this is about how opening up the portal was actually the logical and, by some frameworks, moral choice, but im gonna talk about the thoughts i have leading to it first before we get to expanding on the tags from my post where i got emo over catra smiling in season five lmao
i've been rewatching she-ra with the flex server and we're doing it in a weekly format (2 eps each) which has been a suuuuuuuper interesting way to engage with the show, and really makes certain story beats hit different. like rewatching it made me realize how truly Okayest Parent and Failing Monarch angella is. i remembered her inaction and her harsh moments but ultimately remembered her as someone loving, but rewatching it this way it becomes obvious that the only time she really makes the correct call - tactically or emotionally - is when she doesn't stop someone else from doing it. and that's rare, she watched over a standstill for twenty years for a reason and she tried to stop them from rescuing glimmer from being tortured in the fright zone because she was too afraid. but that's not the point of this post, actually, because the point is the rewatch stopped just before Remember/The Portal last week and oh goddddddd did it make me stew
just rewatching all of season 3 again, you're sitting there every week watching catra attempt to commit suicide over and over. the thing i've always said about catra is that she's a survivor, but this rewatch has really highlighted that she's a survivor because of the sunk cost fallacy. that term comes up a lot when people are talking about her actions in season four or why she didn't defect, but it comes up so much earlier than that, because season 3 demonstrates it's the only reason she's alive.
catra has gone through physical, mental, and emotional torture at the hands of just about everyone in her life (like, i think the only one who has never harmed her is kyle and MAYBE rogelio). like adora literally breaks her ribs in the battle of bright moon. entrapta befriends the man who has been torturing her for years and stays friends with him as he leaves her to die in the desert (i know catra did so wrong by entrapta, but if you look at the timeline entrapta chooses hordak over her, and without any of the provocation catra has. love that purple girl just like my catgirl tho). if a man did the things scorpia does to catra, you would want him in jail, but everyone looks the other way because scorpia is a "nice girl" ("good guy") so her actions aren't examined as closely as catra's, which is where the thesis of this post is going so hang on a second
catra was "spared" her execution by having it merely extended to dying of exposure in the desert, but every "bold" move she makes in the waste that lets her rise to power is just her not caring if she dies, because she thinks she's dying anyway, and she thinks there is nothing worse than this. the other outlaws of the waste aren't scared of her because she's powerful, they're scared of her because they think she's fucking crazy - because they know there's no one more dangerous than someone with nothing to lose.
and then you get to the moment where opening the portal was actually decided: when shadow weaver tortures her during the invasion of the fright zone. the way catra started blacking out, blinking in and out of reality as her body moves on autopilot, the moment that adora mentioned shadow weaver was in bright moon (never said she was a prisoner btw, she in fact immediately shows that they trust her information at the least) back in the crimson waste, shows how deeply shadow weaver has traumatized catra.
the show just kind of moves past the torture because it has to or it would be rated r, but catra was physically tortured, electrocuted, magically thrown around, and told she was only alive because adora liked her since she was a little kid by shadow weaver. even hordak isn't creative enough to be that cruel. but, like scorpia, shadow weaver can win people over. like to be clear people do fucking hate her but she knows how to talk smooth enough that people still form emotional attachments to her and she gets away with it (it's how catra got betrayed and executed, after all, a fact shadow weaver immediately dismisses as catra failing at the start of this scene).
the moment the lever got pulled is before catra actually made it to the sanctum, and it's also that moment where the morality shifts to actually justify it, too, because it's the moment shadow weaver tortures catra, in front of the rebellion, using the rebellion's own magic, and no one protests. bow does say to stop, but he says shadow weaver is taking too much magic because he's worried about glimmer. no one says don't torture. not even don't torture catra - don't torture people on principle, something bow once claimed they had
that's supposed to be the good guys? the people who take in - literally - a baby torturer who leaves people for dead? the people who let shadow weaver hurt not only catra but glimmer too just so she can have more power to hurt catra with, proving that being part of the rebellion doesn't even make you any safer from your fellow soldiers than being part of the horde? the people who, as far as catra knows, let shadow weaver walk around freely despite claiming they had some kind of moral high ground?
there are no good guys left in the world from catra's perspective. the rebellion is just the horde in another coat of paint if they'll let shadow weaver in. yes, catra knows there are civilians that get hurt in the war and she knows the horde is evil because she has experienced that evil, but she also has experienced evil at the rebellion's hands, and this is the moment where she decides there is nothing left to fight for. there is no promised land. this is the moment where the fallacy hits the bottom of the floor.
there are only three options in this scenario, with this knowledge. you roll over, and you let the people who have tortured you win and put the most vile of your tormentors in a position of power over you before you get lined up for an execution right after fighting your way out of the last one, or you activate your secret not-weapon (cannot emphasize enough it's not a weapon, catra is not pulling a trigger when she turns on the portal) and you win and at that point it doesn't matter that both sides are wrong because at least the fighting is over, or... option three. it's just option two, but the warning was right and you all die. and if life is being tortured on every side no matter what, only a select few saved from the pain by virtue of just being so special that everyone loves them, is that even a bad outcome? is it?
yes, it's murder-suicide. but at that point it makes perfect sense with the outlook and facts she has, because don't forget, she has no reason to think adora is right. adora doesn't know shit about tech, much less portals. light hope catra already knows is full of shit. entrapta and hordak are the only ones who should know anything about this, and when catra decides to pull the lever, neither of them have expressed ANY concern about the portal. entrapta doesn't say anything until after catra has already made her decision. you don't see the shots from catra's pov of her blacking out and her body moving anyway like you do in the crimson waste when she decides to go back to the horde, but you actually see it happening still, just from the external pov. her body moves to taze entrapta and she only sees what has happened after entrapta falls, and then she completely panics and makes the wrong, wrong, wrong choice, but continuing forward to activate the portal? it's as much the sunk cost fallacy as it is downright logical with the facts she has at the time. entrapta already picked hordak over catra, of course she would pick the rebellion over catra now, even shadow weaver did. maybe she's wrong too. she's not, and on some level catra's subconscious knows that or she wouldn't rightfully panic, but it's too late and that's what she tells herself to quiet the bad feeling as she moves forward. she doesn't care which option it is anymore, as long as it's two or three, it's finally over.
we know she shouldn't have done it ("it" being pretty much anything she does), so it's easy to look at her actions and see them as wrong, but a lot of the time i think catra feels what she's doing is wrong on an emotional level but doesn't know what the safe alternative is, so she just keeps going, because who would think it's honestly putting down her weapon and walking into the rebellion with her hands raised, that would be way more illogical than opening the portal. adora and shadow weaver got to defect because they're special and magical and catra sincerely believes she wouldn't get that treatment if she even wanted to try, and she's not wrong to think that. glimmer literally outright says adora is different and the rest of the horde can't be trusted - not in front of catra, but it's proof that catra's view is based on observations and logic.
she's never happy with the bad decisions she makes and thus she has to find joy just in the concept of winning, which season four will see her deconstruct, but we're not there yet, so here, in season 3, she just has to react as fast as she can before she gets killed or tortured again. she can't hesitate so she panics and she makes the wrong choice every time, but it is perfectly written to build to that conclusion. the guts it takes to do something as dark as, well, catra's entire character, but the portal especially is a once in a lifetime thing for this medium. earlier today someone was recommending another animated show to me "because i watch she-ra" and when i said "okay where's the murder-suicide story arc" the way their face immediately changed shows that truly, no show is doing it like she-ra, because you know what comes after the murder-suicide? adora and catra waking up in the same bad, roughhousing and laughing and teasing each other and smiling like a breath of fresh air. you know what happens after adora feels like she's having a psychotic break in the portal and decides she needs to do something about it? her and scorpia having a petty little slapstick slap fight. the show doesn't miss a beat with the comedy swings lifting it up somewhere lighter even as it destroys its characters on a psychological level. god i love she-ra so much
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