She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is About You
Care about others, and yourself.
Note: Spoilers for the finale of this series follow. They have been marked; please skip from the spoiler warning to the final paragraph if you wish to read. Thank you!
It’s May 25th, 2020. As of this writing, Washington state has been under quarantine since mid-March. Spring has passed us by, as something deadly and uncaring runs rampant, given even greater power by the lies, cruelty, and apathy of those in charge. I’ve felt more isolated, more cut off from the things and people I care about, than I’ve ever felt in my life. I feel angry, and helpless, and small.
No story is going to fix any of that. It’s certainly not going to topple the soul and body-crushing system under which we live. I’ve been watching a lot of Gundam recently —fixated on a series about war, death, the vicissitudes of fate and the inexorable weight of capitalism and authoritarianism. In Gundam, people fight back. They rarely win — but another world is possible. I need something like that right now, something about systems, about their relentless evil, something often hard and grounded in its alternate visions of the world. She-Ra isn’t really about that. But, I’ve found I’ve needed it all the same.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) is an unbelievably earnest, insightful, and heartfelt dive into the hearts of people. The impacts on its world are heightened, magic and mystery suffuse it, but at its core it wants to dig into the things that make relationships tick, helping us discover little bits about ourselves and the people around us. It’s a corny, ridiculous, hopeful show made for children, but in that it is emotionally affecting and insightful, using the sometimes simple logic of its world to expose the contours of a wide variety of relationships. She-Ra does something daring: It accepts its role as a power fantasy, as a superhero tale with magic swords and princesses and the power of friendship, and does it truly well. Instead of subverting it, critiquing itself through the structures of its own story and genre, it commits to being affirming and uplifting to its viewers in a way that’s hard to match. The raised stakes, the incredible powers, the world-ending hurt some characters cause, serve as allegory to us — getting at emotional truths at the core of our humanity. And it works well because the show tries hard to make sure no one is left out.
Nearly all the characters are well-rendered, and nearly all the performances are strong. The show makes a better effort at representation than most I’ve seen: Nonbinary characters, neurodivergent characters, numerous characters of color, and more visible LGBT characters than I’ve ever seen in a cartoon fill out the cast, which itself is as diverse as it is talented. The princesses part of the title is not random, either: The action is driven by women, women make up the majority of the roster, and relationships between women of all sorts are core to the thrust of the show. Showrunner and creator Noelle Stevenson has stated that exploring the varied and lively internal lives of female characters is something she set out to do in the show, and her interest in showing women and girls with all sorts of roles and arcs is clear. I won’t go through each of them — you should watch the show and see for yourself — but the princesses range from a minuscule eleven year old who has an obsession with strength and a powerful need to be noticed, to a young hippie woman who tries to walk the line between strength of arms and the strength found in kindness. Boys are not left by the wayside: Bow, part of the main cast with no special powers, raised by two archaeologist dads, demonstrates a radical sort of male vulnerability and consistently works to bring his sometimes feuding friends together, acting as the glue of the team. The show is always interested in people of all sorts, but it also wants to ask something challenging of its viewers. By positioning itself as an action show, with powerful magic and crazy technology and Star Wars-style evil emperors and their empires, while also solidly centering the action around people who often don’t get their dues in that kind of story, it exhorts its audience to look outside themselves and see the beauty and strength of people who may not look, act, or think like them. However, through its consistency and the reach of the net it casts, it ensures that there’s probably something there for you, as well.
The show bears out that premise with its core character relationship. Adora — a bit of a jock, terrified of failure, feels responsible for everyone and everything, She-Ra and supposed hero of destiny — grows up with Catra among the oppressive regime of the Horde, then leaves for the other side upon realizing the evil they are doing. Catra — always made to feel second-best, fiercely independent and cynical, deeply lonely and searching for something to fill the void — goes on a journey of bitterness and self-discovery, increasing her own power as well as the world’s precarity as she claws for anything real and good to hold on to. Both struggle through complicated relationships with their mother/mentor figure, Shadow Weaver, who uplifted and manipulated Adora while belittling and abusing Catra. Catra hurts Adora, deeply and often. She lashes out, she plots, she vacillates between feigned indifference, utter despair, and relentless pursuit of revenge as she places all her childhood trauma squarely on Adora’s shoulders. At one point, she nearly ends the world. Throughout most of the story, Catra is indisputably a bad boss, a bad friend, and a bad person. Adora and Catra care about each other a great deal, but circumstances and some unexamined facets of their personalities — Adora’s naivete and inability to see Catra’s hurt, Catra’s tendency towards reactive isolation and seeing the worst in people — make that care curdle into something deeply toxic and destructive. None of us are likely to end the world, or to let a dear former friend fall off a cliff out of spite. But we can hurt each other in other ways, simpler ways, that nonetheless can feel as world-shattering as anything in a fantasy story. She-Ra is a series concerned with cycles of abuse and trauma writ-large.
But She-Ra isn’t a tragedy. It’s a story about love. And it’s a story deeply concerned with the younger audience it was initially pitched towards. Though the situations and consequences are made fantastical, it is a series about how people can hurt each other, and then do the hard work of making things right. Though trauma is not an excuse for harmful actions, it should be acknowledged, and healing should be sought.
Major spoilers to follow. Please skip to the final paragraph if you haven’t finished the series. Also, I couldn’t resist adding a picture, so be careful!
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Come the end of the fifth and final season, Catra and Adora realize that the root of their conflict is the twisting of a deep and stubborn love, and they finally admit that to each other. Romantic love between two girls saves the world, as the selfish machinations of a cruel, imperial cult-leader who wished to shape the world in his own image are brought crashing down. It’s an incredible moment of catharsis. Not only am I ecstatic that they finally made peace and got their happy ending, not only am I happy they got a considered and satisfying arc, but I’m happy they went there. She-Ra argues, in full vulnerable honesty, that people of all sorts can be happy, and happy together. And it helps me believe that if Catra and Adora can grab happiness out of the jaws of despair and loneliness, so can I.
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Spoilers end here!
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is hopeful, but it’s not saccharine. It’s an earnest and deft attempt to tackle difficult emotional material in a way that connects with viewers of all ages and backgrounds. The fantastical setting and grand stakes heighten and clarify the emotional impact, putting things into relief that are often otherwise difficult to see. It can’t help me overthrow tyranny — I’ll have to look elsewhere for that — but it can get me through the next week, and maybe even the one after. It can help me remember the value of love, and my friends, and making sure I don’t collapse in on myself. And I think it can do that for a lot of people, in a way few things can.
