Some Questions About Masks

I’m aware that the animated movie appearances of the toa aren’t completely cannon (except in the depiction of organic tissue), but are the toa’s masks actually supposed to be expressive? The comics only showed the official mask designs, so the only facial expressions we got were some eye manipulations by Randy Elliot. The books mention facial expressions quite a bit, but then again, in Journey of Takanuva, they describe a smiling mask as looking “strange”.

Also, if a toa hagah with, say, a great Pakari in the shape of a noble Matatu became a turaga, would their mask stay the same since it looks like a noble mask already, or change to a noble Pakari?

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Well, BS01 and the Wiki have nothing to say on this matter.

The movies did it almost certainly for clarity of emotion, as with the eye manipulations in the comics. It’s a trick often used by artists and animators to show expression on a masked character, like Deadpool or Spider-Man.

My assumption is that they probably didn’t, or at least not to the extent that they do in the movies. Considering most Kanohi were either carved or molded from solid Kanoka disks, I find unlikely they were able to move very much, if at all.

While the online sources say it was possible to make a mask in any shape regardless of power, this was hardly ever done, if at all, for the sake of being able to identify a mask’s power on sight. So the easy answer to this question is neither because it would never happen.

If we’re being hypothetical, I’d assume it would transform itself in line with its power. So the hypothetical answer, at least in my opinion, would be that it would transform into a Noble Pakari.

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I specified toa hagah since all of them had their masks forged in different shapes. But otherwise, yeah, I guess you’re right.

Actually, not all of them, just some.
We know Norik did, but we also know Iruini didn’t.

Oh. I always assumed they all had differently shaped masks, because in the toa hagah comic it says that “they had armor made of precious metals, and masks formed in the shapes of old heroes” or something like that. The wording implied it meant them all.

This answer is incorrect. Greg has indicated that the shape of the Noble mask would match the shape of the Great mask, not the power:

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Thanks, that’s interesting to know.