#ninjago rant

lloyd, you have green energy itself, but somehow you cant get out of ropes from being tied up?

kai, you have the ability to quite literally give someone 3rd degree burns on their entire body yet you decide to fist fight 30 criminals.

what about spinjitsu or tornado of creation. WHERE DID THAT GO. THEY DO NOT USE SPINJITSU ENOUGH.

This is not really Morro though is it?

Don't get me wrong, Morro is a skilled fighter and knows how to use his element to the fullest - Eupharasia has a LOT of catching up to do - but the only reason he ever bested Lloyd was because he was a ghost and Lloyd had no way to fight that at the time.

It had nothing to do with being a more skilled ninja.

And the only reason he beat the other four ninja was because they couldn't use their elements and because they would be hurting Lloyd in the process - and it's not like they didn't come close to beating him multiple times.

Especially Kai.

It's really easy to say you're the best ninja when you're the only one with swords so to speak.

Also that awful take where people say Morro's skills come from hard work while Lloyd's come from talent?

Lloyd was never a talented fighter, Lloyd sucked at being a ninja and he sucked at using the elements of creation.

Whereas Morro was great at using his element from before he even became a ninja.

Who's really the talented one of the two?

(look at this entitled little stinker, buy him all the toys or he'll screech your ear off)

Anyway I love to hate him as a villain, and I hope we get to see him in Dragons Rising again, hopefully meeting og ninja, not just Arin this time.

And I hope we get a very VERY reluctant team up.

The Ninja play video games and you mean to tell me they never thought about replicating a move from the video games they play with their elemental powers.

I mean Kai could try to shoot fire from his feet. Or he could seal wounds with fire. Or even make animals out of fire

We’ve seen Lloyd summon a motorcycle so why doesn’t he try something else. Why doesn’t he try to make a dome like shield with his powers . Or form his powers into disks

Zane could trap enemies in ice or make the ground slippery to trip enemies like he did in one episode. Or he could make ramps.

Nya could try water wings ( like lapis lazuli) or try blood bending. She could try some water bending moves.

Cole could try making pillars of earth by using his feet. Or idk making actual earthquakes. Let’s not forget that he could literally manipulate the ground he walks on into a hoverboard

Jay idk besides powering up technology and being a human defibrillator. Or a human lighting rod.

I know the elements themselves are strong. We all know they’re capable of doing it but they don’t try. The possibilities are endless

So I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out! This isn’t just your typical Ninjakitty6252 P.I.X.A.L glazing rant. So although Lloyd is the primary sensei who is in charge and oversees the training of all of the ninja in training, most of the trainees have been assigned mentors.

Kai is Wyldfire’s mentor

Cole is Frak’s mentor

Rontu has even stepped up to help train Riyu.

But Lloyd seems to be the mentor for both Sora and Arin. And this might just be my inner warrior cats child talking, but if there are 3 other ninja and 1 samurai who don’t yet have apprentices then why give Lloyd two?

Another problem is that Lloyd is training Sora and Arin in a very similar way to how Wu trained him. And that works for Sora but not for Arin. Not everyone learns the same way and that’s okay. So we keep Lloyd mentoring Sora and reassign Arin.

We have 4 candidates for Arin’s new mentor: Nya, Zane, Jay, and P.I.X.A.L.

Jay? Probably not the best idea. Jay only just got his memories back and still doesn’t have them all back yet. Not to mention that his goodness has been shattered. Jay isn’t in the right state of mind to be training a child to fight. So that leaves Nya, Zane, and P.I.X.A.L

Nya? She is in the right state of mind, but I feel like her anger issues and fear of failure wouldn’t make her the best candidate for Arin. Plus she just got Jay back and deserves time to enjoy his company, give her and Jay a little break. That leaves everyone’s favorite Nindroid power couple, Zane and P.I.X.A.L

Zane? I could see it. He’s very patient and shows great interest towards Arin’s unique Spinjitzu. However I believe P.I.X.A.L is more qualified for this specific situation. Also, I feel like Zane would be likely to fall back on Wu’s training methods which didn’t work for Arin. That leaves P.I.X.A.L.

“But P.I.X.A.L is a samurai! She can’t train a ninja!”

WRONG!

Yes, P.I.X.A.L is a samurai and not a ninja, however she is a Nindroid! And Nindroids are androids who possess ninja-like abilities! Meaning P.I.X.A.L has ninja skills! We see her keeping up with the ninja on missions with perfect stealth as well. And her not knowing Spinjitzu wouldn’t be a problem because Arin doesn’t have traditional Spinjitzu. And if she needs help she can ask the other ninja, Zane would gladly help his wife.

Although the ninja forgave Arin for going with Raz in a desperate attempt to try and find his parents. Arin is still a child, he was scared and only wanted his parents back, you can’t blame him. But Arin might feel a little awkward around the ninja. We also know that P.I.X.A.L is good with kids because of the massive amount of daughters she has.

But my main point? They both have no elemental powers.

One of Arin’s big insecurities is his lack of an element. So who better to train him than P.I.X.A.L?

P.I.X.A.L was also concerned about herself being a useful member of the team. She wanted freedom from Zane’s head, but was worried that she might have been more useful inside of his head or in the Bounty’s computer.

Also both P.I.X.A.L and Arin have a valid reason to be upset with Wu.

Wu caused the Merge and caused Arin to temporarily lose his parents, which ultimately led to Raz seizing the opportunity to groom Arin into joining his side.

And although the show doesn’t show it, P.I.X.A.L has every reason to be resentful towards Wu. Wu KNEW that the ninja were going to Aspheera’s temple but chose not to warn them! Indirectly leading to the Ice Emperor. We know from the Quest for the Lost Powers book that Zane is traumatized and haunted by what he did as the Ice Emperor. P.I.X.A.L no doubt is the one Zane leans on the most for comfort. P.I.X.A.L knows the long term consequences of Wu’s actions. Not to mention one of the members of the Council of the Crystal King who killed all but one of the MiniPix was Aspheera! On top of that, watching the love of your life die over and over again while fighting enemies that Wu knew about but chose not to warn them about until the last second has got to have taken a toll on P.I.X.A.L’s mental health. P.I.X.A.L may have been keeping the peace for the ninja’s sake, but now that that Wu is seemingly dead, P.I.X.A.L could feel free to voice her opinions.

P.I.X.A.L is the PERFECT mentor for Arin! And if adding Euphrasia to the team is the direction the writers are going, then they can have Zane mentor Euphrasia which could help set up Arin and Euphrasia’s relationship! Two birds with one stone!

And that is why I think that Lloyd should step down from mentoring Arin and hand that responsibility over to P.I.X.A.L instead.

but if you’ve noticed, Wyld has only ever had MAINLY male figures in her life (unless you count Nya, but they’ve never seemed particularly close. They only ever REALLY bonded/interacted when Kai was in Nether-Space). She’s only ever really had Heatwave and Kai.

so maybe Wyld doesn’t know how to have a mom?? And it’s especially weird because Skylor is more level-headed and a calming personality, and sometimes Wyld doesn’t know how to react to people like that, except be MORE EXPLOSIVE

Oh god this makes me so physically unwell/very pos. I love them so much I want to see their dynamic so bad. I want Wyld so have a mom and dad and a family that she can feel safe around

Something I will never get over is how I'm just supposed to accept the fact that while Kai was almost quite literally going through hell trying to get back to his family, Nya was searching all over the merged lands trying to find the others, Jay had lost his memories and didn't even know who he was, Zane and Pixal were shut down and shoved into capsules, and Lloyd was completely alone stuck at the monastery trying to keep his city safe while also fixing the merge quakes single handedly while waiting for somebody to find him, Cole just...decided not to come back.

And before you go off about him 'needing to stay to protect the Finders', no he didn't. Along with Cole suddenly appearing to not even care that much about the other ninja at all, making it so that a literal pile of trash had been overpowering him for years just doesn't make any sense and I completely chalk that up to bad writing. Plus, do we even know when the Hoarder started attacking? Was it before or after Cole got there? Cause if it was before, then that means the Finders had already been defending themselves, and didn't actually "need" Cole at all. If it was after, then that means Cole would have stuck around a while before it showed up, which, like I said, doesn't make sense because why wouldn't he be looking for the others as soon as possible?

It's just...so obvious that they didn't know what to do with him so they just stuck him in a junk yard and threw in some lame excuses as to why he wouldn't leave. It wasn't even that he couldn't leave, he was perfectly capable of walking out if he wanted to. Really, all the writers had to do was say he was stuck there like the rest of them and it would have made the whole situation 45% better because then at least there would have been a legit reason, but no.

And I'm just supposed to accept all of that as if it's not the most diabolical mischaracterization of Cole since...well, since ever because I can't think of another time he was so blatantly not Cole.

I could keep going about how Cole's Finders arc was a terrible idea character and story wise and was just so completely unnecessary (I do in another rant in my drafts) but honestly though, my biggest gripe against all this is, like this post started off with, just how much it shows the other ninja have suffered compared to Cole, and how it's not hardly addressed at all in the fandom (expect for a few memes I've seen of people joking about this very thing).