She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Rewatch 4.4, "Pulse"

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Tensions begin to emerge among the princesses--and their queen.

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4.4, "Pulse"

Written by Noelle Stevenson, Laura Sreebny, Josie Campbell, Katherine Nolfi, and M. Willis
Directed by Kiki Manrique

Synopsis

This ain't what you want to see when you finish a raid.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

A rebel strike team assails a Horde transport. The assault is successful, but it yields nothing; the transport is empty. Its expected payload is, instead, waiting in ambush.

In camp, Queen Glimmer rails against the deception. She debriefs the strike team and bemoans remaining in camp. Swift Wind delivers intelligence, and a plan to infiltrate the facility noted by the reconnaissance begins to form. Flutterina tries to insert herself into the plan but is refused.

Sneaky, indeed.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Instead, she clandestinely meets with the Horde at a hidden facility. Revealing herself as Double Trouble, the infiltrator reports on the status of the rebels in the field, as well as the impending mission.

In Bright Moon, Glimmer watches the strike team depart before teleporting off to practice about the palace. Shadow Weaver comments on the work from a garden she tends--and intimates that she can teach her to be greater yet. Glimmer gives consideration to the prospect but refuses. For the moment, at least.

Yeah, that's not good.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The strike team moves out on its mission, only to be ambushed again. A new Horde weapon shows itself, occasioning no small harm on the strike team. They survive, but not without pain, and the terrible implications of the new weapon are clear.

Bow, who has taken the brunt of the weapon, convalesces in Bright Moon. Adora uses her power to heal him, to some effect. Glimmer is unsettled by the whole affair, and Adora is not happy about it. The idea that she is being tracked is suggested, uncomfortably. Glimmer frets about sending her friends out, and Adora makes to reply in force.

Happy kitty.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Double Trouble contacts Catra at the Horde's outpost, reporting on the status of the rebels. Catra is amused by the performance and pleased by the report of the next sortie against the Horde. Catra plots another trap for Adora.

Glimmer returns to Shadow Weaver in her turmoil over Bow's injury. She elicits information about Catra's thinking, but Shadow Weaver offers instead to teach Glimmer skills useful to outmaneuvering Catra. As before, Glimmer is an apt pupil, and she uncovers Catra's location. Glimmer acts on the information, in effect using Adora to mislead Catra's defenses.

Drama queen?
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Adora's strike team proceeds against the weapon they'd encountered before. It attacks, and they withdraw--only to find themselves ambushed by many iterations of the weapon. Meanwhile, Glimmer assails the Horde outpost directly, wreaking havoc as she does. Catra forces Glimmer to divert another attack and is rescued by Double Trouble. Glimmer goes to rescue the strike team, though there is some injury incurred.

After, Glimmer exults in her victory. Adora is displeased at being used--and at Shadow Weaver's instruction. And Catra makes her own arrangements for continued action, perceiving a means of undermining the rebels further.

Discussion

In a medievalist, rather than medieval, borrowing, the present episode seems to position Shadow Weaver with Glimmer in a manner not unlike Sauron with Ar-Pharazôn of Númenor. That is, Shadow Weaver is a prisoner taken into a paradisaical kindgom who begins to offer paths to power to its rulers. In Tolkien, the offer results in the undermining of the kingdom and the reorientation of the world; it is something to watch for as the series proceeds.

Perhaps more telling is the tension in governance that the present episode points out. One of the difficulties of leadership, particularly leadership in a time of war, is sending people out to fight who may well be injured or die in doing so. That difficulty underlies much of the isolation of rule that Glimmer has experienced in the present season of the series. At the same time, she is accustomed to being among the fighting people, to exerting her personal martial abilities--and that is not out of line with medieval ideas of rule, in which rulers were expected to take the field alongside their followers and to accomplish much in those battles. (Among others, Jones comments in 2015 on such expectations--citing their unfulfillment as part of why King John of England could provoke Magna Carta.)

Further, though the ruler was expected to serve as an emblem of the nation and, given the often-sacral nature of medieval monarchy, a connection to the divine, the ruler also has to make choices in the interest of maintaining the state--rather than of individuals laboring on behalf of the state. Again, the leader has to be willing to send troops to die--or to serve as decoys while others act against more strategically important targets. The necessity of such decisions as Glimmer makes with Shadow Weaver does not make them less offensive, just as the need to excrete does not make what is excreted smell good, but the alternative seems as if it would be far, far worse.