I see what you’re saying, but it’s not just Vezon; there are plenty of characters who are described as being particularly brutal/violent, but we never see any of it because Lego doesn’t want the characters of their children’s story ripping each other’s limbs off.
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Except for The Shadowed One, he’s clearly stated to have ripped Lariska’s arm off.
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…and Pridak, who ripped Nocturn’s arm off. And I think Takadox almost cut off Mantax’ arm?
Also Gorast literally vaporized her opponents, alternate Teridax blew up alternate Tanma, Dark Mirror happened, Zaktan did who-knows-what to the Toa of plasma, chewed up Tahu’s arm and let Matoran boil in lava because distraction, Hakann made a Kikanalo herd go boom, Vultraz made a massacre, and Fero killed some other bone hunter with a sword strike because he wanted to argue. I think Vezon is rather the minority. Sure, we don’t get to see everything first hand, but I think in some instances the talking about it is more unsettling than actually showing it (f. e. Tuyet’s murder spree, Vultraz attack, Visorak massacres).
Vezon and Vamprah are maybe the exceptions of which I can think right now, most other villains were handled… okay on the showing violence spectrum.
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Yeah, if they’d shown some of the off-screen action, LEGO would likely have fired Greg for tarnishing their reputation as a family-friendly company. Plus, Takanuva gets pretty close to being like some of these villains in 2008, as he callously abandons the Makuta to die in the swamp, saying, “You wanted a Toa who would be like you. Now you’ve got one, and you can choke on it.” Yikes. For a guy with a high moral standard elsewhere, that’s really dark.
That’s also the only year they explicitly showed someone die in the comics, as at least two of the Makuta are shown exploding amid the energy storms.
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My issue is less with Lego’s restrictions on violence and more to do with Vezon’s character. Vezon lacks any substance. Greg wanted Vezon’s character to be unhinged, but dangerous and funny at the same time. But Vezon is actually an idiot that says random things that usually mean nothing.
To bring up Joker again, Batman The Animated series also had many restrictions in terms of violence and the like. That Joker is still a fantastic adaptation because the writing of his personality overcomes the occasional goofiness that the writers had to settle for. Joker is funny because there’s bits of truth behind what he says and does. He’s dangerous because he can weaponize anything, even other people. He breaks people down until they have the same beliefs that he does. That humanity and society are inherently unfair and unjust, so there’s no point in upholding morality or believing in concepts like love. It’s all a big joke.
Vezon does not have to be a carbon copy of Joker in this respect, but the difference is that Joker has purpose behind his beliefs, words, and actions. While Vezon has none.
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I don’t think he is really considered unhinged or an actual threat post-Inferno. Nobody takes him serious, because he is just a small time crook without the mask. His dialogue is meaningless by intend. There is nothing psychological to his condition. He is just a mumbling buffoon. Maybe it could have worked better if he went more into the meta level (anything but fourth wall breaks), so that his insanity works for him to see through some useless stuff. A borderline self-aware character. He was close to that (the Jaws reference), but I think he could have gone further.
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Then Vezon has no purpose in the Bionicle story. He’s an add-on with no purpose.
It should be noted that Vezon doesn’t meet with the definition of insanity. Insanity means to be unaware/unable to grasp the consequences of your own actions. Vezon clearly displays sufficient awareness to be considered sane, but he clearly says nonsense intentionally. Fourth wall breaking is also a lazy way of expressing self awareness of a character (unless the writer really puts in the extra work). Self awareness runs counter to insanity in that insanity requires wisdom regarding your own value, state, and presence. Things that Vezon sorely lacks.
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Yes
Could also be me not speaking English good, in that case “anything except”
But I think you just somewhat described what I wished Vezon to be: a kind of Jack Sparrow, where people are lead to believe he is the crazy one, but he may actually be not. Could work because technically he is supposed to be Vezok’s cunning side.
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Most of those happened either off-screen, in recollections, and/or to minor nameless characters. There’s a big difference between mentioning that a character killed a bunch of nameless Matoran, vs. specifically showing them pointlessly torturing a character as a main plot point (as Vezon wanted to do in Federation Of Fear).
I will grant you, though, that some of the serials got particularly graphic, especially Kingdom Tanma and Dark Mirror Tuyet’s deaths.
He kind of did something like that in Destiny War as well:
“Would you be quiet?” said Trinuma, “This is a secret mission. Do you understand that?”
“Sure,” answered Vezon, “Secret mission means if you get killed, I won’t tell anyone. And you still haven’t answered any of my one hundred and ten questions, or my follow-ups.”
Although, to be fair, Vultraz also made a pop-culture reference in Brothers In Arms; it’s not just a Vezon thing:
“Hmmmm,” said Vultraz. “I don’t think we’re in Karda Nui anymore. Maybe if I tap my red feet together three times and wish real hard …”
It was actually even worse than that; Takanuva wasn’t even in danger from the storms at that point, he just felt like killing Makuta and was about to do it himself (albeit while under the influence of a Shadow Leech, but still). It was Tahu who made the decision to abandon the Makuta.
Why would you say that? Even if Vezon isn’t a super complicated Joker-like character, he still contributed significantly to the story.
Ok. That is even more to the point than I realized. Now just imagine what the other Shadow Takanuvas could do… that’s probably why they were only briefly in the story. They could bring the defeat of Makuta from PG-13 to R pretty fast.
Joker is not a super complicated character. His goals and desires are very straight forward. He creates chaos. Why? To indulge his hatred for humanity and show how it’s deserved.
But Joker aside, what do you think Vezon contributed?
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I’d remove Velika, or at least nerf him
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Same here.
I’d also like to nerf Annona a little, as her body heat is too excessive. If it burns someone up when they get close, that’s pretty easy to track in the desert (or anywhere else). Just follow the burnt road…
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The first thing he did after the Inika arc was to be “recruited” into the Federation Fear.
The most impactful thing he did, though, came on his second “mission” from the Order of Mata Nui. After being sent to Destral, he “betrayed” the Order to the Brotherhood before following Tridax to his chamber of Shadow Takanuva. From there, he stole Tridax’s Olmak and went on a series of interdimensional adventures before making a deal with the Cursed Great Being to free the latter. He later rescued Artakha, Lewa, Tuyet, Helryx, Axonn, Brutaka, Miserix, Hafu, and Kapura from space as part of this mission.
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That’s what happens if one third is on the evil side, one third has permanent Lego-approved plot armor and the other third has somewhat plot armor partially because they want the toys to sell for at least to the the end of the year (afterwards the serials await) or it would be meaningless to kill minor side characters when you could just as well kill a nobody. For being plot armor heavy it the degree of violence is good enough I think. Maybe they could have killed Dezalk or Gar, but why though. It would have made little difference.
To this I certainly agree. You don’t want to “bump off” your main characters, or even minor named characters, because you then lose products to sell. If you had Vezon kill off anyone he wanted, many of these minor characters would barely have any spotlight on them. They’d just be yet another dead guy who rented a boat to the wrong people.
(Plus it would look bad for LEGO to have a toy line that has blatant murder as a main plot point. They want to be family friendly, unlike some franchises that have gotten flak for their violence [i.e. Batman]).
Botar’s replacement. There was no point to killing him off if he was just going to be replaced by a functionally identical member of the same species.
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Jaller because of TAKUAAA
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At least in 2006, his character was better used as a plot device showing his torment of the power of the Mask of Life, how life can be influenced and controlling over us. He became power hungry as it’s guardian. After 2006 you’re right, he’s a useless character.
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Sorry for the late reply. School crap.
I don’t think any of those are meaningful contributions because none of them required Vezon specifically. If Vezon in those moments were replaced by a bland faceless matoran, there would have been little difference. Vezon was never given time to flesh out who or what he was besides some lame comic relief, and therefore adds next to nothing to those crucial plot points.
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