Yesterday we discussed one of life's great mysteries. However, today we are going to discuss one of life's greater mysteries. The problem of where Shredder and Krang got the Technodrome pales into insignificance when we consider the question of how everyone in He-Man was so monumentally stupid that they never figured out He-Man and Prince Adam were the same person, and also the perhaps more important question of why He-Man chose those he did to actually share the secret.
We'll start off by quoting the opening sequence of that majestic programme. Not the whole opening sequence, of course: that can be found elsewhere on this site. We shall only quote the relevant bits:
"Cringer became the mighty Battle Cat, and I became He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe!" says He-Man, mere nanoseconds before punching the screen (from his side, of course, not ours, unless, of course, you are watching it with He-Man himself and he finds the scene distasteful for some reason, which, frankly, is a little unlikely, and anyway, it's beside the point). He then continues, and this is the important bit, "Only three others share this secret: our friends, the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms and Orko." He then makes some droll conclusion or other.
So we have five people on the whole of Eternia who know the secret: He-Man, Battle Cat, the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms and Orko. Or seven, if you want to be pedantic and argue that Prince Adam and Cringer should also be included. But anyway. It's obvious the Sorceress should know: she's the one who made Adam turn into He-Man in the first place, or at least so one assumes. She's definitely responsibly for Cringer turning into Battle Cat: this was established in the second-season episode 'Battlecat' (all information of this rather specific type drawn directly from the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site, a distinctly sad website that I check every week because I too am distinctly sad).
So that's my explanation for the Sorceress knowing the secret, and it's a good explanation. Even if she isn't responsible for the creation of He-Man, she is still more than competent in her own way of defending Eternia. Which is more than I can say for, hmm, Man-at-Arms and Orko. Man-at-Arms is an idiot who gets captured every single episode and is also more than capable of doing something stupid towards the end of an episode just to add tension (for example, the second season episode 'The Gamesman' has him falling off a perfectly wide walkway so He-Man can pull him up again). So quite why he should know is beyond me. When Skeletor gets clever and starts torturing the people he captures, then He-Man's secret will be out in an instant, Man-at-Arms being as continually captured as he is.
And Orko. What can we say about Orko? He's a silly little thing (a Trollan, the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site informs us solemnly) with no legs (or, indeed, as far as I can tell, no body apart from eyes - he wears gloves over his 'hands' and a scarf over his 'mouth', doesn't he?) that floats about Eternia pretending to be good enough at magic to be the court magician for King Randor. And, actually, let's be fair, I've never seen any other magicians, so either there aren't any, or Orko beat them all at the auditions. Perhaps King Randor actually likes seeing Man-at-Arms get covered in eggs every single time Orko tries an egg trick. But anyway, he doesn't do anything remotely useful. There are episodes where he looks like he's going to do something useful, but He-Man beats him to it, for example, the second season episode 'A Trip to Morainia', wherein Orko explores one tunnel and He-Man the other, a perfectly stupid idea which results in the both of them merely meeting up again a few seconds later anyway. So why should he be entrusted with this secret? I don't think there's any reason he and Man-at-Arms should be in on the knowledge. I'm guessing that he and Man-at-Arms just happened to see Adam turn into He-Man one day. I suspect that if I were to trawl much more extensively through the vast archives of the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site, I would discover either that this is indeed the reason or that some other very good reason does exist. But anyway. I think I've discussed this more than enough now.
So, we've talked about why He-Man let these three in on his secret. We haven't come to much of a conclusion, but that's not what I'm here for. That's the job of the brave souls at the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site. Now let's talk about why He-Man even felt he had to keep his identity secret.
As anyone who watched the 100 Greatest Children's TV Programmes Of All Time thing a couple of months ago on Channel 4 (in which He-Man came 10th!) will know, He-Man was created in the early 1980's when the Americans wished to present themselves as undefeatable against the communist menace, so the hero in their programme was pretty much unbeatable. There are those (myself included) who will tell you that this political analysis of He-Man is total bollocks, but the fact remains that some people think it was created for this reason. God knows, maybe it was. But if the early 1980's Americans saw themselves as big, strong, heroic, bronzed, probably oiled men who went around wearing nothing but furry underpants, I think they need to have their heads examined. Then again, I think that of Americans anyway. But again, I digress. The point of this paragraph is to establish that He-Man is pretty much unbeatable, which I believe I said - yes, I did, quite a couple of lines back.
But if He-Man is unbeatable, why does he even need to protect his secret identity? What does he care if Skeletor and Beast-Man and all the various no-hopers that Skeletor keeps in Snake Mountain know that Adam is He-Man, if he can just wallop them to kingdom come when they come along with their latest plan to "put pay to He-Man once and for all! Ha ha ha ha ha haaa!"? All the smart people (or as smart as one can be if one actually considers questions like this) out there will have come to the conclusion that He-Man keeps his secret identity secret to protect Adam, who is pretty much a weakling. But all the even smarter people (or, at least, smarter people who aren't quite smart enough to not think about things like this) will realise that He-Man doesn't even need to bother with Adam at all. He could quite easily turn into He-Man one day and never turn back. Because he was unbeatable (remember?) there was no limit on his powers, and he could be He-Man as long as he liked. So why was there ever the need to pretend? It's not like Adam did anything worthwhile around the Palace anyway, and even if he did, He-Man could surely take on his duties. It's very very unlikely there is some deep psychological reason that He-Man and Adam count themselves as separate beings, so they've worked out a time-share arrangement. That's just not going to happen, especially in a children's cartoon. And actually, as far as I can remember, the travesty that was The New Adventures of He-Man, the animated series that hit the air waves in 1990, I believe (I can't check the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site on this, as it understandably does not cover that dark period of He-Man history), actually took up this point, and I don't recall He-Man ever not being He-Man in that series (except he was patently not He-Man in that series anyway - he was blond not vibrantly ginger, rather small, and frankly didn't look remotely like the He-Man we all grew to know and love).
Right, so we've discussed the minor qualifying problems as regards He-Man's secret identity. Now we need to consider the biggie: how on Eternia did nobody (apart from the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms and Orko) figure out that He-Man and Adam were actually the same person? There's loads of evidence for it. Let's consider:
1. They look the same! Okay, so He-Man runs around in much fewer clothes than Adam, has much more tanned skin and has neon orange hair (and probably much more muscles, but as we don't see Adam in the same state of undress as we do He-Man, we can't be sure), but let's face it, their faces are the same. Their hairstyles are the same. Their voices aren't, as they were done by two separate voice artists: John Erwin for He-Man and Lou Scheimer for Adam, another piece of vital information courtesy of the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site. But is it remotely credible that people like Teela, who spend a lot of their time with both characters, wouldn't begin to consider that maybe they look the tiniest bit too similar.
2. You never see them together. Okay, so this has been used to posit many insane theories, including that Tom Bombadil and the Lord of the Nazgul (of the Lord of the Rings) are the same person, and this is not the case, unless J. R. R. Tolkien had intentions that I am unaware of - and he might have done, you know, as I wasn't ever really in his confidence, for obvious reasons which I'm not going to go into here because it would be yet another digression. But since you never see them together, you could easily begin thinking about that, especially since they look almost exactly the same! The only occasion on which you saw both He-Man and Adam together was in the first season episode 'Disappearing Act', when Skeletor captured Adam and demanded He-Man come to rescue him. The reason you saw them together was because Man-at-Arms created a robot version of He-Man which came to rescue Adam. If it had stopped there, Skeletor might be forgiven for thinking that Adam and He-Man weren't the same person. But, of course, it didn't stop there. Given Man-at-Arms' flair for grandiose fuck-ups, the face of his robot He-Man fell off just as it met Skeletor. Not even a nitwit like Skeletor could think that that was the real He-Man after that.
3. Given the amount of times Adam has to change into He-Man (I'd guess the average was about twice in one episode, though I'm sure the He-Man and She-Ra Episode Review Site could give me more detailed statistics if I so desired), it's implausible that no one would see him do it. I mean, Adam chooses the stupidest places to actually perform the transformation. The only time I can remember Adam being sensible about this is in the first season episode 'Diamond Ray of Disappearance' (which is also the pilot and a damn fine viewing if I do say so myself), when, on realising he has to become He-Man, he leaves the Palace and goes into the forest to turn into his alter ego. There are other times when he'll make some pretence towards subtlety, by leaving the room and standing out in the corridor to change, for example, but on the whole, he seems to perform the transformation somewhere really open, like, say, the Palace courtyard. I daresay somebody at a certain website (do I really have to spell out its name?) has made a careful study of all the locations where Adam has changed into He-Man, but I'm not going to go and find out, especially since it would mean dignifying such a study with publication of its results here. So my point is that given the less-than-secure places Adam becomes He-Man, it cannot possibly be that the entire planet doesn't know his secret by now.
And here, perhaps, is the thing. Maybe they're all just humouring him! But I don't really think we need to discuss that now. I get the impression this article has been far too long and perhaps its length is suggesting that I enjoy writing on this subject, which I suppose I must do really, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. But for my street-cred, I think it's perhaps best to assert violently at this juncture that I never wanted to write this discussion, but there's a madman behind me with an axe who's forcing me to do it. No, better yet, he's doing it himself, just pretending to be me. Yes, that's a good idea.