Fortress of Mystery and Power - PART FOUR: Superfluous Supplementary

What, part four?!  Why??

To wrap up the "story", of course!  Perhaps there are a couple more things I didn't cover, as well?  I dunno man, I'm not paying attention.

*SNXZRK* What?!  There are things I didn't cover, yet?  Dangit, I thought I wouldn't have to say anything for this one.

*AHEM* Well, uh, there's a place to mount the Power Swords, right near the Throne!  This is an option that you'd expect, honestly.  There has never been a proper place for the sword (or swords) beyond the secret door in the 200X castle.  You'd think it would be silly to just....display them, out in the open.  I like it, though!  I mean, this castle is as much for display as for play, so I'd like a place for the swords that is nice and visible.

Now, I do wish that they had somehow gotten it to hold both She-Ra's sword and a second regular Power Sword.  I like having both of the Swords of Power on the wall, but that's mostly a cartoon thing, ya know?  If I wanted to display both halves of the Power Sword, well....I can't.  I tried to get two regular Power Swords in there, but I can't manage to get it to work.

On a similar note: In the Masters of the Universe movie, Skeletor places the Power Sword in this awesome slot next to the throne.  It would have been cool to add some sort of slot next to the throne for the sword, ya know?  I'm kinda hoping someone sculpts their own thing, so I can still make that idea work.  I've always loved the thought of Skeletor on the throne with the Sword displayed next to him.  "MINE!"

For those that can't see the video

The trap door works as you'd expect: Turn the chair and the door opens!  It's a bit smaller than the original, so sometimes the figures will get stuck.  It's like one of those drop-slides at a water park - make sure you're in the proper position before being dropped, kids!

The thing I love about the new mechanism is that it's not as obvious.  The old one had a lot of ways to break because it was a simple mechanism.  This one is covered and the chair is non-removable, so there's no chance of getting things messed up.  There are screws under the floor, though, if you want to take it all apart and customize things to your liking.

Ah, that trap door.  What I loved about it was that it instantly turned the floor into an area with dangerous footing.  Naturally, you'd probably close up a trap door after using it, but when I was a kid, I'd have it hang open after use as a hazard during a fight.  Skeletor falls to his "doom" at the end of the movie, after all!  It was my own little way of recreating the idea, with a big dangerous hole in Castle Grayskull.

This is just my cheap little way of paying homage to all the dangerous sword fights over the open trap door.  The next part is just business as usual.

WHEW!  So, that about covers it!  All the Castle Grayskulls - reviewed!  Well, all of the main playsets, anyway.  So far.  There is one more recent one, but that'll be for another time.

Going through all the castles and memories has been a blast!  We began with my childhood playset, the very, VERY used vintage castle; went over the 200X castle that didn't get as much use, but was still fun; and finally made our way over to what was supposed to be impossible.  This massive beast of a playset fought against all odds, or, perhaps there weren't as many odds as I thought?  I mean, this thing was powered by fans!  There are many toylines that simply cannot live without a strong following, and so many fans out there believe that they are enough to support a toyline when they are not.  This is an example of one of those rare times when the fans were enough and, so far, continue to be so!

I mean look at that!  We got a figure of He-Man as a king and a castle to put him in.  I will forever be in awe of how crazy fan-powered this toyline is.  Sometimes, being in the thick of it, you think this toyline is greater than it is.  You think that is MUST be super popular and on the forefront of the minds of collectors, but you run into many people who haven't heard of it or only know a little bit about it (or wonder how the heck something like He-Man is even selling).  So you know this is fan-powered.  All the way.  Simply amazing.

As one of those fans - one of the people I believe this castle was created for, the kinda fan that grew up with pretty much just this castle as a playset and nearly nothing else - I've gotta end this in the same way I ended the previous reviews.  Some simple setups!

This time, though, I'd like to reuse the pics from the first review so you can see how I tried to set them up (the pics should be similar in the 200X review, as well, give or take a few characters).

I was just gona post a link to the first review, but I figured it was more interesting to see them one after the other.  Tried my best to mimic them.

I've stated, in the previous reviews, that this castle is the foundation for a lot of my favorite types of stories.  The main one being the idea of a mysterious and unknown past that leaves behinds clues, in the present.  The vintage castle played that roll (and more) and this castle does the same, in a larger scale.

Granted...maybe I'm not playing with it, so much.  Technically.  People outgrow toys, and I understand that.  Somewhere along the way they lose the need to imagine stories (or, perhaps, act out stories).  Maybe the imagination just developed into problem solving skills; something practical.  Perhaps mine did too, in some ways.  Somehow, though, my imagination kept working with the toys and what they could do.  Setting them around my environment, sparking stories, building legends.  Yeah, I don't play with them like I used to...but my brain is still working with them in the same ways, and it keeps me going.  Keeps me thinking.  Makes life that much more interesting.  I don't have the money to experience the world, but knowledge is free, and so long as I can learn, I can use knowledge with toys to build the worlds I may never visit, or could never visit.  Then, in turn, I can bring that to my own little slice of the world where I live and try to bring those stories and random jokes to others, as I think of them.

It all started with a castle.  When I'm on my deathbed - hopefully having at least tried or written some of the things I've imagined - I believe that castle is how it'll end: with mystery.

...and maybe some cool techno stuff that would be keeping me alive in the future.  GEEZE, I hope I'm a cyborg!

...alright, so maybe I made an epilogue, too.  Think of this as the scene after the credits.

Thanks for sticking with me through all this, and THANKS FOR READING!