conuly

Catra does not seem to get enough credit for this in the show - or, really, outside of it - but she does deserve a bit of praise for generally throwing herself in between people she knows and Hordak. I mean, other than that one time with Entrapta (and honestly, the girl had the time of her life on Beast Island, so all's well that ends well) Catra pretty consistently refuses to throw people under the bus. She ventured in to rescue Entrapta from Hordak's Sanctum the first time she wandered in there, she said that she broke the chip that Scorpia had previously claimed to have broken, and if the answer to the often-asked question "Why hasn't Kyle been fired yet" isn't "because you can't get fired from being a Horde soldier" then it's almost certainly "Because Catra won't let that happen".

I did read one fic once where the notable increase in fights against bots in the later episodes (as compared to Horde mooks) is attributed to Catra, once put mostly in charge, making the decision to minimize casualties and - yeah, that fits. I completely buy it. Headcanon activated!

Of course, all this does not even remotely absolve her from being, herself, a bad boss. Catra's a terrible boss. The only reason she's not the worst is because we've got Hordak, Shadow Weaver, and Prime for comparison. But what sort of example has she had her whole life? Also, she was bumped up from "cadet" to "force captain" to "pretty much in charge" at the age of, what, 17? This is not a rational promotion system! The problems here are inherent in the system, and would have never happened if anybody in the Horde was paying attention to common sense. At least you can say she's never tried to straight up murder her underlings, and has, in fact, protected them as much as possible from the person who tried to murder her on more than one occasion. She deserves some credit for risking her life and continued well-being to keep that from happening to anybody else.