The Reluctant Wizard

A Horde Flyer chases Madame Razz and Broom until a tree fires an energy bolt that saves them, and Madame Razz recalls a legend of a wizard living in a world of his own inside a magical tree. Adora turns into She-Ra to ask Light Hope what is known, then rides out with Bow, Madame Razz and Kowl to ask the wizard to join the Rebellion. The wizard, who only wants to be left alone, throws a chasm, a wall of flame, crystal spikes, vines, a soaking and a pack of monsters at them, until She-Ra stops fighting and tells him the decision is his. He shows them his hidden world and says people only see how ugly he looks, and a clumsy remark about his looks from one of the rebels sends them back outside. Hordak, hearing that a legend fits the trooper's story, sends a strike force and Shadow Weaver's Doom Cloud, which steals the wizard's strength, and the rebels come to his aid anyway. She-Ra baits Catra into a chase that ends with the Horde firing on its own side, then breaks the cloud with a twister. Freed, the wizard will say only that he will think about helping, and leaves.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! It's me again, Loo-Kee. Did you find where I was hiding today? Find me yet? Here I am! In today's story, the wizard was made unhappy by what someone said about him. You know, if you can't say something nice about a person, it's better not to say anything at all. Of course, it's always best to say something nice. Hey, you're wonderful. Bye now."

She-Ra: "But we'd never try to force you. It's your free choice."

The Wizard: "I have better things to do than protect weaklings."

Hordak: "there must be only one power on this planet, and that is the Horde."

She-Ra: "Bow, it's what's inside that really counts."

What do you owe a hermit who has already said no? The Reluctant Wizard puts that question to both sides of the war, and only one of them answers it well. It starts with Madame Razz and Broom chased through the sky by a Horde Flyer until a tree fires an energy bolt and knocks the Flyer out of the chase, and Madame Razz remembers a legend about a wizard who built a world of his own inside a magical tree. The rebels reason that a man who throws spells at the Horde could be a friend, and Adora turns into She-Ra to ask Light Hope what is known. Little is known, and it comes with a warning that the wizard "loves his privacy and hates visitors."

The wizard's welcome is a run of tricks that get meaner. A chasm opens under the riders, a wall of flame rises from nowhere, spikes turn to crystal and trap the riders, vines catch Bow's boots, and a cold drink offered in the name of hospitality arrives as a soaking. Bow gets up from the vines saying he is all right. The wizard says he hoped they would get discouraged and leave him alone, which makes him less a villain than a man holding a door shut with all his furniture. The grey monsters that crowd the tree next look like the real escalation, and Bow wants to fight them.

The episode is about this: nobody can force this man, and the Horde is the only party that has not noticed. Hordak hears a trooper's story of a tree that threw him into a mud hole and reduces the trooper to smoking scraps of armor; Shadow Weaver says he could have been telling the truth, and Hordak's reply is a single "Sorry.". Whether the wizard is a threat does not matter to him, because "there must be only one power on this planet," and a strike force is sent. The rebels find the approach the Horde cannot. She-Ra stops in front of the line of monsters, tells the wizard she knows he does not mean to hurt them, since he helped Madame Razz escape the Horde, and says "It's your free choice." The monsters give way to a place of colorful plants, and the wizard explains that centuries ago he made "my world away from the world" and lives there.

The second half tests the idea. Once the wizard has sent them back outside, Hordak arrives with Shadow Weaver's Doom Cloud, which settles over the tree and steals the wizard's strength while ground troops advance to cut it down. Madame Razz explains that he cannot break that spell alone, someone asks whether they should help a man who would not help them, and the answer is yes, because he needs it. The fight is played for laughs: She-Ra baits Catra into a chase that ends with the Horde firing on its own side, and Madame Razz's spell for the troopers comes out as bugs rather than rugs. The wizard supposes she now thinks he has to help, she tells him it is still his choice, and he answers that he chooses to think about it.

The weak spot is the wound the story is built on. The wizard says people see only how ugly he looks, and when one of the rebels says that, looking at him, they could understand, the remark is taken back at once and the wizard puts them outside. That clumsy sentence is what Loo-Kee's closing moral is about, yet the retraction is all the wizard gets, and the guide frames show an old man with white hair and pointed ears, nothing the story lets us see as ugly, so the hurt must be taken on trust.

The Reluctant Wizard is a gentle episode whose best idea is that the Rebellion is something to be offered, not enforced. The wizard's answer is only that he will think about it, a fair reply from a man the rebels saved after he turned them away. The tree gets the last joke, ugliest Bow has ever seen, and Bow insists he said the same thing before She-Ra did.

1. Continuity: The opening narration names Light Hope, Madame Razz and Kowl as the few who share She-Ra's secret; Bow is not named, and the teasing on the road about whether he prefers She-Ra's company to Adora's is played in front of him.
2. Continuity: Hordak sends Catra into the attack as "Force Captain", the title Adora is shown holding when she enters the prison in Beast Island.
3. Continuity: Madame Razz's rhyming spells go wrong again, as they do throughout Beast Island, though the spell that softens the ground under a monster works first time here.