Book Burning

Adora and Bow visit a school in the Northland village to tell the children the truth about the Horde, and a boy named Cory calls it a lie. Horde officials arrive, announce that only official Horde books may be taught and that all others will be burned, and Adora and Bow escape by a trapeze and a seesaw. Hordak takes over the village, names Tung as the new teacher and Rattlor as the officer collecting the books, and enlists Cory as a spy. Cory reports that the teacher Serena has a forbidden book, she is arrested, and the books are burned in the square, although She-Ra gets Serena out of her cell. When the Horde loads the children onto a transport, Cory tries to save his sister, is told the Horde used him and no longer needs him, and changes sides, but Adora is captured. Cory slips her the sword, She-Ra leads the transport into a dead end and puts out Hordak's fires with water that also rusts the troopers, and the villagers are set to haul the Hordesmen and Hordak to the edge of the Fright Zone.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! It's me, Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding? If not, take another look. See me here? Here I am. You know, sometimes we don't appreciate things until they're taken away from us. Take books, for instance. It would be terrible if they were taken away. Being free to read anything we wish is a right we must never lose. Bye, now! See you next time."

Adora: "I used to believe their lies too."

Cory: "They laughed at me. They lied."

Cory: "Because I'm the one who told them."

What do you do about a boy who calls the truth a lie? Book Burning is an issue episode and says so in its title, and the argument is clear before the first scene ends, when Cory announces "That's not true!" while Adora tells his class that Etheria was peaceful before the Horde came. The episode's claim is that a lie needs a reader who cannot check it, and Cory, who admits at the end that he was not good at reading, is the boy who falls for it.

The classroom opening sets the terms. Adora and Bow, in yellow hoods, visit Serena's school to talk about the Horde and the Rebellion, and Adora offers the one credential nobody else in the room has: she used to believe the same things, because she was one of them. The Horde officials who turn up do not argue the point. They declare that only official Horde books will be taught and that the rest are "only good for one thing," and a laser burns a book on the floor. Adora and Bow leave by a trapeze and a seesaw with a Horde creature on one end, a cheerful way to quit a room where the villains have just announced a book burning.

Hordak's takeover works as a recruitment drive. He names Tung the new teacher and Rattlor his lieutenant for the book collection, and he turns to Cory, who was late to class and scolded for it, and offers him a job as a spy with a transmitter. The boy says "You bet!" He has just cheered for the Horde, and Hordak calls him a good boy. It is an efficient piece of villainy.

The standout is the classroom stand-up. Tung tells the children that the rebels are criminals, bandits, thieves and robbers, one child says that is not true, and Tung demands that whoever said it stand up. A child says "I said it," then other voices claim it too. No one in the scene is clever and nobody has a weapon. It works because the children are doing the only thing a class can do, and Tung's answer is to threaten them with school in the Fright Zone.

Cory's turn is the weak spot. When the Horde loads the children onto a transport, Cory tries to stop them taking his sister, announces that he is a member of the Horde, and is laughed at; "We used you, boy" is the line that ends his career as a spy. The scene is cruel and well staged, but notice what changes his mind: it is being humiliated, not reading anything. With Serena's hand on his shoulder he hears that the Horde does not care about people and the rebels do. That is all the persuading he gets. The moral points at books and the plot turns on an insult. Nobody hands Cory a page that answers the Horde's claim that it was invited; the nearest the ending comes is an offer of help with his reading.

The ending tidies everything quickly: the transport is led into a dead end, Hordak threatens to burn the village, and She-Ra answers with a river's worth of water, a rain that leaves the troopers rusted and Tung roped up and, as she puts it, tongue-tied. Cory apologises to his teacher, and the villagers plan to haul the Hordesmen and Hordak to the edge of the Fright Zone. It is a blunt episode, and Loo-Kee's closing line about the right to read what we wish is as blunt as the rest. The best of it is the classroom, and the cruellest moment is the Horde's own admission that it used a child and was finished with him.

1. Continuity: Adora tells the class she was a member of the Horde until she found out what it was like, and she sends Hordak a greeting from "ex-Force Captain Adora"; the break she refers to is the story of Into Etheria.
2. Continuity: Adora waits beside Spirit before she raises the sword, and after the transformation it is Swift Wind who is flying with a rope tied at the window of Serena's cell.
3. Continuity: Someone speaking for the Horde says a week in the Fright Zone will make the children believe any lies the Horde tells them.