KICK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (3)
By:
January 10, 2022
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of a favorite sidekick — whether real-life or fictional.
SWIFT WIND
Swift Wind definitely wouldn’t appreciate being characterized as a sidekick, but he wouldn’t have become who he is without She-Ra.
When we meet him, he’s simply a horse, calmly grazing. Adora, who’s never seen a horse before, gets kawaii-eyed and calls him majestic. After Adora, Bow and Glimmer escape Thaymor with the horse, now known by them as ‘Horsey,’ Bow wonders, “Wait, whose horse was this?” — a question Swift Wind will later answer himself.
While she’s trying to learn how the Sword of Protection works, Adora inadvertently transforms Horsey. He acquires rainbow wings, a unicorn-style horn, and a mane as luxuriant as She-Ra’s own.
But unlike most characters who experience dramatic makeovers, he’s not delighted. He panic-bucks, as though the transformation were a rider he could throw. He can’t, so he does the next best thing: he gallops as far away as possible from the being who made it happen.
We don’t see him do it, but he manages to come to terms with his new identity, and tells Madame Razz with what we’ll learn is characteristic bluntness that he wants to be called Swift Wind, and that Horsey was a stupid name.
Several episodes later, he comes to Bright Moon. “Our horse!” Bow exclaims. Swift Wind corrects him: “I am my own horse.”
His self-actualization has come with political awakening; he explains that he named himself for the swift winds of revolution. Shortly thereafter he tells Queen Angella that he wants to talk to her about freeing all the horses in her stables.
Swift Wind starts as he means to go on in the calling-out-inequities department. In the Council Chamber, upon noticing that everyone else has one, he asks why he doesn’t have a chair. Later he notes that a door is too small for horses, “which is rude.”
And like many a revolutionary in the shadow of a powerful comrade, he wants to be seen as a hero in his own right: “Did someone say Swift Wind?” he repeatedly, hopefully asks, only to be told, inevitably, “No one did.”
Swift Wind acts his most sidekick-like when Adora, despairing, fearful that her mere presence will put her friends in danger, says everyone would be better off if she stayed far away from them. “Well, that’s just stupid,” Swift Wind says. Then he asks what turns out to be a key question for the series: “What good is all your power if you don’t use it to help the people that you love?”
Swift Wind isn’t always this insightful; sometimes he’s just making up goofy songs, or being certain that everyone shares his love for apples and hay. But when it matters, he speaks truth to the Princess of Power.
KICK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Annie Nocenti on RATSO | Barbara Bogaev on TRIXIE | Sara Ryan on SWIFT WIND | Carlo Rotella on BELT BEARERS | Adam McGovern on JACKIE McGEE | Josh Glenn on RAWHIDE | Gabriela Pedranti on KUILL | Douglas Wolk on VOLSTAGG | Serdar Paktin on CATO | Deirdre Day on TRAMPAS | Dean Haspiel on TIN MAN | Flourish Klink on THE APOSTLE PETER | Miranda Mellis on FAMILIAR | Peggy Nelson on COSMO | Beth Lisick on MARTHA BROOKS | Bishakh Som on CAPTAIN HADDOCK | Stephanie Burt on SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE | Greg Rowland on SPOCK | Adam Netburn on SENKETSU | Mimi Lipson on ROBIN QUIVERS | Jonathan Pinchera on GUTS | Tom Nealon on TWIKI | Mandy Keifetz on DR. EINSTEIN | Judith Zissman on IGNATZ MOUSE | Anthony Miller on DOCTOR GONZO.
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