An excellent episode. Pretty ‘Old Testament’ with the Moses and Isaac references.
I hope we get episodes full of back story like this for the other characters.
Yep, lots of biblical references; Moses (finding the baby), Abraham and Ishmael/Isaac (the first son loses his birthright, a little bit of Jacob and Esau mixed in there too), Abraham and Isaac (ordered to kill your son).
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not joined; were enslaved; the stone removed from the sword; generations of powerless servitude to Mumm Ra. Something along the lines of Mummra finds out there are more stones of power like the Sword of Omens, he tracks them down (possibly teaming with Mon-Starr in the process?) and uses the other stones to break the seal on the sword and remove its stone while enslaving the now powerless original T-cats. This could help explain the techno-space ship pyramid and all the advanced tech that we see “thousands of years in the past” - the 'cats were definately an interstellar species and Mumm Ra would have to keep up with the times to continue his original quest for the Eye of Thundara in space post-OS.
Are you sure about that? I’ve heard nothing about it. 
Oops! Forgot to mention that. Glad I’m not the only one who picked-up on the Abraham and Isaac and Moses references (the Bible has had more influence on western mythology than many people may realize). Didn’t quite see the Jacob and Esau reference though.
And oh yes, looks like Tygra finally got his iconic Bolo-Whip as well!
Too bad we don’t get to see it in action here.
Jacob/Esau; Ishmael/Isaac; whatever you want to call it; one losing what was expected to be his lineage because of the favored, more proper brother kind of story. The Kings impatience at having a son, then the son being second place anyways seemed to have biblical roots, thats all…
Sorry to post this twice (posted this in the previews thread as well).
Best episode so far. So many things to love about it:
[ul]
[li]Lots of Tygra[/li][li]Tygra’s history. And he’s a prince from birth right as well.[/li][li]Lion-o’s mother![/li][li]Tygra’s father[/li][li]Baby/kid Tygra was cute[/li][li]Brothers bonding: the last scene where Tygra turns to his brother for comfort in his major moment of weakness and pain was priceless.[/li][li]Lion-o acting not like a jerk[/li][li]The line “my little pr… darling” was a heartbreaker, and it really gives us a glimpse of why Tygra is how he is, he lost his mother right then, not at her death.[/li][li]Tygra got his OS thee-pointed bolowhip. That made me think if the whip is a traditional weapon of the tigers, and who gave Tygra his? It wasn’t in the basket, or was it?[/li][li]It was Tygra, and not Lion-o neither the SoO who broke the curse[/li][li]Tygra’s finally has an act of humility[/li][/ul]
Bummers:
[ul]
[li]The other TCats could have been there as well[/li][li]No mention to tigers’ mental power[/li][/ul]
The new whip answered one of my questions though. Before the pilot aired the promo pictures showed Tygra holding this whip but it was absent when I saw the episode. I wondered why it was different but then I just assumed that the design was altered at some point. It’ll be fun to see him use the new whip.
This was a fantastic episode! I believe it was the best one. I know I have said in the past that “this episode was the best one so far” about the other episodes when they aired, but this one takes the cake!
I love episodes that have flashbacks. At first when I saw the preview clips with Lion-O’s mother saying “You’re my little pr…darling” I thought she was all of a sudden favoring her own biological child. But after someone on this site mentioned (I’m sorry, I don’t remember who it was) that if you look closer, she’s really sad and heartbroken when she said that. So that made me look closer and that person was right and it completely changed my mind about her.
I think she knew already that Tygra was going to get upset with the birth of a blood-heir taking the crown and it broke her heart knowing she and Claudus will eventually have to tell him. However, Tygra will always have something Lion-O will never have…a relationship and a history with their mother since she died while giving birth to Lion-O.
She may be dead but I’ll bet you that there will be more flashbacks about her.
I don’t think Tygra is the last of the tigers. Tygra never got the disease because his father sent him away. So now we know the disease was airborne and not hereditary. So there could always be tigers that decided to not stay with the clan out of pride and went out on their own for medical help. If Tygra could show humility, I’m sure others could too. For all we know, there could be tigers that didn’t stay loyal with Mumm-ra after the crash but because of the stigma caused by Tygrus and his group of tigers, they could have left and formed their own clan on a different location of Third Earth.
This is science fiction, anything is possible. Take a look at Cheetara, she is clearly a cheetah but in that one episode she told Jaga she didn’t have a clan. I’m guessing a clan is not just a group of one type of cat, I’m going to guess that it is like a small society or neighborhood from one type of cat. There could be many cheetah clans just like there could be many tiger clans.
Here’s a good example…I was born and raised in Allentown Pa. But way back before the 1950’s, at the turn of the century, Allentown had different neighborhoods made up of a particular nationality. My grandmother is Ukrainian and the area of 4th and Tilghman was primarily Ukrainian and she lived there. Now another area opposite of that was primarily Italian where a former classmate grandparents from Italy lived. In the next city over which is Bethlehem Pa, the area near 3rd St was predominately Hungarian which is where my grandfather and his family were from. They were Hungarian. Here is where I’m going with this, these were people from their main country (Hungary, Ukraine, Italy, Ireland, Germany, etc) that settled in the United States at the turn of the century in the early 1900’s…like a clan. But as time progressed, those neighborhoods mingled with one another, causing a blend of different households from different countries in one neighborhood.
That’s the way I see it too, many different clans, predominantly but not exclusively based on species or sub species. For example there could be many different tiger clans based on species, Bengal tiger clan, Siberian, Sumatran, etc. These could even be broken up further with two seperate Siberian tiger clans in two seperate locations, and some tigers even choosing to live alone. My guess is since tigers are known to be relatively rare amongst thunderians, these tiger clans would be small, spread out and relatively reclusive.
As for Cheetara, there could be many Cheetah clans within thunderian society or choosing to live outside of the kingdom. The fact that she states she doesn’t have a clan may just mean her own clan have either cast her out for some reason or were annhialated by mumm ra or the lizards. There may well be a lot more Cheetahs around. Either way she will have a fantastic back story I’m imagining!
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Oooohhhh!!! I’ve just watched the flashback scene again! Did anyone else notice how after Liono and Tygras mother says “You are my handsome little pri… darling” and then walks away with Claudus, the toy crown off Tygras head is the first thing to vanish in a blink of sparkling light? Ooh now that’s subtle animation for you! My god I love this cartoon! Every time you watch it you see little things, little nuances you didn’t see before!!
This epsisode also makes us understand why Tygra feels how he feels: for 2 years, they make him believe he would be king and Thundera would be his kingdom.
The last part, when he asked Lion-o if it was his destiny to lose everything he cares about, broke my heart.
Also, it made me think. Remember the brothers’ fight in “Between Brothers”? Tygra yelled at Lion-o “You took the crown! You took her!” At first I thought that by “her” he meant Cheetara, but now I wonder if deep unside he meant his mother (after all, Lion-o hadn’t “taken” Cheetara yet by that time), because she died giving birth to Lion-o, and even before that she stopped calling him “prince” for Lion-o. As Tygra might see it, Lion-o took his mother away from him.
Wow! That makes a lot of sense and I never thought of it that way. I have to admit, this new series is so intense and deep with the character Tygra, that he is my favorite character. In the old series, Lion-O was my favorite, but in this one, Tygra is. My heart broke when I saw Tygra cry as a toddler and my heart broke again when he was fighting back tears as his clan started disappearing. Don’t you wish you could have hugged him?
I thought Tygra meant Cheetara too, but I guess he really did mean Lion-O’s mother.
I like it. But then he must be older than Tygra, or he would have born with the curse anyway.
Nice theory, and I agree that Tygra maybe thinks that Lion-O took his mother away from him, but when he yelled “you took her” I think he meant Cheetara, even Lion-O hadn’t “taken” her yet, Tygra thought that his brother has “taken” her.
Now I wonder what he’ll do with his previous whip.
Maybe he will give it to Pumyra and she will use it instead of the OS sling?
Me too. I was looking for an explanation on the invisibility, and maybe a hint to the mind powers. I think we can say good bye to the latter now.
Oh! Peter Newman voicing Javan would have been great! Wonder if he even got a proposal.
Yes, but what people say usually have 2 lecture lines, the superficial one that the person have in a conscious level when say it, and the underlying, unconscious one.
Not only that but we see the Sword of Omens being forged in this series. Where’s the sword from the OS if that theory is true?
Also the stone was on Third Earth, and at the end of the OS they weren’t on Third Earth, they were on New Thundera.
I watched this episode again, I felt there was a lot of detail I missed the first time around.
Observation: the Whip 2.0 that Tygra takes possession of at the end resembles a scepter. In fact, that’s what I thought Javan was handing him in the first place, I didn’t realize it was a elaborate whip until Tygra said he already had one.
The scepter symbolizes sovereign authority, and I think Javan’s gesture of passing it to Tygra also reflects his status as legal heir to the tiger throne. His possession of it along with his bloodline makes him the de jure ruler of the tiger clan - whatever is left of it, and wherever it may still exist.
This means the brothers are now both kings…without kingdoms. Tygra is no longer just the fall-back successor to Thundera’s throne, but now a sovereign ruler in his own right. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future, both in his relationship with Lion-O (they are now peers in terms of legal hierarchy) and possibly, what happens when Bengali is introduced (whether he recognizes Tygra as king or not).
This episode is arguably one of the best ones, next to Song of the Petalars, and Old Friends, go. I’m happy my quesion was answered as to why Javan gave up Tygra, and while it is true that there were some Biblical references to it, I enjoyed it.
I was also happy to see Lion-O’s mother, and baby Tygra. The emotion was definitely there, and I was sad to find out that Lion-O took his mother’s life after he was born. There are some things about this episode that had me thinking, though.
Tygra being the last of his clan doesn’t necessarily translate to him being the last tiger on Third Earth. There could very well be other tiger clans that the others have yet to come across in their journey. I believe that Bengali will appear in a future episode either as a member of another tiger clan, or as a lone tiger, perhaps in “The Birth of the Blades.”
btw…whatever happened to the official site reviews?
We saw the stone being set into the blade with some blacksmithing going on, but it very well could have been reforged (as the original blade was many times in the OS). Without the sword, they are easily captured and enslaved by Mumm Ra for generations. We don’t know how the stone got to the planet the Tigers retrieved it from for Mumm Ra - or where the stone was before any of that happened.
I’m just saying, its a cool thought i like to throw around 