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Leonard Starr Reviewed by: Purrsia  This trial is set in the snowy mountains, likely near Hook Mountain. The Mutants once again are privy to information about the upcoming trial, and lie in wait to ambush Tygra. Little did they know (and little did us fans of the show, turns out), that Tygra possesses some dern nifty powers! Really, I think the writers came up with this mind power hoo-ha because if they hadn't, the Trial woulda consisted of Lion-O trying to endure as many lashings from Tygra's whip as humanly possible -- and that would have stepped over the sexual innuendo line, even for ThunderCats! (The Sword of Omens *growing* as Lion-O shouts "Ho!" is certainly pushing *that* envelope, don't you think?) Aaaaanyhow, Tygra takes note of the Muties and creates an illusion of a snow bridge with his mind. Monkian shows a rare spark of intelligence (judging from later eps, that spark must have incinerated his last remaining brain cell) by wondering why they didn't see the bridge shortcut before. Jackalman brays, "Who cares! We see it now!" and proceeds to lead himself and poor Monx right off the edge of the snowy gorge. The other ThunderCats, who are observing the Trial's progress on the telescreen are likely thinking, "Man, we know the Mutants are *dumb*, but dumb enough to just drive off a cliff like that??" The kittens actually say something to that effect, and Panthro kindly explains that ole Tiggie is up to his mind tricks. Kat demands to know why on Thundera Tygra never used them before! Cuz Jaga knows it coulda saved us from quite a few "Lion-O saves the day with the damned Sword" plots! Turns out it taxes Tygra too much to use his special gift of mind power...in fact, he'd been saving up his mental strength for the Trial. Wimp. While the Mutants are covered in snow and wondering "Which way did he go, George?", Tygra ventures off to mess with Lion-O's mind. His first illusion is the old disappearing footprints trick. Lion-O overcomes that easily by focusing his mind enough to overcome Tygra's illusion. Tygra warns Lion-O that he will face his biggest fear before the conclusion of the Trial. Unfortunately, the Muties are back on the prowl, so Tygra expends more precious mind energy to create an imaginary blizzard. Lion-O ends up struggling with the boulder-sized snowflakes as well. Neither are fooled by the blizzard for long, and the Mutants give chase. Lion-O fashions a pair of skis out of huge icicles (er....) and speeds down a snowy slope. Just before plunging into the water, Lion-O uses his belt to vault himself back round and takes refuge in a cave. Lion-O meets up with a hungry looking beast in the cave, and dives down a chute to escape becoming an entree. The beast claws his belt off of him before Lion-O escapes, however. The Muties arrive moments later, and upon seeing the beast with Lion-O's belt in its mouth, they assume he'd been devoured. Lion-O meanwhile, ventures on toward the Desert Ruins, where he must reach by nightfall to complete the Trial. Noticing his missing belt, he decides he must go back to retrieve it. And as his luck would have it, Slithe is jetting his way just to make sure Lion-O truly was meow-mix for the cave beast. Lion-O ends up slipping off a ledge and is dangling there in the open just as Slithe flies by. Luckily, Tygra makes Slithe see the cat signal, which distracts him enough not to notice the vulnerable Lord of the ThunderCats. The cave beast ends up helping Lion-O off the side of the cliff, where Lion-O finally recognized the beast as Snowmeow. Having been rescued and receiving his belt, Lion-O forges on. Finally out of the snow lands, Lion-O reaches desert terrain. He notices the Ruins in sight and can't believe his luck -- until he realizes that the pass through the mountains he sees is not on his map. Yup, Tiggie strikes again, heehee. Having failed to fool Lion-O, Tygra gets out the big synapse-scrambling gun: he sends Lion-O on a mind bending journey, back through space and time to the destruction of Thundera. The planet's death is Lion-O's biggest fear, as he's always worried about being that terrified again. Well, no more! He snaps out of the illusion and engages Tygra in some brief hand to hand combat. Tygra, exhausted from the mental and physical struggle against Lion-O, stays behind as Lion-O runs off to the real Ruins to claim victory. At episode's end, Mumm-Ra discovers Lion-O's final trial is to face the master of evil himself -- unarmed. This episode is the first and only time Tygra ever uses his mind power gift. Bobby Come Lately: Is it really a good idea to involve Mumm-ra in the proceedings of Lion-O's trial? I mean, he's not a Thundercat. leppardra: Too bad about this being the only story where Tygra uses his powers of illusion. I'm sure that if the writers had thought long and hard, they could have come up with a Tygra-centric tale where he used his mind powers again. But it explains why he uses his whip so much - he doesn't have to use his natural powers of invisibility or illusion if he uses the whip instead. Still, this was a rather good tale. The SnowMeow moment was nice. It again shows that Lion-O can, and does, feel affection for those he deems worthy of it. His kindness to Tygra after besting him at the end of the fourth trial shows a tiny tip of this particular iceberg. I expected half-expected Lion-O to return from the Ruins, find Tygra asleep, and do either one of two things; stand guard over Tygra until he woke up or carry him back to Cats' Lair to put him to bed! leppardra: The only downside was the animation. It was not as good as before. Lion-O is rendered as being so unattractively muscle-bound that it's a miracle that he can hardly move at all. Anonymous: Doesnt use Tygra this gift every time he disappears in fight or become invisible?
- I think these are all parts of the same trick. Anonymous: I think in Exodus, Tygra turns invisible before Jaga hands him the whip. But the whip helps him to achieve it. Look at "Out of sight"; the whip gets overloaded and he can't turn visible again. He ahs the power, but it exhausts him, thus he uses the whip.
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The Show
