Talking about Teela

In the 80s, I was a fan of the series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.  Even now, I still find that the show has interesting characters and decent personality development for them. 

Sadly, there’s just never been much in the way of good female characters for girls.  I never cared much for watching some dippy show about airheads looking for BFFs, boyfriends and fashion tips.  I much preferred the real thrill of watching shows about characters going out on adventures, kicking butts, dodging death traps, defeating some foe and saving some magoffin.  So it was only natural for me to be drawn to shows ‘designed for boys’.  Usually, these shows included a few token female characters.  Some were just obvious eye-candy for the young testosterones.  Others were great characters.

This brings me to the character Teela of He-Man fame.

As a young girl, I admired Teela.  She’s a rare character type.  She’s a capable and agile fighter as seen in episodes like ‘Trouble in Arcadia’.  Episodes such as ‘Like Father Like Daughter’ show Teela’s intelligence.  ‘The Witch and the Warrior’ is an example of Teela’s strategic thinking and cleverness.  Despite her displays of a quick tempter throughout the series, ‘Into the Abyss’ is just one example of Teela’s kind and caring side.  In short, she’s a well-rounded, admirable lady role model.

In one of the rarest things for a good female character ever, Teela is actually reasonably dressed!  Far too often, production crews seem to think that a strong female character must dress like a prostitute.  Teela’s outfit is actually sensible and concealing.  Quite frankly, she’s far less of an exhibitionist than She-Ra.  That’s a constant issue that I’ve had with shows.  Some of them go through the pains to give us a decent female character only to have her dress like the local street-side whore.  Wonder Woman, Storm, Starfire, Xena and Gabrielle are all very good characters.  Yet they dress like lust puppy bait.  It’s very refreshing to see a female, like Teela, that can be a strong competent character without exposing herself like a cheap slab of beef for the oglers.

I’ve always found it extremely unfair that Teela was never allowed to be in on the Eternia secrets.  There was always the excuse of ‘Oh, it’s just too dangerous!’ where she was concerned.  That was the lamest, most ignorant and most selfish excuse that Filmation or Hasbro could have EVER come up with.

Man-at-Arms trained Teela as a soldier.  She’s learned how to fight and how to think her way through most situations.  Teela’s more than proven herself adept at taking on danger.  She doesn’t shy away from it either.  She’s a royal palace captain of the guard for crying out loud!  When Teela sets her mind to something, she isn’t afraid to take risks to achieve her goals.  Yet, she’s smart enough to prepare for those risks.

Teela’s Quest is a good example of Teela’s skills in action.  Man-at-Arms was unable to tell Teela who her mother is because he’d been sworn to secrecy.  He’s very honest about that too.

“That is a secret I’ve promised never to reveal.  Someday, you will learn that secret, Teela.  But not from me.”

This left Teela very depressed.  She decided to find out who her mother is on her own.  That quest would take her to a very dangerous place.  However she didn’t just go unprepared.  After landing her Wind Raider (air-car) in the Crystal Sea, Teela had to continue on foot.  She took a staff with her for protection.  She was also smart enough to have other weapons to deal with the creatures there.  She found the Oracle of the Crystal Sea on her own.  It was telling her about her mother until Mer-Man interfered.  At this point, standard ‘main character saves the day’ rules apply.  He-Man rescued Teela and helped her finish her quest.

Sadly, her determination and skills weren’t enough to prove herself worthy.  After all the trouble that Teela went through to find out who her mother is, the Sorceress showed up and took the knowledge away from her.  Teela proves herself once again by defending Castle Grayskull in ‘Teela’s Triumph’.  Again, she’s denied the knowledge of her mother or He-Man’s secret.  The reason?  “It’s still too dangerous for Teela to know anything yet.” 

Teela has spent her life being trained as a soldier.  Soldiers are trained to face dangers and take risks.  He-Man didn’t hesitate to lend Teela his sword in ‘Teela’s Quest’.  That sword, I might add, is the source of his powers.  Yet he doesn’t feel that she’s worthy of his secrets?  Keeping Teela out of the loop was completely wrong and stupid.

It’s sad to think that even Man-at-Arms, Teela’s own adoptive father, didn’t trust her enough to be included in Adam’s secret.  Sometimes it seems like Man-at-Arms hates the team’s magician, Orko.  Yet, he trusts Orko more than Teela.

Don’t get me wrong.  For a character that’s basically supposed to be ‘comic relief’, Orko is generally a very useful character.  He helps the group quite a bit and actually comes through in a pinch.  His worth as a character is never contrived to make him seem useful.  He actually does forward the plot of an episode many times leading to a problem’s resolution. 

Still, Orko does tend to have a big mouth.  Every time someone says, “And don’t tell anyone.”  The first thing Orko does is run off to tell everyone. (Except for Adam’s secret)

Considering that they did a female version of He-Man for us girls, they knew that they had a girl fanbase for the show.  They even went through all the trouble of developing endearing, competent female characters that girls could admire and identify with.  To just give such a slap in the face to a character like Teela was one of the biggest mistakes that they ever made.