YMMV / She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

YMMV Tropes For She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

YMMVs with their own pages:

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Friendly Fandoms
• Harsher In Hindsight
• Shocking Moments
• They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character

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A-C

• Abandon Shipping: Character designer Geiger confirmed that Entrapta's rough age is late 20s or early 30s. This torpedoed any ships with the main cast of teenagers, outside of a few stragglers who still deny that Entrapta is an adult.
• Adorkable:
  • Due to Adora's inexperience regarding the outside world, she's very enthusiastic and awkward, and it comes off as very endearing. Her reaction to seeing a horse for the first time says it all. Also when she's been infected and she essentially becomes drunk. She's very adorkable during that time.
    Adora: (with quiet awe) It's majestic.
  • Glimmer's cute design and her energetic personality place her directly into this trope.
  • Bow tends to geek-out a lot, especially about First Ones tech.
  • Despite her intimidating appearance and the fact that she allied with the Horde, Scorpia is a genuinely sweet, playful and slightly ditzy woman with an awkward crush on Catra.
  • Hilariously enough, Hordak ends up like this when dealing with Entrapta, as he noticeably fumbles and struggles to say thank you to her for upgrading his suit to help him deal with his degenerative condition.
  • Likewise, Wrong Hordak is a sweet, slightly dim clone, every bit as bumbling and enthusiastic as his Evil Overlord counterpart is cold and cruel. He encounters the outside world with the enthusiasm of a child, and is utterly endearing as a result.
  • It turns out Light Hope's creepy Knight Templar persona is the result of reprogramming. When her system was rebooted and she was running at sub 40%, she was quite emotive and expressive, seeming to have great fun in learning and using her capabilities as they uploaded.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Before it first came out, many weren't thrilled about a new She-Ra series due to the original show's 80s origins, while others found the new show's aesthetic too childish, not at all helped when the first promotional images were released and a number of people on the internet called the show out for pandering to the "woke crowd". To make matters worse, it would be released during a decade of reboots that had polarizing reception. However, after the first set of episodes was released, it rapidly found an audience that were interested in the characterization, storytelling, and representation, leading many to call this new series better than the original.
• Angel/Devil Shipping: Glimmer/Horde Prime is a popular ship, brought on by Prime's treatment of Glimmer while she's his hostage in season 5. Granted, Glimmer isn't exactly an angel.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Adora comes to terms rather quickly with the fact that the people who raised her from infancy are evil and everything they ever taught her is a lie, though it could be because she focuses her angst on her ever-worsening relationship with Catra, who chooses to remain with the Horde despite being somewhere between Adora's best friend and love interest.
  • Entrapta manages to stay perfectly cheerful despite all the times she got thrown through the wringer in this series, like her believing her comrades left her to die and not even holding much of a grudge against them for it, and getting sent to Beast Island just because Catra was jealous. However, "Destiny, Part 1" subverts this: when Entrapta is demoralized by the signal, all of the sorrow she feels over failed friendships rises to the surface, showing that she does have angst, but represses it most of the time.
• Awesome Music:
  • The theme song does a great job establishing the themes of strength, friendship, and the girl power vibes of the show, on top of being pretty catchy. Bonus points for the extended theme, "Warriors".
  • Speaking of "Warriors," the trailer for the final season has AJ Michalka (Catra's VA) singing a downright haunting Moody Trailer Cover Song version.
  • In terms of score, "Promise", the first piece of music heard in the series which is basically the Catradora Leitmotif. The piece is used in many of their pivotal moments such as when Catra lets Adora fall in Season 1, the fight between Adora and Catra in The Portal, Catra sacrificing herself to save Glimmer (and by extension, Adora), and when they finally share their big damn kiss is simultaneously heart-wrenching and triumphant.
  • The score throughout "The Battle For Bright Moon" is triumphant and exciting, and is frequently used throughout the show as the theme of the Rebellion.
  • "No Princess Left Behind" is synthy and intense, working really well as the show's stealth music.
  • "Transformation" is used whenever Adora transforms into She-Ra and is a triumphant piece that's made even better during its reprise in Season 5.
  • "Corridors" is a hauntingly beautiful piece that slowly builds up to a crescendo when Catra finally makes the decision to help Glimmer escape.
• Badass Decay: The clones ended up suffering from this, even when they are Mooks. In their initial appearances they were a real threat even in small groups, eventually they become easier to defeat to the point that in the series finale, simple civilians are able to beat them.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Catra proved to be one of the show's most divisive characters. While initially well-liked due to being interesting, sympathetically villainous, and having Foe Romance Subtext with Adora, her increasingly awful actions came to divide the fandom. While some defend her as a complex Tragic Villain due to her abusive upbringing and troubled life, and love her redemption, seeing it as cathartic, relatable, and progressive, with some going further than that and treating her as never being a villain at all or accusing anyone who dislikes her of engaging in Victim-Blaming or ableism, others came to hate her due to her relationship with Adora growing violent to an extent many felt was Romanticized Abuse and increasingly cruel and spiteful acts, and feel that her redemption happened too quickly, along with the way she tends to be the focus of the show, especially in its later seasons. Neither of these issues are quieted by ND Stevenson's admitted love of Catra or the large number of fans solely interested in her and her relationship with Adora.
  • Swift Wind is a contender for most divisive character. Many people find his singing, constant Anvilicious dialogue and general obnoxiousness to be quite irritating. Swift Wind's Off-Model animation doesn't really help his case either. On the other hand, many fans like how he sometimes helps Adora emotionally, and they find his bombastic personality endearing rather than annoying. Swift Wind also seems to be divisive amongst the crew of She-Ra, since Geiger said on Twitter that they hate Swift Wind more than the fans did.
  • Some fans despise Hordak as a villainous conqueror who has caused untold suffering on Etheria, while expressing disgust at the romantic tension between Hordak and Entrapta. Other fans sympathize with Hordak due to his struggles with chronic illness, horrific upbringing in Horde Prime's empire/cult, and tenderness toward Entrapta.
  • Glimmer in Season 4 gets hit hard with this, after activating the Heart of Etheria. Her detractors accuse her of having acted rashly and impulsively, ignoring the advice of her two best friends and, worst of all, listening to Shadow Weaver. This was not aided by the fact she also claims Adora is Driven by Envy and the fact she orders against saving Entrapta from Beast Island. Her fans, on the other hand, say that the only thing Glimmer knew for certain about the Heart was that it was a big reservoir of magic, and she had no way of knowing that activating it would attract Horde Prime's attention. As the queen of Bright Moon, making use of a valuable resource to win a war was a perfectly reasonable course of action. As for her not listening to Adora and Bow, they had both shown very little concern for Glimmer's feelings regarding the war effort, despite Glimmer being both their supreme commander and their friend.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The midpoint episode of Season 4 ends with a random shot of Horde Prime smiling at the camera, which is obviously there because the season was originally going to be split in half like the last one (until it became clear how unpopular the format was).
• Broken Base:
  • In the same vein as Cassandra's in Tangled: The Series, whether or not Catra's redemption was well done. For some, it was a powerful piece of Character Development that put them through the grinder before successfully redeeming them as intended, making them deeply sympathetic and demonstrating how nobody is beyond atonement. For as many others, it was overly rushed favoritism that robbed the character of moral complexity or straight up turned them a Karma Houdini with no more than a slap on the wrist, by failing to fully acknowledge the scope of some of the terrible things they did, such as causing Angella to sacrifice herself, making them Easily Forgiven.
  • Somewhat related to the above, the finale, particularly the Catradora romance. For obvious reasons it made a large part of the fanbase ecstatic, especially since many of them watched the show just for that pairing. But those same factors created a surprising number of detractors. For Catra herself is an incredibly divisive figure, to the point that many of the pairing's biggest detractors are people who used to be Catradora fans. Those who don't love the character and believe that Adora reciprocating her feelings at the end of her Redemption Quest was a case of of Throw the Dog a Bone, instead feel their increasingly cruel behavior and treatment of Adora pushed the ship into Romanticized Abuse territory, that said character's redemption was too rushed, and not enough to bring it back out of said territory. Another significant camp of detractors are fans who were interested in the show for its other aspects and believe that Catradora's focus at the end came at the expense of everything else.
  • Catra and Hordak's fans often conflict rather fiercely, with both being quite divisive. Most fans of Catra argue that she's a more interesting and sympathetic character, that she's cool and compelling, and that the narrative glosses over Hordak's crimes and potential mistreatment of Catra, while Hordak's fans often feel that he's a more compelling villain whose plotline is stolen from him by Catra, his angst is undermined by the show's focus on Catra, aren't happy that he loses every fight he has with her in what they feel is unrepentant shilling, and feel that the show seriously underuses Hordak. This isn't helped by their shipping tendencies, as Catradora fans often see Entrapta and Hordak's relationship as being creepy due to what is often seen as a power imbalance, whereas Entrapdak fans are quick to shoot back that they feel Hordak and Entrapta's relationship is built on mutual respect, trust, and encouragement, whereas Catra and Adora's relationship is toxic due to Catra's torment of Adora.
  • Although Double Trouble is well-liked as a character, their handling is divisive within among the show's LGBT fanbase, particularly trans and non-binary persons. Some very much appreciate having non-binary representation in a show aimed at younger audiences, particularly a character with an active role in the plot, not defined by sexuality and treated as being effective and even cool. Others are less thrilled, seeing Double Trouble's nonhuman status as essentially making them a glorified case of Bizarre Alien Sexes and seeing their role as an amoral trickster - namely one that can use their appearance to fool people into believing they're someone they're not - as playing into the belief that trans people are faking their identity to manipulate people.
  • While the character is well-liked, the show's handling of Entrapta became this over time. Supporters often point to the fact the show treated her as nuanced, the characters call her out for her misdeeds instead of her being Easily Forgiven, and the fact it makes an effort to make her a sympathetic neurodivergent character who, despite some moral ambiguity, ultimately sides with the heroes and aids them in concluding the conflict, which many felt was an admirable message and good representation for neurodivergent audiences. However, its detractors feel that the show was too unfavorable toward Entrapta, noting that the Princesses had tendencies toward her which could be perceived as ableist or cruel, such as ignoring and talking down to her even as she tries to aid them, and feel that the show placed emphasis on how Entrapta should change herself to earn their friendship despite their prior treatment of her while their own issues are never pointed out. Some think this carries the potentially negative message that neurodivergent people should change themselves to gain the friendship of neurotypical people.
• Can't Un-Hear It:
  • There’s just something about AJ Michalka’s performance that makes it hard to disassociate her from Catra. Heck, the way she normally speaks wouldn’t be too far off from how Catra would sound like if she were calmer.
  • Similarly, since Hordak was one of Keston John's first major roles, it's incredibly difficult for fans to hear his distinctive voice in other roles (i.e. Darius Deamonne) without being immediately reminded of Hordak.
• Cargo Ship: Played mostly for laughs but thanks to one scene in Season Five people started shipping Entrapta with Darla, Mara's spaceship.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Catra managing to defeat Shadow Weaver and destroy her connection to her powers, after all the abuse she had been out through by her.
  • Seeing the berserk She-Ra overpower Catra in "White Out" and even put genuine fear into her can be very satisfying to watch, especially after her cruel manipulations and smug attitude in "Ties That Bind".
  • In the Season 3 finale Adora finally gives Catra the Shut Up, Hannibal! she's long had coming. Our last look at Catra in the season is of her running with her tail between her legs and a massive Oh, Crap! expression, as Adora gives her a Death Glare that makes clear she's done trying to get through to her.
  • Double Trouble's absolutely scathing and completely accurate dressing down of Catra in the final episode of Season 4. They shapeshift into everyone she's ever had a relationship with and brutally tell Catra that she is the problem, and drives people away with her toxicity. Catra is understandably devastated by this, but it's also pretty cathartic seeing someone finally call her out on her behavior and actually make it stick.
  • After all the abuse Catra heaped on Scorpia for four seasons, it's nice to see the possessed Scorpia lightning blast Catra over the horizon.
  • On a similar vein to the Scorpia point, considering the fact that Catra is the reason the Horde was able to take Salineas over, there's something so satisfying about watching chipped!Mermista attempting to drown Catra.
  • For those troubled by Glimmer's behaviors in Season 4, it's cathartic when she realizes what the Heart of Etheria really was and how much she messed up as Horde Prime arrives.
  • A cruel one. For all the suffering Hordak caused over the years from his conquering to earn Horde Prime's approval, seeing him get mind-wiped by Horde Prime is quite cathartic.
  • The princesses acting dismissive and rude towards Entrapta throughout the series has earned many viewers' distain. As a result, it's nevertheless fulfilling to see Entrapta telling them she does try her best to save Glimmer after they accuse her of being inconsiderable to others, proving that they're wrong about her all along.
  • Even though Catra is a major villain in the series, her tragic backstory and all her interactions with Adora earn her a large amount of sympathy and love from fans. It's really cathartic to see her pulls a complete Heel–Face Turn and joins the heroes' side in season 5.
  • After years of manipulations and abuse to both Adora and Catra, Adora finally calls Shadow Weaver out for her behaviors and gives her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, saying that she hurts people and deprives them of happiness, before stating she won't get her forgiveness. She then assures that she won't even get the chance to near the magic released from the Heart of Etheria after she uses it.
  • For all the hardships and painful moments Adora and Catra suffered throughout the series, it's really satisfying to see they confess their love to each other in the finale, proving they do love and find comfort in each other all along.
  • After seeing the damage Horde Prime had inflicted on all the characters, it was cathartic to watch Hordak turn on him and kill his physical body. Then, when Horde Prime's consciousness possessed Hordak's body, it was cathartic to see She-Ra exorcise Horde Prime, freeing Hordak and destroying Horde Prime's spirit forever.
• Common Knowledge: Among certain circles in the fandom, the idea that the Horde's soldiers are all kidnapped children, and that Adora specifically is among them, is commonly touted as a reason to hate Hordak. The reality is that the series never actually clarifies where the Horde's influx of children come from, with outside statements and implications in the show itself leaning more toward the idea that the Horde actually takes in orphans and abandoned children, with Catra in particularly having essentially been dropped on their doorstep and taken in according to Word of God, and while Adora is initially led to believe Hordak kidnapped her, this turns out to be a lie, with him having actually saved her life. Much of this is likely owed to the original series, where Hordak did kidnap Adora and the Horde was much worse.
• Complete Monster: Horde Prime, true ruler of the Horde, is an ancient being who exists by stealing the bodies of his clones who he breeds to be mindlessly loyal drones, any hint of individuality or imperfection resulting in erasure. Having exterminated countless worlds in the name of order, Prime is only swayed from destroying Etheria by the realization he can use it as a weapon, sending his discarded "brother" Hordak to have his identity erased. Later brainwashing Catra, Horde Prime tries to force Catra's suicide before Adora when she resists, using those he controls as weapons against their loved ones. Seeking to activate the Heart, Prime launches attacks on Etheria with threats to destroy the world, ending by trying to have Hordak himself kill his beloved Entrapta when she tries to warn him of the consequences. Finally activating the Heart, Horde Prime gleefully attempts to annihilate the entire universe as the ultimate culmination of order and his twisted ego.
• Crack Ship: Bow/Adam, which started getting traction after some fan artists theorized about Adam's possible reboot design. The two get shipped despite Adam's existence in this continuity still being up for grabs.
• Crazy Is Cool: Entrapta has a manic personality and slightly creepy appearance, and she's also probably the greatest expert in First Ones technology in the entire show, not to mention that she makes her interrogation an absolute nightmare for her captors by constantly slipping out of her bonds and playing with their weapons. Even more so in Season 2, when she breaks into Hordak's sanctum, starts tinkering with his projects, and then lectures him about what he's doing wrong. Hordak is so taken aback and impressed by her complete lack of fear that he ends up making her his assistant. Entrapta manages to top even that in Season 4, which reveals that she not only survived but thrived on Beast Island, mostly resisting the signal, marveling at the abundance of First Ones technology, and building herself a mecha, all while maintaining her exuberant demeanor.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Shadow Weaver, who is an initially unrepentant Hate Sink and child abuser, not to mention having disturbing and dark sorcerous powers. This particular interpretation makes her one of the most interesting and delightfully nightmarish presences on the show.
  • The corrupted version of Catra is a piece of living, breathing Nightmare Fuel, but also looks extremely cool and serves as the culmination to massive build-up.
  • Horde Prime is a dangerous and disturbing narcissistic figure with heavy overtones of Religious Horror. Thanks, however, to the amazing performance Keston John puts in and the sheer level to which he outdoes every other villain in terms of heinousness, he's generally one of the best-received aspects of the fifth season.
  • All of the chipped civilians of Etheria, but special mention goes to Mermista, Micah and Scorpia.
• Creepy Cute: Unlike his original model, this Imp's appearance can cross into the uncanny valley, especially given his more human features. He's still adorable to look at, however, particularly when Hordak is cuddling him.
• Crossover Ship:
  • From RWBY, there are not so common pairings like Double Trouble and Neo and Scorpia and Tyrian.
  • Catra is also paired with Rayla from The Dragon Prince, though more as friends than lovers. This is likely partly due to The Dragon Prince writers Tweeting that they would be friends if they met.
  • Catra would probably befriend Amity due to their similar issues and complicated relationships with Adora and Luz, not to mention that the latter has a cat palisman and the former is a Cat Girl. Glimmer and Eda would probably bond due to their respective recklessness and develop a relationship similar to what Eda has with Luz. Lilith and Angella would bond over having to deal with relatives like them.
  • Catra would probably bond with Lotor due to their respective issues, complicated relationships with Allura and Adora and how they nearly destroyed their realities for their own reasons. Scorpia would also probably bond with Lotor's lieutenants, especially Ezor due to their upbeat and positive personalities. Seeing Kosmos and Melog interact would be cute.
  • Netossa and Spinnerella would likely be friends with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune from Sailor Moon, due to being gay couples and their similar competitive streaks.
  • People have started shipping Adora and Catra with Anne and Sasha from Amphibia due to the similarities in their relationships.
  • People sometimes ship Swift Wind with Celestia and Luna from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
• Cry for the Devil: Shadow Weaver's death is still quite emotional to watch no matter how horrible she was, and one can't help but feel even a little sorry for her. Shadow Weaver is the equivalent of a tired old dog who's dying, yet still seeks affection and love. ND Stevenson even states Shadow Weaver does care about Adora, Catra, Glimmer, and Micah, but because she has never known anything but hatred and selfishness, it never works out, and it's something she ultimately confronts in the end. Shadow Weaver made the choice to sacrifice herself knowing that there is no place for her and can never redeem herself. She's at least become aware she wasted her whole life with her obsession with power, and tells Catra not to make the same mistakes she did. Shadow Weaver makes peace with this.

D-F

• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Adora's tendency to hyper-focus on things, miss certain social clues, and complete inability to stay still for even a short amount of time all point to her having some form of ADHD. She also displays clear symptoms of anxiety (restlessness, lack of concentration, hyper-vigilance, and consistently worrying about other's well-beings, mostly her loved ones) and the mother of all martyr complexes. She's also been a direct subject of Shadow Weaver's A+ parenting, so it's no surprise that she has issues.
  • Catra has many signs of Borderline Personality Disorder. She has a tendency to be ambivalent to outright hostile towards her underlings, distancing herself from them, but when they leave, she becomes clingy and jealous. She forms intense but unstable relationships - her Foe Romance Subtext with Adora and her inability to decide whether she wants to earn Shadow Weaver's trust or just skin her alive are both examples of this. She exhibits notable anger issues, and demonstrates suicidal tendencies in seasons three and four. Of course, she was also the target of Shadow Weaver's A+ parenting, so it's hardly surprising that she's a bit messed up. Many fans with borderline personality disorder have found her relatable.
  • Subverted — character designs for Season 4 outright referred to her as autistic◊ and a Twitter post from ND confirmed Entrapta was written as such. Storyboard artist Sam Szymanski is on the spectrum and apparently had a hand in figuring out her movements and her character arc. Entrapta is hyper-focused on science and technology, is most comfortable when working on a project instead of socializing, is not good at reading people's moods or picking up on social cues (though she's not entirely oblivious to them), and has a straightforward and literal way of thinking. She also has some more minor idiosyncrasies, such as her liking for tiny foods and preferring to move about the Fright Zone through the air ducts because she finds it easier to get where she's going.
• Draco in Leather Pants: There are some fans (admittedly only a very small minority) who downplay Shadow Weaver's relentlessly self-serving behaviour and insist that deep down, she cares for Adora and/or Catra... even though she's proven herself entirely willing to sacrifice both if it gets her what she wants. After the series ended, a portion of fans arose that saw her as only slipping into villainy due to her time with the Horde. While the series does grant Shadow Weaver more sympathy and nuance as Light Spinner, and she was a Well-Intentioned Extremist originally, the series makes it quite clear that she was slipping into evil either way, and the first thing she does with her newfound power is murder Norwyn, meaning she's already somewhat evil even before joining the Horde.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The silent lizard man Rogelio has been gaining a lot of attention for his cool design and his seemingly kind and friendly, possibly romantic, relationship with Kyle.
  • Kyle also seems to be fairly popular in general due to being an Adorkable Butt-Monkey, his I Just Want to Have Friends attitude in "No Princess Left Behind", and just generally seeming to be too nice to be part of the Horde. A few people have subscribed to the idea of him becoming this series' version of He-Man, although that character was never in the show for legal reasons.
  • Many fans have latched onto Double Trouble, despite how little information we have on them. It helps that their design is very cute, and they’re a Large Ham. Plus, the other actors get to ruthlessly mock their own characters whenever Double Trouble turns into them. And of course, being a canon non-binary character who absolutely no one ever misgenders, referring to them with the proper pronouns as if it's the most natural thing in the world. Their alter ego, Flutterina also has a sizable fanbase.
  • Season 5 introduced Wrong Hordak, a Horde clone who was disconnected from the hivemind and rescued by the Rebellion, revealing an adorkable, bumbling Nice Guy whom the fandom latched onto instantly.
  • Multiple random Horde clones have received fan followings and headcanons revolving around them, mainly due to their unique personalities, humor value, and their characterizations and sympathetic existence nicely averting What Measure Is a Mook? via showing the audience how oppressed they are by Prime. The two most popular tend to be the Horde clone that prolysetizes at the Rebellion about Prime and is shushed by Scorpia in "Horde Prime," and the clone that grows vicious and overzealous in mere seconds in "Corridors."
• Epileptic Trees:
  • One of the silhouettes of Etheria's princesses Light Hope shows Adora caught fans' eyes due to its resemblance to Catra. Cue several "Catra is a princess that was kidnapped young" theories.
  • The appearance of Tung Lashor has led several people to theorize that the Snakemen, in particular King Hiss, exist in this universe. This was eventually Jossed by Stevenson himself in an interview, confirming the Snakemen as a faction were off-limits.
  • In the Season 3 finale, when Angella goes off to help Adora, Micah starts to tell her something before he's consumed by the World-Wrecking Wave. The fans immediately went with the assumption that he, too, had regained his memories, and was trying to tell Angella that he's actually alive. This ends up confirmed.
  • The reveal of Horde Prime led to an explosion of speculation about other He-Man characters making the jump. Prior to his inclusion it was believed that every He-Man character was off limits due to copyright. However, it's relevant to point out that Horde Prime made his debut in the original She-Ra series and can also be considered a She-Ra villain, perhaps more so than a He-Man villain.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Due to the lack of a Dénouement, and its rather sudden ending amounting to Horde Prime being defeated and every couple uniting, the series never deals with any of the consequences of its conflicts. This is despite the fact that Prime's conquest would have created massive damage across Etheria on a societal level, the Horde and Rebellion now have to find peace despite their massive and destructive conflict, including some members still clearly having distaste for one another, and, perhaps most importantly, the Galactic Horde, comprised of countless clone cultists, just lost their leader, their technology, and will have to find a way to settle on Etheria. While all of these things could definitely play out just fine, it's not quite the straightforward happy ending the show tries to present it as.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Catra, whose interesting and rounded character traits, cleverness, and combat skill rendered them among the most popular characters in the show even as her villainy comes to make her miserable.
  • Hordak is a fresh, pragmatic take on the Evil Overlord who has a cool voice and an intimidating design. He only became cooler with the revelation that he's a seriously determined individual and that he had Hidden Depths.
  • Double Trouble, a non-binary shapeshifter and master actor, who relishes their role as an agent of chaos with pure, sadistic glee and ends up one of the only characters to never truly be defeated.
  • Horde Prime exemplifies this more than any other character in the show, partly because he's the one character in the show to be completely irredeemable. He's the kind of evil espouses the traits that made Emperor Palpatine and Thanos great villains, namely the former's cold, calculating, efficiency, not to mention his ruthlessness, and the latter's imposing figure with Dark Messiah characterization and his menacing Badass Fingersnap. As such, while the other villains are gradually humanized, all of Horde Prime's screentime is devoted to making him as despicably awesome as possible, all delivered by a chillingly effective Cold Ham performance that Keston John effortlessly distinguishes from Hordak.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With the Voltron: Legendary Defender due to parts of the Voltron fanbase becoming embittered by some of the plot directions that Voltron took. In particular, the topic of LGBT+ representation is a big point of contention, due to Voltron killing off an Advertised Extra gay character in Season 7 while She-Ra introduced LGBT+ representation as early as Season 1. Likewise, much of Voltron's notorious shipping wars have carried over, with ships like Catra/Adora drawing comparisons to Keith/Lance. On the other side, Voltron fans believe that She-Ra is actually filtering their own fandom, as many of the toxic Keith/Lance shippers that started the issues with that fandom are moving to She-Ra to ship Catra/Adora. It is fortunate for those fans that that ship had the support of the show's creators and was the ultimate endgame of the series.
  • Many fans of original She-Ra and current She-Ra do not get along at all. Nostalgia is a major factor as well as other nasty discourse, but this is also partially fueled by Melendy Britt, the voice of the original She-Ra (along with other characters), posting on her Facebook disapproving of the crew making Take Thats at the original series as well as her suggesting that the reboot is not made with the "loving force" of the original's fans. Meanwhile, reboot fans will argue that the show is a love letter to the original, seeing as crew members including reboot creator ND Stevenson have stated they were fans of it growing up.
  • The announcement of both Masters of the Universe: Revelation and a full reboot of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe has created a divide concerning the use of He-Man. Fans of Princesses of Power have wanted to see the creative team’s take on He-Man, Skeletor, and the rest of the Eternia cast of characters, while those looking forward to Revelation and the reboot do not want this version of She-Ra anywhere near either production, particularly as Revelation is supposed to be an adult-targeted production that producer Kevin Smith has described as "Metal". Several fans meanwhile have suggested the opposite, a version of She-Ra in Revelation or the reboot divorced from the Princesses of Power version. The presence of not one, but two new He-Man series separate from Princesses of Power has also been interpreted by She-Ra fans as Mattel actively attempting to ignore and bury a series that they lack control over and doesn't sell merchandise to the degree they desire for a co-production. Interestingly, the rivalry does not extend to the creative team, with Smith praising Princesses of Power on his podcast, and ND half-jokingly suggesting a crossover in the vein of the old He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special. Smith has also asked people not to use Revelation to attack Princesses of Power.
    • The divide with fans of Masters of the Universe deepened when Mattel began releasing She-Ra toys, specifically toys of the original She-Ra as part of their Masters of the Universe Origins toy line, along with figures of Hordak which were also based on his original incarnation. This is particularly notable as Mattel briefly released a line of dolls based on Princesses of Power only to quickly discontinue it following extremely poor sales. The focus on the original versions of the characters as part of a mass-market release (as opposed to a limited collector targeted release like the Super 7 line of figures) has heightened fears Mattel wants to ignore this incarnation of She-Ra and replace it in the public eye with a version made internally.
    • Quite amusingly, both sets of fans were so eager to compare the two that "She Ra" actually trended higher than "He Man" on Twitter after the first Revelation teaser was released.
  • Also gets this with Tangled: The Series, especially with regards to Catra's and Cassandra's villain arcs and their redemptions after both fandoms watches the other's show. Both characters followed a similar arc where they have deep-seated jealousy of the protagonist and feel like they've always been cast aside for them. It culminates both characters committing a horrible betrayal against the protagonist and all their villainous actions are out of spite and pettiness over the fact. While it is generally agreed that both characters' redemptions had their flaws, especially since both did vile things throughout the series, the debate is over which character's redemption was relatively done better. In Catra's case, supporters will point out hers was well done due to the fact that she was at least given the opportunity to improve herself and get much needed character development. Additionally, fans of She-Ra would observe that Cassandra had absolutely no problem embracing evil and only redeemed herself after Zhan Tiri deprived her of her power, thus she only became "good" again because something bad happened to her personally, not because of a moral dilemma, while Catra still cared about Adora deep down and made the conscious choice to pull a Heroic Sacrifice to save Adora after seeing just how badly she messed up. Fans of Tangled however, will typically point out how unhealthy it was for Catra to enter into a relationship with Adora in the end because of how toxic and mentally unstable she has shown herself to be much like Cassandra, and felt Cassandra and Rapunzel going their separate ways is a route that should've been taken by Catra and Adora.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • A lot of people have started writing stories or making fanart in an attempt to connect He-Man to this continuity, despite his character currently being Exiled from Continuity due to legal reasons.
  • A popular fan theory is that Catra is a princess that was kidnapped young, with many an AU having Catra raised as such. Fanfics that tackle this idea within the show's continuity have her discover this by stumbling across what remains of the Magicats and the Kingdom of Halfmoon: whether this is a large, fully functioning society, a small group in hiding, or the ruins of a completely destroyed civilization (in which case, Catra also learns that she's the Last of Her Kind) varies from fic to fic. If there are still Magicats hanging around, her parents (or at least her mother) tend to be alive as well.
    • As an extension of this, from the end of the second season until the true nature of the location was revealed in Season 4, Beast Island served a popular location for these stories.
  • There are several Role Swap AU fics where Catra is the one to find the Sword of Protection and become She-Ra, while Adora remains loyal to the Horde. It's quite common for such stories to also have her as some flavor of The Unchosen One who must prove herself worthy of the role.
  • After season 5 featured characters being "chipped," many creators in fandom made AUs in which other characters were chipped, either in place of someone else or in addition to the canon victims. Double Trouble is a frequent choice, especially since they revealed they’d briefly disguised themselves as a clone.
• Fanfic Fuel: The series ending certainly encourages this, with ND Stevenson saying in interviews that what happens next is up to the fans.
  • The Best Friend Squad going back off into space, what adventures will they have? Will it be the start of another epic story, or slice-of-life fun? Will they meet the remnants of the First Ones? Learn of Adora's parentage and Eternia? Meet He-Man? Maybe they will find a way to save Angella? Will they meet the Magicats and is Catra one of them? The possibilities are almost endless.
  • With Horde Prime dead and Entrapta's virus collapsing the Horde Hive Mind in the series finale, we now have hundreds of horde drones stranded on Etheria (possibly throughout the rest of the universe) who now have to fend for themselves, now possessing individual thoughts and feelings for the first time. It doesn't help that the Horde's invasion campaign would sour the rest of Etheria's sentient life against them and one lone Horde Drone (Hordak) single-handedly started an empire, so it is likely that the outcome would be interesting and potentially destructive.
  • The last episode confirmed a lot of different pairings as canon, this caused a slew of married life AU fics to hit the internet. Future kids fanart and stories have also become pretty popular.
  • The Horde and the Rebellion are, after the finale, forced to find peace, with every prominent Horde member undergoing some degree of redemption. This means fanfics like Horde leaders dealing with the consequences of their crimes, the characters repairing Etheria together, and the remaining conflicts between the two factions, are all popular premises.
  • Even earlier than that, Adora is shown projections of all the runestone princesses, in silhouette form. Only about half of them match onscreen characters, allowing for fans to come up with their own ideas of who the other princesses could be.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Trashbat", "Emo Twink", and "Shouty Boi" for Hordak.
  • "Dumbass Jock" for Adora, to fondly describe her Fish out of Water tendencies. Also, "Beefy Dorito". Fans compare her to a puppy a lot, usually a golden retriever or a pitbull, to create a contrast with Catra.
  • "DT" for Double Trouble.
  • "Kadroh" for Wrong Hordak and "Pickles" for the fanatical clone captured by the Rebellion in the episode "Horde Prime".
  • "Spacebats" for the species that Hordak, Horde Prime, and the Galactic Horde clones belong to.
  • The production team is affectionately called "Crew-Ra".
  • Even before it was backed up by the production team, fans started calling Melog "Catra's therapy cat".
• Fanon:
  • A lot of people like to think of Sea Hawk as bisexual, due to his interactions with both Bow and Mermista. Mermista is sometimes subjected to the same interpretation due to her interactions with She-Ra and Sea Hawk. They've earned the titles Bisexual King and Queen as a result. Sea Hawk's bisexuality was eventually confirmed via Word of God.
  • The belief that Entrapta's autistic was quite popular even before her character sheet for Season 4 outright confirmed this, as did a tweet from showrunner ND Stevenson.
  • Some fans theorize that Horde Prime is an ancient eldritch abomination who decided to use Hordak's species as vessels and slaves. He has survived for millennia by possessing the bodies of Galactic Horde clones, he considers using Catra as his next vessel but decides against it because her body would not survive long, he requires clone life force to survive, and his consciousness takes the form of a black and green shadow when She-Ra exorcises him from Hordak's body.
  • Ever since the first season aired, there has been much speculation regarding Adora and Catra's relationship back when they were both cadets in the Horde: on one hand, a share of fans considered them best friends, on the other many saw them as an Official Couple that had a devastating break up when Adora switched sides. The ending of the series shows that both interpretations were half-right. Adora and Catra really were Just Friends, but both had always been in love with the other for years and never acted upon their feelings for different reasons: Catra never expressed how she felt, while Adora pushed her feelings down and very likely couldn't have put a name on them anyway.
  • The fanfiction short story, Don't Go, is considered by most of the fandom to be canon. This is in part because of the mass speculation that the story is actually written by ND Stevenson himself, and for how much it adds to Catra's redemption arc.
  • Although Word of God has never confirmed one way or another what species Catra is most fans headcanon her being a member of the Magicats.
  • While the show itself seems to disprove this theory since She-Ra has a Healing Factor, quite a lot of fanfic writers like the idea of Adora having scars on her back from when Catra clawed at her in the Season 1 finale. This is mainly because it is a good source of guilt ridden drama, you can expect the scars to be seen and discussed during fics that cover Adora and Catra's first time having sex.
  • It's very common to depict Glimmer as growing wings at some point during her life, often wings colored like the Bisexual pride flag. Related, it's a common idea that Glimmer is either immortal or Long-Lived, since Angella is referred to as immortal a few times.
  • Many fans believe that the In-Universe explanation for Frosta's differing characterization between season 1 and the rest of the show is that in season 1 she was in public, in front of all her subjects, and so had to present the appearance of a serious, dignified monarch. When she's hanging out with the Rebellion in later episodes, she's free to express her real fun-loving personality.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Some, the Crew-ra fought to get a lot of material included which led to the show being one of the most inclusive of all time. Still, some ideas didn't make it on screen.
  • Rea the character designer originally designed Perfuma as a transgirl but didn't share this with the wider crew-ra so it couldn't even be hinted at.
• Foe Yay Shipping: In addition to Catra and Adora, Glimmer and Catra is also a popular ship. Despite their lack of history compared to Adora, Catra loves riling up Glimmer in the same borderline flirty way, and Glimmer has canonically imagined Catra as a sexy Femme Fatale. The Season 4 finale, in which Glimmer and Catra are taken captive on board Horde Prime's ship, has increased the popularity of the ship.

G-I

• Growing the Beard:
  • While Seasons 1 and 2 were not seen as bad by any means, they were criticized for not treading any new ground, feeling too similar to shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender. By Season 3, more unique aspects of the characters and world started to be more visible, along with exploring darker themes not usually covered by shows for all ages and showing the consequences standard character archetypes can bring.
  • Within Season 1 itself, after several episodic and relatively light-hearted episodes following the series premiere, "In the Shadows of Mysticor" was the first episode to really dive into Shadow Weaver's emotionally abusive parenting of Adora and how her upbringing in the Fright Zone has damaged her as a young adult. Such themes of emotional abuse and how to cope with it would define the show's run.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In February 2019, a She-Ra cosplayer proposed marriage to her girlfriend, who was cosplaying as Catra. Which ND Stevenson and the official Twitter retweeted to express their happiness. In the series finale, Catra and Adora became an Official Couple.
• He Really Can Act: As Hordak's role increases, Keston John puts on a surprisingly powerful performance, particularly as Hordak lays out his desperate, obsessive Freudian Excuse and subsequently bonds with Entrapta. This is proved twicefold in Season 5, when Keston plays quadruple duty as Hordak, Horde Prime, Wrong Hordak, and various clones, each one distinct in their own way.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • A lot of fans theorized King Micah was still alive somehow, just separated from his family. The Season 3 finale comes within a hair's breadth of confirming this, and Season 4 confirms it outright, when the main characters find him on Beast Island. It helps that the exact same thing happened to Micah in the original show.
  • Similarly, many fans assume Angella's Heroic Sacrifice won't be permanent. Mostly because the show's careful to specify that she's "trapped between dimensions" without actually saying she's dead. But this wasn't undone and she remains trapped by the show's end.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
  • The Rogelio/Kyle ship is sometimes nicknamed "Repkyle", as it was named before Rogelio's name was revealed.
  • "Adora Has Two Hands" for the One True Threesome ship between Adora, Catra and Glimmer.^note The name appears to have been inspired by this image
• I Knew It!:
  • Micah is alive, a theory that had been around since Season 1, but exploded after the finale to Season 3.
  • Many guessed the twist that Light Hope and to a lesser extent the First Ones were evil, along with Mara having a good reason to turn on them.
  • The very day that the final season was released and revealed Adora and Catra do indeed have romantic feelings, ND Stevenson admitted he thought he was being cleverly subtle with it when the show started, and was completely caught off guard by how pretty much the entire fandom immediately called it.
  • A lot of fans correctly guessed that Hordak would be broken free of his brother's control at the end of Season 5.

J-M

• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Catra. Though her actions become more and more villainous as the show goes on, it's hard not to sympathize with the character, especially during the first two seasons, the first half of season three, the final three episodes of season four, and season five. Her upbringing was terrible, having always been treated as second fiddle to Adora and suffering both emotional and physical abuse under Shadow Weaver's thumb, receiving death threats even as a small child. She craves approval from the worst people in her life, suffers from immense trust and abandonment issues, and constantly self-sabotages her own happiness as a result of those things.
  • Hordak. He was a clone of another warlord, Horde Prime, but was eventually discovered to have a physical defect and sent to die in battle for being "worthless". Everything he does is to prove his brother made a mistake. His body is thin and sickly outside the suit and he is slowly dying. He also gains a genuine friendship with Entrapta that is tarnished after Catra lies about her betraying him. In Season 4, when he finally meets the man he has spent decades in unwavering service to, Prime berates him, diminishes his accomplishments, mindwipes him, and tosses him aside with starkly casual cruelty—in under a minute.
  • Glimmer shifts to this in Season 4. Even as she drives the Best Friends Squad away from her and becomes domineering and hostile towards the Alliance as a whole, it's clear that there's a lot of grief and pain in her motivations, and she wants the rift between her and the others to close... she just doesn't see how much of the rift is her own fault, and the manipulations of Shadow Weaver and Double Trouble aren't helping on any of those scores. Most obvious when Scorpia gives her an impulsive hug towards the end of the season... and when she lets go, Glimmer is still clinging to her like a drowning woman to a life preserver.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains:
  • While Catra's support of the Horde and willingness to help them take over Etheria was fine with much of the fanbase, Catra became divisive not because she's evil, but because her treatment of her friends and Adora grew to be too much for them and too akin to outright abuse.
  • For a subset of fans, particularly dedicated Entrapdak fans, the Princesses' rather begrudging attitude toward working with Entrapta is a much worse crime than Hordak and Entrapta's attempts to conquer Etheria, with many even praising the two for giving each other unconditional love and support. This is mostly owed to the fact that much of the Horde's deeds are fantastical supervillainy, while neurodivergent people being mistreated is a common thing in the real world.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • There are those who want to hear Aimee Carrero voice another princess.
  • Catra became a major reason to watch the show early on, with many viewers latching onto the sympathetic villain's actions and finding the character's arc surrounding her abusive childhood and quest for power much more engaging than heroine Adora's. Plus, she's a cute catgirl and her snarky attitude often made her scenes a joy to watch, even as her behavior and decisions become more vile and unforgivable in later episodes.
  • Season 4 drew a lot of attention by offering a scene-stealing, Chaotic Neutral nonbinary mercenary with enough theatre kid energy to punch a hole in the planet crust in the form of Double Trouble.
  • Quite a few people came in, both before and after the finale, due to the Foe Romance Subtext between Catra and Adora, which was rather open for a two-woman relationship in a childrens' show, and this only doubled after said subtext became text in the final season, with the two ending up together.
  • To a lesser extent, many came to the show just because of Hordak and Entrapta's human/alien romance, which to many fans of human/alien romances was the highlight of the show. Many felt the same way about the fact it was a villain/villain romance at all, a well-liked trope that had been falling out of favor before the show was released.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Adora, Catra and Sea Hawk have been shipped with basically every same-age-range character in the series and beyond. Catra, in particular, cemented her status as this with Season 2, after which the Glitra and Scorptra ships catapulted from niche pairings to near-fandom mainstream almost immediately; Adora, meanwhile, has been shipped with virtually every member of the Princess Alliance, plus Catra, Scorpia and Huntara.
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • Unsurprisingly. The show has a large amount of queer representation, with romantic subtext between the two leads (plus a number of other side characters of the same sex), Bow being raised by two men, Scorpia having lesbian mothers (though assumably deceased) and a lesbian couple among the princesses. The fact that a large number of background characters at the princess prom seem to have same-sex dates also upped the ante.
  • Hordak and Entrapta have developed a substantial fanbase among ace and trans fans, since Hordak codes very well to being a trans person and their love is clearly present yet mostly not too physical.
  • Double-Trouble, who is non-binary, has gotten an immense amount of love from the fanbase for being a heavily layered character whose role is just seeing sparks fly.
• Love to Hate: Double Trouble falls into this for being a criminal scumbag, but is a unique character with a unique talent that many are willing to put up with them.
• Magnificent Bastard: Double Trouble is an amoral, cheerful mercenary who delights in chaos. Effortlessly tricking Catra as an "audition", Double Trouble infiltrates the Princess Alliance to weaken them, playing all they find against one another to weaken the alliance. Upon being caught, Double Trouble simply switches sides and sabotages the Horde to escape punishment, even delivering a bout of "tough love" to make Catra realize her toxic personality before leaving after they decide they have had enough sport.
• Memetic Badass: Fans (particularly Entrapdak shippers) began to joke that Entrapta would be the one to defeat Horde Prime following the events of the Season 4 finale, due to her going into Violently Protective Girlfriend mode upon learning about his "reconditioning" of Hordak.
• Memetic Loser: Adora herself, though in a fairly tongue-in-cheek way; much of the fandom likes to portray her as a rather oblivious "dumb jock" who can't read social cues and customs well due to her upbringing in the Horde. The shipping fandom, in particular, delights in portraying Adora as confused by flirting and crushes. Her lack of knowledge of horses in the prologue has led to a fandom Running Gag in which she doesn't know what any animals are (not helped by one of the tie-in books, which has her take a little while to remember what a duck is). Again, this is generally applied either in a lighthearted, jokey way or as a sympathetic extension of her Fish out of Water nature in Bright Moon.
• Memetic Molester: Horde Prime has been getting this treatment from the fandom since his debut in Season 4 due to his smarmy demeanor, creepy body language, habit of touching others in a manner that feels predatory, and dehumanization of his clones, including Hordak.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Although she is described as an amoral scientist who ends up working for the villain Hordak, Entrapta is extremely popular among autistic fans, as she presents multiple signs of being a character within the autism spectrum (and was later confirmed to be autistic by Word of God).
• Misblamed: A livestream with the show's crew a few months after the show ended went disastrously wrong and they ended up being accused of numerous offensive statements. But while the crew themselves were responsible for some of them (most notably a joke about Bow's siblings all having rhyming names including a farmer named Sow which brought up slavery implications), the majority (like Hordak and Entrapta being "perfect representation" for autism and the use of the slur "d*ke") were from viewer statements or the chat's moderator.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • There is not supposed to be a "right" side in Catra and Hordak's struggle for control of the Horde. Both of them are depicted as having sympathetic traits and seriously vile misdeeds to their name, with neither necessarily being worse than the other and both being driven to evil by their own tragic pasts, consistently hurting one another and the people around them. While they're similar, that didn't stop fans who liked one and not the other from insisting that one of them was the better side in the conflict. This can be seen clearly in Tumblr in the forms of these tag.
  • While it's clear that the Adaptational Modesty and Adaptational Diversity approach with the show's redesigns was meant to promote body positivity, many artists tend to draw the characters looking much more attractive, sometimes even provocative than they are in the show (whether intentional or not). There are even some fans who have nothing against the redesigns, but will still do things like draw Adora as very curvaceous with sometimes huge buxom, make Glimmer slimmer, or give Only One Female Mold to the princesses, for their personal choice without any sexual intention. Not even the male characters are safe, with Bow and Sea Hawk being drawn more muscular in many fanarts.
• Moe:
  • Glimmer, for her frequently Adorkable behavior, cutesy powers, and her tendency to wear her heart on her sleeve makes her very endearing. Bonus points for being the most traditional princess in the series.
  • Many fans love Scorpia for many of the same reason and for being such a supportive friend to Catra (even if the latter doesn't want to admit it) and being more of a hugger than a fighter. Like Glimmer, she's also very Adorkable.
• Moral Event Horizon: Horde Prime is not only a conqueror of entire galaxies, but he created an army of drone-clones who are little more than slaves without free will or individuality. When he reconditions (that is, mind-rapes) Hordak, his evil is undeniable.
• My Real Daddy: Fans consider Josie Campbell, Shane Lynch, and Rae Geiger to be the architects of Hordak and the Entrapdak ship, rather than showrunner ND Stevenson.

N-R

• Narm: Catra's speech to the Crimson Waste thugs in "Once Upon A Time In The Waste". The fact that she has nothing left to lose is supposed to make her sound dangerous and intimidating, but her words come across more like "You should be scared of me because I'm a loser".
• Narm Charm: An inevitable holdover from the source material to be sure, but characters still have bluntly descriptive names like Catra or Castaspella, and The Horde, despite being written with enough nuance to not think of themselves as evil, still live in a place called The Fright Zone. Still doesn't make the characters themselves any less endearing or The Horde any less menacing or three-dimensional.
  • Shows up In-Universe in the episode "Roll With It," where Glimmer declares the fantasy sequence parodying the original show "kind of amazing."
• Never Live It Down: Because of the Rule of Funny, Adora will forever be remembered for the events of "System Failure" and "White Out", where she basically got drunk because a magical virus infected her sword.
• Nightmare Retardant: The amount of times characters are able to fight from the inside against Horde Prime's mind-control chips - plus the fact that Hordak retained his memories of Entrapta even after being completely reset - can make it seem like Prime's brainwashing simply isn't that effective.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Netflix is somewhat notorious for not spending much time or money to promote their shows beyond announcing release dates. A lot of She-Ra's online buzz came from people angry that the show was being made for one reason or another, and those that argued against them. This led to many viewers checking the show out just to see what all the hubbub was about.
• One True Threesome:
  • A number of fans of the Glimmadora ship, wanting to avoid an ugly bout of Ship-to-Ship Combat with the more popular Catradora, have popularized a three-way ship between Adora, Glimmer and Catra (see Idiosyncratic Ship Naming).
  • The Best Friends Squad, Adora, Bow and Glimmer, are often pushed just a little bit closer together than their canonical very close friendship - particularly since Glimmer has had at least a little Ship Tease with both of them.
  • Their villainous mirror image, the Super Pal Trio (Catra, Scorpia and Entrapta) are not unheard of as a ship, although after the third season it's likely hit some issues since Catra backstabbed Entrapta and threatened Scorpia.
  • Scortrapdak (Scorpia x Entrapta x Hordak) has slowly gained fans after Season 4.
  • After season 5,Hordak x Entrapta x Wrong Hordak gained some popularity as well
• Paranoia Fuel: In Season 5, Horde Prime implants chips into various people of Etheria to control them, with it not being obvious right away. Anyone could be under his control and you wouldn't realise it until it's too late. Even you could have a chip just waiting to take over you.
• Popular with Furries:
  • Catra, what with her much more obvious feline characteristics this time around. This became a subject of minor controversy when some of the writing staff revealed that Catra indeed has a full-body covering of very fine fur, in addition to her ears, eyes and tail, leading to debates of varying degrees of seriousness over whether, in light of this information, being a Catra fan does indeed make one a furry.
  • Rogelio, among scalies, has become quite popular for being a buff Lizard Folk character. His implied interest/relationship with Kyle has also become popular among scalies as a side-effect.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • "Catradora" for Catra + Adora.
  • "Glimmadora" for Glimmer + Adora.^note Though "Glimadora" and "Glimora" also have a following.
  • "Scorptra" for Catra + Scorpia.
  • "Bowtrapta" for Bow + Entrapta.
  • "Kygelio" for Kyle + Rogelio.
  • "Glow" or "Glimbow" for Glimmer + Bow.
  • "Seabow" or "Bowhawk" for Bow + Sea Hawk
  • "Seamista" or "Merhawk" for Sea Hawk + Mermista
  • "Glitra" for Glimmer + Catra.
  • In addition to the Idiosyncratic name listed above, there are numerous competing name combinations for Adora + Catra + Glimmer, though the most accepted one appears to be "Glitradora."
  • "Entrapdak" and "Hordapta" for Hordak + Entrapta.
  • "PrimeDak" for Horde Prime + Hordak.
  • "Catrouble" for Catra + Double Trouble
  • "Pertara" for Perfuma + Huntara
  • "Scorfuma" for Scorpia + Perfuma
• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • Shadow Weaver's treatment of her adoptive children, manipulating them, favoring Adora over Catra, and generally being despicable and cruel to them, have become memorable as among the creepiest and darkest themes the series is willing to take on. The consequences it has on both of them, especially Catra, who received the brunt of the abuse, are depicted in a way which can easily disturb viewers.
  • Catra's treatment of Adora is this. Catra is Adora's former best friend. Adora constantly begs Catra to join the Rebellion, and in spite of the fact Catra would be far happier and healthier there, she refuses, lashes out, and torments Adora; Shadow Weaver's conditioning is too hard to shake, and she and Adora were too codependent for her not to see Adora's leaving as a betrayal. It's a harrowing, heartbreaking experience for both parties.
  • Hordak turns out to have a medical condition, which caused him to be shunned and cast out of his home by his paternal figure, Horde Prime. It codes very heavily to a disabled or trans person being rejected by their society and feeling internalized guilt due to their upbringing.
  • Horde Prime and the Galactic Horde perhaps epitomize this. They are a dangerous force with heavy religious connotations. Their leader is a charismatic figure with No Sense of Personal Space, who uses Cold-Blooded Torture (which simultaneously resembles a baptism, and religiously-motivated conversion therapy designed to "cure" LGBT+ people) and abusive brainwashing to keep their people in line to fuel their narcissism. It was outright stated that Horde Prime was based on "suicide cult" leaders such as Jim Jones.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Adora's use by Shadow Weaver as a "Golden Child" to undercut Catra's self-worth is very widely acknowledged in the fandom. However some go further and blame Adora herself for internalizing Shadow Weaver's "I only punish Catra when you cannot keep her in line" head-games and neither being eloquent enough to get her old bunk-mate to defect nor able to drag her kicking and screaming to Bright Moon once she saw what was really going on.
  • The Princess Alliance in general are dismissed by parts of fandom as elitist isolationists who are indifferent toward the general populace of Etheria, the Horde's rank and file, the insufficiently pretty/normal/humanoid, and/or Adora herself (as opposed to "The She-Ra"). Parts of this are supported by the lack of a Princess Alliance before Adora came along, Frosta's insistence on isolation because the Horde poses her nation no direct threat, Perfuma and her people refusing to fight until the Horde is literally placing them under siege, Scorpia's words about why she's rejected by the princesses (which might be true, but is also very likely heavily biased from the point of view of someone raised by the Horde and is not born out by actual events in the show), and the fact that Perfuma and Mermista use Entrapta's apparent death as an excuse to back out of the Princess Alliance and go back to isolating themselves. It must be noted, however, that the reason the princesses were so isolationist was due to the failure of the last rebellion, which included heavy losses leaving mostly teenagers or children in charge of their kingdoms, and the end of Season 4 shows that the princesses actually accept Scorpia without issues, even encouraging to reclaim her Runestone.
  • Glimmer is already a flawed character, who can be jealous, temperamental, reckless and ruthless, but also kind, brave and ultimately heroic. However, some segments of the fanbase insist on interpreting her as some sort of wildly unempathetic borderline monster who goes out of her way to be cruel to Catra.
  • An interesting variation. Hordak most certainly is a villain, but you will find people who would rather gloss over his more sympathetic aspects, portray him as an irredeemable monster, and argue against the sympathy the show gives him. Many of them were not overjoyed when Hordak made a Heel–Face Turn in Season 5.
  • Catra. While many fans treat her as a sympathetic villain, some view her as irredeemable and abusive to Adora with no redeeming qualities. Some even go as far to dismiss her redemption in the show. These viewpoints ignore the fact that Catra's toxic behaviors have a tragic reasoning behind them and she doesn't pursue them out of evil reasons, instead genuinely believing that they're necessary to gain self-worth. The show itself also doesn't downplay the harm that her toxic treatment to others is causing, and Catra sincerely regrets her actions when she is finally made aware of this.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Thanks to Catra, Scorpia, and later Entrapta being the main face of the Horde entering Season 2, many a fan expressed the desire to see them win against the Rebellion. Especially since many fans considered certain members of the Rebellion to be underdeveloped or just plain annoying. Season 3 only increased this segment of the fanbase, as Hordak became a more sympathetic character, as did Season 4 by adding fan favorite Double Trouble to the Horde's side. Season 5 subverts it when Horde Prime takes charge and all of these characters end up defecting from the Horde.
  • Many Entrapdak fans feel that Entrapta should have remained with the Horde, as her experimentation, dubious ethics, and quirks were not only tolerated there but rewarded, feeling that she was at least clearly happy while she was a villain alongside Hordak, who despite all his cruelty genuinely cared about her. This subset of fans tends to overlap with the ones who wanted to see the Horde win.

S-W

• Ship Mates:
  • Glimmer/Adora and Catra/Scorpia go together a lot.
  • Catra/Adora content often features Glimmer/Bow as a side ship (and vice versa).
• Ships That Pass in the Night: There's a fairly large following for Castaspella/Juliet (the Bright Moon general with a sidecut and scar).
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: The show managed to spend a long time without any infighting, in large part in an attempt to avoid the same things that ruined the Voltron fandom. However, history repeated itself starting with Season 3 and some cracks began to emerge within the shipping fandom, often over the same types of causes and again often involving the One True Pairing (in this case Catra/Adora) on one side attacking others.
  • One with the rather unlikely contestant of Hordak/Entrapta, considering the ships don't even compete. Some Catra/Adora shippers make excuses for the ship's toxicity while accusing the Hordak/Entrapta ship of being toxic (given that Hordak is a conqueror, tyrant, AND Entrapta's superior). Some have even accused Hordak/Entrapta shippers of condoning pedophilia, stemming from a misconception that Entrapta is a teen (when creators have stated that she is actually in her late 20s or 30s). Some Hordak/Entrapta shippers fought back by accusing the former of fetishizing or whitewashing an unhealthy relationship.
  • Some fans look askance at Catra/Scorpia shipping because of the age difference between the teenage Catra and the seemingly adult Scorpia, though Scorpia’s age has never been confirmed.
  • A fringe of Catra/Adora shippers are openly hostile to Glimmer/Adora, mostly on Twitter, which tends to raise the hackles of those who are sympathetic to the ship or to Glimmer in general.
• Signature Scene: Quite a few:
  • The tension-filled scene in "Princess Prom" where Catra and Adora dance, especially when Catra dips her, is very popular, especially among Catradora shippers.
  • The final scene in "The Promise" where Catra confronts Adora and lets her fall instead of helping her up, both due to the emotional score playing in the background and it finally cementing the fact that Catra and Adora are enemies from now on.
  • The scene in Season 1's finale where the heroes stand in a line, glow the colors of the rainbow and a rainbow wave splashes behind them is also popular, which fans saying "it's the gay agenda" and "the villains were defeated by the power of gay".
  • Adora’s Death Glare towards Catra and subsequent fallout after she almost destroyed reality at the end of Season 3. It marks the end of Adora and Catra being on any sort of “amicable” terms whatsoever, and leads Adora into the dilemma where part of her wants Catra back, and another part of her feels the need to move on.
  • In the final episode, Adora and Catra's Anguished Declaration of Love and kiss, noted by numerous critics to be a rare time in a western animated show of long-simmering same-sex romance subtext actually being made totally explicit onscreen.
• Sliding Scale of Social Satisfaction: The Horde is "Knowledge is Forbbiden". Orphaned kids are abducted very young to be brainwashed into thinking the magic-wielding princesses are evil and must be eliminated so Etheria can prosper. This is how Hordak and Shadow Weaver justify waging war on the otherwise pacific and idyllic population centers of the planet. Of course, most cadets realize this crude reality after they've been deployed for a while. Some of them even earlier. However, they feel they owe the Horde too much and/or that the Rebellion won't accept them. This mentality is quite poignant in Adora's change of heart — she honestly didn't know the Horde attacked civilians for essentially no reason.
• Strangled by the Red String: Bow and Glimmer got this both ways. Writers and cast were describing them as Like Brother and Sister right up until the final season was about to be released, but a couple of episodes made it seem like Glimmer had an unrequited crush. Then, when they actually did hook up in the series finale, so little had changed about their relationship from the times it was described as Like Brother and Sister over the course of the season that many people felt like it came out of nowhere with less than half an hour of show left, making it a fumble from the other end. Word of God states that while there was always interest among the crew for it, they weren't sure if they were actually going to have their relationship be romantic or not until the last second, which may explain this.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Queen Angella in Season 3, Episode 4. Here she is portrayed in the wrong, by both the narrative and the cinematography, for scolding Glimmer's constant impulsiveness, her lack of planning, and refusal to communicate with the rest of the Rebellion. However, these traits are part of why Catra was able to capture Adora and the sword to begin with.
  • While she is far from a strawman, Glimmer in Season 4 is clearly intended to be in the wrong, with her showing clear regret about her actions in Season 5. Nevertheless, while she did make mistakes, she never really did anything that wasn't entirely justified, especially considering that she was the leader of one side in a war. Adora told her about a great reservoir of magic easily accessible and says they shouldn't do anything about it despite it easily being a potential tiebreaker in the war. Listening to Shadow Weaver was a clear mistake, but Adora and Bow kept expecting her to listen to them, even though they knew she felt ignored. Using She-Ra as a distraction was a bit coldhearted, but also a perfectly valid tactic in a war.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The new character designs caused a large amount of controversy, with Adaptational Modesty being the main subject for Adora/She-Ra herself.
  • Some fans of the original series had this reaction when it was revealed that Flutterina was just an alter-ego that Double Trouble made up to trick the rebellion.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: While the show has received glowing reviews, a point of agreement among critics is the fact that the show's Achilles' heel is that it is treading ground that was already threaded and done better by other shows, especially Avatar: The Last Airbender. In particular, the plot lines regarding Light Hope wanting Adora to leave her friends behind to train for the position of She-Ra and the broken Legacy of the Chosen are a bit too reminiscent of ATLA. As the series has progressed and gotten time to flesh out its story however, this mindset has begun to die down.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • As well-done as a lot of fans felt Catra's redemption was in Season 5 due to happening early enough that she has time to truly reckon with a lot of the people she hurt and make amends, one glaring omission is that her being responsible for Angella's sacrifice due to opening the portal is never brought up. It's not even clear if Glimmer knows it was her rather than Hordak himself. Nor is her role in the destruction of Salineas dealt with.
  • Despite Hordak being supposedly the main villain of the show for the first four seasons, and turning out to have an extremely close relationship to Adora, as the one who saved them as a child, Adora and Hordak only have two interactions in the entire show, with Catra consistently being Adora's nemesis and Hordak almost never interacting with any of the heroes.
  • The Horde's conquest during Season 4 is almost entirely offscreen. Besides a couple scenes, there are no sequences of the Horde planning or truly engaging the conquest, and none of the Rebellion responding, with each side essentially being self-contained. This is despite the fact it's the central conflict of the show. By the time we see any of the characters truly having it out with the other faction, Horde Prime's arrived and the war may as well be over for both sides.
  • Hordak mentions having faced every single Princess but Entrapta on the battlefield. Nobody else mentions it, and it's never shown to the audience despite the fact their battles must have been nothing short of awesome.
  • Despite the series revolving around Adora's and Catra's tumultuous relationship, delving even into their backstory in the Horde, the one piece of backstory a lot of fans would've wanted to know but was never shown or discussed in the show was how they first met. Fortunately, Stevenson would reveal how they met in a stream. Catra was dropped off at the Horde and Adora saw her and claimed her as her best friend by the time Shadow Weaver found out.
  • Overlaps with They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Adora doesn't really interact with Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio as She-Ra beyond brief moments in battles and an extended Imagine Spot (during which neither side remembers Adora became She-Ra). It might have been nice to see how Adora would deal with fighting her former Horde friends who aren't opposed to her for deeply personal reasons like Catra. Showing them mercy or trying to turn them could have further motivated their eventual desertion, or even lead to them defecting and inspiring dissent amongst the Horde's rank and file, and further contextualized Catra and Adora's relationship.
• Trans Audience Interpretation:
  • A few people see Bow as a trans boy, due to his underclothes in "Shadows of Mystacor" resembling a binder. His soft facial features and build add fuel to the fire, a lot of fans at first thought he was a slightly masculine woman rather than a slightly feminine man. The fact that his Day in the Limelight is an extended metaphor for a Coming-Out Story (with him "coming out" to his parents as a warrior rather than a scholar) just added more fuel to the fire. Then again, when the girls do have problems or drama, he can't always relate to it on the same wavelength, even admitting in "Boys' Night Out" that he sometimes needs time away from them.
    • Sometimes the same fanon is extended to Perfuma, who (with her tall, wiry build, flat chest and somewhat angular facial features) is sometimes believed to be a trans girl and portraying her friendship with Bow as solidarity among trans people. A Tumblr post by character designer Rae Geiger revealed that Geiger intended Perfuma to be read as a transgender woman.
    • Some fans also headcanon Hordak as a transgender man. His father figure cast him out of his home and later ridiculed him as an "abomination". Hordak also chose a new name for himself. Hordak's backstory codes well to that of a transgender youth kicked out of his home by a transphobic parent. His narrow waist and curvy hips and thighs also add to the speculation.
    • As of Season 5, you can add Peekablue to the list; he's a Gender Flip of a character from the original, is a Bishōnen, has a similar body type to Hordak, and looks like he might be wearing a binder under his suit. Then again, we never actually see Peekablue—just Double Trouble impersonating him to feed their acting jones.
  • Many fans headcanon Hordak as genderfluid, given that he wears a backless dress underneath his armor. Plenty of fanart, including that of character designer Rae Geiger, depicts Hordak in feminine attire.
  • The Star Sisters of the original show are turned into the Star Siblings with one of them (Jewelstar) being a man, whose actor is trans. This naturally led to a ton of people figuring the character is too. Character designer Rae Geiger stated on Tumblr that Jewelstar was a transgender man.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Swift Wind's facial expressions can be a little... off. Maybe because of having human expressions on a horse's face.
• Unexpected Character: In Season 3 Horde Prime, after previously being thought to be Exiled from Continuity as a He-Man character.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Some people find Angella sympathetic, since she blames herself for her husband's death, the first rebellion crashed and burned, and her relationship with her daughter is strained. These same people see Angella as the Only Sane Man of the Rebellion, because she is much more cautious and much more strategic than her impulsive daughter. These fans also think that Angella's seemingly controlling behavior is reasonable, considering that Glimmer is sole heir to Bright Moon and that Bright Moon is at war. This became even more so after her Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Season 3. Before she sacrifices herself, she admits to Adora that she was a coward hiding behind her castle walls while a bunch of kids fought for her. However, many fans perceived that statement as her internalizing Glimmer's feelings and unnecessarily putting herself down. Seriously, she led a Rebellion against a great evil after everyone else gave up, just because she wasn't actively fighting in the war like Glimmer and Micah, doesn't make her a coward, just brave for different reasons.
  • In "Launch," the Princesses call Entrapta out for not being a good friend and for not caring about the consequences of her actions. The latter is an entirely reasonable point and a lesson Entrapta needs to learn, but many were quick to point out that the former is not entirely true. While Entrapta tended to be awkward due to her lack of social skills, many of her attempts to befriend the Princesses were genuine and she only received the appreciation she wanted after changing for the Princesses, not to mention the fact she never even gets to tell the Princesses she thought they abandoned her and didn't know they thought she was dead. While seemingly unempathetic, Entrapta is also still risking her life to try and save Glimmer, who during her breakdown tried to delay Entrapta's own rescue. The selflessness of this is never acknowledged. In addition, plenty of fans felt that the show's attempts to make the audience see her deeds as a serious betrayal fell flat, as most other Horde characters aren't taken to task nearly as much and Entrapta only did what she did after, from her perspective, the people she was trying to befriend left her to die.
  • Kyle was initially written as a sort of Deconstructed Character Archetype to The Everyman trope, although the crew behind the show doesn't seem to understand the whole point of the everyman archetype. Word of God states that Kyle was meant to be a Joke Character. Among the kids who are raised to be child soldiers for the Horde, Kyle is pretty weak and gets a hard time from everyone, including his teammates. He also tends to be an easy scapegoat and is blamed whenever something goes wrong. But he is surprisingly very optimistic and humble despite the situation he's in, and is always trying his best despite his shortcomings. Most egregious is when he confides and befriends Bow when the latter is taken prisoner by the Horde and is literally thrown away when the Rebellion comes to rescue Bow.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Many feel that the Princesses' treatment of Entrapta verges on bullying. While their interactions with her are mostly Played for Laughs, they tend to be very dismissive and rude toward Entrapta despite Entrapta's awkward yet genuine attempts at forming friendships with them, with Perfuma putting her on a leash multiple times and the Princesses often singling her out even when Entrapta had done little to nothing wrong, with it being implied that this is part of why Entrapta was so quick to defect to the Horde when the time came. This peaked for many with the Princesses' factually-based yet hostile rant toward her in "Launch" when Entrapta, while certainly not spotless in the affair, was under the impression they didn't care about her and gets no such moment to point out that they tended to be overly harsh on her, with Mermista even congratulating her while calling her a "weirdo," which many find a lackluster resolution considering the emotional turmoil Entrapta had gone through. Overall, many fans feel Both Sides Have a Point in the matter and are disappointed that the show places all the burden on Entrapta to change and little to none on the Princesses to be more supportive friends.
  • Lonnie. While her character in the show is meant to be a tough soldier with a hidden caring side, most of her time onscreen shows her as a loud and commanding person who is rude to her friends. She also doesn't seem to care about the harm she caused as a member of the Horde, making her no better than the main villains in the show.
  • Adora can be this sometimes. While she does have legitmative concerns about others' questionable behaviors, she can be come across as unsympathetic as she tends to ignore others' reasons and motivations behind their actions, such as being betrayed by her defection (Catra and Lonnie) or devastated by the lost of a loved one (Glimmer). It could be said that many of the problems in the show can be solved had she willing to sit down and have neutral talks with others instead of being dimissive of others' needs. Her Control Freak actions are also meant to be sympathetic due to her abusive childhood, but they're instead being treated as annoying and stand-offish to many viewers.
• Unnecessary Makeover: A good number of fans weren’t happy that Catra in the latter half of Season 5 loses her mane-like hair and red headpiece, as those are considered iconic to the character.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • With his soft facial features, navel-bearing outfit, slim build, and intense eyebrows and a soft blush that make it look like he's wearing eyeliner and makeup, a number of fans have admitted to mistakenly thinking Bow had been Gender Flipped at first. He does look like a rather butch woman, and many of the other girls on the show have Boyish Short Hair, so it's an easy mistake to make.
  • Lonnie has a rather androgynous design that can make her look like a short male. She's female.
  • In Season 3, the unnamed lizard person who travels the desert with Huntara and the goat-woman is stout, wears gender-neutral clothing, and has no secondary sex characteristics. She's revealed to be a woman when other characters refer to her with feminine pronouns, but she could easily be mistaken for a man.
  • In Season 4, Grox has a beard and a burly build. Even though she is voiced by Gray Griffin and other characters refer to her with feminine pronouns, her appearance makes her gender ambiguous.
  • Before their identity as non-binary was confirmed, a good percentage of people believed Double Trouble was female due to their androgynous design. Some dubs do indeed portray DT as female.
• Watched It for the Representation: Quite a lot of fans tuned in for its varied representation. The diverse cast was always a selling point, especially for little kids. While the LGBT representation was more of the "plausible deniability" flavor early on, vocal support from fans who picked up on the queer subtext enabled more varied and explicit depictions of queerness in later seasons.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: For a show rated "Y7" it doesn't pull its punches with dark and mature themes. Things like child abuse, death, and post-traumatic stress disorder are played completely straight and explored in great detail. The psychological horror of Season 4 in particular is spectacularly intense for a kids show, with influences from R-rated media like Annihilation (2018).
• The Woobie:
  • Glimmer and her saddening Friendless Background. Not at all helped by the feeling that she is a constant disappointment to her mom and their estranged relationship following her father's presumed death.
  • Queen Angella, who is clearly still grieving the loss of her husband and has a pile of trouble with her teenage daughter.
  • Kyle. The poor boy is the Horde's Chew Toy that gets blamed for literally everything and gets in trouble for the tiniest of mistakes. Granted, he's laughably incompetent at literally everything, but Bow showing him basic kindness is more than the Horde did for him in years.
    • Eventually subverted to a degree when Kyle earns the respect of Lonnie and Rogelio with an act of true heroism, getting them to admit that they always cared about him a lot more than they let on.
  • Frosta. She assumed the throne as a child, cultivates a stoic and humorless exterior in order to be taken seriously as a monarch, and doesn't have space to just be a kid until she joins the rebellion. She idolizes Glimmer and is clearly hurt when Glimmer yells at her.
  • Bow, in Season 4. With Glimmer and Adora spending most of the season at loggerheads, he ends up feeling like he's the only person putting in any actual work to keep the Best Friends Squad functional, and he spends most of the latter half of the season running along the edge of giving up entirely. Dude needs a hug.
  • Adora. She was subjected to emotional abuse from an early age from her parental figures and her then-closest friend, exhibits symptoms of PTSD, had to leave her entire life behind in the opening two-parter, has watched her former best friend descend from "kind of a jerk" to "active threat to her and her loved ones", watched the only non-terrible parental figure she's ever had sacrifice herself for her, suffered a devastating breakdown in her new closest friendship, and been forced to destroy one of the most important things to her when it turned out it was just another tool to control her. Per Word of God, her overprotective and controlling streak is because, thanks to Shadow Weaver's A+ parenting, she believes she has to constantly prove her right to exist.
  • Horde Prime's clones. He creates them to be fanatically obedient slaves, denies them any autonomy or individuality, monitors their minds from a distance, possess them, draws nourishment from their life force, and mindwipes them if they develop identities (as he does with Hordak in "Destiny, Part 2" and "Corridors"). Their existence is a bleak one.
  • Wrong Hordak. He was born into Horde Prime's army of clone-slaves, experiences distress when his connection to the hive mind is severed, and goes through a painful existential crisis when he realizes that Horde Prime is a tyrant.

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