She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power: Why Sea Hawk Is Amazing (& Why He’s The Worst)

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is an amazingly nuanced, engaging cartoon, and it has some of the most well-developed and diverse female characters of any kids’ show. In fact, all of its characters are remarkable in one way or another, and even the villains have redeeming qualities to them (with a notable exception being found in Hordak Prime).

And then there is Sea Hawk. Like all the best characters, Sea Hawk is a mess of contradictions, but he also seems to be quite a polarizing character–both among the fanbase, and even his own friends. Of course, on closer inspection, it is easy to see why that is.

10 Amazing: His Legacy

Sea Hawk’s reputation is an overpowering and seductive force. The first time Adore, Glimmer, and Bow meet him, they try to hire his services to transport them across the sea to Mermista’s Kingdom.

He regales them with boasts of how he once “ran the fifty-click Gale’s Breath Gauntlet in less than twenty clicks” and “maneuvered the Straits of Seprentine with nary a chip in the paint of [his] bow.” Of course, the best accomplishment of his is arguably the claim that his shanties are so seductive that “sirens fling themselves into the sea at the sound of them.” This is a legacy worthy of song.

9 The Worst: His Failures

When Sea Hawk succeeds, he is absolutely amazing at what he does, swashbuckling his way to victory and leaving his enemies furious at how he bested them. Unfortunately, when he fails, it is often even more stupendously.

He is a bit of a klutz, has a loud mouth that is incapable of keeping a secret and has an almost supernatural ability to get on people’s nerves–or to turn them into mortal enemies intent on killing him. At this point, the only reason he’s probably still alive is that he has so many princesses there to save him when he falters.

8 Amazing: Charisma

If there is one thing Sea Hawk excels at, it is charisma, which is easily his greatest strength. He could sell saltwater to his fellow seamen and charm mermaids to their knees. His sea shanties are absolutely phenomenal and incredibly catchy.

While probably half of what Sea Hawk claims to have done in life is exaggerated beyond recognition, the other half of what he says is flat-out lying–and yet he gets away with it because of his charm. When recounting a story about how he punched out fifty people to save the Kingdom of Dryl, Mermista reminds him that Dryl was lost in the fight and he punched “like one guy.” With a twinkle in his eye, Sea Hawk raises his hand in a dramatic gesture, “Exactly! One hundred guys!”.

7 The Worst: Incompetence

If Sea Hawk’s greatest strength is the sheer force of his charismatic personality, his greatest weakness is his truly shocking lack of intellect. Time and again, his foolishness causes problems for him and those he cares for. He is also clumsy and (as said before) less than honest, making him even more incompetent, but these still pale in comparison to his stupidity.

It is doubtful that IQ scores are tested on Etherea, but if they are, one would need to plumb the depths of the sea to find something as low as Sea Hawk’s intelligence.

6 Amazing: Swashbuckling

Like any good pirate captain, Sea Hawk is skilled at sword-fighting. (This is not to say he actually is good at being a pirate or a captain, just that he fights like a good one ought to.)

Both on land and aboard ship, he has demonstrated his swashbuckling prowess, and when a sword is not readily available, he is just as easily able to best a foe using just his fists.

5 The Worst: Weak

Sea Hawk is only human. As such, he has human weaknesses. Normally that would be fine, but in a world of Horde battle mechs, magical princesses, and ancient powers, he is insanely weak compared to the other characters.

Mermista has the ability to control the tides. Frosta has ice powers and Perfuma can bend plants to her will. Glimmer can teleport and use magic. Shadoweaver, Queen Angella, King Micah, and Castaspella also know magic. While these characters might have ridiculous names, they at least have the power to ensure no one will ever say as much to their face. Even Bow, just a regular person, is an amazing archer and inventor whose trick arrows let him take down giant mechs. And then there is Sea Hawk, with his sword and his fists.

4 Amazing: Devotion to Mermista

Sea Hawk is a total flirt. With his shining mustache and charming sea shanties, he practically seduces Bow when they first meet. And as was said before, he even claims that those shanties can make sirens fall under his spell (not that this is something one should entirely trust).

Despite all this, he is head-over-keel in love with Mermista. It does not matter how much she disparages him or how sarcastic and unenthusiastic she is about things. He will always be there for him. And because of this (as well as some of his other finer traits), she loves him back.

3 The Worst: Enemies

Sea Hawk is very good at making enemies. In fact, his almost supernatural ability to make people mad at him is a central point of conflict in multiple episodes across the series.

He is kidnapped by an old pirate he ticked off, and when he joins Mermista, Scorpia, and Perfuma in trying to infiltrate an undersea nightclub, he cannot walk into the crowd without bumping into someone who wants to bump him off and leave his corpse at the bottom of the briny deep.

2 Amazing: Setting Ships on Fire

Fire ships are one of the great naval battle tactics in human history. They seem less well-known on the world of Etherea though, and it is possible that Sea Hawk is the person on his planet who first conceived of intentionally setting a ship aflame to ram at one’s enemies.

Whether or not he invented this technique is less important than the fact that setting ships on fire is his signature move. Once, Mermista also set a person’s ship aflame. When she confesses this, he tells her she has never looked so beautiful to him.

1 The Worst: Setting Ships On Fire

The problem with setting ships on fire is that one can quite easily get burnt. It is dangerous in the best of circumstances, and can easily backfire if one is not careful.

Unfortunately, Sea Hawk has a tendency to make any circumstances into the worst ones possible. And he also has a tendency to be on the ships he is setting fire to. It is genuinely amazing that he has not burned alive or drowned.

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