She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is an American animated superhero television series developed by ND Stevenson and produced by DreamWorks Animation Television for Netflix. It is a reboot of the 1985 Filmation series She-Ra: Princess of Power, and like the original series, it tells the tale of Adora, an adolescent who can transform into the heroine She-Ra and leads a group of other magical princesses in a rebellion against the evil Lord Hordak and his Horde.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power received critical acclaim, with particular praise for its diverse cast and the complex relationship between She-Ra and her best friend-turned-archenemy Catra. In 2019, the show was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Programming, as well as a Daytime Emmy Award at the 46th Daytime Emmy Awards. In 2021, the series was tied with First Day when it won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids and Family Programming.
The series ran on Netflix from , to , having released 52 episodes over 5 seasons. On linear TV, the show previously aired on CBBC in the United Kingdom, before it moved to Pop on January 30, 2023. It also aired on Disney Channel and DreamWorks Channel across the globe. The series was removed from Netflix on February 21, 2026, due to the expiration of DreamWorks' license to keep the series on the streaming service.
Synopsis
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is set on the planet Etheria and follows the stories of Adora and Catra, orphans who were raised to be soldiers in the Horde. They are part of an evil army led by Hordak, a tyrannical despot who dreams of conquering the planet. One day, after getting lost in the woods, Adora finds a magic sword that transforms her into the legendary Princess of Power, She-Ra. After learning that the Horde is actually evil and has been inflicting suffering on Etheria and its inhabitants, Adora decides to join the Rebellion in the fight against the Horde. She helps rebuild the Princess Alliance, a league of kingdoms ruled by other magical princesses. Adora's newfound allegiance to the Rebellion pits her against Catra, her former best friend, whose feelings of betrayal and abandonment twist her personal ambitions and lead her to become Adora's archenemy. Much of the show centers around their conflict.
In the first season, Adora helps reassemble the Princess Alliance, which successfully defends the rebel stronghold of Bright Moon against the Horde's assault. Meanwhile, Catra rises in the ranks to become Hordak's second-in-command.
In the second and third seasons, Hordak attempts to build an interdimensional portal which will allow him to contact his creator, the interplanetary warlord Horde Prime. Catra activates the portal even though it threatens to tear the planet apart, and rebellion leader Queen Angella sacrifices herself to stop it.
In the fourth season, friction arises between Adora and her friend Glimmer (Angella's daughter and the new queen of Bright Moon) when Adora learns that her sword is the key to an ancient superweapon inside Etheria. In order to prevent the weapon from activating, Adora destroys her sword, losing access to her She-Ra powers, but not before Etheria is pulled through a portal, becoming vulnerable to attack by Horde Prime's armada.
The fifth and final season follows Adora's journey to liberate Etheria from Horde Prime's reign. Adora rescues a redeemed Catra and Glimmer from Horde Prime, discovering her innate She-Ra powers in the process, but in the meantime Horde Prime has subdued much of Etheria with his mind-control capabilities. The princesses and Catra work together to disable Horde Prime's hivemind and stop him from accessing Etheria's ancient superweapon. In the end, it is Adora and Catra's love for each other that enables She-Ra to destroy both the weapon and Horde Prime, and save the universe from his tyrannical reign.
Voice cast and characters
Aimee Carrero as Princess Adora / She-Ra LaLa Nestor as young Princess Adora AJ Michalka as Catra Juliet Donenfeld as young Catra Karen Fukuhara as Glimmer, Princess of Bright Moon Marcus Scribner as Bow Reshma Shetty as Angella, Queen of Bright Moon Lorraine Toussaint as Shadow Weaver Keston John as Hordak, Horde Prime, Grizzlor, Admiral Scurvy, Wrong Hordak, Horde Sergeant, Horde clones Lauren Ash as Scorpia, Princess of the Fright Zone Christine Woods as Entrapta, Princess of Dryl Genesis Rodriguez as Perfuma, Princess of Plumeria Jordan Fisher as Sea Hawk, Seneschal, and Soda Pop Vella Lovell as Mermista, Princess of Salineas Merit Leighton as Frosta, Princess of the Kingdom of Snows Sandra Oh as Castaspella, sorcerer of Mystacor Krystal Joy Brown as Netossa, rebel princess ND Stevenson as Spinnerella, rebel princess, and Serenia Morla Gorrondona as Light Hope Grey Griffin as Razz Adam Ray as Swift Wind Geena Davis as Huntara Zehra Fazal as Mara Chris Jai Alex as George, one of Bow's fathers Regi Davis as Lance, one of Bow's fathers Dana Davis as Lonnie Antony Del Rio as Kyle Daniel Dae Kim as Micah, King of Bright Moon Taylor Gray as young Micah Jake Eberle as Norwyn and Tung Lashor Jacob Tobia as Double Trouble Amanda C. Miller as Flutterina Amy Landecker as Octavia Alex Blue Davis as Jewelstar Ashley Eckstein as Tallstar Melissa Fumero as Starla John Lavelle as Peekablue
Production Development Development and production of the series began concurrently in April 2016. It was announced on December 12, 2017. Showrunner ND Stevenson initially pitched it to Netflix on the assumption of creating only one season, but in November 2018, he explained that "we now have four arcs of 13 episodes done". She-Ra is created using traditional animation, with the exception of some computer animation for "complicated machinery". The animation is provided by South Korean studio NE4U.
Themes The first season of the serialized She-Ra reboot focuses on establishing the characters and their relationships in order to set up future seasons, initially by way of a "mission-of-the-week" plot to have the core cast of Adora and her close friends, Glimmer and Bow recruit princesses to their rebellion. While the core premise and characters of the original series were carried over, as well as many of its affectations (such as Adora's transformation catchphrase "For the honor of Grayskull!"), the reboot sets itself apart from the 1980s series by its almost entirely female cast. The characters were deliberately made to be diverse, both in appearance and in character traits. For instance, some characters range from good to "evil but understandable", "utterly amoral" or "full-blown hippie". He-Man, who in the original version was She-Ra's brother who "awakens her destiny", does not appear in the reboot, in order to set up She-Ra as a hero in her own right.
According to Stevenson, the show's thematic core is the relationships among its characters, which range from "wide-eyed love" to "heart-rending jealousy, crushes and infatuations". Reviewers particularly highlighted the convincing portrayal of the anti-hero Catra and her complicated "frenemy" relationship with Adora, which The Verge described as "the best animated antihero story since Avatar: The Last Airbenders Zuko". In addition, the series addresses such themes as abusive relationships and overcoming trauma, prejudice, isolationism (as exemplified, initially, by the princesses), colonization, imperialism, and genocide (a result of Hordak's planetary-scale warfare). There is a strong focus on the struggle to break free of sociopolitical indoctrination, explored mainly through the stories of Adora, Hordak, and Light Hope. The series also emphasizes the necessity of taking action no matter one's own power or circumstances; it portrays magic as fallible and dependent on its wielder's skill and determination—Adora's powers in particular are directly tied to her love for her friends. Despite this, Adora's main internal conflict stems from being told she must suppress her personal desires in order to be the hero Etheria needs. Finally, Horde Prime's regime in Season 5 contains elements reminiscent of fundamentalist Christianity, which Stevenson has noted are not meant to be criticisms of religion itself but rather the kind of leadership seen in extremist, cult-like organizations.
In June 2020, Stevenson said that Catra was a woman of color, saying he discussed her "being a brown Latina" when designing her, although this was not "explicitly, textually present in the show," Stevenson also expressed enthusiasm for fans interpreting Catra as representing Persian ethnicity.
Influences Stevenson cited Steven Universe as a series that paved the way for She-Ra, saying his early conversations about queer relationships and characters in She-Ra were only possible because of Steven Universe. In another interview, he implied influence of Steven Universe on the show. He noted that the crew wanted to introduce Catra's pink lion Clawdeen, from the original She-Ra series, into his series, but decided to not do so because its design was "pretty much identical" to Steven Universes Lion. As a result, he chose Melog as a "therapy animal" for Catra instead. Stevenson also noted the importance of featuring LGBTQ+ representation in kids animation, saying earlier shows made She-Ra's "range of queer representation" possible.
The show was also influenced by sci-fi in the 1970s and 1980s, paying homage to the original She-Ra: Princess of Power show, and Dungeons & Dragons. Stevenson called the show basically a D&D campaign, with Adora, Glimmer, and Bow falling into "specific classes in D&D." Additionally, Stevenson and the show's crew were strongly influenced by anime, especially those with magical girls.
LGBTQ representation
The creators indicated prior to release that the series would provide LGBTQ representation. Tor.com commented that the series "reads as utterly queer in just about every aspect", with many characters coded as fluid in terms of gender or sexuality, and none as clearly heterosexual. Stevenson said that when a network executive asked what the rainbow in the climax of the first season's finale meant, he replied: "The gay agenda". In March 2021, Stevenson told Vanity Fair that early in the show's run there "had to be plausible deniability" around most queer relationships, but this changed once he got "positive, vocal support from fans of the show" who picked up on queer subtext and wanted more. This enabled Stevenson to sell executives on the idea that the "queer relationship between the two leads [was] to be the climax of the entire show."
The relationship between Adora and Catra has subtextual undercurrents of romantic tension from the beginning of the series, and concludes with a mutual confession of love and an on-screen kiss in the very last episode. The scene has been regarded as a revolutionary moment in the history of children's media and LGBT representation. Other reviews praised the "queer romance" manifested by the Adora-Catra relationship and said that this slow-burn romance was a groundbreaking moment for TV.
The series features same-sex attraction and romance among secondary and side characters as well. Two of the princesses, Spinerella and Netossa, are a married couple, and their relationship receives more attention in a plot arc in the fifth season when Netossa must rescue her wife from the villain's mind control. An episode focusing on Bow, the male lead, explores his relationship with his two fathers Lance and George. Additionally, it is strongly implied that Scorpia, Catra's right-hand woman, has a crush on her and arranges pseudo-dates disguised as "side missions." Scorpia also mentions that the Horde soldier Kyle has a crush on his coworker, a humanoid lizard man named Rogelio, and ND Stevenson once tweeted that he envisions the two in a polyamorous relationship that involves their cohort Lonnie.