Classic He-Man review: The Golden Discs of Knowledge
This episode starts with the Sorceress requesting He-Man’s help at Castle Grayskull. Arriving, he finds the place so haunted that the jawbridge is banging up and down and the castle’s eye sockets are randomly lighting up. The haunting turns out to be a phantom named Zanthor.
ZANTHOR: “Long ago, He-Man, the wisest men and women in the universe came here to Eternia, to store their knowledge on the Golden Discs. The Council of the Wise made me the discs’ keeper. ... in a moment of weakness, I gave the discs to Skeletor, who promised me great power in return. You can see for yourself what power I received. ... For my crime, I was banished to the Phantom Dimension, doomed forever to travel Eternia as an invisible phantom.”
SORCERESS: “The only remaining member of the original Council is Zodac.”
ZODAC: “Since the Council of the Wise disbanded, I have served the Overlords of the Eternal Dimension, keeping watch on the affairs of mortal men but never interfering. But since this matter involves a decision made when I was on the Council, I will hear you out, Zanthor.”
Remember this dialogue for after the summary.
Zanthor wants to make restitution by stealing back the Golden Discs from Snake Mountain, where he found them in his phantom form but couldn’t touch them. He leads He-Man, Battle Cat and Orko on a dungeon crawl into Snake Mountain. They find fake Golden Discs, get noticed by Skeletor, and caught in a Force Cage trap. They fight Beast Man, Evil-Lyn and Trap Jaw before finding the real Golden Discs two levels down and across a snake pit. It’s mentioned that Skeletor used knowledge from the discs to shape Snake Mountain.
Back at Castle Grayskull with the discs, Zodac gives Zanthor his body back... and a Cosmic Enforcer uniform just like his.
ZODAC: “The Overlords of the Eternal Dimension have decided that there are too many Skeletors in the universe to allow the discs to become openly available. Therefore I, as Cosmic Enforcer, watcher of the universe, shall be their guardian. However, keeping watch over the universe is a big task for one man. I need an assistant.”
So everyone learned a valuable lessons about second chances. But what did we learn about this setting? When did the past events they were talking about happen?
Well, this story was referencing the December 1982 series bible, where Zodac was a more major character than you’d expect from his small role in what actually got made (3 episodes).
These events happened centuries before Prince Adam’s mother crashed on Eternia, during which the planet regressed from an advanced state, with secrets of technology being preserved by the Man-At-Arms family.
Does that mean Skeletor was centuries old? No; let’s skip ahead to the She-Ra episode “Reunions”:
https://youtu.be/ef3XuNGGoQo
Skeletor had only been around since Adam and Adora were newborns, a pupil of Hordak during the Horde invasion of Eternia. So on-screen canon contradicted the series bible. The Council of the Wise did not predate Castle Grayskull (that would be a different group, called Elders or Ancients) and “disband” by fusing into a spirit except for Zodac. Zanthor’s betrayal must have happened less than 19 years before this episode, followed by the Council of the Wise disbanding and Zodac leaving Eternia. It all happened early in King Randor’s reign.
