She-Ra and abuse

She-Ra and abuse:

Today I’m not offering you a short tale, nor a poem, not even a fanfic (which I’m seriously considering, if Dante Alighieri had his one, I can have mine, yeah, standards) but a commentary on a series I’ve been binge-watching in a loop for months now: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. However, this is going to be a partial commentary, which is to say, I won’t analyse everything that show tackles: LGTBQIA+ diversity, autistic representation by Entrapta and Scorpia, healthy patterns, friendship, Bow and how to destroy toxic masculinity just by being yourself, Shadow Weaver as a character, etc. So, brace yourselves as I will go through major spoilers by speaking about a thing the series accurately portraits despite its natural limitations as a kids show: abuse.

While abuse is by no means the main plot of the series, since that would be the war between the rebellion and the horde, it’s what shapes every interaction at the horde (yeah, the bad guys). In spite of being a cartoon, it’s Manichean only in appearance and we will see why. In She-Ra you get to feel sympathy for the people at the horde, for instance, as most of them are basically the natural outcome of being raised in a toxic environment. The horde has a hierarchy of power (and abuse): Lord Hordak, general of the horde troops sent to Etheria, the planet our characters are in, is a clone that constantly fails to conquer it, and he must answer to Horde Prime, the supreme leader of the horde. When Horde Prime berates and belittles him the abuse goes down the ladder since Lord Hordak abuses Shadow Weaver -his right hand- who in turn abuses Catra and Catra abuses everyone else if she can, even her own friends -who eventually leave her-. It is important to understand that abuse can only exist where there is a power dynamic, whenever there’s no balance in a relationship, when we are not among equals. Ironically the rebellion of Etheria is basically led by queens and princesses, perhaps because it’s a system of government with no complexities and, intentionally created or not, it proposes a hierarchy as well, but of course in the rebellion the power by itself doesn’t entail inequity. It is an idealised scenario in which we can see people trying to be better and treating each other as people. Yet this is important: if you recognise the value of whoever is in front of you, if you don’t dehumanise other people and you treat them as equals, there’s no room for abuse.

And now let’s talk about Adora, the main character of the series, raised as a child soldier, fighting on the horde’s side. She discovers the evil princesses are not that evil and finds out that, regardless the horde’s propaganda, she is attacking innocent people and devastating defenceless cities. Adora, being the hero, immediately switches sides. By doing so she breaks the cycle of abuse: being Shadow Weaver’s favourite and loved by everybody, she passed through that horde’s toxic environment more or less unscathed, so it wasn’t that hard for her to do so (yet it entails a certain burden she has to bear). Adora joins the rebellion because that’s what is right and she becomes quickly accustomed to the rebellion’s way to understand people and problem solving strategies, which sometimes consist in convincing others that having healthy relationships is better than being at the horde. As a character she is possible but not probable, yet She-Ra is the story of the chosen one and Adora has a role to fill. Either way, Adora is more complex than that, she’s not perfect at any rate: she’s silly and clumsy sometimes, has some hyper-responsible answer to everything that drains her, a reaction rooted in her own trauma, as she had to take care of Catra, her best friend, while not being always brave or bold enough to defend her since she was only a child or not completely aware of the horde toxic patterns once she grows up.

What about Catra, her girlfriend? Catra is a quite dark and complex character, the series antagonist during the first four seasons, and constantly abused by Lord Hordak and Shadow Weaver right until the beginning of the fifth -and last- season, when she changes. Having a crippling fear of rejection and only knowing what the horde is, feeling comfortable and familiar only with its terrible dynamics, when Adora offers her to join Etheria, she feels abandoned and incapable to react at first. Henceforth she finds a suitable reaction: Adora will be her enemy. Catra’s violence escalates rapidly not only towards Adora but towards everyone else, she mistreats her friends who, in consequence, abandon her, thus, reinforcing her fear of rejection. She is feared and hated by everyone and told repeatedly she is worthless and a failure by Shadow Weaver and Lord Hordak, who are above her. What we can see here is a cycle of abuse and its logical feedback. She is so terrified by being rejected that she doesn’t let anyone to become real friends and get closer, following the basic principle that says: if you don’t try, you won’t fail. That’s Catra during the first four seasons: anger, hatred, fear, and when she’s abandoned, loneliness and depression. Let’s remember that she is a seventeen years old soldier child with no past and who knows nothing but violence and abuse, who craves for any validation even if it comes from those who will repetitively tell her she has no value.

And a toxic relationship was a possible outcome as Adora and Catra had some feelings to talk about. It was easy to insert here this horrible mantra that says love can heal anything, this Adora being with Catra despite all the violence and abuse Adora was subjected to by her. A toxic relationship moves in cycles of honeymoon/calm stage and incident stage that comes back over and over. So, the fact that Adora could come back with Catra would be a clear sign of a honeymoon phase and, therefore, of an abusive cycle.

Fortunately and, unlike many other sub-romantic plots, this is not the case for She-Ra, not only because Catra apologises and changes, which is complex topic itself since many toxic partners can sincerely feel sorry and are capable to say it but incapable of change at the same time, be it because they don’t know how, be it because they rationalise the abuse done afterwards. Unfortunately, we cannot know if the toxic person is speaking the truth when they say they’ll change, and even if the abuser changes, the one who was mistreated has no obligation whatsoever to forgive them or come back with them, that’s not part of the healing process. However, again, this is a kids show and it has its limitations since a happy ending was in order, meaning that there’s a Catra redemption arch that begins when she’s depressed and alone and finally understands that the way she behaved was destructive to everyone and also to her, when, ultimately, she gets another trauma: real loneliness and a sort of understanding that there are some things bigger than her -Horde Prime and his army of clones- and that she has value and she deserves better. Interestingly we can only start changing when we accept who we are.

Despite She-Ra simplification of some elements regarding abuse, the magic here lies on how skilfully written the show has been. People who have been abused can see the abuser in Catra and the path of mental health recovery as well. The series tackles a quite complex topic with empathy, knowledge and care.

Of course there is one question still, how Catra manages to do it? How does she succeed in breaking the cycle of abuse?

The are some ways an abuser will have the chance to improve as a person and usually it stems from a life-changing trauma -in her case loneliness and the threat of Horde Prime-. The only way an abuser can actually improve is by learning to be better, nonetheless, to work on their mental health, to deconstruct those patterns that only bring sadness, cruelty and a depression blinded by pride. In She-Ra’s final season Catra is actively and consciously working on herself, she tries to find out how to manage her anger and frustration -she even gets a support pet-, how to face her fear of rejection, how to grow enough to accept her own accountability and to be able to see other people’s value, we have to remember that she couldn’t see that before as she believed she had no worth herself. In consequence, she learns to apologise, to say thank you, to open herself to others and she comprehends that weakness and vulnerability mean different things. This process turns out to be difficult and she goes back sometimes, because a path of mental health recovery is not empty of obstacles that one must overcome. It is difficult for her to let go of the pattern of abuse, of all she knew, and the illusion of control that comes with it. But she finally understands she deserves to be happy too.

The crux here is that Adora never accepted the toxic Catra, Adora only accepted the healing herself Catra. And Catra broke the cycle of abuse by following the appropriate steps to do so.

And that’s an actual adventure in real life.

Once again, I know that this commentary is only partial and that it could get further elaborated. I am aware that the series is very complex and interesting due to many other reasons, but this was worth mentioning. She-Ra characters are not perfect, they make mistakes, sometimes big mistakes and, in the case of Catra, even bigger mistakes, but they are beautiful in their imperfection.

As Entrapta says:

"Imperfection is what makes scientific experimentation possible! Imperfection is beautiful... at least to me."

Now go watch She-Ra!

Hi, ya! All right, this was totally not the purpose of this blog (believe it or not, this blog is about tales and poems I write from time to time), but I had to do this. I love commenting and I’m autistic, demisexual, somewhere between lesbian and bi (being women coca-cola and men pepsi, so to speak), and trans, and I am a total She-Ra fangirl in the middle of a fiction crush, apparently, so I had to write this! And in some alternative universe I guess I will get to act my age? But the fact that a kids series speak about abuse from such a mature perspective, showing care for the topic while adapting it to the target audience, is an epic exercise of creativity and script-writing… So, yeah!

Have a nice day! ^_^