Gender in Bionicle Part 1: Female Representation | BIONICLE Deep Dive 

Never forget the “Throw yourselves off the cliff” bit

HUH!? was this in the novelization version? I never got that book back then

I guess you skipped the Hordika stuff, not that I blame you it’s probably the weakest series

Happens to me all the time. Whenever I am making a group of characters I usualy end up with roughly 50/50 gender ratio

@@nobody4248Same.

True! It was a powerful, and kinda heartbreaking moment for her character, given how much she hates damaging nature

@@heroranuva8295 Was there really anything "natural" about the Island of Karzahni though, that place was literally a hell hole to begin with. Ripples on the Water sound as loud as thunder, the Volcano burns cold, the Hail is hot, the ground screams as you step on it and tries to consume you if you stand still too long...

Small correction: It was a Nova Blast, making Gali (Nuva) the only character in canon to have ever performed one. (For those not in the know a Nova Blast is an ability exclusive to Toa that involves them releasing all of their elemental energy in what amounts to a giant explosion of their element)

Ooo that's interesting yeah! The idea of rare gender exceptions among the villagers would be a cool concept to explore. In some ways, it would be like they are trans, especially since they don't have biological sex, so their gender is purely psychological and cultural

In addition, there's a single male male Toa of Psionics, Orde, who was made before the Great Beings decided to exclude this element to females. Yes, you heard that right, it's noty just a theory, it's canon fact that it can be changed and it has been already in the story once.

@@heroranuva8295 that’s why I wish we were biomechanical life forms like Bionicle characters. Because then there wouldn’t be as much controversy around the transgender community as there is right now. Because of gender being psychological rather than biological.

They probably think gender is unimportant, and therefore very few matoran change it due to the fact that they see literally no difference between the male and female other than voice and pronouns.

Girls were color locked, but not the one people usually think!

@@heroranuva8295 imagine a pink toa of fire tho XD

@@jr9529 well tahu has pink eyes

@@Warhammer40k_enjoyer fun XD

@@jr9529 I would by that one just to openly admit I had it and was proud of it.

I think it would be absolutely adorable if Hewki and Macau resumed their relationship on Spherus Magna.

​@@TheZamaronSorry, "Macau" (🇲🇴 ) really made me smile just then.

I think only romantic love was not canon. But maternal/fraternal/paternal love was present quite evidently throughout the story. It's appropriate since children's toys shouldn't be explicitly sexualised in theme or lore content. Bionicle did a great job of that, along with creating a world where there is an enormous variety of characters, meaning children could virtually find at least 1 character in the story to which they could have related to. Most importantly of all, it didn't make a big deal about sexuality and focused just on character development and valuable moral lessons for children.

True. Though a lot of that is because many of those characters, especially the ones you listed, were characters Greg added on his own to side stories, and almost none of those ever got sets with Karzahni being the main exception. Greg added female characters at a closer to 50/50 rate to his male added characters, which ended up meaning a higher proportion of female characters got no set appearance

Yeah, its great! Even though there weren't as many of them, they were always equals in both power and prominence

Yup! They big!

The Toa gotta drop Kohli and get into the NBA lol

Hell yeah! Embrace the icy wind!

@@heroranuva8295 Yes. One doesn't have to be a boy to embrace fire, air, earth, stone or ice, and one doesn't have to be a girl to embrace water.

@Victor Nice Racer I mean yeah, male and female, as biological sexes don't exist among the Bionicle characters, because they don't reproduce. Though they still have ideas about gender, but there's no physiological component, gender for them is purely mental and cultural. Kinda highlights how most of gender ideas among humans are also mental and cultural, not rigid biological categories.

@@heroranuva8295 Not to mention, Gali is a lady, yet she was marketed for boys, and many boys loved her and the element of water all the same. So how could there not be a decent amount of girls who loved Gali's brothers and their elements?

Yeah, they really did a nice job of making the characters equal in plot stature regardless of gender!

Yeah I can imagine its doesn't make it very appealing

@@heroranuva8295 yep, on the flipside, she said she'll headcanon that away, lol.

While I see what you mean, I don't agree that Gali is really sexualized. The hand piece definitely gives her a different chest to the male Toa, but its not something that really evokes sexuality. Her thigh piece perhaps, but to be fair Onua also has that piece in his instructions. Honestly one could argue that Pohatu has the most feminine design of the Toa Mata, given his huge hips. Gali is definitely made subtly more feminine than the other Toa, but there's a distinction between feminine and sexual. Roodaka on the other hand had a chest piece that resembled bikini armor, and her feet were high heels, both things that have strong associations with sexuality in our culture. But still you're right that it is interesting that Gali was given distinct chest armor. Most of the male Toa were given a ball joint chest piece (which as a kid I sometimes thought of as chest hair of somthimes). Also the fact that their chest piece could in theory connect to hers stirs up some...weird imagery 😅

onua has some good lookin legs too now that you mention it

@@InitialPC Oh yeah, Onua got them thighs

Appreciate thicc Pohatu

@@k4tgames212 I repreciate roodaka

Yeah, and in many ways that's true, and that's a big part of the point I'm trying to make. While they did have male and female characters, in the world of the story, that really didn't matter, for the most part they were all treated the same, which if you think about it is pretty unusual! A lot of media makes the gender of the characters a central focus in one way or another, but Bionicle didn't have that and its interesting and kind of refreshing how it handles that. Even if there was a large imbalance to the number of male-female characters, the treatment and significance of them was well done

Using typical tropes associated with gender isn't bad if well written, yes, but stories do need to be careful not to exclusively rely on stereotypes for their characters, since it can get uncreative. Thankfully, Bionicle stayed more creative, and allowed its female characters to both embody and subvert gendered expectations. And yeah, as far as Roodaka's design, I don't think the set itself is really sexualized, just a bit heavy handed with its female coding. And that is an interesting take about Greek Amazons. However, when you look at her design, and then look at how she was depicted in the movie, its very clear that there were "seductress" vibes from her, that add that sexuality. I've heard many Bionicle fans say Roodaka was a bit of an "awakening" for them if you know what I mean.

I was a 5 year old when Roodaka was released, and I never knew it's a female Bionicle until years later. The "boob" armor was just armor to me. If anything, it made me think about Anubis, who I knew from children's books about Egypt.

Yeah true, there's a strong argument that it wasn't any kind of love, though they definitely lean into the more romantic interpretation in the movie and some of the books. She definitely had a lust for power that was her driving motivation, but I don't think its too out of character to say that she had a genuine admiration of Teridax because he embodied the kind of power she craved

bro did autocorrect just change sidorak to second fiddle

@@dogdog357 No, I think they were just saying that playing second fiddle (to Sidorak) was only going to get her so far. The sentence works as is

@@heroranuva8295 Ah, ok. Just never heard the term, before

Yeah, why can't a female villain's lust for power just for power's sake! Not every lust for power needs to be defined by a man! Roodaka is an independent evil doer, her relationship with Makuta can purely be platonic, platonically evil that is!!!

Very true! There was a lot of culture around element and elemental roles that was pretty interesting

The explanation that ended up being given was essentially that the Great Beings were sexist and assigned genders to elements based on their own stereotypes about gender, stereotypes that were proven wrong, in many ways a meta commentary on how Lego assigned genders to elements based on cultural biases about boy toys. Presumably the Matoran went with it because they didn't really have much concept of gender outside of this and since there was no reproduction or gender roles, they didn't really care.

Yes, having characters embody traits that are considered traditionally masculine or traditionally feminine isn't a bad thing as long as it isn't overly restrictive. And thankfully, Bionicle didn't restrict its female characters to feminine stereotypes, nor the male characters to masculine stereotypes, they were allowed to be their own unique and varied characters. The way the series plays with these gendered tropes is really interesting, especially since on the surface it looks like the female characters are restricted but really, they're allowed to be anyone they want. Ultimately the real problem with the ratios is that they turned many girls away since it felt like a series that was only for boys. Bionicle would've been great if it were for everyone, and it would've been cool if it were written and marketed in a way that would've allowed for a much larger fanbase to talk about the series with. And though yeah, in universe it wasn't romantic, it very clearly evoked romantic tropes, particularly Roodaka. Gorast is significantly less, but Roodaka was clearly played in the movie in a way that made us think of themes of seduction and attraction. And this isn't a bad thing, Roodaka is a very interesting character because of it. Its just that those are themes that are very often used in other female villains in other stories. There are certainly more types of love and admiration than just romance, but when considering these characters in the broader landscape of media, its important to discuss where they fall in relation to existing tropes.

@@heroranuva8295 While I do think its fair to point out the gender ratio as a reason for Bionicle not having many (cis-gender) female fans, I do think putting the blame solely on the gender ratio feels somewhat simplifying as there are series aimed at boys with a primarily male cast that do have a sizable subset of (cis-gendered) female fans as well as fans who were born female but don't identify as such. Examples of these include things like a good portion of shonen anime (BNHA for example), a few action cartoons, the tokusatsu franchise Kamen Rider or even Transformers, the other notable toyline with sentient robots and lots of mythos and lore. But perhaps the best example I can think of a series aimed at a male target-audience with a decently sized female subfandom is Legos current flagship franchise many consider as the spiritual successor of Bionicle: Ninjago. Ninjago notably started with an all male hero team only making Nya an official member of the team in the later seasons and in general it's treatment of its female characters has been rather criticized, stating how many of the female characters are either reduced to loveinterests or otherwise wasted potential. In spite of that, Ninjago does have a decently sized subfandom of girls (as well as people who were born female but don't necessarily identify as such) who talk about the series and make fan-content for it. (The Lego franchise Monkey Kid has a large subfandom of girls as well but it's treatment of female characters is somewhat better than Ninjagos or arguably even Bionicles hence why I didn't mention it). So while the gender ratio is certainly a reason why Bionicle never was able to garner a big subset of female fans, I heavily doubt it's the only reason. If anything I'd personally put the blame on one thing: accesibility. Bionicle was rather notable in that the way it told it's story through multiple mediums such as books, comics, movies and so on. While this was really experimental for it's time, it was still a double-edged sword as the series kinda expects you to know the toys before you go to read the books/comics or watch the movies. Sure you COULD know of the movies/games etc before you know of the toys (many were introduced via MNOG for example) but people were much more likely to know Bionicle as toys first before they knew of the comics or books. The toys were usually the fans first exposure to the series, everything else came later. And like you alluded to in the video, the toy aisles at the time were incredibly gendered. So girls weren't given the opportunnity to familarize themselves with the story, because Bionicle was branded as a "boys toy". And even then things like comics and videogames were (at least at the time) heavily gendered as well, so there's a good chance a potential female fan wouldn't have visited a local comic-book store or video game aisle. So how would've this been avoided? Easy, have Bionicle have one primary "source" of story and have it be a TV-show. Many other storydriven childrens toyfranchises tend to have a tv-show they tell their story through, which often is just as important if not moreso than the toys to the point people learn about the toys existing much later. Had there been a TV-show I feel the problem with gender ratio would've been circumvented as a TV-show could've worked wonders in introducing girls to the series and familarize with the story, world and characters. Many girls are willing to try tv shows aimed at boys easier than they are going to the aisle for the boy toys. Again, Ninjago and Transformers are good examples, as both are comparable to Bionicle, yet still have a huge subset of female fans whereas Bionicle never was able to garner as big subset of female fans. Furthermore, I feel there's another factor that kept female fans away (though to a much lesser extent, by that point the damage had already been done), that being the series tone, especially in the later years. While the eariler years feeling of "mystical fantasy adventure to collect the mcguffins" felt rather uni-sex and fitting for both boys and girls, the later years went very hard to a darker and grittier to a more hardened warstory with faction wars, political schisms and very *very* brutal scenes of gore and dismemberment (you basically have characters talk about how their favorite hobby is to break others spines for fun or people being cut in half in intradimensional portals). In it's later arcs the series basically became a child-friendly version of Warhammer more or less. And honestly I could see that dark and gritty tone being a big turnoff for potential female fans. Do girls like dark stories with powerstruggles or wars? Yes they do, just look at a lot of fantasy bookseries popular with girls or the Fire Emblem videogame franchise for instance, heck even Transformers which as mentioned does have a decently sized female sub-fandom. But a lot of those tend to either have the war be somewhat dramaticized/romanticized, be painted as a drama tragedy or serve as the backdrop for a character focused story. Bionicle was very notably a series that put the plot and worldbuilding before it's characters (for the most part anyways), and it's handling of wars, powerstruggles and dark elements in general is much more masculine and edgy compared to the way series popular with girls tend to be (once again, Ignition era Bionicle is basically a child-friendly version of Warhammer 50k). (Note I'm a girl-adjacent creature and the war/power-struggle stuff is my favorite aspect of the series but even then I'm aware that Bionicles tone may be a bit too edgy and bleak for a lot of girls) I feel that the most appealing tone to attract a larger female audience would've been something similar to the Metru-era or even the substories about Lhikans past. Dark and filled with intrigue that makes the world larger than ""a bunch of robots on a colorful island" without having the big background story boil down to "powerstruggles between a bunch of assholes in a fucked up depressing world." Most importantly thought, the Metru era and those Lhikan shortstories were the most character-driven the series really got, with Vakamas arc serving as the heart of the story, and the mangai shortstories largely focusing on the tragedy with Nidhiki and Tuyet respectively. The darkness in those stories came from the emotion and drama the characters felt in the situations they came in contact with rather than just describing extremely brutal and fucked up situations in the most vivid detail as possible. So yeah the gender ratio is a factor to it but I feel the lack of a female audience is a combination of things such as the gendered nature of a lot of things Bionicle was associated with (toys, comics, games), lack of a tv show, the edgy tone of the later half of the series and the series focus on plot over characters rather than it all being the fault of the gender ratio. Though tbf the ratio was a result of the series marketed towards boys but still. I do feel it's worth pointing out that, especially since there are other boys series which have large subsections of female fanbases, including later series made by Lego or the other big toy-franchise about sentient robots fighting each other to get access to powerful mcguffins.

@The Arcanist This is fantastic and very interesting point that I hadn't really thought of. Yeah I think you're completely right about Bionicle's story accessibility being a huge factor in the primarily male fanbase, because you're right plenty of other male-centric series that went the route of a singular story medium had much wider fanbases. Honestly I think the lack of centralized and widely publicized story content contributed to a lot of Bionicle's fanbase problems. I mean its well known that part of Lego's concerns in the later part of the series was that older fans were growing out of it and newer fans had a hard time getting caught up. They tried to correct this by simplifying the story in G2, but I think they did a worse job of story communication and I honestly believe that's the real reason G2 failed. It's also why I think Bionicle had such massive popularity, but the dedicated fanbase that got really into the lore was relatively small. So many people have it just as "those cool robot toys from the 2000s". This is also why I think fan projects like the Wall of History and Biological Chronicle compilations are so incredibly important to the future of the fanbase. By having it all in one accessible place it makes it so new fans can see it, as we've seen with the small but notable increase in new fan voices. I also think you have a point about the tone too, but I think maybe if it was more widely available, that might have balanced that out. But yeah it did get really dark and gritty. But thank you for these points, this is really interesting critique! I'll have to do more looking into this and discussion, because I think this is probably worth a whole video, or possibly a couple of them

@@heroranuva8295 A What-If look into an alternate reality where BIONICLE got a well-written & well-marketed TV show as a central storytellling device would be extremely interesting to see! I've always asserted that if that had been the case, the franchise could have risen to the levels of cultural relevance that franchises like Transformers or even Pokémon had achieved. (I.e. to the point where even non-fans know about the basic premise and characters.)

@@Korohpu Oh god I wish Bionicle had a full funded animated series SO BAD

Sometimes a Rahkshi head is just a Rahkshsi head.

@@normanclatcher truer words have never been spoken

Reject tradition embrace Rahkshi lol.

Huh, that's really interesting, yeah she really does!

Yeah true, would've been cool if they went for that, instead of just going with the typical women are shorter, since plenty of tall women exist

Nuju and Onewa were the "tall" Turaga, as I recall...

Yeah I remember that being talked about in some of the post ending dialogues, along side the Element Lord of Earth. Kinda cool to see, but would’ve been great if we got to see more stories with the Element Lords, they were such an integral part of the world’s origins, yet were so unexplored

@@heroranuva8295 absolutely

Biomechanical muscle mommies

LMAO!

Honestly yeah

Right?! Like Gali, Nokama, and Hahli were buff as hell, it was great!

Thanks! Yeah part 2 is going to be pretty good too, not quite as long, but I think there’s some interesting stuff in it!

At least we have tuyet, a toa of water who is a traitorous psychopath who lhikan should've killed upon meeting her, and helyrx for being a hardass toa of water and the bionicle equivalent to renegade femshep from mass effect.

Yeah, Like Herora said, female villains having a motivation that stems to romantic interest in their male superior is rather common.

Hm, yeah that's an interesting comparison, both had complete devoted loyalty to male counterpart who saw them as a tool to be disposed of. One interesting difference between them is also that Harley was psychologically abused and manipulated into becoming Joker's sidekick, while Gorast was in full self control, she just wanted to be a part of something so grand and was never told that it would just be for Teridax. And yeah, you're right G2 did have some very interesting changes to the gender make up. I'll probably try to look into that in videos on G2, I guess I was just more focused on G1 for this. Really wish G2 had explored that more, because we did get the leader of the Earth region as a woman, which was really cool (also makes her chest mounted cannon all the more hilarious XD), and in the graphic novels the Okotans are shown having families and children, and being mothers which is interesting since we never had that in G1.

Yeah it was very limiting, especially in contrast to the variety given to the male elements

Lmao!

Given that ice is just a sub-element of water it would have made sense for there to be both male and female motoran/toa.

Yeah, its a really cool way of looking at it! There's no physiological differences, its all personal and societal, which is a really cool way of looking at gender. You can have characters that fit outside of their gender-element in multiple ways, especially since not even all of the element traits map perfectly onto masculine or feminine traits

Lmao yeah XD

For her size and compared to other characters it’s not unreasonable to assume she’s near the same size in real life as a certain big dommy mommy from resident evil

@@creed8712 yes, yes she is 👀

...yes, it's for parts usage on the "combiner"-- Well dang. Guess I can't escape the euphemisms after all. 😕

Lewa being trans would be really interesting!

Thanks! Yeah I'm really proud of that part too, can't wait to show you all!

Lmao, I'm sure you're not the only one, she was an awakening for a lot of fans XD

Well you know that point about all the Toa having different body types is a really good one. I mean, Pohatu and Onua obviously had the way their sets were that would've added more diverse body types to the movie. Yeah I think if they had given more varied designs, Gali's wouldn't have been so bad, because its not a bad design per say, its looks cool, but when compared to the others, its so obvious they just wanted to slim her down to make her look more feminine, at the price of her armor. If there was other variation it would actually look good

@@heroranuva8295 fair point.

Thanks!

True, though I wasn't trying to list every female character, mainly trying to focus on the ones that either played a prominent role or had very notable arcs in with how they either played with or subverted common tropes associated with female cahracters. Though I suppose Sahmad's love was kinda interesting, she was one of the only characters in the series actually reffered to as a "woman". That and the dead wide trope.

Lewa as a girl is a very interesting idea. I believe the TTV Channel did their own concept work for a Bionicle G3, and they made Lewa a girl in their fan version. And yeah, honestly the best solution would probably have been for gender and element to not be assigned, though I do think that doing it ended up at least ensuring some female characters. It's a weird balance, because I think otherwise there might not have been any. Plus the weirdness of the gender/element make up also allowed for the very interesting queer interpretations of gender in the series. Again, it wasn't a great thing, but looking back in context I personally have a hard time putting it exclusively as a good or bad thing

Mm, yeah that sucks! She was one of the central characters of the PT, she would've made a great action figure for kids

I think you've got it wrong friend. Its never said that they don't feel love or affection, just that those feelings aren't romantic. They love their friends dearly, its shown everywhere in the series and Farshtey and the story team said that they did care for each other, and even formed special bonds, just platonically. Sentient living beings don't have to feel romantic love, there are plenty of people who don't feel romantic or sexual attraction and still love their friends and family with great affection. There are many ways to love, not just romance

@@heroranuva8295I’d say romantic affection is also very easily could be platonic, because sometimes there is really thin line between friendship and romantic feelings and it all could be even more complicated.. So, for me personally that statement is just sounds strange.

I agree with HerorasNuva. Even disregarding the "love is canon" debate, it is theoretically possible for a sentient being to not have emotions such as love or experience affection. This is a fictional story, it is the creator's choice as to what emotions their new species are allowed to feel. Honestly, you don't even need to have emotion to be sentient as emotions are not a requirement for sentience. I can totally envision a fictional sentient alien species that is aware and has free will but only operates on intellect and logic and there are conversely many animals that clearly feel emotions but are not sentient. Humans, of course, are both sentient and emotional but not every fictional species need share these traits with us.

@ErihsehC While yes there is a lot of overlap between romantic, there is a difference. Romantic attraction is its own thing, distinct from platonic. Look up the differences between romantic and platonic feelings, its very interesting. In the real world there are many people who don't feel romantic attraction to others, as in they don't want to go on dates, get married, or have the specific type of companionship romance implies, but still feel great affection and love for friends, but just as friends. And this is what we see for the most part in the Bionicle world. While its very fun to ship the characters in fan works and interpretations, I enjoy doing it myself, the Matoran Universe is pretty non-romantic, and that's not a bad thing. We live in a world where romance is forced in many stories, its refreshing to see a story where that doesn't matter, and aromantic and asexual people are represented as the norm, even if they are alien robots.

@Obi-Wan Kenobi That is an interesting idea, a species that doesn't have much of what we consider emotion. The Vulcans from Star Trek are a pretty iconic example. One thing though is that, I actually believe that some form of emotions are necessary for logic, because if you really think about it, emotions are a form of logic. What I mean by this is that emotional responses are often very logical when looked at from an evolutionary biology perspective. Emotions often prime us and encourage us to be in an appropriate state to deal with many survival situations. They're a lot faster to come to, and much more general than carefully thought out logic, but in many survival situations, the fast emotional response will save a creature far more than a slower, but more thought out logical solution. Slower logic develops once a species has the resources to support more complex thought, at least if its a naturally occurring biological species. The Matoran are very interestin because its like they went through this process in reverse! They started out as sentient and capable of complex logical thought, but later on developed genuine emotion and care for each other

Isn’t Tuma male?

@@lucasrobin2788 looks like things have changed since their launch. Tuma back then was supposed to be female - but apparently was changed after all.

@@igneelous I don’t think it ever changed - Tuna was very much male in all the promotional material and in the Movie. He was the leader of the all-male Skrall tribe, he couldn’t have ever been female

@@lucasrobin2788 at the time I had my reason to assume but if he's male then so be. It was a long time ago that im not gonna get all bent over it.

Thanks! Part 2 is going to be really good too! Not quite as long, but still very thoughtful, as there's a lot of interesting ways the queer community has interpreted Bionicle's lore around gender

AAAA YES! Love outofgloom, they did such a good job! Yeah, if you really think about it, gender for the Matoran would be totally different! In fact, so much of what you brought up here is what I'm going to be talking about in part 2, so definitely check that out when it premieres next week, I think you'll find it very interesting! Especially the Takanuva being trans part, a LOT of trans women in the fandom have connected heavily with his journey! I recommend checking out the article I mentioned, as it goes into this a lot: www.autostraddle.com/investigating-the-bionicle-to-trans-pipeline/

Thanks!

Thanks!

Lmao right! I can't stop laughing when I see it, I'm sorry I had to infect you all with the knowledge. And thanks! Yeah, its really interesting, and I'm really enjoying the continued conversations around this

Nice!

That could be one way to do it yeah. Other ways people have talked about doing it are having no connection between element and gender, and having any member of an element be any gender. Its hard to say though, because the connection between element and gender is what caused many people to make very interesting interpretations about how gender is handled in the series, and I don't know if I'd want those to disappear.

LMAO

True that could work. Though, there have also been many fans who have imagined their own G3 with changed genders for the OG Toa, so adjusting the characters gender might play well anyways

Well it's less that I think these specific instances are bad, as much as I'm acknowledging that it is a wider trope that has been done poorly in other media. At 30:37 I actually talk about how one character being motivated by their admiration of another can be a very cool motivation when well written, and I think especially Roodaka, and also Gorast, are both relatively well done examples of this trope. However, the idea that female villains often being in a mother position or other similarly female coded roles often has more to do with the writers mainly seeing women in those roles, rather than those being the roles that women more relate to. I mean, after all, its not like the average man would relate more to being a superhero or a world conqueror than the average woman would. And again, making female characters mothers isn't a bad thing in and of itself no more than making male characters fathers. But we just have to be mindful of when these roles seem to be all the character is allowed to be, because its unfortunately very common for female characters to be defined by what role they play in a male character's story. Not all the time, and not very often in Bionicle, but it is something to acknowledge

@@heroranuva8295 Now how does one tell the difference. I apologize, I have autism so it's hard for me to see social constructs very well since those aren't something you can learn from a text book.

@@robinmartin2818 No worries dude, I understand. Honestly its a tough nuance for many neurotypical people. Its somewhat subjective, but I do think a good way to judge is to look and see if the character has a role in the story or aspects of their character that are beyond just their relationship to another character. Do they show off thoughts and feelings that are there own, and do they take actions on their own that shape the plot and put them in the spotlight? Many characters who are considered reduced by their relationships often never feel like they have their own drive or agency outside their relationship to that other character. But if they stand on their own, then this connection doesn't reduce them, it often enhances them. This isn't foolproof, but I think its a good way to start. And how you feel about the character just on your own is also valid. Ask yourself if you like how they were written and that's just as valid an answer as anyone else's.

Yeah those are good points you bring up. The female Skakdi thing was weird. I never made the race connection, but now that you bring it up it does have a parallel, though I highly doubt intentional. There's a lot I wish was more fleshed out and nuanced about the Skakdi, because as they are they're just a whole species of barbarians, which doesn't have good connotations. And also, yeah, I do remember a few points when characters said "female" like that. I feel like in those instances, it was almost used as a descriptor, like that was her most distinguishing factor. Perhaps not meant to be that females were lesser, but it did also highlight how few women existed in this universe that being female was a highly notable trait that could be singled out

@@heroranuva8295 I feel like Skakdi are straight up Tolkien orcs. An evil race that one guy made that way on purpose. Also, speaking of Spiriah, if he did see "female" as being a negative thing, that could have some connection to the female Skakdi being notably nastier than the males

Ace/Aro here. I'm not put out at all by the lack of romantic representation here and in fact, this franchise probably spoiled me for that very idea. Realistically, our society should push that angle _way_ less than it does. It was a great escapism to not have to consider it at all while MOCbuilding in my private little plastic sandbox.

Thanks! Yeah, I was actually surprised when I started how much there was to say about this topic!

Facts.

I go over this in the video, but yes. While the Matoran don’t have sex but they do have gender, and there are female/male characters. Sex is the anatomical differences between females and males related to reproduction, while gender is the personal and cultural identities that define how a person sees themself in regards to being a man, a woman, both, or neither. Matoran don’t reproduce sexually, but they do identify themselves as male and female, even explicitly using those terms several time in the story. Gender is usually determined by element, with Matoran of Water being female and the other 5 of the main 6 elements being male. Female Matoran use she/her pronouns and consistently have female voice actors irl, while males use he/him and have male voice actors. In-universe the differences between male and female are ultimately meaningless, and in some of the post-ending side stories it’s suggested the reason they even have those distinctions is left over biases from their creators, the Great Beings who were organic creatures that reproduced sexually. It’s kind of a metaphor for how the gender biases of the writers at Lego and other toy companies felt that certain toys should just be for boys and made most of the characters male when the series could easily be for everybody

I just interpreted it as: "these characters don't have gender, but to use pronouns for them we kinda need to come up with a gender for them as writers, so the kids relate better." that's why I think Boncle is so cool. the characters aren't racial or gendered, but they still function perfectly fine. it's really confronting for modern hollywood I think.@@heroranuva8295

nevermind, Pohatu Mata has a lil peen@@heroranuva8295

I'd credit Miramax on that one.

That could've been pretty interesting