The Power of Complex Relationships in She-Ra

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This is the first time I've checked the comments of a Riley vid where the chuds weren't out in full force. Here's to hoping that becomes the norm.

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/kazingaAML 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2019 đź—«︎ replies

This video actually got we to check it out with my younger brother. It's good -- very much in the vein of many modern animated fantasy series. The haters seem to have really fixated on the dumbest aspects that were changed from the original, mostly that She-Ra doesn't look like a supermodel. I'm okay with the change for a few reasons:

  1. The main character is supposed to be in her mid-teens and looked way too "mature" in the original. I'm not a fan of hyper-developed physiques on superheros or animated characters. Having every male look like a body builder and every woman look like a supermodel just gets silly very soon.
  2. It's a kids cartoon. I feel like I should include this more than once because I feel like it is far too big a reason to be only one number. This cartoon is made primarily for teens (actually probably tweens) and younger. It's smart enough that you can enjoy it if you're older, but keep in mind if you're old enough to vote you are not it's target audience.
  3. The main character is still conventionally attractive by any reasonable measure.
  4. See #2.
  5. Should any chud just absolutely have to see pics of attractive women there is something called the internet of which they may take advantage of to see all the attractive women they will ever need to see. Having one cartoon design it's lead in an attractive, but age-realistic, way is not going to seriously affect the amount of attractive women that any chud can view should they desire.
  6. See #4.
👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/kazingaAML 📅︎︎ Apr 01 2019 đź—«︎ replies

Bow is a trans man js

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/Ziggie1o1 📅︎︎ Mar 31 2019 đź—«︎ replies
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The foundation of good storytelling is making the audience care about your characters, and often the best way to do that is through their relationships with other people. Of course there are other important aspects to storytelling as well, but creating strong relationships between your characters is key to making them feel real and relatable. And one of the things that I think can make a story disappointing is when the relationships between characters are weak or unclear or underdeveloped. Because then, the audience doesn’t care about the stakes, and they become less invested in the characters. If you show two people having an epic fight, it can be -- visually -- the coolest fight in the world, but without emotional stakes, it’s still just a fight. Now, if you have two people go through dozens of hardships together and eventually reach a point where they end up fighting each other over a major disagreement, you’re going to be deeply emotionally invested in the outcome of the fight. It becomes more than a fight. You’re going to pick a side and be rooting for that person, or you’ll see it from both sides and be conflicted about who you want to win. That’s good storytelling. Because in a story, no matter how cool your plot is, no matter how epic your explosions are, none of that matters if the audience isn’t invested in the relationships. So today, I want to talk to you about a show that absolutely nails this aspect of storytelling: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. This is an animated show from Netflix that’s a remake of a show from 1985, but we’ll only be discussing the 2018 remake here. This show has a lot going for it: a beautiful art style, a largely female cast, a good balance of humor and action. - No, go back in! Go back in! Glimmer? Glimmer? I think I killed the bed. But what really sets it apart from other shows is that it’s a masterclass in developing relationships between characters. It delves into the abusive relationship between Shadow Weaver and the kids she raised, Adora and Catra. It explores the difficult friends-to-enemies dynamic that that creates between Adora and Catra. And it makes you fall in love with the main trio of friends, Adora, Glimmer, and Bow. It even has you cheering along for all of the more minor relationships in the show when the main trio interacts with other folks along the way. The plot of She-Ra is fascinating enough: a girl finds a magical sword that allows her to transform and become super powerful, therefore allowing her to fight back against the evil forces that are trying to take over the world. But if there’s one thing that makes this show worth watching, it’s not necessarily the plot -- it’s how well all of the relationships are developed. So this should go without saying, but this whole video is gonna be full of She-Ra spoilers for season 1. You’ve been warned. Now, when Adora meets Glimmer and Bow, they are definitely not friends right away. - Ahhh!! - Ahhh!!! Bow and Glimmer are already best friends who hang out all the time on Bright Moon, but Adora was raised by the Horde in a place called the Fright Zone. The show makes it pretty easy for you to guess which place is for the good guys and which place is for the bad guys. Adora is essentially, a Horde soldier. She’s been raised to hate and fear the Princesses, including Glimmer, and she thinks that the Horde is doing good by spreading their message to the rest of Etheria. So when Adora’s caught out alone in the woods and runs into a Princess and her friend, she treats them as the enemy, and they treat her as the enemy. Glimmer knows the horrible things that the Horde has done and therefore really doesn’t like Adora, and that’s understandable. The reason they end up being friends, though, is because Adora sees firsthand what the Horde is doing when they attack and destroy an innocent village. Ideologically, she knows she can no longer support the Horde. And when she realizes that, she’s scared that she’s going to be alone -- because the Horde will hate her for being a traitor, and the people of Bright Moon will hate her for being a Horde soldier. That’s when she’s open to becoming friends with Glimmer and Bow, because she recognizes that they’re no longer the enemy that she was brainwashed to believe they are. For Glimmer, learning to accept Adora as her friend is a little more difficult because her dad was killed by the Horde. Bow, on the other hand, doesn’t have such a personal connection to hating the Horde, and his personality leans more towards befriending everyone he meets. So it’s Bow that nudges them together until Glimmer finally learns to trust Adora when she sees that Adora is a person just like her, it’s just that Adora had a traumatic and isolated childhood in the Horde. Once they’re established as the “best friends squad” though -- - Best friends squad! -- that’s when the show begins to flesh them out on a deeper level. It uses their friendship to address some of their fears and motivations. In the beginning, Adora is worried that they only want to be her friend because she’s a weapon. With the sword she found, she can transform into She-Ra and is a powerful asset to the Princess Alliance that Glimmer is trying to re-form. And that insecurity leads Adora to panic when she can’t instantly transform into She-Ra. The actions that result from that insecurity end up turning a horse into a unicorn-pegasus thing and exposing her as a Horde soldier to all of Bright Moon. And that eventually leads to Bow and Glimmer explaining to Adora that she’s their friend because of who she is, not because of She-Ra. They admire her ability to leave the Horde and do what she thinks is right. And one of the basics of storytelling which I’m sure you’ve heard a million times is: show, don’t tell. I think that advice is often over-prescribed, but it’s still important. It’s one thing to hear her friends reassure her that they’re her friend, it’s another to see them perform an action that proves that. And for the viewer, watching the characters do something can evoke a much stronger response. So, not long after Adora has her freak out about them not liking her, they come to her room for a sleepover because she mentioned earlier that she’s not able to sleep alone because in the Horde there were always people around. I think that’s a really powerful moment that sets the tone for how the show is excellent not only at having characters communicate their feelings but also at showing them express their feelings in a way that is so meaningful it has to tug at your heart strings. I mean, they left their comfy beds to have a sleepover with their brand new friend from the Horde because she was uncomfortable. That’s so dang sweet. - Why is it the one who snores is always the first to fall asleep? - What? I don’t snore! As their relationship progresses, though, it’s inevitable that there’s going to be some tension or fighting. Nobody gets along perfectly all the time. But what She-Ra does really well is model healthy mechanisms for dealing with fights between friends. Like in one episode, Bow is really proud of a sonic arrow that he’s made, but Glimmer and Adora make fun of him for it. By the end of the episode, surprise surprise, it’s the sonic arrow that saves them all. And so, Glimmer gives him a very heartfelt apology and recognizes that she should’ve been more supportive of the thing he liked. Likewise, later in the series, the three friends are at a place called Mystacor where they’re trying to help Adora relax. Adora is still afraid that the Horde is after her, and she keeps seeing Shadow Weaver, the abusive woman who raised her, in shadows or out of the corner of her eye. Initially, Bow and Glimmer discount her experiences because they think it’s all in her head. They think she’s hallucinating because of the trauma she’s been through, but then it turns out that Shadow Weaver had actually gotten into Mystacor and had been screwing with Adora the entire time they were there. And so when all of that is revealed at the end, Bow is nearly in tears when apologizing to her because he realizes he’s really messed up. The friendship between Adora, Bow, and Glimmer isn’t perfect because they’re always happy and getting along. That would make for a pretty boring story after all. It’s an amazing friendship because when they do have conflicts, they’re able to work through them and apologize meaningfully. For one more example of this, there’s a conflict amongst them when Glimmer starts feeling jealous about Bow attending the Princess Prom with Perfuma instead of her and Adora. - It’s the best friend squad in action, right, bow? - Actually, I’m going with Perfuma. - What!? The show does a really good job of showing that it’s okay to have these bad feelings -- it’s just necessary to talk about them and be honest. Because ultimately Glimmer isn’t jealous because she doesn’t like Perfuma or because she doesn’t want Bow to have other friends. She’s jealous because she’s insecure about herself, and she’s worried that if Bow becomes better friends with other people, he’ll stop being her best friend. That revelation, that her jealousy is her own issue to work through and that Bow will always value their friendship, is hard for her. Bow, who is normally super amicable and friendly puts his foot down and defends his right to have other friends. It’s a really sweet moment of growth for Glimmer that is hashed out entirely through her friendship with Bow. And the show leaves you rooting for both of them because you know that they can be great friends and that they’re only fighting because Glimmer’s failing to properly communicate and address her feelings. It’s easy to use jealousy as a tool to drive conflict, but it’s harder to really make your characters grapple with why they feel jealousy in the first place. Not only is it good storytelling because it makes you care about the characters, it’s good storytelling because it can help people interrogate their own feelings of insecurity or jealousy if they see themselves at all in Glimmer. And this doesn’t all happen in one episode. Shows can often feel really robotic if every conflict that arises at the beginning of an episode is dealt with by the end of the episode. But in She-Ra’s 13 episodes, conflicts rise and fall over varying time periods, and that makes all the situations feel more real to an audience. Even though Glimmer starts feeling jealous in episode 8, it isn’t until episode 10 when her and Bow really and truly make up. Towards the end of the series, Adora’s friendship with Bow and Glimmer is pretty cemented. But that hits a roadblock when Light Hope, the ancient being who teaches Adora about her powers as She-Ra, says she needs to let go of her attachments to her friends. It’s a kind of classic dilemma: Do you surround yourself with your close friends and put them in danger, or isolate yourself from them for their safety? In fact, we’ve seen another animated character face a similar dilemma. - Now, let all of those attachments go. Let them flow down the river, forgotten. - What? Why would I let go of Katara? I love her! - It is as you said. Your friends are endangered by your presence. It is better to let go now. - But, I can’t just leave my friends. And you know, now that you mention it, both She-Ra and the Avatar are said to bring balance to the world -- after having disappeared for either a hundred or a thousand years. And like Aang, Adora eventually decides that the people she loves are more important to her than an ancient idea of what the Avatar -- or She-Ra -- is supposed to be. Of course she wants to protect them, but she also knows that they’re stronger together. She doesn’t want to face the Horde without them, and ultimately, that’s one of the larger messages of the show -- that we’re all stronger together. That unity and friendship and collective action are the things that truly empower us. And that message is brought together not only by Adora’s connection to Bow and Glimmer, but by all of their connections to the other Princesses. Throughout the series, their goal is to recruit the other Princesses to the Princess Alliance. They think that with all of them combined, they have a chance of defeating the Horde. But divided, they could be easily defeated. Their first recruit is Princess Perfuma, a hippy whose power is making flowers and other greenery. Then comes Princess Mermista, who can control water and is almost constantly groaning. - Ughhhh - Aghhhhh - Euhhh Then there’s Princess Entrapta, who loves technology more than anything in the world, and her hair acts like an extra set of hands. With three of the Princesses signed onto the Alliance, our heroes are feeling pretty good. But when they find Princess Frosta, a ten-year-old girl who is surprisingly intense and controls ice, she refuses to join them because she believes the Horde poses no threat to her personally. But when Bow and Glimmer are kidnapped and Adora is feeling alone without her closest friends, that’s when the Princess Alliance shows up. Because friendship isn’t only about the people you’re closest with, it’s about everyone who you’re willing to help when the time comes. On their rescue mission, however, they watch Princess Entrapta walk back into a room that is immediately filled with flames. Naturally, they assume she died. This causes the two remaining recruits to back out of the Alliance, and things seems pretty bleak. But at the climax of the series, when Bright Moon is under attack by the Horde and they send up a distress beacon, Perfuma, Mermista, and Frosta all come to help them. They don’t explain much of each Princess’s decision to come back since this all happens right at the end of the season, but I think it can be assumed that when they saw the distress beacon, they forgot about their differences and rushed to help Bright Moon because they knew it was the right thing to do. I definitely think they’ll delve more into the relationships between the main trio and the other Princesses when season 2 comes out, but I thought this was a fitting end to season 1. While specific episodes zoom in on particular relationships that the audience should care about, the overarching theme of unity amongst very different people ties it all together. She-Ra is a story about friendship, about connection. And it’s about how those connections make us stronger, both on a large scale and a personal one. There are a couple other relationships that play into this theme throughout the first season that aren’t quite as notable, but do contribute to the overall narrative in a really cohesive way. When Bow is attacked by robots in Entrapta’s castle, he’s rescued by the kitchen staff, three folks who spend their time making tiny foods for Entrapta and don’t know anything about fighting robots or even really standing up for themselves. Bow, as the only one of them trained in combat, could go into hero mode and try to save them all, or even just leave and save himself. Instead, he decides that they would work best as a team. Thematically, this fits with the rest of She-Ra really well, but it is also particularly telling about Bow’s personality. He’s not the typical macho hero dude who feels a need to save everyone and constantly prove his strength. He cares about people’s feelings and wants everyone to get along -- and he wears the coolest crop top. I could ramble all day about how much I love Bow and how he represents a way to be a guy without leaning into toxic masculinity. But, we’re here to talk about relationships, not character design. So in the episode with the kitchen staff, Bow does his best to give his new friends courage, because he knows that people are always stronger together. And it works. They save the day with their tiny foods and fizzy drinks. - The rebellion needs regular people now more than ever. - We are ready! *plate breaks* Then, there’s Sea Hawk. He starts off just as a way for them to cross a large body of water because he has a ship. - Adventure! - Don’t do that. - Sorry. But when he’s sad about not being taken seriously and ready to leave them all behind, Glimmer talks him out of it. She says that they’re all his friends, and that they can face the challenges ahead of them together. So I’d argue that one of She-Ra’s main themes is the power of friendship and togetherness -- and it could be easy for that to come off as corny. But I don’t think it does. I think it comes off as real. None of the relationships feel forced or awkward or needlessly positive. There’s conflict everywhere, and the relationships are complicated. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the two major mother-daughter relationships in the show. First, let’s talk about Glimmer and her mom, Queen Angella. In the beginning, we see that Glimmer really doesn’t want to be around her mom, because her mom is overbearing and overprotective, when all Glimmer is trying to do is help them beat the Horde. And it’s easy to see why that would be frustrating for Glimmer, but the show also does a good job of showing that Angella really does care about Glimmer and is only being so protective out of love. When Glimmer is hurt, Angella rushes to heal her. When Glimmer brings in a Horde soldier, Adora, and asks her mother to trust her judgement, she does. Fast forward a few episodes, and Glimmer has been kidnapped. Angella now faces what she calls an impossible decision: choosing between the people of her kingdom, and her daughter. She can either turn herself over to the Horde to save Glimmer, or allow the Horde to keep Glimmer and continue to lead and defend Bright Moon -- but she can’t do both. And even though she calls the decision impossible, she makes her decision almost instantly. I'm going to accept Hordak's terms. Glimmer is all I have. And if that’s not a grand gesture to show how much she cares about her daughter, I don’t know what would be. After Glimmer returns, though, we see the same conflict arising between them: Angella wants to spend time with Glimmer and help her, but Glimmer wants to be left alone. And Glimmer is, presumably, a teenager, so I think it’d be easy to write this off as teen angst. But the show doesn’t do that. Instead, the show brings Angella and Glimmer together until they can finally have an honest conversation about their feelings. That’s when we discover that Angella blames herself for the death of her husband. She ordered the battle that got him killed by the Horde, but she never wanted Glimmer to see her weakness. However, it’s seeing that weakness that allows Glimmer to finally be honest with her mother, because she was doing the same thing. While kidnapped, she was infected with something and now keeps glitching every few minutes. She was hiding that from her mom because she always thought of her mom as being perfect, of having no weaknesses, and so Glimmer felt compelled to try and emulate that. It’s a really sweet moment when they’re able to realize that they’ve both been hiding things from each other that they didn’t have to. This is such a satisfying moment in the show because we so thoroughly understand the motivations. We can understand not wanting to appear weak in front of your daughter and we can also understand wanting to be strong like your mother. This mother-daughter relationship adds a layer to both of their characters that makes you empathize even further with them. They don’t just interact for the sake of conflict or exist just to further Adora’s story: they have their own struggles and motivations that cause them to act the way they do. And those motivations are brought to light for the audience through their relationship together. That’s fantastic storytelling. Now let’s contrast that with Shadow Weaver and her relationship to Adora and Catra. This is also a great example of storytelling, but it’s a much more toxic relationship. What we know from the series is that Shadow Weaver took Adora and Catra under her wing at some point when they were very young. We don’t learn much about who their families were before that. But immediately it becomes clear that Shadow Weaver has a favorite, and it’s Adora. That drives a rift between them which we’ll discuss more in a little bit. But with both of them, Shadow Weaver is extremely controlling and abusive. With Catra, the abuse is very clear in the way she talks to her and treats her. It’s outright hostile. She calls her names and threatens her, and in the beginning, Catra is clearly terrified of her. - Clearly, no one else can be trusted to bring her back to the Horde. Least of all you. Now go. I said go! With Adora, her abuse is more like manipulation. - They’ll never accept you! Not like I do. She misleads her about what the Horde is actually doing, and denies her information about the outside world. Later we find out that Adora doesn’t even know what a party is, has never relaxed in her life, and was basically only taught how to fight. Shadow Weaver may have always favored Adora growing up, but that’s because she saw potential in using her as a weapon for the Horde. She never actually loved her or cared about her wellbeing, which explains why Adora was worried that other people in her life might just be using her as a weapon too. Contrast that with Angella’s parenting style, which is caring *too much* for her daughter's wellbeing. Storytelling-wise, it’s a clever parallel. But thankfully, Adora is able to see what the Horde is doing is wrong, and she escapes. Catra, on the other hand, doesn’t share the same ideology as Adora, and chooses to stay. Because of this, we get a deeper look into how Shadow Weaver treats Catra than we do Adora. And what we see of their relationship is something extremely abusive and toxic and unhealthy. Despite that, Catra wants to stay. Not because she cares about Shadow Weaver or because Shadow Weaver has successfully tricked her into obedience. She makes that very clear. - I’m plenty strong now, and I don’t need you. She wants to stay because the Horde can give her everything that she’s ever wanted and ever been denied. The Horde can make her feel powerful, and even have power over her abuser, Shadow Weaver. Just because she’s able to see the flaw in this single individual, she’s not able to see the flaw in the overall system. Whereas Adora recognizes that the Horde is evil, Catra only recognizes that Shadow Weaver is evil. And so a large part of Catra’s arc of the season is her gaining power over Shadow Weaver within the Horde. And you feel for her. I mean, she’s a child of abuse, largely fueled by revenge. And, really, it’s a pretty justified revenge. Shadow Weaver has treated her terribly for her whole life. It makes sense to want to take back some power in that situation. And so her story is one where you both root for her and against her. She’s the perfect anti-hero. You want to see Shadow Weaver get punished for what she did to Catra, but at the same time, Catra is actively working within the Horde to forcefully take over Bright Moon. So there’s a conflict for the viewer there, and that makes for a really emotionally enticing show. Without seeing this relationship, Catra would be a far less interesting character. If we didn’t know what she had gone through, she could be another villain who’s evil just because. But when her motivations are demonstrated through her relationships and fleshed out throughout the season, you can’t help but care for her. And so now, I want to talk about the relationship between Adora and Catra. Because while the main trio of friends -- Adora, Bow, and Glimmer -- have the most wholesome relationship and I love them dearly, Adora and Catra’s relationship is by far the most tense and nail-biting. They start off the series as best friends, but when Adora leaves the Horde, they become enemies on opposite sides of a war. Despite that, they have several instances where they talk and argue and interact in ways that aren’t just fighting, although there is tons of fighting. One clever plot device for this was the Princess Prom, where Adora and Catra both attend and fighting is strictly prohibited. - Revered Hostess, you can’t let them in. They’re from the Horde. - The rules state clearly that all Princesses, and their chosen guests, are welcome. That leads to this iconic dancing-with-your-evil-butch-friend-turned-enemy scene that you know I absolutely loved. And then, at one point, Adora and Catra both stumble into a First Ones facility, a building created by people who lived over a thousand years ago and had highly advanced technology. This is where they stumble through their old memories of being children together in possibly one of the best episodes of the entire series. Flashback scenes can be so so boring, and more often than not, the information you get from them could be shown to the audience in a different way that doesn’t yank the viewer out of the story. The creators of She-Ra, however, found the perfect solution. In this episode, the flashbacks aren’t separate from the main story, they drive it. As Adora and Catra search for a way out of the building and talk about their feelings, they see child versions of themselves, and everything that you see in their memories has a relevant impact to what’s happening with them at that moment. It’s honestly a brilliant little piece of storytelling that just really takes Adora and Catra’s dynamic to the next level. So it’s through this episode that we dive a lot deeper into Adora and Catra’s relationship. First, we see them as young kids, laughing and playing together. Then, they’re teenagers, and Adora beats Catra in a training drill. When Adora gets praise for this, it makes Catra feel angry and unappreciated. But instead of talking through her feelings with her friend, she represses her emotions and isn’t honest with Adora. This leads Catra’s resentment to fester over the years as Adora continues to get preferential treatment. On top of that, whenever Catra is hurt, particularly by Shadow Weaver, Adora does her best to stand up for her and to protect her because she thinks that’s the best thing to do. But Catra grows to resent that too because she doesn’t want to be protected. It’s sad to watch, actually, because you know that Catra has ended up where she is because of what she was taught in the Horde. She was taught to repress her feelings because they could be seen as weakness. She was taught to resent being taken care of because she needs to do everything herself. She was even taught, in a way, to hate Adora. Shadow Weaver pitted them against each other, and I have to believe that was intentional. Abusers often do that because it makes it easier to control people if they’re too busy fighting each other to fight back against you. She tried to make Catra direct her anger at Adora rather than at herself. In the end, Catra manages to have plenty of anger for both Adora and Shadow Weaver, but you can clearly see the factors that drove her there. I kind of wonder what an alternate timeline would look like where Catra felt comfortable expressing her feelings towards Adora and the two of them were able to grow up on a more equal footing. Maybe they both would’ve been able to leave the Horde together. And I think that’s a mark of good storytelling. Catra isn’t evil just because she’s evil, she’s the product of her circumstances. Adora and Catra’s relationship throughout the rest of the series has several different highs and lows. In the beginning, Adora desperately wants to believe that the Horde is good and that she’s just missing something. Then, when she finally accepts that the Horde is evil, she urges Catra to join her. - I’m not going home, Catra. I can’t. Not after everything I’ve seen. Come with me. You don’t have to go back there. We can fix this. And on multiple occasions, she tries to save Catra’s life, even when Catra is actively working to disrupt her plans and hurt her. To me, it seems like Adora is driven more by her ideology than her personal friendships. - We have to put a stop to this. - What? Why? - Because this is a civilian town. Look around, these aren’t insurgents. They’re innocent people! If she valued her friendships more than her core beliefs, she would’ve stayed in the Horde with Catra. But she was willing to throw away her relationship with her closest friend who she’s known her entire life, all because she recognizes that what the Horde is doing is wrong. And I think that’s admirable. It’s not that she doesn’t care about her friends -- I think she proves that through her repeated attempts to try to talk some sense into Catra -- it’s just that she knows a friendship isn’t worth the pain she would be inflicting on others as a part of the Horde. On the other hand, Catra is motivated more by her personal relationships than by her ideology. At no point in the series do we see Catra talk about how great the Horde’s mission is. She’s not ideologically connected to the Horde in the same way that Adora is ideologically opposed to the Horde. She’s not the kind of villain who believes deep down that she has to do what she’s doing because it’s the right thing to do. That kind of villain can be a really interesting character, but that’s not what Catra is. Instead, Catra is motivated by her relationships. Having been denied power and recognition her entire life by her mother figure, she now seeks it out in whatever form she can. And when Adora leaves the Horde, it solidifies Catra’s journey down that path because she sees it as a betrayal. - How could you possibly be okay with that? - Because it doesn’t matter what they do. The two of us look after each other. Catra can’t imagine leaving the Horde without Adora because Catra values personal relationships above ideology. So leaving the Horde without Adora would make no sense. Whatever she does, Adora should be there beside her. And that’s why she can’t comprehend why Adora did what she did, and why she can’t forgive her. So Catra doesn’t stay with the Horde because she loves what they stand for, she stays with the Horde because it’s where she can have revenge on the people who’ve hurt her: Shadow Weaver and Adora. Despite this, Catra has moments where she can’t help but care for Adora. - It wasn’t all bad growing up in the Fright Zone, was it? - I mean, you still have some good memories, right? - Of course I do. At first, Catra protects Adora by hiding the fact that she can turn into She-Ra. She even cries over how much it hurts her that Adora is gone. And when Adora returns to the Fright Zone to save Glimmer, Catra gives her her sword back just before she’s about to leave. She later says that she gave it back to her so that she wouldn’t come back to the Fright Zone, but I don’t fully buy that. I think that may have been a part of it, but you can see in that scene that Catra still cares about Adora. They have such a messy rollercoaster of a relationship that it really makes the audience get invested in them. Simple relationships are boring and predictable. Complicated relationships like the one between Adora and Catra keep viewers on their toes. Towards the end of the season, Catra leaves Adora hanging from the edge of a cliff, expecting her to die. In this moment, you learn why Catra really hates Adora. It’s because she thinks that Adora was controlling her her entire life. Of course, Adora was just trying to protect her and take care of her, but because Catra was never able to talk to her about any of that, and because all Catra’s known her entire life is being controlled by Shadow Weaver, Catra really truly believes that Adora was just trying to control her too. You’d think that would mark the end of any positive feelings between them, but it doesn’t. I mean, they have an outright brutal battle, but at the end of it, when Catra ends up dangling from a cliff that looks very similar to the one Adora had been dangling from just a couple episodes earlier, Adora doesn’t hesitate to lift her back up. And when the Princess Alliance pushes back the Horde and saves Bright Moon, Adora watches Catra leave, and you can see the sadness on her face. Catra is her enemy, but she still cares about her. And I think she wishes more than anything that Catra would leave the Horde and come join her on Bright Moon, but she knows that’s not possible. The beautifully twisted relationship between these two is, I think, the best storytelling aspect of She-Ra, or at least the most interesting. I love how this show handles all the relationships between its characters, my personal favorite is probably the wholesome main trio, but the Adora-Catra dynamic is just very well done. And lastly, I want to touch on some of the romantic relationships in this show. You may have noticed that up until this point, we haven’t really mentioned any. And that’s because, on the whole, there aren’t many obvious romantic relationships at all. In fact, the only named couple that appears on screen together is Spinnerella and Netossa -- two women, who are incredible. They really don’t get enough screen time in season 1, and I hope we’ll see more of them in season 2. The only other relationship really mentioned is between Queen Angella and King Micah, but he died when Glimmer was very young. I think it’s notable that the only living canon couple in She-Ra is made up of two queer women. It speaks a lot to one of the show’s other strengths: diversity. And I think it should lead us to believe that other characters in the series might be queer as well. I mean, even though there aren’t any other couples in the series, there are quite a few moments that could be interpreted as flirty or romantic, where characters blush or get closer to each other than is really necessary between two platonic pals. - Thanks. - Yeah, whatever, don’t mention it. - You did these just now? - [Out loud] Yes! [In his head] Sea Hawk is impressed with my knots, this is the best day of my life! [In sea shanty sing song] I got you! - *gasp* *orchestral music* *shine noise* - Oh my! - I like your shirt! - Kyle! - Why are you telling me all this? - I… don’t know. I guess… I guess because you’re the first person who’s ever listened to me. - She stole my food and then asked me to spy on people with her. Is this what love feels like? I don’t know if we’ll see more romantic relationships develop in the second season, but I think that at least in the first season, the lack of romantic relationships is kind of refreshing. Lots of shows force romantic relationships into situations where they’re really unnecessary, and it was nice to see She-Ra throw that trope out the window. This show didn’t need romantic relationships to cause drama to keep the viewers interested because the non-romantic relationships in the show were developed so well. And there are so many other reasons to love this show besides the relationships, but I think this video has probably gone on long enough. If you haven’t watched She-Ra yet, I’d highly recommend you pop on over to Netflix and check it out. This video is not sponsored by them, I just love this show so much. The second season is coming out on April 26th, and I cannot wait. Anyway, if you’d like to help me make more videos like this in the future, I would love your support over on Patreon. These videos would not be possible without the support of all of the lovely folks over on my Patreon, so if you want to be a part of that, you can click the Patreon logo on the screen or use the link in the description.. You can also subscribe and give this video a thumbs up if you liked it. Oh and let me know what you thought about this video essay format in the comments, I was just trying something new. Thanks so much, and I’ll see you next time.
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Channel: Riley J. Dennis
Views: 346,140
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: Riley J. Dennis, Riley Dennis, RileyJayDennis, Riley Jay Dennis, she-ra, she-ra: princesses of power, princesses of power, adora, catra, glimmer, bow, relationships, friendships, storytelling, tv show, tv shows, animated tv show, netflix, vlogging with riley
Id: FXQ1QCFFcd4
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 31min 39sec (1899 seconds)
Published: Sun Mar 31 2019
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