To sum it up: I’m of the opinion that the Bionicle fandom’s fixation on canonisation has been a net negative for both itself and the series as a whole. There’s a lot of really not good aspects of the lore that we only know because people demanded answers from Greg. Answers we didn’t need.
Bionicle is a better and more coherent story if you never pay attention to the forum posts and that’s not even an opinion, that’s just straight-up true, because if you never read the forums, you don’t find out that you have to disregard whole chunks of everything from 2001-2005, because somewhere after the fact, a bunch of the stuff made by Templar, Creative Capers/Miramax, and Cathy Hapka got retconned for not fitting in with a Story Bible that none of the audience had access to.
For years we had whole chunks of some of the best-remembered and most iconic parts of the series shunted into oblivion by text posts, for, basically, not fitting exactly with the concept art.
And sure, people can go “Templar went off script, they shouldn’t have!”, but Templar going off-script created something beautiful, something that was our only source for the connected plot of 2001 for two years, something that remained a cornerstone of what people love about Bionicle for its entire lifespan and long after its death. MNOG getting Greg’d did not produce anything but some forum posts saying “X, Y, and Z from the game don’t count, don’t think about it.”
The one exception to this is the snarl over where the Golden Masks came from, with MNOG and the Advance CGI going with the earlier idea of them being in chambers below each Toa’s Suva, and Hapka and Greg going with the later idea of them spawning from carvings in a wall at Kini-Nui.
This has bred a mentality in the community and made it into a fandom that cares more about pointless minutiae than the actual plot, characterisation, themes, messages, etcetera.
Some of that is absolutely on Greg for agreeing to do the threads in the first place, sure. But a lot of it is down to the fandom for continuing to go back to the well long after it dried up.
In 2010, Bionicle was handed over to us… and we spent the past eleven years doing little with it besides pleading for more drips of content from Lego employees
I don’t think anyone here advocated for the contests to stay the same as they had been. Kind of the whole point of this thread was to show that its actively trying to improve.
Eljay literally offered the opportunity to step up and assist the contests. If you didn’t offer to help then complaining is really just ironic at this point
If you don’t believe the ends justify the means you could just… not participate in the means? Or improve the means to get there…
I don’t see how any of the problems with the management these contests are unfixable. Which (correct me if I’m wrong) seems to be your main issue here.
And y’all keep mentioning arguments as a bad thing. I think this has been said elsewhere but arguments aren’t necessarily bad. Most of the arguments here contribute to the final products of the contests. Now yeah, this plays into the whole “ends justify the means” argument, but is an argument really such a bad “mean”? If an argument’s too frustrating for you, just don’t participate in it.
And now we’re doing something with it….
And we’re the fandom. This is what we care about. This is what we want (the majority of us). Why exactly is wanting to iron out the story a bad thing if it’s what we want?
I wanted to say something about this earlier. This is a point Eljay has said before. The characters on this contest list take nothing away from the lore by having images. The only reason they don’t is because the line got cancelled too soon. It’s not because the story team was trying to be ambiguous with what exactly Helryx’s mace looked like.
Yea, I don’t disagree. Like I said, I’ve made the exact same arguments before myself.
I wouldn’t say this is strictly true. We did pine for serial content, but there are many fan works in many different forms that either continued the story, re-visited earlier parts, or ignored canon and did new things entirely.
Yes, we could have. I’d be totally happy with that.
In fact, isn’t that basically what we’re doing now, except no one gets paid? What makes you think that hiring people to follow canon specifications would somehow result in less debate than asking fans to follow the same specifications for free?
Again, I’m not supporting the contests just because I want to vote on people’s MOCs, or because I like arguing about Bionicle on the internet; I support the contests because I want to know what those characters look like. If there was some way to just instantly get results without months of entries and voting, I’d take it. But until then, I am more than happy to participate in and assist with the contests.
No, that is an opinion. I personally love all of the extra details that were added by the forum posts.
I’m going to need a specific example of that, because I can’t really remember any such scenes. The only thing even similar to that is the whole “Hewkii x Macku” thing, but even that didn’t really get decanonized; they’re still very close friends, and their interactions in MNOG and the animations still happened. The only thing that changed is the label of their relationship.
In that those would all be serious entries that don’t stir up drama akin to what Hoseryx resulted in, or we wouldn’t have those issues of people being disqualified last minute from art contests, and so on.
The whole point I’m trying to make, with apparently little success, is that a community contest is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. Not to say that the people who have enjoyed it are wrong for enjoying it, but most of what I’ve heard regarding this contest seems to indicate that it’s not necessarily achieving that goal, and based on what I know of the issues within the community that have caused this, I don’t necessarily see that going away easily or painlessly.
Yeah I don’t think the problems with the management are unfixable, and I don’t think I ever said that. It’s more so the bad actors and negative stigma the contest has already garnered, and that’s not something I believe a change in management can just wash away.
I may just be overly cynical, but I don’t think the community can just necessarily forget about these past 3 contests and jump into a new one, and that’s what ultimately gets me.
They for sure seem to be headed in the right direction at least in past couple days asking for helpers and such. Now the question is how far in that direction will they go
It’s not just MNOG, I said parts, plural. MNOG still loses the Golden Mask scenes, and IIRC canon is still up-and-down on whether the Toa Mata had access to the Noble Masks as well, with Greg not liking the idea but both MNOG and the Bohrok animations depicting Kopaka, Onua, and Pohatu using them.
On the topic of the romance, it’s not just Hewkii and Macku, but also Jaller and Hahli, the Toa Metru’s various interactions with each other in Greg’s own books as well as the two movies, and whatever the heck was going on with Sidorak, Roodaka, Vakama, and Teridax in 05.
Then there’s the Shadow Toa, where, despite Tale of the Toa superseding other sources in every other case, Greg still felt the need to retcon it a couple of years later with regards to the Shadow Toa, and his version makes so little sense it’s hilarious.
Like, Teridax apparently just has the ability to rip out someone’s inner darkness and forge it into a complete, tangible being that can exist independently of the original. This is an incredibly good power, that could single-handedly turn the tide of almost any of his fights, and he uses it once and then it’s never mentioned again. It’s not an ability of the Kraahkan, it’s not a Kraata power, it’s not a general Makuta power, this is just a thing Teridax can apparently do, and maybe the others can as well. They’re not illusions, that the Toa had to defeat by realising they weren’t real, the Shadow Toa were actual, real manifestations of the Toa’s inner darkness.
“Inner-Darkness Duplicate Creation” is a power that fits in significantly better with Teridax’s original characterisation as a dark god, and much less with his later, canonical depiction as a genius scientist and warlord with a big, complex scheme. The latter gels much better with Hapka’s depiction of the Shadow Toa as merely being dark doppelgangers.
And of course, special mention must go to this line:
“Keetongu sees with one eye what we have missed with all of ours!”
Because thanks to Greg doing a Greg, Norik is wrong. Keetongu isn’t a cyclops, he’s got two eyes hiding behind a single fake one. Yes, that is canon. “Keetongu has two eyes, actually” makes literally no difference to any of the lore, has no impact on the story, it just makes a pretty good line from Web of Shadows not make any sense.
EDIT TO ADD: Just remembered another one!
Vakama’s visions! Remember those? The part where he spent all of 2004 believing himself to be a “crosswired freak” whose brain was broken? But then eventually his visions led the Toa to victory, and helped him unlock his powers and defeat Teridax?
Yeah turns out he really was just crosswired the entire time. Can’t have any mysticism in our Magic Robots Story, everything’s gotta be explained by science! Velika just knocked some screws loose when he was doing the Awakening and luckily Vakama’s head trauma led the Toa Metru to a W.
google a given character and pick whatever result you like best
Not advocating for it, not at all, but,actually I would think if Greg came around and just dropped appearances for characters, some people might dislike that, but it would not lead to nearly as much controversy within the fandom.
That’s because democratic processes breed controversy - by giving power to everyone, everyone feels in their right to use said power, and they’re entirely correct. So naturally, if differeing opinions appear, this will lead to a conflict, as neither party is wrong. And that’s why assessments of the general opinion - votes - are important in democratic processes.
The debates over details of characters will always continue, but I think those are ultimately of a “friendly” nature.
The only way the constant debates over whether or not to continue the contests can be ended, however, is a new poll. The old one does not hold up anymore, neither in regards to participation nor in regards to what happened since. As such I think it is perfectly understandable that this topic always comes up again because a part of the community - a part of the group invoved in the democratic process - feels ignored. And the longer it takes for such a poll to be initiated, the more dissatisfied these people will get - leading to the toxicity we witness. That’s not saying it’s fine to be toxic - it’s not - but it is to a degree understandable as a result of strong, built up dissatisfaction.
I myself am definitely a member of the anti-contest camp, but if there was a vote the conduction of which I see as representative for the current state of things, then I would respect whatever the result would be and shut up about contest continuation. And I think I’d not be the only one.
So canon has inconsistencies, well its only a problem as long as the characters we are trying to canonize are affected by it, right?
If were talking about the colorscheme debacles of Arthaka and Helryx or the colormandates on the Hagah. I mean in the end all of those issues are kinda superficial since they don’t really contradicts something previously said, right?
What blue Helryx was, greg intentionally left vague enough that it could be interpret both ways.
Arthaka was sand green as a result of him referring to arthaka’s color as green/grey and if you count pearl dark grey as a shade of grey and sand green as a shade of green you get a green/grey colorscheme
Finally the Hagah the reason a mandate on them where put in place for the colorplacement, was to enable a consistency between members of an elite team of guards and their Rahaga counter parts.
Canon isn’t perfect but unless there are any major inconsistencies between how greg has described the characters yet to be canonized I don’t really see the issue of canon being all over the place here. Because at the end of the day these characters apperances won’t retcon the story in any meaningful way.
We can talk all day about majorities and minorities in the fandom, but the truth is… we don’t know. Nobody does. We can estimate and guess and hype-up and lowball the details all we like… but until someone actively puts it up for survey in a high-profile, public space… we can’t know for sure.
Sure, a poll hosted in a Discord server with an anti-Contest bent is not representative of the whole fandom… but nor is the original poll on here. More people have made accounts since then, more people have become aware of TTV’s existence since then, and more people are taking the notion seriously.
If Pro-Contest still wins by a wide margin then hey, sure, whatever, continue as you were. But if it doesn’t, if it loses or the win is incredibly narrow… then we’ve got discussions to have.
I don’t think either of us can ascribe a specific intention behind Greg’s statement there, because neither of us is Greg or the person who asked the question. He was asked if Helryx was light or dark blue. He answered dark.
We don’t know what Greg saw as light and dark in that context. Was he referring to Mata Blue as light and Metru Blue as dark? Or Medium Blue as light and Mata Blue as dark? Or Medium Blue and Metru Blue with Mata not even being involved? We don’t have an answer to that.
The people that insist that Helryx 100% fits the description (even setting aside colours, uh, no) lean on the interpretation that “light blue” refers to Medium Blue, and “dark blue” refers to both Mata and Metru Blue… which is… well, a charitable reading, I would hestitate to call Mata Blue “dark” in any context, it’s still a light colour, just a more vibrant one.
And like I said in the parentheses, there’s other stuff with her that doesn’t line up right.
That said, I don’t really want to focus too hard on Helryx, because, well, most of what went wrong with her was the product of the MOC portion having no rules. There were guidelines, but they were treated as suggestions, and that resulted in a variety of titans, including at least one Amazonian winged figure. With, uh, distinct chest armour.
Artakha (and also Lariska) was a weird case because Greg confirmed he was “grey-green” (blue-green for Lariska), which led to people assuming he was grey and green for a while before someone decided to ask about it (why), and Greg said that he didn’t mean two colours, he meant a single colour, sand-green (teal for Lariska). That he did end up being both colours wasn’t ever certain, and wasn’t Greg’s intent, and it shows, there are plenty of other Artakha entries that were almost entirely green with little, if any grey. And that still ended up being problematic. Don’t forget that TTV had to institute a rule saying “You can build in any shade of green but the art has to use the accurate shade” because sand-green is a rare colour that only got used three times in constraction. And that still ended up with an extraneous and annoying caveat of only using a single shade: The concession that they made to builders to make the MOC portion even remotely accessible for people without multiple Zaktans, Swampfires, and Boba Fetts came with an extra rule to make it… less accessible.
The Hagah, I think… were fine. I’ve said it before, but the problem with the Hagah wasn’t the rules. The rules were correct. Sorry to the fully-custom-Metru-torso gang but TTV implementing the rules was the right course of action. The problem was that the rules and the necessity of their implementation made them really boring subjects for a MOC contest.
You are correct in saying that the contests… are almost entirely unaffected by the post-canon lore changes. This is true… for now.
Lariska will be affected by the alterations, much like Artakha was, but her case will probably be worse. A lot of the issues with Artakha were mitigated by his sheer scale allowing for a lot of sand-green greebles and such to be worked into his construction, but Lariska is Toa-sized and skinny, there’s just not a lot of space to work in Technic bits and system bricks, and she’s a colour that’s had even less use than sand green. I wholly believe that Lariska will most likely end up being some terrible-looking 01 bait made out of Slizer parts.
And then there’s Tuyet, whom has a vocal contingent who insist that the contest should not include Empire Tuyet and therefore she shouldn’t even be armed because it has never been Greg Confirmed that Prime Tuyet had the same sword as her counterpart.
This isn’t a case of the Staff of Artakha not being allowed for the Artakha contest, because no version of him ever used the Staff. We do have a Canon Tuyet that used the sword, and we have as much information that Prime Tuyet didn’t have a sword as we have that she did: None.
Sure, people can say “Toa would never use such vicious weapons” but we have Toa that did. Like Lewa.
And that’s the mentality that I dislike, the constant desire for everything to be enshrined by Greg, even past the point of necessity. Artakha was perfectly fine being green and grey, someone asked for further details for no good reason, and then Artakha was just a shade of green… until the contest made him both again. Lariska was perfectly fine being green and blue, but someone asked, and now she’s teal. Tuyet having the Nui Stone and the Barbed Broadsword is totally fine, but there are people who want to Greg-Retcon that and completely remove the sword from the equation for what purpose?
This isn’t a problem with the contests specifically, it’s a problem with the wider fandom that has the potential to affect future contests.
You’d be suprised what potential could be had with these technic bits that isn’t just 01 bait. I’m tired of the 01 nostalgia pandering too trust me. That’s why I’m not gonna vote for any slizer/throwbots inspired designs or enter any such designs. I’ve seen plenty of good designs of Lariskas not just on these boards but elsewhere which are completely devoid of 01 influence.
I never understood this argument either so I guess I’m with you on that.
So, for Helryx, it doesn’t match up to canon because “we don’t know Greg’s intention” but for Artahka, it would be fine if a grey and green Artakha won if we didn’t know Greg’s intention?
You can’t say “Helryx doesn’t fit with canon because we don’t know what Greg meant” and then later say “it would be better if we didn’t know what Greg meant, then anything could’ve been canon.”
I’ve never seen anyone say she should be unarmed. Some people have said we should allow for it (myself included, I think, though if so I’m taking that back as of now)
I am currently of the opinion that the sword should be required*, but if the winning Moc/art was unarmed, it wouldn’t retcon her having a sword – it just means she’s not portrayed with it. The set version of Mahri Nuparu doesn’t have the Aqua Blaster Blade, but he canonically has it. Really, it leaves the canon just as ambiguous as it is currently – she probably has it, but it isn’t confirmed.
*based on Greg’s statement that he would reveal her weapon in the Story Serials, i think it’s safe to say he intended for her to have a Barbed Broadsword in the prime reality. And if the hammer was required for Arty, the Sword should be required for Tuyet.
Also, this is just my opinion, but I think the line makes just as much sense because it’s metaphorical anyway – Keetongu isn’t “seeing” anything, so much as recognizing a fact the Toa have missed. “seeing” isn’t literal, so why should “one eye” be?
Honestly, a cat would be a perfect animal inspiration… if not for the Internet.
Like… small? Yes. Agile? Yes. Knives? Check. Murderous? Oh yeah. Lariska and cats have a lot in common…
Unfortunately, thanks to anime and Andrew Lloyd Webber, cat-people are just a thing for people to get, ummmm… thirsty about, so cat-Lariska will never not be cursed.
