So, exactly what kind of a Matoran is Dekar, anyway?

Greg decreed that he is a Po-Matoran. However, Shop At Home originally listed him as an Onu-Matoran. But despite all corrections to the contrary, I much prefer him as an Onu-Matoran.

For one thing, Po- and Onu-Matoran have often been ambiguous. Tan and black were shared by the two in the MNOLG, with medium orange going to Onu-Koro (the Prospector, Azibo, and Nuparu, for example) and dark orange to Po-Koro (where dark orange was the trademark Matoran color). Taipu and Hafu are almost identical, but from different Koro. And now we have a new ambiguous color: yellow-orange, a secondary color to both Oohnorak and Toa Hewkii.

And in addition to this, Dekar, unlike Defilak, has two main colors. On Defilak, black is an accent color, like the original Toa, who all had black joints. But Dekar's arms are black, which makes it a main color in addition to yellow-orange, as the two are balanced in prominance. Black and yellow-orange is a combination we've only seen on Oohnorak so far, so we're predisposed to see it as an Earth elemental combination.

Earth and Stone are very close elementally, so it's natural they should share colors, and Dekar could indeed go either way. But I see yellow-orange as being closer to medium orange (a color assigned to Onu-Koro) than to tan (one of the principal elemental colors of Po-Koro, even if shared by both), as it's a bright color like orange in contrast to the muted hue of tan. Dekar especially makes me think of Nuparu, a Matoran with black as a primary color but then a mask of bright orange — so even with the traditional blurred boundary between Onu-Koro and Po-Koro, everything about Dekar makes me think of Earth.

Maybe this is just another manifestation of my resistance to the changing of the color of stone to yellow-orange, but ... What do you think?

– ToM