Hordak

Inconsistently Heinous

Full Name

Hordak (self-named)

Alias

Lord Hordak

Little Brother (by Horde Prime)
Boss
Lab Partner (by Entrapta)

Origin

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Allies

Catra
Shadow Weaver (both presumably)
Scorpia
Adora/She-Ra
Glimmer
Bow
Sea Hawk
Entrapta
Mermista
Frosta
Perfuma
Swift Wind
Angella

Powers / Skills

Command over the Horde

High Intelligence
Leadership
Military prowess
Resourcefulness
Technological proficiency
Low oxygen dependence
Powered armor
Arm-mounted energy cannon

Goals

Create a portal and use it to contact Horde Prime (succeeded).

Crush the Rebellion and conquer all of Etheria.
Gain Horde Prime's approval.
Kill Catra for lying to him (all formerly).

Worst Actions

Waging a devastating war on all Etheria in an attempt to conquer it.

Sending a signal to Horde Prime to come to Etheria, knowing what he would do to its people.

Kill Count

Billions (at least)

Crimes

Abuse of power

Assault
Mass murder
Attempted regicide
Pollution
Attempted world domination
Blackmail
Mass destruction
Terrorism
Deforestation
Torture
War crimes

Type of IH

Insecure Tyrant

“	I am not your "brother!" You made me in your image, but I am more than that. I gave myself a name; I made a life of my own, I made... a friend. I am Hordak, and I defy your will!	„
	~ Hordak standing up to Horde Prime.

Hordak is the main antagonist of the Netflix original series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

Hordak is one of the many clones of the galactic conqueror, Horde Prime, and was his top general until one day his defects started emerging. This caused Horde Prime to look down on him and left him to die in battle. During said battle, Hordak was sucked by a large portal and was transported to the planet of Etheria. Not knowing what to do, he decides to create his own Horde and conquer the entire planet to prove himself to his master. Eventually, he redeems himself and turns against Horde Prime in the final season.

He was voiced by Keston John.

His Evil Ranking[]

What Makes Him Heinous?[]

Even before the events of the series, Hordak was the top general of Horde Prime and it is said that they have conquered entire galaxies which would presumably give him a very high body count.
After a portal opened and he was stranded on Etheria, he created his own Horde and waged war on the entire planet with the intention of conquering it. While no one is shown dying on screen because She-Ra is a kids show, it's still made clear that a lot of people have suffered and died because of Hordak's warmongering:
- Multiple people throughout the story mentioned that a lot of them have lost people in the fight against the Horde.
- Glimmer says that ever since the Horde has come to Etheria, they had been poisoning the land, burning their cities, and destroying everything in their path.
- In the very first episode, the ruins of a civilian town which was destroyed by Horde were shown on-screen which causes Glimmer to get angry at Adora.
- There are a few flashbacks where the Horde is shown burning the Scorpion Kingdom and enslaving its people. When Scorpia returns to her kingdom, there are only ruins left of it and there is not a single living person.
Years before the events of the story, he captured King Micah and exiled him to Beast Island to die.
Hordak raises many children as child soldiers within the Horde, fills their heads with propaganda against the Princesses and sends them out to fight for him, not caring that they could die for his cause.
He allows both Shadow Weaver and Catra to do bad things as long as it benefits his war effort.
After Catra captured Glimmer, Hordak blackmailed Queen Angella to give herself to him in exchange for Glimmer.
He commands Catra to exile Shadow Weaver to Beast Island where she would die.
He regularly abuses Catra when she fails him. He changes the composition of the atmosphere which causes Catra to start choking and at one point, he sent her to Crimson Waste, fully expecting that she would die there and even taking joy at acknowleging that she would die in the Crimson Waste. Even though he gets irritated when she mocks and disrespect him, he would still harshly punish her no matter what.
The fact that Hordak allowed Shadow Weaver to abuse Catra, that he created the system where she was raised as a child soldier and that he abused her when she failed him also makes him indirectly responsible for how she turned out.
He builds a portal to send a message to Horde Prime to come to Etheria. Considering that Hordak had spent a lot of time with Prime, he knew what would happen to the people of Etheria once Prime had arrived to the planet. This action leads to all the bad things that happen in season 5 where Horde Prime attacks Etheria and starts chipping and mind-raping the population to deprive them of their free will and assimilate them into his cult.
He taunted Adora when she confronted him for how he treated her, saying that she didn't lie to her because he had never known or cared about someone as insignificant as her.
He and Catra lead an assault on the kingdom of Salineas to destroy. Some of the citizens may have even been killed, though it's not confirmed.

What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]

Hordak is very tragic as he was a clone of Horde Prime and was raised into his militaristic cult. This means that he was abused and molded into a warmongering servant whose only purpose in life is to worship Horde Prime and things like individual names, goals and relationships are forbidden. When Hordak's body shows defects, his creator, Horde Prime, starts looking down on him and decides to send him to die in a battle. However, a mysterious portal appears and Hordak is sucked into it and stranded on Etheria, away from Horde Prime and the other clones. The only reason why Hordak wages war on the entire planet and tries to conquer it is because this is the only thing he has ever known in his life and he hopes that one day he would be able to return to Horde Prime and prove to him he is not a failure.
He suffers from deep insecurities. He desperately wants to impress Horde Prime and prove to him that he is worth something. He fears that he is a failure and weak due to his defects because they make him imperfect and tries to hide them from everyone. He doesn't know how to communicate normally with other people because he has never had any relationships and when Entrapta helps him stabilize his portal, Hordak expresses his gratitude in a very awkward way.
Hordak cares about his pet Imp and is seen petting him and scratching him on a few occasions.
He grows to care about Entrapta and even falls in love with her. At first, he is angry with her for breaching into his sanctum but then he starts respecting her when she proves her intelligence to him and helps him with his projects. He tries to assure her she is not a failure in a very awkward way and allows her to create a new exoskeleton for him to make up for his defects and is relieved when he realizes that she doesn't look down on him for not being perfect. He also doesn't want to open the portal without Entrapta being present out of respect to her. When he thinks she had betrayed him, Hordak is visibly hurt to the point where he briefly loses his purpose in life and doesn't want to continue with the conquest of the planet until Catra convinces him otherwise. When he discovers that Catra had lied to him about Entrapta and had sent her to Beast Island, Hordak is both heartbroken and enraged, visibly crying, and even tries to kill Catra to avenge Entrapta. Hordak refuses to kill Entrapta when Horde Prime commands him to and the two of them ended up getting together.
On a few occasions he shows some respect to Catra when she brings success to the Horde and commends her. When she fails to stop Shadow Weaver from escaping, Hordak, out of respect for her previous achievements, gives her the chance to come clean, and only punishes her when she tries to lie about her failure. Although Hordak tries to kill Catra at the end of season 4, but only after he finds out she had lied to him about Entrapta betraying him. While it's not made very clear if Hordak has forgiven her after the final episode and his redemption, it can be assumed that he has because now they are on the same side and he doesn't express any desire to take revenge on her.
Despite all the crimes he had committed, the scenes where Horde Prime teleports him on his ship and starts abusing him are still played for sympathy. Prime completely dismisses Hordak's attempts to impress him and completely destroys his hopes that he would acknowledge him as worthy of recognition. Instead Prime wipes out Hordak's memory and wipes his mind because he is angry that Hordak had given himself a name and had found a purpose in life that was different from worshipping him. He mind-probes him, abuses him verbally and physically and mind-rapes him in a horrific process which causes agony to Hordak and terrifies even Catra herself.
When Horde Prime commands him to kill Entrapta, Hordak refuses to do it and instead standing up to him by dropped his master down from a huge height, redeeming himself in the process.
When his attempt to kill Horde Prime fails and his master takes control of his body and uses him as a vessel, Adora turns into She-Ra and uses her powers to expel Horde Prime from his body. Afterwards, Hordak looks at her briefly to express his gratitude and says that he remembers her.