Greatest Hero of the Matoran Universe

[Toa Kopaka TJByrum]

As the title would suggest, who - in your opinion - is the greatest Hero in the Matoran Universe (yes, that does exclude Bara Magna).Mata Nui doesn't count.I'm not asking for the strongest, or the smartest, or the coolest being. I'm asking for who proved themselves as a great Hero, who showed courage and selflessness for the greater good.I'm sure many will agree with me, it has to be Toa Inika/Mahri Matoro. The Mask of Life actually called out to him, even as far away as those dark tunnels they stumbled through as Matoran, simply because he was deemed worthy by it. It was he who sacrified himself so the Inika could continue down the path for the Ignika. And it was he who sacrified his life so that Mata Nui could live on.

[Toa Smoke Monster]

Takanuva was a great hero when he went up against Teridax in 03. Sure, I would've made a few changes to the battle (like making it an actual battle ), but I still think he was very heroic during that confrontation.Though I do think that the greatest hero in the MU was Matoro, for the same reasons as Toa Kopaka TJByrum stated.

[Bambi]

Matoro, since he, ya know, saved the whole universe.

[FrozenFlash]

Mataro because he revived Mata-Nui before everything could fall apart.

[The Legendary TNT]

Matoro. Need I say more?

[CeeCee]

Matoro sacrificed his own life to save many. Although I think many others would do the same, given the chance

[Toa Kopaka TJByrum]

Sure, many others would have done so, but their had to be something special about Matoro, considering the Ignika wanted him so bad.

[bonesiii]

The most interesting question to me is -- Who is the greatest MU hero besides Matoro? I strongly agree the greatest is Matoro.We connected so well to him from the start. It's kinda hard to define why. One thing that interests me is that he was among the closest to a perfect character from the start. In stories it's traditional to expect that readers cannot connect to someone who seems to make very few mistakes, but that mold just does not fit Matoro. In fact this may be the first time I've seen anyone even bringing it up. :PI think it was just that there was something very honest in the way it was done, from day one. We felt like this guy had gone through long and severe trials to mature to who he was, and as a result of that he was ready to take on really serious challenges that could only be met by giving his all, and I think we admire that. I think it reminds us of real-life heroes who don't just get an easy path because they're good but their goodness makes them seriously contemplate tough choices and step up when the worst is thrown at them.With the other characters, I think they have their own stories to greatness that are more about making bigger mistakes and having to learn from them, and having to find who they really are. These stories are endearing too in a different way. Takua's wandering because he didn't realize why he was different, Tahu's temper problems, Kopaka's over-aloofness, etc. Those three really stand out to me from the early characters.There are others. Brutaka's path from nearly a villain to a good guy I thought was especially good. Garan's journey from eagerness to accept these "Toa" that came in 2006 to recognizing the Piraka were villains and it was necessary, though they were just Matoran, to form a Resistance. Toa Ignika's journey I think is tied in closely to Matoro's in a touching way.

[Makuta Matata]

Tough. I'd say Vakama. Because you know he kind of pulled off the Great Rescue. Tahu, Jaller, Matoro, and Takanuva are also up there. Especially Matoro.

[LewaLew]

Really? You bothered asking?Matoro's the one who laid down it all. Twice. He wins. (The first time was the test on the 777 stairs)Besides him, I'd go with the one who was willing when he didn't have to. Jaller. His life was about being a soldier, first in the Ta-Koro Guard, and then with the Toa Mahri. But I want to focus on that time before Toa-hood. For 1000 years, Jaller was the guy tasked with defending Mata Nui as the top military mind on the island for all that time, although Teridax often was just toying with the Matoran and Turaga. Even after the Toa Mata came, he was still tasked as the primary defense of Ta-Koro, when Tahu was busy galavanting about searching for Kanohi, Krana, Kraata, and so forth, and his only real failure that we know of was when Tahnok-Kal stole Tahu's symbol.And then, during Mask of Light, Jaller was the one who took responsibility when Takua would not, and ultimately laid his life down. (For the first official death in BIONICLE) Later on, he was the one who fought on and rallied a band of Matoran, Chronicler's Company style, to succeed where the most powerful toa of all time had failed. (though they never got the chance to try the Piraka as Matoran)As a Toa Inika, he also showed a willingness to die again, but Matoro beat him to the punch on the 777 stairs.So, the greatest one that isn't obvious is Jaller.

[Toa Kopaka TJByrum]

Why is it for some reason I dislike Jaller?Other than Matoro, I dislike all the Inika... I don't know, it might simply be because ''they're not the Nuva''.But I still didn't even like Jaller as a matoran... and I never knew the other matoran really, except I think Nuparu... didn't he invent the Boxer to fight the Bohrok?

[Lielac]

Anyone who doesn't pick Matoro is wrong, wrong, wrong.Yeah. Matoro. He laid down his life to save the universe and didn't even flinch, and I think that's kind of the pinnacle of heroism. All the times I wanted to reach into the book and shake him and tell him he was an cool dude were when he was doubting his own abilities and his own spirit and how important his ability to be compassionate and selfless and loving really is --No, I don't have a favorite character. Why do you ask? ^_^If Matoro's disqualified due to being too much sheer awesome, I'll have to get back to you on that. Maybe Jaller, for the reasons LewaLew laid out.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Lielac

[Taipu1]

Excluding Matoro, who is the obvious choice, I'm surprised Lhikan hasn't been mentioned. I suppose this is just listing another person who sacraficed their life, but he was their for Metru-Nui, the last man standing, never giving up. But that's just Metru-Nui I suppose. Perhaps Ignika, he had a life that was brand new, and he gave it up for something he barely knew. Which I guess, comes full circle, to the inspiration that is Matoro.

[Toa Kopaka TJByrum]

Likhan was okay, but I never got into him as a character, and as a result, I don't know the full extent of his history.

[fishers64]

Well, let's see. I have a choice between giving my life to save the universe...or die anyway because the universe is going to flood catastrophically. Or, as a more immediate cause, because I'm falling down a huge hole under an island.Death...or Death. I would pick the heroic death, too...hardly a choice. At least someone else gets to live.And while Matoro in the Kingdom alternate universe lives, this Matoro doesn't know that. He also doesn't know that he has to sacrifice his life until he puts on the Mask of Life...while falling down said huge hole towards what would be death anyway.That is why I hesitate to quickly brand Matoro as the Best Hero of Bionicle. *is shot*I also am not entirely sure who would qualify. Matoro still might qualify due to the 777 stairs incident, but I think his own personal belief that he is of no worth - "just a translator" might sideline that particular incident as being heroic.

he·ro   [heer-oh]noun, plural he·roes1.a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.2.a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.

I think I'm going to go with definition #2, but it is self defining - the fact that you all, "in the opinion of others" believe that he has heroic qualities would make him the most heroic. .In story, of course, aside from Matoro (whose heroism might be misunderstood IMO), the closest fit to the definitions above is Lhikan, who was admired by the Toa Metru and viewed as a model or ideal for their actions. Edited October 4, 2012 by fishers64

[bonesiii]

while falling down said huge hole towards what would be death anyway.That is why I hesitate to quickly brand Matoro as the Best Hero of Bionicle. *is shot*

Except he was falling down the hole because he intentionally swam down it. If he didn't want to die, he could have just headed off in some random direction.There's definitely something to the "die anyway" logic, though, granted, at least once he's falling. But wouldn't we say that someone who just randomly goes and jumps in front of a car so that their death was purely optional wasn't being heroic at all? Likewise, if Matoro did just up and swim off to preserve his own life, would we call that courage? Surely not.

I think his own personal belief that he is of no worth - "just a translator" might sideline that particular incident as being heroic.

I just saw that as humility. This is a guy that defied the traditional logic of the Koro back when it was popular to shun travel and often adventured out into the Wahi, and wasn't afraid to face Rahi, etc. He doesn't actually believe that he is incompetent or a failure or anything. He was confident in his own skill. He's recognizing that living on is not the only kind of worth you can have, and that it's more important that others like Jaller live on as their value comes more from qualities they have while alive. He doesn't want to just throw his life away; not suicidal or anything. But when someone must die -- whether or not it has he has to die anyways -- he finds value in using his death to accomplish good. I think that was a humble wisdom. Edited October 4, 2012 by bonesiii

[Meta-Mind]

Definitely Matoro, as I'm sure... almost all of us agree. As noted by the Mask of Life itself, Matoro was willing to help someone even in dark, silent tunnels in an unknown land. His courage in sacrificing himself in the Chamber of Death is often not noted, but it definitely shows and foreshadows his willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. For obvious reasons, his act of putting on the Mask of Life was by far one of the most courageous actions made by any hero in the Matoran Universe. Even in the Kingdom alternate universe, where he failed to save Mata Nui, he took his one last chance, and sacrificed himself to defeat Teridax and save civilization.Now, as for other heroes? Well, one who's often overlooked is Toa Lhikan. Sacrificing his Toa Power and becoming a Turaga when he knew his friend-turned-mortal-enemy Nidhiki was about was an action of no less heroism than donning the Mask of Life. His willingness to sacrifice himself no less than Matoro is shown in Legends of Metru Nui, when he quickly kicks his shield under Vakama and allows himself to be captured. Another overlooked character from the same general story arc is Toa Metru Vakama (2005's Time Trap really illustrates what I'm talking about). When he knew what fate would befall the Matoran Universe if the Mask of Time was destroyed, he didn't do as most beings might have done - broken then and there, and practically given the mask to Teridax. Instead, he took a crafter's hammer and very nearly destroyed the universe to stop Teridax's Plan. His willingness to sacrifice himself - and even an artifact so important as the Mask of Time - marks him as a hero no less than Matoro or Lhikan.

[Toa Nidhiki05]

Well, aside from Matoro and other well-known ones like Jaller, the Mata, Lhikan, and Vakama, there are plenty of interesting options.Norik and Dume are both regarded as among the greatest heroes - Norik is a particularly good option, as he fought even in a weakened state to save helpless Rahi. Dume was an effective military leader in the Dark Hunter War and was also known as a great hero as a Toa. Jovan was also a hero, as was the Toa that sacrificed himself to heal Mata Nui. Helryx, by leading the OoMN was a great force for good.But then again, obviously the answer is Matoro.-TN05

[GallifreyanOrigin]

After the obvious answer of "Matoro," I would say Toa Ignika. He gave up his brand new Toa body in order to complete the final task that had to be done in order to awaken Mata Nui, so I'd say he's almost on-par with Matoro in terms of heroism.

[The Iron Toa]

Norik and Dume are both regarded as among the greatest heroes - Norik is a particularly good option, as he fought even in a weakened state to save helpless Rahi.

Not just Norik. You reminded me of how great the Toa Hagah/Rahaga were. First off, they must have had pretty impressive careers to be chosen to be Teridax's personal guardians. But those aren't the great deeds I mean. They served the Brotherhood for years, they saw the might of its members, its minions, and its fortresses firsthand. But when they found out what the Makuta had done, they didn't hesitate to turn on their masters, nor did they flee even when they knew what they were up against. They went and took the Mask of Light back. When they were mutated, they continued to act as Toa as well as they could, despite the loss of their might and being forced into hiding. They helped the Toa Metru come to terms with their Hordika sides, and helped get them cured - and as far as we know, that's the only time Hordika mutations have ever been cured. Years later, when the Kanohi Dragon and Tahtorak were fighting on Xia, the Rahaga didn't let what Roodaka did to them stop them from helping her people. So I can't say who the best hero is, but I think all six of Teridax's Toa Hagah are pretty high on the list.

[fishers64]

while falling down said huge hole towards what would be death anyway.That is why I hesitate to quickly brand Matoro as the Best Hero of Bionicle. *is shot*

Except he was falling down the hole because he intentionally swam down it. If he didn't want to die, he could have just headed off in some random direction.There's definitely something to the "die anyway" logic, though, granted, at least once he's falling. But wouldn't we say that someone who just randomly goes and jumps in front of a car so that their death was purely optional wasn't being heroic at all? Likewise, if Matoro did just up and swim off to preserve his own life, would we call that courage? Surely not.

Yes, but if he didn't swim down the hole, the MU would flood. And arguably, the Barraki where chasing after him and probably would kill him anyway. Although he managed to survive in the Kingdom Alternate universe, though, so I'll admit that reasoning is a bit shaky. It failed to enter my mind that Matoro was breathing water, however, and could possibly have survived a universal flood. Although Matoro didn't know that he would have to sacrifice himself for the universe until he went down that hole. For all he knew, he was preserving his life by swimming through that gap, not ending it. (And saving everyone else, too...as an added bonus )

I think his own personal belief that he is of no worth - "just a translator" might sideline that particular incident as being heroic.

I just saw that as humility. This is a guy that defied the traditional logic of the Koro back when it was popular to shun travel and often adventured out into the Wahi, and wasn't afraid to face Rahi, etc. He doesn't actually believe that he is incompetent or a failure or anything. He was confident in his own skill. He's recognizing that living on is not the only kind of worth you can have, and that it's more important that others like Jaller live on as their value comes more from qualities they have while alive. He doesn't want to just throw his life away; not suicidal or anything. But when someone must die -- whether or not it has he has to die anyways -- he finds value in using his death to accomplish good. I think that was a humble wisdom.

I thought of it more as "if someone has to die, it might as well be me, because I am worth less than all these other people in my group for reasons X, Y, and Z...Hewkii is stronger, Jaller a better leader..."I think, however, that what you have said above in that quote might just be a positive spin on what I just said. Because I actually kind of agree with it. Death can accomplish good; I most certainly agree that sacrificing oneself for one's friends is a heroic quality that should be honored. My dispute is that I feel that Matoro might have sacrificed himself because he thought that it was more important that his friends live on than he (in terms of the first), or that he had no choice (in terms of the second). In fact, I remember from the 777 stairs sacrifice that Jaller tried to do it but couldn't, and then Matoro stepping up. Matoro told him basically that he should die because he wasn't as good as the others there, wasn't a warrior or something like that. Wish I had a copy of Inferno on me now.But Jaller couldn't do that sacrifice, held up by that image of the Turrahk there, which makes me wonder if the other Inika would have made that sacrifice but couldn't open their mouths like Jaller couldn't, and the only one without a psychological obstacle there was Matoro, so he did it. No choice again.

[The 1st Shadow]

You guys are way off! Teridax is the obvious choice here. Remember how he helped Mata Nui repair a broken planet? Definitely worthy of being the world's greatest hero! *coughs* Back to being serious...Taipu1 got my sentiments out before I even knew this topic was here. Matoro definitely is worth the title of greatest hero, and Tahu, Jaller, as well as the Hagah/Rahaga are all worthy of that, too. But Lhikan stands out in my mind. Aside from Lewa, Pohatu, and Krakua, Lhikan has always been my favorite Toa, for many reasons (many of which Taipu1 stated above). He was selfless, compassionate, willing, determined, and friendly. Just in who he was and all that he did makes him stand out in my mind as a great hero.

Edited October 5, 2012 by ~The 1st Shadow~

[bonesiii]

I thought of it more as "if someone has to die, it might as well be me, because I am worth less than all these other people in my group for reasons X, Y, and Z...Hewkii is stronger, Jaller a better leader..."I think, however, that what you have said above in that quote might just be a positive spin on what I just said. Because I actually kind of agree with it. Death can accomplish good; I most certainly agree that sacrificing oneself for one's friends is a heroic quality that should be honored.

Cool. Something I was going to add but forgot is, I think he was just being purely objective. He was actually honestly assessing the value he and the others each had in terms of what the universe needed, because he really cared deeply about the people of the universe, and from that unbiased standpoint he realized he was the logical choice, then he had the courage to act on it even though from a biased perspective it is a horrible conclusion to reach. The vibe I got anyhow. :)So I guess what I'm saying is, identifying himself as of less value while alive I think is a sign of heroic strength of a sort that is rarely consciously recognized -- having the courage to step outside oneself, ignoring selfish desire, and truly judge what's best for the many. To be truly objective. I think Matoro had that skill and the courage to use it, honed over a thousand years of that venturing into the Wahi and learning wisdom from Nuju, etc.

My dispute is that I feel that Matoro might have sacrificed himself because he thought that it was more important that his friends live on than he (in terms of the first), or that he had no choice (in terms of the second).

What I'm getting at is that in terms of the first, that is massively heroic, perhaps not usually something we humans talk about because it is simply so foreign to how we typically think -- many people cannot even imagine stepping outside their own selfish bias. I've had many admit as much explicitly. I have learned the secret of to some extent in normal life doing this (though I wouldn't claim I would have the courage to actually sacrifice myself... I'd have to be in the situation to find out for sure, I think). So I know at least that such a thing is possible; that conclusion need not be reached just by depression or whatever.Not sure if that's what you meant to imply, though -- here's an opportunity to clarify if I'm misreading you. :PIn the second, I think we all have the choice not to step up, even if death is guaranteed. He didn't need to go with Matoran Jaller in leaving Metru Nui to begin with, yanno? He made choices all along the way. Contrast him with Dume's defeatist attitude for example. Dume "knew" they were going to die anyways, so his reasoning was, why bother stepping up? But Matoro knew that the only way anyone would have a chance is if someone did step up and if necessary accept that end so that the claim of Dume would not come true for everyone.In other words, Matoro personally had no choice, but he did have a choice to save all those lives or not. If he didn't care about saving those lives, he could have refused to act, at any point along the way. But he didn't, and I think that's a huge part of what makes him a hero. :)Admittedly he got some "right place right time" value out of it in terms of "greatest ever." You could argue many other sacrifices really should be considered just as heroic but those heroes didn't have an opportunity or need to do something quite that huge. (But methinks the Ignika/destiny knew that Matoro was the most heroic and that's why it chose him. )

In fact, I remember from the 777 stairs sacrifice that Jaller tried to do it but couldn't, and then Matoro stepping up. Matoro told him basically that he should die because he wasn't as good as the others there, wasn't a warrior or something like that. Wish I had a copy of Inferno on me now.

No, I read this recently so I'm sure Matoro stepped up just before Jaller was going to. A little fuzzy on what happens after that; I think Jaller tried to get the system to let him take Matoro's place but for whatever reason that didn't happen. Regardless, Jaller did not try before Matoro stepped up.Also, this was Jaller's POV, so we don't know all of what really went through Matoro's mind at the time. Maybe it was commented on later, but my point is, what he said to the others isn't necessarily the most important thoughts he was having; it may be what he knew he needed to say to convince them. :)As for no choice, I believe it gave them the option to turn down the test and go home. And of course, Jaller was going to do it, so if Matoro didn't volunteer, someone was going to.Also, keep in mind destiny's possible role here. IMO "destiny knew" Matoro was the most heroic so knew he would be the one to volunteer, and that's why he came along to begin with, became one of the Toa, etc. There was even direct foreshadowing of this in the choices of mask powers destiny may have caused him to get, both of which were in some way connected to death; Iden made the body seem mostly dead and was like ghosts, and Tryna actually controlled corpses.So this can create a sort of feedback loop type situation, where to the casual observer it may appear Matoro is being forced into a situation with no choice, when in reality, it's something like what the Oracle said in the Matrix; Matoro had already chosen, he just didn't know it yet. (Which science actually supports in real life in terms of subconscious choices long before we consciously think we choose things, something I have some experience in experimenting with, heh.) And that is why the situation arose to provide the path for his heroic nature to follow to its desired result.Kinda like getting on a train or a bus that has a scheduled route. The fact that once you're on it you can't get it to turn back doesn't mean that you don't choose it. If you want very much to accomplish a goal that's at the end of that route, then you seek out the route that leads you there. Matoro really made his heroic choice the moment he heard Mata Nui was dying, IMO -- though consciously he likely didn't understand much of it, including whether he would die, but subconsciously I think he knew that if that was demanded, he would do it. And so he got on that train.And again, isn't the "no choice" argument kinda a dead end in this case? For someone to have a choice in saving their own universe by sacrificing themselves, wouldn't they have to become responsible for the universe being in danger in the first place, intentionally, just so it would totally be their choice? The point is that he was the one who didn't live on, and because of that decision, everybody else did. The fact that the danger was not something he could stop in any other way is part of why that is heroic. Edited October 5, 2012 by bonesiii

[Meta-Mind]

Well, I'll just come through and add to what I said earlier. Matoro, Lhikan, Vakama... and Toa Ignika.Why? Well, his/its character arc was one of the most touching that I've seen in Bionicle - it honestly just wanted to be like Matoro. And yet, when the time came, it was like Matoro - it sacrificed its body - and, in a way, its soul - just as Matoro did for the same cause.As for other heroes? Well, I think Toa Helryx should make this list at some point. She was the leader of the Order of Mata Nui for millennia, and in that time, her organization decided the fate of the Matoran Universe many times over. While she's often overlooked since she never got any official "sets," I think that Helryx was, arguably, almost on par with the likes of Lhikan or Vakama in terms of heroism. And like Vakama, she didn't hesitate to destroy the universe to save it from Teridax's tyranny.I also think that Axonn and Brutaka were great heroes, as Axonn didn't hesitate to stand up to his former friend time and time again. Brutaka eventually... well, as I believe Gavla put it, "saw the light by looking into the darkness." The difference is, Brutaka actually finally "saw" the right thing to do. Once he did, the acts he committed afterwards (challenging Teridax, yanking Axonn out of the pool of Antidermis)... were indeed worthy of a hero.EDIT:

No, I read this recently so I'm sure Matoro stepped up just before Jaller was going to. A little fuzzy on what happens after that; I think Jaller tried to get the system to let him take Matoro's place but for whatever reason that didn't happen. Regardless, Jaller did not try before Matoro stepped up.

Actually, in Inferno, Jaller was going to step up, but the words apparently "stuck in his throat." He remembered dying the first time to that Tuhrahk, and just couldn't say it at first. Matoro then spoke up before Jaller could, and Jaller tried to convince the voice/system that Matoro wasn't their choice. However, it didn't work, and Matoro was killed and reanimated. Edited October 5, 2012 by Meta-Mind

[LewaLew]

Given that we now know that "destiny" in BIONICLE is essentially the program of each individual, it's possible that Jaller could not go forward because his "system" wouldn't let him. It was Matoro's purpose, and that's why he was the one that was allowed to go. Jaller was meant to carry on the fight.And to anyone who says "Vakama", why on earth would he be any greater than Lhikan or Jaller? He pulled it out in the end, yes, but he was a failure as a leader. While that makes him interesting, as he was a hero who did often fail, his legacy was that his city fell into ruins, and he betrayed his team in the process. Matau proved to be a greater hero than Vakama when he took on his friend and finally had a change of heart concerning his attitude and his behavior as a toa. Although Vakama was willing to take the risks Lhikan, Jaller, Matoro, and others did, he also failed multiple times.In terms of Greatest Heroes, Vakama does not enter any list I make, but he does make one of the most interesting.Lhikan, unfortunately, was observed mainly as a Turaga. However, we all know the example he set, and his steadfastness through the adversity the Toa Mangai faced. Even when he had teammates die and betray him, Lhikan fought the good fight, and continued on to save Vakama from Teridax. Since my primary criteria for a hero is the willingness to lay down his own life (and I don't consider destroying the world to avoid tyranny to be heroic) the three main heroes I would consider to be the greatest would be Matoro, Jaller, and Lhikan, in that order, although if we knew more about Lhikan I might place him above the Matoran who wore his mask later on.

[Toatapio Nuva]

The answer is simple. Podu.If Podu hadn't given Takua the Amana Volo after being rescued, Takua would've had too little health and he would've died in the Po-Wahi desert and the Toa of Light could never come into being and darkness would rule forever!

[LewaLew]

The answer is simple. Podu.If Podu hadn't given Takua the Amana Volo after being rescued, Takua would've had too little health and he would've died in the Po-Wahi desert and the Toa of Light could never come into being and darkness would rule forever!

I was wondering how long it would take before somebody brought him up.

[bonesiii]

Given that we now know that "destiny" in BIONICLE is essentially the program of each individual, it's possible that Jaller could not go forward because his "system" wouldn't let him. It was Matoro's purpose, and that's why he was the one that was allowed to go. Jaller was meant to carry on the fight.

I agree with that, although not sure if that's the limit of what destiny in Bionicle does. I strongly suspect something outside the "units" works on it too, whether a system built into the giant robot technologically or something like my cyberclay protodermis theory.May be worth pointing out that this is synonymous with a sapient person, because of their life journey, having a psychological effect that makes them hesitate. Psyches are inherently systems and it's due to our systems that we behave how we do (including experiences, to be clear). But their life journey itself can be influenced by perhaps subconscious knowledge of their own destiny.

And to anyone who says "Vakama", why on earth would he be any greater than Lhikan or Jaller? He pulled it out in the end, yes, but he was a failure as a leader. While that makes him interesting, as he was a hero who did often fail, his legacy was that his city fell into ruins, and he betrayed his team in the process.

Don't forget that he was "under the influence" of the mentally corrupting nature of the Hordika venom, and -- putting aside all out-story comedic reactions to how annoying his oft-repeated line felt in the movie version -- the reason he was so mentally unstable so as to fall to that influence earlier than the others (and they would have eventually too) was because he was taking so much personal responsibility for what happened, and he wanted desperately to correct what he perceived as his error.This of course was a mistake, but like I was saying, making mistakes along the way does not IMO reduce how heroic you are, when your motivation all along has been to do the right thing for the good of others. He was beating himself up about it pyschologically because he felt like he had failed to accomplish that right thing, and the only explanation he could think of, from a humble perspective, was that a flaw in himself caused this, and he worried he wouldn't be able to overcome it.Finally, while it took a good friend shaking him out of the influence (and this is not bad! It's a relational story), he DID turn away from this mistake while still under the influence and fought that influence, coming out of it in the end. I consider this too to be highly heroic -- he came out of a worse difficulty than the others due to how far he had fallen, and he was his own enemy, but he vanquished that foe. That's a different kind of heroism from the pureness of Matoro and Lhikan, yes, but surely it doesn't merely make him interesting and non-heroic!After all, like I said, I believe that Matoro and Lhikan likely went through similar trials in their lives that taught them life lessons that contributed to their later maturity. Just because the story didn't happen to tell us their early trials and mistakes while it did show Vakama's doesn't mean he wasn't on the same basic journey. Vakama had a much easier life journey up till that point where the story joined his tale; he was essentially a newbie. Lhikan had countless years as a Toa, and Matoro had a thousand years of difficult life on Mata Nui.And if we want failures, might I point out that our first major in-story introduction to Matoro featured one; he tried to take on a Muaka personally (or was it a Kane-Ra... anyways...) when he was taken by surprise, and fell to it. Only because Kopaka was there did he get out of that. A much smaller scale, but he made mistakes too. And likely for the same basic reason as Vakama's mistake that we're talking about -- normally he was out there alone and would just keep his distance from infected Rahi, but he was protecting the thawing Takua who was in the ice hut and couldn't flee with him, much as Vakama made his mistake while heroicly trying to protect the Matoran.

Since my primary criteria for a hero is the willingness to lay down his own life (and I don't consider destroying the world to avoid tyranny to be heroic)

Well, what alternative to that potential bluff did he have? (Not saying it was a bluff necessarily, but may have been. Makuta apparently did not think so, and admittedly it's unlikely he would be fooled.) Had Matoro, Lhikan, or Jaller been in that situation, what alternative would they have had? Vakama realized that if Makuta got that mask, it was all over. He saw no other way to stop it.Of course, in hindsight, he may have been wrong about that. Makuta taking over was not the end of everything, as it was his destiny to. That said, what if having the Vahi would make him unable to be defeated by Mata Nui in the final fight or whatnot?

[LewaLew]

True, Vakama did commit all those things under the influence of his half-Rahi nature, but at the same time, Matau actually became a better person for his experience under the venom, and had he not, Vakama would have been lost.In addition, it would not be just to say that Matoro's fight against the Muaka was a failure. (He was a Matoran after all) Rather, it showed his courage to try anyway. And true, Lhikan did have ages of experience as a Toa, and had almost certainly failed at some point or another, but that's not something we can use to determine greatness, since we don't know. I choose based on his legacy. Lhikan, whatever his early mistakes, was the one who never surrendered. Vakama probably would not have succeeded if not for his teammates, who all showed more heroic qualities than himself, with the exception of the irresponsible Matau and the sometimes spiteful Onewa. Once again, I reiterate that this made Vakama a far more interesting character, since he was a hero who bore more vices than the usual one or two. But it also prevents him from matching the heroic qualities that his peers exemplify.Perhaps I'm just being too statistical, but when you compare Vakama to the successes of Jaller and Matoro, who, with the minimum amount of failure (Since the cost of achieving life for Mata Nui was someone else's life, one of the Toa had to die) successfully revived Mata Nui. Vakama lost his city, his friends (the Matoran of Metru Nui, who lost all memory of him or their home), and his arrogance cost him his dignity for a time and nearly lost the mission. I'll give him points for continuing past that in Time Trap, but it still is an awful lot of failure on his part versus Tahu, Jaller, Lhikan, and Matoro.Plus, Vakama more than anyone should have known that there's always hope to overcome evil, after Matau helped him overcome his Rahi half. The risk of destroying the Vahi was not worth the risk, although it could have still been a bluff. If not, it may have implied a slight death wish on Vakama's part. After the stress he had gone through, I would not be surprised. Still, I would think that Vakama was not weighing the situation rationally, and it shows just as much foolish risk as valor.

[bonesiii]

In addition, it would not be just to say that Matoro's fight against the Muaka was a failure. (He was a Matoran after all) Rather, it showed his courage to try anyway.

It's certainly a very different kind of failure than Vakama's, but 'failure' has a simple meaning that it qualifies for. He failed because he was a Matoran facing a Muaka, in other words. :)And Vakama failed because he was a person facing Hordika venom who did not know how to stop it. Different enemy, but both are honestly failures. And the intentional theme of 2005 was the 'enemy within ourselves'. It took a different kind of courage to overcome it. And Vakama did.

And true, Lhikan did have ages of experience as a Toa, and had almost certainly failed at some point or another, but that's not something we can use to determine greatness, since we don't know. I choose based on his legacy. Lhikan, whatever his early mistakes, was the one who never surrendered.

Unless in early mistakes he surrendered. And there are inward surrenders possible too -- plus maybe he was never put "under the influence" against his will like Vakama was. Just saying, it's unfair to judge Vakama when he was in a very different situation as if he was on an equal footing with Matoro and Lhikan. They never had to face what he did -- and neither did Matau, because Vakama was the leader, and he considered the responsibility to be weighing on his shoulders.The point is, different people -- or good guy fictional characters -- go through different journeys, have different personalities, etc. and there is more than one way to be heroic. Vakama did accomplish what was most important for him, what was his destiny, despite odds -- newbie, and facing mind-altering drugs basically -- that others didn't have to face; freeing the Matoran from Makuta's grasp and getting them to relative safety. I'd consider him on any fair list of great heroes for that. That took major guts to admit he was wrong and stuff after going so far down so early, and then -- don't forget this! -- lead them well after all that.

Once again, I reiterate that this made Vakama a far more interesting character, since he was a hero who bore more vices than the usual one or two. But it also prevents him from matching the heroic qualities that his peers exemplify.

All I'm saying is, he hadn't yet gone through the forge of trials that led some of the obvious most heroic ones to gain those qualities, so it makes sense to factor that in. We're seeing him thrust into psychologically tougher challenges right at the beginning of his time of trials, whereas with Lhikan and and Matoro we see them making relatively easy choices (but still very courageous ones!) after a known long history of trials.(Of course, the comparison between those three is a little awkward since both L&M's heroic acts were sacrificing their lives, which Vakama didn't need to do, though he did have to sacrifice his Toa-hood, and you could argue a thousand years of living under constant siege with the continued burden of leadership on your weak, elderly shoulders may in some ways be a worse fate than death... Kinda torturous.)Think of it like, "for a newbie, he was one of the greatest", if that helps.Jaller, too, was shown as a hero (both in MOL & as a Toa) after an excruciating, long series of trials during the Dark Time. Vakama by contrast to these had a relatively easy life -- stress of work schedules and the overseeing Vahki, sure, but he'd lived in peace for most if not all of his life (not sure how far back his history goes). He wasn't leading a beseiged castle's defenses like Jaller and... himself later ( ) were.So when you say you compare the failure rates -- Jaller had far more experience than Toa Vakama or Toa Tahu etc. and that is a big reason why he didn't fail much. (He also had the Calix, but I digress. )

Vakama lost his city, his friends (the Matoran of Metru Nui, who lost all memory of him or their home), and his arrogance cost him his dignity for a time and nearly lost the mission.

Vakama did not lose it. Mata Nui lost it by neglecting his maintenance workers, failing to realize what Makuta was doing, and thus falling. It was never Vakama's destiny to stop the Great Cataclysm or keep Metru Nui inhabited and Makuta trapped.Since Makuta chose evil, his path to his destiny had to include him coming to power, so Vakama couldn't have really stopped Makuta from getting free of that protocage either. His destiny was to take the Matoran away to where Makuta could not do his fake history plan on them, which Vakama succeeded at, and to a place where it would be harder for Makuta to capture them (though I think if he really wanted to at that point he could have; he didn't, though, because Vakama had already thwarted the fake history plan, so the credit for that goes to Vakama).Also, I do not think Vakama was ever arrogant? He was depressed because he was blaming himself for Lhikan's death, and furious about it when the Hordika venom took him over, and he fell to that venom's effects. You could argue perhaps that he became arrogant when he fell, but the reason he fell into it is quite the opposite! He didn't consider himself the best thing ever, his problem was he feared he was inherently a failure! And if you could call that state arrogant, I don't know that I would call that Vakama. That was the venom speaking, as they say (if they said it about Hordika venom ).Incidently, Tahu had a similar incident in MOL with the Rahkshi poison.

I'll give him points for continuing past that in Time Trap, but it still is an awful lot of failure on his part versus Tahu, Jaller, Lhikan, and Matoro.

And that's exactly my point. They likely had early failures or equal capacities to fail without facing the kinds of trials he was thrown right into. Even Tahu remembered the skills from his training and early experience in Karda Nui. They continued past those. It's just that we didn't see them. Capisce? :PAnd just to compare what we know of Tahu versus Vakama for example, Tahu started out by being formally trained by the Order.Vakama didn't have that benefit. He started out by being hunted by his own city's ruler and thrown into Toa-hood with barely any help other than what little Turaga Lhikan could give. Then the Visorak thing right after that mentor was killed in a way that Vakama blamed himself for (though it wasn't really his fault; it was the first ever battle use of a brand-new thus untested, and Legendary power).Early Tahu didn't have to face real situations at a comparable time where he might fail. But I bet you he had personality traits (like his temper) that led to failures in early training, and if he had been thrown right into the proverbial blizzard before any training, he might have had as many or more failures. But as it actually happened, no failures Tahu suffered in training could go down in history in any way comparable to Vakama's failures because it wasn't real.It's less clear with the others, but we know Makuta was toying with the Matoran in the case of Jaller and Matoro in their (post-memory wipe) early trials, so he wasn't out to utterly defeat them, just keep them from going back down, and they did have a lot more help on their same level of power than the six Toa Metru. And they had a year to prepare for what the elders told them was coming. (Although I think the memory effect may have been a time-delayed effect, so not sure if that point counts.) It was also similar to training in many ways.And let's not forget, Jaller and Matoro had Vakama and Nuju to teach them, "these are failures I made in my life, so you can learn from my mistakes and not make them yourself." :)Lhikan probably also had other heroes and elders to teach him many things.

Plus, Vakama more than anyone should have known that there's always hope to overcome evil, after Matau helped him overcome his Rahi half. The risk of destroying the Vahi was not worth the risk, although it could have still been a bluff. If not, it may have implied a slight death wish on Vakama's part. After the stress he had gone through, I would not be surprised. Still, I would think that Vakama was not weighing the situation rationally, and it shows just as much foolish risk as valor.

Well this one may warrant further research, and time is ironically the preventative from me doing that now. I always read it as basically hoping Makuta would realize he couldn't risk it being a bluff in this case as the stakes are so high. And it worked. Likely Makuta was pretty sure it was a bluff, and Vakama probably realized he did-- he'd seen plenty of evidence Makuta was a mastermind -- but this particular gun was just too risky to call the bluff. :)And... there isn't really always hope necessarily. Sometimes that kind of thinking can be used to justify not stepping up, yanno? I get your point, and I'm not saying Dume 06 logic is good or anything. But my point is, Vakama was put in an impossible situation, compared to others who weren't. If he hadn't done what he did there, he would be giving the thing that can destroy anything to the most brilliant enemy he could have imagined. Even Matoro and Lhikan's self-sacrifice can't compare in that sense to what Vakama was facing there, as dying himself in that situation would do no good and indeed only rob his villagers of their leader. What would they have done? You see my point? It's not really fair to compare Vakama's actions in that situation to theirs in a very different one without considering this.Also, I think we need a bit of faith in the Toa Code's importance to Toa, yanno? I think the fact that Vakama had recently fallen he was using as a benefit to add to the plausibility of the bluff, but he was clearly back to the Toa Code. IMO this was made very clear in the story, but I admit to the usual foggy memory so okay. Edited October 6, 2012 by bonesiii

[fishers64]

@bones: Okay, my arguments have been quite soundly defeated. Although I maintain that I am correct on the Inferno thing, however, and am going to get the book and the quotes to prove that my mind hasn't imploded. (hardly necessary otherwise...)Anyway...

Perhaps I'm just being too statistical, but when you compare Vakama to the successes of Jaller and Matoro, who, with the minimum amount of failure (Since the cost of achieving life for Mata Nui was someone else's life, one of the Toa had to die) successfully revived Mata Nui. Vakama lost his city, his friends (the Matoran of Metru Nui, who lost all memory of him or their home), and his arrogance cost him his dignity for a time and nearly lost the mission. I'll give him points for continuing past that in Time Trap, but it still is an awful lot of failure on his part versus Tahu, Jaller, Lhikan, and Matoro.

And who did Tahu, Jaller, and Matoro learn from? That would be Vakama. He learned all the hard lessons via hard knocks so the heroes that came after him didn't have to.Well, I guess that Matoro might have learned more from Nuju, but the point still stands: the other heroes you mention had guidance to avoid making those mistakes. (Lhikan may have not, but his early mistakes were off-camera. He probably had more than a few, considering his early life foolishly involved joining a Toa team that invaded Frostelus territory, something that they obviously weren't prepared for, building a fortress there to protect a valuable artifact, and expecting both of those facts not to televise to theives that there was something there to steal. Really.)

Plus, Vakama more than anyone should have known that there's always hope to overcome evil, after Matau helped him overcome his Rahi half. The risk of destroying the Vahi was not worth the risk, although it could have still been a bluff. If not, it may have implied a slight death wish on Vakama's part. After the stress he had gone through, I would not be surprised. Still, I would think that Vakama was not weighing the situation rationally, and it shows just as much foolish risk as valor.

Actually IMO the coward's response in that situation would be to run with the mask, and try through some difficult means to get off the island with Teridax chasing him. Instead, he chose to face Teridax down, and actually risk universal destruction. Considering that the alternative was the Vahi in the hands of Teridax and no hope for the Matoran at all (actually becoming willing slaves to Teridax and leaving him in control of the robot), I don't think it was too much of a risk. Also, there was nowhere that Vakama could run to that Teridax couldn't follow. He would have eventually have to have faced him down anyway...he simply chose the time and place. The coward's response would be to go to Mata Nui Island and hide behind his Toa comrades, needlessly risking Matoran lives and the lives of his team. He was willing to sacrifice the reality of time itself to keep people alive. Fortunately, he didn't have to actually make that sacrifice. But the fact that he was willing to make it gives him some heroic standing.

[LewaLew]

Shoot, you make long posts like that and then you've made so many points that I don't have time to respond to them all.But I'll respond to as many as I can, though in list form, for sake of conciseness.1) Vakama vs. Venom: Yes, he was outmatched, but so were the rest of the Toa Hordika, and Vakama was the only one to turn. Given their attitudes following mutation, one could easily argue that Matau and Onewa were just as vulnerable to the Rahi side as Vakama, considering their bitterness, but neither fell. Plus, Matau was the one to bring him back, as I've mentioned before.And Matoro's case with the Muaka was very similar to his use of the Ignika. If he left Takua behind, I doubt that the Muaka would have gone after him, and rather after the one who ran. (After all, one Av-Matoran is little more than a morsel to a cat that size) Likely, just being there put him in a fight or die situation. On stubby legs like that, I'd place my bet on the stretchy-necked tiger.2) Like I said before, I can't really argue all that much for Lhikan, because we don't know the troubles he had. However, I still place the Hordika blame on Vakama. The burden of leadership was something Nokama had to undergo as well, along with the sting of betrayal, even though both of them had more than considerable help from Norik. She didn't go mad either.3) I don't see why so many people seem to think this argument is restricted to heroism after these folks became Toa. Jaller, in particular, did not even remember anything from before the Great Rescue, and nonetheless became the foremost warrior on the island until the coming of the toa.Vakama had just as much experience as Jaller when they started, but Jaller was the one who not only defended his village, but presumably kept all the villagers alive for that 1000 year period (although I'm certain Teridax was pulling plenty of punches--which would be a point in favor of Vakama)And referencing the point fishers64 made--about Vakama (and the other Turaga) having mentored Jaller and Matoro. Who did Vakama learn from? Lhikan. And even as a Turaga, Vakama was one of the turaga who sided with Dume's defeatist POV.3) I've already gone over the subject of experience, if not as far as I would have preferred to, so instead I'll just counter this quote::

Think of it like, "for a newbie, he was one of the greatest", if that helps.

With another quote:

who - in your opinion - is the greatest Hero in the Matoran Universe

I see no "newbie" allowances made. This may be unfair to Vakama, but as I mentioned before, Jaller would disqualify Vakama on the "newbie" thing, and he led an army. Not just six disagreeable Toa Metru. (Though I still have to take into consideration that Teridax was not putting up as much of a fight. But then again, Jaller's army were all shrunken Matoran, rather than Toa.)4a) So they did accomplish their destinies, but they did the bare minimum. After all, the Toa Mata were never intended to have to awaken Mata Nui--they were just a failsafe, just as the Toa Inika were. I would imagine that destiny also chose the Toa Metru as a failsafe against the guy who was supposed to protect Metru Nui--Teridax.4b) Vakama did show great arrogance once the Toa Metru returned to Metru Nui after The Darkness Below. It's part of what got the Toa Metru M&D'd by the Visorak.5) I think I covered everything here earlier, but I don't have time to check. This is already taking longer than I expected.6) It's not heroic to blow up everything to avoid a danger you could overcome later. Like, say, firing a nuke at NYC because the Avengers (seemingly) can't handle it. Even if these goons take down Earth, Loki is not invincible. The Hulk proved that.Perhaps I'm using a little too much fourth-wall logic, since we all know that the good guys win in the end, but I don't see what's so terrific about the world's most deadly kamikaze versus anything else. Everyone here does realize that Vakama was taking the lives or deaths of everything in existence if he wasn't bluffing. What's so heroic about being willing to make that decision whether those people liked it or not. It's not Vakama's life vs. the life of the universe, it's an irreversible destruction of all reality vs. a possibly reversible loss. And the destruction of reality was the good guy's idea.In terms of probability, there's a better chance of survival if Teridax wins that battle than the zero chance if the Vahi goes boom.

[bonesiii]

LL, we can all change our opinions if we see why they were illogical. And it's a discussion forum. But mainly I'm trying to figure out if your reasoning works, and trying to understand how the opinion works, if it is logical, because I'm seeing apparent inconsistencies. Yeah?You can boil most of it down to this -- you're judging Vakama's performance in his unique trials, but are you fairly considering what the others would have done if they had to face the same threats? The fact remains that they did not, so their failure/success rate really shouldn't be just compared to Vakama's in a completely different situation. It's an interesting discussion and I'm curious where it could lead if thought through carefully (which is what we do here -- for fun, though, so no big deal).

) Vakama vs. Venom: Yes, he was outmatched, but so were the rest of the Toa Hordika, and Vakama was the only one to turn.

Like I said, Vakama only was in the leadership position of them. And he turned because he was so focused on saving the Matoran, arguably more than the others. He didn't know how to handle it, but we shouldn't ignore that his motivations were heroic in intent.

And Matoro's case with the Muaka was very similar to his use of the Ignika. If he left Takua behind, I doubt that the Muaka would have gone after him, and rather after the one who ran. (After all, one Av-Matoran is little more than a morsel to a cat that size) Likely, just being there put him in a fight or die situation. On stubby legs like that, I'd place my bet on the stretchy-necked tiger.

The point is, it's a failure. I don't see how it's reasonable to say that isn't a failure because he never had a chance against it given the situation, but then to judge Vakama by a very different measure, not factoring the fact that he didn't have a chance against what befell him with the venom and the whole situation leading up to that -- a Makuta doing everything to ensure he drove the Matoran out until the Toa Mata could come, etc. Yet you listed many of those things Vakama couldn't help as part of his failure rate. This seems contradictory. See what I'm saying?

The burden of leadership was something Nokama had to undergo as well

She wasn't leader of the Toa team... Look, different people / fictional characters are different. There's no denying that, but those differences, including susceptibility to particular temptations and challenges, mean that it's not quite fair to judge everybody by just one limited scale. You know my Society Variety and personality allocation theories? That everybody is equal but each person has a different set of strengths and weaknesses? The effects of the venom struck at what was personally Vakama's weakness at the time, and he fell to it.It did not strike at what were the weaknesses of the others at that time. There is hypothetically a challenge that they could face where each of them would fall first. Right? Nokama, Matau, and Onewa simply got lucky in that they didn't face their worst challenge. Also, we have no real way of knowing if they would have had the courage to turn back from a fall if they had. We do know Vakama did.

I don't see why so many people seem to think this argument is restricted to heroism after these folks became Toa. Jaller, in particular, did not even remember anything from before the Great Rescue, and nonetheless became the foremost warrior on the island until the coming of the toa.Vakama had just as much experience as Jaller when they started

Er, no. Vakama had experience at the wrong thing for being a Toa. He poured melted protodermis into molds and stuff. Jaller's experience was at battle strategy. He had a thousand years of tough experience at combat, defense, etc. situations. Vakama just had a normal job.Vakama was a civilian, Jaller a hardened, high-rank veteran.Besides, if we're not limiting it to just the times when they're heroes -- and I agree -- couldn't Vakama as Turaga be factored too? [Edit: Let me clarify this point, because I think you misunderstood me. You said you were judging only what was shown in-story, yes? My point was, you didn't seem to keep in mind that in-story you saw Vakama at the very beginning of his heroic experiences; prior to that he had a normal job. But you saw Jaller -- Matoran and Toa alike -- only after a long time of battle experience, and you can't assume he didn't have comparable failures or weaknesses that he grew out of when he started that.It's not the time as Toa I'm talking about, but I'm referring to what you said you were only comparing. :-) You may notice I mentioned Garan, who was never a Toa... Vakama happens to have been a Toa at the immediate beginning of his "being thrown into battle" time of trial, while Jaller was a Toa at the end of that time; this may be why you misunderstood me as talking about Toa-hood.But I should definitely add, I don't think your arbitrary limitation on the judging is quite perfect either. Yes, we don't see what they did in the times we don't see, but it seems to me that after admitting that, you go on to make some judgments that are worded with certainty. Doesn't seem to follow. Also, it IS certain that Jaller, in the time you saw him, was given much more experience in the types of things that mattered most to being a hero. I think you're not considering all of what we do know enough. :-)]

Who did Vakama learn from? Lhikan.

Only a little, and during his crisis. Before that he didn't really know Lhikan other than just as his patron hero. Jaller by contrast (and Matoro) worked closely with their elders for a thousand years.Here's an analogy that may help. If I grabbed two random untrained civilians off the street, and threw one right into battle, and he died [Edit: Re the following paragraph, let's change this to, whether he lived or died, he failed at his mission -- though, let's keep in mind Vakama did succeed at his mission, and the Vahi thing besides, at least], but put the second through extensive battle training, and then into battle, and he lived [Change this to, whether he lived or died, he succeeded in his mission], would it be fair to judge the two people's performance without factoring for that vast difference? If you could choose to be one or the other, wouldn't you want extensive training? Wouldn't some 'blame' be assigned to me for throwing one in without training? (And to bring this back out of the analogy, shouldn't we all reasonably agree that the "me" -- the situation, the villains, the whole unfortunate scenario -- that Vakama was thrown in unprepared for should be factored?)Admittedly that analogy breaks down a bit since the heroic success of Matoro required he die. But I mean it to be judging heroic success at the mission, or the "failure rates." We're not counting Matoro's death as a failure, right? It was something he couldn't help. Likewise, there were many things Vakama couldn't help.Another analogy. You know of handicapping horses in a race? If we take two horses that are roughly equal in capacity (supposing that Vakama, Lhikan, Matoro, etc. have roughly an equally heroic nature as all the evidence in terms of their motivations show), and we arbitrarily weigh one down with the maximum handicapping weight, then we let them loose, the less handicapped one will pull far ahead in the race. Shouldn't we consider that unfair handicap when judging the two horses, rather than merely looking at their race times?Because Vakama was facing a far worse series of un-overcomeable challenges. Interestingly, some of the things you counted as in his failure rate, incidently -- shouldn't they go under Lhikan's, really? Losing the city to Dumakuta happened on his watch, and he failed to stop them too. But Matoro had an easy choice comparatively. Die to save everybody. Vakama was not given such a choice -- success for him demanded he survive, or at least dying wouldn't have helped. Lhikan obviously recognized this as saving Vakama was how he died, let's note. Vakama had no such easy solutions. I know, sacrificing yourself isn't easy, but my point is, just because the situation didn't force Vakama to die doesn't mean that he wouldn't have, yanno?You said you wanted to judge them by their legacies. Well, aren't the differences in the challenges they faced part of those legacies?

And even as a Turaga, Vakama was one of the turaga who sided with Dume's defeatist POV.

Eh, I read that just a few weeks ago and I don't agree. Only Nokama disobeyed, I'll grant you. You can make a reasonable case from that that she was more heroic than Vakama. But all five of the others were not siding with Dume, they were shocked by what Dume was saying and didn't know how to handle it.

I see no "newbie" allowances made. This may be unfair to Vakama, but as I mentioned before, Jaller would disqualify Vakama on the "newbie" thing, and he led an army. Not just six disagreeable Toa Metru. (Though I still have to take into consideration that Teridax was not putting up as much of a fight. But then again, Jaller's army were all shrunken Matoran, rather than Toa.)

But as you said, you don't know that Jaller didn't have failures early on. You didn't see that story. How can you judge early Vakama against late Jaller as if they're on an equal footing? They weren't. Vakama was operating under a much severer handicap than any of the others we've discussed, and yet he acheived his destiny anyways! That handicap referring to things like the city falling that you counted as part of his failure rate. Bad things that were happening that he couldn't help all around him.

4b) Vakama did show great arrogance once the Toa Metru returned to Metru Nui after The Darkness Below. It's part of what got the Toa Metru M&D'd by the Visorak.

How are you defining arrogance, then? He was upset. I think you missed the point of that part. It was intentionally supposed to be able to look like arrogance if you didn't look closely, as a test of the others, but they understood that it wasn't really; it was the stress he was under and the heavy burden on his heart of freeing the Matoran and of Lhikan's sacrificial death. Look at what Matau said when he pulled him out of it, and the conversation Norik and others had when Vakama stormed off. Fuzzy again, but pretty sure they came to understand that it was NOT arrogance, but quite the opposite.

It's not heroic to blow up everything to avoid a danger you could overcome later. Like, say, firing a nuke at NYC because the Avengers (seemingly) can't handle it. Even if these goons take down Earth, Loki is not invincible. The Hulk proved that.Perhaps I'm using a little too much fourth-wall logic, since we all know that the good guys win in the end, but I don't see what's so terrific about the world's most deadly kamikaze versus anything else. Everyone here does realize that Vakama was taking the lives or deaths of everything in existence if he wasn't bluffing. What's so heroic about being willing to make that decision whether those people liked it or not. It's not Vakama's life vs. the life of the universe, it's an irreversible destruction of all reality vs. a possibly reversible loss. And the destruction of reality was the good guy's idea.In terms of probability, there's a better chance of survival if Teridax wins that battle than the zero chance if the Vahi goes boom.

I don't see how the nuke example is comparable. The people firing that nuke would have survived just fine. Vakama was threatening a self-sacrifice as well.But I notice you didn't answer what I was really curious about. How do you think the other heroes would have handled it?Just handed the Vahi over to Makuta? Let's say that happens, and Makuta wins for good in the end. Using your "just look at the legacy" criterion, wouldn't your own logic require you condemn them even more harshly than what Vakama did? (Keep in mind Vakama did NOT destroy everything; the bluff worked as intended.) We can't just assume that Makuta would have failed in the end had he got the Vahi, because he very nearly won with everything he had -- Mata Nui's final victory was by an extremely narrow margin.I see Vakama's way out as brilliant and indeed sacrificial in a sense of reputation. He used everything he had at disposal psychologically to outsmart Makuta -- the brilliant mastermind, one of the few times Makuta ever was legitimately defeated -- by playing to the fact that Vakama himself had fallen to the venom and wanted to do something violent then, to aid the plausibility of the bluff. He used the description of what would have happened, and used Makuta's own motive to rule, not destroy all. By doing this, he risks people who aren't paying close enough attention to who he is misunderstanding and thinking he's still the guy the venom made him seem to be for a while. He sacrificed something he'd have to keep living with, arguably another tougher choice than sacrificial death.And while we're comparing other members of his team, keep in mind only Vakama went back for the Vahi. Others like Onewa thought he was crazy, and would have just let Makuta easily get the Vahi without a fight. Vakama went in alone for that, knowing what the dangers to everybody would be if it fell into enemy hands. That's heroic. :)To put it another way, aren't you arguing that Vakama shouldn't have bluffed? Since you seem to only consider the chances under two scenarios -- Teridax gets the mask (sounds like you mean by Vakama just handing it over, right?) or Time Goes Boom. Why aren't you considering the chances under what Vakama actually did -- his actual legacy?This is different than wondering whether it was really a bluff. It comes across as saying that even if it was certainly a bluff, you think Vakama shouldn't have sacrificed his pride or reputation and should have just handed the mask over? Have you thought this through? You know the saying, "taking the bull by the horns"? Meaning, when presented with two impossible alternatives, the really heroic thing to do is to find the third option that avoids the dangers of both. That's what Vakama did. Edited October 6, 2012 by bonesiii

[Dralcax]

I'm going to have to say Lhikan. Matoro was in the right place at the right time and was chosen. If Matoran Lhikan had been in Matoro's place, Lhikan could have easily been chosen. But things didn't turn out that way, and Lhikan was born sooner and got a different destiny, not as flashy as Matoro's, but much more lasting.

[Toa Axis]

Matoro, since he, ya know, saved the whole universe.

[Meta-Mind]

True, Vakama did commit all those things under the influence of his half-Rahi nature, but at the same time, Matau actually became a better person for his experience under the venom, and had he not, Vakama would have been lost.

I personally feel that Vakama's experience with the Hordika venom was ultimately a harder and more fulfilling journey than that of the other Toa. He fell farther than the others, but, in the end, he ultimately did the heroic thing and turned on Roodaka. His heroism - and wisdom - is greater because he came farther to achieve it.

In addition, it would not be just to say that Matoro's fight against the Muaka was a failure. (He was a Matoran after all) Rather, it showed his courage to try anyway. And true, Lhikan did have ages of experience as a Toa, and had almost certainly failed at some point or another, but that's not something we can use to determine greatness, since we don't know. I choose based on his legacy. Lhikan, whatever his early mistakes, was the one who never surrendered. Vakama probably would not have succeeded if not for his teammates, who all showed more heroic qualities than himself, with the exception of the irresponsible Matau and the sometimes spiteful Onewa. Once again, I reiterate that this made Vakama a far more interesting character, since he was a hero who bore more vices than the usual one or two. But it also prevents him from matching the heroic qualities that his peers exemplify.

Vakama's vices made him by far the deepest hero, and (again) gave him the most wisdom in his later life. The fact that he could overcome these vices made him all the more heroic, and made his final decision of stopping Teridax's tyranny all the more incredible.

Perhaps I'm just being too statistical, but when you compare Vakama to the successes of Jaller and Matoro, who, with the minimum amount of failure (Since the cost of achieving life for Mata Nui was someone else's life, one of the Toa had to die) successfully revived Mata Nui. Vakama lost his city, his friends (the Matoran of Metru Nui, who lost all memory of him or their home), and his arrogance cost him his dignity for a time and nearly lost the mission. I'll give him points for continuing past that in Time Trap, but it still is an awful lot of failure on his part versus Tahu, Jaller, Lhikan, and Matoro.

You see, the reason that Vakama is heroic is that, ultimately, he overcame himself. He struggled against and finally defeated the beastial side of himself (Hordika), and in the process finally realized that he was worthy of the title of "Toa."

Plus, Vakama more than anyone should have known that there's always hope to overcome evil, after Matau helped him overcome his Rahi half. The risk of destroying the Vahi was not worth the risk, although it could have still been a bluff. If not, it may have implied a slight death wish on Vakama's part. After the stress he had gone through, I would not be surprised. Still, I would think that Vakama was not weighing the situation rationally, and it shows just as much foolish risk as valor.

Think about it. Vakama was willing to destroy time to end Teridax's plan - but what exactly would ending time do? As described in Time Trap (though it's debatable whether or not Vakama knows what he's talking about), it would be utterly insane - but it would also put an end to any and all schemes and plots, anywhere. Plus, y'know, since Mata Nui was outside the MU, the time shenanigans wouldn't have had an effect there (where the Matoran were), though Vakama probably didn't consciously know that.

[LewaLew]

My responses in bold, cuz it's starting to get confusing.

LL, we can all change our opinions if we see why they were illogical. And it's a discussion forum. But mainly I'm trying to figure out if your reasoning works, and trying to understand how the opinion works, if it is logical, because I'm seeing apparent inconsistencies. Yeah?You can boil most of it down to this -- you're judging Vakama's performance in his unique trials, but are you fairly considering what the others would have done if they had to face the same threats? The fact remains that they did not, so their failure/success rate really shouldn't be just compared to Vakama's in a completely different situation. It's an interesting discussion and I'm curious where it could lead if thought through carefully (which is what we do here -- for fun, though, so no big deal).Okay then, let's look at another situation. First the Vahi Doomsday Threat. First of all, I can't think of any way that Vakama could have successfully bluffed Teridax, because Makuta have the power of mind reading. This means that either Teridax forgot to use mind reading, or Vakama legitimately was willing to kill everyone to avoid letting Teridax have the mask. So now I've established that Vakama would bring BIONICLE Ragnarok, Armageddon, whatever you want to call it if Teridax tried to get the Vahi. Jaller, on the other hand, faced a similar situation when he and his team were faced with three options: grab the mask and heal Mata Nui (equivalent to Vakama running with the Vahi), allow it to be destroyed by Hydraxon (equivalent of Vakama's doomsday threat), or allow Maxilos or the Barraki to have the mask (equivalent of Teridax getting the Vahi). Now, put in these terms, the Toa Mahri's course of action seems obvious, but the stakes are the same as when Vakama faced down Teridax. Allowing Hydraxon to destroy the mask has the same effect the Vahi's destruction does: No more Teridax, no more destiny, no more anything. Allowing Teridax or the Barraki to have the mask has the same potential danger that Teridax and the Vahi would have. The risk is also the same for the Toa Mahri's decision to go through with their duty of using the Ignika to revive Mata Nui as it would have been if Vakama had tried to escape to Mata Nui with the Vahi. Yet for some reason, people think that Vakama's willingness to take the easy, but disastrous way out is somehow heroic. Nobody thinks Hydraxon's course of action was a good idea. Although Jaller did not hold the switch, so to speak, his team could have just let Hydraxon end it. Same thing Vakama had in mind.

) Vakama vs. Venom: Yes, he was outmatched, but so were the rest of the Toa Hordika, and Vakama was the only one to turn.

Like I said, Vakama only was in the leadership position of them. And he turned because he was so focused on saving the Matoran, arguably more than the others. He didn't know how to handle it, but we shouldn't ignore that his motivations were heroic in intent. It's hard to measure which struggles each of them faced was harder. Leadership and criticism for how he led were Vakama's primary burdens, but the others faced similar struggles. Matau's vanity was shown to be one of his strong vices, and he was already one of the most critical Toa Metru. When he went Hordika, it was probably just as strong a push to make Vakama miserable.On second thought, I think I just added another reason why Vakama went over the edge a little faster--the fact that Matau (and I guess Onewa also) was almost trying to make him go full-on Hordika. Conceding this point.

And Matoro's case with the Muaka was very similar to his use of the Ignika. If he left Takua behind, I doubt that the Muaka would have gone after him, and rather after the one who ran. (After all, one Av-Matoran is little more than a morsel to a cat that size) Likely, just being there put him in a fight or die situation. On stubby legs like that, I'd place my bet on the stretchy-necked tiger.

The point is, it's a failure. I don't see how it's reasonable to say that isn't a failure because he never had a chance against it given the situation, but then to judge Vakama by a very different measure, not factoring the fact that he didn't have a chance against what befell him with the venom and the whole situation leading up to that -- a Makuta doing everything to ensure he drove the Matoran out until the Toa Mata could come, etc. Yet you listed many of those things Vakama couldn't help as part of his failure rate. This seems contradictory. See what I'm saying? Actually, I think it was pretty evident that Teridax took it rather easy on Vakama at the Great Barrier. But I would say the Hordika venom was due to his attitude when arriving on Metru Nui. If you remember, Vakama was very confident at the beginning of BIONICLE 3 and in Comic 22. He was uncharictaristically take-charge, and he wasn't doing a good job of it, adding a jab at Matau when ordering him to scout ahead, and another one at Whenua when he recalled the legends of the Visorak. He was unconcerned about any dangers, which proved to be the very thing that allowed them to be ambushed by the hordes. If I remember correctly, in BA #7, there was more of this sort of behavior on Vakama's part shown.

The burden of leadership was something Nokama had to undergo as well

She wasn't leader of the Toa team... Look, different people / fictional characters are different. There's no denying that, but those differences, including susceptibility to particular temptations and challenges, mean that it's not quite fair to judge everybody by just one limited scale. You know my Society Variety and personality allocation theories? That everybody is equal but each person has a different set of strengths and weaknesses? The effects of the venom struck at what was personally Vakama's weakness at the time, and he fell to it.It did not strike at what were the weaknesses of the others at that time. There is hypothetically a challenge that they could face where each of them would fall first. Right? Nokama, Matau, and Onewa simply got lucky in that they didn't face their worst challenge. Also, we have no real way of knowing if they would have had the courage to turn back from a fall if they had. We do know Vakama did. I'll concede this point, although I think that the sting of betrayal was something that affected Nokama more than the others as well. And while petty, we know that one of Matau's primary weaknesses was vanity and spite, something that was amplified by the mutation.

I don't see why so many people seem to think this argument is restricted to heroism after these folks became Toa. Jaller, in particular, did not even remember anything from before the Great Rescue, and nonetheless became the foremost warrior on the island until the coming of the toa.Vakama had just as much experience as Jaller when they started

Er, no. Vakama had experience at the wrong thing for being a Toa. He poured melted protodermis into molds and stuff. Jaller's experience was at battle strategy. He had a thousand years of tough experience at combat, defense, etc. situations. Vakama just had a normal job.Vakama was a civilian, Jaller a hardened, high-rank veteran.Besides, if we're not limiting it to just the times when they're heroes -- and I agree -- couldn't Vakama as Turaga be factored too? Jaller started the hero stuff while still a matoran. And from the fact that Ta-Koro and the Ta-Matoran were all still there 1000 years later, we can determine that he was rather successful.[Edit: Let me clarify this point, because I think you misunderstood me. You said you were judging only what was shown in-story, yes? My point was, you didn't seem to keep in mind that in-story you saw Vakama at the very beginning of his heroic experiences; prior to that he had a normal job. But you saw Jaller -- Matoran and Toa alike -- only after a long time of battle experience, and you can't assume he didn't have comparable failures or weaknesses that he grew out of when he started that.It's not the time as Toa I'm talking about, but I'm referring to what you said you were only comparing. :-) You may notice I mentioned Garan, who was never a Toa... Vakama happens to have been a Toa at the immediate beginning of his "being thrown into battle" time of trial, while Jaller was a Toa at the end of that time; this may be why you misunderstood me as talking about Toa-hood.But I should definitely add, I don't think your arbitrary limitation on the judging is quite perfect either. Yes, we don't see what they did in the times we don't see, but it seems to me that after admitting that, you go on to make some judgments that are worded with certainty. Doesn't seem to follow. Also, it IS certain that Jaller, in the time you saw him, was given much more experience in the types of things that mattered most to being a hero. I think you're not considering all of what we do know enough. :-)]I try to judge based only what we can conclude from story. Like I said, Jaller's success as Captain of the Guard is shown by his track record. Lhikan is harder to judge, though, because we have less info about his goals, successes, and failures. Matoro, however, was, in a way, thrown into the fight, although it was more of a choice to go with Jaller to Voya Nui. However, I will grant in Vakama's favor as opposed to Matoro that he was the leader of his team, Matoro was not.

Who did Vakama learn from? Lhikan.

Only a little, and during his crisis. Before that he didn't really know Lhikan other than just as his patron hero. Jaller by contrast (and Matoro) worked closely with their elders for a thousand years.Even so, how long was Vakama a toa? A year, maybe? How much can one soldier learn from another that came back home after one year? Not much. Once again, I suppose I must concede that we don't know how long it would have taken Vakama to reach Jaller's level of skill, or even how long it took Jaller, but we do know that after 1000 years, his village was still full of the same Matoran and in working order. For someone with no elemental powers and only seven pieces, that is hard to put down.Here's an analogy that may help. If I grabbed two random untrained civilians off the street, and threw one right into battle, and he died [Edit: Re the following paragraph, let's change this to, whether he lived or died, he failed at his mission -- though, let's keep in mind Vakama did succeed at his mission, and the Vahi thing besides, at least], but put the second through extensive battle training, and then into battle, and he lived [Change this to, whether he lived or died, he succeeded in his mission], would it be fair to judge the two people's performance without factoring for that vast difference? If you could choose to be one or the other, wouldn't you want extensive training? Wouldn't some 'blame' be assigned to me for throwing one in without training? (And to bring this back out of the analogy, shouldn't we all reasonably agree that the "me" -- the situation, the villains, the whole unfortunate scenario -- that Vakama was thrown in unprepared for should be factored?)Admittedly that analogy breaks down a bit since the heroic success of Matoro required he die. But I mean it to be judging heroic success at the mission, or the "failure rates." We're not counting Matoro's death as a failure, right? It was something he couldn't help. Likewise, there were many things Vakama couldn't help.Another analogy. You know of handicapping horses in a race? If we take two horses that are roughly equal in capacity (supposing that Vakama, Lhikan, Matoro, etc. have roughly an equally heroic nature as all the evidence in terms of their motivations show), and we arbitrarily weigh one down with the maximum handicapping weight, then we let them loose, the less handicapped one will pull far ahead in the race. Shouldn't we consider that unfair handicap when judging the two horses, rather than merely looking at their race times?Because Vakama was facing a far worse series of un-overcomeable challenges. Interestingly, some of the things you counted as in his failure rate, incidently -- shouldn't they go under Lhikan's, really? Losing the city to Dumakuta happened on his watch, and he failed to stop them too. But Matoro had an easy choice comparatively. Die to save everybody. Vakama was not given such a choice -- success for him demanded he survive, or at least dying wouldn't have helped. Lhikan obviously recognized this as saving Vakama was how he died, let's note. Vakama had no such easy solutions. I know, sacrificing yourself isn't easy, but my point is, just because the situation didn't force Vakama to die doesn't mean that he wouldn't have, yanno?You said you wanted to judge them by their legacies. Well, aren't the differences in the challenges they faced part of those legacies? I don't know if we can claim that Vakama was facing any higher hurdles than the Toa Mahri. They were going after a mask that had not been touched since it was put on Voya Nui, while also trying to beat the Piraka who took down their own heroes (the most powerful toa in the universe), as well as Brutaka, who could pretty much wipe out anybody on the island but Axonn. In Mahri Nui, they were fighting six warlords who had previously given Teridax fits, and their armies. And it wasn't like the Ignika was too cooperative through the whole thing anyway Granted, the Toa Nuva were unprepared, and they had some help from Maxilos in the Pit, but considering today we're still trying to explain how the Piraka took down the Nuva, and the fact that Teridax wasn't all that helpful, I think that the fact that the fate of the universe hinged on their unerring success made their task more daunting than the Great Rescue.

And even as a Turaga, Vakama was one of the turaga who sided with Dume's defeatist POV.

Eh, I read that just a few weeks ago and I don't agree. Only Nokama disobeyed, I'll grant you. You can make a reasonable case from that that she was more heroic than Vakama. But all five of the others were not siding with Dume, they were shocked by what Dume was saying and didn't know how to handle it.Vakama actually showed a pessimistic attitude when asked whether he thought Jaller and Co. would survive. Granted, anyone in the situation probably would have, if the Nuva had gone down, but their complete lack of any sort of reaction makes me think that Vakama agreed with Dume more than I'd like. Even Nokama sided with Dume, actually. She just decided to let the Matoran know if the end was coming.Of course, Vakama had nearly chosen to bring a doomsday on himself, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I see no "newbie" allowances made. This may be unfair to Vakama, but as I mentioned before, Jaller would disqualify Vakama on the "newbie" thing, and he led an army. Not just six disagreeable Toa Metru. (Though I still have to take into consideration that Teridax was not putting up as much of a fight. But then again, Jaller's army were all shrunken Matoran, rather than Toa.)

But as you said, you don't know that Jaller didn't have failures early on. You didn't see that story. How can you judge early Vakama against late Jaller as if they're on an equal footing? They weren't. Vakama was operating under a much severer handicap than any of the others we've discussed, and yet he acheived his destiny anyways! That handicap referring to things like the city falling that you counted as part of his failure rate. Bad things that were happening that he couldn't help all around him.I think I've conceded this already.

4b) Vakama did show great arrogance once the Toa Metru returned to Metru Nui after The Darkness Below. It's part of what got the Toa Metru M&D'd by the Visorak.

How are you defining arrogance, then? He was upset. I think you missed the point of that part. It was intentionally supposed to be able to look like arrogance if you didn't look closely, as a test of the others, but they understood that it wasn't really; it was the stress he was under and the heavy burden on his heart of freeing the Matoran and of Lhikan's sacrificial death. Look at what Matau said when he pulled him out of it, and the conversation Norik and others had when Vakama stormed off. Fuzzy again, but pretty sure they came to understand that it was NOT arrogance, but quite the opposite.Already gone over this somewhere up above.

It's not heroic to blow up everything to avoid a danger you could overcome later. Like, say, firing a nuke at NYC because the Avengers (seemingly) can't handle it. Even if these goons take down Earth, Loki is not invincible. The Hulk proved that.Perhaps I'm using a little too much fourth-wall logic, since we all know that the good guys win in the end, but I don't see what's so terrific about the world's most deadly kamikaze versus anything else. Everyone here does realize that Vakama was taking the lives or deaths of everything in existence if he wasn't bluffing. What's so heroic about being willing to make that decision whether those people liked it or not. It's not Vakama's life vs. the life of the universe, it's an irreversible destruction of all reality vs. a possibly reversible loss. And the destruction of reality was the good guy's idea.In terms of probability, there's a better chance of survival if Teridax wins that battle than the zero chance if the Vahi goes boom.

I don't see how the nuke example is comparable. The people firing that nuke would have survived just fine. Vakama was threatening a self-sacrifice as well.I was more or less referring to Nick Fury's choice to disobey the order, because although he wasn't in NYC, he clearly had more at stake than that global council.But I notice you didn't answer what I was really curious about. How do you think the other heroes would have handled it?And I actually just went over a similar situation at the top, so I won't worry about this.Just handed the Vahi over to Makuta? Let's say that happens, and Makuta wins for good in the end. Using your "just look at the legacy" criterion, wouldn't your own logic require you condemn them even more harshly than what Vakama did? (Keep in mind Vakama did NOT destroy everything; the bluff worked as intended.) We can't just assume that Makuta would have failed in the end had he got the Vahi, because he very nearly won with everything he had -- Mata Nui's final victory was by an extremely narrow margin.I'm not assuming that he would have failed. I'm saying that if Makuta gets the mask, there's a fifty-fifty chance. If the mask is smashed (which I think we can conclude that he would have, since you can't bluff someone who reads minds) there is no chance. It's all over.I see Vakama's way out as brilliant and indeed sacrificial in a sense of reputation. He used everything he had at disposal psychologically to outsmart Makuta -- the brilliant mastermind, one of the few times Makuta ever was legitimately defeated -- by playing to the fact that Vakama himself had fallen to the venom and wanted to do something violent then, to aid the plausibility of the bluff. He used the description of what would have happened, and used Makuta's own motive to rule, not destroy all. By doing this, he risks people who aren't paying close enough attention to who he is misunderstanding and thinking he's still the guy the venom made him seem to be for a while. He sacrificed something he'd have to keep living with, arguably another tougher choice than sacrificial death.Except that I find it highly unlikely that it was a bluff. Teridax is too smart to not use his mind reading power when faced with a doomsday threat. Vakama was going to smash that mask if Makuta made a move for it.And while we're comparing other members of his team, keep in mind only Vakama went back for the Vahi. Others like Onewa thought he was crazy, and would have just let Makuta easily get the Vahi without a fight. Vakama went in alone for that, knowing what the dangers to everybody would be if it fell into enemy hands. That's heroic. I thought it was because, as a mask maker, he knew the power that mask entailed. Since that's knowledge that perhaps only Nuju or Whenua might have, as an astrologer and an archivist respectively, I wouldn't hold it against the others. Onewa of course, saw mask makers as nothing more than "fire spitters", so it figures he wouldn't know.But I'll concede this point anyway, because it should really be obvious. It is called the "Mask of Time". Big stuff.To put it another way, aren't you arguing that Vakama shouldn't have bluffed? Since you seem to only consider the chances under two scenarios -- Teridax gets the mask (sounds like you mean by Vakama just handing it over, right?) or Time Goes Boom. Why aren't you considering the chances under what Vakama actually did -- his actual legacy?This is different than wondering whether it was really a bluff. It comes across as saying that even if it was certainly a bluff, you think Vakama shouldn't have sacrificed his pride or reputation and should have just handed the mask over? Have you thought this through? You know the saying, "taking the bull by the horns"? Meaning, when presented with two impossible alternatives, the really heroic thing to do is to find the third option that avoids the dangers of both. That's what Vakama did.Once again, I don't see how it could have been a bluff. However, that "third option" would have been to try to escape Teridax with the mask. After all, he's wearing a mask that makes him invisible anyway. It would have been risky, difficult, and could end the same way as simply giving him the mask, but it has a higher probability of working than the two other options.Running and Keeping the Mask: Likely Success, but could go wrong on Mata Nui laterRunning and Losing the Mask: Likely Failure, but could go right laterGiving Teridax the Mask: Likely failure, dishonorable, but could go right laterSmash Time: Sure failure, dishonorable, irreversible.

True, Vakama did commit all those things under the influence of his half-Rahi nature, but at the same time, Matau actually became a better person for his experience under the venom, and had he not, Vakama would have been lost.

I personally feel that Vakama's experience with the Hordika venom was ultimately a harder and more fulfilling journey than that of the other Toa. He fell farther than the others, but, in the end, he ultimately did the heroic thing and turned on Roodaka. His heroism - and wisdom - is greater because he came farther to achieve it.But would it not have been better to never go down to those depths? Is it more heroic to fail, and right yourself, or to never fail in the first place.To paraphrase something my mom likes to say, "it is better to do right the first time than to ask forgiveness later."

In addition, it would not be just to say that Matoro's fight against the Muaka was a failure. (He was a Matoran after all) Rather, it showed his courage to try anyway. And true, Lhikan did have ages of experience as a Toa, and had almost certainly failed at some point or another, but that's not something we can use to determine greatness, since we don't know. I choose based on his legacy. Lhikan, whatever his early mistakes, was the one who never surrendered. Vakama probably would not have succeeded if not for his teammates, who all showed more heroic qualities than himself, with the exception of the irresponsible Matau and the sometimes spiteful Onewa. Once again, I reiterate that this made Vakama a far more interesting character, since he was a hero who bore more vices than the usual one or two. But it also prevents him from matching the heroic qualities that his peers exemplify.

Vakama's vices made him by far the deepest hero, and (again) gave him the most wisdom in his later life. The fact that he could overcome these vices made him all the more heroic, and made his final decision of stopping Teridax's tyranny all the more incredible.And Matau overcame his bitterness and other vices to bring Vakama back. Jaller never had these problems, and led a team that got along with each other. (Though that can be accredited to his friends just as much as the dysfunctional Toa Hordika team could be blamed on Matau and Onewa.)

Perhaps I'm just being too statistical, but when you compare Vakama to the successes of Jaller and Matoro, who, with the minimum amount of failure (Since the cost of achieving life for Mata Nui was someone else's life, one of the Toa had to die) successfully revived Mata Nui. Vakama lost his city, his friends (the Matoran of Metru Nui, who lost all memory of him or their home), and his arrogance cost him his dignity for a time and nearly lost the mission. I'll give him points for continuing past that in Time Trap, but it still is an awful lot of failure on his part versus Tahu, Jaller, Lhikan, and Matoro.

You see, the reason that Vakama is heroic is that, ultimately, he overcame himself. He struggled against and finally defeated the beastial side of himself (Hordika), and in the process finally realized that he was worthy of the title of "Toa."Heroism is not overcoming one's self. That's what people do every day. Heroism was not coming back out of the control of his Hordika side. Heroism was Matau going up there to confront him. Heroism was the Toa Hordika going up against an army led by their old leader. Heroism was when Vakama, after almost killing Matau, jumped off the building and saved him, risking his own life.Heroism is not crawling out of the muck of villainy.

Plus, Vakama more than anyone should have known that there's always hope to overcome evil, after Matau helped him overcome his Rahi half. The risk of destroying the Vahi was not worth the risk, although it could have still been a bluff. If not, it may have implied a slight death wish on Vakama's part. After the stress he had gone through, I would not be surprised. Still, I would think that Vakama was not weighing the situation rationally, and it shows just as much foolish risk as valor.

Think about it. Vakama was willing to destroy time to end Teridax's plan - but what exactly would ending time do? As described in Time Trap (though it's debatable whether or not Vakama knows what he's talking about), it would be utterly insane - but it would also put an end to any and all schemes and plots, anywhere. Plus, y'know, since Mata Nui was outside the MU, the time shenanigans wouldn't have had an effect there (where the Matoran were), though Vakama probably didn't consciously know that.

GregF has said that destroying any legendary mask results in the release of it's power. In the Vahi's case, that would mean the timestream goes bounce, and essentially there's no sane way to live through a world like that. Vakama knew what he was talking about in Time Trap.

[-Jaller-]

Matoro, who else, dude allowed himself to die to save the universe.

[bonesiii]

I can't think of any way that Vakama could have successfully bluffed Teridax, because Makuta have the power of mind reading.

That's true, but Makuta did not use it. (Vakama's mind might have been shielded unintentionally enough too, not sure.) Here's the passage, from his POV:

Still, he could not believe a Toa would willingly visit such a fate on the Matoran he had sworn to protect."Believe it," Vakama said, as if he had read his mind. "To save those I love from an eternity of your tyranny, I will end everything right now."Makuta looked into Vakama's eyes. They were the eyes of a being who had been driven beyond madness, only to return. They had looked upon a darkness as deep as any Makuta had known, and yet somehow turned back to the light. They were not the eyes of a being who was bluffing.

He doesn't determine this by reading his mind. Therefore, Vakama could have been bluffing, and therefore we should judge that possibility, not merely "give up or non-bluff destroy all."That said, IMO if Makuta had read Vakama's mind, it's possible he would not have been able to tell, as Vakama might not have been sure if he would actually do it. How do you bluff a telepath? You talk yourself into actually being willing to do it, knowing the telepath enemy would not accept that result. However, Vakama did not need to resort to this, so we cannot canonically assume he did intend to do it.

This means that either Teridax forgot to use mind reading, or Vakama legitimately was willing to kill everyone to avoid letting Teridax have the mask.

Or he didn't feel he needed to check. That is what the story clearly portrays.Possibly he was still "disagreeing with something he ate" and could not use it as well. But there's no mention of such a limit. Makuta reads his eyes, and is convinced by the bluff. In his opinion, it was clearly not a bluff -- which is, of course, the goal of a successful bluff. Again, we need to have faith in the fact that good Toa hold to the Code. Vakama would not kill others. But he knew that because he had been mad recently, he could fool Makuta into thinking he would. He turned something that had been bad into something good.

So now I've established that Vakama would bring BIONICLE Ragnarok, Armageddon

We haven't disproven that interpretation completely, but nothing you said canonically rules out the most obvious interpretation -- that it was a bluff.

Jaller, on the other hand, faced a similar situation when he and his team were faced with three options: grab the mask and heal Mata Nui (equivalent to Vakama running with the Vahi), allow it to be destroyed by Hydraxon (equivalent of Vakama's doomsday threat), or allow Maxilos or the Barraki to have the mask (equivalent of Teridax getting the Vahi).

Not comparable -- the Mask of Life curses any who touch it but the one destined, and by that time many others already had. The Barraki could never have accomplished their goals by getting the Ignika -- they were a problem merely because they believed they could. The Vahi however has been successfully used by a Toa (Tahu), and Vakama had at least demonstrated that it could be used without something like the Ignika curse, though he let its effect spread too far. And once Makuta "settled the disagreement with something he ate", his superior mind would likely be able to use it virtually unstoppably.Also, what bluff could Jaller have done? Not sure that situation really fits this; feels kinda like you're grasping at straws. No offense of course, but yeah. Since they COULD grab the mask and go heal Mata Nui, I don't see how it's comparable. Let's also note Jaller tried to go Nova which would have killed a lot of animals at least, and maybe the Barraki and others.

Yet for some reason, people think that Vakama's willingness to take the easy, but disastrous way out is somehow heroic.

The point is, I think you're making some clearly non-canon assumptions and using those to judge your interpretation of Vakama, but since that interpretation isn't confirmed, you're not necessarily judging the actual canon Vakama? Make sense? Why go out of your way to insist that the worst motives were true, even though we don't know that, in order to more easily condemn the character? Why not give the character the benefit of the doubt, as you would a human? (Good practice, etc.) It seems you're ignoring the possibility -- however likely or unlikely you want to see it -- that he was bluffing to avoid revealing what your judgment is of that option. Why?Why not just say, "if he was bluffing, it was very heroic, I agree, but I'm not entirely certain he was" and move on?

If you remember, Vakama was very confident at the beginning of BIONICLE 3 and in Comic 22. He was uncharictaristically take-charge, and he wasn't doing a good job of it

It was clearly a mock confidence, it even came across that way. The book made it clear he was depressed and filled with self-doubt. Movie and comic forms don't really give us much of a window into their thoughts.

He was unconcerned about any dangers, which proved to be the very thing that allowed them to be ambushed by the hordes.

Not due to overconfidence from arrogance, etc. -- he was too distracted and focused on getting the Matoran back immediately. It wasn't like he walked in thinking, "I da bomb! Bad guys? Pshaw!"

I try to judge based only what we can conclude from story. Like I said, Jaller's success as Captain of the Guard is shown by his track record.

And so is Vakama's a thousand years later -- in 2001 we see both of them after roughly a thousand years of authority. But you don't have a complete track record for Jaller, especially not his early years. The point is, you can't fairly compare a rookie to a veteran. You see my point? I don't think it's disputable...

Even so, how long was Vakama a toa? A year, maybe? How much can one soldier learn from another that came back home after one year? Not much.

Time is not the only factor, or necessarily the most important. Vakama faced a far more overwhelming threat than any other main-story Toa we've seen in the story and overcame it despite having no experience. That is massively heroic, and few others could have achieved it. Destiny knows what it's doing, yanno? In that short time, Vakama could be said to have aged a century at least, compared to the typical century of Lhikan's time as a Toa on Metru Nui for example.

Once again, I suppose I must concede that we don't know how long it would have taken Vakama to reach Jaller's level of skill, or even how long it took Jaller, but we do know that after 1000 years, his village was still full of the same Matoran and in working order. For someone with no elemental powers and only seven pieces, that is hard to put down.

Jaller's level of skill when? That's the issue here. You're looking at failures that we happen to have been informed of (or things he couldn't also achieve on the side, as it were) with Vakama, in, as you said, a year at most, probably. But with Jaller, we don't have a comparable knowledge of his first year of activity (post memory wipe, which as I said I think was a delayed effect).Might be worth adding that Vakama picked the most defensible spot for his village on the island and by the time the memwipe kicked in probably Jaller had been given most if not all of that castle to defend, so much of his early success can be fairly put on Vakama's shoulders.A thousand years later, you meet a Jaller much more mature and experienced than most Toa -- but so do you meet Vakama a thousand years later, sharing much of those same experiences closely as they're #1 and #2 in charge of the village, respectively. Vakama didn't have the option to become a Toa again and show off that heroic experience, but as you said, the limit should not be on just Toa-hood. :)Anyways, none of this means Vakama is necessarily the greatest hero. I still think, easy though his final choice was compared to the choices Vakama had to make, Matoro is the greatest. But I think Vakama is definately up there; arguably one of the greatest because he has several difficult accomplishments that no other Bionicle hero has. Overcoming himself in a way no other had to face other than maybe Lewa, the only indisputable victory over Makuta with the Vahi, achieving his destiny without the option of useful sacrifice of life, getting the Matoran to safety and getting a year of peace to prepare, setting the path for the Toa Mata to come and everything to turn around, stopping Morby, Vahki, and Visorak army, providing the Vahi for the stopping of the Kal, etc. etc. That took profound courage, resolve, etc. -- all the things that define heroism. Yeah?

I don't know if we can claim that Vakama was facing any higher hurdles than the Toa Mahri.

Went from peaceful city under a good Turaga and the awake Great Spirit to city fallen, Makuta winning like crazy, leader imprisoned and impersonated, hunted by so many enemies in such a short time it's hard to keep track, while a total rookie, and seeing his mentor killed to save him, Matoran under his watch deformed and memwiped, had to evacuate his home and find a new place he couldn't have even known existed, Mavrah's creatures, etc. etc. etc. and then on top of it all had to become a weak Turaga to awaken the Matoran and hope Makuta would go easy on them and not just infect them all, etc.All the other teams had more of a stable societal situation around them, to varying extents, and pretty much had single missions they had to accomplish. Bad guys interfered in other ways to lead to that mission, but almost always their plots were centered around that clear mission. Vakama had literally no guidance as to what he should do and had to make it all up on the fly. The Inika/Mahri knew where they needed to go, though not how to get there, and knew roughly what they were looking for, and once they found it, knew to follow it, etc. And their threat was fairly simple -- the universe is dying, and you use this mask with one Toa dying to solve it. The other threats around them never really had a chance of using the mask as they wanted; if they touched it -- as many did -- it would curse them and the Mahri worked around it using the special abilities they were gifted to help them.There's really no comparison except that the stakes of failure were higher.I'll grant you Mahri Nui was destroyed, but I don't think the inhabitants really miss it lol. Now, they had tough choices and stuff too, but the point is, all the others we got much story time on were coming in on the end of the Dark Time, leading towards success. Even Makuta's brief time in power did not last long. (Though it certainly could have if they had failed!) But we knew going in that Vakama's tale would be a very dark one because we knew that at the end of it he and his people had to flee their beloved, advanced, nearly perfect home.

]But would it not have been better to never go down to those depths? Is it more heroic to fail, and right yourself, or to never fail in the first place.[/b]

Ah, but one who has fallen farther than others and come back faces a tougher challenge than one who got lucky and didn't have to face their worst temptation and fall like that, will tend to love more, to strive for what's right more intensely, and to think harder to avoid failures again. It would be better -- for the person themselves -- to have never fallen, like someone who is sheltered (like Nokama, etc. as we were discussing), but a person who has fallen farther and come back over what is thus a longer and harder path will tend to be of more use to others. As a hero. ^_^It is true that someone can hypothetically not fall but choose to think and love and strive as if they had, but I don't think most of the other heroes really qualify as this. You could argue Gali perhaps, though it's interesting she doesn't usually get credit for this, lol. It's something I try to do a lot -- but the best way I've found to do that is to learn from others who did have a Vakama-type path so know firsthand how bad evil is, etc. The people in real life I know who had the bad luck and made the wrong choices, but then turned their lives around anyways are the ones who impress me more, versus someone who has not really been tested. The person who hasn't been tested might still face such challenges in the future and you don't really know if they'll pull out or not. Often they won't as they tend to get lulled into false senses of stuff (lol allusion to my blog ).Outta time for now; I skimmed the rest and noted your other concessions.Come on, just put Vakama at the very bottom of your list.

[fishers64]

Teridax, antidermis leaking out of his armor and whatnot, might not have really wanted a fight. He might have decided "If taking over the universe this way is so hard, maybe I ought to try plan B"...and then really not cared what happened aside from the universe not going into wacko time.

I don't know if we can claim that Vakama was facing any higher hurdles than the Toa Mahri. They were going after a mask that had not been touched since it was put on Voya Nui, while also trying to beat the Piraka who took down their own heroes (the most powerful toa in the universe), as well as Brutaka, who could pretty much wipe out anybody on the island but Axonn. In Mahri Nui, they were fighting six warlords who had previously given Teridax fits, and their armies. And it wasn't like the Ignika was too cooperative through the whole thing anyway Granted, the Toa Nuva were unprepared, and they had some help from Maxilos in the Pit, but considering today we're still trying to explain how the Piraka took down the Nuva, and the fact that Teridax wasn't all that helpful, I think that the fact that the fate of the universe hinged on their unerring success made their task more daunting than the Great Rescue.

And yet...the fate of the universe hinged on the outcome of Vakama's mission too. If the Matoran of Mata Nui were asleep and/or in control of Makuta, the Great Spirit would never awaken again. And don't tell me that the universe wasn't at stake when you're between that and time itself going out.

I'm not assuming that he would have failed. I'm saying that if Makuta gets the mask, there's a fifty-fifty chance. If the mask is smashed (which I think we can conclude that he would have, since you can't bluff someone who reads minds) there is no chance. It's all over.

Nah, if Teridax gets the mask, it's all over. Picture him accelerating time so he could take down the Toa Metru ultra-lightning fast, or slowing down time so the Toa Metru wouldn't be able to attack him while he builds his next evil plan. The guy has a hugely powerful mind. He can do that.

Running and Keeping the Mask: Likely Success, but could go wrong on Mata Nui laterRunning and Losing the Mask: Likely Failure, but could go right laterGiving Teridax the Mask: Likely failure, dishonorable, but could go right laterSmash Time: Sure failure, dishonorable, irreversible.

Psyche Teridax Into Keeping the Mask Because Teridax Doesn't Want Time Smashed: Success, honorable, satisfaction guaranteed for one year. :)Also, if time was smashed, nobody would be around to complain about Vakama's success or failure...at least, that event would be revokable, because nothing would make any sense any more.I said above that Teridax would likely win if he had the mask. Also, if Teridax had to chase Toa Vakama across Mata Nui after the mask...that is, assuming that Vakama could even get there, there is danger to the Matoran on the island that Vakama would needlessly have put them into, he could have gotten them killed. That's real honorable. Edited October 9, 2012 by fishers64