sorry, but i just can’t see any of the original team being a different gender. I won’t mind if Lego actually does change someone like Lewa or Pohatu into a female, but it’ll be hard for me to get used to it…
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I’m not into the whole gender-swap thing, so I clicked neither. I think a female Toa of Lightning would work best, IMO.
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From what TTV said, it sounded like they were more interested in the mathematical ratio of male:female characters rather than the matter of there being only one female character. Thing is, the difference between 2:7 (as with introducing Voriki as a girl) and 2:6 is only about .05. That’s not a big difference. Just introducing Voriki as a girl is enough to settle the gender fiasco. G1 lasted just fine in its infancy with one female Toa; none of the old characters’ genders really have to change to this end.
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Personally, I would genderswap Kopaka, but I doubt that’s gonna happen…
Guys… lemme’ lay it to ya’ straight; Gender. Doesn’t. Matter. To change the gender of any pre-established toa would literally add ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to G3.
It is a pointless change that neither gives nor takes any weight from the story, setting, or characters. So what if there’s only one girl in a group of 5 or more? IT HAPPENS.
Similarly, there can be a group of people that is predominantly female with only one dude [like Lego Elves] and this also happens.
FURTHERMORE, ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’ has a cast of characters that are predominately female, and yet the show has a fanbase that widely consists of adult dudes. Is this not enough proof that Gender has long since become a non-issue? Heck, the Mane-6 are ALL FEMALE, and the topic of gender almost never comes up where they’re fans are concerned!
You know what genderbending established Toa does for G3? False Progressiveism; Regressiveism
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Okay what
I can’t even begin with why calculating the difference in a mathematical ratio is completely irrelevant to this conversation about the gender ratio of main characters.
Nope.
Let me lay it to you straight. The genders are equal, but they’re not the same. A character’s gender is a part of their identity when it comes to the characters you’re crafting. Gender does matter. That’s why representation matters.
Guys can like shows that have a predominately female cast =/= gender is a non issue.
OR it’s just an aspect of a character that’s being embellished on and redesigned, like the rest of the changes in G3.
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I don’t think you understand how character design works mate.
If gender didn’t matter, we probably would have never gotten Gali on the original team in the first place. It could have been an all-guys team, yet she was added anyways. Her personality of being gentle, wise and having a strong sense of care for others is definitely based around female traits, and makes Gali who she is compared to the rest of the Toa. Meanwhile, Tahu has masculine traits of focusing on valor and strength.
If this didn’t matter than there would be no point to adding genders for the Toa in the first place. People like Pohatu’s and Kopaka’s friendship because it’s a powerful friendship. Imagine if one was a girl. People would start saying it’s something more than a friendship.
This matters soooooo much if you actually wanna write character interaction it’s not even funny. You can’t say gender doesn’t matter. You just can’t.
I’m not defending the change of gender for a Toa. Personally I don’t want it either. But I’m open to it. The whole point of Brickonicle is to be different.
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Well, based on what you said, the solution was not to add in a female 7th wheel because–and I forget which one of you said this, plus I don’t know which voice is which other than Eljay’s–the actual difference doesn’t really change. But that’s not really true. And if the actual ratio doesn’t matter, then where’s the problem in adding Voriki as a girl? If it’s a matter of him/her coming in only during later story arcs, then have him/her there to start with.
So if gender is so important to a character’s identity, you’re making a really fundamental change to Lewa by genderbending him. I get it, gender is a major component of a person’s identity; but given that fundamentality, the change to Lewa’s gender is on par with G2’s change to Pohatu’s personality, which was bad because it was so dramatic and unnecessary.
Look, I don’t watch or know very much about MLP because, frankly, it makes me want to break something expensive, so perhaps I’m not the best person to comment on this. However, I just want to point out that, as far as I can tell, none of the main cast is comprised of male characters. At all. So why isn’t that problematic? It clearly doesn’t stop fans of the opposite gender from relating to the main cast in any way, nor has it marred the franchise’s popularity on any visible level.
Female. Right. Daddy dirt is absolutely a woman.
implying they’re not already
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Are you kidding me. We are not going there.
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I said Gali very clearly. True, Onua and Gali have very similar traits, but one is focused on strength while the other is fierce.
Are you implying a predominantly male cast is an issue?
Which is why you want to change the gender of previously established characters?
Either gender does matter, and changing it will completely change a character, or it doesn’t matter, and it adds nothing.
I see no reason to change a characters gender.
Because girls can only relate to female characters?
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I know. I was pointing out that Onua is a very similar character. Both he and Gali act very similarly, except that the male character in this duo is more passive and calm–something that, stereotypically, would be attributed to the team’s sole female member.
Take it up with the fandom, not me.
Not how I would describe them but ok,
I’d say onua is more focused on keeping things running smoothly while gali is more focused on peacekeeping, basically gali wants tahu and kopaka to get along, onua just wants them to work together.
They basically swapped this differentiation around in g2.
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But the fandom scares me, man.
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You don’t get to say the fandom is scary until you see what 4chan does with their LDD Gali MOCs.
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I’d like to remind folks to please stay on topic. Thanks.
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There’s no problem. We’re probably going to do that anyways. Adding Voriki as a girl doesn’t mean that we’ve met our “girl quota”.
Changing Pohatu’s personality in G2 was met with backlash because none of the G2 characters were given enough time to have their characters expounded on or given any real depth. We got new, surface level characters, not characters that were deeper and thought out. That was the problem.
We’re not fundamentally changing anything about a previously established character. We are figuring out G3 Lewa’s character. G1 Lewa still exists, and will exist regardless of what happens with G3. All of these characters will be going through changes to make them more distinct and to give them more depth. G3 Lewa isn’t any different.
No.
The statement was: guys like a cast that is predominately female therefore gender has been long since a non-issue.
I’m saying that the first statement being true does not imply that the following statement as also being true.
It’s not problematic.
noun
a thing that constitutes a problem or difficulty.
“the problematics of artificial intelligence”
We’re not looking at the Bionicle gender ratio and saying “this is absolutely a problem and must be fixed”. We’re looking at it and saying “But why. though?” and because there wasn’t a good answer, we felt that we could change it for the better.
That is nowhere close to what I said at all. You are forming this strawman and trying to represent that as being ridiculous.
Relatability is a concept that essentially states that the more a character has in common with you, the more you are able to “relate” to this character because it mirrors what you go through in your everyday life. Some characters can be relatable because of things they go through that mirror everyone’s life - almost everyone has dealt with betrayal, for instance - but the more specific that relatability is, the more relatable a group will find it to themselves.
I am not white. I am Asian American. This does not mean I am incapable of relating to Captain America. That’s what you’re saying, and that’s ridiculous.
This also does not mean, however, that I think that we don’t need more Asian American representation in the media. Because the plight would be similar to my own, it would relate to me more than another character would.
Girls are perfectly capable of relating to male characters. However, the exact same as if for me there was an Asian American superhero, they are also able to relate more to a character that is - surprise - more relatable to them.
It seems like an obvious statement, but apparently not.
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To be honest, I’d like a team of all new Toa, with the original Toa as Turaga. That would be the easiest way to incorporate new female Toa
Edit: But I voted Lewa. 
A new team would be nice, but I feel the Toa Mata are too iconic to get rid of if you want another gen of BIONICLE.
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But making them Turaga wouldn’t be getting rid of them completely, and it would pave the way for new stories