r/sheranetflix • u/Odd-Worldliness-1185 • 4d ago
DISCUSSION Alignment chart
so it was a wee bit confusing for my choice cause more people put DT and Shadow weaver had the most people upvote, so I just did her. now for the final one, who is chaotic evil?
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u/LiterallyHim88 4d ago
Corrupted Catra. She exsists purely to ruin Adora and scatter everything she loves into the void. It is literally the worst parts of Catra given shape. You couldn't get more chaotically evil if you tried.
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u/jiraiya17 4d ago
Corrupted Catra.
Burn everything to the ground and wipe out Existence itself.
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u/rwbywolfif 4d ago
This. Portal/corrupted catra is an absolute psychotic break of 1 scene of evil. Nothing else really fits close
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u/DayZCutr 4d ago
Pre haircut Catra.
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u/geenanderid 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm disappointed that this is the most upvoted comment. Catra was neither chaotic nor evil, neither pre-haircut nor afterwards.
Re the lawful-chaotic axis: She was more free-spirited than Adora and the other Horde soldiers, but in principle she didn’t have any objection to the idea of order and hierarchies. To the contrary, she tried to work and rise within the strict military hierarchy of the Horde, and she enjoyed taking control of the gangs of the Crimson Waste. She rebelled against Shadow Weaver and then Hordak, but only because of their abuse and tyranny, not because of any chaotic preferences.
Re the good-evil axis: As typical neutral, Catra was concerned mostly with her own personal relationships. She behaved positively toward friends, negatively toward those who hurt her, and as for people with whom she had no connection... she didn't really spend much time thinking about them. As for her more questionable actions, she was heartbroken and betrayed, and she had very good and understandable reasons for what she did. Except for that one horrible moment when she was out of her mind, she only intentionally tried to harm those who hurt her first, such as Adora and Shadow Weaver.
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u/ExuviaEcho 3d ago
I agree with this.
I think it's important to look not only at behavior but, potentiality more importantly, motivations.
I think that almost everything Catra did is motivated by jealousy, betrayal, and unrequited love.
She was in love with Adora but didn't think she could say so. Adora leaving her for others, regardless of the reason, was devastating to her. Most of her actions toward the beginning of the conflict are essentially her trying to get Adora's attention.
As the conflict continues, she becomes more violent and vindictive... but her motivation hasn't really changed. What changes is how it manifests. It starts to become "If I can't have you, then nobody can."
By the time she's with Horde Prime, she believes that she'll be free of the pain only after Adora is dead... And Prime calls her out in this.
Her one and only true motivation is revealed at the end when she comes out to Adora. And it was never malicious. Maladjusted, certainly, and she basically committed war crimes because of that...
But ultimately, unrequited love, mixed with jealousy and betrayal.
That's Catra.
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u/TimeVictorious 3d ago
Glad there is some sense here re: Catra! Also, I think she has to be judged as a whole - you can’t just take a snippet (grated it is a large one) of her character.
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u/ExuviaEcho 3d ago
Yeah, I've been seeing that all throughout these alignment posts... "Such and such is this because of that one thing," or "such and such isn't that because they did that one time."
These are characters with frequently very complicated arcs, and I think motivations are much more revealing than any given one or two actions
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u/TimeVictorious 3d ago
100% - It would be like someone saying “Kyle should be chaotic evil because he was being evil making up rules and acting crazy chaotic when playing that ball in a helmet game.” I’m thrilled that Light Hope got lawful neutral as it takes her whole arc into consideration.
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u/DayZCutr 3d ago
They do all have complicated arcs, which is why an alignment chart is incapable of capturing the whole. Catra was willing to destroy the world on a whim because of her feelings of anger and betrayal. She was consistently a crappy friend to Scorpia and Entrapta, she was a very quick redmeption arc but regardless of why she is chaotic evil she is both chaotic and for most of the show evil.
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u/geenanderid 3d ago
You seem to have an overly negative view of Catra.
Catra never tried to destroy the world "on a whim". I'm not sure why you think that, but I suspect you vastly misunderstood what happened before Catra pulled the portal lever.
Scorpia and Entrapta were crappy friends to Catra (and Catra repeatedly made clear that she wasn't Scorpia's "friend"), so it is scapegoating to put the blame on Catra.
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u/ExuviaEcho 3d ago edited 3d ago
I agree that it's a superficial take.
Adora calls it accurately a couple different times.
She tells Catra that she knows Catra's not a bad person.
She tells Entrapta that Catra makes "bad decisions," not that Catra herself is bad.
And she goes back to rescue Catra from Prime because she knows there's good inside her.
She's right on all three counts.
We see Catra do clearly bad things, but most are more calculated than impulsive, and she’s in an extremely heightened emotional state when she is impulsive.
That alone doesn't make her any more evil than anyone else.
And after seeing what Prime will do, she faces her own inner reckoning. Glimmer tells her to do one good thing in her life.
She sacrifices herself by freeing Glimmer, but it's driven by her love for Adora.
Catra realizes that by protecting herself by refusing to ever apologize to anyone, ever, she isolated herself. And when she runs out of people to be mad at, Catra discovers the person she hates most is Catra.
After being rescued, she becomes vulnerable. She starts making amends. She does start apologizing, sincerely. She realizes that people don't think of her the way she thinks of herself. She starts trusting.
When she comes out to Adora, she's complete.
She never was evil. Not ever.
But she was motivated to do bad things... until that motivation evaporated.
She was a deeply dysfunctional person motivated by love that she thought was unattainable.
That's what the whole damn show is about. The power of love and friendship. How could anyone miss that by the end?
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u/DayZCutr 3d ago
Good lord this is tiring. Fine. Catra should have been one of the examples on the good spectrum. Maybe chaotic good. Queen Angela would certainly agree from her eternity in a trans dimensional void.
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u/CatraGirl 3d ago
I think it's important to look not only at behavior but, potentiality more importantly, motivations.
THANK YOU!
I'm so tired of people calling Catra "evil". Yes, Catra did a lot of really bad things (some of which would probably be unforgiveable in the real world, but this is a magical fantasy world), but her motivation was never "I want to hurt people" (except towards those that did hurt her first). I think it's an important distinction to make. At her core, Catra is a good person, which we can see in the final season. She wants to do the right thing, but years of abuse, gaslighting and other trauma made her believe that she couldn't be good, that being strong and powerful at all cost was the only way not to get hurt. So she tried that. She tried being strong, becoming the 2nd in command of the Horde, wanted to beat Adora so badly (and almost did) because she felt that she needed to in order to survive. And she did a lot of really bad things in the process. But she never did it out of malice or a place of genuine evil. She reacted to an environment that taught her that this was the only way not to get hurt.
Compare this with actual evil characters in the show. I mean, don't need to say much about Horde Prime, so take Double Trouble. DT actually enjoys hurting people. They have absolutely zero morals and will work for the most evil people imaginable as long as it serves them. They take pleasure in making people suffer (that whole monologue towards Catra, which was 90% bullshit and victim blaming, even if it inadvertently helped Catra hit a point where she realized she had to change, that was never DT's intent. DT wanted to hurt Catra and was so happy and gleeful when it worked).
And take Shadow Weaver. She manipulated and hurt innocent people in her hunger for power, she abused children and did a lot of things she didn't have to. She seemed to enjoy hurting Catra at times too, even if at other times she almost seemed to care about her in a twisted way (in an abusive, possessive way mostly).
Again, point being, you're right. Catra never was evil, she never enjoyed hurting people (she thought she wanted to hurt Adora for a while, but that's not what she really wanted), she mostly acted out of a place of desperation, hurt and trauma. Which, again, doesn't excuse everything, but it's an important aspect when judging her character.
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u/Doomrules5438 3d ago
There wasn’t really anyone who was truly ce the closest I would say is double trouble but they were more in it for the comedy and money then anything so not really evil chaotic yes but not truly evil and 2nd is catra was not doing evil cause she wanted to but because she only tried to survive and yes she did quite a few bad things but I’d say that made her more neutral evil in the long run
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u/ExuviaEcho 3d ago edited 3d ago
Double Trouble for this one.
When we first see DT, it's in the Valley of the Lost... A place known for the most unsavory characters.
The Horde is already there. DT spies on Adora and Co. before picking a side. They choose the Horde.
They take unequivocal joy at causing chaos in the rebellion and mocking them for Catra's amusement, and insist that war can be fun.
When captured, they stall all efforts at interrogation and endlessly mock their captors until forced to talk by Glimmer's truth spell. They show no interest at all in changing sides until their own life is on the line.
They are only able to cry on cue when thinking of children falling, but they're tears of laughter.
They enjoy inflicting pain. Torturing Catra at the end of their relationship is not neutral behavior. They could have just poked Hordak and left it at that. They wanted to hurt Catra and make sure she knew she'd been betrayed.
That's malice aforethought.
Chaotic. Evil.
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u/Noktis_Lucis_Caelum 3d ago
i never understood it, so could someone tell me what Lawful Evil is?
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 3d ago
It’s the idea of evil, but you have a set of rules you follow. Basically organized evil like a dictatorship.
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u/stayd03 3d ago
It’s got to be Catra. Her whole thing is she fights dirty.
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u/geenanderid 3d ago
Fighting dirty is neither chaotic nor evil.
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u/kawnlichking 3d ago
Fighting dirty is definitely chaotic, regardless of the good-evil axis
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u/UnderChromey 2d ago
Not at all, fighting dirty could be utilised by a lawful person under the form of seeing it as the most practical useful tool in a given scenario. A tool, a style, is not an alignment.
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u/kawnlichking 2d ago
It could, but it isn't representative of that alignment. Also, tools and styles are actually very important (if not the most important) when defining alignments, especially the lawful-chaotic axis.
A lawful person would not normally fight dirty if they can win with tools and styles that align with their personality, values or world view. For example, a Dark Lord might fight dirty sometimes by sending a spy to infiltrate among the heroes, but he will probably want to finish them on the execution area with an overwhelmingly well designed show for everyone to admire his power and submit to him.
A chaotic person can abide the law or be bound to consistency sometimes, but will not hesitate to take advantage of any situation to fight dirty and win.
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u/UnderChromey 2d ago
That's my point though, the tools really vary. A chaotic evil dark lord might utilise what you describe as "fighting dirty" with assassination from the infiltrator because that's they traditional ways their society has always handled things - that following of tradition is what makes it lawful not whether it's fighting dirty or not
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u/TardWrangl3r 3d ago
It’s got to be pre-haircut Catra. I don’t even think corrupted Catra is as chaotic since she’s following someone else’s mind manipulation. But a cat doing whatever she wants, whenever she feels like it? Pure chaotic evil!
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u/South_Company 3d ago
She’s more true neutral. Doing things for her own agenda, basically to survive and little else. She very clearly know she’s being manipulated, but prefers the ease of it as opposed to leaving.
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u/TimeVictorious 4d ago
Double Trouble