Adora being all "I never hated you!" Was so real 😭
She never hated Catra, she was sad, feeling guilty and kind of betrayed because of the portal and all, but she never hated Catra.
Catra has ever been the most important person in her life, the person she couldn’t even hear the name without grimacing or showing some kind of reaction.
Adora held hope for so much time that Catra would just snap out of it and get out of the horde... until she gave up for a while, but she didn't give up on catra exactly, she gave up on herself, on everything, and started acting as the perfect soldier, a machine. It was kind of a disassociating state maybe, survival instinct.
But the second Catra showed the minor drop of regretness? Dude, it was all Adora needed. She let her soldier mask slip for a fraction of time because she needed to go back and be selfish for once because it was Catra.
I has always been Catra, it will always be her. Adora's ancor for her humanity, for her feelings, for being something out of the warrior fighting for the others (and only for the others).
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.
The first part of this series will focus on Adora. As a heads-up, this character analysis will make use of her star sign, decante sign, and minor arcana tarot.
For those unfamiliar with the decans, a long ass time ago some people decided that each of the signs needed to be split into increments of 10 degrees, thus each sign has three decans. This is supposed to explain why a sign born on one date is different from the same sign born on a different date.
This analysis will also take a brief look at Adora and Catra’s relationship from Adora’s point of view.
Now onto the show.
Zodiac Sun Sign
Adora’s birthday is on January 19th which lands her in a unique position within the zodiac. She is on the cusp between Capricorn and Aquarius which as we will soon learn could explain a lot about her.
Each sign corresponds to an element. Capricorn is earth while Aquarius is air. The elements also have their opposites. Fire vs Water, and Earth vs Air. Adora quite literally falls on a warring cusp. On the one hand she has the stability of the earthen Capricorn. On the other hand she is caught up in the instability that is the airy Aquarius.
According to numerous astrology sites, the Capricorn and Aquarius cusp is known as the cusp of mystery. I prefer to call it the cusp of temperance or the cusp of opposing forces. Earth opposes air. Capricorn’s ruling planet Saturn is all about responsibility, structure, limitations, discipline and obligations amongst other such things. Aquarius’s ruling planet Uranus is all about eccentricity, rebellion, etc etc.
When we first meet Adora she is a Horde soldier living in the fright zone. Her life is stable. Everyday she does what is required of her and much like the goat that represents the sign Adora finds herself climbing the ranks of the Horde soldiers. She even tells Catra at one point that she had been working hard to become force captain.
Indeed Adora displays a lot of Capricorn traits. She is law abiding, even if the law she used to follow was that of the Horde. She is also somewhat ambitious, though I’d argue not as ambitious as Catra. She also shows discipline, but perhaps most important of all she shows responsibility.
I am now going to sidetrack by saying that when it comes to the relationship between Catra and Adora, there are probably hundreds of analysis that talk about the relationship from Catra’s point of view.
For this I’ll be looking at it from Adora’s point of view.
Despite her law-abiding nature, Adora isn’t stupid and she isn’t cold-hearted. What was it that really made her join the rebellion? It was while she was with that one village of peaceful citizens. It was when the Horde attacked the village. When it dawned on her that this was the village that had been targeted for attack that’s when things changed even more for Adora.
All of her life she had been taught that the rebellion was full of evil princesses, ruled by an evil queen. She’d been taught that the rebellion wanted to throw Etheria into a state of chaos. She had been taught that the Horde were going to be the saviors of Etheria. Then she sees first hand the Horde attack a village of citizens that have probably never seen war in their lives.
She sees her home destroy the lives of innocents, and with that she simply cannot go back. Her biggest Aquarian trait, rebellion, comes into play. She rebels against the Horde. Her rebellion however is not caused by any sort of selfish desire but a desire to protect the greater good.
One thing to consider is that Adora was not eager to just leave Catra. She wanted Catra to join her, not because she needed someone to be second best but because I think she truly did, and still does love her.
When all is said and done however, Adora now had a responsibility to a larger group of people and simply could not go back to fighting for a regime that attacked innocent civilians.
Decan
Moving on, let’s take a look at her decan sign. For simplicity I’ll only be looking at the one for Capricorn. Adora falls under the last decan of Capricorn, that is 21 - 30 degrees Capricorn.
This decan is ruled by Capricorn’s planet Saturn, but is also co-ruled by the planet Mercury the ruling planet of Gemini, and Virgo. In Adora’s case, she would be a Capricorn-Virgo.
In the case of the decans, the co-ruling planets seem to help the ruling planet.
In Adora’s case being co-ruled by Mercury means that she’s not as stagnant as a first decan Capricorn would be. While it is true that she shows discipline and responsibility, she is also quite capable of making new friends. The first season also shows us that she is a great communicator. She was able to talk to the other princesses and persuade them to join the rebellion.
Destiny Card
Finally onto her minor arcana tarot, or as some might say, her destiny card. For the sake of this series I’ll be using the Thoth version of the Tarot.
Adora’s destiny card is the 4 of Disks/Pentacles aka the Lord of Power or Lord of Material Power.
Simply put, at the time of Season 1′s finale, Adora finds herself secure within the rebellion. She has plenty of friends and a family that truly loves her. It could also be argued that she now has more material gain than she ever had at the Horde. For example she won’t need to worry about going hungry.
On the down side however, Adora cannot stay attached to her current attachments and security. There is also the fact that despite gaining quite a lot, she also lost Catra. I dare say that this loss is going to continue eating away at her come season 2.
So tl;dr version.
Adora is a Capricorn/Aquarius cusp
She is responsible, disciplined, ambitious, and rebellious
Her rebel nature comes from a place of responsibility.
She loved/loves Catra but could not put the needs of one person over the needs of many.
Adora lands on the third decan of Capricorn, Capricorn-Virgo, ruled by Saturn and co-ruled by Mercury.
She is a great communicator and able to adapt easily.
Adora’s destiny card is the 4 of Disks/Pentacles “Lord of Power” “Lord of Material Power”At the moment she is stable in what she has but must be careful not to let herself get too stagnated.She will also still suffer from losing Catra as a friend.
"Learning to Live" Adora Character Analysis (She-Ra Season 5)
If you like She-Ra, you will enjoy this video.
Long time in the making, the YT, updated version of my Adora write-up I did a while back.
As you can see below, this video took an extraordinary amount of time and effort to make. I know it may not seem like much when you watch, but there is a lot of effort that goes into these.
