Practicality Of The Toa's Weapons

Awesome as many of the Toa’s weapons may be, you have to wonder how effective they’d really be as weapons. I remember when I was a kid, and I was building custom Bionicle figures, I’d slap together a bunch of pieces to make a weapon that I thought looked cool, but when I started playing with it, it didn’t go over so well. The weapon (s) would either be too heavy, or they’d fall apart easily.

In the real world, there are a number of different functions weapons are designed for. Heavier swords and axes are used for chopping, since heavier blades will have more momentum and will therefore hit with bigger impact. The issue with this, however, is that heavier weapons can be harder for a person to lift. In addition, swords always have a center of balance. The ones used for chopping have their center of balance near the tip of the blade, but the ones for dueling have it closer to the hilt.

Many of the Toa’s weapons seem to fall into the latter category-swords that are used for dueling. Tahu Mata’s flame-shaped sword, Jaller Mahri’s blade, Matau Metru’s aero slicers, and Kopaka Mata’s sword are pretty good-sized for dueling swords, and they don’t appear to be that heavy. In fact, the same holds true for a lot of the Toa’s weapons. Lewa Mata’s hatchet/axe, Hewkii Marhi’s spear, and even the Inika’s weapons…they all seem pretty like weapons that could exist in the real world. They’re not overly big or showy, it’s easy to tell where their points of balance are, and even the “chopping” weapons don’t look excruciatingly heavy.

Unfortunately, there are some Toa weapons that don’t seem so practical. First off is Kopaka Nuva.

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I like Kopaka as much as the next guy, and his wielding of the double-bladed weapon and shield is really cool. But a double-bladed weapon isn’t quite as versatile as a normal sword. It’s not impossible to wield a double-bladed weapon, but it is easier if you have two hands. I mean, look at Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace and, later, The Clone Wars. Many of his fighting moves involve transferring his lightsaber’s hilt from hand to hand. If Kopaka was wielding both his double-bladed weapon and his shield, then he wouldn’t be able to do this.

Speaking of the Toa Nuva…I do kind of quibble with Tahu’s swords. Some promotional images have him dual-wielding them, others have them joined together in one weapon. But we do know he can join them together to form a lava surfboard.

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Say what you will about the Mask Of Light movie, but seeing Tahu surf on lava is freaking awesome…until you read the next paragraph.

If Tahu’s swords are strong and rigid enough to be joined together to be used as a surfboard, then they must be really dense and heavy. I mean, think about it. Could you imagine breaking a surfboard in two and using the two halves as weapons? It would be pretty tough to brandish a half, let alone swing it, with just one arm. Clearly Tahu was pretty strong even without the use of a Pakari.

The only other impractical Toa weapons I can think of off the top of my head are the ones that Nokama and Onewa Metru use.

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Both their blades seem pretty thick, but the handles/shafts are rather thin. Onewa’s proto pitons’ shafts seem a little thicker, but still. How do they even support the weight of the blades? And how do they not shatter whenever their users swing their weapons into something?

The world may never know.

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Yeah, the average Toa can lift around a ton. I’m sure a Toa Nuva would have no issue with those swords.

I’ve always thought that, despite the portrayal of the single weapon in the movie, the proto pitons are meant to be chain weapons. I say this because of the texture of the “shaft”, and the above-average flexibility of the part.

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In addition to what Jerminator said, you also have to consider that it’s on a toy, so making them much thinner risks integrity. If we took the toy design at face value, then there’s not even a proper edge.

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Hate to be that guy but they are tools. Either way it doesn’t make much more sense through that lens ufortunately

A its climbing equipment, B its propably chains

In Nokama’s case it seems to be some sort of metal wire going through it inuniverse that holds it together. Also neither of their tools would actually be standing up as in the sets

Example 1
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Example 2
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Tell that to Thanos.

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Most weapons are too big and generally horrible for practical use, and wouldn’t work well in actual warfare. Off the top of my head, without getting into the shapes and sizes of the weapons:

  • Hooks do not make for good weapons. Onua’s claws may or may not be his hands, but if they’re not, they’re just glorified rakes and they suck.
  • Dual-wielding is impractical to begin with, so every Toa Nuva, Metru, and Hordika is out on that except for Kopaka, whose double-bladed sword would just hit himself if he tried to use it. And what the hell are the climbing claws supposed to do?
  • Chain weapons are also horribly impractical. They were only used rarely in actual warfare, one notable example being the European flail, which appears to have been a rarely-used cavalry weapon because just using it on foot would hit the user with the weapon’s head. Shovels and…whatever Nuju has…aren’t good weapons, either.
  • What are Nokama Hordika’s weapons even supposed to be? Oh, and Onewa had flails. Dual flails. An actual nightmare.
  • Inika weapons mostly get a pass beyond the terrible shapes, but Jaller’s dual-wielding, so he gets an F.
  • I don’t even know how Hahli and Matoro Mahri are supposed to hold their claws, but however they use them, they’re less useful than a regular ■■■■■■■ sword. Nuparu’s shield is too gappy to work at all.
  • The '08 Nuva mostly just have guns, but Tahu has this idiotic spinny blade shield thing and it’s giving me hives. Takanuva gets a pass because his trident is meant to be used more as a cannon than a melee weapon, but I will say that tridents suck.

I won’t get into Glatorian because they mostly fought in formal duels, and historical dueling often used unconventional/ridiculous weapon choices like scythes and dueling shields because they were as much for spectacle as dispute-settling, which is kinda like the Glatorian fights we actually have in canon.

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well…this is bionicle. didn’t Greg say “Real world physics don’t apply in bionicle”?

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Let’s recall a few things - these are tools, not weapons, meant primarily for channelling Elemental powers rather than dueling. Secondly, Toa are massively strong. I believe the average Toa, without a Pakari, can lift something like 1 ton? They can utilize larger, heavier weapons than we can.

Secondly, as has been pointed out, Nokama and Onewa’s tools are more like chain weapons than pick axes with long, thin handles. I believe Onewa specifically is depicted swinging on them regularly, including on his box art, and the cover of BA5.

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Let’s recall a few things - these are toys, not tools or weapons

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this topic’s gonna be fun

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I did, but he just said something about balance.

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Actually, based on what SirKeksalot said, having just one giant pickaxe for a weapon might be more practical than having two flails. You’d have a LOT more control over your weapon with lesser risk of bashing off your own head.

…which are frequently used as weapons.

I’m honestly not sure what Nokama is supposed to be doing here. She’s…skiing on her weapons? And using their cables to steer?

I’d argue that Gali could easily use her hooks to, well, hook an enemy’s weapon and yank it out of their hands. Think along the lines of an ancient Egyptian khopesh.

In one of the online animations, they moved like fingers, so I imagine they’re some kind of mechanical pincer. Plus, they can both be merged into a spiked ball Pohatu can kick around.

They’re fin barbs.

Why? Tridents are essentially spears with a couple extra blades. You can use them to stab at an enemy, or whack them in the face, or parry an opponent’s strike the way a spear can.

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The Khopesh was used like an axe, not as a hook.

I checked BS01 to see what they were called. That didn’t explain what kind of weapon they’re meant to be. Their shape might make them useful as a warhammer, I guess? But in the movie, she uses her tool like a grappling hook, so it doesn’t have the structural integrity needed to act as a weapon that takes as much punishment as a warhammer.

The force of impact is distributed across the 3 points, making it terrible for stabbing, which is the entire point of a spear. Tridents are a fishing tool designed to spear small prey, they’re awful for actual fights. If they were actually good weapons, they would have been militarized fairly often. They weren’t. Roman gladiators only used them for spectacle.

I cannot begin to express my disdain for that vague, copout statement or my lack of willingness to consider it.

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Regardless, things like the fact that Kopaka have a hard time wielding his double sided sword without hitting himself still apply.

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They were descended from battle axes, yes, but they could be used to hook an enemy’s arm or shield. That’s why they were only sharpened on the outside of the curved blade.

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Another example is when they are dangling from the pillar in Ko metru during te events of Legends of Metru nui

They are still referred to as tools and used as tool. Also many, if not a majority of them are based on actual tools

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I believe they are chains, not bar.

I think Nokama is waterskiing, using her control of water to pull the heads of her tools along, while the… ropes, I guess, pull her.

To add to the point about them being tools rather than weapons, more often than not, at least for the Nuva and the Metru, they are used for their intended purposes as often, if not more often, than they are in combat, and in combat, they’re generally just used to shoot energy beams. This mainly changes with the Inika, and, hey, they’re the ones that have actual swords.

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Maybe he super heats them to split them? but he’d have to use a temperature higher than lava soooo……

I always imagined that the shaft was a chain because it kinda looks similar ?

@Ghid is the next guy

He also takes his hand off in a commercial

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I did the math on this, just for fun.

Math

According to BrickLink, the Magma Sword piece has a mass of 3.08 g.
According to stud.io, the Tahu Nuva set is 16.2 cm tall without the mask.
If we assume that Tahu Nuva is 7.2 feet tall without his mask, and account for unit conversions, this gives a (actual:set) ratio of 13.55.

Cube this ratio and multiply by the mass of the part to get the scaled mass of 7656.8 g, or 7.66 kg. However, this mass is for ABS plastic. We don’t know the density of Protosteel, but we do know that the density of steel is approximately 8 times that of ABS plastic. This gives a final mass of 61.25 kg.

Tahu’s swords come out to around 61.25 kg each, which would weigh around 135 lbs.

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