Episode 011 – The Ghost Warrior

Cartoons ThunderCats (1985)
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(Sorry for the delay in these, had some pressing issues the last few months and haven’t had much time to sit down and work on these reviews lately. Anyway, here’s to a restart, and with perfect timing considering the characters in this episode)

Episode 011 – The Ghost Warrior

New characters introduced:

Grune – A former ThunderCat who turned evil and was exiled from ThunDera
Bolkins – Sheep-like people who are curious and poor.

An early life lesson, don’t go under a tree in a thunder storm. While the Bolkins are looking for treasure, they break into an ancient tomb. The tomb has a creepy feel to it, especially with the torches that are still lit.

“He has a saber tooth!” Grune ravaged Third Earth centuries ago. And here we go with a huge question of time, among other things. But he sure does have a wide range of talents, he can be invisible, transparent, or take a physical form.

Two interesting observations: why didn’t the ThunderCats recognize him as being a ThunDerian? And why have both bad ThunDerians so far had more cat-like faces than human (Pumm-Ra and Grune)?

The lack of early details on Grune adds to the mystery and sense of helplessness. Even though we don’t know it yet, we get a sense that ThunDrainium is going to be a bad thing if Grune acquires it, even though it has been illegal to mine it for “a hundred mega years”.

Sword Rule #12 – The Sword has no psychic powers.

Cheetara has a psychic power, this is the first we see any of the ThunderCats having “super” powers. While Cheetara can run very fast, it doesn’t drain her like her psychic powers do.

And now we learn the worst details, Grune the Destroyer was once Grune the ThunderCat. Not only that, he was a strong ally to Jaga. Grune is depicted as being thrown into space in a glass or ice prison, still wearing the ThunderCat insignia. Does this mean he was still considered a ThunderCat? We’ll come back to this in a later episode…

Also, as allies, Jaga’s appearance is different. He has some form of mesh shoulder pads and he is not wielding the Sword of Omens. At the end of the backstory, ThunDera appears to be turning red, which could mean that Grune was banished shortly before ThunDera exploded. In the ghost fight, it appears Jaga is wearing some kind of vest too.

After the fight is over, there are many unanswered questions. Why is this the only time Jaga appears before the other ThunderCats? Why didn’t the ThunDrainium hurt Grune too? Why didn’t any of the other ThunderCats know of Grune? Did ThunDera not have records of history? Why didn’t Jaga appear to Lion-O to tell him of Grune?

A great lesson after the fight is that it is better to be an honest enemy than a false friend.

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this ep is a classic and the reason to me why it was was cause of the battle w grune and jaga and the streinth of the lord of the tundercats that won the day
the best part of the ep is the ending though which goes to show that liono was already maturing with a new enemy being involved
i give it a 10 rating

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Yep one of my favourite quotes comes from this episode… “Better an honest enemy, than a false friend” :slight_smile:

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The Ghost Warrior is my favorite episode in the series without a doubt. Great guest villain, a compelling story, and TONS of contributions to the mythology of Thundercats. This includes history of Thundera, Jaga’s background, Cheetara’s sixth sense, limitations to Sight Beyond Sight, Thundrainium, etc. This was my favorite use for Jaga as well as he got to be the hero outside of just the ghost that points Lion-O in the right direction. And again, GRUNE IS AWESOME!!! Also, the final fight at the end between Jaga & Grune is probably my favorite fight in the series.

All of it just awesome. My ONE minor knock on it is that it always bugged me that the Thundercats don’t know their own history. I mean Grune betrayed his kind & ravaged Thundera. Nothing in the history books about that? Really?

But yes, superb T-Cats episode! My personal favorite!

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I agree and I’ve mentioned this in contrast to “Mechanical Plague” where Tygra talks about learning from history.

Also hoped Topless Robot would do a “10 Best Thundercats Episodes” list.

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Grune was probably my favourite villain. Part of me wishes he’d been in more episodes; but perhaps that would have diluted his badassery, the way Mumm-Ra devolved from the consistently menacing threat of the first season to a less dangerous, “jokey” character in some of the later episodes.

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Great quote.

My first biggest complaint about this episode is why didn’t the thundranium affect Grune? considering he’s technically a ThunderCat.

My second biggest complaint about this episode is the time factor. How old is Jaga? Since Grune and Jaga lived at the same time, I have trouble believing Tygra, Panthro, and Cheetara would have never heard of him. I could understand Lion-O and the kittens not knowing of him since they were only children when the left Thundera. The only explanation given the time of everything would be if Jaga were hundreds of years old. Maybe so?

I did like the episode. I especially loved the scene where Lion-O gave his strength up to Jaga.

Was this the only episode in which the other ThunderCats were able to see the ghostly form of Jaga?

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I think that was the case. Such episodes as Return To Thundera (where Jaga throws the Sword of Plunn-Darr into the pit) and The Jade Dragon show Jaga going back many years, before even meeting the other ThunderCats. I know in one ep there is a flashback of young Jaga!

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Actually he did that in part 1 of “Thundercubs” and Lion-O was a cub at the time.

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ThunDrainium affects all ThunDerians, both ThunderCats, and commoners. It could be that the prison ship Grune was banished in had ThunDrainium in it, and thus he built up a natural resistance to it. But there was never a clear explanation for it.

As for the Time Factor, you have to build a timeline based on many different episodes. But also, was the red sky due to the impending destruction, or was it the natural color of the sky in the evening or night? And how long after Jaga threw the Sword of PlunDarr in the volcano did the planet explode? It could be that Grune’s banishment occured when the other ThunderCats were children or not even born yet. Even so, that doesn’t explain how he arrived on Third Earth centuries before the others. Maybe when the flagship was damaged it wasn’t able to go as fast, and thus Grune’s transport was able to get there so much earlier due to the flagship’s slower speed.

There are other episodes where Jaga interacts with other ThunderCats (Totem of Dera and The Last Day), but I don’t think they ever can see him in those episodes, just sense his presence.

I think this is a great episode, but it unfortunately leaves many questions unanswered.

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I knew it was one of those 5-parters! :smiley:

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The ThunderCats had to travel in suspension capsules to get to Third Earth. He said that though the capsules slowed the aging process, some aging would take place. Perhaps Lion-O did not progress at normal age while the others were completely suspended. Perhaps his was lessened but still some control of his age took place. Perhaps the journey took 300 years with the damage done to their ship, though that doesn’t explained the unaged mutants. Just a thought.
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I liked young Jaga!

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Code, you are correct, we don’t know how long it took them to reach Third Earth. In The Unholy Alliance, I believe Tygra says they spent “10 Galaco-years” in a suspension capsule. But what is a Galacto-year"? And was that the real time spent, or how much aging took place?

But my point was that Grune’s banishment ship/cell left ThunDera an unknown amount of time before the planet exploded. But we do know that he arrived on Third Earth centuries before the ThunderCats. Either they have very long lifespans, or the ThunderCats’ spaceship was going a lot slower than Grune’s ship/cell.

The Mutants didn’t age, but they may have had suspension capsules as well. Lynx-O, Pumyra, and Ben-Gali all did not age either while escaping on the Berbil ship, though I seriously doubt they had suspension capsules since they are robots. Snarfer didn’t age while living on the planet of Snarfs. And the ThunDerian refugees from the final 20 episodes didn’t age even though it is strongly implied that most never used suspension capsules.

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Shhh!!! Those are the plotholes/continuity problems we are supposed to notice as children!!

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We were? :wink:

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I was supposed to notice them as a kid? I don’t think I ever even thought about them until I came on this board and read discussions about them. :cool:

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Oops… WEREN’T supposed to notice!! Thats what happens when you are checking the boards and trying to type fast because you aren’t doing what you are supposed to be doing!

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I love how in the new show, Grune finds and awakens Mumm Ra, much like he was found and awoken on the OS! Nice homage.

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Ghost Warrior is one of those episodes that’ll give you a headache if you try and reconcile the timeline to other stuff in the series. :eek:

And Phoenix, I caught that, too. It was a nice nod to the original there.

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This episode is epic, much in part due to the final battle between Grune and Jaga. I love when Lion-O gives Jaga his power. There are also several scenes where the art gets really good (Cheetara close up during her sixth sense scene and when Lion-O first announces he will lend Jaga his power).

I always did wonder who exactly banished Grune to the tomb below the tree and created the magical seal which kept him imprisoned there after he “ravaged” Third Earth. It is implied he was killed since he is in Ghost form like Jaga, but who exactly did it? Was that ever answered in TOS? Can’t remember if that was.