Larry DiTillio

Lou Kachivas

Ice Empress Frosta suspects that the rising tensions between her people and the selkies of Galacia, brought on by a poisonous black snowfall, have the sinister machinations of the Horde at their root. She-Ra can help!

She-Ra, Frosta, Swift Wind

Multi-Bot, Modulok, Hordak, Imp

various warriors (or "snow people," including Captain Bron), snow howlers, selkies (including West, Narwahl, Tilak, Sorn)

Weather Wheel, catapults

We dive right into the action today, zooming into Frosta's icy castle home, where the ice empress has summoned She-Ra for assistance with a mysterious problem. Through the screen of her viewing crystal, Frosta shows She-Ra the terrain of Galacia, home of her neighbors the selkies - it's covered in icky black snow! Frosta explains that the selkies (who are sort of humanoid seals) suspect her snow people of dropping the dark precipitation, which is having a negative effect on the crops and wildlife. A past history of conflict between the two territories has put their uneasy peace on a razor's edge. Both women suspect the Horde is to blame, but they need more info, so they set off on foot for a reconnaissance mission into Galacia.

They haven't walked far before they're set upon by a pack of angry snow howlers - white-maned wolf-like beasts driven mad by the black snow's sickness. She-Ra determines this last fact by use of her telepathic animal rapport, but she's not able to reason with the howlers enough to forestall their attack! Frosta drives off several of the animals using her ice powers, giving She-Ra enough time to heal her own attacker, who by good fortune proves to be the pack leader. Having come to his senses, the lead howler convinces the others to stop long enough for She-Ra to heal them.

Our heroines are no closer to discovering the source of this damaging snow; but thanks to the magic of dramatic irony, we're about to find out! For up in the sky, we see a floating craft, whose pilot is one multi-limbed and double-headed mechanical man named Multi-Bot. Detecting the presence of She-Ra and Frosta, Multi-Bot calls his boss, Horde scientist Modulok, to inform him. Modulok, situated elsewhere in a frozen cave, acknowledges the news. He's distracted from his call by a group of selkies, who are apparently hosting the Horde ne'er-do-well and allowing his poisoned propaganda to taint their opinions of the snow people. Modulok explains to the selkies that Frosta has come in person to check out her handiwork with the black snow. Yeah, right. Modulok promises to deliver Frosta into the selkies' hands and departs to meet up with his minion in the craft - called the Weather Wheel.

The villains use their vehicle to generate a blizzard and an amazingly precise whirlwind, which whisks Frosta away from her friend and drops her helpless before the band of angry selkies, who quickly take her prisoner. To deal with She-Ra, Modulok decides a personal touch is needed, and beams Multi-Bot down to the surface to get her. The robot's initial foray against our heroine has the advantage of surprise, when he transforms into a snow plow and dashes up behind her, burying her in snow. But a pile of snow won't stop She-Ra for long, and she busts out, ready to kick butt and take names. Like her viewing audience, She-Ra has never met Multi-Bot before, so we all discover together that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. Our heroine's banter with the transforming robot draws out all the details of the Horde plot: that Modulok, the robot's creator, is behind it, and that Modulok's Weather Wheel is utilizing the snow to sow the seeds of war. She-Ra then wipes the floor with the minion, leaving him wrecked in the snow after having (temporarily) relieved him of his heads.

She-Ra knows her next task will be to locate the Weather Wheel and take it out - a task best accomplished in the air. So she makes a psychic call to her steed Swift Wind, conveniently stationed nearby. Swifty arrives, but is incapacitated by another shower of poisonous black snow generated by Modulok, who overheard Multi-Bot's face-palm-worthy performance against She-Ra. A quick dose of She-Ra healing restores the horse, and the pair fly to the offensive. Making use of her sword of protection's metamorphic nature, She-Ra defeats the Wheel's lightning beams and whirlwind generator, then smashes her way inside to combat Modulok face to face. The scarlet scientist gives it his best shot, but he's no match for a lady with a laser-deflecting sword.

Back on the ground, Frosta has been facing her own difficulties. Brought back to the selkie headquarters by the party that captured her, Frosta meets their king Narwahl, who has been swayed by Modulok's accusations and the saber-rattling of younger selkie war hawks. Narwahl won't listen to Frosta's pleas of innocence, and orders his men to lock her up. He sends a messenger to the snow kingdom to deliver an ultimatum: stop with the snow or your empress stays our captive! The snow people, most of whom are just as rowdy and aggressive as the selkies without their empress around to counsel restraint (especially Captain Bron, the leader of her warriors), decide the time has come for war. The armies begin to mass and prepare for battle. Frosta, overhearing the news, decides enough is enough: using her truly awesome frost powers, she easily breaks out of her prison cell, trips up her pursuers, and rides a band of ice out of the selkie fortress, bound for the plains and the site where the armies are about to face off.

Dashing between the opposing forces, Frosta blocks off their confrontation with a giant wall of ice. At the same time, She-Ra swoops in with the commandeered Weather Wheel, and the armies realize the falling snow has returned to its normal pristine white. Together, our heroines explain what's been happening and convince the armies to stand down. Frosta even orders her side to provide food and aid to the selkies until the ill effects of the evil snow wear off. Whew! That was a close one. But what to do with these defeated Hordesmen, now tied up inside their naughty device? She-Ra has an idea: she tosses the whole thing back to the Fright Zone, where it lands right in the middle of Hordak's throne room. When Hordak's shoulder demon, Imp, wonders how such a thing could have happened, Hordak knows the answer: it starts with a "She" and ends with a "Ra."

Afterwards, Narwahl apologizes to Frosta for the almost war, and a complacent Frosta assures him there were mistakes on both sides. The two leaders agree to start a new era of peaceful friendship, then look on in admiration as She-Ra and Swift Wind, their job done, take to the skies.

• Frosta: We and the selkies were enemies for many years. We made a truce when the Horde came, but I fear there is still much mistrust between our kingdoms.
• Modulok: Are you ready to capture She-Ra, Multi-Bot? / Multi-Bot: I am ready. / Modulok (sounding very fatherly): Make sure you do a good job; I'll be watching.
• Multi-Bot: You don't seem to be cooperating. / She-Ra: Oh, you noticed that, did you? / Multi-Bot: I'm afraid I'll have to get a little more nasty.
• She-Ra (of Multi-Bot): This goofy robot couldn't have caused Frosta's disappearance. But I bet he knows who did.
• Narwahl: You hear the voice of my people. / Frosta: I hear young hotheads spouting old hatreds - a typical beginning for the horrors of war.
• Imp (of Modulok and Multi-Bot, who've just arrived tied up in the wreckage of the Weather Wheel): What happened to them, Chief? / Hordak: What else? She-Ra!
• Narwahl: I almost made a dreadful mistake. Please forgive me, Frosta. / Frosta: We were all to blame, Narwahl. The best thing we can do is forget the hates of the past and start fresh, as friends.

N/A

Zero (!)
This is the second episode in a row (by my sequencing) to feature no She-Ra transformation sequence, and the seventh overall. In the previous episode (67034), Adora and She-Ra were both featured, with the transformation simply occurring off-screen. Here, as in 67029's "The Price of Freedom," Princess Adora is completely omitted.

13:10 - Loo-Kee was not ready for his close-up! He's closer to the camera than he's ever been before, but he's facing directly away from it. The left side of the back of his head can be seen taking up a good portion of the right side of the screen, as Loo-Kee joins us in watching Swift Wind telepathically chat with his mistress.
Did I spot him? YES!

Exhibiting a distinct trend with his lesson-picking, Loo-Kee again skirts the heavier themes of today's plot, ignoring the issues of conflict and compromise raised by the snow people and selkies in favor of the more relatable - and much less distressing - issue of minor illness. The snow howlers of Galacia got sick, just like you, the viewers, can sometimes catch cold; but you can prevent sickness by dressing warmly and eating healthy! I don't think that would have helped the howlers, though.

N/A: Hordak sneaks in at the end, so I can't tag this as a Hordak-less episode; and though some hearts and minds are changed today, it's not in a way that I feel warrants the category of "Changing hearts and minds," since no one joins the rebellion.

• Per the sequencing on my DVD set, this is the third consecutive episode to be written by Filmation veteran Larry DiTillio, who will contribute the greatest number of MOTU and POP scripts to both series. All of Larry's POP scripts will show up in this first season, a thick chunk of them coming in the second half.
• This is another episode whose coding puts it out of place with the surrounding episodes. The code that would logically come here, 67035, was already positioned at episode 18 on my DVD set. (See my later ruminations on this point.)
• We've been seeing Frosta since the very first opening of the very first episode (67001), where she appeared and has consistently continued to appear in the introductory line-up of rebels; and she had her longest previous in-episode role as long ago as 67006, where we saw her speak a few lines before departing the Whispering Woods after a sleepover with Adora. This will be the first episode in which she plays a major part in the story, and our first time visiting the seat of her Snow Kingdom at Castle Chill. (I'm using the name of her castle as mentioned in 67006, though it's not referenced here.)
• I'd been assuming that Frosta was a princess (perhaps influenced by the Netflix reboot series, Princesses of Power), or at best a queen, like Angella; but we hear her warriors refer to her as "Empress" - a very impressive title!
• Frosta's warriors don't follow her blue color scheme, instead opting for warmer earth tones and lots of winged helmets, like the classic depiction of Vikings and/or valkyries. The Empress's Captain Bron, with just a few tweaks, could be wearing He-Man's furry loincloth and harness armor.
• Today's title precipitation has fallen in Galacia, "land of the selkies" (as Frosta describes it). The selkie is a "real" mythological creature from Earth, said to be capable of shapeshifting between human and seal forms. Galacia's selkies seem to inhabit permanently seal-like humanoid bodies. Following the cultural appropriations of Frosta's warriors, the legend of the selkie comes to us from Norse mythology.
• Frosta's people and the selkies have a history of conflict, as Frosta explains to She-Ra (and as I've quoted in the memorable lines).
• She-Ra makes use of both her animal communication and healing powers in short succession against the sickened snow howlers (a wolf-like creature not dissimilar to a Siberian husky). She-Ra hasn't even mentioned her animal-talking talent since 67025, and hasn't used it since 67023. The last time she healed a creature was likely as long ago as 67014's "Friendship," when her healing of an injured tyrosaur proved integral to the plot.
• This episode gives us an exciting debut appearance, the first one of those we've had in a while, with Multi-Bot. He doesn't look much like his toy, a Modulok-inspired figure with replaceable and customizable parts which wasn't actually produced until Mattel's Wave 6 (1986). But, like that toy, he is a two-headed, many-limbed robot. When She-Ra meets him, she clearly doesn't know who he is and needs to be introduced - a rare instance of internal chronology rearing its head in the series, which is likely part of the reason for the sequencing of this episode (see more on that in the next point). Multi-Bot lets slip the biographical detail that the scientist Modulok is his creator. We'll see this character again briefly in the Christmas Special.
• Once again it seems our disruption of production code sequence coincides with the appearance of Modulok. As I noted in the lore section of 67035, this scarlet scapegrace has starred in almost every Filmation episode, MOTU and POP, with an unusual/unexpected position with respect to its episode code, starting at the swapping of MU123 and MU113. This latter swapping was apparently for the purposes of ensuring Modulok's origin story in MU123 came before his already-transformed appearance in MU113. Similarly, it seems the pushing forward of 67035 to POP's S1:E18 was so that we could see Modulok switching sides to the Horde before he appears as "Horde cook" in 67042.
• The toy Multi-Bot could have his limbs, heads, and torsos rearranged into various positions, thanks to an ingenious system of interlocking male and female connectors. The animated Multi-Bot instead has full-body transformative powers similar to those of the animated Hordak and Imp (or, dare I say it, certain Autobots and Decepticons). We first realize this when he turns himself into a two-headed snow plow to bury our blonde heroine. He subsequently turns his arms and hands into various tools, and one of his heads into a laser gun (!).
• For the first time, She-Ra demonstrates that she can communicate with Swift Wind telepathically over long distances. It's her normal animal communication talent amped up to another level - and it's a late appearance in the story for old Swifty, who doesn't show until the fourteenth minute of today's episode.
• She-Ra pulls another big-time boomerang move with the sword of protection, a larger-scale version of the trick she pulled in 67019 and 67033, which this time knocks out Modulok's lightning beam.
• Swiss army sword: Inventing another new form for her sword, She-Ra today turns it into a big horseshoe magnet attached to a line. It's good for breakin' Weather Wheels. Hordak changed his arm into a horseshoe magnet in 67015. She-Ra herself will make her sword into a horseshoe magnet again in 67069.
• We're reminded that Modulok has his own transformative powers in the late stages of today's story, when he changes one arm into a laser cannon. We saw him change both hands into mallets during his days of evildoing in Eternia (MU113).
• I thought Swift Wind was late showing up in this episode, but not as late as Hordak and Imp! The Horde leader and his spy get an amusing little cameo in the final minute of today's story.
• This story follows in the strong tradition of preventing wars begun by He-Man and crew: see MU080 or MU114, for instance.

• In the scene where She-Ra has made friends with the pack leader of the snow howlers, she gently strokes his head - in the wrong direction. That will just make his fur stick up and annoy him again, She-Ra!
• I'd like to take a moment to talk about Adora and her transformation sequence. As you'll see by the She-Ra transformations section, we have now reached a very high total (comparative to MOTU) of seven episodes where we never see Adora change into She-Ra. There have also been two episodes that have not featured Adora at all. This is a telling fact which suggests that the dual nature of this heroine matters much less to our Filmation writers than that of Adam/He-Man. Think about it: even though he looked pretty much indistinguishable from his alter ego apart from the lack of a spray tan, Adam had many character qualities that put him in stark contrast with He-Man. He was a bumbling, fun-loving, carefree clod, a sort of Clark Kent who enjoyed naps. To be fair, there were a few episodes where the prince suggested many of these character traits were put on to deflect people from suspecting his secret identity; but this was inconsistently addressed. He-Man was a responsible, self-sacrificing hero, a far cry from his royal self. There were also (as I've mentioned elsewhere in this database - see the commentary section in 67012) many more situations in which Adam found it necessary to hide his secret identity, or had that secret put into danger (just as one for instance, see MU056). Adora, on the other hand, has experienced very little difficulty in that regard up to this point, most often just stepping a few paces away to raise her sword, with She-Ra hardly ever questioned as to the whereabouts of the missing princess, and any of those questions easily brushed aside with a simple "She's safe." Adora, too - and unlike Adam - shares many idealistic and heroic qualities with her alter ego: it is she, not She-Ra, who is billed as the leader of the Great Rebellion; she, not She-Ra, who is most often the object of Hordak's obsessions; and she, not She-Ra, whose inspiring words are so dangerous to the continued rule of the Horde (67017). It almost seems like the only reason that the writers bother to keep the Adora/She-Ra dichotomy going is because it worked so well in MOTU - in practice it's proved entirely superfluous to the storylines.
• Frosta is here voiced by Erika Scheimer, daughter of Filmation executive producer Lou Scheimer. At the time of MOTU and POP, Erika was a fairly young voice actor whose past performances I've had occasion to criticize (see for instance MU067). Perhaps by this time, with a couple of years of voicing random incidental characters under her belt, Erika had garnered some valuable experience; anyway, to my ears her work as Frosta is more nuanced and on-target than it has been previously.
• Perhaps a rather obvious ploy to use with a limb-swappable robot (something we've seen C-3PO pull a few times in Star Wars), but I did enjoy the goofy scene where Multi-Bot loses his heads and they have to whistle his body over for a very error-prone reinstallation. A writer might as well take advantage of these dismemberment opportunities when he has them!
• She-Ra's feat of summoning her winged horse is somewhat undermined when Swift Wind sickens from black snow and plummets to the ground as soon as he arrives, necessitating another use of our heroine's healing powers. Maybe you didn't think this through, eh, She-Ra?
• If you've watched your MCU films, you probably remember the scene in Avengers: Infinity War when Danai Gurira's General Okoye pointedly asks her fellow heroes "Why was she up there all this time?!" when she finally gets a look at the powers of the Scarlet Witch. That was similar to my reaction when witnessing Frosta's very impressive jailbreak scene. Why have we waited this long to show off such an impressive character? This lady is a bad ass! Plus I love that she rides a band of ice just like Bobby (AKA Iceman) in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981-1983).
• In this third of his sequential string of scripts, Mr. DiTillio has far outdistanced his disappointing performance in 67033. This was a great adventure story with some entertainingly comical villains and imaginative, exciting action. I particularly liked the way the plot was deftly divided between Frosta's attempts to prevent war and She-Ra's attempts to get to the bottom of the insidious black snow. I don't think I can quite call it a landmark episode, but this was certainly a good one!