BIONICLE G1 Canon Contests Discussion & Questions

LEGO BIONICLE
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8965

While that sounds like a fair compromise, and can certainly be considered, my only hesitation is when there are items that need addressing and that need his input. The Sword was such an item. In these circumstances, at the risk of canonizations happening when questions are asked, what would you propose?

It’s more than that, which is why we do it.

-Greg is a member of the Boards, as a representative of LEGO. This is the only place he publicly engages with fans.
-We have a unique infrastructure that allows for safe, secure, and thorough entry into contests and voting in contests.

As such, it allows us the ability to work with Greg on this as he is a member of this website, but at no point are we any more or less likely to get an answer from him regarding anything. Again, refer to this post. We didn’t plan on sending this message to him until the Sword debates came to a stalemate and needed an outside source of confirmation.

Why no one else asked him publicly beforehand is beyond us. Greg still actively uses the Boards and answers fan questions. We asked two very basic questions, the latter of which was very clearly a yes/no answer.

Again, we didn’t ask specific questions seeking anymore detail than those questions indicated. Questions that anyone can ask and get an answer for. There does seem to be a misunderstanding about Greg and his role in everything, which is where I believe most of this frustration is coming from. But at the end of the day, no. We facilitate these contests, but we’re not out here trying to get Greg to canonize things that aren’t voted upon. It’s why we’re not asking about Bomonga and Pouks masks - that’s not what we’re here to do, and is outside the scope of our objective.

People are upset at us for asking. The answer does not match the question asked. I think the community is going to need to have a larger conversation about how they view author input, and how that affects a story that has been given to the author after the theme ended.

To the conversation surrounding the modification of art and the consent system, we’d like to discuss that further as well. It’s always a difficult area to tackle, since we want to strike a balance between MOCist and Artist interpretation. It’s no secret that artwork in BIONICLE has differed from sets in the past, which is why allowing a degree of artist liberty is important without entirely jeopardizing the base work of the MOCist. How do you keep both voices and designs valid? Continue to offer suggestions/opinions, but keep the discussion civil. If you’re not listening to the other person, you’re not discussing anything.

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8966

I’m totally for this, since Greg is currently around, but “beforehand” raises complications. Greg’s use of the board has been sporadic, and while he reappeared around November ‘21, his appearances before that date to February ‘21 and then… February ‘20. Getting in touch with Greg for questions has historically been spotty for people without the privilege of direct communication, and as we’ve seen in the past even those with a direct line to Greg aren’t guaranteed a response. I get that anyone has the right to ask, but as far as realistic accessibility goes, you do need to recognize you’ve got much more of it.

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8967

I think it’s important to keep a 90% accuracy with the art and model. The character has to be recognizable as a depiction of the character in the MOC. This means art like Helryx’s would fit this definition, as you can still recognize the original MOC, while still giving the artist enough wiggleroom to make a great depiction.

However adding new parts or pieces to the design, like a 3D printed shoulder pad or Mata feet instead of Metru to me would be too much. It’s changing fundamental pieces of the build. Like for example swapping the Mata foot from her chest, it changes the design too much.

Now giving a character a two-tone mask or parts in the art is more of a grey area to me. Like we can paint pistons and add scratches, so a marble paint job that sticks to the color scheme on armor should be ok to me. But a good argument against it might change my mind.

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8968

I don’t have the data to back this up, and no conceited effort to investigate it and get data to scrutinize has been made. I don’t believe it’s true, but you do. And unless we put it to the test, this is about where this conversation dies.

The only thing worth addressing is how that matters, because there is this headspace going around that we’ve somehow abused this accessibility, which we very clearly haven’t and never have. I don’t see how anyone in their right mind could construed this as our fault when you look at the messages, and compare it to our insistence on not seeking out restrictions. It wasn’t our intention, it wasn’t our goal, it wasn’t what we wanted. There is no one that could have foreseen it, otherwise we’d be having a different conversation.

Our correspondence with Greg is contest focused and for the sake of clarification. It’s why we’re not asking for every minute detail that others think up (again, I refer back to the two Hagah masks), because that isn’t our role in this. If people want us to do that, and act as a BIONICLE Story Squad from BZP, that’s a conversation to be had. But people don’t want us to do that, and we don’t have an interest in doing that.

There is a lot of misplaced anger going around, and it feels very immediately emotional with few people really thinking through what happened.

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8969

I did acknowledge that in my reply. You must have missed it, so here:

You are saying it TTVs job doesn’t affect the choices made by the artist in this case. TTV choose to let it slide for whatever reason, they had but the person who made the art piece choose to change the build in an art style where such changes are easily verifiable.

8970

I can understand why, as people felt the same way with Lariska being Teal. But with this situation, you guys didn’t ask what were the weapons, only if they had them. You were asking for clarification that all 3 carried weapons and Greg decided of his own choice to tell you them. There’s a difference between asking “Hey do you have any cars in your lot?” and getting “Yeah 3” compared to “Hey what are the kinds in your lot?” “Ford, Toyota and Honda”. Greg answered the former while TTV asked the later.

The point is we shouldn’t be mad at the TTV.
The fact is we technically don’t know if he would’ve told anyone who asked their weapons or if it was a TTV thing.

Now addressing the example with Makuta Kojol, the reason why a random person posting a model wouldn’t get a response as easily is we’ve seen what happens when a fan asks Greg to canonize something. Remember Naho’s Huna, where the guy eventually asked Greg to decanonize it? Or the Mask of Aging being an Elda in the past before it was change and still people are fighting over what mask it is?

The thing is, Greg knows that any model that comes from TTV is guaranteed to be voted on and satisfy the majority of voters, which is why he is ok with canonizing it. Same with questions, as a decent chunk of people get mad whenever a answer is given. Like even though I asked about the Hagah’s masks, I’m 90% certain it won’t be answered as it’s overall insignificant and might spark a flame war.

In the end, it’s kind of our faults for stuff not getting answers, as we basically have made it a situation where Greg has to be careful with what he canonizes, as anything that seems safe could start a massive argument.

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8971

I mean, some of the frustration towards TTV is warranted from the fact they said TYQ “didn’t specify” if the Toa carried any Toa Tools, even though as others have already pointed out, it did specify they had weapons. I do agree people shouldn’t be mad at TTV because of how Greg answered their question, but I do wonder why that question was asked in the first place.

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8972

That is a good question. I just assumed it was for clarification, like do all 3 have weapons compared to only Orde or Zaria.

8973

Said tools were never named, never used, and quickly taken away in The Yesterday Quest. Not to be a brown-noser but it’s easy to see why them having tools at all was easily missed prior to asking the question.

8974

Anyhow moving away from this growing circular part of this argument(In reference to my last post, this was originally an edit but it got quickly buried), here is my suggestion for future contests I would like a consent system for toa tool designs and masks (specifically for TYQ)

The reason for this is that unlike masks Toa tools are generally more involved parts wise than masks and as such has more of a personal creative solution to it. Most masks chosen are mostly already designed and is generally just a mitch and match with what works with the rest of the moc. Building a toa tool/weapon generally takes more time to build, thought and engineering to get right.

The issue I see is that the art can take the work of the creators weapon and simply make a one piece blade out of it and ignore the moccist work on the tool completely. Which could be considered disrespectful towards the efforts and work of the moccist.

For the specific case of TYQ Toa, their masks and any other potential characters that doesn’t neccesarily require a new mask shape. I think that the moccist should be allowed to lock his already existing LEGO mask or 3d printed mask as the mask for that character since the mask does not need to change in the art.

So just to recap:

A yes/no consent system while also allowing placeholders as its own category is something I would like future contest to do. As I believe its the best way to let artist be creative with the final design while also allowing the moccist have a say in what they are comfortable allowing to be changed. This is because features like weapons/toa tool are generally a big part during designing and for Masks a consent system should only be in place when the need for a new shape is obsolete to allow moccist to not have their wish for what the mask said character should use to be disregarded by the artist in favor for a different mask.

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8975

Ultimately, it was an oversight, as that quote was not commonly discussed or deliberated upon over the last two or so years. Doesn’t mean anyone could have reasonably expected that answer would’ve been given, as it answered a question we didn’t ask.

To anyone claiming we didn’t read the serial: Give it a rest, we obviously have. It was released over 10 years ago, we’ve read it several times over the years, but obviously our memory isn’t perfect. Yours ain’t either. This isn’t directed toward anyone specifically in this topic, but I’m aware we have an outside audience. Sup?

This then becomes a matter of how readily Greg had these weapon descriptions, and how people view his specificity. That’s out of our hands, at that point.

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8976

No matter how tenuous it may seem, the particularity of his answer does seem to suggest that maybe that he had some sort of vision for the characters, that we’d put past him.

Either way, they’re still his characters - his suggestions, whether made up on the spot or based on a premeditated vision for the character, should be respected.

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8977

As much as that’s what I want to believe and still do to an extent, I’m shaken in my resolve by this quote:

  1. Masks and Toa Tools of Chiara, Zaria and Orde were decided before the stopping of the serials? If yes, can you tell us what they are?
  2. No, they weren’t. I don’t come up with things until and unless I need it for story. I don’t outline ahead of time.

Like, I’d really like to believe he had those tools planned, and I do like them (I’m aware some don’t), but the idea he made those up on the spot to answer a question he misread isn’t a fun one.

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8979

I don’t mean to imply any malfeasance by TTV, I understand they were not trying to get the tools canonized and it was most likely the result of a misinterpretation by Greg. Generally TTV is good about listening to fan feedback and changing their course in response to criticism, but Greg canonization is one of the few things that can’t easily be undone. I think that TTV should be more careful in the future with their questions to Greg, to avoid unwanted extra contest-relevant details being canonized like this, and having some commitment to those details being “frozen” until the contests end would help. I think that @JMSOG’s suggestion of “come up with a list of ambiguously-canon details now” would help with this.

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8980

That’s easy to work out too.

The scene is from Gelu’s perspective, and he assumes that the Vorox are unaware of the Toa’s ability to use their powers without a weapon, and by disarming them, have made them powerless. This would then imply that all three have weapons because otherwise, they’d know Toa can use their powers unarmed.

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8981

I mean we said the same thing about the Barbed Broadsword and that arguement went on for a long time.
But nonetheless I do agree with you. I think the only question is as @KDNX says, was it made up on the spot or something he’s though of over the years? Or maybe he came up with it after the question where he said he hadn’t planned it

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8982

Clarification on what I was suggesting:

I have no idea when Greg came up with the TYQ weapons, but he did. And he then volunteered that information, which is something he practically never does, implying he still wanted to have an impact/had intention for these characters that he in specific created.

What I was proposing more was giving Greg a list of what we concretely know about the remaining characters, and basically saying “if you have anything else to say about any of these characters, now is the time”, but pf course more diplomatically, and with the clear implication that “nothing” is an option. In fact, if greg does end up not having anything to say, that’s the green light for people to have more freedom, not less.

(EDIT: and I also think giving him a chance to have one final say in these characters, many of which he individually invented, is the right thing to do on a human level, something which I think is sometimes lost in these discussions)

I do think, though, that you’re right: finding all the remaining points of contention early, and getting them cleared up and done with early, will be ideal. It’d have to be something severe though: I think asking about the BB is justified, but Tuyet’s build is not, the line is somewhere in there. And again: I really hope that his answer to most points of contention will be “I don’t know”.

This was worded imprecisely, but I think the intent of my words is clear. I hope.

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8983

Yeah, I think it’d be nice just to ask him if he has anything he’d like to add about the characters. He did create these characters so it’d be good to see if he has anything specific in mind he never got a chance to put in the serials.

However if we’re gonna ask him this stuff, I imagine we’d want to do it as soon as possible, so as to give mocists as much time to prepare or modify their designs as we can.

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8984

I agree 100%, I think this is a great idea- it gives Greg the option to fill in any details he actually cares about, while clearly defining the creative freedoms that contest entrants would have afterwards. This proposal gets my vote.

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8985

that sounds good to me, though I doubt that the rest of the community will be happy with it…

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