Catra

Catra is a Force Captain of the Evil Horde and one of Hordak's most trusted field commanders on Etheria, and the mask she wears turns her into a giant black cat at will. She leads troops, runs schemes, and spends as much time maneuvering against her own side, Shadow Weaver and Hordak included, as she does against the Great Rebellion.

Catra turns up often, and she is rarely a one-scene villain. The episodes that use her best hand her a scheme of her own, a raid to lead or a throne to grab, and then let it collapse on her.

Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Magicats (She-Ra: Princess of Power, 1985), 3:19 to 5:17, 1 minute 58 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.

"Magicats" is her boldest solo play. Her red mask, which she says Hordak gave her, turns out to be the missing queen's, so when she stumbles into the hidden cat city of Half Moon the Magicats take her for their lost ruler; she passes their test by luck and nearly keeps the whole kingdom's throne before the Magicats catch on, wipe her memory and send her back to the Fright Zone with no idea where she has been. "The Light of the Crystal" goes further still: she personally conquers Elfworld and rules it from a captured throne, enslaving its people in the crystal mines, until She-Ra and a trio of allied Rock People break the occupation.

"My Friend, My Enemy" turns her ambition against her own commander. She teams up with a visiting Skeletor to feed Hordak a pie laced with doom-berries, a poison that makes its victim fade away for good, an attempted coup against the Horde's own leader. "Portrait of Doom" shows the same cunning turned back outward: disguised as a hooded traveling painter, she lends the Rebellion's own Spritina a set of enchanted paints that trap each sitter inside a living portrait, bound for Horde Prime's private collection, until Madame Razz's suspicion and She-Ra's instincts unravel the plan.

Several of her most consistent appearances pair her directly with Shadow Weaver rather than with Hordak. "Loo-Kee's Sweety" has the two of them running robot terror terriers against the Conceals on Beast Island together; "Of Shadows and Skulls" opens with the pair laying a cave trap for Adora before Shadow Weaver, blamed for the failure, brings in Skeletor behind Catra's back; "Portrait of Doom" opens in the Fright Zone with Shadow Weaver pitching Hordak the very plan Catra goes on to carry out. On screen, Shadow Weaver is the Horde officer Catra actually coordinates with, more often than Hordak himself.