#bioniclereread

[autumnhobbit]

nokama + vakama codependency toxic yaoi but they're m/f & questionably romantic and this made more sense in my head but do you see my vision

[autumnhobbit]

okay this is kind of funny as an adult….what’s that? new baddies? and they all happen to be associated with the same elements as their toa and the names of their species start with the same letters/portions of their toa’s names? groundbreaking

[bioniscribbles]

Any time a Bionicle book starts with a Matoran in their ordinary life fending off outside attacks, I feel like I’m having a sort of homecoming.

[scobgoblin]

Can I just take this seemingly random moment in time to give a huge, grateful shoutout to @bioniscribbles and @cross-wired-freak? Providing the organization and resources necessary to facilitate the Bionicle reread that now feels like forever ago (we’ve had a TV SHOW since it ended!) was super rad of you guys, and writing my little/not-at-all-little blurbs on old Bonkle books was pretty much the best thing I could have done during that time period.

I’m gonna try not to get all long-windedly anecdotal here, but basically I was going through a good chunk of my old Bionicles tonight and it got me thinking. Almost a year ago, for whatever crazy combination of lousy reasons, those plastic robot-ish action figures were feeling like just that: plastic, lifeless, and pretty damn old and weathered in some cases. Early adult life can get to be pretty nomadic, and I’ve seen tons of people say the same as they try to bargain with eBay strangers to declutter their lives. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing what you’ve gotta do with your childhood toys, of course, (sad Toy Story 3 flashbacks intensify) but in the RPG of life I felt (and still feel) I’d put far too many skill points into Bionicles to ditch ‘em.

So now, almost a year later, I have even more Bionicles than I did then and not a single one has moved on to the lava farm out in the country where they’ll have plenty of room to run. That essentially makes me a hoarder and a poor saver of money, but I’ve continued to pull great joy from this feverish collection craze too, and two bloated paragraphs later, I’m finally saying that this Bonkle-fueled wild ride I’ve been on for the better part of 15 years is still as meaningful to me because of a brilliant idea like that reread. Messing around with posing Piraka, Rahaga, Barraki, Matoran, and way way more this evening made me realize that revisiting the stories behind so many cloned builds of different colours put all the life and character back into those plastic shells that I think was starting to get a tad lost for me.

The stories themselves aren’t by any means new, but a more recent refresher coupled with interactions among actual other human beings who like Bionicles definitely brought something new to all that dank-ass nostalgia. Absolutely thanks also to anyone who added to my eclectic analyses, got any form of entertainment out of them, or chatted with me about Bonkles in general. Thanks for understanding what’s normally an abstract, seemingly meaningless elephant in the room to most people I know in person, and definitely continue to IM me anytime you’ve got a hankering for expressing your biomechanical self.

(Because P.S: I’ve eaten all my words about 2016 Pohatu’s colour scheme now that I own him and I want to apologize to both him and anyone who I stubbornly kept calling him “lightbulb arms” to.)

[bioniscribbles]

Nuju grieving for Matoro is honestly one of the best scenes in Bionicle history.

[bioniscribbles]

Unreliable Narrator

 Bionicle is a story. Sounds obvious, but that’s how the franchise always defined itself. At the beginning of the films and many of the books, we are always invited to listen again to the legend of the Bionicle, to hear of grand tales from the time before time. Many of the most important characters are themselves storytellers, such as the original heart of the franchise, Takua, being given the role of chronicler, recording legends for us, the readers. The Turaga, meanwhile, the wisest characters of the earliest years, educate through storytelling. It’s no surprise that when the identity of a Great Being was revealed, it was Velika, yet another storyteller, speaking in nothing but riddles. Literary and oral tradition envelop Bionicle to such a degree that stories even form half the name itself. Bionicle, the biological chronicle. So when this framing device vanishes in the Legends series of books, the conspicuous absence is felt. But then, in Downfall, it returns in misleading fashion. The whole book is framed as a story told from chronicler to chronicler, but they have lost their power. There’s a new storyteller in charge of Bionicle who has finally revealed himself, and his name is Teridax.

His newfound power as a storyteller is suggested throughout this story arc. From the beginning, he is the one playing the Piraka, providing a villain for the Toa to confront on their quest. Manipulating the Piraka gains him nothing in the pursuit of the mask of life and really only hinders the Toa in completing the quest he has set for them, but that’s the point. A Bionicle story needs a villain, after all. This isn’t a new move for him, as similar moves were made with the Bohrok, the Kal, the Rahi, and the Rahkshi, providing delaying monsters to let the heroes think he’d won. But with the Piraka, Teridax goes a step further. He becomes the object trough which the story of the Piraka’s conquest is made possible, even possessing the supporting cast of Matoran. Teridax in doing this steps out of the shadows to fully assert his control over the narrative, the eventual goal of which is what every writer does: control a universe.

But it’s in Downfall, long after, that this really comes to light. Perhaps the clearest example is in his “reward” to Takadox for loyalty to the Brotherhood, a shameless display of his power of storytelling. He crafts an elaborate fantasy illusion of all Takadox’s dreams, presenting him as a powerful, handsome conqueror, beloved by his people, and then tearing it apart just because he can. He places Takadox, a character he loathes, into the most agonizing possible story because it’s fun, and because he can (as a writer, I sort of relate to that...). The Barraki aren’t threats to him, merely uninteresting characters he wishes to write out. Prior to Downfall, he didn’t even bother with them at all because they were just so uninteresting to him. And, this being Bionicle, this storytelling ability is tied back to the heart of the franchise. Teridax describes it as Takadox’s destiny, both an inevitable consequence of the story he’s telling and a redefining of the core virtues of the franchise. Teridax has, in essence, rewritten what the heart of Bionicle is.

And so we come to the elephant in the room for Downfall: Matoro. Teridax gives more care to Matoro’s character arc than any other, constantly prodding him to develop him to be the exact perfect hero to fulfill his sacrificial narrative. Teridax fashions Matoro into the christlike sacrificial savior through temptation and manipulation throughout the Mahri saga. Downfall is Teridax’s victory as a storyteller, pushing his detailed, carefully characterized creation into giving him total control of the narrative. In carefully driving Matoro to sacrifice himself to save the universe, he cements his ability to take control of the Mata Nui robot and become a god. Because, in essence, that’s what storytelling is. It’s ruling an entire universe through the power of words.

Teridax is a storyteller. His control of the narrative was inevitable, naturally segueing into his ascension into literal god. And he murdered Matoro because that was the sort of story he needed to tell. By successfully completing Matoro’s story, he masters them all.

[scobgoblin]

The (Actual) End

Journey’s End broke me. 

I have loved Bionicle for at least 3/4 of my life, and have spent the last 5 years, about a quarter of my life, believing that it ended the way too many commercially artistic endeavours end: quickly and haphazardly as deadlines were made sooner than expected and everyone struggled to pump out a conclusion before the metaphorical ship sank. A solid effort was put forth in the Mata Nui Saga that I did see, but between it and the abysmal Stars sets, I was at least a little disappointed.

Then, just today, people brought Journey’s End to my attention. I guess it was released online too, and I just never found it? Regardless, it’s Greg’s novelization of G1′s final chapter.

And it’s beautiful.

Lhikan’s sacrifice, Jaller’s sacrifice, Matoro’s sacrifice, they were all worth it. Mata Nui had to live, get past his mental handicap shared by so many Bionicle characters (amnesia), and beat the Great Being forsaken shit out of Makuta in a jaw-dropping giant robot throwdown in order to bring about a gorgeous new life for all our precious biomechanical buddies. He crashed a small planet into Makuta’s head; what a way to beat the big baddie once and for all!

It’s like Horton hears a Who if in a tragic twist of fate Horton was vaporized and his spirit went down to live with the whos. It’s like Star Wars if Darth Vader and the Emperor were 400 million feet tall. It’s like every wonderful element of every fictional world I’ve ever loved was transferred into the Mask of Life along with Mata Nui’s spirit in order to ensure that Bionicle’s end would resonate with me on a spiritual level. It’s.....by no means the greatest or most iconic work of fiction on a societal level......but it kinda is to me.

Even just the parts where it’s truly established how much Ackar and Kiina have grown to love Mata Nui are heart-wrenching. This isn’t the lowkey emotional depth of a straight-to-DVD movie, this is characterization of the best Bionicle kind. Bravo, Greg, you fandom-scapegoat-bastard, bravo.

To everyone on the story team who made Journey’s End, and Bionicle + its fandom exist: THANK YOU. You have this wandering chronicler feeling pretty great about his creative passions.

I hope you all feel this great about these buildable plastic kids’ toys. Craziness loves company.

[scobgoblin]

The End

Coming in just before 2015, the year of Bionicle love rekindled, can end, I’ve finished every G1 novel for this reread. And it ends on a movie novelization. Greeeeeeaaaaat.

All things considered, though, it does its best. There are attempts to tie this super duper kid-friendly movie back to the surprisingly dark and gritty events of Raid on Vulcanus, and questionable dialogue choices can be accompanied by Bionicle novel brand inner monologues. The gigantic leg/arm piece on that early Glatorian promo art finally makes sense, and that concept alone adds a real interesting player to the eventual final showdown.

Shame that the book, like the movie, ends on a cliffhanger made in hopes of getting to continue this tale in full, but did Bionicle years prior ever truly end with finality? Life goes on for seemingly-immortal cyborgs, after all. The true series ending came outside of novels or movies anyway, and maybe that was a safer decision overall. I doubt I could have accepted a campy movie to end it all off, personally. Even the Mata Nui narrated serials added enough conclusion for me to stomach the end of an era in my life.

Rushed and lacking a hole-less plot, the final chapter of the Bionicle saga may be, but is it not the happiest ending that G1 could have achieved? Makuta is finally struck from the world, for it can never have peace with him still in it, the MU inhabitants can discover new freedoms as residents of a normal planet instead of essentially sentient cells, and those who struggled to survive Bara Magna’s unforgiving conditions live to see their homeland filled with water and greenery once more. No story truly ends with “happily ever after literally forever,” but I think it’s an excellent place to leave our childhood heroes and friends.

So yeah, that’s it that’s all. I’m sure that this is in no way the last time I’ll reread these books, but for the time being I can focus on watching G2 come into its own. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I hope 2016 brings even more joy to this franchise and to all of you, Bionicle fandom. Thanks for....well, existing. It makes this nerd very very happy to be a part of all this.

Unity, duty, destiny, motherfuckers.