Despite its sci-fi/fantasy trappings, She-Ra is actually a coming-of-age story focusing on two young women more than anything else.
Adora is the golden child of the planet-conquering force known as the Horde. Groomed from a young age for greatness, she is expected to become the next Strike Commander–and likely something far beyond that in the future.
It’s on her first real assignment that she discovers the truth: she is actually one of the baddies. Lost and adrift she befriends one of the “evil” princesses, Glimmer, and her best friend, Bow–and is also granted the powers of She-Ra, the greatest warrior the world has ever known. With her newfound friends and powers, she defects from the Horde, leaving behind the only life she’s ever known.
In a very real sense, Adora has lost everything due to her moral code. She had a home, a promising future, squadmates, a mother figure, and a best friend. While she gains most of these things anew (thanks to her relationship with Glimmer and Bow), because that she’s lost everything once, she is terrified of losing it all again.
She’s been granted great powers but knows nothing about how to use them. She knows that She-Ra is supposed to save the world but doesn’t have any clue on the specifics. Time and time again, she sees her own lack of ability get her friends into life-threatening trouble.
Growing up, her path was set. She was given goals, and through hard work and talent achieved them. Nothing in that life prepared her for an experience where you inherently have the power to achieve your goal but lack the knowledge on how to use those powers.
Thus, the real climax of Adora’s story in the first season is not when she faces down an army with the fate of the planet on the line, it’s when she is finally offered the answers she seeks. Ancient computer program Light Hope wants to train Adora to be She-Ra. However, it points out the problem Adora faces. At the moment, she cares more about her friends than the fate of the world. It may not be possible to save both as few victories are won without sacrifice. The program offers to train her if she will give up on her personal attachments. However, Adora is unable to choose that route, electing to stay beside her friends in the final battle. And while in the climactic battle of the season, her previously built relationships are what ultimately turn the tide of battle, it’s far from certain if her choice is the right one.
On the other side of the story is Catra, Adora’s longtime best friend. Unlike Adora, Catra has no illusions about the horde or their motivations. She didn’t ever buy into the propaganda and doesn’t see it as a battle between good (the horde) and evil (the princesses). Instead, she wants only what is most beneficial for her (and by extension those she cares about). As the horde is clearly winning the war, the horde is the side she wants to be on.
However, there is also a personal stake to the whole situation. Catra has always been second best. Despite being strong and clever, she was never able to outshine Adora. Rather, Adora was the chosen child who could quite literally do no wrong. Thus Catra, her partner in crime, became the child who could do nothing right–the one who took the blame and the punishment time after time. Catra had no choice but to play into this role as a defense mechanism–telling herself that nothing really mattered and that she was content with being second best. But all that time, in her heart, a small part of her wanted to be number one more than anything.
With Adora’s defection, Catra’s world is upturned. On one hand, she feels personally betrayed–abandoned by her oldest friend. But on the other, she starts getting everything she ever dreamed of. She gets Adora’s job as a Force Commander. She gets a squad of loyal soldiers who respect her. She even gets the support of Hordak, the man in charge of the entire Horde. Her darkest thought–that Adora held her back from being great–has been proven true. And time and again Catra’s darkest impulses grant her the greatest rewards.
In the ultimate irony, while Light Hope demands that Adora does away with personal attachments it is Catra who follows this advice and grows in power as a result. But while Light Hope wished for Adora to focus only on the greater good, Catra has placed all her attention on personal ambition.
But even then, it’s hard to call Catra evil. In fact, none of the rank and file villains act evilly. Sure, on the battlefield they do their best to fight the enemy but outside of battle, they’re nice and supportive of their friends. They’re just normal people, no different from those on the side of the princesses: they just happen to be on the other side of the war.
The clearest case of this is Princess Entrapta. At first, she is the solitary ruler of her own little castle, obsessed with the strange ancient technology all around them. While Adora and the others bring her into the Princess Alliance, they don’t really befriend her exactly. They respect her genius and skills but treat her more as a bother that needs a baby sitter. However, when captured by the Horde, she finds herself accepted and valued by those around her. For the first time, people care about her ideas and theories–even if they can’t quite understand them.
But that’s not why despite being part of the Princess Alliance, she eagerly helps the Horde–upgrading their weapons and giving them information which could spell the end for the planet. Rather it has to do with her own priorities.
To her knowledge is simply everything. Would she kill a singular person for no reason? No, of course not. Would she destroy a kingdom as a test to see if her theories were right? Yes. To her, out of sight is quite literally out of mind. It doesn’t even cross her mind that she’ll be killing thousands with her experiments in the climax. She doesn’t even notice that she has betrayed her princess friends and enacted a plan that will almost certainly kill them all.
So does all this make her evil or simply amoral? Or is she an innocent exploited by a corrupt system? The show doesn’t have a simple answer for us–and that is one of She-Ra’s strongest points. It makes you question your own values.
While the heroes, aside from Adora and Glimmer, are largely one dimensional, the villains are shown to be nuanced people–each with their own quirks and flaws. It’s up to the viewer to decide who exactly is good and who evil regardless of the side they have chosen in this conflict. And even then, even within the most evil-seeming, there seems to be something worthy of redemption.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power can be seen on Netflix.
I just wanted to give out a big thanks to Joshua Ott for sponsoring this review with his Patreon donation. (At the $60 a month tier, you are allowed to pick anything up to an including a 13ish episode series to be reviewed–which is released in addition to the one article a week I normally put out here on BiggestinJapan.com.) So thanks again!
Top image Copyright: © 2018 DreamWorks Animation LLC.
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