| “ | Hey Adora. | „ |
| ~ Catra's iconic catchphrase. |
Catra is the deuteragonist of the Netflix original series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and serves as a main antagonist from Seasons 1-4. She works for Hordak, the leader of the The Horde.
Prior to the series, Catra was a good friend to Adora until she left and became, She-Ra, in order to aid the Princess Alliance in stopping the Horde's imperialization. Catra felt betrayed and abandoned and was left to be tormented by their abusive mentor, Shadow Weaver, who looks down on Catra while favoring Adora. She does her best to earn her spot in The Horde army and proves that she is worth something to both Shadow Weaver and Hordak.
Catra has issues relating to her impulsive behavior and abandonment. She has tendencies of acting irrationally and pushing people away like she did with Scorpia and Entrapta. This negative behavior leads Catra in becoming a very insecure person.
She was voiced by AJ Michalka.
What Makes Her a Base Breaking Character?[]
What Do People Like About Her?[]
- She is a deeply tragic character as she develops insecurities when she is compared to Adora, who she thinks is better than her at everything. She also suffers from physical and emotional abuse by her mentor, Shadow Weaver. Even when she tries to prove her worth to Shadow Weaver, she still belittles her for the smallest imperfections. Despite eventually replacing her as Force Captain in the Horde army, Catra still doesn't feel she has any value and becomes increasingly more emotionally unstable. She still feels alone even with the more power she gains.
- Her relationship with Adora is loved by fans for being very complex, since Catra does love her, but feels like she lives in her shadow.
- Many find her a well-written sympathetic character and relate to her insecurities, particularly those with BPD (borderline personality disorder) that see themselves in her and resonate with her self-destructive, unhealthy behavior.
- Many fans love her redemption arc that occurs in the tail end of Season 4 and throughout Season 5, where she rebelled against Horde Prime to help the rebellion defeat him.
What Do People Hate About Her?[]
- Most of her detractors find Catra's relationship with Adora abusive since throughout the show she tried to kill her and her friends on several occasions and would even mock them while doing so. The violence between the two became progressively worse when Catra nearly destroyed Etheria with Hordak while continuing to push Adora and other people away. She was even willing to let the entire universe be destroyed just to spite Adora in the end of season 1.
- Many point out that Catra's behavior resembles many traits of an abuser, including violence, possessiveness, unreasonable jealousy, victim blaming, and manipulation prior to character development.
- Most detractors strongly dislike the pairing between Adora and Catra as they felt the relationship is abusive and toxic due to Catra constantly trying to kill her and being unreasonably jealous at Adora for no good reason.
- Detractors don't like her redemption as they felt it was unearned and happened too quickly and heavily dislike how friendly the other characters are towards her, who are willing to forgive her for switching to the heroes' side despite what Catra has done throughout all 4 Seasons. Not to mention that they believe that many of her internal struggles haven't been fully resolved by the end of the series.
- This is made even worse by the fact Shadow Weaver is treated with much more distain for her actions while Catra gets away mostly scot-free. Which makes her redemption less believable.
- Many agree that she should've started her redemption arc in an earlier season, with her getting therapy, being held accountable for her heinous actions, take her time working out many of her issues, and reevaluating her relationships.
- Some feel her presence steals the spotlight from Hordak, a character who they sympathize with more and whom they believe lacks screen-time compared to her.
- Many could not sympathize due to her insecurities and abandonment issues largely stemming from her own anti-social behavior and decisions, since she actively pushes people away and was even offered by Adora multiple times to leave the Horde and join her, yet she refused until it’s too late. They felt the show swept most of her actions under the rug so they can redeem her unrealistically, not helped by the social stigma where people with highly problematic personality traits don’t inherently make good people.
- It doesn't help that some think that Catra is a "creator's pet" since ND Stevenson, the creator of the series, considers her to be his favorite, probably for relating to her struggles throughout the series.
Trivia[]
- Catra's character is so divisive it led to a huge division within the fanbase. On one side, her defenders argue that she is a misunderstood villain and a complex character. But there are some who argue she was never a villain in the first place, which has led extremists from both sides of the debate to accuse Catra's detractors of engaging in victim-blaming or ableism.
- Some detractors felt that Adora deserved a better love interest like Glimmer while most agree that the CatraDora ship is toxic.
External Links[]
- Catra on the Heroes Wiki
- Catra on the Villains Wiki
- Catra on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki
- Catra on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Catra on the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Wiki
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 Base Breaking Characters
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Animated Films Live-Action Television 13 Reasons Why The Witcher Locke & Key Squid Game Others Animated Television She-Ra and the Princesses of Power The Dragon Prince Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous Sonic Prime Other See Also | ||
 Base Breaking Characters
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Animated Films Live-Action Films Transformers Film Series Other Animated Television Monster High Danganronpa She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous Other Live Action Television Parks and Recreation Community Brooklyn Nine-Nine Other | ||