#Spop Kyle

[fruitybowl]

Okay okay so I'm gonna be talking about something I don't normally talk about but I just need to ramble.

The way the She Ra fandom treats the show (specifically the part that's obsessed with the horde kids) is really weird. Like look...would I have liked to see more of the horde kids? Yes absolutely. I think their relationship with each other and Adora could have been interesting to explore but I'm okay they didn't. Because guess what? The show isn't about them. The way people talk about the horde kids makes it seem like they were integral parts of the story that weren't utilized effectively, but they weren't at all??? Like they're barely in the show apart from a few few minute cameos in some episodes or just in the background, and that one episode in season 4 where they had a B plot. That's about it. They are not nearly as important to the story as Adora, Catra, Bow and Glimmer, and even Hordak. The reason the show doesn't focus on Adora's relationship with the horde kids is because her relationship with Catra is the focus! And arguably the most important relationship in the show. And onto the treatment of Kyle in the show and by the creators. Yes I think Kyle deserves better and a break, but I think people are being a little dramatic when talking about him. Now again, Kyle is not exploring as in-depth as the other characters so I don't think it's fair to give his treatment by the show and writers the same weight as said characters. I truly don't believe that the treatment of Kyle reflects on how the writers are as people I just don't 😂. Yes he's a punching bag...but almost every show has one. Now if he was as prominent in the story as Adora or Catra and was still treated the same then I would be concerned. But that's if they poked fun at parts of his character that were formed from abuse, and I don't believe they would do that. If Kyle was part of the cast they would have written him with the same amount of care that they did with the other characters. I have a hard time believing the same people that wrote Catra, one of the most complex and interesting characters in the show, would treat Kyle's story with any less care because he's a scrawny white guy (and yes I have seen people make the argument that Kyle is treated so harshly by the writers because he's white which is...quite ridiculous in my opinion.)

People also seem to forget how BIG the main cast is. There are already so many characters to explore that it would have been very hard for them to explore the horde kids more than just surface level. It would have made the show too busy in my opinion. And ONCE AGAIN the horde kids are not the main characters, so we shouldn't expect them to be treated like it. If you want the horde kids to be explored.more, then read fanfiction...or write it yourself.

Anyway I'm done rambling now. If you have anything else to add to this then feel free to. I'd be happy to discuss this more

[rheesvandar]

Given that Entrapta used the vents of the Fright Zone as her personal transit system for months if not years, there were probably many fans, baffles, and filters that were never put back into place.

The routes between her most commonly visited locations would therefore be the most likely places for this to happen, namely the vents between her quarters, the Sanctum, and the dining hall. With all that stuff out of the way in the vents, I bet sound would carry between those locations quite a bit. Not most sounds, not normal conversation, but I wonder if one day Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio were grabbing a snack and heard some slapping noises followed by "Fuck me like you mean it, Hordak!" echoing through the vents.

Bets were settled that day and Kyle needed therapy. Well, he needed it even more than previously.

[jellystarsdrops]

Glimmer and Adora: Um.. whatcha got there?

Bow, holding Kyle's hand after breaking him out of the Horde: A smoothie

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

honestly, EVERYONE in spop owed kyle an apology. even the supposedly “good” characters like adora, scorpia and bow didn't treat him right. he deserved so much better.

[that-ari-blogger]

The Cycle Continues (Protocol)

Protocol is an episode about the underling. The person victimised by abuse, and the point at which they break. Its an episode about loyalty and where that goes right and where it goes wrong.

The episode has a few scenes that are rich with storytelling and analytical potential, and those scenes are some of the best in the series.

It’s also an exploration of characters who haven’t had the spotlight before. Light Hope gets some backstory and character development that explores the concept of the robot in this context, and Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio get their priorities sorted.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

This episode is a box episode. The characters are trapped with each other and have to work out their differences. Adora is trapped with Light Hope. The Horde Mook Trio is stuck with each other.

This is usually the lowest budget of a live action series. The team has one or two locations to work with, and not many actors, so they put them together. But an animated series doesn't need to do this, because the budget for one location is the same as the budget for multiple locations, so it's a choice.

I want to stress that box episodes are some of my favourite episodes of television out there. Boom from the new series of Doctor Who is a box episode in which the eponym can't even move for the most part of the series.

Box episodes are limited, which leads to either amazing stories, or forgettable ones. There is no in between.

Protocol, by artificially making use of this format, gets all of the benefits of the characters being trapped together, with none of the limitations, which means its potential is really quite high.

This is Adora's poker face. This is it. She doesn't have another one. I wonder why people keep telling her she's an awful liar.

You would think that the title of Protocol has multiple meanings here, but it's actually exactly the same for all the characters. They are in a chain of command, and they are making a decision as to what to do. Do they follow the protocol, or do they do their own thing?

Starting with the Horde Mook Trio, the protocol is that one of them needs to go outside and fix the vehicle. The protocol says to prioritize the mission over themselves. The protocol does not care about them.

The Hord Mook Trio are in constant conflict with each other and with the protocol itself. Except, I don’t think that the two are separate, I think one causes the other.

She-Ra is a series about the cycle of abuse. That’s why the seasons are structured in such a repetitive fashion, and why the characters are the way they are. Even the villainous ones.

Catra is the obvious example, as a victim who lashes out in an attempt to feel powerful and therefore safe. But others fit this as well. Lonnie is mean to Kyle, for example, he is the butt of all the jokes and while I wouldn’t consider it abuse, the extent to which Lonnie takes out her anger on Kyle isn't the healthiest or most proportional.

Which leads to the protocol. Because what is a protocol but a set of instructions? An order given, a facet of the will of someone more powerful. In this case, the protocol is the hand of the Horde itself, and Catra who has become the face of it.

But I’ve talked too much about Catra in this post. More on her next season. For now, back the Horde Mook Trio.

I like to call this the Azula metaphor. Hair coming down over a character's face, especially when its asymmetrical, is a sign of diminishing sanity. It's a character action to put it back in place and regain composure. Hair as symbolism, Azula metaphor.

"I don't care. I gave you an order. Pick someone, send them outside, and fix it."

The trio exists in a setting that does not value their lives, and they react to it in different ways. Lonnie feels bottled up aggression that she can’t turn on her superiors, so she pushes it down on someone she perceives to be weaker than herself; Rogelio… well I don’t know much about him, I don’t speak lizard; and Kyle does something else. Kyle decides that if nobody will find his life meaningful, then he will, and he offers that mercy to his companions. It takes this episode for them to see it.

The trio are soldiers, they perceive the world in a might makes right system, and characters who are physically weak don’t mesh with that. But there are other forms of strength.

It takes strength to look at what you have been taught about the value of your own life, and to say “no”.

"Catra doesn't care about us. Adora left us. Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless. Its everyone for themselves."

Loyalty is a fun concept, right? As a storytelling vehicle, there is so much you can do with it. Because it’s a completely amoral thing. Loyalty in this case is twofold and at odds with itself. Loyalty to one another or loyalty to the system.

The loyalty to each other is actively discouraged. They must send one person out to their probable death in order to further the goals of the Horde.

Alternatively, one of them can sacrifice themselves for the others, which is what Kyle does, and it’s the breaking point for Lonnie and Rogelio. Kyle cares about them more than the Horde does, and he nearly gets killed by the protocol.

Kyle hears Lonnie give a speech about how loyalty is meaningless, and selfishness is how to survive, and immediately proves her wrong. He acts selflessly to get them out, but he also makes them immediately try to protect him, against their better judgement.

Light Hope is a similar example of this. Because she’s a robot, she has programming. She has no personality other than that which was given to her. She is pure purpose.

This episode reveals that to be a lie. I’ve commented on Morla Gorrondona’s voice acting in the role before, mostly in how she manages to convey emotion through stoicism. But here we get a different take on the character, one more expressive and happier.

It reframes the previous performance a bit though, making the modern Light Hope seem repressed in comparison. The true version of herself was someone whom Adora could have befriended. Hold on to that thought for a moment.

This version of Light Hope claims to have no personality. That part of her "hasn't loaded yet", but in reality, she displays the richest sense of individuality she has had yet this series. She's fun, she's tricksy, she's oblivious. In other words, the "personality that hasn't loaded" is the personality that is acceptable. Also, this is a rare example of a story leaning into the neurodivergence coding to humanise its robot character. Maybe there's something about repression in that too.

The fact that Light Hope is a robot implies that she was made by someone, that being the First Ones, and we don’t really learn much about them except from what she tells us, and how she acts.

The Protocol made her forget her memories of Mara. Light Hope’s purpose could not exist with her own happiness. Light Hope was brought into this world by people who told her that her own life was not worth anything more than they decreed. In short, Light Hope too is a victim of abuse.

You may say “wait, Light Hope is a robot, she has a purpose. It's not denial of personhood if she never had it.” To this strawman, I answer the following: This episode shows Light Hope displaying autonomy and free thinking when disconnected from her programming. It shows seeking joy and learning new things. It shows Light Hope falling in love.

It shows emotions, reveling in learning a new thing, obvious sadness upon realising she's messed up, wonder at the sight of She-Ra.

It also shows her going against her code. She wants to help, she is kind. She finds the memory and goes looking for it to try and help. She's less perfect on a knowledge basis, but this version of the character makes up for it in effort. This character seems to want to help Adora rather than follow her instructions to the letter.

This episode shows Light Hope as a person, and then shows us her programming taking that away.

As a side note here, I keep describing what Shadow Weaver did to Catra and Adora as programming. She taught them specific responses to stimuli so she could control them. In the context of an autonomous person, that control is villainous. If we consider Light Hope to be an autonomous person as well, you will notice that this is exactly what the first ones did to her.

The scene at the end of Light Hope forgetting is her perpetuating her own misery. The only person who can hold up the protocol now is her, and yet she continues because it is all she has ever known.

You could say that this episode as a whole is a commentary on a system that prioritises stoicism and views emotion and attachment as a weakness and how that leads to abusive relationships. You could say that.

You could also say that this is an example of the self sabotaging nature of evil. By which I mean the villainy here, the abuse and the destruction of the memories to be more efficient and not get attached, not only harms the person perpetuating it, but it also hinders the goal.

Hey look. History repeating itself. Cyclical storytelling. It's almost as if I'm on to something with my analysis.

The happy version of Light Hope is one Adora can get attached to, someone she could befriend and trust. Just like Mara did. The end goal of this all was to earn Adora’s trust and make her into an obedient weapon, so that would have succeeded, right?

Except, that version of Light Hope would have got attached to Adora in return, just like it did with Mara, and judging by the present day. That didn’t end well.

Final Thoughts

Here is my hot take. This episode is one of the best episodes in the series… with the volume off.

This episode has some incredible visual sequences, and the storytelling is done so well through the animation alone. Adora is so well animated, Light Hope’s slight smile conveys her change of character so incredibly well.

But the dialogue is painfully redundant and that actively takes me out of the scene. With one exception, that being the scene with the flowers, almost every line in this episode feels like wasted space. The moment where the Horde Mook Trio try to save Kyle is undercut severely by the fact that they stop to tell you that Catra wants the armour kept safe.

Case and point, Rogelio’s speech is emotional and resonant, and nobody but Kyle and Lonnie can understand it. The emotion isn’t in the words but the reactions.

A lot of this comes from the fact that I don’t find any of the dialogue humour in this episode funny. Light Hope sideways is funny, Light Hope being silly about a bird is funny. You don’t have to point it out.

This episode goes out of its way to explain the plot beats and explain the jokes, and it doesn’t need to in order to get the point across.

If you want to prove my point, put on some music and watch the episode on silent. I recommend the soundtrack from Shadow Of The Collosus, but anything will do. It's amazing just the extent to which the entirety of the plot and humour can be done visually, and that the dialogue is really not necessary for either and, in my opinion, detracts from what was otherwise a genuinely brilliant episode of television.

Next week, I’ll be looking at the episode Princess Scorpia, and addressing a change in my own read of the character. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[bi4bination]

I know Harley and Ivy are more neutral than evil, but for the sake of this meme, they’re the most evil bisexuals I know of

[bi-dykes]

Kyle Bisexual Icons ❤️💜💙

[antispopausandstuff]

no one asked, but here we go:

.

every spop-centered AU i have so far ( most of them are not public and just live in my brain or in some discord chat )

.

Virtues Universe - A universe that centers around Adora and Catra's ( positive ) sisterly relationship, Catra joining the Rebellion alongside her sister. Includes Adonnie and Catfuma ( Adora x Lonnie, Catra x Perfuma ) and Adora becoming a Rebellion Leader before becoming She-Ra ( in s2 ). I think this is the one AU I have where Catra isn't a bad person, lol.

Her Heart Universe - A universe where Adora is an alien on Earth, and is in the care of Mara and Razz. Includes learning values, social struggles, and episodic stories turning into a serialized "we gotta get our shit together or die" story.

Two Suns Universe - A universe where the key sibling relationship is Adora and Kyle, rather than Adora and Catra. Includes loving siblings, redemption arcs, Crimson Waste Kyle, and Kyle x Rogelio x Bow. Lots of Kyle love.

The Wilted Flower Universe - A universe where Adora's 'dead' ( bc Catra ), but her spirit resides, and She-Ra has taken over her form, desperate to keep her wielder alive. Includes a lot of violence, arguing, and blood, as She-Ra is unhinged in this universe and I love it. Not self-cest or a She-Ra x Adora AU, don't be weird.

Pearl Of The Sea Universe - A universe where Adora is a mermaid and Entrapta finds her in her boss' lab. Includes lovers to enemies to ??? ( entrapdak ), found family, and typical corrupted workforce.

Until It Ends Universe - A universe where Adora suffers from amnesia, She-Ra is an unknown entity, and the only thing she remembers is the Sword of Protection and is meant to serve it and its legacy. Includes folklore, forming friendships, ??? to enemies ( catra ), and discovering lost memories. Inspired by BOTW.

Ready To Go Universe - A modern universe where Adora and co use social media to boost their cafe's reputation. Includes Angella being Adora's mother figure, long distance relationships, found family ( again ), and cutting ties.

The Ghost Of Her Universe - A universe where Adora is a ghost, and a friend of hers tries to figure out how she died. And Glimmer and Bow are there too. Includes abusive background, manipulation of the higher-ups ( SW and Catra don't talk about why she died ), and friendly, but sad ghost.

To Be Loved Universe - A universe in the process of being reworked, but is essentially a s5 rewrite ( with some rewritten details of previous seasons ), and Adora is allowed to swear. Incluces Catra being a cunt and getting told to fuck off, rebuilding friendships, and an unexpected pairing.

Can't Sleep Universe - A universe focused around my c*tradora kid, Elizabeth Randor ( Izzy ), who is very bitter and angry with her parents ( mostly Catra ). Includes abuse, divorce arc ( that's a thing, apparently ), and healing.

The Whispering Woods Universe - A universe where Adora is raised by Madame Razz and Light Hope and is a fierce protector of the Whispering Woods, setting up traps and making spells. She-Ra most likely doesn't exist in this AU. Includes learning about the past, Grandma // Grandkid dynamic, and Adora being a nerd.

Desert's Flowers Universe - A universe where Entrapta raises Adora instead after the little one runs away from the Horde. Includes loving mother, family to complicated, strangers to allies to friends to ??? to enemies ( entrapdak again ), and Horde Prime being a douche.

The Lightning's Song Universe - A universe where Adora was locked away in the Prison Dimension for 100 years, and is considered a 'corrupted heroine'. However, Glimmer and Bow decide to unleash her, hoping she'd be their best bet against the Horde. Includes discovering the truth, unhinged rageful Adora ( we stan ), and earning trust.

The Soulmates Universe - A more historian universe where Adora and Bow have to fake-marry for social reasons, and struggle with internalized queerphobia as they fall in love with people that aren't each other. Includes best friends, what love really means, and identity metaphors.

.

Cross-Over Universes

Danganronpa - Adora is the Ultimate Warrior, who may be considered the 'second Mukuro', depending on who you ask. Is best friends with Sakura and Hina ( including others ).

Teen Titans - Adora gets involved in a freak accident and is sent to the TT universe and joins the group. Adora x Starfire is a thing.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Light-hearted fun, mainly just Adora thinking Sonic is really cool and vice-versa.

Mario - Again, simply light-hearted fun, Adora thinks Peach is amazing and has her as an idol.

Voltron - I know. I know. But she'd be best friends with Lance, and that's all the reason I need.

almost all AUs feature Catra getting her ass whooped.

[lotusthekat]

[ID: A digital drawing of Bow and Kyle, from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, posing to the viewer adorably. Bow is posing similarly to the way he does in season 5 in order to gather information, and Kyle is mimicking him, even winking. The background is pink and many sparkles are around the two boys. /End ID]

These two would be an unstoppable duo and you can't convince me otherwise.

DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION!

Hate will be blocked.

P/roship DNI.

[western-magical-girl-confessions]

“I will never understand HOW the same crew-ra who made a rebooted Entrapta a good autism representation, wasted Kyle, treated a KID like a joke, gets blamed for everything back in his Horde days plus that scene when he gets thrown??? And he didn't leave the Horde earlier while normally that treatment could be a final straw? "BUT HE WAS WITH A HORDE" Hello, he wasn't THAT active on the horde.”

[mustardflavoredbear]

This is a shit post for my polycute. I'm super gay for these characters

[rheesvandar]

Things Kyle Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The Etherian Horde (with apologies to Skippy’s List):

- He is not to be called “Lord Kyle of the Horde”

- He is not allowed to “threaten Rogelio with a good time”

- He is not allowed to “threaten Rogelio with a bad time”

- He is not allowed to shout “here kitty, kitty” at Force Captain Catra

- He is not allowed to “test Lord Hordak’s bat-like hearing” by insulting Entrapta under his breath

- He is not allowed to try to spray Force Captain Scorpia with pesticide when on exterminator duty

- He is not allowed to put rat traps in the vents to catch “a particularly large rat he’s been hearing up there”

- He is not to be allowed within 50 feet of Entrapta to protect his own life and limb

- He is not allowed to airdrop photos of Shadow Weaver over enemy territory to “scare them into submission”

- He is not allowed to add a skylight to the Sanctum to “brighten up the place”

- He is not allowed to have a shrine to enemy combatant Sea Hawk no matter how “dreamy” he may be

- Lord Hordak should only be referred to as such and not “my adorable spacebat” no matter what he overheard Entrapta say

- He is not allowed to use the streets of the Fright Zone as a “tactical skiff maneuvering course”, especially since he is not licensed to drive a skiff

- He is to stop asking new culinary staff if he can have a red ration bar. The last time he did it the poor new assistant had a nervous breakdown

- He is not to threaten Force Captain Octavia with tartar sauce

- He is not to try to distract Force Captain Catra with a ball of string.

- He is not to put pictures of Shadow Weaver on the practice bots

[jellystarsdrops]

I think Kyle would listen to Mitski if she existed in Etheria

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

a compilation of the kyle smile™ (bonus: baby kyle) because poor boy deserved so much better.

i had to scoure pinterest for these and as expected, there aren't many instances of kyle being happy.

[justiceforfoxface]

She-ra incorrect quote

Kyle, putting his hands over Lonnie’s eyes: Guess who!

Lonnie: It’s either Kyle or the cold, clammy hands of death.

Kyle, putting his hands away: It’s Kyle!

Lonnie: Dammit.