TurtleTotem

by the lovely @purplewatermelonguy

2pm: "where's the dog he can't possibly have jumped over the fence"

3pm: "hi i live in [another village]! I got your dog here, if you can come fetch him?"

I think it is so beautiful that the show also gave us scenes of Catra and Adora being friends, because that made Catra’s redemption arc in season five just that much more impactful.

Let me explain.

Obviously, they were lovers friends at the start of the show when we’re introduced to both Catra and Adora, so we obviously got scenes with them being lovers friends, but let’s be honest, the relationship friendship is cut off pretty quickly.

BUT THEY DON’T do the stupid thing that a lot of writers do where they make a character a misunderstood sweetheart who’s never done anything wrong the villain for no reason whatsoever.

They give Catra motive. Purpose. A Reason to be mad, to feel betrayed, to feel hurt.

And when Adora chooses the Princesses, Catra can’t help but feel betrayed. Adora was her best friend. She had promised Catra that she’d always be her friend, so it only made sense to Catra that Adora would choose her. And when Adora doesn’t, Catra’s world just suddenly…doesn’t feel the same anymore.

So clearly we see this, and she’s such a good “villain” because they also show us that she wasn’t always that way.

She’s always had the same characteristics, but around Adora, they were just there. WITHOUT Adora, they’re magnified. Adora isn’t there to keep her in check. She isn’t there to keep Catra safe or calm her down, and that’s just adding to Catras anger and sense of betrayal.

And all the while we’re seeing this, we also get flashbacks of when they WERE friends. When they were Ride or Dies. And that feeds into the motive thing we talked about. That sense of betrayal.

We see the things that have happened to Catra in the past. The Horde Cadets picking on her. Shadow Weaver tormenting and belittling her whilst making Adora the Golden Girl. It makes us sympathize with Catra because we’re supposed to. She isn’t the main villain. They’re building her redemption as she’s actively digging herself deeper into this hole of anger and pain.

We get to SEE her resentment for Adora—and that it started wayyyyy before Adora chose the Princesses over her. It started back when they were just little kids fighting for the Horde.

Later we see their fights and their struggles, and of course Catra just keeps getting angrier because even though Adora is gone, Catra is still living in her shadow. Adora isn’t even there, and Shadow Weaver still wants Adora over Catra.

Catra doesn’t hurt Adora because she wants to—she hurts Adora because she has something to prove.

And I’d dare to say that Catra’s REAL redemption arc begins in the Crimson Waste. You might be thinking “didn’t Catra like, almost end the world after she captured Adora there” and you’re both right and WRONG.

Catra DID open the portal using the Sword of Protection, because that was her LAST ATTEMPT TO PROVE HERSELF.

In the Portal, when Catra and Adoras memories come back and Catra becomes corrupted by the Portal, she TELLS Adora that she’s not letting Adora win. Not this time. Because we’ve seen how desperate Catra is for this. Desperate to prove that the Horde didn’t need Adora, they only needed her.

And Catra’s spent so long blaming Adora for everything that has happened that when Catra tells Adora that the world ending is HER fault, Adora actually punches her. Adora doesn’t hold her punches anymore, and she fully hits Catra.

Earlier in the Portal Episode, Adora asks Catra if this is what she really wants, and Catra just replies “of course. It’s what we’ve always wanted,” and that brings me to my final point of this analysis.

And that is when she gets CHIPPED by Horde Prime. The entire time she’s aboard Horde Primes ship, she just seems…miserable. She’s destroyed her old life back home, both with Adora and also her relationship with the Horde, so she knows that this is it for her.

She’s scared. She’s burned every bridge, and saving Glimmer was her last opportunity to salvage what she could by trying to keep Adora safe. Away.

Because when she sees what Horde Primes plans are, she can’t help but think about when Adora asked her if this is what she actually wanted. Because the answer turned out to be no. And when she gets Chipped, Horde Prime SAYS to Adora that Catra was scared in the end. She was in pain. She suffered.

And it wasn’t just an overnight redemption arc. We see Catra put in the work. We see her lash out at Adora but then take it back because she has been given this second chance. We see her trying so hard to be good, but all of those characteristics are still there. The backhanded comments about Princesses. The jokes at inappropriate times. The struggle of adapting to being a good guy now.

She doesn’t immediately mend those relationships. We see her struggle to rebuild them. We see her trying to right those wrongs.

And Like, that is pretty much the perfect introduction song. Aside from setting up their abilities perfectly and giving each girl character moments to be highlighted and a perfect demonstration of how them as popstars and them as demon hunters are the same job,

It's also got Rumi's note

Every time, every single time from KPop fans reacting, to vocalists reacting, to music producers and casual fans and rap fans and everyone else When they get to that note, to the buildup, to the animation of her mouth, face and body as she puts her EVERYTHING into the note, to the note itself, how it starts high, goes long and ends higher,

THAT is the moment where everyone is shocked, explodes in appreciation and locks the fuck in

Because yeah, it's a perfect moment, the animation especially is 1 to 1 absolutely realistic to how a person would have to move and act to pull off that note, especially with the mouth muscles,

But it's also the one moment that completely sells the idea that these girls have voices that can fight demons.

No one questions it after that, because they saw it work, the movie made them BELIEVE it in a way that previous movies made people believe in Superman, in Middle Earth or in a galaxy far far away

THAT moment made the movie I think, I believe it down in my soul that if that one moment hadn't been perfect, KPDH wouldn't have reached the memetic superstardom it has

god she even pulls the mike back like she actually has to be careful that her voice will blow the damn thing out what the Fuck

"What if Stratt didn't force Grace to go?" Then the Earth dies.

"What if Yao and Ilyukhina had survived?" Then they all would have died in space, not enough food to get to Earth or Erid

If the Taomoeba hadn't escaped then Grace would have never seen his best friend again. Returning to a world he loves but no longer recognizes.

If the stars weren't dying then Grace never would have met his best friend at all. Living content but alone.

Project Hail Mary is a hopeful story. It is a story of friendship and what it means to be brave. It's a story about saving the world.