It has long been accepted that Lhikan, Nidhiki, and Tuyet met their own fates, while Naho the other 7 Toa who responded to the threat of the Kanohi Dragon were killed by Eliminator.
But is that actually the case? Details on the Mangai are scarce, but I’ll start with Lhikan’s entry in the Bionicle Encyclopedia: Updated:
[Lhikan] first came to Metru Nui 4,000 years ago along with 10 other Toa in response to a call for help from Turaga DUME. The Toa encountered and defeated a KANOHI DRAGON. Lhikan personally saw the dragon delivered to the island of XIA. Afterwards, he, Toa NIDHIKI, and a handful of the other heroes elected to remain the in city as its protectors.
Lhikan led the Toa to victory in the conflict with the DARK HUNTERS over the latter group’s plan to establish a base in the city. During this struggle, Lhikan discovered that Nidhiki planned to betray the city. Nidiki left with the defeated Dark Hunters and did not return for hundreds of years.
Over time, some of the Toa left the city for other islands and more adventure.
This entry makes two references to Toa leaving the team. The first is after the Kanohi Dragon incident, after which only a “handful” of the Toa remained. This claim is supported by a later quote:
It is further stated that “some of the Toa” left after the Toa-Dark Hunter War, but it is unclear if this refers to the original Mangai or the Toa Army.
Afterwards, Greg confirmed that all Toa Mangai left on Metru Nui after the War were killed by Eliminator:
However, this would not include any Toa who left the team either before or immediately after the Toa-Dark Hunter War.
So did I miss a source, or is it possible that some of the original eleven Toa Mangai (again, besides Tuyet) could still be alive?
I think perhaps that was a case where Greg was intentionally vague – implying that they all died, but leaving open the possibility of introducing a Mangai survivor in the story.
So the “canon” answer would be “yes, they’re all dead, unless one of them shows up again.” which won’t happen since he’ll likely never continue the story serials…
There’s a difference between “being vague” and “canon until stated otherwise”. If something is vague, then there is no canon answer, and we can assume whatever we want and still be canon-compliant. If something is “canon until it’s not”, then it is to be taken as the sole canon answer unless retconned. Everything is canon until it’s not; Greg can make whatever changes he wants.
I’m not questioning this part; Greg straight up said that all the Mangai were definitely killed by Eliminator. That’s “canon until it’s not”. The part I’m questioning is the assumption that “the Mangai” still included every one of the original 11 who wasn’t dealt with otherwise.
If the only sources we had just said “all the Mangai were killed”, then yes; all 8 of them being dead would be “canon until it’s not”, since we’d have no reason to believe that any of the Mangai were no longer Mangai.
Unless there’s a source that retcons or overrides the above claim, then it is inaccurate to state (as BS01 currently does) that all eight of the “unknown” Original-11 Mangai were permanently killed by Eliminator, or even killed at all.
Ambiguity aside, it’s a forgetcon; Greg had stated previously that some of the Toa left the team. It was in published material too, so it definitely takes precedence over a message boards quote from 2014.
Technically, he just says that they “left”, which could mean the city, not the team. We know Naho left the city during Tuyet’s betrayal, and she came back later for the war. Could be the other 7 did the same, left and returned.
I wouldn’t typically imagine a Toa team splitting up like that, but I guess Norik and Varian’s team did the same thing. Perhaps that’s why they were called Toa Mangai, rather than the more specific “Toa Metru”.
The issue I see with that quote, and any Greg Quotes saying that “all” the Mangai were killed, is that they could easily be forgetcons; there is published material from the mid-2000’s that said some of the Mangai left before and (possibly) after the Toa-Dark Hunter War, as well as a Greg Quote from 2007 specifying the same thing. Both of those take precedence over thethreequotes from 2014 which say/imply that all of the original members were killed.
It’s also worth noting that one of those three quotes specifies that they are only asking about the Mangai who didn’t leave after the War.
I have recently stumbled upon another quote which states that some of the 11 Toa Mangai who fought the Kanohi Dragon left the city before the Toa-Dark Hunter War:
Note that he differentiates between the Toa who left on other missions, and those who left for good.
This is from 2008, six years before he stated that “all” of the Toa Mangai were killed by Eliminator.
That means that there is published material, plus two Quotes from 2007-08 that state that some of the Toa Mangai left the team before the war.
On the other hand, the only sources for all 8 “other” Toa Mangai being killed by Eliminator came in 2014, and one of them was misinformed.
Meant to say this a long time ago but forgot, but there is actually a “canon until proven otherwise” category, and as an example, I’ll use Orde.
When the first chapter of The Yesterday Quest was released, Orde, Chiara, and Zaria were all mentioned on BS01 to have been Matoran transformed into Toa, similar to every other Toa we know of outside of Helryx and the Mata. This was considered canon, despite never having been stated: Orde, Chiara, and Zaria were once Matoran who became Toa. When the second chapter came out, Orde was revealed to be an exception to this rule, like Helryx and the Mata, and as such, it was no longer “canon”.
I believe this is what @Racie02 was getting at: the official canon right now is that they’re dead (and they’re listed as such on BS01). Were the story to continue, Greg could always bring one of them back, and then that Toa would no longer be canonically dead.
First off, it doesn’t matter what BS01 says; they don’t determine canon. The reason I made this post in the first place is to challenge that statement with official sources.
Most importantly, though, why is it that the default is to assume that the Mangai are dead? With your Orde example, there was a ton of precedent that the default was for Toa to all come from Matoran. For the Mangai, though, there’s no precedent that we should assume that they are dead unless explicitly stated otherwise. So why should we take this as “canon unless stated otherwise”?
Of course, this is a hypothetical question; we assume that they’re dead because some Greg Quotes in 2014 said so.
But the entire point of my post is that these quotes are forgetcons, and should be ignored in favour of older content. I’m not just saying “they might be alive because Greg could say so if he wanted”. I’m saying “they might be alive because there are multiple earlier sources, one of which is published media, that state quite explicitly that some of the Toa left for good before Teridax began impersonating Dume, and they therefore could not have been sent on false missions and killed”.
That’s not really my point. BS01 exists to document canon, and they consider the Toa canonically dead.
This is the point of contention, because there is no source that says they left for good. In fact, there is at least two Toa confirmed to have “left” and then returned – Naho, and the Toa Mangai of Earth.
The only line that suggests anyone leaving for good is the last one you linked, saying that some went on missions, others went home. Whether “Going home” just means going back to their homelands for a while, or leaving the Mangai for good, is debatable. Note that it’s only listed as a contrast to “going on other missions”, and it doesn’t say “left the team and went home”.
Well, I’m not the one who put the information on BS01, so I can’t claim to know their reasoning, but the reason I would call it the default would be a simple train of logic:
All the ones we know definitive fates for died (naho, Toa Mangai of earth). None have ever been confirmed to have survived.
Greg has said they “all died”, in reference to the Mangai
Even if someone did leave the team for good, we don’t know who it was. At least “around seven” were there during the Dark Hunter war (and that isn’t counting Tuyet). So statistically speaking, at least four out of the unknown seven most likely died, and three are unknown if they came back.
Given all of this, I think the most likely case is that any of the unknown 7 mangai should be considered dead, unless there’s specific word otherwise.
