This from what I have learned about this “hairy” topic, some liked the love part of the matoren personalities (and I think was hinted at in the first movie), while others did not mind it being not cannon, where do you stand?
Follow up question: why did love become not cannon with the matoren?
(@Eljay I agree this should only be brought up once)
I have always been against romance in BIONICLE, at least in the MU – we did allow it on Bara Magna. My position is pretty simple:
The target audience for BIONICLE was boys 8-9. Sit in a focus group with kids that age, bring up a romance plot, and they go “Yuck!” It’s not something they were looking for in their stories.
We are talking about nanotech biomechanical organisms here. They have no physical imperative to reproduce or reason to have marriage as an institution. Note that even in our culture, the idea of romantic love didn’t really flourish until the Middle Ages – prior to that, marriage was not about romance, it was more of a business deal. Given that there was no biological reason for MU beings to fall in love, it is my belief that the concept of romantic love would never have developed in their society. If your car suddenly became sapient, would there by any reason your engine would fall in love with your brakes? No.
Yes, I know that a lot of people who want to ship BIONICLE characters disagree with me. My response is that they are free to do whatever they want in their own fan fiction. But in official BIONICLE, romantic love did not exist in the MU, and since the story is essentially over, that is not going to change.
I’m glad “romantic love” is specified here, due to the fact that love between siblings is arguably a theme of BIONICLE. “Love isn’t canon” is kinda broad.