- by Owen Morton
Yes, guys and girls, it’s time for yet another of those mindbogglingly important questions for us to consider. We don’t worry about Tony Blair’s proposition to introduce “top-up” fees, and the potential – even imminent – war with Iraq doesn’t really infringe on our minds. What concerns us today is – as the more astute among the readership will have already guessed – the mechanics of He-Man’s magic sword.
We all know the basic idea behind this sword. Well, I assume we do. However, since there are potentially some people who don’t, I will here detail it to you. In Prince Adam’s own words (taken from the opening sequence of He-Man):
“Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said, ‘By the Power of Grayskull!’” [At this point, Adam transformed into He-Man, and continued,] “I have the Power! Cringer became Battle-Cat, and I became He-Man, the Most Powerful Man in the Universe.”
What the sword does is thus pretty obvious, isn’t it? When Adam holds it aloft and says those words, he is magically transformed into He-Man, and Cringer into Battle-Cat. (A question for another day is perhaps why Adam ever took it into his head to hold his magic sword aloft and say “By the Power of Grayskull” in the first place, because it’s not really the most obvious thing to do with a sword.) But we are, of course, provided with absolutely no explanation as to why the sword does this.
I mean, this is completely unacceptable. A children’s cartoon it may be, but how do they expect us to learn anything from it if things operate in frankly impossible ways? As far as I can make out, one of the primary purposes of He-Man was to be educational: each episode sought to tell us something important, which we learnt from the little moral segment at the end. (The other primary purpose of He-Man was, of course, to make money, and it did this quite admirably, what with its huge line of ever more ridiculously designed action figures.) Yet one of the most useful things He-Man had the potential to teach us – i.e. how to make a sword that transforms you into a muscle-bound moron who never does anything wrong – is for reason passed over in these moral segments in favour of such gems as “Ramming things with your head is just dumb.” (I’m not lying, that really was one of the moral conclusions of a He-Man episode.)
So, since the writers of He-Man never thought to let us in on this secret, I suppose that now, nearly twenty years after the series first aired, I should consider it myself. Unfortunately, I’m not doing a History degree because I’m any good at science. If I were, I’d probably be doing a science degree because, frankly, I suspect that’s where the money is. So with my somewhat limited understanding of scientific principles, we’ll start theorising.
When Adam says, “By the Power of Grayskull”, he is somehow mysteriously transported to stand in front of Castle Grayskull itself, while lightning emits from the sword and bright flashes sufficient to cause epileptic fits fill the screen. After saying this, the lightning flashes brightly and once it’s gone, Adam has been replaced with He-Man, who completes the statement with “I have the Power”, and is then transported back to wherever it was the sword was held aloft in.
Okay, well, oddly enough, I can’t honestly see any particular scientific principles by which this could actually make sense. Instantaneous transport is impossible outside of Star Trek – although, of course, Skeletor does seem to possess the ability to teleport himself about, which he uses in such classic episodes as A Trip to Morainia, and quite why he doesn’t use this all the time instead of buggering about with ever more stupid vehicles is beyond me – so even the first bit of it doesn’t work. Then we get the vast makeover that Adam receives in his transformation into He-Man. His skin becomes suddenly more tanned, his hair most extraordinarily bleached and he loses pretty much all his clothes. Where do his clothes go? Into a little bubble of unreality?
I’m sorry, but I’m just not buying it. I’m tempted to suggest that Adam and He-Man are not in fact one and the same person; when that bright flash of lightning obscures the screen, the two are switched. Adam runs inside Castle Grayskull and He-Man comes out, and they swap places. With the Cringer to Battle-Cat transformation, it’s even easier: when there’s lightning in the way, Cringer just puts on that stupid helmet and suit of armour, and hey presto! Instant Battle-Cat.
Tempting as this theory is, it doesn’t explain how they get to Castle Grayskull in the first place, and then back again to wherever they came from. The only answer I can think of is that when Adam holds up his sword, he presses a little button on it which makes an life-size inflatable replica of Castle Grayskull fly out, inflate and position itself directly behind him for maximum dramatic effect. Then when the lightning flashes (which is, of course, not real lightning, but a long invisible light bulb which extends from the end of the sword when Adam presses the afore-mentioned button, which then lights up randomly to simulate lightning), Adam runs and hides behind the inflatable Castle Grayskull and Cringer puts on his mask and armour. Then He-Man runs out from wherever he is (he follows Adam around all the time, hiding, so when Adam needs to ‘become’ He-Man, he is always on hand) and takes Adam’s place. He then presses another button, which sucks the inflatable Castle Grayskull back into the sword and retracts the light bulb. The camera cunningly hides Adam, who is lying flat on the ground behind where the castle was. Then everything appears to go back to normal, and He-Man takes over from where Adam was. The entire procedure is of course done in reverse when He-Man wants to ‘return’ to being Adam.
All this, of course, begs the question of why they do it. And that is quite frankly a question I’m not willing to answer, because it’s just going to lead to even more stupid theorising, and I’ve had enough of that.