A Loss for Words

In the village of Gailbreth, Vesser urges the villagers to band together against the Horde, and Imp listens in and reports to Hordak. Shadow Weaver tests a new spell on Mantenna, trapping his voice in a bubble, and Hordak decides to do the same to the villagers and to catch the main voice of the rebels, whom Hordak names as Adora. Scorpia and a squad of troopers ambush Adora and Bow in the woods, but She-Ra clears them away, and Shadow Weaver then goes to Gailbreth and bottles every voice in the inn, Adora's among them. Adora and Bow escape with a smoke arrow and follow the voices to the Fright Zone, where Imp, disguised as the box that holds the bubbles, is caught. Adora finds her own voice, becomes She-Ra, and with Bow's trick arrows leaves Hordak and Shadow Weaver in a tangle of Fright Zone machinery. The voices are returned to Gailbreth, the villagers cheer the Rebellion, and Loo-Kee closes with a few words on freedom of speech.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, here's your friend Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding? Take another look. Here I am! You know, She-Ra and her friends fight for freedom because it's very important. One of the freedoms they fight for is called freedom of speech. It means that you have the right to talk about anything you wish. Ask your parents or teacher to tell you more about freedom of speech. It's important. Bye now. See ya next time."

Shadow Weaver: "Come, darkness. Come, trouble. Put each voice into a bubble!"

Hordak: "I don't want her voice. I want Adora."

Adora: "At last, I can speak!"

What do you take from a rebellion that runs on talk? A Loss for Words gives the neatest answer the Horde ever comes up with: you bottle the talk. The episode opens in the village of Gailbreth, where Vesser tells Therin that the people have to band together all over Etheria, and Therin answers that they are simple peasants and farmers and "no match for their science." Hordak, who has been listening in through Imp, hears the same speech and says aloud that he wishes he could silence the people giving it.

Shadow Weaver has the very thing, and she demonstrates it on Mantenna, who is told to just talk and has no idea what to say. The spell pulls his voice out into a bubble while he mouths words, and Shadow Weaver asks him to speak louder because she cannot hear him. It is a nasty little scene played for a laugh at Mantenna's expense, and it makes the threat concrete: the Horde's answer to a speech is to take the speaker's voice. Hordak approves, and Shadow Weaver suggests he might even capture "the main voice of the rebels", and Hordak supplies the name himself: Adora.

Here is what the episode is about: silence is the Horde's best weapon against a rebellion that runs on talk, and for Adora it is also the lock on her transformation. She is on the road to Gailbreth because the villagers want to hear her speak. She is told she is the leader of the Rebellion, and she says nobody has ever asked her to speak before. Scorpia and a squad of troopers ambush the party in the woods, She-Ra clears them out of the way, and Shadow Weaver decides to go to the village herself. At the inn she bottles every voice in the room, Adora's included, and the cost is spelled out at once: without her voice Adora cannot change to She-Ra. A transformation that begins by saying a sentence aloud is exposed to exactly this spell.

The best scene is the one in the Fright Zone where Adora has to find her own voice in a box full of them. Imp, who has been the blue box all along, is caught and changes back to complain that he will tell Hordak. Adora asks how she is supposed to tell which voice is hers, and the bubbles she holds up include one that replays Therin's line about their science. Her answer is to begin the words that change her, "For the honor of...", and a bubble pops. "At last, I can speak!" she says, and finishes the call. The way to find a voice, the scene suggests, is to use it.

The weakness is what happens to the idea once the action reaches the Fright Zone. The voices become cargo, and the second half fills with business: Imp's smart mouth as the box, Bow's trick arrows, and a long squabble in which Hordak reminds Shadow Weaver that the Horde gave her her powers and can take them back. Some of it is funny. But nobody in Gailbreth speaks again until the last scene, and the resolution is simply that the voices come back, and then the villagers use theirs to cheer.

Loo-Kee's tag names the subject outright, freedom of speech, and sends children to a parent or teacher to learn more. Plain and sensible. The episode has set that up: a village that has not dared to speak, a leader who has never been asked to, and a last scene in which everyone cheers loudly enough that, as someone tells Adora, "I think even Hordak can hear them." It is noisy, silly and clear about its subject, and it shows Mantenna losing a voice before it shows the villagers losing theirs.

1. Continuity: Hordak tells Shadow Weaver she was "a second-rate sorceress from Mystacor" when he found her, and that the Horde gave her her powers and can take them back.
2. Continuity: Hordak says he should never rely on sorcery, "That's what I hated about Skeletor"; Skeletor turns up in person in Horde Prime Takes a Holiday, which aired the next day.
3. Continuity: Mantenna, the Horde's test subject for the voice spell, is back at Hordak's side in Horde Prime Takes a Holiday.