Three Courageous Hearts

At Mystacor's annual Trickster Competition a black-haired girl mocks Madame Razz and Kowl for entering, and Adora tells them true strength comes from the heart. The girl is Shadow Weaver in disguise: she puts the hall to sleep and drops She-Ra through the floor into the sixth dimension, where a red-hooded host sets her a series of levels. Madame Razz, her broom and Kowl go after the Nameless Glowing Book in the library of the Valley of the Lost, crossing a snowy mountain, where a Pola Beast chases them down on a bed that Razz conjures by mistake. She-Ra beats the third level and gets through the iron door. Razz then reads the spell from the book, and it brings them to her. Back in Mystacor, Madame Razz wakes the sleepers, and the trio are given medals for bravery.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! It's time again to see if you found my hiding place. Time's up! Here I am. In today's story, Madame, Kowl, and Broom showed courage. I'm sure you've shown courage, too. Like when you learned to swim even though you were afraid of the water, or when you learned to ride a bike even though you were afraid to fall. How about that. You've got courage too. Bye now! See you next time."

Madame Razz: "Razzle, dazzle, doozle, zed, what we need now is a big, wide bed."

She-Ra: "Don't think it's been fun, because it hasn't."

Kowl: "I've used up my courage for the next three years."

Why would a show hand its rescue to the three characters it usually uses for jokes? Three Courageous Hearts does it on purpose, and it begins with the cruel part first. A black-haired girl in a red cap tells Madame Razz and Kowl that with them entering the competition everyone is "sure to have a good laugh," and tells Kowl that when the going gets tough he gets lost. Adora tells them not to be discouraged and says what the episode will spend its running time proving: "the only true strength comes from the heart." They go back to camp anyway.

The girl is Shadow Weaver, and the script saves that reveal until the hall is already asleep. She asks Castaspella's permission to enter, is told that in Mystacor all are welcome, and puts the whole hall to sleep with a rhyme before sending She-Ra into a hole in the floor and the sixth dimension. The disguise pays off in one respect: the people she mocked were away at camp when she put the hall to sleep, so they are the ones left to act. When someone asks who would lead a party into the Valley of the Lost, Madame Razz is the one who says she can.

Here is what the episode is about: being laughed at for what you are bad at, and finishing the job with exactly those flaws. The camp scene sets it out, because the three nearly turn back, somebody supplies the word weak for Kowl, and one of them reminds the others what Adora said about the heart before they each agree, in various degrees of certainty, to believe in themselves. Kowl's hedged maybe is the funniest of the three. After that, their two best moments come from mistakes: Razz's spells go wrong, and the wrong result turns out to be the useful one.

The best scene is the Pola Beast. The three are shivering on a snowy slope when the beast bares its teeth, someone begs for a spell, and Razz rhymes her way to "a big, wide bed" instead of the sled she needed. A despairing "Sled, Madame. Sled." is all the correction she gets, and the bed skids down a wall of snow and drops them on the mattress at the foot of the mountain, where the verdict comes back that a bed was the better choice anyway. The gag works because the mistake gets them down the mountain, and it comes back at the end when her botched rhyme for waking the sleepers, which asks them to shake, does the job anyway.

The weakness is how the two stories fit together. She-Ra's half has the better set pieces: ghosts she drives off with a jet of water, a red-hooded host who changes his mind and promises a fourth and fifth level, and the floating stones of the third level, which she crosses with a sword-to-pole trick before getting through the iron door. By the time the trio's spell reaches her, she has beaten the course, so their courage is told to us more than tested. Shadow Weaver is not seen again once She-Ra is gone, and the sleeping hall is guarded by two Horde Troopers who bolt when She-Ra shows up.

What is left is the warmth of the ending. She-Ra tells them they risked their lives for her, Kowl says he has "used up my courage for the next three years," and the medals are given at the ceremony. It is a slight episode with a clear idea, and it gives the show's comic relief something to do besides hold the plot up.

1. Continuity: Mystacor and Castaspella also appear in the previous episode, Enchanted Castle.
2. Continuity: Madame Razz's spells go wrong twice here, a bed for a sled and "shake" for "awake," and both times the wrong result still does the job.
3. Continuity: The two Horde Troopers who run from She-Ra say they are waiting for the transport from Beast Island; see Beast Island and The Prisoners of Beast Island for that place.