Should we determine the weapons of the Toa Mangai?

[bonesiii]

We can always 'uncanon' these things if 75% of the community disagrees with the choices though right?

I keep seeing you saying things like this. You can headcanon whatever you like, but Greg and LEGO decide what is canon.

[Munty]

The point is though Bonesiii we're talking about stuff that is only canon because of the direct actions of the fans, namely us here at BZP. Do you think Greg would have ever canonised ANYTHING about the Toa Mangai if he hadn't been asked about 100 different questions by Boidoh (sorry to involve you Boidoh, nothing personal ) because I certainly can't imagine a reason he would. Besides, I'll return to the same point I've made before. There isn't really any official way to create new canon for G1 because the line was stopped, the story ended and Greg is no longer employed by Lego in the same capacity. He's not the Gen1 writer anymore so him deciding something is canon and Lego not caring that he's done so still doesn't really mean anything unless we accept that it does.

 

It's all just down to the pro-canon fans who have latched onto the idea that since Greg remains a willing part of the community he can be pestered to canonise every single tiny thing for no reason. I imagine he goes along with it for the sake of nostalgia. No doubt along with some level personal enjoyment too but regardless of the fact he WROTE the story do you really think he's as crazy about it as some of the fans? The pro-canon BZPers are way more diehard than Greg in my opinion and they just won't let these ridiculous questions go. I strongly believe that post Gen 1 Greg canon should be treated differently to the information we received while the line was active.

[Toa Komali]

 love thinking up new kinds of Toa Tools/Weapons. I do hope I can be part of this if it's decided to Cannonize them. I can even try to MNOG sprite em.

[bonesiii]

The point is though Bonesiii we're talking about stuff that is only canon because of the direct actions of the fans

Emphasis mine -- canon is added when Greg (or somebody else on the old story team etc.) accepts it in. It isn't only. And the fact that fan input is allowed on some things doesn't change that Greg decides canon, so I don't see how this amounts to the statements or wordings you've been saying.

 

(As far as whether he'll canonize weapons, I don't know / recall, though. If it hasn't been stated in this topic, you probably know as much as the rest of us. )

[Banana Gunz]

My goodness, it's not like we're making sets out of these characters. It was a little bit much already with the kanohi, but that was fine, but weapons now? That's just ridiculous. If it's for MOCing purposes so that there's an "official" and complete depiction of a character, perhaps using creative decisions and choices may make it better rather than following whatever is left of canon. I'd rather we canonize some actually cool and useful stuff for world building, if anything at all.

[Munty]

 

The point is though Bonesiii we're talking about stuff that is only canon because of the direct actions of the fans

Emphasis mine -- canon is added when Greg (or somebody else on the old story team etc.) accepts it in. It isn't only. And the fact that fan input is allowed on some things doesn't change that Greg decides canon, so I don't see how this amounts to the statements or wordings you've been saying.

 

(As far as whether he'll canonize weapons, I don't know / recall, though. If it hasn't been stated in this topic, you probably know as much as the rest of us. )

 

 

If past experience is anything to go by, he'll canonise pretty much anything if he's asked to. I'm not sure how you don't understand what I just said, especially as you quoted it and then emphasised a word that means nothing when taken out of context. The part you should have emphasised is because of the direct actions of the fans. And my point is, if people hadn't asked Greg to canonise the Mangai then the Mangai would not be canon. So it isn't that Greg has woken up one day and decided 'Hey, those Bionicle guys probably need some more useless canon facts about now, let's make something up for them for no reason and of no significance'. It's more that fans like Boidoh (sorry again Boidoh!) have bombarded him with a dozen questions about which elements the Mangai were, which masks they wore, what weapons they had and what their mother's maiden names were.

 

To the best of my knowledge, the result of these questions have led Greg to just say 'you decide and I'll canonise it if I like the idea'. This is what's led to all the polls and the polls are what leads to the canonisations, so it isn't even Greg's canon, it's a few voters on BZP who are being give Greg's seal of approval and that makes it canon. And as I've said before, the votes are unfair to the majority of voters anyway and yet are still getting canonised. Is that really what we want? Well for once we actually have an answer to that instead of an opinion. NO! This is not what we want because if it was, then the winning answer would have had the majority of votes.

 

The last Mangai mask topic had a 'winning' result with 24 votes. Other votes equalled almost 50, meaning the canon option was only supported by roughly 30% of voters. So why is it canon? Are you trying to tell me that because SOME people think it's a good idea it doesn't matter what the rest of us think? The 50 members who voted AGAINST that option being canonised can be ignored because 24 people disagree with them? I'm pretty sure that's not how polls work and I'm sorry to say that whether you agree with me on this or not, I will still feel this way. If pro-canon members are allowed to fill up the S&T topic with these polls then I'm pretty sure anti-canon fans are allowed their say too right?

[Archon~]

You're arguing stuff that has been argued before over and over again on different topics.

 

To answer your question, no weapons will not be getting canonized. We held a poll to see if people wanted that to happen, and most chose no.

[Toa Nekar]

As a proud member of the TOK party, I see no reason whatsoever to canonize stuff like this. There really isn't any point seeing as though we only have loose descriptions of them anyway.

[Tuuli]

I voted no, since it's not really necessary as part of a Toa's identity. Tahu is Tahu whether he wields a flame sword or a lava board (No, Mistika doesn't count, not does Stars)

They do count no matter how ugly the set.

[bonesiii]

The part you should have emphasised is because of the direct actions of the fans.

Munty, everybody already knows we're talking about fan input canonizations. The issue is you're claiming things about the subject that don't hold up. Which is why I focused on those things.

 

No, Greg doesn't just canonize anything; he canonizes what makes sense to him and what he thinks improves the world of G1 canon. And Bionicle's canon has always been somewhat collaborative. Greg didn't even invent it, but he is in charge of deciding what's canon now.

Edited January 26, 2015 by bonesiii

[Munty]

Munty, everybody already knows we're talking about fan input canonizations. The issue is you're claiming things about the subject that don't hold up. Which is why I focused on those things.

 

No, Greg doesn't just canonize anything; he canonizes what makes sense to him and what he thinks improves the world of G1 canon. And Bionicle's canon has always been somewhat collaborative. Greg didn't even invent it, but he is in charge of deciding what's canon now.

 

Why is he in charge of it? And how exactly? Gen 1 ended 5 years ago. I worked as a technician about 5 years ago at a garage that now no longer offers the services I was employed for. I guess I could just go and sit in a corner and carry on doing it because I enjoyed it but it certainly wouldn't be official if it was no longer in my job description. Fine Greg still works for Lego but he does NOT work one the Bionicle Gen 1 writing team because the Bionicle Gen 1 writing team doesn't exist anymore.

 

I don't know why people keep claiming that he is in charge of something that ended 5 years ago. Those are claims on the subject that don't hold up! What claims am I making that don't hold up? That passing a vote where the winning option is a minority of the community is unfair? That Greg is only canonising anything at all because people won't stop asking him? That people who don't just like canon cannot 'just ignore it'? They all seem like fairly solid points to me, no matter which side of the debate you're on...

everybody already knows we're talking about fan input canonizations.

 

That's basically fanon isn't it... So why can we not accept it as generally accepted fanon without people insisting it be taken to Greg and etched in unbreakable stone forever?

[maxim21]

Munty, I think you should read this post from Greg on LMB (point 4, notably). Greg still have the right to canonize things, given by LEGO.

[bonesiii]

Why is he in charge of it?

Are you asking for a history of Greg's role in Bionicle? I would think anybody that's followed him over the years would see this basic question as self-explanatory; he's extremely familiar with it, obviously has a great interest in it, wrote much of it, etc.

 

I worked as a technician about 5 years ago at a garage that now no longer offers the services I was employed for.

The sets and stories have ended, but the worldbuilding side of it has not. This isn't a good analogy for that at all.

 

That's basically fanon isn't it... So why can we not accept it as generally accepted fanon without people insisting it be taken to Greg and etched in unbreakable stone forever?

We can. But we can also take it to Greg, and if he agrees that it's an improvement, it can become canon. You seem to be making way too much of what the canon is. It's one suggestion for how to see Bionicle; the version LEGO itself deems closest to their vision (which is oversimplistic, of course, but close to the basic idea; actually it's people in LEGO, this one being Greg -- but people who are very familiar with that vision). Events in real life are "unbreakable" too (barring time travel and alternate universes ), but fiction can and does change it; thus fan fiction is free to have alternatives, both in canon gaps and to canon details.

 

I don't know why people keep claiming that he is in charge of something that ended 5 years ago. Those are claims on the subject that don't hold up! What claims am I making that don't hold up? That passing a vote where the winning option is a minority of the community is unfair? That Greg is only canonising anything at all because people won't stop asking him? That people who don't just like canon cannot 'just ignore it'? They all seem like fairly solid points to me, no matter which side of the debate you're on...

1) That the sets and continuing plot ended does not logically support that Greg is not in charge of the canon. That's a non sequitur. It would work if this was an exclusivist plot-reveals-only type of story, but it isn't; it's a worldbuilding story. Many details were established and revealed before their usage in-story, some never were, and others were revealed later. (Doesn't mean anything and everything is a good addition, though!)

 

2) Normal canon is produced by only LEGO employees or only one person -- your own argument in fact treats this as higher than fan input anyways, so saying that minorities getting what they want is absolutely, always "unfair" is contradictory. There's more to it than just majority wins logic; there's also logical quality/consistency, treats for minorities sometimes... etc. But that you're bringing it up in this topic makes me wonder why -- I don't support determining the Mangai weapons, remember (although to be fair I'm not entirely opposed to it either ), and generally majorities are listened to. This isn't about "fairness", really -- as if LEGO has an obligation to make everything as popular as possible. It's more about likelihood of being popular.

 

3) Covered before; no, Greg doesn't just canonize anything at all. He wrote a blog entry on here about this once that you may want to read; I think that's still available.

 

4) Also covered extensively in past discussion. Yes, they can ignore it, and this always goes all ways for everybody; those who want the canon to keep a gap are asking those who want it to be filled in to ignore the gap. This is an important part of healthy, polite interaction with somebody else's creation in entertainment, because of varying personal tastes; when something doesn't appeal to your tastes, you don't demand it be removed from everybody else who does like it or that it can't be a canon and has to be fan stuff only -- if that was taken to its logical conclusion, there could never be any canon at all.

 

Canon is basically the same as one fan's interpretation; just treat it that way and taste-based problems like that evaporate. In a single-author work, the author is a fan of the original vision he or she had, and writes details for those curious to see as much of the world as makes sense and can be fun for some. In a work like Bionicle, Greg is almost literally a fan; a fan of the idea established by Christian Faber, Bob Thompson, etc. and is giving us his version. The authors make sense to choose for a canon because they are best familiar with that vision. But it doesn't mean their version is opposed to fan versions being different. Greg, in fact, encourages fans to imagine things differently.

 

That's not, again, that logical problems should be ignored (your wording is ambiguous on this). And keep in mind that often people will wrongly confuse their own tastes for logical problems; it's important to carefully avoid that. BTW, getting very emotionally worked up about disagreements is usually a very bad way to avoid it... I would strongly advise calming down and trying to be fair about this, keeping in mind that while you may strongly want your POV to be accepted, it's quite possible that's in part because of subjective preferences you have, and you may be unwittingly insulting others' different preferences.

Edited January 26, 2015 by bonesiii

[Shadow Destroyer]

No, I don't think it's worth the time or effort.

[The Hip Historian Iaredios]

I voted nein! Some things are just better left to imagination.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Iaredios