Tear Jerker / Masters of the Universe: Revelation

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

In General

• Teela's defensive response to Adam's lies is hard to watch. She's incredibly harsh and cynical, driven down to denial by both disbelief at how little she was told, and the slow realization that despite herself, she doesn't hate Adam for what he did one bit, and is instead scared of being the hero Eternia needs.
• The final clash between He-Man and Skeletor divided the Sword of Power and killed Adam. Eternia is slowly falling apart without magic, the Sorceress is rapidly aging, the (surviving) heroes are exiled, Teela has become a bitter mercenary who despises magic for the lies Adam and his allies told her, and — as though all that weren't enough — the universe will die when Eternia does. Yet when Teela confronts Adam in Preternia, she refuses to tell him what's happened out of fear that it'd just hurt him in his paradise.

The Power of Grayskull

• As Teela ascends to the position of Man-At-Arms, Randor mentions to Prince Adam the parental pride Man-At-Arms feels for his daughter.... something he hopes to feel in Adam someday. It's a short, but stark reminder that if there's anything Adam has sacrificed in his defense of Eternia, it's his reputation. For all he's done for the world, he not only gets no thanks for himself, but he's derided as a wastrel and a coward because he must fight under a secret identity.
  • In relation to this, Randor's reaction to finding out that Adam was He-Man all along. The very last thing he said to his son was to say that he has never been proud of him as a father, not knowing that Adam had been the champion defending Eternia. That was the last thing he said to his son before he died, and he has to live with that for the rest of his life. Is it any wonder that he directed all his grief and guilt towards Duncan?
  • On the subject of Randor and Man-At-Arms, the king, upon finding out Duncan knew Adam was He-Man the whole time, cast him out of Eternia, never to return on threat of being killed. This was the man who the king considered his closest friend, their friendship shattered because of the revelation of a necessary secret.
  • In addition, there is Queen Marlena. She had worked out Adam's dual identity on her own, and had made no oaths of secrecy. Her son never knew, or at least acknowledged, that she knew. And now not only is her baby boy dead; but her marriage is probably destroyed, her husband's relationship with his oldest friend had definitely been destroyed, and the girl who she has mentored for her entire life (one she would likely not have objected to calling daughter in law) hates her... all because she insisted on being cagey with secrets only to blurt those secrets out at the worst possible time. If only... if only....
• He-Man's or rather Prince Adam's Heroic Sacrifice is pure awesome and tearjerking. He calls upon the power of Grayskull one last time, using himself and the sword as a conduit to prevent Skeletor from winning and taking the powerful magic within the orb. As he does, the sword of power splits in half, Battle Cat and He-Man disappear revealing who the Champion of Eternia really was to both Skeletor and Teela.
  Skeletor: He's just a boy...
  • As Adam struggles to hold the two parts of the sword. He looks at Teela one last time before seemingly perishing in a large explosion of magic, nothing left besides a scorch mark and a destroyed Havoc Staff.
  • The gravity of the scene is further enhanced as the soundtrack that plays throughout the entire Battle for Castle Grayskull picks up, perfectly encapsulating how dire and how impactful Adam's sacrifice is.
• As Teela leaves the palace, heartbroken at Adam's death and secrecy, she walks through a crowd... and finds them celebrating Skeletor's death and He-Man's noble accomplishment, rather than mourning the terrible price he paid to accomplish it. It's understandable, but Eternia's greatest hero is dead, and in that moment no one seems to care - or so it must seem to her.

The Poisoned Chalice

• When Teela confronts Cringer about the circumstances, he states to her the simple truth: Adam trusted her with his world, even if he didn't trust her with his secret. This breaks through to her, but she remains harsh toward him.

The Most Dangerous Man in Eternia

• The state Orko is in after the final battle can bring a tear to the eye of any fan of his. Not only did Randor and Marlena send him away from the palace, but because he's a Trollan and thus needs magic to live, the steady drain on magic has left him incredibly sick, bedridden and only surviving on cups of magic water Duncan gets for him. Even worse, he still misses Adam immensely, breaking down into full-on sobbing at even the mention of his name.
  Teela: You still miss him.
  Orko: Every day. I thought it would get easier with time.
• How do you make Orko's tragic backstory of ending up stranded in Eternia when he chose to save a young Prince Adam rather than return home, which has caused him to go from a powerful, much-respected sorcerer to a barely tolerated court jester because Eternia and Trollan magic is incompatible, even more tragic? You retcon that he was always terrible at magic, and has essentially been bullied for his status as an Inept Mage on two worlds for his whole life. And then you add in that his magical bumbling is actually largely psychosomatic at this point; his confidence has been so crushed after years of bullying and mockery that his own doubts undermine his attempts to use magic, in a vicious cycle of failure. It gets to the point he actually legitimately bonds with Evil-Lyn because even she can't help but pity him, so she tries to build up his self-esteem.

Land of the Dead

• The Reveal via one of Scare Glow's illusions that the entire Trollan race might be dead. Not only does this mean that Orko might be the Last of His Kind, but also that characters such as Montork and Dree Elle (if they exist in this continuity) could be gone for good.
• Orko bravely giving his life against Scare Glow, with a memorial for him held in Preternia after the fact. He was a hero to the very end, finally using his magic proficiently.

The Forge at the Forest Of Forever

• Adam and Teela's interactions during the Wild Hunt are rather bittersweet; it's sweet to see the two work alongside one another again and be friends, but the underlying resentment Teela has, and fear about Adam having to come back, sours the moment both for them and the audience, since it's an inevitable conclusion that they'll end up having to argue again.
• Teela's arguments with Adam in Preternia, which eventually culminates in Teela calling him out for leaving and Adam responding "I died!" in a brutal illumination of the toll the struggle has taken on both of them.
• Roboto realizes very early that he's one of the only people who can reforge the Sword of Power, and ends up getting in an explosion. In his dying moments, he's elated to realize he can feel fear, declaring that he is "a miracle."
• Teela initially refuses to tell Adam what's happened to Eternia out of fear that it would spoil his existence in paradise. And for good reason, because after the truth comes out, Adam doesn't hesitate to abandon his paradise and return to Eternia... only to get near-assassinated by Skeletor before he can even put up a fight.
• Part One's ending is this when it isn't awesome. Skeletor turns out to have deceived everyone, including his own underlings, and emerges from Evil-Lyn's staff. He then impales Adam as he tries to transform, recruits a reluctant Evil-Lyn and Beast Man back to his side, and, with the power, becomes a god, with the heroes only able to watch in horror as everything they worked for is destroyed in the name of his ambition.

The Gutter Rat

• After Adam is reunited with Marlena, he notices a look the Queen gave to King Randor. Asking what is going on, Marlena reveals that she had also known that Adam was He-Man, and Randor was just as angry at her as he was at Duncan, Orko, and Cringer. Marlena resented his anger, and in time she started resenting Randor himself, to the point that she was planning to leave Randor, and seriously considered even leaving Eternia and going back to Earth. Adam holds himself responsible, believing his secret destroyed his parents marriage.
• Adam goes to talk to Teela, and tries to tell her what he was going to say in Preternia, but Teela cuts him off and says she's figured out the Sorceress was her mother. Adam apologizes for keeping secrets from her, and Teela says she realizes that they weren't his secrets to share, though she does admit that keeping them *hurt* her.
• Evil-Lyn's backstory. She was raised in a poor district, her parents tried to eat her when she was a child, and the only thing that saved her from a worthless, broken-down life was Skeletor. For a moment, it seemed like things might be better for her... but Skeletor turned out to be the uncaring psychopath we know him as. No wonder she becomes a complete nihilist and tries to destroy reality.

Hope, for a Destination

• Evil-Lyn kills Panthor in front of Skeletor. For a brief moment, Skeletor isn't a maniacal supervillain but someone who just saw their beloved pet die. Even if Skeletor didn't care, (Being Skeletor, his "love" is ambiguous by its very nature) it's still horrible to see Panthor die and to see Skeletor seem genuinely broken up about it.

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