He-Man's Weirdest Rule Explains Why He Never Used His Sword
When Mattel debuted the action figures in its Masters of the Universe line, its main protagonist cut quite the striking figure. The company wanted to appeal to boys and felt the best way to do so was to create a figure who dwarfed the competition in being the buffest, biggest, and boldest. The result was He-Man: a barbarian-esque, hulking figure with bulging muscles, a fierce expression, and weapon accessories galore.
He-Man may have been a children’s toy, but he certainly has that Conan the Barbarian vibe in that he seemed to radiate aggression and ruthlessness. Hence, when he first came to the small screen in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), audiences may have been surprised to find that He-Man wasn’t a violent aggressor but, on the contrary, kind of dorky. His alter ego, Prince Adam, became a gay icon, while He-Man was quite the gentle, moral hero who rarely used his iconic Power Sword. It turns out there’s a weird reason why he rarely used his sword to fight in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
The Moral Panic Had The Power
Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2017) on JustWatch TV explains how the lack of He-Man’s sword use in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe tied into a problem the show ran into before it ever aired. In the 1970s and ‘80s, parents became increasingly concerned about what television exposed their children to. Moral panic especially rose in 1971 when the Surgeon General released a landmark report on the correlation between televised violence and aggression in children. Despite the report noting only a modest correlation, parents took it to heart and began protesting violence in TV shows.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe became a target for parents before it even premiered. Erika Scheimer, the daughter of Filmation founder Lou Scheimer, told SyFy Wire, “Even before the show hit the air, the interest groups heard the title and started complaining about the violence in the show without ever seeing a single thing.” Just the title and design of He-Man was enough to disturb parents. As a result, Filmation, which produced He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, established some anti-violence rules.
These rules stipulated that He-Man couldn’t hurt any living thing onscreen. The studio hired a consultant to ensure adherence to this rule, and the rule was so strict that the show once had to revise a scene in which He-Man used a tree as a weapon, since the tree was technically a living thing. Of course, striking someone with a sword was practically out of the question by these standards, so He-Man and the Masters of the Universe made it a defensive rather than offensive weapon. He’ll use his sword to deflect objects or block hits, but never to strike his enemies. Often, fights would move offscreen, leaving violence to the imagination rather than the screen.
‘Masters of the Universe’ Embraces What The Cartoon Couldn’t
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe played things very safe due to backlash about alleged violence in the show. However, the reboot movie, Masters of the Universe (2026), is much more relaxed when it comes to action. The film’s violence certainly doesn’t reach Conan the Barbarian (1982) levels, but it acknowledges its fantasy elements with typical action-fantasy violence. There isn’t graphic violence, but battle scenes get intense. Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) uses his sword as an actual weapon, slicing, slashing, and knocking enemies down with the blade. People get thrown or even stabbed, though there’s almost no visible blood or gory wounds.
Masters of the Universe earned a PG-13 rating due to the intensity of its fight scenes and some mild language and suggestive situations. The main difference between it and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is that it doesn’t seem to be afraid of viewers confusing action with exposure to dangerous levels of violence. On the whole, it functions like a standard action movie. In contrast, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is more overtly child-oriented and shies away from anything that could even be suggestive of violence.
How He-Man’s Rule Has Evolved
Under Filmation, He-Man properties continued to adhere to its strict moral rules. The company’s spin-off series, She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985), followed similar rules, including inserting some kind of moral lesson at the end of each episode. By 1987, the first live-action Masters of the Universe movie arrived on the big screen and had a little more freedom to embrace its action premise. As a PG-rated movie, though, it remained tame. There was more sword-clanging, but He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) still refrained from using it excessively, often using it defensively while using his fists or different weapons to strike.
The violence and maturity of He-Man don’t change significantly until the updated animated series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002), which features much more intense swordplay and more serious storylines. By the time of Netflix’s reboot series, Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021), the cartoon aligns more closely with contemporary action violence and intensity, before the franchise finally creeps into the PG-13 realm with the live-action movie. Although He-Man’s swordplay has evolved to the point that it’s on par with traditional fantasy action, he still never uses it to fatally wound anyone and rarely draws blood. In a way, it seems the censorship rules also became a sort of in-universe moral code for He-Man never to use his sword lethally.
