Catra

**Catra** is one of the central characters of *She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.*

Starting out as a cadet in the Horde, Catra was soon promoted to the rank of Force Captain and eventually served as Hordak's second-in-command. After the invasion of the army of Horde Prime, Catra briefly served as an agent of Horde Prime. After her reform, she became Adora's girlfriend

In Summer's Adventure Series, She becomes the Scarlet Red Toon Ranger, and is the first Toon Ranger to be a character that was once a villain, only to reform into a hero

## Personality

In the opening episodes, Catra has shown to be a bit of a slacker without proper motivation, evident from when she showed up late to a training exercise, her tardiness apparently not a rare occurrence, but this is likely due to never getting validation from authority figures when she does actually put in the work. She is also someone who is the life of the party. She also seems to be a thrill-seeker, complaining about how boring the Fright Zone was, *needing* to blow something up, and extreme excitement at taking a Horde skiff for a thrill ride. While on said ride, Adora advises saving fuel for the return trip. Catra brushes this off, saying it's a future problem. Which ends up being a mistake. However, it's also shown that Catra is a bit callous, showing no issue to the Horde's destructive behavior when it attacks an innocent town, and not thinking twice about striking her own best friend, Adora, with a Stun Gun multiple times to bring her back.

After becoming Force Captain, a darker side of Catra is unveiled. Though she doesn't outgrow her slacker tendencies (she doesn't attend orientation or do her paperwork, both which cost her), she proves a skilled strategist and manipulator, using their former friendship to distract Adora so she can kidnap Glimmer and Bow. She then uses the former to threaten Bright Moon into surrendering. She lies to persuade Entrapta into assisting her, a move that wreaks havoc on the ecosystem and almost allows her to take Bright Moon and replace Shadow Weaver as Hordak's second-in-command. In season three, she convinced Hordak that Entrapta, who he had begun to show feelings for, had betrayed him. This also has the effect of reassuring her position within the Horde after her failures in Season Two.

In many ways, it is her relationship with her makeshift family, Adora, and Shadow Weaver, that defines her. Despite her abusiveness, Catra still sees Shadow Weaver as a mother figure and craves her approval. This is something she has yet to outgrow. Towards the end of season one, Catra fights and defeats Shadow Weaver, replacing her as second-in-command in the Horde. This seems to imply Catra has moved beyond her need for Shadow Weaver's approval. However, in season two, Catra has her locked up and is still visiting her. Later, when Hordak asks why Shadow Weaver has not been executed, Catra offers a flimsy excuse. Shadow Weaver later uses this to trick Catra into giving her her Sorcerer's Guild badge, which she uses to escape, showing that Catra still has a love for Shadow Weaver. At the end of Season Three, when Shadow Weaver is leading the Princesses in an assault on the Fright Zone, Catra at one point pleads with Shadow Weaver, asking if she ever cared. Shadow Weaver, of course, had her in a magic bind, so this may have been Catra lying out of a situation.

Catra's situation on Adora has gone from friendly to ambiguous to negative to all the way around through the course of the show, to slowly rebuild their friendship and eventually end up romantically. In the beginning, Catra and Adora are seen jesting in the locker room, and later, taking a joy ride on a ship they borrowed without asking. Further, Catra is seen sleeping curled up at the foot of Adora's bed (which has a drawing of Adora and Catra's faces) at night, showing how close they are. However, when Adora defects, Catra gets Adora's promotion. Catra benefited from Adora's absence. Thus begins her descent into darkness. Their first meeting after this is the fight for the Salineas Sea Gate, where Catra leads an assault on the kingdom of Salineas.

Catra spends her time mostly mocking Adora, before being driven off by Mermista. Things truly begin to get ambiguous during Princess Prom. Catra exploits Adora's former friendship to capture Glimmer and Bow while stealing the Sword of Protection. Catra then gives Adora back the sword and lets her escape unmolested. In the episode "Promise", Catra and Adora meet again, and start out civil and friendly with each other, even helping each other against the defenses of the First Ones' Temple. However, the Temple also shows Catra and Adora's past as children, as well as causing them to relive some painful memories. This seems to cement a rage in Catra, saying that Adora was a hero and that "every hero needs a sidekick". This implies that Catra has come to believe that Adora only saw her as a second, and was being a hero for the sake of glory. In the episode "White Out", Adora gets the upper hand on Catra, although Catra doesn't seem particularly bothered, expressing the belief that Adora won't strike her.

When Adora attacks and defeats her under the influence of the Corrupted First Ones' Disk, she shows shock and fear at Adora's rage, proving that she truly didn't believe Adora would strike her. After Adora is subdued by Scorpia, she spends time mocking Adora's unconscious form. In season three, after being effectively banished by Hordak, Catra wastes no time in establishing her control over the residents of the Crimson Waste. This could show a fondness for power and control, but when Scorpia suggests staying and noting how Catra hated the Fright Zone, Catra (having captured Adora) chooses to go back anyway, upon Catra learning that Shadow Weaver (their mother figure) visited Adora after leaving her. Returning to the Fright Zone, only to be attacked by Shadow Weaver, and hearing that Adora was right about the dangers of Hordak's plan to open a portal, and it makes her *snap*, causing her to attack Entrapta and lie to Hordak to get the portal open, despite it meaning suicide for her and the destruction of everyone and everything on the planet. In the resulting time/space collapse, Catra and Adora fight, Catra telling Adora all the while how it was her presence that caused all this. This could be one of two things, either an inability to take responsibility for her actions or resentment towards Adora. However, Catra could not hold her grudge forever and eventually the two fixed their broken bond which would also lead them to form a romantic relationship.

However, the true nature of Catra's descent is covered in the episodes "Razz" and "Promise". In these episodes, it shows that Catra may have never truly made friends with the rest of her squad. Since Shadow Weaver never loved her, Adora was the only one who showed her any affection. When Adora left her, she felt betrayed by the only one who ever loved her, and this was juxtaposed by her own rise to power. This has caused Catra to increasingly see Adora, who was always loved by everyone, as *the* obstacle between her and success. This is what caused her actions at the end of season three. Catra's failures were something she linked with Adora's increasing return to her life.

In Season Four, Catra's emotional walls begin to crumble from genuine guilt over what she had done to Entrapta and with Scorpia leaving the Horde as Adora did before her and she goes into a depression. She starts to lose all of her old friends and the one she made betrays her. Even when the Horde started winning the war, she was still not happy, which causes her to lash out and then break down in tears. Ultimately, it was Double Trouble who betrayed her and revealed to Catra that she had been deceiving herself all this time about what she wanted and that she alone was the reason everyone abandoned her which made her completely despondent. Indeed, Catra is very much her own worst enemy, proven by how Double Trouble picked her character apart piece by painful piece, basically leaving her flaws and troubled spirit naked and visible for all to see, that even Glimmer noticed Catra's despair upon finding her afterward and perhaps even pity her when Catra offered no resistance and even invited Glimmer to basically put her out of her own misery.

After she and Glimmer become "guests" aboard Horde Prime's flagship, Catra tries to play any and every card she can to worm her way into Prime's favor, only to be more and more disturbed by him and his mask of manners and civility failing to conceal his narcissistic despotism. Due to her precarious situation and feeling more alone than ever, Catra risks Prime's displeasure by speaking to Glimmer, as she is the only connection she presently has to Etheria. The two actually bond despite past transgressions and Catra begins to experience a fundamental change in herself, that she ultimately helps Glimmer escape and sacrifices herself, knowing she would face Prime's wrath. She saves Glimmer because "it's the one right thing" she's done in her life. After being subjected to Prime's mind purification, Adora heals Catra and cradles her in her arms. On Darla, she remains distant to others due to her past and abandonment issues and refused Adora's help at first, however she joins the group for a dinner of dumplings and gave Entrapta a heartfelt apology to for everything that she did. Entrapta affectionately pats her on the head with her hair, signifying a new friendship. She shows genuine guilt for her terrible deeds and strives to redeem herself. When an apologetic Catra approached Scorpia, she was content with and even enjoyed letting Scorpia hug her, when before she was annoyed by it; showing how much she changed for the better.

When the Best Friends Squad head to Krytis, It is revealed that Catra does not like being called cute, as Bow commented Catra about the ear indents in her helmet and when a piece of magic pollen made her sneeze and Bow again commented on how cute she is. However, she responded angrily that she wasn't cute, causing Bow to say she was cute when she was angry as well.

After being rescued she began to trust other people and started valuing friendship. While she is still blunt, snarky, and temperamental, she has become much kinder, more loyal, and has truly found happiness, by the side of her beloved. She ends up still being a troublemaker, but she is a much better person nonetheless and has a much healthier outlook on life.

## Relationships

### Adora

Adora is Catra's best friend, and it has been shown that the two once shared an extremely close bond, growing up together as orphans in the Horde. Both Adora and Catra developed romantic feelings for each other but never acted upon them. Often, Adora would comfort Catra when she was feeling sad and be optimistic about her when Shadow Weaver showed a great disdain for her. When Adora disappears, Catra is greatly concerned, but that all goes away when Adora reveals she's leaving the Horde and joining The Rebellion. At first, Catra is determined to get her back, but eventually, this turns to vengeance as she is determined that Adora was part of her downfall and she now needs to rise.

This leads to the two having several tense interactions, with Adora saving Catra from falling off a cliff and vice versa a few times. Although they were portrayed as best friends (now ex-best friends), there was some romantic tension depicted at Princess Prom. Being the charismatic person she is, Catra shows up, surprises Adora, and then teases her by leaving a note in the trashcan and mindlessly walking about while Lonnie and the others plant heat bombs in the castle. Eventually, the dance begins, and Adora goes through several different partners, the first of which is Catra, who seems to be smug as if she arranged it to be so. The two dance together, but their dance is unlike the others because Catra ends up being bold and dipping Adora and such, showing the two to have a much closer dance than the other partners.

While she does so, Catra is still teasing Adora viciously, eventually breaking the news that she had captured Bow indirectly. Much tension is left between them and Adora is shown to still care for Catra as she grabs her as she nearly falls off a cliff as aforementioned, but Catra quickly lets go. By the end of season one, although both are still slightly nostalgic from their past relationship, Catra still continues on her path to destroy the Princess Alliance and make everything Adora loves come crashing down.

During the end of season three, after she regains her memories while in the false reality, Catra lashes out at Adora, blaming her for the catastrophe, but Adora says, in the end, that it was Catra that pulled the lever, so she is the only one to blame for the consequences of her own choices, ending with "now live with it" before finally knocking Catra down. In the end, Adora manages to reinstate the normal reality and to destroy Hordak's portal emerging from it as She-Ra, but both Catra and Hordak manage to escape in the confusion, Adora giving Catra a cold, frightening stare that clearly scares her, thus causing Catra to realize that Adora is done trying to redeem her. Whatever remained of the friendship between Catra and Adora had disappeared.

Catra largely avoids directly fighting Adora in Season Four, instead exploiting Double Trouble and their shape-shifting skills to manipulate her. In their brief encounter in "Flutterina," Catra traps Adora along with her steed, Swift Wind, and begins insulting her, targeting her recent failure in protecting the citizens of Elberon. Adora responded steadily, mentioning that Catra was responsible for hurting too many people after she opened the portal, and letting her know that she, "won't let [Catra] hurt [her] friends, or anyone else, ever again!" Catra offers one more insult before the bots surrounding them activate, shocking Adora and Swift Wind, an idea that Catra states was inspired by Shadow Weaver. Catra lets Adora get tortured by her trap before Bow and Flutterina arrive and think of a plan to distract the robots, allowing Adora to destroy them and nearly strikes a blow to Catra, causing her to retreat. Adora still appears in her nightmares, asking her why she is doing what she does (implying that Adora acts more or less as her conscience).

After Scorpia leaves her and the Horde, Catra finds herself confronted with her abandonment issues from when Adora left her. In the Season Four finale, When it comes to Double Trouble's turn to betray her, they make a point to highlight her obsession with Adora after her strong reaction to them taking Adora's form and taunting Catra while reminding her that it was ultimately her own actions that led to Adora leaving her.

In Season Five, Catra finds herself yearning for Adora while trapped on Horde Prime's ship, and even bonds with Glimmer over their shared memories of her. She also looks back on memories of their childhood together and finally realizes, despite their differences, Adora was the only person who ever truly believed in her. When she switches sides and frees Glimmer, she warns Adora not to rescue her and risk her own life. Horde Prime recognizes Catra's feelings for Adora and uses them to manipulate both of them by placing her under his control through an implanted chip. However, Adora's devotion to rescuing Catra wins out and she manages to free her from Horde Prime.

Despite this, Catra is initially reluctant to rebuild her friendship with Adora, keeping her at an arm's distance and outright expressing her belief that Adora will try to leave her behind again. As she grows closer with Adora's friends and joins them on their adventures, she and Adora gradually warm up to each other again. When Adora decides to take on the fail-safe code for the Heart of Etheria, however, Catra decides she is too much of a distraction to Adora's duties and tries to flee, only to change her mind after learning of Horde Prime's final plan and running back to aid Adora in releasing the Heart of Etheria, saving her from an ancient security system. When Adora was rendered incapable of becoming She-Ra by Horde Prime's virus and nearly dies from it, Catra's confession of love, and her subsequent return of it by kissing her, is what ultimately reawakens Adora's powers. With Horde Prime destroyed and his empire no more, Adora decides to go on a quest spreading magic across the universe, inviting Bow, Glimmer, and her now girlfriend, Catra, to which Catra happily accepts.