Who is your favorite / least favorite Toa in terms of character?

Favorites: Kopaka, Vakama, Jaller or Nuparu.

As for least favorites… None of the Mata/Nuva, but I will say Takanuva. Not because he’s a bad character, I don’t like his place in the story. One of the major themes of BIONICLE is unity. It’s one of the three virtues. It’s about different people learning to work together to overcome challenge. When you introduce a new character, claim he’s the most important one out of all of them, and saves the day by himself, it breaks the narritive’s theme. I had the same problem with Lloyd in NINJAGO.

Nuju always came across as a less interesting Kopaka for me. Plus his bird speak later as a turaga is retroactively weird. It’s like if I learned spanish, then decided to exclusively speak spanish among my non-bilingual peers, judge people for not understanding me, and then hire a translator for my own native language. He’s the ultimate weeb, but for birds. If anyone likes him, please, I’d like to know why.

And… Kongu. As people have said, he’s just a clone of Lewa.

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Allow me to present this brilliant video by @TuragaNuva that would like to argue otherwise:

I liked in Hapka’s book where there’s a scene that she starts getting furious with Tahu because she’s trying to create unity and he’s just being arrogant and destructive. I would have liked that side of her character to get more emphasis over “oh, she’s the perfect peacekeeper”.
I’m also reminded of the brilliant “Kopaka? Kopaka!” scene from MoL.

I believe you just answered your own question. :stuck_out_tongue:

He’s a massive nerd and vocal naysaying worrywart of a Toa, who grows into this equally haughty but also hyper-eccentric Turaga who even cheeses off the others regularly. I liked his student/mentor relationship with the Rahaga the most out of all the Metru (tied maybe with Nokama), and his arguments with Whenua were thematically interesting (if somewhat underdeveloped in execution).

As a Toa, he’s like that know-it-all who flips between judgemental silence and dismissive arrogance. But as a Turaga, he comes to accept that some people don’t know as much as he does, so he shuts his mouth (borderline literally) and avoids talking to people who won’t listen to him by being so deliberately frustrating to talk to that only the genuinely interested will persist with him.

This context makes his struggle to consider Matoro a friend despite the Matoran’s patience and similar intellect all the more powerful, and the fact that he finally comes to realize this only once he’s gone all the more heartwrenching.

I think Nuju is a fantastic example of a likeable, yet seriously flawed character, actually. :wink:

I won’t argue with the other two points you made, though. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Favourite(s) would have to be Lewa, preferably mata, when he was more ever happy! I liked Hali Mahri because she always seemed so in her element, and she has a super cool mask power

Less favourite(s) and hated would be whenua just because the way he was shown in the movies and lesovikk because he was never fleshed out enough but I feel like he could have been a cool character, and I don’t like that nokama always agreed with Vakama and that both of their names were just two letters different

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favs-pohatu, gali, takanuva, jaller, matau, nokama, tuyet, nakila

-tahu and kopaka i used to not like because of their angst but that lessened over time

dislike-vakama(way to angsty), helryx(but she is written to be unlikable soooo), onewa(kind of a jerk)

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Contrary to most opinions on here, I actually like Onewa as a character for the chaos and problems he causes. I wouldn’t like him as a person, but I enjoy reading his insults and constant arguing with the other Toa. He isn’t my favourite or anything, I like lots of other Toa more (post-2006-Tahu/Vakama/Jaller, for reasons unrelated to their element, Pohatu/Onua for their human element, Gali), but he’s fun.
I never cared as much for Kopaka/Matoro (I swear, I’m not trying to be contrarian); Kopaka I found a little bit arrogant and stuffy, like Tahu in the early years. He mellows out though, and I like his interactions with Pohatu, so He’s A okay in the end.
I don’t dislike Matoro at all, but I don’t love him like most people seem to. He made the sacrifice, which was big, but I think Jaller or Hewkii or most any Inika would have in his place. Granted, I got into Bionicle in 2006, so I didnt have memories of him from the early years and therefore an attachment to him specifically, but that timeframe didn’t stop young me from taking quickly to Jaller.

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Krakua, Tuyet , Lesovikk, and orde.

Nuju is my least favorite, he’s just not that interesting to me

Krakua is my absolute favorite because I relate to his habit of humming loudly while working, Also he’s just cool. And this quote from time trap is Just fantastic

" Find the truth, no matter what barrier blocks your way. Deception can strike you down, as surely as any blow from an enemy. You are a Toa without armor in a chamber of swords, Vakama, and only the truth can protect you. "
— Toa Krakua (in a vision), Time Trap

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He was the Lucy to Vakama’s Charlie Brown, to put it succinctly.

I personally like Kopaka. Sure, he’s just-like Tahu in the sense that he’s argumentative and divisive, but there’s an interesting contrast between the two: Tahu’s arrogance I see more like that of a bull charging for the red cape, and then having to deal with the fact that he’s stumbled right into the matador’s trap, whereas Kopaka is the type of guy who would stand back and smirk smugly to himself about the “idiocy of Tahu’s actions” (I especially like the two of them as I’ve seen them portrayed in some fan-films where the Mata’s personality traits are exaggerated to make to conflict/humor).

(On a side note about Kopaka’s scenes with Pohatu, I enjoy seeing their arc as that of a “buddy-cop” story of two guys who don’t get along real well at first (even if only one of 'em thinks so), and then eventually learn to get along as brothers and good friends, having grown as individuals as well for having to deal with rubbing abrasively against each-other: Kopaka having to learn to work with others after the toa whose behavior possibly irks him more than any other’s won’t leave him be, and Pohatu also getting a character arc of learning to be friendly without annoying his bro(s) so much, resulting in him getting some character development, instead of being portrayed as a “perfect” character who never had any flaws.)

Yup. That attitude of “We’d all get along if you’d just stop doing that!” is a flaw that I might’ve seen her portrayed as having in fan works, and I think her character’s all the better for it. I know from experience of being a sibling that that attitude is something people with brothers and sisters have had to overcome in real life as they were growing up, or otherwise risk the arrogance or resentment of “I always have to pick up your slack around here” taking root.

I’ve seen a fan work that takes her character in a new (albeit likely temporary) direction in a retelling of '01 where she eventually has had it and goes “You know what? If my brother’s gotten all his masks while ignoring what I’ve preached so hard while I’ve fallen behind, then I can strike out on my own and do it, too!” which blows up in her face, and causes her to have an introspective character development moment.

I’d personally find it quite interesting to see her character portrayed as someone going “I’m clearly right! Why do you keep ignoring how right I clearly am?” (a contrast to Onua, who’s wise, but whose flaw might be that he doesn’t feel the need to tell others when they’re wrong to such an extent that he might end up going to the other extreme of letting others make mistakes for themselves too much/hard) and having to learn to overcome her need for acknowledgement and learning the lesson of “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”, converting people to a correct viewpoint not through arrogance, insults, and lording it over them, but learning to “break the bone” by a soft tongue.

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Honestly, I dislike Tuyet with a passion. She should have perished a long time ago and the fact that she outlived Lhikan and disgraces his memory sickens me.

She’s also a very one dimensional character in general. I don’t know why Greg kept her alive.

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Nokama was always to perfect for me, most of the toa inika annoyed me due to them not being similar enough to their matoran versions, I have to agree with you there @TheShadowedOne1 with Tuyet, i think it could have made more sense if she had been executed by the order maybe, probably not

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My favorite toa would have to be Lessovikk. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of the character, a disgraced toa of air searching for vengeance. It gives the character good personal motivation. It makes him one of the most relatable and “human” characters in all of Bionicle, in my opinion.(Not that I’ve ever had my entire toa team eaten by Zyglak, but you know what I mean)

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It’s officially later, Ghid. Six months later. :stuck_out_tongue:

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image

alright uh


Probably the least interesting character of all of Bionicle for me is Toa Matau. A lot of Glatorian are contenders for this spot, being mostly shallow, basic copies of preexisting personalities which barely fit the character they’re attached with. ‘I’m the go-lucky hero!’ ‘I’m the grizzled veteran!’ Nobody cares. Even Metus was Ahkmou and only because he could somehow accomplish a number of high-level blackmail and manipulation tactics despite being about as competent as a Vorox.

But I digress.

Toa Matau is the worst character for me because there’s next to nothing to offer. How would Toa Matau react in X scenario? You know exactly how he’d react. Go there, do this, talk to Y, help Z, save the day? There’s only one way Toa Matau would accomplish that sequence of events when any other Toa on his team could do it in several different ways. Turaga Matau adds a cynical and wizened air to the character, which helps a TON with making him more interesting, but Toa Matau is extremely predictable and extremely uninteresting. Nobody writes fanfic about Toa Matau.

He’s Lewa but more prank-inclined and a little sad. It adds to the existing Le-Toa meta, but otherwise, it’s just lazy.

Now someone make the villain topic so I can talk about the villains

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Favorite: Lhikan, because I like his character, to me he is like the Qui-Gon from Bionicle

Least favorite: Nidhiki, because he not only backstabbed basically hundreds of his brothers but also assisted in brutally killing some of them.

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Hello welcome to the Message boards

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Thanks, glad to be here!

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I quite like Pohatu–he’s probably my favorite character in all of BIONICLE. My least favorite Toa is Tuyet, for obvious reasons; if I had to pick a non-villain… I didn’t really like Hahli as a Toa. The Inika in general were a little off for me compared to their previous appearances, but Hahli especially didn’t seem interesting or consistent to me.

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If love was cannon, I would definitely ship Nokama and Vakama.

I understand where you’re coming from- Toa of Air as comic relief- but I respectfully disagree because of how in Prisoners of the Pit Jaller actually mentions out loud Kongu’s apparent personality change, and Kongu tells him it was intentional because of how grim their mission is, he was trying to emulate Lewa (who of course he admires).

I do agree that generally speaking, it would be good to avoid Toa of one element falling into a personality rut. That’s one of the reasons why Matoro was one of the best characters (maybe the best honestly), because his personality differed so much from the other Toa of Ice. And they pulled off Matoro as a character without making him feel overly glorified, because of how down on himself he always was, that he wasn’t a good fit to be a Toa (although they showed character development where his confidence improves, which was nice to see).

For me honestly, Hewkii is one of my favorite characters because of his flaws, makes him feel human. He’s a lifelong athlete, so he decides to “play fair” and not use his mask of gravity on Gadunka, and almost gets killed as a result. And he also gets super angry at himself and the others when they were made to believe they accidentally killed the Toa Nuva. But he also has some funny banter; I think with the Inika/Mahri, Greg struck a better balance with their team dynamic in terms of having them razzing each other but still having genuine camraderie, compared to the Metru who were a little less likable (although what was interesting about the Metru is how, as Greg said, they had no idea what they were doing, had to figure it out- and that became a major plot point, were they not truly meant to be Toa, and were their failures a result of that?).

(Also, IMO Hewkii’s relationship with Macku is interesting if it was romantic, but also if it wasn’t and was merely platonic, because close relationships across villages like that seem uncommon).

I would say Nokama is maybe my least favorite Toa, because I don’t think she has much of a personality. She’s supportive of Vakama and the other Toa, and a good person, but not much else (there was the scene when she makes the other Toa save the wounded Ash Bear, good scene). I think maybe a way to add some depth could have been, since she was a former teacher, have her start out kind of patronizing to the other Toa, like she thinks she knows better than them about everything, and have some growth in that way. She did have a really strong character moment as a Turaga, though, when she defies Dume to tell Jaller that Mata Nui is dying.

@Flux I totally agree that it’d be interesting if they’d fleshed out the ramifications after the Matoran Civil War. Were the different tribes of Matoran able to coexist harmoniously after, or did their resentment persist? It was very early in the timeline, was it before any of the Matoran we know (aside from Takua and the other Av-Matoran) came into being? If Vakama or any of the others were alive during that time, what were there memories of it? It might not work out because it’d make them too different generationally than the others, but it might be interesting if Onewa and Matau were alive during the Civil War, and their respective personalities were a result of that (e.g. Matau telling Nuju that his glass-half-full outlook is a result of “lots and lots of practice”).

In general, I think non-fans don’t necessarily recognize all the depth of characterization and quiet moments that Bionicle has. Like Jaller and Matoro’s conversation in Downfall. Also, another user on here (can’t remember who) mentioned in Tales of the Mask (which I haven’t read but now want to) how Gali was angry at Onua for staying silent when the team broke up, he knew better but didn’t try to stop it. Beyond the incredible richness of the world and lore, it’s these kind of character moments that make Bionicle much more than just a tie-in storyline to sell toys, and instead a story that arguably (for the most part) is genuinely strong even without the toys.

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Vakama is probably my all-out favourite character in all of Bionicle. I’m a person with severe anxiety and a fair bit of depression, so having the main protagonist of a two year arc have those same issues means a lot to me.

I like that he’s so different from the norm for Ta-Toa, and I like that when he tries to be more like the stereotype, it blows up in his face. Vakama wins by playing to his own strengths, not by trying to live up to an idealised version of what he should be.

Also he played timeline-destroying chicken with Teridax. And won. My guy looked the smartest, most powerful being in the whole MU in the eye and made him blink first.

Least favourite… probably Varian, in all honesty.

In part it’s probably because No-One Gets Left Behind isn’t a particularly good story, and maybe Varian would be more likeable in a better piece of fiction, but… in the context of what we have, she feels less like a realised character and more like a Manic Pixie Dream Girlfriend for Norik. Meanwhile, objectively, she uses her powers in a way that could be described as “abusing them”, and then at the end of it all, she gets both literally and figuratively shoved in the fridge and forgotten about after Norik has five seconds of manpain.

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My favorite Toa is Matoro by a long shot. He was one of the greatest of heroes. He knew the truth about metru nui, about their world being larger than the other matoran knew, and went through so much to get to the point they did. And he was forced into so many situations, given powers that others could easily have taken advantage of, and was put down so many times. But he stood by what was right. He did what he had to and even jaller acknowledged it. And of course, his end was heartbreaking and lead to a win for his whole team at the cost of his own life. Truly the greatest of heroes. If the Toa metru had what it took to be heroes, then Matoro had what it took to be the greatest hero of all time