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According to Mark Taylor the original reason for Teela's snake armor was that she wore it as a disguise to pretend to be an entirely new character as part of Skeletor's Evil Warriors, and would work as a villain for him, but really she was a double agent helping He-Man. Taylor said that the mini-comic guys couldn't grasp this concept and they tried to treat it as that her figure could be used as two different-- Teela and the Sorceress, who was sometimes refereed to as the Goddess. So with this concept it was two different characters using the same figure; she was Teela without the armor on, and Sorceress with it on.
>Mark: "She was actually supposed to be a changeling but the comic book guys had a hard time with that. Also, the head of girls toys wanted to rip her off for Princess of Power (because now the line was very hot!). She was intended to be like a spy and play both sides with some magic but the “professionals” felt that was too complex (I guess they don’t get Game of Thrones either)."