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Would You Like the Rest of the Toa Mangai's Kanohi to be known?


Mangai Kanohi Decision  

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I say nay.

 

Sure, I'd love to know the rest of the Toa Mangai's Kanohi.  But not through a fan poll.

 

The Toa Mangai have always intrigued me because their story could tell us so much about the geography, cultures, and politics of the Matoran Universe.  I want more details, but I want legit in-universe backstory for them.  The way I understand it, these polls just turn the most popular headcanon into canon, without any serious review.  There's some discussion, but voting is ultimately up to the whims of the fans.  Choice of Kanohi is pretty arbitrary, so I'm kind of okay with this arbitrary method of canonization in this case.  But if it should stop there.  If we're going to replace the mystery that is the Toa Mangai, it needs to be replaced by something really good.

Edited by kopekethechronicler
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I voted yes, but my opinion would be more "yes but not with the current polls". There have been just too much issues with these, they should be redone correctly, to avoid distorting in the votes because of random removal and additions, too short time, etc.

Keep in mind that if Star Trek fans had, as a group, said, "No point in talking about this anymore, it's never going to come back," it never WOULD have come back.

-- Greg Farshtey

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After a certain point I'm against the canonisation of most things;

 

Once a story has been finished, I know that some creators continue adding in bits for a while after, but at a certain point (say, 3 years) I feel it just gets in the way, & tiny little canonisations of things can feel very awkward...

 

Adding large scale things; so it isn't just irrelevant gaps being filled, it actually seems to expand the world a bit is awesome; & so long as that is happening I feel smaller things can be added in as well without disrupting peoples understanding of a story...

 

— At a certain point many people stop following a story; typically this is when the last media ends outside of miscellaneous merchandise, large scale things typically happen through distinct chunks of a given media at a time; comic, movies, novel, TV shows, &/or a website, but when it's not a broad website (comics, &/or text, &/or video) just a Q&A in a forum, you're unlikely to have a large amount of the people who originally followed it even aware of it, so when they come back to a fandom & find there's all this new stuff "Okay where can I find it!", & someone points to a(n old) forum, it's a big let down; not delivered well, it's just a bone.

 

Might be nice if you get it when it's given, but coming back & discovering there are hundreds of miscellaneous things which you need to piece together it's not the same, I like putting together a puzzle story, & archive binge-ing Gunnerkrigg Court was wonderful; but the puzzles I like doing are designed as puzzles, not a Q&A is a pain to put together put it's (typically) not got puzzle-solving satisfaction.

 

It's awesome to have explanations given/canonised for something that many people previously thought of as a plot-hole, and it doesn't create other problems (I feel this should be given a fair amount of thought by the creator), so if it's big enough it can probably get a good amount of acceptance within the the original followers (& not just be a piece of esoteric lore which is a pain to learn about, unless someone else goes & makes a compilation ... & even then is it complete? even if it is it's not a short story, it's not a nice picture, it's just a pile of quotes.)

 

There is also case of people rudely telling fanfic writers or MOCists or other artists that there work isn't just non-canon but it now contradicts canon because of quote X that turned up 3 years after the story ended & there isn't any story, or sequel etc. to it, it can be frustrating. But people can deal with someone rudely saying this. But the creator can't help make people inform people nicely, but that isn't just the issue here;

 

Many artists do try to work within the story, & it can be a pain because many people try to make sure their unofficial works don't contradict the official canon, but whatever you may think, it was still just a fanfic. But it does make a difference not just to them, but people who might enjoy their work; I won't start reading most fanfics if they contradict the central canon without warning me; I read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which isn't an add on to the Harry Potter series, it contradicts it. This is fine (not that there are rules), but when a fanfic fits in except for minor points which aren't plot points it feels uncanny; it's different but not different enough; it could not longer just exist in a 'gap' in the canon & it doesn't entirely rework it.

 

That sort of parallel world uncannyness might not be an issue for Greg or others (many long time fans of most DC or Marvel comics+); Expendable Alternate Universe, is a thing, AUs get boring when they interact; & when they don't having almost the exact same except Y & Z (when those aren't plot points) feels especially wasted to some. These things aren't rules, but they seem to be common feelings.

 

When someone creates an image/MOC/etc. of an otherwise undescribed or little described character and the author feels like that perfectly captures the feel/look/etc. of that character then I can understand why a creator would be inclined to canonise that, but at least they can say it's matching their vision.

 

When it's just does character X where: A, B, or C, it feels really cheap; it undercuts a whole pile of fan works ... without adding any value to the story; at least a fanfic has the potential to have a decent story; but now there will be less people interested in reading it (& someone being rude about it), oh & for some reason the group of people that either had no real thoughts about this, or the ones that just happened to have these thoughts now stand on canon ground.

 

Canon and fanfics (a dirty word to many?) tend to be in conflict; canon is held on a higher ground than other random peoples works; for a good reason:

Most people can be expected to know the canon to a degree (spoilers or something might not make sense etc.), they don't have to, but it's expected to a degree; when a series get's really big people tend to start taking about the main canon — not necessarily because their are two different ones, just that many haven't read the(se) comics, or the(s) tv shows, etc.

But from the canon, people can theorise & add to & they are essentially talking about shared fan works; people tend to like sharing; that's why I brought up readers of fanfics not just the writers.

 

So I think it's great when a sizeable group of people all share their view about something, but when it's barely the input of a (few) hundred people out of how many thousands that followed the story? No, not unless it's groundbreaking;

 

So for something like "Why didn't they just fly to Mordor?" plenty of people had very different and very similar reasons for why; for many the reason was not even a head-canon so much as what they inferred from the series, so (maybe if the books didn't seem to hint at that) I would think it should be 'canonised' [oh wait the author...] (personally I don't see why one wouldn't make that conclusion based off the books..).

 

So I can't really think of any groundbreaking fanfics ... oh wait no that would be a theory; & well anything short of a great theory or a sequel or an answers to a plot-hole, but outside of these it seems like it offers nothing positive; the negativity is in how fans react to things & treat others; but at best it's entirely neutral (outside of fan-reactions), except that wait, it does have a negative: it's sloppy; it's a Q&A sitting in a thread, a compilation or a page on a specific website could be cool; but fundamentally the Q&A model is messy & not very appealing for returning fans.

 

& I don't see how canonisation of minor irrelevant background details, helps anyone; if you can't think of something yourself, your imagination needs help; it's not fun feeling like one is Creative Sterile, but that can be fixed; honestly people talk about promoting creativity as a good thing, so the tiniest bone seems counterproductive to that & upsets some (not necessarily most) non-official-artists & people who look at their works (whatever they be)

 

If it isn't clear enough; I see nothing truly positive overall coming out of canonising the Masks of the Toa Mangai, but I can see plenty of negativity.

 

If the official creators aren't going to create a sequel (or finish off unfinished works) comic/webseries/video/cartoon/short_story, then I don't see why they should keep on throwing out bare bones for years. It's not that they don't have 'the right'; it just doesn't seem beneficial.

 

I wonder how many people there are in the world that are interested in the Bionicle Story that don't have a BZPower account there are; this isn't anything against BZPower; but it seems odd that a creator doesn't care enough about something to put in there own stuff, but instead gives okays to random factoids with 50+ people behind it :/

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~ Sophistry: A way to be antidisuncorrect. ~


 


 


In a decade you might convince maybe a small tribe of people.


In a decade you might also conquer one million km2 of land,


& in over a thousand years you might have over a billion followers.


 


I like building things. Please don't break the big ones.


& evidential philosophies that dare to extrapolate beyond


an individual's direct experience aren't easily built.

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Yes. Even back when Gen1 was active i enjoyed fan canonizations.

 

The mangai in particular actually played a pretty major role if you think about it...They were Lhikan's team, and were who the toa metru would have seen as an inspiration. They aren't some background characters, they actually hold a semi-major role, and yet, so little is known.

 

If there's one thing that could change, maybe we should figure out a way to get greg more involved somehow. But overall, i'd say bring on the nitpick canonizations.

Hi.

If you remember me from when I was most active on BZP, from 2009-2011...

I know I was cringy. But please keep in mind I was literally 12.

 

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I think it's good to have some designations for fanfics so you don't have to carefully word your story so nothing that isn't canon shows up. Though it is causing quite a bit of controversy about how trivial it is, but why should anyone care? If they're not going to use the characters for anything, it won't matter whether the Toa Mangai of Green wears a Mask of Healing or if it isn't established.


Basically this (from Click).

Reading through other posts here, on page one I'm seeing a lot of back and forth about headcanon [Note that my first draft of this reply included a warning but I see B6 has covered that on page 2]. It seems to me that those on the side of not knowing something are forgetting that we are well aware of the ability to make headcanon, and never intended to suggest otherwise (leastaways I didn't), but more importantly, this argument is contradictory to the simultaneous argument that the not knowing side has any serious problem from canon being established. This argument would only work if there was some pressure not to imagine it differently in fan works, and most arguments I have seen in the other topics have attempted to show such pressure. You can't have it both ways, folks.


In fact, having a canon version of something can even help decide what we want to change! I at least have talked about that for years, and other fans have agreed. (Admittedly picking a different mask for these Toa seems like an unlikely application of this, but people are making this argument also in a universal sense. In that light, many fanfics have changed all kinds of things that were established, my own included.)

But there is so much more to the subject. Whether it all applies to the Toa Mangai specifically I do think is somewhat debatable (and I think this would likely not have been an issue for most had it been established early on), but establishing a canon can have benefits like:

1) Providing fodder to think about to exercise the mind, like how the powers on the team could affect the battles with the Kanohi Dragon and Eliminator.

2) While headcanon allows for the above too on a personal level, there's also the community aspect, both in having a shared experience, and in that fans can enjoy talking about the mind-puzzles of such things with each other with a common 'database' of knowledge. That's a major part of the fun of Bionicle for a lot of kids as attested by many on here for years.

3) Setting an example of having a more thorough view into a fictional world versus a more superficial one. This is fairly optional, but for those that enjoy a more detailed one, it's good.


[update after first draft of this part as I read on: I see ET has retracted the point this is responding to. It oddly got some likes though, so it may be worth repeating why it doesn't work in my own words.] Notice too that we actually had somebody claiming that fun is actually irrelevant to entertainment! No, it isn't. It's what entertainment is about! (It's not the only thing, but it's certainly very important to it. Suggesting that it cannot be involved, especially when the same people are saying that canon is a problem as it allegedly limits fun of those wanting their version to feel plausible, is not reasonable.)


I can understand why the sentiment comes up -- people fear that focusing solely on fun can risk willy-nilly canonization (breaking rules of story consistency from lack of care), and there's a perception that that's going on right now (and to an extent I agree, though it's unintentional on Greg's part and more about his forgetting a few things, understandably so), but the problem with this is from issues like internal inconsistency, which we can and do spot on here. Most canon gets added without as much chance to catch oversights like that, and polls are being included and a chance for posts explaining issues, etc. So if anything, that concern should actually more more in support of fan involvement than otherwise.

Basically, it seems that amidst the jumping to the conclusion that we cannot likely improve the canon because mistakes have been made, many are missing that improvements have and are still being made to the methodology that can lesson the risk of similar mistakes. (I know not everybody's saying exactly that, though.)




To some specific later posts:

 

 

I suppose an "indifferent" option wouldn't hurt, but then again, if often ends up being a yes or no issue. I'd say no, I don't need to know. I don't even want to know who the Kakama belonged to, really, I liked that it was a forgotten relic of a forgotten Toa. More poetic that way.


That's a really good point. Currently, the Kakama in Time Trap is the only thing that remains of a long-serving Toa Mangai, whose life's struggle was certainly worthwhile but ultimately forgotten. It's quite a tragedy.


Three issues with this:

1) This is not the only possible value for the team. I can see it, but it seems to send a bad message that it's actually good for somebody to remain entirely forgotten, because a villain thought it was a good idea to claim they were.

2) You seem to be missing that part of the reason TSO said that is that he had personally had serious conflicts with that very team (starting with the Kanohi Dragon, which was the start of his attempts to conquer Metru Nui) and they were in truth the very opposite of forgotten to him. So arguably the poetic value goes up even more if they are not forgotten (as much).

3) Even if he personally hadn't known much about them, his claiming they were forgotten wouldn't make that remotely true for the Matoran. Of course, most of them did get their memories wiped, but not the Toa Metru / Turaga, and that history would likely be explored by the Matoran later. In fact, come to think of it, story present is probably exactly when most of them would start learning about them as the Turaga felt there was more time to start telling more distant tales of the past to them!



 

The other problem I have with knowing the rest of the masks is the uselessness of it. The original point behind Kanohi was to have multiple masks; Each Toa Mata used 12 masks (not all at once, of course). Of course, this does mean each Toa of the team needs their own Suva, but it's not unreasonable to assume they had one stashed somewhere like the Great Temple in Ga-Metru. Just because Toa after 2003 didn't use more than one mask doesn't mean they couldn't.


I agree with this one, although for me personally it doesn't turn the tide to a no vote. Then again, I've pointed out before that it does make some sense that the Toa Mata as elite Toa in some ways would have Suva, for an especially unusual setting. There's a possible issue with relying on those too much too. It made sense in villages protected by guards when the enemies were Rahi (until they were Bohrok Kal, heh...). In most settings, though, especially over long periods of time, it's an obvious weakness for intelligent enemies like Dark Hunters (the main enemy of the Mangai) to target, and for any Toa to rely on being able to summon any other mask could be dangerous, as they would have less practice/skill dealing with situations where a villain stopped that option.



 

Does this please everyone? Because it sounds like a great idea to me. The way some of you have been going at it, one might think you're saying that the Toa Mata never needed to seek out the other masks because they each had their own individual mask that was (at the time) unique to them. Toa change masks, and I'm all for deciding that Peter the Toa of Ice wore a Kanohi Kadin for a few days during their battle with the Kanohi Dragon, and then went right back to his favorite old Kaukau and never took it off again.

[...]

This concept applies to their weapons, as well!


Agreed!

Although it's more of a stretch for the weapons (but it's come up before, in at least one Memoirs entry since we had a rule about avoiding that). I'd be fine with those not being established... but masks (main masks), I think so. You're absolutely right that for example art showing them with one mask can still be interpreted as not their main (this has come up before too).
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I have a question. What is the point of this poll if every subsequent poll is forced to have the same exact question otherwise tyrants will deny it as canon? I'm sure there will be no one who wants to know the Kanohi of the Toas of Ice, but wont want to know the Kanohi of the Toa of Earth, but yet wants to know which mask Naho wore, but then would kill themselves if a mask was selected for the Toa of Stone. 

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I have a question. What is the point of this poll if every subsequent poll is forced to have the same exact question otherwise tyrants will deny it as canon? I'm sure there will be no one who wants to know the Kanohi of the Toas of Ice, but wont want to know the Kanohi of the Toa of Earth, but yet wants to know which mask Naho wore, but then would kill themselves if a mask was selected for the Toa of Stone. 

 

did... did you just say "tyrants"?

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bnnrimg1.pngbnnrimg2.pngbnnrimg3.pngbnnrimg4.pngbnnrimg5.pngbnnrimg8.png

 

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I have a question. What is the point of this poll if every subsequent poll is forced to have the same exact question otherwise tyrants will deny it as canon? I'm sure there will be no one who wants to know the Kanohi of the Toas of Ice, but wont want to know the Kanohi of the Toa of Earth, but yet wants to know which mask Naho wore, but then would kill themselves if a mask was selected for the Toa of Stone. 

 

did... did you just say "tyrants"?

 

I meant it as singular. Accidentally added an extra "s".

 

Definition: an oppressive ruler

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I have a question. What is the point of this poll if every subsequent poll is forced to have the same exact question otherwise tyrants will deny it as canon? I'm sure there will be no one who wants to know the Kanohi of the Toas of Ice, but wont want to know the Kanohi of the Toa of Earth, but yet wants to know which mask Naho wore, but then would kill themselves if a mask was selected for the Toa of Stone. 

 

did... did you just say "tyrants"?

 

I meant it as singular. Accidentally added an extra "s".

 

Definition: an oppressive ruler

 

 

that's,

 

still an unusual word choice. :0

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bnnrimg1.pngbnnrimg2.pngbnnrimg3.pngbnnrimg4.pngbnnrimg5.pngbnnrimg8.png

 

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What do you call someone who will deny official material from entering a site where anyone can edit just because they didn't get their way?

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What do you call someone who will deny official material from entering a site where anyone can edit just because they didn't get their way?

 

I dunno, i'll figure out when i find one. :u

 

Allow me to point you in a direction other than myself... such as that nice squirrel over there in the distance.

 

Anyway, because people continually and always need to have the choice to say "no", especially when the issue isn't so completely black and white. I know it seems weird, but "do you want to know what the rest of the Mangai wore" and "do you want to know which Mangai wore the Kakama" are actually two different questions. People expressed a genuine desire to keep the latter a mystery, but people answering the former might not have remembered the particulars of the scene in question. This poll wasn't necessarily official, it was just a gauge to see where the community is feeling.

 

ALL future polls, regardless of the results of this (or anything from the canonization topic) need to include a "don't want to know" option. A blanket yes/no statement from this poll couldn't necessarily cover the nuances of the situation, and nuance is what we need to consider.

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ALL future polls

 

Those are a thing?

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