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A Magical Forest Called Bionicle


bonesiii

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*finally gets around to this*

What follows is a very short story that I wrote as a "Velika Mode" analogy in a recent debate topic, intended to help explain a mistake a lot of people make in how to look at what Bionicle should do. Someone PMed me and said they actually enjoyed the story, so I figure I might as well put it here, lol. Whether you wanna read this for its meaning, or just as a short story, enjoy! ^_^





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There was once a man who came upon a pond in the middle of a magical forest. He liked the pond, as it reflected his image, as well as the images of the trees around it. As he looked at his image, he realized that the pond allowed him to understand what he looked like better than he normally could. He could see his face, for example, or the top of his head. This pleased him greatly, and he eagerly looked at the images of the trees, hoping he could see them more clearly now as well.

But what he saw instead was distorted, wavy trees in the gentle waves of the pond. They didn't seem exactly the same as when he simply looked at them--but he liked the wavy reflections enough, and he was so excited about the pond that he decided to always look at the trees through the pond's reflection.

The day wore on, and something changed. In the ripples, he saw specks of strange colors interrupting the wavy images of trees. Try as he might, he could not get a clear image of the strange colors. So he grumbled that the forest had changed for the worst--he just wanted to watch the wavy images of green leafy trees, since it was what he was used to by now. This dissapointed him, for he liked the forest too, and wanted it to be the best it could be.

Finally, a wizened old man walked up to him. The old man stood somewhat behind him, and the man could not see him through the pond, so he had to glance back at him. He quickly returned his eyes to the pond, and ignored the old man. Until the old man suddenly said, "Ah, the forest is lovely this evening, isn't it?"

The man didn't answer at first, for he was puzzled. He could not agree, because in the pond, the forest looked worse, and he could not understand why. So he said, "Well, it was... but it's gone downhill since this morning."

"Really?" the old man said. "What makes you say that?"

The man explained.

"Ah, the old man said, smiling gently. "Your mistake is that you are trying to understand the forest through your pond, rather than looking directly at it."

The man's eyes widened. Slowly, he lifted his eyes. He beheld that each and every tree was filled with colorful flowers that had opened during the midday sun. He had to admit the flowers looked better than he'd thought, but he still would have preferred if they were gone. But then he noticed that energy was flowing into them from the sunlight. He asked the old man about this.

"You see," said the old man, "the light-flowers absorb energy that strengthens the bark of the trees. This same energy flows up to the leaves that you like so much, and it is in fact because of the flowers that the trees are here! The tree will not look the same for the rest of the day, but it will be healthy."

"I see," said the man, with a smile.

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The meaning:
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «
The pond represents personal tastes, the forest represents Bionicle. The mistake a lot of people make is that they look to their likes and dislikes to decide what they think Bionicle actually should do--this obviously does not work because Bionicle doesn't revolve around just one person. The point is that, hopefully, even if there's been some change to Bionicle that we don't like, we can still be satisfied that it's OK when the change helps Bionicle's health as a franchise. ^_^

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Yup, that's a good story. Call the old man Vakama and the man Takua, and Greg would put that in as official storyline. Seriously, it's that good. :P

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See, that's what I think! I don't look to my personal likes and dislikes about Bionicle. I go with the flow. I'd buy every Bionicle if I could. Not just so I can say that I have all of the Bionicles, because I like the design of every Bionicle!

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The only problem I see with the analogy is that it's the man's opinion that affects how the tree looks (Not man, but the society as a whole), because a toy company bases their products on our likes and dislikes. But other than that, the analogy is perfect. I love parables. Like the parable of the man, his son, and a train. That's heartbreaking.

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The only problem I see with the analogy is that it's the man's opinion that affects how the tree looks (Not man, but the society as a whole), because a toy company bases their products on our likes and dislikes. But other than that, the analogy is perfect. I love parables. Like the parable of the man, his son, and a train. That's heartbreaking.

This is true, heh. My point was more that as individuals focusing on our tastes to decide our "should" opinions is illogical, so it probably wouldn't fit very well to have a huge crowd in the forest, lol. But yes, that is very true.

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And absolutely zero percent of the BZP populous will want to agree with this story.

 

Except for whoever's commenting here, of course...

 

It really preaches the message well, but like I said, people are arrogant and stupid hard to please.

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