yknow that moment in she-ra season 5 when catra zaps glimmer into space and bow catches her and adora reels her in? when bow holds onto glimmer so tightly and the abruptly lets her go to be mad?
adora says that bow missed glimmer so much and was so focused on getting her back that he hadn't processed all his stuff - yknow feelings about glimmer almost destroying the world. but I think there's another layer to it.
bow holds glimmer for the first time in too long, having spent weeks afraid he'd lose her, and realises just how deeply he loves her, how he always wants her close, how he wants to hold on and never let go again.
and in that same moment, he is confronted with the truth: that glimmer chose a destructive path that invited horde prime's invasion and almost cost innumerable lives, only circumvented by adora's actions.
these are huge oppositional feelings that he can't reconcile at first. because glimmer did a big, bad thing, and yet he can't help but love her.
he is confronted by his own capacity for unconditional love. and he needs to take the time and space to process the hurt before he can trust her again, before he can love her well.
honestly i thought this was going to lead into how it's actually a parallel to catradora (despite the fact that moment hadn't happened yet at the time) when adora and catra hug tightly after invading prime's ship since they hadn't had a proper positive interaction in three years and missed each other dearly, but despite the former forgiving the latter just about immediately she still understands that her childhood best friend had chosen a destructive path that helped hordak and worked for prime's easier discovery of etheria and probably cost innumerable lives, only to be eventually turned around very late by glimmer's convincing.
i think adora reconciled with this mirroring confliction much better than bow did simply because she understood the harsh environment catra had been molded by all her life and was there to witness and attempt to pacify it a little, even when she was still ignorant to how shadow weaver's abuse divided and conquered them both similarly and differently (hence her subtle remark in S1E1 as well their climactic argument back in S1E2 before parting ways) until after they were all back on etheria again searching for the failsafe once she finally grasped catra's anger and "disrespect" towards their shared mother/mentor figure fully. i do believe she had somewhat realized this sooner (i.e. S3E1) but it fully clicked with witnessing catra's side from a new perspective.
anyway, i may have turned a glimbow post into a catradora one but it's hard not to mention how well they parallel each other so much! i hope it was obvious that i tried to connect back to the original by re-using their wording in the first paragraph.
