Bob Forward

Lou Kachivas

Today our plucky rebels find themselves up against one of their most formidable Horde opponents, in the military mastermind General Sunder. But how can Sunder's sense of honor and unimpeachable honesty reconcile him to a life fighting for the unremittingly dastardly Horde? Maybe they can't!

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

General Sunder, Mantenna, Catra, Hordak, Grizzlor

Mally, Mally's mother, Logan, Horde soldiers, various villagers, Arrow

Horde trucks, wagon

Sure, it's terrible to be a regular peasant under Etheria's Horde regime; but it could be worse. I mean, the hut where Logan's small family (comprising him, his wife, and nearly grown daughter Mally) lives is barely big enough. And yes, the food they farm is meager and not very nourishing. True, the taxes were onerous and paying them has left the farmer destitute. But the taxes are paid; and they certainly won't have to pay them again. Right?

The farmer's evening ruminations on the bright side of life are interrupted by banging on the door. It's a Horde soldier, who tells him he owes even more taxes. That's the last straw! Logan bashes the robot's head in with a wooden club (possibly a butter churn?). He takes a swing at the next Horde officer entering his house, but the arc of his weapon is arrested by a steely hand. Logan recognizes the owner of the hand as one General Sunder. Unlike his troopers, this Horde general is flesh and blood; but he's just as unforgiving to rule breakers. He orders the rebellious farmer and his uppity family to all be imprisoned for their resistance; the daughter, Mally, he instructs his men to place in a separate wagon, away from the others. Sunder himself shuts the wagon's barred door on Mally - but, unaccountably, he neglects to lock it, leaving the girl free to escape when the truck holding her parents departs.

Mally finds her way to the rebel camp in the Whispering Woods, where she tells her story to the rebel leaders Bow, Princess Adora, and Glimmer. Adora recognizes the name of General Sunder from her days as a force captain in the Horde; she remembers Sunder as a good and honorable soldier, with a sense of what's right quite unusual in the enemy soldiery. He's definitely not the kind of guy who would forget to lock a prison door, which is strange; but regardless, he's sure to prove a formidable opponent as the rebels attempt to rescue Mally's parents. Adora promises to go find She-Ra to aid in the mission, and dashes off.

True to Adora's word, when the rebels are assembled near General Sunder's camp they are joined by She-Ra on her winged horse. The heroine dictates a plan: Glimmer will use her light powers to hold the attention of the Hordesmen and She-Ra will defend their attack, while Bow and Mally sneak into camp to free the prisoners. It seems like a clever ruse, but the cleverer General Sunder sees through it at once. He catches Bow and the girl in the act, just as they've released Mally's parents and a few other prisoners. Bow bravely charges the general to buy Mally and the others time to flee, in the process earning himself a point-blank blast from Sunder's stun pistol.

The general has lost his prisoners, but gained Bow, who he realizes is a valuable bargaining chip. He calls out to She-Ra, offering the safe return of the bowman in return for her. Seeing no alternative, She-Ra agrees to the trade, surrendering herself to the Horde. A man of his word, General Sunder then releases Bow. He returns with his men to the Fright Zone with a blonde-haired prize that's sure to please Hordak.

Hordak is at first overjoyed to find that his general has brought him the mighty She-Ra; but he's excessively nonplussed when Sunder gives him the details of the prisoner trade. The Horde commander can't understand why his general didn't simply go back on his word and keep Bow as well; as Hordak puts it, "promises were made to be broken." Sunder stiffly comments that on this point, the two will just have to differ. He also has to admit that his other prisoners escaped in the attack. Their conversation becomes tense and confrontational, with the general questioning his boss's tax levies, and Hordak threatening to drop Sunder through the same trapdoor where he's just sent the luckless Mantenna; but the unfazed general stares down his commander, and Hordak chickens out, allowing Sunder to stride off unmolested. (To make himself feel better, Hordak drops Grizzlor down the chute instead.)

Back at the rebel camp, our friends are desperate to get back their stolen savior. Against the objections of Glimmer, who's concerned for the peasant girl's safety (not to mention worried about her lack of experience), Bow insists they include Mally, arguing that she has proven herself a "good rebel." Their three-person rescue mission sets out for the Fright Zone, with Bow and Glimmer hiding in the hay of a wagon while Mally, in disguise, leads Arrow. As with their previous scheme, General Sunder sees it coming almost before it begins: he spies the approach of the wagon through binoculars and pierces the rebels' paltry deception. And as with Bow earlier, Sunder marvels at the rebels' bravery and determination in the face of the overwhelming forces of the Horde. Rather than sound the alarm on the sneak attack, the general wanders off and allows events to develop.

Even without Sunder to stop them, the rebels' dissimulation doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. Horde soldiers stop them at the borders of the Fright Zone to search the hay wagon, and Bow is forced to reveal himself and begin the attack. He takes out the door guards, then fires a grappling arrow and line up to a high window, giving Glimmer a tightrope to walk up. Bow must then hold off the forces of the Horde single-handedly (since Mally, standing nearby in a cloak, is absolutely no help whatsoever - why did she come?) while Glimmer makes her way inside and to the holding cells.

The Etherian princess finds She-Ra and opens the cell door with the help of one of Bow's explosive arrowheads; but She-Ra is manacled with power chains that inhibit her super strength. Glimmer is unable to break the chains, and before the pair can make a break for it, General Sunder (the owner of the only key to the chains) shows up, accompanied by a trooper. It seems that the Horde officer has the rebels at his mercy; but before taking them in hand, he wants to ask a question of She-Ra. The curious general wants to know the source of the rebels' unflagging bravery and will. She-Ra explains that she and her friends are fighting for their freedom, a prize as precious as life, and worth any sacrifice. Sunder compares She-Ra's inspiring message and laudable actions to the selfish and unfeeling ways of his robot soldiers, and makes a fateful choice: he turns and punches his trooper into oblivion. Then he unlocks She-Ra's cuffs.

General Sunder means to allow She-Ra and her friend to escape, but at first has no plans to join them: he is a Horde soldier, he explains to the heroine, and can't be anything else. But in a further persuasive and moving speech, the blonde wonder tells Sunder that he still has the power to change and find a new purpose in the Great Rebellion. The general is at last swayed to join them. It is three rebels, therefore, who make their way to the Fright Zone window and begin a daring slide down Bow's rope to freedom. She-Ra and Glimmer make the journey unscathed, but the line breaks while Sunder is halfway along, sending him crashing to the ground with a broken leg. He urges his new friends to leave him and make their escape, but She-Ra again surprises him, explaining that the rebels don't work that way. She carries Sunder out of the line of fire. Hordak arrives with another pack of troopers to make one more attempt at stopping the prison break, but She-Ra fends them off by throwing the hay wagon at them.

Safely returned to camp in the Whispering Woods, the injured Sunder is happy to receive some healing ministrations from the lovely Mally. Removing his helmet at his new friend's suggestion, Sunder reveals a smiling, handsome face, and opines that he just might learn to like this new-fangled "freedom."

• Princess Adora: General Sunder was a man we all respected. He's a strong fighter. Once, he even stood up to Hordak on my behalf. An honorable man, and a good soldier. He will not be an easy man to fight.
• Horde soldier: Capture She-Ra? (groans) I knew this wasn't my day. / General Sunder: Get going, robot - or I'll have you dismantled!
• General Sunder (of Bow): He threw himself on my stun pistol to allow his friends to escape. / Horde soldier: What a fool! I'd never do that for anybody. / General Sunder: No, I don't suppose you would.
• Hordak: What?! You kept your word - to a rebel? / Sunder: You, I take it, would not have done so. / Hordak: Of course not! Promises were made to be broken. / Sunder: That is one of the differences between us.
• Sunder: The rebels are coming. Such a small force against all the might of the Horde. What is it that gives them this courage?
• Sunder: I have one question for you, She-Ra: what is it that gives you rebels your extraordinary courage and determination? / She-Ra: Because our struggle against the Evil Horde is an honest one. We have a cause. We are fighting for our freedom. / Sunder: I have never known this "freedom." Is it truly so important? / She-Ra: It is, Sunder; it's as precious as life itself. Without it, you become nothing more than one of these unfeeling, empty robots.

• She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off: After transforming
• General Sunder punches the viewer: Using He-Man's classic punching loop, the general emphatically signals his change of sides by slugging a Horde robot into bits

One full

13:29 - Today Loo-Kee is creeping around the Fright Zone. We see him peeking out from behind some discarded metal in a location establishing shot, a little to the right of center-screen. Loo-Kee is no stranger to dangerous places: he was hiding in the Fright Zone before, in 67014. And remember that time we caught him skulking around a golgotha (67042)?
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee, ever the optimist, tells us that "it's never too late to make a change for the better." Just like General Sunder finally choosing the rebellion over the Horde, we always have that "one last chance" to turn ourselves around. I'm tempted, in my usual contrary way, to provide a counter-example to prove Loo-Kee wrong; but this episode has me feeling too hopeful and inspired to go there, so we'll just let him have this one.

Changing hearts and minds: I guess you'd have to say She-Ra's conversion of Horde Prime's heir, Prince Zed, to the rebellion (67011) was her biggest coup of the series, at least in terms of high-profile turncoats. But her heartfelt, moving, and ultimately successful swaying of General Sunder to the cause of freedom has to be the most dramatic and impressive.
Love is in the air: Do I detect some longing looks between Mally and the rebel Sunder? Oh, yeah - I think I do.

• This will be Bob Forward's fifth script for POP, after he paired with Leslie Wilson to give us two of the more memorable MOTU scripts.
• Today's new character (and title ally) will be General Sunder, a Horde officer who looks as if he's been watching Earth movies about the Ancient Roman Empire. He's an "honorable" soldier that Adora remembers from her time as a force captain (see memorable lines for more details). These different Horde ranks make one wonder just how their military hierarchy works: does a general outrank a force captain, or vice versa?
• Yesterday (67052) Spirit was entirely omitted from the episode and we only saw Swift Wind, with Adora apparently transforming her horse along with herself in between scenes. Today we catch a glimpse of the unwinged horse, but only in the split-second before he's transformed, during the regular animation sequence. Swift Wind himself has no lines, and is only present for the mission to rescue Mally's parents.
• She-Ra refers to Glimmer by the previously unheard nickname "Glim," and for once actually enlists the Etherian princess in the battle against the Horde, giving the pink-haired rebel a chance to use her light-based powers. The last time Glimmer strutted her stuff was in 67024's "The Mines of Mondor;" before that, I have to go all the way back to 67021's "The Stone in the Sword" to find any other evidence of Glimmer using her powers. Even today, She-Ra stops her friend after Glimmer has thrown a meager handful of firework-like signals up in the air, saying, "Stay down; let me handle this."
• Swiss army sword: It's a "sword to shield" day, as She-Ra has to block the incoming fire of a pack of Horde soldiers. She uses the shield again for the same purpose late in the episode. Unusually, on both occasions She-Ra points her sword toward the screen as she commands it to change, giving us a foreshortened view of the blade.
• Bow's belittling comment, "They sure don't make troopers the way they used to," eerily echoes Shadow Weaver's frustration with her own men in 67049's "For Want of a Horse" (also a Bob Forward script). Weaver said "they just don't make robots the way they used to."
• Mantenna gets off only one line of dialogue today (inanely pointing out that Hordak is as unreasonable as his taxes) before taking his usual ride through Hordak's throne room trapdoor. Oh, Mantenna! (If you don't already know by now, just do a search in the lore for "trapdoor" and you'll discover how much Hordak resorts to this form of punishment - and how often Mantenna is the brunt of it.)
• General Sunder stares down Hordak in a completely bad-ass contest of wills, to avoid taking his own dunking; but soon afterward, Grizzlor ends up as the second trapdoor victim of the day after foolishly pointing out Hordak's fear of the general.
• The ring-of-fangs mechanism on She-Ra's cell door is one we've seen before, but only on cells in Beast Island (see 67002, 67014). Seeing it in a Fright Zone prison door marks yet another stage in the evolution of Hordak's detention cells.
• Bow shows off some of his varied armaments during the Fright Zone break-in: first a grappling hook arrow, then a blunt-nosed arrow that bears some resemblance to Green Arrow's infamous boxing glove arrow. He then tosses what he calls a "blast arrow" to Glimmer - though, since it's literally just a tiny ball with no shaft or feathers, you have to wonder whether there was some miscommunication here between the writer and animators! Just before he throws the ball to Glimmer, there's a slight suggestion on the edge of the screen that Bow is, in fact, removing it from an arrow, so I'm probably wrong here.
• Speaking of Glimmer: she seems to be having an on-again, off-again position with the rebellion today. I complained in the commentary below about her cavalier treatment by Bow in an earlier scene, and I noted her indifferent treatment by She-Ra above; but in the She-Ra rescue mission it's Glimmer who's tasked with actually infiltrating the Fright Zone. She also uses her powers again (albeit ineffectually) in an attempt to break She-Ra's power chains.
• Hordak transformations: He doesn't actually seem to change his body at all today, but when the Horde commander makes his impressive entrance near the conclusion of the story, it's via a pair of thrusters shooting out of the soles of his feet. We saw Hordak do something similar in 67031.
• Haven't gotten enough of the heroic, handsome general? Good news! He'll return in 67067's aptly named "Return of the General."

• It's been 50+ episodes now, and ex-force captain Adora is pretty firmly seated as the leader of the Great Rebellion, so it's unlikely that her loyalty would be questioned at this point. Still, you have to wonder what the other rebels are thinking during the princess's glowing speech in praise of Horde general, Sunder! Why do you love the enemy so much, Adora, hmmmm?
• I really appreciate how Forward is able to depict Sunder as a military genius, when he analyzes She-Ra and Glimmer's attack and realizes it's only a distraction. There's also some careful subtlety in Sunder's early "forgetfulness" in not locking Mally's cell.
• Animation error: When Bow and Mally are sneaking into the Horde camp, there's a tent behind them. Through the opening in the tent we can see nothing but grass, where we should be seeing the fabric on the inside.
• After her very brief moment of vaguely assisting the rebellion during the earlier battle, Glimmer goes right back to being a doormat. She argues to Bow that the young and inexperienced Mally shouldn't get involved in the rescue of She-Ra; but Bow coldly overrides the pink-haired princess, stating that Mally is a rebel now. He then begins spelling out their plan of attack. Oh, so is it "General" Bow then? Just who gives the orders in Adora/She-Ra's absence? Apparently not the girl who was supposed to be the leader of the rebellion in 67001 (yes, I'm still sore about that).
• Speaking of that absence... is no one wondering what became of Princess Adora, the current leader of the Great Rebellion? No? OK, well I guess She-Ra's secret identity is safe once again!
• Continuity error: A very slight one. Bow shoots a line up to a high window so Glimmer can enter the Fright Zone fortress. The line is supposed to be in place for the entire rescue, but in the closeup shots of Glimmer in the window, it cannot be seen.
• Glimmer is very lucky that she caught that blast arrow Bow threw at her. Imagine the disastrous result if she'd fumbled it and exploded herself! That could have ended the rebellion right then and there. It might have been more prudent if Bow had given the thing to her before she got on the tightrope - does she have pockets?
• Wow! I questioned Adora's loyalties before when she was praising the guy, but having watched the whole episode, how can you not love the awesome General Sunder? What a fantastic and fantastically nuanced character. I particularly loved the scene where Sunder is explaining to a Horde trooper how Bow threw himself on Sunder's weapon to save his friends (quoted in the memorable lines). The robot declares Bow to be a fool, commenting, "I'd never do that for anybody." "No," Sunder replies with just the perfect amount of restrained distaste, "I don't suppose you would." The dialogue does an amazingly delicate job in these moments of showing without telling - a delicacy rarely achieved in the episodes of MOTU.
• With this episode and the earlier 67029's "The Price of Freedom," Bob Forward has firmly established himself as one of the most sophisticated and emotionally mature writers in the series. (He also wrote what I called at the time the "funniest episode" of the series, in 67049's "For Want of a Horse.") Bravo, sir. I'm only worried that now that we've given the rebellion this amazing military leader, we're never going to see him again. At least Sunder didn't pull a Grandpa Miro (or Daddy Micah) and just ditch everybody at the end! (As noted in the lore section, we will see Sunder again; though as it turns out, you could accuse him of a species of ditching. See 67067.)