Tag: dont do this to me

cruelfeline:

Y’know, every time I see people aghast at how vicious Catra becomes toward Adora as the season goes on, I have to take a moment. I get it: it’s a shock, and it’s hard to watch, and it makes Catra look like she’s gone mad, but listen here.

Y’all remember, in the first episode, when Catra’s complaining about Shadow Weaver’s treatment, and Adora offers the helpful suggestion that Catra is “kind of disrespectful”? 

Adora, between Shadow Weaver’s manipulation and her “softer” upbringing, had always viewed Horde life as strict, but ultimately fair.

I think it’s this realization, this concept, that breaks Catra once Adora leaves. It’s not just the defection. It’s not just a broken promise (though obviously, that didn’t help). 

It’s the idea that Adora finally saw that what the Horde did was evil… so she must not have found it evil before. Meaning that she did not find Catra’s treatment evil. Maybe she even found it fair. Maybe… she found it good, because it pushed Catra down and ensured that she, Adora, would continue being the golden child. 

It wasn’t just a broken promise, it was a lie, a collection of lies accompanied by years of keeping Catra weakened and afraid and easy to beat. This is what she talks about in the First Ones’ temple, and this is what ultimately fuels her cruelty.

Y’all see those leaps of logic? Obviously none of them are true. 

They’re not true, but they’re the ones that Catra makes. Because of their different upbringings, because of the rivalry manufactured between the two of them, because of Catra’s repressed resentment, these are the leaps of logic she makes. They’re clearly wrong to us, but to a child in her position, they make a sick, awful sort of sense.

It’s easy for us to see because we’re seeing the whole situation from an outside perspective, but for a child that has lived it, whose one safe relationship has been tainted by years of manipulation, a child who is now isolated and lonely and in emotional shock… it’s a lot harder.