Should the Toa of Lightning's name be Voriki? [Characters]

[Political_Slime]

So ever since that whole elements poll a while back, it’s been TTV canon that there will be a 7th Toa of Lightning, introduced at a later point in the series. Since the genders poll, it’s also been detirmined to make this Toa female. I’m totally on board with both of those decisions. However, recently people have been throwing around the name of Voriki for this Toa. IMO, this is not what this new Toa should be named, nor should it take any inspiration from Voriki. Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept of canonizing a meme, but here’s why I think it’s a bad idea.

1) Voriki is male, this Toa is female. I know it’s not a very compelling argument given Lewa, but I feel it’s still relevant. The idea behind naming this Toa “Voriki” is to make a reference to the original meme. The farther you travel from that concept, the less it makes sense to make the reference at all.

2) A purple Toa of Lightning would not work. I gave my case about adding a Toa of Lightning a while back during the Elements poll. In that discussion, I brought up which colors are most closely associated with electricity. Yellow is clearly what people associate most with lightning, while purple is rarely depicted as such. The other 6 Toa (minus Lewa possibly) have colors that clearly state their element. Red? Fire. Blue? Water. Brown? Rocks. Making a Toa of Lightning purple would break that flow, and likely create confusion among kids. So why not just make Voriki yellow? Well again, the further you travel from the reference, the less it makes sense. Voriki’s defining attribute was being purple. He had no other attributes. Without it, there’s no reference minus the name.

As such, I propose that a new name be selected for this Toa of Lightning. Unlike the main 6 Mata, we don’t need to be tied to the name Voriki. It can be literally anything else; Eitra, Rikali, Abouru, I don’t care. Just anything but Voriki.

Anyway, I know I’m really jumping the gun on this, and that TTV will probably go more in depth about this when they get to characters. It’s just that this topic has been on my mind, and I wanted to see how others reacted to it.

tl;dr make toa of lightning anything but voriki

[Chronicler]

IMO why not make Takua a girl.

[Political_Slime]

@Chronicler

IMO why not make Takua a girl.

…I mean, if you’re cool with Takua being a female Toa of Lightning, then sure. Why not.

[Sonus]

Because then it wouldn’t be Takua. It would be a character based on Takua, but it still wouldn’t be Takua. It makes more sense to give this hypothetical character its own name.

[Chronicler]

The same argument could be made for Lady Lewa.

[Sonus]

It can be, and I agree with it.

[TheRingBearer13]

Except you can’t really complain about Voriki’s character since she was never actually real to begin with. The colour scheme could be argued, but nothing about Voriki herself has ever been a part of her character.

[Payinku]

@Political_Slime

Brown? Rocks.

Maybe it’s just my geography, but when I think rocks I think grey, brown is more mud and wood imo.

Also, why not make the secondary yellow? Problem solved.

@Political_Slime

The idea behind naming this Toa “Voriki” is to make a reference to the original meme. The farther you travel from that concept, the less it makes sense to make the reference at all.

Slime, you should know by now that ttv has effectively made it their goal to completely disregard the source material to a fault.

[Political_Slime]

@Sonus

Because then it wouldn’t be Takua. It would be a character based on Takua, But it still wouldn’t be Takua.

To be fair, TTV has stated numerous times that they are not following the characters of G1 and G2 precisely. Modifications and reimaginings will happen, such as Lewa becoming female.

@Sonus

It makes more sense to give this hypothetical character its own name.

However, I do agree with you here. Creating a new name is a lot less hassle than trying to incorporate stuff from a G1 or G2 character. It’s a fresh slate, and a breath of fresh air for Bionicle.

@Payinku

Also, why not make the secondary yellow? Problem solved.

IMO it still doesn’t come across clearly enough. You still see purple as the main color, and that’s the root of the problem. You could switch it and make yellow with purple highlights (something I personally recommend regardless of name), but again you run into the issue of traveling too far from the source.

[Da_Stronk_Destroyer]

I don’t really care, as I don’t really like the idea of the seventh Toa being lightning. (Heck, I just don’t like the seventh Toa idea at all)

[Kehuri]

Lightning is purple in Golden Sun.

[Kahi]

@Political_Slime

1. Voriki is male, this Toa is female

Not a very compelling argument. We’re already okay with making Lewa female, Voriki literally has no character in canon, the name itself is the reference because there’s nothing else to reference.

@Political_Slime

In that discussion, I brought up which colors are most closely associated with electricity. Yellow is clearly what people associate most with lightning, while purple is rarely depicted as such.

I routinely see purple associate with lightning, as do I associate purple with lightning myself. Blue and purple are immediately what comes to mind, and I think a general image search for lightning will return why this is so.

http://colourlovers.com.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■-ocean.jpg

Purple is a very identifiable color with lightning, and I don’t think the concerns you have would cause the “confusion among kids” you’re thinking it would.

[Sonus]

@Political_Slime

To be fair, TTV has stated numerous times that they are not following the characters of G1 and G2 precisely. Modifications and reimaginings will happen, such as Lewa becoming female.

I’m fine with reimaginings, I just think there’s line you can cross when it makes no practical sense for a hypothetical reimagining of a character to retain the same name as the original, when enough changes are made.

[Political_Slime]

@Jon

Not a very compelling argument.

…hence why I stated that it wasn’t compelling in my post.

@Jon

and I think a general image search for lightning will return why this is so.

Interestingly enough, when you search “lightning bolt”…

…you get 90% yellow. I’d show the rest of the results, but it’d clog up this topic.

[Chronicler]

That’s because cartoon lightning is yellow.

Actual lightning is mostly blue.

[Ven]

@Payinku

Slime, you should know by now that ttv has effectively made it their goal to completely disregard the source material to a fault.

excuse yourself

[TheRingBearer13]

It’s the difference between Voriki Toa of Lightning and Voriki Toa of Lightning bolts.

[Sonus]

Personally I’d prefer if lightning toa/matoran had the same blue white color scheme as with G1. But in the end, I don’t see it being a big or interesting issue.

[Political_Slime]

@Chronicler

That’s because cartoon lightning is yellow.

…and we’re not dealing with cartoon archetypes in Bionicle?

@Chronicler

Actual lightning is mostly blue.

Actual lightning is white. It can change from any color from red to blue to purple to orange based upon atmospheric conditions. Why is the cartoon archetype for lightning yellow? I have no idea. But it is, and so I think it’s best to stick with it.

[Kehuri]

@Sonus

Personally I’d prefer if lightning toa/matoran had the same blue white color scheme as with G1. But in the end, I don’t see it being a big or interesting issue.

White and Blue are colors other Toa already have though. In fact, it would be identical to Kopaka’s color scheme. Visually, there would be nothing interesting about it.