Considering the Original Elements

[Illuminatus]

I recently attempted to "decode" the six BIONICLE elements from a purely visual perspective, as can be seen in this blog entry, and my observation resulted in a curiously consistent categorization of the environments, which also considers BIONICLE's two experimental predecessors: the Slizers/Throwbots and the RoboRiders.
 
Here is the list:
 

Stand-alone environments:

• Volcanic
• Branded as "Fire" and "Lava"
• Dominant color: red
• Jungular—for lack of an actual word
• Branded as "(The) Jungle," "Swamp" and "Air"
• Dominant color: green
• Marine
• Branded as "Water" and "Sub"
• Dominant color: blue
• Subterranean
• Branded as "Earth," "Rock" and "Onyx"
• Dominant color: black
• Polar
• Branded as "Ice" and "Frost"
• Dominant color: white
• Barren
• Branded as "Stone," "Rock," "Sand," and "Dust"
• Dominant color: brown/yellow/orange/tan (strikingly inconsistent)

Supporting environments:

• Electric
• Attempted to a degree as stand-alone in the Slizer/Throwbots series (with Energy/Electro, Spark and Flare)
• Seen as an accompanying element in BIONICLE (with the Inika)
• Dominant color: purple/orange
• Urban
• Attempted to a degree as stand-alone in the Slizer/Throwbots (with City/Turbo, Judge/Jet and Blaster) and RoboRiders series (with Power)
• Seen as an accompanying element in BIONICLE (with the Toa Metru)
• Dominant color: yellow/teal

 

The best-selling sets were always the red, green and blue ones with white and black sets often competing for fourth place, especially if we consider small promotional sets such as the miniature RoboRiders (red, green, yellow and white; missing black and tan), the Kabaya Turaga (red, green, blue and white; missing black and brown) and the Kabaya Bohrok Va (red, green, blue and black; missing white and brown).

 

Brown has always been the failing color in BIONICLE, as can be explained with its definitive replacement by yellow in 2006 with a few scattered exceptions (Pohatu Phantoka and the Vorox) and its very sparse use in BIONICLE G2.

 

Admittedly, I am not familiar with Hero Factory or what role color coding has played there but I strongly suspect there were no brown sets there at all.

 

All of this considered, I can't help but wonder if BIONICLE couldn't have been conceived a bit differently as regards the original (and prominent) six elements. From what I can gather, they were created with two basic ideas in mind: to feature the best-selling visual environments of previous lines and to be based on the four classical elements, namely fire, water, earth and air.

 

We all know how the concept developed. The four classic elements were incorporated into the foundation of BIONICLE's lore, accompanied by two "spin-off" elements and each element was associated with a distinct visual environment.

 

My question is: was this task executed well?

 

Perhaps. But perhaps it could've been conceived better.

 

Personally, I've always found the association between "Air" and the jungle environment to be a bit contrived. A bit as though that's the best they could think of given their existing criteria. This is all speculation of course.

 

And yet... why brown? Brown was never featured in either of the earlier lines so LEGO (and Advance) couldn't possibly have known how well (or poorly) it would sell. Brown was an experiment, I think, which is great per se, but the reason LEGO got stuck with it is because they conceived the lore in a way that demanded consistency. Thus, brown was "Stone," a.k.a. the barren element and it stuck.

 

Which begs the question: did either brown or the barren environment need to exist in the first place? What if there was something else instead?

 

The way I see it, these are the criteria that needed to be met with the first wave of BIONICLE sets:

 

• They had to feature the best-selling colors and visual environments from their predecessors.
• They had to allow for at least two combiner models with an equal number of required sets.
• They had to fit some interpretation of the classical elements as part of an expanding lore.

 

So how would you guys have done that? Would you have changed anything at all or do you think BIONICLE was already executed the best way it could have been?

 

I personally think yellow should've been incorporated into BIONICLE from the get-go, instead of brown. It clearly sold better. I'm not sure if it should've been associated with the barren environment or something else/new entirely.

 

Perhaps this unseen yellow element could've been "Air"? And the jungle environment could've been "Earth"? In any case, the distinction between Onu and Po was marginal and far-fetched. The former was "soily" while the latter was solid and dry. I see no reason why this couldn't be a single element, associated with the subterranean environment.

 

What do you guys think? Am I onto something or this all just a load of speculation in your opinion?

[CyclonatorZ]

I proposed years ago that Onua should have been a Toa of Metal, and Pohatu a Toa of Earth. However, that was only due to the story issues with stone and earth being so similar as elements. My proposed solution wouldn't have done a thing to fix the problem with certain colors selling worse than others.

 

So here's a better idea: Onua could still be a Toa of Earth, but Purple would be his primary color, with black as his secondary. Pohatu would be the Toa of Metal, and have a primary color of Yellow, with dark grey as his secondary. Also, to help this thematically, Po-Koro would be depicted as the most technologically advanced village in the story, instead of Onu-Koro.

 

Of course, in order for this to work and not cause any storyline issues later on, the Toa's elemental powers would have to remain tied to their weapons for the whole duration of the line. Because if the later retcon of "Toa Power" still happened, it would mean that Pohatu would become the most powerful Toa by a wide margin.

[Illuminatus]

Metal sounds like a good addition to the original lore. The problem remains with air = jungle, though; in my opinion that's a major issue. LEGO itself recognized this, as was evident when they rebranded the element in 2009 and G2.

 

Another issue is that purple never sold too well either. Purple and teal were discontinued for this exact reason and black is still a much better choice.

 

If you ask me this is a simple matter of replacing brown with yellow (and gray) and redistributing the available colors with their respective visual environments to a better set of "mythological" elements.

[Sir Keksalot]

I would never have considered separating Stone and Earth, since a given terrestrial planet is basically a rock floating around in space, so either the guy with earth powers doesn't get any cool stuff like earthquakes because all he controls is dirt, or the two powers overlap with no apparent cause. Water and Ice make sense as different elements because although they're the same substance, they have very different properties and applications; but Earth and Stone have very few differences. If Stone and Earth should be separate, then elements should not be defined as substances, but as parts of nature--Earth could be soil, magma, tectonic plates, and anything subterranean in nature; while Stone would be loose rocks and sand on the surface. My initial instinct, however, is to just combine them.

 

I don't think 6 elements is enough for the basic roster. The supporting elements should be other substances and phenomena that are less common, but still make sense as their own thing; at least going at it from a logical perspective. However, that means Fire wouldn't be part of the main roster, so that method wouldn't go over well because people expect it to be an element. Given this, I'd set up the squad like so: the primary elements would be Fire (which encompasses plasma, as this is not literally just fire but the flame itself, which is basically a hot gas), Water, Ice, Earth, Air, Plantlife, and Light, which is very much prevalent in the world because it's literally everywhere; this element also encompasses light waves outside of the visible spectrum, like radiation. The secondary elements boil down to Iron, Lightning, Kinetics (again, this refers to energy that's consistently all around us, so I think it's deserving of element status), and Aether, which is actually a "spacetime" element that encompasses gravity, wormholes, and very limited time control. Shadow is not an element, but a sort of "anti-element," being a complete absence of matter or energy. Part of me wants to have all the elements under one category, but that means there's 11 protagonists off the bat, which is a lot to deal with; though if the story were handled in an episodic manner, with the varying installments focusing on different characters, then I think it would be feasible.

 

The various biomes associated with the first 6 elements should be clear, since Bionicle already explored this concept in a way that made sense. The others would require a bit more creativity, like floating mountains for Aether or a glowing pit of crystals for Light--a "glowhole," if you will. Color schemes can be flexible, and I'd have to sit down and really think for a long time on what each element should be visualized as.

 

Basically, I think it's very much in the spirit of Bionicle to combine classical elements with a scientific understanding of what each element encompasses to maximize variety, practicality, and logical sense without going overboard and having them be too numerous or specific. How these elements are represented by characters is dependent on the nature of the narrative and how many protagonists you could afford.

[Illuminatus]

This may have worked if we discard the fact that BIONICLE needed to sell toys, first and foremost. The entire lore was built around what had been tested and was believed to work in terms of visual appeal. Having more than six visual environments to place your toys in would have required a lot of speculation and would have inevitably resulted in substantial overlap. Purple and teal were failing colors and anything else would more or less have had a marginal distinction at best from any other given element (visually speaking).

 

So I do think six was the ideal number of protagonists (and thus toys per wave) and all of their primary colors were well thought-out except for brown. In my opinion, brown ought to have been replaced by yellow and the storyline elements should have been re-imagined accordingly. My question is, given this set of visual criteria, how would you have imagined the elements?

 

BTW, these visual "guidelines" are the same reason we never saw a Toa of any secondary element produced in set form, save for Takanuva who was more or less categorized as a white set (as can be inferred by his BIONICLE Stars box art, where there was snow). The Stars were also a very good "overview" in this respect because they portrayed yellow as a more successful and fitting color than brown.

 

Imagine if the Bohrok-Kal were all produced in unusual colors like yellow, cyan and pink. It would have been a risky move so LEGO would never have agreed to it but it would have given some interesting consumer insights.

[Sir Keksalot]

This may have worked if we discard the fact that BIONICLE needed to sell toys, first and foremost. The entire lore was built around what had been tested and was believed to work in terms of visual appeal. Having more than six visual environments to place your toys in would have required a lot of speculation and would have inevitably resulted in substantial overlap. Purple and teal were failing colors and anything else would more or less have had a marginal distinction at best from any other given element (visually speaking).

 

So I do think six was the ideal number of protagonists (and thus toys per wave) and all of their primary colors were well thought-out except for brown. In my opinion, brown ought to have been replaced by yellow and the storyline elements should have been re-imagined accordingly. My question is, given this set of visual criteria, how would you have imagined the elements?

If I have to abide by this criterion, I have to redefine what an element is. An element must be some force of nature and not a component of the world itself--something I can fairly represent 6 of with the main cast without leaving out too many. With that in mind, sticking as close to Bionicle as I can, I need to have the elements be as follows:

-Fire, which represents energy and the planet's core

-Ice, which represents cold and the polar ice caps

-Water, which represents the planet's bodies of water

-Earth, which represents the planet itself, including rocks and metal

-Air, which represents the sky and weather

-Life, which encompasses living organisms but does not allow the user to create sapient creatures

Thus, everything I previously listed as an element, save for spacetime, is represented here under some greater heading. The 7th Toa could be a Toa of Aether, which is the aforementioned spacetime thing. My only issue with this system is that Ice and Life must be relatively limited compared to the other elements. If I am allowed to have more elements in the lore than are represented in physical toys, then I'd just go with the previous system and leave the other elements to supporting characters, if they're ever given sets at all.

[Toa Jaxus]

Life and Ice might by rare, but they do have a massive effect on the world's geography, so making them elements for a six element system is not that odd really. Not sure about Aether.

[Sir Keksalot]

Life and Ice might by rare, but they do have a massive effect on the world's geography, so making them elements for a six element system is not that odd really. Not sure about Aether.

I was referring to their practical applications. Life would just mean creating plants, fungi, and microbes, as well as mind-controlling fauna. Ice is even more restricted, being just the process of freezing and cold. In hindsight, Water suffers from the same ailment. Compare this to Fire, which encompasses all energy. That means quite a lot of things.

 

Aether would be the same thing I previously described. Spacetime is, in theory, similar to the classical concept of the aether, so that's why I chose that name. It's basically G1's Gravity, plus some extra powers.

[Toa Jaxus]

Sorry for missing your point, I wrote that reply after reading your post and then checking a few other things before writing it. As for each element representing different parts of nature, Ice could be the opposite of Fire, a force of anti-energy. Jungle could include life abilities like healing others or spreading sickness/poison.