You can really tell that Garmadon was turned evil against his will, that it was forced upon him because holy shit is this man bad at being evil sometimes.
No wonder Lloyd was kicked out of Darkley's for not being good at being bad, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree
The Hands of Time, Morro the Elemental of Wind, The Cursed Realm, Who Sent Him There and how Chen is at the center of everything | Ninjago
So first off, I've had this theory for the longest time that Morro wasn't supposed to be in the Cursed Realm and besides that, that he was being taken advantage of by the Preeminent.
When Morro first appears at the very end of Season 4, we hear a voice say Morro's name in a whispered raspy voice.
Now, I've heard many people say that, that is literally just Morro announcing his own name but personally I always thought that the voice sounded similar to a different ghost, i.e. Bansha.
Bansha is a ghost who has the ability to control others from a distance and even communicate between Realms, as seen when she forced Misako to fight Wu and when she communicated with Fenwick, the Master Writer, to allow her, Morro and his ghostly entourage into the Cloud Kingdom. As well as, later when Wu and Misako are acting as distractions so the Ninja can sneak into Stix. Bansha is able to use herself to allow Morro to communicate through her to his old teacher.
This, along with Morro's change of heart at the end of Season 5 (even though ghosts aren't supposed to be able to change) is what initially made me suspicious; then something else came up.
Manipula-Chen (Chen Starts a Time War) by rinkunokoisuru on Ao3 brought up something that I knew in the back of my head but never really thought about.
rinkunokoisuru brings up that one little fact that Season 4 repeated so often that I'm surprised I forgot. Chen's manipulation of the Elemental Masters during the Serpentine War.
Now you might be asking - why is that important, what does that have to do with Morro? Well think about it, who else did Chen manipulate other than a young Garmadon.
Garmadon went to train with Chen and sometime after, Wu takes in Morro, eventually training him to become the Green Ninja.
We already know that Chen was intercepting Wu's mail, considering he was able to steal his love letter to Misako, so whose to say that he also wasn't spying on Wu and Morro's training sessions.
This brings me to another piece of information that was brought up recently by @ataraxixx - that information being that on Morro's back is the Japanese kanji for 'evil'.
Now I know that everyone has made their jokes about Morro being an edgy emo Hot Topic kid for wearing the kanji for 'evil' - but as I thought about it, I began to wonder, "why would a kid who wants to be the hero, die with the kanji for 'evil?"
(And incase your wondering, Morro originally had a dragon on his back just like Wu, when he was younger.)
Going back to rinkunokoisuru's story - in the story, it's suggested that Clouse's dark magic might have played a part in Krux and Acronix's betrayal and possibly play a part in the betrayal of the other Elementals.
With Morro I could believe that and I'll explain why in just a moment but with Krux and Acronix, something just wasn't clicking fully even though I liked the theory. Until I was rewatching episode 3 of Season 7 (A Time of Traitors) for my, 'Morro comes back to life' rewrite.
As I was watching the scene where Kai is discussing the Vermillion war helmet with Dr. Saunders, something came to mind. The helmet is definitely a Vermillion helmet but when Kai said it looked familiar he realized that Krux and Acronix were wearing the exact same helmet in the painting of their fight with Garmadon and Wu. At that moment I realized that they were also wear those same helmets when Wu is congratulating the remaining loyal Elementals on their victory during the Serpentine War.
Why would they be wearing Vermillion helmets?
Thinking back on Season 7.
When Kai first shows Wu the helmet in episode 3, Wu tries to say the line, 'time waits for no one' the same line is said completely by Krux during his fight with Kai at the Museum in the very same episode.
To be fair, it's a pretty common line but I think it was ment to indicate that Wu recognized the helmet as one that the Time Twins wore.
Now you might be asking, why wouldn't he recognize it as a Vermillion helmet?
To that I say, one of the best ways for something to be forgotten is for it never to be spoken of. Which is exactly what we find out in episode 7 (Secrets Discovered) when the Ninja - minus Kai and Nya - speak with King Scales in the sewers.
The Vermillion Warriors were the first generation progeny of the Great Devourer with the same instincts to consume everything, they were something that was so feared by the Serpentine that they were not spoken of, with Scale even going out of his way to find out where they are so his people could avoid them.
Now this is pure speculation, but I wonder, what if a non Serpentine/Vermillion wearing a Vermillion helmet could have an adverse or even corruptive effect on someone, considering Vermillion armor is ment for a nest of Vermillion snakes to nest inside of to form a single Warrior.
(Side Note: this is where all you Snake!Jay fans can come in as to why your boy wasn't affected when he put on the helmet in episode 3. And on that note, shameless plug for my theory post as to there being a Serpentine curse on the Jiang/Smith family - on Ray or Maya's side - as the reason why Jay and Skylor both were turned into snakes thus implying that the same thing has happened to Maya or Ray and as such using this convoluted theory as to why Kai wasn't affected when he wore the Vermillion helmet, implying that like the Snake!Jay theory, that Kai and Nya might have some Serpentine passed down to them from one of their parents' own transformation.)
Clearly they're both into Redheads.
...
Okay, but seriously, both Jay and Skylor were hit with a type of Serpentine transformation (if I h
Getting back to the matter.
Where would Krux and Acronix get a Vermillion helmet in the first place - the answer, from a man who find war entertaining and has a vast collection of hard to find/hard to get artifacts with a particular fascination with Serpentine warriors.
A.k.a. Master Chen.
Even if you go with the theory that the Vermillion helmets are not corruptive, there is still the matter of Clouse's dark magic.
On that note, let's get back to Morro and his connection to Chen and Clouse.
Imagine if you will.
You are mad Cult Leader, anticipating the eve of war between the Serpentine and all of Ninjago. While your pupil, the Elder son of the FSM, may or may not stay on the side of evil, you have been watching his younger brother train his first student to become the Green Ninja, something, which if he is successful, could be a possible problem.
Now again, speculation.
Wu was able to gather every Elemental to fight in the Serpentine War, even if some of them eventually turned traitor. I wonder if during Morro's training, if as part of Morro's training, if he was introduced to the Elementals as a sort of know your allies interaction. Basically, baby Ninja Morro getting to meet the Elementals who were all probably older then him (teen to elder) considering how old Morro looked when he ran away.
Continuing the speculation.
Let's say that Chen's spies told him that Morro was outside of Wu's protection. Let's say that Chen had already begun seducing a certain Elemental to his side (traditional methods or magical methods, you decide). Now let's say Chen had this Elemental go to Morro with a present - a medallion of protection. Let's say that Morro accepts this medallion because it's from his allie and let's say that the medallion has two images - one on top that would soon crumble away and one beneath (the kanji for evil) that actually held a curse that would send the wearer to the Cursed Realm.
And who do we know that can send people to the Cursed Realm - the answer, Clouse.
In Season 4 episode 8 - Clouse attempts to send Garmadon to the Cursed Realm, only for said Sensei to kick the sorcerer into the Cursed Realm, the portal closing behind him.
Later, to defeat Chen's Anacondri Army, Lloyd uses a spell from Clouse's magic books to open a portal to the Cursed Realm, thus allowing the Anacondri Generals to curse Chen and his army, sending them all to the Cursed Realm.
Considering all this, what if Chen had already been luring Skylor's mother to his side and convinced her to give a young wandering Morro a false seal of protection that would send him to the Cursed Realm upon his death (what if Chen had laid hints to lead Morro to a swift death in the Caves of Despair, not long after or even had Skylor's mother unknowingly give those hints when she gave him the medallion)
(Two Side Notes:
First: I personally I think Skylor's mother would have been tricked by Chen into giving Morro the medallion but if you want her to have been evil and do it willingly then that's your call.
Second: I don't think it's too farfetched an idea that the symbol transformed into a large medallion that was tied around Morro when he became a ghost. Almost like it shifted to chain itself to him.)
Now consider, the speculative Green Ninja is dead and the Serpentine War begins. The Elemental Alliance has gathered and some question are asked of Wu.
Where is Morro?
How long has he been gone?
Why didn't you go after him?
War continues, Garmadon goes to help his brother and after some time Chen see the war begin to wane so he sows discord among the Elementals and soon the alliance has fallen apart with only a few Elementals remaining loyal.
Gravity survived an attack by Clouse's pet Serpent and Earth while having briefly turned traitor has returned to the Elemental Alliance - but that's fine because the Time Twins are still wearing the Vermillion helmets.
The five tribes are being locked away (the Venomari by Water/Maya and the Anacondri by Fire/Ray) and the Serpentine War has ended. The Anacondri Generals have been sent to the Cursed Realm, Chen and Clouse are now confined to Chen's island (possibly having already hidden Skylor's mother there). But all that is still just fine. For someone so incredibly fascinated by the Serpentine, one has to wonder how much he knows.
Chen has spies and willing pawns everywhere, how else could he open a successful restaurant chain on the mainland.
Did he know about the prophecy of the Golden Master. Did he know that when the Serpentine are released from their tombs, that they would unleash the Great Devourer. Did he know that the Devourer would head straight to the stone army where her Venom would bring the warriors to life.
Or possibly, I wonder.
If when Krux came out of the Time portal not long after entering it - his younger twin brother, nowhere in sight and personally desiring revenge - did he go searching for a way to get vengeance, possibly from the one who first gave him and his brother the helmets.
Was Chen the one to set Krux on the path towards using the Vermillion Warriors.
In Season 7 episode 3, Krux tells Kai that his parents were traitors who worked for the Hands of Time, however, in Season 4 episode 7 Chen tells Kai that there are dark secrets about his parents.
Of course, Chen could have been lying, however ...
Did Chen know that Krux had kidnapped Ray and Maya?
Did Krux ever have the Jiang/Smith parents do work for Chen in payment for the Vermillion Warrior eggs?
~~~~~
Like many of my post ideas, this one got kinda long and rambling.
Something else I wanted to include was that I recall that someone was lamenting that Morro didn't have fangs like the other ghosts and I wondered why, but then I thought of this.
Cole, Garmadon, Chen and Clouse - four people who were cursed/sent to the Cursed Realm (only two of which were evil) and all four of them, in ghost form, are lacking fangs; just like Morro.
(Side Note: Admitably, Garmadon might just be a special case of - Son of the FSM. Personally, I'm in the boat of, give the Dragoni fangs but that's neither here nor there at the moment)
One more thing before you ask if the other ghost have a kanji for evil on them, I checked. Most ghost with a visible (or partially visible) symbol on their back all have the same Cursed Realm emblem - Morro is the only one with kanji.
Ok so, consider all those “Kai time travels to the pilot/past” AUs, now consider a world where each of the ninja time travels to their pilot bodies Except For Kai.
So Cole, Zane, Jay, and Nya are back in their tiny teenage bodies like alright let’s rock and roll. They have their memories and lives, all they really need is muscle growth/memory and to let things fall into place, right? Ofc Cole, Zane, and Jay are still training at the monastery in their black gi, but Kai is coming eventually, and as soon as he’s here, they can go get Lloyd (who would still be at Darkley’s, maybe? They never actually asked when he got kicked out whoops).
Anyways, same trope as ever; the 3 ninja discover they really can’t live without Kai anymore. Not even romantically. Just genuinely, they keep expecting to hear him talk, his breathing at night. Hell, Zane keeps putting out five plates instead of four.
Sensei Wu thinks it’s just some mystic intuition stuff. Meanwhile, the 3 ninja are all eyeing each other like, who’s gonna break first and go get their fire elemental.
It’s Jay. Jay breaks first. Not even out of mental weakness but cuz mid-rant he enters what should be Kai’s room expecting to see his (platonic soulmate, quarter of a whole) reading a magazine on his bed with Lloyd leeching off his heat via burrowing into his stomache like a spoiled cat (or dragoni little brother).
Only, he enters the room and it’s Cold. It’s just an empty room. There aren’t even red sheets yet.
Jay turns on his heel, finds Cole and Zane, and just drags them over to the room. Dragging them down with him, really.
After that it’s just a bunch of shenanigans because Zane., Jay, and Cole are trying to bring Kai home in different ways.
Zane is trying to subtly influence Master Wu into brining their fire elemental home early. Cole is planning to sneak out and talk to Kai. Meanwhile, Jay and Nya have made contact via NyaDrone500 (patent pending), and they’re both scheming to get Kai to become a ninja. Like, Nya keeps talking about how cool and powerful Ninja are. And she’s trying to help out more around the land cuz Wow Teen Kai Looks So Tired and Stressed All The Time.
Anyways, this all culminates, somehow, into Kai getting kidnapped instead of Nya. Because she knows how to defend herself better than Kai, so they just take the weaker siblings again. Except this time it’s not the young girl, it’s the boy that barely knows how to fight and is clearly beloved by his competent sister.
Anyway, Nya gets trained as a ninja early (cuz she told Wu some lie about knowing who her mother was), and Kai gets rescued by his sister and the ninja, and then gets trained too.
But yeah, Plan A was “convince Sensei or Kai to become a ninja early” and Plan B was “benevolent kidnapping”
Nobody quite expected Plan C “Samukai is actually good at his job”
kai is gonna ragebait jay into becoming a ninja next season lol . he’ll be on some reverse psych nonsense like ‘yeah it’s totally fine if ur not up to it anymore. We don’t really need u anyway haha we’ll be fine. yeah no it’s ok man go back to ur bounty hunting or whatever’ in the most dismissive tone ever. and BAM . jay true potential pt 2 but this time out of pure spite
ayyooo!! guys thank you, it's been less than a month and i have 100 followers! y'all are so sweet
the timing of this actually works out great because i literally just finished this longer oneshot comic, and 100 followers is a perfect reason to post it. so yey. enjoyy
I think one thing about Ninjago that will forever fascinate me most is the Serpentine.
When the OG series started, they were introduced to us as this new threat, even at that moment more dangerous than Garmadon and a lot more menacing than the skeletons.
In theory, we learn everything about them straight away: they are a species of snake people who are just as intelligent as humans. They were dangerous and were therefore all locked away. And that's not a lie. It was exactly like that. We just got to know them from the human perspective.
Just the way Pythor is introduced to us straight away - someone who ate his own tribe. It's not said directly, but suggested by the skeletons and his grumbling stomach, which was very disturbing as a kid, what makes the feeling even stronger, that it was justified that they all were locked away.
Because yes, in the beginning, they are the bad ones. They want to awaken the Great Devourer to make humanity pay. Humans who can't help what happened in the past.
And at the end of Season 2, they get locked up again, and that should have been the end.
What I found quite fascinating in the rewatch as an adult is the fact that when Skales became leader and they captured Lloyd, he didn't really want to harm Lloyd. It doesn't seem like he has any thoughts of revenge. Skales more likes: "Now go away kid and don't come back. Stop taking advantage of us, we don't want that, leave us alone." He is annoyed by Lloyd, but doesn't think about hurting the child, but wants his people to be left in peace.
The Fangpyre are not immediately out for revenge either, but are willing to help the boy who freed them.
And one thing that I found really interesting is the end of season 2.
As a child, the Serpentines are the bad ones, without question, but the scene where the gate goes down threatens to lock all the snakes back in and Skales quickly snakes towards it and screams...in that moment, even as a child, I somehow felt pity for them.
And that would have been their final end. This was the end that was planned for them. They were the villains who are evil and got their karma.
In seasons 1 and 2 we experienced the story from the perspective of the humans.
Then comes season 3 and suddenly we learn that the Serpentine wanted to warn the humans about the golden master.
We see how they have come to terms with their situation and found peace and are starting families themselves. Have children on whom, it seems, they do not impose their hatred of humans.
That's when you really realize that not all Serpentine are fighters. They are partly normal people with families. And the fact that EVERYONE was locked away during the war suddenly becomes damnable. And in the end they even help to safe the humans. The people who locked them away for decades, even the ones, who doesn't even do something.
We learned that the snakes actually just wanted to help, were misunderstood, and the humans were actually the assholes. Which was very irritating to hear as a child.
We heard the story in this season from the viewpoint of the Serpentine.
Then comes season 4.
You can occasionally see Serpentine living with human's. Not much yet, but a start. Nevertheless, there are definitely still prejudices between each other. As seen with Sensei Garmadon, who cynically explains to Pythor that the snakes started the war back then. Despite the fact that the Serpentine helped last season, not everything is good. The past is still in the room, after all it is about war.And in the season we finally learn the truth of the story - that Serpentine and humans both wanted peace. That no one really started, but was manipulated. Nobody is right or wrong.
There was no good and evil.
It never was that easy.
That's why I find the fact that the Serpentine, should have ended like this in season 2 so...crazy.
From today's perspective, you can no longer imagine that.In the flashback of Wu's childhood, we also learn that the two species have always been very separate. They were not allowed to enter each other's lands. In season 1 there was a CHILDREN'S BOOK where the moral was to never trust a snake. Which seems subtle...racist from today's perspective.
Serpentines then became an integral part of society. They even wear clothes! XD Cole has a Hypnobrai daughter and we now have a Serpentine elemental master who Arin, a ninja, is friends with. And who even admires the ninja, the descendants of those who took away his ancestors' freedom. (No joke, I really hope that this topic will still come up with Spitz and Frak)
But it doesn't mean that everything is fine again, as if nothing ever happened. We still have Pythor, who knew his people wanted peace, and yet he spent 40 damn years underground and had to eat his own people to survive. He can't forgive and forget, which is...okay. He has a right to still be angry. Pythor is an asshole, but people were assholes to him too. There is no direct bad and good in the situation. The past doesn't just disappear just because you know the truth. Some have chosen to forgive, others cannot because the pain is too great. Pythor has a right to not forgive the humans for what their did.
That's what I find so fascinating - it's not like the Serpentine were any different when they're were introduced. We just barely knew anything about them. We hated them without barely knowing them. And only when we get to know more about them do we realize that they are no any different than us humans.
Humans and Serpentine got to know each other better and dropped their prejudices, and so found peace and learned to share the world in which they live together.
There was never any real redemption for the Serpentine. What we learned about them in Season 1 was never wrong, it just wasn't everything. We just looked at the story from a different perspective, which changed everything - damn I think that's awesome.
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