One of my ninjago lukewarm takes is that I am not a huge fan of either Seabound angst or Monstrosity angst, and I've realized each of these are because of one main reason. I don't see these plotlines as instances of further trauma that the characters have to endure and suffer through, but rather as the final test of their character development, the final testament to their values and principles, which, in my narrative book, they should pass.
Monstrosity isn't Kai being alone and hurt and going through unspeakable horrors just because; it's a reaffirmation of his strengths as a person, of how his love for his family will push him to choose good instead of bad, of how he'll refuse to succumb to either power or pain, despite how tempting they each might seem. And he succeeds. He gets out, he comes back to his family, he makes the choice not to turn into a power-hungry monster and not to jump into a lake of ghost faces, because seeing them again is more important.
Seabound is not the tragedy of Nya losing herself, the tale of Nya dying and being grieved by her family and her lover; it is the story of Nya finally finding herself, finally making peace with an element she once resented, making peace with her mother and her family's heritage, being able to choose for herself for the first time in her life what she wants to do and who she wants to save. It's Nya getting to choose power and love, after a lifetime of being denied the first and being pushed into the second. I don't see her being OP in the finale as poor writing, I see it as poetic justice after so many times of people holding her back, of the story refusing her to be powerful, and I wish she'd been allowed to stay in some way Merged to the sea without it being framed as her losing her humanity and agency once. Fucking. More.
This isn't to say I don't like to play with the angst potential of both of these storylines, cause you're still gonna see me writing Kai having a panic attack at the sight of a centipede and Nya needing to be brought back from a nightmare where she feels she's drowning. I'm also not rejecting the body horror of bug!Kai or merged!Nya, nor am I criticizing these kinds of fanfics in any way, cause I've seen some really beautiful stuff written about it. I've read fanfics that talk about these concepts in ways that I've loved, so this doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.
I just don't personally find it all that compelling in the big narrative picture to put these characters through yet another purely traumatic experience when: a) they each have a bunch of those already that you can exploit and b) it just generally seems more narratively satisfying to their arcs. These are points very near the end of the first show. I'm now more interested in seeing them as fully formed people and fully developed characters rather than putting them through a different flavor of hell just for the sake of it.
I like angst. I've seen some great works related to it on this specific topic. But if I'm thinking about my own takes of the characters, the ones I incorporate to my writing, I've seen these two suffering way too many times. It just seems a little overkill when I keep doing it by seasons 14-16. In my own writing, I wanna see them doing something different. I want to see Kai overcoming the monsters instead of being haunted by them. I want to see Nya feeling powerful and happy with her powers instead of being grieven. I want to see everything that came before be meaningful, I want to have some catharsis, I want they to finally get the satisfied ending that they have earned.
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