Characters / Cat-Ra

Characters from the fiction Cat-Ra

Rebellion

Catra

• Adaptational Badass: Catra has the powers of She-Ra, in addition to her own natural Magicat abilities.
• Adaptational Heroism: With Catra taking the place of Adora as the hero of The Rebellion in this continuity, it's only natural that she is more heroic than her canon counterpart. That being said, this is initially downplayed, as Catra starts out helping the Rebellion for purely selfish reasons (because she wants to get away from the Horde and wants her own kingdom e.g.). It begins being played straight by the end of Season 1, once she realizes she likes Bow and Glimmer and earnestly wants to do good by them.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Catra is a wee-bit friendlier, apologizing more for her actions and showing greater concern for others than she does in canon, where she only does so in the final season.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Like canon, Catra never really fit in with the Horde cadets besides Adora. Unlike canon, where she at least had a positive relationship with the rest of her squad, here Shadow Weaver turned the cadets against her before she got the chance.
• All Take and No Give: While not nearly as bad as canon, flashbacks show that this Catra still often exploited her friendship with Adora. Unfortunately, by the time Catra realizes how awful she had been to Adora and tries to apologize for it, Adora no longer wants to hear it.
• Amazon Chaser: Like in canon, Catra has a thing for muscular women. She drools over Huntara upon meeting her.
• Anti-Hero: Even after she starts fighting for the Rebellion for its cause instead of the perk of eventually getting her own kingdom, Catra is still a Jerk with a Heart of Gold with more than a slightly ruthless side.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Catra tries to do this in order to save Glimmer, pointing out to Shadow Weaver that she's unnecessary for the Horde's plans, and insulting Glimmer in hopes she wouldn't try to save her in turn. Glimmer is convinced and is hurt by Catra's cruel words. Shadow Weaver is almost fooled as well, until she realizes the magicat is uncharacteristically avoiding eye contact and hiding her face during the princess's tearfully apology for being a bad friend.
• Broken Ace: Catra is a smart, fast, strong, and skilled fighter who gains extraordinary powers, but she has many regrets, deep-rooted insecurities, and a very complex internal struggles thanks to Shadow Weaver. By season 4, she has begun to grow out of the broken part, though only partially.
• Byronic Hero: Becoming She-Ra does nothing to make Catra a better person, and she starts out only using Glimmer and Bow as a scheme to get her own kingdom from Angella. This causes several extra complications from canon, even after she starts undergoing character development.
• Cats Hate Water: Like in canon, Catra hates water. A Running Gag is people complaining about Catra's lack of bathing. During the Season 3 finale, Mermista hits Catra with a giant hose. As noted by both Monokub and Catra herself, to her, being doused in water is the same as locking her in a freezer.
• Chekhov's Gun: The usually footwear-repulsed Catra is so gung-ho about curing Glimmer's glitching that she doesn't take off the combat boots Bow and Glimmer had her try on. Two episodes later, this prevents her feet from being totally immobilized by the Beacon's defenses.
• Cosmic Plaything: Pretty much sums up Catra's experience as She-Ra. First, Catra finds that the sword only works whenever it feels like it (i.e. almost never when she actually needs it). Then, it starts to continually force her to relive traumatic memories of her past. Come the back half of Season 1, and she learns that she was never supposed to be She-Ra, but she made things go so Off the Rails that she has to become the new She-Ra anyway, dashing her hopes of reconciling with Adora. Not only does she have to come to terms with that, but it also turns out her bond with it is incredibly fragile and affected by her emotional state, meaning the Hair-Trigger Temper Catra has to reign in her feelings or else risk irreparably damaging the Sword of Protection and losing the power of She-Ra all together. To say Catra is unhappy about all of this is an understatement.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Even more so than in canon: In addition to being horribly abused by Shadow Weaver and having only a single friend in Adora, this Catra was regularly outright bullied by the other Horde Cadets, and looked down upon by the officers and other adults of the Fright Zone as a "freak" for being the only magicat among them.
• Expressive Ears: Like canon, Catra's ears often change with her mood and are a dead tell for how she is really feels about something or someone.
• Fake Relationship: In the fic's version of "Reunion", Bow's fathers mistakenly assume Catra is Bow's girlfriend, which they most reluctantly go along with, with Catra additionally weaving a tale about Glimmer also having a crush on Bow.
• Freudian Excuse: Catra's callous and distant behavior makes sense when you take into account what her childhood was like (see Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal). If anything, this Catra probably had it worse off than canon Catra.
• Furry Reminder: Like in canon, Catra possesses cat-like traits and habits, displaying even more instances of such than she does in the show. She's fond of scratching things and characters remark that they've gotten used to looking up when searching for her due to her tendency to climb on everything.
• Good Is Not Nice: Absolutely everyone spends the first season utterly confused about how Catra actually feels about her allies in Horde, as she acts like she hates everyone. Even once her feelings of friendship towards at least Bow and Glimmer are cleared up, Catra still remains rude and snarky towards them.
• Good Is Not Soft: Catra, again. If there is a destructive or violent way to accomplish a goal, it will always be her first option, especially if it involves the Horde or getting revenge on someone.
• Guilt Complex: Catra suffers from this to an even greater extent than canon Adora. As the series goes on, she admits on several occasions that she feels like all she's capable of doing is making things worse, refusing to help the others in several instances because of a strong belief that if anything goes wrong, it would be solely because of her. It especially shows up whenever she dwells on how she treated Adora growing up and how that led both directly and indirectly to her former friend's new villain status. Adora's own actions don't help in this regard, as every encounter between the two inevitably has her find something else to blame Catra for. It's also the reason why Catra refuses to forgive Frosta for an entire season, as she believes forgiving Frosta would also mean forgiving herself for the actions that made the girl decide to double-cross the Rebellion to begin with.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: A major issue with Catra's ability to access She-Ra, with her being especially furious at Entrapta and Frosta switching to the Horde, wanting to see them locked up for life at a minimum despite the rest of the Rebellion being more willing to forgive.
• Heroic BSoD: Catra has a huge one at the end of "No Happy Endings", being reduced to Inelegant Blubbering after Adora completely rejects her and any thought of changing sides.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: At her core, all Catra has ever really wanted is love and acceptance. It's not until chapter 90 that she finally and fully realizes and accepts this, admitting to Bow and Glimmer that her desire for a kingdom was never really about having power, but about having a place where she would be loved and accepted.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Catra has an even bigger one than in canon - on the one hand, she's She-Ra, on the other hand, all of her issues about never measuring up are only aggravated by this (especially when it turns out she's technically not She-Ra, but rather an instance of Closest Thing We Got), and so she develops an even more showy attitude to cover up her insecurities.
• Jerkass Has a Point: At Princess Prom, she calls Glimmer a spoiled brat that doesn't know what she's got. While not entirely true of Glimmer, several actions of the princess do come across as bratty and selfish thus making her quite the jerk with a point about her character.
• Jerkass Realization: Catra gradually has one and resolves to be a better person after she realizes how difficult she's made things for everyone, especially when she realizes Adora turned too evil to use the Sword.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Catra becomes this over the course of the story. She remains rude, snarky and short-tempered, and can be more than just a little bit ruthless, violent, and vengeful, but at her core she is a good person who cares deeply about her friends and wants to do the right thing.
• Last of Her Kind: Discussed: Entrapta speculates that Catra may be the last magicat left.
• Mind Rape: Catra was subjected to this once by Shadow Weaver as punishment for accidentally putting Adora in danger. Shadow Weaver put Catra into an enchanted sleep for two days, during which she forced the poor cat-girl to experience nightmares of her worst fears over and over again.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: This is the major reason why Catra joined the Rebellion. After years of the guards and other adults of the Fright Zone looking down on her and believing her to be a freak, the children doing the same with the adage of constant bullying and harassment, and Shadow Weaver's non-stop mental and emotional abuse, Catra has absolutely no love for The Horde itself.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: As in canon, Catra is much stronger than she looks, being able to defeat Sea Hawk in arm wrestling multiple times and go toe-to-toe with the larger, brawnier Huntara.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Many of Catra's actions, intentional or not, have a tendency to ruin things somewhere down the line; from her reckless behavior making situations immediately worse, to her harsh behavior and attitude turning people away (leading Frosta to become a double agent for the Horde), to almost everything surrounding Adora (that wasn't Shadow Weaver's fault, anyway).
• Not Helping Your Case: Despite the fact that the point of attending the prom is to convince Frosta to join the Rebellion, Catra immediately gets off on the wrong foot Frosta by calling her a brat, and continues to cast a poor impression of Rebellion members throughout the rest of the night. Even Catra's attempted apology partway through the festivities is ruined by her once again insulting the child, though that instance was at least prompted by Frosta badmouthing Glimmer.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: In "The Coronation", when Catra tries to call Glimmer out for hiding the fact that she can't use her powers (as her grief over her mother's death has prevented her from feeling comfortable recharging at the Moonstone), asking "What kind of person can't use her powers and doesn't tell her friends about it!?", Bow and Glimmer spend several seconds staring at her in irritated disbelief. She doesn't get it.
  Catra: What kind of person can't use her powers and doesn't tell her friends about it!?
  It took her a matter of five seconds before she noticed the silence emanating from her friends before looking back to them, seeing a mix of irritation, boredom, and disbelief as they both raised an eyebrow to her.
  Catra: ... What? ... WHAT?
• Oblivious to Love: Like in canon, Catra is completely oblivious to how she really feels about Adora, despite the many signs. She also initially fails to realize Spinerrella and Netossa are a couple despite seeing them flirting.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: At the end of A Parting Wish, Catra, full of grief over Angella's sacrifice, initiates a hug with Glimmer, something no one has ever seen her do.
• Revenge Before Reason: Catra does not take being slighted well and will go to great lengths to get revenge on whoever wronged her, regardless of how detrimental it is to her own well-being. Outside her interactions with Adora and the Horde, the best example of this is the episode "Huntara", where after the titular character cuts Catra's claws in addition to stealing the sword, the desperate insanity of her revenge plot (Catra training a giant snake monster to attack her so that, when she summons it later, Huntara will get caught in the chaos) has a terrified Glimmer note that she should warn her mother about how serious Catra takes her claws.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Even after she genuinely becomes friends with Bow and Glimmer, and starts fighting for the Rebellion for its cause instead of the perk of eventually getting her own kingdom, Catra remains rude, snarky, sarcastic, aloof, and short-tempered, and emotionally distant.
• Rejected Apology: After realizing how awful she was to Adora growing up by exploiting their friendship, Catra profusely and sincerely tries to apologize, but Adora refuses to forgive her.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: An unwilling variation. At the end of Coronation, Castaspella and Shadow Weaver decide that Catra (who has a habit of avoiding bathing and not bothering to take care of her clothing) needs a bath and a change of clothes. When Catra learns this, she tries to run away in a panic before being subdued by Shadow Weaver, and dragged by her and Castaspella to the bathroom. Catra continues to resist, until Castaspella and Shadow Weaver convince her to go along with it so that others will think better of the company Glimmer keeps. When Catra next appears, she has undergone a Significant Wardrobe Shift, which everyone agrees makes her look better than before.
• Super-Senses: This Catra, like canon, has shown to have superhuman hearing. Even whispering 20ft away isn't enough to stop her from hearing you.
• Take a Third Option: When Adora gives Catra the choice to come back to the Horde, or leave without the sword, Catra most reluctantly and remorsefully manipulates their friendship to give Adora a hug making her think she's coming back, only to steal the sword and run away with Glimmer.
• Tragic Hero: Catra has shades of this: She was once a sweet and innocent child, but her awful upbringing changed her forever, instilling in her an inherent sense of wariness, bitterness and ruthlessness that often interferes with her newfound morality. By pure accident, she gets placed into a role she was never destined for. She wants to be loved and to have friends and a family, but even after she finds such a thing, the one friend she had as a child now hates her because of the mistakes she made. Catra is a hero, but by the look of things, she will never truly be whole again.
• The Unchosen One: Her limited ability to use the sword throughout the first season was a result of the Finder's Protocol, which allows the holder to use a fraction of the sword's power during their quest to give it to the rightful owner; in this case, Adora. By the time Catra realizes this and decides to fulfill that mission, the sword had already transferred ownership over to her, though the bond is still a weak one that she must actively work to maintain.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: When she was younger, Catra was way more innocent and kind-hearted than she was shown to be in canon and was also very happy to make new friends. Emphasis on "was", before a trick by Lonnie that ended with Catra being trapped and left scared and crying in a dark cell.
  • This text from Chapter 19 really drives it home:
  In some regards, this was the happiest moment of Catra's life, one where she felt pure joy at the prospect of making new friends and making Adora proud of her again for being able to do this.
  And it would be the last time she ever smiled so innocently.
• What Is This Feeling??: Catra is frequently unable to properly articulate a good chunk of her emotions, which when mixed with her standoffish attitude, makes her difficult to read even for her closest allies. At one point, Frosta even muses how Catra is virtually incapable of defining feelings of fondness and friendship after hearing the magicat describe her relationship with everyone as "annoying but tolerable".

Glimmer

• Vitriolic Best Buds: To Catra. Thanks to the Glimmer's stubbornness and the Catra's standoffish behavior often clashing, they never hesitate to help and defend each other, though, which is a major factor as to why Adora first thought Catra was being brainwashed by the princess. Softens up as the two become closer, with Glimmer eventually dropping most of this behavior while Catra eases up on the snark.
  Catra: "Haha, Glimmer. How's my best buddy?"
  Glimmer: "...You're definitely sick, aren't you?

Frosta

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Although Frosta says she inherited the throne when she was eight, her backstory is never revealed. Here, it's revealed her parents died when she was very young.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: This ends up becoming Frosta's entire reason for continuing to work with The Horde after a point. After seeing the horrible living conditions in The Fright Zone (which even Adora admits to), the fearmonging The Horde uses on its cadets on top of it strict training, and hearing Entrapta say she's done almost nothing but build weapons, the only reason Frosta doesn't turn her back on The Horde right then-and-there is because she likes Adora specifically and Adora has similar thoughts on family to Frosta. Later deconstructed and subverted as Frosta realizes she shouldn't be fighting for a side she doesn't believe in whatsoever just because of a single person.
• Easily Forgiven: With the obvious exception of Catra, The Princess Alliance is very quick to move past finding out that Frosta was The Mole. While they obviously aren't happy about it, none of them seem to bare any animosity over the situation even as soon as the battle is over.

The Horde

Adora

• Adaptational Badass: Adora shares Shadow Weaver's ability to manipulate shadows thanks to a magic headband, with her also having a more deadly superpowered form on top of that. She also gains the ability to use them without the headband at the end of Season 1. Her powers become fully innate by Season 4, accompanied by the ability to copy the powers of the other princesses, though only partially.
• Adaptational Intelligence: To her credit, this version of Adora is significantly better at taking advantage of Catra's weaknesses (like her enhanced senses and temperament), which never appears to occur to the canon Adora. She is also better at reading Catra than her canon counterpart.
• Adaptational Villainy: Just as Catra has taken the place of She-Ra in this continuity, Adora takes Catra's as The Dragon to Shadow Weaver and Hordak, though this is downplayed at first just like Catra's Adaptational Heroism. It takes constant gaslighting from Shadow Weaver to convince her that the princesses are evil and have brainwashed Catra, and even then, she still wants The Horde to go out of its way not to harm civilians and act in a more diplomatic manner before engaging in force. It isn't until "The Beacon" where this trope begins to be played straight and then some, with Adora wanting and willing to burn The Rebellion to the ground just to deny Catra everything she wants.
• Affably Evil: Adora, who is generally as amicable as her canon counterpart outside of battle, prefers to engage in diplomacy and build up alliances rather than conquering other kingdoms and villages. While she does acknowledge some of the Horde's rougher points, she views the organization as being a home filled with close-knit family and can't fathom their goals as being evil.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: After Catra points out to Adora that Thaymor's people are completely harmless, Adora has very serious doubts as to whether The Horde are the good guys like she always believed. However, with the aid of some very serious gas-lighting, Shadow Weaver manages to convince her of The Horde's (obviously false) virtues due Adora's belief that the woman who raised Adora her whole life couldn't possible be lying to her to such a degree. While she does eventually turn on Shadow Weaver, by that time this faith has transferred to The Horde itself, as she swears up and down that they are her family and the good guys, refusing to even humor anyone's claim to the contrary.
• Broken Ace: Arguably even more so than canon Catra. Adora is a brilliantly cunning and highly skilled fighter who gains extraordinary powers, but thanks to Shadow Weaver has deep-rooted personal issues that keeps her from realizing her full potential.
• Broken Pedestal: Adora suffers this hard towards Shadow Weaver and later Hordak, hastening her own fall to villainy.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Adora does this to Scorpia so she won't get in trouble for trying to break her out of jail, pretending that she was only using Scorpia the entire time and that she wasn't even a halfway decent pawn at that.
• Calling the Old Man Out: In season three, she insults Hordak in front of a unit of Horde soldiers, calling him a "failure" and insisting that he needs people like Shadow Weaver and herself to run the Horde because he cannot or will not.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Averted: Even after everything she and the Horde have done, Adora firmly believes that they are the good guys, and her own actions and motives are justified.
• Casting a Shadow: Adora gets a magic headband giving her control over shadows, making her a match for even a full-powered She-Ra. This proves to be an issue for Double Trouble, who can duplicate the appearance of the shadows, but not their abilities.
• The Chains of Commanding: After becoming Hordak's second-in-command, Adora, like Canon Catra, has to deal with a lot of paperwork and logistics, which she does not enjoy.
• Composite Character: In addition to being based on the 2018 Adora, this one also takes elements from her DC Comics counterpart (who also went by Despara) and her uncle Skeletor.
  • By Season 4, she has become a fusion of all four of the Big Bad's in the canon series. Like canon!Catra, she's obsessed with destroying She-Ra and convinced she has to gain as much power as possible to keep others from harming her, as well as a tendency to taunt in battle. Like Shadow Weaver, she has darkness magic by drawing power from the Black Garnet and manipulates her opponents by preying on their weaknesses. Like Hordak, she has power armor, rules through fear and constantly tries to prove she's not a failure. Like Horde Prime, she justifies her actions as bringing peace and unity even when it's blatantly about her own ego.
• Discard and Draw: The mechanics and drawbacks of Adora's powers change almost every season:
  • In Season 1, she receives a headband that gives her control of shadows, but it also messes with her emotions and puts a strain on her mind.
  • In Season 2, she loses the headband but gains the ability to use her powers without it. However, overuse of her abilities causes her to experience Mana Burn, and her powers come packaged with a Superpowered Evil Side.
  • In Season 4, she loses the ability to use her powers on her own, but gains the ability to absorb magic and a set of Powered Armor.
• Drunk On Power: Adora becomes this after using her shadow abilities for prolonged periods of time, with the anger and sadism she feels when entering her Super Mode eventually leaking into her daily behavior.
• Extreme Doormat: Comes to see her kinder ways as this and becomes an aggressive tyrant because she's convinced everyone would walk over her otherwise.
• Evil Former Friend: While at first Adora simply wants Catra to return to The Horde and be her friend again, a pure hatred for Catra eventually fosters in Adora. The tipping point is when they visit The Crystal Castle and it shows them memories from their past. After viewing a few select memories, Adora concludes that Catra was never really her friend and that she just used her as a tool to get out of trouble. Despite Catra's insistence that they were actually friends and that she is sorry for the way she treated Adora, Adora refuses to listen to Catra any further and promises to destroy The Rebellion just to spite Catra.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: Adora gradually goes through one across Seasons 2 and 3, with rotting skin, black gloves, a black jacket, and undone hair. Monokub says this was originally accidental but decided to roll with it once he noticed how well all these elements worked together.
• Freudian Excuse: Adora's fall to greater villainy than canon Catra is due to the influence of Shadow Weaver and the magic band, which is connected to an evil, parasitic entity that corrupts the user with promises of power.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Shadow Weaver spends the first season manipulating Adora with the intent of making her more cruel and ruthless. As such, when this newly hardened Adora realizes what kind of person Shadow Weaver is, she betrays her to Hordak without a second thought while giving her a brutal Breaking Speech.
  Shadow Weaver: I've created a monster.
  Adora: No, you've created your replacement.
• It's Personal: At first she wanted the war to end peacefully, but became much more invested and ruthless after feeling betrayed by Catra exploiting their friendship and abandoning her. From Adora's point of view, Catra never saw her as a friend, but as a tool. She's determined to make Catra pay, and if that means destroying the Rebellion and conquering Etheria by force, so be it.
• Irrational Hatred: She decides to destroy the Rebellion (and therefore risk the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of people) just because she wants revenge on Catra.
• More than Mind Control: While Adora's shadow powers do corrupt her mind and body, and the magical parasite Aroda [[Gaslighting manipulates]] her into becoming much worse than canon Catra ever was, they never outright control her; at the end of the day, it is Adora's choice to do what Aroda wants her to do.
• Never My Fault: Much like Canon Catra, Adora develops this attitude as the story progresses, blaming others, though mainly Catra, for her own problems and actions to the point that she blames Catra for her trying to destroy reality in Season 3.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As a side-effect of her Shadow powers, Adora's eyes glow red when she is angry.
• Revenge Before Reason: At the end of season 3, she becomes so obsessed with vengeance against Catra and Shadow Weaver that she is willing to help Aroda destroy everything in order to achieve it.
• Sanity Slippage: She gradually becomes more and more mentally unstable as the story goes on, suffering several emotional breakdowns and becoming prone to lashing out at even the slightest provocation, thanks to the corrupting influence of her shadow powers, the stress of her job, and her feelings of betrayal and resentment against Catra.
• Tragic Villain: Adora starts out as a noble, compassionate, pure-hearted girl who wants nothing more than to do good and be loved, but the constant mental abuse and emotional manipulation she receives from Shadow Weaver, the only parental figure she's ever known, the heartbreak of being exploited and abandoned by her best friend Catra, the corrupting influence of her shadow powers, and her good intentions regularly backfiring on her gradually degrades her mental health and emotional state until she becomes a full-blown villain bent on personal vengeance at any cost.
• Villain Has a Point: Adora's grudge against and feelings of betrayal concerning Catra are not unwarranted. As Catra herself comes to realize and deeply regret, she did exploit Adora's friendship with her, which regardless of the reasons behind it, was an awful thing to do. From Adora's perspective, Catra was never really her best friend, but a Dirty Coward using her as a tool to get what she wanted and to stay out of trouble. While Adora is wrong that Catra did not see her as a friend, she is not wrong that Catra exploited her. So while Adora's intent to destroy the Rebellion for the sake of achieving vengeance against Catra is excessive, she has every right to be angry with Catra.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Due to staying with the Horde, Adora retains the belief that the Horde are the good guys and that conquering Etheria will make it a better place. However, between her feelings of betrayal concerning Catra, her good intentions starting to backfire on her, and the corrupting influence of her Shadow powers, she becomes increasingly ruthless in her methods.

Lonnie

• Ascended Extra: She has more spotlight here due to her relevance to Catra's story.
• Claustrophobia: When Lonnie is trapped in a dark room by Catra, she doesn't take it well and breaks in tears due to her past experiences.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The reason that Lonnie bullied Catra since they were little is under Shadow Weaver's influence. When Lonnie tells this to Catra, she isn't convinced and refuses to forgive her.

Others

Shadow Weaver

• Abusive Mom: Even more so than in canon, both to Adora and Catra. Shadow Weaver was a lot more abusive to Catra, both directly and indirectly, as she encouraged the other Horde cadets to bully and torment Catra for being part cat. She magically tortured Catra when she was only four years old just for asking an innocent question, and one occasion she mind raped Catra for two days straight by trapping her in an enchanted sleep during which the poor catgirl was forced to have nightmares about her worst fears.
• Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed, but still present. Shadow Weaver was no saint in canon, but this version of her is a lot worse to both Adora and Catra.
• The Corrupter: Shadow Weaver is this to Adora, since she's the one who stays with the Horde instead of Catra in this fanfic. She has to put a lot more work into keeping Adora on her side than Catra, constantly manipulating and gaslighting Adora into believing the Horde is good despite evidence to the contrary, and giving her the magic band which gives her the ability to control shadows, but also corrupts her mind and body. Unfortunately for everyone, Shadow Weaver's attempts to corrupt Adora works too well.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: As bad a parental figure as she is, Shadow Weaver does genuinely love and care about Adora as her daughter. When Aroda, (the parasitic entity inhabiting Shadow Weaver's mind), attempted to convince her to sacrifice a baby Adora in a ritual that would give her great power, Shadow Weaver refused to do it. When she realizes that Adora is now being corrupted by Aroda, Shadow Weaver is genuinely horrified and later tries to remove the evil parasite from Adora's mind. It's only when Adora refuses to let go of Aroda does Shadow Weaver give up and try to kill Adora, and even then, she's clearly remorseful about it.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While Shadow Weaver planned to use the shadow band to corrupt Adora, she was horrified to learn that the evil parasite that infected her now infected Adora.
• Freudian Excuse: A small one. Shadow Weaver has always been ambitious, but her greater ruthlessness is at least partly due to the influence of Aroda, an evil parasitic entity she accidentally summoned and infected her own mind with by casting the Spell of Obtainment.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Shadow Weaver spends the first season manipulating Adora with the intent of making her more cruel and ruthless. As such, when this newly hardened Adora realizes what kind of person Shadow Weaver is, she betrays her to Hordak without a second thought while giving her a brutal Breaking Speech.
  Shadow Weaver: I've created a monster.
  Adora: No, you've created your replacement.
• Mind Rape: Shadow Weaver once subjected Catra to this as punishment for accidentally putting Adora in danger. She put Catra into an enchanted sleep for two days, during which she forced the poor cat-girl to experience nightmares of her worst fears over and over again.
• Misery Builds Character: Shadow Weaver's second reason for constantly treating Catra poorly, as she tells Glimmer. Shadow Weaver believed that Catra's need for validation was the only reliable driving force the magicat had, so withholding it was the best way to make her reach her full potential.

Aroda

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg / Villains Want Mercy: After Catra defeats her and Adora, Aroda initially attempts to manipulate Catra into becoming her new host, but when that fails, she practically begs Catra to save her.
• The Corrupter: Aroda is this to Shadow Weaver and Adora when she infects their respective minds, encouraging them to be more ruthless and violent in order to gain great power.
• Eldritch Abomination: Aroda is a mysterious parasitic magical entity who comes from a dimension of pure magic and searches for hosts to manipulate, corrupt to evil, and, if there is no other source of power, feed on. In her true form, she is described as a hideous, red and black mass of eyeballs and tentacles.
• Face Death with Dignity: Subverted: When Catra refuses to save her by becoming her new host, Aroda initially tries to pretend that she isn't afraid to die, but when it becomes clear that she will be erased from existence due to being trapped in the Lotus-Eater Machine when Catra restores reality, she panics and screams as she vanishes.
• False Friend: To Adora: Aroda successfully corrupts the vulnerable young girl by pretending to be her trustworthy friend.
• Faux Affably Evil: She pretends to be kind, polite and friendly to her hosts... emphasis on pretend, as she is actually pure evil and very selfish.
• Hate Sink: She pushes Adora into committing evil acts just so she can take all the power for herself.
• It's All About Me: At the end of the day, no matter how kind, polite or honest she acts, the only being Aroda cares about is herself. She endangers the entire universe by persuading Adora to ignore Entrapta's warning that Hordak's portal would destroy all existence and activate it, just so Aroda could acquire great power. When Catra tries to save reality, Aroda sadistically torments and tries to kill her in order to stop her. Upon defeat, Aroda attempts to persuade Catra to become her new host, abandoning Adora.
• Invisible to Normals: Only her hosts can see her, unless she chooses to show herself to others.
• Knight of Cerebus: Her very existence in the fic is a large reason the story is darker than canon. She pushes Adora to be even more dangerous than canon Catra and Adora could ever be, made Shadow Weaver an even worse parent, and rotted away Adora's body and soul.
• Manipulative Bitch: She uses both Shadow Weaver and Adora for her own ends. With the latter, she preys on her fears, insecurities and feelings of betrayal concerning Catra, Hordak and Shadow Weaver, eventually causing Adora to turn against her remaining friends and activate Entrapta's reality-destroying portal.
• More than Mind Control: Aroda does not outright control her hosts; she merely manipulates them, puts ideas in their heads, and rots away their bodies and souls.
• Sadist: Aroda clearly enjoys what she does, and is shown to relish the very idea of tormenting or killing someone.
• The Sociopath: Has no empathy or care for anyone except herself, is very sadistic, delights in both mental and physical torment, and proves to be capable of manipulating others.
• Villains Never Lie: Part of what makes Aroda so effective as a manipulator is that she never outright lies about anything, which is why Adora remains on her side.