Grab AtlasVPN for just $1.83/month + 3 months extra before the SUMMER DEAL expires: get.atlasvpn.com/FivebyFive one day I'll run out of things to say about this show / 5x5takes
This makes me remember of a realisation I had about the show In 'Save the Cat', when catra is losing herself, Adore says "you've never listened to anyone in your life, are you really going to start now?" And in 'The Heart pt2', as Adore is dying, Catra says "you've never given up on anyone, not even me, so don't you dare start now" I adore how these lines mirror and parallel each other in a way that I find myself unable to explain properly, apart from 'it just feels right' If anyone has any thoughts on this, I would love to hear them
The "You've never listened to anyone in your life" line almost feels like Adora's subtle way of harking back to "You are kind of disrespectful." Instead of (unwittingly, or at least unintentionally) agreeing with the narrative of their abuser, she's reaching out and saying it's a trait she *loves* about Catra, possibly one she was even envious of, to a certain extent (which maybe an assumption, but I say it as a habitual people pleaser who has definitely been jealous of others for standing up for themselves, even when it got them into trouble). As for Catra's "never giving up" line, it's also a trait that she's called Adora out on, scolded her for. But she understands and appreciates that... well, that's who Adora is. She doesn't give up, and it's something she loves about her. So, both lines are a love-letter to each other's personality quirks, a recognition that, sometimes, being a cheeky backtalker or a noble idiot are what makes them special to one another. That's my silly little analysis, I hope it may have sparked something that felt right! If it didn't, no harm. Have a good one :)
@alexander_markovski That.. That puts it into words perfectly, actually! Thank you so much! ^^ You helped give me the perspective I was lacking to understand my feelings and I'm grateful to you for that
@@theweirrdnerd my pleasure! She-Ra really makes me think about the whole "your best traits can become toxic and your worst traits can become heroic in the wrong/right scenario" thing in writing. Love is all about acknowledging that you and your partner both have faults and you don't love them despite them, but because they make them who they are. So, yeah!
@@alexander_markovski Agree with everything people said here but also I'd like to add that those characteristics are like their defining ones since the start. Catra not listening to anyone in her life is the reason she always knew that the Horde was evil (well, that and the fact that she was the victim of SW's physical abuse compared to Adora's emotional manipulation), she doesn't take things at face value and it's also the reason she doesnt join the Rebellion at the start, because doing so would mean she would have to take Adora's word at face value and ignore the implications of what she's done. Adora, on the other hand, has a sense of duty and rightousness stilled within her since childhood and it is that very sense of self importance that SW weaved onto her that made it so that she left the Horde, because she can not give up on doing what is right and her frame of reference of that changed the second she realized the Horde was, well, evil.
That was so good. In S5Ep6, both characters called the parts that they love about each other (Catra being strong, Adora being a hero) in a negative way. When Catra realised if Adora left the room she'd have lost her forever (explored better in the Don't Go ficlet) she allowed herself to be vulnerable and surprise Adora. Their friendship and lost feelings did reset there. And the parallels, so fine.
Great trilogy of episodes that centers around Adora and Catra's complicated relationship. It shows both the good and the bad in their relationship, while ultimately showing their relationship getting worse before it has a chance to get better. Good retrospective look at these episodes and how their relationship is affected in these episodes.
Catra and Adora's relationship is my absolute favourite in any work of fiction. It starts out flawed due to the hostile environment, and soon becomes painful and antagonistic, but it is healed in the end, as the two people in it manage to get healed, because it always had a core of unconditional love that could never go away. That love is what was implied by the promise, and here we see their journey to rediscover and fully embrace their love for each other
I also really wish we got to see more of Adora’s intensely struggle and her perspective on the trauma with shadow weaver and how things went down with Catra. It’s so easy to say that the Golden Child doesn’t get hurt but I’m sure most of us know that is very much not the case. People tend to favour Catra because they believe she was the one that “deserves” to be pitied more, which I get why people think that as she was the one that seemed to be hurt more (and also Catra is an amazing character) but I truly feel that it would’ve been so beneficial to see more of the other side of the coin. To see Adora’s memories and perspective beyond the bits of dialogue on this we’re given from her. This show is absolutely amazing and it does a great job at storytelling. I really enjoyed this video and I love that it makes me think about the show so much deeper than I do
Adora's blind spot is duty. She thinks that if she does the right thing all the time, nothing can go wrong. Adora's problem is that she has grown up on reinforcement. "Be the best and you will be rewarded, fail and others suffer because of you." She needs to understand the gang are true friends and not people you need to protect. Adora also has a problem figuring out why Catra suddenly "changed" and became antagonistic. What is normal for Adora is not normal for Catra, their frame of reference is very different, Adora thinks her friendship-duty somehow remains, Catra can only see betrayal. It's only later when she loses She-Ra that she breaks down. It was such a big crutch to help her be even more dutiful to everyone around her, she almost breaks down trying to keep those impossibly high standards. Just because she was given a more positive reinforcement, doesn't mean Adora wasn't abused, it's only when she learns more about Mara and how she was used in a similar matter that the starts to figure out what went wrong. She was abused because of the immense expectations they had for her and she continued to see this in everyone else even if all they wanted was friendship without expectations.
@@rotwang2000 It's not even just unattainable expectations, its coupling them with the idea that her failure to achieve them will result in those she cares for suffering, originally Catra. The expectation that Adora can always control Catra to keep her from doing anything the utterly unreasonable Shadowweaver dislikes and when Catra inevitably runs afoul of Shadowweaver, Catra is tortured and Shadowweaver has installed it in Adora that it's Adora's fault. The person Adora most cares about is suffering because of her supposed failure. Physical torture of Catra used to emotionally torture Adora.
For me, the favoring of Catra is more of, she's obviously in pain and she gets a lot of flack for arguably good writing choices. I felt that Adora's conflict with Shadow Weaver in s5 was rushed and in s4 didn't get enough. While it was cool to have SW manipulate Glimmer, and smart that Adora avoided SW as much as possible, "smart" kind of hindered Adora's internal exploration in the long run. If it really mattered that Adora needed to hide her weaknesses, the story maybe should've been longer. I would've liked to see Adora's shortcomings be the cause of problems rather than just arguments or outbursts.
6:51 Truthfully, it did feel like Adora forgot about the promise they made to each other when she decided to leave the Horde. I know she never meant to break it but you could tell her priorities were somewhere else. ND Stevenson even said that one of the heartbreaking realisations Catra had in this moment was that her priorities & Adora’s weren’t the same 😔 And it was because by this point what Adora wanted (i.e staying WITH Catra) was not on the list of things she’d been told by others to proritise - their whole friendship wasn’t in fact. So no matter how much Adora wanted deep down to stay with Catra, that wasn’t gonna come above her duty as She-Ra, as duty itself was the thing that everyone - Horde/Rebellion/Princess Alliance & Light Hope told her to put first. I don’t even think Adora fully divulged to Glimmer & Bow just how much Catra meant to her during the course of the show (until ‘Stranded’ at least) due to the fact that Bow & (especially) Glimmer hated all things Horde & Glimmer (in the canon Fire Princess comic) encouraged Adora to not look back on her past & that she was better off with all the things in her new life……. If someone tells you to forget everything about a hard part of your life, including the things that still meant a lot to you - you’re not likely to confide in them that there are still some things you miss 😞
@@gracekim25 somewhere between seasons 2 & 3 - after they found out Entrapta switched sides but before Catra activated the portal. It’s basically a deleted ep that never got made in the show.
i think this is also because of Adoras personality though and also an extension of the promise. if Adora fulfilled her duties as a loyal member of the Horde, Catra is safe. in turn if she fulfilled her duties as She-Ra, Catra is also safe. it's not a shift in priorities per se, but Adora being always pressured to meet expectations to the point that she feels threatened by this. god this show has good writing
It would've been canon if the show went for Scorptra and Glimdora. It's obvious why it got scrapped as an episode. No turning back from there. Off to Canon B. @@sparxstreak02
Can I just say it’s nice to see She Ra videos still being done even years after the show ended? I just miss it and how big the fanbase was at one point so seeing these analysis gives me joy.
I just binge watched the whole series, and I’m SO glad there’s discussion still happening!! I love a good video essay, and this show has so much to talk about! 🥰
The writing of this show is incredible and so is the complexity of Catra and Adora’s relationship. It shows how hard it can be for two people who grew up in an abusive environment to communicate with each other due to the way memories are interpreted. Promise is memories interpreted in a way that causes division, Remember is kind of a forced relationship between two people who have grown apart, and Corridors is interpreting memories positively and the beginning of a new relationship. Whether or not it was intentional, the trilogy is a fascinating concept.
I think a big part of why we don't see more of Adora's perspective in these episodes is because Adora is actively repressing a lot of stuff surrounding The Promise and her feelings towards Catra. Shadow Weaver, Light Hope, and to a much lesser extent her friends in the Princess Alliance have all told her that she needs to focus on her duties, and she can't allow herself to be distracted by Catra. Adora buries her feelings under a dozen layers of duty armor, and rarely allows herself to acknowledge them. Whenever she does acknowledgeher desire to be with Catra, it still has to be filtered through her sense of duty. She wants Catra to be her second-in-command in the Horde. She wants Catra to join the Princess Alliance. It's the difference between "I want to be with Catra," and "I want being with Catra to be compatible with my duties." We only occasionally see flashes of how Adora feels deep down about her overwhelming sense of duty. The timesher frustration and deeply buried resentment boils over, like her angry rant upon finding the seemingly broken Mara hologram in "Once Upon A Time In The Waste." It's not until the final episodes that Adora wall of duty really starts to crack. It's why Catra's "What do you want, Adora?" cuts her so deeply: it makes her believe that doing the duties thrust upon her means she can't have what she wants. It would've been nice to see a bit more of Adora's struggle explicitly shown on-screen, but it's hard to convey someone not only repressing their emotions but refusing to acknowledge the feelings at all outside of a few outbursts. The more Adora's feelings get shown clearly to the audience, the harder it is to make it clear that Adora is burying them so deep she mostly refuses to acknowledge them.
This!! Just because Adora didn't lash out her frustrations as loudly as Catra did (esp in her villian days) doesn't mean Adora didn't go through her own sh**! Even the stronger ones have their limits!
I think adoras shift from "catra antagonizes shadow weaver which is why she's horrible to the extreme(tm) at Catra" to "shadow weaver is messed and we (specifically catra) never really did anything wrong" comes mostly through adoras arc with shadow weaver. When SW goes to brightmoon and starts interacting with adora, the first thing she does is try to bargain with her life and immediately goes for manipulating adora. Adora has several episodes of reflection on shadow weavers effect on her and on the people that she interacts with in general, which helps more than catra could.
I'll never forgive Glimmer for letting Weaver walk about the castle like she owned it. She knew that the witch hurt Adora and had a good idea at how evil she was when she shared her power to defeat Catra in S3. Yet she still let her in. At least Bow gave her the cold shoulder for a full episode.
oh my god - the fact that light hope manipulates catra by making her think that the *promise* was manipulative.... i'm devastated (but then i knew i'd be bawling when i clicked on the video)
I'm thinking now that Adora's relationship with Light Hope is much more significant than I realized, not just to drive the plot but as a mirror to her relationship with Shadow Weaver, and as a substitute for seeing Adora's childhood perspective more directly. Now I have to watch the whole show again...
I feel that Adora and Catra both consistently look for parental/mentor figures they can trust and count on and consistently aren't allowed to have that security. Catra tries to rebuild her relationship with Shadow Weaver to be more healthy and safe. She tries to build a relationship of trust, communication and equal power with hordak, and she even tries to ingratiate herself with Prime* at first. Adora actively avoids SW as someone she never felt safe with, but wants to perform the same role she had of taking on responsibility and hoping for praise (to put it simply). She acts the same way to Angela and Light Hope as she did with SW. She tries to get help/ learn from Razz and Mara too, but both figures are unreliable (she can't just reach out to them for help). It sounds scattered, and maybe it's partially because this style of media often refuses to let the main characters have a mentor, but I think it's intentional that every adult who could be a figure for healthy relationships is at a distance from both of them at best or actively harmful at worst. *with prime and the others Catra has around, unhealthy relationships are basically a guarantee just from where she is the way said people are also symbols of power that she's bound to want to outclass and have power dynamic issues with. With Angella and the others Adora has, Adora never really has a chance to be vulnerable in any way still and her duty as a hero always supercedes her needs as a teenager with trauma. The closest she gets is Angella's self sacrifice and Razz trying to guide her towards a positive relationship with the world and herself. (For the bulk of the show, she's instead getting encouraged to do her negative behaviors by folks like light hope and Angella (Angella has praise but also very high expectations and can't really parent her, like with shadow weaver)(and ofc light hope actively discourages connection, vulnerability and autonomous identity/decisions which are already the hard things for Adora)
You've touched on this trilogy in a couple other She-Ra videos, so I was absolutely delighted to see it getting a full analysis video. I had never really considered before how little we get of Adora's internalization through this process, but dang it, now I want it! I guess this was always Catra's arc to explore, so it makes sense for the show writers to focus on her. But you really opened the door to me wondering what Adora's personal journey through this was like. Perhaps we're meant to take her individual growth and struggle as the primary point-of-view character episode by episode as incremental breadcrumbs to her processing this arc as well. Questions for another video.
I love the exploration of light hope's intentional influence on catra's emotions. I somehow never realized the complete context for the simulated memories in promise!
Catra has a few moments in the show where she has the opportunity for a moment to think about what she's doing. Normally, circumstances then take away her ability to reflect on that by triggering her trauma. In the case of "Corridors", I think her reflection has a lot to do with the ending of S4 putting her in a position where she gets that opportunity again and S5 finding her stuck in a place where she can't be derailed. Catra's set up for this self-reflection by Double Trouble reminding her of it but-crucially-also forcing her to think about the flipside, about other people's perspectives on her and why they may have done the things they did. A moment of Catra staring at a reflection, not of herself but of other people . . . or rather, herself as reflected in those other people. Then she is stuck with Horde Prime and Glimmer, the former of whom she knows she can play to for a little while in the manner she's always played to threatening authority figures, but her falling out with Hordak and her interactions with Horde Prime show that this is not going to be a permanent solution anymore. She can't seek fake safety anymore. Something's got to change. What doesn't change is Catra's need for allies (read: would-be friends). Previously, she's always had someone like Adora or Scorpia around to be her equal (when things weren't falling apart) and thus her ally against threatening authority figures above them, and now Glimmer is that equal against Horde Prime. I think Catra already knew it, but Glimmer explicitly points it out, not letting Catra run away from that reality. Couple this with the fact that Double Trouble had forced Catra to think about how to interact with her allies (friends) in a manner that doesn't drive them away, and Catra has to think about what she can do for others, not just what they can do for her, which is when she remembers the flipside of the promise. I said that Catra is in a place where she can't be derailed in her reflection, but I think it's really more than that, because she's perfectly capable of self-derailment if given enough opportunity. I think that having the only contextual thing influencing her reflection be not her trauma but her desire for connection is, as you say, a factor in her ability to complete her process of reflection. And this time, she not only forges a true bond, but she's forced to think about other people's perspectives and what they want, not just what she wants. And so she goes and gives Adora what she thinks Adora wants, even if it means giving up everything that she wants.
15:41 Aside from seeing more things from Adora’s perspective, I also would’ve liked to have seen more of her coming to realise how her actions affected Catra (as we saw a bit of in ‘Save The Cat’) In ‘Taking Control’ we see Catra finally taking responsibility for her actions as well as her old toxic behaviour but we never see Adora do the same thing for her own past mistakes (& the one she makes in said ep) & she made a fair few (Glimmer even pointing out one of them). Aside from finally learning to listen instead of talking over Catra the way she used to up till then, Adora doesn’t directly out loud acknowledge any other faults she has, such as her lack of emotional awareness. We see her improve on this in subsequent eps but she never addresses it verbally. Both of them may have apologised individually to the other in different eps but when Adora apologised for leaving in ‘Promise’ she still didn’t understand why Catra felt so betrayed (don’t think she did until Prime had Catra under mind control) & when Catra apologised in ‘Corridors’ she didn’t think Adora would ever forgive her & was at her absolute lowest in terms of self worth. Neither had yet to come to true understanding of the other in either of these apologies. I’d give ANYTHING for a scene where the 2 have a heart to heart where they each acknowledge their past mistakes & what they should’ve done differently & apologising for it, with that understanding ❤️🩹 all while the Promise soundtrack plays over 🥺❤️🔥😭
I really do think that the trilogy was intentional, as least in a large sense if not the details. A big part of it is the use of the music, every time it's used it's different, building, like the story beats themselves, until the final turn in Corridors. I think that the usage of that song in the way it was points to at least a general desire to build a connected arc throughout the series. They might not have wanted a trilogy specifically, but I think that they wanted to have a series of connected episodes in general.
Me realizing this came out 8 months ago as I'm typing this makes me so ridiculously happy in hindsight, because as the show ended, the amount of media illiteracy in this fandom's analysis has grown. I can't go anywhere in this fandom without brain dead takes misinterpreting everything about Catra, Adora, and their relationship, refusing to see and analyze it in the complexity and nuance it deserves. No, She-Ra doesn't glorify abuse, shut up and get a brain and realize what this show is ACTUALLY saying (how to end the cycle of abuse and heal from trauma) and how these scenes ACTUALLY happened (because y'all leave out so much context and subtext in Catra's character you're just straight up ignoring things at this point). So, thank you, genuinely. Never stop making She-Ra content even to this day because we need it.
I discovered your channel recently and i love your She Ra Videos. I share some of your Points of view and is awesome find someone analyzing this series after 3 years of the S5 Ending.
Another fantastic analysis of this show, still we all love, as always wonderful work. Question, will you do an essay on Nimona? as is another great story written by Stevenson, wonder if you will someday check it and make an analysis video about it.
I would like to make a joke that we don't see Adora’s PoV about this because this absolute himbo hasn't got enough therapy (or braincells) to realise she needs to process that kind of stuff. This is not a negative comment, I love how dumb Adora can be (bc I relate) In reality, I reckon it's a combination of a lot of things. Catra was more of an "externalise my feelings by making it other people's problem/prove my independence with self-sabotage" person. Adora was a "shove all my feelings into a box and then tape the box shut and stuff it under a table and hopefully nothing bad will happen" sort. (Definitely don't relate to that at all... I swear.) She hopped from one predestined future to another. She just retooled her skills for the Rebellion instead of the Horde. She basically just swapped her allies and enemies, a simple ctrl+F, cut and paste. As far as I see it, the first time she took a major step in processing her (relative) abandonment of her friends was The Portal. *She tried to bring them with her this time.* I've seen some discourse that adora didn't go back for Catra or Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio. If The Portal doesn't show that she wishes she could have, I don't know what else would. She never wanted to abandon anyone, but flipping a brainwashed-from-birth worldview like that is no walk in the park, and Adora avoided it by playing The Role of "She-Ra". She-Ra was the Horde's enemy, and Catra knew the Horde was evil and didn’t leave with her, so she, too, must be her enemy. As far as Adora knows, she was the only one left in the dark about that fact, so rationalised that her whole cohort=enemy. Compartmentalisation to the extreme? It's only when she breaks the sword and "loses" She-Ra that she has to face things as Adora and start actually dealing with her issues. She still avoids it like the goddamn plague, but Catra wasn't lying when she said Adora never truly gave up on her. Breaking free of the Shadow Weaver Manipulation™️ via her death (rest in agony, witch) was really the final push she needed to relieve the last of the pressure of her past. I wish Adora could have found out that Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio had defected, but it would've been way too shoehorned in if they'd tried to do it, so I'm not mad about it. Now, once the series ended, I like to think they all got some goddamn therapy and are living mentally healthy, happy lives. Because I'm an optimist. And this comment turned into a saga of its own holy crap. Whoops. If you actually read this whole thing, thanks! But why? It's barely coherent, even by my standards
As a writer myself (and someone who really, really loves this show) I have to think it's actually pretty deliberate. Either way, great analysis here, thanks for making it!
I should really rewatch this show...What they did with Catra was simply amazing. Fascinating and painful to watch and just brilliant. But I'll admit I didn't notice how major Adora's issues were until the final season, so rewatching the series with it in mind would be worthwhile.
Thats the thing i love about adoras issues - they're there the whole time but don't feel like an issue until the end. When the Chosen One says "I have to be the one to do it" its like yeah, obviously. It's not until she's not the chosen one when you realise that's just adora...
I love your videos. They are so full of heart AND attention to technical details of a media you analyze. I’m especially impressed by all the attention to music, which adds to the understanding of the story so much! ❤
i never considered it like that tho i always noticed how those episodes mirrored each other, now i love it even more. poetic cinema ... btw thank you for still making she-ra related videos, it kinda hard to be a fan of it now when the fandom is much less active 💛😭
I love this show. Especially when a new video like this pops up. Everytime i think, well im not sure more anaysis can be done...theres another layer that i havent thought of. Makes me want to watch it for the 6th time all over again.
It depends what you mean by "intentional trilogy". Was Corridors deliberately written drawing on Promise and Remember? Absolutely. Were Remember and Corridors already planned when Promise was written? I have my doubts. It's telling that, looking at the writing credits, while Promise and Remember are credited to ND Stevenson himself (aside from a shared credit on Hero, Remember is the only episode from seasons 2-4 he wrote), Corridors isn't - he is credited with Save the Cat (and Heart part 2). If the three were conceived as a trilogy, rather than emerging as one with hindsight, you'd expect the same writer to handle all three.
I really enjoy your perspective and point of view on this. I usually don't think about things on more of deeper level, but I do enjoy hearing about it. As you said, maybe it wasn't inentional by writers, but what you said makes sense.
Adora and Catra are two Teens that get over years of Indoctrination and abuse. To some, their relationship, no matter if romantic in nature or not, can seem toxic as they both remind the other about the worst part of their respective pasts and the pain that went along with it, while i see it as a chance for both to heal from said past, wanting to be a better peron for the other and yourself. I love both of them and only hate that the show never portrayed Adora as missing Catra in S1 (besides her sneeking into Glimmers Bed because she couldn't sleep alone) while Catra was suffering because of her best friends betrayal
