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Gender in Bionicle Part 1: Female Representation | BIONICLE Deep Dive
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2022
- Part 1 of 2 in looking at themes of gender in Bionicle, here we take a look at female representation in the Bionicle story. It's kinda all over the place, since on the one hand it literally has the Smurfette Principle encoded in the lore, but on the other hand the female characters are well-rounded, complex, and defy gender stereotypes. So let's explore how women are represented in the story, both the good and bad. This is by far the longest video I've made so far, I honestly didn't think I'd have this much to say, but its a very interesting topic. And look out for next week when we continue this discussion of gender in Bionicle by look at the unique ways the trans and non-binary communities have connected with how gender is handled in the series!
Article on the trans and non-binary segments of the Bionicle community: www.autostradd...
Lariska's #1 fangirl Kirika: www.tumblr.com...
Fan Works Used:
Toa Mata of Secondary Elements by Biggums: board.ttvchann...
Bionicle G3-Girl Time by RRproAni: www.deviantart...
Trans Tamaru and Non-Binary Takua by beesgav: beesgav.tumblr...
Tuyet MOC by Bukkey: / cch6nx6pp3c
Tuyet or not Tuyet, That is the Question by Ar9914: board.ttvchann...
Orde MOC by Bukkey: board.ttvchann...
Orde MOC and photo by Kodiak_KM, Background edited by JamPot: / jampot_decided_to_edit...
Chiara MOC by FuzzMuffins: board.ttvchann...
Lariska MOC by BonkleChaser: / 1565057186417500161
Sister of the Skrall MOC by TheUnderscoredDouble: board.ttvchann...
BIONICLE is owned by the LEGO Group
The content in this video falls under Fair Use
Official Bionicle clips and images sourced from BioMediaProject and BioSector01
Concerning female representation, when my friend and I made our own bonkle OCs, we made it a point to add more females and square it up with 3 guys and 3 girls. Tbh the seeming lack of females drove us naturally without any external agenda to do this.
Happens to me all the time. Whenever I am making a group of characters I usualy end up with roughly 50/50 gender ratio
@@nobody4248Same.
Tbh Roodaka broke the female villain stereotype in toys. The female is usually the secondary villain, meant to cheer on or be a lover or partner to the main baddie. Roodaka was none of that. She manipulated sidorak immensely with seductiveness, controlled the Visorak swarm by abusing them and beating them into submission, she was secretly pulling all the strings, and nearly tore the Toa apart with her manipulation alone. Roodaka imo was the most evil villain in bionicle due to how vile she was. So evil in fact, her original death in Web of Shadows was being ripped apart and eaten alive by the Visorak, who turn on her due to being sick of the abuse she inflicted on them. That was cut in final release however, probably cause it was too scary for kids
Never forget the “Throw yourselves off the cliff” bit
HUH!? was this in the novelization version? I never got that book back then
Interesting thing about Elemental Tribe Genders is that Greg has stated that the Gender is assigned to the feminine elements from creation as "tradition", meaning that its a tradition (most likely from the Great Beings) and not a hard-set code in their creation so things like Female Ta-Matoran and Male Ga-Matoran are definitely possible in my opinion.
Ooo that's interesting yeah! The idea of rare gender exceptions among the villagers would be a cool concept to explore. In some ways, it would be like they are trans, especially since they don't have biological sex, so their gender is purely psychological and cultural
In addition, there's a single male male Toa of Psionics, Orde, who was made before the Great Beings decided to exclude this element to females. Yes, you heard that right, it's noty just a theory, it's canon fact that it can be changed and it has been already in the story once.
@@heroranuva8295 that’s why I wish we were biomechanical life forms like Bionicle characters. Because then there wouldn’t be as much controversy around the transgender community as there is right now. Because of gender being psychological rather than biological.
They probably think gender is unimportant, and therefore very few matoran change it due to the fact that they see literally no difference between the male and female other than voice and pronouns.
Imma be honest even if this is embarrassing, I didn't realize gender existed in the series until roughly 4 years of me being interested in the series and even after that the only difference it made was that I noticed a slight difference in the pronouns when reading the story, it never occurred to me as I was more caught up in the story of the characters than such a minor trait.
I guess you skipped the Hordika stuff, not that I blame you it’s probably the weakest series
also on the subject of female roles... I think it's commendable that the females weren't forced to be all pink.... granted... most of them were blue... but still XD
Girls were color locked, but not the one people usually think!
@@heroranuva8295 imagine a pink toa of fire tho XD
@@jr9529 well tahu has pink eyes
@@WHAT_THE_FUCK_IS_A_KILOMETER69 fun XD
@@jr9529 I would by that one just to openly admit I had it and was proud of it.
Speaking of the Wrath of the Ocean, Gali had the most destructive feat of pure power out of any Toa in Bionicle history by destroying the entire island of Karzahni in a massive Tidal Wave
True! It was a powerful, and kinda heartbreaking moment for her character, given how much she hates damaging nature
@@heroranuva8295 Was there really anything "natural" about the Island of Karzahni though, that place was literally a hell hole to begin with. Ripples on the Water sound as loud as thunder, the Volcano burns cold, the Hail is hot, the ground screams as you step on it and tries to consume you if you stand still too long...
Small correction: It was a Nova Blast, making Gali (Nuva) the only character in canon to have ever performed one.
(For those not in the know a Nova Blast is an ability exclusive to Toa that involves them releasing all of their elemental energy in what amounts to a giant explosion of their element)
I think that the "no romantic love" rule only applies to the MU beings, not the general Spherus Magna population. An interesting theory I've read posits that the MU beings can feel romantic platonic love, but it has to be gradually learned from Glatorian and Agori
I think it would be absolutely adorable if Hewki and Macau resumed their relationship on Spherus Magna.
@@TheZamaronSorry, "Macau" (🇲🇴 ) really made me smile just then.
Also to note alot of interesting female characters didn't have cannon appearances, such a Johmak, Helryx, Lariska etc.
True. Though a lot of that is because many of those characters, especially the ones you listed, were characters Greg added on his own to side stories, and almost none of those ever got sets with Karzahni being the main exception. Greg added female characters at a closer to 50/50 rate to his male added characters, which ended up meaning a higher proportion of female characters got no set appearance
A big thing that I've always adored about Bionicle lore is that there's no disparity between male and female beings, a prime example being the Toa.
Sure, often times the Water/Ga Toa are female, but they are never, EVER treated as inferior to the others, they're always equal in potential.
The Glatorian of Bara Magna further developed on this lack of disparity by including more males in the Water tribe, and more females in the other tribes, whilst still retaining the very same equal potential of both.
On another note, if we want to talk about other beings that aren't Toa, Turaga nor Matoran, there's plenty that are even rather dangerous if one considers how powerful they are. Roodaka, Makuta Gorast, the Bahrag...
Yeah, its great! Even though there weren't as many of them, they were always equals in both power and prominence
Wait, the voice actor for roodaka voices Gali? That’s crazy! I know she also voiced galorum from hot wheels highway 35 and hot wheels Acceleracers. I wonder who else she voiced.
I remember, when watching the movies as a kid, seeing the female toa (Nokama and Gali) as the most admirable of the six in general. Even as a kid. I never cared that they weren’t male and I even remember wanting to get Nokama Hordika. I never got the chance to see the earlier toa where I lived, but I’m sure I would have also liked to get Gali Mata.
I think it all was because I saw them as perfect motherly figures. Brave and caring for those they protect, I would say “and love” but that’s apparently not canon lol
I also remember Hahli as someone I would have liked to be friends with.
And then there’s Roodaka, back then I just remember her being a bit scary but also badass, today? Well… let’s not talk about kinks here.
I think only romantic love was not canon. But maternal/fraternal/paternal love was present quite evidently throughout the story. It's appropriate since children's toys shouldn't be explicitly sexualised in theme or lore content. Bionicle did a great job of that, along with creating a world where there is an enormous variety of characters, meaning children could virtually find at least 1 character in the story to which they could have related to. Most importantly of all, it didn't make a big deal about sexuality and focused just on character development and valuable moral lessons for children.
As a trans woman, Bionicle will always hold a special place in my heart. I wasnt allowed to play with Barbies or express my femininity when I was a kid, but as far as my parents understood, Gali and Nokama were just blue robots. These characters were some of my earliest role models and they gave me an outlet to explore my identity without fear of judgement.
Execs: "Female characters don't sell!"
Writers: "We're just going to ignore that."
Later:
Pretty much every single Toa of Water: _Sells as well as the other Toa from their waves_
Execs: "We're just going to ignore that..."
as a cis female bionicle fan, i think the most important thing to note is that the female were there to begin with. pair that with their character roles and designs mostly being on par with the male characters, and to me the idea of gender became a background thing. enjoying bionicle is about the adventure and the world, and im glad both male and female characters were able to guide us through it.
Yeah, they really did a nice job of making the characters equal in plot stature regardless of gender!
When I thought about it, Roodaka wasn't the first "sexualized" bionicle set. They actually did that on day one with Gali Mata: There's the blue hand piece on her chest, plus her inverted leg pieces gave her pronounced thighs in a way.
While I see what you mean, I don't agree that Gali is really sexualized. The hand piece definitely gives her a different chest to the male Toa, but its not something that really evokes sexuality. Her thigh piece perhaps, but to be fair Onua also has that piece in his instructions. Honestly one could argue that Pohatu has the most feminine design of the Toa Mata, given his huge hips. Gali is definitely made subtly more feminine than the other Toa, but there's a distinction between feminine and sexual.
Roodaka on the other hand had a chest piece that resembled bikini armor, and her feet were high heels, both things that have strong associations with sexuality in our culture.
But still you're right that it is interesting that Gali was given distinct chest armor. Most of the male Toa were given a ball joint chest piece (which as a kid I sometimes thought of as chest hair of somthimes). Also the fact that their chest piece could in theory connect to hers stirs up some...weird imagery
😅
onua has some good lookin legs too now that you mention it
@@InitialPC Oh yeah, Onua got them thighs
Appreciate thicc Pohatu
@@k4tgames212 I repreciate roodaka
I like how the island of Xia unintentionally acknowledges the link between industrial capitalism and sexism. Also, Dekar has a funny line where he says "I never understood Ga-Matoran anyway" after she gives him the Ignika. Also, there's a little comment on Ga-Matoran personality within the Av-Matoran, where Tanma describes Gavla's personality as resembling more to a Ko-Matoran than to a Ga-Matoran as she had disguised as.
I do have to mention Helryx threatening the dark hunters with a title wave, or Roodaka playing the Brotherhood of Makuta and the Dark Hunters for like hundreds of years.
I loved all the female characters in Bionicle as a boy, it made the whole story much more interesting; I still find it really interesting and nostalgic.
I brought up how females could only be certain elements in Bionicle to my gf and she told that aspect straight up killed Bionicle for her from a world-building perspective.
Yeah I can imagine its doesn't make it very appealing
@@heroranuva8295 yep, on the flipside, she said she'll headcanon that away, lol.
I honestly didn't even know gender was a concept in bionicle.
I just thought the bionicles simply were.
Yeah, and in many ways that's true, and that's a big part of the point I'm trying to make. While they did have male and female characters, in the world of the story, that really didn't matter, for the most part they were all treated the same, which if you think about it is pretty unusual! A lot of media makes the gender of the characters a central focus in one way or another, but Bionicle didn't have that and its interesting and kind of refreshing how it handles that. Even if there was a large imbalance to the number of male-female characters, the treatment and significance of them was well done
This is such a well-researched video! It brought back memories of my own connection to female Bionicle characters. I was simultaneously a huge fan and completely embarrassed at my obsession with a “boy” toyline - one of many ways I myself didn’t meet feminine standards. In the Metru Nui films I identified more with Vakama, but Nokama was someone I wanted to be: confident, smart, intuitive, and an absolute fighting powerhouse.
I’ve always been confused by female-coded design elements added to species that are a) not mammals or b) lacking a human concept of female. If the matoran were originally drones in the Great Spirit robot who developed sentience on their own, male/female gender stereotypes make even less sense because the only differences between their subtypes are very general personality traits and sometimes voice. I’m not an expert, but I think a great examination of gender and society is possible with a little tweaking. Would an asexual society define itself binarily?
As an aside, it went straaaight over my head how dominatrix-y Roodaka is. Kid me thought she was being handsy to get in Vakama’s space and make him uncomfy. Adult me is spitting out my drink. XD I was definitely confused by the mentions of marriage in that arc because it broke so much from the asexual pattern. Even Matau’s open crush on Nokama was framed as puppy love (except for one line in, again, the Hordika arc lmao).
Holy crap, I never noticed that Turaga Nokama's model. I hate that so much...
Unfortunate that this was the style of the past millenia but with luck this was a sign of a things to come
This is my opinion. I don't have a problem with certain stories, series, etc. being aimed more towards men or women. There are differences in the sexes, and lot of of times want or are interested in different things. And that's cool. Part of being a healthy and mature adult is learning to see things from other people's perspectives, and healthy relationships exist when that happens. So having 'stereotypes' for male and female characters doesn't bother me as a rule, just so long as it isn't detrimental to the characters. Azula from TLA is a great example of that. But you can see that in the real world. Iceland has been consistently ranked as the most gender-eqaul nation in the world, yet people there are the most likely to pursue 'sex-typical' jobs.
In Bionicle, I don't have a problem with the ratios, really. Nokama is a great character. Matoro, Roodaka, Takanuva, Lhikan. All great characters. Their gender doesn't bother me, but rather their character is what I attracted to. And the female characters are pretty well done. Though the whole 'shipping' thing is, for lack of a better word, ridiculous. Roodaka wasn't in love with Makuta, she was trying to gain favor with him in order to gain power, just as she did with Sidorak. Gorast wasn't in love with Teridax. She was devoted to his plan, and the power that came with it, or rather the power she thought would come with it. I think it comes from a lack of understanding what love is. I think we're so obsessed with romance that we never move beyond that. "For there is no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life for another."
Yes, having characters embody traits that are considered traditionally masculine or traditionally feminine isn't a bad thing as long as it isn't overly restrictive. And thankfully, Bionicle didn't restrict its female characters to feminine stereotypes, nor the male characters to masculine stereotypes, they were allowed to be their own unique and varied characters. The way the series plays with these gendered tropes is really interesting, especially since on the surface it looks like the female characters are restricted but really, they're allowed to be anyone they want.
Ultimately the real problem with the ratios is that they turned many girls away since it felt like a series that was only for boys. Bionicle would've been great if it were for everyone, and it would've been cool if it were written and marketed in a way that would've allowed for a much larger fanbase to talk about the series with.
And though yeah, in universe it wasn't romantic, it very clearly evoked romantic tropes, particularly Roodaka. Gorast is significantly less, but Roodaka was clearly played in the movie in a way that made us think of themes of seduction and attraction. And this isn't a bad thing, Roodaka is a very interesting character because of it. Its just that those are themes that are very often used in other female villains in other stories. There are certainly more types of love and admiration than just romance, but when considering these characters in the broader landscape of media, its important to discuss where they fall in relation to existing tropes.
@@heroranuva8295 While I do think its fair to point out the gender ratio as a reason for Bionicle not having many (cis-gender) female fans, I do think putting the blame solely on the gender ratio feels somewhat simplifying as there are series aimed at boys with a primarily male cast that do have a sizable subset of (cis-gendered) female fans as well as fans who were born female but don't identify as such. Examples of these include things like a good portion of shonen anime (BNHA for example), a few action cartoons, the tokusatsu franchise Kamen Rider or even Transformers, the other notable toyline with sentient robots and lots of mythos and lore. But perhaps the best example I can think of a series aimed at a male target-audience with a decently sized female subfandom is Legos current flagship franchise many consider as the spiritual successor of Bionicle: Ninjago. Ninjago notably started with an all male hero team only making Nya an official member of the team in the later seasons and in general it's treatment of its female characters has been rather criticized, stating how many of the female characters are either reduced to loveinterests or otherwise wasted potential. In spite of that, Ninjago does have a decently sized subfandom of girls (as well as people who were born female but don't necessarily identify as such) who talk about the series and make fan-content for it. (The Lego franchise Monkey Kid has a large subfandom of girls as well but it's treatment of female characters is somewhat better than Ninjagos or arguably even Bionicles hence why I didn't mention it).
So while the gender ratio is certainly a reason why Bionicle never was able to garner a big subset of female fans, I heavily doubt it's the only reason. If anything I'd personally put the blame on one thing: accesibility. Bionicle was rather notable in that the way it told it's story through multiple mediums such as books, comics, movies and so on. While this was really experimental for it's time, it was still a double-edged sword as the series kinda expects you to know the toys before you go to read the books/comics or watch the movies. Sure you COULD know of the movies/games etc before you know of the toys (many were introduced via MNOG for example) but people were much more likely to know Bionicle as toys first before they knew of the comics or books. The toys were usually the fans first exposure to the series, everything else came later. And like you alluded to in the video, the toy aisles at the time were incredibly gendered. So girls weren't given the opportunnity to familarize themselves with the story, because Bionicle was branded as a "boys toy". And even then things like comics and videogames were (at least at the time) heavily gendered as well, so there's a good chance a potential female fan wouldn't have visited a local comic-book store or video game aisle.
So how would've this been avoided? Easy, have Bionicle have one primary "source" of story and have it be a TV-show. Many other storydriven childrens toyfranchises tend to have a tv-show they tell their story through, which often is just as important if not moreso than the toys to the point people learn about the toys existing much later. Had there been a TV-show I feel the problem with gender ratio would've been circumvented as a TV-show could've worked wonders in introducing girls to the series and familarize with the story, world and characters. Many girls are willing to try tv shows aimed at boys easier than they are going to the aisle for the boy toys. Again, Ninjago and Transformers are good examples, as both are comparable to Bionicle, yet still have a huge subset of female fans whereas Bionicle never was able to garner as big subset of female fans.
Furthermore, I feel there's another factor that kept female fans away (though to a much lesser extent, by that point the damage had already been done), that being the series tone, especially in the later years. While the eariler years feeling of "mystical fantasy adventure to collect the mcguffins" felt rather uni-sex and fitting for both boys and girls, the later years went very hard to a darker and grittier to a more hardened warstory with faction wars, political schisms and very *very* brutal scenes of gore and dismemberment (you basically have characters talk about how their favorite hobby is to break others spines for fun or people being cut in half in intradimensional portals). In it's later arcs the series basically became a child-friendly version of Warhammer more or less. And honestly I could see that dark and gritty tone being a big turnoff for potential female fans. Do girls like dark stories with powerstruggles or wars? Yes they do, just look at a lot of fantasy bookseries popular with girls or the Fire Emblem videogame franchise for instance, heck even Transformers which as mentioned does have a decently sized female sub-fandom. But a lot of those tend to either have the war be somewhat dramaticized/romanticized, be painted as a drama tragedy or serve as the backdrop for a character focused story. Bionicle was very notably a series that put the plot and worldbuilding before it's characters (for the most part anyways), and it's handling of wars, powerstruggles and dark elements in general is much more masculine and edgy compared to the way series popular with girls tend to be (once again, Ignition era Bionicle is basically a child-friendly version of Warhammer 50k). (Note I'm a girl-adjacent creature and the war/power-struggle stuff is my favorite aspect of the series but even then I'm aware that Bionicles tone may be a bit too edgy and bleak for a lot of girls)
I feel that the most appealing tone to attract a larger female audience would've been something similar to the Metru-era or even the substories about Lhikans past. Dark and filled with intrigue that makes the world larger than ""a bunch of robots on a colorful island" without having the big background story boil down to "powerstruggles between a bunch of assholes in a fucked up depressing world." Most importantly thought, the Metru era and those Lhikan shortstories were the most character-driven the series really got, with Vakamas arc serving as the heart of the story, and the mangai shortstories largely focusing on the tragedy with Nidhiki and Tuyet respectively. The darkness in those stories came from the emotion and drama the characters felt in the situations they came in contact with rather than just describing extremely brutal and fucked up situations in the most vivid detail as possible.
So yeah the gender ratio is a factor to it but I feel the lack of a female audience is a combination of things such as the gendered nature of a lot of things Bionicle was associated with (toys, comics, games), lack of a tv show, the edgy tone of the later half of the series and the series focus on plot over characters rather than it all being the fault of the gender ratio. Though tbf the ratio was a result of the series marketed towards boys but still. I do feel it's worth pointing out that, especially since there are other boys series which have large subsections of female fanbases, including later series made by Lego or the other big toy-franchise about sentient robots fighting each other to get access to powerful mcguffins.
@The Arcanist This is fantastic and very interesting point that I hadn't really thought of. Yeah I think you're completely right about Bionicle's story accessibility being a huge factor in the primarily male fanbase, because you're right plenty of other male-centric series that went the route of a singular story medium had much wider fanbases.
Honestly I think the lack of centralized and widely publicized story content contributed to a lot of Bionicle's fanbase problems. I mean its well known that part of Lego's concerns in the later part of the series was that older fans were growing out of it and newer fans had a hard time getting caught up. They tried to correct this by simplifying the story in G2, but I think they did a worse job of story communication and I honestly believe that's the real reason G2 failed.
It's also why I think Bionicle had such massive popularity, but the dedicated fanbase that got really into the lore was relatively small. So many people have it just as "those cool robot toys from the 2000s". This is also why I think fan projects like the Wall of History and Biological Chronicle compilations are so incredibly important to the future of the fanbase. By having it all in one accessible place it makes it so new fans can see it, as we've seen with the small but notable increase in new fan voices.
I also think you have a point about the tone too, but I think maybe if it was more widely available, that might have balanced that out. But yeah it did get really dark and gritty.
But thank you for these points, this is really interesting critique! I'll have to do more looking into this and discussion, because I think this is probably worth a whole video, or possibly a couple of them
@@heroranuva8295 A What-If look into an alternate reality where BIONICLE got a well-written & well-marketed TV show as a central storytellling device would be extremely interesting to see! I've always asserted that if that had been the case, the franchise could have risen to the levels of cultural relevance that franchises like Transformers or even Pokémon had achieved. (I.e. to the point where even non-fans know about the basic premise and characters.)
@@Korohpu Oh god I wish Bionicle had a full funded animated series SO BAD
I don’t view Roodaka’s devotion to teridax as love. It was that she wanted to ride onto the backs of others towards personal gain. Playing second fiddle was only good for so much. Once she could get rid of him she did. The horde was hers. And that’s what she hoped to gain from makuta. Being the right hand woman to teridax would potentially give her so much more.
Gorast was a fanatic and nothing more. Truly devoted not exactly to teridax. But what teridax promised her. She was psychopathic. And while harley quinn comparisons could be made. I just saw her as the crazy one that happened to be the one girl on the team.
Yeah true, there's a strong argument that it wasn't any kind of love, though they definitely lean into the more romantic interpretation in the movie and some of the books. She definitely had a lust for power that was her driving motivation, but I don't think its too out of character to say that she had a genuine admiration of Teridax because he embodied the kind of power she craved
bro did autocorrect just change sidorak to second fiddle
@@dogdog357 No, I think they were just saying that playing second fiddle (to Sidorak) was only going to get her so far. The sentence works as is
@@heroranuva8295 Ah, ok. Just never heard the term, before
Yeah, why can't a female villain's lust for power just for power's sake! Not every lust for power needs to be defined by a man! Roodaka is an independent evil doer, her relationship with Makuta can purely be platonic, platonically evil that is!!!
Imo, but stereotypes, (yes, even gender based ones) are not a bad thing if written good and isn’t annoying.
As for Roodaka, I don’t really see her design as sexualised, but just very clearly being female-coded.
Also her species descriptions, as well a her design elements (Heavy breastplates, spear as a weapon etc) makes me think about mythical tribe of Amazons, so maybe that was inspiration behind it?
Using typical tropes associated with gender isn't bad if well written, yes, but stories do need to be careful not to exclusively rely on stereotypes for their characters, since it can get uncreative. Thankfully, Bionicle stayed more creative, and allowed its female characters to both embody and subvert gendered expectations.
And yeah, as far as Roodaka's design, I don't think the set itself is really sexualized, just a bit heavy handed with its female coding. And that is an interesting take about Greek Amazons. However, when you look at her design, and then look at how she was depicted in the movie, its very clear that there were "seductress" vibes from her, that add that sexuality. I've heard many Bionicle fans say Roodaka was a bit of an "awakening" for them if you know what I mean.
I was a 5 year old when Roodaka was released, and I never knew it's a female Bionicle until years later.
The "boob" armor was just armor to me. If anything, it made me think about Anubis, who I knew from children's books about Egypt.
4:19
Then as a lady, I won't let that happen! I'm a woman and I love the elements of air and ice.
Hell yeah! Embrace the icy wind!
@@heroranuva8295 Yes. One doesn't have to be a boy to embrace fire, air, earth, stone or ice, and one doesn't have to be a girl to embrace water.
@Victor Nice Racer I mean yeah, male and female, as biological sexes don't exist among the Bionicle characters, because they don't reproduce. Though they still have ideas about gender, but there's no physiological component, gender for them is purely mental and cultural. Kinda highlights how most of gender ideas among humans are also mental and cultural, not rigid biological categories.
@@heroranuva8295 Not to mention, Gali is a lady, yet she was marketed for boys, and many boys loved her and the element of water all the same. So how could there not be a decent amount of girls who loved Gali's brothers and their elements?
Unintended consequence of gender-locking the elements: my first time experiencing the depiction of an all-female community (Ga-Koro) in media. Particularly in the beginning of MNOG2, just getting to exist in a space occupied entirely by women was lowkey mind-blowing. I still kinda fantasize about living in one of those old lesbian separatist communes...
The Sisters Of the Skrall kind of remind me of the "Sisters of Silence" in Warhammer 40k, all female warriors with super psychic abilities who are shunned by their race, except in 40K they're accepted into humanity's military and fight alongside the space marine legions and against demons.
wait the toa average seven feet tall?! XD I never realized that XD
Yup! They big!
The Toa gotta drop Kohli and get into the NBA lol
Idk why but I really like movie rudaka's head. Like specially her head.
1:34 Critical Race Theory summed up perfectly
The reason why many people probably interpret Gorast’s devotion as romantic (including me) is probably because her character can be can easily be compared to other characters with similar motivation like Harley Quinn who is probably the most obvious comparison.
Either way really good video that took a look at this topic in a very engaging way, also surprised you didn’t mention G2 seeing how it’s world building was made to change the one gender tribe aspect of G1.
Yeah, Like Herora said, female villains having a motivation that stems to romantic interest in their male superior is rather common.
Hm, yeah that's an interesting comparison, both had complete devoted loyalty to male counterpart who saw them as a tool to be disposed of. One interesting difference between them is also that Harley was psychologically abused and manipulated into becoming Joker's sidekick, while Gorast was in full self control, she just wanted to be a part of something so grand and was never told that it would just be for Teridax.
And yeah, you're right G2 did have some very interesting changes to the gender make up. I'll probably try to look into that in videos on G2, I guess I was just more focused on G1 for this. Really wish G2 had explored that more, because we did get the leader of the Earth region as a woman, which was really cool (also makes her chest mounted cannon all the more hilarious XD), and in the graphic novels the Okotans are shown having families and children, and being mothers which is interesting since we never had that in G1.
Something i found funny was how in the sets nokama is one of the tallest ones and whenua is really short butnin the movie she is much shorter than whenua
Yeah true, would've been cool if they went for that, instead of just going with the typical women are shorter, since plenty of tall women exist
Nuju and Onewa were the "tall" Turaga, as I recall...
To be honest, I had no issue with Gali's portrayal in Mask of light. Given she was such a good swimmer, it would make more sense for giving her a more streamlined appearance. Aside from that, it fits into her fighting style anyway.
Honestly, I wouldn't even say that Maku faded so much as was just kinda replaced by Hahli as time went on. Hewkii went on to become a Toa Inika, leaving Maku behind, but so did Hahli. And in fact, Hahli still plays a bit more of a prominent role than Hewkii overall, taking over the role of Chronicler after Takua becomes Takanuva but before becoming a Toa Inika.
I personally think Roodaka reminds me more of a warlock from dungeons and dragons.
Being all about deception and silver tongue.
Damn Bionicle is allways fun to return to
Huh, that's really interesting, yeah she really does!
i see a lot of gender representation in bionicle as essentially the writers, particularly greg farshtey really attempting to push for female characters' inclusion, despite executives' agendas. important characters like the first toa and the most notable toa to break the toa code being female was kind of a big deal, even if they weren't the toys on shelves. i think things like the vortixx being matriarchal really just makes the world feel more interesting and diverse. i think that it's really telling that greg and the other writing staff went out of their way to make sure that the female characters we got were capable, powerful, respected, or feared, even if it was done pretty clumsily at times. it really is sad that bara magna ended up with so few female characters, although i actually like the idea of the sisters of the skrall and the concept that the skrall's bloodthirsty and superstitious culture has spelled the slow decline and death of their species, i just wish that any notable sisters had actually appeared in the story. i do love the idea that the great beings were just sexist though, it feels like a satisfying meta-middle finger to the executives that view toys as "boy toys" by default.
Wish I had this video when it c out. I did a report on this very topic for a class, but I only had access to what I remembered from the movies and some wiki articles.
I always thought it was cool how the female Toa are just as fucking jacked as their male counterparts.
Right?! Like Gali, Nokama, and Hahli were buff as hell, it was great!
I’m quite sure the Element Lord of sand was also female for the same reason as Ce-Matoran were
Yeah I remember that being talked about in some of the post ending dialogues, along side the Element Lord of Earth. Kinda cool to see, but would’ve been great if we got to see more stories with the Element Lords, they were such an integral part of the world’s origins, yet were so unexplored
@@heroranuva8295 absolutely
I shudder to think that there are people out there who had their masochism awoken by Rodaka…
Lmao yeah XD
For her size and compared to other characters it’s not unreasonable to assume she’s near the same size in real life as a certain big dommy mommy from resident evil
@@creed8712 yes, yes she is 👀
As a male fan, Gali was always my favourite character (tied with Onua). Her gender is rarely highlighted, but when it is, it’s shown as a positive thing.
I’ve also recently found love for Nokama, who is so intelligent and would be a brilliant leader, but trusts and supports Vakama through faith.
Both always seemed like brilliant role models for everyone.
When they said she had layers I immediately thought
LAYERS!! ogres have layers onions have layers you get it
LMAO!
I've just found your channel, and I have to say, your videos are insanely entertaining and educative. Keep up the great work! 😁
Thanks!
Really enjoyed watching this, looking forward to part 2!
Thanks! Part 2 is going to be really good too! Not quite as long, but still very thoughtful, as there's a lot of interesting ways the queer community has interpreted Bionicle's lore around gender
Funny, i had the Roodaka set as a kid, and it was one of my favorites, and i never red her as feminine
I watched the movie too, and that was the only time i read her as female
But when i went to go play with the toy, i never applied that
Sometimes a Rahkshi head is just a Rahkshsi head.
@@normanclatcher truer words have never been spoken
Reject tradition embrace Rahkshi lol.
this is a bit of canon that i will always ignore simply because it makes zero sense, and even if it is explained in lore somewhere as to WHY they is sucha gender division, i will refuse to acknowledge it.
it makes no damn sense why an entire element in the world would be limited to one gender. to me, all of the elements would be mixed in some fashion.
confused me as a kid, confuses me as an adult.
The explanation that ended up being given was essentially that the Great Beings were sexist and assigned genders to elements based on their own stereotypes about gender, stereotypes that were proven wrong, in many ways a meta commentary on how Lego assigned genders to elements based on cultural biases about boy toys. Presumably the Matoran went with it because they didn't really have much concept of gender outside of this and since there was no reproduction or gender roles, they didn't really care.
I like the concept of the topic - nice video.
Also if im not mistaken: TUMA was released as compensation for female rep in the Glatorian release. But the limited occasions help boost the limited moments in rememberance.
Isn’t Tuma male?
@@lucasrobin2788 looks like things have changed since their launch. Tuma back then was supposed to be female - but apparently was changed after all.
@@igneelous I don’t think it ever changed - Tuna was very much male in all the promotional material and in the Movie.
He was the leader of the all-male Skrall tribe, he couldn’t have ever been female
@@lucasrobin2788 at the time I had my reason to assume but if he's male then so be. It was a long time ago that im not gonna get all bent over it.
I like the idea that physical genders don't exist, and that cultural norms cause one element to act in a feminine or masculine way. So outliers could exists. You could have a water toa acting more masculine ang going by male pronouns, or a fire toa acting more feminine. I'd like to think they'd still have female and male voices respectively, suggesting their biological make up isn't different, just their choice of mannerisms.
Yeah, its a really cool way of looking at it! There's no physiological differences, its all personal and societal, which is a really cool way of looking at gender. You can have characters that fit outside of their gender-element in multiple ways, especially since not even all of the element traits map perfectly onto masculine or feminine traits
Honestly i believe Vamprah was a male because they planned Gorast to be female.
Tho he could very easily pass as female, i mean he doesn't really look as burly as other Makuta.
Also, gender never really mattered in Bionicle. A lot of characters, especially villains that I would argue were agender. Bohrok, Rakahi, Visorak.... And a lot of named bigger characters were species of their own. Roodaka was a part of a species, but characters like Axon, Keetongu or Brutaka were just dudes that existed. They were using He/him pronunciations, but i would argue it was out of convenience. You could use any pronoun for Axon, and he wouldn't probably care
Also, regarding "water characters were usually gentlier and more pacifist", i feel like that's the case only because that was how Nokama made sure the culture on Mata-nui was. Because Nokama was that way, yes, Hahli was that way, but she was because she grew up in Ga-koro, and Gali was diplomatic but very aggressive if needed in pretty much every media that wasn't the Movie.
Also, it's kinda unfair to say that this was assigned stereotype when a lot of Toa were that way. I mean, look at Onua. He's the wisest and most pacifistic of all the Toa Mata. A dude with massive claws and chainsaws.
But then again, Movie wasn't too good in many ways. Why Gali was the only one with unique body type?
Also, speaking of Roodaka, she even has an attempt at creating ass. Tho i love how she very much could create about as much problems for the Toa as all Visorak and Sidorak does, but she just chooses to use others. I honestly believe that she was so sexualised IN ORDER to make sure she would be impossible to made or be mistaken for a man, because she was supposed to be such massive threat.
That being said, i really don't know if Roodaka was in love with Terri, or she just wanted to usurp him too. She has been written well enough for both interpretations to be true.
Because no gamble was too big or risky for Roodaka. She crossed TSO and didn't gave two shits about it.
Also, i know that Glatorians were so male stacked because of management probably.... But i choose to believe that tribes just admitted that resources were scarse and so they shouldn't risk overpopulation, so being Gay was the right thing to do. Yes, just out of spite, i choose to believe that Tuma took it up the ass.
This is one thing g2 did really well, no one was a suspific element
Honestly yeah
I will say that, even tho there are no gender-norms in Matoran Universe, there are definitely what I call "element-norms"
For example, it would be hard to imagine a Matoran of Psionics or Ko-Matoran that is an Engineer. Or a Fisher Ta-Matoran
Very true! There was a lot of culture around element and elemental roles that was pretty interesting
even as a kid it never made sense to me that all the women were of the water element (roodaka and extended lore excluded)
made it feel like women were this specific limited class
Yeah it was very limiting, especially in contrast to the variety given to the male elements
Cis woman here; I always loved Bionicle. Getting both the Takanuva and Makuta-sets for Christmas and building them over the next two days is one of my fondest childhood memories. It was great how the female characters were just part of the cast (though my fav was and always shall be Lewa - the real damsel in distress of the OG-six XD). Honestly, as a girl I usually played more with boys, or did combat sport. I was never the only girl in those groups, but the 1 to 5 ratio is quite accurate, which is maybe why I never noticed how few women there were among the Matoren and Toa as a kid. I just saw an intriguing world with cool warriors; gender or sex of someone else didn’t matter to me and from what I saw it didn’t matter in that world; might have resonated with me more than I realized back then.
I remember having the green, white, black and blue toa metru as a kid and despite not knowing anything about the lore, story or characters I still imprinted the blue one as being a girl because her mask was all round and curved without any edges or straight lines like the other ones I had.
I don't know if you addressed this in the follow up video, but there are 2 more things of interest I think.
1: Female Skakdi are said to be more violent and ugly than the male Skakdi. This does seem a little like they are trying to make this species seem like a twisted version of the toa, even mirroring how racism against minorities was often justified in saying things like how women of certain races are "too masculine", or were put in harm's way in in power unlike how the racial majority acted.
2. Brutaka, while in 1 line of dialogue, refers to the murder of "women and children" as being especially awful. Additionally the line, “I would sooner offer my neck to a dull axe blade than trust you, female. Your name has become another word for ‘treachery.’”, said by Spiriah, almost seems to read as though the term 'female' is diminishing. These lines are very inconsequential, but I thought they were interesting.
Yeah those are good points you bring up. The female Skakdi thing was weird. I never made the race connection, but now that you bring it up it does have a parallel, though I highly doubt intentional. There's a lot I wish was more fleshed out and nuanced about the Skakdi, because as they are they're just a whole species of barbarians, which doesn't have good connotations.
And also, yeah, I do remember a few points when characters said "female" like that. I feel like in those instances, it was almost used as a descriptor, like that was her most distinguishing factor. Perhaps not meant to be that females were lesser, but it did also highlight how few women existed in this universe that being female was a highly notable trait that could be singled out
@@heroranuva8295 I feel like Skakdi are straight up Tolkien orcs. An evil race that one guy made that way on purpose. Also, speaking of Spiriah, if he did see "female" as being a negative thing, that could have some connection to the female Skakdi being notably nastier than the males
The way I like to see it, the terms male and female are a little redundant in the MU to begin with. They aren't "men or women", they're biomechanical beings that do not reproduce and were created artificially. Any reference to a character with any one particular set of pronouns is a human interpretation of traits in beings that are, in the practical sense of the term, asexual and agender. Matoran are grouped by traits tied to an element more than to what we would describe as a gender anyway. What does saying Ga-Matoran are female even mean? That they have a slightly higher pitch voice (on average), the same way Onu-Matoran have slightly lower voices? That they are on average more empathetic (a trait that we, humans, stereotypically associate with women) the same way that Ko-Matoran are not? If anything, the Matoran analog of gender are the various elemental groups (of which there are a dozen), us humans just assign them to that which we know of ...
Oh, and also for that thing you mentioned about romance being "non canon”, imo this wasn’t really clever idea, and it isn’t even fits in with a fact what all those characters are sentient living beings, and it’s just impossible for sentient living beings to not have emotions such as affection or any other one.
I think you've got it wrong friend. Its never said that they don't feel love or affection, just that those feelings aren't romantic. They love their friends dearly, its shown everywhere in the series and Farshtey and the story team said that they did care for each other, and even formed special bonds, just platonically. Sentient living beings don't have to feel romantic love, there are plenty of people who don't feel romantic or sexual attraction and still love their friends and family with great affection. There are many ways to love, not just romance
@@heroranuva8295I’d say romantic affection is also very easily could be platonic, because sometimes there is really thin line between friendship and romantic feelings and it all could be even more complicated.. So, for me personally that statement is just sounds strange.
I agree with HerorasNuva. Even disregarding the "love is canon" debate, it is theoretically possible for a sentient being to not have emotions such as love or experience affection. This is a fictional story, it is the creator's choice as to what emotions their new species are allowed to feel.
Honestly, you don't even need to have emotion to be sentient as emotions are not a requirement for sentience. I can totally envision a fictional sentient alien species that is aware and has free will but only operates on intellect and logic and there are conversely many animals that clearly feel emotions but are not sentient. Humans, of course, are both sentient and emotional but not every fictional species need share these traits with us.
@ErihsehC While yes there is a lot of overlap between romantic, there is a difference. Romantic attraction is its own thing, distinct from platonic. Look up the differences between romantic and platonic feelings, its very interesting. In the real world there are many people who don't feel romantic attraction to others, as in they don't want to go on dates, get married, or have the specific type of companionship romance implies, but still feel great affection and love for friends, but just as friends. And this is what we see for the most part in the Bionicle world. While its very fun to ship the characters in fan works and interpretations, I enjoy doing it myself, the Matoran Universe is pretty non-romantic, and that's not a bad thing. We live in a world where romance is forced in many stories, its refreshing to see a story where that doesn't matter, and aromantic and asexual people are represented as the norm, even if they are alien robots.
@Obi-Wan Kenobi That is an interesting idea, a species that doesn't have much of what we consider emotion. The Vulcans from Star Trek are a pretty iconic example. One thing though is that, I actually believe that some form of emotions are necessary for logic, because if you really think about it, emotions are a form of logic. What I mean by this is that emotional responses are often very logical when looked at from an evolutionary biology perspective. Emotions often prime us and encourage us to be in an appropriate state to deal with many survival situations. They're a lot faster to come to, and much more general than carefully thought out logic, but in many survival situations, the fast emotional response will save a creature far more than a slower, but more thought out logical solution. Slower logic develops once a species has the resources to support more complex thought, at least if its a naturally occurring biological species. The Matoran are very interestin because its like they went through this process in reverse! They started out as sentient and capable of complex logical thought, but later on developed genuine emotion and care for each other
I keep bringing up outofgloom's matoran conlang a lot, but here in particular is where I think it applies the most. Pronouns in matoran are based on element, not gender. This implies that matoran do not have gender the same way humans do, instead seeing element as the closest thing. This effectively makes every element its own gender, and it just so happens that more of them are seen as masculine than feminine, of course there will be many repeats when trying to map a system with 16 options to one with only 2. However, this only applies to Matoran. I strongly believe that Vortixx have gender in a similar way to humans given how important the concept is in their culture.
Edit: By this same logic, I just realized that would also mean Takanuva is basically the matoran equivalent of being trans
AAAA YES! Love outofgloom, they did such a good job! Yeah, if you really think about it, gender for the Matoran would be totally different! In fact, so much of what you brought up here is what I'm going to be talking about in part 2, so definitely check that out when it premieres next week, I think you'll find it very interesting! Especially the Takanuva being trans part, a LOT of trans women in the fandom have connected heavily with his journey! I recommend checking out the article I mentioned, as it goes into this a lot: www.autostraddle.com/investigating-the-bionicle-to-trans-pipeline/
That was a pretty good video! It covered a lot of stuff and shed some light on things I hadn't considered about Bionicle. Nice work!
Thanks! Yeah, I was actually surprised when I started how much there was to say about this topic!
oh, that's what happened... muscle mommy... and why i like earth... a calm and nutraulity.
Biomechanical muscle mommies
I agree with you but I hate to see that it's become necessary to explain these things. If being caring and loving is a female stereotype then I guess being self confident and strong is a male one; that said, lots of male characters in the whole lore undergo some serious mental breakdowns and show huge signs of weakness. People are reading too much into what Bionicle is and meant to us kids of that era, back when being black, asian, male, female etc. made absolutely no difference whatsoever, so much so we would barely even notice it in first place.
No mention of Onua Nuva's glorious lumberjack beard? JK, great video!
You are rapidly becoming my favorite Biotuber.
Thanks!
12:55 Good point. Often a strong woman is just a woman who acts more like you would expect from a male. Both can be interesting, but only having the tomboy represent strong femininity kind of misses the point.
Hey there, This was a fantastic video and I can't wait for your next part. I didn't think a 40 minute video on a topic like this would be this interesting. Great work.
Thanks! Yeah part 2 is going to be pretty good too, not quite as long, but I think there’s some interesting stuff in it!
Roodaka is the bionicle equivalent of Starscream in terms of scheming
When I was a kid it never even occurred to me that bionicles had gender. When I first found out about it I remember wow that’s cool. It never changed how I played with them but bionicles having a gender makes them more interesting to me because it adds a separation between them and stereotypical robots.
And then there’s questions like “what exactly makes a bionicle male or female?”. Besides the obvious voice pitch differences do male and female bionicles have features that the other doesn’t. Are there biological differences since bionicles are part organic?.
All and all it makes the toy line more interesting and I feel like they should have played around with it more. Like for example the island we know has mostly make matoran. So maybe there’s another island where it was the opposite. Or perhaps as time progresses all matoran tribes eventually had both male and female but all still work together as equals like they always have.
The only issue I have is that female bionicles were mostly color locked to blue. If they hadn’t given such a specific aspect to the lore simply knowing that there are male and female characters would have meant we can decide what toy we had was male or female. But knowing that female characters were more or less limited to one color limits the role play aspect of our imagination when it comes to bionicle. Sure we can just make up our own lore but to people who know the lore from top to bottom it becomes rather challenging.
Still though bionicle is one of the best toy franchises ever.
8:40 I never thought about gender, but I think the white Toa Mata always felt pretty female to me.
Given that ice is just a sub-element of water it would have made sense for there to be both male and female motoran/toa.
...Thank for noticing Turaga Nokama's breasts, I think this belongs on the lowest floor of Bionicle iceberg
Lmao!
I really never ever saw sexism as a problem in Bionicle and I think people have been throwing up a hissy fit this whole time. Your video, despite its title, seems to support my stance more than the opposing one somehow xD
It might not be the recognition you are looking for but thanks for exposing this representation drama for what it is, a non-problem. Cheers
If you think this discussion is a "hissy fit" and "drama" then it doesn't sound like you were really paying attention to what I say the video. Exploring how the series handled gender, and how its female characters were depicted is an interesting and nuanced topic, and I think my video demonstrates that rather well, there's a lot to think about in regards to how things were handled. Cultural ideas about gender shaped how the series was marketed and how the characters were written. There are things the series did well and things it didn't do well, and if we really want to understand the series on all levels, its important to analyze these things. Especially since these play into larger discussions of our society and media that are important, and genuinely matter to large numbers of people, including large numbers of Bionicle fans who enjoy this type of analysis. The fact that you aren't one of them doesn't make this topic less worth discussing.
@@heroranuva8295 I did pay attention. I watched the whole thing and took note of how you structured your arguments. There is no evident sexism in Bionicle and you outlined why to a greater extent than I ever could bother to, which like I said, is something I praise you for. The only thing I legitimately would not be able to defend and just cracked up at is Turaga Nokama's boobs. Everything else is sexist only if you see sexism in it.
The way the story was handled was not exclusive of women, it was simply more inclusive of men. Those two are not the same thing. I do not exclude every single group in existence by not including them in my story. Bionicle wasn't exclusive of handicapped people, for example, but it didn't include them. The two don't come in a package.
Once you learn that concept (which you have as evidenced by this video, but a large chunk of your community has not) you will stop seeing problems that aren't there.
I'm very grateful for people like you that in a time with such political ruckus are able to play devil's advocate (as seen by your points denying the presence of sexist design) and build bridges between my side and (what likely is) yours. Your average leftist would not be willing to showcase the opposing side.
So kudos to you and stay nuanced
@Alessandro Albarello See that's the thing, you've mistaken my point in this video. You seem think that my point in this video is decrying Bionicle as sexist. The point I was making in this video was describing all of the ways the idea of gender was handled in the story, and specifically how the female characters were depicted in regards to ideas of gender. I wasn't "playing devils advocate" as if the instances of well done female characters were opposite of my point, they were all part of my larger point. That point being that Bionicle did some things well, it did some not well, and more over it did many things that were interesting in regards to gender. It can not be described as wholly sexist (what it seems you think my point is) or wholly not sexist (what it seems your point is).
In fact, despite running in progressive circles in the Bionicle community, I have never met a Bionicle fan who turns in into "drama" and tries to demonize the series for it. Everyone I've met in this community approaches it from the nuanced perspective of it had few roles for female characters, but the ones it had were mostly done well. So to me it seems that you have constructed a strawman of "my side", likely formed from approaching this discussion from an adversarial point of view. Not saying there aren't leftist assholes who need to learn nuance, there certainly are, but they are a vocal minority, and one people who try to demonize the left love touting. I urge you to go out and really talk to people with more progressive-leaning views than you, not from a debate point of view but a real conversation about issues and topics that matter to them. You value nuance, and I think you'll find there's way more of that on the left than you think, if you approach less on "sides" and more on people who have legitimate concerns that are different from yours. You claim we are seeing problems that aren't there, but maybe consider you don't see the problems because they don't effect you. Not specifically about Bionicle, but more broadly, because this is one piece of a broader discussion.
Also your point that lack of inclusion is not exclusion is misguided, because I think you are looking too much at individual instances and not at larger patterns. No you don't have to include everyone in every single thing, but when lack of inclusion is so wide spread, and the inclusion that's there is stereotypical, it is exclusion, because those people are being othered. You bring up representation of people with disabilities, there are very few toys that represent disabled people, and even fewer that are fantasy adventure series. And most often they are depicted as villains. Disabled children deserve more toys that depict them, and perhaps an even more vital point, non-disabled children need to be exposed to positive disabled characters because that's proven method to reduce the rate at which they grow up to be discriminatory. Because stories do shape how people think about each other.
And that point can be extended to gender in Bionicle. Bionicle had many well done female characters for girls and boys to look up to, but it also fed into the idea that male is the default and female is a deviation from the norm. That is a wider cultural notion that has impacted people, and its important to analyze when Bionicle feeds into these larger notions in our culture because that's what meaningful analysis entails. It was marketed primarily to boys, but that's because companies were afraid to market across genders. Our culture's ideas of who this story should be for shaped how it was written, despite the fact that there's no reason this type of story should be for one gender or another. I'm not saying Bionicle is some major battleground in the area of gender discrimination, but I am saying that ideas of gender in our society influenced how the story was made, and that is what I discuss in the video.
@@heroranuva8295 No no. I am fully aware your video was supposed to be an exploration of the topic and inconclusive. You made that clear in the title. I just do not understand why you mentioned sexism/stereotypes in the video (in a few occasions you made definitive statements that some sexism was present if I remember correctly) to then come back with a superior amount of evidence arguing the opposite, in this case the lack of sexist intent. So with weighed evidence leaning towards the lack of sexist intent, it is interesting that you decided to state some sexist tropes were present, instead of saying 'we don't know'. I just think you leaned towards the leftist trend of claiming there are problems where there are none, even while you yourself were aware of both sides. Explorations/guides generally aren't meant to include definitive conclusions, but you snuck in a few here and there.
I believe in this case the appropriate mentality to use is 'innocent until proven guilty'. You couldn't prove there is sexism in Bionicle, hence Bionicle is in fact, 'wholly not sexist'. But even if you didn't come to that conclusion, once again, conclusions are not something to state in an 'exploration'. You leave that to the viewer to decide.
As for the strawman, I'm not making one. I have run into multiple individuals on Reddit who would be willing to retcon for inclusivity, both in the female department and the non-binary department. People saying lack of representation is inherently sexist and people saying Takua is a trans-femme and want it to be official lore.
Not only am I against retconning anything regardless of offensive volume but I am especially against retconning a series that has ZERO sexism and transphobia in it. Literally zero, and as you said, you can forget sexes while you witness Bionicle. There are more than a few people (on Reddit at least) that would cross that line, and I've witnessed their demeanour and bitterness first-hand.
I also do witness and talk to leftists. My sister is one, my coworkers are, and a vast amount of society in more developed countries is way more comfortable being vocal about leftist problems and awfully quiet about the other side's issues. In my environment, people put up a facade until they trust no one in the room will be upset by their honest opinions. I do the same.
"when lack of inclusion is so wide spread, and the inclusion that's there is stereotypical, it is exclusion" except you proved that the inclusion that's there isn't stereotypical... so what's your point? There is variety among women in Bionicle, they were done well, they had personality, they were part of the boys and not outcasts, etc. So the inclusion that is there is great. For god's sake, I would never go and complain about Winx having female protagonists and being sexist because the males are sidelined, and that series was running side by side with Bionicle throughout my childhood.
"Disabled children deserve more toys that depict them". At what cost? Tokenism? Is it more damaging to under-represent groups or to spoil them with forced inclusivity? Do the most beloved characters get created starting from an idea, or starting from a feature that is forcibly included for the sake of an agenda?
I will take 2 good female role models like Ripley from Alien before I take any amount of the wack token women they put in Hollywood nowadays.
"it also fed into the idea that male is the default and female is a deviation from the norm". The only point I will concede. You can definitively make an argument for this, and it is worth discussing in an exploration. Still isn't sexist by definition, as sexism has to do with the prejudice, rather than the frequency of the sexes. Even if the Matoran were a ratio of 50/50, however, Lego would still prefer to have more males in an actual Toa team and people would still lose their shit at that. Equity is not worth striving for.
"It was marketed primarily to boys, but that's because companies were afraid to market across genders". Are you saying that if more representation were to exist in the general landscape, Bionicle (identical to how it is now) would somehow become inherently less sexist because the landscape should be a factor in the assessment? Does it matter what the landscape looks like? If yes, is a single franchise with an established formula responsible for changing itself and attempting to fix the landscape?
Honestly, man. Let's think about the future, not the past. Let's build anew instead of rebuilding. Bionicle is a beautiful franchise. It's as perfect as it can be in my eyes, and it could never have been if it was busy trying to appeal to every minority. Let those that can write minorities into a story honestly and from agenda-less inspiration write those stories, even if those people can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Let the many writers that only know how to write majorities do their thing. There is nothing to fix here.
Of course that doesn't mean 'stop doing exploration videos'. As a matter of fact genuine exploration is a great thing that will ACTUALLY help people diversify their stories. But please stop attaching unproven statements to the exploration, and be willing to analyse a franchise for what it is within a bubble (which once again, you are able to do but your community often isn't).
Lots of respect and appreciation for you for arguing as calmly as you do. You're pretty exemplary not gonna lie :)
@@alessandroalbarello7223 "I have run into multiple individuals on Reddit who would be willing to retcon for inclusivity, " Headcanoning and reinpereting old characters/stories in a new way is not really retconning for inclusivity though. It's just a fun hobby born out of love and passion. If I say, interpret a character that canonically is a man with nothing in the text implying otherwise as a trans-woman it's not hurting the text or other fans. It's just me having fun. Now, I do get that some people who have trans headcanons can be rather annoying, especially if they see yourself as transphobic for disagreeing with their headcanon. That said I haven't felt that way in this community. No one has tried to ostracize me or throw me out if I said I didn't agree with the idea that Takua was nonbinary or Tamaru was trans (just an hypothetical example here)
" people saying Takua is a trans-femme and want it to be official lore." Not necessarily. Yeah some may say "I want Tamaru to be trans in canon" but like.... no one is demanding the canon to change. Esp since Greg got left off Lego so he cannot add new details to the story anymore. Even if every member in the fandom begged him to change genders to fit popular headcanons he's not going to do that.
"Except you proved that the inclusion that's there isn't stereotypical... so what's your point? " I'm not Herora so I cannot speak for them, but from what I understand what they meant is that even if Bionicle *did* have good female characters, many of them felt archetypical. The ga-toa for instance were the traditional "heart of the group" many female characters in stories aimed at young boys tend to be. Other characters, like Helryx or Tuyet weren't stereotypical but instead were masculinely characterized, with not that much feminine traits. Essentially, what Herora is saying is that most (if not all) of the female characters fell to the two extremes where they either had traditionally feminine characterization or a traditionally masculine characterizaition, with very little in-between. This isn't bad in and of itself, but it does present a bit of a sign of how there's only "two" molds female characters can be and not much else.
"Do the most beloved characters get created starting from an idea, or starting from a feature that is forcibly included for the sake of an agenda?" Let me answer your question with another question: Why cannot someones idea be "I want to see more [insert minority group here] in t he stories I like"? Why is that automatically bad tokenization? Or Another question: if someone has a concept of say, a badass cyborg with timetravel powers whose story explores the concept of regret and trauma why must said character concept be male, cisgender, heterosexual, white (if human) and most likely able bodied and have no mental illnessess or neurodivergencies beyond their trauma in order to be acceptable and not pandering? Why can't said cyborg with time-powers be, say, a deaf asian lesbian? If the concept is handled well it's still valid, regardles if said character belongs to a minority or not?
"Equity is not worth striving for." EEEEH....I think the word you mean is equality since equity means slightly different thing. Regardless why isn't equity worth striving for? If one of the elements had female toa but everything else stayed the same (so no agenda "women are better than men", no girlbossess who are grumpy, no Mary Sues who steal the spotlight from rest of the cast or whatever people complain with female leads in popculture these days) would that hurt the story? Not really...If everything was the same save for one element having girls in it and such a few more female characters, not much would change save for a few more girls. And if the characters were otherwise the same just genders swapped, then there would be no problem. It would still be the same character, just with a different coat of paint.
"Are you saying that if more representation were to exist in the general landscape, Bionicle (identical to how it is now) would somehow become inherently less sexist because the landscape should be a factor in the assessment?" Most likely yes since then we would have more represntation but here's the thing. We don't live in such a world. While there is great female representation out there, and while people are trying to reach for more equality, we are still far from perfect equal representation. As such, we can't really compare Bionicle to a world that doesn't really exist.
"If yes, is a single franchise with an established formula responsible for changing itself and attempting to fix the landscape?" I mean...if Bionicle (or any other franchise whether pre-established or new) doesn't try it...then who will. If everyone asks themself "will I be the one that tries to change the landscape and make the world a bit better place?" then no one will do anything. Everyone will just wait for someone else to do first, and thus we will be in a perpetual limbo of everyone waiting for who gets the first dibs.
"Honestly, man. Let's think about the future, not the past. Let's build anew instead of rebuilding" Are you implying that old series aren't allowed to be reimagined or reinvented (whether it's by the fans or an official reimaging)and instead must remain untouched like they were some sacred artifact? Look, I'm as sick of the nostalgia and reboot culture currently going on as you probably are, and I wish we had more original stories too. But at the same time I don't really like the idea of just putting the old stories into this glass chamber where you can never ever take them to make something new and instead must remain in a state where they are never touched and always oogled at just the way they are. Like, isn't Lego all about taking off the pieces and building something new with said pieces? Mxing and matching. To take old and make something new out of it. Your idea of just leaving the past to be and "building instead of rebuilding" is rather antithetical to Legos core philosophy if you ask me.
" It's as perfect as it can be" I know this is your opinion, and if you think Bionicle is perfect, more power for you. But if you ask me, Bionicle is far from perfect. Even if we discount things like representation or other political issues, there are things like pacing issues, certain lore points feeling disconnected, all the villains feeling the same (+ the lack of tragic villains), Teridax being rather inconsistentally written and so forth. By far the biggest issue is how improvised the series was, in a way that can honestly be seen in the series flaws and holes. Bionicle is certainly great, and one of my favorite stories ever, but just because it's great doesn't mean there aren't things to be improved on.
"It could never have been if it was busy trying to appeal to every minority" ....I really don't like the idea that "trying to appeal to minorities" and "having a good story" are mutually exclusive. Now do I think there are certain stories where making certain types of representation is difficult if not impossible due to the premise/setting/etc etc? Yes I do. Heck I feel that due to the type of story it is, Bionicle is definitely one such story: you coldn't do say, POC representation, due to the fact the characters are robots rather than humans, the fact that none of the characters feel love the way we humans do means you can't really portray sexuality in any way (unless you view the MU inhabitants being capable of feeling love, in which case it's a different story) and while you could represent gender diversity, it'd be rather different due to the way the franchises worldbuilding has a rather different view of gender than we do. But that doesn't mean that Bionicle was unable to do representation period. Disabilities and mental-conditions could be showcased, even if they would be somewhat different from the way our world sees it, and while the series setting has a different style of gender from our own world, that doesn't mean we couldn't have had more female characters here and there. Doesn't mean every single major toa needs to be a girl, just a few more girls here and there.
"There is nothing to fix here." Once again I disagree. There's always room for improvement and for as much as I love it, Bionicle is far from perfect,. That said, the person who fixes it needs to have some kind of understanding what made the franchise work, rather than just taking a Jack Hammer and smashing it all open.
In general you seem to have the idea that when a work is complete it's perfect and shouldn't be tampered with or else its ruined and awful and worthless...And I have to say, while I do agree (or at least understand) with some of your ideas, as a creative person who loves to play with worlds created by other (much more talented creators than myself, I disagree with this notion. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a world that's a perfect sandbox to play with, to challenge with. I love exploring aspects canon doesn't touch on, to develop characters seen in the story as little more than plot devices, to try to explore the series themes in new ways and even explore completely new ideas in a familiar setting. I love to leave a mark, to change things and to play around. Yes, it may be destructive but there's something beautiful in taking someting old and making something new. So while yes, current reboot culture is bad and soulless, I don't think fiction should be leaved like statues, untouched and permanently stuck in the past. But that's just how I feel
on about the whole segregation of boys and girl toys, i know as a kid i was pissed i could never find a starwars figure of padme
Mm, yeah that sucks! She was one of the central characters of the PT, she would've made a great action figure for kids
Its kinda sexist to give female the atributes of calmness, gentleness etc. There a lot of active/agressive woman and men with that "water"personality
At least we have tuyet, a toa of water who is a traitorous psychopath who lhikan should've killed upon meeting her, and helyrx for being a hardass toa of water and the bionicle equivalent to renegade femshep from mass effect.
I blame roodaka for what would become my type :x
Lmao, I'm sure you're not the only one, she was an awakening for a lot of fans XD
I liked the female cast a lot. (Just thought they could have been given a few cooler mask powers and I would have been fine). Never noticed the Turaga Nokama thing before, so that’s ehhhhhhhhhh…… but I actually really liked the Gali design from the first film, and thought it was pretty well suited for swimming. I kinda had/have the opposite kinda take where I thought the male designs all looked kinda samey and could have been more suited for their roles, (more lithe Lewa, more brawny Onua etc, actually one of the few things I liked about the reboot) I don’t know if I would give you the better rep these days point if that’s one your making as nowadays. Maybe it’s just I personal taste thing but if anything I tend towards disliking all characters (at least for thing like starwars and marvel) granted there have been some really good female led stories with Arcane and Senareta Cometa (probably butchering the name there but love the series) but overall I think characterization is taking a downward spiral at least in western products overall. I don’t know if I’d call hating everyone equally a win but that’s where I’m at.
Well you know that point about all the Toa having different body types is a really good one. I mean, Pohatu and Onua obviously had the way their sets were that would've added more diverse body types to the movie. Yeah I think if they had given more varied designs, Gali's wouldn't have been so bad, because its not a bad design per say, its looks cool, but when compared to the others, its so obvious they just wanted to slim her down to make her look more feminine, at the price of her armor. If there was other variation it would actually look good
@@heroranuva8295 fair point.
i have a theory there weren't many female characters because they would've been harder to design feminine bodies in something for kids
I always though they should have made Lewa female as well. And not have gender assined to the elements.
Lewa as a girl is a very interesting idea. I believe the TTV Channel did their own concept work for a Bionicle G3, and they made Lewa a girl in their fan version.
And yeah, honestly the best solution would probably have been for gender and element to not be assigned, though I do think that doing it ended up at least ensuring some female characters. It's a weird balance, because I think otherwise there might not have been any. Plus the weirdness of the gender/element make up also allowed for the very interesting queer interpretations of gender in the series. Again, it wasn't a great thing, but looking back in context I personally have a hard time putting it exclusively as a good or bad thing
Very nice video! What I got from it, summed up would be this:
- There are way less species and races in the Matoran universe that were- or could be female
- Despite the lower amount of female Toa/Matoran, they were always treated equal, had an equal amount of power and even held some of the highest positions, like Toa Helryx being the leader of the Order of Mata Nui. The lower quantity doesn't in any way imply that they were less important or less powerful. Sometimes quite the opposite.
- In Matoran society, there wasn't really a true concept- or awareness of gender. When Matorans discriminated eachother, it was mostly based on their element. "This is such a Po-Matoran thing to say.." or "All Le-Matoran are such Airheads!" , "Swimming? What am I, a Ga-Matoran?" and so on. Gender was only secondary.
- The Element-specific gender only really was a thing in the Matoran/Toa species, other species like Skakdi, Vortixx, Makuta, Skrall and more could be either gender, and some even had Matriarchal societies, really contrasting Matoran culture, where gender had no impact in society, except for their element.
All in all, Bionicle was clearly marketed more to boys, but has a very strong and wise representation of equality and the non-importance of gender.
I grew up with Bionicle, and never knew what gender the sets were, because I was too young to get into the lore, early on. Water was always my favourite element, so Dalu and Hahli counted to my favourite sets, until around 2008 when I learned more about Matoran/Toa lore and background. Since then, my favourites are Onu-Matorans and Toa, with Water still being by second choice, Air being my third. (And my favourite Agori Tribe is the water one).
A 50-50 gender split between the 6 elements would’ve made so much more sense. Ice and Water are female (liquid-related), Rock and Earth are male (solid-related), and Air and Fire are mixed (gas-related). It’s still a little sexist, but would be way better than only a sixth of the bionicle being female
That could've been pretty interesting
SO I have a question. You hinted at it being a bad thing that Gorast, and Roodaka being motivated by felling's of love is that it's devaluing and a troupe, but isn't that a perfectly valid reason for motivation. I may just not be good at seeing social norms and qews so I just assumed that these troupes were here simply because certain demographics identify with certain problems more than others, like how female villains usually have something to do with being a mother vs child because it's something women could resonate with easily.
Well it's less that I think these specific instances are bad, as much as I'm acknowledging that it is a wider trope that has been done poorly in other media. At 30:37 I actually talk about how one character being motivated by their admiration of another can be a very cool motivation when well written, and I think especially Roodaka, and also Gorast, are both relatively well done examples of this trope.
However, the idea that female villains often being in a mother position or other similarly female coded roles often has more to do with the writers mainly seeing women in those roles, rather than those being the roles that women more relate to. I mean, after all, its not like the average man would relate more to being a superhero or a world conqueror than the average woman would. And again, making female characters mothers isn't a bad thing in and of itself no more than making male characters fathers. But we just have to be mindful of when these roles seem to be all the character is allowed to be, because its unfortunately very common for female characters to be defined by what role they play in a male character's story. Not all the time, and not very often in Bionicle, but it is something to acknowledge
@@heroranuva8295 Now how does one tell the difference. I apologize, I have autism so it's hard for me to see social constructs very well since those aren't something you can learn from a text book.
@@robinmartin2818 No worries dude, I understand. Honestly its a tough nuance for many neurotypical people. Its somewhat subjective, but I do think a good way to judge is to look and see if the character has a role in the story or aspects of their character that are beyond just their relationship to another character. Do they show off thoughts and feelings that are there own, and do they take actions on their own that shape the plot and put them in the spotlight? Many characters who are considered reduced by their relationships often never feel like they have their own drive or agency outside their relationship to that other character. But if they stand on their own, then this connection doesn't reduce them, it often enhances them. This isn't foolproof, but I think its a good way to start. And how you feel about the character just on your own is also valid. Ask yourself if you like how they were written and that's just as valid an answer as anyone else's.
that was a really great video, lookin forward to part 2
Thanks! Yeah I'm really proud of that part too, can't wait to show you all!
If Bionicle does come back they can’t really change the gender of the OG Toa cuz their to iconic reboot or not. However if the drop the gender color and have each of the OG Toa be leaders of their groups of Toa we could get more gender diversity or at least close to it.
True that could work. Though, there have also been many fans who have imagined their own G3 with changed genders for the OG Toa, so adjusting the characters gender might play well anyways
Basically, weird, probably not perfect, but mostly good
The other toa have ball joints on their chest, while Gali has a socket. Coincidence?
...yes, it's for parts usage on the "combiner"--
Well dang. Guess I can't escape the euphemisms after all. 😕
This is a criminally underrated channel.
Thank you!
-yo yo piraka-
Granted, as bionicles are made not born, romantic love would be redundant for them. But they are still shown to be highly social beings, with an emotional intelligence similar to humans. so other kinds of love (familial platonic and so on) must be possible for their society to function.
Its a common idea that romantic love is the strongest/most important. But there are many different kinds, all of which are just as valid. It could be that bionicles have an entirely different way of classifying relationships to us. Which would be really interesting to explore, So I'm kinda sad they ignored the topic completely.
Ace/Aro here. I'm not put out at all by the lack of romantic representation here and in fact, this franchise probably spoiled me for that very idea.
Realistically, our society should push that angle _way_ less than it does. It was a great escapism to not have to consider it at all while MOCbuilding in my private little plastic sandbox.
I will never be able to unsee Turaga Nokama's cleavage, lol.
But I really appreciated this, Bionicle's relationship with gender was always peculiar yet fascinating, and it's great to see it being discussed.
Lmao right! I can't stop laughing when I see it, I'm sorry I had to infect you all with the knowledge. And thanks! Yeah, its really interesting, and I'm really enjoying the continued conversations around this
In order to keep it balanced, they probably should’ve made half of them male and half of them female. probably could’ve went like this-
The matoran and toa of fire, air, and stone would be male.
But the matoran and toa of water, ice, and earth would be female.
That could be one way to do it yeah. Other ways people have talked about doing it are having no connection between element and gender, and having any member of an element be any gender. Its hard to say though, because the connection between element and gender is what caused many people to make very interesting interpretations about how gender is handled in the series, and I don't know if I'd want those to disappear.
11:18 - 11:36 YES! YES! YES! FINALLY SOMEBODY SAID IT!!!
23:39 - 23:48 YES! YES! YES! FINALLY SOMEBODY SAID IT!!!
I haven't watched part 2 yet as I'm writing this comment, but if it's even *near* the level of quality of your previous videos, then it just might become my new favorite video ever, given the subject matter! :D
Haha, I'm glad you like my hot takes!
4:32 Even if you are a girl, you could identify with the male characters, right? And even as boy, you could identify more with the blue ones. Gender is not relevant to the plot. And their personalities do not necessarily relate to their gender or gender stereotypes.
wtf this is based as hell
Thanks!
Pridak and her lipstick is to sexualised for me.
haaha
(thank you for your collection of Bionicle law, its nice to have a large quantity of a series brought in one place)
LMAO
1:42 In general I think it's still useful to have some target audience you have in mind when creating a product.
If you try to please everyone you risk to please noone. Or something that is seen as good by most people, but nobody thinks it's great.
But if there are some girls who like boy toys or some boys who like girl toys, that also shouldn't be a problem. The only problem is if a brand tries to appeal to more people, not if it IS appealing to more people.
Facts.
I'm a guy, and for a while as a kid Hahli was my favorite character and toy, even though I knew she was female
Nice! I loved Hahli too! I think it’s really nice, boys having female heroes and girls having male heroes is a good thing!
I’m not sure why but I always saw the masks they wear as their genders, so if the mask looked more feminine to me that character was female and since they where (in mine mind) technically none gendered they can choose what gender they wanted to be kinda of like who some people do now.
Lewa should be Trans
Lewa being trans would be really interesting!
Hali was always my favorite
Nice!
Funny enough. I would like to play a stardrew Valley game with a 50/50 male female population.
Maybe an Otome game would be interesting too.
Gali played into the conflicts between the Toa. Pohatu and Kopaka were about the conflict between introversion and extroversion, Lewa and Onua were about thinking and action and Gali and Tahu were about toxic masculinity and femininity respectively. In each of these cases, one of them showed the solution or a different perspective to their problem to the other one.
Roodaka is only in Web of Shadows a true Makuta loyalist. Outside of that, she is mainly focused on her own well-being. Because of that, her character seems somewhat inconsistent, because it is. There were several people writing the same character with a different outlook on how romance does or does not work within the boundaries of the Bionicle canon. Roodaka in Greg Farshtey's writing is narcissistic and double-crossing and just annoyed at the incompetence and title-stealing of Sidorak, though that is mostly unrelated to gender roles (maybe the Shadow Play comic was supposed to point in that direction with the Moutain flashback?, but I saw more her egotistical trait depicted in that scene).
Her devotion to Makuta does not really fit, outside of her trying to gain the trust of the Brotherhood that she later exploits during the Dark Hunters war.
Yeah, you're right, each of the Toa played into conflicts with each other, and that made the group dynamics so interesting.
As far as Roodaka, its not just Web of Shadows, but also the other books in that arc, particularly Challenge of the Hordika where she displays a high level of admiration for Makuta. And anyways, Web of Shadows was literally her biggest and primary role in the series, everything after that is side stories. That's like saying Luke Skywalker is only an optimist in the original Star Wars movies. But also it can fit in with her character. She was loyal to Teridax, but that might not necessarily translate to loyalty to the Brotherhood, I mean heck Teridax wasn't loyal to the Brotherhood himself. After losing Metru Nui she may have been outcast and refused promotions by the organization, so she sought power elsewhere. Doesn't make her admiration of Teridax, who embodied everything she valued, any less plausible.
@@heroranuva8295 "She smiled. Ever since she and Sidorak had turned six Toa into wretched, twisted Rahaga, they had been competing with each other for Makuta’s favor. So far, neither Sidorak’s victories in the field nor Roodaka’s subtle schemes had secured either one the role they coveted: command over all of Makuta’s lieutenants. She knew that the battle for Metru Nui might be her last chance to seize power from Sidorak
and secure the right to rule by Makuta’s side. She was determined to succeed, even if she had to crush
the king of the Visorak hordes in the process."
That is what I found in Challenge of the Hordika. Both Sidorak and Roodaka compete for power, that is why their motivation is solely to get the most powerful position possible under the rule of the Brotherhood. In Legacy of Evil she immediately betrays them and with them Teridax. I don't even think she mentions him specifically ever again. Power is all she cares for. To secure her position she needs Makuta to trust her more than Sidorak, that's why she visits him regularly in WoS.
@@Makutros Yes she was primarily motivated by a desire for power, but that isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with a genuine admiration of Makuta Teridax. He embodied power, and specifically the kind of power she craved, which was of subtly and manipulation paired with terrifying might. Its not unreasonable to conclude that she does think highly of Makuta, since she did actually risk her life in her attempt to free him. If it were completely self-serving wouldn't she cut and run when she had the chance, rather than take the hit and hope that Makuta would save her? And no she doesn't mention him afterwards, but she doesn't talk much at all afterwards, almost all of her lines in the serials she appears in are only relevant to what's immediately happening, very few hints to her true motivations and goals. We're never actually given a firm reason as to why she betrayed the Brotherhood over those 1000 years. Maybe she changed her mind, but even if she did it doesn't negate the possibility that she admired him then.
And again, I do think there is a difference between betraying Teridax and betraying the Brotherhood, especially when you consider that a) Teridax was completely uninvolved with the Brotherhood war efforts during the 1000 years, and b) he actively didn't want the Brotherhood to gain all that much power, only himself.
Mainly what I'm saying is that there is very real room for interpretation. Not saying it was true romance, but I am saying she could have genuinely thought highly of Makuta, even though she betrayed the organization, especially since its clear the organization didn't seem to promote her anymore after Metru Nui.