June 16, 2026 • 11 mins
The 2018 depiction of Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power was one that tackled big topics like trauma, redemption and queer love.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I never told your production if I heard you. And
welcome to another sub sub sub segment of fictional women
around the world, Pride Edition Pride twenty twenty six. And
(00:25):
I'm excited about this one. This is a character that
has been requested by multiple people. I've been told I
should watch the show, and now, after researching it, I
think so.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I think.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I mean, I always feel bad because I know you're right,
I would like it. I just feel like I get
when I start watching a TV show, that's the end
of me for a while. I can't stop watching it.
So it's just an investment. But today we are talking
about Katcha from the show Shira and the Princesses of Power,
(01:00):
which was a twenty eighteen animated series and a reboot
of the nineteen eighty five cartoon Sira Princess of Power,
which in itself was a spinoff of Sorts of he
Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. I know nothing about this.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I do vaguely remember it because I remember liking Shira.
I met a girl named Shira named after oh really
this character, and she was a force. But yeah, yeah,
I know very little, but I did love her and
appreciate her. Now with the fact that the new movie's
out time.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I know, and I didn't even mean to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Some sometimes sometimes it just happened.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I didn't realize we have powers.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I didn't realize until I was doing this research, the
Heira and the she Ra. I didn't put it together.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
But now you caught on. Got it? Got it?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, Pat of you.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you, Samantha. So.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
The original Shira lasted for two seasons and was based
on the adventures of Hera's twin sister, Shira. Notably, it
featured a primarily female cast. The plot of the twenty
eighteen reboot very basically follows Adra, an orphan who leaves
the evil Horde, finds a sword that turns her into
(02:20):
a princess from myths named Shira, and teams up with
other princesses to stand up against evil with their magic powers. So, yes,
I have not seen this show as of now, but yeah,
a few of you have written in about the show,
not necessarily this character, specifically, our Olympics correspondent Taylor suggested
(02:42):
several characters from the show, not specifically Katra, but she
did reference a scene with Katra and another character, Scorpia,
where they have a moment where Scorpia has a moment
of realization and says to catcha you're a bad friend.
And she was talking about how powerful all that scene was,
which sounds a little painful. But Katra was the one
(03:05):
who kept coming up when I was looking up queer
characters for this segment. Kind of odd to me now
that I've done all the research that it's her over Adorra,
but not that she's not an interesting character.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
They both are.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But anyway, all this is say I'm going to do
my best. We were mostly talking about the reboot today
if I get anything wrong, as always writing, so in
the world of Shira, Kattra, who has feline features, and
Adorra are best friends and orphans raised on the planet
(03:38):
Etherea as child soldiers for the nefarious Horde. From the outset,
it's made clear that the person who raised them, the
Shadow Weaver, is a groomer and is abusive. Adorra is
labeled as the perfect child and Katra is a mistake.
Adorra's well being was pinned on Katra by the Shadow Weaver,
(04:03):
and Katra was punished whenever any harm befell a Dora.
It was made very clear to Katra that she was
the problem that was only kept around because a Dora
liked her. Because of this, over the course of the show,
Katra displays fear of abandonment, paranoia, and lack of emotional control.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
She's really scared of losing a Dora.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So when a Dora leaves the Hord after realizing that
they're up to bad guy Shenanigan's, Katra is really hurt.
Katra tried to bring a Dora back, tried to convince
her that a Dora was just going through a phase.
When that didn't work, Katra attempted to reframe the whole
thing at an opportunity to get out of her friend's
(04:47):
shadow and rise up in the ranks. So the Dora's
out of the way, I don't have to worry about
her anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I'm going to rise up.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Katra sticks with the Hord at first and gets a
second in command, Scorpia. As the quote from listener Taylor suggested,
Katra does not treat Scorpio well, even though Scorpia is
trying to be her friend on top of being a
competent partner. Her treatment of Scorpia is so bad that
Scorpia leaves the Horde and joins the Princesses. Katra lashes
(05:18):
out at the figure who raised her, the Shadow Weaver,
alternately considering her as a mother figure and an obstacle.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
At this point.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Based on Catcha's upbringing, she pushes people away, often with
violence and digression. Going all the way back to preschool,
Katra would bite and scratch at Adorra. She is also
hard on herself because of her upbringing, thinking that no
one loves her or could care about her, and that
all she does is hurt people. A part of that
(05:49):
ingrained system of belief led her to push away people
that cared about her. And actually there's a lot written
about this character when it comes to mental health and
attachment styles. This was a different episode type. We could
talk about that, but I think you can tell you
can see it. Over time, Kata became depressed and left
the Horde, joining the Rebellion and repairing her friendship with Adorra,
(06:13):
which was not an immediate process at all, and redeeming
herself in general also not an immediate process at all.
The Princesses eventually forgave her in the series finale, she
admits to Adorra that she has feelings for her, has
had feelings for her, always, has been in love with her,
and Adorra says she loves her too, and they kiss,
(06:36):
and this kiss returns Adra's powers and allows her to fight.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Oh so they didn't get queer baited.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Amazing gay love, says the world. The creators, though, said
that this wasn't a sure bet because quote various other
partners had the right to first refusal, which I'm to
take means Netflix and other people in charge. But they
said that they weren't sure they were going to get
(07:06):
it get it through. But yeah, it feels like, without
having seen the show, but having read a lot about
it in the past couple of days, it feels like
they were a real childhood best friends to enemies to
lovers trope. And there was a lot of like dramatic fights,
but also the coming together and a lot of yearning.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And pining and a lot of yearning.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, but listeners who have seen it let me know,
I actually I'm pretty invested in watching it now. There's
also a lot of self sabotage with this character, and
there is examination of trauma and how it impacts relationships
you can see how her own how she grew up
and how she was treated impacts her relationships. At one point,
(07:50):
she was implanted with a control chip by horrid Prime,
and this took away her autonomy. She could control her
body or awakens her powers when Katra was in danger
saving and healing her. That's you know, you can make
that pretty romantic too. She's a really smart, strong, powerful character.
(08:14):
There was some discussion I was reading about the queer
community and that whole idea of transformation and the alternate
secret identity and why that resonates with so many people
of why you know you have to have this other life,
maybe you feel like you have to have this other life.
Also another conversation I read. I thought it was interesting
(08:35):
because we talked about this in our episode we did
on I think it was Women Villains, but we were
talking about redemption and how a lot of male characters
get these like redemptive arcs and they it's like really
well thought out and they become the most popular characters sometimes,
but women usually you just kill them off and they
(08:58):
never have that redemptive arct. But this was brought up
as a great example of redemption for women of Cattra
kind of working through all of this. Yeah, and so
I wanted to end with a quote from an article
on Medium called the Importance of Kattra, a character study
by Ray Quote. Katra may just be a fictional character
(09:21):
on a children's TV show, but with Katra being a
lesbian woman of color, she is an important character for kids.
Katra allows girls to see that it's okay to be
angry and emotional, as well as that your mental illness
doesn't make you harder to love. It also shows little
girls that women can be powerful fighters too. Katra's hardships
and her display of trauma are what humanize her and
(09:43):
what make her a compelling character.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah. I really enjoyed researching this one.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Sometimes I get in nervous researching a character I know
nothing about, right, but I hope I did her justice.
If I mess anything up, If I got anything wrong,
we know. If you have any thoughts, please let us know. Yeah,
and thank you to listener Taylor, who sent in the
suggestion a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
We keep your suggestions.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Sometimes it just takes it's a while to get to
come back. Yes, but yeah, listeners, if you have thought
about this sort of suggestions for who we should talk
about next.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Please write in.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
You can email us at Hello at stuff Whenever Told
You dot com. You can find us on Blue skyt
Mom Stuff Podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have
some merchandise at Common Bureau, and we have a book
you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
always to our super producer Chandler and our executive produce Maya.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
Never Told You, production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or if you
listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I never told your production if I heard you. And
welcome to another sub sub sub segment of fictional women
around the world, Pride Edition Pride twenty twenty six. And
(00:25):
I'm excited about this one. This is a character that
has been requested by multiple people. I've been told I
should watch the show, and now, after researching it, I
think so.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I think.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I mean, I always feel bad because I know you're right,
I would like it. I just feel like I get
when I start watching a TV show, that's the end
of me for a while. I can't stop watching it.
So it's just an investment. But today we are talking
about Katcha from the show Shira and the Princesses of Power,
(01:00):
which was a twenty eighteen animated series and a reboot
of the nineteen eighty five cartoon Sira Princess of Power,
which in itself was a spinoff of Sorts of he
Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. I know nothing about this.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I do vaguely remember it because I remember liking Shira.
I met a girl named Shira named after oh really
this character, and she was a force. But yeah, yeah,
I know very little, but I did love her and
appreciate her. Now with the fact that the new movie's
out time.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I know, and I didn't even mean to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Some sometimes sometimes it just happened.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I didn't realize we have powers.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I didn't realize until I was doing this research, the
Heira and the she Ra. I didn't put it together.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
But now you caught on. Got it? Got it?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, Pat of you.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you, Samantha. So.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
The original Shira lasted for two seasons and was based
on the adventures of Hera's twin sister, Shira. Notably, it
featured a primarily female cast. The plot of the twenty
eighteen reboot very basically follows Adra, an orphan who leaves
the evil Horde, finds a sword that turns her into
(02:20):
a princess from myths named Shira, and teams up with
other princesses to stand up against evil with their magic powers. So, yes,
I have not seen this show as of now, but yeah,
a few of you have written in about the show,
not necessarily this character, specifically, our Olympics correspondent Taylor suggested
(02:42):
several characters from the show, not specifically Katra, but she
did reference a scene with Katra and another character, Scorpia,
where they have a moment where Scorpia has a moment
of realization and says to catcha you're a bad friend.
And she was talking about how powerful all that scene was,
which sounds a little painful. But Katra was the one
(03:05):
who kept coming up when I was looking up queer
characters for this segment. Kind of odd to me now
that I've done all the research that it's her over Adorra,
but not that she's not an interesting character.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
They both are.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But anyway, all this is say I'm going to do
my best. We were mostly talking about the reboot today
if I get anything wrong, as always writing, so in
the world of Shira, Kattra, who has feline features, and
Adorra are best friends and orphans raised on the planet
(03:38):
Etherea as child soldiers for the nefarious Horde. From the outset,
it's made clear that the person who raised them, the
Shadow Weaver, is a groomer and is abusive. Adorra is
labeled as the perfect child and Katra is a mistake.
Adorra's well being was pinned on Katra by the Shadow Weaver,
(04:03):
and Katra was punished whenever any harm befell a Dora.
It was made very clear to Katra that she was
the problem that was only kept around because a Dora
liked her. Because of this, over the course of the show,
Katra displays fear of abandonment, paranoia, and lack of emotional control.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
She's really scared of losing a Dora.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So when a Dora leaves the Hord after realizing that
they're up to bad guy Shenanigan's, Katra is really hurt.
Katra tried to bring a Dora back, tried to convince
her that a Dora was just going through a phase.
When that didn't work, Katra attempted to reframe the whole
thing at an opportunity to get out of her friend's
(04:47):
shadow and rise up in the ranks. So the Dora's
out of the way, I don't have to worry about
her anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I'm going to rise up.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Katra sticks with the Hord at first and gets a
second in command, Scorpia. As the quote from listener Taylor suggested,
Katra does not treat Scorpio well, even though Scorpia is
trying to be her friend on top of being a
competent partner. Her treatment of Scorpia is so bad that
Scorpia leaves the Horde and joins the Princesses. Katra lashes
(05:18):
out at the figure who raised her, the Shadow Weaver,
alternately considering her as a mother figure and an obstacle.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
At this point.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Based on Catcha's upbringing, she pushes people away, often with
violence and digression. Going all the way back to preschool,
Katra would bite and scratch at Adorra. She is also
hard on herself because of her upbringing, thinking that no
one loves her or could care about her, and that
all she does is hurt people. A part of that
(05:49):
ingrained system of belief led her to push away people
that cared about her. And actually there's a lot written
about this character when it comes to mental health and
attachment styles. This was a different episode type. We could
talk about that, but I think you can tell you
can see it. Over time, Kata became depressed and left
the Horde, joining the Rebellion and repairing her friendship with Adorra,
(06:13):
which was not an immediate process at all, and redeeming
herself in general also not an immediate process at all.
The Princesses eventually forgave her in the series finale, she
admits to Adorra that she has feelings for her, has
had feelings for her, always, has been in love with her,
and Adorra says she loves her too, and they kiss,
(06:36):
and this kiss returns Adra's powers and allows her to fight.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Oh so they didn't get queer baited.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Amazing gay love, says the world. The creators, though, said
that this wasn't a sure bet because quote various other
partners had the right to first refusal, which I'm to
take means Netflix and other people in charge. But they
said that they weren't sure they were going to get
(07:06):
it get it through. But yeah, it feels like, without
having seen the show, but having read a lot about
it in the past couple of days, it feels like
they were a real childhood best friends to enemies to
lovers trope. And there was a lot of like dramatic fights,
but also the coming together and a lot of yearning.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And pining and a lot of yearning.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, but listeners who have seen it let me know,
I actually I'm pretty invested in watching it now. There's
also a lot of self sabotage with this character, and
there is examination of trauma and how it impacts relationships
you can see how her own how she grew up
and how she was treated impacts her relationships. At one point,
(07:50):
she was implanted with a control chip by horrid Prime,
and this took away her autonomy. She could control her
body or awakens her powers when Katra was in danger
saving and healing her. That's you know, you can make
that pretty romantic too. She's a really smart, strong, powerful character.
(08:14):
There was some discussion I was reading about the queer
community and that whole idea of transformation and the alternate
secret identity and why that resonates with so many people
of why you know you have to have this other life,
maybe you feel like you have to have this other life.
Also another conversation I read. I thought it was interesting
(08:35):
because we talked about this in our episode we did
on I think it was Women Villains, but we were
talking about redemption and how a lot of male characters
get these like redemptive arcs and they it's like really
well thought out and they become the most popular characters sometimes,
but women usually you just kill them off and they
(08:58):
never have that redemptive arct. But this was brought up
as a great example of redemption for women of Cattra
kind of working through all of this. Yeah, and so
I wanted to end with a quote from an article
on Medium called the Importance of Kattra, a character study
by Ray Quote. Katra may just be a fictional character
(09:21):
on a children's TV show, but with Katra being a
lesbian woman of color, she is an important character for kids.
Katra allows girls to see that it's okay to be
angry and emotional, as well as that your mental illness
doesn't make you harder to love. It also shows little
girls that women can be powerful fighters too. Katra's hardships
and her display of trauma are what humanize her and
(09:43):
what make her a compelling character.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah. I really enjoyed researching this one.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Sometimes I get in nervous researching a character I know
nothing about, right, but I hope I did her justice.
If I mess anything up, If I got anything wrong,
we know. If you have any thoughts, please let us know. Yeah,
and thank you to listener Taylor, who sent in the
suggestion a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
We keep your suggestions.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Sometimes it just takes it's a while to get to
come back. Yes, but yeah, listeners, if you have thought
about this sort of suggestions for who we should talk
about next.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Please write in.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
You can email us at Hello at stuff Whenever Told
You dot com. You can find us on Blue skyt
Mom Stuff Podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have
some merchandise at Common Bureau, and we have a book
you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
always to our super producer Chandler and our executive produce Maya.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
Never Told You, production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or if you
listen to your favorite shows
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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