Okay does anyone else see how these two scenes parallel each other? Or how they contrast? Like, the first scene where the two lay eyes on each other is obviously set up as a "love at first sight" thingy majig the show likes to do but ALSO Lloyd and Harumi are wearing masks. The scene in S8 ep1 isn't Lloyd and Harumi, it's the Green Ninja and the Jade Princess. We have the hero and the princess, just titles, just masks. The show kinda plays into that too like sure Lloyd had an interest in Harumi but it's clear it didn't develop into an active crush until the "walking by the docks and feeding poor kids" scene, where the two are talking about masks and identity. My point is, Lloyd and Harumi's first scene in S8 isn't truly them; it's them with masks, which contrasts their final scene in S9.

S9, when Harumi is about to die, she's not just the Quiet One. When she runs away from Garmadon, the delusion broke. It hits her full force that Garmadon isn't some paternal protector who will save her, he only cares about destruction, he only cares about destroying Lloyd. So she runs because her delusion broke and she thinks she's about to die. And then Harumi breaks even further when she sees a family, a little boy, about to go through the same thing she did, except she's the monster here. She's the one who caused this, but she's also the only one here. The ninja aren't here to save this family, but she is, so she does and dooms herself. So the cruel sadistic and anti social mask of the Quiet One broke. We have Harumi at her core, an orphaned girl who is capable of great cruelty but also kindness. And then Harumi's on that rooftop, and she's about to die, noone can save her, and she sees Lloyd. Lloyd who isn't there to save her, who wasn't there to save the family Harumi just sacrificed herself for, because he's busy dealing with Garmadon. He's not there because he needs to save the masses, not one person. And I think at that point, Harumi understood. She's staring at Lloyd, not the Green Ninja, not the Son of Garmadon, just a person who, even when normal, fought tooth and nail for this city, for it's people, and for what he believed to be the right thing. She understood then why the ninja couldn't save her or her family. This scene is when Harumi saw Lloyd fully, as himself, not just scattered identities, not just labels, but as a full person, faults and all.

And this scene in S9 is also when Lloyd sees Harumi fully for who she is. Throughout season 9 and 8, Lloyd had tried to see Harumi as no one else other than the Quiet One. Like, he genuinely tried to chalk her up as just another villain. I don't think he really truly thought of her as just a villain, but I do think he really tried to see her as nothing more because it's easy to fight an irredeemable villain, it's difficult to fight a sympathetic villain. But Lloyd saw Harumi when she was about to die. He doesn't know what happened or how she got there, all Lloyd sees is a traumatized orphan who was alone. He sees a girl about to be killed by the very man she had faith in. He knows she's afraid to die. He knows he can't save her. This is a girl who, in his opinion, he failed years ago, and he's about to fail her again. She's his biggest failure.