Latrodectus

 

I do have to ask, though, what contributes so much to the manliness to Pohatu, in your eyes?

I said that Pohatu needs to be a guy, not that he is in possession of a higher quality of masculinity than his peers. Why did I say that?

 

1) If you make Pohatu a female, the resulting personality would be very close to Gali. Gali is a bit more stubborn than Pohatu, and a bit more communicative/assertive when dealing with people. But you'll recall that Pohatu is also very assertive and stubborn, especially with Kopaka. It would be difficult to make him female without enhancing those qualities just a touch - and you would end up with two Galis.

I saw Pohatu as pretty unique in the Toa Mata; he was a perpetual optimist who tried to stick with others through thick and thin. Even when he was being stubborn with Kopaka, it was because he just wanted to help. He was also playful; where every other Toa was serious and imposing in the initial CGI animations, Pohatu knocked down an enormous rock structure for fun and then moonwalked away. 

Bad scale is common in Bionicle. The Tahtorak in the comics had Onua claw pieces larger than an entire Toa Metru. Axonn dwarfed the Piraka and could pick them up like toys. 

I love the personality of his body shape. Very exaggerated.

I sorta wish Gorast was more feminine, I didn't know she was a gal until 2012.

I just wish she had some actual elbows. I do admire the creativity of the 2007 and 2008 villain canisters, and I hope we'll see similarly monstrous villains for Bionicle Gen 2.

Or maybe Lego can do the Hordika right this time by making monstrous heroes. The Hordika were a neat idea failed by boring sets that looked less monstrous and animalistic and more just ugly. 

 

The Toa and Protectors are NOT clones. They're less like clones than any other series of Bionicle sets ever, with totally unique builds, proportions, weapons and armor—something you'd know if you actually took a good look at the sets. Just because they have arms shaped like arms and legs shaped like legs and use similar parts like gearboxes doesn't make them clones by any definition of the term, and to suggest otherwise requires you to completely redefine "clone sets" to favor your argument.

 

Meanwhile, the Bohrok almost NECESSARILY have to be clones because of their primary function—rolling into a perfect sphere. That doesn't allow any room for arms or legs of different lengths, torsos of different heights or widths, or weapons or armor of any different shape at all. And it's the absolute antithesis of the Bionicle 2015 set designs so far.

 

Ok, maybe I deserved that one. Though a single different part or slight build tweak does not a non-clone make. And while the only building I have done with these new sets is Via the LBB app I got from the lego site and followed their directions. Yes each Protector has their own weapon and yes there may be a slight change based on armor but overall they are just recolors of the new native species. Kind of how the Original Matoran were. The only difference with them was their color and mask. Well guess what, that is not the case this go-round. All the Islanders wear the exact same mask, bar the color. The only ones who had different ones was the two mask makers. Well and the Toa themselves of course. Now this may change in time and new masks may get released, but until then what we basically got along with the Toa are clones of a mold to represent the Protectors/Villagers.

 

No, the Toa and the Protectors are not clones unless you have an incredibly loose definition of clone that includes nearly every canister set wave.

Clones aren't defined by having the same mask, they're defined by having the same construction. Not just similar construction, the same. The Bohrok all have the same construction. The Piraka all have the same construction. The Rahkshi all have the same construction. The Toa Metru all have the same construction. The Protectors and 2015 Toa do not. They have similar constructions, but so do the Toa Mata and Nuva, and nobody calls those sets clones. 

 

Makes me wonder: what if Okoto is, at its core, not a natural place? It's shape is uncannily perfect, it's environments are cleanly divided by mountains, and, as far as we know, nothing much bad happened until Makuta used the Mask of Ultimate Power. Maybe the elemental forces of Okoto are what keep it how it was designed, and the Mask interfered with these?

The Bionicle insert in the latest Lego Magazine explained that, actually. The Protectors have, over the course of generations, used the elemental powers in their masks to shape the island to suit their needs. Thus, each elemental tribe ended up partitioning off a section of the island and tailoring it according to their own unique abilities and traits.

 

Wow, this is a cool detail. It also indicates that the villagers may not be native to Okoto.

Makes me wonder: what if Okoto is, at its core, not a natural place? It's shape is uncannily perfect, it's environments are cleanly divided by mountains, and, as far as we know, nothing much bad happened until Makuta used the Mask of Ultimate Power. Maybe the elemental forces of Okoto are what keep it how it was designed, and the Mask interfered with these?

It reminds me of another place...

There WERE seven Toa, unless you've been under a rock for 13 years.

Of course! Who can forget Voriki, the mighty Toa of energy?

This discussion on femininity reminds me of how ridiculous Roodaka is as a set. There's having feminine characteristics, and then there's giving a set HIGH HEELS OF DOOM. 

As a huge fan of the original Bohrok, I think we should cover new ground. They were amazingly engineered sets and a real menace in the story, but I don't want this reboot to just retread the same ground the original Bionicle line tread. 

At least no set looks ugly from the front like our good friend Tahu Mistika.

That's pretty much what most of the 2015 sets we know of are, regardless (the gearbox does fall under technic and not CCBS, right?)

Yep. All the connections to it are pin connections and it has no extraneous detail. It's a really awesome piece that could even be used in pure Technic builds.

Most useful

Double axle hole ball joint (Connects Technic and CCBS, adds articulation, is more secure than the old ball joint)

Y-Socket/Original Bionicle hands (Amazing piece that can serve anywhere in the bulk of a build, also connects Technic and CCBS)

Technic pin and axle connectors in general (Useful for small-scale building)

Least useful

Inika mask (Requires the Inika head to connect and can't look like anything but a face)

Lime green 2007 sockets (Panrahk cursed them)

In fact I think I would've prefer if all the toa had consistent color schemes like the older sets instead of all that ###### gold, silver, yellow and red.

Unfortunately, consistent color schemes were a rarity in old Bionicle's later days. 

You see, guys? This is nothing like the Mistika being almost completely silver with just a few smatterings on their supposed primary colors thrown in. There's a rhyme and reason to how these characters are... decorated. It tells a story. Lego really thought this out.

One of the worst things about the Mistika is their color layering. They have silver parts layered on more silver parts, which makes all the details just meld together.

 

Fine. Topic's closed. But if he starts up again I swear I'm gonna lose it.

 

Back on topic: Is Gali really online only? I can't find her anywhere in Alaska and it sucks because she's my absolute favorite set this year.

She's quite possibly the rarest of the sets, at the moment. Both she and Onua seem to have been excluded from the initial wave of Target shipments. I was able to find Onua at TRU, and others have reported finding Gali there.

 

Yeah, the Target I buy my sets at is completely bereft of Onua and Gali.

2008 is the year of grey and silver. So many grey and silver Inika builds... *shiver*

It's interesting. I haven't gotten very far in it, the controls are awkward but at least better than the crime against humanity that was Bionicle: The Game. I've been thinking about doing a review for that and just tearing it apart.

Pohatu is my favorite of the original Toa. You should have seen my reaction when I first played his level and realized what the developers had done with it. 

The only good part of the game is the music.

That's funny. Tahu and Kopaka were never iconic to me.

Even though I was never a Tahu fan, the Hau was the most visible symbol of Bionicle for quite some time.

No Bionicle game would EVER work with custom Toa. Remember all the ridiculous fanmade sets that were turned into Dark Hunters and added to canon? They're just hideous and awful and now we all have to live with them being 'official' even though they should have just been given a pat on the back and sent on their way... If we get a new game then it needs to be canon and that means the writers will need to consider everything they include in it very carefully. The playable character will have to be someone entirely forgettable or an unknown future hero like Takua. Otherwise it'll just be a big mess and noone will get what they want!

A video game would be unlikely to give people much freedom with building Toa. The worst you could probably do with a Toa character creator is use clashing colors. 

As for canon, Tales of the Tahunga allowed you to customize your Matoran's colors; Takua's canon colors were just the default set. If the video game is canon, there will be something similar.

 

The yellow gears were a deliberate choice—I actually had black gears originally and had to scavenge one of the yellow ones from the Piraka Stronghold just to get a full set of four. I think they contribute to the "set-like" appeal of the model. They help tie it together aesthetically with the similar Lord of Skull Spiders set (which also uses yellow gears), and add a fair deal of visual energy to what would otherwise be a fairly unappealing mass of black parts. This is just my personal opinion—I'm also the rare sort of fan who almost universally prefers the red and blue pins to the old black and grey ones, so I was fully expecting someone to criticize the use of yellow for the functional elements.

 

Yeah, the "mess of black problem" is why breaking up the color isn't always such a bad thing. I don't like the red and blue pins, but the yellow gears look like technological details and don't clash with the light green in the way a color like red would.

 

While I did buy all six Toa and a Protector, there's a point when the overspending just gets ridiculous. I'm not getting duplicates - it's just not in the budget. I'd rather save any extra money for new Lego sets/waves that I want, because it's more variety of building experience per dollar.

 

Same over here. Sometimes it can be really useful because it gets your a good amount of extra parts for upgrades and just regular building, but the sets this year are expensive enough as-is.

 

Speaking of the prices, is it just me or are some of them just way off in the pricing? I usually think that a set is a good deal if 100 pieces = ten dollars (US), but some of the toa seem way off of that. I mean, Pohatu has less parts than the Protector of Fire, yet is five dollars extra. Same with sets like Tahu and Gali, who have a two part difference yet have a five dollar difference in price. What gives? I mean, I can understand charging extra for play features and special parts like the function and masks, but it still doesn't make sense why so many of these sets have such impractical and off piece-to-price ratios when compared.

 

The ten parts per dollar metric never applied to Bionicle, since it has larger and more complex pieces than most Lego normal sets. The exceptions tend to be the more Technic heavy builds, since they have more tiny pins and axles, i.e. the Lord of Skull Spiders has the best piece-to-price ratio of the winter sets.

Piece size and uniqueness affects price in general. The Protector may have more pieces, but it comes with at least twelve of those little studs. Pohatu has larger pieces in general. The Protector also has no molds unique to the set, sharing all the new ones with the other Protectors. Pohatu has two molds unique to its set (mask and boomerangs), which probably got counted in the price. Finally, Lego just likes to keep prices the same between sets that are supposed to be equivalent. If they can convince you a Pohatu equals a Gali, they will sell you a Pohatu at the same price as a Gali. 

Definitely picking this up. It's a gorgeous set and I supported the original Cusoo page. Glad to see the blue jay made it. 

 

Sleepiness and clumsiness aren't really personality flaws. An interesting character weakness is something created by the personality. Clumsiness and sleepiness are just weaknesses of the body. They can be made into symptoms of personality flaws: Clumsiness can be the result of a lack of restraint, while sleepiness can be the result of perfectionist overworking or a lack of self-control. However, neither on the traits their own really adds depth to the characters.

That is like saying a physical or mental disability doesn't add depth to a character. And I would argue the contrary. That kind of trait doesn't have to be a RESULT of the personality to AFFECT the personality. A person who lives their life with a physical limitation will be a different person than somebody who lived their life without said limitation. Just look at Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Her blindness is a defining character trait. It's the reason she learned Earthbending from the badger-moles, which is part of why she became a master Earthbender in the first place. And if it weren't for her blindness, she wouldn't have been subject to the kind of pity and coddling that gave her such a willful and rebellious personality.

 

Likewise, let's look at Kopaka. He's clumsy, probably due to a lack of coordination. And even if that doesn't on its own make him a complex character, the way he RESPONDS to that limitation does. Instead of just acknowledging that aspect of himself, he is ashamed of his clumsiness. He tries to cover it up in order to put on a show of perfection. That already makes him a more complex character than he was in 2001, in my opinion, because his actual self-image becomes important to his characterization.

 

I have a feeling his character development will involve learning to relax that pride and acknowledge his own limitations.

 

You're right; Toph's a good example of a character whose personality developed around a physical obstacle. However, we haven't seen much in the way of how these flaws affect the characters outside of Kopaka pretending he didn't slip. That's because we haven't seen much of the Toa in general. Makes me really wish Lego would release that fourth animation, but it's barely past the beginning of the year so I'm just being impatient. 

Do their genders really need to be changed? I'm also not sure if the teams need to be perfectly equal. For possible future toa teams, I'd be cool if 4/6th's of them were females or males.

 

I'm just used to the toa being the genders they are and I don't think it makes sense for them to have to be changes solely for the sake of perfectly equal gender ratios. The gender per element thing was what bothered me the most and was what needed to be changed, which I think has been done. For the future, more representation for women is great, but I don't understand why so many find it useful if the current genders were swapped. It doesn't change their characters in any way important.

 

Well, if I had to change any genders, it would probably go down to Lewa and... Onua? Not sure to be honest. Pohatu could work as well.

This is purely a thought experiment. The human species is 50-50 split on human, and Bionicle as a toyline traditionally has had female characters as only one out of six at best. So this is just a hypothetical where three of the original six were female and you choose which Toa other than Gali were female.

(I didn't mind the original team being split this way; it's more when it became a trend. The Glatorian are the most obvious example where it became pretty stupid; despite the species not having single gender tribes, we still ended up with an all male winter line and one female in the summer line)

 

I agree the trope doesn't apply exactly, but the damsel in distress and Lewa in distress are still broadly similar in that they're both out of their depth, largely unable to help themselves, and so in need of external help. And in both cases that help is in some way male - literally with the knight in shining armour being a man, and with Onua being the physically strongest Toa (physical strength being a stereotypically male trait).

 

Lewa is able to help himself; he was the one who removed the Krana. Needing help is not being a damsel in distress. Being a damsel in distress means not having agency in the story. Lewa clearly has agency in the story even when he is possessed; he stops Kongu and Takua's rescue in MNOG, is the "villain" in that part of the game, and later removes the Krana mask through his own will. 

Also, Onua is physically outmatched in both fights. In 2001, he switches to the mask of Telekinesis after Lewa knocks him down. In 2002, he outright loses and gets the Krana off by talking to Lewa. That's something a lot of people miss: Onua both times frees Lewa through his mind rather than his brute strength.

The first movie was incredible, so it will be hard for this one to live up to it. I have hope though, and it's clear they're taking some risks, so they're not just riding the success of the first. 

On a side note, I'd love to see some Bionicle show up in a minor role... It'd be funny having a character that large next to the minifigures, and they could get some good riffing on the line (Like the character could have a ludicrously difficult to say name). Not too prominent, just a few jokes here and there. 

Sleepiness and clumsiness aren't really personality flaws. An interesting character weakness is something created by the personality. Clumsiness and sleepiness are just weaknesses of the body. They can be made into symptoms of personality flaws: Clumsiness can be the result of a lack of restraint, while sleepiness can be the result of perfectionist overworking or a lack of self-control. However, neither on the traits their own really adds depth to the characters. 

I do feel it's too early to judge characterization for the 2015 Toa. The 2001 Toa had barely any before the comics, and their early depictions could be off from the personalities established later; for example, Onua acted like a hothead in MNOG.