Episode 227 Discussion

Since it was just posted on youtube and I’m sure there’ll be some discussion among the community about the topics covered in the podcast, here’s a discussion topic for episode 227 of the TTV podcast.

I’ll start by just copy-pasting something I wrote as a patreon comment under the audio file released yesterday:


Just some thoughts from my end after the whole elements discussion, this is how I’d do the elements of Bionicle:

Fire: the power in general is to heat things up. In the presence of oxygen, that can cause them to ignite, hence producing the element’s most visible manifestation and its namesake. In reality, it’s more a the power to add or move heat.

Water: manipulates water and aqueous solutions, generally in liquid form. Can pull water vapor out of the air and work with frozen water (ice) to a limited degree.

Stone: manipulates minerals, typically in a crystalline form. This includes sand, larger boulders, all manner of crystals, so long as they’re (relatively) pure.

Ice: direct opposite of fire (heat): rather than adding energy and heating things up, a Toa of Ice can remove heat. When doing this to water, they produce Ice. Doing it to just about anything solid will make it very brittle.

Air: Stick with air as a concept, able to produce vacuums and move air about in general. Moving air can be used with a glider-like device to fly, but flying isn’t required. Also, since sound as we experience it is just vibrations in air, I’d roll Sonics into Air to give a little more variety to the element of Air.

Earth: the trickiest one, 'cause I read “earth” to mean “soil,” and soil is an aggregate of minerals, water, air, and organic material, which all have their own elements already. Then again, being able to move all those in combination is something those other elements couldn’t do, so maybe that’s something? I’d combine Earth with limited Gravity powers (keeping the purple theme that G2 in part used) since gravity and the ground naturally correlate.

Other Elements: Lightning is distinguishably its own thing, Iron and Magnetism are redundant against each other and would be combined into limited control of metal (metal doesn’t bend easily, so you can’t just tear things apart on a whim even with a Toa’s control). Plasma is just an extremely heated state and as such would be rolled into fire. Plantlife would be okay on its own, I think, and I really want to keep Psionics. Light and Shadow are equivalent to Fire and Ice but with photons (i.e. light) instead of heat. Final element list: Original six plus Light, Shadow, Lightning, Metal, Plantlife, Psionics. Makes for a nice round 12. I’d stay away from making any element or its representatives particularly “legendary,” as was done in particular with Light in the past, but the good/evil connotations of Light and Shadow could be there more as a cultural thing, i.e. people being afraid of the dark and all.

Also, since I have done quite some thinking on the personalities of the Toa Nuva in the past, though in a rather different scenario and for a story focusing more on their failures than anything else:

Tahu: Harsh temper, but he genuinely cares for his team and tries really hard to present himself as the great leader to others and prove his abilities to himself. In order to do that, though, he needs something to fight and people to protect. Getting over that need to prove himself would probably be the main development of his character, and probably make him more even-keeled in the process.

Gali: Stresses Unity as the virtue underpinning everything, and very quickly gets nervous when the others appear to stray from it. Often overstressed as trying to keep a team of Toa together is like herding cats… or Muaka, in Bionicle’s case. Has a tendency to blame herself for mistakes the other Toa make; accepting that lessons can be learned by the other toa from those mistakes might be a key point for her.

Onua: Embodiment of duty, will push himself to and beyond his limits to get the job done regardless of what he has to work with. Agrees with Gali’s point on Unity but has a far more relaxed attitude about it, believing that if there is a shortcoming on the part of the others, he can make up for it. This includes rescuing them whenever they fall. In the story I wrote, his flaw doesn’t really come to light until after G1’s storyline is over: Onua needs to feel valuable, to feel that he’s serving a purpose. He needs something to sink his teeth into, and needs to perform to what he feels is a standard worthy of a Toa while doing it, even if that standard becomes unattainable. Throughout G1, it never really became unattainable… but I imagine that afterwards, it did.

Pohatu: Most socially adjusted of the Toa; this guy can work with everyone because he’s willing to let others take the lead, and doesn’t need to be the main hero to others. Good humor helps too. I think that would get his ideas trampled on a lot by the more assertive Toa early on, though; I think Pohatu’s flaw early on would be that he’s not sure how to get his good ideas out there and doesn’t have the stomach to say “I told you so” after things go wrong to give his ideas more weight in the future. He’d learn that throughout the story.

Lewa: Relentlessly optimistic and often reckless in his approach. Revels in being a hero with necessarily being arrogant about it, but his faith in his and the other Toa’s ability to overcome anything and everything in their path is both their greatest morale booster and his greatest downfall. Gets into trouble with mind control several times, and sees some dark things through it that make him seriously question that belief. His greatest challenge would be to measure his enthusiasm and the pace at which he likes to run through things with doing some planning ahead of time to avoid the worst of the disasters he repeatedly ran into before.

Kopaka: Intensely proud, arrogant even. By far the most intelligent of the Toa, but sees himself or wants to see himself as superior because of it, wants to believe that he doesn’t need the others to fulfill his destiny. He even gets pretty ticked when help is offered, seeing it as a weakness on his part that he has to accept it to succeed. G1, I think, actually pulled that off alright; Kopaka eventually comes to accept help more easily (though he never learned to like asking for it), but that kind of superiority complex is always somewhere in the back of his mind…

Oh dear, I appear to have inadvertently written an essay again… Anyways, great podcast to close out an otherwise decidedly crappy year with. Looking forward to more in 2017!

Also: Yay! shoutout!


Anyways, discuss the latest episode!

9 Likes

I got a bit too much into the episode, listening to people workshop a new story is always a thrill for me. I may have been inspired to make my own G3 ideas, and… well…

Yep. Good episode tho!

3 Likes

That’s… pretty much exactly what I do as well. I’d love to read more of that, though the screenshot’s resolution doesn’t help.

1 Like

Podcasts discussions;

“Would the artbook have 2017 art?”

Doubt it, would be nice, though i expect Lego would’nt reveal the 2017 art as they would use the concepts for other themes or things.

‘Ekimu = Toa Of Light’

I expect the original plan was that Agil would die before the final confrontation with Makuta and that Ekimu would sacrifce his powers to defend against Makuta who would have trapped the Toa in shadow’s - in a scene probably refrencing the G1 shadow Makuta’s tentacles - enabling the Toa to fight back.

This was then condensed for the Netflix series into Agil flying into Ekimu which allowed him to unleash his powers causing him to revert to his smaller form. This was not a ‘unity’ but more of a rushed version of the above.

‘Meso’s comments about creatures’

The creatures were already around and are rather weak as shown by the Netflix series where they are easily captured - they can defend against indiviudal Umarak traps, but would be unlikely to be strong enough to defend against other larger threats.

“How can Lego mess up the art book”

  • Including an image of a Vahi-wearing Tahu (Legends Of Metru Nui inspired)
  • Including 2017’s Toa as elemental focused forms of the Toa, akin to Pohatu’s alternate form in the Netflix Series
  • Including an image of Ultimate Makuta, a design they would have went for instead of the combo model
  • Including a G1 crossover
  • Anything involving Mata Nui
  • If the 2017 villains ended up having awesome designs
  • If art revealed that the 2016 plotline was going to have a lot more depth that Lego removed

G3 Thoughts;

http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/images/exbig_images/8b94d6e430278bf3a4ebdbe9eb0eb755.jpg

Year One;
The four Toa are based on four of the elements; Fire, Wood, Earth and Water - eventually they fight against a general (who will later become their ally) and an army of hoard villains.

http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/images/arbigimages/f069bcdb74ae28cef3e2ad1754926459.jpg

Year Two;
Its revealed the General was forced to do everything in the first year by an evil tyrant. As a result he moves to more of a supporting role and reluctant villain. They are later joined by the general as a fifth member, the Toa of Metal, who has now turned ally.

Year Three;

Through Unity they are able to find balance between themselves and together they summon the Toa of Light, the sixth Toa - a being embodying enlightenment in the ‘Five Elements’ theory. Together the six of them defeat the tyrant who would represent Darkness - the opposite of the elements and of light. The villain is defeated by a balance of light and dark, with the light and dark Toa being locked in eternal conflict (as a Yin Yang refrence)

2 Likes

Didn’t want to pollute the chat with a big ol’ text wall, and I’d like to make a vid about it so I’m saving it for then :slight_smile:

1 Like

In addition to MOUP concept exploration, if my memory serves me well, there is one piece of 2017 concept art hidden in there. But you need to know what you are looking for. There is a lot of unreleased '15 and '16 concepts and art though.

1 Like

If I made G3, it would probably be G1 with elbow and knee articulation in the first year, so I understand if the cast wants to branch out a bit :P. That being said, I like the idea of keeping the original six Toa and their six elements, and introducing other elements later on.

I really enjoyed your discussion on what G3 would entail. I do have some thoughts on the matter myself. Firstly, I feel like there is a fairly noticeable difference between Onua and Gali’s personalities. Yes, they are very similar, however I feel that Gali is caring in a more emotional way while Onua is a little more analytical and thoughtful. I feel like Gali is more extraverted while Onua’s much more introverted in their approaches to keeping the group together. I feel like Gali’s much more likely to be that person who’s always asking you if you’re ok, whereas Onua will just make sure you know that he’s there for you.

In terms of the contruction of the Toa team, I definitely think that there should be more than 1 female, maybe a 4:2 male to female split. I also think the idea of one subspecies of Matoran all being the same gender should be got rid of. I think there would be way more of an interesting dynamic if it’s possible to have, for example, both male and female Le-Matoran. I also really do like the idea of having a main protagonist-like focus on a Matoran-like character. I really think this helped stuff like MNOG and MoL where Takua was undoubtedly the protagonist. I’d even argue that he could be considered the main protagonist for the whole of 2001-03.

In terms of the elements, I feel like Water and Ice are definitely distinct from eachother enough to warrant being seperate elements. I feel like Bionicle always focused on Ice being the power of ‘cold’ and ‘freezing stuff’ rather than focusing on the actual chemical of water in a frozen state. Kind of like how Fire was probably more focused on ‘heat’ than actual fire itself (cause let’s face it, fire isn’t the only form of heat in the universe). I’m not suggesting you change the elements to just ‘heat’ and ‘cold’, but seeing them like this helps differentiate Ice and Water from each other.

Also, Pohatu is a severely underrated character. I like what Eljay said about him being the ‘straight man’ who balances out all the others’ quirks. I’d even go as far as to say that a character like this could be given more focus than the rest, to the point where he/she would make a solid main protagonist. I personally wouldn’t make them the leader of the team though.

1 Like