Spirit of a True Toa

The Klakk was certainly... A writing choice. But when you had Twilight Takanuva right there, after canonically venturing to other dimensions and meeting a light-aligned Teridax, it just feels so incorrect to do nothing with him.

Perhaps the story would go that the Shadow Matoran would claim that they have no more light and goodness left in them. But Takanuva uses the Avohkii in a way he never had before and finds that that's not true that you can't full get rid of a person's light. Or at least, you can't forcefully take away all of someone's light, to get rid of it completely would have to be that person's choice.

In that way, the effects of the Shadow Leech become a metaphor for forced trauma bringing out the darkest parts of people, and the empathy of Takanuva and the power of the Mask of Light being a metaphor for emotional healing. This is even thematically supported in canon, Takanuva, while almost losing himself to rage, claims that he is what they made him.

And perhaps most ironically, the fact that Takanuva is now half-light, half-shadow is what gives him the empathy to see this, but only if he can make peace with himself about his own dark-side that comes out. We could even go the route of having each cure be very personal for each Shadow Matoran, finding their personal light in personal ways.

And maybe this method of curing doesn't happen right away, but rather it begins the process and the full healing happens over time later. But it opens the Shadow Matoran up enough to at least that they'll still leave with the other Av-Matoran before the energy storms hit.

As far as I can tell, I don't think even the Matoran get paid for their main jobs. Sometimes they earn money from side hustles, but there's actually no evidence that wages even exist on Metru Nui. Probably related to the fact that not showing up to work is a minor crime.

Not only is this hilarious and I'm integrating it into my headcanon, I'm gonna take it further: after the Toa find out, they still decide to live in the woods and just give their houses to the Turaga.

And weirdly enough, there's actually slight evidence of this. In MNOG, we see the Turaga's houses, and they're pretty regular if slightly larger than average Matoran houses.

But then in MNOG II, after the Koro are rebuilt, the Turaga all suddenly have these MASSIVE houses with weirdly high ceilings.

As far as I can tell, I don't think even the Matoran get paid for their main jobs. Sometimes they earn money from side hustles, but there's actually no evidence that wages even exist on Metru Nui. Probably related to the fact that not showing up to work is a minor crime.

They didn't explore how Jax abstracted, but they did like a beautiful job exploring him after abstracting, but then that's it. A flash bang that just spawned in, him exploding into light, then "well worth through this together!" As they put him in a tent. What the fuck happened there 😭

The part with Cain was nice, but why did we not explore how he isn't deleted and just exiled? And what was him letting go of that blue orb in him which I presume is Abel? Like how did that benefit the story other than making him stable???

And then the actual ending. 10 second explanation of their life outside the circus. I'm like so confused, aren't they all hooked up to machines or something? Did Cain just download their subconscious/what he perceives them as from their social media post/articles and put it into his program? Damn I think that's actually what he did. He just made personas of each person meaning none of them are actually alive or real, just zeros and ones.

But what about the company?? What even are abstractions? IM LIKE SO CONFUSED.

Caine letting go of the blue orb was letting go of "Abel", the improved generative AI he absorbed that gave him additional power. Letting go didn't make him stable, but rather it symbolized him letting go of his need for control and letting go of his fear of abandonment. Now he can't force the circus people to do the things he wants the way he used to, he's not as powerful anymore.

Nowadays, people act like Super is somehow the "oNe TrUe CaNoN" continuation and all that matters anymore, even though there's two separate versions of Super that can't even jive with each other. What's more, that same "Super is everything" crowd also can't even decide which of those two versions is the more important or "canon-est" one — a few years back you'd more likely see claims that it's the anime, since it was the original product and the manga simply served to promote it, but now you'll see more claims that it's the manga, just because it's the only version left.

Which should all go to show just how much of a ridiculous and self-contradictory mess this whole topic is, and why any given person is better off just not buying into it. Just take the original manga as your starting point and go in whatever direction you prefer from there.

The concept of canon is actually really important when doing critical analysis, part of which depends on understanding the choices being made, what they represent from a creative perspective, and what they lend to the story. It's important to be able to identify what was part of the creator's original vision, what the creator came up with years later and bolted on after the fact, what was added by other creatives, what was interpreted by other creatives, etc.

To draw a fairly extreme example, let's talk about Bulma's ki-sensing abilities.

My skinny scientist guy of choice

With the new Harry Potter series she will be making a reported $20 million per-season renewal + other performance dependent royalties. She has been open across multiple interviews regarding her intentions to use said funds to push forth even more trans targeted legislation in the years to come.

This isn’t a “she gets paid no matter what” situation. The more eyeballs on this show the more money she has to actively harm vulnerable communities. By engaging with it you are directly supporting this and otherwise making a conscious choice to consume HP over doing the literal very least possible to not destroy the lives of trans people across the world.

If my stating the objective facts above upsets you then feel free to unfriend and move along. Your nostalgia-goggles feelings for a tired, problematic franchise mean nothing to me compared to the welfare of my trans friends and loved ones."

If you care more about badly written children's books and imaginary wizards more than you do about real people in the real world do it far the fuck away from me.

Don't try to be in my life.