Adora, not your typical Chosen One
Adora is piled with expectations. She's the Failsafe, Shadow Weaver's Prodigy, She-Ra, and Force Captain. All of these duties she has had to put over herself since she was a child. She is denied her agency.
Shadow Weaver only took her in because Adora had this power that she could harness and use for herself. Before she could even think for herself or even speak her future was decided for her. She may have been Shadow Weaver's favorite, but that doesn't mean Adora has privilege. She was given conditional love and was taught to be ashamed of Catra.
Catra was Adora's first expression of her personhood. She chose to be friends with Catra. Catra is the only flaw in her perfect pet project. So, Shadow Weaver tortures Catra in front of Adora just so she knows that Shadow Weaver doesn't approve of the person she cares about. Adora was taught to be responsible for the actions of others. Attachments are a detriment to her responsibilities.
Adora was raised on conditional love, denial of agency, and favor handed out like breadcrumbs. She finds this sword that turns her into an 8-foot tall warrior and suddenly everyone loves her. Adora cannot let these people down, so she does anything she can to help them, even if it costs Adora her life.
She-Ra is not the same person as Adora. She-Ra is invincible and strong and loved. Adora is an ex-horde solider who's broken. In the second episode she presents herself as She-Ra, not as Adora. Queen Angel accepts She-Ra into Brightmoon, not Adora. What's Adora to think besides that this is conditional acceptance. If she wasn't She-Ra she wouldn't be allowed in Brightmoon and no one cares about Adora, they just care about She-Ra, the mighty warrior who will save them.
What Adora can do will always take precedence over Adora herself, and she's been taught that since she was a girl. Adora isn't important. Love, care, and acknowledging herself isn't useful because it is hard to control.
Adora realizes that her attachments make her who she is and that she's fighting for them, but she doesn't need help giving love to others. She needs help giving love to herself and accepting the love of others. She can't seem to see that Adora and She-Ra are the same person, in her mind She-Ra is something she wields and something she wields can be taken away.
Adora has a crisis of identity. She was told to not be like Mara, she was the She-Ra who went nuts. Now she has to live up to her legacy. Adora was the successor of a She-Ra so burdened by a warped narrative it preceded her. Adora witnesses how cruel this type of rewriting can be, because it’s happening to her while she’s alive.
In Hero, Glimmer blatantly tells her that she failed and hasn’t done enough. This destroys Adora. Friendship with Glimmer is off the table to Adora, Glimmer doesn’t want to be friends with her because she failed and she’s not useful anymore. Adora doesn’t feel like she deserved love and she’s so disconnected from herself. There is a difference between a friendship that is fixable and one that isn't. Her relationship with Glimmer is unfixable and she's lost yet another person.
But, she has to connect to the world and to herself in order to connect to her powers. She has to admit that she’s human and deserves love. If she realizes that she is worth being loved, then she’ll learn that she never had to prove herself to earn it and it is accepting her innate value as a human.
Adora is sacrificing herself all the time because they want what Adora can do rather than Adora herself, or that's what she thinks. She can't help but wonder if they would've been her friends if she wasn't She-Ra.
Beast Island is the first episode where we see Adora's eyes glow before the sword. The sword hadn't been working all episode and when it does the light comes from her eyes rather than the sword. Adora powers the sword. But, it's easier to be calm and confident if there's something to rely rather than rely on yourself, because she's insecure about herself worth. If she can't become She-Ra, Adora is no one.
Adora chooses to smash the sword. She chooses to not be given a destiny. She wants to choose who she will be. Without choice you aren't a person, you are stripped of your identity. Adora has to live with the question, Who is Adora without the sword? She has to live with the consequences of losing She-Ra.
But, she's at war with herself. She choose to break the sword but how can she reconcile destroying what gave her purpose and worth. So, she starts neglecting her health and sleep. If She-Ra is gone that means Adora has to work harder to make up for her actions. She continues to struggle to intergrate She-Ra (duties, usefulness), her aspirations, and her self worth.
“I AM She-Ra.” “Okay She-Ra, I know YOU’RE in there.” “I don’t know I just lost HER.” “I hear Horde Prime’s looking for ME. Figured it was time we met.”
Adora either wields the power or she is the power. Something she wields can easily be taken away, but something she is cannot be stripped away that easily.
Catra is in the hands of Horde Prime. Prime's light strips everything of choice and identity. Adora allows herself to make a personal resume mission to act on something that matters to her, Catra. She chooses to save Catra without She-Ra and she accepts her identity and choice. During "Save the Cat" she allows herself to feel grief, not only for Catra but who she was with Catra, the Adora Catra knew. The first expression of her personhood. This is the first time we see Adora's self-actualized She-Ra form, fitted with Glimmer's boots, Bow's heart, and Catra's headpiece.
Even with her new She-Ra form, Adora can't decide if she is She-Ra or if she wields She-Ra. When she meets Melog, she says "You're magic aren't you? Me too." In She-Ra magic typically represents the authentic self and self-actualization.
Shadow Weaver is the one who convinces Adora to take the Failsafe. Adora is She-Ra, she'll hopefully, ideally survive. No one else stopped her. She was dead set on saving Etheria and she's broken enough to want to sacrifice herself. Adora is determined to ignore her humanity, but Catra's last appeal to her hits her.
"What do you want, Adora?"
The others might have given her unconditional love, but Catra's works. Catra is the only person who knew her before she was She-Ra. She was the first expression of Adora's personhood. Adora wanted Catra.
In Adora's future wish, she's surrounded by the people she loves and her responsibilities and humanity are balanced. Adora found peace.
When she believes she least deserves it, she's failed and she can do no good no more, Catra yells and she listens. Catra tells Adora that she is loved, but she always has been. So, she chooses to save herself and she chooses Catra.
Adora’s story is one of self-sabotage. She constantly betrays herself for the expectations of others. There will always be people telling us what to do or who to be, but we can’t let them tell us what to do. Adora doesn’t understand that her identity is hers to make and that she is allowed to have a say in what happens to her. But, the cycles and patterns that come with a child whose mind is in trauma mode are hard to break. She has to learn that she has agency, something that she’s been denied since she was a baby. Just because you have this power within you doesn’t give people the right to use you to their advantage. Adora has to learn that the opinions of others don’t have to control her, that you can’t define yourself by what someone else is saying. Only you can define who you are and what you want to do.
(my own interpretations backed up five by five takes)
izzy806
gummygunk
annaxmalina
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