HEAD CANON TIME (for humanized bonkles of course)
Nobody asked, but I was thinking the other day of how showing age works in the Bionicle universe. And I guess this could work in the actual universe too in some ways?
And maybe someone already thought about this, but eh here goes.
So I imagine every species a part of the Mata Nui/Aqua Magna world has an internal repair system that has a great amount of energy that lasts for a LONG long time. Basically akin to our immune system but more efficient. It immediately gets to work when the entity takes damage of some kind, a wound, a scrape, a sickness, anything.
That repair system slowly works to heal the being. It's a bit faster than how we would heal, but it still takes a bit to fully heal the ailment/wound.
But since that supply is finite, it starts to become less and less efficient over tens of thousands of years. So someone as battle hardened as say Helryx starts to show her age much more significantly after taking many hits and scrapes in her lifetime.
I think the same could be applied to the whole Matoran to Toa to Turaga transformation as well. The being is basically changing the structure of their WHOLE body. A Matoran would have more energy to spare than a Toa or Turaga in most cases, so they would look more aged transforming into a Toa. And same goes for a Toa when transforming into a Turaga. That supply of energy is still used to transform their bodies into something different. So now they look more like an elder. (They don't have to look feeble in some cases, but it just depends on how that energy supply was used in their lifetime)
Anyway, I'll get back to drawing xD Hope this was an interesting way to explain age in the Matoran universe~
