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Do Bionicles blink?


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So I was day-dreaming as usual, and stumbled across a fight between Takanuva and SCP-173.

 

For those of you who don't know, SCP-173 is basically a monster which can only move when not seen, like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.

 

Naturally, this prompted the question of whether Bionicles need to blink or not?

 

My head-canon behind Bionicle eyes is that they look like the sets, and are basically made of glass covering some biological eye stuff and a coloured light. This design makes me think they do not need to blink.

 

However, I have feeling there might be evidence of characters blinking or winking, suggesting that they do have some sort of eyelid.

 

Does anyone have any evidence to solve this problem of cataclysmic importance?

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They also blink in Templar stuff. I'm pretty sure you could probably locate a few instances of Greg writing "[character] blinked," too.

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I'm ignoring the movies as they are a bit of a departure from the usual presentation of the characters/sets.
In MNOG and the later Templar animations, characters do rarely blink and narrow their eyes as a form of expression, though they don't routinely blink or at least often enough to say that they need to. In the Ghost and Advance commercials, only the Piraka are shown to blink. Haven't checked the comics or the books.

And in my own head, I don't really imagine them to blink much if at all, but that doesn't count :P

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Against 173? No, they don't need to.

 

Though I'd like to see a Po-Toa cracking 173 lengthwise, then powderizing the remains. It is a statue, after all.

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They have blinked in movies, Templar stuff, and have been written as blinking, because

 

 

don't need to keep eyeballs lubricated,

Wrong-ish. Not lubricated, perhaps, but dust and things can still get on their sensors. Just like I have to clean my camera lens every once in a while if I've been in a dusty environment, so do Toa, Matoran, and other MU beings need to blink to clear their eyes of dirt and other obstructions.

 

They blink.

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So if they don't need to keep their eyes lubricated, do they have tears? Or, to phrase it a different way: Do Matoran Universians actually cry?

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In line with what I said before, it has been suggested before that they do have artificial "glands" that help to clean their eyes. 

Think of it like this: What do you do when there's dust or leaves or something on your car's windshield? You turn on the wipers and brush it all off. If the dust is thick or you're dealing with a bit of mud, then there's usually wiper fluid that can be sprayed onto the windshield to help clean it off.

 

Now translate that to a Matoran's eyes. Eyelids are the wipers, and the lubricant or whatever helps clear the obstruction away and leave a clean view.

 

So, maybe not real crying like us, but most likely, they have some sort of method of tear production.

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In line with what I said before, it has been suggested before that they do have artificial "glands" that help to clean their eyes. 

 

Think of it like this: What do you do when there's dust or leaves or something on your car's windshield? You turn on the wipers and brush it all off. If the dust is thick or you're dealing with a bit of mud, then there's usually wiper fluid that can be sprayed onto the windshield to help clean it off.

 

Now translate that to a Matoran's eyes. Eyelids are the wipers, and the lubricant or whatever helps clear the obstruction away and leave a clean view.

 

So, maybe not real crying like us, but most likely, they have some sort of method of tear production.

 

Hmm, didn't really think of it like that. I suppose it would make sense, especially for Matoran who live in desert regions like Po-Metru/Koro.

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It's probable that they have a tear-like lubricant, but they don't produce tears when they cry, according to Greg. (They can "cry", as shown by Hahli after Matoro's fakeout sacrifice, but it's more about sobbing, shortness of breath, etc.)

 

Lewa winks in one of the Hapka books, iirc.

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They probably don't need to blink given that their eyes aren't organic and they therefore don't need to keep eyeballs lubricated, though I imagine they still have the ability to do so purely for expression.

 

I personally imagine the eyes to be mechanical optics with some of the inner workings exposed, kinda like the characters in Transformers. They could blink in order to lubricate the mechanicals and keep the optics working properly. 

 

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They don't need to blink, since it is confirmed they have light receptors as "eyes." But the ability serves as a safety function (shutting eyes from bright lights) and when they developed sentience (and culture, etc..) it probably became another way of expression. 


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They don't need to blink, since it is confirmed they have light receptors as "eyes." But the ability serves as a safety function (shutting eyes from bright lights) and when they developed sentience (and culture, etc..) it probably became another way of expression.

As they wear masks, the shape of their eyes, altered by the 'shutters', becomes their primary means of facial expression. The rest of their face, covered by the mask, remains inscrutable. It's one thing i feel the 2015 animations did right.

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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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So if they don't need to keep their eyes lubricated, do they have tears? Or, to phrase it a different way: Do Matoran Universians actually cry?

I don't know about the Matoran universe but I do know in the Okoto universe Ekimu did cry.
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So if they don't need to keep their eyes lubricated, do they have tears? Or, to phrase it a different way: Do Matoran Universians actually cry?

I don't know about the Matoran universe but I do know in the Okoto universe Ekimu did cry.

WHHAAAAAAAT?! Plz, can you source this? A gif, a picture, something?! Not to sound saddistic but I always have been curious as to see what it would look like for a BIONICLE to cry.

 

 

Anyway, I was going to say no to the question of blinking, but I think that to compensate for this they use their eyes to express emotion majorily, even in G1. But I am not entirely sure really, I'm sure they do blink, but not for the reason why we blink. But that begs the question, did Ekimu cry Tears? Or did he simply weep, like that of a dog?

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Haha, what a wild question.

 

I think the blinking in movies serves the same purpose as Bionicle eyebrows and the like: it humanizes the characters, it makes them more relatable, and in the process it makes them less spooky than a character who doesn't blink might be.

 

The same goes for the metal on the masks bending to make facial expressions. It doesn't make much sense but if it were realistic there would be either no emoting at all or it'd look like Bayformers.

 

I like the explanation that Bionicle eyelids exist for purposes like blocking out harsh light rather than blinking. I think that the blinking in movies could be considered a non-canon artistic liberty, again, for relatability purposes.

 

But like, canon gets weird when we start analyzing toy robot biology, y'know? Maybe stuff like this is better suited for a "they blink if it's convenient for them to blink in this particular medium" kinda deal.

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So if they don't need to keep their eyes lubricated, do they have tears? Or, to phrase it a different way: Do Matoran Universians actually cry?

I don't know about the Matoran universe but I do know in the Okoto universe Ekimu did cry.

 

WHHAAAAAAAT?! Plz, can you source this? A gif, a picture, something?! Not to sound saddistic but I always have been curious as to see what it would look like for a BIONICLE to cry.

 

tumblr_o6cfyyK9Lz1qm9p5uo1_1280.jpg

 

Here you go! It's from the second graphic novel, and is honestly one of the most emotionally powerful Bionicle comic panels of all time, IMO. You can really feel Ekimu's inner conflict, both determined to stop his brother and heartbroken at allowing it to come to this. The only G1 comic panel I can think of that comes close is this panel from Ignition issue 11 when Matoro puts on the Mask of Life, and even it doesn't fully encapsulate what Matoro himself is feeling — rather, its emotional power comes from the viewer's sense of what is happening and what led up to it.

 

Incidentally, one of the comments I saw about Ekimu's tears on Tumblr pointed out something about the G1 story: the riddle the Toa used to find Keetongu in 2005 mentioned "tears that reach the sky". So whether or not Matoran cry, it's implied that they know what tears are, though that might just be a contradiction.

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