Glimmer

Glimmer is the princess of Bright Moon, daughter of King Micah and Queen Angella, and one of the leaders of the Great Rebellion against Hordak's occupation of Etheria. She wields light magic, a mix of short-range teleportation and energy blasts. Once Adora defects from the Horde, the two lead the Rebellion side by side, and in the field it is usually Adora, or She-Ra, who calls the plan.

Several episodes are built around her: "Glimmer Come Home," "Romeo and Glimmer," "Glimmer's Story," "Small Problems" and "Micah of Bright Moon." Elsewhere she is in the thick of the Rebellion's field work, giving orders and, as often as not, chafing at them.

Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Glimmer Come Home (She-Ra: Princess of Power, 1987), 6:55 to 8:50, 1 minute 55 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.

"Small Problems" sets the pattern early. Glimmer rescues Bow and Kowl from Horde troopers in Small Oak and then tells the story so often, with so many added Hordesmen each time, that Adora's attempt to rein her in only makes her defensive. When the Rebellion investigates a Horde chemical-weapons research base, Glimmer sneaks onto the roof alone specifically to prove herself, and has to be freed by She-Ra after Horde robots seize her.

"Glimmer Come Home" pushes the same friction to its clearest point. Tired of hearing that Adora knows best, and stung at being handed a fireworks display in the sky instead of a real fight, Glimmer storms off to Mirror Lake, where a voice claiming to be her own inner self talks her into recruiting a breakaway rebellion of her own. Her new recruits turn out to be two Horde troopers and an agent planted by Shadow Weaver. The episode treats her ambition, and her resentment at playing second to Adora, as a weakness the Horde can use.

"Glimmer's Story" catches her at her most exploitable. Eager to impress a visiting prince, she has Madame Razz dye her hair purple for the occasion, and the "prince" turns out to be the shapeshifter False Face, who uses her hospitality to learn the location of Bright Moon's protective Moonstone and the castle's floodgates. Adora senses something is wrong with the visitor before Glimmer does.

"Loo-Kee Lends a Hand" makes her the Horde's unwitting delivery system: Shadow Weaver hides Hordak's finished Timestop device inside a supply package addressed to the Rebellion, Glimmer is the one who collects it, and opening it freezes everyone in Whispering Woods, Adora and her horse Spirit included. "The Perils of Peekablue" and "The Caregiver" both end with her captured outright, in the second case hanging chained in the Fright Zone until She-Ra frees her.

"Romeo and Glimmer" is her gentlest episode. She treats the injured arm of a captured Horde corporal named Romeo in the rebel camp's medical room, and the two talk about friendship across enemy lines before he slips away on a rope of towels, true to his promise not to interfere with the Horde's dome-draining attack in the meantime.

"Just the Way You Are" supplies a piece of Bright Moon court politics that rarely surfaces elsewhere. King Darkspur of the Hinterlands arrives to ask Queen Angella, again, for Glimmer's hand in marriage, and Angella refuses him, again. Darkspur later sends soldiers to seize Glimmer outright when the answer does not change.

Linda Gary voices her across the 1985-1987 Filmation run. The 2018-2020 Netflix reboot, a continuity of its own outside the Filmation canon this encyclopedia follows, recasts her with Karen Fukuhara.