Treasure of the First Ones

Shadow Weaver tells Hordak that Mystic Isle, the sunken storehouse of the First Ones, will rise from the sea for a single day, and Hordak sails out hoping to find weapons to use against She-Ra and the rebels. Light Hope sends She-Ra a warning, and she recruits Sea Hawk and Swen, whose cloud-covered ship follows the Horde Dreadnaught until its plasma cannon shoots them down. She-Ra and Swift Wind get the wrecked ship onto a small island, and she, Sea Hawk and Swift Wind ride on to Mystic Isle while the repairs begin. Octavia freezes Swift Wind and wraps Sea Hawk in her tentacles before She-Ra spins her back into the sea. Inside the vault Hordak finds only paintings, statues and pots, mocks She-Ra for valuing them, and says his cannon will flatten the building. She-Ra dives at the cannon, is stopped by a force barrier, then heads for a mountaintop to try again, and the Horde attack ends with Hordak in a heap and She-Ra saying she has beaten him again. She decides the treasures should go back to Whispering Woods so the people of Etheria can see them.

Loo-Kee: "Hi, I'm Loo-Kee. By the way, did you find me in today's story? If not, find me now. Do you see me? I'll bet you see me now. Today's story was about art treasures. The works of a great artist, both here and on your planet, are indeed among our most beautiful and valuable possessions. Take a trip to your local art museum, and you'll see with your own eyes just what I mean. Bye, now."

Hordak: "Painting, statues, pots...useless!"

She-Ra: "These things show love, beauty, freedom, and truth."

Sea Hawk: "No one blows my ship out of the air."

Hordak: "You're a sentimental fool, She-Ra."

What is the treasure of a vanished civilization worth to a villain who only wants a weapon? Treasure of the First Ones answers with a vault full of art, then makes She-Ra fly at a plasma cannon to defend it. Shadow Weaver brings Hordak the news that Mystic Isle, which the First Ones sank to protect what they stored there, will rise again for a single day. Hordak says the secrets of the First Ones will rid him of She-Ra and her pesky rebels, and Imp supplies the questions the audience would ask ("If the treasure sunk, how are you gonna get it?"). The setup is tidy because it invites us to want what Hordak wants: weapons, magic, a decisive edge.

The middle is a sea chase that runs on gags. She-Ra recruits Sea Hawk and Swen, and when a shipmate sights a unicorn off the port bow, the answer on deck is "Roll me on the beach and call me sandy." Swen's cloud machine will not start until someone bellows at it, and then it works, and the Solar Sailor trails the Dreadnaught in a cloud. The Horde side turns out to be better informed than the heroes. Someone on the Horde bridge recalls a report that a cloud-covered device was stolen from one of their cruisers last month, so the plasma cannon is ordered into the cloud. A pleasing reversal: the Horde reasons one step ahead for once, and the rebels lose their ship until She-Ra and Swift Wind get it down on a small island, battered but repairable.

Here is what the episode is about: the rebels' cause is best explained by what they protect, and She-Ra spends the second half proving she means it. Hordak reaches the vault and grumbles through its contents, "Painting, statues, pots...useless!" He wants to know where the magic and the weapons are. She-Ra tells him that these things show "love, beauty, freedom, and truth" and that a cheap villain could never understand their value. Near the end she goes further and says the pieces say more about why they fight Hordak than any flowery speech. The treasure is the argument, and the script is wise enough to let objects make it.

The standout is the turn in the vault, because Hordak does not simply sulk. He calls her a sentimental fool, hands her everything he has just dismissed as trash, and says his plasma cannon will destroy the building before she can enjoy it. Someone objects that nobody should take on a Dreadnaught alone for paintings and statues, and She-Ra's answer is that if she does not, "everything we claim to be fighting for becomes meaningless." Someone at her side has already warned her that the old tin can has a rotten plan. Hordak's contempt raises the stakes before the cannon does.

The weakness is the finish. All the preparation points at one moment: the force barrier will drop at the last second and the cannon will fire. She-Ra tells us from a mountaintop that it is up to her. The dialogue then runs from the countdown to a whistling and a groan, and someone under the wreckage asks what happened and is told "She-Ra happened, you fool." The speaker admits he does not know how she did it, and neither, from the dialogue, does the viewer. A twenty-minute slot had to stop somewhere, but a payoff this central deserved a clearer picture than a whistle, a groan and a joke.

Even so, this is one of the cleaner statements of what the rebellion is for, made without a speech and with Hordak helping. Loo-Kee's closing push to visit your local art museum is blunt, but the episode has earned it.

1. Continuity: She-Ra greets Sea Hawk and Swen as old friends ("good to see you both again"), and the pair also appear in The Sea Hawk and Return of the Sea Hawk.
2. Continuity: Light Hope summons She-Ra to the Crystal Castle, the place that gives The Crystal Castle its title, and the closing plan is to take the treasure back to Whispering Woods, the setting that also titles The Peril of Whispering Woods.
3. Continuity: She-Ra calls the sword into a grapple-and-line and a shield by name ("Sword to grapple-and-line," "Sword to shield"), and in Glimmer's Story she calls "Sword to lasso" the same way.