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She-Ra: Destroyer Of Toxic Relationships
The warrior princess slayed her Ex.
At the heart of the Dreamworks reboot of the cartoon She-Ra, is a story about two friends — Adora (Aimee Carrero) and Catra (AJ Michalka) — coping with trauma. The two warriors were raised by the imperialist empire known as The Horde, an organization whose sole purpose has been to assist emperor Hordak in conquering the planet of Etheria. Adora has attempted to move past the trauma of her abusive homeland by aiding the resistance (i.e., the Princess Alliance) in taking on the mantle of the sword-wielding She-Ra. Catra, the series’ main antagonist, has doubled down with helping The Horde. She has done so in a futile attempt to redirect the pain that has been dealt to her right back at the world.
In this latest season, Adora — who has thus far desperately wanted to reform Catra — confronts her former best friend about her destructive behavior. She stops taking responsibility for Catra’s warped way of thinking, and in the process, demonstrates to young children the way to deal with abusers who gaslight you: cut the cord.
The relationship between Catra and Adora has always been unhealthy. The two were raised in an abusive environment known as the Fright Zone, which churns out child soldiers for The Horde’s war effort. Life for Catra and Adora was spartan, daily repetitions of war exercises and propaganda. It was hard, and the two consequently became codependent. As Adora says in a flashback as a child in episode 11 of Season 1:
YOUNG ADORA: It doesn’t matter what they do to us. You look out for me, I look out for you. Nothing bad can happen if we have each other.
In the few scenes we see of the two in the Fright Zone, Catra is possessive, quick to react with anger, and generally demanding of Adora’s time. She abandons Adora at training exercises, and Catra unfairly blames Adora for outpassing her in rank. She frames every action in relation to how it affects her.
When Adora “leaves” The Horde to join the resistance as a freedom fighter, Catra percieves this philosophically-driven decision as a personal attack on her. She labels Adora as the “bad guy” because the alternative would be to unpack her trauma. Adora is either with Catra or against her.
