He-Man and the Masters of the Universe/Headscratchers


 * In regards to the new series: Is it just me or did Eternia accept Randor's appointment as king way too easily? I mean, sure Randor is a nice guy and all but they pretty much only have his team to confirm his appointment as king. The people are fine with going from council-run to a monarchy?
 * They may not know he was appointed by the Elders, but since the Council wasn't there anymore, the better choice was the man who led the troops to save everyone from Keldor's rule.
 * Well it was a monarchy before the Elders and the people trust their wisdom.
 * The Broken Aesop in the 2002 episode "The Courage of Adam". Here when Adam tries to prove he can be useful as well he's captured almost immediately which implies that Adam is useless as Adam and really needs his alter ego form to be of any use. I mean shouldn't He-Man be a last resort. While the episodes point was He-Man will always be needed, it shows it very poorly.
 * Did you miss the prevous episodes where we learned that Adam has spent his life goofing off, ignoring the potential return of the Evil Warriors, and not taking his combat training seriously? The rest of the team are warriors from the last time Keldor tried to take over and Teela, who has taken her training damn seriously, and even they get hit pretty hard anytime He-man isn't around, and even sometimes when he is. It wasn't a Be Yourself episode, it was an Accept Your Responsibilities And Live With The Consequences. Adam has nobody but himself to blame for his incompetence.
 * Maybe but this is a repeat of a similar event in the original series where he was trying to prove he can be of use and can be a hero when he tries to save his father as himself, not as He-Man. In this version he's doesn't have the incompetence excuse you claim because it the She-Ra Spin-Off we see he can fight and Teela has been teaching him. Not to mention in the 2002 episode he can keep up with Teela in the game so it's not as though he not completely untrained. And my point was the message was poorly executed not that it wasn't clear.
 * Yes, Adam can sort of keep up with Teela while playing around. Actual combat? Totally different. Adam DOES have some skills but they are nowhere close to enough to fight the Evil Warriors. The entire point of the pilot is that He-Man is a necessity, Adam alone is not enough. And even in the old deries we see Adam was still slacking off, though it's entirely possible that finding out he had a sister determined to stay in a war zone got him to buckle down and actually train so he'd be of use. On Eternia he has a whole army backing him, so he's just the big gun.
 * Actually he showed he could fight before he found out he was looking for his sister. What makes no sense to me is the fact in the first version, other heroes have the same training he's had and can handle the Evil Warriors to a degree. you think they would make it look like he might have won. The way things were going I think the King would've put He-Man on the throne instead of his son due to his need for the disguise.
 * There's an entire episode based off Teela's inability to adapt her thinking to abnormal situations and seeing things outside her rigid point of view. Considering that she's the Badass Normal of the group, thinking outside the box and adapting to abnormal situations is pretty much her entire fighting style.
 * Orko gets yelled at by Man-At-Arms for knocking down the statue they were trying to put up, despite the fact that Orko was doing a perfectly good job of it until Man-At-Arms started yelling at him.
 * Orko got yelled at and it broke his concentration but Man-At-Arms didn't want Orko around in the first place, even if he could help. It might not have been entirely Orko's fault but by the character's reasoning he shouldn't have even been there.
 * Granted, Orko maybe shouldn't have been there, but there's a good chance that it might not have been such a disaster if Man-At Arms had not physically grabbed Orko by the hands, disrupting the spell.
 * Orko's mistake was that he didn't tell anyone what he was trying to do before he did it. Granted, it does seem like he was doing it to prove to Man-At-Arms that he could be useful. so it's not unlikely he thought "When Man-At-Arms sees me doing this, he'll realize that I'm capable of helping out!" What he hadn't counted on was Man-At-Arms jumping to conclusions, assuming that Orko was going to cause a big disaster, and then made things ten times worse by interrupting the spell. Man-At-Arms definitely should have known better, and really should have taken his share of the blame, but Orko (whose self-esteem really isn't very good) immediately took all the blame on himself and didn't even think of blaming Man-At-Arms.
 * It does seem to be a common mistake for Orko; he wants to help, gets overenthusiastic, and starts using spells without so much as a "look, I'm going to try levitating this statue to make the job easier on you!" Which causes everyone else to panic and causes disaster. It makes sense when you think of how Orko was "Orko the Great" on Trolla and probably used to help people out like this all the time -- and in Trolla, where everyone knows magic, this wouldn't be viewed as any different than, say, He-Man stopping by and helping to physically lift something heavy. Orko has become so used to Eternia that it seems he sometimes forgets that he isn't on Trolla, and that the general reaction to sudden magic is a little less accepting.
 * In the new series Zodak pretty much admitted that he allowed himself to be beaten so that King Hiss would be freed and Zodak would have the chance to finish him off once and for all. This results in massive damage to several kingdoms, several people being eaten alive by King Hiss, and the slow death of the Sorceress by King Hiss' venom (and yes, that's where the story was going, they admit it on the commentary) and there are no consequences and nobody calls him on it.
 * There was an Aesop at the end of the episode that said don't act like Zodak, it was cut from the US release... and he did get called out and apologized. Really just Easily Forgiven.


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