The Peril of Whispering Woods

Hordak sprays the edges of Whispering Woods with the Poison of Kandahar, hoping to trace the weakened magic to the rebel camp, and the Twiggets begin to wither with the trees. When Horde Prime's son Prince Zed is shot down in a raid, Glimmer wants revenge, but She-Ra insists on healing him instead. Zed repays the kindness by forcing his uncle to halt the spraying, which buys Madame Razz the time to work out a transforming spell. The lesson is that kindness shown to an enemy can be returned.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! I'm Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding today? If not, take another look. See me now? Here I am! You know, if someone's nice to you, don't you feel like being nice back? That's what She-Ra did, and Prince Zed was nice in return. Always treat others the way you want them to treat you. Like She-Ra, that will work for you, too! Bye now! See you next time!"

She-Ra: "In the Fright Zone, we throw our enemies into dungeons. In the Whispering Woods, we heal the injured."

She-Ra: "Glimmer, getting even means you become like the Horde. Is that what you want?"

Madame Razz: "The only kind of spell to counter such magic is a transforming spell. But in order to transform something, you first have to know what it is."

Prince Zed: "Someday I will rule Horde World. Then we will be. I promise."

Prince Zed, son of Horde Prime, is brought down in a raid on Whispering Woods, and She-Ra carries him out of his netted jetmobile and into the rebel camp. The first thing he says when he wakes is "Are you an angel?" The woman who picks him up is the one he was attacking, and the people tending him are the ones his uncle is trying to poison out of their forest.

Zed is given a motive that has nothing to do with evil. He first appears on a tax convoy, asks "And it takes an army of Horde troopers to protect it?", and later tells Hordak he will not spend his entire vacation in the castle "twiddling my thumbs". He also does not want the Horde to think Hordak is "afraid of those pitiful few Rebels". He goes on the raid out of boredom and pride, so by the time he is shot down we have seen vanity in him and nothing worse. Hordak's plan is laid out just as plainly. The Poison of Kandahar comes from an ancient book he has only recently acquired, he tests it on plants from the woods, and the rebels work out that he is spraying the outer edges, where the magic is weakest, to trace it to their hidden camp. The Twiggets give the poison a cost we can see, because "As the Whispering Woods wither from Hordak's poison, so do the Twiggets."

The subject is mercy toward an enemy, and it arrives when the injured Zed is found. Glimmer wants to get even, and She-Ra answers "Glimmer, getting even means you become like the Horde. Is that what you want?" Glimmer's reply is that the Twiggets are very sick, maybe dying, and that he is to blame. She-Ra does not argue the point. She says it would not help the Twiggets if they harmed the boy.

The sickbed scene follows. Zed asks "Why did you take care of me? I am your enemy." She-Ra says "When you fight me, you are my enemy. Now you are in need of help," and then "In the Fright Zone, we throw our enemies into dungeons. In the Whispering Woods, we heal the injured." Zed next sees the sick Twiggets and asks "What's the matter with them?" He hears that in the Fright Zone "they would put such creatures in cages. Well, here, they're our friends." Within a few scenes he is offering help and saying "I'm ashamed of the way we have treated you." The turn is quick, but the speeches are short and each one answers a question he has just asked.

The weakness is the cure. Razz says early that "The only kind of spell to counter such magic is a transforming spell. But in order to transform something, you first have to know what it is." Her ordinary spell fails, she says the poison leaves no traces, and she wishes for a sample. The episode never shows how she gets one. On the withered plain she says "No. But I know what it isn't," and a few scenes later she says "Ah! Deary, my, I've got it!" Zed, fresh from Hordak's castle, could have supplied the sample or described the book, and the rescue would then follow from the kindness. As written, his letter buys a pause and Razz does the saving, so the moral and the cure sit side by side without touching.

The ending still has some bite. Hordak breaks the deal and orders the bombing runs, Zed protests "No! I gave my word!", and the spell works in time for his last line, "Too bad, Uncle. Watch Whispering Woods live."

It is a solid moral episode with a good sickbed scene and a cure that does not quite earn its place.

1. Continuity: The shark-mouthed Horde Destructo Tank that cuts off the convoy near the start is named in the dialogue ("It's a destructo tank!").
2. Continuity: Horde Prime is only spoken of in this episode (Zed calls him "my father" and threatens Hordak with his anger) and never appears on screen.