#spop parallels

[bl3ssdbethefruit]

Israel is ruining the vibes.

[azurethenerd]

Blonde lesbians at their lowest point, about to use the apex of their power, fueled by the love of a girl that they care deeply for.

[mcdonaldsforehead-emofurry]

Currently obsessed with the way certain bad guys™️ draw a certain someone they supposedly hate so much

[catras-breakup-song]

[imaginationfanstar]

OH MY GOSH! You are absolutely right! How did we miss that? It seems so obvioius now. Wrong Hordak is just a speed run of Adora’s defection arc and sort of played for laughs. I mean I knew Hordak and Catra had their similarities but Story wise I never made the connection. I shouldn’t be surprised though. Spop is all about parallels. It’s endless.

Idk if this has been talked about before but do you think Hordak and Wrong Hordak are kind of parallels to catra and adora? Adora and WH both fully believed the hoard was truly good, and only defected when they realized it was a lie. Their values never changed, their realities did. Catra and Hordak both seemed to know the hoard was actually pretty evil, but didn't care. They both had there own reasons to rebel in the end, personal pride and whatnot, but mostly it was their love for adora and entrapta that pushed them to change sides.

Yes, I absolutely do.

Wrong Hordak even has a scene where he's petting a horse for the first time, just like Adora!!! And they both have this sort of existential crisis.

They both believed they were honorable missionaries of the Horde, that the Horde was perfect. Whether it was Adora believing the Horde were victims of rebel insurgents, or Wrong Hordak believing that Prime was the smartest and most merciful man in the universe. Sweary Shera amps this up to 11 with their Wrong Hordak having heard a bunch of lies about gay people, kind of like how Adora heard a bunch of lies about princesses (also gay people).

With Catra and Hordak, it's more like... okay, yeah, they were ALSO brought up in these cults. And I would actually say that Hordak was far more "brainwashed" than Catra, because to begin with Hordak fully believed in the hype of Prime, at least for a while. He was cast aside as a defect, and knew of the violence of the Horde, but still believed in his creator's perfection, unlike Catra, who knew from the start that Weaver was full of shit and realised over time that Hordak was too.

I'd say though that both of them were SCARED of their masters, and were trying to get their approval, to sort of... prove that they were wrong about them. Because the little voice Prime and Weaver put in their heads says "You are wrong, you are a failure", and they need to silence that in order to function. This is why Catra never defected, she needed to prove herself in the system and Weaver would "win" if she quit, and this is why Hordak scrambled to Prime's feet once he arrived.

But something changed over time. The versions of Hordak and Catra we get at the end of Season 4, their hearts aren't in it anymore. All of their actions across S4 are driven by different motivations to before.

For Hordak, his motivation actually flips over - He hardly gives a shit about reuniting with Prime anymore! What he wants to do is prove to Entrapta that she was wrong for leaving him behind, and prove to himself that he isn't a worthless piece of shit failure like everyone thinks he is. Hordak goes from a sheltered scientist to leading the army on the front lines, embracing the violence of a warlord and sort of making a name for himself rather than hiding behind the rest of the Horde. He's in the state of mind Catra was in the previous seasons!!!

For Catra, her motivation... well, it ends. We saw the fire and rage from her in the previous season where she was so determined to prove herself that she ended the world, and this is a Catra who has to deal with the consequences of that. She realises that she has very little left in her life and she tries to cling onto those ideas, even to bond with Hordak despite everything he's done to her, and she goes through the ten stages of grief, ending up on Prime's doorstep as having... started to think about what it is she really wants. Like, she sees Glimmer fuck up big time but try to fix it anyway, she goes "You can do that???", and I think Catra starts to accept she still cares about people, she cares about Adora and even Glimmer and Hordak. She's a character filled with so much empathy who tries to crush it dry.

Hordak and Catra both get the "death and rebirth" in the final season, after their "rebirth" they become more introspective with all the rage tempered or gone. Hordak, in close proximity to Prime, starts to see how truly weak the man is, and how hollow his version of "Love" is, especially compared to the sheer strength of heart he sees from Entrapta. And Catra, in "Save the Cat", are their bare selves, all notions of hero vs villain stripped away, just those two girls who grew up together trying to survive. Catra afterwards still has the final strips of her mask that she claws onto, but she lets them flutter away.

Wrong Hordak and Adora "had it easier" when it came to defecting because they were entrenched in the false values of their system, and just applied those values to their new situation. Whereas Catra and Hordak had to develop new values from the ground up, since the whole time all they were made to care about was whether they were on the good side of the person in charge, because if they werent, they were going to get the Stick.

[famousfive]

"Elevated heart rate, dilated pupils… Adora means something to you."

[lumitradora]

did you really think i'd just let shadow weaver erase your memory like that? (1x11)

you really think I needed all the guards at the hexgates? (2x08)

[unicornblossom13]

[Catadora & Megop Parallels]

At the start of Transformers One, I think Orion Pax was a bit more similar to Catra, as both were stuck in jobs they were unsatisfied with and wanted to do something more with their lives.

Meanwhile, Adora and D-16 were more serious minded and content with following the rules and work their way up in an environment that was unfair, and sometimes cruel, but was all they knew.

However, in the second half of the movie, when the truth is revealed, that’s when they switch roles.

Orion wanted to fix the corrupted system, trying to avoid using horrible and unnecessary methods if possible. Adora wanted to immediately stop the Horde once she realized what their true intentions were, joining the Rebellion to fix the damage they have done.

On the other hand, D-16 became more and more consumed with wanting revenge against the lies fed to him his entire life. Now, while Catra was well aware of the Horde’s true nature, she desperately wanted to prove her worth to those that constantly doubted her since she was a child.

So driven by their desires and goals, both D-16 and Catra were willing to remove the ones they believed stood in their way, Orion in his case and Adora in hers.

Both Orion and Adora gained an incredible power that allowed them to make a difference and to right the wrongs they had seen.

But it came at the cost of losing their best friend, someone they loved and trusted more than anyone.

Even though these differences in goals and ideals caused them to drift away, their is no denying both pairs are always drawn to each other. Whether friends or enemies, they influence one another’s decisions and actions.

The lingering feelings they have for one another adds to the conflict as they are torn between longing, betrayal, what is right and wrong, and what they desire.

[yourhighness6]

The difference between these two scenes is striking:

In the first one, Catra is so angry and vengeful, but now she is simply done. She is too tired and too empty to fight Scorpia leaving the way she did Adora. Before, she felt the need to prove herself. Now, she knows she's done everything she can to be smarter and better and more violent, but it still isn't enough. Everyone will still leave her.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

I jokingly said with friends I'd make this comparison post of "How a show treats a kingdom falling and the emotional aftermath" between SPOP and The Dragon Prince (TDP), so here it is (not SheRa favourable per se, but hopefully giving it a decently fair shake) in seeing just how different Netflix's Y7 rating can go

I rewatched the end of the episode where Mermista's kingdom falls and here are the thoughts

To SPOP's credit (even if I think it's undercut by having a murder mystery style episode in the lead up that is so comedically focused), the scene where Salineas falls is treated seriously, at least, in the framing and music, even if we don't see any of the battle.

This is pretty good, even if it is odd that the focus is on Glimmer, and not on Mermista given that it's Her kingdom/home and Glimmer doesn't have a personal attachment to it besides its place in the war effort, even if Mermista is a side main character while Glimmer is a core protagonist. Although TDP also focuses on characters who are not the ruling monarch, all the characters who get focus either had the castle as their lifelong home, were there during the attack, or are also part of the royal family / are worried that King Ezran, their friend/brother, is dead.

We also narrowed in on Ezran's realization that his kingdom was attacked before this scene, and directly saw the dragon open fire on the castle, which resulted in a main character's death and Soren (the crying/bloodied blond man) preparing to give and mutilate his heart for a protective spell / sacrifice himself.

We also spend more time on the aftermath of the castle, with it being linked to Ezran's memories of his family, as his mother was murdered by the Dragon King when he was a baby, and his father was assassinated in an earlier season for taking revenge.

I think it's in the aftermath, though, of subsequent episodes where we see the biggest difference. We see some displaced citizens in SheRa (point there) which helps even out for not seeing the battle, but where I think SheRa maybe not falters (they had different aims/directions in terms of how much time to focus on it) but Differs is in the emotional aftermath.

Not only does TDP give Ezran multiple episodes to process the loss while enhancing it with other elements (feeling/being betrayed by his brother due to the return of their mutual best friend's father, who also assassinated Ezran + brother's father), but they let the feelings come out in a variety of ways. Ezran is normally very patient and goodhearted, so seeing his Anger flare up in significant ways is a big but welcome/interesting character change.

Versus Shera having Mermista act like her kingdom being conquered is like a bad breakup.

which is also then interwoven into Ezran's rebirth motif (he was likewise set to be assassinated, but was spared / survived, and set about building a new world from the ashes in a positive way) / of being like a phoenix only after an entire season of working back to that point with a renewed, deepened perspective.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

ah. some things never change. like your undying jealousy towards your sister who is also coincidentally your love interest.

[genderpunk12]

"Going somewhere?"

[swearyshera]

[mcdonaldsforehead-emofurry]

Season finale haircut 💖💖💖

Also this 💔

[catras-breakup-song]

they don't understand you, just as they did not understand me. | you are bitter and cruel, and you're the one who used me! (1x07)

you remind me of myself. nothing was ever easy for me either. | i am nothing like you! you are old, and bitter, and weak. (2x06)

EDIT: someone already did this, whoops my bad!

[wizardgirlxyz]

Just noticing something. Not forming any fully structured ideas yet about Glimmer being manipulative. I’m just putting it out here. Please don’t fight me on this

Glimmer always goes straight to holding hands with somebody whenever she wants to convince them! And who else does something similar perhaps not with the hand but instead the face??

i don’t think they’re on a similar level. Shadow Weaver is a child abuser and really really fucked up person. I’m just saying Glimmer ispossibly manipulative to an extent.