a funny thing is about the love triangle is that the writers knew how bad it was and retconned things as well. partially by stating cole was never actually into nya, he was just confused by the attention and that he gets competetive with jay (also may have been spurred on by even the writers thinking cole is gay)
True, and also, considering all the guys in this universe fall for girls instantly, I'd say in this universe, Cole is demi-sexual. (Only starts having sexual feelings for someone once they've had a strong emotional bond with them.)
Whenever I think about it, I just say to myself that Cole was jealous over Nya. Not because he was into her, but because he hadn't processed that he was jealous that she was dating Jay.
honestly for nyas colors, ive always thought the blue was more a reference to her water powers rather than to jay.. all the ninja's colors are somewhat related to their elemental power so i think it makes more sense that her blue accents link to water
Its energy, I doubt you guys are real Ninjago fans. Energy is all the 4 elements of the ninja combined mixed eith golden energy, but Lloyd lost all the elements and the golden energy, so the only thing he has left is the element of Energy.@@EndTH-camShorts_
As much as Scales' pink wife is lazy and annoying I'm glad they didn't do the trope of "Anthropromorphic Male character who is generally androgynous X Anthropomorphic Female character with explicitly feminine features." Just glad that Scales moved on after his dysfunctional marriage to pythor
Right?? As much as i hated the idiotic pink snake from the moment i saw it as a 10 yr old girl, i was infinitely grateful they at least didn't give her snake b**bs
i mean, they still did the "male monster is more beastlike while female monster is more human" trope, Scales has a naga body type while Pink Wife™ has human legs (and also a _pearl necklace_ because we need the stupid boy-children to know she's a feeeemale!!)
Here's how Harumi's motivation works: It's not just about revenge and her parents. That incident from her childhood influenced her very outlook. The ninjas whom people considered heroes were unable to cope with the threat. But Garmadon, the man who was considered a villain, saved the entire city. That day, Harumi decided that darkness is stronger than light. And that peace can only be ensured by superior force. She's like Hydra from CA:WS. Through strength and fear, brings peace to the world without fear of getting her hands dirty.
finally someone who gets it lmao. A lot of ppl when they see Harumis backstory go "Well that make no sense because ninja good and garmadon bad" but their forgetting that Harumi was a naïve child who put ALL her trust, love and support towards the ninja. Not to mention, kids perceptions on the world are easily molded like clay, and for a child who went through something like Harumi did, there's no wonder why her perception of right and wrong, moral and immoral, got flipped on its head.
I interpreted it as more that Harumi hates the ninja and felt like that she needed a reason to justify her hatred and resorts to bringing back Garmadon to “protect ninjago”. Despite her blabber she knows she is wrong but can’t bring herself to admit that the way she felt about the ninja was wrong because it’s been a part of her life so long it’s become a part of her as a person.
These are really cool interpretations, they explain a lot of the flip-flopping her character motivations do over her time on-screen (esp Crystalised). Problem is, this is mostly determined on part of the fans, it isn't written into the meta-narrative or intended by the writers. If the writers gave more consideration to her character motivations, these great directions for her backstory might've been the case in canon - which is i believe the point of the video. Not to say they don't hold weight as interpretations, they absolutely do, just that the writers fumbled the bag in this regard
31:31 cryptor wasnt just sexist, he was racist and ableist, made fun of zane for being old, made fun of mindroid for being short. Also the ai made by embodiment of evil is not a nice guy what a shocker
It is worth noting that season 7 was written by a different head writer and the Hagemans were brought back in for season 8 knowing very little about the previous season, explaining the slight inconsistencies and why there was no good reason as to why Pixal had to keep her identity a secret - the Hagemans were resolving someone else's plot point
@@gigikju9934 It was ditched early in development. Hence the whole reason Pixal went missing, the computer being torn apart, and Samurai X using all the friend's voices except Pixal's.
I personally think there is a good reason for pixal keeping her samurai x identify a secret. When she had no choice but to reveal it in S8 shortly after she asked zane whether she was more useful inside the computer or not as she wants to be helpful, i think she still viewed herself as an assistant and didn’t want to hurt zane’s feelings by not being useful so didn’t tell anyone she was samurai x, until zane told her the choice is always hers and he likes her not in the computer then it was cleared up but that’s just how i view it.
Almost all of the female characters have ponytails because all the hairpieces have to be compatible with Lego neck attachments like the sword holders in the shoulder pads, etc
While I do think you are right with the reasoning, Lego could break norms and give female characters shorter hairstyles to break up the monotony. The new cat hair girl is a good example.
@@crowgirl9833 ok well to be fair sora also has a ponytail 😭 its a different kind of ponytail though so id call that a win. plus wyldfyre and euphrasia have different hair so W
I honestly still believe Ninjago achieved good female representation by making Kai supportive of Nya being Samurai X and stuff, but I do agree that there are a lot of unintentionally sexist moments in the show(like why does Nya have to be the disposable character for so many seasons??).
In a better timeline, Misako isn't an easily manipulative dumbass and noticed that the signature is written in a different handwriting compared to the rest of the letter, but chose Garmadon anyway because she loved Garmadon for Garmadon, not for his calligraphy skills.
@@aggablei mean she put her son in a boarding school for bad boys while trying to research how to avoid him and garmadon from fighting. Something that end up being pointless because you couldn't find anything. Lloyd didn't even remember his mother so that tells you that she left him very young and never checked on him which is bad parenting. And if she was going on multiple expeditions to find answers, something I'm assuming if she only came up on dead leads, that means that she had down time in-between that she could have spent checking on him which she never does. She technically is the reason all of season 1, 2, and the sons of garmadon happened because if she was around in his life she could have curbed his villainous tendencies and the first serpentine wouldn't have been released and the dominos wouldn't start falling. Of course this is looking at it from the wantsonian perspective. Doyalist perspective she just didn't exist and is blameless.
@@starterking Personally i think misako was done dirty by the writers but i try to think of it from her perspective. Her husband was just sent to the underworld by his brother, leaving her to care for a kid by herself. We don't know about the connections she has outside of the spinjitzu bros and that explorers club, but assuming she was friends with those in the elemental alliance, which wouldve disbanded, she really didn't have many supports. She had Wu of course, but if she was looking for a way to prevent the green ninja prophecy, and had discovered Lloyd was the green ninja, giving Lloyd to him to care for was not on the table (plus wu doesnt exactly have the best track record with his students by this point ...) Tbh, I would've been stressed out of my mind as a single parent in that situation too. Especially if she was doing so much research that she felt she was unable to properly care for Lloyd. Maybe she sent him to Darkley's because some of the teachers were skulkin, who were under Garmadon's command. Maybe she thought sending Lloyd to an evil boarding school would prevent him from ever needing to fight his own father to the death. She was probably desperate, not wanting her husband or her child to be killed, yknow? Especially at the hands of eachother. I agree her checking up on Lloyd would've been nice, and unfortunately I think it's just the case of the writers not thinking ahead and just shoehorning her in. A possible explanation is maybe she thought he'd be alright with his relation to Garmadon? Who knows Ultimately I think alot of hate for Misako tends to be a result of the writers introducing her poorly. Someone can be a good person and still make mistakes, yknow? Plus by this point Lloyd has ultimately forgiven her and they have been, and still are, making up for lost time, which I think is the most important thing
It’s not, but there’s Cole and Vanya are, Cole is heavily implied to be gay and makes it clear they are just friends. There’s your queer platonic ship :)
@@markthesapphicdumpsterfire1745 That's why it's their headcanon my guy *Headcanon* I also headcanon QPR Zane and Pixal honestly, reminds me of my own experiences especially as an asexual autistic person
Am I about to sit here and watch a girl go into the depths of the sexism presented in a show about ninjas who are made of plastic while also wearing some of the most fire outfits I've seen for four hours...hell yeah I am
Gonna be honest I like that the great devourer is female. I like to see women portrayed in all roles hero, villain, wildcard, nerd, powerhouse, and in this case force of nature It shows that no matter who or what you are you can fill any role. l also like that the serpentine both revere her as their champion and also freak the heck out because they woke her up. It reads as “oh _crap_ mom’s gonna kill us for this! It was pythor’s fault! we swear!
“It felt like the default was male” “The best way to describe nya is that she’s Kai’s sister and jay’s love interest.” YES, i grew up watching this and while I always liked moments when the female characters showed their strength, but the show always made it like they had to be side characters and like the main part of their character was what they were to men but I saw so young that I didn’t know what was upsetting me. I haven’t watched the show in a long time but the first thing I could think of when thinking of the main female characters was what male characters they were attached to(harumi to loyd and nya to kai and jay and pixel to zane) and then that they were strong or smart. It’s not that female characters shouldn’t be connected to male characters, but rather that it shouldn’t become one of the defining character traits of basically all the recurring female characters.
IMO harumi is a...confusing story. However I feel like dragons rising is doing a lot of justice for that rn 3 new characters are on the team now and one of the 2 girls of the 3 is a main char not just for one seasons but the 2 seasons we have while yes they do have attachments it’s exucuted waaay better like sora has a actually really good backstory and wyldfire being like the student of kai bc there so like eachother without it being like in a romantic way is so well done. honestly dragons rising is starting out pretty good. It’s fixing a lot of issues that the old show shows had and that’s pretty good
@@Kamfys You act like girls didn't like this stuff too back then, despite there being a LOT of Ninjago and lego fans that were little girls, the very same way MLP or The Power Puff Girls had their fans who were little boys.
One thing you neglected to mention was that in season 2, Misako becomes the first female in the show to use spinjitsu, the specialized fighting ability from which the show gets its subtitle.
She also only uses Spinjitsu once. I can’t remember any other notable time. Also, Misako isn’t an elemental master, so there’s no reason Nya couldn’t have learned Spinjitsu.
So grateful for your analysis on Zane - he’s been my favorite since the show started airing. I hate how much torture they get away with of him and PIXAL. It makes sense why myself and others gravitated towards him, you’re spot on with that. You articulate feelings I had watching Ninjago that I had when I was younger. It felt weird being a female fan of this franchise that was exclusively written by men when I was a kid. I knew something was kinda off and I love this video.
If/when we get Pixal and Skylor back in Dragons Rising, I hope that they, Nya, and Sora will be on some sort of team for a bit just so we can get The Ponytail Squad: Extended Edition.
25:00 I never saw her name as being a refrence to how "girls gossip alot" but rather to her job as a reporter and how they often fail to tell the whole story and sometimes spread false rumors, otherwise known as "gossiping".
Back when this show first came out it always bugged me how it characterized Nya. I was that little girl watching a "boys show" so I wanted to relate to her, but the way she was written made her contradictory and kinda annoying at times. I love her a lot more now. The show has come a long way, even if it still had a lot of room to grow. This is a fantastic review and puts light on how they could have done things better. Also thank you for mentioning the atrocious sibling dialogue in season 7, it always cracked me up.
As a girl who grew up watching ninjago and a lot of other shows for girls and mostly for boys, i wanted to relate to nya too but didnt cuz i didnt like her hearcut 😅. When i was a kid i first needed to like the look to get into a character and relate to it. My favorite ninja was Kai and when Skyler came in i started relating to her since not only her look was nice but also her elemental power was exactly what i was dreaming having as a kid
I liked a lot of what you said. I love your channel cause there are not very many female ninjago TH-camrs out there and it’s great to have that perspective. Something I noticed about Vania’s Character upon many rewatches is that she has the most positive sense of self worth out of any other characters on the show. She doesn’t care when others think she is weird, and she is always standing up for herself and her friends. She is definitely a people pleaser but also sets clear boundaries for herself, shown in how she rebels against her evil father. I think that her bubbly nature often has people perceive her as young but in reality she is quite a mature leader, and she knows it. all her most powerful qualities are in the background and you sort of have to look for them, but I also think that’s what makes her so great. The narrative doesn't feel the need to draw attention to her “girl boss” traits because she doesn’t care what people think. That is something I wish more people could see and take away from her.
Yes in the era of shows targetted for either girls or boys, we ended up with a lot of these. None of these were intentionally sexist of course, but the problem was they were mostly written by writers of the opposite gender of who wasnt targetted and had to guess, (in this case the writers of Ninjago, and for opposite example the writers of mlp g4/g5) in order to keep the shows to their targetted audience for marketting purposes.
Thank you for bringing up MLP as a reverse example, cause you’re completely right. It’s how it is. Shows targeted at girls tend to have way more female characters and hardly any good male characters, and shows targeted at boys are the reverse. The writing quality for the opposite gender always suffers, as well, as a lot of shows exemplify. My bottom line is simply that if someone’s griping about bad female rep in Ninjago (or anything else targeted at boys), I’m not taking them seriously unless they’d agree that MLP (or anything else targeted at girls) has the same problem but with men.
@@FedoraLloyd well yeah, but the difference between men in girls shows and women in boys shows is that we don't really need to focus on male representation when most shows already do that. Girl shows with only a few male characters that are all poorly written tend to be more of a silly novelty in the industry whereas poorly written female characters are found in media for all groups due to social issues and gender stereotypes. That said, we are referring to media from the early 2000s, so a lot of current media has come a long way since then. Also, there are plenty of male gender stereotypes that are just as much of a problem as female ones in media.
@@fbiagent.. part of that is on purpose. They don't want mixed audicences. That's why young justice as cancelled cus the higher ups found that girls liked it too and instead of the paretns buying two sets of toys the girls would just play with their brothers, which is such a dumb idea. Why would you want to risk the arguments that come from sharing a toy that both kids like when you can get them one each and save yourself the hassle?
I feel like the reason Zane & Pixal work as like characters with a genuine relationship that feels emotionally satisfying where Jay & Nya super don't all comes down to the fundamental core of their relationship. Jay thought "girl hot" but Zane though "gee wow finally another being who might relate to my very specific atypical circumstances and who I can find community and solidarity with" and so from the very begining Zane sought to validate and empathize with Pixal as a fellow android meanwhile Nya came off more as an object of desire for Jay to pursue. Pixal and Zane ARE compatible, they can share understanding and perspective that make them feel seen and at home. Meanwhile Jay and Nya's first date was literally just a cavalcade of lies because they did not truly understand each other and were not able to trust that they could be vulnerable with one another in that way. Also everything abt Zane & Pixal reads 100% as various different types of queer & other & as much as found family as any sort of romance which is a dynamic even the straights can get behind cuz it puts them in a position of being the outsider & the underdogs which makes folks just tend to have a huge freaking soft spot for because everyone feels lost or out of place at some point in their life basically.
I definitely read Zane and Pixal as autistic. For obvious reasons. While it can be a little dehumanising (literally) that almost all decent autistic representation in media is from a robot or sometimes alien character, I do generally enjoy a good autistic robot in most shows I know it has major implications of how allistic people see us as not human enough and weird, but it also makes me feel seen in that. It gives a more solid show of the feeling that other people don't see people like me as human enough. It's weird tbh But yeah, Zane and Pixal both autistic real Also I agree with the queer thing, I definitely feel like Zane and Pixal together gives off some major queer enery. Especially since queerness and autism often come hand in hand. I'd say they both give me ace vibes honestly, I dunno
@@T13GUY omg yes, the same thing i always thought! i wondered why i always related to Zane, turns out people's interpretation of robots is often "haha, they take things too seriously and miss nuances", which is how i've been treated as an undiagnosed autistic kid I actually headcanon that while they're in a straight passing relationships, both of them identify with some amount of queer labels, whether that being anything beyond the gender binary, aromantic spectrum, or the ace spectrum (obviously)
42:53 now this absolutely 100% is my bias towards Cole (as an aroace and projecting onto him) but I've never seen it as flirting back. Cole was never really praised like his fellow ninjas were and he really doesn't hang out with Nya often so someone he doesn't hang out with often coming over and saying you're a good guy is nice. It gets severely awkward when they reach out their hand towards you cause what are you gonna do? Just stare at it? Also when they pull away Nya seems panicked while Cole just seems in shock at the sudden movement of her pulling away. I don't think that was Cole flirting cause he's also pretty isolated and is shown to not really be attracted to people in general. The reason why he got defensive when Jay called him out in the junkyard is obviously his friend is now attacking him out of nowhere and I see it as being insanely petty and defensive which is why he started to compete for Nya's attention (thank you for listening to my delusional ted talk) EDIT: So I just found out that Tommy Anderson just said that it’s canon that Cole didn’t have any feelings for Nya! He was just confused and flattered by the attention she was giving him and Cole started to compete for her attention to get Jay mad, not because he liked her. This Ted talk is justified
@@lucyanderson9064 first of all most likely the retconning is true but when it comes to the ‘taking things too far’ teenagers absolutely will take things this far because teenagers are dumb. I would not put it past someone to be this petty. Second of all, Jay had no right to get angry at first as it was all Nya putting moves on Cole. She reached for his hand first and he didn’t seem concerned in the slightest when Jay walked in. All throughout the series Jaya has been on this will they won’t they hell and Jay clearly has an unhealthy obsession with Nya that he’s projecting onto Cole. He wasn’t even mad that they held hands, he was only mad at Cole because he was, according to a machine, Nya’s perfect match.
@@lucyanderson9064 I’m sorry but it genuinely sounds like you may not have fully been paying attention to the show. He was absolutely not mad at Nya because of he was he would be shouting at her who happened to be in the room when he got mad at Cole. Yes he absolutely has an unhealthy obsession with Nya. In the pilots simply hearing about her got him asking if she was hot and single, season 3 was when the whole issue started where he never showed any sign of being mad at Nya and instead blamed the whole thing on Cole. Jay never brought up the hand holding because when he walked in they immediately let go and he just seemed confused. The whole reason why he lashed out at Cole is because Pixal said that Cole was her perfect match. That's when he called Cole a backstabber. the worst thing Cole did is hold her hand and even then it was Nya who first engaged in hand holding. season 6 no matter how much Nya said she didn't care to be in a relationship Jay would constantly try to find ways to get together with her, he was even considering wishing for her to love him against her will. If what him and Nya had was genuine in the first season he would have every right to be mad at her because they literally kissed yet she still went and held hands with Cole. The whole triangle was completely Nya’s fault because she took the word of a machine too seriously despite the fact she kissed the guy. I doubt Cole even knew of the kiss because that happened on the rollercoaster when Jay found his true potential, it’s not like he knew they were dating because Nya never seemed to make that clear judging by just how disloyal she was. You’re clearly talking about the things Nya did wrong when all Cole did was hold hands even though Nya was the one who started it. He didn’t even seem as concerned at Jay walking in as Nya was because he didn’t see it as a bad thing. Hand holding isn’t only a romantic thing. Even if Jay was mad at the hand holding thing it gave him no right to straight up tackle Cole to the ground. The difference between Nya and Misako is we genuinely got romantic vibes from Misako and Wu as Wu did engage in physical affection like full on hugging and holding each other which is different from holding a hand, and again Cole didn’t initiate it nor did he continuously engage in it. He only started to earn Nya’s heart when Jay had lashed out at him and he didn’t understand what he did wrong as seen from his lines during the fight with Jay. The whole reason why Cole says ‘don’t tell Jay’ after Nya calls him a good guy is because he knows how obsessed his friend is with this girl despite not knowing Nya had kissed him.
@@lucyanderson9064 First of all it is honestly really sad that you’re apparently an adult who’s arguing with how someone interprets something. Second of all, I’ve also been watching since it came out and I continue to rewatch it. This is not something I’m pulling out of my hat. Never has Jay once said anything mean or bad about Nya, you’re the one imagining things if you think he was mad at Nya. If he was so mad, why did he five minutes later try to once again win her heart? You’re also bringing in stuff that doesn’t matter. You’re the one who’s reading too much into this by saying Jay was upset with Nya when he showed absolutely no sign of being upset with her at all. Instead of saying anything to Nya he immediately tackled Cole to the ground. Stop trying to make Jay out to seem like a reasonable and likable person in this because he was also in the wrong. You seem like you’re genuinely just closing your eyes to what I’m saying. Hand holding isn’t only romantic and there was none of that romantic music that they play when Misako and Wu are in the same room because Cole was never made out to like Nya. He never liked her through the pilots or first two seasons, I do agree it was probably intentional to develop some kind of relationship with Cole and Nya but it’s not like they suddenly developed feelings when Nya was clearly into Jay in the first two seasons. You really cannot say Jay didn’t have an unhealthy obsession with Nya when season 6 is a thing where he literally tried to FORCE HER into liking him. If you think that’s not unhealthy I say bring that up with whatever partner you have because I think they need to rethink their relationship choices. You also say my reasoning is juvenile yet you’re here bringing stuff up that we never mentioned or stuff that’s even relevant to what we’re discussing. You’re looking very desperate to try and seen all mighty which seems like an ego thing that makes me worry for how you’re raising those supposed children you got there. If you think what Jay was doing was normal when again he tackled Cole to the ground and thought it was worth it to risk Cole and his own life to impress a girl he was supposedly mad with you are clearly not paying attention to the show at all and it heavily shows in your responses. Bringing real life issues is irrelevant because as you said, it’s a kids show. Again if you’re an adult female arguing apparently over a kids show you really need to rethink your priorities. If the whole video is apparently absurd why did you watch it? Why are you even here? You’re making yourself seem more and more incompetent and ignorant with every response. I think you need to get off the internet for awhile and rethink what you’re doing with your life because this is genuinely pathetic. This just seems like your a feminist who’s projecting on Nya due to how much you seem to love to avoid talking about Nya’s part in this besides one or two comments on it. Also to say men are raging, lazy, slobs looks like you’re heavily projecting. You should get off the internet and get therapy because this is actually sad.
3:53:12 Thats definitely not true considering Skylor who is debatably the most powerful was only corrupted by her father being an evil douche and when touching Garmadon gaining the power of destruction. It literally turns him into a monster by the end of the second season and by the end of the series is compelled to destroy. While Nya's power (which is something completlete separate from the other 4 elements) is entirely her own, is seemingly more powerful than the others, and is used as a way to not only save everyone by the end but is naturally a good thing. Even when she forgets everything her basic instinct is to save people as part of the ocean so she's definitely not a monster.
Rant time about Nya’s rise to powers: If Wu knew the whole time who Kai and Nya’s parents were, he should’ve ALWAYS been hinting at her greater abilities from the very get go. Make the line ‘your time is yet to come’ from season 1 mean something. So- from early on, Wu should praise Nya for her intense skill with Samurai X, but always suggest she is capable of more. She should’ve tried to react with the golden weapons- because at least this would further the idea that she could train like a ninja if she’s so into fighting in the first place, which we learn 10 seconds into the pilots. Throughout the seasons we slowly see her develop more martial talent, but when season 5 roles around (after the whole elemental genetics whatever of the tournament arc) Wu should insist she lean more into furthering her potential as a ninja rather than uprooting herself as the samurai x. Scrap the confused character tropes/lesson of the week nonsense and shift it to ‘don’t be afraid of change’. Nya is afraid of dropping the samurai role when presented with the possibility of gaining water powers (after learning about her mother, presumably), because she fears she won’t be helpful if not that. Leave it to Wu to help Nya realize that she should frame it more as a ‘think of how much more you could achieve’ lesson, which doesn’t discount her efforts as a samurai, but encourages her to step outside her comfort zone of technology/samurai fighting and into the art of spinjitzu and elemental power. This way, Nya wouldn’t be so resistant about dropping the role of Samurai X if the seeds had been sewn sooner. The fact that the ghosts are only defeated by water should be a further incentive for Nya to give being an elemental master a better shot, (which also plays into her "try hard" qualities which our lovely host has suggested in the video) and illustrate that change isn’t so bad. This also eliminates the repeated quote of Nya "taking the path of least resistance" when she reaches her true potential. This also helps Nya realize how to be helpful OUTSIDE of being a samurai, but as an elemental NINJA. And “NINJA = EQUALITY". Embracing change to combat her own personal issues while also rising to the occasion for the villain’s defeat could’ve been powerful if executed better. Furthermore, during her rise to true potential she could’ve been flashing back to roles as Samurai X but where she came short of being really effective, and showing how change can be positive and overcome the present situation. (This needs retroactive fixing in other seasons, but I digress). Not only would this effectively condense Nya’s confused arcs in Possession, but it would lead for a smooth transition to powers, and open the samurai moniker to Pixal (eventually) without undermining Nya’s legacy in that role (slight tweaking of that secondary plot in season 7 may be needed, and that scene in season 8 when Pixal is already revealed, etc). To address Nya's fears of being useless without powers from that mirror scene in 8, then we can again refer to her outperformance of the ninja in season 1 or whenever as Samurai X, although personally I wouldn't have written anything to do with that because it is entirely redundant. I haven't seen Crystallized, so I cannot speak to that but I know some are complaining about Nya's characterization there too.
FULLY AGREE!!! If they had taken more time to explore nya being a ninja and having elemental powers from the start considering she was literally asking Wu at one point if she had powers, it would’ve stuck better!!! Or even if they even took the time to blend being an elemental master and samurai x into one mantle for nya for her to ease into being a ninja, that would’ve gone over WAY better, I feel!!!
At the time up until like season 4 it’s like they didn’t really know what else to do with nya. Wich is completely fair seeing that at the time the show was completely made for boys if I’m being honest I didn’t even know what the use for nya was up until like season 4-5. Atleast dragons rising is doing some justice to this with adding more female characters who are not just there to be attached to male characters
@@typhonicparagon I think you're forgetting Ninjago was made from the pilot and season 1 with the intention of finishing in season 2, so they never wanted Nya to become a ninja but rather find her own path as a samurai, although if they were gonna end with season 2 they should've made her a solo act rather then sticking with Jay
And honestly I would've just preferred her not to be a ninja, not because I don't like her as a ninja not at all, i love her as a ninja, but rather find a better role as a Samurai with Wu encouraging her to do so and she has equal impact on the plot
@@TheSpectreAW yeah I knew that, I was just saying if the crew knew that they were making more than two seasons when they came up with the idea of Nya being a samurai it would’ve worked better. Which obviously no one could have known but foresight is 20/20 ig. It’s not that she was later made into a ninja, it’s that even if she was either a samurai or a ninja, but that she should’ve had that place in the team from the start without being the girl in the chair or separated from the action even after proving her place as a samurai yk?
@@BvelociraptorProductionsFr she is a crazy, annoying villain who tries to be scary, but fails without Garmadons help. Harumi's backstory is quite boring too.
Yes she was important but they did her dirty in the show. They had her disappear for the majority of the show and then we think she’s gonna make an actual comeback in season 9 only to get killed by Garmadon
What I've seen of this video so far is really good content from u as always. Excited to watch each of the season sections of this in the next few days or so :)
This is actually such a great review, its detailed and also factual. I can't imagine the amount of time it has taken to do this considering the edited length is over 4 hours. I hope this gets the attention and love it deserves!!
The weirdest thing ever in skybound to me is that only jay and Nya remeber it???? And then they completely forget about every new character in the season??? Justice for echo 😓😓😓
15:49 for context: I was born in Ecuador and watched all of ninjago in spanish. When I watched it, everyone reffered to the great devourer as a male and that never changed just now I know that the snake is a female.
1:28:30 I always read this as Jay realizing Nya’s true feelings about her role on the team up to that point rather than,”Oh man, I didn’t know you were made the water ninja.”
2:14:23 Pixal and Zane don't understand social cues that well, Some even headcanon that they are on the spectrum which is really cool, But it sucks that the only autistic coded characters are used for fakeout deaths or sidelined because they are robots
I do get your point I think Zane being lost all the time or sacrificing himself like twice I believe is a bit eh... but at this point every ninja has had a fakout once wether old or new
@@reddead__Cryptor is an all-rounder in hating, Overlord wanted equal balance in him 😅. Cryptor's one of my favorites due to how much trash he talks, and how he will verbally bash anyone who isn't the Overlord as shown in DotD
On Nya's struggles with becoming the water ninja: why did none of her struggle relate to her initial incompatibility with the element itself-as a person she is headstrong and showy, associating her with fire, however a more tranquil and fluid mindset might be needed to "sync" with water and draw out it's full potential. Water can come in floods and be extremely powerful and destructive in its own way, as it can also be positive and damage control or sustain life. The advice "You shouldn't care so much" is so unhelpful, even generally if she is overthinking things. Again, something like that could be related back to the element of water-meditation, letting your thoughts become fluid and allow them to pass-but the crux of the episode hinges on her...um...realising she 'gives up too easily' (or has in the past?). At least the flashbacks look like that. Which seems inconsistent with her character, since she has a lot of confidence and gung-ho. She's incredibly resourceful, intelligent, confident, assertive, skilled in fighting and engineering-if she struggled with anything, it might be changing from this intense person to accept more flexible and calm parts of herself, one that isn't rushing about all the time and learns to accept this new aspect. I do agree that she could also have rejected learning because she was held back intentionally (the implications). Give her some agency, rather than making her feel inadequate and as if she needs the advice of all the men around her to become who she should be to them-even if her becoming a ninja was the writers way of justifying having a way to center the story on her as well (since they said: if they're not a ninja we won't focus on them). I haven't watched this show by the way, I was a bit older when it came out and I wasn't really into LEGO. I'm still watching this video though 😅
As a Lego store employee, (not representing the company, this is just my opinion based on what I've personally noticed) I've seen so many examples of casual misogyny in regards to Ninjago specifically. Teenage boys who obviously grew up with Ninjago, but fell away from it in later years will come in and look at the sets we have now and ask "where are the original ninja", "why did they replace Jay with a girl" bc they see a blue ninja named nya. even though she's a main character from the first seasons. what's worse is I'll see very young kids, like 6-7 years old, outright reject sets that have girls in them. sora's vehicles, nya's spinjitzu/gimmick sets are passed by way too often bc kids view them as "dumb girl's toy" when they're regularly really good builds. (have not watched the full video yet so idk if you address this but I just wanted to add my perspective)
I wouldn't call Ninjago itself misogynistic, you could argue sexism but calling it misogyny is a major stretch, rather part of the community, as every community does, is misogynistic and also people who "grew up" with Ninjago would know that Jay wasn't replaced and rather that it was just Nya if they didn't I'm not sure I would call it growing up with Ninjago. As for the kids rejecting Sora/Nya's sets that isn't a Ninjago issue rather it is more of domestic issue and they maybe just prefer character sets that they physically relate to
After reading your comment, i think those boys might have thought Jay got replaced with a "redom girl" cuz of the change of designs that happened in season 8. I almost didnt recognize Nya too; i think it was an improvement even though i grew up with the og desing.
young boys not wanting to play with "girl toys" is very normal lmao most kids act that way regardless and the teenagers sound like they are just genuinely confused rather than sexist
@vernessawashington9007 sure, toys can totally be marketed to specific genders! but in the case of Ninjago, the sets with Nya and Sora aren't marketed as "girl sets", they're just Ninjago sets. the only reason they get passed by is not the nature of the toy itself, but just the gender of the main character in the set.
I’ll always stand by the fact that Misako was fumbled so bad by the writers. I think we really needed a prequel season with her learning Spinjitzu and bonding with the brothers that could’ve given us some good lore.
Since season 2 was supposed to be the last season, I think writers just wanted to cover the plot hole of "who's Lloyd's mom" and use her as plot device.
It doesnt matter if the show was intentionally sexist or not. At the end of the day the fact that female characters are systemically written this way is a clear indication of how we as a society view women in fiction and in real life. Its really important to show children that it doesnt matter what gender you are. Overall great video!! Also! i wont be elaborating, but the first 5 seasons were written by danes. I know of danish patriarcal culture, and theres a lot of small things that i can imagine are gendered stereotypes from a scandinavian view. Its found it interresting :P
honestly most of the takes were wild reaches at worst and just interpretations at best none of them even seemed directly sexist in the slightest there didnt even seem to be this systematic way you talked about they were just writing characters
@@vernessawashington9007 i dont think that the writters were intentionally sexist, because as you say there isnt anything directly sexist in the show. But we as a society do have bias when it comes to gender. All of us, you and me, have some presumptions around gender. Where we all differ is how we approach these biases. Some people are more critical, whilst some are less. Men, who are usually the ones benifiting from a lot of our patriarchal views, are usually less critical than women, due to them not being negatively affected by societal expectations in the same way. Not to say, that men arent affected negatively aswell, obviously they are. But these societal views can lead men to write women in a certain way. Even if they love women and have no ill will. This video is a look on how a series has handled male and female characters. I believe the video illustrated clear tendencies that should be critiqued. In no way is this critique saying that the writters and the show is innately sexist, it simply highlights parts of the medium that could use improovement. Its the same as critiqing a plot point.
@@vernessawashington9007 They legit had a season revolving around Jay and Nadakhan wanting to get with Nya and both of them succeeding with that, while not paying attention to how Nya felt about it and or expand on how she feels about them overstepping boundaries other than a shallow, "Hmph I'm a strong woman who don't need no man." They keep hammering this point in about Nya's character without any results and it's obnoxious and sexist in the sense that they don't view her as a character, and more like a mouthpiece and or object for feminism. It's misguided and again, obnoxious.
My nephew and I used to call Misako "black holes" because if you look at her waist on season 3 she has holes on her hips. This has nothing to do with the video but I remembered while watching it and I just wanted to share those memories
A lot of the female characters were designed that way to make them look slimmer. Crazy how beauty standards are pushed in media targeted towards such young audiences
I'm all the way through Secrets of Forbidden Spinjitzu right now and I have to say, I'm not surprised at how enjoyable and provocative your takes have been! In particular, two things to note are your takes and interpretations and observations on Pixal and Skylor. I love how you broke down Pixal's character and the scene between her and Zane in season 8 gets put in a whole new light for me. Alternatively, I also like how you point out how Skylor comes off as chill and is just a successful businesswoman in the background...which, I had not considered before. I'm so happy someone is talking about Nya's arc not really making sense in Possession. It's always kind of stumped me as to WHY I never vibed with that arc, but you articulate it quite perfectly. It really is three different arcs in one! Each episode feels like she's going through a separate problem, which is why the arc itself does not feel cohesive. I don't entirely agree with your takes on Harumi, however. Harumi is interesting in that she's almost an antithesis to Lloyd(she lost her parents when Lloyd found his family; she succumbs to her hatred whereas Lloyd proves stronger than that and refuses to givd in; she finds scapegoats for all her problems, whereas Lloyd always tries to take responsibility, etc, etc) hence why she is HIS foil. I was actually expecting THAT to be a point(unless it's mentioned later), as while she is a formidable antagonist in terms of the story of the oni trilogy, she still only has the strongest relationship and impact on Lloyd. Harumi and Nya, for instance, could have had far more bonding on the ship; even having more interactions with Jay or Cole would have been interesting(she exchanged like one line of dialogue with them each I think..?). Actually, she was on the ship most of the time, having her interact with Pixal would have been super easy! Still, that aside, I'm thoroughly enjoying this video and I'm so delighted this was made! The effort and thought process really shows! Your analysis is solid and the logic is easy to follow, even when there's complex reasoning behind a certain interpretation. Once again reminded why I subscribed to this channel and look forward to ParachutingKitten’s videos so much!!!
Haven't even watched this video yet but god, yes, agreement!!! Ninjago is my favorite show but literally every time a female character gets focus, someone just HAS to call her a condescending pet name, flirt, etc. It's like waiting for your homophobic uncle to make a comment when a gay character comes on screen, it's just bound to happen
I love how you talked about Pixal, I would agree with most of your points about her, especially about a character swap of Pixal crashing in Crystalised instead of Zane and being brought back to life from the power of love from Zane (Lots of people have told me about this and I certainly agree!!) I literally love Pixal she is such a great character!!! She needs more cameo and a season! (And a new hairstyle for Dragon Rising!)
I feel like we kind of have the Ninjago Movie to thank for Nya's characterization in Sons of Garmadon. Although she's not a real character in the slightest and her gender is annoyingly brought up a couple times, the film did successfully assimilate her into the Ninja team unit, wherein her relation to Kai and romance with Jay are pretty much never addressed. I think she actually gets more screentime than Kai and Jay combined, which is neat. It also gave her a color scheme with minimal blue accents entirely devoid of red, which I think helps her stand out better as her own character instead of being just Kai's sister and Jay's girlfriend.
@@skylandersfan6954 I agree. It looks better on her than red and it suits her element. Plus it's different enough from Jay to stand on its own. I'm a Blue Nya Ally
Holy hell I love this video so much. I've started rewatching/first time watching Ninjago 5 months ago, and one of my favorite parts after finishing each season has been coming here to watch that seasons part and compare my own notices with yours. Truly my favorite video essay ever, thank you so much🙏🙏🙏
3:33:20 I disagree that Lloyd was truly using male pronouns here, I believe in this instance he was using the more general guy version then the truly masculine version similarly to how we call other girls guy in real life
19:43 quick rant here, but sensei wu is the schrodinger's cat of not knowing and knowing who the green ninja is. When Lloyd is revealed to be the green ninja he says "i thought it the green ninja would be one of u 4" but if that is true why did he even bother to try and test the weapons with nya and morro. Its like some prank he does. Not to mention if he thought it was one of the 4 why didnt he put the weapons before them it takes like 2 minutes. I guess u could say he didnt do that to keep the ninja motivated to train, but that is stupid too. Just find who the green ninja is to train them asap since he didn't know when the final battle would be, he should be prepared. Also can we just talk about how the green ninja prophecy scroll he had was just wrong like why ? Why does misako have the right one ? Honestly the green ninja mystery isnt about who is the green ninja but about why is the green ninja a mystery
@@chanbear2005As funny as him actually ending up living with (dating) Vinny is, the writers just could not make up their mind whether they wanted to treat him seriously or as comedic relief, and it hurt his character.
43:50 Cartoons, *especially* Cartoon Network ones, seem to *love* this whole "associated colors love triangle" bit. They did it in Gumball too, and that's just off the top of my head.
I'm going to put timestamps for the sections that mention Pixal the most. Season 3: 31:45 Season 4: 59:37 Season 5: 1:19:06 Season 6: 1:48:01 Season 7: 2:01:06 Season 8: 2:07:03 Season 9: 2:37:41 Season 10: 2:51:26, 2:54:01, 2:55:42, 2:57:50 Season 11: 3:00:13, 3:15:22 Season 12: 3:18:57 Season 13: 3:26:38 The Island: 3:35:38 Seabound: 3:41:07 Crystalized: 3:53:41, 4:10:03
25:07 About Misako; I believe they could have done her, as well as her introduction, way better. A friend and me were talking about it and we came up with the idea that similarly to the show, she would have left Lloyd, only instead she wouldn’t have known he would be the green ninja and all that (cause how would she know???) Basically: Misako knew that her husband was basically destined to be killed by whoever turned out to be the green ninja and, not wanting to lose her husband, she made the brash decision of leaving her son behind so she could go out and possibly find a way to either cure the evil in Garmadon - figuring that if she couldn’t do right by Lloyd, she could at least do right for her husband, their child’s father. It honestly would have been so much better if they framed it more clearly that Misako made a bad decision, she did it with good intention. We should have seen her more trying to bond with Lloyd - or at least have her be more shocked that he had grown up so much, wondering if she had really left him for that long? And so she tries to do more right by Lloyd. I feel like it would have been cute if we even had her telling him stories about all the adventures she had and the things she found! And of course the absolute tragedy and gut punch she’d feel realising that her son would be the one destined to kill his father. TLDR; Misako could have been such a tragic but perfect example of someone making a bad decision with good intentions - only wanting to help but going about it in not the best way, but in a way she thought was right at the time.
I have mixed feelings. I hated nya when i was little because my (adult) older brothers always hated women in shows unless they fit their view of what we should be like. Now that im older i love nya, in all of the seasons. Even the writing errors built a flawed but lovable character for me. I get that there are some issues with the way she is treated by the narrative, but i relate to how she feels. like, someone who hates the idea of having to conform to gender roles, and struggles because certain parts of your life do conform to that standard. It sucks not to be part of the main team, but having to leave her independent role as samurai x at first feels like betrayal to herself. Jay and Cole "fighting" over her (we all know Cole's one true love is cake ♠️) is confusing because it’s the conflict between what she actually wants and what she is "supposed" to want. To me it always felt like a subversion of having a "the girl" and it really helped me get over my fear that my own life would reflect roles i didn’t want.
Have i ever watched Lego Ninjago? Nope. Will i ever watch Lego Ninjago? Proberly not. Did i just sit here and watch a 4 and a half hour long youtube video about Lego Ninjago? yes, yes i did
28:50 To be fair Jay and Nya were in an active relationship during this point of the series and she did think it was Jay just acting as a bad boy because he went to a bad boy school
Loved this tho I will defend Harumi's motives someeeeewhat. I def agree that they don't really make sense, but I think the point is that she was a child who lost everything and therefore had extremely clouded logic. Lloyd opened the tomb, the ninja (her hero's) didn't save her, and Garmadon did ultimately stop it all. Clouded logic, but I like what it says about experiencing grief as a child.
Wow… I just… this is extremely eye opening. One thing specifically, it made me realize that the whole Royal Family thing contributed absolutely nothing to the lore and isn’t connected to the main plot of season 8 at all. You could literally just have Harumi be a random citizen and nothing else would change, which makes the writers adding that in for the sake of cheap clichés and stereotypes that much more aggravating.
The only justification for her being an adopted princess I believe was that the Royal Family had a library with the info about the Oni and maybe about how to bring Garmadon back, although I could be remembering wrong
I always thought that harumi being a princess actually enabled her to do a lot of what she did. Royalty, even ceremonially, are stupid rich. She could steal huge amounts of cash from the treasury, which she used to create such a massive organized gang. She could bribe authority, pay people good wages to keep them loyal, buy gear and weapons and info, etc etc. You need money if your army isn't made up of ghosts or is united by race like the serpentine. You gotta convince humans in other ways. Secondly, her parents, i don't get the impression her parents were all that involved with her personal life. Typical royals. Therefore, it's easier for her to get away with stuff right under their noses. Also, as FransiscoRamirez-nb4uu said, she lives somewhere historic and full of valuable direct sources of history and knowledge. Living in a historic royal library definitely gave her an edge unlike anything you'd find in a public access library, especially for forbidden knowledge.
@@dustyrose192this would've been better tbh. I didn't like harumi as a princess, it didn't make any sense for me because nobody in the Ninjago knew that there was a royal family
FINALLY! SOMEONE ELSE WHO THINKS HARUMI'S MOTIVES MAKE NO SENSE!!!!!!!!! What I've never understood is that they easily could've worked the fact that Lloyd released the Serpentine in the first season into it. Would it make perfect sense? Probably not, but it's better reasoning than what we have in canon.
I don't believe anyone mentioned this yet, so, in Hunted we got a passing comment that always irked me made to Nya. In the very first episode when Lloyd and the ponytail squad are about to be captured, the elemental masters show up. Why is Shade's entry line to Nya, appearing from behind her and saying "Hello Gorgeous" . Why was this necessary? When has he ever shown traits of being a flirt? It's always bugged me.
This video was honestly kinda eye opening. I'm a male fan of this show, and I never really thought about how misogynistic the show was or, at the very least, many parts of it. I've seen the video twice now, and I kinda feel ashamed of myself for never bothering to look deeper into it like this. This video was really truly amazing, and I wanted to thank you for putting in this amount of time and effort to help show thousands of people, including myself, the stereotyping, and empowerment/disempowerment based purely off of gender 💙
And good on you for listening and reconsidering your view. :) It's a little shocking how much media subtly or unintentionally promotes sexist messages to it's audience. So it's important people are able to listen to women's perspectives in the matter.
I'm gonna be honest that I don't think any of this was caused by misogyny, but just the writers not being good at writing female characters. Males have an easier time writing male characters, generally.
I don't think she is saying that the writers are misogynistic. But what they have written is accidentally misogynistic. You don't have to be actively discriminatory to accidentally create something that contains discrimination
2:07:27 I am SO glad I'm not the only one who hates the idea of two characters looking similar. I'm someone who wants every character, my own or not, to be special, and both Nya and Pixal are interesting characters imo, and, imo, interesting characters need interesting designs, so to have them both look similar makes them less interesting and less distinguishable, and it bothers me SO MUCH!! 4:27:05 you have perfectly summarised my biggest issue with Harumi in Crystalized, plus how Harumi was reduced to nothing but Lloyd's love interest, and her redemption arc, if she even has any, wasn't about her realizing, acknowledging, accepting, and making up for her mistakes, but rather to make up with Lloyd
as a long time fan it’s really awesome to see how ninjago has progressed in terms of misogyny and representation. the new cast for dragons rising is largely comprised of women and has mainly focused on sora and wyldfire’s stories so far .. and there’s implied romance between cole and geo :,) very great to see as a queer person who watched ninjago growing up and is finally able to see themselves in some of the characters
In the defense of “The Pony Tail Gang” The reason they all have ponytails is because they are constantly in fights. Shoot, look at all of the long haired male characters in this show! They have to be ready for anything, so their hair shouldn’t be in their faces. Also, Pixal not changing her hair gets a pass for me since it is metal after all, and Nya’s hair is supposed to be the piece from the movie, which was a call back to Pixal’s hair. Haven’t finished your video yet, on season 9 right now!
For 28:40 she assumed it was Jay, well cause he is literally his clone, I'm not saying you are wrong, it is weird that they're showing that this kind of behavior is okay. But it wasn't like she was being assaulted by a 'stranger'.
I don’t keep up as closely with Ninjago as I used to but I really respect the effort and thought put into this video. Made me want to think about the show more for the first time in a long time.
Theres a lot of good points in this video, and im impressed with how much effort was put into it. There are some points i disagree with but ill just say the most stuff i agree with in this video Starting with Nya. Nya is one of those characters to me that is confusing. I didnt mind her being Kais motivation in the pilot, i enjoyed her being samurai x because it was her own identity and creation. I didnt exactly like the idea of her becoming a ninja since i was so invested in her being samurai x, but it wasnt the worst thing to happen. It just seems like her character is always changing and the writers are just not sure what to make her. Is she a ninja or samurai x? Its just confusing how they keep switching her. I've always thought the start of Jaya was pretty odd. Jay asking if a kidnapped girl was hot is not the best thing to introduce a future couple lol. Definitely one of the misogynistic moments in the show With Pixal, i did like her being samurai x. It gave her a chance to have her own identity and not keep being an AI. However, she sometimes just gets ignored and is just there to build mechs. But when she has focus, her character is pretty good I love harumi, rather oni trilogy Harumi. I loved how she was written to be this casual princess who turns out to be the villain all along. I love how she is manipulate and heartless. I love her backstory. I loved her fate in hunted. I just love her. But with Crystalized, oh boy. They took that all away. Her small redemption is ignored and she joins the overlord despite not wanting to at first. The logic makes no sense. She no longer dislikes lloyd. She.. has feelings for him? That came out of nowhere! Her entire motivation and character was that she hated him because he released the serpentine. And the only reason why she turned "good" in this season was because the overlord said he controled the great devourer. Harumi being angry at someone else is a horrible redemption arc. She was so badly written in Crystalized, it wouldve been better to just not have her there at all. I've always liked Skylor even if she doesn't get a lot of justice. I still think shes a good character, she has some personality and shes strong, her power is neat, shes helpful, kind, and i think shes a good match for Kai, even if they arent actually dating. Which is good because i like kai and her taking it slow Mystake, oh my sweet oni grandma. She had one of the most interesting backstories and was one of the most unexpected characters to be so cool. From a random tea lady, to a freaking oni who loved the realm the fsm made. She was a wise mentor to Lloyd and helped the team. And then they kill her off. I mean, i like her sacrifice and everything but they didnt have to kill her. She was so awesome Anyway, very long comment. Keep up the good work kitten
I have to say, I really love Sora in the new show. She has some amazing moments and the scene where she tells her parents, that her name isn't Anna but Sora works as somewhat of queer representation, maybe?! Her parents don't accept her identity and dead name her repeatedly but she has found a new, accepting family in the ninja and is rewarded for embracing her true self and that's just kind of nice.
when i was a little girl i watched a few episodes at my grandparents who had cable's house. i don't remember much but nya felt like such a disingenuously written character to me
I know this video doesn’t just talk about season 1/2(pretty self evident by the length) but it’s crazy how for half of the season Nya is a really interesting character and the other half of the time she’s an exposition machine/mechanic. I also don’t like how she was the first one to be corrupted by “the dark goo(💅)” even when I was younger I thought it would have been more interesting if it was someone else
I think she was done first because she wasn't a ninja yet, and they needed all of the ninja to be able to help Lloyd up to the overlord. It also gives conflict for Kai and Jay, if it's Nya
@@fbiagent..one of my favorite things in hunted/sons of garmodon is the fact that despite only his oni parts were brought back he still hesitated to hurt Lloyd and I still like to believe that’s not just plot armor or bc Lloyd is a main character
I always thought it was funny throughout the entire show that all the other ninjas have fallen inlove at first sight ATLEAST once, except Cole. Every. Single. Character. Falls in love with someone of the opposite sex. Except Cole. I mean with the way the show treats him, he's very easily to label as gay. He shows no attraction to women, nor is he really close to any, compared to his (sometimes intimate) relationships with the other men he grows up around. Cole is gay, right ?? Even writers thought he was gay, so like..
The harumi motivation problem couldve been so good if they just showed that harumi saw lloyd with the snakes (for example let say her and her family visited that village that Lloyd first released those snakes upon) ,and she wouldve seen that he was doing all that and then she wouldve found out that he's the reason for the great devourer being there in the first place. Its maybe a bit on the nose but it makes more sense for her to HATE lloyd specifically. Btw love this vid!
Great video, I would like to point out some of my interpretations though: Harumi: My interpretation is that everything she does has long stopped being about the death of her parents. It was the catalyst, the inciting incident. But as a result of her trauma she was so consumed by anger and hatred that she stopped thinking rationally. She directs her anger at Lloyd because he's "the Green Ninja", the big target that's associated with the people she blamed for her problems, the easiest target to direct her anger at. She was a child when that happened, she was traumatized, and she's so obsessed with her goals, so consumed by anger that she's way beyond any reason. Basically, she's insane, so of course her plans are flawed. She was so focused on her goals that the consequences never crossed her mind. In Hunted she gets a front row seat to the consequences of her actions, they slowly start weighing her on her, scenes like Garmadon force-choking her and destroying Mr. E slowly make her more and more scared and doubtful of him. I don't even see her death as a redemption (I don't thinm that family made it), I see it as a moment of clarity where she finally realizes the consequences of her actions and everything comes crashing down around her, and she's helpless to stop it. Of course, everything that happens in Crystalized is inexcusable. Fuck that season. There's a really awesome official story called Garmadon Rulez that's literally just Harumi's Diary. It offers a lot of insight into her psychology (there's even slight implications of actual schizophrenia), even if it was nice to see more of that stuff in the actual show. It was only released in German and Chinese but there's a fan translation: twitter.com/majgoatee/status/1658894273939480581?t=RPnzS-s-cgQL8hywQfLzig&s=19 Possession Nya: A while ago I would've mostly agreed with you, I'm still kind of on the side of Water Samurai Nya, like Wildbrain Pixal shows that they didn't have to make her a Ninja to make her feel like a member of the team. They just needed to have her, y'know, actually do stuff. A friend suggested that maybe she starts off as the Water Ninja in S5 but at the end of Skybound she decides to bexome the Water Samurai instead, I like that idea personally. I will say, though, I watched Just Stop's Retrospective and I really like his interpretation of Nya's arc in Possession. Basically, she's a burnt out gifted kid. Becoming a Samurai came easy to her, building stuff came easy to her, she was just a natural at those stuff from a young age. But becoming the Water Ninja didn't involve anything technological, it involved a martial arts style that she wasn't familiar with, and she had to actively train to get there. She was so used to being so good at everything and everyone praising her that when she actually had to struggle with something new, like a "normal" person, she just felt super frustrated. I know it's a really random thing to make a comparison to but there's an episode of Young Sheldon where he struggles with the subject of philosophy because he's only a gifted kid when it comes to book smarts, and it gets really frustrating to him. That's the same page I see Nya's S5 arc on. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Dragons Rising. The new cast is almost completely gender balanced, it's extremely diverse even when it comes to female characters, and there's really zero attention brought to their genders. Also, one of the main characters (and the one that gets the most focus in the first season) is a very on-the-nose queer allegatory which I think is awesome.
@@teapartytales Sora. A lot of people were taking her final conversation with her parents as an allegory for trans people, because Sora had picked out a chosen name that she wanted everyone to use, and in some ways, people saw her old name as her “deadname”.
As a female viewer of this show when I was younger I never really noticed (or maybe I didn’t care idk) but you bring up valid points and I’m glad I have another video essay on ninjago because I feel like it’s not talked about enough
2:31:06 To put it simply, Garmadons good side is friends and alias with the ninja. Thinking of it from Harumis perspective here, the man you adore for being savign Ninjago fro mthe thing that killed your parents is now helping the people who let your parents be killed Not only that but Sensei Garmadon was only brought back thanks to the ninja, Harumi obviously saw this situation as a form of the ninja indoctrinating Garmadon and stripping him away of his true self. Also, Harumi doesn't care about Garmadon as a person, because just lek the ninja, in S1 the puplic didn't know Garmadon for his personality but rather his power. Harumi saw Garmadons power and obsessed over only that aspect of him because she believed he was the only one powerful enough to save her from her miserable life and protect her. Not to say Sensei Garmadon was weak, but he didn't have the same type of power or "strive for change" like Lord Garmadon did btw in the book "Garmadon Rulez" which is basically Harumi's childhood diary. it sates that the royal family only adopted her as a way to show that they were helpful because "oh look! We jsut adopted this poor orphaned girl who just had her parents killed in the great devourer attack!" besides that, they mostly ignored her. They ignored and were highly strict of Harumi and for a traumatized, and angry kid, you can just imagine what it could do to them since they have no emotional support or help to lean on They adopted Harumi not particularly because they wanted her to take over the throne (not saying they didn't intend her to just saying it wasnt their main motivation) they jsut wanted the people of Ninjago to think of the mas heroes for helping a poor child in need.
25:04 honestly never thought about it that way, i always thought its following the naming tradition of marvel like Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Rocket Raccoon and Miles Morales, and gossip part is probably a reference to how she is a newsreporter but i digress.
Dawg, ever since Skylor was introduced, I wanted her to join the team, but then she went back to the kitchen for the rest of the show😭, Every season I'm like is she going to appear but nah she didn't. Even in hands of time, a kai focused season, they didn't do shit with her lmao. I don't know why you would introduce a new ninja and then not use her, like she had her own suit that matched the tournament robes. Same with Pixal, before season 8, she was stuck in her Boys head and not once did they ask her if she wanted to get rebuilt. Crazy wild. She should have been rebuilt right after the tournament ended. At least she had a lot of focus in the wildbrain era. Idk if they had Pixal and Skylor on the team with them each getting new suits alongside the main six that would have been great for the sets and make Ninjago appealing to both Girls and Boys. Also, give them their own focus seasons early. Nya took a decade to get one.
The outfit changes in this video alone are amazing. Your analysis and attention to detail is incredible I would have never looked as far into it but most of the video makes sense and adds up, the only segment that’s a little wrong is Harumi’s but not everyone read her diary so I can’t blame you at all for analyzing her like that. Please continue your journey on yt, you’re great.
I genuinely love this video so much. Very well written and edited and super funny. Puts into words what I feel like myself and a lot of women and girls who love the show have felt for a while. Totally relate to criticizing the things I love extra hard because I love it. Thanks for all the hard work, this is probably one of my all time favorite videos! (Edit: I forgot to add the computer background made me laugh, excellent attention to details)
To be fair, showing up on a video call to drop a drama bomb and leave, while a terrible way to introduce already-unnecessary drama, is at least 100% in-character for Chen
a funny thing is about the love triangle is that the writers knew how bad it was and retconned things as well. partially by stating cole was never actually into nya, he was just confused by the attention and that he gets competetive with jay (also may have been spurred on by even the writers thinking cole is gay)
True, and also, considering all the guys in this universe fall for girls instantly, I'd say in this universe, Cole is demi-sexual. (Only starts having sexual feelings for someone once they've had a strong emotional bond with them.)
@@boomgirlbucko I have heard of cole being Asexual-coded.
The thing with him being confused is right, he only thought he was into Nya because of the love machine made by The Overlord.
Whenever I think about it, I just say to myself that Cole was jealous over Nya. Not because he was into her, but because he hadn't processed that he was jealous that she was dating Jay.
@@Casterisks Having not watched the show, this is exactly what I tell myself
honestly for nyas colors, ive always thought the blue was more a reference to her water powers rather than to jay.. all the ninja's colors are somewhat related to their elemental power so i think it makes more sense that her blue accents link to water
Fun fact, Lloyd's color, green, is a reference to his element, green.
@@EndTH-camShorts_ Lloyd in season 2 using his element: "Green!! 😤"
Its energy, I doubt you guys are real Ninjago fans. Energy is all the 4 elements of the ninja combined mixed eith golden energy, but Lloyd lost all the elements and the golden energy, so the only thing he has left is the element of Energy.@@EndTH-camShorts_
I was just joking.
It... doesn't really bother me to be called a fake Ninjago fan.
and its her favorite color!!
As much as Scales' pink wife is lazy and annoying I'm glad they didn't do the trope of "Anthropromorphic Male character who is generally androgynous X Anthropomorphic Female character with explicitly feminine features." Just glad that Scales moved on after his dysfunctional marriage to pythor
pythor was lowkey a gay icon tbh
Right?? As much as i hated the idiotic pink snake from the moment i saw it as a 10 yr old girl, i was infinitely grateful they at least didn't give her snake b**bs
Yeah glad he was able to get over the divorce, he had it rough man
i mean, they still did the "male monster is more beastlike while female monster is more human" trope, Scales has a naga body type while Pink Wife™ has human legs (and also a _pearl necklace_ because we need the stupid boy-children to know she's a feeeemale!!)
@@bestjaanieverWas???? He still isss
Here's how Harumi's motivation works:
It's not just about revenge and her parents. That incident from her childhood influenced her very outlook. The ninjas whom people considered heroes were unable to cope with the threat. But Garmadon, the man who was considered a villain, saved the entire city. That day, Harumi decided that darkness is stronger than light. And that peace can only be ensured by superior force. She's like Hydra from CA:WS. Through strength and fear, brings peace to the world without fear of getting her hands dirty.
finally someone who gets it lmao.
A lot of ppl when they see Harumis backstory go "Well that make no sense because ninja good and garmadon bad"
but their forgetting that Harumi was a naïve child who put ALL her trust, love and support towards the ninja. Not to mention, kids perceptions on the world are easily molded like clay, and for a child who went through something like Harumi did, there's no wonder why her perception of right and wrong, moral and immoral, got flipped on its head.
I interpreted it as more that Harumi hates the ninja and felt like that she needed a reason to justify her hatred and resorts to bringing back Garmadon to “protect ninjago”. Despite her blabber she knows she is wrong but can’t bring herself to admit that the way she felt about the ninja was wrong because it’s been a part of her life so long it’s become a part of her as a person.
These are really cool interpretations, they explain a lot of the flip-flopping her character motivations do over her time on-screen (esp Crystalised). Problem is, this is mostly determined on part of the fans, it isn't written into the meta-narrative or intended by the writers.
If the writers gave more consideration to her character motivations, these great directions for her backstory might've been the case in canon - which is i believe the point of the video.
Not to say they don't hold weight as interpretations, they absolutely do, just that the writers fumbled the bag in this regard
Exactly
it's the fact she dislikes lloyd specifically despite the fact he was also a child during the great devourer and was noot involved
*finally gets to the Nya season*
"So first we have Pixal-"
Yes
31:31 cryptor wasnt just sexist, he was racist and ableist, made fun of zane for being old, made fun of mindroid for being short. Also the ai made by embodiment of evil is not a nice guy what a shocker
I hate Cryptor
how does making fun of someone for being old make them racist?
@@MugenwhatMaybe not by human standards, but terms like "relic" and "tin can" could be considered slurs among nindroids
DUDE ITS A FUCKING LEGO ROBOT IN A KIDS SHOW CHILL UR WOKE ASS OFF
@@GamingGreen21luckily nindroids don’t have feelings and don’t fucking exist
It is worth noting that season 7 was written by a different head writer and the Hagemans were brought back in for season 8 knowing very little about the previous season, explaining the slight inconsistencies and why there was no good reason as to why Pixal had to keep her identity a secret - the Hagemans were resolving someone else's plot point
It was still Pixal during Season 7, just that those writers didn't have an answer either.
@@willfanofmanyii3751 not really, actually. It was originally supposed to be “past Wu’s” role, but they changed it last minute
@@gigikju9934 It was ditched early in development. Hence the whole reason Pixal went missing, the computer being torn apart, and Samurai X using all the friend's voices except Pixal's.
@@willfanofmanyii3751 huh…then I guess the writers just don’t know what they’re doing sometimes
I personally think there is a good reason for pixal keeping her samurai x identify a secret. When she had no choice but to reveal it in S8 shortly after she asked zane whether she was more useful inside the computer or not as she wants to be helpful, i think she still viewed herself as an assistant and didn’t want to hurt zane’s feelings by not being useful so didn’t tell anyone she was samurai x, until zane told her the choice is always hers and he likes her not in the computer then it was cleared up but that’s just how i view it.
Almost all of the female characters have ponytails because all the hairpieces have to be compatible with Lego neck attachments like the sword holders in the shoulder pads, etc
Exactly
didn't stop the lego movie
@@glowstickspinalfluid Well the Lego movie wasn't 90% ninjas was it?
While I do think you are right with the reasoning, Lego could break norms and give female characters shorter hairstyles to break up the monotony. The new cat hair girl is a good example.
@@crowgirl9833 ok well to be fair sora also has a ponytail 😭 its a different kind of ponytail though so id call that a win. plus wyldfyre and euphrasia have different hair so W
I honestly still believe Ninjago achieved good female representation by making Kai supportive of Nya being Samurai X and stuff, but I do agree that there are a lot of unintentionally sexist moments in the show(like why does Nya have to be the disposable character for so many seasons??).
its just a lego kids show lmao
@@realaurorienit’s open for criticism
@@dumflame saying a Lego kids show is misogynistic isn't criticism it's just stupidity
@@realaurorien "how dare people care about the messages a kids show is teaching kids" is sure a take
@@realaurorienwhat zero media literacy does to a mf
I clicked on this video thinking it was 43 minutes. I have now seen the actual time stamp. It will not deter me.
In a better timeline, Misako isn't an easily manipulative dumbass and noticed that the signature is written in a different handwriting compared to the rest of the letter, but chose Garmadon anyway because she loved Garmadon for Garmadon, not for his calligraphy skills.
That twist was stupid as hell TBH
In a better timeline Lloyd stayed mad at her and not garmadon.
@@markthesapphicdumpsterfire1745???? whats with the misako hate
@@aggablei mean she put her son in a boarding school for bad boys while trying to research how to avoid him and garmadon from fighting. Something that end up being pointless because you couldn't find anything. Lloyd didn't even remember his mother so that tells you that she left him very young and never checked on him which is bad parenting. And if she was going on multiple expeditions to find answers, something I'm assuming if she only came up on dead leads, that means that she had down time in-between that she could have spent checking on him which she never does. She technically is the reason all of season 1, 2, and the sons of garmadon happened because if she was around in his life she could have curbed his villainous tendencies and the first serpentine wouldn't have been released and the dominos wouldn't start falling. Of course this is looking at it from the wantsonian perspective.
Doyalist perspective she just didn't exist and is blameless.
@@starterking
Personally i think misako was done dirty by the writers but i try to think of it from her perspective. Her husband was just sent to the underworld by his brother, leaving her to care for a kid by herself. We don't know about the connections she has outside of the spinjitzu bros and that explorers club, but assuming she was friends with those in the elemental alliance, which wouldve disbanded, she really didn't have many supports. She had Wu of course, but if she was looking for a way to prevent the green ninja prophecy, and had discovered Lloyd was the green ninja, giving Lloyd to him to care for was not on the table (plus wu doesnt exactly have the best track record with his students by this point ...)
Tbh, I would've been stressed out of my mind as a single parent in that situation too. Especially if she was doing so much research that she felt she was unable to properly care for Lloyd. Maybe she sent him to Darkley's because some of the teachers were skulkin, who were under Garmadon's command. Maybe she thought sending Lloyd to an evil boarding school would prevent him from ever needing to fight his own father to the death. She was probably desperate, not wanting her husband or her child to be killed, yknow? Especially at the hands of eachother.
I agree her checking up on Lloyd would've been nice, and unfortunately I think it's just the case of the writers not thinking ahead and just shoehorning her in. A possible explanation is maybe she thought he'd be alright with his relation to Garmadon? Who knows
Ultimately I think alot of hate for Misako tends to be a result of the writers introducing her poorly. Someone can be a good person and still make mistakes, yknow? Plus by this point Lloyd has ultimately forgiven her and they have been, and still are, making up for lost time, which I think is the most important thing
I always had the head canon that pixane was queer platonic because it reminds me of me and my partner
Awww good for you guys! 😊
It’s not, but there’s Cole and Vanya are, Cole is heavily implied to be gay and makes it clear they are just friends. There’s your queer platonic ship :)
@@markthesapphicdumpsterfire1745 thats why its a *headcanon*. its not canon. ppl can have differing opinions and interpretations of the text
@@markthesapphicdumpsterfire1745 That's why it's their headcanon my guy
*Headcanon*
I also headcanon QPR Zane and Pixal honestly, reminds me of my own experiences especially as an asexual autistic person
@@markthesapphicdumpsterfire1745 I mean this in the nicest way possible but do you know what a qpr is
Am I about to sit here and watch a girl go into the depths of the sexism presented in a show about ninjas who are made of plastic while also wearing some of the most fire outfits I've seen for four hours...hell yeah I am
The best way to spend new year's eve
I love that this is how I’m spending my New Year’s Eve 😂
Gonna be honest I like that the great devourer is female.
I like to see women portrayed in all roles hero, villain, wildcard, nerd, powerhouse, and in this case force of nature
It shows that no matter who or what you are you can fill any role.
l also like that the serpentine both revere her as their champion and also freak the heck out because they woke her up.
It reads as “oh _crap_ mom’s gonna kill us for this! It was pythor’s fault! we swear!
Honestly I absolutely loved the like dimensional monster the preeminent from the season 5 finale being a chick she was so cool
YESSS THANKKK YOUUU---!! as a queer mixed POC, it don't matter the gender, if you're behaviors bad-- DAWG YOURE BAD NOT ME XDD
“It felt like the default was male”
“The best way to describe nya is that she’s Kai’s sister and jay’s love interest.”
YES, i grew up watching this and while I always liked moments when the female characters showed their strength, but the show always made it like they had to be side characters and like the main part of their character was what they were to men but I saw so young that I didn’t know what was upsetting me. I haven’t watched the show in a long time but the first thing I could think of when thinking of the main female characters was what male characters they were attached to(harumi to loyd and nya to kai and jay and pixel to zane) and then that they were strong or smart. It’s not that female characters shouldn’t be connected to male characters, but rather that it shouldn’t become one of the defining character traits of basically all the recurring female characters.
IMO harumi is a...confusing story. However I feel like dragons rising is doing a lot of justice for that rn 3 new characters are on the team now and one of the 2 girls of the 3 is a main char not just for one seasons but the 2 seasons we have while yes they do have attachments it’s exucuted waaay better like sora has a actually really good backstory and wyldfire being like the student of kai bc there so like eachother without it being like in a romantic way is so well done. honestly dragons rising is starting out pretty good. It’s fixing a lot of issues that the old show shows had and that’s pretty good
That was a pretty big problem with all older Lego themes tbh. The new friends show is much better about inclusion.
@@cthulhucult3230nahh really? a show about Ninja warriors fighting bad guys Meant to sell lego made in 2010 has male leads :o
Nya was Samurai X in season 1
@@Kamfys You act like girls didn't like this stuff too back then, despite there being a LOT of Ninjago and lego fans that were little girls, the very same way MLP or The Power Puff Girls had their fans who were little boys.
One thing you neglected to mention was that in season 2, Misako becomes the first female in the show to use spinjitsu, the specialized fighting ability from which the show gets its subtitle.
The writers: That NEVER happened
She also only uses Spinjitsu once. I can’t remember any other notable time. Also, Misako isn’t an elemental master, so there’s no reason Nya couldn’t have learned Spinjitsu.
AND, the first time Nya uses it, she's evil!Nya!
Misako is garbage. So is hating. (Intentionally, they are written as horrible people)
*harumi
So grateful for your analysis on Zane - he’s been my favorite since the show started airing. I hate how much torture they get away with of him and PIXAL. It makes sense why myself and others gravitated towards him, you’re spot on with that. You articulate feelings I had watching Ninjago that I had when I was younger. It felt weird being a female fan of this franchise that was exclusively written by men when I was a kid. I knew something was kinda off and I love this video.
If/when we get Pixal and Skylor back in Dragons Rising, I hope that they, Nya, and Sora will be on some sort of team for a bit just so we can get The Ponytail Squad: Extended Edition.
YESSSSSS!
People complain about re-using Mei's hairpiece, but honestly both from a modelling standpoint and the "Ponytail Pandemic", it's way better
25:00 I never saw her name as being a refrence to how "girls gossip alot" but rather to her job as a reporter and how they often fail to tell the whole story and sometimes spread false rumors, otherwise known as "gossiping".
Especially when her first name is a reference to a Scream character.
I never saw her name as a stereotype, but rather bc it had a nice ring to it + she’s a reporter and it sounds a lot like a stage name.
Back when this show first came out it always bugged me how it characterized Nya. I was that little girl watching a "boys show" so I wanted to relate to her, but the way she was written made her contradictory and kinda annoying at times. I love her a lot more now. The show has come a long way, even if it still had a lot of room to grow.
This is a fantastic review and puts light on how they could have done things better. Also thank you for mentioning the atrocious sibling dialogue in season 7, it always cracked me up.
As a girl who grew up watching ninjago and a lot of other shows for girls and mostly for boys, i wanted to relate to nya too but didnt cuz i didnt like her hearcut 😅. When i was a kid i first needed to like the look to get into a character and relate to it. My favorite ninja was Kai and when Skyler came in i started relating to her since not only her look was nice but also her elemental power was exactly what i was dreaming having as a kid
I liked a lot of what you said. I love your channel cause there are not very many female ninjago TH-camrs out there and it’s great to have that perspective. Something I noticed about Vania’s Character upon many rewatches is that she has the most positive sense of self worth out of any other characters on the show. She doesn’t care when others think she is weird, and she is always standing up for herself and her friends. She is definitely a people pleaser but also sets clear boundaries for herself, shown in how she rebels against her evil father. I think that her bubbly nature often has people perceive her as young but in reality she is quite a mature leader, and she knows it. all her most powerful qualities are in the background and you sort of have to look for them, but I also think that’s what makes her so great. The narrative doesn't feel the need to draw attention to her “girl boss” traits because she doesn’t care what people think. That is something I wish more people could see and take away from her.
Yes in the era of shows targetted for either girls or boys, we ended up with a lot of these. None of these were intentionally sexist of course, but the problem was they were mostly written by writers of the opposite gender of who wasnt targetted and had to guess, (in this case the writers of Ninjago, and for opposite example the writers of mlp g4/g5) in order to keep the shows to their targetted audience for marketting purposes.
People just don’t know how to write for the opposite Sex sometimes
Thank you for bringing up MLP as a reverse example, cause you’re completely right. It’s how it is. Shows targeted at girls tend to have way more female characters and hardly any good male characters, and shows targeted at boys are the reverse. The writing quality for the opposite gender always suffers, as well, as a lot of shows exemplify.
My bottom line is simply that if someone’s griping about bad female rep in Ninjago (or anything else targeted at boys), I’m not taking them seriously unless they’d agree that MLP (or anything else targeted at girls) has the same problem but with men.
@@FedoraLloyd well yeah, but the difference between men in girls shows and women in boys shows is that we don't really need to focus on male representation when most shows already do that. Girl shows with only a few male characters that are all poorly written tend to be more of a silly novelty in the industry whereas poorly written female characters are found in media for all groups due to social issues and gender stereotypes. That said, we are referring to media from the early 2000s, so a lot of current media has come a long way since then. Also, there are plenty of male gender stereotypes that are just as much of a problem as female ones in media.
@@FedoraLloyd And then there’s the Powerpuff Girls.
@@fbiagent.. part of that is on purpose. They don't want mixed audicences. That's why young justice as cancelled cus the higher ups found that girls liked it too and instead of the paretns buying two sets of toys the girls would just play with their brothers, which is such a dumb idea. Why would you want to risk the arguments that come from sharing a toy that both kids like when you can get them one each and save yourself the hassle?
Women do indeed be building.
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
Women in STEM.
I feel like the reason Zane & Pixal work as like characters with a genuine relationship that feels emotionally satisfying where Jay & Nya super don't all comes down to the fundamental core of their relationship. Jay thought "girl hot" but Zane though "gee wow finally another being who might relate to my very specific atypical circumstances and who I can find community and solidarity with" and so from the very begining Zane sought to validate and empathize with Pixal as a fellow android meanwhile Nya came off more as an object of desire for Jay to pursue.
Pixal and Zane ARE compatible, they can share understanding and perspective that make them feel seen and at home. Meanwhile Jay and Nya's first date was literally just a cavalcade of lies because they did not truly understand each other and were not able to trust that they could be vulnerable with one another in that way.
Also everything abt Zane & Pixal reads 100% as various different types of queer & other & as much as found family as any sort of romance which is a dynamic even the straights can get behind cuz it puts them in a position of being the outsider & the underdogs which makes folks just tend to have a huge freaking soft spot for because everyone feels lost or out of place at some point in their life basically.
I definitely read Zane and Pixal as autistic. For obvious reasons. While it can be a little dehumanising (literally) that almost all decent autistic representation in media is from a robot or sometimes alien character, I do generally enjoy a good autistic robot in most shows
I know it has major implications of how allistic people see us as not human enough and weird, but it also makes me feel seen in that. It gives a more solid show of the feeling that other people don't see people like me as human enough. It's weird tbh
But yeah, Zane and Pixal both autistic real
Also I agree with the queer thing, I definitely feel like Zane and Pixal together gives off some major queer enery. Especially since queerness and autism often come hand in hand. I'd say they both give me ace vibes honestly, I dunno
@@T13GUY omg yes, the same thing i always thought! i wondered why i always related to Zane, turns out people's interpretation of robots is often "haha, they take things too seriously and miss nuances", which is how i've been treated as an undiagnosed autistic kid
I actually headcanon that while they're in a straight passing relationships, both of them identify with some amount of queer labels, whether that being anything beyond the gender binary, aromantic spectrum, or the ace spectrum (obviously)
42:53 now this absolutely 100% is my bias towards Cole (as an aroace and projecting onto him) but I've never seen it as flirting back. Cole was never really praised like his fellow ninjas were and he really doesn't hang out with Nya often so someone he doesn't hang out with often coming over and saying you're a good guy is nice. It gets severely awkward when they reach out their hand towards you cause what are you gonna do? Just stare at it? Also when they pull away Nya seems panicked while Cole just seems in shock at the sudden movement of her pulling away. I don't think that was Cole flirting cause he's also pretty isolated and is shown to not really be attracted to people in general. The reason why he got defensive when Jay called him out in the junkyard is obviously his friend is now attacking him out of nowhere and I see it as being insanely petty and defensive which is why he started to compete for Nya's attention (thank you for listening to my delusional ted talk)
EDIT: So I just found out that Tommy Anderson just said that it’s canon that Cole didn’t have any feelings for Nya! He was just confused and flattered by the attention she was giving him and Cole started to compete for her attention to get Jay mad, not because he liked her. This Ted talk is justified
@@lucyanderson9064 first of all most likely the retconning is true but when it comes to the ‘taking things too far’ teenagers absolutely will take things this far because teenagers are dumb. I would not put it past someone to be this petty.
Second of all, Jay had no right to get angry at first as it was all Nya putting moves on Cole. She reached for his hand first and he didn’t seem concerned in the slightest when Jay walked in. All throughout the series Jaya has been on this will they won’t they hell and Jay clearly has an unhealthy obsession with Nya that he’s projecting onto Cole. He wasn’t even mad that they held hands, he was only mad at Cole because he was, according to a machine, Nya’s perfect match.
@@lucyanderson9064 I’m sorry but it genuinely sounds like you may not have fully been paying attention to the show. He was absolutely not mad at Nya because of he was he would be shouting at her who happened to be in the room when he got mad at Cole. Yes he absolutely has an unhealthy obsession with Nya. In the pilots simply hearing about her got him asking if she was hot and single, season 3 was when the whole issue started where he never showed any sign of being mad at Nya and instead blamed the whole thing on Cole. Jay never brought up the hand holding because when he walked in they immediately let go and he just seemed confused. The whole reason why he lashed out at Cole is because Pixal said that Cole was her perfect match. That's when he called Cole a backstabber. the worst thing Cole did is hold her hand and even then it was Nya who first engaged in hand holding. season 6 no matter how much Nya said she didn't care to be in a relationship Jay would constantly try to find ways to get together with her, he was even considering wishing for her to love him against her will.
If what him and Nya had was genuine in the first season he would have every right to be mad at her because they literally kissed yet she still went and held hands with Cole. The whole triangle was completely Nya’s fault because she took the word of a machine too seriously despite the fact she kissed the guy. I doubt Cole even knew of the kiss because that happened on the rollercoaster when Jay found his true potential, it’s not like he knew they were dating because Nya never seemed to make that clear judging by just how disloyal she was. You’re clearly talking about the things Nya did wrong when all Cole did was hold hands even though Nya was the one who started it. He didn’t even seem as concerned at Jay walking in as Nya was because he didn’t see it as a bad thing. Hand holding isn’t only a romantic thing.
Even if Jay was mad at the hand holding thing it gave him no right to straight up tackle Cole to the ground. The difference between Nya and Misako is we genuinely got romantic vibes from Misako and Wu as Wu did engage in physical affection like full on hugging and holding each other which is different from holding a hand, and again Cole didn’t initiate it nor did he continuously engage in it. He only started to earn Nya’s heart when Jay had lashed out at him and he didn’t understand what he did wrong as seen from his lines during the fight with Jay.
The whole reason why Cole says ‘don’t tell Jay’ after Nya calls him a good guy is because he knows how obsessed his friend is with this girl despite not knowing Nya had kissed him.
@@lucyanderson9064 First of all it is honestly really sad that you’re apparently an adult who’s arguing with how someone interprets something. Second of all, I’ve also been watching since it came out and I continue to rewatch it. This is not something I’m pulling out of my hat.
Never has Jay once said anything mean or bad about Nya, you’re the one imagining things if you think he was mad at Nya. If he was so mad, why did he five minutes later try to once again win her heart? You’re also bringing in stuff that doesn’t matter. You’re the one who’s reading too much into this by saying Jay was upset with Nya when he showed absolutely no sign of being upset with her at all. Instead of saying anything to Nya he immediately tackled Cole to the ground. Stop trying to make Jay out to seem like a reasonable and likable person in this because he was also in the wrong. You seem like you’re genuinely just closing your eyes to what I’m saying. Hand holding isn’t only romantic and there was none of that romantic music that they play when Misako and Wu are in the same room because Cole was never made out to like Nya. He never liked her through the pilots or first two seasons, I do agree it was probably intentional to develop some kind of relationship with Cole and Nya but it’s not like they suddenly developed feelings when Nya was clearly into Jay in the first two seasons. You really cannot say Jay didn’t have an unhealthy obsession with Nya when season 6 is a thing where he literally tried to FORCE HER into liking him. If you think that’s not unhealthy I say bring that up with whatever partner you have because I think they need to rethink their relationship choices.
You also say my reasoning is juvenile yet you’re here bringing stuff up that we never mentioned or stuff that’s even relevant to what we’re discussing. You’re looking very desperate to try and seen all mighty which seems like an ego thing that makes me worry for how you’re raising those supposed children you got there. If you think what Jay was doing was normal when again he tackled Cole to the ground and thought it was worth it to risk Cole and his own life to impress a girl he was supposedly mad with you are clearly not paying attention to the show at all and it heavily shows in your responses. Bringing real life issues is irrelevant because as you said, it’s a kids show.
Again if you’re an adult female arguing apparently over a kids show you really need to rethink your priorities. If the whole video is apparently absurd why did you watch it? Why are you even here? You’re making yourself seem more and more incompetent and ignorant with every response. I think you need to get off the internet for awhile and rethink what you’re doing with your life because this is genuinely pathetic.
This just seems like your a feminist who’s projecting on Nya due to how much you seem to love to avoid talking about Nya’s part in this besides one or two comments on it. Also to say men are raging, lazy, slobs looks like you’re heavily projecting. You should get off the internet and get therapy because this is actually sad.
3:53:12 Thats definitely not true considering Skylor who is debatably the most powerful was only corrupted by her father being an evil douche and when touching Garmadon gaining the power of destruction. It literally turns him into a monster by the end of the second season and by the end of the series is compelled to destroy. While Nya's power (which is something completlete separate from the other 4 elements) is entirely her own, is seemingly more powerful than the others, and is used as a way to not only save everyone by the end but is naturally a good thing. Even when she forgets everything her basic instinct is to save people as part of the ocean so she's definitely not a monster.
Rant time about Nya’s rise to powers:
If Wu knew the whole time who Kai and Nya’s parents were, he should’ve ALWAYS been hinting at her greater abilities from the very get go. Make the line ‘your time is yet to come’ from season 1 mean something. So- from early on, Wu should praise Nya for her intense skill with Samurai X, but always suggest she is capable of more. She should’ve tried to react with the golden weapons- because at least this would further the idea that she could train like a ninja if she’s so into fighting in the first place, which we learn 10 seconds into the pilots. Throughout the seasons we slowly see her develop more martial talent, but when season 5 roles around (after the whole elemental genetics whatever of the tournament arc) Wu should insist she lean more into furthering her potential as a ninja rather than uprooting herself as the samurai x. Scrap the confused character tropes/lesson of the week nonsense and shift it to ‘don’t be afraid of change’. Nya is afraid of dropping the samurai role when presented with the possibility of gaining water powers (after learning about her mother, presumably), because she fears she won’t be helpful if not that. Leave it to Wu to help Nya realize that she should frame it more as a ‘think of how much more you could achieve’ lesson, which doesn’t discount her efforts as a samurai, but encourages her to step outside her comfort zone of technology/samurai fighting and into the art of spinjitzu and elemental power. This way, Nya wouldn’t be so resistant about dropping the role of Samurai X if the seeds had been sewn sooner.
The fact that the ghosts are only defeated by water should be a further incentive for Nya to give being an elemental master a better shot, (which also plays into her "try hard" qualities which our lovely host has suggested in the video) and illustrate that change isn’t so bad. This also eliminates the repeated quote of Nya "taking the path of least resistance" when she reaches her true potential. This also helps Nya realize how to be helpful OUTSIDE of being a samurai, but as an elemental NINJA. And “NINJA = EQUALITY".
Embracing change to combat her own personal issues while also rising to the occasion for the villain’s defeat could’ve been powerful if executed better. Furthermore, during her rise to true potential she could’ve been flashing back to roles as Samurai X but where she came short of being really effective, and showing how change can be positive and overcome the present situation. (This needs retroactive fixing in other seasons, but I digress).
Not only would this effectively condense Nya’s confused arcs in Possession, but it would lead for a smooth transition to powers, and open the samurai moniker to Pixal (eventually) without undermining Nya’s legacy in that role (slight tweaking of that secondary plot in season 7 may be needed, and that scene in season 8 when Pixal is already revealed, etc).
To address Nya's fears of being useless without powers from that mirror scene in 8, then we can again refer to her outperformance of the ninja in season 1 or whenever as Samurai X, although personally I wouldn't have written anything to do with that because it is entirely redundant. I haven't seen Crystallized, so I cannot speak to that but I know some are complaining about Nya's characterization there too.
FULLY AGREE!!! If they had taken more time to explore nya being a ninja and having elemental powers from the start considering she was literally asking Wu at one point if she had powers, it would’ve stuck better!!! Or even if they even took the time to blend being an elemental master and samurai x into one mantle for nya for her to ease into being a ninja, that would’ve gone over WAY better, I feel!!!
At the time up until like season 4 it’s like they didn’t really know what else to do with nya. Wich is completely fair seeing that at the time the show was completely made for boys if I’m being honest I didn’t even know what the use for nya was up until like season 4-5. Atleast dragons rising is doing some justice to this with adding more female characters who are not just there to be attached to male characters
@@typhonicparagon I think you're forgetting Ninjago was made from the pilot and season 1 with the intention of finishing in season 2, so they never wanted Nya to become a ninja but rather find her own path as a samurai, although if they were gonna end with season 2 they should've made her a solo act rather then sticking with Jay
And honestly I would've just preferred her not to be a ninja, not because I don't like her as a ninja not at all, i love her as a ninja, but rather find a better role as a Samurai with Wu encouraging her to do so and she has equal impact on the plot
@@TheSpectreAW yeah I knew that, I was just saying if the crew knew that they were making more than two seasons when they came up with the idea of Nya being a samurai it would’ve worked better. Which obviously no one could have known but foresight is 20/20 ig. It’s not that she was later made into a ninja, it’s that even if she was either a samurai or a ninja, but that she should’ve had that place in the team from the start without being the girl in the chair or separated from the action even after proving her place as a samurai yk?
Day of the Departed is officially the least sexist installment, it only took 41 seconds to address it, sensei Yang stays winning as always
#YangDynastyForLife
I’m halfway thru this video but I cannot WAIT til she talks about Crystalized cause oh man did they mess up Nya and Harumi
Harumi is one of my favorites and I cannot believe how much they crumbled her character, I was very disappointed
Harumi wasn't really a good villain to begin with. She's just annoying and i hate her.
@@arrowskywalkertheweirdoHer story ended just fine if she stayed dead I'd call her character good but they just threw it out the trash
Somehow bad writing is misogyny, lmao
@@BvelociraptorProductionsFr she is a crazy, annoying villain who tries to be scary, but fails without Garmadons help. Harumi's backstory is quite boring too.
"old tea lady" THAT'S MYSTAKE SHE'S LIKE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERS IN THE SHOW
True
It's cause she wasn't a big character at that time
Yes she was important but they did her dirty in the show. They had her disappear for the majority of the show and then we think she’s gonna make an actual comeback in season 9 only to get killed by Garmadon
That's part of what makes s9 bad. @@gameslash6208
Did u even watch the video? She only called her the old tea lady because she was unnamed at that point in the show
What I've seen of this video so far is really good content from u as always. Excited to watch each of the season sections of this in the next few days or so :)
CRUSTY!!!
I did not expect to see the guy here
I watched it in one sitting and it's one of if not the best analysis video on ninjago's female characters so far with so many details explained. :D
Didn’t think crusty would be here
This is actually such a great review, its detailed and also factual. I can't imagine the amount of time it has taken to do this considering the edited length is over 4 hours. I hope this gets the attention and love it deserves!!
The weirdest thing ever in skybound to me is that only jay and Nya remeber it???? And then they completely forget about every new character in the season??? Justice for echo 😓😓😓
Jay wished to rewind time and wish that Nya took his hand. So I’m guessing they both remember because there both apart of the wish
Justice for echo zane!
Nadakhan probably remembers it too, since he executed the wish. If someday some fool should actually release him from that lamp, he'd be veeery angry.
15:49 for context: I was born in Ecuador and watched all of ninjago in spanish.
When I watched it, everyone reffered to the great devourer as a male and that never changed just now I know that the snake is a female.
1:28:30 I always read this as Jay realizing Nya’s true feelings about her role on the team up to that point rather than,”Oh man, I didn’t know you were made the water ninja.”
2:14:23 Pixal and Zane don't understand social cues that well, Some even headcanon that they are on the spectrum which is really cool, But it sucks that the only autistic coded characters are used for fakeout deaths or sidelined because they are robots
because ninjago is ableist. simple as that.
@@gone9820 I wouldn't say that lol, The only ableism that i remember was with Cryptor but he was also was alot of other stuff
I do get your point I think Zane being lost all the time or sacrificing himself like twice I believe is a bit eh... but at this point every ninja has had a fakout once wether old or new
@@reddead__Cryptor is an all-rounder in hating, Overlord wanted equal balance in him 😅. Cryptor's one of my favorites due to how much trash he talks, and how he will verbally bash anyone who isn't the Overlord as shown in DotD
I think dragons rising definitely improved in writing the women
On Nya's struggles with becoming the water ninja: why did none of her struggle relate to her initial incompatibility with the element itself-as a person she is headstrong and showy, associating her with fire, however a more tranquil and fluid mindset might be needed to "sync" with water and draw out it's full potential. Water can come in floods and be extremely powerful and destructive in its own way, as it can also be positive and damage control or sustain life.
The advice "You shouldn't care so much" is so unhelpful, even generally if she is overthinking things. Again, something like that could be related back to the element of water-meditation, letting your thoughts become fluid and allow them to pass-but the crux of the episode hinges on her...um...realising she 'gives up too easily' (or has in the past?). At least the flashbacks look like that. Which seems inconsistent with her character, since she has a lot of confidence and gung-ho. She's incredibly resourceful, intelligent, confident, assertive, skilled in fighting and engineering-if she struggled with anything, it might be changing from this intense person to accept more flexible and calm parts of herself, one that isn't rushing about all the time and learns to accept this new aspect.
I do agree that she could also have rejected learning because she was held back intentionally (the implications). Give her some agency, rather than making her feel inadequate and as if she needs the advice of all the men around her to become who she should be to them-even if her becoming a ninja was the writers way of justifying having a way to center the story on her as well (since they said: if they're not a ninja we won't focus on them).
I haven't watched this show by the way, I was a bit older when it came out and I wasn't really into LEGO. I'm still watching this video though 😅
As a Lego store employee, (not representing the company, this is just my opinion based on what I've personally noticed) I've seen so many examples of casual misogyny in regards to Ninjago specifically.
Teenage boys who obviously grew up with Ninjago, but fell away from it in later years will come in and look at the sets we have now and ask "where are the original ninja", "why did they replace Jay with a girl" bc they see a blue ninja named nya. even though she's a main character from the first seasons.
what's worse is I'll see very young kids, like 6-7 years old, outright reject sets that have girls in them. sora's vehicles, nya's spinjitzu/gimmick sets are passed by way too often bc kids view them as "dumb girl's toy" when they're regularly really good builds.
(have not watched the full video yet so idk if you address this but I just wanted to add my perspective)
I wouldn't call Ninjago itself misogynistic, you could argue sexism but calling it misogyny is a major stretch, rather part of the community, as every community does, is misogynistic and also people who "grew up" with Ninjago would know that Jay wasn't replaced and rather that it was just Nya if they didn't I'm not sure I would call it growing up with Ninjago.
As for the kids rejecting Sora/Nya's sets that isn't a Ninjago issue rather it is more of domestic issue and they maybe just prefer character sets that they physically relate to
After reading your comment, i think those boys might have thought Jay got replaced with a "redom girl" cuz of the change of designs that happened in season 8. I almost didnt recognize Nya too; i think it was an improvement even though i grew up with the og desing.
young boys not wanting to play with "girl toys" is very normal lmao most kids act that way regardless and the teenagers sound like they are just genuinely confused rather than sexist
@vernessawashington9007 sure, toys can totally be marketed to specific genders! but in the case of Ninjago, the sets with Nya and Sora aren't marketed as "girl sets", they're just Ninjago sets. the only reason they get passed by is not the nature of the toy itself, but just the gender of the main character in the set.
@@ColinPowers But this isn’t misogyny from Ninjago, stop blaming them for problems that a parent could solve
I’ll always stand by the fact that Misako was fumbled so bad by the writers. I think we really needed a prequel season with her learning Spinjitzu and bonding with the brothers that could’ve given us some good lore.
Since season 2 was supposed to be the last season, I think writers just wanted to cover the plot hole of "who's Lloyd's mom" and use her as plot device.
It doesnt matter if the show was intentionally sexist or not. At the end of the day the fact that female characters are systemically written this way is a clear indication of how we as a society view women in fiction and in real life. Its really important to show children that it doesnt matter what gender you are. Overall great video!!
Also! i wont be elaborating, but the first 5 seasons were written by danes. I know of danish patriarcal culture, and theres a lot of small things that i can imagine are gendered stereotypes from a scandinavian view. Its found it interresting :P
@@skylandersfan6954 did we watch the same video?
@@skylandersfan6954 the video answers yours first question. Good day.
honestly most of the takes were wild reaches at worst and just interpretations at best none of them even seemed directly sexist in the slightest there didnt even seem to be this systematic way you talked about they were just writing characters
@@vernessawashington9007 i dont think that the writters were intentionally sexist, because as you say there isnt anything directly sexist in the show. But we as a society do have bias when it comes to gender. All of us, you and me, have some presumptions around gender. Where we all differ is how we approach these biases. Some people are more critical, whilst some are less. Men, who are usually the ones benifiting from a lot of our patriarchal views, are usually less critical than women, due to them not being negatively affected by societal expectations in the same way. Not to say, that men arent affected negatively aswell, obviously they are. But these societal views can lead men to write women in a certain way. Even if they love women and have no ill will. This video is a look on how a series has handled male and female characters. I believe the video illustrated clear tendencies that should be critiqued. In no way is this critique saying that the writters and the show is innately sexist, it simply highlights parts of the medium that could use improovement. Its the same as critiqing a plot point.
@@vernessawashington9007 They legit had a season revolving around Jay and Nadakhan wanting to get with Nya and both of them succeeding with that, while not paying attention to how Nya felt about it and or expand on how she feels about them overstepping boundaries other than a shallow, "Hmph I'm a strong woman who don't need no man." They keep hammering this point in about Nya's character without any results and it's obnoxious and sexist in the sense that they don't view her as a character, and more like a mouthpiece and or object for feminism. It's misguided and again, obnoxious.
My nephew and I used to call Misako "black holes" because if you look at her waist on season 3 she has holes on her hips. This has nothing to do with the video but I remembered while watching it and I just wanted to share those memories
A lot of the female characters were designed that way to make them look slimmer. Crazy how beauty standards are pushed in media targeted towards such young audiences
I'm all the way through Secrets of Forbidden Spinjitzu right now and I have to say, I'm not surprised at how enjoyable and provocative your takes have been! In particular, two things to note are your takes and interpretations and observations on Pixal and Skylor. I love how you broke down Pixal's character and the scene between her and Zane in season 8 gets put in a whole new light for me. Alternatively, I also like how you point out how Skylor comes off as chill and is just a successful businesswoman in the background...which, I had not considered before.
I'm so happy someone is talking about Nya's arc not really making sense in Possession. It's always kind of stumped me as to WHY I never vibed with that arc, but you articulate it quite perfectly. It really is three different arcs in one! Each episode feels like she's going through a separate problem, which is why the arc itself does not feel cohesive.
I don't entirely agree with your takes on Harumi, however. Harumi is interesting in that she's almost an antithesis to Lloyd(she lost her parents when Lloyd found his family; she succumbs to her hatred whereas Lloyd proves stronger than that and refuses to givd in; she finds scapegoats for all her problems, whereas Lloyd always tries to take responsibility, etc, etc) hence why she is HIS foil.
I was actually expecting THAT to be a point(unless it's mentioned later), as while she is a formidable antagonist in terms of the story of the oni trilogy, she still only has the strongest relationship and impact on Lloyd. Harumi and Nya, for instance, could have had far more bonding on the ship; even having more interactions with Jay or Cole would have been interesting(she exchanged like one line of dialogue with them each I think..?). Actually, she was on the ship most of the time, having her interact with Pixal would have been super easy!
Still, that aside, I'm thoroughly enjoying this video and I'm so delighted this was made! The effort and thought process really shows! Your analysis is solid and the logic is easy to follow, even when there's complex reasoning behind a certain interpretation.
Once again reminded why I subscribed to this channel and look forward to ParachutingKitten’s videos so much!!!
Haven't even watched this video yet but god, yes, agreement!!! Ninjago is my favorite show but literally every time a female character gets focus, someone just HAS to call her a condescending pet name, flirt, etc. It's like waiting for your homophobic uncle to make a comment when a gay character comes on screen, it's just bound to happen
I love how you talked about Pixal, I would agree with most of your points about her, especially about a character swap of Pixal crashing in Crystalised instead of Zane and being brought back to life from the power of love from Zane (Lots of people have told me about this and I certainly agree!!)
I literally love Pixal she is such a great character!!! She needs more cameo and a season! (And a new hairstyle for Dragon Rising!)
I feel like we kind of have the Ninjago Movie to thank for Nya's characterization in Sons of Garmadon. Although she's not a real character in the slightest and her gender is annoyingly brought up a couple times, the film did successfully assimilate her into the Ninja team unit, wherein her relation to Kai and romance with Jay are pretty much never addressed. I think she actually gets more screentime than Kai and Jay combined, which is neat.
It also gave her a color scheme with minimal blue accents entirely devoid of red, which I think helps her stand out better as her own character instead of being just Kai's sister and Jay's girlfriend.
@@skylandersfan6954 I agree. It looks better on her than red and it suits her element. Plus it's different enough from Jay to stand on its own. I'm a Blue Nya Ally
Holy hell I love this video so much. I've started rewatching/first time watching Ninjago 5 months ago, and one of my favorite parts after finishing each season has been coming here to watch that seasons part and compare my own notices with yours. Truly my favorite video essay ever, thank you so much🙏🙏🙏
3:33:20 I disagree that Lloyd was truly using male pronouns here, I believe in this instance he was using the more general guy version then the truly masculine version similarly to how we call other girls guy in real life
yeah but there's other clips like the one where kai called samurai x a "he." a bad example but not totally incorrect
19:43 quick rant here, but sensei wu is the schrodinger's cat of not knowing and knowing who the green ninja is. When Lloyd is revealed to be the green ninja he says "i thought it the green ninja would be one of u 4" but if that is true why did he even bother to try and test the weapons with nya and morro. Its like some prank he does. Not to mention if he thought it was one of the 4 why didnt he put the weapons before them it takes like 2 minutes. I guess u could say he didnt do that to keep the ninja motivated to train, but that is stupid too. Just find who the green ninja is to train them asap since he didn't know when the final battle would be, he should be prepared. Also can we just talk about how the green ninja prophecy scroll he had was just wrong like why ? Why does misako have the right one ? Honestly the green ninja mystery isnt about who is the green ninja but about why is the green ninja a mystery
Honestly no one had good character arcs in Crystalized not the guys or the girls everything about it sucked hard
Not even Garmadon?
@@chanbear2005As funny as him actually ending up living with (dating) Vinny is, the writers just could not make up their mind whether they wanted to treat him seriously or as comedic relief, and it hurt his character.
@@vectorshingetsu5560I want them to either rewrite crystallized or make it not cannon or sum so bad😭
43:50 Cartoons, *especially* Cartoon Network ones, seem to *love* this whole "associated colors love triangle" bit. They did it in Gumball too, and that's just off the top of my head.
I'm going to put timestamps for the sections that mention Pixal the most.
Season 3: 31:45
Season 4: 59:37
Season 5: 1:19:06
Season 6: 1:48:01
Season 7: 2:01:06
Season 8: 2:07:03
Season 9: 2:37:41
Season 10: 2:51:26, 2:54:01, 2:55:42, 2:57:50
Season 11: 3:00:13, 3:15:22
Season 12: 3:18:57
Season 13: 3:26:38
The Island: 3:35:38
Seabound: 3:41:07
Crystalized: 3:53:41, 4:10:03
You're such a real one for this
Holy shit- this is a lot longer than I expected. TIME FOR POPCORN!! Thanks for this snack of a video ‘Kit! Looking forward to watching all of it
2:36:14 FUNNIER FACT
Tox isn’t a ninjago character her actually name is toxicita and she was a villain from the lego ultra agents set line
Half the elemental masters were that way. The main other example I can think of is the invisible dude.
25:07
About Misako; I believe they could have done her, as well as her introduction, way better.
A friend and me were talking about it and we came up with the idea that similarly to the show, she would have left Lloyd, only instead she wouldn’t have known he would be the green ninja and all that (cause how would she know???)
Basically: Misako knew that her husband was basically destined to be killed by whoever turned out to be the green ninja and, not wanting to lose her husband, she made the brash decision of leaving her son behind so she could go out and possibly find a way to either cure the evil in Garmadon - figuring that if she couldn’t do right by Lloyd, she could at least do right for her husband, their child’s father.
It honestly would have been so much better if they framed it more clearly that Misako made a bad decision, she did it with good intention. We should have seen her more trying to bond with Lloyd - or at least have her be more shocked that he had grown up so much, wondering if she had really left him for that long? And so she tries to do more right by Lloyd. I feel like it would have been cute if we even had her telling him stories about all the adventures she had and the things she found! And of course the absolute tragedy and gut punch she’d feel realising that her son would be the one destined to kill his father.
TLDR; Misako could have been such a tragic but perfect example of someone making a bad decision with good intentions - only wanting to help but going about it in not the best way, but in a way she thought was right at the time.
Imagine the only reason they didn’t build P.I.X.A.L. a new body was because her neural drive was stuck in Zane’s processor like a tape stuck in a VHS
I have mixed feelings. I hated nya when i was little because my (adult) older brothers always hated women in shows unless they fit their view of what we should be like.
Now that im older i love nya, in all of the seasons. Even the writing errors built a flawed but lovable character for me. I get that there are some issues with the way she is treated by the narrative, but i relate to how she feels. like, someone who hates the idea of having to conform to gender roles, and struggles because certain parts of your life do conform to that standard. It sucks not to be part of the main team, but having to leave her independent role as samurai x at first feels like betrayal to herself. Jay and Cole "fighting" over her (we all know Cole's one true love is cake ♠️) is confusing because it’s the conflict between what she actually wants and what she is "supposed" to want.
To me it always felt like a subversion of having a "the girl" and it really helped me get over my fear that my own life would reflect roles i didn’t want.
Have i ever watched Lego Ninjago? Nope.
Will i ever watch Lego Ninjago? Proberly not.
Did i just sit here and watch a 4 and a half hour long youtube video about Lego Ninjago? yes, yes i did
If you have a long extended break, you definitely should! It took me like a month to finish the show but I love it to bits now, despite the flaws
28:50 To be fair Jay and Nya were in an active relationship during this point of the series and she did think it was Jay just acting as a bad boy because he went to a bad boy school
Loved this tho I will defend Harumi's motives someeeeewhat. I def agree that they don't really make sense, but I think the point is that she was a child who lost everything and therefore had extremely clouded logic. Lloyd opened the tomb, the ninja (her hero's) didn't save her, and Garmadon did ultimately stop it all. Clouded logic, but I like what it says about experiencing grief as a child.
Wow… I just… this is extremely eye opening.
One thing specifically, it made me realize that the whole Royal Family thing contributed absolutely nothing to the lore and isn’t connected to the main plot of season 8 at all. You could literally just have Harumi be a random citizen and nothing else would change, which makes the writers adding that in for the sake of cheap clichés and stereotypes that much more aggravating.
The only justification for her being an adopted princess I believe was that the Royal Family had a library with the info about the Oni and maybe about how to bring Garmadon back, although I could be remembering wrong
I always thought that harumi being a princess actually enabled her to do a lot of what she did. Royalty, even ceremonially, are stupid rich. She could steal huge amounts of cash from the treasury, which she used to create such a massive organized gang. She could bribe authority, pay people good wages to keep them loyal, buy gear and weapons and info, etc etc.
You need money if your army isn't made up of ghosts or is united by race like the serpentine. You gotta convince humans in other ways.
Secondly, her parents, i don't get the impression her parents were all that involved with her personal life. Typical royals. Therefore, it's easier for her to get away with stuff right under their noses.
Also, as FransiscoRamirez-nb4uu said, she lives somewhere historic and full of valuable direct sources of history and knowledge. Living in a historic royal library definitely gave her an edge unlike anything you'd find in a public access library, especially for forbidden knowledge.
@@FranciscoRamirez-nb4uu could have made a daughter of a rich family instead who liked to collect old books
@@dustyrose192this would've been better tbh. I didn't like harumi as a princess, it didn't make any sense for me because nobody in the Ninjago knew that there was a royal family
Yeah tbh, the royal family was just out of nowhere like wdym there was a royal family???
FINALLY! SOMEONE ELSE WHO THINKS HARUMI'S MOTIVES MAKE NO SENSE!!!!!!!!!
What I've never understood is that they easily could've worked the fact that Lloyd released the Serpentine in the first season into it. Would it make perfect sense? Probably not, but it's better reasoning than what we have in canon.
I don't believe anyone mentioned this yet, so, in Hunted we got a passing comment that always irked me made to Nya. In the very first episode when Lloyd and the ponytail squad are about to be captured, the elemental masters show up. Why is Shade's entry line to Nya, appearing from behind her and saying "Hello Gorgeous" . Why was this necessary? When has he ever shown traits of being a flirt? It's always bugged me.
“And for the girls watching…there’s Nya.”
little me: *confused in kai fan*
Little me: *confused in lloyd fan*
Confused Zane fan
*Little me confused in Zane fan*
This video was honestly kinda eye opening. I'm a male fan of this show, and I never really thought about how misogynistic the show was or, at the very least, many parts of it. I've seen the video twice now, and I kinda feel ashamed of myself for never bothering to look deeper into it like this. This video was really truly amazing, and I wanted to thank you for putting in this amount of time and effort to help show thousands of people, including myself, the stereotyping, and empowerment/disempowerment based purely off of gender 💙
I don’t think you should feel bad about not thinking deeply abt the social and political undertones of Lego kids show 😂
And good on you for listening and reconsidering your view. :)
It's a little shocking how much media subtly or unintentionally promotes sexist messages to it's audience. So it's important people are able to listen to women's perspectives in the matter.
I dont think I would call it misogynistic but sexism could be argued
@@TheSpectreAW Yeahmaybe I worded it a bit poorly
@lucy_sashimi2637 Yeah over the past few months that has been something I've noticed more and more as I start to pay attention to it it's kinda crazy
I'm gonna be honest that I don't think any of this was caused by misogyny, but just the writers not being good at writing female characters. Males have an easier time writing male characters, generally.
I don't think she is saying that the writers are misogynistic. But what they have written is accidentally misogynistic.
You don't have to be actively discriminatory to accidentally create something that contains discrimination
First of all, this video is extremely underrated.
Second, did I spend my new years eve watching this? Yes, yes I did.
2:07:27 I am SO glad I'm not the only one who hates the idea of two characters looking similar.
I'm someone who wants every character, my own or not, to be special, and both Nya and Pixal are interesting characters imo, and, imo, interesting characters need interesting designs, so to have them both look similar makes them less interesting and less distinguishable, and it bothers me SO MUCH!!
4:27:05 you have perfectly summarised my biggest issue with Harumi in Crystalized, plus how Harumi was reduced to nothing but Lloyd's love interest, and her redemption arc, if she even has any, wasn't about her realizing, acknowledging, accepting, and making up for her mistakes, but rather to make up with Lloyd
as a long time fan it’s really awesome to see how ninjago has progressed in terms of misogyny and representation. the new cast for dragons rising is largely comprised of women and has mainly focused on sora and wyldfire’s stories so far .. and there’s implied romance between cole and geo :,) very great to see as a queer person who watched ninjago growing up and is finally able to see themselves in some of the characters
In the defense of “The Pony Tail Gang” The reason they all have ponytails is because they are constantly in fights. Shoot, look at all of the long haired male characters in this show! They have to be ready for anything, so their hair shouldn’t be in their faces. Also, Pixal not changing her hair gets a pass for me since it is metal after all, and Nya’s hair is supposed to be the piece from the movie, which was a call back to Pixal’s hair. Haven’t finished your video yet, on season 9 right now!
For 28:40 she assumed it was Jay, well cause he is literally his clone, I'm not saying you are wrong, it is weird that they're showing that this kind of behavior is okay. But it wasn't like she was being assaulted by a 'stranger'.
I don’t keep up as closely with Ninjago as I used to but I really respect the effort and thought put into this video. Made me want to think about the show more for the first time in a long time.
Theres a lot of good points in this video, and im impressed with how much effort was put into it. There are some points i disagree with but ill just say the most stuff i agree with in this video
Starting with Nya. Nya is one of those characters to me that is confusing. I didnt mind her being Kais motivation in the pilot, i enjoyed her being samurai x because it was her own identity and creation. I didnt exactly like the idea of her becoming a ninja since i was so invested in her being samurai x, but it wasnt the worst thing to happen.
It just seems like her character is always changing and the writers are just not sure what to make her. Is she a ninja or samurai x? Its just confusing how they keep switching her.
I've always thought the start of Jaya was pretty odd. Jay asking if a kidnapped girl was hot is not the best thing to introduce a future couple lol. Definitely one of the misogynistic moments in the show
With Pixal, i did like her being samurai x. It gave her a chance to have her own identity and not keep being an AI. However, she sometimes just gets ignored and is just there to build mechs. But when she has focus, her character is pretty good
I love harumi, rather oni trilogy Harumi. I loved how she was written to be this casual princess who turns out to be the villain all along. I love how she is manipulate and heartless. I love her backstory. I loved her fate in hunted. I just love her.
But with Crystalized, oh boy. They took that all away. Her small redemption is ignored and she joins the overlord despite not wanting to at first. The logic makes no sense. She no longer dislikes lloyd. She.. has feelings for him? That came out of nowhere! Her entire motivation and character was that she hated him because he released the serpentine. And the only reason why she turned "good" in this season was because the overlord said he controled the great devourer. Harumi being angry at someone else is a horrible redemption arc. She was so badly written in Crystalized, it wouldve been better to just not have her there at all.
I've always liked Skylor even if she doesn't get a lot of justice. I still think shes a good character, she has some personality and shes strong, her power is neat, shes helpful, kind, and i think shes a good match for Kai, even if they arent actually dating. Which is good because i like kai and her taking it slow
Mystake, oh my sweet oni grandma. She had one of the most interesting backstories and was one of the most unexpected characters to be so cool. From a random tea lady, to a freaking oni who loved the realm the fsm made. She was a wise mentor to Lloyd and helped the team. And then they kill her off. I mean, i like her sacrifice and everything but they didnt have to kill her. She was so awesome
Anyway, very long comment. Keep up the good work kitten
Arrow basically made an entire follow up video script here wow
@@sobblegaming350 Lol
@@arrowskywalkertheweirdoI am not reading all of that
@@ThePathofEvil ooooo words scary
I have to say, I really love Sora in the new show. She has some amazing moments and the scene where she tells her parents, that her name isn't Anna but Sora works as somewhat of queer representation, maybe?! Her parents don't accept her identity and dead name her repeatedly but she has found a new, accepting family in the ninja and is rewarded for embracing her true self and that's just kind of nice.
when i was a little girl i watched a few episodes at my grandparents who had cable's house. i don't remember much but nya felt like such a disingenuously written character to me
Can we just talk about how predatory and what a pushover was Nadakhan? He was literally 400 years old!!
We don't talk about Season 6 Dareth
I know this video doesn’t just talk about season 1/2(pretty self evident by the length) but it’s crazy how for half of the season Nya is a really interesting character and the other half of the time she’s an exposition machine/mechanic. I also don’t like how she was the first one to be corrupted by “the dark goo(💅)” even when I was younger I thought it would have been more interesting if it was someone else
I think she was done first because she wasn't a ninja yet, and they needed all of the ninja to be able to help Lloyd up to the overlord. It also gives conflict for Kai and Jay, if it's Nya
@@dragonsman4733and like who else would it be? Jullian is to old for it, wu and misako are family to garmadon and he wouldn’t do that to them
@@fbiagent..one of my favorite things in hunted/sons of garmodon is the fact that despite only his oni parts were brought back he still hesitated to hurt Lloyd and I still like to believe that’s not just plot armor or bc Lloyd is a main character
I cud really use your hand
B R O T H E R I am here for you
S I S T E R 1:50:28 2:56:44
This is one of the longest single pieces of media Ive ever seen and I don’t regret a single second of it
YOU ARE THE FIRST NINJAGO TH-camR I'VE FOUND WHOS NOT A MAN IM NOT LETTING YOU GO
I love your computer background!
Amazing video! Have been waiting for this ever since th 10 days vid.
I always thought it was funny throughout the entire show that all the other ninjas have fallen inlove at first sight ATLEAST once, except Cole. Every. Single. Character. Falls in love with someone of the opposite sex. Except Cole. I mean with the way the show treats him, he's very easily to label as gay. He shows no attraction to women, nor is he really close to any, compared to his (sometimes intimate) relationships with the other men he grows up around. Cole is gay, right ?? Even writers thought he was gay, so like..
I knew nothing about Lego Ninjago going into this video. This has been a very informative 4 and a half hours, thank you
The harumi motivation problem couldve been so good if they just showed that harumi saw lloyd with the snakes (for example let say her and her family visited that village that Lloyd first released those snakes upon) ,and she wouldve seen that he was doing all that and then she wouldve found out that he's the reason for the great devourer being there in the first place. Its maybe a bit on the nose but it makes more sense for her to HATE lloyd specifically. Btw love this vid!
Great video, I would like to point out some of my interpretations though:
Harumi:
My interpretation is that everything she does has long stopped being about the death of her parents. It was the catalyst, the inciting incident. But as a result of her trauma she was so consumed by anger and hatred that she stopped thinking rationally. She directs her anger at Lloyd because he's "the Green Ninja", the big target that's associated with the people she blamed for her problems, the easiest target to direct her anger at. She was a child when that happened, she was traumatized, and she's so obsessed with her goals, so consumed by anger that she's way beyond any reason. Basically, she's insane, so of course her plans are flawed. She was so focused on her goals that the consequences never crossed her mind. In Hunted she gets a front row seat to the consequences of her actions, they slowly start weighing her on her, scenes like Garmadon force-choking her and destroying Mr. E slowly make her more and more scared and doubtful of him. I don't even see her death as a redemption (I don't thinm that family made it), I see it as a moment of clarity where she finally realizes the consequences of her actions and everything comes crashing down around her, and she's helpless to stop it.
Of course, everything that happens in Crystalized is inexcusable. Fuck that season.
There's a really awesome official story called Garmadon Rulez that's literally just Harumi's Diary. It offers a lot of insight into her psychology (there's even slight implications of actual schizophrenia), even if it was nice to see more of that stuff in the actual show. It was only released in German and Chinese but there's a fan translation:
twitter.com/majgoatee/status/1658894273939480581?t=RPnzS-s-cgQL8hywQfLzig&s=19
Possession Nya:
A while ago I would've mostly agreed with you, I'm still kind of on the side of Water Samurai Nya, like Wildbrain Pixal shows that they didn't have to make her a Ninja to make her feel like a member of the team. They just needed to have her, y'know, actually do stuff. A friend suggested that maybe she starts off as the Water Ninja in S5 but at the end of Skybound she decides to bexome the Water Samurai instead, I like that idea personally.
I will say, though, I watched Just Stop's Retrospective and I really like his interpretation of Nya's arc in Possession. Basically, she's a burnt out gifted kid. Becoming a Samurai came easy to her, building stuff came easy to her, she was just a natural at those stuff from a young age. But becoming the Water Ninja didn't involve anything technological, it involved a martial arts style that she wasn't familiar with, and she had to actively train to get there. She was so used to being so good at everything and everyone praising her that when she actually had to struggle with something new, like a "normal" person, she just felt super frustrated. I know it's a really random thing to make a comparison to but there's an episode of Young Sheldon where he struggles with the subject of philosophy because he's only a gifted kid when it comes to book smarts, and it gets really frustrating to him. That's the same page I see Nya's S5 arc on.
Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Dragons Rising. The new cast is almost completely gender balanced, it's extremely diverse even when it comes to female characters, and there's really zero attention brought to their genders. Also, one of the main characters (and the one that gets the most focus in the first season) is a very on-the-nose queer allegatory which I think is awesome.
Thank you so much for posting the Garmadon Rulez English translation! I’ve been looking for it forever 😭
wait about the last sentence -- which one? sora?
@@teapartytales Sora. A lot of people were taking her final conversation with her parents as an allegory for trans people, because Sora had picked out a chosen name that she wanted everyone to use, and in some ways, people saw her old name as her “deadname”.
@@gabrxael wait thats so cool! i never thought about it that way. actually i like sora more now! thanks for the info 👍
As a female viewer of this show when I was younger I never really noticed (or maybe I didn’t care idk) but you bring up valid points and I’m glad I have another video essay on ninjago because I feel like it’s not talked about enough
It made me so sad that Nya didn't get to do the whole golden armour dragon thing at the end of Crystallized.
4 HOUR NINJAGO VIDEO ESSAY HELL YEAH
3:48:01 it means she wants to find another way. Nya always thinks there’s another way to solve things. She doesn’t want to take the hard way out.
I’m abt 50 mins in I’ve never watched ninjago but some of these points are giving me flashbacks to tmnt 2012 sm😭😭
1:03:53 😭😭 oh this really is 2012 tmnt
2:31:06
To put it simply, Garmadons good side is friends and alias with the ninja. Thinking of it from Harumis perspective here, the man you adore for being savign Ninjago fro mthe thing that killed your parents is now helping the people who let your parents be killed
Not only that but Sensei Garmadon was only brought back thanks to the ninja, Harumi obviously saw this situation as a form of the ninja indoctrinating Garmadon and stripping him away of his true self.
Also, Harumi doesn't care about Garmadon as a person, because just lek the ninja, in S1 the puplic didn't know Garmadon for his personality but rather his power. Harumi saw Garmadons power and obsessed over only that aspect of him because she believed he was the only one powerful enough to save her from her miserable life and protect her. Not to say Sensei Garmadon was weak, but he didn't have the same type of power or "strive for change" like Lord Garmadon did
btw in the book "Garmadon Rulez" which is basically Harumi's childhood diary. it sates that the royal family only adopted her as a way to show that they were helpful because "oh look! We jsut adopted this poor orphaned girl who just had her parents killed in the great devourer attack!" besides that, they mostly ignored her.
They ignored and were highly strict of Harumi and for a traumatized, and angry kid, you can just imagine what it could do to them since they have no emotional support or help to lean on
They adopted Harumi not particularly because they wanted her to take over the throne (not saying they didn't intend her to just saying it wasnt their main motivation) they jsut wanted the people of Ninjago to think of the mas heroes for helping a poor child in need.
"this video has time stamps. Please use them"
but what if i WANT a four hour long video in the background as I draw
25:04 honestly never thought about it that way, i always thought its following the naming tradition of marvel like Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Rocket Raccoon and Miles Morales, and gossip part is probably a reference to how she is a newsreporter but i digress.
Dawg, ever since Skylor was introduced, I wanted her to join the team, but then she went back to the kitchen for the rest of the show😭, Every season I'm like is she going to appear but nah she didn't. Even in hands of time, a kai focused season, they didn't do shit with her lmao. I don't know why you would introduce a new ninja and then not use her, like she had her own suit that matched the tournament robes. Same with Pixal, before season 8, she was stuck in her Boys head and not once did they ask her if she wanted to get rebuilt. Crazy wild. She should have been rebuilt right after the tournament ended. At least she had a lot of focus in the wildbrain era. Idk if they had Pixal and Skylor on the team with them each getting new suits alongside the main six that would have been great for the sets and make Ninjago appealing to both Girls and Boys. Also, give them their own focus seasons early. Nya took a decade to get one.
The outfit changes in this video alone are amazing. Your analysis and attention to detail is incredible I would have never looked as far into it but most of the video makes sense and adds up, the only segment that’s a little wrong is Harumi’s but not everyone read her diary so I can’t blame you at all for analyzing her like that. Please continue your journey on yt, you’re great.
There is only one explanation for why Nya is the tech girl:
Toys!!!
I genuinely love this video so much. Very well written and edited and super funny. Puts into words what I feel like myself and a lot of women and girls who love the show have felt for a while. Totally relate to criticizing the things I love extra hard because I love it. Thanks for all the hard work, this is probably one of my all time favorite videos!
(Edit: I forgot to add the computer background made me laugh, excellent attention to details)
To be fair, showing up on a video call to drop a drama bomb and leave, while a terrible way to introduce already-unnecessary drama, is at least 100% in-character for Chen