Reflection and Analysis

5/21/20 - She-Ra Reboot is Bad Fanfic

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is poorly written fanfic, but as Clownfish says – an expensive one as well.

Fan: How dare you call this show I stan poorly written fanfic! You're only doing this because the end game pairing is LGBT.
Me: Are you honestly telling me you're not creeped out by the fact Catra got a haircut in the final season so she now looks like Noelle Sttevenson.

No, seriously – I wouldn't have as much problems with the endgame pairing as I do if it wasn't so bloody obvious now that Catra is Noelle's freaking self-insert. Despite this, the pairing still makes me cringe, but not because Catra gets a redemption arc. The pairing makes me cringe because in order to succeed in her life's goal not to mention feel fulfilled, Adora needs "tru luv" in her life.

Fan: But she didn't get with a man, so it's fine.
Me: If Adora shouldn't need a man in her life to feel fulfilled, then she shouldn't need a female either, yet the above statement – there is no getting around the fact this is a double standard.
Fan: But the newer version is better than the older version!
Me: No, it's not.

Seriously, how is this fake Adora who relies on the power of friendship and eventually the power of true love to the point she is incapable of doing anything on her own even comparable to the original character who relies on her own strengths to succeed at life, nor did she ever need a man – or woman for that matter, as she never officially ended up paired with anybody.

My next thought was that I feel Glimmer paired with Adora is the better pairing, yet even then – not the best pairing given the fact Glimmer is yet again turned into a self-insert for Noelle. She throws tantrums, doesn't respect her parents, so in the long run Catara's the better option if it weren't for the negative message being sent of Adora not being able to rely on her own strength when the original – real Adora was able to or the fact she creepily looks like Noelle in their kissing scene.

Also, I weirdly feel queer baited despite the fact the end game pairing is LGBT. The narrative focused way to much on queer as a narrative rather than actual LGBT representation, yet I'm not sure I can consider a kiss to be LGBT representation when two girls can kiss and them not be LGBT at all, but the confession falls flat with the fact Adora is needing Catra to rescue her.

Actually, I think this ties into one of the issues I had with the first season – the fact someone basically said complaining about the quality is why we females don't get anything good and that we should just settle for crap, but effectively here we're saying LGBT individuals should settle for crap as well because they're actually getting representation. I admit, queer baited doesn't seem like the right word, but I can't describe how I feel any other way.

Oh, and I've seen Utena brought up and – despite the fact I've yet to see Utena, I can tell from what I've seen of the She-Ra reboot that NS's attempt to imitate Utena and poorly so, but apparently Utena is now getting a bad rep because it's obvious Utena is an influence, which is quite unfair because – despite not having seen Utena yet, I'm aware of why Utena is ground breaking for it's time despite any flaws it might have, but imitating Utena doesn't make you "ground breaking".

Speaking of ground breaking, apparently Noelle thinks subverting destiny is ground breaking despite the fact her whole ending is – well, far from subverting the whole destiny thing when destiny still comes into play. The problem with subverting destiny is that destiny is what's meant to happen, so the better message is to make one's own destiny – which Adora is incapable of doing as she needs Catra.

And no, the villain getting the girl they want in the end isn't ground breaking either.

So, yeah – I'd thought about picking up the series after it ended to maybe do an analysis of it, but what I've learned is – I'll stick to watching the first season only once. Call me nostalgic, but I much prefer the messages put forth in the original series which encourages girls to be strong individuals rather than the message I've gotten that girls are incapable of being strong on their own, not to mention I'm still pissed over One Day at a Time getting canceled.

I bet there wasn't a single fan of what I'm criticizing who picked up One Day at a Time despite the fact there was a strong lesbian female in the first season whose more than just her sexual identity.

Actually, weirdly I'm ending this now with an LGBT pairing I like for Adora – pairing her up with Elena from One Day at a Time OR an OC Elena from One Day at a Time creates as a self-insert. Now that would be awesome, particularly since Penelope and Lydia would definitely tell Adora she needs to be more self-reliant but also provide her with strong females to look up to, even if Elena created OC representations of her grandmother and mother.

If anyone wants to write it – since I'm not planning on writing anything for the reboot because I've been told by NS that I'm a sell out to the patriarchy and that my original She-Ra was crap despite the fact the very first episode shows She-Ra rescuing her own brother rather than her being the damsel in distress this reboot She-Ra constantly is – yeah, no, but if anyone writes it, I'll read it.

P.S. This was always fanfic because those working on it weren't the original creators of the show, but anything created by someone whose not the original creator of the show is fanfic. It doesn't matter that said work is "official" and thus allowed to make money. What NS created is not original fiction, but derivative work. Derivative work is either created by the original creator - not fanfic, or it's created by someone else - fanfic. More importantly, derivative works can not be seperated from the original content it is derived from because it is not original fiction, nor is it okay to treat a derivative work as if it were original fiction - that's egotistical.