Jump to content

Some Confusion On Kanohi


Kagha

Recommended Posts

Firstly, I'd like to apologise if this point has already been addressed or covered -- it's something that has been nagging my mind for a while now, and which I wish to find the answer to. I scoured the old forums including the bygone Official Kanohi Guide in search of answers but I got mixed and mostly inconclusive results. I looked on BS01 but the Kanohi guide didn't do much to explain aspects of the masks apart from known types and the process of mask forging. I also looked on BS01 for Suva functions but since the page is null currently, I didn't get any results.My question is this: how exactly are Toa able to "switch" what Kanohi they are wearing on their face? I was always under the impression that they needed to be linked (in spirit?) to a designated Suva where other Kanohi were stored and they could swap -- send the Kanohi on their face back into the Suva over distance in favour of another one in storage. To me, for the longest time, this seemed like a fairly solid theory.But I've been out of touch with the in-depth BIONICLE media for a while now, it's been ages since I've picked up a book and the deeper intricacies of its universe are beginning to elude me. Leafing through my older comics, though, I noticed something. In the very first Mata Nui set comic, when Kopaka is depicted as arriving from his Toa canister, he sets off on a quest to the "place of far seeing" on Mount Ihu to find one of the Kanohi. He finds a Hau, and he puts it on directly over his Akaku, which seems to morph away, and he says something along the lines of, "I can feel the Mask of Shielding protecting me, but the powers of the Mask of Vision are still mine to command." So he was successfully accessing two Kanohi, both on his face, with only one physically apparent, without any help from a Suva. :???:This is continued in the subsequent Mata Nui comics, such as when Gali makes a speedy grab of the Kanohi Miru and saves herself from a deadly fall by immediately snapping it on over her Kaukau and hovering, or when Lewa does the same with a Kakama and speed-kicks his way out from underwater.So are Toa able to wear more than one Kanohi at a time without help from a Suva? Do they even need a Suva in the first place? And if they don't, how many Kanohi are they able to wear on their face at one time without the magic backpack that swallows up all of them but one becoming full?Again, I apologise if this question has already been addressed.P.S. On an unrelated note, I also have a really quick question about Kanohi colour -- do they retain colour after being removed from a Toa/Matoran/Turaga/etc face, or do they become grey?Thank you for reading!

bannae.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First I'd like to say thanks for asking these questions because I'm not sure myself concerning the materialization part, whether the masks literally changes and how they replace them....I can say though that when Kopaka said that the Mask of Vision is still "mine to control", he meant that he could swap back to that ability whenever he needed. Toa can only use one Kanohi at a time, the only exceptions being Gold Kanohi and Kanohi Nuva, which the previous did allow the Toa Mata to use Shielding, Speed, Strength, Levitation, Sight and Water Breathing all at the same time, while the latter allowed them to share individual powers with other around them. (A Hau Nuva would shield the user and those around him) Hope that helps a little. :)

Edited by The Great Grant in the Sky
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, in every instance where we see a Toa use one of their mask powers, they switch to that mask beforehand by mentally teleporting it from their Suva. This is why the golden masks were seen as more powerful than the Suva: no mask switch required before you switch power (though visually they still changed shape in the animations to show us dumb viewers what was going on :P).After the Toa Mata became Nuva they no longer had any masks to change to, and even though they could share their powers now they still went and got the Nuva versions of their masks as well. Tahu lost his Suva to the lava when Ta-Koro was destroyed by Rahkshi, which means he could no longer use those powers by himself even though he already "collected" them.I always viewed the whole "place on face" deal to be the Toa establishing the Suva link with it. Until you have teleported it to the Suva, it's just another mask, really, that you can't do any "quick-swap" with. This raises the question of how a Suva is made, however, since it evidently needs to be linked to a certain being and also contains some teleportation technology.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just think Kopaka was being poetic, in typical 2001 style; he could have finished that sentence like this: "to command to teleport back to my face" but it would sound kinda silly. :P The powers of both masks were his to command. That doesn't mean they were both instantly accessible.And yes, they can wear two masks at once, it's just not usually a good idea. Imagine slapping fifteen masks over your face at once, it would stick out at least a couple of feet and be quite impractical. :P As for how many, we saw two at once in one of the movies. I don't think we've ever seen more than that, but I don't think we know for sure it's impossible. Maybe three.... but really... yeah...About mask color, I recall that it was stated Matoran masks (at least in Metru Nui) are painted their colors. Apparently because they aren't Toa or Turaga and thus don't have actual elemental powers, if they don a gray mask, it should stay gray. And take off a normal Matoran mask and obviously the paint is unaffected. Toa and Turaga taking them off (or having Kal steal their powers) turns them gray.Off the top of my head though I can't thusly explain how Lhikan/Jaller's masks is somehow still yellow the whole time in the movie, including while both off any face and on Jaller's face. So yeah... now you've confused me. LOL.

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps Lhikan's mask was actually forged to appear golden? On page 7 of BIONICLE comic #6 (PDF from BS01 here), Onua hands Lewa the mask that was taken from him, and it is still golden while Onua holds it. Other masks that were removed before this point always became gray. The Avokhii and Ignika, too, exhibits the trait of always being golden, and the Vahi is always orange regardless of if it's being worn or not. Additionally, the "copper masks of victory" that were handed out as prizes in competitions on Mata Nui retains their color when "idle".Clearly masks can be forged to have a specific color, so the real question is whether or not such a mask could change its color at all. Jaller wore a red Komau, but Lhikan's Hau stayed gold/yellow when placed on his face, even though it changed shape to accommodate for his smaller size. The Vahi is orange even though both Vakama and Tahu bore red masks as Toa.Matoran masks on Metru Nui were colored, but Toa transformations can sometimes change both color and shape of a mask. When Jaller became a Toa Ignika, he kept his red/orange and yellow/gold color scheme, but his mask was once again red. Lhikan's Hau had earlier been replaced by a regular Matoran mask in Karzahni, so was that mask red when worn? Would any mask but Lhikan's be red on Jaller?EDIT: There's also Hewkii, who changed from being brown to being yellow and gunmetal gray. All of the Matoran changed colors in some way when they became Ignika, with Hewkii being the most extreme case and Jaller the least. In that light, Jaller's new mask color may not even be related to his old mask color at all.Color theory suddenly became a lot more interesting. :lol:

Edited by Katuko
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps Lhikan's mask was actually forged to appear golden? On page 7 of BIONICLE comic #6 (PDF from BS01 here), Onua hands Lewa the mask that was taken from him, and it is still golden while Onua holds it. Other masks that were removed before this point always became gray.

Right, the "Golden Kanohi" were called that because that was their natural color. So yeah, maybe there's a substance that Kanohi can be made of that's a little different from normal purified protodermis that makes up both those and Lhikan's mask. Seems plausible; nice idea.It would also imply that the Golden Kanohi's six powers all accessible at once is not inherent to this substance (as I had always assumed). Instead that would be perhaps just one of the many infinitely possible mixable powers of protodermis. If so, this would also open up the possibility that you could mix other combinations, although probably unlikely. It does make sense destiny-wise that the same six as the Toa Mata's masks would be the one to get this. Anywho this is getting a little far along the tangent but it's possible.I think the Vahi and the Ignika could be attributed to an elemental color, though.My reasoning is a little indirect so bear with me: Tahu's normal Hau turns red on his face because his element is red. (And he's a Toa; regardless of other discrepencies with Vakama and Lhikan, etc., for Tahu at least this seems to be true). Say Lhikan's is golden because of your above theory. And Turaga Vakama's can be a little different 'cuz he's not a Toa. Toa Vakama, Tahu, and Jaller all had red masks. So in this case, if you were to make an elemental mask of fire, it should make sense that it would be always red. Likewise Mask of Light and Shadow always their colors.And Time and Life are called Legendary Elements, sometimes now just called powers, but they have once been confirmed to be elemental. So Vahi always being orange makes sense if that's simply its color.Incidently this miiiight explain Vakama's later change to orange, being the one who invented it, at least if my cyberclay theory is correct. Some color code might have accidently been transferred from the Vahi to Vakama.This doesn't explain Hewkii very well, though. One reasonable complication might -- that just as Matoran of the same element can be a range of color schemes that count as that element, so can Toa, just less commonly. I also have a slightly relevant theory (kinda) about the Inika lightning that I have decided to post as its own theory topic shortly.Or maybe all of this color stuff is simply somehow a mix of random color coding in the protodermis and personality, including how personalities change when the person changes from Matoran to Toa to Turaga, and it's futile to try to categorize it impersonally. I dunno, just food for thought.

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And Time and Life are called Legendary Elements, sometimes now just called powers, but they have once been confirmed to be elemental. So Vahi always being orange makes sense if that's simply its color.Incidently this miiiight explain Vakama's later change to orange, being the one who invented it, at least if my cyberclay theory is correct. Some color code might have accidently been transferred from the Vahi to Vakama.

As I remember, the Vahi was originally gold, and was somehow affected by the time it spent at the bottom of the ocean, and almost... rusted orange.However, staying the same colour would make sense seeing as it was made golden and became orange.This is just as far as I know, I'm not entirely sure if it's correct. But it would mean that Vakama didn't invent orange.- Vorex

lineupnewestest.png
[BZPRPG PROFILES]

Nikarra - Kaelynn - Ronan - Muir - Donal Aerus - Montague - Kira - KouraLearu - Alteora - Fuacht - Caana Nessen - Merrill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Their Kanohi were teleported to their Suvas. A Suva is basically a magic mask-holder, capable of holding six masks. The Mata are linked to their Suvas, being Mata Nui's backup plan, they were well equipped.

What about the noble masks that the Toa Mata collected? That would've given the Toa twelve masks each, were Suva's able to fit all that?

I just think Kopaka was being poetic, in typical 2001 style; he could have finished that sentence like this: "to command to teleport back to my face" but it would sound kinda silly. :P The powers of both masks were his to command. That doesn't mean they were both instantly accessible.

Ah, all right, that makes sense. I was taking him literally, that he was actually wearing two masks directly on his face and that one of them had just phased out of dimensional reality or something. So to clarify: if a Toa is connected with a Suva and they find a random Kanohi lying out somewhere, they can pick that Kanohi up, place it on their face, and have it instantly transmitted to storage inside their respective Suva?-As for the colouration ofthe Kanohi, would it be reasonable to say that Legendary (Time, Life, Creation, etc) and enhanced (Golden Kanohi are pretty high ranking; the Disk of Time was forged from six disks and the Golden Kanohi were each formed from six masks so they have be somewhat special, right?) masks have the inherent ability to stay coloured outside of being worn due to the simple fact of their transcendent power rate?And maybe for Lhikan's Kanohi it was given a similar paint job to the average Matoran's in order to symbolise something. It seemed to me that his armour was naturally red and the golden parts were just like added plating, like a breastplate, shoulder padding, boots, and a mask. Maybe kind of like how the Hagah had really metallic armour and masks, he just had golden armour and an artificially-coloured Golden mask to symbolise or represent something (or maybe as an aesthetic flare?) whereas other, more barebones and utilitarian Toa like the Mata or even Vakama didn't have the time to add such touches to their own armour.

Or maybe all of this color stuff is simply somehow a mix of random color coding in the protodermis and personality, including how personalities change when the person changes from Matoran to Toa to Turaga, and it's futile to try to categorize it impersonally. I dunno, just food for thought.

That could very well be plausible, and to be honest was what I had surrendered many of the colour variations to for the longest time. :PHere's an idea: since Matoran are pretty much able to alter their colour schemes though by donning different coloured Kanohi and wearing different coloured armour, maybe the colour scheme they choose for themselves is retained when they transform into Toa. That seems to be the case in the transformation scene in LoMN. The obvious exception would be the Inika, who had something wonky going on with the Toa power infused lightning and their little trip in Karzahni.And then maybe when a Toa changes to a Turaga, the colour scheme simply becomes more faded to represent "age" or seniority. Vakama's orange components can be seen as a sort of worn red, Nokama became a lighter blue, et cetera.
bannae.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And Time and Life are called Legendary Elements, sometimes now just called powers, but they have once been confirmed to be elemental. So Vahi always being orange makes sense if that's simply its color.

Time, Life, and Creation aren't classified as Legendary Elements anymore. They are merely Legendary powers now.

Incidently this miiiight explain Vakama's later change to orange, being the one who invented it, at least if my cyberclay theory is correct. Some color code might have accidently been transferred from the Vahi to Vakama.

As Vorex said, the Vahi was originally gold, but due to its exposure to seawater, it rusted and became orange.

jlovfkk.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hm, I forgot about that part. In that case, would it not be logical to assume that it is custom among Matoran to make all powerful or special masks be golden, simply to illustrate their power and/or importance?Golden Kanohi, Lhikan's Hau, Vahi, Ignika, Avokhii, Olmak (?), etc... all golden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hm, I forgot about that part. In that case, would it not be logical to assume that it is custom among Matoran to make all powerful or special masks be golden, simply to illustrate their power and/or importance?Golden Kanohi, Lhikan's Hau, Vahi, Ignika, Avokhii, Olmak (?), etc... all golden.

We have no guarantee that the Golden Kanohi were made by Matoran, and it can be assumed that the Ignika, Avohkii, and Olmak weren't. The Vahi may have been pre-programmed to become gold, and there's also the chance that Lhikan's Hau was painted and/or gold plated.

lineupnewestest.png
[BZPRPG PROFILES]

Nikarra - Kaelynn - Ronan - Muir - Donal Aerus - Montague - Kira - KouraLearu - Alteora - Fuacht - Caana Nessen - Merrill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The mask switching was instantaneous. The power of the Golden Masks was, as I recall, to use mask powers simultaneously.

I used to think that too, and frankly it would have been wiser IMO, but unfortunately Greg confirmed it's still one at a time. I never liked that answer as it made the Golden Kanohi virtually useless, except that it removed the risk of enemies stealing masks off your Suva while away. But assuming the villagers would defend the Suva well enough (and against Rahi, they did), then all they accomplish is shaving a second or two off the time it takes to use two powers in a row. :-|Admittedly it would have helped against the Kal, had they still had the GK to begin with, and if the Kal would have decided to steal non-GK masks too. But that didn't happen and in fact they collected Kanohi Nuva just like they did Kanohi in 2001 and didn't end up with Golden Kanohi. *shrugs*But... what's done is done; oh well.

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While it's kind of moot since the Toa evidently had access to their noble masks anyways; if you had a Suva with X number of slots it would be more useful to be able to fit 6 powers in 1 slot, correct? So far we've only seen the Toa Mata/Nuva use Suva in the story as well, so it might be that they're not very common. In that case, a Golden Kanohi would be a real treasure to behold for any other Toa.

Edited by Katuko
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Katuko: I suppose that could be the case; the Inika didn't have one, the Toa Metru's was wrecked (thank you Vakama) and it wasn't lIke they had multiple masks to begin with. In fact, the Mata/Nuva are the only team with multiple masks like this; it's something unique to them, so it would seem that the suva as a mask storage device would be unique to them as well. It's an odd story quirk; I blame marketing conveince. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is a shame that no other Toa team ever used multiple masks. I miss the times when we could get six colors of every mask... :(

"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
-- Harlan Ellison

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's clarify that it's highly probably other Toa teams we haven't heard of, many of which were killed throughout history as many Toa were, did use Suva and multiple masks. :)

The Destiny of Bionicle (chronological retelling of Bionicle original series, 9 PDFs of 10 chapters each on Google Drive)Part 1 - Warring with Fate | Part 2 - Year of Change | Part 3 - The Exploration Trap | Part 4 - Rise of the Warlords | Part 5 - A Busy Matoran | Part 6 - The Dark Time | Part 7 - Proving Grounds | Part 8 - A Rude Awakening | Part 9 - The Battle of Giants

My Bionicle Fanfiction  (Google Drive folder, eventually planned to have PDFs of all of it)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...