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The cat isn't in some quantum state. Cat is locked in a box, with some poison and a Geiger counter. Poison is released when Geiger counter registers a particle.

Now, the process of atom decay that would be registered by a Geiger counter has some interesting properties and that's where the "quantum magic" happens.

(at least, that's my mental model of it; ask an expert, I'm not an expert)

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the idea is that everything is in some quantum state, because quantum mechanics attempts to describe everything. The thought experiment is basically going from the well-observed (and explained in theory) superposition of a nuclear undergoing decay to the never-observed (but still valid in theory) superposition of a cat being both alive and dead.

Why should it be valid in theory tho? What is the purported bottleneck in physical reality that is supposed to exist whose presence makes the Schrodinger cat thought experiment realistic? How does sentient observation get the ball rolling and why couldn't that happen in the absence of such observation at this scale?

The quantum magic properties are thought to transfer to the poison and the cat.

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