Adora

**Adora** is one of the central characters of *She-Ra and the Princesses of Power* and the current She-Ra. She is currently in a romantic relationship with Catra.

Role in the series

## Personality

Adora is a brave, competitive, and noble warrior and is true to her own values and rather sympathetic. She's very strong as it's seen in an arm-wrestling match where she beats the well built and strong-arm wrestler, Sea Hawk. She is shown to be a leader in every group she joins. Realizing what the Horde has done to innocent Etherians, she makes a major life decision (to leave the Horde). Reluctantly, she is willing to lose her lifelong friend, Catra, in order to remain true to her values.

Despite making the decision to leave the Horde, Adora has been shown to be most comfortable following rules and sticking to plans. She is not entirely socially competent, having been raised in a military environment, and therefore is typically very blunt and always prefers to be prepared for battle. She is also shown to be unaware of certain familial terms such as "aunt."

Adora's heroic deeds, power, and positivity begin to grow as she and her friends continue to battle the Evil Horde. She suffers from occasional clumsiness especially when trying to control her powers, weaponry, or when trying to bond with Swift Wind. Adora struggles with pressure when discussing the allies' strike plan in the war tent. Despite all this, Adora/She-Ra works to overcome her fear and become a powerful warrior to save Etheria from tyranny.

Due to Shadow Weaver's abuse, Adora believes that she alone is responsible for the well-being of others. In fact, since becoming She-Ra, she has gained a notable martyr complex. She constantly puts her relationships aside even if they are healthy when it comes to battling the Horde. Notably, after destroying the Sword of Protection, Adora constantly threw herself into battle without regard for her own well-being. Even more notably, she is perfectly willing to sacrifice her own life when it seems necessary. Notable instances were in "The Portal" and "Heart Part 2." In the former, after being saved by Queen Angella, attempts to remove the sword from the portal, but Angella, feeling more remorse over her cowardly actions, sacrifices herself instead. In the latter, when she is prevented from transforming into She-Ra, which would allow her to survive using the Failsafe, Adora opts to use it anyway, even rebuking Catra's support at first, but she has been infected long enough that she cannot use the Failsafe at all.

## Relationships

### Catra

Adora and Catra have been described as the "core relationship and the core conflict of the show." They grew up in the Horde together as orphans and became best friends. Catra had a close and intense relationship with Adora, tinged with a rivalry that was exacerbated when Shadow Weaver favored Adora over her. Adora for her part has always tried to be a good and loving friend to Catra, often going out of her way to find and comfort Catra when she was upset about something. Even if this sometimes resulted in Catra just being mean to her, Adora never seemed to care as long as in the end Catra was OK. As ND Stevenson put it, "As much as these two people really, really care about each other, there are also things that ... some of them are not their own choice."

In the first two seasons, Adora tried over and over again to convince Catra to leave the Horde and join her, but Catra was consumed by feelings of betrayal and anger towards Adora. In their subsequent encounters, she was bitter and cruel towards Adora, perceiving her defection to the Rebellion as a personal rejection. Adora, blind to Catra's pain, often referred to Catra's actions as just another game. When the two ended up alone together in Episode 11 Adora has a hard time treating Catra as an enemy and quickly tries to reestablish their old friendship.

Obsessed with proving her worth to the Horde and beating her former friend, Catra's various plans to defeat Adora become bolder, riskier, and more violent, and at times put the very existence of Etheria at risk. Adora blamed herself for Catra's actions, often feeling that she had somehow just failed to properly convince her. Its not until Catra almost destroys Etheria at the end of Season Three, that Adora formally severs her friendship with Catra. This is best showcased in the relatively minimal interactions between the two during Season Four.

In Season Five, she would see the two's relationship return in a big way after Catra aids Glimmer's escape from Horde Prime's ship. Believing she was performing her last act, Catra apologizes to Adora via a transmission, for everything that she had done. Adora becomes distraught and upset when the message goes quiet. After rescuing Glimmer Adora confirms that Catra had indeed saved the young Queen, and learns that Catra had done it to stop Adora from falling into Horde Prime's trap.

After spending time thinking about their past Adora decides she can't leave Catra with Horde Prime even after everything she's done. With her friend's blessing, Adora, Bow, Glimmer and Entrapta go to rescue Catra. Adora pretends to surrender to Horde Prime in the hopes that the others will find and rescue Catra while she plays decoy.

When Horde Prime reveals that he had turned Catra into his puppet with a Horde Chip, Adora was left completely aghast. As they fight, and thanks to damaging the chip, Catra is able to come back to her senses and tells Adora she should have stayed away because Catra's life doesn't matter. Adora assures Catra it does matter to her. Horde Prime then tries to kill Catra via the chip and sends her tumbling off a balcony. Adora follows, and finds Catra near death on the ground with Horde Prime gloating via his Clones. Furious, Adora is able to transform onto She-Ra for the first time with out the sword and escapes from Horde Primes ship with Catra. Once away, Adora uses her last bit of power to heal Catra and they embrace each other.

Once healed though it doesn't take Catra long to back slide into her old self, much to Adora's annoyance, but once Adora tells her during an argument that she never hated Catra (probably not to discourage her even more), we see a much softer side to the Cat Girl. For the rest of the trip home, Catra tries to work on being a better friend, much to Adora's delight. This also begins to show itself with the two being much more flirtatious with each other. Adora and Catra become much more prone to blushing around each other as they also fall back into their friendly but competitive friendship. They also both begin to show an extreme protectiveness of each other, often throwing themselves into danger to save the other.

Back on Etheria, their relationship hits a few bumps again, thanks in no small part to Shadow Weaver's machinations. Adora's willingness to follow Shadow Weaver's plan despite the high risk of her own death leaves Catra furious and hurt. But eventually, Catra is able to see that Adora's desire to protect the world doesn't diminish her love for Catra.

During the final battle, they confess their love for each other and kiss. This purges Horde Prime's virus and allows Adora to transform into She-Ra so she can finally use the fail safe code. With Adora ending the threat of the Horde forever, and the two of them now a couple, they decide to go on a new adventure together with Bow and Glimmer.