Duel at Devlan

Horde Troopers and a hulking robot named Dylamug take over an inn in Devlan, force a neighbour to dance and put a pie in the innkeeper Darius's face, while his daughter Kristala is told to learn respect. Kristala sets out to find the Rebellion, is nearly run down by a Horde Auto-Reaper in a wheat field, and is saved by She-Ra, who flies her to the camp on Swift Wind. There She-Ra says the Rebellion will not fight for Kristala's village, because villages like hers have to learn to stand up to the Horde themselves, asks that Bow and the others be told when they return, and takes the girl home alone. In Devlan the Horde has frozen Darius and ordered the villagers to pile their valuables in the square; She-Ra frees him but cannot talk the frightened villagers into joining her. She takes on the troopers alone while the villagers watch from the inn, and when she is struck down they finally charge and the Hordesmen flee. Bow and Glimmer arrive after the fight is over, and Loo-Kee closes with a warning about bullies.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! It's me again, Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding today? If not, take another look. Here I am. In today's adventure, Dylamug acted like a bully. You know, a person who tries to make other people afraid of him. It's no fun being picked on by a bully. If someone bothers you, don't ever be afraid to tell your parents or some older person. Bye, now! See you next time!"

She-Ra: "As long as you give in to the Horde, you will never be free."

She-Ra: "Then it's an even bigger challenge. And I love a challenge."

Madame Razz: "Perhaps a lot of little ones would've been batter... I mean better."

Why would She-Ra turn down a free army? Duel at Devlan hangs on that refusal. Kristala, who has been trying to reach the Rebellion for help against the Hordesmen bullying her village, is carried to the camp on Swift Wind, the people there are ready to pitch in, and She-Ra says no. If the rebellion is to grow, she tells them, villages like Kristala's have to learn to stand up to the Horde themselves. She will take the girl home alone, leave word for Bow and the others, and try to talk Devlan into helping itself.

The opening night at the inn is bullying as a pastime. Horde Troopers and a hulking robot take over the room, make a neighbour in a nightshirt dance on a table, and answer the innkeeper Darius's polite request to leave with a pie in his face. Kristala shouts at them, is told she needs a lesson in respecting her elders, and is told to go back to her room. Nobody in this village is stupid. They are practised at giving way, and Darius himself tells the troopers to finish eating and go, and not to worry about paying. Later the Horde freezes him where he stands when he snaps at them about his missing daughter, and the robot, now named as Dylamug, orders the square to bring out its valuables.

Here is what the episode is about: courage in Devlan has to be caught from somebody, and She-Ra's job is to be that somebody without becoming the village's army. She makes the case in the square. When a villager frets that the Hordesmen will make slaves of them if they find a rebel in town, she answers, "It seems to me that you're already slaves." A villager objects that even a win today means more Hordesmen tomorrow, and she promises they will be ready for those too. They still refuse. A man offers to stand with her and she turns him down, sending him inside to rest with his wife and daughter, because she has to stand alone to show the others that the Horde can be beaten.

The fight in the square is where the staging argues the point. A Horde voice tells her the villagers will not lift a finger and that she is all alone, and her reply is the best line in the episode: "And I love a challenge." She takes on the troopers, at one point hoisting a trooper overhead beside a barrel, while Kristala and the villagers peer over the inn's swinging doors. They begin as an audience. One calls her wonderful and a lot better than any of them; another says they should all be ashamed. Then someone shouts a warning, She-Ra goes down, Kristala kneels over her, and a villager says, "We can't let her fight our battles." He asks who is with him. The fall does what her speeches could not.

The weak point is how cheaply the turn is bought. The villagers charge in a burst of overlapping shouting, and the next thing we hear is a voice calling out that the Hordesmen are running away. We hear the charge and then the rout, but no blow from a villager, so the claim that they won their self-respect back for themselves rests on She-Ra saying so. Bow and Glimmer then turn up ready for action and have to ask where the Hordesmen are. Good joke. It also leaves the crowd's courage as a rumour.

Duel at Devlan is a small episode with a clear mind: She-Ra wins Devlan by letting Devlan win it. Loo-Kee's closing words are about bullies and telling a parent or an older person. That is a smaller lesson than the one the plot just taught, and the line in the square, "When good people stand together, they can work miracles," is the better tag. In a show built on rescues, this is one where she deliberately leaves the last step to somebody else.

1. Continuity: Madame Razz's spells come out wrong again, here a breakfast of eggs and a giant pancake that sends Spragg running.
2. Continuity: The camp sits in the Whispering Woods, where Frosta makes a slope of snow for Sprocker's sled even though, as he says, it never snows there; the woods are also the setting of The Peril of Whispering Woods.
3. Continuity: The opening narration names Light Hope, Madame Razz and Kowl as the ones who share Adora's secret; in the camp scenes Bow and Glimmer are told that Adora has wandered off and, in the same breath, that She-Ra has gone to help a little girl.