Season 4 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power ended with Adora shattering the sword that changed her into the heroicShe-Ra
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At the start of the 5th and final season, now on Netflix, Adora has a hard time with browsing her new, superpower-less soldier role within the Rebellion. There are tips that the She-Ra kind isn’t completely gone, as smart lady Madame Razz pointed to in season 4, She-Ra isn’t bound to the sword. The hero is part of Etheria and for that reason existed prior to the First Ones managed her. Wonderful horse Swift Wind can feel She-Ra’s existence even without an improvement. Adora understands She-Ra is just out of reach.
What winds up occurring, as showrunner Noelle Stevenson informed Polygon, was an effort at transforming Chosen One archetypes, and an extension of the show’s core style: specifying one’s own fate.
[Ed. note: This post contains major spoilers for the fifth season She-Ra and the Princesses of Power]
Image: DreamWorks Animation/Netflix.
In the 5th episode of season 5, in the middle of a rescue mission ready to go wrong, Adora musters all her strength and changes into She-Ra, though not the one who emerged from the sword’spower This She-Ra is made of pure feeling and magic, a being who, as Stevenson stated, originates from a place of frustrating love.
While the staples of She-Ra’s costume are still there, like the gold and white concept, and the pattern on the t-shirt, this version of the hero uses trousers, puts her hair back in a ponytail, and, instead of a pretty tiara, puts on a much heavier, helmet-like crown. Stevenson stated that the distinction in between the 2 costumes was intentionally designed to show Adora’s arc.
” A lot about the [original] She-Ra kind is a bit of a combining in between Adora’s militaristic training, however also a particular womanhood that she’s not comfy with,” describedStevenson “Things like the skirt and the tiara and the glitter, all of those are things that Adora hasn’t ever personally related to. She-Ra has always been a little bit of an uncomfortable costume for her. It’s something that she’s been trying to embody and has been failing at embodying throughout seasons one through four.”
Image: DreamWorks Animation.
The new She-Ra kind is totally born from Adora’s individual, with no First Ones tech managing the change. Over the course of 4 seasons, Adora has also created her own sense of identity, far from the Crowd and the future she believed she ‘d have.
“This She-Ra comes from pure love. That is the part of Adora that is the strongest, that is the purest,” statedStevenson “Not only is this She-Ra a little bit more of a combination between Adora’s personal style, the way that she presents what she’s comfortable with — with the ponytail, with the pants with the boots — but it also has aspects of pure magic and pure love as well.”
The new She-Ra costume also includes little Easter-egg tributes to Adora’s good friends. The golden gorget around her collarbone now increases a heart as a nod to Bow’scostume Her boots have wings on them for lively Twinkle. And the shape of her crown– now more masklike and grand instead of a pretty tiara– originates from Catra’s mask.
The new She-Ra kind isn’t an intimidating fate thrust upon Adora nor is it managed by an ancient race bent on mining the world for magic. It comes simply from Adora sculpting out her own fate and doing it for the people she likes.
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