I don’t think the argument is that you can ignore the canonicity of the sword design if it becomes Canon. It’s that, (unless the art very specifically depicts moments from MDoTT or her “slashing attack” from Reign of Shadows), you would still be free to picture those scenes and stories with a Tuyet who just isn’t carrying it. The canon art of the Barbed Broadsword would be its canon design, but it wouldn’t mandate when or where she used it, which would still be up to your imagination. This is why it seems to me to be the most reasonable, mutually beneficial solution.
why is the same community that fought tooth and nail to worm their way out of a metru build when the hagah were flat-out confirmed to have metru builds also the community that is fighting tooth and nail to force a sword whose usage by tuyet is tenuously arguable at best
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The same community argues its exclusion, just like there was a lot of people arguing the metru torsos mandate. There is always 2 sides to the same coin in these debates. Still some how all of them end up circular
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personally I think the best option for them to take would be to make the sword highly encouraged, but optional.
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Agreed. While I do side with that crowd more, the argument for mandated sword inclusion is based off of interpretation and cannot be accepted as a 100% confirmation that the BB is her prime-universe tool. It seems most fair to me to make the BB optional in both the moc and art portions. If not including the BB increases or decreases an entry’s chance of winning, then so be it. I don’t see why that’s really an issue.
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I’m going to prove that Tuyet’s weapon is 100% canonical, and I’m going to do it two different ways.
First, let’s start with the reveal in Dark Mirror. Greg has used AU stories to reveal stuff about the Prime Universe. We all know that he revealed the names of Bomonga and Kualus’ spears, but here’s a fun fact: before Dark Mirror, we didn’t even know the other Hagah had spears, or shields.
It was a common assumption, but it wasn’t confirmed until December 2008:
Greg first revealed that Kualus and Bomonga carry both spears and Rhotuka Launching Shields in Dark Mirror:
And he even suggested that he might reveal their masks in Dark Mirror:
And here’s a big one: he revealed Naho’s name in Dark Mirror:
And afterward, he confirms that yes, Naho bay was named after her.
So we have three confirmed cases of stuff from Dark Mirror affecting the Prime Reality. But can we say for sure that’s the case here?
First: Greg has given AU characters a different weapon before: the Melding Teridax, who wields a hammer. However, there are two main differences there:
- We already know the Prime Teri’s weapon. There was no need to “reveal” it here.
- We already know that Melding Teridax is the polar opposite of Prime Teridax. Even if the fact that he has light instead of shadow isn’t enough, the fact that he uses a Hammer, unlike the prime one, is commented upon.
Ah, Makuta , thought [Melding] Teridax. We are the same being in different universes, but I am not you. You’re a plotter… a schemer… not wanting to get your claws dirty, if you can avoid it. You would think of all sorts of ways to fight the Takanuva from a distance… all of which would fail.
.
Teridax unlimbered his war hammer. You would never think of doing this
Tuyet, on the other hand, is a Tuyet who achieved her goal in the Prime Universe. If anything, the only character who is different is Nidhiki, who is just a little more treacherous and sides with her instead of Lhikan.
Second: we already know he intended to reveal Prime Tuyet’s weapon. He stated that way back in 2007, shortly after she was introduced. Now yes, he didn’t wind up doing so in Into the Darkness, but the point is that he was planning to do so. So let me ask this: Why on earth would he write an AU with Tuyet and give her a completely different weapon, instead of just using the new opportunity to reveal the one he wanted to before? Again, just like he did with Bomonga, Kualus, and Naho. The assumption that he decided to give DM Tuyet a completely different weapon, unlike everyone else, and never explain why… not only is this assumption illogical, it’s unfair to Greg as a writer.
Conclusion: Dark Mirror Tuyet wielding the Barbed Sword is proof that Greg intended Prime Tuyet to have it.
But: I said I was gonna prove this two ways. So here we go: let’s dive into Reign of Shadows, specifically this line from Chapter 9:
Helryx avoided Tuyet’s slashing attack and landed a side kick in her mid-section.
There’s four possible readings of this line:
A) Tuyet was “slashing” with a different weapon, that isn’t the Barbed Broadsword.
B) Tuyet was “slashing” with her elemental power, like a water slash.
C) it’s an error, as Greg forgot that her sword was taken away.
D) Tuyet was “slashing” with the Barbed Broadsword
Option A doesn’t work, because Greg doesn’t write like that. He has said so himself, numerous times. If he hasn’t written what her weapon is yet, or stated it in a Greg Quote, then he himself doesn’t know yet. He’s not going to write a scene of her using a weapon he hasn’t decided. If he had decided to give Prime Tuyet a different weapon, he would have written something like
Helryx avoided the slashing attack from Tuyet’s Protosteel Axe and landed a side kick in her mid-section.
If he had no idea what her weapon was, the line would be like this:
Helryx avoided Tuyet’s attack and landed a side kick in her mid-section.
More likely, though, he wou have just had her attack physically, like Helryx’s kick, or use her elemental power instead. Which brings us to option B.
Option B has a simple problem: Bionicle is written for kids. A “slashing attack” with water is already not something a water-powered character has ever used in a Bionicle Story, and even if it were, Greg is not going to write a character using their elemental power, but write it in such a way that anyone reading it would assume she was using a weapon. Had he intended it to be an elemental attack, it would be something like this:
Helryx avoided Tuyet’s water blast and landed a side kick in her mid-section.
So, Option C: it’s an error. Greg has made errors in what gear a character has before: Mazeka’s Mask being on his face in Brothers in Arms Chapter 4, Onua having his Quake Breakers in Dark Destiny. The thing is, both of those cases have explicit confirmation that they shouldn’t have those things: in Brothers in Arms, Mazeka’s mask gets knocked off. In Dark Destiny, it is mentioned that the Toa Nuva’s weapons were taken by the Piraka, and we later see them retrieve them. No such confirmation exists in Reign of Shadows. We have no statement on Tuyet having or lacking a weapon except for a line where she uses it. We do have evidence that she was unarmed, based upon her borrowing Axonn’s axe, but even for that, there’s an easy explanation: she uses it to hit Miserix, who’s likely the biggest guy in the room. The real question is why she didn’t just use her elemental power…
And even if it is an error, the question becomes: so what? Doesn’t the fact that Greg wrote a scene of Prime Tuyet using the sword still prove it is her weapon, even if she isn’t supposed to have it with her at that point?
Option D is the only logical conclusion here. He wrote a slashing attack because he was intending Tuyet to use the weapon he had given her in Dark Mirror.
Conclusion: Prime Tuyet uses the Barbed Broadsword in Reign of Shadows. This is proof that she has it.
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I honestly did not think this would be as big a point as it turned out to be, which is why I haven’t responded to it yet. Have you considered the possibility that it wasn’t a slashing attack with a weapon at all, but just with her hand? It’s not unheard of for Greg to use “slash” when a character just uses their hands.
Lewa Nuva slashed his hand through the air. “Enough dark-talk, unless we want the Matoran to hear. We’re close enough now.”[1]
There’s also the fight between Vultraz and Mazeka:
An instant later, Krakua was spinning Mazeka around. As he did, a dagger thrown by the Ta-Matoran buried itself in a nearby tree. Mazeka drew his own blade, ready to fight. But the Ta-Matoran didn’t advance — in fact, he seemed a little startled.
The Ta-Matoran advanced. Mazeka leaned back a little on his heels, ready to meet the attack. The Ta-Matoran made a few tentative attacks, then went to work, hacking and slashing. Mazeka parried the blows, even landing a few of his own. All the while, something was nagging at him. There was something familiar about his enemy — not how he looked, nor how he sounded, since he hadn’t said a word. No, it was his moves in combat. Once in a while, he would do something that struck a familiar chord, then it would be gone.
Unfortunately, the middle of a fight is not the best time to try to and jog one’s memory. The Ta-Matoran took advantage of his distraction to disarm him. Mazeka tried to retrieve his blade, but the Ta-Matoran got in between him and his weapon. A swift stroke and Mazeka had lost his mask. He stumbled and fell to the ground.
His enemy stood over him, smiling. He lifted his blade for the killing stroke, twirling it over his head for a moment.[2]
To summarize:
- Vultraz throws his dagger at Mazeka, misses, and it gets stuck in a tree.
- Vultraz fights unarmed while Mazeka fights with his own blade.
- Either Vultraz manages to disarm Mazeka, getting his blade, while Vultraz’s is still stuck in the tree, or after disarming and demasking Mazeka, he had time to retrieve his from the tree.
This means that the slashing attack Vultraz was doing was not with any weapon. Likewise, Tuyet doesn’t automatically have to have a weapon just because she’s doing a slashing attack.
EDIT: At first, I mistakenly thought it was assumed that Vultraz’s dagger was his acid blade.[3] However, it was a new weapon given to him by Gorast to better disguise him.[4] This confirms that Vultraz didn’t have both the acid blade and this new one, since if he fought with the acid blade, Mazeka would have recognized him. So he couldn’t have gotten one stuck in the tree, then used the other to “slash” Mazeka with.
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I don’t have anything to really add to this one, I just want to commend Willess12 for their research.
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Also, kinda new to this series, does anyone have a good resource of where I can find the important details to this character?
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For the purposes of these discussions? Not really, but BioSector01 has an otherwise comprehensive assessment of the character.
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Thank you thank you, friend.
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This is an unequal comparison: unlike Tuyet’s Barbed Broadsword, both Naho’s name and the armaments of the Toa Hagah were explicitly confirmed elsewhere:
How are these statements any different? You say that it’s okay for Alternate Teridax to have a different weapon because we know how he’s different from Prime Teridax, then you proceed to list a way in which we know Alternate Tuyet and Prime Tuyet are different. Doesn’t that support the idea that they have different weapons?
Because he didn’t have one that he wanted to reveal before. Despite saying that the tool would be revealed in the story, he later said that he didn’t know what it was:
These quotes, along with many, many others over the years, suggest that Greg didn’t have anything planned for Tuyet, and wouldn’t have come up with it until he was writing the scene in which it first appears. When you look at it from that perspective, it seems far more likely that the Barbed Broadsword could have just been an off-the-top-of-the-head filler tool for a villain, rather than a specific choice for a prime-universe character (not that it would have been any less off-the-cuff even if it was intended to represent Prime Tuyet as well).
I also want to address this:
- Are you going to reveal Bomonga and Kualus’s mask powers?
- If I have room and reason to
This means absolutely nothing about Greg’s intention for what would be revealed in Dark Mirror. He’s saying that the masks will be revealed if he writes the characters into a situation where it’s necessary, and he had no idea if this would happen. The reason I feel the need to make the clarification is because this is extremely similar to the quote that everyone is latching onto as proof that Greg definitely-for-sure intended for Alternate Tuyet’s weapon to be indicative of Prime Tuyet’s:
- When will we find out Tuyet’s Toa tool?
14) When she shows up in story.
Note that he didn’t say “when she shows up next in the story”, “when she shows up in Dark Mirror”, or even “when she shows up in this story”. Just “when she shows up in story”. It’s his default response for when someone asks him about a character detail he wants to work into the story without knowing what it is yet. It carries absolutely no promise of when or how it will happen. Again: Greg never planned any of this in advance. We have no way of knowing if he intended for this version of Tuyet to be the big reveal, or if he just used the sword as a generic “evil” weapon for an evil character.
(I personally believe that Dark Mirror was, in fact, meant to reveal prime Tuyet’s weapon, but I can’t know that for sure.)
As for this:
Like @Dag said, “slash” got used many times without referring to a sword, or any kind of blade. For example:
Nuju made a series of violent slashing motions in the air, followed by a short burst of whistles. When he was finished, he glared at Vakama as if daring him to disagree.
A huge paw slashed out of the darkness, hurling Whenua backwards against the wall.
Nuju made an abrupt slashing motion in the air and followed it with two shrill whistles.
The Kanohi Dragon’s massive tail slashed through the water.
Lewa Nuva slashed his hand through the air.
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This is a possibility I have considered, but I didn’t address it in my post because I haven’t seen many people seriously consider it. But since you’ve brought it up…
First off, let’s address this fight with Vultraz:
Before he could worry about that, someone entered the clearing. It was a Ta-Matoran, though not one Mazeka recognized. He idly picked up the device used to fell the villagers, smiled, and tossed it away. Then he surveyed the unconscious Matoran as if he were looking for someone in particular. Now and then, he would use his sword to roll one over and get a better look.
.
Mazeka took his hands away from Krakua’s head. Using hand signals, he told Krakua to follow him. Mazeka started away, but stepped on a branch, snapping it. He was still unable to hear, so he never noticed the noise. But the Ta-Matoran did.
.
An instant later, Krakua was spinning Mazeka around. As he did, a dagger thrown by the Ta-Matoran buried itself in a nearby tree. Mazeka drew his own blade, ready to fight. But the Ta-Matoran didn’t advance – in fact, he seemed a little startled.
And then the sword stopped, less than a quarter of an inch from Mazeka’s mask.
With that, the Ta-Matoran withdrew his sword and vanished into the jungle.
Those are two different weapons.
The other example, and the ones Jerm posted, are not attacks, and Greg doesn’t write Toa karate chopping each other. And even if he had, it’s the same issue with it being an elemental attack: why did he write a term that anyone reading would have assumed was her using the weapon he already gave her? If he had intended it to be her hand…
Helryx avoided Tuyet’s hand slash and landed a side kick in her mid-section.
That’s not the point. He intended to reveal her weapon. Doesn’t matter that he hadn’t decided what it was yet. So why would he use Dark Mirror Tuyet to reveal a weapon that Tuyet doesn’t have?
I didn’t say it was. I said he suggested he might. My point is to show that he himself acknowledged that he’s revealing important story details about the Prime Reality in an AU.
Yeah, I know. That’s why I said: three confirmed cases. If Greg had just said Prime Tuyet had the BB, well, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
No, I listed a way in which they are identical. Prime Tuyet and Dark Mirror are both a dark villain who wants to take over the world and establish order. The only difference is that one of them succeeded, thanks to Nidhiki.
How does succeeding in her goal cause her to abandon a weapon that she purposefully retrieves upon escaping the Order and use a different one?
Like I said, the only example we have of a character with a different weapon, Greg gives a reason for, and we know both weapons. Neither of these apply to Tuyet.
You can tell you’re reaching when half of your examples don’t even fit your own criteria.
The Kanohi Dragon has a bladed tail. This is mentioned in Rahi Beasts.
Ash bears have claws. This is mentioned in the Bionicle Encyclopedia.
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TBH, this argument is starting to get really boring. First of all, we need to stop capitalizing “barbed broadsword”. We do not know how it is intended to have been capitalized, and BS01 regularly miscapitalizes, probably the only issue I have with it.
Secondly, here’s a big point against making it mandatory: Tuyet is not confirmed to have wielded the sword even once throughout the entire story. Just as much as her “slashing” attack in Reign of Shadows could have been a barbed broadsword, it could also have been a normal sword. It could also have been Axonn’s axe - take a close look at how the chapter is written. It opens with Tuyet’s slashing attack, before flashing back slightly to the beginning of combat, focusing first on Miserix and Tren Krom, then Axonn and Brutaka, and then Tuyet takes Axonn’s axe. Notably, the flashback is never broken. We are never told “…bringing us to now, when Tuyet slashes at Helryx”. I think it could be argued that Greg forgot he even flashed back here (given his famous habit of writing with no plan), and intended for this slash to be with Axonn’s axe; i.e. Tuyet attacks Helryx with the axe, he decides to flash back to explain how she got it, then he forgot he flashed back and goes straight into Tuyet attacking Miserix.
Edit: realized I forgot the point I was making while writing that paragraph (huh, much like someone else might have?). My point there is that it’s ultimately unclear what she wielded in that scene. It’s not cut-and-dried a barbed broadsword. In fact, why would you even slash with that? A barbed sword is a stabbing weapon.
Finally, can we get Eljay or someone to tell us if they’ve decided on a ruling? Or confirm that they will tell us the ruling once they’ve made the decision? I don’t want this argument to go on any longer than it has to.
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I agree, I don’t feel like we’re gettting anywhere at this point.
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The only good coming out of it at this point is that all the barrel-scraping for arguments and evidence is bringing up some more compelling points on both sides.
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We have an update for you all which I will post in just a moment. It is in regards to the Barbed Broadsword and the weapons of The Yesterday Quest Toa.
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I capitalize Barbed Broadsword because I like it better that way. No other reason.
I’m actually wildly inconsistent with what I do and don’t capitalize most of the time anyway…
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Fair, I suppose
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alright, noted. I’ll stay tuned.
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