More Things in Heaven and Eternia

A champion from a conquered world challenges Hordak to single combat, and Hordak explains that he never does his own fighting; he hires well. Mistress Motherboard reports that the Keldor deception has reached stage three, with Skeletor crowned King of Eternos in his Gar disguise, and tells her gloating acolyte the story worked because it was woven from truth. When she squeezes his mind, a hologram of the crowned Keldor appears and tells Skeletor he really is Keldor. Evil-Lyn provokes Teela about He-Man to help her harness the Staff of Ka. At the palace, Adam tells the false king his sword is out for repairs, and Adam and Man-At-Arms go to the locksmith Gwildor, who is asked to adapt the Sword of Power against the virus. He-Man asks Andra to stay behind for a backup plan, and the false king recruits her for a technological defense. Grayskull is attacked, Adam's connection to the Power is blocked, and the episode ends on an accusation that Keldor sold out his family.

Hordak: "I never do my own fighting. I hire well."

Skeletor: "I played the part of Keldor, Motherboard played me, and we played all of Eternia for suckers."

Motherboard: "But your weaponized words were woven from the tapestry of truth."

Evil-Lyn: "You control your passions. They don't control you."

Gwildor: "Magic is only used by people who are short on technical ability. And I mean really short."

Andra: "I don't want to do the backup plan. I want to do the plan-plan, He-Man!"

Motherboard states the argument of this episode in its second scene. Skeletor, crowned King of Eternos in his Gar disguise, gloats that he played the part of Keldor, Motherboard played him, and the two of them played all of Eternia for suckers. She answers that his words "were woven from the tapestry of truth", because Keldor's banishment was the royals' deepest, darkest family secret. Diya Mishra's script then shows the Keldor story coming true for Skeletor.

Skeletor is the first case. He mocks the royals for falling for the story, then asks "You mean Keldor was a real person?" He says he was only surprised, and Motherboard tells him that if he embarrasses her again she will take his head. Later, after she squeezes his mind, a glitching blue hologram of a fur-cloaked, crowned man flickers in the chamber and tells him he is really Keldor, and Skeletor shouts "Get out of my head!" He wore Keldor's face as a disguise and is now told it was his own. The animators give him a glitching hood and one red eye lit.

Evil-Lyn's lesson on the Staff of Ka takes place in a snowy mountain ruin. She says cruel things about Teela and He-Man until Teela's feelings break through. When Teela protests that none of it is true, Evil-Lyn asks whether she could get all of that out of her "if I wasn't tapping directly into your very real, very human emotions." The best scene comes later, with the two of them sitting in the snow, the golden staff lying beside them. The talk turns to Randor, and what would have been heaven for him: "Seeing his only son in your arms."

Horde spaces are blue-lit chambers of curved pillars and hexagon-patterned ramps, the palace is ivy-draped balconies and sunny terraces, and Gwildor works in a cluttered workshop behind a small arched door in a rock wall. Man-At-Arms calls him an old friend, and the party asks him to calibrate the Sword of Power against Motherboard's virus. Gwildor says "I deal in spindles, not spells" and warns that one errant sound could make the result catastrophic, but he agrees to try.

The weak spot is how little the palace side questions. Adam tells the false king the sword has gone out for repairs, hears "I hear you broke it before", and nobody presses it further. The false king then talks down magic and the Power of Grayskull and proposes a technological defense with Andra, using the samples collected from the SkeleTek attack. He-Man has already asked Andra to stay at the palace and handle the backup plan, and she says she wants to do the plan-plan. The Horde line was that as goes the Champion, so goes Grayskull.

Grayskull is attacked, a telepathic link to He-Man is interfered with, and the Power is fine but something is blocking it. Someone declares he has proven technology the master of the universe. Near the end comes an accusation aimed at Keldor: he was your brother, and you sold out your family.

1. Homage: Gwildor's line "Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is Arthur C. Clarke's third law, which Wikipedia says Clarke published in a 1968 letter to Science magazine. Gwildor adds that it "doesn't mean it is magic," which suits an inventor who says he deals in spindles, not spells.
2. Continuity: Gwildor of Thenur comes from the 1987 live-action film, where Billy Barty played him as the inventor of the Cosmic Key. Wikipedia says the film used him because Orko was too complex to produce in live action, and in this episode Orko tags along to see him.
3. Voice cast: Gwildor is voiced by Ted Biaselli, who Cora Buhlert's review of the Revolution Prequel comic describes as an executive producer and co-creator of Revelation and Revolution. Biaselli also co-wrote that prequel comic with Rob David.
4. Continuity: Evil-Lyn says Ka was the god of carnal desires, and the He-Man wiki lists Ka as the god of change, living experience, passions and desire. The same wiki says Ka, Zoar and Ha'Vok created Eternia and the afterlife of Preternia.
5. Continuity: Gwildor says he is an atheist when Duncan mentions Zoar, and Cora Buhlert's review of the prequel comic also notes that Gwildor does not believe in the Eternian gods.