#hence why i end up blocking so many h*rdak stans on sight despite personally thinking he is an interesting character

[n7punk]

Do you think it’s a red flag if someone unironically likes shadow weaver? my friend started watching shera and she’s basically justifying Catra’s abuse because she likes shadow weaver. Ik it’s just a show but I’m actually reconsidering my friendship with her lol

Might be controversial, but yes if someone justifies Shadow Weaver's actions, that is a red flag. If they just like her as a character - because she is an interesting character, and you can like the fact that a character is well-developed without justifying a single thing they do - then that's totally fine, but if they completely dismiss the fact that she is abusive, and especially if they place the blame for that abuse on her victims, then I would not personally be comfortable talking to that person. SW's actions are not something purely of the realm of fiction (unlike, say, opening a portal that tears apart space-time after being tortured with lightning magic), and the harm that they cause is one of the reasons so many people relate to Catra and/or Adora.

SW is an interesting character because of how well written she is, and how accurately the show portrays that relationship between an abusive parent and their ward without justifying it. It even shows Adora and Catra still caring about her in some ways without making it seem like it is something they are obligated to do, but rather that it is a reality of their situation - a consequence of being raised by her, despite the pain that she caused them.

I often feel like people take the war and Catra's actions in SPOP "too seriously" (treating the war as if it is a real one, rather than the metaphor that it mostly serves. The show itself portrays Mermista as handling losing her kingdom to the Horde the same way one deals with a break up), but the way SW's abuse is depicted is extremely realistic to how many people with abusive parents experience it (there are, of course, different types of abuse and abusers, but the show nails its portrayal of SW’s type).

There are, of course, nuances to this conversation. Catra does bad things too, because she is a young abuse victim who doesn't know any other way given that she was raised entirely as a child soldier in an environment of abuse, without even things like TV to show her another kind of life. She improves and takes steps to remedy her mistakes by the end of the show.

Shadow Weaver, by contrast, is an adult who repeatedly, for decades, abuses and uses people, never improving as a person, even if she changes to serve the "good" side (which she only did after Hordak imprisoned her and tried to send her to Beast Island. Friendly reminder that Catra joined the side of good without being sentenced to death by her current boss - she in fact was placing that sentence on her own head by freeing Glimmer, but she did it anyway). Shadow Weaver changes allegiances just to chase positions of power where she can continue to abuse people - Catra tries to secure a position of power as self-defense, and because she has never been given anything else to aspire to in the Fright Zone, whereas Shadow Weaver has known both the light and the dark and purposefully chose the one that would serve her best.

Villains are fun - loving villains is why I love Catra, and She-go, and any other number of "evil" (or actually evil) women, and I don't expect every post someone makes about a character they like to include an asterisk that links to a meta about the problems with them as a person (especially one that treats them as if they were they real, because most of the time that doesn’t even make sense for the piece of media), but if they are claiming she isn't abusive or it's the fault of her victims, then that's indicative of a questionable personality type to me.

Catra to Entrapta: "I'm sorry."

Shadow Weaver to Catra: "You're welcome."

That's really all you need to compare the two by the end of season five.