Iblis

I honestly think the Transparent Fluorescent Reddish-Orange works with the other colours*... Am I alone? Like I can see where people are coming from, but I think it looks nice :$ *Well, I think the 70791+70792+70793 combiner is too colourful & clashes.

Dina is spot on IMO Really? I despise it, & I wouldn't call is a Cockney accent. It;s the type of accent no person (who has been exposed to a society outside of a town of 2) actually has any more. For most intents & purposes it is an imitators accent. Probably sounds like the real thing to those with minimal to non existent exposure to the actual thing, but hey that's how brains work when it comes to accents etc.

They won't let us. Although on the off hand that anyone ends up talking about bad rap music dropping "piraka" in amongst some other words carefully might be enough that someone might gloss over the 'gibberish' or click... Not a shibboleth as such but an odd calling card. I swear it'll happen at least once before the world forgets Bionicle xD

Generally, a shibboleth is mean to be kind of innocuous inconspicuous, there are plenty of exceptions like "Yksi" were the White Guard asked people to say it; if they pronounced it wrong (with /ju/ rather than /y/) they were shot on the assumption they were a Russian fighter etc. Not inconspicuous. But someone can easily have a vague idea about something & guess the right answer... generally isn't an optimal choice for a shibboleth. The main thing is; how are you going to slide "I am Takanuva..." into a conversation? Why not just ask them flat out if they're a fan of Bionicle? It's not really less conspicuous...

Primus inter pares has a funny way of ending up in these things... A leader isn't necessarily more equal than others ... reality just tends to ...drift that way (Besides, isn't a 'fight' over who should be leader a primary drama piece? Learning how to work together etc. etc.)

Considering that TLG is 'imitating' its own work (pretty much the only 'correct' application of ripoff in conjunction with G2, given they haven't done anything fraudulent nor have they swindled anyone); which is what people tend to expect from a reboot... I'd say "Toa Two!" would be on about the same level for humour

Eh only 40 people have voted, & there are 10 different options for villains; you're the only one who's made them you're favourite; it doesn't mean others don't like them, we just like other stuff more.

31 (do the 6 votes from option to get rolled into option 1 as a pseudo-preference system or is that taken into account or discarded because so few or?), but yeah, maybe leave it a bit longer, but I'm not overly fussed.

I... haven't really got any definitive perceptions on what the Protectors genders are (other than the PoF); for the most part they are irrelevant to me; I could see most of the going a number of ways with varying degrees ... but that's not exactly I think they are say "ambiguous, indeterminable, and possibly nonexistent" although I'm not opposed to that either, I'm kinda 1 level above that; I'm meta-(meta-)gender determined XD (No offence to anyone; I simply haven't got any primary views yet, so I'm open to any of those 5 being male/female/intersex/agender/indeterminable/etc. so yeah, I nulled my vote.) I'm not sure if it's actually that non-standard for people to use "headcanon" to refer to their own version of the 'verse; there may be no fanfiction or work which uses it r maybe there is, but unlike some other thought they might have they like to entertain it's own existence, sure they might be able to also call it an AU, but I haven't seen many places insist that a headcanon can't include something that couldn't exist within canon without retcons. But yeah it is a bit misleading.

Yeah that was the most egregious, but it sounds bizarre throughout the majority of the video (to me anyway), Where the stress is placed on each word seems non-standard, each sentence doesn't seem to (consistently) match any particular poetic line or stanza; sometimes he does sound somewhat ""epic"" or dare I say Morgan Freemanesque? Ultimately a certain 'deep' sound but disgressions aside: he speaks in a rather marked form in some ways I think this works well, but on the other hand some might (or might not) feel it jarring. (Personally I think that having such an unusually large gap between "Mask" & "Hunt" was actually worse; it indicates they where aware the name wasn't optimal [How about Bionicle Mask Search? etc.] & yet he sounds like he's trying to rush the last word in after a very long gap, admittedly his/a normal gap probably wouldn't be enough as even if people did recognise the /h/ they'd be likely to say he said something else anyway ... which some are still likely to do! I suppose the main point is to not upset parents~guardians or moral guardians.) People using awkward constructs or emphasis or timing isn't unusual when it comes to such things, but he sees to be pretty consistently using all these things in odd ways.

Well to my understanding all the comics up to Comic 15: Mata Nui Rising (Ignition era, 2008; Bionicle Battles for Power) can be quite legally copied &/or read legally, as (over)simply the 'licences' have 'run out', so whilst they are still TLG etc. property it's free for all non-commercial uses ie providing no one (else) makes money. I believe the same can be said for all the books up to #2 The Legend Reborn (Bionicle Bara Magna, so after '08). The vast majority of the games don't have anything new as far as the story goes; MNOG, MNOG 2, QftT are some of the more notable ones (as far as story goes), & even then a few of the others can be played for free entirely legally So you're set for all the story up to and including 2008, books & comics; I'd suggest looking at Biosector01s' articles (or rather just the lists, don't want to spoilers[?]) on books & comics so you know you're reading them in a somewhat logical order Although I would also suggest that you read the books before the comics! After that I would suggest having an actual look at the wiki. Enjoy!

A nice change up in their competitions. ...Their narrator has some rather nonstandard intonation patterns...

Out comes a musically talented mould-hivemind and its own watery environment! In goes ALMSIVI. [i haven't seen any of the latest season of Doctor Who so I'm gonna jump ship now.]

Eh... We see vines pop up around him in the Mask of Creation game... so I think that & his name kinda indicates he has some form of control over plants ... as his name suggests.

Out comes a Vakastelitama. In goes a Nurse.

Just latching on to that last bit, am i remembering or was MNOG 'finished' at the end of '01? Because whilst retrospection isn't isn't ...entirely reliable; if it finished at the end of '01 ... Well I wonder how many episodes Wave 2 will bring us... but then again; books

Adequate as defined by you, yeah no issues at all. Because I'm a sadistic soci- wait, no, it's a story... Fair enough, consider the scenario dropped. Or rather, I'm content to let characters be unrealistic so long as they are understandable, i'd just rather my heroes win in an interesting story, ie not the post '08 story; '08 wasn't that great either, but it seems a nice easy point to go there I was excited for what was coming next, and mostly disappointment afterwards. Seems like a wonderful point to cut the series & let fans come up with something else; their tears might motivate them to write something interesting, or rather something more enjoyable than the Bara Magna Arc... Seriously though, characters can use Elemental powers, Makuta can do that & is apparently really smart ...sort of. It's a different type of break from reality; where as the teamwork = win isn't so much a power as a fore within the world. An entirely unexplained one. Nothing really, but '08 is a convenient cutoff for me, latest point in the series which doesn't make me desire to bin a book/comic/etc. Because it is a skill, it gets things done, & it take some degree of effort; it's an ability of sorts, a useful one, that I don't like its implementation is irrelevant. Wait what. "until you do, you're going to keep insisting every story should have a terrible ending because it's not cliché.", you have very little of an idea of how I actually view other stories. " they are illustrations of values that are either positive or negative" that is painfully black & white. Yes every story sends a message. whether intentional or not. But insisting that character X winning means the author supports that characters values is utterly obnoxious; you can read to much stuff into a work. Some stories go where they go, and even with planing, the characters win that have values and skill diametrically opposed to what the creator feels, bu if it made sense to have such a character in a place & situationaly they end up winning despite the creator not intending to send any message of the sort you might take out of it. You have inferred something that wasn't intended.You need to learn that the message someone take out of something isn't the only one nor does a story necessarily intend to illustrate any given set of values. If you read Aesops all day you might expect this, but literature has expanded beyond your narrow view.I can understand why you where taking those messages out of it, that doesn't mean I approve of it, I would expect there would be members of the audience that would also do that, I see that as a non issue; one story will not typically destroy whatever society the reader is in.Having a story end badly doesn't mean one needs to become a depressed anarchical Nihilist (I take no issues to the 2nd, as for the 3rd read Nietzsche before moping too much; he actually counters some of the '(non-)issues' well). Meh if you want to reduce a story down to one and a bit sentences feel free to not write it; it adds nothing of merit. Enjoy all your pieces of loose string, I thought '08 ending had to many; but somehow Greg managed to provide one answer and lots of questions later. & each of your posts is just simply put: "I want a good moral for my story, stop being so dark!" I'd rather leave a story in a miserable place that makes sense than rush them around with substories started & about three finished. Me cutting it off at '08 leave audience hope for a sequel, letting it run it's couse ends up with a pile of characters dead because Greg didn't know what else to do with them, a few stranded on a random star, others wondering around searching for answers & two ton of flat characters... I see the later years as the weakest links & would rather them not happen, you're upset that someone thinks that a story can end with a mood whiplash and not be entirely terrible, & can't come up with anything beyond saying that any X, Y, Z won't work .. even though they are exactly what happened in the actual story, all because they won't have an official add on. I'd rather creators abandon a work rather than giving it a poorly thought through rushed ending. & you just attack me for not knowing what an "dequate ending to the story" is, because I have a different opinion to you & you haven't been able to decisively take down my key points; that there are sufficient themes, & that it would still be an entertaining year. All I "added" was that I'd think they could imply that the Toa had lost, & cut the series then. I wonder how much you complained before '09 arrived to fill the gaping hole of terrible story you were left with...

So fandom flaming aside... What do people think of the chance of seeing Nuva versions of the Toa next year?

Correction; it means nothing to you; just because you don't value a day of not being 'tortured' by Makuta... I'm not sure if there is any point trying to ascertain why you don't think it's worth delaying torture. Just in case though; I'm referring to a situation that will happen, but you can delay it by a finite amount of time; say three years. I kinda brought it up because of people saying how it made the actions of the Toa up to that '08 pointless, where as if they gave up in 2001 all the bad stuff that happened (/could happen) from Makuta being in control would have happened sooner, and thus be worse than if they fought; as such it wasn't pointless because whilst they didn't win 'in the end', there was that much more time of Matoran being less 'harmed' by Makuta. So as the audience one could just say it was fatalistic * horrible, or one could note that the Toas actions still achieved something, not as much as they hoped but it wasn't meaningless. You can't admire his "cunning" because he's bad? I'm not saying to admire him, I'm saying to the skill is admirable. One can hope to take that his "cunning" (or planning, whichever you'd rather call it), is a a good trait, & to try and be just as good as planning as him, etc. "Whatever person wins a conflict in a story, symbolically, those values have won." according to you; sure others might take it this way but frankly it doesn't follow, people win for a whole variety of reasons, it is because of things being overloaded with morals that people make connections like this, it can be valid if they actually played a important or critical or often-influential part, but because h'd lost so times before then it's still abundantly obvious that he succeeds despite his greed & blind ambition gets in the way, his selfishness? not so much, but just because something wins doesn't mean people approve of it; Not everything has it's values win the day, stories don't have to work that way. It isn't terrible if they do, but they don't need it. Not everything has to have a moral, & I find it interesting how easily you find it to overlook things like The Mask of Life solving issues as needed - the moral there is top & pray to [__] but don't actually rely on physical stuff, worst comes to worst & Deus ex Machina! yeah... You don't see that as an issue, & yet the chance that a villain won because they were selfish is just terrible and shouldn't be allowed? So very realistic. I don't think realism is demanded either, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Etc. etc. If good always wins - & I say always because the end trumps the rest by your own admission; it's find because sending good postive messages, but if the villain wins in one story society will fall apart? It is a story, it doesn't really matter if evil wins, because it is a story, it won't actually hurt you that much. i'm not trying to turn Makuta into a good guy, but he was a good planner, that's not a moral statement it is pretty much an informed ability that he has if you will. (emphasis mine) But why? There is little in-universe logical reason that heroism & teamwork should trump greed & selfishness, it's certainly abounded as one of the themes, & I think it is quite healthy to turn something so unrealistic on it's head; in RL "evil" might not always win but "good" doesn't succeed by virtue of being nice & cooperative alone, it has worked from time to time, but reality doesn't work that way; & Bionicle isn't Discworld, last I checked there wasn't actually a teamwork Force which abounds the universe dictating how long an evil character can succeed before being stamped out by luck. It turns the primary theme on its head, but it shows that it was still worth something; if the Toa had stopped earlier Makuta would have had however-long + that time; they would have the world to a horror that they could have prevented (albeit only for a time); had the heroes had cunning as well as heroics and cooperation surely they would have won, alas they were great, not not great enough; never the less they saved everyone from Makuta for a while, better than what most can say. It doesn't just turn it on its head though, it contrasts the different skills, Makutas plans were so great they could account for & outweigh the issues caused by his greed & utterly blind ambition. Indicates that the Heroes could still have been good but maybe won if they were a bit better informed or something else. It shows that information & good planning skills are worth a lot, for better or for worse, shows that such a skill can be used for good, but beware as not so nice people can also be smart, maybe smarter than you. Obviously, but some things are more likely than others; & if creators word said he did, well, Bionicle doesn't exactly run on RW physics (or logic necessarily, but hey hopefully creator exaggeration!) says he did, it's actually irrelevant. He was a brilliant Planner, how, that's not entirely our concern, merely that he was good, & better than we can hope to be. I really don't see why that is such a huge barrier for relateability, ever heard of Xenofiction? Just because we don't know the specifics doesn't mean we can't see that we can attempt something similar although much, much smaller in scale. Pretend it doesn't matter? On the contrary, its there so people have an idea of why characters do things, it is important, but it doesn't have to be a work of art if people just want to watch robots tear other robots apart; regardless this is irrelevant: I believe and have written about two themes and how they reflect each other, that you don't seem to understand why preventing people getting hurt quite as much is considered a good thing seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding or more likely that you aren't reading what I've written in my past few posts and are instead operating on what you 'first' thought I meant; regardless new information seems to be being rejected without being processed, I don't know how to overcome this sort of misunderstanding. A shaggy dog story to me is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax or a pointless punchline. Tv Topes also mentions "ironic reversal"; but I don't see what makes it bad; it compared & contrasted and I don't think many have called Makutas Grand Theft Robotverse anticlimactic, I've articulated how it doesn't negate or make the Toas actions pointless, their delay carried things to many people, the Matoran of Voya Nui, Mahru Nui, & Karda Nui if nothing else, (all who might one day find a way to rebel with some degree of success); regardless it is implied that the Toa can not do anything now, but they did delay a great catastrophe. If one is going to call it a shaggy dog story because of the reversal of who is winning or Makuta replacing Mata Nui... I still don't see that as objective criteria to say it's a bad story; tonal whiplash? certainly, & one I think is much needed, keep on dreaming & watch Greg drag out the series over even more contrived situations to start substories he won't ever finish. Sure it's hardly a great ending, but Bionicle isn't the best written toyline, I like it, it has appeal, & I really can't justify the complete mess that Bionicle continued to sprawl into; I'd rather a sharp whiplash over a long slow death which makes hints about different things that will never be explained properly all over the place. "trying to persist in a hopeless environment is more moral than realizing when you're finished" the point about fighting the inevitable is only relevant when you are helping someone else along the way; people that might escape; fighting the inevitable i pointless if you aren't helping anyone. More my poor articulation, but I've tried to point out that you are doing something that others appreciate; even if they don't get out of it, if they valued that hope that much, your helping them isn't necessarily the worst thing. & in fairness to myself, there are plenty of fights that stretch out over many, many years, how long before a culture or religion is wiped out by another? Maybe it isn't moral, but delaying these ends to at least try & drag the opponent down .. some find it satisfying. Slightly more relevant to it in Bionicle '08 ending; I can cast it aside & it makes no difference, I don't really care for whatever morals people come out with, I care for it being entertaining. I doubt this will convince you, but maybe you might see where I'm coming from.

It's the right thing to do because you spending a day trying to not get yourself & others killed whilst seems to achieve more than you surrendering to your death then & there; it's the "moral" thing to do because in short the Toa fighting against Makuta & trying to save Mata Nui gives others more time to not be terrorized by Makuta, Matoran being terrorized by Makuta is bad, thus the Toa trying to prevent this achieves more good than if they just accept it'll happen eventually; thus it is "moral" for the Toa to try save Mata Nui & stop Makuta. Preventing bad things happening is generally considered 'good'; less bad things happen if they try & stop Makuta than if they don't.Thus because they are moral they fight this fight; capiché? Or rather, they do the right thing for the exact reason they originally did them, & people (the audience) can see that even if something bad is inevitable it is sometimes better to try and minimize or delay it, each day without that thing happening is a better day than it would have otherwise been. The good guys use team work, on the flip side the bad guy uses 'good planning skills'; as I said it's the inverse the theme changes from the good guys to the bad, & you see the virtues of both, as Makuta is the antagonist & villain he has character flaws "greed and selfish ambitions". That doesn't entirely follow. His good traits ('planning' skills) are used to villainous ends; that doesn't prevent those skills from being admirable, that we aren't supposed to view any of his traits as admirable is pathetic; if one suceeds at anything using something beyond luck or being someone else's puppet they did something well, maybe not nice, but they had a skill of some sort; one should be able to view a character as evil villain without needing to pretend that they don't do anything right from an objective perspective, why should one reject reality? & no, if he wins it doesn't mean "Selfishness, greed, and jealousy are admirable traits" it means they weren't enough of an obstacle to prevent his victory (which is another moral: just because your enemy isn't nice & has flaws which do get in his way doesn't mean they always will; he isn't necessarily incompetent), what is shown to be the cause for his victory there is his plans & manipulation (which moral guardian usually shy away from ... but at the end of the day most actions are influential, many intentionally; that his where malicious is cause for disdain), being aware that not so nice things can work well is important; I see no great issue. No I don't think Bionicle was planned to go that sort of route at all, we know this; but just because it ends with him winning doesn't mean the series has no coherency, & as for the theme well there are more than one, ending with the villain & showing his actions come to fruition could be seen as sobering; there has been 'foreshadowing' (to put it lightly) of sorts for Makutas' plans; the theme is compared and contrast between two different methods, & unfortunately the villain despite his flaws ended up wining, maybe luck, or maybe his brilliant plans (which has been made a point of). Certainly it could have been done better, but so could have 2009 or 2010! There is still a logic too 2008 that doesn't fall apart if the series cut off there; it might feel incomplete, but so did the actual ending(s)! Well we don't see all of his planing, so they might be more realistic than what we think; the gaps arguably help illustrate the idea that he's that much better at it than us; which also helps send the message that there are limits for what can plan for - realising one doesn't know how he planned for things indicates he is ahead of the audience. (One could argue that it's not good writing, but whilst hes been the focus, he's rarely been 'in focus'; as it is the writers could only handle so many plots at a time...) No they aren't, I think a story needs something to tie it together, but as you say Mr Bays' films are still somehow held together despite the abysmal delivery of its messages [Edit: oops cut off the end:] so his films were primarily about entertainment, yes they need the other bits, but so long as they are there, they may not make great movies but plenty of people enjoy them. As it is, I don't think it ending with 2008 would have destroyed its theme(s) & whilst it would have felt like there could be more to come, it would also work as an ending, albeit dark IMO.

The Mask of Life has incredibly arbitrary restrictions; the only reason they needed teamwork so much from '06 onwards was pretty much because it was temperamental & did it's own thing; much of the time a problem could have been solved by simply someone being able to actually grab it before a villain pops up out of nowhere to try and claim it - or to shoot the golden armour away: Diabolus ex Machina to match it's Deus ex Machina; the heroes were just running back & forth between two very lazy literary tools; Mata Nui needed help because he wasn't a very likable guy - pay attention to the goings on inside of him which he apparently was kinda aware of; him needing help only came about because when he could do almost anything he neglected it, he wasn't an intelligent character & he was only nice after things went wrong for him... Well lucky you, that didn't happen. I still don't see how it would be a shaggy dog story as it doesn't make everything before hand meaningless or irrelevant, it is an inversion; bad guy wins because of all these things he set up in advance, it was a well layed trap; he was clever. Intelligence > hivemind lets work together & follow destiny & do our duty. Sure it's a positive spin on it, but it's based of stuff in the story. The message doesn't say you have to be "blind, greedy, corrupted ambition winning out against the forces of good" although that is obviously there, it is also a message about 'intelligence' (or rather planning) > good intentions; you can be the most well meaning person in the world and achieve very little because life depends on multiple factors. You've mentioned this "why bother holding off the inevitable if it will prevail anyway? " sort of thing a few times; generally speaking many societies say one should do whats moral because it's moral. [To invoke Godwin's law, if you can delay nasty Nazis from getting to innocent victims for even a day, that's one day saved from incredible nastiness; even if you know it won't be enough it might give them hope; to break the analogy: the Toa might not be able to do anything, but the Matoran might find a way in time, sure they aren't thinking it when it happens they are despairing then, but they might gain hope latter... {post-apocalypse Matoran-centered fanfic?}] Silly comparison but it should actually make this clear: preventing a bad thing from happening even for a moment is important; not trying to delay the inevitablle can be a good idea, but sometimes the "moral" thing to do is to try and prevent it, you know you can only delay, but a delay is better than it happening now. (Nevermind go down fighting tropes!) //Nihilism is kinda silly, Nietzsche arguably pointed out people can be happy, nice, & do good things despite horrible things happening in the world with the logical assumption that things will get worse (better as well, but also worse; whether it's world war in 100 yrs time, or millions dying of hunger, whatever bad thing thats going to happen sooner or latter), & that people can still try even in the face of what appears inevitable; they can give hope to others, because even if they can't do anything at least they were hopeful for that moment... In the end, many people loose; many people don't think that way because they focus on other things. I'd think this would be irrelevant, then again people appear to be freaking out that a story could have a surprise unhappy ending. You seem to insist you can't even see a point in why, but the reason to do the right thing? Do the right thing because that's good; it's almost literally what parents have been telling kids for generations; there's usually been a variety of intermittent steps, but really, if you're worried that a story ending with the villain succeeding = bad, horrible; somehow means we should be bad, I wonder what you actually think motivates people to even try to be "good" ever? IDK maybe you [don't?] think people try to do the right thing, because they are afraid of punishment, or good feels good, or because of rewards for being good, or maybe something else; IDK. If you want a pragmatic reason to be good to be shown in a series, sure it becomes harder to find them, but then again if people wonder about that aspect they'll probably either see that it is advantageous to them to do away with being good & do what they want etc; or they'll be good because in RL it's often pragmatic to do the 'right thing' because there will be consequences otherwise; as to why I don't think it's important to show that? Because you don't have 40+ powers at your finger tips; you're not powerful enough to succeed where Makuta did, or alternatively are you cunning enough? As it is, having a moral message doesn't strike me as important as it being entertaining, & I've seen people talk about it being cool when Makuta took over... Thematic sense? maybe maybe not; as I've said they spent 4 years alluding to Teridax doing things in the background - people didn't expect that he was either weak(ened) &/or brooding &/or plotting? As for cleaner, well yeah, obviously it wouldn't tie up all the loose ends, but it seems to me to have less than what say Journeys End left us with... & yeah, as many people wouldn't be happy with 'their' series being left in such a depressing place there would have probably been a lot of fan works out there... Or they all get upset & give up on the series - which I'd suggest would be no great loss if people reacted that badly, although in their defence, they wouldn't be aware of the failures of '09 onwards. You don't like the idea of G1 ending with '08; that is fine, & I don't think you're wrong as such; but if you really think these sorts of reasons are going to convince me... Well I need something relevant to me, or rather if you could prove that having a good message is more important than entertainment factors I will most probably concede (it's the crux of me reasoning for my preference), I doubt any other reasons will prop up more than that. Without that we're just going to be going around in circles, as you think message & theme is vital, I think entertainment is (& I haven't seen reason that I should be entertained by an '08 ending!). Then again maybe message/theme vs entertainment is just an arbitrary difference in opinions, or maybe 'one' is objectively more important than the other(s).

The point is that postponing bad things, maybe you don't benefit from it directly, but others do; sure you don't win in the end, but each & every moment you postponed it a moment someone else could enjoy (relatively speaking); & hey if you need things to work out for you to do the right thing what kinda morality is that? I don't actually take issue with it ... but I know plenty who would. Accepting that bad things wll happen doesn't mean okay let it happen now; stopping a bad thing s good; if it happens tomorrow or ten years down the track; at least it didn't happen today. & if you're one of those people that doesn't feel good about making others happy &/or less sad, then you can know that you fighting the good fight arguably is less selfish than those altruistic people who feel good about it (try and ignore that your ego is still benefiting form it) This is certainly true for many, but really? I'd argue there are a number of things that exist to entertain, they might help with something else, & that may be a goal, but plenty of people go looking for a movie etc. with the intent to be entertained. So if someone is entertained, & they've payed for it... that's business; & win-win. Mind you the story right did spend about 4 years hinting that Makuta/Teridax was there doing something ... planning or brooding. I think a message that good planning can win you the game is good. Have you heard of rooting for the villain? We see a Toa team needing to work together; spend time working out how to get along, or alternatively see them get rewarded by the Mask of (do-whatever-the-plot-wants-should-have-been-able-to-fix-everything-but-didn't-cause-plot-reasons) Life, i liked the heroes ... but I also liked Makuta. So if I'm right in understanding that the message of Bionicle is teamwork: look at Tahu needing people to help him collect automatic win buttons. I think the God Mata Nui Mask of Life will save you kinda makes any teamwork moot; frankly that moral seems to be overshadowed by what is essentially parent/guardian will save me, I mean there's no point trying to do anything they're the ones who'll fix it all up anyway... Regardless all these reasons seem to boil down to it doesn't have a good message (or moral etc.) &/or that's a shock twist; yeah neither of these mean much to me, & I fail to see a reason why they should; a story predetermining itself on the grounds of oh but X has to win otherwise some people will be sad(?!), &/or shock twists are so much worse than a last minute defeat the bad guy because of temperamental-win button we've been following for years & create more questions than answers (which can be interesting, but it just felt uncared for and unfinished [doesn't that sound familiar?]). Really though if a bad guy winning means there is no point in doing the right thing... well I suppose that's a wonderfully happy insight into the human psyche. I don't want a shaggy dog story, I want a story which makes a bit more sense doesn't end in a pathetic attempt at ending a villain & tonnes of loose ends; if Makuta won then hey it would leave what happens to the Toa but it could easily be implied that they don't win latter (no sequels) or leave it open for people to try and create(!) their own stories ...which would probably be more "respectable" than the soft-reboot that followed Mata Nui, you know that very bland & poorly explained godlike being who ... really wasn't a millionth of what he was cracked up to be. Who had very little "character development". [Really, I don't 'need' an '08 ending to be great; I just 'need' to be able to think it's better than things after it ...which is exactly how I feel.]

I agree, however a story that has a depressing ending for the protagonists doesn't necessarily mean the reader is worse off for it, so yeah, with something like eating garbage it's easy to argue that health this that and the other that if someone agrees with those criteria you can generally come to the conclusion that if they are aware of all these things that are bad for them it isn't good for them and is bad... & overule their contrary perspective on the grounds that they're criteria is utterly alien to you so your But if a depressing story entertains someone & doesn't make them depressed or whatever? & the whole notion of a disrespectful to the series... these things are so far away from being an agreed upon criteria that to have the debate is pointless; people need to agree to the criteria or conclude the other isn't meeting some criteria before that Scratch all that. If people don't agree to a set of criteria, (eg it is good to be healthy &/or safe), there is little point saying that there proposal is disrespectful or depressing if to them these things either don't appear to be true or aren't important; eg it doesn't make me depressed or problematically fatalistic & it doesn't offend my morals or sense of respect... You're not going to get anywhere. So sure I think there are plenty of things that can be objectively true or false (or unclear), & people have a perspective on them, but something like purple prose is generally considered to be a bad thing, to much unnecessary information that detracts from the narrative itself et cetera, but a sense of respect seems to be a bit more of a variable; many people "forgive" Tolkien for his very extensive detailing because of X, Y, &/or Z... So yeah as it doesn't seem anyone here has much to add about the poll directly... What criteria do we have? Well here: "an ending that chucks away any and all character development and thematic coherence for a cheap shock?" Cheap shocks = bad, if or especially if: they throw away things the story has put a lot of effort into building &/or a central theme. Well I would agree that such cheap shocks are usually bad. But is it really a cheap shock? It's been suggested for a while that Teridax out does most beings... Or maybe its not so much one of his schemes succeeding as it is happening at the cost of a protagonists death & nothing really hinting that this would be playing into his hands (other than anything could), I'm going to presume it's this. What I really dispute is "chucks away any and all character development", which I take to mean all the 'good guys' actions, well no, if they didn't do all that stuff everything would have gone bad sooner, this much should be obvious. Funnily enough I can see what I think is a good moral there: even if you're going to sometimes it's worth fighting on, postponing bad things is good, sure it'd be nice to be able to stop them entirely, but sometimes you just can't, but postponing it gave some people that bit longer of relative peace. I'm not saying this does outweigh those bad points for everyone, but it does for me. So yeah to really come to a conclusion of A or B IS bad kinda relies on being able to go through enough different points, which is time consuming (& for some, tiresome), I don't by any means think peoples opinions should automatically be respected; if one thinks they are simply wrong that's great, it just doesn't get anywhere if one can't get within a certain reach of proving it... I personally think this particular topic could go on a lot longer & still have people being unconvinced without actually being irrational about anything; there are a lot of things which affects what a persons values are - which is what respect & morals are... - they seem to show up as some people think a story, or this story should have a moral, or shouldn't not have people win by doing the teamwork thing even though the villain is supposedly a genius with a lot of power. I thought & think that Journeys End was a pathetic ending (of sorts) for the series; by the time they got rid of Makuta they'd created a whole pile of pointless tidbits - which if they thought about them would probably take more time than what they likely had to tie them up. To me it was as poorly thrown together collect McGuffins that you received from the Deus Ex Machina, now use them and press X to win; in one of the very unexciting ways possible. What's worse is that most of the stuff that came after didn't seem to tie up anything of importance, sure we can know what Kanohi arbitrary background character #s three through seven wore but we won't explain anything about those few substories created right at the end of the series. I could call the '08 hypothised complete ending bad easily compared to other series, but compared to Bionicle as a whole ... I honestly think it would have been good, in fact I think it would have been better than the ending (which one, when, where; any of them after that: pick; it doesn't matter to me) we actually got. I'm not claiming it IS better, but I found it to be better. I really hated soooo much after '08...

Out comes Kim Lemonsung. In goes a Mask of Twilight.

Out comes Out comes an advantageous Turaga of the Sun, In goes the People's Republic of Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste, the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, & the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.