I’d say that The Shadowed One wasn’t really insane at all. He was very ruthless and arrogant, yes, but still perfectly adequate
Aren’t all real world dictators kinda insane though? I think insanity comes with this job.
Also, the Pit. This place messes with your sanity for sure, and the Barraki spent ages there
Pridak is definitely insane. The others I don’t know. Tuma, Metus, Telluris, Sahmad, Stronius, TSO, Sidorak, Fero, Lariska are not insane I think.
But yeah, most of the in-MU villains are insane. Many of them because they had at one point to do with Makuta, which themselves were one with dark corruptive powers. Melding Terry himself noticed that main Teridax’s voice sounded like “touched with madness”.
I think it would have been cool to explore more of Bara Magna’s villains that were not suffering from desert madness (sorry Malum). These characters didn’t have inner light shenanigans. Tuma and Sahmad even had a somewhat sensible origin story, but oh well… We got Metus… Still don’t like him as a main villain.
This goes for all the Skrall in general. Every other story source makes it clear that the Skrall are hardened warriors that are undefeatable in single combat, yet the movie shows them as screeching swarm enemies that the Glatorian just kind of brush off.
The Bone Hunters as well, though at least their defeat in the movie was somewhat more realistic; they were somewhat defeatable even in the rest of the story, and most of the combat in the movie involved the Glatorian running away.
They could have at least emphasized that the elemental powers gave them the advantage. But instead we almost got Tarix punching a Skrall K.O.
Him and Sidorak. Thanks to the movie, he’s a whimpering pathetic simp. Sure, he never was much of a combatant, but he was much smarter and more threatening than his Web of Shadows portrayal would lead one to believe.
Yes. And the Vahki. They need a representation of being effective. Most of the time in the comics, they’re the ones getting beat up.
Speaking of Bionicle villains, I think having all the “Good” Makuta except for Miserix be conveniently killed was a very dumb move. It would have been very interesting to see how they would interact with the rest of the Matoran Universe in the fight against Teridax. Krika was the closet we got to that, but honestly, it would have been way cooler to see an actual full-on good Makuta that would ally himself with the Toa, not just one that simply couldn’t decide which side to be on.
Even in exclamation marks this is a bit of a stretch. Miserix was eventually as corrupted as the other Makuta, he just hated Teridax more than anyone or anything else.
Krika was a villain in a hero story that knew what happens to villains in hero stories and wasn’t too happy about it, even though he seemed convinced that destiny had forced him towards that path.
Good Makuta don’t really exist in the main universe. If they did they would probably break the narrative, as they could have easily solved a lot of problems for the main characters. But there was Melding Terry, who was not corrupted by shadow. And I think that’s the crux, shadow powers turning you evil in the Bionicle universe is not a question of if but a question of when. This has probably to do with Greg Farshtey’s narrative that becoming evil is much more easy than becoming good.
While I agree that it would have been very fun to see a “good” Makuta in that part of the story, you could chalk it up to Teridax being extremely thorough in his plan
A good question is how many of those guys could be diagnosed with a real mental illness. Yes I know they’re not humans but it’s fun to think about
I am no Bionicle Lore Expert, so pardon me if I don’t know all the details, but weren’t the Makuta originally supposed to be just Rahi creators? If that was the case, then couldn’t at least some of the Makuta want to stick to their original purpose and oppose Teridax’s plans?
Now that I think of it, there were the Spherus Magna universe Makuta. Those were… good? They probably killed Tuma and took over the Skrall, but they partnered up with the Agori against Miserix’ evil army. So yes, them partnering up with the good guys may be possible, (even Teridax allied with Toa for his own benefits sometimes) but still… is that really the same as being good?
The GBs also intended them to create the Visorak, which had venom that turns people into cruel half-Rahi. I am really confused why the Great Beings thought this was a good idea, but… that’s canon. They gave the Makuta shadow powers to deal with beasts, then somehow oversaw that thinking like a beast might be a bad thing. Makuta are just one big design failure.Well, could excuse at least a bit by saying they were not supposed to have self-awareness, but still, why Visorak, what did the GB think would happen?
Well, it’s easier than the GB’s intentionally leaving one of them inside to make such experiments… Wait, was that Velika all along?
Anyway, didn’t Web of Shadows’ storyline also prove that it is possible to overcome the effects of the Hordika mutagen and remain sane, just with the physical effects of the mutation?
Right, that was a thing… though I don’t think it was specifically mentioned what effects Hordika venom had on inner light?
I don’t know. I’ll definitely be looking that up sometime.
So, what I gathered from BS01 is that the mutation can be halted or reversed in an early stage, but after that will eventually cause permanent madness. So maybe Keetongu offered them to simply stop the mutation process. Not sure on that though.
Actually, that makes sense, since in the magazine ads in some of the instructions it has a Bionicle article saying “The Toa must find Keetongu”, or similar stuff implying that there is a window of time before the venom’s effects become permanent.
That seems about right; they were mostly meant to take on Matoran slacking off, not Toa.
You could argue that the story needed tougher villains, but the Vahki getting beat up seems consistent with what we know about them.
People complaining about mechs not having knee/elbow articulation annoys me more than mechs not having knee/elbow articulation.
dunno about this one, but darn it, speed champions is one of the best/most accurate license themes out there