#two of them technically

themes of abandonment and found family and breaking cycles and loss and grief and realizing that having emotions is okay and that bettering yourself as a person upon realizing than you're more than your generational trauma and just overall that learning and growing from past mistakes is normal just...

Run rampant, in Ninjago?

Cuz like,

I sure fucking do-

Like-

Lloyd is the obvious example, right? He tried to continue Garmadon's legacy as an evil and deeply feared dark prince of pure evil and it just didn't work out. Instead, he broke that cycle. He created a place for himself in a dysfunctional family of other runaways and orphans and ambitious children who set out to be more than they were told they could be, found a strange team of people who all cared in their own unique ways, and ended up being exactly the opposite of everything he thought he was destined to be

Which comes with it's own problems. Cut to later, closer to the end of the series, and by then you've gotten to a point where most, if not all of Lloyd's traumas are from misdirected anger and violence, actions based in blind rage and seeking vengeance as closure. Lloyd's worst fear is being just like his dad, but... that's not quite it, is it? He's afraid of anger and how it consumes people, afraid of how easily it blinds others. He's afraid of allowing himself to feel anger because he doesn't want to be like everyone he's ever been forced to deal with on that level, and it ties into how seasons 9 and 16 both resolved.

But that.

That's just Lloyd briefly summarized.

It continues.

Zane is another good example. He had no idea who he was for a good long time, and yet he too found a new home for himself among others who seemed just as aimless, had Wu not come along and offered them his training. Even when he did find out, the others just suddenly had a lot of context to the weird things he would do and moved the fuck on, like, that fast. So fucking fast. It wasn't an issue.

But let me stop you right there.

It was usually used in gags, but it's emphasis repeatedly that Zane's primary objective is and always has been to protect others.

Translation: He was built and programmed to have a savoir complex UNRIVALED, and that makes itself PRETTY DAMN APPARENT, PRETTY DAMN FAST. Like, do I even need to give you examples? Zane actively puts himself in harms way SO OFTEN that he literally, no shit, HAS A REOCCURRING THEME THAT SIGNALS GREAT HARM HAS BEFALLEN HIM.

It's never said directly, but Zane puts himself into a lot of dangerous situations under the logic that it's better him than anyone else, his skin is made of metal and thus he's harmed the least. Which is. So bad. Like, I really hope I don't have to explain how bad that is, because wow.

This never really goes away, but he does get a lot better at thinking about the risk certain actions pose to himself. Just based on his actions during early crystallized, he now prioritizes the well being of his family above all else- even with his emotions turned so low that he's effectively only capable of taking the most logical of approaches. Breaking into the high security cell to release one of the highest priority villains of the city? That has no rhyme or reason, nor does it ensure the safety of the city- it actively endangers it.

And yet.

He does it anyway. Because of Nya.

Zane is fucking built different bro. Literally.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you think I was done?

Idiot.

...I mean, I am done, I'm tired and it's late and I have shit to do in the morning, but I could go on. I could. Cole and Harumi and Kai and pretty much everyone are sweating in their fucking boots right now.

I probably will.

...Later, when I have more time.

TL;DR: