abandoned

“forced herself to become the villain” girl be ffr. catra didn't force herself to do shit. no one had any expectations on her, she could have easily escaped the horde and started a new life if she wanted to.

fans: omg she just wants adora to stay with her 🥺

catra: physically assaulting adora in every way possible

fans: the sexual tension 😩🔥

catra: kidnapping and tying up adora

fans: omg this is so kinky 🥵

catra: verbally abusing and degrading adora

fans: she has the right to be mad at adora for leaving 😔

adora: pushes catra off a bed once

This is a RP partner search post. Preffered ships are in the gifs.  

“Catr*dora was always going to be endgame! If you were blindsided by it then that’s on you!”

Official character sheets (photos not mine)

AJ Michalka (Catra’s voice actor)

She-Ra - AJ Michalka and Lauren Ash Interview (WonderCon 2019): “And to me, there’s like a sister bond a little bit there, that ends up becoming actually even deeper. Gosh, in a way it’s like… I feel almost like their relationship, their friendship is like… like there’s a sisterhood there. And I feel like it’s really important and I kinda have that with my sister. I don’t know if this is gonna make sense down the road, this interview, based on the episodes that are going to come out, but there’s a sisterhood between those two girls that no one can break. And I have that with my sister.” (0:53)

She-Ra’s Cast Gives Insight into Catra & Adora’s Relationship: “I was always at the foot of her bed, in a way she was my older sister, even though she was my best friend.” (2:44)

TV Tropes

Children and adopted siblings who watched the show

The She-Ra wiki

Catr*dora shippers themselves

Are any of these sources irrefutable on their own? Certainly no.

But the fact that that this particular reading is so common definitely says something about the way their relationship was written.

In addition, compare Zuko talking about Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender) versus Catra talking to/about Adora.

“Everything always came easy to her.”

“Adora gets everything she wants!”

“She’s a firebending prodigy, and everyone adores her.”

“Admit it, you love being her favorite.”

“My father says she was born lucky. He says I was lucky to be born.”

“Then again, you’re special. That’s what Shadow Weaver always said.”

Both pairs of characters fit the Golden Child and the Black Sheep dichotomy (also known as the Favorite and the Scapegoat), in which one child is put on a pedestal and held up to unreasonable expectations while the other is constantly put down and demeaned. This dynamic is exclusive to siblings who grew up under a narcissistic parent — Ozai and Shadow Weaver respectively.

Here is another great post discussing the similarities between Adora & Catra and Gamora & Nebula from MCU, who are also sisters.

Common counter-arguments:

“The Horde has no concept of family!”

Yet Adora still verbally admits to seeing Shadow Weaver as a mom (without asking Glimmer to clarify what the heck a “mom” is).

And Shadow Weaver doesn’t shy away from calling her “my child”, either.

Humans — especially children — naturally seek out bonds, no matter what environment they grew up in. It’s ingrained in our psyche. You can’t just tell them not to see their caretaker as a parent and expect it to work.

Maybe the Horde did discourage familial attachments. But since telling people not to fall in love doesn’t stop them from falling in love, why wouldn’t the same apply to platonic relationships?

“Only Adora was her daughter! Catra was just a scapegoat!”

Throughout the show it’s evident that Catra desperately desires Shadow Weaver’s approval, not unlike the way an abused child craves recognition from a parent who has always denied it. This isn’t explicitly spelled out, but the fans picked up on it anyway:

And don’t forget about edits that use quotes from another abusive mother & daughter relationship.

Toxic parents are still parents because “parent” is not an inherently positive term, it’s a type of relationship.

“‘Mother figure’ is not the same as ‘mother’!”

How are they functionally different?

I usually define “mother figure” as someone who acts motherly yet didn’t actually raise the person in question — which is why Glimmadora is not incest even though Angella is this to Adora — but that explanation obviously doesn’t work here because Shadow Weaver did in fact raise both of them.

Unless you can specify exactly where the line is drawn between “adoptive mother” and “mother figure”, it’s a very cheap argument: “Shadow Weaver is their parent in every way that counts, but not really because I watered down the term by adding a second word to it. Gotcha!”.

“Having the same parent doesn’t make you siblings!”

This is the most puzzling one so far because… yes, that’s literally the definition.

“You’re just trying to no-homo their relationship!”

It is true that a lot of same-sex relationship in media are described as brotherly or sisterly simply to avoid any romantic implications, and homophobic fans tend to run with it.

In most if not all cases, however, such interpretation is subjective, since there is no basis for the characters in question to be actual siblings (having the same parent). This is clearly not true for Catra and Adora.

Moreover, SPoP has plenty of other romantic-coded same-sex relationship that aren’t treated this way. I’ve never seen anyone say that Catra and Scorpia remind them of siblings, and the only people trying to frame Adora and Glimmer as sisters are… wait for it… Catr*dora shippers.

I wonder why would they do this. Surely not to blatantly shift the blame to someone else, right?

Bottom line:

Catr*dora has incestous undertones whether you like it or not. And if certain rabid stans could kindly shut up when actual adopted siblings tell them that SPoP handled this topic terribly, that would be nice.