Adora: Thanks for watching Finn for us guys, Catra and I really appreciate it.

Entrapta: It was no problem at all.

Hordak: Just don't make a habit of it.

Adora: It's time to go Finn, say bye-bye.

Finn: Bye Gramma, bye Grampa!

Hordak and Entrapta: ...

Hordak: What did they just call us?

Entrapta: Old.

Ah I still imagine the next gen of teens on Etheria with leather jackets with Horde symbols on them and that's like "F the monarch man!"

Although I guess that would also be really insensitive too depending on who you asked.

It would be really insensitive according to some people of the parent generation, which would be an excellent reason for the kids to wear it.

Hordak would be SO confused when he was suddenly adopted by the youth counter culture as some kind of cool grandpa figure.

The draw of family and the quest for knowledge

The Simpsons family tree as shown in 1991, in the show's first season, as noted by the editor of Tedium, Ernie Smith in 2015.

There are many shows which focus on families, especially when it comes to animation. Some characters have "non-traditional" families like Philip J. Fry, Steven Universe, and Hilda in the series of the same name. At the same time, a number of animated shows have characters reflect on their families. In The Owl House, Luz fears her mother judging her for being "inadequate" for living in a magical realm rather than "going to camp," while Aja and Krel try to bring their mom and dad back from the edge of death in the series, 3Below: Tales of Arcadia. Similarly, Iris in LoliRock misses her family in Ophedia, while there are family tensions in Mysticons, especially between Arkayna Goodfey and her brother Gawayne,  broken families of Reggie Abbott in Twelve Forever and Judy Reilly in Human Kind Of. At the same time, there are startling family discoveries in many animated series, like Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Sherwood, Adventure Time, OK K.O.: Let's Be Heroes!, Final Space, and Mr. Robot. I may write about some of these shows in the future in a post about shows with family historyish themes. Additionally, Cleopatra "Cleo" in Cleopatra in Space and "Jack" in Samurai Jack miss their families as they have both been flung far into the future. Other characters openly explore their past and want to find their roots, their ancestry, like Carmen in the series Carmen Sandiego, and Sprig and Polly in Amphibia. This article focuses on two other examples: Adora, the protagonist of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and Lisa Simpson, the protagonist in The Simpsons.

Reprinted from my Genealogy in Popular Culture WordPress blog. Originally published on August 12, 2020.

Let's start with Adora. After Shadow Weaver, who was her surrogate mother and disciplinarian when growing up in the Fright Zone, informs her, in the Season 3 episode "The Price of Power," that she is not from Etheria, she freaks out, while her friends don't believe it. Flying to the Crystal Castle, she demands answers from her pseudo-teacher, Light Hope. She shocks Adora, when she reports that Adora was taken out of a portal and onto Etheria by the leader of the villainous Horde, Hordak, and is one of the planet's first settlers, called The First Ones. She then wonders if Etheria is even her home and worries about the birth family she was taken from. Light Hope cares little about this and ignores it, acting like it isn't a big deal, even though it is! Adora proceeds to have a bit of an identity crisis as a result. Unfortunately, this subject is dropped and is not a focus of the show until later in the show. Adora learns, in the final episode of season 4, "Destiny Part 2," the real history: that Light Hope brought her to Etheria, finding her across the cosmos, bringing her to the planet. This still raises the question: who are Adora's birth parents? That is not answered by the end of the show, with the last season bringing the story to an end and bringing her relationship with Catra to a dramatic conclusion. However, perhaps she will meet her parents when journeying across the galaxy (or universe) with Catra, Bow, Glimmer, and possibly Entrapta, as they plan space adventures in the show's last episode. In the same show, there is another non-traditional family, the one of Scorpia. She has two moms, who are featured in the episode "Princess Scorpia." While they, sadly, do not appear in any other episodes, they clearly mean a lot to Scorpia, as does her grandfather.

Next is Lisa Simpson. The episode "The Color Yellow" begins delving into the family history of herself and her immediate family. She gets a school assignment to research her family tree, with Lisa finding out that most of her ancestors awful and not "heroic," with her grandpa, Grandpa Abe Simpson, not giving any further hints. Searching through the attic, she finds "The Diary of Eliza Simpson" and is shocked to learn the Simpson family descended from those that owned slaves, the story that Eliza helped the slave of Colonel Burns, Virgil, escape to freedom. Unfortunately, their dog destroys the book accidentally, at the urging of Lisa's mom, Marge, so they go to the library, with her and her mom learning that Eliza and Virgil got home, with Eliza's father saying that he would help Virgil go to freedom. After presenting this to her school, Milhouse says that a diary from one of ancestors shows that Eliza was cowardly. Lisa is outraged by this and rejects what he says, travels to the library and finds an oral history interview with Eliza saying she had one regret, that she held her tongue when she witnessed a  "great injustice." Forlorn by this, she gives up, with Grandpa telling her the whole story, that Colonel Burns surrenders, with Mabel, the mother of Eliza, bringing Virgil to freedom, and they cross the Canadian border. Later, Mabel marries Virgil, and divorces Hiram, naming their child Abraham, who is the great-grandfather of Abe Simpson, meaning that their part of the Simpson family descends from Virgil, not Hiram. Overjoyed by this, Lisa declares that they are 1/64 black, with Abe saying he kept the secret because those in his generation are racist, and Marge does not know why it is big deal because no one cared that her father was French. Homer absurdly declares that this the reason he likes drinking a lot, with Marge reminding she has French ancestry, not him, but he ignores this.

The Simpsons is a more interesting case than She-Ra. The family, is many ways, very traditional, with some talk about the Irish roots they have in other episodes, as shown on Frinkiac. Miss Cellania over at Mental Floss cited the show, while talking about family trees in other shows like Bewitched, Donald Duck, Lord of the Rings, and a number of other awful shows/franchises which I'm not even going to mention or ever write about this blog, ever, along with a couple I don't know.

That's all for this week. I have some other posts about the family tree in Outlander, in the comic book world, and some other topics. As always, comments are welcome!

© 2020-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

I will not apologize for the shitty background work, or this shittier joke 👀

Did you know original Hordak had a fling with skeletors magic right hand Evil-lyn?

I didn't.

But the idea of modern Hordak having a fling with another villains right hand is really amusing to me.

tbh i feel like Hordak got his name by accident.

like, when he met Scorpia’s family or however the fuck he introduced himself to the Etherians, he tried to introduce himself as Horde Prime’s brother, and tripped.

just like:

Scorpia’s grandpa/random etherian: hi there, what’s your name?

Hordak, insulted by the notion of having a name: i am Horde- *trips on a rock* -ack!

SG/RE: nice to meet you, Hordak!

Hordak: wait no-

...and the name stuck since everyone kept calling him that and he realised he kinda needed a name for his plan to work. 

How do you rationalize some of the stuff Scorpia says about Hordak or the Horde crash landing in her kingdom backyard and her grandpa making a alliance with The Horde. Pure propaganda to cover up a tyrant king or something more mixed

In keeping with Charles Dance Tyrant King Scorpio, I like to think that everyone just told her a nice story so she didn't have any negative feelings about her people.

Because everyone loves Scorpia c:

Hordak level of drunkness, an analysis by me:

Beer drunk Hordak : still somewhat sober, but does seem to be more open

Wine drunk Hordak : the neediness is starting to show and is more sleepy. Acts a bit like either a baby or a grandpa. Very harmless tho.

Vodka drunk Hordak : a crying mess. Needs someone to hold him. Cries with Catra about how no one loves them because their girlfriends left them for five seconds. Is highly adorable.

Whiskey drunk Hordak : just... A fucking babey. The cutest alien dictator in the world. Won't stop saying how much he loves his wife and brothers. Once sung a duet with Catra about how much they love their wives.

Tequila drunk Hordak : literally passes out after one second. Giggles while napping. Needs to be watch because he has a tendency to sleepwalk tho. Usually ends up purring with Catra while waiting for their wives. Only drinks this when is forced into a social event he wants to get out of or when he saw something disgusting and needs to immediately forget. The following hangover is almost not with it. Almost.

(Sidenote, the drunker Hordak and Catra get, the closer they become)

Addition from my girlfriend : it's important to mention each level of drunk happens from one swig at most.

I always kinda headcanon that Hordak was like a unofficial advisor to Grandpa King Scorpia. But unlike typical fantasy where the Dark Lord character advises and corrupts the King, Hordak was actually pretty genuine.

I think Hordak would like it. It would remind him a bit of Prime and while he'd think everyone was beneath him, that little bit of structure would help him adjust to life on Etheria.

Adora: Oh come on! It's the only thing that gets Finn to stop crying, please just do it!

Hordak: Ugh, FINE! *picks up Finn*

*Hordak flaps his ears like a hummingbird*

Finn: *laughs*

Hordak: There, satisfied?

Catra: Let me check. Entrapta, got it?

Entrapta: *holding a camera* Got it!

Catra: Yeah, we're satisfied.

Oh new super sad idea

What if King Grandpa Scorpio did join Hordak horde when he made the pitch and then like I said Hordak went all over Etheria (With some help) recruiting the best and most ruthless as the first bunch of Force captains

But then when King Grandad had second thoughts to late

and well to quote Catra "Oh no Betryal!"

King Scorpion: Yeah, I'll just tell my power hungry daughter and her wife to disband their band of ruthless bandits and that weird robot-building alien. I'm sure that will go well. I'm so smart.

Mara Era Rebellion aka Friends of Mara

One of my favorite things in Season 5 is that we find out that Mara's She-Ra was working with a rebellion of her own, the Friends of Mara. Along with the fact that she's a self-destructive disaster, part of why Adora thought she had to do everything alone was that it looked like it Mara was doing everything alone because of what little snippets we saw of her story. But George and Lance figure out that she was was working with a group of rebels of her own which is not only nice in that it reinforces the whole idea that you don't have to shoulder your burdens alone, but also because it implies the existence of a previous generation that would have paralleled these characters we love in a lot of ways.

And I'm honestly amazed the fandom hasn't latched onto what I'm going to call the Mara Era Rebellion for tagging purposes (since Friend of Mara / Friends of Mara has kind of become it's own thing, Dorothy) so I'm going to throw down some thoughts on this right now but PLEASE feel free to add your own or take this idea and run with it if it strikes your fancy!

We're told that Mara was working with a group of First Ones who were working against their own people and what they were planning with the Heart of Etheria. Were there also princesses or regular Etherians as part of this group? It would be weird if there weren't at least one or two, especially since activating the Heart of Etheria required the princesses and they and the regular Etherians had the biggest stake in trying to stop this plan.

And, while we know that Mara's story ends tragically and at least some of her friends don't make it (based on the desperate tone of the message we hear from the Greyskull Squadron), Mara does manage to stop the First One's plan with her sacrifice so at least some of the Friends of Mara make it out / get some kind of happy ending.

So what characters might have been a part of the Mara Era Rebellion? Did Mara have her own Best Friend Squad? It would be fun to play into the whole history is repeating itself of so many previous generation tropes and assume many of the people from Mara's era mirror people in Adora's.

We already know who a few of them are...

Light Hope is Mara's Catra, someone she is very close to, possibly in love with, but who ends up on the opposite side of the war.

Madam Razz is her... Madam Razz.

Mara's Swift Wind was the dragon. It has to be, right? Why else would there be artwork around of it?

We don't know much about the Unnamed Greyskull Squadron woman but because of her last ditch effort rally the troops speech and the fact that she hid that recording from whoever reprogrammed Light Hope, could she be Mara's equivalent of Bow? (Or Entrapta but rallying the common people is more Bow's brand.)

And from what we know of the story, we can assume a few more...

Mara's Horde Prime equivalent would be her First Ones superior who literally reprograms Light Hope just like Prime tried to do with Catra.

But we know there was more than one First One Mara was fighting against, so we can easily assume there were also lesser bosses to be her equivalent of Hordak or a mentor / parent figure like Shadow Weaver that may have become a begrudging ally later on.

Queen Angella spoke of She-Ra as if she had some personal knowledge but never met her herself which really doesn't make it a stretch to say one of her ancestors knew Mara personally and may have even been part of her rebellion. Angella is immortal and we don't know how long she's been alive but it could easily have been her mother or grandmother. Which, depending on how young, gives us either an Angella or Glimmer equivalent character depending on how you want to interpret it. Or maybe they are chaotic sisters who share the moonstone's power, one with the personality of Glimmer, the other Angella.

From there, anything is game...

Who else might have been in Mara’s rebellion group? The Scorpian kingdom would have been alive and thriving. Was there some by-the-books First Ones sea admiral working with Mara who fell in love with a roguish ancestor of Mermista? Imagine Entrapta's badass great great great x whatever grandpa building steampunk robots and walking around on his long purple beard.

What I'm saying is, let's fire up that fan made princess creator and start some trouble!

Anyway, this is just a random idea that seemed rife for more exploration in fics and fan art, please feel free to jump in with your headcanons for this!

002 Hordak

My big emo son-

002 | Give me a character & I will tell you

How I feel about this character: While I acknowledge he's a villain and, you know, has done a lot of bad stuff in his life, I can't help but be the embodiment of that "gently holds" meme with him (and all of the clones to be fair). I relate to Entrapta and him both, as a sort of "two sides of the same coin" thing: Entrapta reminds me of who I was as a young autistic child, and Hordak reminds me of who I have become as a bullied autistic child. And hopefully post series, he'll be more like me: someone who's realized their mistakes and is working to be a better person. But it's an understatement to say he was "bullied", and so I don't doubt it will take a lot of time and efforts on his part.

Also I would kill for Hordad/Grampdak /j

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Entrapta Entrapta Entrapta Entra-

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Therapy and Primrose. What can I say, I love Grampdak and his grandbaby; he loves her and she loves him (she could and would have wrecked the Velvet glove if Maxime let her come in the rescue mission. Nobody hurts her Grandpa, not on her watch).

My unpopular opinion about this character: I find him more likeable than Ca//tra ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish he'd have interacted with Kadroh/Wrong Hordak, to see how he would react to him. Also I wish he got a therapist, goddamn.

my OTP: (Hordak x Therapy) Entrapdak

my cross over ship: I don't really see him with anyone but Entrapta, to be honest. I'm way too deep into the Entrapdak fandom and I can't get up!

a headcanon fact: So this one is from the Hordad au of your's truly (and Smolmaplesyrup, my partner), but in his younger days on Etheria when his body was still faulty, but not as bad as it becomes during the series and post-series, he was much more involved in conquering and raiding, taking an active role in it. This is how he found the twins, in fact. The rest is history.

(That headcanon comes from Maple dearie <3)

Is it just me or does Hordak in the S4 intro look like a grandpa who just opened the selfie camera under his chin and is confused, annoyed, and frustrated because he has no idea how to make it stop

I love She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, but the lore is a bit confusing and I'm just writing this to straighten out some information not explicitly stated and see if anyone else caught info I missed.

First, Etheria and Eternia were two unrelated planets. Etheria had indigenous people and lots of magic. Eternia had their own people - the First Ones - and science. The First Ones found Etheria, where there /already was people/ and decided to study the planet. There had to already be people there because the whole Princess-magic-rune stone deal is a native Etheria concept. There are LOTS of diverse races on Etheria that look nothing like Mara or Adora. Razz was native. This means the people our modern characters called the 'First Ones' couldn't possibly be the literal first ones there.

After colonizing Etheria for a long time - long enough to have their tech spread everywhere and make enough towns and buildings to have so many ruins in the show - Mara is chosen to be the next She-Ra, given the sword so she is forced to rely on it and be controlled by the people who have probably already been working on the Heart of Etheria. This may have been relatively soon after they colonized Etheria or maybe there was a She Ra or two before Mara during this time.

(Definitely there were a lot more She-Ra prior to Mara, I just mean during this Heart of Etheria/Colonization period.)

(Also I am unsure if She-Ra is native to Etheria and the colonizers swooped in and took over the concept for their own purposes or if She-Ra is an Eternia native princess that they integrated into Etheria's magic network to control it. I'm leaning more to that one since Mara and Adora are both First Ones and them being First Ones is sort of a BIG POINT.)

(But I'm sure the official answer is there somewhere I just don't remember)

Then comes Mara's arc which we do get to explicitly see. She meets Madam Razz, finds out the truth, and moves Etheria into Despondos to save it. But that's a big thing: she hid it in Despondos to avoid the Heart of Etheria, not to hide from Hoard Prime. Hoard Prime isn't mentioned at all in the flashbacks. But it is mentioned that the First Ones were at war. Maybe they were at war with Hoard Prime. He was around during that time - did you see how many bodies he's gone through? He may have been a smaller time villain at the time, but he was around - so I could believe it. It's implied (maybe explicitly stated) that Hoard Prime wiped out the First Ones, though obviously not completely if Adora was out there to be portraled to Etheria. Point being, if the First Ones are still out there, they aren't exploring the universe like they used to with Hoard Prime out there.

But then what about Hordak? At first I thought the First One's war with Hoard Prime was more obvious and he was there when Mara put Etheria in Despondos, but rewatching it I realized that wasn't right. Hordak isn't mentioned at all. He didn't come in until later. I don't know how exactly, but it is shown that Hoard Prime and Light Hope are the only ones that can make portals now. Did Hordak use portal technology randomly? Why would he have ended up SPECIFICALLY in Despondos? I think he was the result of Light Hope's earlier attempt at bringing a First One to Etheria to create a new She-Ra and it didn't work. She brought his ship here where it crashed landed in the Fright Zone during Scorpia's grandpa's time.

A few decades of building power, rather than centuries or millenial, and that explains why Hordak has done such little progress in taking over Etheria. That and Shadow Weaver was a terrible second in command.

Obviously Hordak wasn't searching specifically for Etheria because Hoard Prime had never heard of it before.

And then if all of that is correct or at least close to it, Grey Skull is never EVER explained. Not in SPOP. So I guess this is another reason why I think She-Ra herself was an Eternia princess/legacy because surely there would be some indication of who this is from pre-First Ones time.

Making a He-Man series in the same universe where He-Man is on Eternia which still exists as a rebel community against Hoard Prime where Adora was portraled away from as an infant would be awesome. Or just a He-Man movie where Adora and the gang show up after an hour and a half of He-Man trying to figure out why the Hoard is suddenly gone and not attacking anymore would be cool. Heck, even make him her bio brother and make that not relevant at all because she has a home and family.

What is Hordak doing?

hanging out and inventing cool shit in bright moon’s resident lab with Entrapta and Kadroh! he’s very much stella’s cool grandpa.