Something similar was asked back in '17, but didn’t get a conclusive answer.
As I understand it, the process of creating a Shadow Matoran or a Shadow Toa is as follows. One is attacked by a Shadow Leech / Kanohi Avsa / Gorast’s stinger, their inner light is drained, and if it is completely depleted, they become a Shadow being. The loss of all inner light also establishes a mental barrier that prevents that light from naturally regenerating. This mental barrier can only be broken by a specific Sonics frequency or by the Klakk, at which point the being will regenerate the Light balance they had before being drained, immediately restoring whatever moral balance they had before and gradually restoring the being’s natural armor color. Just confirming, is this how you see it?
My question is, is the total depletion of inner light necessarily accompanied by the emotions associated with Shadow and the loss of the emotions associated with Light? Or could you have a fully Shadow being that, while perhaps not as noble or honorable as your average Toa, still has a code of morals?
Interesting concept. One does not have tobe drained of light to have questionalble morals, take the universally loathed Ahkmou, he chose his actions.
It’s not as if the process of becoming shadow being makes you forget what morality is, it just releases the brakes and makes you more susceptible to suggestions, or influence of evildoers, or it might amplify any negative feeling one already had and thus they might act on them.
I guess it comes down to being devoid of conscience and becoming a socio-/psychopatic machiavellist, where you can technically choose the morally good course of action, but only when you see gain there.
I don’t believe that the process would make one do bad things just for the sake of being malignant.
Short version:
No you cant be good and be a being of shadow
Long version
I think not. You become a full being of full shadow and loose all good in your soul. Turning evil is part of the process of becoming shadow. You cant be a Toa of shadow and be a hero. You still have to have light in you. There is three types of light that the sl, Avsa and Gorasts stinger drain: inner light, outer light and elemental light. If you chose to become a being of shadow all three must leave you. The inner light getting rejected makes you a being of evil. The outer light rejection is the change in armor colour (I think) and elemental light rejection is, well getting the elemental power.
I think that a shadow being has a switched moral compass. Though we can’t say that all humans are good, we all (unless you suffer from psychopathy) have what David Hume calls moral sentiment, an instinctive impulse to support good actions and reject evil. That means, people who do evil things are aware they are doing bad stuff. In case of a shadow being, the moral sentiment would be switched, they have an instinctive impulse to harm and destroy, but just as a light being can choose to be evil, a shadow being can choose to be good, that’s what happens with Krika. He told Tahu they were uncapable of altruism even if they wanted to.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I had thought about Krika, but wasn’t really sure how to incorporate him into the original post.
“Light” beings like Ahkmou, Vultraz, Nidhiki, and Tuyet found it easy to give in to the “shadow” emotions. Like you said, I think it’s completely plausible for a “shadow” being to focus themselves on their “light” emotions. Admittedly, it would be much more difficult, but not impossible.
In fact, I’m pretty sure this is what Melding Teridax and the other Makuta did to completely purify themselves of their inner shadow. A completely shadow being may not be able to completely purify themselves, but I’m sure they can at least try to withstand the negative emotions that are their instinct.
Reminder that questions with the “Ask Greg” tag should only be answered by Greg himself or by someone who knows he’s answered the question before, and provide where he did. This isn’t the appropriate place for theorizing.
Makuta were not full beigns of Shadow. Bs01 says Makuta Shunned their inner light. Miserix did so too so the others would not have advantage over him. Therefore it stands to reason they had at least some light in them.
If it is impossible for shadow beign to regain light is it therefore impossible for light beings like A-Makuta and Umbra to gain shadow?
I like this theory, headcanon material right there.
But how come Shadow Takanuva wanted immediately to destroy the world. If they were like Krika they would fight withinthemselvess to control theír destructive urges.
Because just as Takanuva was fully immersed into light, the opposite would be someone fully immersed into shadows. They’d probably fight their inner shadow if they had more time and experience as Krika. Probably another way to see it is using the Freud’s Thanatos or death pulse, a supposed inner impulse to cause death and destruction to oneself and/or everyone else for pleasure. I would say that shadows is Thanatos, and without light to overcome it, which would be some sort of instinctive altruism or the pleasure on helping other people unselfishly, the only way to deal with it is pure reason. The Dark Takanuvas is an interesting opportunity to explore the nature of ethics in a heavily philosophical fanfic.
I’d also add that Krika, who at that time was a full shadow being, was probably not merely defying Teridax for his own self-interest (the way Icarax was), because Krika willingly risked death by using his intangibility mutation to deactivate the Codrex energy field.
Now, maybe this was just because he wanted to improve his prospects in the afterlife spoken of in Makuta legend (he mentions that was a reason why he was showing Gali mercy), but it could also be he had a genuine desire to stop Teridax’s evil.
So in theory, a full-shadow being could have an even stronger conscience than Krika, and therefore be a good person despite the instinctive inclination towards evil. But someone like that would be exceedingly rare.
IMO Krika is one of the most interesting Bionicle characters.
I’ve been reading the 05 story and I thought I read a part where someone (I think it was Norik) say that serving the element of Shadow used to be a noble thing. I could be wrong, though.
