Anyone else feel the same way I do about the Toa Inika/Toa Mahri Saga?

[ToaHordikaMatau-o5g]

Sorry, if this come of as spam or bashing, but does anyone else feel that the Toa Inika/Toa Mahri Saga is the meat and potatoes that holds Bionicle together and it is the 2006/2007 years that keeps Bionicle appealing in adulthood?

Honestly, if it weren’t the Toa Inika/Toa Mahri Saga…I honestly wouldn’t still be that big of a Bionicle fan in adulthood and it wouldn’t hold that much nostalgia to me.

Never liked the Toa Mata/Nuva as a Toa team all that much as personality-wise, they were always bland to me and they came out before I even got into Bionicle and didn’t care to see them steal back the spotlight in 2008 and I hated having to see the story focused on them again, never liked the Toa Metru as a Toa team either (outside the sets) and I don’t think I need to get into why I found the Toa Metru unlikable, the Toa Mahri/Toa Inika have always perfectly resembled what I think a Toa team should be.

Don’t even get started on how much better the villains were in 2006 and 2007 with the Piraka and the Barraki.

 

Edited July 17, 2024 by MakutaTeridax8924

[Master Inika]

The fact that the Inika/Mahri team was the current one when you got into Bionicle is the most telling part. I was having trouble following your reasoning until I reached that point. I got into Bionicle in 2003, so the Nuva are the team I am the most nostalgic for. I do not get why you don't like them so much. I don't see how they can be considered "bland" and your second reason (that they came out before you were a fan) is completely meaningless because LEGO didn't determine that.

I also think you are taking too for granted that everyone implicitly understands why you don't like the Metru/Hordika. You do in fact need to get into it, I don't have a Mask of Telepathy and so I can't read your mind. I assume you mean it's because a lot of them just seem like unpleasant people to be around (Vakama being whiny and Onewa being a jerk) but I still think they were narratively important. Of the three main Toa teams, the Metru were by far the least prepared for the role: the Toa Mata were never Matoran, so even if they had amnesia, their natural instinct to be heroes was present, and the Inika were able to look back to their close personal relationships with Tahu's team when they became Toa. In contrast, the Toa Metru lacked any meaningful preexisting relationships to a Toa before they became Toa themselves and were completely unprepared even as their transformation happened. When Lhikan gives Vakama the stone at the beginning of LoMM, that could feasibly be the first time Vakama's ever spoken to him one-on-one. Toa were more like untouchable celebrities to Vakama's team than personal friends.

I would argue each of the three Toa generations has their own unique strengths and weaknesses in-universe and as characters. The biggest weakness of the Inika/Mahri imo is that so much of their character development felt like it was only present in concept and did not actually influence the story that much. In particular, the idea that Jaller consciously wanted to avoid being hotheaded like Tahu and Vakama Hordika always seemed poignant to me and I was disappointed we never got to see that element in-story that much.

Now that I think about it, one could formulate an interesting parallel between the three generations of Toa and real-world generational cohorts, with the Nuva as Boomers, the Metru as Gen X/latchkey kids and Inika as Zillennials.

[ToaHordikaMatau-o5g]

On 7/17/2024 at 12:50 AM, Master Inika said:

The fact that the Inika/Mahri team was the current one when you got into Bionicle is the most telling part. I was having trouble following your reasoning until I reached that point. I got into Bionicle in 2003, so the Nuva are the team I am the most nostalgic for. I do not get why you don't like them so much. I don't see how they can be considered "bland" and your second reason (that they came out before you were a fan) is completely meaningless because LEGO didn't determine that.

I also think you are taking too for granted that everyone implicitly understands why you don't like the Metru/Hordika. You do in fact need to get into it, I don't have a Mask of Telepathy and so I can't read your mind. I assume you mean it's because a lot of them just seem like unpleasant people to be around (Vakama being whiny and Onewa being a jerk) but I still think they were narratively important.

Actually, I got into Bionicle in late 2004 through the Legends Of Metru Nui movie and started collecting sets and following the story in 2005…and yet I still ended up loving 2006/2007 much more than the Toa Metru Saga…ESPECIALLY when you consider the fact that 2005 of all years got me into Bionicle.

And I should have clarified why I don’t find Toa Metru likable and you took the words right out of my mouth. Outside of Vakama and Nokama, I never liked the Toa Metru much personality wise.

And I don’t HATE the Toa Mata/Nuva. I definitely don’t hate anything about Bionicle from 2001-2003 for that matter. I like the Toa Mata/Nuva as sets and understand how revolutionary Bionicle was for LEGO from 2001-2003 and how it saved LEGO from bankruptcy (and yada yada yada) and I understand the Toa Mata/Nuva was the first Toa team and the Toa team that most of the fanbase came in first contact with. I just…find them kinda tropey personality-wise in comparison to the Toa Mahri/Toa Inika and going from having the story centered around the Toa Mahri/Toa Inika back to the story surrounding the Toa Nuva was…repetitive and a bit of a let-down.

Edited July 18, 2024 by MakutaTeridax8924

[Master Inika]

11 minutes ago, MakutaTeridax8924 said:

Actually, I got into Bionicle in late 2004 through the Legends Of Metru Nui movie and started collecting sets and following the story in 2005…and yet I still ended up loving 2006/2007 much more than the Toa Metru Saga…ESPECIALLY when you consider the fact that 2005 of all years got me into Bionicle.

And I should have clarified why I don’t find Toa Metru likable and you took the words right out of my mouth. Outside of Vakama and Nokama, I never liked the Toa Metru personality wise that much which goes back to another thing…I always found the Vakama/Nokama and Hahli/Matoro dynamic much more interesting than the Matau/Nokama dynamic or Jaller/Hahli dynamic (which is why I hold 2006 and 2007 in high regard…I like how Hahli and Matoro became closer in 2006 (and how Jaller and Matoro became closer friends before Matoro’s sacrifice as well) as they became Toa.

And I don’t HATE the Toa Mata/Nuva. I definitely don’t hate anything about Bionicle from 2001-2003 for that matter. I like the Toa Mata/Nuva as sets and understand how revolutionary Bionicle was for LEGO from 2001-2003 and how it saved LEGO from bankruptcy (and yada yada yada) and I understand the Toa Mata/Nuva was the first Toa team and the Toa team that most of the fanbase came in first contact with. I just…find them kinda tropey personality-wise in comparison to the Toa Mahri/Toa Inika and going from having the story centered around the Toa Mahri/Toa Inika back to the story surrounding the Toa Nuva was…repetitive and a bit of a let-down.

Oh, I see now, I got confused to which Toa were before you got into Bionicle. Perhaps it is a "just had to be there" thing, but as much as I love all of G1, there is somethin special about the Mask of Light era to me.

The difference I think is that, while the Toa Metru would be the most unpleasant to hang out with IRL, they are still interesting characters. I also think the Toa were not necessarily the "main focus" on 2001-2003, the Matoran were. A bit of Early Installment Weirdness was how unknowable and godlike the original Toa could come off at times, seen through the eyes of the Matoran. Later generations tended to have Matoran-turned-Toa be our POV characters, so there were fewer POV characters who were still Matoran.

[Nato G]

On 7/16/2024 at 3:32 PM, MakutaTeridax8924 said:

but does anyone else feel that the Toa Inika/Toa Mahri Saga is the meat and potatoes that holds Bionicle together and it is the 2006/2007 years that keeps Bionicle appealing in adulthood?

Yes, and no.

I would honestly hesitate to describe those years as being the saga of the Toa Inika/Mahri. Those years were Matoro's story, through and through. They were about his tests and tribulations, his struggle and sacrifice. It's his story, and his alone, that makes those years hit as hard as they do. The other five were just... kind of there.

I reread the Complete Biological Chronicle only last year, and I honestly can't recall now if the other members of the Inika/Mahri even had character arcs.

I'm not sure it's fair to contrast two years that focused very heavily on the story of one specific character over years that worked much harder to give meaningful character development to entire ensembles of characters.  

On 7/16/2024 at 3:32 PM, MakutaTeridax8924 said:

Don’t even get started on how much better the villains were in 2006 and 2007 with the Piraka and the Barraki.

The shift from clone waves to villains with personality was a great idea, but it adds to the problem of the hero characters not getting as much character development. The novelty of the Piraka being completely new and unknown made them infinitely more interesting than the established characters of the Inika, and the fact that they got more than half of the screentime that year means there was a lot less room to give the Inika meaningful narratives. 

Unfortunately, there's a lot of wasted potential with both villain waves. The Piraka just get randomly abandoned at the end of 2006, are turned into snakes offscreen, then get one-shot by Axonn during their one confrontation with the heroes in 2007. The Barraki get introduced with this sweeping new backstory with game-changing ramifications that completely reframe everything we thought we knew and understood about the history of the Bionicle universe... and nothing is done with it after that year. As much as I love the lore of the Barraki, the story of those two years would have worked so much better if the Piraka had returned instead of the Mahri going up against the weakest wave of villains the story had seen up to that point.