Madame Razz

Madame Razz is already part of the Great Rebellion on Etheria by the time Adora arrives in the 1985 film that introduces She-Ra, an elderly witch who casts spells the old way, in rhyme, and gets the wording wrong often enough that the misfire is her comic premise. She is the Etherian counterpart to Orko on the He-Man side: magic meant to help that mostly complicates things, played for laughs.

She is almost never on screen without Broom, her sentient, talking flying broomstick, who comments on her spellwork about as often as he gets swept up in it. Filmation leaned on the pair constantly to fill out a scene, and few supporting characters in the series turn up as often.

The jokes are not empty, though. In "Three Courageous Hearts," a rhyme meant to conjure a sled to escape a Pola Beast instead produces a wide, soft bed, and the overshoot turns out to be the better rescue anyway. In "King Miro's Journey," a spell asked to shield the Rebellion from Horde attack-bot fire comes back as a handful of small discs, and the discs still work, reflecting the rays straight back at the attackers once Miro and Razz crouch behind a log with one each.

Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Three Courageous Hearts (She-Ra: Princess of Power, 1985), 11:22 to 13:17, 1 minute 55 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.

"Something Old, Something New" makes her a teacher on screen: a young magician named Eli is sent to Madame Razz by his own teacher for a final lesson, sure in advance that he needs none of it. The episode lets both styles of magic fail on their own terms. Razz's attempt to summon buckets of water goes wrong on a single mixed-up word in the rhyme; Eli's showier, modern alternative to the same problem goes wrong much bigger, flooding the camp he was trying to spare the trouble of. Neither magician comes out looking foolish alone, and Candor sending Eli to her in the first place says the Rebellion's magicians take her seriously as a teacher.

"Welcome Back, Kowl" gives her the most vulnerable beat in the character's run. Late one night, convinced her usefulness to the Rebellion is "over with here," she confides in Kowl and makes him promise to tell no one they spoke. The next morning Tongue Lasher snatches her out of the air in the middle of a spell, Imp has framed Kowl with planted Horde money, and the promise leaves Kowl with no alibi he is willing to give. It is a rare moment where the show treats Razz's self-doubt as real, and once She-Ra and Kowl find her in the Fright Zone, her own spells chain Shadow Weaver and she is the one who clears Kowl's name back at camp.

Those two episodes fill her out. Her magic really is unreliable and her colleagues tease her for it, but she is trusted with a student, written into real battle plans against Horde attack-bots, and shown, once, worrying in private that none of that trust is deserved.