blogs_blog_1497

OMG I love you for this.

I'm not going to argue that morals like teamwork and friendship have no merit. After all, I'm a huge fan of My Little Pony, which is ENTIRELY about themes of friendship. And of course, child-friendly morals can still belie complex themes—I think that sums up the triumph of The Lego Movie.

But neither My Little Pony nor The Lego Movie took quite as much work as Bionicle to understand. Bionicle was convoluted as heck—and for what? It barely scratched the surface of even the themes it examined—themes like "don't betray your friends" or "heroes are more powerful united" that should be common sense even for the theme's young target audience.

It's worth noting that one of the things I felt was strongest about the classic story was the reveal of the Great Spirit Robot. That, at least, was more than "things happening"—the allegory of disease that it revealed enriched the previous story by adding an entirely new level of thematic complexity. Was it handled as well as it could have been? Probably not—it would have helped if the themes leading up to that had been more consistent with that allegory, or it had gotten more exploration. I wish they had managed to do a bit more with that theme than a giant robot battle at the very end, of course, and those themes would probably have worked better on the whole if Makuta's final betrayal had been foiled and Mata Nui had gotten the chance to awaken for real. But it was SOMETHING, and helped to grant what had by that point become a convoluted and confusing saga into something with at least a hint of narrative cohesion.

I love thinking about the more subjective side of things. Moral ambiguity and the frame of mind the author might have been in while writing. I also like to try and figure out the characters and their motivations. On the objective side of things, I find hidden messages and cultural references legitimately interesting. It's why I like comparing and contrasting Disney films to the stories they were based off of.

Wait, this isn't about Jurassic Park misconceptualizing what we think dinosaurs look like?

 

OMG I love you for this.

 

I'm not going to argue that morals like teamwork and friendship have no merit. After all, I'm a huge fan of My Little Pony, which is ENTIRELY about themes of friendship. And of course, child-friendly morals can still belie complex themes—I think that sums up the triumph of The Lego Movie.

 

But neither My Little Pony nor The Lego Movie took quite as much work as Bionicle to understand. Bionicle was convoluted as heck—and for what? It barely scratched the surface of even the themes it examined—themes like "don't betray your friends" or "heroes are more powerful united" that should be common sense even for the theme's young target audience.

 

It's worth noting that one of the things I felt was strongest about the classic story was the reveal of the Great Spirit Robot. That, at least, was more than "things happening"—the allegory of disease that it revealed enriched the previous story by adding an entirely new level of thematic complexity. Was it handled as well as it could have been? Probably not—it would have helped if the themes leading up to that had been more consistent with that allegory, or it had gotten more exploration. I wish they had managed to do a bit more with that theme than a giant robot battle at the very end, of course, and those themes would probably have worked better on the whole if Makuta's final betrayal had been foiled and Mata Nui had gotten the chance to awaken for real. But it was SOMETHING, and helped to grant what had by that point become a convoluted and confusing saga into something with at least a hint of narrative cohesion.

 

I certainly didn't mean to imply they had no merit, though this entry was rough enough I can see where I implied a few things I didn't actually mean. For example, while I think all themes take thought, that thought doesn't necessarily translate into work, because sometimes a theme is presented plainly and clearly and still makes you think. As for teamwork and friendship, they are important themes, but the fact that such simple themes were at the heart of so convoluted a story.

 

I also thought the Great Spirit reveal was a strong point (or at least I did, until I read the serials and found out they'd been hemmorhaging hints which really explained why people were suddenly theorizing about Mata Nui being the universe), and if I had to pick a high point of the later years, it would definitely be that. It was a coherent mystery that had been planned from the beginning and was, in fact, the core of the story, finally being revealed. Even that, however, I would argue is more fun if you go along for the ride rather than overthink it. That moment of clarity when mysteries such as the Bohrok finally click is worth it.

 

 

Wait, this isn't about Jurassic Park misconceptualizing what we think dinosaurs look like?

 

 

I'm saving that for when my friends drag me to Jurassic World and I write a scathing review.

Thank you. I really don't get what is so hard to understand about this for some people. Stories aren't made to be internally consistent microrealities - they're meant to say something. That's why it really bothers me when people get worked up about canon - aka an arbitrary collection of 'right' and 'wrong' assignments to different pieces of media. "What really happened" isn't the important thing - the important thing is the media pieces themselves, what they offer, and what they have to say.

Stories aren't made to be internally consistent microrealities - they're meant to say something.

While I agree with most of what Dina was saying (and what you say afterward), I think I disagree with what you're trying to get at here; a story never has to "say something". A story is a story, tautological as that is. A story is a narration that someone is compelled to read further. That can be a lot of things, but "message-providing" isn't inherently one of them.

 

I, personally, like internally consistent micro-realities. If you're building some kind of tale that's worth reading, it pays to be consistent (or consistently inconsistent, if you're going for absurdism or parody). This is why I genuinely subscribe to the idea of "canon", even if people can take it to horrible extremes. The idea that you want everything to make sense in a story (especially one geared at younger readers!) is a remarkably easy one to empathize with.

 

If you're muddling your mechanics just to promote "themes" (whatever the heck those are) you're very clearly doing it wrong. If you're undermining themes for the sake of minutae, you've gone too far the other way. It's rare to find a story that is able to achieve both with 100% (you're delving into weird, dense, nigh-unreadable Tolkein levels at that point), but by the same token it's not something that needs to be a 50/50 split.

 

BIONICLE was a huge massive world with a lot of cooks in the kitchen; that it came together as well as it did is as surprising as it is enjoyable. I'm not going to write off my feelings of it as nostalgia, nor am I going to pretend that it's perfection incarnate. Take from it what you want from it, also known as enjoying a story.

"themes" (whatever the heck those are)

If you didn't have the benefit of literally any high school english class to teach you what a theme is in relation to a story i guarantee you a five second google search could easily solve your confusion.

 

I also can't agree that you can have a good story without saying something. Stories that exist purely for things to happen feel bland and soulless and I've never seen a good one.

 

"themes" (whatever the heck those are)

If you didn't have the benefit of literally any high school english class to teach you what a theme is in relation to a story i guarantee you a five second google search could easily solve your confusion.

 

I was being facetious, but I appreciate the advice?

 

I also can't agree that you can have a good story without saying something. Stories that exist purely for things to happen feel bland and soulless and I've never seen a good one.

We're probably defining "say something" differently. I'm leaning more towards "message"; not every story has to be making some kind of point in order to be interesting. The best ones usually have some kind of point AND are entertaining, but they aren't required to be inclusive of one another. Stories exist to be told. If you're reading a story BECAUSE it has an cogent point or message or whatever you want to call it, then great. If you want to read a story that's different, fun, entertaining (also subjective, but you get the point), whatever, then that's also great. Whatever keeps you reading a story is what makes it good to you.

 

"themes" (whatever the heck those are)

If you didn't have the benefit of literally any high school english class to teach you what a theme is in relation to a story i guarantee you a five second google search could easily solve your confusion.

 

I also can't agree that you can have a good story without saying something. Stories that exist purely for things to happen feel bland and soulless and I've never seen a good one.

 

I think it would be more appropriate to say that all stories DO say something, whether or not they intend to. Often, the "message" of a story that is just a sequence of events is just that—that life is unpredictable and random, and that things don't necessarily always happen for a reason. That's a perfectly valid message in itself (even if it's probably not the most appropriate message for a children's toyline).

 

And of course, the message one person gets from a story may not have been intended by the author. We all have experiences that might make particular stories resonate with us. And unintended messages are no less valid than the ones the author purposely included!

 

To a certain extent, that latter point is the main issue the Bionicle story had. Its explicit messages about unity and duty were often in conflict with the implicit messages it sent. Lessons about good triumphing over evil were undermined by a hypercompetent villain who always seemed to get his way in the end, UNTIL the very end. The morality preached by the story was practically absolute, despite a plethora of sympathetic villains and flawed heroes who would, in a better-written story, challenge those notions. If Bionicle were not TRYING to send an explicit message about the nature of good and evil, the twisted events portrayed by the later story would be consistent with time-tested lessons about the moral ambiguity of war. If Bionicle had avoided the darkness and ambiguity of the later years, sticking to characters and conflicts that reinforced the story's basic lessons about good and evil, that would also have sent a more consistent message. But Bionicle often tried to have it both ways, especially in the later years, by filling the story with darkness and moral ambiguity but never failing to fall back on the simplistic and absolute morality it had established early on, where darkness was evil and light was good and never the twain shall meet.

Just pointing out that even stories that set out to purposefully avoid having a theme or "saying something" are, by the very nature of their story, saying something. Storytelling is primal- it's the deepest form of social communication documented in human history. We've been telling stories longer than we've been writing, drawing, recording.

 

I was going to say, I agree with a lot of this in here. It's a more post-modern reading of stories and literature in that they don't have to be internally consistent, and that fiction and story-telling is inherently flawed because so are the story-tellers. This sort of literary criticism has been causing a huge stir in the literary world (and also in the religious community, as literary criticism is the same method used for exegeting things like the Bible). I subscribe to it pretty fully, with the caveat that new ideas work best when standing on top of old ideas. But I also think a good story mixes a good theme and strong premise with internal consistency. Though sometimes contradictions also have something to add to the story.

 

I think all stories have themes, they all say something, even when unintentional. (In fact, stories where the author wrote the work solely to promote a singular theme often come off as uninspired and boorish, as I find the case with The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald is all too proud of himself and it makes the work insufferable.) Sometimes an author sets out to tell one moral, and a separate one emerges (Fahrenheit 451, for example, was written explicitly to showcase how television was ruining the world, but tells a story about how censorship is wrong instead, much to the author's anger and denial. The them is there, whether the author intended it or not).

 

A story can, and a good story often does, take work to fully understand. But not the same kind of work BIONICLE often does. Needing mathematical theorems to understand the relative sizes of celestial bodies is certainly something you'll find in other fandoms (looking at you, Star Wars and Star Trek), but it isn't required. I've seen Bonesiii say several times over the years that BIONICLE purposefully took work to understand, and that this was an intentional part of the line's core theme as a toyline- but he's the only one I've ever see say that, and it feels uncorroborated. The line's concepts and themes are blessedly simple, the storytelling often juvenile and simplistic, and the only "complexity" inherent in the line is the absurd amount of extraneous details and random answers we've been given via the "Word of God" from outside the story itself.

 

This is a rambling random mishmash of literary nonsense, but this stuff is important to me as someone who studied literature for several years in college before switching to a different major entirely. All stories say something, even when they're not trying to. Sometimes because they're not trying to. But don't discount the purpose of enjoyment and cathartic release either. Sometimes a story simply says "have fun" and that's okay too.

I'm all for both. I think the details provided often provide clues to "the mystery behind it all" and trying to solve the puzzle using evidence and theories is fun. 

 

But there's something to putting down the story when the mystery is over and thinking about the meaning of the story. To use Bionicle as an example (albeit a crude one, but hey), putting down Time Trap and thinking about how even the seemingly most powerless and insignificant can change everything. Or turning off the second Captain America movie and thinking about Cap's affection for his friend and how that got through brainwashing and torture.

 

With that being said, Greg answers is too much detail. I followed the entire story while it was running without a single Greg answer. And without the Greg answers and the additional BZP complications, the story really is simple, easy to understand...and it does have themes. Vakama's story is about confidence levels - too little or too much is bad, and you need to have the right view of yourself. The Rahaga's story is about persisting in the face of overwhelming loss (and by extension, the Hordika story). Mata Nui's story is a coming-around-tale, saying that making one mistake is not the end.

 

S&T ignores all of that in the wash of Greg answers. That's S&T's fault. I wish people would stop ascribing S&T's faults to the Bionicle story; it's a shame that it considers Bionicle through such a warped lens.  

S&T ignores all of that in the wash of Greg answers. That's S&T's fault. I wish people would stop ascribing S&T's faults to the Bionicle story; it's a shame that it considers Bionicle through such a warped lens.

 

This is the realest though.

I think the reasoning for having to ask those questions is that it isn't really explained or common knowledge. Most of the other classic stories feature humans on earth. I don't need to know the height of a character in a classic story if it describes him as being "average height". Depending on the region the story centers around, that could be 5'10. I don't need to know what a character eats or if they even can eat since it centers around humans. I think once a story starts to dwell into unknown territory is when the questions really start to pile up.

 

So Fantasy or Sci-Fi genre are especially good at coming up with weird scenarios that questions can be asked about. It just so happens that BIONICLE happens to fit into both of those. It's a really weird thing though, I must agree. 

I think the reasoning for having to ask those questions is that it isn't really explained or common knowledge. Most of the other classic stories feature humans on earth. I don't need to know the height of a character in a classic story if it describes him as being "average height". Depending on the region the story centers around, that could be 5'10. I don't need to know what a character eats or if they even can eat since it centers around humans. I think once a story starts to dwell into unknown territory is when the questions really start to pile up.

 

So Fantasy or Sci-Fi genre are especially good at coming up with weird scenarios that questions can be asked about. It just so happens that BIONICLE happens to fit into both of those. It's a really weird thing though, I must agree. 

 

Obviously some amount of questioning is going to come up in any sci-fi story. As you said, the difference between our universe and a sci-fi universe is sometimes important to outline. (However, S&T takes things too far; I view asking how Kapura fast-travels about on par with trying to force a scientific explanation on the Force.)

 

This is not saying that those questions should not be asked. Instead, what I'm trying to say is that attaining a ludicrous level of those questions should not be what a story strives for, and, from what I know of literary analysis, that should not be the main focus of analysis. What I'm trying to say is that if Bionicle wanted to be a story that takes work to understand, it should have done so through complex characters and themes rather than a complex universe. That is what I've come to understand as a story worth working to understand.