Introduction


It starts with five simple words:

"BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL..."

And then it comes. The music builds. Lightning from the sky strikes the man with the upraised sword. Does it hurt him? Just listen to what he says next:

"I HAAAAAVE THE POWER!!!!"

You remember. Electric bolts of pure energy crackle around his muscled body. Hands that can punch through solid steel grip the sword that transformed the bumbling prince into the most powerful man in the universe. You remember the way it felt to grab hold of a plastic sword or a stick or even empty air and say those same words: I have the power.

We all want the power. But the world seems to be short on magic swords these days. Believe me, I've checked. (You think I'd be writing this if I had a magic sword? No way. I'd be out battling shadow beasts and seven-headed monsters, saving nubile red-haired maidens from guys with skulls for faces.)

So what do we do? Well, I suppose you can grow a mustache and build weapons devices and adopt an orphan who grows up to be captain of the guards. But let's face it. Not everyone can grow mustaches. And even if you can, do you really want to? Basically the only people who can have mustaches without looking silly are those who've always had mustaches. (Having a mustache attached to a beard doesn't count, by the way. It's still just a beard. That's a whole other story.) It's something set from the time of adolescence, something you have to choose. Either you're a mustache guy or you're not. Once you've decided, it's locked in. (It works both ways, too. Suddenly you shave off your mustache and bam! You've got a lip coming from nowhere. Scary.)

Okay. You don't have a magic sword, or a mustache, or skill with weapons or space technology in a barbarian sorcery world. You can't be He-Man or Man-At-Arms. I'll assume that, like me, if you can't do any of the above, you also cannot fly, ram into buildings with your head, or transform into a mystical falcon. Is this reason to despair? Will your life be meaningless from now on?

The answer to all of these questions is: NO! You can have the power without the magic sword. No, I don't mean you'll be able to pick up Castle Grayskull and throw it into the air using your bulging muscles. I'm talking about the real power that He-Man wields. His morality.

Fast forward to the end of the show. The battle with Skeletor was fought and won. Old skullface runs off, shaking his hands in the air, vowing eternal revenge. Like we're scared. Next time we'll just beat him again. No matter who he brings along! (By the way, who has a skull instead of a face? How can he even see without eyeballs?) After all that the show should be over, right?

Wrong! Now comes the most important part. The moral.

You've heard the expression, "the moral of the story." No doubt your 11th grade English teacher had you combing all the pages from "Call me Ishmael" to "Finis" so you could explain, in your own words, just what Moby Dick really meant. He-Man would never lead you on such a pointless chase. At the end of every single episode, He-Man (or one of his faithful and heroic friends) tells you plainly and simply what you should know about how to live a good and happy life. That knowledge, my friends, is real power. With it you can master the universe. Stay tuned.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

How To Get Ahead

Evil-Lyn isn’t exactly terrified of Skeletor. She respects the power he has, of course, and keeps a (mostly) civil tongue when he’s around. But you won’t see her whimper and cower like Tri-Clops or Beast-Man when old boneface gets enraged and starts shooting energy bolts from his Havoc Staff.

Maybe it’s because she’s got the same kind of power Skeletor has: sorcery. His is more powerful, of course; otherwise it would be Evil-Lyn who would shake her fists in the air, angry at the universe, for having lost to He-Man at the end of an episode. But Skeletor does rely on her to carry out his plans, and she usually delivers, unlike our favorite orange-colored snarling whipping boy, Beast-Man. Is it too much for her to hope that one day her magical abilities will match and even exceed Skeletor’s? The answer is no; she does hope, and what is more, she actively plans for that day.

Besides sorcery, she successfully mimics another attribute of calcium-head: his withering contempt for his bumbling subordinates. Whether it’s Beast-Man who can’t control his dragons, or Trap-Jaw who fails to attach a tool into his arm socket fast enough, Evil-Lyn is ready and willing to name them idiots, nincompoops, failures, if Skeletor isn’t around to deliver the barbs himself.

Maniacal laughter is another trait that Evil-Lyn is developing. Though not quite as piercing as Skeletor’s ringing, triumphant cackle, Evil-Lyn’s husky chortle fills the hapless listener with an unmistakable sense of dread.

You could say Evil-Lyn carefully follows an old, much revered principle for getting ahead: mimic your superior. Be good at what they’re good at, so that one day, when they’re old and feeble and forgetful, you can secretly steal their Havoc Staff and put them to work for you cleaning out the dungeons. Who will be laughing then?

Monday, March 23, 2009

Something To Prove

Teila has a destiny. We’re told pretty early on that Teila is actually the daughter of the Sorceress. Man-At-Arms found Teila as a baby and decided to raiser her (he was mustache-less at that time. By the time she began to form memories, I’m sure the mustache was firmly in place.) The Sorceress is one of the three most powerful forces on Eternia (the other two being He-Man and, you guessed it, that old calcified cackler, Skeletor). So Teila, presumably, has a lot to look forward to. But she doesn’t know any of this.

Teila takes every opportunity to test herself and go beyond the rules laid down by Man-At-Arms. It’s true that she isn’t a child; she is, after all, the captain of the guards! Man-At-Arms still tries to protect her, though. Maybe it’s because no matter how old she gets, she’s still his daughter and he will always worry about her. Or maybe it’s because Teila takes risks a little too willingly and places herself in unnecessary danger.

Like the time Teila wanted to spend a couple of days in the Darklands. She ended up getting captured by the sorcerer Kor’s soldier creatures. Kor turned out to be a good guy, but it could easily have been the realm of an evil sorcerer.

There are times we want to prove ourselves so badly that we behave rashly. Why is it so important to prove ourselves to others? Because we start out in life without much experience. We learn how to do a lot of things from watching others. They tell us when we’re doing things right and when wrong. So naturally we look to them to validate our abilities.

This isn’t a bad thing. Before we have internalized a skill or ability, it’s important to look to experts so we know whether we’re doing it right. Later on, once we’ve acquired the necessary knowledge and experience, we’ll be able to judge for ourselves.

The mistake Teila made is thinking that Man-At-Arm’s validation just by itself will make her capable or not. This is backwards. It’s our successful abilities which win the validation, and not the other way around. It’s easy to become impatient with ourselves and want to be good at something right away. If we think that the validation of others is the mark of being good at something, that’s what we’ll aim for. But that can result in lying or misrepresenting our actual abilities, just to get a good scorecard.

In the end, the only one who will know whether we’ve succeeded is ourselves. That’s not something we can take a shortcut for.

Keep Cool, Baby

One time Evil-Lyn kidnapped the daughter of a powerful sorcerer and showed the sorcerer a forged video that showed He-Man and Man-At-Arms doing the kidnapping. This made the sorcerer so mad he incarcerated He-Man, just as Evil-Lyn planned; The sorcerer wouldn’t listen to reason because he was so angry.

Kor, the sorcerer, was ordinarily a good guy. He didn’t spend his time hatching plans that would drain the life essences out of people so he could use that essence to destroy stuff. (Like Bone Dome does). But his daughter was kidnapped. He was scared. Kor saw footage showing He-Man taking his daugher. So he reacted.

Quick reactions can save lives. Back when us humans lived close to tigers and snakes quick reactions allowed us to survive and multiply. Nowadays those kinds of situations are pretty uncommon. Sure, a tiger might get you – but usually Beast-Man is behind it.

For situations like that, it pays to think things through.

Suppose you determine Beast-Man is controlling the tiger. Aha – now you have a way to get the tiger off your back: distract Beast-Man. How do you do that? Perhaps you could make him think Skeletor was coming to berate him. Poor Beast-Man. Nothing he does is ever good enough. He’s got a real inferiority complex because of Skeletor’s nitpicking. You can exploit that.

Better yet, you could make him think Skeletor was happy with him. Wouldn’t that knock him down! He’d be so flabbergasted and happy he’d lose all interest in that man-eating tiger. You’d be safe. And maybe you’d have given Beast-Man a little taste of what it's like to have positive self-esteem. Who knows where that could lead to? Perhaps he might escape the tendrils of old bony face once and for all?

Many options become available if we stop to think instead of just reacting.

Kor was so upset he couldn’t think straight. Sure, he saw doctored footage of He-Man and Man-At-Arms stealing his daughter. But they told Kor it was Evil-Lyn and they gave him a good argument for him to at least consider that they may be telling the truth: Evil-Lyn is usually causing trouble; He-Man and Man-At-Arms are usually cleaning up trouble.

But he wouldn’t listen. His mind was too clouded by anger. Disaster almost occurred – the Crismson Scourge got loose and would have burned the world if not for He-Man. (And by the way, did He-Man just pound the Scourge into submission? No. He took the time to think of a better solution: tapping underground water and damping the Crimson Scourge into submission.)

There are times when lightning reactions can do us good. But most of the time it pays to stop and think.

Sorcery and Self-Pity

Orco gets a pretty hard time. On his own planet he is given the appellation “the Great” because of his mighty magical powers. On Eternia he is little more than the court jester. All because the laws of sorcery operate differently on the two different worlds. Specifically, the laws work backwards.

Still, Orco doesn’t mope and complain about it. “Why oh why don’t my powers work as well here on Eternia? Pity me! Pity me!” You don’t hear such things from him. (At least not much.) Although he has several vices (occasional slothfulness and gluttony, to name two), self-pity doesn’t seem to be one of them. Instead he keeps trying to improve his magic, much to Man-At-Arm’s dismay – since Man-At-Arms usually experiences the less ‘expected’ side effects of Orco’s magic. (Given how often Man-At-Arms lectures Orco, I’m not sure this is entirely an accident.)

Sometimes it’s hard not to complain when things don’t go our way, especially when we are trying hard to do something. We want to call life “unfair.” But fairness, as a concept, only applies to thinking beings, like humans and cyclopses (cyclopsi?) and Trallans (Orco’s people). It doesn’t apply to things like disease, hurricanes, or gravity. Unless those things were caused by Skeletor. And believe me, at one time or another, they were caused by Skeletor. Man, he does a lot of unfair things. Just thinking about his bony face screwed up in laughter and gloating makes me so mad! Easy, easy. One battle at a time.

Anyways, things happen that we don’t like. Sitting around complaining about it doesn’t usually make things any better. Making a plan and making an effort often do. It doesn’t always work – just ask Man-At-Arms. But it’s a whole lot better than crying on your bed, feeling sorry for yourself. Okay, crying on your bed in self-pity can be pretty satisfying. But the world will still suck when you finally get up.

Eternian Phone Book Blues

Did you ever notice that nobody in Eternia has a last name? Unless you count “Man” as a last name, as in “he-MAN” or “mer-MAN” or “beast-MAN”. If that’s the case, I really wish they made a family reunion episode. Somebody has some explaining to do, especially the ancestor responsible for Merman’s family line.

It could be that the ordinary, common people have last names, names like Smith, Baker, Skeletorvictim – you know, names coined after people’s occupations. We don’t ever see those people – we only see the famous ones, and, like all famous people anywhere, all you need is a first name: Cher. Oprah. Leo. Etc. (That last one was a Latin abbreviation, just in case you’re googling imb for Etc. It means et cetera, which is Latin for “and other things.” Unless Etc. as a name catches on. If it does, a public relations agency somewhere in Los Angeles will have to create and cast the person who will bear the name. Etcetera to his or her fans, but Etc (prounounced eht-see, rhymes with Betsy) to friends and family.)

It’s a good lesson in economy. If one word suffices, don’t use two – Strunk & White would be proud. (Of the lesson, not this overworded essay. Not just overloaded with words, overloaded with made-up words like “overworded.”) If, one day, a baby is born with a skull for a face and his parents (naturally) name him Skeletor, then a last name is required. Maybe he’ll be called Skeletor Smith or Skeletor Brewer, depending on how his parents make a living. Meanwhile the purple guy with the havoc staff could introduce himself as Skeletor Eternia-Bane. Not only is it a last name, it’s even hyphenated.

The Sword and the Scientist

Not every one has a magic sword. Duncan, also known as (The) Man-At-Arms, the faithful soldier and weapons technician for the king (as well as keeper of He-Man’s secret and adoptive father to Teila) has no magic powers. He has only his courage and his wits.

Let’s review his mental prowess. He once built a robot of He-Man. From scratch. This robot was as strong as He-Man. (He was later subverted by Skeletor and, much later, his skin was turned blue. Don’t ask why.) Now why Man-At-Arms didn’t build an army of these robots is beyond me. But the point is, he could have. He-Man was able to defeat the robot. But how about a hundred of them? Not likely.

Or how about the time he devised a machine capable of transforming rock into fertile soil? Talk about the millions that would bring in, not to mention all the food that it would create. He-Man, for all his brute strength, couldn’t squeeze food from a stone. Duncan can.

Given a choice between He-Man’s magic sword and Duncan’s technical prowess, I’d choose the latter. Heck, with such know-how I could build a magic sword. I could build ten of them! The point is, don’t go moping about wishing you had things you don’t. Try figuring out how to get them. Make a plan. Think. And, while you’re at it, focus on the thing everyone of us has: a brain.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Hedging

Your parents (mostly) want the best for you (probably). So listen to them.

One of the nice things about the moral messages found at the end of each episode is the room for hedging allowed. I mean, not everybody is bound to have good parents, right? Some of them might be downright nasty. Mean even. Some might secretly wear masks with skulls painted on them, when they’re alone and they think nobody is watching. They might plan on taking over the world using talismans like ancient masks of power or astronomical phenomena like white holes. For parents like these, the best thing to do is get away.

That is the magic of the word “mostly.” And “probably.” True, these words can have their own pitfalls – let Skeletor start using them and pretty soon you will “probably” give him the benefit of the doubt because he is “mostly” good inside. We all know what comes from that – enslavement and destruction. And listening to old bony laugh like a maniac. Forever.

Used honestly, however, these hedging words allow some important facts of reality to plant themselves into our minds. Yes, there can be exceptions. Some parents may be bad. Some good parents may be bad some of the time. But that doesn’t mean certain general guidelines don’t hold true. Knowledge is rarely complete. You still have to work with what you have. Unless, of course, you have good reason to believe otherwise.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Man or Superman

He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe, is mostly found in the body of the lazy prince of Eternia named Adam. (Note: He has no last name. Nobody has last names on Eternia. Apparently there aren’t many people living there.) Only when danger intrudes does he become the bristling, buff, blond bombshell He-Man. Which makes one wonder: who is the real person? He-Man? Or Adam?

On the one hand, He-Man is strong and revered by everyone. (Especially Teila, captain of the guards.) He can lift boulders. Bend steel. Shrugg off freeze rays. Whereas Adam is widely believed to be: a) lazy; b) clumsy; c) a coward; and d) always hungry. Which would you choose?

Adam/He-Man provides an answer in the episode entitled, “Prince Adam No More.” He wants to tell everyone that he is actually He-Man so that all the respect He-Man receives is transferred to him. The Sorceress warns him that to reveal his secret identity would bring great danger to his loved ones. (Let’s examine this old superhero prohibition for a moment. Would Adam’s father and mother be any more at danger from Skeletor than they are already? Skeletor has tried to harm the King and Queen on any number of occasions. They are already enemies! I don’t think it would make any difference.) He tries to be strong as Prince Adam (to impress his father) but fails. Scolded by Man-At-Arms, he transforms into He-Man and saves the day.

To protect his family - needlessly, as I believe, but let that pass for the moment – Adam retains his secret identity and must deal with the reputation of Adam he’s created. Is this just an example of being selfless? I don’t think so. The real lesson is that knowing what kind of person you are is more important than what other people think of you. After all, you’re the only person who will always have to live with you. Even if you wave a sword in the air and have your clothes reduced to a harness and hairy underwear, it’s still just you.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Welcome to Moral Mastery

It starts with five simple words:

"BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL..."

And then it comes. The music builds. Lightning from the sky strikes the man with the upraised sword. Does it hurt him? Just listen to what he says next:

"I HAAAAAVE THE POWER!!!!"

You remember. Electric bolts of pure energy crackle around his muscled body. Hands that can punch through solid steel grip the sword that transformed the bumbling prince into the most powerful man in the universe. You remember the way it felt to grab hold of a plastic sword or a stick or even empty air and say those same words: I have the power.

We all want the power. But the world seems to be short on magic swords these days. Believe me, I've checked. (You think I'd be writing this if I had a magic sword? No way. I'd be out battling shadow beasts and seven-headed monsters, saving nubile red-haired maidens from guys with skulls for faces.)

So what do we do? Well, I suppose you can grow a mustache and build weapons devices and adopt an orphan who grows up to be captain of the guards. But let's face it. Not everyone can grow mustaches. And even if you can, do you really want to? Basically the only people who can have mustaches without looking silly are those who've always had mustaches. (Having a mustache attached to a beard doesn't count, by the way. It's still just a beard. That's a whole other story.) It's something set from the time of adolescence, something you have to choose. Either you're a mustache guy or you're not. Once you've decided, it's locked in. (It works both ways, too. Suddenly you shave off your mustache and bam! You've got a lip coming from nowhere. Scary.)

Okay. You don't have a magic sword, nor a mustache or skill with weapons or building space technology in a barbarian sorcery world. You can't be He-Man or Man-At-Arms. I'll assume that, like me, if you can't do any of the above, you also cannot fly, ram into buildings with your head, or transform into a mystical falcon. Is this reason to despair? Will your life be meaningless from now on?

The answer to all of these questions is: NO! You can have the power without the magic sword. No, I don't mean you'll be able to pick up Castle Grayskull and throw it into the air using your bulging muscles. I'm talking about the real power that He-Man wields. His morality.

Fast forward to the end of the show. The battle with Skeletor was fought and won. Old skullface runs off, shaking his hands in the air, vowing eternal revenge. Like we're scared. Next time we'll just beat him again. No matter who he brings along! (By the way, who has a skull instead of a face? How can he even see without eyeballs?) After all that the show should be over, right?

Wrong! Now comes the most important part. The moral.

You've heard the expression, "the moral of the story." No doubt your 11th grade English teacher had you combing all the pages from "Call me Ishmael" to "Finis" so you could explain, in your own words, just what Moby Dick really meant. He-Man would never lead you on such a pointless chase. At the end of every single episode, He-Man (or one of his faithful and heroic friends) tells you plainly and simply what you should know about how to live a good and happy life. That knowledge, my friends, is real power. With it you can master the universe. Stay tuned.