i don't use this blog anymore

Glimmer's kind of a spoilt brat. She really does care about her friends and she has deep insecurities, but everything about her is someone who grew up in privilege and has little understanding of other people's lives. Thus, she thinks she has to work harder than everyone else to defeat the Horde, but she also thinks she Deserves a lot of things too. Like the power that comes with responsibility, or respect from her friends and family, things other characters - like Adora and the Horde - DON'T think they can have.

So when she sees Adora trying her hardest to protect her and keep her out of battle, she doesn't think "Adora's working way too hard for my sake and I should go be her friend", she's thinking, "Adora's gotten high on being the mighty She-Ra and she and Bow keep abandoning me for glory missions while I'm isolating myself in the castle". Glimmer even starts laughing at Adora, with someone who she had previously sided 100% against, Adora's abuser, to validate her own feelings.

Glimmer's thoughts on Shadow Weaver are dynamic, interesting, and fucked up. You can really tell with this character that Glimmer has a completely black and white view on her enemies. Either Shadow Weaver is a manipulative evil horde mother playing mind games on Adora and needs to be kept far away from her, or Shadow Weaver "has done nothing wrong" and is giving her the power and validation she so desperately craves after her mother passed away. Glimmer's headstrong black and white views make her easy bait for Shadow Weaver to turn against Adora and use for power. But Shadow Weaver was walking into a trap - she underestimated bow headstrong Glimmer really is, and how much her manipulation had emboldened her, and got rejected as soon as she suggested Glimmer needed Adora.

Adora sees Glimmer turning against herself in favour of Shadow Weaver, and is increasingly uncomfortable with her position in the Alliance. Adora had already been taught by SW and Light Hope that her worth as a person was tied to how long she could go on without letting them down, and very quickly, Glimmer was starting to make their friendship feel conditional, and blame her for things that were not her fault.

When Glimmer blames Adora for her mother's death, it's everything Adora feared - the confirmation of her own deepest self doubts. She breaks down and refuses to talk to Glimmer, deciding that friendship is out of the cards, and her only worth to her is as She-Ra.

Of course, when she finds out from Mara that the whole She-Ra thing was a scam, that Light Hope set her up and she's destined to be a weapon, not a saviour of the planet? It gives Adora an existential crisis, but also gives her an incredibly significant objective more important than anything else - disable the Heart of Etheria and make sure nobody can use it. Bow, watching Mara's final recordings by her side, takes this on too.

Glimmer's actions in "Fractures" force Adora and Bow against the wall. They have been told someone from the Horde that they know is on Beast Island, a place where nobody comes back. If they rescue her, she has the best chance of being able to disable the Heart of Etheria.

Glimmer thinks the Heart can be used as a weapon against the Horde. She really wants the Horde to suffer, and she is resentful at Entrapta for joining them, and absolutely does not want a rescue mission to take place. It's not because of Bow and Adora's safety, or she could have stopped them - it's because the entire mission undermines both her dehumanising of the enemy Horde and her ability to fight back against them.

But for Bow and Adora, it's not a matter of politics and war, it's about doing the right thing. First of all, unlike Glimmer, they still believed in Entrapta as their friend, and were absolutely never going to postpone her rescue. Secondly, they needed to do whatever they could to stop the Heart of Etheria as per Adora's promise to Mara.

So these factors override Adora's principles of being the perfect Champion for Glimmer - she is forced to choose between what Glimmer thinks is practical and what she thinks is right. And Adora has already turned on a friend she made a promise to before, to do the right thing.

When they're on Beast Island, Adora becomes plagued by doubts about leaving Glimmer and fucking up her role as Champion. She loses the ability to transform as She-Ra, with everything about her destiny no longer making sense. She almost succumbs to the signal.

But Adora realises, at this lowest point, that she took Angella's final words completely wrong - that it's not her duty to protect Glimmer, that all Angella wanted was for them both to be happy, and that they need each other as friends, not as She-Ra and Queen Glimmer. This clarity of her place gives Adora the confidence to power through Beast Island, and her high on being able to choose her own path allows her to break the Sword of Protection later.

Adora struggles further with her destiny in season 5, but her Glimmer-specific issues are put to one side.

Also, big shout out to Bow this season??? Imo season 5 is a better showing for him, but he was supporting Adora through everything Glimmer put her through.

Bow's belief in friendship took a real knock in season 4, but he was able to make the right choices. Not just in leaving Glimmer, his best friend in the world, for Beast Island, but his empathy for what others are going through.

Bow understands that Glimmer needs her friends around, not She-Ra, as much as she may say otherwise. He's able to recognise when Glimmer is manipulating him.

Bow believes completely in Entrapta despite everything she's done and is the first character in the Rebellion to connect with her emotionally, with them both feeling lost over fallen friendships on Beast Island.

Bow understands Adora's tendencies to put others over herself, and reels them in, especially obvious after Glimmer gets kidnapped. He tells her she needs rest and generally looks out for her, empathising with her plight over Mara.