She-ra covers a lot of topics in surprising depth, but the one I want to talk about right now is it’s dissection on destiny. It takes a long hard look at the topic through it’s three female leads Catra, Adora, and Glimmer. It’s surprising how much overlap there is and how each character is used as a direct foil to the others in regards to the show’s exploration of destiny.
Adora
Adora has a complicated relationship with destiny. Throughout the series until the series finale she has continually followed false destinies first with shadow weaver and the horde then with she-ra and light hope then finally with the failsafe. Adora has had false destinies forced upon her and she feels she has no way out, that she can’t refuse the call. She actually feels secure in knowing she has a destiny. It’s a path to follow, a purpose, and without a purpose what’s the point of her? At least that’s what she believes. She places her entire self worth on what she can do for other people to the point of self destruction. She is willing to answer the call no matter the cost even if it’s not what she wants. But Adora was never meant to succeed in any of her false destinies. It was always someone else using her for their own gain. All of her sacrifice would be for nothing. Her breaking the sword in destiny isn’t her refusing the call. She believes her purpose is to protect etheria and those she cares about and by breaking the sword she is “killing” a part of herself to answer that call. Just like how she left the one person she cared most about and her entire life behind to answer that same call in the pilot. Just like her taking on the failsafe and accepting her, what she believes to be, inevitable death. In a weird way every time she rejects the call from someone else (shadow weaver, light hope, the first ones, etc) she is leaning harder into the idea of her purpose and sacrifice defining who she is, which is in and of itself a false destiny and self fulfilling prophecy that almost gets Adora killed time and time again. Adora is never given a choice in any of her other false destinies (in fact she was actively conditioned to believe that she had no choice by shadow weaver and light hope. Adora was made to believe that she was meant to answer a higher call and neglect her own needs and wants) so she feels that the call to protect etheria and her friends isn’t a choice either. To Adora it’s the reason she exists. She is what she can do for other people. She is stuck in her own cycle of service and sacrifice that was forced upon her by shadow weaver and others.
Catra
Catra, like Adora, follows a destiny she thinks has been forced upon her. She feels the role of the villain is her only choice. At first it was a role forced onto her by shadow weaver then it became a way to prove to everyone she felt hurt her and didn’t believe in her that she was capable, that she was strong, but then the farther she went the more she believed that there was no other path for her. She felt she had to continue because she had gone too far to turn back and so she had to make something of it all. She felt she was proving shadow weaver, the source of her trauma, wrong by gaining power and relevance within the horde and etheria, but also that she was proving shadow weaver right, that she was a horrible, good for nothing person that only hurts those around her. She felt trapped within this destiny (the cycle of abuse and violence).
She continues to double down and claw her way up to the top which culminates in her defeat of Hordak. She is the sole leader of the horde, she has clawed her way up and defeated all of those that were above her, and yet she has lost everything. She has lost everyone who ever actually cared about her and to make matters worse the power she strove after all these seasons was decimated in one fell swoop by Glimmer mainly because of her own actions (though Glimmer’s plan was smart). Glimmer would not have been successful if Catra hadn’t overworked the troops, been lying to Hordak, sent Entrapta to beast island, pushed Scorpia away, put faith in double trouble who she knows is hired help who knows no loyalties, and taken even a little bit of care of herself. It’s in this moment where she’s at her lowest that she is given the brutal and (only partially true because shadow weaver was definitely not pushed away by her. Shadow weaver just sucks.) eye opening speech by double trouble.
Catra has fallen victim to her own self-fulfilling prophecy just like Adora does during the series. Both had these cycles/destinies forced upon them by shadow weaver and her abuse and can’t see a way out. They feel they have to continue down their respective paths of self destruction because it’s their only choice
Glimmer
Glimmer isn’t like Catra or Adora. She never had a destiny forced upon her, but she wanted one. She wanted to be the hero, to save all of etheria. Glimmer wants glory and power. This isn’t to say that Glimmer is a bad person, far from it in fact, just that she has shortcomings that blinded her to the truth: that she didn’t have a destiny, but that doesn’t make anything she does less meaningful than what Adora does.
A large part of her season 4 arc is about her clashing with Adora over her feeling as though Adora is failing in her destiny and won’t take the necessary steps to win, but that she can. Adora isn’t willing to use the dirty tactics to beat the horde, but she is. Adora isn’t willing to use all of her resources like shadow weaver, but she is. Adora isn’t willing to fire off the heart of etheria, but she is. Because of all of this Glimmer starts to believe in her own way that Adora is failing as the hero and in her destiny and if that’s the case Glimmer will take that destiny. Adora is meant to finish off the horde by activating the heart of Etheria and since she won’t Glimmer takes that destiny from her. There is a conflicting mix of anger, desperation, pain, and pride that push her to do this, but it still all ends with her going to light hope to take Adora’s destiny for herself and her using Catra’s tactics to take the horde down from the inside.
She in a way takes the forced destinies of Catra and Adora on for herself. She believes, like Catra, that she has to make it all worth it, all the loss her and her people have gone through, which is what leads her down her spiral like how it led Catra down her spiral this same season.
How it all concludes in the 5th season
As I’ve said above all of their struggles with destiny come to a head in season 4’s finale. Glimmer in taking on the destinies of others ends up making a grave mistake that almost ends the world and universe. Adora effectively “kills” she-ra to answer her calling to protect etheria. Catra has climbed her way to the top of the horde, but has lost all the power she thought she wanted and had to strive for at the same time. All of these in their own way subvert the expectations of each character and force them to take a hard look in season 5 at themselves and their destiny.
Catra is forced into a situation where she is effectively powerless and is faced with the same decision she had at the end of season 3. This time she decides to take action against destroying the universe. She hasn’t erased her mistakes, but has shown that she has grown from them. In this decision she has started to break free from the cycle she was stuck in. It isn’t until the episode “Taking Control” that she fully starts to break the cycle. She makes the decision to live and face her mistakes instead of die or run from them. This is Catra breaking free from her destiny. It’s through facing her mistakes that Catra is able to grow and become the person she always was instead of the person she felt she had to be. Catra’s struggle with destiny was always that she felt she had to be someone else, that it was the only way to protect herself and prove others wrong. It’s through actual acceptance, care, and compassion shown to her that she is able to break free from this mindset. Obviously the journey isn’t over, it’s something she will always have to work on, but she has made significant strides and wants to continue making them. Her destiny is her own choosing.
Adora is a bit more difficult because she backslides in a big way in the fifth season. She starts out the season having difficulty adjusting to no longer having her destiny as she-ra and she seems to come to terms with the absence of this destiny by the time she leaves earth. And in “Save the Cat’’ she actively goes against her calling and destiny she believes she has to follow. She puts saving Catra above the universe. She won’t leave the ship without Catra and the odds of her getting out, especially without she-ra, were practically non-existent and she knew this going in. This is the first time in the series that Adora really makes a choice that is for herself not her calling. This ironically is what brings back she-ra, one of her false destinies, but this time she-ra is a manifestation of Adora and her will, not that false destiny. Once Adora returns to Etheria and is faced with the failsafe and shadow weaver she backslides back into a false destiny pushed onto her by shadow weaver. She takes on the failsafe and decides that being sacrificed is a better outcome than letting horde prime get the heart. She is fully prepared to die and Catra sees this. Catra becomes the first person to ask Adora what it is that she wants. Adora can’t answer. Her needs and wants are unimportant next to her destiny. “It was always going to end like this.” To Adora this end was inevitable. But then Catra comes back and decides to stay with her when she activates the failsafe. It’s in this moment of selfless love from Catra that Adora is able to break free from the coffin of her abuse and reach for what she wants. In doing so she is able to break the cycle of service and sacrifice. She has let herself want to live and have a future which is what saves her. It’s what lets her break free from her destiny.
Glimmer is once again different. She doesn’t have a destiny to break free from. But from taking on the false destinies of Catra and Adora Glimmer is able to gain perspective that she didn’t before. She understands to a much greater degree what drove Catra to where she is now. Their similarities are no longer a point of contention but rather a point of connection. The new perspective Glimmer has allows her to reach out to Catra and see the potential for good that she was so adamant didn’t exist in earlier seasons. She’s able to see the shades of grey within people unlike before (ex. “Bad people don’t change” in the price of power). It allows herself to see her own flaws with much more clarity such as her desire for power and glory, jealousy, quick temper, etc and grow. She’s able to see the shades of grey within herself. This also allows her to accept that she doesn’t have a destiny, but her actions are just as important as anyone else’s. It doesn’t negate all the good she’s done or will do. This allows her to find the power within herself to defeat her father and protect all the princesses in the final battle with horde prime. Glimmer isn’t defined by this lack of destiny. It’s an interesting foil to Catra and Adora who always felt trapped within destinies. Glimmer felt trapped because of her lack of one like she was limited because of it, but it’s once she discovers that she isn’t, that she can create her own path, that she’s able to create her biggest positive impacts which is rather fitting.
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