Korgot. That is all.
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To be fair, that was Ryder Windhamâs idea, not Legoâs.
Edit: GG Boards, it said this post was unread.
This is the most reasonable, thought-out, and open-minded discussion about bionicle sexism Iâve ever seen. Kudoâs to all of you.
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As far as Iâm concerned, gender should be put to the back when developing a character, obviously it should be part of their character, but it shouldnât be a majorative part of it.
BIONICLE pulls this off nicely with decently well rounded characters that put personality first.
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No, itâs not sexist.
The genders are treated equally in Bionicle, and the only time their mentioned is when the character is described. Besides that⌠It doesnât matter.
Now, 04 Knights Kingdom on the other hand left women out entirely. Bionicle didnât do that.
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Well, If you think about Knights Kingdom, they were just attempting to make it more historically accurate, I guess. There were some female knights, such as Joan of Arc, but overall they were primarily men.
Back on subject matter, though. I agree with you that Bionicle isnât sexist. As a toy for little boys, having fewer females makes sense for attracting the audience they wanted. Also, Iâm sure this was already mentioned, but pretty much all the females were strong characters who were just as remarkable and memorable as the male characters.
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I agree with pretty much all you said here, but especially this part. Tuyet (evil though she was), Gali, Roodaka⌠heck, if it wasnât for Nokama the Toa Metru probably wouldnât have completed their destiny. One of my absolute favorite female characters was Lariska, simply because she was written as such a competent bad@$$.
I mean - and yeah, here I am again responding to old, revived topics 
- BIONICLE couldâve done with more female characters, both in set form and the story. The thing that bothers me most are the gender-locked Matoran/Toa species - I feel that, even if they wanted to release primarily male characters, that was still an unnecessary move - but from a marketing point of view, I can understand Legoâs decision. And at least the characters we did get had strong personalities. (Though itâs too bad we didnât see any females that had a more Lewa-ish personality. I wouldâve enjoyed that.)
That being said, as an uneducated child, I had literally no clue that the Gali toy my brother had was a chick until I read the comics a little while later. It didnât bother me, I was just surprised. So Lego probably couldâve gotten away with more female characters by being sneaky aout it. XD
EDIT: I have a lot more I could say about Toa/Matoran having distinct genders and thus looking different from each other, as well as the whole romance debacle, but I think Iâll refrain from saying anything else at the moment.
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I concur with everything youâve said here as well!
I do think that female characters with other elements would have been neat, but I think the community, myself included, has basically broken the specific gender barrier with MOCs and artwork (Lego broke it themselves when they introduced the ânewâ elements, specifically psionics).
I also would have loved to see female characters with different personalities, as the only ones we got were either evil or powerful (to be honest, I wouldnât be that upset if we had a female character in a defenseless situatution - oh wait, we do: Toa Varian (whom I just recently found out, exists) )
Youâre right about that! I first started to get into Bionicle in 2008, One of the first sets I got in the swamp era of the year was Gali Mistika (since my favorite color was blue). I didnât know she was female until the Mata Nui Rising comic was released in the Lego Club Magazine!
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I was going to mention the same thing, actually. I enjoy seeing varied characters from different elements among community projects.
Yeah, I feel the same way. Powerful and/or evilâs great, but more variety would be preferred. Of course, that brings us back to the original fact/arguing point that we didnât have a whole lot of female characters in the first place.
Same with me! Gali was actually my second figure from the theme; Iâd found the Glatorian Strakk late December before Christmas and bought him as my first figure, then ended up getting Gali for Christmas. Knew she was a female by then, though. Was hoping for Tahu since he was my favorite, but I had fun with the figure regardless.
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I think my general opinion would be that having fewer female characters than male ones was not where G1 went wrong. The decision to make elements gender-exclusive, however, was simply strange, and not at all helpful to arguments such as these. Allowing elemental tribes to contain both genders was one of the many things I think G2 did that improved upon G1âs failings. I get that G2 had to do it, what with its introduction of reproduction among the Okotans, but even without that aspect, G1 would have benefited from allowing female Ta-Matoran, male Ga-Matoran, etc.
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the thing though is that in G1, the matorans and many of the other inhabitants of the GSR where all pritty much immortal, or ageing at a slower rate than normal biological creatures.
lets also not forget the fact that they where created by the great beings, who most likely would prevent their creations from breeding and thus cause over population inside the robot, thus they also would then not have the reproductive organs to reproduce anyway.
i think the hole gender thing for the matorans is just another experiment by the great beings.
True, but as I said, inability to reproduce doesnât go hand-in-hand with mono-gender tribes. If the GBs were basing the Matoran off of the Agori, then why didnât they keep dual-gendered tribes?
It being an experiment is an interesting idea, but since the GBs wouldnât be there to see the results, and were intending to shut the MU down right after SM reformed, it doesnât seem like theyâd learn much from itâŚ