The Anxious Apprentice

Castaspella refuses to let her apprentice Ariel use Mystacor's Book of Spells because she is not ready, and Ariel takes the book and leaves to prove herself. Adora and Spirit go looking, but Ariel's practice in the Forbidden Zone draws the attention of Scorpia, who watches her through binoculars and sends troopers after her. She-Ra rescues Ariel in the desert, though the knapsack holding the book is left behind for the Horde to find. Scorpia reads from it, intending to threaten the release of the evil sealed in the Forbidden Zone so that She-Ra will come to her, and her first try opens a burning crack that strands her on a rock. She-Ra and Swift Wind pull her out, take back the book, and use the Sword of Protection as rope to lace the zone shut. Castaspella and Ariel each admit their mistake, and the two of them set about mending the damage together.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, I'm Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding today? If not, here's another chance. Find me yet? Here I am. Today, I'd like to talk to you about the importance of practice, of doing things over and over again until you learn to do them well. Practice doesn't always seem like fun, but whether it's hitting a ball or learning to play a piano, it's something you have to do again and again. As they say, practice makes perfect. Bye, now!"

Ariel: "I'm the one who was wrong not to listen to your advice."

Scorpia: "Being a magician, hey, it's easy. I could do it with my eyes closed."

She-Ra: "Sword to lots and lots of rope."

Castaspella: "Oh, good work, Ariel. I couldn't have done it better myself."

Ariel is not wrong that she has worked hard, and that makes The Anxious Apprentice better than its sign-off suggests. She can conjure doves of light, she tells Castaspella she knows twice as many spells as any other apprentice, and she asks for a chance with the Book of Spells, one of Mystacor's most important treasures. Castaspella and Adora give the answer the rest of the episode sets out to prove: what matters is the wisdom to know when to use a spell, and power handed over too early is dangerous. Ariel's reply is to say "I'm a fine magician now" and to demonstrate it, which in practice means walking out of Mystacor with the book in her knapsack.

Her first spell outside shows the problem in miniature. Three pink birds are splashing in a stream too shallow for a bath, so she decides to dam it with rocks, recites a rhyme about boulders, and the rumbling that follows leaves the birds with no place to wash. She shrugs it off with "Practice makes perfect" and goes on her way. The scene is gentle, but it sets the habit: she casts, something happens, and she counts it as progress. Her best work comes in the Forbidden Zone, where she raises a sand castle, turns its walls to gold and buries a patrol of Horde troopers up to their necks. It is also what gets her caught, because Scorpia has been watching through binoculars and works out from the gold which book is in play. Ariel chose the spot because no one would think of looking for her there.

Ariel has rehearsal and lacks readiness, and Scorpia is there to show what that gap looks like at full size. Her troopers find the knapsack after the battle, and she finds a spell that releases the evil the ancients locked into the Forbidden Zone, which she means to use as a threat to bring She-Ra to her. She reads it aloud, a crack splits the ground, and she crows "I could do it with my eyes closed" a few seconds before she is stranded on a rock platform ringed by flames, shouting for help. Asked by She-Ra what she did, she admits she "tried one little spell." Ariel's spell cost three birds their bath; Scorpia's opens a burning crack in the ground.

The best scene is the repair. She-Ra cannot fight a crack in the world, so she does what she did earlier with the burning grass, when she rolled the turf up like a carpet: she finds a household answer. She calls for "Sword to lots and lots of rope," Swift Wind hauls the line across the widening gap through the flames while something purple and horned snaps at it, and the two sides are pulled together like laces. The sorcery in this episode keeps overreaching, and the fix that holds is a bit of plain thinking about rope.

The weak point is the ending. Nothing on screen shows Ariel helping with the lacing; one frame leaves her on a dark path beside Castaspella while She-Ra and Swift Wind do the work. Yet Castaspella tells her "I couldn't have done it better myself," and Ariel answers that the mistake was hers for not listening. The lesson is sound, but nobody has watched her earn the praise. The two magicians setting out to clear up Scorpia's mess together is the right closing move, and it arrives after the compliment instead of before it.

Loo-Kee's sign-off is about practice, which sits slightly off the story's point, since Ariel practised plenty and what she lacked was a teacher at her shoulder. As a small fable with Scorpia cast as the cautionary example, it is neat and quick, and the rope trick is worth the wait.

1. Continuity: Mystacor and Castaspella return from The Eldritch Mist, another episode built around a dangerous book of spells, there the Eldritch Book of Spells.
2. Continuity: Castaspella is a teacher here, with Ariel as her apprentice; in The Price of Power she is named among a teacher's students beside Shadow Weaver, and she introduces herself as true queen of Mystacor in Enchanted Castle.
3. Continuity: Scorpia is the Horde figure out front here, and she is again at the head of the troopers in Into the Dark Dimension.
4. Continuity: She-Ra turns the Sword of Protection into rope, the same sword transformation she uses in Into the Dark Dimension.