Story - Leslie Wilson & Teleplay - Francis Moss

Ernie Schmidt

The benevolent, peace-loving Horde takes a special interest in the unruly town of Northland, where an insidious collection of fallacy-filled books have corrupted the people into thinking their friendly overlords are evil. Little Horde spy Corey will help our friendly dictators put the people straight - even if it means burning all the books and consigning his own little sister to the Fright Zone for some healthy brain-washing. Right, Corey?

Princess Adora (She-Ra), Bow, Spirit (Swift Wind)

Leech, Mantenna, Hordak, Tung (Tung Lashor), Rattlor

various Northland villagers (including Serena the schoolteacher, Corey, Sarah, Brian, Arianne), Horde soldiers

wagon, Hordak-faced ship, Horde tank, mobile flamethrower

In a quaint little bucolic village which proves to be named Northland, the one-room schoolhouse welcomes some extra-special mystery guests. These guests are so special and so mysterious that they're wearing creepy bag hoods over their heads! (They didn't bother to disguise themselves in any way below their necks, however, so it's incredibly obvious that the school is about to receive a lecture from Adora and Bow.) Before the rebel pair can really get going, they're interrupted by the one jerk kid who showed up late to class. His name is Corey and he believes the rebels are all liars and the Horde is really awesome. Adora's discussion with the heckler is quickly descending into a "Nuh-uh;" "Yeah-huh" level argument when the rebellious guest lecturers are alerted to some Hordesmen in their proximity. They make a dash out the back way, and aren't spotted by the new visitors, Leech and Mantenna. No worries, though: the Horde pair have barely had a chance to accuse the school of teaching lies and burn one of the schoolbooks with a laser pistol, before Corey tattles on the rebels. Leech and Mantenna rush out back and into the school's playground on Corey's information, and predictably get their butts handed to them by Bow and the princess, who make use of some playground equipment in their acrobatic victory.

Well, now everything's great, right? Nope: because the presence of rebels in the town prompts a heavy Horde response. Hordak lands his giant ship in the village square and explains to the assembled townspeople that they have been fooled by all these books they have, which tell "lies" about the Horde being evil conquerors. Therefore, Hordak has brought a replacement schoolteacher in the form of Tung, and an officer in charge of collecting all the books in the form of Rattlor. Hearing some spunky and supportive remarks from little Corey, Hordak recruits the boy as a spy, giving him a communicator and telling him to rat on any rebels he might find.

Corey has the chance to practice his ratting skills that same evening, when he learns that Serena, the former schoolteacher, is secretly meeting with her former schoolchildren in her house to read them books. At Corey's direction, a battalion of Horde soldiers bust into the place and round up all the books, taking the teacher away. In the morning, having found that Serena is in jail, Adora changes to She-Ra and stages a breakout. Unfortunately her antics flying the teacher to safety on the back of Swift Wind leave our heroine too late to rescue the town's books, which are all burned in a great conflagration in the town square, with Tung supervising. The children now have a new teacher in the slobbery Tung, who begins lecturing them on the greatness of the Horde and the treachery of the rebels. When one student denies Tung behind his back and is asked to stand for punishment, all the other children support him, and the classroom quickly devolves into a riotous mob. Good thing administration didn't choose today to observe Tung's class!

Two children fleeing from the classroom overhear Tung threatening to fix his pupils with a few weeks of enforced indoctrination in the Fright Zone, and run to the rebel camp in the Whispering Woods to fetch help. Too bad that snake Corey overheard their intention and follows as well! He radios the Horde of the impending rebel counterattack and sneaks back to town, where he's in for a surprise. As the Horde round up all the children, our rat is horrified to learn that his little sister Arianne is among those taken. When he attempts to protest to buddy Tung, claiming himself as an important member of the Horde, the snake man laughs in the boy's face, explaining that Corey was just being used. His eyes finally opened, Corey evades Tung's attempts to add him to the captives and runs to Serena to apologize. When Serena tries to buck him up with news that the rebels are going to arrive and save everyone, the boy must tearfully admit that their intended rescuers are walking into a trap of his own making.

Sure enough, the rebels are lured into a Horde transport, then ambushed and added to the other prisoners, all slated for a trip to the Fright Zone. Adora is reserved for special, personal escort by Hordak, and placed in her own prison cell in town, where a remorseful Corey finds her. Talking through her barred window, Adora requests that the boy fetch her sword, and when he does she tells him to run along home. As soon as the kid's back is turned, it's She-Ra time! Our heroine busts out of jail and detours the departing Horde transport down a tight alley. She tears out some wiring to stop the vehicle in its tracks, leaving the tank stranded with its side doors unable to open. She-Ra then tears open the back door like the top of a tin of preserved sardines, letting out all the prisoners.

Back in the main square, there are more problems for superpowered women to solve; because Hordak has returned and is attempting to cow the Northland citizens by setting a few of their buildings alight. To put out the fire, She-Ra calls her flying horse out of the alley where he's been lurking, then makes her way to a lake, which she very easily digs out of the ground and tosses over the village. The up-ended body of water rains down on the fire and Horde soldiers alike, putting out both - the latter by rusting them into immobility. Hordak decides his plans have been foiled once again, and flies his ship away. Tung sticks around long enough to be wrapped in his own tongue by our heroine - a clear, if unhygienic, victory.

Afterwards, the townspeople clear away all the malfunctioning robots, and Corey shows up to apologize to everyone, citing his own dislike of reading and resulting ignorance as the cause for his poor behavior (sure). Some forgiving fellow students - helped along by the fact that Corey's freeing of Adora has already somewhat redeemed him - offer him their friendship, and Corey gratefully accepts.

• Leech (to Serena): From now on, you'll teach only from official Horde books. As for your books - they're only good for one thing. To burn!
• Princess Adora (hanging upside-down from a swing): Bow, give me a big push!
• Hordak (to Corey): Tell me, young man, how would you like to be a Horde spy? / Corey: You bet! What would I do? / Hordak: Watch for traitors and rebels, send secret messages. / Corey: Wow!
• Hordak: No, no, no! She did it again! She-Ra did it again - she made the Horde look like fools! But she didn't have me to deal with - and now she does!
• Hordak (in classic, cliche villain mode): Oh, that does it, I'm getting out of here. Why does everything happen to me? One of these days, She-Ra...
• Bow (laughing at Tung, whom She-Ra has bound up using his own tongue): Now that's what I call "tongue-tied"!

• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: In a Northland back alley, while Loo-Kee huddles nearby

One full, one partial (missing Spirit/Swift Wind sequence)

17:11 - I was getting very nervous that I was finally going to break my streak on this episode, having not caught a glimpse of Loo-Kee with the story getting towards its climax. But when our sneaky friend finally does show up, it's hard to miss him! Loo-Kee is in the bottom left quadrant of the screen, looking off to the left in profile, hunkered down among some baskets. He's barely hiding, having positioned himself right next to Swift Wind with his head and shoulders fully exposed.
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee groups books among the things we tend to not appreciate "until they're taken away from us... Being free to read anything we wish is a right we must never lose." Right the eff on, Loo-Kee. I know in other spots on this database I've made jokes about what a chore it is to have to read books instead of watch my beloved 80s cartoon shows; but that's all they were - jokes!

Wayward child learns a valuable lesson: Corey, member of the Horde Youth, must discover his beloved fascist regime is actually - gasp - Evil.

• This is our first time seeing story writer Leslie Wilson's name on a POP title screen, but this person (whose gender I'm unable to confirm, though I've somehow always assumed they were female) is an important figure in the MOTU universe, where they contributed to two landmark scripts: MU085's "The Rainbow Warrior" and the seminal MU110, "The Problem with Power." Leslie will get credit for one more She-Ra tale. Teleplay writer Francis Moss did not work on MOTU but has already given us two previous POP scripts (67011 and 67017), and will be showing up on several more.
• Considering that the subject of today's tale is clearly book burning, it's very hard not to jump to the conclusion that Adora and Bow, with their pointy-hooded "disguises," have been inducted into the Klan. They also love burning stuff!
• This episode was used in the documentary Power of Grayskull as an example of how POP was a more mature show than MOTU, covering more weighty and compelling subject matter. The issue of book burning and banning is - for reasons that make me shake my head at the human race as a whole - still a topical and pertinent one.
• It's worth noting that He-Man also tried his hand at preaching the value of books - albeit in a rather sillier manner that does more to prove POP's comparative maturity than otherwise. I'm talking about MU072's "The Great Book Mystery," featuring the only appearance of cult-favorite villain Batros.
• Adora makes a couple of references to the fact that she used to be a member of the Horde - even referring to herself as "ex-Force Captain Adora," a title we've only heard Hordak use before (see 67015).
• Hordak arrives in today's village (Northland) in a gigantic ship with his face on the front of it - perhaps intended as the same "Hordak-faced ship" seen in the SOTS storyline and 67008. This vehicle will become a recurring transportation method for Hordak, appearing next in 67031.
• Many of the generic villagers seen in Northland follow oft-used MOTU and POP character designs. Standing next to Mantenna in Hordak's arrival scene are a couple of the ignorant hicks from Ruxtown (see MU120's "Monster on the Mountain"). The cute little blonde girl, Sarah, is the spitting image of MU033 and MU125's Starchild. These are just a few of many examples.
• Appearing for the third time in the series is the very confusing "Tung," perhaps the most unevenly and inconsistently presented toy-based character in Filmation's MOTU/POP run. We first saw him as Skeletor's minion in 67035. He next appeared (based on my DVD's sequencing) in 67019, this time as a minion of Hordak and the Horde (unlike with Modulok, this faction shift was made without explanation). I'm not sure he was ever identified by name in the latter appearance, but he was definitely called "Tung Lash" by Skeletor in 67035. In this episode, Hordak just calls him "Tung." Neither of these names match that of his action figure, which was "Tung Lashor," and his character design is nowhere near that of the toy (which looked much more like the animated Rattlor).
• Rattlor, who also appears for the third time in this episode as Hordak's "lieutenant in charge of the book collecting," betrays some potential inconsistencies as well. In his introductory scene he conveys a message entirely via rattling, which Tung has to translate for the villagers; but we've heard Rattlor speak regular English before (see 67012, 67019), and we'll hear him do it again (see the Christmas Special, where he does his own unexplained faction-shifting back over to Skeletor). I suspect the reason for Rattlor's silence is the overworked voice actors: they do extra duty today providing voices for townspeople, schoolchildren, and random Horde soldiers.
• Serena the schoolteacher (or, I guess, ex-schoolteacher by this point) refers to a Horde soldier as a "robot," again reinforcing that these often very human-like characters are supposed to be mechanical. (See below for more about the inconsistent treatment of the Horde soldiers in this episode.)
• The scene where nearly all the schoolchildren stand up and claim to have been the one who called Teacher Tung a liar is very reminiscent of the inspiring "I'm Spartacus" scene from the classic epic movie, Spartacus (1960). If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should really go see that movie; suffice to say it worked about the same way as this scene, only with much higher stakes.
• Say what you want about the Horde, but you have to admit they possess a truly dizzying array of tanks and/or catepillar-treaded vehicles. We've seen them employ their vulture-faced "destructo" models, the slightly different Hordak-faced editions, and even more bland top-turret models that wouldn't be out of place in an Earth attack force (the latter in one brief moment in 67013). Today's model seems closest to the wider-bodied one seen in 67011 and 67042.
• Continuing her brother's talent for hydraulic engineering, today She-Ra carves an entire lake out of the nearby landscape in order to put out a fire. See my thoughts about this feat in the commentary section.
• In the realm of continuing inconsistencies on the treatment of the Horde soldiers, today She-Ra's lake-dumping causes them to rust and short circuit; however, when Adam and Miro dumped water on a small troop of soldiers in 67013, they just got slightly miffed.

• It's a bit hard to understand why Adora and Bow feel the need to wear their very silly hoods to visit the school. I suppose the disguise is more to protect the village hosting them than to hide their identities from the Horde (something they've had very little concern about doing in the past) - but don't giant yellow bags over your heads sort of raise a red flag? Maybe try wearing wigs or shaded glasses or something - or at least change out of your very distinctive heart insignia chest armor.
• Today's misguided whelp, Corey, is of the breed of "wayward child" that is very hard to like. He reminds me very strongly of perhaps the most irritating of MOTU children, MU099's Drak, who repeatedly supported the idea of selling out a weakened He-Man to Skeletor. Corey - that little @#$% - yells at his teacher and guest lecturers and then immediately betrays the rebels to the Horde. Then he does it again - and again. Yes, okay, this is because he's been fooled by the lies of the Horde - but in my book (heh - book - get it?) this doesn't make him any less of a jerk.
• Bow and Adora are chased out into the schoolyard playground by Leech and Mantenna, where Adora finds a very high swing to drape herself over. Really, it's a trapeze - a word she actually uses to describe it. It appears that Etherian playgrounds had even laxer safety guidelines than Earth playgrounds of the 80s!
• When we get a view of the inside of Serena's house, we see that it looks a heck of a lot more like the basement of an inn than the private residence of a schoolteacher. There is no furniture, so the children she invited for the book reading are forced to sit on boxes or the floor. She has no tables, so her books are piled up on top of a big metal urn or keg. I guess even on Etheria teachers' salaries suck!
• You have to wonder whether the schoolchildren that Serena has invited to her house to engage in Horde-proclaimed ilicit activities got permission from their parents first. Are Mommy and Daddy aware that Mrs. Serena has inducted their kids into the Great Rebellion?
• It's pretty hilarious, by the way, that Hordak chooses Tung, of all his minions, to be a replacement schoolteacher. We see how well that plays out in Tung's difficult first day teaching, which goes about as badly as such things can. I would think Shadow Weaver would have the best skillset for controlling a classroom.
• I usually complain in both MOTU and POP that our main characters tend to resort to their heroic alter egos at the drop of a hat (in a sub-category I call "He-Man/She-Ra is a crutch"); however today I have the opposite complaint. Why wouldn't Adora turn into She-Ra before starting on her mission to rescue the kidnapped Northland children? Seems like it would have shortened our Act 3 considerably...
• Animation error: When Adora is first seen in the prison cell with her hands chained behind her back, her hands are incorrectly colored the same red as her wrist bracers, rather than the usual flesh tone.
• I like that the local shields are decorated with faces on their fronts. Nice touch!
• Swift Wind pulls a weird trick in this episode, seemingly implying that he has stayed in a transformed state while Adora went back to normal. There's a full transformation in the first half of the episode; but when regular old Adora returns to Northland from the Whispering Woods in the second half, it seems to be without her horse. She transforms to She-Ra to break out of prison, clearly without zapping any horses; but she later calls the winged Swift Wind from out of a side alley. How does that work? It's a bit of a continuity error. (We'll see a similar issue in 67041.)
• I feel compelled to point out that when She-Ra dumps the whole lake on Northland, she would naturally also be dumping all the things that live in the lake; so at the same time they're busy hauling away all those dead robots, the townspeople should be gathering dead, smelly fish out of their streets. Also, you have to wonder where the empty bowl of soil that once held the lake ends up; hopefully it didn't crush any forest animals or other houses when it came down!
• I don't want to slam on She-Ra, because sometimes you just have to work with the tools at your disposal to solve problems, and she certainly got the job done. I just hope she washed her hands after wrapping Tung in his own tongue.