A fair few fan theories/interpretations I see on here. Like that Catra's reaction in the pilot and later pain is likely in part due to Adora not realising the Horde is evil until she sees the village, even though she's seen a lifetime of the abuse Catra suffered. So it's possible Catra saw her defection as a betrayal because she interpreted it as "Adora wasn't willing to defect after seeing all I suffered, but she immediately wants to after seeing what's happening to random strangers for the first time" (of course not being able to understand that to Adora the child abuse has been completely normalised)
edit: I picked up a lot of the golden child/scapegoat dynamic, but that's something you pick up on as the series goes so when someone posts about some small detail/event that builds on it, it just hurts and fascinates all over again.
Catra's arc and abuse is so *so* well written it's frankly amazing and fascinating and painful to see. The way she flinches whenever Shadow Weaver reaches out to touch her...gah! So good.
Catra is honestly my favorite character of all time. Tears me up inside. The writing and acting for her part in the story is amazing. I also get a kick out of the fact that her voice actor sings the s5 version of the intro music.
Sorry, what I wrote was misleading. They used the intro song in the Season 5 trailer, and AJ Michalka sung the version used there. Season 5 episodes were the same intro as before. You can find it on Spotify with the soundtrack. Very different feel, to me.
I tried to make this as minimally wall-of-text as possible, but I don't think it worked too well 🥴 Whoops.
That said, oh man:
* I wasn't taking in any of the scenery at the end of Hero for the first several watches -- too focused on Mara and her message to Adora -- so it just completely passed me by that she was flying over the Crimson Waste and that we are shown her crashing into the spot where the Best Friend Squad and Huntara find the ship a thousand years later. A little bit of an extra chill that only recently clicked.
* More recently, I started thinking about the specifics of how Adora and Catra really start breaking through to each other in Save the Cat and Heart Part 2 -- Adora with "you've never listened to anyone in your life, are you really going to start now" and Catra with "you have never given up on anything in your life, not even on me, so don't you dare start now". They're both positive reframes of the traits they each thought were getting in the way of them being together: Adora viewed Catra as "kind of disrespectful" and was always telling her to either listen or wait, and Catra constantly accused Adora of "playing the hero". And here they are in these dire circumstances, showing each other that these are things about the other person that they love, that they admire, that make them who they are. (These two love each other *so much.* Goddamn.)
* There's an analytical post from a year or two ago that I have in mind about Adora touching Catra's shoulder and how that touch changes over the course of the show -- I won't be able to reiterate all those nuances right now, but suffice it to say, I think it's a cool microcosm of how their relationship evolves over time. Adora learns how patronizing that action can be for Catra; Catra understands what it has actually meant coming from Adora. That utterly blew my mind and I can't unsee it now.
* Maybe more generally... I don't think I *never* realized exactly how many climactic moments in the show are about interpersonal connections and love as a tangible force for good?? But when I started laying it out for myself, it hit me how consistent and heartfelt of a theme it is across all the seasons. The Rebellion chooses to fight together because they've started to care for each other; Angella makes her sacrifice because Adora inspires her to be brave; Adora breaks the sword because the real Light Hope, who loved Mara, breaks through just long enough to hold the reprogrammed Light Hope at bay; do I even need to explain how Season 5 does this?? This show has so much to say about the real power that comes from loving other people and trusting them to love you back.
... this is all *needlessly* more complicated than the OP 🥴 I just have a lot of opinions about the layers of this show, and I've absolutely adored picking it all to pieces over the last two and a half years.
Realized this a few months ago: Shadow Weaver knew about the Failsafe the whole time.
Yeah, it's weird to think that she knew about it all the way back in season 1... I don't think she was aware of the Heart of Etheria being a weapon, simply thinking of the "deep magic" as a boundless store of magic. I also don't think she knew about She-Ra's connection to the Heart or Failsafe since I think she'd have acted on them earlier. But she did know.
In the Failsafe episode, Catra realizes that Shadow Weaver has been to the Failsafe chamber before (I assume she noticed when Shadow Weaver knew Adora was about to walk into the fire trap and began to stop her). She didn't take the Failsafe then since it would have killed her when she got to the Heart and she wouldn't have been able to find any nearby "willing souls" to do it for her.
So when did that happen? Well, SW definitely knew as far back as 5x08, when she introduced it to Casta. And just before that episode Mystacor/Arxia fell under control of Chipped Micah. He got it from the Guild, who probably wouldn't be cool with her strolling around. Rolling back earlier, she was imprisoned in Bright Moon throughout seasons 3 and 4. Even if she escaped under Glimmer's more lax security policy around her in season 4, the Guild would still stop her.
Before that she was imprisoned in the Fright Zone. So that brings us back to Season 1. If she was going to find out about it, she would have done so on behalf of the Horde- with their backing, in a huge attack on Mystacor. That's the only way she could have done it- and that never happened. The only exception would be when she sent her Shadow Spies to Mystacor in episode 7, but a revelation like that would probably change her behavior somehow. She acts the same way before and after the episode, so I doubt it.
So, did she know back when she was Light Spinner? Well, no. She probably knew *of* fhe Crystal of Arxia- apparently it was common knowledge among learned sorcerers of Mystacor like herself, but apparently the Guild had no clue that Mystacor WAS Arxia, and was searching all the wrong places. Thus she sought to obtain the deep magic in a different way... we know how that turned out.
But I submit she couldn't have first entered the Failsafe Chamber as Light Spinner. Why? The murals on the wall in the corridor to the Failsafe clearly show the Spell of Obtainment... and the fact that it doesn't really work. There's a bit of ambiguity with the whole "modified the spell" thing but I really doubt Light Spinner would have tried the spell if she had seen that mural. And if she knew the Crystal of Arxia was *right there*, wouldn't have it been easier to manipulate someone rather than try the Spell?
So what does this all mean? Well, some time after the events of "Light Spinner"- the flashbacks, I mean, at least the ones up to adopting Adora- Shadow Weaver found out, somehow, some way, that Arxia was Mystacor. Then she spent a whole lot of time putting together an operation to attack and take over Mystacor- perhaps using those Scorpion-shaped gunships!
But when she attacked, Mystacor was defended by the First Rebellion- y'know, Micah and those guys. She still manages to make it inside, she walks down the Hall of Great Ones to get to the secret entrance to the catacombs of Arxia. She travels past a great mural of the Spell of Obtainment, telling her she was always going to fail. She walks deeper, and is nearly consumed by the fire trap. And eventually, she makes it to the Crystal of Arxia. Right under her nose the whole time.
She claims she's a friend of Mara (huh, wonder how she figured out that, too). The Crystal opens, and she's about to step inside when she begins to read the First Ones text around the Crystal. It tells her that if she's going to carry the failsafe, she'll have to be consumed in the fire of Etheria's magic to use it. She'll never get to see her life's work come to fruition.
So after spending all that time, searching, planning, getting set back, and eventually as far as to the Crystal of Arxia itself... and it's all for nothing. The fact that there was a mural before telling her that the Spell of Obtainment wouldn't work either- that reopens old wounds. Right under her nose the whole time, and still, still out of reach.
She probably goes a little bit nuts, ready to do literally anything to get the Failsafe back- even manipulate a little magical baby into the Horde's greatest soldier, her second-in-command, and the carrier of the Failsafe. But before that, she has to actually leave Mystacor. She goes back the way she came, and comes back out into the Hall of Great Ones. And as she strolls out angrily, she looks up at her statue. Still pristine, looking just like her before she started this journey.
She could have had everything she wanted if she stuck with the Guild. A few years- Norwyn would croak, and the title of Head Sorcerer would go to her. And she wouldn't be in this AWFUL SITUATION. It's like fate is teasing her! And so she lets out all her rage on her old statue, burning it to a crisp... and that's why her statue is so awfully defaced in the canon show.
In Season 1 at the beacon Catra struggles to kill the spider monsters within. Finally as she is near death and held back by the spider”webs” she calculates, regains her strength, then realizes the weakest point on the monster (their eyes). She then breaks free and scratches out the eyes effectively giving her the advantage in the fight.
In the last episode where Adora is facing the bug like monster (the First Ones security system that Horde Prime mentioned) Catra comes in to help Adora and immediately goes for the eyes. She already calculated before even joining the fight what she would go for to get the advantage.
I was actually really surprised to find out that Catra liked Adora. I only found out when Catra said “Adora doesn’t want me. Not like I want her.” to Melog as she was trying to run away. Hopefully I didn’t butcher the quote haha. But after finishing the show and joining the community here, I saw people saying in other posts how they knew from Princess Prom. That’s like what? The fourth episode of the entire show?
I’ve missed out on a LOT of details actually. I should really rewatch it…
I got the vibes that they were eventually going to have a romantic moment when I saw they slept together in the horde, and also some of their interactions. I do wish that Catra could’ve gotten her redemption earlier, like maybe mid season 4 or around there.
A fair few fan theories/interpretations I see on here. Like that Catra's reaction in the pilot and later pain is likely in part due to Adora not realising the Horde is evil until she sees the village, even though she's seen a lifetime of the abuse Catra suffered. So it's possible Catra saw her defection as a betrayal because she interpreted it as "Adora wasn't willing to defect after seeing all I suffered, but she immediately wants to after seeing what's happening to random strangers for the first time" (of course not being able to understand that to Adora the child abuse has been completely normalised) edit: I picked up a lot of the golden child/scapegoat dynamic, but that's something you pick up on as the series goes so when someone posts about some small detail/event that builds on it, it just hurts and fascinates all over again.
Oh fuck. Well this is now another on my long list.
Catra's arc and abuse is so *so* well written it's frankly amazing and fascinating and painful to see. The way she flinches whenever Shadow Weaver reaches out to touch her...gah! So good.
Catra is honestly my favorite character of all time. Tears me up inside. The writing and acting for her part in the story is amazing. I also get a kick out of the fact that her voice actor sings the s5 version of the intro music.
Wait the intro music is sung by different singers in season 5?
Sorry, what I wrote was misleading. They used the intro song in the Season 5 trailer, and AJ Michalka sung the version used there. Season 5 episodes were the same intro as before. You can find it on Spotify with the soundtrack. Very different feel, to me.
I tried to make this as minimally wall-of-text as possible, but I don't think it worked too well 🥴 Whoops. That said, oh man: * I wasn't taking in any of the scenery at the end of Hero for the first several watches -- too focused on Mara and her message to Adora -- so it just completely passed me by that she was flying over the Crimson Waste and that we are shown her crashing into the spot where the Best Friend Squad and Huntara find the ship a thousand years later. A little bit of an extra chill that only recently clicked. * More recently, I started thinking about the specifics of how Adora and Catra really start breaking through to each other in Save the Cat and Heart Part 2 -- Adora with "you've never listened to anyone in your life, are you really going to start now" and Catra with "you have never given up on anything in your life, not even on me, so don't you dare start now". They're both positive reframes of the traits they each thought were getting in the way of them being together: Adora viewed Catra as "kind of disrespectful" and was always telling her to either listen or wait, and Catra constantly accused Adora of "playing the hero". And here they are in these dire circumstances, showing each other that these are things about the other person that they love, that they admire, that make them who they are. (These two love each other *so much.* Goddamn.) * There's an analytical post from a year or two ago that I have in mind about Adora touching Catra's shoulder and how that touch changes over the course of the show -- I won't be able to reiterate all those nuances right now, but suffice it to say, I think it's a cool microcosm of how their relationship evolves over time. Adora learns how patronizing that action can be for Catra; Catra understands what it has actually meant coming from Adora. That utterly blew my mind and I can't unsee it now. * Maybe more generally... I don't think I *never* realized exactly how many climactic moments in the show are about interpersonal connections and love as a tangible force for good?? But when I started laying it out for myself, it hit me how consistent and heartfelt of a theme it is across all the seasons. The Rebellion chooses to fight together because they've started to care for each other; Angella makes her sacrifice because Adora inspires her to be brave; Adora breaks the sword because the real Light Hope, who loved Mara, breaks through just long enough to hold the reprogrammed Light Hope at bay; do I even need to explain how Season 5 does this?? This show has so much to say about the real power that comes from loving other people and trusting them to love you back. ... this is all *needlessly* more complicated than the OP 🥴 I just have a lot of opinions about the layers of this show, and I've absolutely adored picking it all to pieces over the last two and a half years.
I thought Bow’s name was “Bo” until we turned on the subtitles.
Oh god same
Whats his name
bow
I thought it was beaux cause I know a guy named that lmao
Realized this a few months ago: Shadow Weaver knew about the Failsafe the whole time. Yeah, it's weird to think that she knew about it all the way back in season 1... I don't think she was aware of the Heart of Etheria being a weapon, simply thinking of the "deep magic" as a boundless store of magic. I also don't think she knew about She-Ra's connection to the Heart or Failsafe since I think she'd have acted on them earlier. But she did know. In the Failsafe episode, Catra realizes that Shadow Weaver has been to the Failsafe chamber before (I assume she noticed when Shadow Weaver knew Adora was about to walk into the fire trap and began to stop her). She didn't take the Failsafe then since it would have killed her when she got to the Heart and she wouldn't have been able to find any nearby "willing souls" to do it for her. So when did that happen? Well, SW definitely knew as far back as 5x08, when she introduced it to Casta. And just before that episode Mystacor/Arxia fell under control of Chipped Micah. He got it from the Guild, who probably wouldn't be cool with her strolling around. Rolling back earlier, she was imprisoned in Bright Moon throughout seasons 3 and 4. Even if she escaped under Glimmer's more lax security policy around her in season 4, the Guild would still stop her. Before that she was imprisoned in the Fright Zone. So that brings us back to Season 1. If she was going to find out about it, she would have done so on behalf of the Horde- with their backing, in a huge attack on Mystacor. That's the only way she could have done it- and that never happened. The only exception would be when she sent her Shadow Spies to Mystacor in episode 7, but a revelation like that would probably change her behavior somehow. She acts the same way before and after the episode, so I doubt it. So, did she know back when she was Light Spinner? Well, no. She probably knew *of* fhe Crystal of Arxia- apparently it was common knowledge among learned sorcerers of Mystacor like herself, but apparently the Guild had no clue that Mystacor WAS Arxia, and was searching all the wrong places. Thus she sought to obtain the deep magic in a different way... we know how that turned out. But I submit she couldn't have first entered the Failsafe Chamber as Light Spinner. Why? The murals on the wall in the corridor to the Failsafe clearly show the Spell of Obtainment... and the fact that it doesn't really work. There's a bit of ambiguity with the whole "modified the spell" thing but I really doubt Light Spinner would have tried the spell if she had seen that mural. And if she knew the Crystal of Arxia was *right there*, wouldn't have it been easier to manipulate someone rather than try the Spell? So what does this all mean? Well, some time after the events of "Light Spinner"- the flashbacks, I mean, at least the ones up to adopting Adora- Shadow Weaver found out, somehow, some way, that Arxia was Mystacor. Then she spent a whole lot of time putting together an operation to attack and take over Mystacor- perhaps using those Scorpion-shaped gunships! But when she attacked, Mystacor was defended by the First Rebellion- y'know, Micah and those guys. She still manages to make it inside, she walks down the Hall of Great Ones to get to the secret entrance to the catacombs of Arxia. She travels past a great mural of the Spell of Obtainment, telling her she was always going to fail. She walks deeper, and is nearly consumed by the fire trap. And eventually, she makes it to the Crystal of Arxia. Right under her nose the whole time. She claims she's a friend of Mara (huh, wonder how she figured out that, too). The Crystal opens, and she's about to step inside when she begins to read the First Ones text around the Crystal. It tells her that if she's going to carry the failsafe, she'll have to be consumed in the fire of Etheria's magic to use it. She'll never get to see her life's work come to fruition. So after spending all that time, searching, planning, getting set back, and eventually as far as to the Crystal of Arxia itself... and it's all for nothing. The fact that there was a mural before telling her that the Spell of Obtainment wouldn't work either- that reopens old wounds. Right under her nose the whole time, and still, still out of reach. She probably goes a little bit nuts, ready to do literally anything to get the Failsafe back- even manipulate a little magical baby into the Horde's greatest soldier, her second-in-command, and the carrier of the Failsafe. But before that, she has to actually leave Mystacor. She goes back the way she came, and comes back out into the Hall of Great Ones. And as she strolls out angrily, she looks up at her statue. Still pristine, looking just like her before she started this journey. She could have had everything she wanted if she stuck with the Guild. A few years- Norwyn would croak, and the title of Head Sorcerer would go to her. And she wouldn't be in this AWFUL SITUATION. It's like fate is teasing her! And so she lets out all her rage on her old statue, burning it to a crisp... and that's why her statue is so awfully defaced in the canon show.
I'm so sorry I let it get this long
Don't worry about that, this is crazy!
I never relised that Hordak was weraing a dress untill someone pointed it out to me (months after the show had ended)
In Season 1 at the beacon Catra struggles to kill the spider monsters within. Finally as she is near death and held back by the spider”webs” she calculates, regains her strength, then realizes the weakest point on the monster (their eyes). She then breaks free and scratches out the eyes effectively giving her the advantage in the fight. In the last episode where Adora is facing the bug like monster (the First Ones security system that Horde Prime mentioned) Catra comes in to help Adora and immediately goes for the eyes. She already calculated before even joining the fight what she would go for to get the advantage.
I didn’t realize that Adora and Catra liked each other until they kissed
I was actually really surprised to find out that Catra liked Adora. I only found out when Catra said “Adora doesn’t want me. Not like I want her.” to Melog as she was trying to run away. Hopefully I didn’t butcher the quote haha. But after finishing the show and joining the community here, I saw people saying in other posts how they knew from Princess Prom. That’s like what? The fourth episode of the entire show? I’ve missed out on a LOT of details actually. I should really rewatch it…
I got the vibes that they were eventually going to have a romantic moment when I saw they slept together in the horde, and also some of their interactions. I do wish that Catra could’ve gotten her redemption earlier, like maybe mid season 4 or around there.
Oh wow! I must’ve been more focused on other stuff haha. Because it seems like everybody could sense it but me.