Queen Elmora

Phantos is a moon of Eternia,^[1] and Queen Elmora rules it from a throne room hung with red curtains.^[2] Her people mine and refine photanium, a metal Man-At-Arms rates above anything else he works with, and the 1983 episode opens with him and Prince Adam collecting a shipment for King Randor. "The strength of the shields and weapons made from your photanium are without equal," he tells her. She is red-haired, crowned, dressed in a blue gown and a red cape, and short with her guests, enough that Man-At-Arms asks whether something is wrong.

Something is. Skeletor already holds Phantos, with her men in the dungeons, and the ore she lets Man-At-Arms take home is worthless. Once the Eternians leave she orders him off her moon, and when he answers with a spell she refuses twice ("The people of Phantos will not bow to your evil, Skeletor") before giving in with "As you wish, Skeletor." The animators put the spell on her face: the red hair streaks white, the eyes narrow, the skin lines and the hands grow claws. This is the she-demon of the title. Elmora is also a sorceress in her own right, and Skeletor wants her magic working for him rather than against him.

Ron Schultz and Sam Schultz wrote "She-Demon of Phantos", and it first aired on September 15, 1983.^[3] The trouble shows up on Eternia first, where the weapons Man-At-Arms makes from the new shipment keep breaking, and the Sorceress explains it: Skeletor has cast a spell over Elmora, and she is no longer a friend, "though it is against her will." Her warning to He-Man sets up everything after it: "She will not see you as He-Man. Skeletor will see to that, though her spirit remains true."

On Phantos, Elmora meets the rescue party as an enemy. She appears to Man-At-Arms in a burst of light ("I am Elmora, and I have no need of your help"), and takes Battle Cat and Stratos prisoner, while in her refinery Mer-Man seals He-Man inside a photanium body cell that does not hold him for long. Her spirit is the part the spell never reaches. Back in her castle she tells Skeletor "Never, Skeletor!" and he admits his hold on her is weakening, so he has Strongarm and Mer-Man seize her and tries something crueler.

His second spell does not make her obey him. It makes her see He-Man wearing Skeletor's face: "Your hatred of me will work in my favor. Every time you look at He-Man you will see my face. And you will think it is me!" When He-Man reaches her throne room to free her, she meets him with "I hate you more with every breath I take" and a sword and shield, and Teela, standing beside him, looks to Elmora like one more of Skeletor's allies. Teela is the one who gets through to her: "You are a queen of magic, and in magic, you know that what you see is what the magician wants you to see."

Skeletor then steps out himself, and Elmora is left facing two Skeletors. "Remember your spin magic, Elmora!" comes the call, and she does: she binds them both in photanium chains, because only He-Man could break out of them. One of them breaks free, the other is the real Skeletor, and the spell lifts with "He-Man, I can see you." Her last words in the episode thank Teela "for making me see the true power of magic," and back at the palace, peeling potatoes as punishment for following her father to Phantos against orders, Teela offers the queen's gratitude in her own defense: "Queen Elmora was glad I was there."

Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Demon of Phantos (1983), 1:43 to 3:33, 1 minute 51 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.

Elmora never came back. Filmation did return to Phantos in 1984's "No Job Too Small", as the destination of a royal diplomatic trip, but she is not in it. The later continuities, which reimagine the 1983 world rather than continue it, leave her out as well: she is not in She-Ra: Princess of Power, the 2002 series, Revelation or Revolution, and neither the 1987 film nor the 2026 film uses her. No Elmora figure is on sale.