May the triforce be with you

Abuse and how it shapes people is a major recurring thing in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. The two protagonists were raised by the same woman, and the different ways she abused them took them down two very different paths. Shadow Weaver’s abuse left each of them with disordered views of the world and their place in it, not to mention extremely maladaptive coping mechanisms.

While the emotional abuse of both Adora and Catra is obvious, it’s clear Catra has endured a lot more than Adora. Not only does she have to deal with a barrage of insults and degradation, she’s also abused physically. And while it’s never actually portrayed onscreen, it is heavily implied that Shadow Weaver beat Catra when she was a child, possibly even beyond childhood. While this may seem like an especially dark take to some, it’s blatantly obvious to anyone who’s been abused in that way. The indicators are all there.

SPOP’s creators did a phenomenal job of making the extent of the abuse very clear without actually showing it. Much of the credit for that goes to the stellar voice acting of AJ Michalka and Lorraine Toussaint, but the writers put the words in their mouths, finding ways to imply violence between the lines. Perhaps most impressive is how much of this is accomplished with subtlties in animation, which is what I am going to focus on most in this post (partly because it’s so gifable, and partly because it’s so damn good).

With no further ado, let’s examine this evidence in detail.

Frequent lower-tier physical abuse

Physical abuse isn’t just about blows, it’s about the violation of someone’s physical autonomy. Shadow Weaver physically abuses Catra in other ways all the time in season 1. The regularity with which she grabs, shoves, or throws Catra is disturbing, to say the least.

She also restrains and/or controls Catra’s body with magic on several occasions. Not only that, we know this has been going on since she was a child.

Not only are these behaviors physical abuse on their own, they also imply that Shadow Weaver may have abused Catra in even worse ways offscreen. This is especially true when combined with other clues, which I’ll go into now…

Catra’s body language around Shadow Weaver (and vise-versa)

Catra is clearly terrified of Shadow Weaver throughout much of the first season, even after she’s been promoted. Her body language is very defensive at a distance, and she cringes/shrinks away whenever Shadow Weaver gets too close.