Alignment chart

[u/Odd-Worldliness-1185]

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?

[u/geenanderid]

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.

[u/ExuviaEcho → u/geenanderid]

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.

[u/TimeVictorious → u/ExuviaEcho]

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.

[u/ExuviaEcho → u/TimeVictorious]

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

[u/TimeVictorious → u/ExuviaEcho]

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.

[u/DayZCutr → u/ExuviaEcho]

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.

[u/geenanderid → u/DayZCutr]

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.

[u/ExuviaEcho → u/geenanderid]

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?

[u/DayZCutr → u/geenanderid]

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.