So I don't think about Bionicle 2009 much, to the point that when I responded to @herora-nuva's poll about whether romance exists with a big long ramble, just before the publication of their excellent video on the topic, I... completely forgot that 2009-10 had two canonical romance elements in it. In my defence, I was more focused on my screed about it being a definitive element in 2001-2005, whereas 2009 having romance be canon was settled fact 17 years ago, but still.
To me, 2009 was a weird year for Bionicle. It had (joints notwithstanding) one of the best toy ranges of the entire saga, the 09 figures and vehicles are fuckin' great. But the story... was lacking, and the more time passes, the more convinced I become that leaving the Matoran Universe so close to the end was a bad idea. It would've been better to tell a single, complete story of the Matoran than rush out the origins of Mata Nui and confine Teridax's reign to a single, very unfocused serial.
However, there is one consistent, coherent thought I have about the 2009 we got: Life Counters should've been diegetic.
The 2009 sets (or at least, the canister-size-and-up ones) all have these parts in them that exist for a Glatorian Battle Game or whatever they called it. I don't remember the exact rules but I think the idea was that you shot Thornax at the other player's life counter until it hit 0 (or Skull, as it were) and then they were out.
In-story these don't exist, they're present in the comics, but never addressed, even when they do awkward things to a character's design like give the Skrall and Vorox a weird growth on their left foot, and The Legend Reborn simply depicted them as back detail.
But personally, I think it would've been an interesting element to the story if the Life Counter was something that canonically existed.
I'm envisioning a more dystopian take on Bara Magna, as opposed to a kinda boring desert where the villages occasionally send their best wrestler to fight for magic water rocks. I heard the other day that, apparently, the white sets for 2009 were initially conceived of as being the Bone Hunters, with their white colouration being, well, bone rather than ice, something that seemingly ended when the set designers made all those sick ice parts. But that was the first time that I really thought about how weird it is that the setup for Bara Magna is that it's a huge desert with no resources, but also there's an ice village. And a water village. And a plant village. Like, Lego picked the desert year to switch the green guys to being plant-themed.
In this case, the resources would be present. The desert is artificially made much worse than it would otherwise be, the scarcity is created by the Skrall. Tuma already won before Mata Nui even arrives, and keeps the villages he now lords over poor and weak by extracting all their resources through brutal tithes and then making them fight for it. The battles also weaken the villages' ability to unite against the Skrall by giving them reasons to be mad at each other. Iconox needed that water, but Malum beat Strakk, and Tajun is mad at them both because it was their water to begin with. The arena matches are also a form of entertaining sport for the Skrall ruling class.
And that's where the canon Life Counter comes in: People, be they Glatorian, Skrall, Vorox, or even Agori that fight in Bara Magna's arenas are fitted with a device on their back or foot, and it ticks down by one every time they take a strong hit. When it hits zero, the device electrocutes the wearer and paralyses them, ending the fight.
This makes the battles more tense for the audience, especially when a fighter only has one or two hits left they can take before they're down.
The Skrall also feign participation in the system, creating the illusion that they're more fair than they're actually being. Because the Glatorian representing the villages are few in number, and they're all either battered, tired veterans like Ackar, who survived the Skrall War by the skin of his teeth, or rookies like Gresh, who is inexperienced and new to the whole thing. Meanwhile, Tuma sends his best warriors to represent the Skrall in the arena, ensuring that they always win, which additionally helps to keep the populace demoralised: Nobody has ever beaten a Skrall in the arena before, it makes them look invincible. And that's why Gresh being willing try and nearly succeeding in the first on-screen arena match of the arc matters so much. He didn't win, but for the first time, there's a crack in the Skrall's aura of invincibility, and the arrival of Mata Nui will tear that wide open.
But what then of Tuma? Because all of the 2009 sets had Life Counters, including Tuma. Well, that's easy. Tuma is basically Commodus.
I wager that most people are only familiar with Commodus from the movie Gladiator, but the movie isn't the most historically faithful. Absolute banger, but not accurate in the least. But one thing it was in the ballpark with is that Commodus did fight in the arena, and he didn't fight fair.
Commodus loved gladiator games, and later in his reign, as he became increasingly egotistical and megalomaniacal, he took to participating. Initially he armoured himself as a Secutor, a type of gladiator who fought with a helmet, partial armour, a sword, and a heavy shield, before later starting to dress up as Hercules (which is the correct spelling for once, since we're talking about a Roman). Per the writings of Herodian, this was generally frowned upon. A lot of gladiators started their careers as slaves, prisoners of war, or criminals (though the idea that they were all slaves for their entire career in the arena is an exaggeration). Fighting in the arena was seen as beneath the Emperor, and Commodus was viewed as besmirching the office of the Emperor for fighting in the arena.
"Fighting" however, may have been a bit generous to Commodus. According to Cassius Dio, Commodus ordered that the people on the streets who'd lost their feet due to injury or disease be brought into the arena, where they were tied together. Commodus would then march around in his Hercules costume and pretend they were giants while killing them with a club. In fact (according to Dio), Commodus was known for exclusively using deadly weapons and fighting to kill, which wasn't common for gladiators. Despite the pop culture image of gladiators fighting to the bloody death, it wasn't especially common for battles to end that way. Gladiators were both popular and expensive, killing them would've been fiscally irresponsible.
And this, then, is what I'm drawing on for Tuma. Because Tuma does fight in the arena. And Tuma does wear a Life Counter. But he has two. In addition to his gigantic, powerful body and unreasonably large sword, he also gives himself twice the "HP" of anyone trying to step to him, or rather, anyone unfortunate enough for Tuma to decide he wants to kill them in front of an audience.
This also kinda allows me to marry up the Tuma of the written material, who is a more calculating figure, with the posturing blowhard he was in TLR. Yes, he is normally a cold and calculated schemer, but he hams it up in front of an audience.
And if the titan Mata Nui set is worked into the narrative, perhaps as a transformation Mata Nui takes on during the final battle, well, that set also has two Life Counters. Meaning that, for the first time, Tuma is in a fair fight.
In this context, 2009 represents the Matoran Universe's situation, writ small. The Glatorian are few in number, much like how there's only forty Toa left. Tuma, like the Shadowed One before him, is Teridax in miniature, a grandstanding mad tyrant who has already won, but insists on continuing his cruelty because it amuses him, even to the point that it becomes counterproductive. And the key to beating him in the end is Unity, the first of the Three Virtues that Mata Nui (allegedly) imparted to the Matoran, just like it has been so many times previously. Well, Unity and a Toa with a god-mask giving everybody cool new powers. But it is a microcosm of what Mata Nui will have to do to save his people from Teridax's grip.
