Why should everything have so many layers?
Just to put this out there…
I agree that this is probably true.
And I also feel that myself and Gilahu have diverged in opinion in the last few hours.
My ‘issue of the day’ is now convincing people that people who don’t like their headcanons being invalidated aren’t idiots for thinking so. This is no longer about persuading people that the contests should end because of this. I’m just tired of people not understanding on a fundamental level what the headcanon debate comes down to.
We’ve run into this debate time and time again, and I doubt I’m alone in feeling alienated from the community because people fail to understand (and in some cases, empathise with) our perspective. We now even have Keksalot resorting to borderline bannable behaviour because (giving him the benefit of the doubt) he presumably thinks our perspective is so untenable that it warrants that.
I will try one last time to sum up what the headcanon debate is all about, using an example I’ve used before:
Suppose you played Skyrim and built an elaborate backstory for your female Argonian Dragonborn, and when TES6 comes along, Bethesda confirms through character dialogue that the Dragonborn was a male Nord. All those hours you spent playing Skyrim and building a backstory are, you feel, now invalidated - because you put so much time and passion into your character, who you treated as the next best thing to canonical.
The reason Bethesda don’t canonise really anything about their protagonists is because they know how much people get invested in their headcanons.
Now the canon contests are not totally analogous here. We know Helryx isn’t male or is a lizard, but people who build headcanons do decide smaller things like mask shape, armour, etc. But these are still things people care about. And for those that built their headcanons because they assumed they would never get a canon depiction: they are completely entitled to feel disheartened when the contests come around and another design wins. Some (perhaps most) people who have great passion for their headcanons can learn to live with this, but it will always cause some measure of distress. And some people, like me, can’t just say “well this is my Helryx and I say she’s canon”. We want to abide by canon because that’s our passion: to respect and flesh out canon.
You can’t persuade me, Gilahu, or some others that this is an unreasonable way of interacting with canon. Look at the example I gave for the Elder Scrolls games and you’ll see what I mean. Please just respect the fact that new canon content does cause distress, and it’s more than enough to make some people feel disheartened by the idea of canon contests.
I will learn to live with my headcanons being undone. If the last few months have told you anything, it’s that I’m not unreasonable. I’ve played devil’s advocate for the opposing side many times. And I’ve conceded to things which have been overruled. Just be empathetic and respectful, as I have always done the same.
Hey wait a minute 
Because you’re WRONG and it’s ACTUALLY MINE!!!
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…Looks like I’m un-bowed out again. Let’s make this short.
In a fandom which relishes new info about said fandom like Eljay relishes part 43093 in black, forming an entire perspective on info and making gigantic efforts to cement that perspective with the knowledge that at some point in the future it may completely change - and then protesting said change because you in particular have to rewrite everything - is unwise. You chose to treat canon that way and to create headcanons that way in the community which revels at new info and which actively encourages the discovery of such.
It’s not the canon contest’s fault there, it’s Greg’s - he made the statement that genders were only locked to element as a way of doing things and they could be different elements if a Turaga chose to do so. I don’t recall many applecarts being upset over that revelation. And he does this sort of thing at the community’s request - there’s a whole ask topic about it with tons of new info which will really ruin headcanons. You can choose to not read it, but you could also choose to ignore the canon contests.
It really hasn’t come off that way, but do consider this (which I’ve mentioned before): I’ve waited for this opportunity for 15 YEARS and the parade is being rained on because a few headcanons will have to be adjusted to allow characters to appear different, when you’ve already adjusted Helryx’s appearance to fit your headcanon again:
If the headcanon’s going to change to fit the new info… Why should I be afraid to have the contests?
But as earlier comments implied, I clearly don’t belong in this discussion.
And with that, I’m departing again.
Man, you replied with a wall of text and are surprised when I show up again?
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At the end of the day, we’re all arguing over a ten-year old line of children’s toys, and while yes, that’s immature and childish, we’re all ultimately fans of the same thing and should be able to put aside our egomania and opinionation as a result of our shared love for the aforementioned children’s toys.
… right?
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nO SHUT UP REEEEEEEEEEEE
my opinioNation has a crippling overseas debt
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just nuke em
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I have nothing to say here, I just wanted to add to the number of people typing.
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Not sure what you mean, but put it this way:
As far as I’m aware, post-2015 or even before, Greg has rarely confirmed details about characters’ appearances post-hoc. And even when he has, he hasn’t sent us sketches of what the mask, armour, etc. looks like.
If he was in the habit of routinely doing this, I wouldn’t be making MOCs for canon characters.
I honestly think that’s because I keep misunderstanding your sense of humour. You say something that, now knowing you better, is obviously a joke, but looks totally deplorable if taken seriously. That or we just misinterpret one another (I know that’s happened at least once). But if there are any instances where it looks like I haven’t been, which knowing my motivations at the time of writing I doubt, I apologise.
I never had much of a headcanon for Helryx. That set is literally just a scaled-up interpretation of the canon design because I wasn’t a fan of the original MOC. I consider this the same character at the same point in time, just a different interpretation (like the movie Toa vs the set Toa). It’s canon-compliant in my mind because it looks basically the same.
Also, can you not see how if someone were to redesign Helryx to suit their updated headcanon, they’d much prefer it if they could keep their old headcanon, which they created solely and put more of their heart into?
I’ve never believed the headcanon argument was sufficient to warrant stopping the contests (mainly because I assumed it was a minority perspective), but obviously it’s a contributing factor for some people.
I’ve seen the anti-contest folks imply a few times now that pro-contest people are misunderstanding their argument or reading it in bad faith or something, and I’m not getting that sense at all. You guys do not want your longstanding headcanons to be invalidated by new information. I can understand that frustration, especially after years of inactivity in the actual story, but I think the analogies you’re providing don’t really track with the actual situation we’re in.
The Takua/Kapura great spirit comparison literally involves those guys’ understanding the fundamental nature of their world. The fabric of Kapura’s reality and livelihood would be dramatically shaken by the news that Mata Nui was a big robot whose face he lives on. Bionicle lore, on the other hand, is a fictional narrative. It’s ALL made up. There is no fundamental truth to canon, and even if there was, the story is over, so the only threat to your headcanon is a photo on a wiki.
I’m not saying this to be dismissive or to downplay your investment in the headcanons you’ve built - just the opposite! I think if your conviction in your personal interpretation of Bionicle and its characters is that strong, then it’s strong enough to still be true for you regardless of what’s “officially” canon. And that’s probably truer for Bionicle and Lego as a whole than a lot of other IP, because these are buildable figures who are meant to be taken apart and put back together however you like.
At the end of the day you still have your creative freedom - the result of these contests is just a cool reference point and bit of closure for the people who have always been curious about this stuff.
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That makes no sense. We’re disregarding canon because either A. canon is a hot mess and we don’t want to be limited by it or B. we want to explore something that doesn’t fit within canon but may still be interesting. None of that indicates that we should have no say in what is canon if we want to add to it.
Not by as much as you think. If you make a redesign of an existing character, only that particular visual design is non-canon. You can still make OCs, which already are beholden to a lot of rules that these contests don’t even affect. These contests do little more than give an appearance to one individual character per contest, all of which fit within the parameters already set by Greg, so there’s really only so much to restrict you–and again, the rest of us see this as an opportunity or a non-issue. It’s all perspective.
There are gaps in the entire universe. Whole species not elaborated on, something that won’t really change. The contests only fill in miniscule gaps for characters we’ve already heard of and, in some cases, have been described such that we only have a few details to work out, like how wide Nidhiki’s shoulders are.
I don’t see why this means you can’t just make the MOCs you want to make. If you include images in some serialized fanfiction and Helryx uses a different build, but you can still tell it’s supposed to be her, I don’t think anyone will care.
I’ve been saying it for some time now.
Cool but it’s not and will never be canon. The rules don’t matter for this reason. It’s fanfiction, the entire point is to go off-canon.
Good heavens, I’ve used profanities! Clearly this makes me an irrational bumpkin who only wants to commit arson and punt babies across my living room! Or…maybe it’s just for emphasis. I’m not even directing it at something you’re doing, I’m saying to do what you want to do.
You’re saying that setting canon in stone in any capacity is a restriction on what you can and can’t do because you’ve arbitrarily decided that everything you create needs to fit within the scope of the haphazardly-constructed lore of a dead toyline written by a guy who thinks breathing air is what makes you a mammal.
The problem isn’t that the contests change canon, it’s that you’re unwilling to accept that canon may change. Every time a work of fiction is added to, headcanons die. All you lose is the canonicity of a character’s appearance–which you can ignore without consequence.
I don’t take Kierkegaard seriously, and I’ve already explained my point.
We have the filter for a reason. Circumventing it is against ToS, but using it is not.
I don’t, and frankly, I’m not concerned because choosing not to hold the contests would disappoint even more people, based on the initial vote and the overall reaction to the contests, which seem to have more support than your vocal minority would suggest.
Contests are like onions. @Toa-of-Onions can you confirm?
Buddy. I swear a lot. It’s not that deep. I haven’t harassed or insulted anyone, I’ve just invoked the unholy squares.
Are you sure about that?
This is kind of the heart of my argument. Going against canon is not only permitted, but I’d argue that you should. The truth is, I don’t want to see the same old Bionicle with the same stupid rules and the same questionable storytelling. I want to see what you guys can do. Improve. Innovate. Reimagine. You are not only able, but right to do so. Your headcanons may not be canon-compliant, but they have value still, perhaps even more value than real canon.
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Yea, hi, just dropping by to remind everyone that TES lore is already so scuffed that every one of Daggerfall’s six endings is simultaneously canon when they’re all mutually exclusive.
ps skyrim bad
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I agree with you there, to be honest. The analogy would be better served if I made both Matoran have equally ‘false’ beliefs. The moral there was that everybody could be right if nobody had the actual right answer. I think my Elder Scrolls analogy was better 
I do really appreciate this. We should have more Onions around 
(that’s going straight to TTV Out of Context).
That honestly might be true for some people. Not to me - not totally - but it’s a fair argument. One day I may revisit my Artakha MOC and redesign him a bit so I can make him canon-compliant, for my own peace of mind (and because I have a canon justification for it anyway). Luckily mine and Perp3tual/Wombat’s have a lot in common. And for the Hagah, I may reuse my designs to represent a different Hagah team. As I said, I’m not unreasonable, and I don’t see the headcanon argument as sufficient to require the contests be stopped - it is just disheartening to have to let those headcanons go. Also I don’t like having MOCs sat on my shelves if they don’t have a ‘canonical niche’ to fill.
Less of it for me personally, but yes.
How dare u
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Carpal tunnel sucks
apparently nostalgia over toys is an equally potent painkiller
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I’m not joking here but as someone who enjoys Bionicle canon for its cohesiveness in character design. Its quite hard to ignore a winning entry that breaks that cohesion. I don’t really agree with Hazash since I don’t have many personal headcanons or do I think the canon contest are ultimately bad because they ruin headcanons but I do agree having your enjoyment affected by something that you really have no control over is quite disheartening. Especially when you will be forced afterwards to have it showed in your face everytime you go to BS01 or you want to discuss canon characters with others.
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So, here’s another view on the whole “canon contests ruin head-canons” idea.
Let’s say that I wrote a 20,000 word story on the Yesterday Quest Toa. This is not hyperbole, as I have written Bionicle stories of that length (none with the TYQ Toa though, that part is hypothetical). In it, Orde continuously uses his Mask of Spirit and his hooked blades.
Then, Orde’s canon contest comes along, and Orde has two giant blasters and a Zatth. Now, as someone who, like Gilahu, cares about being canon-compliant in my stories, my own story is invalidated and I have to drastically rewrite it.
This is of course a rather extreme detail, but even more minor details – like say, the Hagah contest, if I had a story about some old hero with a Volitak who Kualus honored, but then the winning Kualus has a Pakari.
Now, I’m someone who likes and enjoys the canon contests, mind you. But I don’t like the addition of new story details I need to conform to, but I don’t mind it too much, perhaps because my hunger for new content outweighs my opinion on my fanon stuff – if we could get Greg to continue the Story serials I’d take that in a heartbeat even though it would probably quickly invalidate 80% of the stuff I’ve written. But I can see how other people like me may not.
This is the main reason I’m so strongly against Marendar. Unlike characters like Helryx or Tuyet or the Hagah, we know nothing about Marendar. Even characters like Orde and Zaria, we at least know they’re Toa, know their colors.
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Most things are!
This is an interesting point. The Marendar contest is pretty far down the line, but do we know if Greg is going to provide some sort of guidelines or scale or anything like that? Cause if not I can imagine the range of different interpretations there creating some pretty serious rifts lol
Also, just want to say after catching up on all this I still can’t stop thinking about how cool a Lariska with antlers would look.
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Lariska, The Hunter. “insert teal umarak with a robot arm here”
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Something else I could mention which also contributes to my dislike of the contests is the non-purism.
With Helryx and Artakha both having 3D printed masks, and masks being important to make characters recognizable, it’s now almost impossible for me to ever built a canon-compliant MOC/revamp of any of the two, seeing how I disagree with non-purism.
Yes, yes, sou’ll probably say that’s entirely my problem for refusing to use 3D prints and paint.
But from my perspective the following happened:
- Canon Contests were announced - I didn’t think I’d like the outcome
- I didn’t like the outcome for various reasons
- The outcome doesn’t even conform to my basic building principles.
All I want and am trying to do is keep things open for interpretation or at least accessible for everyone, but these contests just build up layer after layer of restrictions and I’m just so tired of it because I cannot fathom why this is happening.
The loss is greater than the gain.
It’s a cause for massive arguments I doubt most people enjoy.
It’s not needed for any revitalization of the Bionicle fandom - that was very much alive before the contests, too.
Who seriously thinks Greg actually cares what wins?
And then we’re even refused a chance to reevaluate general opinion on the contests via another poll. I still maintain the opinion that if it’s a community contest, the community should have the chance to stop it at any point.
I’ll bring that up again when the Hagah contest goes into the final art poll.
Until then I think I’ll spare myself the arguments that have been had multiple times now without any noticable effect on the main participants.
I know that. The gaps I just chose to fill were for characters without visuals (which I did before the idea of contests were even entertained, by the way).
Because I’ve been working on a personal project for the past five years whose primary goal is to fill in gaps in canon and depict characters without visuals. I used to make a lot more completely original stuff, which I’ll probably return to.
I will though. That’s the point. As soon as you depict something that conflicts with canon, it’s no longer canon-compliant, which conflicts with my personal aim.
Fair enough. I’m just the kind of person that takes offence at swearing, which I assume is why it’s not allowed here.
- Not in any capacity. Just additions to canon this long after G1 ended (and yes, I’d rather Greg not answer more questions but that’s somewhat besides the point). Especially character depictions - there’s a precedent for information on what characters look like to practically never be updated. And so it’s disheartening to people who have spent the interim building elaborate headcanons. If G1 was still getting sets and stories, the precedent would be different and I wouldn’t be making this argument.
- I haven’t arbitrarily decided. And besides, I wasn’t arguing specifically for myself. People have their own reasons for wanting to follow canon.
- And the lore is pretty haphazard, I’ll admit. But it’s serviceable enough to drive the level of passion that’s presented here.
You’re missing the point. G1 lore was essentially set in stone since 2011, with Greg quotes providing mostly minute and inconsequential additions which rarely up-ended notions of what a character looks like (at least I’m fairly sure of this).
Someone who makes a Halo fan-fiction puts themselves at risk of having their headcanon undone because the theme is still very active. There’s a precedent for that. There has barely been one for Bionicle.
Again, no I can’t. My creative goal is to expand on canon while adhering to it.
This is why we should have polls, because we don’t know this for certain.
There’s room for both types of creator.
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