Chronicler's Chronicled Characters Discussion: Roodaka

Oh man… I knew I got myself into a controversy once I even attempted this one…

Roodaka… The Queen of the Visorak, and the most controversial female character of all BIONICLE. Complete with an evil laugh, a love for Makuta (LOVE IS CANON, DEAL WITH IT, GREG), and turning on the idiot Sidorak was (smashed by Keetongu)!

Roodaka was a Vortixx that came to fame after climbing a Xian-eating mountain, and eventually teamed with Sidorak to take over an “abandoned” Metru Nui.

Eventually, she freed Makuta by placing a crystal of his bond in her chestplate, freeing Teridax when Vakama fired a knock-out shot at Roodaka.

Overall, a standard femme fatale, Roodaka has caused controversy in the BIONICLE community ever since all the 6-12 year olds in 2005 became teens and began discussing the sexism of a toy centered at 12-year-old boys.

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Seriously, she was kinda written to be a bit dominatrix-y when you think about it. Plus, high heels.

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Nice, but I hope this doesn’t become a trend topic. I just saw a Tuma one that was closed down. I know this isn’t technically one of those, but I don’t know.

It’s a series I was doing, to discuss certain characters and such. I’ve done this before, and nothing wrong happened. Besides, the "i love’ or “i hate” thing is a trend, while I made this a series, to discuss about characters that had major impacts on the BIONICLE story.

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Alright, I’m just saying before anything happens.

Heh, I was too naive to notice any of that stuff back in 2005…

Tbh, the controversy was legos own fault
I mean high heels?
Boobs?
The silver butt thing?
the hair?
what ever was going on in legos mind right there…uh…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyNnSbmn8OI Again, warning for swearing and such

Also, I never liked roodaka, the set itself sucked, and she only appeared in 05
(Yeah I know, she was “referenced” in multiple books, the only time I remember was in legacy of evil I think)

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Yes, and she also appeared in Federation of Fear.

Personally I find it ironic that people say that Roodaka is “sexualized,” then turn around and say how a female MOC isn’t feminine enough. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS PEOPLE. XD

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man, what a buncha jokerz
Amirite?
But seriously, @RaggedClaws had this problem on his moc topic, because his female mocs werent “obviously femine”
And then people complain about roodaka
Like the fans actually wanted a female villain to look female, I guess lego provided
And then they got a lotta backlash
And now, people are complaining that female sets/mocs arent femine enough
Or the other way around…hell we could make a whole topic about it

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Well to be fair, you have to find a medium. You can have a female MOC without making another Roodaka, or reusing techniques that have been overused to the end of days.

I myself am not one to talk, as all my CotF characters are androgynous. Rai could easily be a girl, Natyra could just as easily be a boy. It’s just how I interpret them that makes them the gender they are.

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I would quote this in my term paper on LEGO sexism but probably can’t because you aren’t a professional source yet

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I always thought of Roodaka as just another villain.

Web of Shadows story came out when I was six. How can a six-year-old grasp this concept? :stuck_out_tongue: But Federation of Fear was cool, but she was always that treacherous character who nobody could bump-off. It wasn’t until this year that I heard of controversy.

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I noticed her feminine traits pretty early on. Frankly, I’ve never really cared. If anything, I find it mildly amusing that the only “femme fatale” character would look like that. And I really don’t think it’s sexist, honestly. So what if a set has certain female characteristics? Lots of women IRL have those characteristics; is that sexist of them?? And while the portrayal of her character was fairly clichéd, no other female characters were like that, so it’s not as if they were sending some message about women being evil and manipulative. It’d be like saying Tahu’s portrayal is sexist against men because he’s a hothead.

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Wairuha Nuva has a silver butt too. So maybe LEGO is just clueless.

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Pretty sure it shouldn’t count as sexist unless intentionally stereotypical…

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Come on people get it right. If you would just listen to our resident shoe expert Eljay, you would know that it is SPIKED BOOTS!

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Had no idea of any controversy until just now. Personally, I liked Roodaka - she was an effective villain with a manipulative mindset (though the movie made her rather less subtle than I imagine her) and a pretty good set if you can ignore the exaggerated cleavage. I don’t feel her portrayal was necessarily sexist.

I also like to interpret her as having initially set out to better conditions on Xia, but over time her mission was corrupted and she became the cruel, power-hungry tyrant we all know and love/hate/love-to-hate today.

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Come on Krana, get it right!

Spiked boots!

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gonna be honest, didn’t even know about the controversy until joining the boards, I just thought Roodaka was an effective villain

also necropost ftw

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I did not know.

And when I joined here and found out…

I did not care.

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