I don't know if I am treading into some deep waters here, but I just wanna throw in my two cents anyway. So, I'm working on a video essay and I'm halfway done. I'm up to discussing the theme of the Cycle of Violence. It's the theme I wanted to talk about the most, probably. And I want to put in what I will be saying in that video here.

Catra was always setup as the story of a child who was a victim who would get close to becoming a monster herself, but would ultimately reject what Shadow Weaver represented. The cycle of violence is a social theory that when parents are abusive to their kids, their children will grow up and become abusers themselves. Then those abusers will start their own families and then they will then pass on that abuse again, ad infinitum. Catra is at the end of this cycle in the show, but I think what many people who were hugely against the show either didn't pay attention to or perhaps didn't even watch, was how Catra never really wanted to be somebody like her abusive mother. There are scenes such as when we first see SW, Catra talking to her when SW is in prison, etc. that shows that she doesn't really want to be like her. It's just that she wanted to prove something to herself so much that she lied to herself. Catra continuously manipulates not just other people, but even her own mind that he becoming more like Shadow Weaver would be a victory. But it's not until Salineas is taken that she realizes that the better path is being honest with herself. And that leads into a natural redemption arc in the finale.

I think this is what separates Catra from Azula. Right from the start Azula was set up as somebody who genuinely wants to be somebody like Ozai and does sincerely believe, true to her core, that becoming somebody like her abusive father is the right path. Granted, there are times where we see there is more to her than we may think, but in Avatar's story, Azula's end would naturally be a person who breaks down because she just can't even consider the idea this was all a bad path to go down. Catra, on the other hand, can. And her interactions with her mother started her on a very different trajectory in comparison to Azula right from the start.

I also think this is why the commentary of how She-Ra is about "toxic relationships" is an incredibly flimsy argument at best. Granted, I do know there are simply some bad-faith talking heads out there, but I also believe there are people who genuinely think that. With that being said, I always think it's akin to those people in the early to mid 2000's who thought saying Beauty and the Beast was about Stockholm Syndrome was a hot and genius take. But to me and so many others it was always null. In both stories, our hero (Adora/Belle) rejects and don't given unearned respect to the antagonists who start of as incredible jerks (Catra/Beast) and it's not until those jerks change that our heroes give them credit where credit is due. It's not even like they "fix them" when they're being jerks. Both villain turned hero characters make that decisions themselves on their own accords. And both stories hammer home this anti-abuse message where the characters who actually remain abusive (Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime/Gaston) end up being rejected and die due to their refusal to change.

Some people also like to bring up that perhaps the messed up things Catra did in the past make it so that redemption should have never been considered...but we are watching a fantasy story. That's just how redemptions in fantasy stories go. The bad deeds they do and the crimes they commit are emphasized and on epic scale to make a simple story about a bad person become good seem more...well...epic. Ie an EPIC Fantasy. It's the same thing with Star Wars, and yes, Avatar for me. I don't think anybody should be giving people who adore Zuko and Iroh's stories any flak seeing as how they were enormous war criminals who spent years of their lives aiding committing atrocities for a genocidal imperialist war machine conquering so much of the known world. It's a fantasy story with great redemption stories in both cases. Hell, Zuko is my favorite character in all of fiction I would say.

She-Ra is a phenomenal story about love, humility, introspection, forgiveness, friendship, solidarity, change, sacrificing of ego, and escaping the curse of abuse. And I would say so much of that is because Catra's story is the way it is.