#sharkanalysis

Personally, I think it's to make up for his element. Lightning is an incredibly powerful element that is likely very difficult to control. He probably doesn't WANT to use it much outside of his usual shocks and power outages. Unlike Lloyd, he doesnt need that much power because he's usually not fighting The Big Bad.

So he makes up for it with variety. With hand to hand combat, agility, speed, adaptability of weapons.

I mean, just look at all of them.

(And dont get me STARTED on how insane it is that he reguarly uses kusarigamas. That's RIDICULOUSLY DIFFICULT TO MASTER. I think this guy needs a ton of respect just for using chained weapons.)

But the coolest thing, to me at least, is that it looks like he specifically trained in the other ninjas weapons. (Maybe the others did too? But i dont really see it as much with them.)

This scene in crystallized is what got me.

Cole literally just threw his weapon to Jay, trusting him to know how to use it. And Jay kicks butt.

I wonder if a little 15 yo Jay trained in the training yard for hours, frustratedly hacking at something with a katana, then training with a hammer, switching to a spear, then to a bostaff, then to sai, and just keeps going and going until he's comfortable with all of them. He cant be the weak man on the team. If his power isnt going to cut it, then he needs to master weapons. Master combat. He wont be the weak link. He refuses to.

Doc Wyatt said, in response to someone saying “glad to know Jay can just send someone to the hospital”, that Jay “pulls his punches when needed.”

If Jay doesnt know the ninja. If he percieves them as a threat. Will he pull his punches?

Or will Kai suddenly realize how insanely powerful the lightning ninja is.

Will Nya realize how many kill or he killed instincts the pirates in s6 gave him.

Will Zane realize how cold and calculating Jay can be.

Will Lloyd get scared because his older brother is looking at him with cold hatred.

Will Cole cry because his best friend is trying to hurt them. To kill them.

Will they all realize that Jay is no longer a ninja, but a threat, an enemy.

And when one of them becomes an enemy, they cant afford to have mercy. Because a creation element sided with hate is too powerful to exist.

And it's just super cool to me because it's sorta hinted throughout the seasons that the ninja think of certain villains as below them. Like uhh i forgot who but didn't kai or someone call the Mechanic a "third tier" villain in season 6, whereas nadakhan was first tier.

And it could be associated with arrogance but honestly? I just think the ninja know their jobs. Their jobs are to basically keep ninjago together and the citizens alive. Anyone that is a major threat can be handled by them, whereas anyone less than them will be handled by the police force.

But the thing is, the ninja LOVE fighting! They spar all the time, of course to keep their stamina up, but also because they find it fun! Cole was ITCHING to fight for half of the older seasons, and Kai always rushes into them. Even Jay seems to have fun with them. It makes sense that they would see low-level villains that they can easily beat as a game, as something amusing. And yes, there's probably an ego boost in there. Like "lol look at that guy that i just beat in 0.5 seconds while the police are struggling for a day to find and arrest him."

So I honestly just see Lloyd in Dragons Rising as having fun. Low level thugs like the guards in Imperium that he can just flaunt his skills to and maybe add a few flourishes to the fight that he'd never be able to use in a real fight...maybe a little flip that Jay had taught him, or a special spin that Kai showed him. And when he's fighting Wyldfire he's just!! Amused!!!

Ther''s also probably an added "PLEASE these ppl think they can beat ME?" to the mix. Again, it might look like arrogance...but think about this. It's deserved arrogance. Lloyd has literally beaten the master of evil itself. Twice. And here's this 15 year old Kai equivilant raving about killing him. It must be really amusing to him. He is very skilled, professional, and powerful. He knows his worth. Humility is hard to have when you were forced to carry the burden of the world at 9 years old.

guys Built To Protect plays when Jay recharges the ship.

guys.

I know that sounds weird. But listen. The ninja aren't the main characters anymore! Wanna know who the main characters are? Arin and Sora. Two 15 year olds. Two kids, one of which was raised learning about the ninja and how cool they are.

And the thing is, they are cool! But in the older seasons, the ones focused on the ninja themselves, we focus on the flaws (because the whole point of their seasons are character development.) We don't see them as cool as they are because the narration is from their point of view. Everything that they do is just day-to-day stuff. And, honestly, we get desensitized to all the things we'd normally think is cool because to them its normal!

I think my first epiphany of this was back in season 2 i think when Jay, who is generally perceived to be the weakest of the ninja, easily judo flips Darreth like its nothing, and we know that guy isn't the lightest of people. I saw that and went "huh." because if it wasn't him interacting with a normal citizen i wouldnt think anything of it. If it was him sparring with lloyd or something id be like "yeah whatever ninja do that." but it wasnt until i saw it from outside the ninja's perspective that it really made me think wow these kids are cool.

And thats exactly what dragons rising is doing. Arin is the main character. Our narrative point of view is coming from his eyes. We focus less on the ninja's flaws and more on what makes them awesome. We are looking at them through an inexperienced, child based, point of view. When seeing Lloyd do fancy sword maneuvers would have been normal because pshaw everyone does that is now really cool because wow you dont see that every day.

Dragons Rising allows us to go huh. These are ninjas that have been training and fighting for more than 10 years together. They are really freaking COOL for that.

I don't have much time for art sO i offer to you an ANALYSIS/HEADCANON POST.

Sharkanalysis is ONCE AGAIN back.

Today we are talking about ....Skybound Jay. I know this has been a topic that has been going around a lot the past few months for some reason but im in constant brainrot about it. (This also delves into the other seasons too) But I'm mainly talking about how Jay's response to trauma changes after Skybound.

In Skybound this is VERY evident with how he completely hides what happened to him on the ship. Usually Jay would infodump about what he went through but he just keeps it to himself. He just tells Cole, when he is found, that he was forced to "clean a lot." And avoided talking about his eyepatch. And when he had to explain why he couldnt summon his dragon, again he said it was because he was "too tired." When in reality, we know he was tortured a LOT.

And if you think about it, even though Nya remembers Skybound she still doesnt know what happened on the ship. Canonically, we never see Jay explaining it to her.

He literally keeps it all to himself. Which is such an interesting coping mechanism since he's so known for "panicking" and 'hiding behind his team."

You can really see Nadakhan's effects on him. He goes from stupid panicking where he's screaming and running behind his team in the earlier seasons to full on mental breakdowns like in Hunted and Crystallized where he pretty much becomes so unstable he cant function normally. Where he either isolates himself or loses hope in life.

And judging by his expressions, it's affecting him. It hurts and exhausts him.

And in season 6 and season 8 we see how dealing with direct bolts of lightning affects him. In season 6, he screams when it hits him.

And in season 8, he gets physically exhausted for a moment after redirecting.

At least from what I have seen, this is very different from the other ninja, who seem to be able to control their elements-for the most part-at different intensities without it affecting them. (Aside from Lloyd.)

Which just brings me to the point that I personally believe that Jay's power is the most powerful of the creation elements. He doesn't use it to its full potential (and KO enemies, like he could) because, while he can handle like 900 million volts (in season 6 he's struck by like 3 direct bolts of lightning, and survives), that doesn't mean he will be combat ready after that.

This might also be why Wu brought him into the team early (with Cole). He probably needed a lot more training on pain tolerance, keeping the mind and body calm, and probably lots of other endurance training. (Which is indirectly canon with how well he was able to handle Nadakhan's mental and physical torture vs the other ninja.) His power is so unpredictable, and so his training must have been very rough when he first got his powers, which is once again supported by the canon as both Nya and Lloyd talk about how he destroyed the South(?) Wing of the Monastery with an electrical fire while practicing his powers. Wu probably had to focus on his control a lot more than with the other ninja (probably like how he had to with Nya, if you think about it. Lightning and Water are both hard to control, so concentration would be key to learn for both of them, which is ironic with Jay's fanon ADHD).

Point is, Jay is super cool and so underrated sometimes. I really think it'd be cool if the show went more into how their powers affected them! Though speculation is also fun.