#skall got into the ramble jar again

[skallyeen]

GLaDOS's insults are interesting. Because they're so clearly prejudiced, right? She's making fun of Chell for being fat and adopted. These are scummy things to make fun of someone for, and things that would realistically be punching bags for prejudiced people interacting with this character.

But I don't think GLaDOS actually holds the sentiments she's expressing. Rather, they're a means to an end.

I get this mostly from her lines in co-op on the subject:

"Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm."

She calls Chell fat not because she thinks she's fat or that she personally finds anything wrong with weight variances, but because she knows calling humans fat makes them feel bad, and she's bitter about being killed and wants to make Chell feel bad.

Same goes with her being adopted. As soon as it doesn't emotionally or pragmatically benefit GLaDOS to make fun of Chell for being fat or adopted, she actively refutes Wheatley's attempt at bullying her for these things:

"And...? What, exactly, is wrong with being adopted?" "Also: Look at her, you moron. She's not fat."

She walks back her previous derogatory assertions as if they don't mean anything to her, because they don't. She never believed them in the first place.

She treats Rattmann's schizophrenia much the same way. She uses it to try and manipulate him, to make him doubt himself enough to come out of hiding where she can kill him, the same way she tries to make Chell doubt herself and turn back when she's escaping the facility back in Portal 1. The ableism she expresses is not a genuinely held belief, but a means to an end that she has no qualms about using.

Whether that makes it better or worse, I have no idea! I'd say worse on account of the intention to cause doubt or hurt to the target. But it's a very unique combination of values, isn't it? You're much more used to seeing the inverse: people being insulting, with no actual malicious intent, as a result of unchecked biases. Like, for instance, friendly little Wheatley unintentionally being super condescending about Chell's brain damage and muteness.

[skallyeen]

Agreed with both! If that makes sense. Man this show is a doozy.

Catra's betrayal of Entrapta is definitely the hardest action of hers for me to get over, with SPOP being such a relationship-focused show.

It's a little easier to reconcile for me when I consider the state Catra was in and everything that had just happened to her prior. There was no safety for her and everything was crashing down upon her. She was acting in a terrified attempt to survive.

And her immediate regret. She has this look of horror the moment after she tases Entrapta, and the betrayal haunts her in S4. She didn't want to hurt her, but she legitimately did not have the emotional tools to handle failure in any way other than doubling down. The consequences of this failure, if she did not cover it and win, would kill her, or worse.

There are just... so many levels of terror and loathing going on in Catra's head here. It doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it not horrible, and I really wish the show got more into the consequences of the worst of her actions during her redemption. But it does make me feel more for her, even as a huge Entrapta fan.

And then about those consequences... I think her betrayal of Entrapta and the portal incident is what crosses the line into making her irredeemable--and I think that's the point. It's what really, truly cements a major aspect of Catra's spiral in S4: her belief that she's gone too far, crossed the point of no return. She chose the dark path, hurt people, drove away everyone who cared about her and who could possibly have helped her out of this destructive pit. And that's why she can't turn back from her path of evil: there'd be nothing left for her if she were to do so. Failure would be the end of her.

In Corridors, face-to-face with her regrets, she finally accepts that. She takes her shot to do her "one good thing," knowing it will kill her... But it doesn't. Adora still comes back for her, saves her, brings her back from the brink of death. Even as Catra is expecting to die, even where the narrative gives the perfect place for a convenient poetic Redemptive Death, she is given the chance to be better. Her whole arc in S5 is an explicit rejection of Redemption Equals Death and I love that.

Rewatching (and finishing) She-Ra. You know what moment makes Catra irredeemable to me?

Her betrayal of Entrapta.

Poor sweet Entrapta who only stayed on the side of ‘evil’ because she wanted to do science and because she thought she’d been abandoned. Who—even with her loosey-goosey sense of ethics—knew when it was time to back down so as to not destroy the planet and end millions of lives. Entrapta who is (for the most part) too neurodivergent to tell when someone is lying to her or using her so long as the ‘data’ says they should be a friend.

Catra knows all of this about Entrapta. I don’t think as viewers we had ever seen Entrapta back down from an experiment on grounds of risk until this moment. There’s no way Catra didn’t realize (at least subconsciously) that not listening to her would be catastrophic. And yet. She’s too far gone to care. Catra hardly cares about winning anymore. All she cares about is seeing her opponents lose and if she has to blow up a planet to make that happen…? At least in the emotional state she’s in for the second half of season three, Catra couldn’t care less.

But still: this is all directly in support of her goal such as it is. However, as if sending this woman who trusted her into exile weren’t enough, Catra had to tear even more people apart to cover her tracks.

“Who do you think betrayed you to the princesses?”

Our apparent BBEG, Hordak, it seems had never even come close to having a personal relationship with someone until Entrapta adopted him as her lab partner. For the first time ever he had someone he started to let himself trust. He let himself start to believe she really cared.

And to cover her tail, Catra tore that fragile trust to pieces with a single lie.

[skallyeen]

Very true! That did cross my mind. Some biases probably would have carried over from the time period in which Caroline grew up.

I saw GLaDOS as not holding these beliefs very strongly just by the disconnected sort of way in which she talks about them and humans in general (she's very "them" about it any time she mentions humans in co-op, including their attitudes about weight). I imagine living as GLaDOS separated her from most of her prior human life (she doesn't even remember Caroline beyond a vague sense of familiarity, at first) including her societal worldviews or any strong feelings about them she may have had.

Then again, Caroline does influence her subconscious strongly enough that she responds "Yes sir, Mr. Johnson" to Cave's voice without even realizing why. Inheriting Caroline's subconscious prejudices is certainly not off the table.

In either case, I figure her human origin is probably what allows her to know the context and weight of her insults. They're calculated in a way that suggests that she fully understands what she's saying, the context, and the way in which it degrades. She just doesn't appear to hold the sentiment herself in any meaningful way. As opposed to "Fatty-fatty no-parents!" Wheatley who doesn't seem to understand either, haha.

GLaDOS's insults are interesting. Because they're so clearly prejudiced, right? She's making fun of Chell for being fat and adopted. These are scummy things to make fun of someone for, and things that would realistically be punching bags for prejudiced people interacting with this character.

But I don't think GLaDOS actually holds the sentiments she's expressing. Rather, they're a means to an end.

I get this mostly from her lines in co-op on the subject:

"Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm."

She calls Chell fat not because she thinks she's fat or that she personally finds anything wrong with weight variances, but because she knows calling humans fat makes them feel bad, and she's bitter about being killed and wants to make Chell feel bad.

Same goes with her being adopted. As soon as it doesn't emotionally or pragmatically benefit GLaDOS to make fun of Chell for being fat or adopted, she actively refutes Wheatley's attempt at bullying her for these things:

"And...? What, exactly, is wrong with being adopted?" "Also: Look at her, you moron. She's not fat."

She walks back her previous derogatory assertions as if they don't mean anything to her, because they don't. She never believed them in the first place.

She treats Rattmann's schizophrenia much the same way. She uses it to try and manipulate him, to make him doubt himself enough to come out of hiding where she can kill him, the same way she tries to make Chell doubt herself and turn back when she's escaping the facility back in Portal 1. The ableism she expresses is not a genuinely held belief, but a means to an end that she has no qualms about using.

Whether that makes it better or worse, I have no idea! I'd say worse on account of the intention to cause doubt or hurt to the target. But it's a very unique combination of values, isn't it? You're much more used to seeing the inverse: people being insulting, with no actual malicious intent, as a result of unchecked biases. Like, for instance, friendly little Wheatley unintentionally being super condescending about Chell's brain damage and muteness.