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Literature Text
Though Heroes Fall – a Tale of He-Man.
By Omnivore 7 – with Artwork by Sazariel and by thePolishgirl.
Summary:
Prince Adam's rash impulsiveness plunges a young and inexperienced He-Man into an ordeal where he is tested beyond his limits - and brought to question the true nature of loyalty, of love - and even of the Power itself....
Introduction
This is a tale about power – the complexities of acquiring and wielding it, and about its effects, both corrupting and redeeming.
It is often over-readily assumed that to be He-Man is an altogether wonderful experience, replete with enviable strength and skill and charisma. Yet this story seeks to investigate the actual human experience – and cost – of being both Adam and He-Man and to understand the burden of that duality – both to himself and to those around him. It also portrays the strange and intense affinity – even intimacy – which can arise between bitter enemies involved in close personal conflict.
It has a somewhat more shadowed and nuanced tone than most literature on this subject and is aimed at the more mature reader since much of it takes the form of a tense psychological drama; but it is not without its humour and – of course – its battles; this is, after all, Eternia!
Over the course of twelve chapters, each illustrated by specially created images from the talented hands of Sazariel and of thePolishgirl, it relates the tale of one of the young He-Man’s earlier and more formative adventures. And it shows how even the most noble of heroes may struggle to live up to his own high ideals and to the expectations of others – and of how there is more than one way to fall....
To see more of Sazariel’s artwork, please visit: sazariel.deviantart.com
Also: thepolishgirl.deviantart.com
[The usual disclaimer; He-Man and the MotU mythos are not of my creation and I make no IP claim in that direction – and so on.]
Comments677
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omnivore7 said:
It's clear that Wales only attracted the direct attention of the English crown (against which it could rarely stand for long) on the rare occasions when one prince was able to subdue the rest and 'unite' the Welsh (in so far as this was ever remotely possible) under his own rule. Videlicet 1063, 1156, 1246, 1277 and, terminally, 1283. On each of these occasions the crown was able to rely on the support of other Welsh princes who resented the change - and who had usually invited the crown to intervene in any case. As had Dafydd ap Gruffydd - twice. Yes, true: this was not a good outlook for the offspring of the house of Maelgwyn Gwynedd; but Powys fared barely any better, becoming in time the very UN-Welsh Earls of Suffolk (and finally being extirpated by the Tudors - descendants of said Maelgywn - in 1525..) I find the efforts of swivel-eyed nationalists to project their own fantasies onto the past both tedious and risible.
In addition, one can certainly question how Norman-French the English elites were by 1200; their children needed textbooks to teach them the language by then - suggesting strongly that they did not speak it by upbringing. Sheer numbers on the part of the English, constant intermarriage, the loss of Normandy (which no longer meant much to anyone but John) and the Norman genius for adapting to their environment meant, as Le Patourel put it, that the Normans simply adapted themselves out of existence.
And the less said about the papacy - esp. Innocent III, the better.
But I am surprised (and delighted) to find a fellow mediaevalist! Especially in the States, where such esoteria are not widely taught, and rarely evoke much interest, at least not in the knowledgeable way that you demonstrate. I derive from your words that this was a favoured period at university, and that you have maintained your keen interest. Would that be right?
And a MotU fan too! My cup runneth over!
As for the bony-headed one - well, I think he could perhaps be argued as a sociopath, revelling in destruction for its own sake as he does - but perfect? Ita vero? (!)
I was much disappointed by the Eternity War - and the shambolic offerings that went before it. Ill-conceived, poorly executed, abysmally ineptly edited and plainly without any overall, unified creative vision. Such a wasted opportunity. But it was doomed to plummet and burn from the moment they had He-Man, covered in blood, bragging and cracking puerile jokes with Teela as he hacked down Evil-Lyn's island tribesmen - none of whom could have done him the least harm. If that was the mature, edgy, gritty (yawn...) new He-Man (not to mention his shiny new red romper suit..) then someone at Mattel needed firing. Later attempts to row back from this terminal gaff were pathetically ill-handled. And thus the Eternity War was founded on sand and failed as predictably as had the quaking morass which spawned it.
It was sheer frustrated disappointment at watching this drawn-out suicide attempt that prompted me to write Though Heroes Fall. There had, I judged, to be a way to bring MotU into an adult, high fantasy setting without rendering it too crass for the average burger-flipper to find it of interest.
And Skeletor isn't funny. Not comic, not light-relief, not giving us his wry narrative insights into power and heroism (another repeated DC/Mattel failing) but chilling, evil, cruel and cold. One gone beyond all human feeling, one whose ambition has led him to abandon all that does not placate the gnawing hunger of his shrivelled soul. One who hates all he cannot control - and despised all that he can.
To me, that is Skeletor - one who long ago ceased even to be Keldor and is now a concentrated force of dark will far beyond the bounds of sanity.
And this was the Pixie's reply:
To begin with the end of that - the last few paragraphs you spent describing how you see Skeletor are what I sum up with the single word: perfect.
Mind you, that view is derived from far too many years now of watching humanity act like a hybrid viral-cancer that is reproducing out of control and far beyond this poor little planet’s ability to support the sheer volume of humanity - and then, when you add in our “stuff” and industry, agriculture, dreadful land and resources management, governments and politicians all simply catering to their constituencies by lip service whilst standing for nothing so they can keep their little fiefdoms and use them in nepotistic fashion to give shiftless Uncle Dingaling a cushy job with benefits, a high salary, and no oversight or quantifiable duties to fulfil...when Europe got overpopulated, bubonic plague came to make space. However, now we’ve advanced scientifically to the point where the planet’s immune system is failing it. We’re developing vaccines and cures for the plagues that are supposed to be a culling to save the world from us. And that’s why I hope that (aside from the racist garbage filling his writing - but Paul from the Christian bible was a misogynist of epic proportions and he doesn’t get 100% discredited for his vile views) H. P. Lovecraft was a prophet, and that there are Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, Azathoth the blind idiot god, the Yigg, etc. who don’t care about humanity and would just as soon eat us or make something useful out of us - and that they’ll come soon. Tragically, I don’t think that there’s much more chance of my hope being reality as any other religions - ie, close to zero. Understanding that this is my view of humankind, perhaps my considering Skeletor pretty much perfect has a flow of logic, even if you consider the basis itself fallacious.
As for my love of certain time periods far past and far distant...I genuinely pity most US citizens. We barely have a history as a nation. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a city with some history (New Orleans), and I often went to go visit my cousins in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the UK. Seeing cathedrals built around about the 1100s that put our modern architecture and aesthetic to shame, then going back to a city that’s only just now celebrating its tricentennial...we don’t get to live surrounded by history. It’s not real for us. I tried so hard to get my husband to fly to the UK to see Richard III put to rest a few years ago - and he didn’t even know who/what I was going on about or why just to be there when it happened would have been incredible. Then again, he grew up in Hollywood, Florida, which basically didn’t even exist until the late 1930s. His family home is “historic” because it was built before 1955. I’ve been down here in the Miami/Ft Lauderdale area for 8 years, and the lack of culture/lack of history shock is killing me. (Actually, even across the pond y’all might have heard of the small city we live in this past Valentines Day...charming little place called Parkland - where I’ve seen NOTHING pre-dating the late-1970s).
My da was a history major in university specialising in Merovingian dynasty era up to the beginnings of “the Renaissance” who went on to law school and still practices law now in his 70s - but he raised me on heavily romanticised tales of the state of things and great leaders or great human beings who made sh*tty monarchs/sh*tty leaders or sh*tty human beings who made great monarchs.
I come more from the “how’d you know he was a king?” -“Coz he hasn’t got sh*t all over him” (probably badly paraphrased MP/Holy Grail) - kind of says it all.
My mum went to university and doubled in business and Egyptology-but one hot summer on a dig had her, too, go to law school and become an attorney, as well.
Then, when I went to uni, I sort of overdid it. Double majored in English Comp Lit with a concentration in creative writing and History, focused on Carolingian dynasty era then a bit further into the “Renaissance” than Da. Since I was the *only* student at my university who wanted classes focusing on more specific time periods, and especially since I wanted to study periods through their literature (oral & written) and visual arts - how they were products of their era or ahead/behind their time, and how they could affect society as much as society could influence them. Basically, I wound up doing a bunch of cross-subject independent study projects where it was a professor or 3 working with me. That should give you some vague idea as to how few people I’ve ever had with whom to have the discussions I imagined I would be having with fellow students whilst still in high school, and what a letdown the reality of it was.
I also minored in psychology, sociology, and philosophy - it should have been a quad major English, History, Psychology, and Sociology, but my last semester the uni added a prereq class necessary for getting credited with the major in Psych and/or Soc, and it wouldn’t schedule - so even though I had more than enough credits in the upper levels for both, they wouldn’t give me the quad major. Totally irrelevant tale, occurred almost 15 years ago, but I still find it amusing.
And, can you guess what I did with those BAs?
If you guessed that I, too, just like Mum and Da, went off to law school and became an attorney, then you’ve earned yourself a prize...I recommend Cinnabon or...I’m not sure. It’s after midnight here and I’ve been up 41 hours straight.
As for me and my MOTU and most especially Skeletor adoration goes back to the Filmation days - mum wouldn’t let me watch violent cartoons, but I could watch them at my cousin’s house with him, then act out our own adventures; however, it was always Tom saying, “Since it’s my house and I’m the boy, I get to choose first who I play.”
So he was He-Man. He wanted me to be Teela, the Sorceress, and Lyn. But nope, I always played Skeletor because he was more powerful than Lyn and it made us opponents , which couldn’t happen unless Teela or the Sorceress went evil...and in our little personal corner of the multiverse, “Skeletor” never lost. Tom may have been bigger and the boy, but I was GOOOOOOOD with my Havoc Staff (mop handle - we were 6, so finding ram skulls proved impossible) and he kinda sucked with the Sword. I watched the weirdness that was Skeletor in Space, but he danced with a redhead (maaaaaaybe I wanted to be Crita that day, and as we’re both gingers, it wasn’t even hard to imagine) even though he wasn’t more loyal to her than he was anyone else when loyalty would have been detrimental to him.
I used to love the mini comics that came with the figures and I liked the comics that coincided with the MYP reboot.
There is even 1 scene in Eternity Wars that made me tear up. 1.
I’m actually a bit over 350 pages into the first draft of my own Skeletor Actually Achieves Everlasting Victory story. It’s going to have a helluva fun little twist thanks to Hordak. However, Skeletor is not going to find that there’s still love somewhere in him and become a benevolent, kind ruler. He’s going to be Skeletor, but a Skeletor who has learnt a rather important little bit about himself.
Also, I don’t know if you’ve read Donatien Alphonse François’ The 120 Days of Sodom, but if you have, try imagining Skeletor and his Council of Evil as the Friends in it. And random other comic book/cartoon characters in whatever rôle you wish for them. It’s a ghastly but somewhat amusing way to kill time.
Anywho, it’s nearly 1 am here, and I’m quite positive that I’m rambling rather than replying, so I shall write a proper response to anything I missed and shall probably have questions.
And I’ll try to remember to tell you how the Filmation series is a huge part of why I’m actually a rather functional adult aside from the crushes on a few select evil characters. When I got to meet Mr Oppenheimer, getting to thank him...it was a pretty amazing, moving moment - even though my Head-Skeletor is far more vicious, mercurial, vengeful, cruelly sadistic, murderous, etc than ever in any multiversal iteration that I’ve encountered. He does have a bit of a sense of humour...mostly of the ironic sort...or laughing at the misfortunes of others, suffering especially of the needless sort...
DEAR CTHULHU’S TENTACLED TESTICLES, STOP TYPING AND GO TO SLEEP, PIXIE!
Until later!
Mind you, that view is derived from far too many years now of watching humanity act like a hybrid viral-cancer that is reproducing out of control and far beyond this poor little planet’s ability to support the sheer volume of humanity - and then, when you add in our “stuff” and industry, agriculture, dreadful land and resources management, governments and politicians all simply catering to their constituencies by lip service whilst standing for nothing so they can keep their little fiefdoms and use them in nepotistic fashion to give shiftless Uncle Dingaling a cushy job with benefits, a high salary, and no oversight or quantifiable duties to fulfil...when Europe got overpopulated, bubonic plague came to make space. However, now we’ve advanced scientifically to the point where the planet’s immune system is failing it. We’re developing vaccines and cures for the plagues that are supposed to be a culling to save the world from us. And that’s why I hope that (aside from the racist garbage filling his writing - but Paul from the Christian bible was a misogynist of epic proportions and he doesn’t get 100% discredited for his vile views) H. P. Lovecraft was a prophet, and that there are Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, Azathoth the blind idiot god, the Yigg, etc. who don’t care about humanity and would just as soon eat us or make something useful out of us - and that they’ll come soon. Tragically, I don’t think that there’s much more chance of my hope being reality as any other religions - ie, close to zero. Understanding that this is my view of humankind, perhaps my considering Skeletor pretty much perfect has a flow of logic, even if you consider the basis itself fallacious.
As for my love of certain time periods far past and far distant...I genuinely pity most US citizens. We barely have a history as a nation. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a city with some history (New Orleans), and I often went to go visit my cousins in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the UK. Seeing cathedrals built around about the 1100s that put our modern architecture and aesthetic to shame, then going back to a city that’s only just now celebrating its tricentennial...we don’t get to live surrounded by history. It’s not real for us. I tried so hard to get my husband to fly to the UK to see Richard III put to rest a few years ago - and he didn’t even know who/what I was going on about or why just to be there when it happened would have been incredible. Then again, he grew up in Hollywood, Florida, which basically didn’t even exist until the late 1930s. His family home is “historic” because it was built before 1955. I’ve been down here in the Miami/Ft Lauderdale area for 8 years, and the lack of culture/lack of history shock is killing me. (Actually, even across the pond y’all might have heard of the small city we live in this past Valentines Day...charming little place called Parkland - where I’ve seen NOTHING pre-dating the late-1970s).
My da was a history major in university specialising in Merovingian dynasty era up to the beginnings of “the Renaissance” who went on to law school and still practices law now in his 70s - but he raised me on heavily romanticised tales of the state of things and great leaders or great human beings who made sh*tty monarchs/sh*tty leaders or sh*tty human beings who made great monarchs.
I come more from the “how’d you know he was a king?” -“Coz he hasn’t got sh*t all over him” (probably badly paraphrased MP/Holy Grail) - kind of says it all.
My mum went to university and doubled in business and Egyptology-but one hot summer on a dig had her, too, go to law school and become an attorney, as well.
Then, when I went to uni, I sort of overdid it. Double majored in English Comp Lit with a concentration in creative writing and History, focused on Carolingian dynasty era then a bit further into the “Renaissance” than Da. Since I was the *only* student at my university who wanted classes focusing on more specific time periods, and especially since I wanted to study periods through their literature (oral & written) and visual arts - how they were products of their era or ahead/behind their time, and how they could affect society as much as society could influence them. Basically, I wound up doing a bunch of cross-subject independent study projects where it was a professor or 3 working with me. That should give you some vague idea as to how few people I’ve ever had with whom to have the discussions I imagined I would be having with fellow students whilst still in high school, and what a letdown the reality of it was.
I also minored in psychology, sociology, and philosophy - it should have been a quad major English, History, Psychology, and Sociology, but my last semester the uni added a prereq class necessary for getting credited with the major in Psych and/or Soc, and it wouldn’t schedule - so even though I had more than enough credits in the upper levels for both, they wouldn’t give me the quad major. Totally irrelevant tale, occurred almost 15 years ago, but I still find it amusing.
And, can you guess what I did with those BAs?
If you guessed that I, too, just like Mum and Da, went off to law school and became an attorney, then you’ve earned yourself a prize...I recommend Cinnabon or...I’m not sure. It’s after midnight here and I’ve been up 41 hours straight.
As for me and my MOTU and most especially Skeletor adoration goes back to the Filmation days - mum wouldn’t let me watch violent cartoons, but I could watch them at my cousin’s house with him, then act out our own adventures; however, it was always Tom saying, “Since it’s my house and I’m the boy, I get to choose first who I play.”
So he was He-Man. He wanted me to be Teela, the Sorceress, and Lyn. But nope, I always played Skeletor because he was more powerful than Lyn and it made us opponents , which couldn’t happen unless Teela or the Sorceress went evil...and in our little personal corner of the multiverse, “Skeletor” never lost. Tom may have been bigger and the boy, but I was GOOOOOOOD with my Havoc Staff (mop handle - we were 6, so finding ram skulls proved impossible) and he kinda sucked with the Sword. I watched the weirdness that was Skeletor in Space, but he danced with a redhead (maaaaaaybe I wanted to be Crita that day, and as we’re both gingers, it wasn’t even hard to imagine) even though he wasn’t more loyal to her than he was anyone else when loyalty would have been detrimental to him.
I used to love the mini comics that came with the figures and I liked the comics that coincided with the MYP reboot.
There is even 1 scene in Eternity Wars that made me tear up. 1.
I’m actually a bit over 350 pages into the first draft of my own Skeletor Actually Achieves Everlasting Victory story. It’s going to have a helluva fun little twist thanks to Hordak. However, Skeletor is not going to find that there’s still love somewhere in him and become a benevolent, kind ruler. He’s going to be Skeletor, but a Skeletor who has learnt a rather important little bit about himself.
Also, I don’t know if you’ve read Donatien Alphonse François’ The 120 Days of Sodom, but if you have, try imagining Skeletor and his Council of Evil as the Friends in it. And random other comic book/cartoon characters in whatever rôle you wish for them. It’s a ghastly but somewhat amusing way to kill time.
Anywho, it’s nearly 1 am here, and I’m quite positive that I’m rambling rather than replying, so I shall write a proper response to anything I missed and shall probably have questions.
And I’ll try to remember to tell you how the Filmation series is a huge part of why I’m actually a rather functional adult aside from the crushes on a few select evil characters. When I got to meet Mr Oppenheimer, getting to thank him...it was a pretty amazing, moving moment - even though my Head-Skeletor is far more vicious, mercurial, vengeful, cruelly sadistic, murderous, etc than ever in any multiversal iteration that I’ve encountered. He does have a bit of a sense of humour...mostly of the ironic sort...or laughing at the misfortunes of others, suffering especially of the needless sort...
DEAR CTHULHU’S TENTACLED TESTICLES, STOP TYPING AND GO TO SLEEP, PIXIE!
Until later!