#problematic adora

Part of the reason I'm so insistent in reading Adora as the fundamental 'problem' in the Catra-Adora relationship for most of the show, is that said show puts effort into resolving it.

This is honestly a lot of visual focus for a basic exchange - a full on shot-reverse-shot - because it's a reversal of Adora's previous behaviour.

It's specifically her not doing the thing that messed up her relationship with Catra, and then with Glimmer.

Adora is returning to camp, alone, having catastrophically failed to convince Catra to stay.

And Shadow Weaver is, of course, all too ready to comfort her in her hour of need.

Don’t be sad, Adora. This isn’t your fault. You made the right choice.

Catra is just bad and wrong and never understood you [not like I do].

Blame her, because isn’t that better than having to reckon with yourself?

And, no.

It really, really isn’t.

Not any more.

Because Catra left.

Catra left, and she’s never coming back. Telling Adora that it’s not her fault isn’t going to make her feel better about the fact she has lost, (seemingly) forever, the single most important relationship in her life.

So why is Shadow Weaver so invested in doing so?

Adora figured out that Shadow Weaver’s “love” was a pretense long ago; that it was only ever an abusive tool. But it has finally dawned on her that Shadow Weaver’s hate is exactly as false.

Shadow Weaver blames Catra, not because Catra ever, ever deserved it, but because it lets her play the sympathetic, loving mentor figure. It let her sell comforting lies - that Adora was special, that her pain and distress were never real or meaningful, that nothing needed to change - because it let her dismiss any challenges to that narrative as the jealous lies of a malcontent failure. Someone else is at fault for all the terrible things; someone who isn’t worthy, doesn’t care, doesn’t understand, isn’t worth listening to.

Shadow Weaver blamed Catra because it was another avenue of control.

And Adora will never forgive her for that.

No, Catra was never the problem.

Indeed, Catra did everything she was supposed to. She stayed, and regulated her emotions, and learned to be vulnerable, and folded herself right back up into the painfully tiny, aspiration-free box of “Adora’s happy little sidekick/damsel in distress”. Catra gave Adora everything she asked for, everything Adora believed would make her happy.

And it wasn’t enough.

Saving Thaymor wasn’t enough.

Leaving the Horde, protecting Etheria, looking after her friends, defeating Prime, destroying the Heart, everything that Adora feels she has to do - none of it is enough.

Adora was told - Adora believed - that if she was just good enough, strong enough, determined enough; that if she hit all her marks and solved every problem and never once disappointed, then she would eventually be rewarded with what she “wanted”.

Now, Adora has known for a while that Shadow Weaver was never going to reward her - she understood that Shadow Weaver was only going to toss her enough crumbs to keep her on the hook, that the tasks Shadow Weaver set her to were solely about increasing Shadow Weaver’s power, that they were never about Adora’s wants or happiness.

So Adora left, and found better masters to serve - The Rebellion, Angela, Light Hope. And when they, one by one, disappointed, or left, or turned out to be as self-serving as Shadow Weaver? Well, she could always find someone, something else.

But no matter how well she does, how many victories she racks up, it never seems to end. No matter how powerful she becomes, how dramatically she managed to change the world, it still never reaches a shape that makes her happy.

And Adora now realizes - it will never will. That even when she is following kind masters, when the tasks they set her to are genuinely moral and just, she will never be rewarded in the way she seeks. Not because her friends don’t care - but because they can’t gift her happiness. They can’t decide what she wants for her.

The problem was not Shadow Weaver - it was that the model Shadow Weaver gave her was fundamentally false.

But Adora doesn’t know how else to be.

All she knows is pouring herself into the wants and needs of other people. And that is never, ever going to be enough.

It will never be Adora’s turn to choose. There will always be another villain to fight, another world to save, another problem that Adora has to solve.

No matter how much Catra loves Adora, how compliant she is, how often she follows, Adora will always be compelled to leave her behind, chasing a destiny that she’s never going to catch.

Catra walked away - she gave up on following - because it is not the world that is broken, it is Adora.

The one thing Adora does not know how to fix.

And Adora will never forgive herself for that.

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Adora: "Glimmer thinks that they're tracking She-Ra somehow."

...I'm sorry, Glimmer thinks that they're tracking She-Ra?

'Cause I don't think this is Glimmer.

And Adora certainly doesn't seem to be rejecting the idea.

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This is subtle, but significant - Adora believes that the Horde is tracking She-Ra. She's not the only one who does, and isn't the one who came up with it, but she still absolutely believes it.

But. It's also a belief that is unpleasant and uncomfortable for her. It makes her feel helpless and powerless, pushed to the sidelines.

So, when she talks about it, she doesn't express it as a belief she shares (eg, "We think" or "it seems like"). She also doesn't attribute it to it's actual source (Juliet). Instead, she finds someone she's in conflict with - someone she can be angry at - and attributes it to them.

That uncomfortable, unpleasant thought? That's not hers. She doesn't have to unpack it, or examine why it makes her feel this awful.

Because it's Glimmer who's responsible. She's forcing Adora to think them. Because. Because she's just bad, okay?

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After all, that's how it's always worked.

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So. People keep saying that Adora is always forgiving Catra, that her hand is eternally extended in the first season.

The problem with this is - it's simply not true. While there are moments where Adora offers 'salvation', there are many in which she does not.

There is no plea for Catra's defection at the Sea Gate.

No bargaining when she arrives at Princess Prom.

And no offer made when Catra returns the Sword, enabling Adora and Glimmer's escape from the Fright Zone.

No, Adora's promises of salvation are far from constant. They are, in fact, limited to very specific circumstances.

Adora offers escape when Catra is begging her to come back.

She offers rescue when Catra is dangling over an abyss.

She extends her hand when Catra is feeling worthless and unlovable.

[Adora] “[I left the Horde.] Not because I picked up this Sword, but because it was the right thing to do.”

You sure about that, Adora?

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Because when Glimmer and Bow initially confronted her with proof of the damage the Horde was causing, she explicitly rejected it, doubling down on her defensiveness.

It is only after she turned into She-Ra, after the power, glory, and Destiny that The Sword offered was made apparent -

That she allowed herself to begin questioning the things she’d been told.

And even then, only the parts about herself.

This, deciding to stay with Glimmer and Bow, is the moment that Adora left the Horde - and the explanation on her lips was entirely about The Sword and it’s attached destiny.

Adora left the Horde, not because it was bad, but because The Sword (and She-Ra) offered the promise of a narrative about herself, her origins, and her purpose that was more enticing, more flattering than the one Shadow Weaver had given her.

So, sure, when she turned against the Horde in Thaymor the reason she gave was that it was wrong.

But would she have been willing to do that, to give up ever going home, if there wasn’t a Glorious Destiny waiting in the wings for her? If this wasn’t a fight she thought she could win?

Would Adora have been willing to "do the right thing” if she were just herself, and not She-Ra?

================================

Well, Adora wants to think so.

Folks tend to forget that this isn’t how it went - that Adora didn’t immediately transition from (finally) recognizing Shadow Weaver’s ongoing abuse of Catra to trying to get Catra to escape with her.

No, the first thing Adora says isn’t “come with me.”

It’s “How could you be okay with that?”

And that’s. Hrm.

Let’s reword this for illustrative purposes.

Catra: “Shadow Weaver has been openly abusing me for years, how did you not notice?”

Adora: “Oh no! Your abuse makes me very sad! Tell me it’s all okay so I don’t have to be sad.”

That is what Adora is asking for - for Catra to tell her that she is okay with it, that her abuse is trivial, that it’s manageable, that Adora does not have to feel sad or helpless or guilty about it.

The first thing Adora does, when she is finally forced to acknowledge that Catra is being hurt is not to try and fix that hurt - it is to demand that Catra manage her emotions about it.

Which Catra does! Immediately, reflexively, with a certainty that tells us that this is a well established part of their relationship. That Catra is used to saying she’s okay with utterly not okay situations for the sake of making Adora feel better.

And once you understand that. That Adora habitually demands Catra make her feel better by having Catra dismiss her own suffering -

(so that they can keep moving towards the goal of power and safety)

Well, it make it hard not to parse Adora’s failure to be soothed as a sort of punishment. That Catra didn’t lie enough, wasn’t convincing enough, didn’t debase herself enough to make Adora happy.

[Part 1 HERE]

Adora has finally recognized that, no matter how often and dramatically she fixes the world, it will not fix her.

And in recognizing that she is the problem, Adora has to (finally) confront the question: Why is she like this?

Adora has to do this. Doesn’t she?

After all, if she has to, if she was made to, if she could not choose otherwise - then no one is allowed to criticize or question her. If she has to do this, then the people she demands support her, validate her, cover for her are likewise obligated to bleed themselves dry without complaint, because she needs them to.

She desperately wanted this to be true, because she didn’t want to acknowledge that her actions, her choices could hurt people. She didn’t want to accept that other people could be angry, disappointed, or frustrated with her. She didn’t want people to be free to leave (no matter how much it costs them to stay). 

There are so many things that Adora wanted.

She wanted to believe that she was just that good, that her professional success was just and earned. She wanted to believe she deserved the praise and respect that was lavished on her [so long as she complied], that it was something she was owed.

She wanted to believe that Catra deserved the abuse she suffered, not just because she wanted to believe in a fair world, but because she wanted a safe, guilt-free target to alternately comfort and lash out at, someone else to bear the blame for for all of the bad things in the world.

She wanted to think she had a destiny. She wanted that easy vindication, that sense of absolute purpose and moral certainty. She wanted there to be a fate that guaranteed her success, so long as she was strong enough to follow it.

She wanted Catra to be the weak one, because she wanted someone she could be strong for. She wanted there to be someone else she could push all of her own fear, frustration, and pain onto, someone who could manage her bad feelings for her.

No. Adora has never had to do anything. She claimed otherwise - she raged about not having a choice - not because she lacked agency, but because she didn’t want to own the consequences.

But the consequences have, irrevocably, found her - and she is no longer willing to pay the cost of denial.

She is done hiding from the fact that she is, and has always been the thing that Shadow Weaver made her - not because she never had a choice but because, for all that Shadow Weaver wrote the script and set the stage, Adora still chose to play the role she was presented with.

Indeed, she clung to it, even in the face of her defection, because it let her believe things that made her feel better about herself - that she was special, that she was in control, that she had a destiny. That she was good, and that by extension the things she pursued were not merely her personal desires, but were absolute moral goods.

But it was never anything more than a pack of lies, a way to hitch her own selfish wants to an narrative of righteousness.

So Shadow Weaver can keep insisting she “did what she had to do”.

Adora is no longer trying to redeem her, control her, fix her - even if she could, it’s not going to reverse the damage that she’s caused. [Catra left, and she’s never coming back.]

Shadow Weaver can do what she wants, but Adora is done lying to herself.  [Catra was right to leave.]

Adora is just done.

She has poured all of herself into being She-Ra; it is all that she is, now.

Her ‘destiny’  is nothing more than the intersection of dumb luck and the ill-conceived military strategy of a long-dead empire, but it’s still what she’s supposed to do.

This paper shell of a hero, this petty fate, is all that she has left. And it’s not like she deserves anything more.

No, it’s better this way.

Adora made her choices, and now she has to live with them.