I haven’t watched all of the episodes of Thundercats but I have watched most of them, regardless I was wondering if there has been an episode that tackles the history of the Eye of Thundera. I know there was a comic that explained how the sword came to be but not the actual Eye.
However, it got me wondering that the Eye actually makes Thundercats quite vulnerable to their enemies. I mean all anyone has to do is stab or destroy the eye and they are goners. Well it varied from episode to episode how afflicting any sort of damage to Eye affected them, but the general consensus was that it was bad for them.
Do you think it’s possible that some sort of evil befell over Thundercats long ago? Because it seems like no one with good intentions would devise something as risky as the Eye of Thundera. What other explanation could there be?
Well here I’m slightly reminded of Tygra’s question, “Is Lion-O a slave to the Sword of Omens?” Of course the answer is supposed to be no, but it does make you wonder.
It does seem a bit unwise to put all your power into one object that can presumably be destroyed (i.e. the one ring ). Still on the show itself, just when you think the Eye can’t get anymore freakin powerful, it finds some other way to save the day!
Well, that’s just classic story telling. You have powerful righteous heroes, but they each need a flaw, a weakness or it’s not going to be terribly exciting to follow. The one thing they all have in common is the power of the Sword, so yes, that’s both their bacon-saver and their Achilles heel.
The only prob I had with the old show in this regard is it was usually too easy for the Thundercats to get out of a serious jam when the Sword was damaged or broken. And yeah, the new power of the day thing got…annoying. I think they got too carried away with that lol But then maybe the writers thought if everything was too well defined it’d get boring. Who knows.
Actually the Eye of Thundera thing kind of reminds me of Captain Planet. Our heroes try their best throughout the episode, at some point get in over their heads, and finally need to call on the source of all their power to fix things. It’s basically the same as having faith in divine intervention (whatever faith you happen to be into). The Eye is basically just a symbolic way of saying that virtues like Justice, Truth, Honor and Loyalty are always going to win if you call on them. In that way it makes sense that the Sword won’t respond to an evil command.
You’ve got a point there about the Eye being the symbol for their faith. Maybe it was. However, I think they did make it a little too powerful. Restricting it would have allowed for better confrontations with their villains in that they would have to think of alternative approach or mixed approach to defeat their enemies and not necessarily doing the “Thunder…Thunder…” and win.
But if the Eye was a symbol of “good”, than it begs the questions if it could actually kill. Would be odd if a weapon meant for slicing and dicing wasn’t able to carry out its purpose.
Well I do agree that sometimes it’s weird that the solution doesn’t come directly from the characters themselves. Instead it comes from Lion-O suddenly remembering he has the sword at the end, hehe. But I think you put it right, the Eye is a symbol of why they will always be victorious. Like how that Chain of Loyalty episode is just an allegory for how important (and how fragile) loyalty is. Heavy handed perhaps, but it was for children, hehe.
But if the Eye was a symbol of “good”, than it begs the questions if it could actually kill. Would be odd if a weapon meant for slicing and dicing wasn’t able to carry out its purpose.
Good question! Well even spiritual groups do agree that there is such a thing as a just war, such as World War II.
I really like this idea, and I’ve never heard it anywhere before. What you’re suggesting is that the Eye is a curse as much as it is a blessing. And just like Cheetara eventually came to see her sixth sense as more of a gift than curse, the ThunderCats eventually learned to harness the Eye’s power and protect it (and themselves) from harm. In fact, what better way to defend it than to put it in the hilt of a sword? Very clever, Wolf873!
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Like how that Chain of Loyalty episode is just an allegory for how important (and how fragile) loyalty is.
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Whoa. I thought the moral of “Chain of Loyalty” was that littering is a very nasty habit.
I don’t think there was ever a canonical history given for the Eye, or even the Sword for that matter (the one the comics gave is up for debate, and probably isn’t any more valid than any other fanfic that ever tackled the subject). The history of the Eye that my fiancee and I came up with was that it was created in Thundera’s distant past by the Mystics as a way of stopping the constant war and conflict between the clans and unite them. They bestowed it on the one whom they called Lord as the one who had been judged to use it the most responsibly, and the Sword was created to house it and give the Lord a means to channel its energy.
We never really liked the way the cartoons used it as a crutch like some of the show writers did to get the characters out of a bad situation. So we kind of de-powered it somewhat; though we still used the basic concepts that it warned of danger, gave the Lord “sight beyond sight,” that they responded to the Lord’s command (i.e. flying into his hand when it was out of reach), that the blade could cut through any material, and that the Eye and the Sword could only be used for good (which was tricky as that kind of implied that it couldn’t be used to kill, but we reasoned Lion-O could use it to kill as long as the person on the receiving end was evil or serving an evil cause). But at the end of the day we agreed that’s all it did and it wasn’t a deus ex machina. We hope the new cartoon will take this approach as well.
Well they do try to sneak that in there too if I recall, lol.
We never really liked the way the cartoons used it as a crutch like some of the show writers did to get the characters out of a bad situation.
It definitely comes across like a writer’s crutch at times, but I think it probably wouldn’t be so bad if there was more of a backstory and we understood exactly what the sword was doing or what it represented.
I know I keep bringing up Rankin & Bass’ Return of the King cartoon, lol, but there are similarities. The way they chose to represent the ring in that cartoon, it has a sort of power that easily gets the bearer out of any bad situation, without really explaining what exactly it’s doing. Obviously in the books Tolkien is able to describe it a bit better, but in a cartoon sometimes all you can do is show, rather than tell.
Conisdering that both were RB productions, it’s a valid comparison. At least with ROTK, we had the benefit of referring to Tolkien’s books if we wanted more detailed information about the One Ring. Wth Tcats, there’s nothing else to refer to. If I recall correctly, there wasn’t even a detailed bible (a guide that lays down the rules for the show and helps to establish consistency). If I remember, it was only several pages long and just gave the barest of character descriptions, which goes a long way towards explaining the inconsistency the original series often had. I get the impression that in producing the new show, a lot more thought is being put into things.
Thanks, I’m glad that made sense, lol. I grew up watching both Thundercats and the Return of the King cartoon so it’s interesting to compare them now.
It will be interesting to see a Thundercats backstory explained a bit more in the new series. Though once I hear it I’ll probably mainly start trying to apply it to the original series characters. Guess I’m just a purist that way, lol.
I remember an episode where Mumm-Ra takes the form of King Arthur and gets Excalibur, and then he jousts Lion-O. He thrusts Excalibur inside the Eye, and all of a sudden the TCs’ badges turn compeltely red (they lose the black panther image) and they all fall to the floor, completely defeated.
In the 2nd part of exodus where Lion-O sees deer and tries to hunt, Jaga appears to Lion-O and informs him the sword won’t come un-stuck from the ground as he would have used it to kill ‘an innocent creature’…BUT then goes onto say that their food reserves are plentiful, kinda implying that if they really did NEED food for example it could be used to kill, and maybe if Lion-O really DID need to kill someone/something then it would also be possible.
Personally I like to think of the Eye of Thundera being some sort of gift to thundarians that came from the ‘moon of thundera’ or ‘star of thundera’ (seen in season 2 where Grune makes an appearance). Without the Eye, they would survive but lose some of their power and abilities becoming weaker forms of themselves.
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One of my favourite episodes as I love the Merlin/King arthur lore as well! Was gutted to see the sword of omens lose OFC, however it was a good episode to teach us the eye was not invincible.
As they collapse after losing their symbols, I believe they would have recovered eventually but been weaker/more fragile (like regular thundarians).
Oh, and to all the Tygra haters who hold the idea of him being the weakest member of the team, in that episode Tygra was the last one to fall down (thus the strongest) :tygra:
