New follower here! Are you planning to rewrite the outland tribes (The scorpions, spiders and bats) at some point? They’re my favorite villains of the series and it really disappointed me that the show did nothing with them after the second season, especially after they were quickly replaced by the Ice Hunters, I also feel like King Scorm especially had a lot of wasted potential as a character and as a villain, the writers literally gave him an existential crisis after Laval willingly gave him a Chi orb out of kindness and then they just do nothing with his character after that, not to mention that Scorm literally gave a whole ass speech about if him and his people had never gained sentients like the rest of the animals, they would’ve never gained the capacity to understand defeat and loneliness.
I also feel like it was a huge miss opportunity to give the crawlers a redemption arc, because I feel like a theme about redemption would have fitted perfectly with the theme of Chima.
Hi!!!! Welcome to whatever this blog is, and to answer your question, yes, I do plan on taking a look at the Crawlers! I don't have very in depth ideas for them yet but I do have some rough concepts that I am currently playing around with.
I'm absolutely thrilled that you mentioned the thought of redemption because season 2 has very heavy redemption theme going on in my rewrite! One of the main things I'm planning for my rewrite is to have each of the 3 seasons focus on Laval, Cragger or Eris. The show kind of did this but it usually dropped it mid season to go back to focusing solely on Laval. Similar to how the Ninjago fandom refers to things as a "Jay season" or "Cole season", Season 1 will be a Laval season, Season 2 a Cragger season and Season 3 being an Eris season. Of course other characters will still be explored within these seasons and each of the characters development doesn't stop as soon as the season is over but that season will primarily focus on them.
So Season 2 focuses a lot on Cragger and him wanting to redeem himself after Season 1 during their quest into the outlands. (in my rewrite the persuader plant is not used, so Cragger has much more agency in his actions) This all builds up to a scene towards the end of the season. You may remember the moment in the show where Laval hands Scorm an orb of chi as "its the right thing to do." I always felt like this could have been MUCH more impactful coming from Cragger, perhaps showing how far he's come from his chi hoarding days. Now he is the one sharing Chi to others. There's other possible connections I can make with this interaction and Craggers motivation in my rewrite of season 1 but I think I will delve into that another time as i don't want this turing into a Cragger lore dump Lmao
Scorm's existential speech also gives me a lot to chew on, and I want it to be a more prominent thing throughout the Crawlerss entire screentime rather than something that's brought up right at the end. And so I think I'll tie it into their motivation for stealing the Chi. The Crawlers are in a completely alien situation. Their bodies have dramatically changed and they've woken up in the hostile outlands without any time to prepare. It would be reasonable to be terrified. All they know is that the Chi gave them this power, the Chi can help them. So they seek it out the only thing that feels familiar to them in their new lives. I always find fear to be such interesting motivations for villains, especially when that fear causes them to lash out and appear scary themselves. I also think it would be good to switch it up from the usual "evil tribe ambitious for power" motivation that kind of drags through all the seasons. The Crawlers can still be scary, but that fear they have can give Cragger something to relate to when he hands Scorm that Chi. He understands what its like to feel like nothing without the chi; he believes in the show (which i focus on a lot more heavily in my rewrite) that he could have saved his parents from the gorge if he was given some Chi. However at this point in his arc he understands that that over reliance and obsession with Chi isnt healthy, and is a leason he can pass onto the Crawlers. Wth great power comes great responsibility type stuff.
Cragger's redemption triggering the Crawlers redemption is something I definitely want to do, but they can't exactly bring 3 whole new tribes back to mainland Chima. Where would they go? Would citizens of Chima even trust them? The Crawlers do stay behind in the Outlands, now more experienced and better adapted to live in the harsh climate, and they focus on building a proper structure for their tribes to make them stronger as they were rather dysfunctional in season 2, often arguing amongst themselves. From here the revival of the Ice Hunters can take place, just a bit differently. While excavating a quarry/cave for building a city for themselves, the Crawlers come across the frozen hunters and discuss what to do. Feeling inspired by Cragger's message and making the connection of how the Chi once gave the Crawlers themselves new life, Scorm purposefully plugs Chi into Sir Fangar's to see if it might help him. Unfortunately, the Hunters don't reciprocate this kindness, overpowering and capturing the Crawlers as trophies just as they did in the show. They're later rescued when the trophy room melts however they don't attack the heros and rather help them defend against the Hunters. I think this is a good conflict for Scorm to over come in his arc as he obviously wouldn't be happy about his kindness being taken advantage of and leaving the Crawlers vunerable, the exact thing he feared in the beginning. I don't know how exactly this plays out yet but i think its a good place to start.
I believe those are all the thoughts I've had on the Crawlers so far. Alot of stuff to fill in still!! And a lot of it also still concepts. Stuff could very well change in the future, but for now, these are my ideas for them :3
