Adora’s Hair Poof Might Be Silly, But It’s a Good Way To Symbolize Growth in ‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’
For all of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’s seriousness, it is still a comedic show that’s family-oriented. It gives a lot of truths about love, family, and forgiveness, and features five seasons of epic battles and tough losses. But it also has laugh-out-loud moments. One of them includes a running joke about Adora’s hair. But in the silliness behind her design, there might be more to it her little floof than meets the eye. [Spoiler alert: Spoilers ahead for She-Ra and the Princesses of Power].
Adora’s hair poof is a running joke throughout the show
One of the first things you notice about the character, Adora, is her hair. She has a clean ponytail, which is very fitting for a Type-A Horde trainee. But she also has a little hair poof. While it doesn’t put Snooki to shame, it is an interesting character design.
It’s also not just inherently a part of her character. It’s a feature that gets made fun of on the show again and again. It’s not overdone, and no character is overly mean to her. But Adora’s hair poof is a running gag. Take Double Trouble; when they’re doing one of their many impressions, they turn into Adora and give her a very Johny Bravo/Elvis Presley poof.
It’s not a very important part of Adora’s character, per se, but it is noticeable and always there.
Fans think that Adora’s small hair change in Season 4 is a metaphor
With that said, there are a couple of times where her poof isn’t there. Most specifically, later in the series, in Season 4. And, most recently, Adora’s ponytail and poof come out as she falls to save Catra, who’s chipped, in Season 5.
Reddit user u/Edymnion wrote that there could be a significant reason for this.
“See, thing is, her hair has been up in that ponytail the entire series, but now it’s down around her shoulders,” they say about Season 4. “Her hair has been tied up, controlled, kept in it’s place until now.”
They point out that now her hair is “freely” falling, not held up. It might be a bit too deep, but they note that this could be because “Adora’s hair, like Adora herself, is finally free to be itself.”
Another user commented below the post that it might not be “free” but rather that she’s “finally lost all sense of control. She has lost the only thing that made her feel like she could help (for now).”
This Reddit post is from November, so they’re talking about Season 4, when Adora just sacrificed her sword to kill the Heart of Etheria’s weapon. Light Hope is gone, and Adora is no longer She-Ra. She’s all alone, and at the end she finds out Glimmer was taken by Horde Prime. It’s not her finest hour, so maybe that last reading of her hair could be more appropriate.
Other characters change too, signifying growth
This is all just a fan theory, of course, and she’s also not the only one to undergo a hair-change. User u/ChallenWrites commented that Catra’s hair is slightly different from Season 1, too. Catra also acts differently with her hair.
“Catra shows more attention to her hair as well (brushing it down every time she’s trying to feel ‘in control’),” they wrote. “Where Adora undoing her hair shows an attainment of freedom, Catra’s inability to keep hers down shows the gradual spiralling-out-of-control of her plans and authority. Gotta love that mirroring!”
This is very interesting because, in Season 5, Catra’s hair is cut without her permission, since she’s a mindless pawn of Horde Prime’s. Catra is a character that hated not being in control like the user wrote. And often she wasn’t in control, even when she thought she was.
But, according to showrunner Noelle Stevenson, she just wanted to give Catra short hair because she knew she’d look good in it.
“It was hard to sell, in some ways. But I wrote it in the script,” Stevenson told the LA Times on 15 when Season 5 dropped. “My excuse was she’s got a chip in her neck and we won’t be able to see it unless her hair is short. That was my excuse, but I really just thought she’d be really cute with short hair.”
Whether or not Adora’s poof is a metaphor for something, it’s still an essential part of her character at this point, even in her future when the rest of her hair is down. So: long-live the poof.
