I was in school, in English class. I had hypothesized Bionicle ending soon. The lines had been drawn, and it seemed as though Lego had already tied the noose around the neck of its beloved franchise. Bionicle was a major factor in my life, but as I grew up, it started to grow away from me. I had bought every set before the Mistika, of which I purchased none, and I bought all the Glatorian and three Glatorian Legends. My interest was dropping, since I knew the end was near, and I had been conditioning myself for it. I had finished the essay I was assigned to write on the cruddy school laptops, and I logged on to BZPower to check the news. There it was, the announcement. It shocked me at first. A large part of my life, a huge factor, was torn away. My face expressed a look of disdain. Everyone near me looked at me like I had grown an extra head. They asked what was wrong. I said "Bionicle has ended."
My friends knew I was a fan for a very long time. Some of them were shocked too. The nostalgia of the Toa Mata existed for them as much as it did for me. The fact such a thing happened was so wrong. I asked why. Why did Lego do this? The answers began to fall into place. Bionicle's story had become this large, convoluted thing. Also, the sets were becoming bland, stale. A new building style was in order. Also, Bionicle wasn't as successful as it was before. I remember when it was just as popular as something like Bakugan is today. Bionicle's end was almost a mercy killing really, but it went out with closure. The story's conclusion was epic, and Lego didn't just kill the story and everything else, and leave us guessing forever. For that, I thank Lego. Rather than let the sets become even more bland, and let the story run on for years with no end in sight, they decided to end one of their more successful lines for the sake of not jumping the shark. Hero Factory may not be what I'd have chosen to replace Bionicle, but it certainly brings some great aesthetics to the line. It's not Bionicle, and never will be Bionicle, and it has some pretty enromous shoes to fill, but I believe that one day it will have a fandom just as large as this one, and I can be glad to have been a part of what spawned that.