Carol Baxter

Mark Glamack

Castaspella's precocious magical apprentice, Ariel, thinks she's ready to try some magic out of the powerful Book of Spells. And when Scorpia gets a hold of the book, she thinks she is, too! Hopefully She-Ra can help clean up the mess when both of these ladies find out how thoroughly they've misjudged their abilities.

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

Scorpia

Ariel, doves, pink birds, Horde soldiers, Scorpia's servant, Mystacorian messenger

Scorpiamobile

Alakazam! Presto! Abraca-She-Ra! A young lady completes a simple magic spell, and a pair of doves appear out of nowhere. The display draws congratulations from Princess Adora and Castaspella, witnessing the show from the throne room of Mystacor's floating castle. The girl is one Ariel, Castaspella's apprentice - but she thinks she's ready to try the harder stuff. Ariel makes a request of her mistress: can she try some magic out of the Book of Spells? Casta demurs; she feels the spellbook, currently sitting open on a pedestal nearby, is too dangerous and advanced for her young charge. Ariel needs more practice before she can tangle with that thing.

A disappointed Ariel goes to stew in her room. Still convinced she's ready for the dangerous book and anxious to prove herself to Castaspella, Ariel decides to act out. She uses her magic to transport the book into her room and stuffs it into a knapsack. She then sneaks out of the castle, in search of a private place to experiment with the book's spells. She stops by a narrow stream, where a small flock of pink birds are cheerfully bathing themselves. Ariel attempts to magically construct a dam to give the birds a better bath, bringing down some rocks from a nearby cliffside. But the fallen rocks totally cover the stream, annoying the birds. Apologetic but undeterred, Ariel wanders off in search of more trouble. She doesn't realize that over her shoulder, another loose rock has crumbled from the cliff and struck its fallen brethren, producing sparks which ignite a brush fire!

Elsewhere in the kingdom, Adora is preparing to mount Spirit and return home; but her departure is interrupted by a panicky Castaspella, who informs the princess that Ariel has disappeared - along with the Book of Spells. Adora promises to go in search of the apprentice at Ariel's favorite private place, whose location Casta relates. Telling Mystacor's queen to stay behind in case the missing girl returns, Adora rides off and soon comes upon the raging brush fire. This looks like a job for She-Ra! Our heroine transforms herself and her horse. Rather than use her own super breath or the choked stream to put out the flames, She-Ra opts for an original solution: she pulls up the turf and rolls it into a huge spiral, smothering the fire inside. Worried that the countryside has been defaced? No problem! She-Ra just kicks the mound of wound-up turf to unwind it again.

While this has been happening, Ariel has found the perfect place to continue practicing her magic: the Forbidden Zone! She's distracted from admiring the conjured sandcastle that she's turned into gold by the appearance of the Horde, in the form of Scorpia and a cadre of Horde troopers. Scorpia sees the results of Ariel's magic and swoops in to take advantage. It seems at first that Ariel's deft use of the spellbook will give her victory over her attackers, as she traps the soldiers in sand and shrinks Scorpia and her Scorpiamobile; but the amateur spells quickly wear off and her enemies grab her, causing her knapsack (with the book inside it) to slide off her person.

Lucky for her, She-Ra has been following Ariel's trail and spots the altercation. Our heroine swoops in and tosses Scorpia into the soldiers, making a giant pile of tangled limbs and giving She-Ra enough time to scoop up the apprentice and her knapsack. Then it's a quick flight back to Mystacor. All's well, right? Hardly! Because when Ariel opens her knapsack so she can return the stolen spellbook to the relieved Castaspella, the chagrined apprentice finds her bag is empty! We the audience quickly discover what's become of the book, when we return to Scorpia, now brooding in her lair. An ogre-ish minion comes in and passes her the Book of Spells, which her men found lying out in the sands. An excited Scorpia sits down to do some light reading, and finds the very spell that the distant Casta is just then desperately wishing she won't find: one that will free all the evils that the Ancients long ago imprisoned in the Forbidden Zone. (I guess that's why they call it that!)

Proving herself just as light on good judgment as today's title apprentice, Scorpia sends a threatening note to She-Ra and then heads to the Forbidden Zone, where she repeatedly (and with growing, Brooklyn-accented irritation) casts the spell to unlock evil. It does eventually begin working - and, predictably, quickly gets out of control. Scorpia finds herself stranded amid a series of gaping chasms which are spewing fire and weird, sprouting columns of rock. She-Ra arrives (along with Casta and Ariel, following a few moments behind her) and is forced to rescue the Horde flunky, making sure to first secure the Book of Spells. Having flown herself and Scorpia - dangling from a rope tied to Swift Wind's saddle - out of danger, She-Ra conjures herself an even longer length of line. Anchoring the line at one end of the fiery scar, she mounts Swift Wind and commences a weaving flight between the towers, wrapping the rope around them all. With her web of rope completed, it's just a matter of pulling - really hard - until the ruptured earth is knit back together.

The finishing touch is provided by the mistress of Mystacor and her apprentice. Ariel catches Scorpia attempting to flee and zaps the villain away - with Scorpia vowing future revenge as she dissolves (so presumably she's just been teleported elsehwere, and not disintegrated). Casta is impressed with this performance and actually expresses some regret at her earlier stymieing of her apprentice's ambitions; but Ariel apologizes for taking on more than she could safely handle, thus causing this whole mess. The two magicians then join forces to prettify the disfigured Forbidden Zone with some conjured flowers. Aw.

• Castaspella: To give someone too much power before they're ready could be dangerous. Be patient, Ariel.
• Ariel: Magicians of Mystacor: move over! Here comes Ariel. (Titters to herself)
• Ariel (narrating the compounding of her stupidity, after having stolen the dangerous and powerful Book of Spells): This is the perfect spot for me to practice; no one would think of looking for me here in the Forbidden Zone.
• Scorpia (having successfully cast a spell to release the evil from the Forbidden Zone): Hey! (laughing) You see dat? It woiked! I did it! Being a magician - hey - it's easy. I could do it wid my eyes closed. All right now; evil: stop!
• Castaspella (to Ariel, having somehow failed to learn the correct lesson from today's story): I guess I was wrong not to let you at least try a spell from the book. / Ariel: Oh no, Castaspella. I'm the one who was wrong not to listen to your advice. Power in inexperienced hands can be very dangerous.

• She-Ra, hands on hips, laughs with her head thrown back: Just the hands on hips pose is used as She-Ra makes an amused comment about Scorpia

One full

3:39 - Loo-Kee is peeking out at us from behind his favorite shelter, a tree, on the far left side of the screen, in an establishing shot just outside of Mystacor's castle.
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee reminds us of the old chestnut, "practice makes perfect." He doesn't connect the value of practicing to today's story, instead giving us the real-world examples of learning to play piano or hitting a ball; but he was clearly thinking of how Ariel should have spent a little more time practicing before she stole that spellbook. Good call, man.

Wayward child learns a valuable lesson: You could probably argue that Casta's title apprentice, Ariel, is too old to be considered a "child;" but this episode otherwise so clearly follows the standard MOTU/POP formula that I can't resist tagging it. Ariel is, after all, an apprentice, and learns she's too young and inexperienced to be trying the magic she dabbles in.
Hordak-less episodes in Season 1: It's just Scorpia and her soldiers carrying the Horde duties today.

• This is the first of four POP scripts which will be brought to us by writer Carol Baxter.
• We return to Castaspella's kingdom of Mystacor, last visited in 67027's "The Eldritch Mist."
• We learn that Castaspella owns a very powerful and potentially dangerous "Book of Spells" - which she keeps unguarded and wide open on a pedestal in a freely accessible room. Smooth moves, Casta.
• Ariel's bedroom in Mystacor looks unnervingly familiar... Apart from some color changes, her bed and the wall decoration behind it are identical to Teela's bedroom in Eternos. (See MU046's "Eternal Darkness," where we visit many of our favorite MOTU characters' bedrooms in quick succession.)
• This is our first time hearing of Mystacor's "Forbidden Zone," which we can assume lies within easy walking distance of Casta's castle. As Castaspella eventually explains of the locale: "The Ancients put all of Mystacor's evil into one place... It's held all of Mystacor's evil for centuries." Odd that Castaspella would reference "the Ancients," who are usually the elder mages of Eternia - I thought Etheria's corresponding wise guys were "the First Ones."
• Returning after its recent but brief appearance in 67034's "Troll's Dream" is the lovely Scorpiamobile - and its not-quite-so-lovely pincer-handed owner, Scorpia herself!
• It's interesting that Ariel chooses to shrink both Scorpia and her vehicle, given that the first appearance of the Scorpiamobile was in an episode whose main subject was shrunken people - 67025's "Small Problems."
• Today's episode is experimenting with some new scene transitions and screen wipes; rather than relying entirely on the typical spinning sword of protection coming at us with a flash, the animators several times sub in a pair of black bars swiping in and out from either side of the screen. Not sure what prompted this experimentation; perhaps today's storytelling relies so heavily on the intercutting of different points of view that the sword transition got to feeling like overkill.
• To stop Scorpia, She-Ra grabs the villain's tail and spins her around - a move you'd think Scorpia would have learned to avoid by now, since our heroine has used it on her before (see 67017).
• Like Shadow Weaver's private apartments, seen in 67022 and 67027, Scorpia seems to have her own cozy lair hidden near the Forbidden Zone. It's peppered with appropriately icky arthropodal decor. Also like Weaver (67022), we find Scorpia being attended by a toady - but unlike Weaver's slave, who had long dangly ears, Scorpia's servant is a hulking, ogre-like fellow with an underbite.
• On her way to rescue Scorpia from her own stupidity, She-Ra passes by the same skull archway that was the entrance to Skull Path in 67034's "Troll's Dream." The camera even pauses there, as if to give us time to recognize this reused background.
• Swiss army sword: It's a "sword to rope" day, so She-Ra can lend a lifeline to Scorpia; and just a little later, it's "sword to lots and lots of rope!" An extra-large coil is needed for She-Ra's unlikely cat's cradle of a rock reclosure.

• You can tell Ariel is far too in love with using her magic powers, as we watch her magically open her satchel and magically float the Book of Spells inside it. You can't use your hands? The satchel is right there! Magic is a crutch!
• There was a nearly infinite number of ways our writer could have shown Ariel making a dangerous mistake with the Book of Spells; so it's odd that the one she landed on was flammable rocks. So the cliffsides of Mystacor are formed of piles of sparking flint? Must be easy for Casta to light her cigarettes!
• I found it laugh-out-loud funny that Ariel, after stealing the book she was expressly told not to use, decides that the most sensible place to take her tantalizing magical treasure is one called "the Forbidden Zone." Perfect, lady; perfect.
• Continuity error? When She-Ra arrives on the scene to rescue Ariel (somersaulting over a trio of Horde soldiers who fail to react the slightest bit to her acrobatic entrance), she calculates her odds at 10 to 2 - implying the Horde troopers total to 9 (and Scorpia makes 10). However, the thrown Scorpia knocks over and becomes entangled in an absurdly huge pile of Hordesmen, numbering at least twice that. Does She-Ra consider the troopers to count as only half a man each?
• Another more certain continuity error: By the time Scorpia arrives there, the exact location and look of the Forbidden Zone begins to feel rather confused. Ariel claimed she was at the Forbidden Zone earlier in the episode, when she made her golden sand castle and where Scorpia first found her. But that was a rather tame (if forbidding) rocky, desert-like region, similar to Eternia's Sands of Time. Based on those background paintings, it seemed that Scorpia's lair was in the same region. But when Scorpia travels to the real Forbidden Zone to cast the evil spell, she clearly seems uncertain of her way, and she shows up in a very different-looking spot: all heavy clouds and gloomy, black pinnacles. Is there an even more Forbidden Zone inside the Forbidden Zone?
• Scorpia was an interesting choice for today's villain, and on consideration a rather clever one. Her lack of magical expertise and bumbling with the Book of Spells adds another layer to today's lesson of not meddling with powers you don't understand. It's frightening to think of what someone more competent, like Shadow Weaver, would have done with Casta's easily-stolen treasure!
• Speaking of easily-stolen: I've mentioned it once or twice already in this entry, but it's worth emphasizing that Scorpia and Ariel are not the only ones in today's episode with poor judgment. Castaspella: if you own an incredibly dangerous spellbook, maybe lock it away in a cabinet somewhere instead of leaving it tantalizingly open for anyone to read from in the middle of your living room! By the fricking Ancients, woman.
• Once She-Ra retrieved the Book and Casta showed up, I assumed our local sorceress was going to take care of the disaster Scorpia caused. After all, who's the only expert magic-user here? Rather than demonstrate the wisdom and finely honed skills of real experience, however, Casta stands gape-mouthed next to the two doofuses and looks on while She-Ra undoes the evil spell with a length of rope. Huh? Another weird choice! Still, She-Ra's feat took some fancy flying and a healthy dose of her super strength, and it was a rather awesome way to avert the danger. (And in the end, Casta does get a chance to cast a rather pointless concluding spell, to grow some flowers over the nasty rocks.)
• I do have another complaint, though. This evil spell to awaken the Forbidden Zone had me thinking back to He-Man and MU053's Horn of Evil. It was a similar device to free bad things, and when it was blown (by a Trollan with even poorer judgment than Ariel, Yukkers), all kinds of interesting monsters and hideously transformed animals started crawling out of the woodwork. It was a fun chance for the animators to give us a ton of imaginative beasties. Today, though, all we see of the evils of the Forbidden Zone are some weird columns of rock and some lava-like flames. Ho-hum!
• So yes, I think there was some potential for some cooler stuff to happen in this story, but it was nevertheless a fun adventure with some unexpected twists and choices of characters. I'll be interested to see what other unexpected moments our writer Ms. Baxter gives us in her subsequent scripts!