Stop reading this blog right now and go watch the Netflix reboot of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.  Seriously.  Go.  NOW.  Git, I say, GIT!  Shoo!

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Are you still here?!    Whaddid I just say?  Scram!  You should be watching it right now!

Oh, very well.  I guess if you insist on reading, I can't stop you. 

The trouble with a show as good as She-Ra is that it raises the bar so high that most everything else just feels like a disappointment afterwards.  She-Ra is a game-changing, life-changing experience.  If I were to make a list of all time best kids' cartoons, I'd probably rank She-Ra number 3, right after Last Airbender and Legend of Korra.  (Nothing will ever beat the Bending franchise, but She-Ra is downright competitive with it.)

I avoid spoilers like the plague (or in my case, rather like the 'rona), but in many cases, such as with Airbender, I at least hear that it's really good, and a must-watch.  My experience with She-Ra was absolutely optimal--I knew nothing.  I didn't even know it existed.  I had never heard one thing said about it.  I just saw the thumbnail on Netflix and thought, "Oh, they rebooted the old one?  Hmm.  Girly?  Magical adventure?  Sure.  I'll give it a shot.  I'm in."  Was it good?  Was it bad?  I had no idea!  As with most shows like this, I went in with fairly mediocre expectations.  I never really get my hopes up, and then I'll pleasantly surprised when I find a great one.  I love that experience.  I love just stumbling onto something amazing with no prior knowledge.

She-Ra blew my freaking mind.  Melted my face off.  Like in Raiders.  Y'know, the face melting guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  It was so good that it did that to me.  Like so good you can't even look at it.  Like the ark.

Okay, I'm done goofing around.  Time to get serious. 

She-Ra is a fantastic magical, action adventure with a tight, concise story arc, zero filler, and incredible, deep, dynamic, relatable, charismatic, memorable characters with intense, phenomenal arcs.  If you're intrigued, you should probably go now before reading any more.  It's a incredible show by any and every metric, but for me personally, what put it over the top and made it one of the most special and memorable TV experiences of my life was its game-changing LGBT representation.  (If you want more letters on that acronym, that's fine.  Many people put the Q.  I personally leave the Q off.  I'm not anti-Q people, I just feel that the acronym is zippier and more memorable without the Q.  I just like it.  I'm old school.  If you like the Q, use the Q.  I'm okay with the Q.  Some people add more letters, and at that point, I just kinda feel like, don't you have enough?  How many letters do you really need?  It just gets to be a little gratuitous, y'know?  Too much to type, too much to remember.  I just stick with the original four.  I'm not trying to exclude anyone; that's just how I like it.) 

Okay.  SPOILER time.

She-Ra is primarily the story of two young women--Adora and Catra--best friends that were raised as soldiers in the evil military organization known as the Horde.  The Horde presence on the magical planet of Etheria was dedicated to destroying the princess of Etheria, each of whom wield different magical powers.  Life in the Horde is all Catra and Adora knew, and because they grew up there, they didn't know it was evil.  They thought they were on the side of right and good.  Without any other frame of reference, they just believed what they were taught.

In the pilot, Adora finds a magical sword which changes her life forever.  The sword chooses her and imbues her with the ability to transform into the magical superhero She-Ra, whose destiny it is to protect Etheria.  Adora meets Glimmer, princess of Brightmoon, and her friend Bow.  Naturally, Adora believes them to be evil, but then begins to question everything she was ever taught and believes in.  After seeing the horrific devastation of the Horde with her own eyes, Adora decides to trust Bow and Glimmer and leaves the Horde.  Adora is forced to make the difficult decision to leave her lifetime friend, Catra, behind.

What follows in a rich and powerful journey in which Adora helps lead the rebellion against the Horde, rallies all of the other princess to the cause, while Catra refuses to join her and stays with the Horde.  The two friends become enemies, but what makes the relationship so great is they always seem to share a mutual respect, even when fighting, with each one seeming to hope to change the other's mind and find a way to salvage the friendship.  There are times when Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr come to mind.

All of the characters are fantastic, each with their own struggles, strengths, rich personalities, and complex motivations.  I'm not going to cover all of them.

Catra continues to push Adora further away, and at some points Catra seems beyond hope or redemption.  She seems too far gone.  But everything changes as the show enters its endgame and the small Horde presence on Etheria links up with the larger Horde in the rest of the galaxy.  The big bad is Horde Prime, who is essentially the Borg queen, assimilating, mind-controlling all life into his collective, which he, like the Borg queen, believes is the best way to unify the galaxy and bring everlasting peace.  It's at this point that Catra begins to realize her miscalculation.  There is no future with Prime--no life in which she gets to remain an individual.  Prime assimilates and destroys all, and Catra can't be a part of it, but she doesn't know how to get out.

One of the great highlights of the show is Catra's difficult and complex redemption arc, and her eventual reconciliation with Adora.  Her arc reminded me very much of Prince Zuko's, (the highest praise one can ever give) while still being very different.  One of the defining experiences for Catra's character is that she was assimilated by Prime, and later rescued by Adora.  Overcoming that experience was a brilliantly done trauma arc for Catra, surpassed only by Korra's trauma arc in Legend of Korra.

Naturally, the princess rebellion triumphs in the end and destroys Prime for good.  (This is a kids' show, after all.)

The show features two other unique, complex, sympathetic villains.  There's nothing I love more in shows than sympathetic villains.  They're always my favorite characters.  I'm not going to go into any detail here, but the other two, Shadow Weaver and Hordack, have fantastic arcs of their own which feature moral ambiguity, difficult and complex motivations, and hard-earned redemptions of their own.

The show also has the perfect amount of comedy.  Not overdone.  Comedic moments are mostly subtle and used sparingly, but to great affect.

It's a great show right there, but the daring, phenomenal LGBT representation is what puts it into the stratosphere for me.

Firstly, Bow, the male lead in Adora's friend group, has two dads, which are prominently shown together.  This is the first gay relationship to be featured.  Bow introduces his dads, and it practically knocked me over backwards in my seat.  I mean, before this, every single instance of gay representation in a kids' show that I'd ever seen was done exactly like AppleDash--vague, implied, never explicitly stated, and with complete and utter plausible deniability.  AJ and RD are just a clever nod to adults.  We knew what it meant, but kids probably wouldn't notice, and even if they did, parents could just deny it or wave it away.  "No, sweetie, Rainbow didn't mean anything by that chore comment.  They're just friends."  I thought that was pretty cool and bold at the time, but here comes She-Ra, and it's just like, "step aside, jr--lemmie show you how it's done."  BAM!  Meet Bow's dads.  Holy sh*t.  Holy f*cking sh*t snacks.  Bow's dads didn't kiss on the lips, which I was a tad disappointed by, but they did kiss hands and do other very obviously romantic touching.  It was pretty legit.

Then, later on, without intentionally or obnoxiously drawing unneeded attention to it, they feature two princesses who happen to be wives.  Wives!  Not only that, but these two actually kiss!  On the lips!  I mean, think about that!  Pony wasn't even allowed to state anything categorically, or have any romantic contact between AJ and RD.  She-Ra had two wives kiss!  Daaaamn!

I must also mention that there's a very androgynous character, who happens to be an literal shapeshifter, and who offers a great deal of representation of trans individuals, or just anyone who doesn't fit into the standard gender boxes.  I still don't know which, if either, biological sex that character was supposed to be.  Being an actual shapeshifter, they made not have been either.  The character definitely had a, shall we say... flamboyant personality.  I absolutely loved him/her/them.

But by far the best part, and what made the show pure magic for me, was the surprise romance between Catra and Adora.  As the final season unfolds, during Catra's redemption arc, it becomes apparent that there's more there then just friendship.  (There were clues there all along, but only to the keenest of observers.)  Towards the end, Catra is talking to a magical animal friend that she made.  It's, uh... I'd describe it like a spirit guide or something.  It's an ethereal, shape-shifting critter that bonded to Catra.  She can understand it and communicate with it, but no one else can.  It communicates non-verbally, and the audience can't hear it, so the conversation is one-sided.  It's like Wilson in Cast Away, except it's really talking.  So, Catra is talking to it, and she says about Adora, "She doesn't want me.  Not the way I want her."  It was a holy sh*t scene.

When we realize that she's gay, so much of Catra's life comes into focus and makes more sense.  She was always troubled--she suffered from an inferiority complex, anger issues, and severe abandonment issues.  She developed a tough exterior that she wore like armor, and pushed everyone away from her as a defense mechanism against pain and loss.  But her orientation was the final missing piece.  It became obvious that she was undoubtedly ashamed of her feelings and couldn't accept herself.  Etheria is obviously completely fine with  homosexuality, but the Horde was almost certainly not, so Catra grew up feeling the need to hide herself.  Adora was also gay, but didn't suffer the same way, partly because she was more well-adjusted and optimistic, but likely more so because her feelings didn't really seem to develop and awaken until later in life.  Catra was in love with Adora for her entire life, but couldn't be honest about it.  She was a tortured soul.  She rejected herself, and then began to reject everyone.  This fueled every self-destructive decision that she made.

Catra's redemption, her growth as a person, and her deepening connection to Adora in the final season was brilliant and beautiful.  She-Ra is a story about friendship and love, but most of all the power and importance of redemption and forgiveness for those who seek it.

One of my favorite scenes, which, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful and probably overlooked scenes, was in the final season when Catra and Adora were friends again, and they returned to the Fright Zone, the Horde's base on Etheria where they were raised and trained.  This time, they were against the Horde.  It was the first time they were back there together since the pilot.  Adora says, "It's weird being back here.  So many memories..." Catra then says, "Yeah, and most of them bad."  She then shifts her gaze slightly to look at Adora, who's standing in front of her.  Catra's hard and stern expression softens.  She looks sad and longingly at Adora.  There's an unspoken line that's perhaps the most powerful in the show.  So, Adora says, "So many memories...", to which Catra responds, "Yeah, and most of them bad."  The line she thinks but doesn't say is, "Except the ones of you."

Before continuing, I just have to gush about Catra for a minute.  Did I mention she's actually an anthro cat girl?  Yeah, anthro animal people are a thing on Etheria.  Catra's not only far and away my favorite character on the show, she's one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, period.  I relate to her and identify with her.  She's so cool.  She's strong, fierce, badass, and devastatingly gorgeous.  She's got so much sass and attitude.  She can be terrifying to her enemies, but she can also be achingly adorable when she wants to be.  Everything about her is sexy--the way she talks, the way her sultry, husky voice tends to crack, the way it cracks into an adorable squeak when she screams, the way she moves, the way she occasionally runs on all fours, the way she crouches on all fours and leaps like a cat, the way she fights with such agility like a cat, the way she scratches with her claws, the seductive and sensual way she often behaves around others.  OMFG.  It's ridiculous.  Everything she says and does just exudes sex appeal.  (And yet it still manages to be a perfectly tasteful kids' show!)  I love Catra to pieces.  I'm kind of obsessed with her at the moment.  (You could probably guess that from how this blog is more about her than any other.)

So anyway, in the series finale, at the 11th hour, when all hope seems lost and Catra thinks she's going to lose Adora, in the culmination of her redemption arc, Catra finally professes her true feelings.  To her utter astonishment, Adora reciprocates.  The two then share a passionate kiss.  And lemmie tell ya, then don't mess around.  It's not just some quick peck in the background of the scene or something.  It's every bit as good as Ariel and Eric, Al and Jas, or Belle and the Beast (once he transformed back into the prince, that is).  It was totally legit.  Honestly, it was one of the greatest moments of my life (which is meant to be both a glowing compliment of the scene, but also a sad comment on what a pitiful, lonely life I've had.  )

Catra and Adora's romance was a game changer, and their kiss was the most bold and daring thing I've ever seen in a kid's show.  I am given to understand that there are other cartoons that feature some bold LGBT representation, but all of the ones I've seen before this just left it implied while being careful to maintain plausible deniability.  She-Ra stepped up and changed the rules like nothing before.  Of the shows I've seen, She-Ra takes home the gold, silver, and bronze of LGBT representation.  No one else is even on the podium.  She-Ra shows us what's possible.  It's beautiful, and it gives me a shred of hope, which is something that's in extremely short supply these days.

There are fans and critics that complain about an over-representation of homosexuality in TV and movies.  And I'm not just talking about anti-gay people.  I'm talking about people who are fine with gays, but who feel like it's often awkwardly pushed into stories, "shoe-horned" in, and shoved in our faces and down our throats.  There's even a popular youtuber whom I like, listen to, and often agree with when it comes to media reviews, but who feels that movies and TV today are too often used as a political vehicles, and devolve into nothing but principled, annoying lectures.  I take his point.  I get it.  I really do.  I have a feeling he'd hate She-Ra (which admittedly brings me joy for some reason  ).

Two things--first, She-Ra doesn't feel for a second like it's forced, unnatural, or "shoe-horning" in the same-sex relationships.  Are there more gay relationships in the show than straight?  Yeah.  Absolutely.  But it feels natural, story relevant, and not contrived at all.

Secondly, and more importantly, the reason why we need strong LGBT representation is quite simple--because we have to counter the strong hatred.  We've made a lot of progress, but not nearly enough.  The fight is far from over, and there's still a lot more hate in the world than I previously thought.  Now more than ever, as we teeter on the precipice, in danger of backsliding so far, we have to continue fighting for acceptance and tolerance.  I, for one, am perfectly fine with an over-correction, an slightly higher-than-statistically-likely representation.  Frankly, I was overjoyed when I saw the Catradora kiss.  Their kiss was a courageous repudiation of everything that is ugly in the world--all of the hatred, bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness, and that is why She-Ra is a beautiful, precious, and necessary work of art.

Final thoughs--it's a pretty good show.