Mini-review: _She-Ra and the Princesses of Power_

I haven't been posting much here -- I confess, Mastodon microblogging suits me awfully well -- but I shouldn't let this one pass without a brief mention. A few weeks ago, I finished watching She-Ra.

tl;dr -- a milestone in modern animation, far better than even my highest hopes. Watch it.

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At the beginning of the story, our lead -- Adora -- is a loyal footsoldier for The Horde. She's strong, smart, talented, and meant for great things in Lord Hordak's army of (cough) bringing peace to the world.

Then one day, she and her best friend Catra are playing hookie out in the Forbidden Forest (NB: the series is sci-fi-ish, but with strong fantasy influences), when she comes across a sword, and is essentially claimed by it, becoming the incarnation of the legendary warrior She-Ra. She winds up meeting the people of the Rebellion, figures out that maybe Hordak isn't the good guy, and the story starts in earnest.

So far, so pablum, and hence I wasn't expecting much. But the execution is glorious.

To begin with, while the story looks like it's going to be episodic and trite, it's anything but. The first season hits most of the expected notes -- introducing all of the main cast, one character per episode, fighting the Horde, crossing paths with Catra (who is rising in Hordak's ranks), winning some and losing some.

But as it goes along, you begin to glimpse the epic hiding underneath the episodes. More than anything I can think of since Babylon 5, every detail at the beginning is just setting the stage for a large, well-crafted, tightly-plotted four-or-five season saga.

("Four-or-five"? Technically they claim that it's five seasons, but that's nonsense -- it's clear that it's four seasons, with an unintended pandemic break in the middle of what would have been season 2. All in all it's 52 episodes, in 13-ep seasons, and tells a clear story with a beginning, middle, and end.)

The writing is sharp and smart, the characters diverse and wonderful. This story isn't just queer-friendly, it's Queer Dammit, with the tense relationship between Adora and Catra at its heart. But it goes way beyond them, whether it be Bow's two dads, delightfully neurodiverse mad scientist Entrapta (who, along with her prehensile hair, are probably my favorite character of the show) or sweet Scorpia, who is well aware that she is the tank in this story while still being the femmeyest member of the cast.

And nobody is just their label: all the main characters (and there are a bunch) are well-rounded, complex, and well-acted.

That extends to the villains as well. With a single (specifically sociopathic) exception, all of the main bad guys are richly motivated, and have significant character arc.

Nor is it just a kids' story -- while there is a powerful joy to the whole thing, make no mistake: things get steadily darker as it goes along, and the last season is downright scary in places. (Specific CW for extremely creepy mind control, beyond the usual cartoon violence.) There are great examples and messages here for the kids, but keep that in mind when deciding about appropriate ages.

But above all, it is a deep, lush, beautifully crafted saga. I'm slightly abashed to say that it took me about 3/4 of the way through before I had the epiphany, "Wait a minute -- this is the bloody monomyth!" (When I finished the series, one of my friends pointed me to a paper arguing exactly that: that this is the Campbellian monomyth, deliberately recontextualized through a queer lens. It works, and works well.)

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All of which boils down to: no kidding, certainly on my list of 50 favorite shows of all time, maybe even top 25. It's great, well worth watching, and ever more compelling as it goes -- despite my best efforts to slow down and savor it, I largely binged the last season. If you haven't seen it, and you have access to Netflix, it gets my highest recommendation.