Choosing to live - Adora's powerful S5 arc
Adora has one of the most impressive arcs I’ve seen for a main character in Season 5 of She-Ra. The common character arc for a protagonist is building them up for a heroic sacrifice. In the case of Adora, her arc is all about walking her down from making that decision.
Catra’s trauma and abuse is a common discussion point; but seldom talked about is the abuse Adora goes through. Every authority figure in Adora’s life since she was taken from birth, has been raising and molding her to be the perfect soldier. It starts with the actions of Shadow Weaver. When Adora makes a mistake, she is not the one that is punished, it is Catra. Of course, this has a lot of ramifications on Catra and her trauma, but it also affects Adora. It teaches Adora to put the blame on herself, lowering her own self esteem, and making her life feel less valuable.
The tragedy of course is that this doesn’t end when she leaves the Horde. Light Hope is acting not out of love for Adora, but an attempt to make her the perfect tool for the Heart of Etheria. Both of these authority figures, who are immensely important for a young woman with no parents, are not motivated by their love for Adora - but rather how they can use her. This affects how Adora perceives herself: she only places value in herself to others in what she can provide for them.
This is where Adora starts her season 5 arc, but it only begins to change once Catra is brought back. Catra is a very important figure for Adora, because she represents love not utility. We understand the reason why Shadow Weaver and Light Hope try to split the two up as being: Catra makes Adora weaker. Which, from their perspective, is true. But in reality, Catra makes Adora stronger and that’s why they don’t want her around. When they go to acquire the failsafe in episode 11, nobody questions Shadow Weaver telling Adora to take it. But Catra does, and that’s when she reveals that no regular person has a chance at withstanding it, but Adora, or rather She-Ra does. Listen carefully though to her word choice:
"Only She-Ra can hope to survive it. "
It’s not even a guarantee that she will. And that’s why Catra gets so mad and runs off when Adora takes it, saying:
“It doesn’t always have to be you!”
And that is the most important line for Adora's character in season 5. Catra is the only one trying to make Adora, and I’ll say it how it is, Catra is the only one trying to make Adora not kill herself. You can justify Adora’s actions by saying she thinks she will survive, but that justification is erased once her and Catra make it to the heart. When Adora tells Catra that she is not going to make it. To me, this comes off as Adora accepting a truth she had been hiding from, rather than a consequence of her not being able to transform. Consider that maybe the reason Adora couldn’t transform is because she wanted or thought she wanted to die. That’s what Mara is trying to save Adora from in their conversation, her need to self-sacrifice.
What saves Adora is Catra finally giving her purpose outside of what she has been raised to think. Adora, since her childhood, had been conditioned to believe her purpose is to serve the ‘cause’ even if that means dying in the process. When Catra confesses her love, it makes Adora realize she has desires outside of this, and it saves her from almost certain death.
On a second viewing, Adora attempting to make Catra go away in the finale becomes a lot more dark. Because if Catra had listened, Adora would have died. It’s an important lesson: sometimes loving someone does not mean blindly trusting and listening to them, but saving them from making terrible decisions. Adora was raised to be a soldier, nearly died trying to be the hero, and lived because she was more than that.
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