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So, I am aware that the lack of logic regarding Hordak's initial takeover is just a symptom of sloppy writing, but I like to try to rationalize things in terms of canon. So we're going to talk about why Evil Granddaddy Scorpio actually makes a weird amount of sense. Strap in.
Hordak is one (1) angry spacebat. He has a black void where his charisma should be. And now that season five has aired, we know that he likely had no experience leading an army prior to Etheria. Since he was a cult slave with no power or army to lead.
So how, pray tell, did he manage to acquire an entire army *of Etherians* to carry out his orders? Where did they come from? Why did they follow him? How were they convinced to topple an entire kingdom and commandeer a runestone? Why would they bother?
All of these questions can be answered by assuming that the initial members of the Etherian Horde were actually rebels within the Scorpion kingdom. If we assume that Hordak crash landed in the middle of a revolutionary war, things make sense.
The army would essentially already be there, made up of people who have a built-in hatred of princesses, given the runestone-powered nature of their tyrannical rulers. Hordak would simply need to offer advanced weaponry to turn the tide of the war and gain loyal followers.
At least some infrastructure would be there to form a framework for Hordak to build off of. Army organization would be there for him to build off of as well, since again: the Galactic Horde does not have the same sort of army, so he would not really know how to form one.
The initial Horde soldiers would already dislike princesses and not need to be propagandized, which eliminates the question of how one lone spacebat with zero manipulation skills managed to convince people to join him.
This also explains why none of our heroes mention the fall of the Scorpion kingdom with any sort of sadness or mourning. If the kingdom was an awful place, no one would care that it was gone. Contrast with Salineas, which is mourned and mentioned again and again.
It also might address why the Fright Zone is called that, and why Horror Hall is Horror Hall. Why would Hordak name a throne room Horror Hall only to never use it? My hypothesis is that the Scorpions actually named these places, and the theme runs along with "evil tyrant."
The idea of Hordak betraying an actual ally is also very out of character for him (he *never* betrays anyone, even Catra), so this idea explains why he would fight Scorpio in the first place: there was no alliance, and he simply took advantage of rebel sentiments to gain an army.
Scorpia is simply told a cuddly, sanitized version of events, because no one wants to tell her that her family was actually kind of not great, and that the people of the Fright Zone were their oppressed citizens. So she learns the "allies" version and everyone moves on.
Anyway, yeah. This weird headcanon basically explains to me how Hordak was able to convince a bunch of Etherians to take over a kingdom by explaining that he didn't: they were already in the process, and he just kind of lucked into it.
I shall now lean back and wait for some sort of SPoP Twitter army to come for me in the night.
