"Shadow Toa"

[Kavu]

What were the "shadow toa"? I've always wondered if they were corrupted Toa Hagah but apparently BS01 says they were, to paraphrase, evil extensions of the Toa Mata created by Teridax. How is he capable of that? I know he can pull off simple illusions, but this seems rather odd even for a Makuta. As later on neither Teridax or any other Makuta presented in the story display any similar powers.

Edited February 21, 2013 by The Great Being Velika

[Vakama-san]

I always assumed they were solid shadow(or something like that) given artificial "life" by Teridax.

Edited February 21, 2013 by Vakama-san

[Van Hohenheim]

well, the shadow toa that fought Mazeka and good Teridax were versions of Takanuva that were pulled from other dimensions and corrupted completely by Spiriah i think. I suppose the same is with the Toa Mata, except with Toa Mata instead of Takanuva

[Hitoshura]

well, the shadow toa that fought Mazeka and good Teridax were versions of Takanuva that were pulled from other dimensions and corrupted completely by Spiriah i think. I suppose the same is with the Toa Mata, except with Toa Mata instead of Takanuva

No, with the Toa Mata they were forms of the darkness in themselves, so they were able to absorb them back in their bodies.

[Van Hohenheim]

well, the shadow toa that fought Mazeka and good Teridax were versions of Takanuva that were pulled from other dimensions and corrupted completely by Spiriah i think. I suppose the same is with the Toa Mata, except with Toa Mata instead of Takanuva

No, with the Toa Mata they were forms of the darkness in themselves, so they were able to absorb them back in their bodies.

 

ah. makes sense too. I was just saying that the Shadow Takanuvas were from other dimensions, but that works too. I never read the books

[Hitoshura]

well, the shadow toa that fought Mazeka and good Teridax were versions of Takanuva that were pulled from other dimensions and corrupted completely by Spiriah i think. I suppose the same is with the Toa Mata, except with Toa Mata instead of Takanuva

No, with the Toa Mata they were forms of the darkness in themselves, so they were able to absorb them back in their bodies.

ah. makes sense too. I was just saying that the Shadow Takanuvas were from other dimensions, but that works too. I never read the books

No, you were right about the Takanuvas in your first post. Makuta Tridax took them from other dimensions then Shadow Leeched them.

[Nick Silverpen]

My take on it was Makuta did have the power of illusion, so he could've easily conjured up illusionary dark Toa- he's seen enough Toa in his time to know the stereotypes, and know what a corrupted Toa would be like, so creating an illusionary one would be easy enough.

[AdaptingChaos]

I always asked the same question; I always thought they were like just toa clones with rusty, old armor, with the ability toi control the elemental power of shadow, and wearing infected kanohi.

[>_<]

I always thought they were like just toa clones with rusty, old armor

 

I never really got why infected kanohi had to look all rusty. It might look really cool and awesome, but I mean, if you were an evil overlord planning to overthrow someone who's essentially a demigod, wouldn't you want your soldier's armour to be in good shape, so they don't, ya know, get totally defeated?

Edited February 21, 2013 by Zeene

[Kavu]

I always thought they were like just toa clones with rusty, old armor

 

I never really got why infected kanohi had to look all rusty. It might look really cool and awesome, but I mean, if you were an evil overlord planning to overthrow someone who's essentially a demigod, wouldn't you want your soldier's armour to be in good shape, so they don't, ya know, get totally defeated?

The "rust" is supposed to represent the infection. It is most certainly not rust, it's whatever the Makuta and Kraata produce to give the Kanohi it's enslaving properties. The Kanohi itself is undamaged by the infection.

Edited February 22, 2013 by bonesiii
Changing a filtered word in the quote re: original post's edit fix above. :) -bones

[Meta-Mind]

I always asked the same question; I always thought they were like just toa clones with rusty, old armor, with the ability toi control the elemental power of shadow, and wearing infected kanohi.

Technically, they had the Elemental Powers of their Toa counterparts, rather than Shadow.I believe the explanation Greg gave was that the Shadow Toa were physical embodiments of the Toa Mata's inner darkness. When the Mata realized this, they could re-absorb their respective dark counterparts into themselves, thus ending the threat they posed.What I've found interesting is that there's no Makuta power which explicitly allows this kind of thing. However, it's possible that with the Mask of Shadows and Makuta-level illusions (wasn't Makuta Teridax shown making solid illusions at some point?), Teridax could produce illusory duplicates of the Mata's inner darkness.

[Makuta Matata]

I thought they were just beings of pure shadow infused with elemental energy along with their shadow abilities.

[Logan Tec]

One could argue that they were the evil parts of the mata all their fears and worry used against them. But Terry has a mask of shadows and they were pure shadow toa so with his shadow powers i don't see why he couldn't of created them

[Just A Dot]

I kind of saw them as being just the darkness and evil inside of the Toa manifested by the power of Makuta (though that does seem a bit out there.)

[Kavu]

So apparently the Kanohi Kraahkan can sense the moral darkness in others, explaining why the Shadow Toa where similar in personality to the Toa Mata. But it still doesn't explain why they had Elemental and Mask Powers, as Makuta had none of the powers the Toa Mata in particular had. (except theoretically Heat vision, Vacuum, and Cyclone)

[fishers64]

(I dug up these Greg answers from a file - it's a shame the archives are down and I can't source them. )

What were the "shadow toa"? [...] How is he capable of that? [...] As later on neither Teridax or any other Makuta presented in the story display any similar powers.

6. Are the shadow Toa basically black copies of all the original Toa? Or are they something else?

Yes, they are the dark shadows of the Toa.

13.) You’ve said that Makuta created the Shadow Toa as kind of reflections of the Toa, only evil. So, did they ever really exist, of were they like ghost thingies?Well, they did exist, but they were parts of the Toa given substance.

On the subject, did Makuta make the Shadow Toa? 4) Yes, Makuta caused the dark parts of the original Toa to take form.

As for the shadow Toa, no elemental power was needed for that -- that was all about drawing out the darkness in the Toa and giving it form. He was using their own power against them.

How did Makuta create the Shadow Toa, expecially if he doesn't have elemental powers himself, and why didn't he create more of them, and smarter versions, too?

ANSWER: The Shadow Toa were the dark sides of the six Toa, drawn out and given independent life. So he could not create more of them, because there were only six Toa, and he did not need elemental powers to create them -- because he didn't create them, he just freed them.

So basically what I get from these answers is that Makuta separated the dark and light sides of the Toa - evil and good. I'm guessing that this is a shadow-related power - he just drew the part of the Toa made of shadow out. (Like Star Trek The Enemy Within, if you've ever seen it.)

2. Would you say Shadow Toa come from one of Makuta's abilities (like Kraata), a more scientific Brotherhood experiment or procedure (like the Exos or Morbuzakh), or something else?

2) I would consider it to be an offshoot of his mental abilities. I don't think you can call it an experiment, because he didn't experiment on the Mata.

This confuses me, but maybe it is just Makuta's knowledge of moral light and shadow, and how they work. However, this quote would partly explain why no other Makuta has used this power - they don't have the knowledge of Shadow necessary to do this. (And they don't wear the Mask of Shadows, either. Icarax seems to be not the type to try this even when he was wearing it. ) However, BS01 begs to differ on this whole account, which is confuzzling.

The Shadow Toa were six illusions created by Makuta Teridax, and were evil counterparts of the Toa Mata.

Given what Makuta did to Vakama in Time Trap, being able to fake an illusion that detailed likely would be child's play for him (including elemental powers and suchnot). It would be possible to do it as an illusion, but that's not what Greg said. Edited February 22, 2013 by fishers64

[Hitoshura]

So apparently the Kanohi Kraahkan can sense the moral darkness in others, explaining why the Shadow Toa where similar in personality to the Toa Mata. But it still doesn't explain why they had Elemental and Mask Powers, as Makuta had none of the powers the Toa Mata in particular had. (except theoretically Heat vision, Vacuum, and Cyclone)

Because they were part of the Toa Mata themselves, just drawn out as illusions with the same powers.

[Kavu]

Interesting, good point about the Time Trap illusion, I had forgotten. Greg seems to say that the shadow toa themselves didn't have elemental or kanohi abilities, but rather designed to taunt the powers out of the Toa Mata in destructive ways. Which, as you said, differs with the BS01 page, which explicitly states they had elemental and kanohi abilities. Odd.

[fishers64]

Interesting, good point about the Time Trap illusion, I had forgotten. Greg seems to say that the shadow toa themselves didn't have elemental or kanohi abilities, but rather designed to taunt the powers out of the Toa Mata in destructive ways. Which, as you said, differs with the BS01 page, which explicitly states they had elemental and kanohi abilities. Odd.

Er, no...

11)What were the shadow toas' powers? GF: They basically had the same powers as the toa they just used them for evil.

^That's Greg. The difference between Greg and the BS01 is not whether or not the Shadow Toa had elemental and mask powers (they did), but whether the shadow toa were an illusion or not. Edited February 22, 2013 by fishers64

[bonesiii]

I always sorta thought (okay not always) that it was one of those "941" powers Makuta claimed he had (or whatever the quote was). Just because it isn't on the list of confirmed powers (as in Rahkshi powers) doesn't necessarily mean all Makuta don't have it. With such a wide variety of powers, no real reason to assume all would use that power often, when other powers would suffice. In that situation Makuta could have simply felt that was the power he wanted to use, and/or felt was strategically wise.

 

Or he could be lying about those 941 powers, I have no idea.

[All Or None]

Actually, what he said was "... there are a thousand ways I could destroy you right now. And 941 of them hurt." He does not have 1000 powers, but I could believe he has 1000 deadly applications of his powers and non-powered abilities, and that somewhere around 941 of those applications would be extremely painful.

[Hitoshura]

Makuta didn't say I have 1000 powers blah blah blah. He said I have 1000 ways to kill you, and 941 of them hurt.

[Just A Dot]

Makuta didn't say I have 1000 powers blah blah blah. He said I have 1000 ways to kill you, and 941 of them hurt.

 

Out of curiosity, were those numbers accurate?

[Kavu]

Makuta didn't say I have 1000 powers blah blah blah. He said I have 1000 ways to kill you, and 941 of them hurt.

 

Out of curiosity, were those numbers accurate?

Well, he did have 42 basic powers, plus the Kraahkan, gives the fellow quite a few options. :

Edited February 23, 2013 by The Great Being Velika

[Baron Von Nebula]

Well, Teridax could do things (e.g. dissolving Kaita) that were not on his list of powers, and he had that knowledge Mutran got from Tren Krom about how the universe works. Maybe he did something along those lines?

[darkslizer]

I thought that the Shadow Toa were literally shadows taken from the Toa by Teridax and life was breathed into them by Teridax. However, a deeper theory would be that Teridax could see and separate the darker parts of the Toa's souls and manifested them into the physical world. This would definitely bring a new dimension not the extent of Makuta powers, if not just Teridax's. this could mean that dreams, nightmares, guilt, and fear could be in physical existence, giving Makuta unimaginable powers. If they can all access these powers, I would think that Teridax would be the only one that figured it out, besides maybe Miserix, but that's beside the point. Teridax could have perhaps taught this to the others, but chose not to simply to set him apart from the others, to keep his psychological and literal role as leader of the Makuta. Heh, sorry, I've begun to ramble. Just extending my imagination to non canon theories and such, while still incorporating canonically relevant concepts. Whoops. Rambling again. Just a horrible talent of mine.

[Friend of Fire]

The Mask of Shadows allowed Teridax to see the evil in people. He and Mutran were the only two Makuta who knew how the MU worked. Given these facts, I can see how Teridax could literally create a manifestation of the darkness inside one of his enemies, using his knowledge of illusions to create them and the give them the necessary abilities to fight the Toa Mata.

 

My only question is how did the Toa figure out that the only way to defeat them was by absorbing them into themselves, afterall, the Shadow Toa were pretty powerful in my opinion.

[Hitoshura]

 

Makuta didn't say I have 1000 powers blah blah blah. He said I have 1000 ways to kill you, and 941 of them hurt.

Out of curiosity, were those numbers accurate?

Well, he did have 42 basic powers, plus the Kraahkan, gives the fellow quite a few options. :

Why is everyone talking about the powers and how they relate to the ways of killing? For example, a power he has is weather control. He can make you drown in rain, zapped by lightning, or freeze you to death by lowering the tempature of snow. That gives you at least three options to one power. He could also rip of your head, and that doesn't have anything to do with his powers. Also, the numbers were definately not accurate in my opinion because there could always be more ways to kill. Teridax was probably trying to scare Vakama into allying with him/handing over the Vahi. Plus, this is getting off topic... Edited February 25, 2013 by Takua the Chronicler7

[~garnira returns~]

Illusions, or minions that the toa saw as their "evil versions". Kind of the same thing as the whole illusion in Time Trap.

[Hitoshura]

only question is how did the Toa figure out that the only way to defeat them was by absorbing them into themselves, afterall, the Shadow Toa were pretty powerful in my opinion.

Well, to begin with, the Shadow Toa were simply the darkness inside them (yes, even heroes have a bit of darkness, think Vakama) drawn out by Makuta's powers. But that's a good question. How do you draw a part of yourself back into yourself? Maybe like a Toa of Fire absorbing fire into his body, I'm guessing.

Illusions, or minions that the toa saw as their "evil versions". Kind of the same thing as the whole illusion in Time Trap.

Sort of like that. They weren't exactly minions, but they were pretty much the darkness inside them brought out as illusion that fight them with their own powers. Edited February 26, 2013 by Takua the Chronicler7