Roboto's Gambit

Roboto, a chess-playing robot built by Man-At-Arms, beats Man-E-Faces with a move he calls the Roboto Gambit. Tri-Klops unleashes an army of small skeleton warriors that multiply each time one is destroyed, and after Skeletor scoffs, he sets out to take the palace for himself. With the Masters away on patrol, Teela leads the defense and twice turns Roboto away, calling him a game player, not a warrior. Roboto upgrades himself, works out that Tri-Klops is controlling the army, and is shut down drawing fire so He-Man can reach him. Teela admits she was too rigid, and Man-At-Arms restores Roboto.

"It's important to be flexible in mind as well as body. The common way of doing things isn't always the only way. A flexible mind is creative and open to new ideas."

Roboto: "Thank you. I call it the Roboto Gambit."

Sy-Klone: "Remember, the reed bends before the wind, while the brittle branch snaps in two."

Prince Adam: "These must be the baby cousins."

Prince Adam: "A few. Unfortunately, they all depend on us being somewhere else."

Roboto: "And now, I am a warrior."

Skeletor: "Oh, really? Well, in that case, you're free to go... if you can reach the door."

In Teela's book, a warrior is something you are built to be. Roboto's Gambit opens on a game board instead of a battlefield. Roboto beats Man-E-Faces at a chess-like game of emperors, paladins and spires, and names his winning move "the Roboto Gambit." Over in Skeletor's lair, Tri-Klops unveils a pint-sized skeleton warrior that splits into two whenever it is destroyed, and Skeletor sneers that he has built "a weapon that not only fails, but multiplies its own failures." Tri-Klops swears he will prove it works, and before long he is wondering aloud who needs Skeletor once the palace is taken.

Meanwhile Teela is sparring with Adam and losing, and Sy-Klone offers her a proverb about the reed that bends before the wind and the brittle branch that snaps. She brushes it off. Then the bone army arrives, the Masters are out on patrol, and Roboto volunteers for duty and is turned away: "You're a game player, not a warrior." The episode is about who gets to call himself a warrior, and it lets the chess player prove Teela's definition too narrow.

Michael Reaves wires that theme through most of the episode, and the best thing about the script is that the chess win turns out to be the plan. Roboto scans the battle, concludes that the enemy is "increasing exponentially" and that "direct opposition is not an option," and spots Tri-Klops behind a hill with a controller. A board full of pieces is never cleared one piece at a time; the way through is the player moving them. He calls it the Roboto Gambit, the same name he gave his winning strategy, and the payoff lands because the episode set it up in its first two minutes.

The standout scene is Roboto alone after Teela sends him away. He plays her words back to himself on a recording, "You're a game player, not a warrior," and rebuilds himself to answer them. The scene ends on his quiet verdict: "And now, I am a warrior." Michael Donovan plays him clipped and polite throughout, and that politeness makes the insult sting harder. His dry "I failed to see the logic in your position" gets a laugh without making him a joke.

The animation sells the threat by scale. The bone soldiers start as a pair of brutes on a desert ridge and end as a grey stain spreading across a canyon floor, watched by Tri-Klops on a targeting viewscreen. We even get Battle Cat buried under a swarm of them, and for a moment the big cat is in real trouble. Sy-Klone's whirlwinds, all blue streaks over the sand, give the fight a second texture. Tri-Klops gets a good villain's arc in miniature, from sulking failure to crowing "Nothing can stop me!" to a sharp final scene with Skeletor, who tells him he is free to go "if you can reach the door."

The weakness is the ending. Roboto draws the enemy's fire while He-Man closes in on Tri-Klops, says "It's been a privilege to serve," and shuts down. Teela delivers a real apology for being "too rigid, too narrow-minded in my definition of a warrior." Then Man-At-Arms brings him back "fully upgraded and back online," and he is off to a rematch with Man-E-Robot. A brand-new character was never going to stay dead, and the show was right to keep him, but the speed of the repair takes the weight off Teela's guilt before it can cost her anything.

Even so, this is one of the stronger ensemble episodes of the first season, and a confident first outing for a character the show would lean on as its combat analyst. Teela gets an arc, Sy-Klone gets a role among the Masters he met in The Mystery of Anwat Gar, and the theme holds from the first chess move to the last. delete, ending on 'and the theme holds from the first chess move to the last.'

1. Production: The He-Man wiki lists this as Roboto's first appearance in the 2002 series; later episodes use him as the Masters' combat analyst.
2. Fan observation: The game's pieces are called emperor, empress, paladin, cleric, spire and guard. The He-Man wiki reads them as king, queen, knight, bishop, rook and pawn.
3. Homage: The He-Man wiki points out that the 1983 Filmation series had its own chess game played with strange monster pieces; this one keeps much closer to the real board.
4. Voice cast: Per the He-Man wiki, Paul Dobson voices both Man-E-Faces and Tri-Klops, so Roboto's chess opponent and the episode's villain share an actor.
5. Fan observation: Michael Donovan voices Roboto. The He-Man wiki notes Roboto gets a lighter, softer voice and a less confident manner in The Sweet Smell of Victory and Separation, which some fans compared to Michael Jackson, before season 2 restores the original.
6. Continuity: Skeletor's jab about Tri-Klops's "giant warrior" and the line calling the new creatures "junior versions" point back to The Courage of Adam, where Skeletor orders Tri-Klops to build "the ultimate weapon" and, per the He-Man wiki, a tank turns into a giant skeleton creature.
7. Continuity: Roboto and Sy-Klone fight on the same side here, and are paired again in Separation, are paired again in Separation, where Roboto keeps Sy-Klone company on the search for his family.