Not to be Sad on main but I’m currently thinking about how Catra and Adora’s opposing mentalities (Catra being more individualistic while Adora viewing herself as part of a greater whole) that drove them apart are directly tied to their individual (horrendous) upbringings.
Adora, being groomed from childhood to lead a squad sees herself as less of an individual with her own needs and desires as part of a whole - hence her tendency towards self sacrifice “for the greater good”. Herself as an individual doesn’t matter, isn’t at all comparable to the needs of the group.
Catra, being the bottom of the pecking order essentially, didn’t see herself as part of their squad. Or rather, saw herself as more than just her place in their squad, more than a “a cog in the machine”. To her mind it was her and Adora against the world. She doesn’t do anything for the “greater good” of anyone but her and Adora.
And so, as many people have reiterated but still hurts me somehow… When Adora joined the rebellion she saw it as choosing good over evil and doing what was best for the collective “whole” - in this case all of Etheria. Catra, taking a smaller, individual-based mindset saw it just as Adora choosing Bow and Glimmer over her.
You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches.
I think I’d have minded
less if I’d committed a truly heinous crime. Something that warranted death. Or
even if I was the kind of person who would enjoy flinging a last defiance at my
execution.
It was all just a show,
anyway. They did it every year. They brought out a selection of criminals, and the
Sorcerer who ruled us showed his power by bringing about their deaths by magic.
Just to show, every year, what happened to anyone who crossed him.
There was a time,
probably, when the people he executed really were rebels or assassins. In
latter days he had to take what the dungeons offered. I was dragged up in
chains between a pickpocket, sobbing in terror, and a man who’d killed another
man in a brawl. There were few criminals of any note, by then. So instead of
choosing the wickedest criminals, they chose based on appearance. The man who’d
been in the brawl had a face like a clenched fist, and looked like a ruffian.
The pickpocket, aging and with hands beginning to tremble, was a different kind
of example. As was I.
“There aren’t many
pretty ones, this year,” the man who chose me had said, examining me. “But this
one will do. Not young, but not old, a woman, well-favoured enough for the
gallows… what was her crime?”
The warder shrugged. “She
tried to kill one of the sheriffs.”
The man looked down at
me and I shrugged. “I hit him with a washing stick, because he tried to extort
money from me, and he was a baby about it.” I refused to treat this as anything
but pathetic, even after my sentencing. “I didn’t even break any bones.”
“Treason, then,” the man
said, nodding. “Attacking the servants of the law. That will look well on the
list. Send her.”
I had been debating ever
since what to choose. Something quick? Something painless? I considered demanding
that I suffer the attack I supposedly made on the sheriff, but then I realized
the Sorcerer would only give me what the man had said I was going to do, and
that was not a pleasant way to die. I had all but decided on something swift
and relatively painless. Beheading with the sharpest of blades sounded good. It
would be quick.
