She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power Will Explore The True Meanings Of Leadership And Strength

Princess Adora will soon be bounding her way back into the spotlight when Netflix’s She-Ra reboot drops next month. But according to showrunner Noelle Stevenson, this new take on the heroine’s journey is going to be somewhat different from her adventures in the original series.

Much like the ‘80s classic, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power will tell the story of how Adora discovers she’s a long-lost princess who, wielding the Sword of Protection, is able to transform into the magical warrior known as She-Ra.

At this year’s New York Comic Con, though, Stevenson explained how this incarnation of She-Ra’s story will instead focus on how she teams up with her best friends Glimmer and Bow as they set out to build a kind of coalition of princesses whose collective powers might just be enough to save the world of Etheria:

The original She-Ra had it as well, but our show is much more deliberately focusing on the teamwork aspect. Obviously, a lot of the show revolves around Adora’s journey with Bow, Glimmer and Catra as well. But it’s also about how the larger cast of characters comes together. What’s great about them is that when you have so many opportunities to showcase female characters, no one has to be “the girl”.

So you get some pretty wacky personalities in there like Mermista, who’s super dry, and Perfuma who’s really anxious and a little spacey and has some rage issues, maybe.

Because of Adora’s history with the Evil Horde, Glimmer is somewhat apprehensive about whether or not she can be trusted. But in time, Adora’s able to prove herself to be a woman of her word who firmly believes that defending those threatened by the Horde is the right thing to do.

It’s Adora’s conviction and her desire to do right by the people depending on her that makes her powerful, something Stevenson wanted to be a recurring theme running throughout the show:

Power is something you work toward and for her, it’s so much less about the prestige and control of power, it’s about the sacrifice and cost of power. In so many ways, the show is about female leadership — new female leadership especially — women stepping into roles they didn’t previously occupy and trying to figure out how to lead as best as they can.

Between Adora, Glimmer and Catra, they show three different ways of approaching that and I see parts of myself in all of them that way.

I was 24 when I got this job and you go from being like “I have a great idea” to “Oh, I have to lead a team and bring out the best in them.” It’s not enough for me to just have a great idea, I need to be a good leader.

It wasn’t something I was consciously doing, but in a lot of ways I feel like those ideas have gotten into the show because so many of the people who work on the show are women, and a lot of the women in positions of leadership are doing this job for the first time.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power hits Netflix on November 16.