At this point I've come to terms with the fact that I really like 2008. Seriously.

I'm really enjoying this year. A bizarre location, my favorite old characters, the Codrex... Pretty much everything. And though not as strong as it was 2001, the legendary feel I like is back in the story to a good degree. (Unlike 2007, when it was almost totally absent.)

Also, though not consistently at the level of 2001, the dialogue this year has been pretty eloquent compared to the last several. Some of the best lines so far, for example:

"Let them try to run! Where can they hide? What shadow can conceal them, when the darkness belongs to us?"

 

"You play with pebbles, Toa, while your universe falls."

 

"Your talents are still of some use to me, and so I will not kill you... today. But one day – perhaps in a year, or 1000 years, or 100,000 years – I may grow tired of you, Icarax. You may cease to be amusing, with your posturing and your boasting and your lust for battle. And on that day, your armor will be a meal for metal-eating scavengers, and your essence a wisp on the wind."

 

"Take to the shadows. They are, after all, the prisons we have made for ourselves."

 

"No, Makuta. You once told the Toa Mata that you could not be destroyed, because you were nothing. You were wrong – it is because you are nothing that I can destroy you. You have no heart, you have no spirit, you have no reason to exist – even your hate is a pale reflection of what once burned in you. You survive out of habit, monster, and habits … and minds … can be broken.."

 

"My armor's black. That doesn't mean my heart is as well."

 

"Take yourselves from my prison... take your memories and plans with you... for the horrors already in your minds are worse than any I could visit upon you. I condemn you to your fate – life in the universe you and your kind have made."