How do you know that a hypothetical Element Lord of Iron would be able to control a 51-49 protodermis-copper mixture?
There is absolutely no canon source on specific required elemental purities for an Element Lord to control. If you want to theorize that an Element Lord of Iron could control very small amounts of metal in protodermis, there’s nothing in canon stopping you.
But, at the same time, there’s nothing in canon stopping me from theorizing that an Element Lord of Iron couldn’t control a 50-50 protodermis-copper mix.
I’m a bit perplexed as to how exactly frozen protodermis is different from solid protodermis, but it implies that liquid protodermis can’t as easily be turned back into either rock-like or metallic protodermis. It would need to be heated to “molten” first and then cooled to get back to pure solid.
I don’t know if and how you could get back to rock proto as I’ve never heard of unpure molten protodermis, and I believe freezing unpure liquid Protodermis would still result in less pure ice proto. I haven’t heard of instances where freezing the sea has resulted in rocks either.
Regardless of whether I think they’re likely, these are the best ideas to get rock proto that I can come up with. If I had to choose, I’d say reintroducing impurities into molten proto as it cools makes more sense to create rocks.
If you think about it, any Toa that dives beneath the surface is kind of a protodermic submarine. That’s not too strange if they’re swimming in liquid proto, since it would be pretty dense as well. It’s also not weird to be able to swim in the depths, because water pressure gets way higher the lower you go. Lo and behold, MU Inhabitants seem to have no real trouble keeping their feet on the ground even in the Pit.
How Ga-Matoran and Rahi can keep themselves up on the surface in the Aqua Magnan waters of the shores of Mata Nui island is beyond me though.
Makes sense.
Also explains how Po-Matoran can be particularly worse at swimming than other beings. most beings would have less developed organs than Ga-Matoran and with Po-Matoran it would be completely absent.
Pure conjecture but a very satisfying explanation.
These Hagah Contests got me thinking about another way we can totally over-analyze protodermis:
Why doesn’t the Hagah’s metallic armour change colour to match their elements, like Kanohi usually do?
Could it be that the “precious metals” have a different chemical composition from regular protodermis that prevents them from absorbing Elemental colour?
I think a better question ought to be: why do kanohi change to match the color of their user at all? It’s probably something due to the programmed nature of the masks, which is something I haven’t largely explored for the time being.
It’s something to do with absorbing Elemental power. That’s why the Matoran masks on Metru Nui had to be painted the correct colour. (And, even though it was never explicitly stated, I’d assume that non-Toa species also paint their masks)
Another theory that I’ve played around with for a while is that, if masks change colour based on Elemental Power, then wouldn’t Elemental Kanohi permanently be their Elemental colour, regardless of who’s wearing it?
There’s really no reason this couldn’t be true, either; the only example of Elemental Kanohi we’ve seen is Hewkii’s Garai, which was created specifically for Hewkii by the Ignika itself. I’m sure the Ignika can overpower automatic colour reactions.
EDIT: Now that I look into it, the whole “changing based on Element” might actually just be an assumption that’s been with me for a long time. BS01 just says they change “with respect to the wearer”, in which case it seems programmed.