toa kopaka4372

Off the top of my head, here's a list of the characters we know have been revived and those who are permanently dead, owing to cause of death (incineration, cranial damage, death outside the Matoran Universe, etc.): Revived: Lhikan Hydraxon Mavrah Botar Nocturn Maybe Revived, but unconfirmed: Ihu Jovan Permanently Dead: Kodan Nikila Naho Karzahni (Plant) Nidhiki Krekka Sidorak Reysa Matoro Ancient Carapar Tridax Spiriah Kojol Antroz Vamprah Chirox Mutran Icarax Krika Gorast Bitil Makuta of Stelt Karzahni (Being) Tren Krom Certavus Teridax

Ouch. This hurts. This hurts a lot. I never really got into G2, but I did try to give it a chance and I was eager to like it. I don't think its first year held a candle to G1's, and as a whole it just never compared...however, I knew it had just started and held out hope that the story would improve and eventually become the brilliant epic that G1 ended up being, warts and all. Besides, it was still BIONICLE, and I had waited a long five years for its return. So I bought the sets (which were consistently amazing and better than most of G1's, though they can't compare in nostalgic value), bought the books, and bought the graphic novels. I'm still watching JtO. And honestly, it really felt like 2016 was a step in the right direction. The second graphic novel provided some much needed backstory and helped make Okoto and its islanders feel a little more real, and I thought the conflict between Ekimu and Makuta was a great retelling of the Mata Nui-Teridax one from the original, keeping the essentials while still offering a fresh take on the classic tale. The character writing/world building still lacked, especially compared to G1's greatness, but the second year, boosted by a BIONICLE TV show (finally!) and fun graphic novels, really showed that this new line was capable of building a better story than that portrayed in the fun-and-cute-but-still-mediocre animations that formed the bulk of 2015's story. G2 could have become something. It could have eventually stepped out of the massive shadow of its 10-year-giant of a predecessor, no mere feat. But now it won't, and that's just heartbreaking. It's easy to rage and criticize how G2 was (mis)handled, and I do think it could have been better. But that doesn't take away from the passionate work of the new BIONICLE team, who dedicated themselves to it for the past two years and now have to deal with the unceremonious cancellation of their project. I do agree with some who say that the effort/creativity/imagination that went into the construction of G2's story often wasn't communicated in the final product we got. For example, the bios of the Toa Okoto paint vibrant images of these characters, again honoring the original Toa Mata while deepening their characters in a way that G1 wouldn't do until later in its run. And yet that depth never really came across in the animations, books, or JtO. Its baffling. Same goes for the world of Okoto itself. Abundant work and imagination, and yet so much of what was written in guides and on websites just didn't show up in the primary story vehicles. I get the impression of disorganization when regarding G2 as a whole. G1 suffered from some of that in its later years, but that was after it had already established itself as a quality line, a formidable seller, and a popular product. A line in its infancy, as G2 was, couldn't afford to make such mistakes. But alas. I'm still trying to come to terms with this. I'm not as devastated as the first time around, partially due to lesser investment in G2 and age, but it's still pretty sad to see the latest incarnation of a line that defined my entire childhood (and beyond) come to such a quick end, after all of the excitement two years ago. I suppose I'll go back to what I did during the five-year absence of BIONICLE: reliving the legend by rereading it, rewatching it, replaying it, and discussing it, this time with the addition of an extra two years worth of content that I'm grateful to have, regardless of my criticisms. If nothing else, G2 allowed me to re-experience the joy of buying a new BIONICLE set or new BIONICLE book as a college student, and for that I am thankful. So long, G2. Until G3.

Those were presumably Rahi though. I do not believe Rahi were sent up to the Red Star. EDIT: Heck, they don't have to be Rahi. They could have been organic beasts native to Aqua Magna, since the Pit was above the dormant Mata Nui robot. -NotS In addition to the above points, Matoro and the other Toa Mahri spent much of their time around Mahri Nui, in the ocean of Aqua Magna, which is beyond the bounds of the Matoran Universe; the Red Star does not revive biomechanical beings that die outside of the MU. So, all the Mahri Nui Matoran that died, for example, remained permanently dead. Matoro would have had plenty of corpses to use. Of course, as mentioned above, the important point is that Rahi are not revived and so their bodies are left behind, so Matoro would have had plenty of corpses to use even if he had been inside the Matoran Universe.

No problem! Glad to hear it.

Found it, top of the page (on my computer at least): https://community.lego.com/t5/LEGO-General/Chat-with-Greg-Farshtey/td-p/6605180/highlight/true/page/684

I'm not disputing that the organic and mechanical components of the bodies of MU inhabitants will eventually break down, leading to death; the point is that it hasn't happened yet. Helryx, the very first Toa, is just fine despite being around since the very beginning of the MU's existence. That tells us that the normal lifespan of an MU inhabitants exceeds 100,00 years. No one from there has lived long enough to die of old age yet, so that would have been a non-issue throughout MU history. You mentioned earlier that it breaks suspension of disbelief for them to be capable of lasting that long, but I don't see how that is the case; there's no reason to assume that organic and mechanical material in the BIONICLE universe behaves identically to ours. If the story says they can last that long and remains consistent with that assertion, then that's how it is. The inhabitants of Bara Magna are mostly organic, and yet Gresh, who is older than Mata Nui himself, is considered "young" among the Glatorian. One can only imagine how old you'd have to be on BM to die of age, and that's with people who have almost no mechanical components. Throughout 10 years of G1 story, we never saw someone actually being put in a grave or visiting a grave of a deceased person, and I recall Greg bringing this up back in 2011 around the time of the Red Star reveal, which was partially meant to explain what happened to dead bodies since the story always avoided the topic. As I mentioned above, though, we do know that Rahi didn't disappear (no RS transport for them) and so had to be buried, and we saw the Toa Hordika burying a bunch of dead Visorak in Challenge of the Hordika, so MUians understood and implemented the concept of graves, just not necessarily for themselves. As such, seeing mentions of them in the story isn't that odd. If I recall correctly, the Red Star broke down because Gaardus messed up the system during his time there. It was working fine before then (granted "before then" wasn't all that much).

Wonder how that held up when the guy reappeared two months later with the same mask and job. The guy wouldn't reappear. The Red Star malfunctioned very early in its existence, so that the people sent there never returned (hence the reason the Kestora started killing people on it in order to not "run out of room").

A topic defending the decanonization of romantic love in G1? Never thought I'd see the day. A few points, most nitpicky: 1) MU inhabitants can love just fine. Its romantic love specifically that they cannot feel (yet?). We see our beloved MU characters expressing love throughout the story all the time: love for friends, love for home, love of good, love of evil, etc. It's a distinction that's usually assumed in these kind of discussions, but I think it'd be nice to be more explicit /nitpicky. 2) I know Greg is the scapegoat to blame for the non-canon-ness of romance, and I know it's become a bit of a joke at this point, but I wonder if the general tendency to credit him for the lack of canon romance in the MU is yet another example of him bearing criticism that should be directed at the story team as a whole simply because he was its most prominent member. It's kind of unfair too, since he gave us canon couples/romance stories in Sahmad's Tale and with Kiina when he didn't have to. This isn't directed at you, by the way, just general commentary on attitudes I see in the fandom. 3) This is a nice way of looking at it, and I appreciate you writing this out. You might be interested to know that Greg has basically confirmed what you're saying in terms of Matoran evolving to acquire romantic love. I can't pull it up right now, but a while ago Greg suggested in a Lego Message Board answer (on the ask Greg topic, I'd recommend people check it out from time to time) that the Matoran, based on their interactions with the Agori, could develop romantic feelings. He basically left the door open for that to happen on Spherus Magna in the future, which is probably as close as he'll ever come to making MU romance canon. Kind of surprised that doesn't get brought up more often (though it's likely because so few are aware of it).

somehow. Eh... Not all beings. Most or many, but not all. Some beings DO age, but those beings aren't known in anything more than the Dark Hunters. yeah i was adding "somehow" cuz it suspends disbelief that they don't die of age, since death by age is about how well your body can hold up, and given the Toa rotted apart in their own canisters, i don't think Bionicle characters have systems capable of 10000+ years of constant labor. Pretty sure it was specifies that the Toa Mata rotted away from lack of activity. Most people in the MU would never have found themselves in situations where they remained inactive and immobile for tens of thousands of years, so I don't think that really serves as evidence that their bodies can't remain functional for that long. To answer the OP's question, we know that graves exist in the MU due to various references for them, but most graves don't seem to have been for actual inhabitants like the Matoran and the like. Rahi, for example, are not transported to the Red Star, so their bodies are left behind and rot away. This is consistent with all of the Rahi carcasses we have seen throughout the story (dead Rahi throughout Maze of Shadows, dead Visorak in Reign of Shadows, etc.). Also, the Toa Hordika bury a ton of dead Visorak in Challenge of the Hordika, so the concept of burial was known to them likely as a result of Rahi not disappearing upon death. In places like Mata Nui and Voya Nui (after the GC) where the Red Star wouldn't have reached (since they're outside the MU), normal Matoran and the like would have been buried as well. For the most part, though, most sapient beings were not buried since they were transported to the Star. I recall Greg saying at some point that there were some mystical beliefs that they had become one with Mata Nui, or something of the sort.

Thought this might be interesting to drop off here (a thread about a year old also started by fishers; it has some nice posts): http://www.bzpower.com/board/topic/18374-themes-of-the-bionicle-story/

If I recall correctly, Greg confirmed the Red Star only works within the interior of the Matoran Universe (that is, within Mata Nui's robot body). Since Mata Nui (the island) was outside of the Matoran Universe, the Red Star wouldn't have been able to revive any of its inhabitants. So probably not.

Yeah, Tuma was a superb character in the books and serials with a surprising amount of complexity; The Legend Reborn film really did him a disservice. Greg does his best to explain Tuma's odd incompetence/silliness in the novelization, with some degree of success. If you want to find some way to reconcile the TLR Tuma with the book/serials Tuma, the novelization is your best bet.

This ties into my biggest problem with the animations, which are the villains. Hands down the worst part of the webisodes, and of the 2015 story as a whole. They were villains because the story said so, and were presented in the most bland, cliche, generic manner possible. To top it all of, they got approximately zero characterization (which is especially disappointing in light of the decent characterization the webisodes managed to give the Toa).

I do have to say this is probably my opinion on the subject too, they build them up as being so powerfull with all those rahkshi powers n whatnot (actually, habing all the rahkshi powers is one of the few things i dislike about the makuta but whatever) and then when they show the eight makuta in karda-nui they're practically pushovers! I just warmed up to the karda-nui Makuta pretty quickly because they're vampires, bionicle vampires. u: I feel it's worth pointing out that the 2008 story explicitly acknowledged and explained this. The Makuta were only holding back because they needed the Toa Nuva alive to awaken Mata Nui so that the Plan could succeed. Once Mata Nui was awake, the Makuta could have killed them without issue, but of course the Energy Storms made that impossible. I recall the Toa Nuva wondering throughout that year about the fact that they were still alive and that the Codrex still existed (and therefore the key to awakening Mata Nui) despite the Makuta's power and obvious capability of destroying them and their hopes of awakening the Great Spirit.

Signed. This whole thing is pretty fun. I doubt anything will come of this particular effort, but hey, it would be really cool if something did.

I've talked about it with plenty of people, most of whom aren't really into it, but are willing to listen. I've actually introduced the Matoran language to more than a few people, although most of them don't know it comes from BIONICLE; they just think it's a cool code I found online. If they ask further, though, I tell them.

I'll just copy-and-paste a post I made on this topic last year... I think Greg's a fantastic writer and storyteller. I'm not sure why since classic BIONICLE ended it's become popular in parts of the fandom to hate on him (and yes, I mean "hate," not "criticize"), but he really gets a lot of negativity for reasons with little validity. He wasn't perfect, of course, as when given complete creative freedom he sometimes let his stories get away from him and become a bit messy, and at times in the later years his writing erred on 'grimdark', but otherwise he was fabulous. I've reread many BIONICLE novels over the past few months, and not only do they hold up extremely well, in some cases they even came across better than when I read them when I was younger. I picked up on a lot of subtle characterization, clever foreshadowing, and some very interesting themes that remained consistent from novel to novel. Greg's on record on saying that he views BIONICLE as a character-driven story, and this is really evident in most of his work. A lot of people might wax poetic about how superior the early years were to the later ones, but the way I see it, the characters of BIONICLE's Mata Nui years were very archetypal and had a limited amount of development. It was in the later years, from Metru Nui onwards, that the characters really became fully-rounded, fleshed out, and very real, and this is almost entirely thanks to Greg's talent at writing them. I always felt that he understood his characters very well, understood what made them tick, how they thought, how they felt in different situations, etc. He's said over and over, in interviews or otherwise, that the most important part of writing is to properly understand your characters, because if you don't, the story will become unpredictable and messy, because you won't know how the characters would act in a given situation. I think Vakama's turn to evil in 2005 is one of the best examples how skilled Greg is at this. He said that he felt Vakama betraying his team made no sense and that it should have been Matau, and yet I have difficulty believing that when Vakama's betrayal came across as the most natural thing in the world in the novels. Even minor or side characters got a decent amount of characterization, because Greg knew how to give them that with only a little space to work with. Aside from all of that, Greg always wrote thematically consistent stories that were really about the minds of the people in them than whatever conflict there was. This is most evident in his bridge stories, like The Darkness Below and Voyage of Fear, and especially Maze of Shadows. In the plotline of each of these books, there are clear themes and ideas that drive the story and really make each a cohesive, compelling narrative with an actual greater purpose outside of 'adventure' or whatnot. Someone on LMB recently asked Greg why Matoro was the one that died. Greg's answer was something along the lines of "Matoro was always the one who thought least of himself and never viewed himself in a heroic light, so it made dramatic sense for him to be the greatest hero of all." Small things like that show Greg's understanding of the mechanics of telling a story. Also, I would like to point out that Greg was never the one who decided the story on his own; he was just one member of the story team, albeit with a little more freedom due to the serials. Greg's received a lot of backlash since he revealed he doesn't like planning ahead exactly what he's going to write, and a lot of people use this to mock and degrade his storytelling. All I have to say is, people take this statement too literally. Rereading his bridge stories specifically, there's always a lot of foreshadowing to the end of the book, and the narrative is always very cohesive and consistent. I think it's plain Greg has a few ideas of what the story is going to be about, the themes, and writes with those as his guideline. There is more than enough evidence that it worked almost perfectly with the novels, but less so with the serials, where Greg went a bit haywire in the last years. And even if you dislike Greg's writing, give the man a little credit for devoting so much of his time to BIONICLE fans, even when he didn't need to. He has an obvious love for the series, and it's sad to see how dismissive some fans have become of him. Also, it seems he's been reading the posts in this topic, because he posted about it over in the LMB. Just quoting him here:

Romance was canon in G1 though, just not with the inhabitants of the Matoran universe. Sahmad was confirmed to have loved a woman in the romantic sense before she died from the Dreaming Plague, and Greg basically confirmed that Kiina had romantic feelings for Mata Nui. More recently, Greg suggested the possibility of the MU inhabitants developing the concept of romantic love now that they are interacting extensively with the Agori and their kind on Spherus Magna.

I'm seeing a lot of "most of BIONICLE's villains were evil for the sake of being evil/just power-hungry" posts in this topic, and I have to disagree. To quote myself from another thread: Yes, the goal of many of BIONICLE's villains was power/world domination, but that doesn't explain their motive for wanting that. Velika, to use a recent example, wants to take over Spherus Magna. The reason he does, though, is not a lust for power but because of a genuine belief that such an action was necessary to preserve peace and avoid the kind of disaster that led to the Shattering in the first place. He's killing people left and right, yes, but because he believes that eliminating wild cards is a must in order to avoid any threats to the peace that he intends to establish. The Barraki wanted to overthrow Mata Nui because of the belief that they were inherently superior and so were entitled to such power. Their motivations become more interesting after they are mutated, where they are driven by an intense hatred of the Brotherhood and Mata Nui for ruining them and reducing them to pathetic sea creatures; basically, they desired the Ignika to restore themselves to normal so that they could exact vengeance and take back the power they felt they were entitled to. The Piraka were basically evil because they were jerks, but it's worth keeping in mind that their species wasn't originally so brutal and violent; they were the victims of experimentation and mutation, outside factors beyond their control. Roodaka did pretty much everything that she did in 2005 in order to free Teridax and gain favor with him (since she was a bit obsessed with him). Karzahni was only really a villain because he was totally and truly insane, a failed creator who was ashamed of his work and who adopted the wrong methods in his attempt to do his job of 'fixing' the Matoran. Sahmad, because of the of the cruelty with which his diseased tribe was treated by others and left to die out, was driven by an intense hatred of all of them, as well as by a desire to get to the bottom of who or what had destroyed his people so that he could find closure. The Bohrok weren't even villains, just victims of being summoned at the wrong time to execute the job they were always intended to do. And so on. There's a lot more variety here than it might first appear.

Glad you brought this up. Most BIONICLE fans don't seem to realize that Greg wasn't the sole writer of the story, just the one we saw the most of due to his interactions with the fans and due to the fact that he wrote the books and the comics. It does make him an easy scapegoat for any problems, though. However, because Greg was indeed the one who actually wrote the books and thus brought the events and characters to us, he had an especially important influence on the story, such as how we interpreted the various events and characters. More so, he did make a lot of important story decisions; a few months ago on the LMB he confirmed that it was him who chose Matoro to be the Toa to die in 2007. So he's an important figure, and the only reason everyone goes to him now is because he's the only member of the story team still in touch with the fans. We assume that he has behind-the-scene knowledge, including the opinions and decisions of other members of the story team, that influences what he tells us.

Nah, it's hardly recent. Try since five years ago. I've though about Teridax a bit, and really I think he's one of the few villains in BIONICLE truly beyond redemption. In Gen 1 he was pretty much the personification of evil, and I doubt anything anyone did would have changed that. His worldview was simply too twisted. Even if someone else had showed him who was boss, as other have suggested, I doubt that would have changed much of anything. He'd just bounce right back with a new scheme. And really, I'm not sure what Teridax could do to redeem himself. He's pretty much a monster by every standard. The guy willingly allowed the Order to exterminate his own species in order to eliminate his competition, personally sent his best fighter to Karda Nui to get them all killed despite their loyalty to him, unleashed Rahi on Matoran to get them to quiet down, and murdered people left and right without a shred of remorse. I'm glad he wasn't redeemed in the story, because I currently can't think of a way it could have happened without coming across as incredibly forced (and his story was better for it anyways). Honestly, in this quote I think Greg is referring specifically to people like Teridax. Villains in the truest sense of the word. That people think that this one answer he gave to some random person could be applied to every single thing he's ever written just seems silly to me.

As I mentioned in another topic, most of BIONICLE's villains, including Teridax, were like that. It doesn't really mater. Teridax wasn't really ever quite a good guy though? he was always jealous and always felt he deserved more than he really did. :0 I don't think that makes him a bad person. Plenty of people are jealous and feel entitled, doesn't make them evil villains. Though perhaps Teridax wasn't the best example, if the Matoran massacre is anything to go by (though an argument could be made that he was already far gone by then). That's fine; there are many others. Nidhiki (and a really big chunk of the Dark Hunters, at that), Tuyet, all the Barraki, etc. Also, another character who aimed for redemption in Gen 1: Lesovikk, who felt he was no longer worthy of the title of Toa due to his hesitation, which caused the deaths of his entire team. Not really a villain redeeming himself, but a nice redemption story nonetheless.

Well, in that case, he must have misinterpreted the question, because there was certainly nothing in the questions asked nor in the broad concept of redemption stories to imply immediate change. Maybe he did. Maybe we're interpreting the question too literally. Maybe he just worded it poorly (wouldn't be the first time). Maybe it's something else. The way I see it, his own writing does not seem to suggest the understanding of the quote that most people here are running with, and so that there is likely more to it.

As I mentioned in another topic, most of BIONICLE's villains, including Teridax, were like that. It doesn't really mater. @fishers64 Krahka is a great example. That was basically what her whole character arc was about. I really liked Pouk's line about her sacrifice in BA#8. I'll throw in Mavrah as another example, even if he doesn't fir it to a tee.

See, this is what bugs me. People can change. People change all the time. I am very much not the person I was four years ago. There is no such thing as a set "kind of person you are" and that's what I hate about what Greg said. He essentially said "an evil character can only ever be evil" as though there's no such thing as actual redemption. I think Krika could have become a good Makuta. I think his sympathy to the Toa's cause and disillusionment with Makuta's plan that lead to him trying to convince the Toa to work against it is so much more interesting than "I don't want this plan because it doesn't benefit me personally". You're making a bit of a strawman argument here. I never claimed that people can't change, and going by Greg's writing, he doesn't believe that either. But Krika, by the end of his life, was indeed a "kind of person." That was his personality at that point. Perhaps he would have redeemed himself later. We don't know, because he died shortly after. More so, you're twisting Greg's words at bit. Note that he said he doesn't believe a person can suddenly become good, not that it could never happen. As mentioned before, it happened with both Brutaka and Vakama. Greg clearly puts a lot of stock into development having gradually, and doesn't seem to be a believer in people changing drastically without good reason. As an example: Greg felt that Vakama turning evil would be a forced twist and unrealistic, but since the story team decided on that, he had to write it. He put so much effort into making Vakama's transformation feel organic and natural (by planting numerous seeds for it in the books leading up to Web of Shadows) that I would never had believed that the author was against it if I hadn't seen Greg say so numerous times. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. Brutaka went through an arc of redeeming himself after getting a wake-up call from being sent to the Pit and coming face to face with what he'd become (by seeing the Barraki). There is a pattern here. I believe I showed that Krika was a more nuanced character than just "I'm selfish." If anything, I feel that's part of what makes him so interesting. I could understand if you don't see it that way, though. This is a sweeping, and frankly unfair, evaluation of Greg's writing. Many of Greg's characters are "evil" and "villains" due to very understandable motivations, and implying that they are all maniacs who enjoy being evil is a serious discredit to his writing. Tuma, for example, most certainly wasn't evil because he liked being evil- he was ruthless and merciless because he carried the burden of being the last Skrall of his kind and the responsibility to ensure the survival of his entire species from monsters (the Battera) that were intent on wiping them out. Nidhiki was an individual who truly loved being a hero but made one idiotic mistake due to his own pragmatic outlook that made him an outcast. When he attempted to get away from the Dark Hunters and start over, he was mutated into what he hated most. His actions from then on were a result of trauma and intense hatred, not of some inherently evil nature. Tuyet was mentally unstable, but her actions were, at their core, motivated by a genuine desire to help the Matoran, though that desire expressed itself in a twisted and frightening manner. The examples go on. Maybe, instead of liking being evil, Krika acted in such a manner simply as a result of personality defects and a damaging outlook on life. This is a conclusion that can easily be reached by observing his actions and words in the book; nothing Greg says contradicts that. Give him a little credit.