#when catra is abused by shadow weaver its tragic and she deserves better

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

If you had a choice, how would you have wrote Kyle’s character/redemption arc?

i don't know if kyle needed a redemption arc at all. he was kind of like adora in that sense, he works for the horde but only because he was either brainwashed into thinking they were right or because he had no other choice.

we never know which one because the creators didn't care enough to give him more depth, but i think it's obvious that he didn't even like to fight all that much, let alone participate in a war.

i would just give him a little more characterization beyond the "bullied kid" or the "wimp". for a show that seeks to break gender norms and has instances of men being feminine and women being masculine, i don't know how spop fumbled so hard with kyle.

anyway, i digress. i think the easiest way to develop kyle's character is by having bow recruit him into the princess alliance. i think bow would see himself in kyle because like kyle, he's not the most physically capable fighter either, his skill lies in archery.

it would have been interesting if kyle also had some skill other than fighting that would be useful in a war but the horde never took it into consideration because they were too busy viewing him as the useless wimp.

similar to how scorpia got some reassurance from perfuma and glimmer, kyle could have found people who actually care about him, instead of being stuck in a relationship with his bully and an enabler.

[breeeliss]

am i the only one that doesn’t really like catra? like believe me i love the complexity of her character and i do feel bad for her... but i don’t like her. i know she’s traumatized but she acts like she has no one. when clearly scorpia and others are there. she hurts other people who are around her and tbh they deserve better. scorpia especially. she is willing to ruin the entire world just so adora doesn’t “win”. like really? adora tried to protect you when y’all were younger and she still is!

i liked catra before because i felt like she had a chance to change and be a better person but now after s3 i just feel like shes a bully who will never see her own mistakes. she blames everything on adora and doesn’t realize that she has made mistakes. i understand that she felt left behind but adora kept reaching out to help her. catra just is power hungry and bitter to me. idk tho

i mean you’re supposed to not like her lol. catra’s the villain of the story, you’re meant to be frustrated by the messed up/cruel stuff she does to everyone around her, that means the writers of the show are doing their job well. i like catra because she is so irredeemably fucked up. 

when you’re stuck in a cycle of neglect, like catra has been, you become co-dependent on the few good people in your life (i.e. catra became co-dependent on adora). so once adora left and catra lost the only source of consistency she had, she essentially felt abandoned and turned that abandonment into resentment. and it doesn’t help that catra associates her neglect with adora’s favoritism -- the reason catra was neglected was because adora was favored. so of course she spends the entire series trying to one-up adora and bring her down a level so that she can get the satisfaction. 

but if you’re being constantly re-traumatized -- if you’re constantly being told over and over and over again that you’re not important, you’re not special, you’re no good, etc. -- yeah, man, that resentment can get really bad. in its extreme form, you turn to destructive behavior where you begin manipulating and hurting the people around you just so that you can get some power back for yourself. 

if catra wanted adora’s help, she would’ve just taken it instead of trying to kill her. if catra wanted friends, she would’ve stayed in the crimson waste with scorpia instead of going back to the horde. yeah catra wants power but it’s not “take over the world” power. it’s “i am here and i fucking matter” power. 

catra wants to prove she’s important. catra wants to prove she’s strong. catra wants to prove she’s better and more powerful than the person she was compared to her whole life so that she can stick it to everyone who ever made her inferior. her actions in the show are just a big “fuck you” to the horde, to shadow weaver, to hordak, to everyone. that’s all that matters to her. 

imagine how much shadow weaver, hordak, and the horde fucked this poor girl up that she was literally willing to destroy the world just so she could stick it to her abusers and finally get one over adora. 

that’s so fucking tragic and such amazing writing.

[late2theshow]

Catra isn’t Well Written

Catra! has made her mark on the She-Ra: and the Princesses of Power fandom. In the promotional articles, reviews, and interviews; the feline foe is regularly talked about for her complex relationship and tragic backstory and her now ever-spiraling cycle of abuse and poor actions. Every article and interview has laid focus on how Catra and Adora’s relationship will unfold in the series. As seen from the moments from season one to season three; the audience has seen the madness of Catra’s abusive nature and self-worth issues unfold in her undoing. She was second best cadet that did not seem to get along well with other members of the Horde: Example: The incident with Octavia when she was a child and the locker room scene where Lonnie accusing her of being afraid of the new Princess during the attack on Theymor. Catra has been shown to also have no good connection with anyone outside of Adora and even that is rooted in a one-sided rivalry that was never properly talked about between the two. All that said. Catra is a tortured character. Designed to fail and suffer from her own bad decisions and the tragic life she had been dealt with. Her story is not an easy one to follow, but as fans, we love and want to see her be a better person. And that’s just the thing—Fans! The fandom has a very strong love for this character; Catra ships rank high in count as well as fanart and other fan content in other media like animated music videos and analysis videos—but that’s all the fans work. Fans have created more of a sympathetic character in the land of head cannon. Fans want to see a kinder Catra—a more self-aware and valued Catra and above all a Catra that is redeemable and likable. As it stands Catra has disappointed me in all three seasons. Season one established the pain and turmoil the inhabitants of Etheria suffered under the horde’s invasion. Adora and Catra were child-soldiers who later turned to enemies in tragic turns of events. In the two times, Adora offered Catra to join the Rebellion—she denied the offer. The major turn in Catra’s tragic story was in Episode 11: The Promise, to where we see the upbringing Catra endured and how she as a child handled it. She took her painful memories and latched them into Adora and—for all purposes tried to kill her on-screen by letting her almost die in the Beacon. A dark step in her character. But we all had hoped it would change in season 2. Right? Instead the now rises through the rank Force Captain Catra is burdened in her work as the new Shadow Weaver and failing at taking out the Princess Alliance. In another slight to Adora, she purposely infected Adora with the First-Ones virus in the Frozen Tundra. Leaving herself almost dead by ignorance and Adora stunned in almost disgust that Catra would go to such lengths. After her fall in season 2; the lack of Catradora fuel the shipping fandom hoped they were going to get and the more redeemable Catra came to another halt by the show writers. With the insane actions and madness of Catra in season three. With an option to be happy in the Crimson Waste; at the first sign of Shadow Weaver’s favoritism towards Adora; lead Catra back into abusive and destructive tendencies; similar to her poor actions prior to Adora; she flipped the switch and almost doomed Etheria. As fans, we were saddened to see this. More articles have cropped up with if Catra is redeemable and nothing has been confirmed about season 4 or its release date. But, with the love the fans have for Catra; why is their such massive heel turns in her character? Is she supposed to be tragic and grieving over her lost friend like in Season one when she rips the sheets and cries over Adora? Or is she the angry, jealous Force Captain we see in the last interaction she has with Adora in “The Promise”? Do we know who wrote, “The promise” and the season 3 finale? Noelle Stevenson. The Show creator who has pushed the complexity of Adora and Catra’s relationship has made several big turns of pain in anguish for Catra to self-endure. For the sake of complex writing? Did anyone ask or need this? Character complexity is not an unheard-of concept and it has been tackled before in other franchises. Even in her own self-made franchises: Nimona! Who is the side-kick the evil Ballister Blackheart? A former knight of good turned evil by tragic misdoings; who during the entire comic strip run battled with a former friend/possible love interest in what some saw as possibly being redeemable or at least sympathetic. The difference in that writing was Ballister did not work in someone else’s shadows. Catra has to answer to Shadow Weaver in season 1 and Hordak in season 2 and onward. Making Catra a sidekick or henchman with ambition; rather than self-serving and in control. But we were teased in the Crimson Waste to see that Catra can lead and inspire a group of people and find comfort in another environment. But her self-worth got in the way and she ran back to almost destroy the world—because, Adora! Of course. We have to see in seasons onward if Noelle can give us a Catra we deserve; after writing complexity in Mimona and being in charge of the reboot to She-Ra. Only time will tell if Catra will have a satisfying end in the series. Complexity is not masterful writing. Having your fandom Tweet how sad they are over a favorite character does not mean a job well done Noelle!