I was curious about this. I have never seen anyone talk about this.
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Kraatas are of the makuta’s essence so to a degree. Shadow leeches are mutated Kraata. Rahkshi shells are made from Kraatas in energized protodermis.
The canon often refers to Antidermis as the “essence of Makuta,” implying that it’s the thing that make a Makuta a Maktua. So I guess that if you look at it from that perspective, then possibly. However different species can have similar genetic structures, but still be different animals. So maybe they’re biologically related, but the level of sentience that the Makuta have is what makes them stand out from the others?
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In my opinion, they’re all parts of Makuta. A Makuta can produce Kraata (and from Kraata comes Rahkshi armors and Shadow leeches) from his “essence”, but it is not the “whole” Makuta.
So for me, your question is like asking “Are heart, lung, and liver technically human?”.
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Find out in the next episode of Bio-Theory!!!
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I would assume that Makuta are antidermis; plus some sort of consciousness given to them by Mata-Nui. They can take the antidermis out of themselves and make Kraata and Shadow Leeches, but they can’t take enough brain out of them to make a full fledged Makuta.
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Yes fam, if we don’t have them we die so meh
There are three real world parallels here; or at least two scenarios that are as close as we’re ever going to get.
One is the analogy that concerns caterpillars and butterflies; after some external stimuli and input, which amount to aging and food for caterpillars, it will metamorphosis into a butterfly. A Kraata can do the same after receiving some element that it is unable to produce on its own.
The second is the one that @TheShadowMakuta brought up; a Rahkshi/Kraata/Shadow Leech can be considered a segment of a Makuta, in the same sense as one of your vital organs. This doesn’t really seem to hold up, though, as being sentient isn’t one of the qualifications for life; being able to function independently, however, is. If my heart suddenly was removed from my body, it couldn’t sustain itself as an independent organism.
The third is the conceptual idea of the three Makuta-esque creatures as viruses, and this appears to me to be the one that holds up the best under scrutiny. Teridax’s commitment to viruses notwithstanding, the Kraata and Shadow Leeches can only briefly survive on their own. (Unless the kraata in question is Stage 4 or above) However, they are capable of controlling a host, and are typically non-sentient.
I’m going to go way into real-world biology here, but the way that I would describe it is deeply intertwined with the way that multi-celled organisms evolved. Hundreds of millions of years ago, single celled organisms invaded other single-celled organisms as parasites and stayed their. Eventually, their DNA was mixed, and they became the basis for all modern eukaryotic organisms. I feel like a sort of reverse might have happened with the Makuta, particularly when you consider that they’re artifical; maybe Makuta originally lacked the ability to produce kraata and the others, eventually evolving otherwise.
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Vital organ =/= entire human being
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Exactly. And while I doubt that anyone on the story team ever thought this out as much as we have, it’s still fun to speculate.