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So as I've been reexamining the classic Bionicle storyline, I've noticed a disturbing pattern that has emerged. While I'm sure it's purely coincidence and not intentional, I've noticed that when a group or organization from the classic Bionicle series has more than one female member, it's fatality rate tends to escalate:

 

*The Toa Cordak had two female Toa, Nikila and an unnamed Toa of Water, and only Lesovikk survives as of G1's conclusion.
*The Brotherhood of Makuta had fifteen female members-thought admittedly only one was named-and only Miserix survives.
*The Toa Mangai had two Toa of Water-Naho and Tuyet-and the group's members all ended up dead, turning evil, or both in Nidhiki's case, though Lhikan was later revived.
*The Federation of Fear lost Carapar and Spiriah only after being joined by Lariska, who with Roodaka raised the group's female membership to two-the Shadowed One may have been wiser than he realized not to recruit Roodaka as a Hunter, seeing as how the Dark Hunters with their one identified female member are not known to have suffered anywhere near the casualties of the Brotherhood with its fifteen.
*Not long after the revelation that Order of Mata Nui member Johmak was female-marking two female Order members if you count Helryx-most of the Order was wiped out.

 

Again, I think it's purely coincidence and not purposeful on the part of any of the creative team behind Bionicle G1...I just thought it was interesting.

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So as I've been reexamining the classic Bionicle storyline, I've noticed a disturbing pattern that has emerged. While I'm sure it's purely coincidence and not intentional, I've noticed that when a group or organization from the classic Bionicle series has more than one female member, it's fatality rate tends to escalate:

 

*The Toa Cordak had two female Toa, Nikila and an unnamed Toa of Water, and only Lesovikk survives as of G1's conclusion.

*The Brotherhood of Makuta had fifteen female members-thought admittedly only one was named-and only Miserix survives.

*The Toa Mangai had two Toa of Water-Naho and Tuyet-and the group's members all ended up dead, turning evil, or both in Nidhiki's case, though Lhikan was later revived.

*The Federation of Fear lost Carapar and Spiriah only after being joined by Lariska, who with Roodaka raised the group's female membership to two-the Shadowed One may have been wiser than he realized not to recruit Roodaka as a Hunter, seeing as how the Dark Hunters with their one identified female member are not known to have suffered anywhere near the casualties of the Brotherhood with its fifteen.

*Not long after the revelation that Order of Mata Nui member Johmak was female-marking two female Order members if you count Helryx-most of the Order was wiped out.

 

Again, I think it's purely coincidence and not purposeful on the part of any of the creative team behind Bionicle G1...I just thought it was interesting.

Yeah, it largely comes as a consequence of having to fill in the backstory of independent characters, and trying to correct the imbalanced gender ratios of set-based characters at the same time. But because many of those independent characters ended up as such through tragic means in the first place, the result a lot of female characters who are only introduced post-mortem. :(

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If anything, this has reminded me of just how many characters in G1 had backstories involving large groups of background characters dying in their past and them becoming emo loners or lone survivors trying to pass down a mantle.

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I think the last few points are possibly grasping at straws... blaming the death of other characters on the fact that female characters happened to be present is a bit of a stretch. In all those instances above, there were male characters present too. Every on-screen death in Bionicle has had a male character present. Heck, 99% of the time something bad happens in Bionicle, there's a male character present. Maybe the males are bad luck.

 

...Sounds silly, doesn't it? I generally agree with Lyichir's and Lalonde's reasoning above, in that the number of female characters being present on those teams is more to do with Greg wanting to write more women but not being able to do so for the set-based characters, and non-set characters are fairly expendable by nature. But I do think it's worth discussing how certain female characters are handled, particularly when their only purpose in the story is being dead for the sake of somebody else's characterisation.

 

There's a trend in fiction known as "fridging" -killing off a female character to give a male character something to angst about, or possibly a motivation for revenge. Classic example: Gwen Stacy for Spider Man. Traditionally, this character is a love interest of some sort, but can also be a mother, daughter, sister, friend etc.

 

Some of the posthumously-introduced female characters seem to have been created solely for this purpose. Sahmad's lover, for example, was otherwise so narratively insignificant she didn't even get given a name. Nikila was basically this for Lesovikk- she was the sort of character that almost certainly would have been made a Dead Love Interest had this not been Bionicle. She even had shades the typical bubbly "Manic pixie dream girl" personality (though I prefer to imagine her more like a female Pohatu). I like to think that we might have seen more of her in the Red Star storyline given that Lesovikk appeared in it, but that's a moot point by now.

 

Granted, those aren't the only times a character has died to make somebody else angsty in Bionicle- Lhikan served this purpose for Vakama, but the difference is that Lhikan's narrative purpose was not just limited to dying, and we see quite a few glimpses of Lhikan's own past throughout the series, whereas the above two only existed as satellites for their now-grieving companions.

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I'd also like to point out that pretty much every single one of those deaths are now revivals after the Red Star was revealed as a Resurrection Satellite.

:r: :e: :g: :i: :t: :n: :u: :i:

Elemental Rahi in Gen2, anyone? A write-up for an initial video for a G2 plot

 

I really wish everyone would stop trying to play join the dots with Gen 1 and Gen 2 though,it seems there's a couple new threads everyday and often they're duplicates of already existing conversations! Or simply parallel them with a slightly new 'twist'! Gen 2 is NEW, it is NOT Gen 1 and it is NOT a continuation. Outside of the characters we already have I personally don't want to see ANY old characters return. I think it will cheapen the whole experience to those of us familiar with the original line...

 

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the Shadowed One may have been wiser than he realized not to recruit Roodaka as a Hunter, seeing as how the Dark Hunters with their one identified female member are not known to have suffered anywhere near the casualties of the Brotherhood with its fifteen.

*Not long after the revelation that Order of Mata Nui member Johmak was female-marking two female Order members if you count Helryx-most of the Order was wiped out.

I'd like to point out that the Order wasn't wiped out - as far as I know, most of them survived. Also the Brotherhood died off for in-story reasons unrelated to number of females - the Dark Hunters had no such reason, and they lived. 

 

Also of note: the number of Ga-Matoran in MNOG II is greater than the number of female Dark Hunters...and as far as we know, all of them survived until the end of the story. :P

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Not exactly. We still have Gali, Gaaki, Nokama, Hahli, Macku, Roodaka, Helyrx and more. They are all significant characters that played a crucial role in their separate story arcs... and they're still alive. The rest were coincidently cannon fodder. 

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Just have a few responses:

 

  • To Alyska, I would point out that I never accused the female characters of being responsible, I just noted that they seemed to be present where these groups had misfortunes. I certainly get where the "fridging" comes from-didn't know that particular brand of death had its own name.
  • Regitnui, that's actually not the case: the Toa Cordak and Toa Mangai-with the exception of Turaga Lhikan-were confirmed as not being eligible for revival on the Red Star due to their means of death-the same goes for all Makuta. As for the various Order of Mata Nui members, it all depends on how Teridax leveled Daxia.
  • fishers64, my impression was that a large majority of the Order of Mata Nui was destroyed when Daxia was attacked by Teridax-if I'm incorrect in that I apologize-while the Dark Hunters have not suffered a similar catastrphe. Again, it's not that female characters had a role in this happening-it just seems to happen to groups with more than one female character. By group I also mean an organized military force as opposed to a peaceful tribe of villagers like the Ga-Matoran.

Voicing your opinions with tact is the best way to keep a discussion from becoming an argument.
So far as I'm aware, it's pronounced like this: We're ee ah moo.
 

Check out my Creations:

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G1 Battle for Spherus Magna - G2 A Lingering Shadow


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G1 Fallen Guardian - G2 Shadows of Past and Future (The Legend Continues Entry) Head of Stone, Heart of Jungle


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fishers64, my impression was that a large majority of the Order of Mata Nui was destroyed when Daxia was attacked by Teridax-if I'm incorrect in that I apologize-while the Dark Hunters have not suffered a similar catastrphe. Again, it's not that female characters had a role in this happening-it just seems to happen to groups with more than one female character. By group I also mean an organized military force as opposed to a peaceful tribe of villagers like the Ga-Matoran.

Organized military groups are more likely to get wiped out by the nature of themselves, though. 

 

I got the impression that most Order Agents fled. One of them, Guardian, was hanging out with Tahu near the end, and a large number of them were in Metru Nui near the end fortifying the place. An attack on Daxia wouldn't have killed them all off. 

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fishers64, my impression was that a large majority of the Order of Mata Nui was destroyed when Daxia was attacked by Teridax-if I'm incorrect in that I apologize-while the Dark Hunters have not suffered a similar catastrphe. Again, it's not that female characters had a role in this happening-it just seems to happen to groups with more than one female character. By group I also mean an organized military force as opposed to a peaceful tribe of villagers like the Ga-Matoran.

Organized military groups are more likely to get wiped out by the nature of themselves, though. 

 

I got the impression that most Order Agents fled. One of them, Guardian, was hanging out with Tahu near the end, and a large number of them were in Metru Nui near the end fortifying the place. An attack on Daxia wouldn't have killed them all off. 

Guardian was a Dark Hunter, not a member of the Order. I also never said that the attack on Daxia killed them all off, but I get the impression it killed off the majority-in the Takanuva's Blog entry for December 4 Trinuma was reported as saying that "some" members still survive, which indicates that most of them got killed. Purely head canon, but I imagine that a lot of Order members might have regrouped on Daxia once Metru Nui was safe-whether to assess their losses or purely because the Matoran, Toa, and Turaga were probably sick of having them around-only to be annihilated when Teridax revealed his dominance of the universe and leveled their fortress. Those that survived may have been in transit when it happened or still on various missions mopping up Brotherhood threats.

Voicing your opinions with tact is the best way to keep a discussion from becoming an argument.
So far as I'm aware, it's pronounced like this: We're ee ah moo.
 

Check out my Creations:

Epics

G1 Battle for Spherus Magna - G2 A Lingering Shadow


Short Stories

G1 Fallen Guardian - G2 Shadows of Past and Future (The Legend Continues Entry) Head of Stone, Heart of Jungle


MOCs

Mask Hoarder, Desert Scourge

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