That Matoran with a Vahi

I first considered answering with The Darkness Below, Raid on Vulcanus, or Tale of the Toa - perhaps three of the most easily stand-alone books in the Bionicle library - but I'm not really happy with any of those answers. TDB could work due to being basically a self-contained side-story for the Toa Metru, without a huge cast or scope, but just isn't an essential story to the franchise (and Vakama and co. already have two movies anyway; give someone else the spotlight!). RoV is... fine, but I'd never choose Bara Magna content over MU content if given the choice. And TotT, while of course featuring the perhaps most iconic Bionicle year, just doesn't feel like the strongest telling of the story... I'd rather a 2001 movie be an adaption of MNOG, honestly, with how well that game captured the atmosphere of the world! I feel like that's just a little outside the scope of the question though... So, having ruled out those thoughts: I wonder, actually, if a good answer might be maaaaaaybe City of the Lost? It's a nice little slice of Bionicle worldbuilding; it may be fairly light on story, with no Toa in sight, but it introduces a new location that doesn't require a tonne of backstory to understand it, since the inhabitants themselves also don't remember where they came from. It includes one of the familiar icons of the Bionicle franchise - a mysterious mask as a major plot item -, as well as suitably ominous villains, a cameo by a familiar face in the form of Makuta in the prologue, and gives some of the Matoran characters a rare chance to shine. I don't know if it would be my final answer, but it's one that I could see being an intriguing prospect, at any rate 🤔

Oh wow, that's cool! Many congratulations to Sokoda! Will be cool to see what they come up with ^^ I also had no idea that some of those members were working for Lego, even of the ones whose names I recognise! Shows how much I'm on top of things that happen around here 🤣

Fair point! I do agree that a lot of these Matoran would rise to the challenge, and would grow into the role with character development just as the Metru did; I was more leaning into the question of which ones would make good choices even before undergoing such development ^^ In that line of thinking, if I were to put together a team of six elements... hm... Garan - The leader. Tanma - The tactician. Marka - The practical one, the hardest worker. Kapura - The source of unconventional insight. Maybe Pakaasta or Talvi - Experienced soldiers, either of whom could help train their less-combat-equipped teammates. ...yeah, I'm stumped for Stone. Besides Hafu's ego making him less-than-ideal (and many of the MNOG2 Matoran being too busy to stop and talk so don't give a clear idea of their personalities), Ahkmou is a traitor, Velika is possessed, Dekar became Hydraxon... from a certain point, the named Po-Matoran just started really getting the short end of the stick 🤣 I like your choice of team too, though! I think it's a nice change of pace to have the Ga-Toa have her own struggles too, instead of being the one who has it all together and has to keep the rest of the team under control, like Gali and Nokama both did in canon. I'd read a story about the six of them, for sure Onepu also tends to try and skip out on tasks that he doesn't like - e.g. in MNOG, he's mentioned to have taught Taipu how to work hard enough for both of them, so that he doesn't have to be involved in the digging to Le-Koro himself... Taipu, of course, just thinks this is an example of how smart Onepu is, without realising he's being somewhat taken advantage of by his friend - which I can also see not going over well with his teammates if he tries to pull it as a Toa! ^^

I don't think bravery alone necessarily makes one qualified to be a Toa. Pretty much every Matoran we've met, whether on Mata, Voya, Mahri or Karda Nui has had to be brave due to the circumstances surrounding them: but being brave and being competent / trustworthy with that kind of power don't necessarily overlap. For that reason, I wouldn't say that e.g. Hafu would be a good Toa: he's unquestionably brave, but he's also full of himself (perhaps not so much in canon as the fandom likes to memetically make him, but he did still carve a giant statue of himself when all he needed to do was cut some rocks down to size, so...) and unless that's tempered carefully, doesn't make for a great trait in a hero. Dalu too, with her 'fight first, ask questions later' attitude, wouldn't make an ideal Toa choice in my eyes, either. This isn't a knock against either Hafu or Dalu, both of whom I like a lot! I'm just observing that being brave is only one quality that a Toa needs, and several of these Matoran don't yet hold some of those other ideal qualities. I'm sure they could both overcome those drawbacks with experience and character development - the Toa Metru, after all, started out as a whole heap of character flaws and yet still managed to grow as people enough to pull together when it counted -; they'd just need to work at it to reach that point. Same, I think, goes for several of the other Matoran. Some who I think would be good picks, though... Garan, I'd say for sure. He has leadership experience, and is good at keeping a cool head even in difficult situations. Balta too, as Garan's second-in-command, who seemed to be particularly good at making allies (being the first Matoran to befriend Axonn, and the one to stop his friends from killing the Toa Nuva). Kapura, who's likewise fairly level-headed despite his strangeness, and is good at thinking 'outside the box', which is a valuable trait for a Toa. Kotu, who is again used to responsibility, and even if she's an infamous practical joker seems to know when to be serious instead. I want to say Marka as well, who's well-versed in the values of being a hard worker and in purity of both mind and motive, but I may be a tiny bit biased there because she's long been my favourite MNOG2-named Matoran...! Probably some of the Karda-Matoran too, but I honestly don't remember what made any of them distinctive except for Gavla, and she's far from the best choice! That said, I'm with Nato here, too; I prefer the idea that any Matoran has the potential, and that it comes down to a Matoran being 'in the right place at the right time' more than the rather nebulous concept of Destiny. The Metru, again, are kind of an exception since it's specifically explained that Mata Nui handpicked them because he knew what Makuta was planning: but if Mata Nui establishes a being's Destiny, and yet he a) isn't omniscient and b) spends much of the story asleep and therefore unable to change or adapt anyone's Destiny, it seems to me that Jaller and co., as an example, must have became Toa due to being where they were, when they were, rather than their transformations being pre-planned. Just my few cents, at least.

I'd chose to simply be a Matoran on Mata Nui. No location in the Bionicle universe ever captured my imagination like that island, and even for all the dangers of Rahi and Bohrok and what-have-you... well, as Hahli also said, "Never have any been as blessed as we are, to live in such a paradise." I'd want to live in that paradise, too. Specifically... possibly in Onu-Koro, which I've always liked the atmosphere of - as well as being the city with best connection to the other Koro, too, making it easy to travel to see the sights, especially with the benefit of their famed taxi crab service! - but I feel like I'd also love to live in Ga-Koro which seems to be one of the most homey of the Koro; or perhaps Po-Koro because I vibe more with their principle of creativity, even though the desert wouldn't be my first choice of environment to live in!

Either Nokama or Matau for me; mostly coming down to the fact that those are the two whose face designs I like best, since there are no other meaningful differences between the Hordika models. (Although I may be slightly biased in Matau's case since he was my first Hordika, and getting him pulled me back from one of my out-of-Bionicle slumps; which gives me a particular soft spot for him that has nothing to do with the set's specific details!)

^ Agreed. In fairness I must say that I really liked Chronicles #1 and #2 when I first got them - they were my first exposure to Bionicle novels, and revisited my favourite years, no less! - but even then I was aware of their discrepancies with existing material and invariably preferred Templar's / the comics' version of the story in those instances. And the more I looked at them in later years, the more I found myself not fully vibing with the writing style in general. On the subject of Mr. Farshtey's books, I find myself agreeing with you about Prisoners of the Pit as well. I honestly don't remember very much of what happened in that book, so it definitely feels like one of the more forgettable entries for me. And I'd say the same about Swamp of Secrets too, for the same reasons: and in addition, besides not remembering a lot of its present-day plot, I felt like the flashbacks to the Nuva's past robbed them of a lot of their mystique without providing much in its place, and made the story feel disjointed with the way it cut back and forth between the past and the present. One last (and possibly contentious) take, I'm not quite a big fan of Mysteries of Metru Nui, either. I generally like the Metru Nui arc books; the small issue I have with that one is that it's not much more than a straight retelling of the Toa Metru promo CD games. The games themselves were each fairly formulaic, so it feels rather like the same story is being told six times through the novel with slight variations, when I feel like much of it could have been glossed over to get to the meat of the story more smoothly. Later books were better about this, though, so it feels kind of like starting difficulties, as the first main-storyline novel, than anything else.

Avak, for me, although Thok runs in at second not far behind, and I can definitely see the arguments for the others too. I just... I don't know, it may have been a remnant of my childhood 'always drawn to the engineer characters' trend, but I think its' more just the way he seemed to be the most down-to-earth of the Piraka a lot of the time - without the big schemes of Zaktan or as much casual backstabbing as some of the others - that just made him click with me more. The fact that his power, the ability to conjure up prisons specifically tailored to their target, was one of the most interesting out of the group definitely helped as well; the way it's less of a brute strength power than some of the others' emphasises him as a thinker who considers his enemies' weaknesses carefully before acting. I also find it interesting how, despite his implied reputation as the least trustworthy, in different scenes he seems to have a decent rapport with several of the other Piraka, which can't be said for most of the rest of the group. Aside from chewing him out for destroying any clues to the location of the Mask of Life in the Matoran history cave, he got along perfectly amicably with Vezok in Ignition #1 (to the point where Vezok had no reservations about telling him that he had an agreement with Reidak to betray the rest of the Piraka but agreed to let Avak live when that happened); and he seemed to cooperate well with Hakann in Legends #1, perhaps the closest than any of the Piraka came to looking like they had a friendship. It's a little detail that I find interesting, and would have liked to see it expanded on further. I have also long enjoyed his flipping Reidak to determine which of them got to stay with the boat in Legacy of Evil... proves he even has a bit of a sense of humour! xD

I'm torn between Nuparu and Hahli. On the one hand, Nuparu is and has always been MY BOY, ever since his Matoran days: he was the one I was so proud of when I learned he'd become a Toa, he was the first Inika I got (and would have been even had 'getting the Earth Toa of a new team first' not been my tradition!), and because I like his character so much that feeling carries over to his set as well. His mask design doesn't bother me at all. On the other... visually as a set, Hahli takes it for me. Her marbled blue-and-white is possibly my favourite colour scheme of the Inika; while I didn't dislike the light grey for Nuparu - it looks nice and clean, and I definitely preferred it over his Mahri design's dark grey - he really needed a splash of his signature orange to liven things up, whereas Hahli's balance with the dark of the blue and bright of the white just works fantastically for me, like the crest of waves on a dark ocean. Plus, moustache jokes aside, I do like the Elda's design, it'd be up there in my ranking of the Inika masks if I made one. I've grown to appreciate her as a character more over the years too. And one more clear advantage she has over Nuparu is that the green light-up swords are visually stunning (same could be said for the blue ones too), whereas to me the red ones like his seemed to be more dull and didn't have the same impact. So purely on their merits as sets... Hahli for me, I guess!

Honestly I can say that it genuinely didn't impact me strongly at the time? I'd kinda wrapped up my journey with Bionicle at the end of 2008 and moved on to other interests earlier that year - while I still followed the news here on BZP, and peripherally kept up with the story, the lack of any familiar faces (unlike Bionicle's previous years, where the main heroes had always been characters we'd known since 2001/2) kept me from investing deeply - so while it was a surprise, the fact that I'd already 80% moved on meant that it really didn't hit me emotionally. It was more of a detached "well, huh, didn't see that coming" that I quickly took in stride. 'Course, if the announcement had come two years earlier, I definitely wouldn't have been so detached about it...!

Tales of the Masks, for me. Maybe for a variety of reasons - nostalgia for the early-years; Greg's writing style clicking with me better than Ms. Hapaka's; the Kal arc being one of my favourites; the Turaga getting more focus after they'd fallen somewhat into the background since 2001; the way it really pulled on Bionicle's old 'air of mystery' trick by hinting that there was more behind the Turaga without explaining what; and being the first book to tell completely new stories; and digging deeper into the Toa's personalities than some of the more plot-heavy books were able to - but that one resonated with me so much as a kid and I still love it to this day. That said, I'm also a big fan of all five of the 2006 novels. I know that year is often derided for being overly 'edgy'; but after the original Mata Nui arc, that year was perhaps my favourite of Bionicle's run, and the sense of ominousness that those books carried - with not only the Piraka being fully characters in their own right, and more in-focus out than most of Bionicle villains before them, as well as actually winning in a few of the books, as well as all the creepiness of Karzahni's realm - not to mention some of my favourite Matoran characters from the early years getting their chance to shine as Toa, introducing a few of my other favourite characters too, and even my favourite boy Lhikan getting to show up in the Legacy of Evil flashbacks... they just hit in a certain way for me that makes them stand out.

*Crashes in to correct myself* Sorry for the double-post. But I've just been sorting through old photos with my Dad, and found photos of me on my birthday that year, a couple of months earlier, where I was holding my Kopaka: so clearly I was misremembering and got him for my birthday instead. That said, I still feel fairly confident that my friend got his Kopaka for that Christmas, which is probably where I was getting confused.

Oh, reminds me, I did get a Bionicle set for Christmas in 2005, too: a Vahki Zadakh from a family friend. However, though she wouldn't have known it, I had all the Vahki - plus one duplicate already - by then; so I didn't open it but took it back to the toy shop in the new year to exchange for something different. And they had the first of the 2006 sets freshly in stock so, always having loved Bionicle's 'little guys', I came away with Garan and Kazi instead... so I guess you could say that I got them for Christmas too, albeit in a sort of round-about way!

I only got Bionicle for Christmas a couple of times. For me, birthdays were much more when I would get a 'big' Lego set - Bionicle or otherwise -, as well as smaller ones from other friends, while Christmas tended to more be a wide variety of smaller things instead. Plus, in the UK we didn't tend to get the new sets until January-March, rather than them arriving before Christmas as they often seemed to in America, so there were never really new Bionicle things on the shelves here at this time of year, just the remaining summer stock. Easter, instead, was where it became something of a tradition for my parents to get me a Bionicle set as a gift each year, alongside the traditional chocolate egg - inspired by a couple of years of having Pixar-themed Easter eggs which had included a toy as well - but yeah, not really Christmas. That said, I find the choice of photo used for Bionicle in the article interesting, as Kopaka Mata was one of the rare times I did get Bionicle for Christmas; the fourth entry in my slow collection of the classic Toa! I believe he was the favourite of both myself and a friend of the time, for featuring so prominently in comic #1, but while we both had a few Toa neither of us had him yet - and we were both gifted him that Christmas. The other occasions were when I found a used Muaka and Kane-Ra cheap on eBay in December 2006 and talked my parents into buying them as my main Christmas present - a good decision: they went on to become one of my top favourite Bionicle sets of all time! - and the Rockoh in 2008 which I asked for because I was curious to see what the battle vehicles were all about but they were too expensive for me otherwise. Some of the things in that article I've never even heard of, despite being a millennial, and even more of them I'm aware of but never actually owned. Bionicle, naturally, being the prominent exception xD

Little 'good guy' style builds of several of the major characters, one behind each door! Hilarious and horrifying, all at once 🤣 I joke, but I do think having some form of character build behind some doors would be essential; new mask recolours would indeed be very cool, but I don't think would carry the calendar on their own - I feel like a Lego calendar has to have some building involved. We might get a small character each day, or maybe larger characters with their parts spread across multiple days, in addition to the new mask recolours for them to wear. That said, I do think, in the vein of current Lego calendars, it would be neat to have a unique Christmas-style piece included in the final day; maybe something in the style of the infected Hau Nuva mask, but the marbled colours are festive-themed... like red and white to evoke Santa's outfit or something? That could be fun ^^ These days, I think even if Lego came around with a Bionicle calendar, they'd likely fill it with little brick-built versions of characters, like the Takua in last year's Tahu gift-with-purchase set. But that could be cool in its own right; it could give all the canonically-named MNOG-toran a chance to get included; maybe finally give Tamaru or Kapura or Kotu or Taipu official set representations!