to solve a crime in Hell in 5x01 and Lucifer trying to find Chloe in 5x08—both by trying to incorporate the things he’s learned from her—is really a thing of beauty. Another little thing: this time, he didn’t dress up like Chloe or try to get in her head by pretending to be her--no. All the lessons he’s learned from her are part of him now.
He’s already learned Chloe doesn’t need his help—she wants it. I think maybe he also needed to learn that he can be successful without her—but that he vastly prefers her being there. And I think it was important for Chloe to see that despite his glibness and distractibility and impatience . . . he does pay attention, does learn, does change.
So ... I love it so much, too <3
Oh my god oh my god oh my GOD! The Season 5 trailer just released!!!! I have so many feels. Chills. Literal chills. Omgggg guys I’m not ready for this season!!! Ughhgggghhg I’m shaking with excitement rn!!!!
ok so in season 5 we see hunter again.
and he and fitz communicate via a football magazine? and so hunter saves fitz by becoming his lawyer?
just me who wants to
a) laugh
b) cry
c) die
IN THAT ORDER?
like the fitz and hunter bromance is too much for my fangirl heart.
^^ this is the scene btw
hunter is and will always be my fav character in aos. periodt
Also he is a massive fitzsimmons shipper. putting it out there.
ok so in season 5 we see hunter again.
and he and fitz communicate via a football magazine? and so hunter saves fitz by becoming his lawyer?
just me who wants to
a) laugh
b) cry
c) die
IN THAT ORDER?
like the fitz and hunter bromance is too much for my fangirl heart.
^^ this is the scene btw
hunter is and will always be my fav character in aos. periodt
Philinda
thats it. thats the post.
sorry, Ive just seen philinda kiss, in season 5?
And daisy and dekes faces are full of shock. like, NOW???? now you kiss? only now?
That was my mind btw.
SEEEEEEEEEEEEE
MY SHIPPP HAS SAILLLLLED
daisys shocked tho. mom amd dad are kissing.
dekes probably there like what the big deal, arent they married?
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐌-𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐃
𝐔𝐏𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄
Book Three of Warm-Blooded :
(Season 5 of the originals)
Chapter 7 | A Piece Of Me To Carry
~ 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 ~
I got shot in the leg and I don't get any cookies.
Dr. Spencer Reid in Haunted, 5.2