i’ve talked a lot about catra being the scapegoat, but now i want to talk about adora being the golden child. it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, that’s for sure.
when adora was a child, shadow weaver told her that she was responsible for catra’s behavior, and by extension, her punishments. no, adora wouldn’t be punished for it, but catra would, and that was probably worse. this likely instilled the idea that, if catra got hurt because she “misbehaved” (read: did normal kid things), then it was actually adora’s fault–not catra’s (which it isn’t) nor shadow weaver’s (which it is). if catra suffered, then it was because adora wasn’t trying hard enough–to distract shadow weaver with her own accomplishments or convince catra to stay in line or whatever.
catra completely misinterpreted this, assuming that adora enjoyed this favoritism. is this the reaction of someone who enjoys being the golden child, or is this the reaction of someone who’s terrified?
a lot of people have assumed that adora’s behavior is arrogant, but i think it’s actually just…what she’s been told and taught–
–that she’s important, but not necessarily useful unless she’s doing everything the “right” way. sometimes, being important isn’t actually very comforting; it just gives you more power to make mistakes and let people down.
shadow weaver gave adora the illusion of control over more than her own behavior, and when that illusion crumbled, adora was left with…herself, and a sword. it’s no wonder that she clung to the sword as a source of validation and importance, a way for her to actually help people.
this also explains why she feels such strong guilt for anything bad that happens around her, which light hope recognizes and exploits. all adora wants to do is protect her friends (and, y’know, etheria–no pressure though), but what if she only hurts them? she’s convinced that she does have the power to save everyone, that she is important enough to do everything, and yet, she fails, again and again. even when she has the physical power to throw things around, she can’t heal plumeria’s tree or glimmer’s abilities, because she’s just not good enough.
being the golden child, being told that you’re special and amazing and perfect…a lot of people buckle under that pressure and end up paralyzed by fear that they can’t truly accomplish anything.
luckily, adora has found friends who truly do not blame her for not being able to save everyone, and she finds the strength to get up again and try.
This is actually really interesting and I love this
When Adora first left the Horde she told Catra she was leaving because the Horde was evil, did monstrous things to innocent people, and had been lying to them the whole time. And Catra responded, “what, you didn’t know?”.
And there’s so much to unpack there, but what really killed me was when I thought about why that was. Why was Catra so cynical when Adora bought the propaganda?
It’s because of how they were raised. Shadowweaver raised both of them abusively, but they got different flavors of abuse. Adora was the Golden Child and Catra was the Scapegoat. They were both abused, but Catra caught the brunt of the most violent abuse. She knew the Horde hurt innocent people because she was one of them.
And that puts a whole new twist on how angry Catra was when Adora wanted to leave. When Adora said “what the Horde is doing is wrong and we should leave because of it”, Catra’s response wasn’t really “you’re just learning the Horde hurts innocent people now?” it was, “it wasn’t enough to make you leave when they hurt me?”.
That’s why she’s so angry. From her perspective, Adora was willing to leave the Horde because of what they did to these random people they’d never met before. But she’d never offered to do the same for her.
Catra refused to go with Adora because, just by asking, she broke her heart.
konekorambles 