The Price of Freedom

The Sorceress tells Prince Adam that She-Ra is sending signals of distress, and he leaves Orko behind to go through the portal to Etheria. He finds a wrecked village, turns into He-Man, and fights Horde troopers beside She-Ra before learning that the people of Dryl, once slaves in an Etherium mine, have just been freed by She-Ra and want to join the Rebellion. Hordak orders their village burned as a lesson, then marches on the mine while She-Ra flies off to bring the rebels. Hordak's cannon seals the mine and a freeze ray leaves He-Man unable to move, and Hordak heads back to the Fright Zone and leaves the villagers to dig themselves out. Their spokesman Colin shames them out of panic and they tunnel through the mountain while He-Man holds up the ceiling to the last. She-Ra reaches him, the villagers reach Whispering Woods, and Adam goes home to find Orko cleaning up spilled paint.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, it's me, Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding today? If not, here's another chance. See me now? Here I am. In today's story, the villagers' homes were destroyed by fire. Fire can be a very dangerous thing. It can hurt you. It can destroy your home. But you can prevent this. If you don't play with matches or lighters, you won't get burned. Bye, now."

Colin: "Houses, we can build again, He-Man."

Hordak: "Let them dig themselves out."

She-Ra: "Here, the Horde does not rule."

Prince Adam: "Well, Orko, you know, sometimes freedom is pretty hard work."

Is a rescue still a rescue when the people being rescued dig their own way out? The Price of Freedom spends its last stretch on that question, and Hordak supplies the setup himself when he leaves a sealed mine with the words "Let them dig themselves out." The villagers of Dryl do exactly that. The episode begins elsewhere, with Prince Adam and Orko in a flyer over Eternia, Orko caught out for not cleaning his room, and the Sorceress calling Adam to Grayskull about a distress signal from She-Ra.

The first scene that carries the idea comes after the fighting, when Dryl is on fire and the rebels are in the mine. He-Man wants to go and stop the burning. The villagers' spokesman Colin refuses to let him: "Houses, we can build again, He-Man." They traded their possessions, he says, for the one thing they did not have, and he explains that they were slaves digging Etherium until the ore ran out, a huge robot fired on them, and She-Ra destroyed it. It is plain talk in a dark tunnel, and nobody else in the episode says anything better.

The middle is a siege. Hordak and Mantenna, in the throne room, decide Dryl will be an example to Etheria and order it burned. She-Ra rides for the other rebels in Bright Moon and gets held up by Waspoids, while Hordak leads his army to the mine, has his troopers fire freeze rays, and brings the entrance down with the crawler's giant freeze cannon. He-Man takes a freeze ray and cannot move. Then the villagers panic, asking where She-Ra is and why she left them, and Colin tells them they asked for freedom and are frightened now that it is hard. They can be grateful to She-Ra and He-Man, he says, but should never expect them. Someone points out that there is "more than one side to a mountain," and the drilling begins.

The cave-in is the standout. The tunnel has no supports, the air is thin, and He-Man, still frozen, insists he can swing a pickax anyway. When the roof comes down he holds it with both arms while the miners run past him, and She-Ra, back at last, reaches him only after the villagers are out. Here the hero is not stronger than the problem, and the staging is good: the villagers are already out and the strongest character in the episode is the last one in.

The weak point is why the siege ends at all. Hordak decides he has "wasted enough time" on the rebels and drives off, and the rebels She-Ra went to fetch turn up in the last scene to find the job done and get sent to walk the villagers to camp. The villain's boredom is what leaves the villagers quiet enough to dig, so the trial is lifted by the script and not by anyone in it. The episode would be sharper if Hordak's army were still outside when the tunnel broke through.

The tag scene puts the argument in a smaller size. Orko, told to clean up spilled paint, asks what a guy has to do to get "a little freedom these days," and Prince Adam answers that it is hard work and worth it. It sits oddly after a village has lost its homes, but it is where the writer lands. The Price of Freedom is a She-Ra episode in which She-Ra spends the rescue fetching help while a village does the saving. That suits it.

cereal:geek's commentary on The Price of Freedom, with behind-the-scenes detail on how the episode was made.

1. Continuity: Hordak calls He-Man "Eternia's golden boy" and says he is helping the rebels "again"; which points back to Beast Island.
2. Continuity: She-Ra's sword changes shape as the story needs it: shield and staff here, a chain in Bow's Farewell the day before, and a lariat in Play It Again, Bow the day after.
3. Continuity: The Sorceress says she is receiving distress signals from She-Ra, and Adam is told that his sister needs him; at the end She-Ra sends her love to "Mother and Father" and hopes the family will be together one day.