somehow I donāt think the writers thought this far into it - āOof thatās too many uses of the word āRunesā in one sentence. -checks thesaurus- ohh patterns sounds good!ā
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Up to interpretation.
It is entirily possible that the runes were actually Agori language.
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Do we have any clues as to what the written language of the agori looked like?
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Nope.
Although I am going to re-check right now.
@Jathru_Cranli OK, so actually we DO!
First I checked the Secret of Certavus where I remembered a Book of Certavus was shown. Unfortunatelly, we never see the inside of the book, and the only torn out page is in matoran for some reason.
But, look what I have found in the rise and fall of the Skrall. This is the point of view of a Baterra:
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As others have said, the ārunes carved at the beginning of timeā are likely in a language used by the Great Beings.
We donāt know about Spherus Magna language, but the Great Beings do use hexagonal Matoran language in some of their technical plans for the Great Spirit Robot:
So I feel it would be reasonable for Artakhaās runes to be in Matoran.
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To be honest, I have always argued specifically against the runes being matoran. If they were, they wouldnāt be referred to as runes, just matoranā¦
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m a y b e w e s h o u l d l e a v e i t u p t o c r e a t i v e l i c e n s e j u s t m a y b e p o s s i b l y c o u l d w e d o t h a t
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Thatās what we are doing.
I mean ārunesā makes it sound cooler but it does essentially just mean ālettersā. Faded / old-looking Matoran could still be referred to as runes.
But that lettering you found is very interesting. Do you have a higher resolution version? Iād love to see if itās a replacement cypher that we could reverse-engineer.
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Unfortunatelly, no. This is a BiomediaProject version of that graphic novel.
And I do not own a physical copy to make some scans.
Been strict, runes should only refer to runic alphabet letters in germanic languages, but I doubt that the writers thought about that.
Yes, but they should be hexagonal and grouped like in the Great Spirit Robot plans, and be written in other language rather than English (maybe Old English). We know Mata Nui inhabitants could read Agori, like Bomonga did.
On the other hand, the mask is ornate, so it has patterns rather than letters.
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Probably both.
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We do know that the Agori symbol for āoā is in the shape of a letter āoā because of a scene in Riddle of the Great Beings (or it could have been The Crossing, Iām not positive). Itās the part where the green archaeologist Agori with claws whose name escapes me is trying to escape a trap with Matoran lettering on the walls, and he canāt read any of it, but sees a circle which he assumes is āo, for openā.
Also, it should be noted that we do at least have the ridiculously convoluted Agori number system.
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There isnāt really an official source. It isnāt like Greg ever came out and said this. (as far as I know.)
But just from reading the books, it is clear from context that they use the word āamourā like we would use the word āskinā.
Think of False Dumeās speech about āMatoran in Toa Armourā. It isnāt like the Toa could actually remove an of that armour. It is built into them.
If you dont have a source then dont claim it to be canon. Although i agree that both definitions for armour works.
And i dont see a reason why Toa could not take off his Toa armor unlessā¦ you have a source for that beacuse I am eager to learn new things about the lore.
It was Tarduk in The Crossing, chapter 3.
One symbol was far from the others - a simple circle, with no extra lines or other patterns in the middle. His first thought was that it looked like a zero or the letter āOā.
It couldnāt be that simple, he thought, then hesitated. Could āOā be āOpenā?
Not necessary Agoriās āOā is a circle but it resemble one. Reading this I guest that the speaking of Agori and Matoran is the same, but the alphabet different. So the ārunesā should have a different alphabet but with english words.
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I did some digging in the Greg Archives.
At one point, Greg was asked to clarify the exact confusion we are in right now: In the Matoran Universe, is armour external, is it part of the body, or can it be both?
Unfortunately, Greg did not fully answer the question. He did, however, specify that Toa Armour is external armour, and can be removed.
Of course, no beings besides Toa have Toa Armour, so we do not know about Matoran, or any other species. We also do not know if Toa have āskin-armourā underneath their Toa Armour.
Although I have to wonder in what capacity Toa Armour can be removed. Since all beings in the Matoran Universe are artificial creations, any body part can be removed, and this is shown during The Rebuilding, and in Karzahni.
Even if Toa Armour is āskin-armourā, it could still be removed, as could armour from any other being. Though Greg did make it sound like Toa Armour is external.
But, at the end of the day, Kanohi are not included in either definition of āarmourā. Thatās the important part here.
If you take the āskinā definition of armour, Kanohi are not armour, since they are independent objects crafted separately from the being.
If you take the āexternalā definition of armour, Kanohi are not armour since they are not intended to provide any type of protection.
So a statement about the colour of Artakhaās armour does not apply to his mask.
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Wait, what? When did we learn this?
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