Why does Gresh have air powers?

[Jam Pot Studios]

As we all know, in 2009 Mata Nui uses the Ignika to give a group of Glatorian elemental powers. Ackar, Kiina, Vastus, Tarix...

 

What I don't understand is why, if Gresh is of the Jungle tribe, he is granted Air powers. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and this plot blunder seems to have been nudged under the carpet. Is there an official/canon explanation of why?

 

My own personal theory is that the powers Mata Nui granted were based on his own 'elemental expectations'- he's used to the main six elements including Air in place of Jungle - similar to how a when a Matoran becomes a Toa their armour is based on their expectations of what a Toa looks like. However, this theory doesn't hold up, since it suggests that Mata Nui was not familiar with Jungle as an element, which is clearly nonsense since he has Matoran of the Green walking about in his stomach every minute of the day when he was The Big 'Bot.

 

So does anyone have any theories of their own, or is there some headcanon that people consider the most likely explanation? Is there an official explanation, or is this just one of the quadrillion loose ends left at the end of '10?

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I think we need to acknowledge that there's an Earth Tribe too. It never got mentioned, but according to Greg it exists (came out of nowhere).

[Pomegranate]

Well, I don't remember there being much of a jungle going on on Bara Magna, so it probably would've been more useful to have air powers than to manipulate the occasional shrubbery. I suppose it would've given him the power to conjure greenery, too, but perhaps the Glatorian's powers were too limited for that level of spontaneous life creation. Plenty of air around, though! Also, we never really got any Toa of Green in official canon representation at that time so it was probably a lot easier to assign him a familiar element based on color. Aaaand technically, aren't the colors for Matoran of Green blue and green? And Gresh was just green? Just picking at straws now

[fishers64]

The official explanation is that Gresh's color scheme meant to Mata Nui that he was from the air tribe.

 

 

 

2) why did the ignika give gresh air powers instead of plant life powers? he IS a jungle glatorian...

2) But Mata Nui associates green with air, not jungle.

 

2) Does the Bara Magna Element of Jungle include Air powers?

2) No. Gresh was given air powers because, to Mata Nui, green is identified with the element of air

 

1. taking into consideration that mata nui gave gresh air powers as he assumed that green meant that was his tribe, if for some reason he saw a member of the fire tribe as blue instead of read (maybe after a hit on the head or something) could he give it water powers, basically if he focused could mata nui chose what elemental power he gave glatorian?

 

1) Yes

 

6. Why did the Ignika give Gresh Air powers? 

6) Because Mata Nui was the governing will, and to him, green means air.

 

Plus also, it looks cooler in the movie.

[Jam Pot Studios]

Plus also, it looks cooler in the movie.

 

It does at that 

 

Thanks for the explanations, guys! You've helped set my mind at rest.

[northmarch]

My personal theory is that Gresh is descended from an unseen or disbanded 'wind tribe'

[Pohatu: Uniter of Stone]

Because Lewa was missing, that's why.

[Chro]

Because Lewa was missing, that's why.

But... he wasn't.

[Jam Pot Studios]

My personal theory is that Gresh is descended from an unseen or disbanded 'wind tribe'

 

That's a nice headcanon, especially considering the fact there's a previously-unmentioned-and-forgotten-by-Bara-Magna-peoples Earth Tribe too. Maybe there are others, like a Lightning Tribe and a Gravity Tribe (though I think those are stretching it a bit).

 

Does anyone remember when Telluris' tribe hadn't been revealed, and loads of fans thought he was going to be Sun Tribe?

[Chro]

Does anyone remember when Telluris' tribe hadn't been revealed, and loads of fans thought he was going to be Sun Tribe?

No, but that's an interesting idea.

[bonesiii]

My own personal theory is that the powers Mata Nui granted were based on his own 'elemental expectations'- he's used to the main six elements including Air in place of Jungle - similar to how a when a Matoran becomes a Toa their armour is based on their expectations of what a Toa looks like. However, this theory doesn't hold up, since it suggests that Mata Nui was not familiar with Jungle as an element, which is clearly nonsense since he has Matoran of the Green walking about in his stomach every minute of the day when he was The Big 'Bot.

To the last sentence here, that logic doesn't really work because 1) Air element was much more common than Plants, and 2) Mata Nui had stopped paying attention to his insides a long time ago. "Green = Air" is probably all he remembered, and he made an assumption.

 

In short -- not a blunder. It's actually a good choice from a character-based story perspective. Makes things majorly confusing for us fans, so not really a great idea from that perspective, but you win some you lose some.

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I think we need to acknowledge that there's an Earth Tribe too. It never got mentioned, but according to Greg it exists (came out of nowhere).

What do you mean by acknowledge? I'm confused as to why you're bringing this up here.

 

 

 

northmarch, on 22 Sept 2014 - 6:15 PM, said:

My personal theory is that Gresh is descended from an unseen or disbanded 'wind tribe'

 

That's a nice headcanon, especially considering the fact there's a previously-unmentioned-and-forgotten-by-Bara-Magna-peoples Earth Tribe too. Maybe there are others, like a Lightning Tribe and a Gravity Tribe (though I think those are stretching it a bit).

Just for the record, Greg said they didn't want to have an Air tribe on Spherus Magna. For some reason.

 

He also commented on one of those "advanced-sounding" elements as not fitting the more primitive style they intended for SM, but I forget which one it was.

[Pohatu: Uniter of Stone]

 

He also commented on one of those "advanced-sounding" elements as not fitting the more primitive style they intended for SM, but I forget which one it was.

 

It was Plasma, I think. 

[25K Now!]

It was Mata Nui that gave Gresh powers, and to ol' MN, green was the colour of air.

[Jam Pot Studios]

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I think we need to acknowledge that there's an Earth Tribe too. It never got mentioned, but according to Greg it exists (came out of nowhere).

What do you mean by acknowledge? I'm confused as to why you're bringing this up here.

 

I just feel like it was a huge development that nobody's really taken any notice of (I actually find the way Greg drops stuff on that chat forum kind of annoying, since a lot of the SM canon feels only half-there), and since we were talking about the elemental tribes I thought it fitted. It's not really worth a whole topic.

[Adventurer]

 

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I think we need to acknowledge that there's an Earth Tribe too. It never got mentioned, but according to Greg it exists (came out of nowhere).

What do you mean by acknowledge? I'm confused as to why you're bringing this up here.

 

I just feel like it was a huge development that nobody's really taken any notice of (I actually find the way Greg drops stuff on that chat forum kind of annoying, since a lot of the SM canon feels only half-there), and since we were talking about the elemental tribes I thought it fitted. It's not really worth a whole topic.

 

 

I think the main reason it felt half-there was because it only really had a year/year and a half to develop and he was trying to basically establish a new lore/sub-lore. In comparison to the later MU years, the first two years of Bionicle's law would have probably felt half-there too, but over time it accumulated, changing our expectations. That being said though, MNOG really helped flesh out and realise the world though, in a way the 2009 movie couldn't.

 

As for the Earth tribe thing, it was probably something he mentioned as a potential story tool for later use but of course never had a chance to have a need to use it.

[Wrinkledlion X]

 

 

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I think we need to acknowledge that there's an Earth Tribe too. It never got mentioned, but according to Greg it exists (came out of nowhere).

What do you mean by acknowledge? I'm confused as to why you're bringing this up here.

 

I just feel like it was a huge development that nobody's really taken any notice of (I actually find the way Greg drops stuff on that chat forum kind of annoying, since a lot of the SM canon feels only half-there), and since we were talking about the elemental tribes I thought it fitted. It's not really worth a whole topic.

 

 

I think the main reason it felt half-there was because it only really had a year/year and a half to develop and he was trying to basically establish a new lore/sub-lore. In comparison to the later MU years, the first two years of Bionicle's law would have probably felt half-there too, but over time it accumulated, changing our expectations. That being said though, MNOG really helped flesh out and realise the world though, in a way the 2009 movie couldn't.

 

As for the Earth tribe thing, it was probably something he mentioned as a potential story tool for later use but of course never had a chance to have a need to use it.

 

 

Yeah, as far as I'm aware, the Earth Tribe was scheduled to be a major part of the Bota Magna story year. Remnants of that made it into the serials in the form of a bunch of nature-loving Agori, but that story was never completed (and I personally can hardly remember it).

[Jam Pot Studios]

 

 

 

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I think we need to acknowledge that there's an Earth Tribe too. It never got mentioned, but according to Greg it exists (came out of nowhere).

What do you mean by acknowledge? I'm confused as to why you're bringing this up here.

 

I just feel like it was a huge development that nobody's really taken any notice of (I actually find the way Greg drops stuff on that chat forum kind of annoying, since a lot of the SM canon feels only half-there), and since we were talking about the elemental tribes I thought it fitted. It's not really worth a whole topic.

 

 

I think the main reason it felt half-there was because it only really had a year/year and a half to develop and he was trying to basically establish a new lore/sub-lore. In comparison to the later MU years, the first two years of Bionicle's law would have probably felt half-there too, but over time it accumulated, changing our expectations. That being said though, MNOG really helped flesh out and realise the world though, in a way the 2009 movie couldn't.

 

As for the Earth tribe thing, it was probably something he mentioned as a potential story tool for later use but of course never had a chance to have a need to use it.

 

 

Yeah, as far as I'm aware, the Earth Tribe was scheduled to be a major part of the Bota Magna story year. Remnants of that made it into the serials in the form of a bunch of nature-loving Agori, but that story was never completed (and I personally can hardly remember it).

 

 

I remember some Bota Magna Agori but not that they were Earth Tribe. At least they got used somewhere...

[Tea-rex]

On Bota Magna it was the Vorox & Zesk that lived there unchanged by anything.

Also robot dinosaurs.

 

Also Arthanax (or whatever the guy with the mask of creation is called) traveled to Bota Magna with the mask of creation, which is why I think 2015 will be a soft rebootcross with continuation.

[bonesiii]

Arthanax (or whatever the guy with the mask of creation is called)

That would be Artakha.

 

 

As for the Earth Tribe, people have taken notice of it. There's just not a lot to say other than in the discussions in the Compendium about the news and stuff. (I personally am planning a revision of the first part of my retelling to incorporate them somehow, and plan also to include a bit in the end part too.)

[The Hip Historian Iaredios]

I thought the Rock Tribe was the Skrall Empire. Are you saying that there might be other Skrall tribes but they were all slain by the baterra, and that the Agori have their own black-paint tribe?

[Chro]

I thought the Rock Tribe was the Skrall Empire. Are you saying that there might be other Skrall tribes but they were all slain by the baterra, and that the Agori have their own black-paint tribe?

Presumably they'd have black armor. Maybe dark grey, or brown.

[bonesiii]

I thought the Rock Tribe was the Skrall Empire.

They are; why do you ask? Is "Rock" here a typo for "Earth" from the previous discussion? (An easy typo to make; I've made it myself. )

 

Are you saying that there might be other Skrall tribes but they were all slain by the baterra, and that the Agori have their own black-paint tribe?

Who is the "you" that you're referring to? I didn't see anybody saying anything like that. (Just reviewed twice.)

[The Hip Historian Iaredios]

 

I thought the Rock Tribe was the Skrall Empire.

They are; why do you ask? Is "Rock" here a typo for "Earth" from the previous discussion? (An easy typo to make; I've made it myself. )

Are you saying that there might be other Skrall tribes but they were all slain by the baterra, and that the Agori have their own black-paint tribe?

Who is the "you" that you're referring to? I didn't see anybody saying anything like that. (Just reviewed twice.)

No one said that specifically, I was just coming to conclusions. The Skrall are a seperate species from the Agori yet are called the Rock Tribe.