Fuck it, here's a theory about Ninjago lore. Much like my Spiderumi rant, it's really long, so be warned.
One of the most infamous plotholes in the LEGO Ninjago franchise is the fact that Master Wu and Lord Garmadon, who are shown to age at an incredibly stunted rate, inexplicably age forward drastically, from teenagers to old men, in the time in between the "Battle Between Brothers" short and the start of the series. Previously, during the era of the pilot season, we could just assume this time was tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years. So then, that's not a plothole at all, right?
However, when the actual series started, one small thing threw a massive wrench into this explanation: And that thing was our favorite green boi, Lloyd Garmadon. If Garmadon has been banished in the Underworld since the era of the "Battle Between Brothers" short, then obviously Lloyd must've been born or at the very least conceived before that happened. I don't see how he and Misako could somehow conceive a child from different realms.
While we don't know exactly how old Lloyd was at the start of the show, his young age means the time in between the short and the start of the show must've only been, what, six, maybe ten years at max? So what gives with Wu's (and as we see later, Garmadon's) rapid aging?
Now, there is already one explanation for this: According to series creator Tommy Andreassen, as a fan asked him about this exact plothole through Twitter, Wu and Garmadon's magical stunted aging is connected to their proximity to one another, and also to the Golden Weapons. Since Garmadon was stuck in the Underworld and the Golden Weapons were hidden, Wu ages forward by around 30 years in just 10.
And that's all well and good, Tommy... except... If Wu ages three times the rate of a normal human when he's not around Garmadon or the weapons, then why is he completely fine during the time of Seasons 5, 6, and 7, when Garmadon is dead and the weapons are locked up in a vault at Borg Industries?
While I do think this rule about Wu's aging is legit, I think it's actually lot less drastic: I don't think that hundreds of years passed in between Garmadon's banishment and the show's start, but it wasn't only 10 years, either. I think it was more like 20 or 30, or maybe even a little under 40 years ago, just after the end of the Serpentine War. This would mean Wu's aging only slowed to a normal rate, not slammed forward drastically, which is a lot more believable.
So then, you might ask, how is Lloyd only 6 - 10 at the show's start? Well, the answer to this is hidden quite literally in plain sight: Lloyd's hoodie, that we see him wearing in his first onscreen appearance. Hear me out here, guys: It's black, with a white rib cage painted onto it (and a green "5" patch, which is fantastic foreshadowing BTW) clearly mimicking the way Garmadon's ribs are somehow visible through his skin. What this means is that somehow, Lloyd must've seen his dad, in his scarred appearance that he has post-banishment. This is further supported by the fact that they recognize each other in the Fire Temple in S1E10.
I think that somehow, Garmadon was able to exit the Underworld to see his wife and later his son, that, or Misako was able to enter it, and at least once brought a young Lloyd with her to meet his father. There are multiple gateways to other realms in Ninjago, including to the Underworld: We know that the very least, the Fire Temple is a one-way path there. So I'd lean towards the idea that Misako found a way to reach the Underworld.
This fills the plothole of why Wu and Garmadon age so dramatically in the time in between the BBB short and the start of the show, and yet Lloyd is only 6 - 10 years old. It also answers how Lloyd got the idea to paint ribs onto his villain costume he wears in Season 1, and how Lloyd and Garmadon recognize each other when they meet in the fire temple despite the latter having been scarred unrecognizably and banished for all of the former's life.
I had this idea pop into my head, funny enough, while watching the first Season of Dragons Rising, seeing the flashback of Wu training child Lloyd. The new show has been... Interesting. Maybe I'll make a separate post here just talking about my thoughts on that.
Regardless, thank you for listening to my long ass lore rant: Subscribe to the channel for more bullshit such as this.
So, a while back, Tommy Andreasen (one of the main creators of LEGO Ninjago and the most recent of the original showrunners to bail on it) tweeted out this piece of concept art, which can be seen at the bottom of this post, depicting Harumi as a spider-like cyborg. I have a rant about this design, but the TL,DR of it is, it's awesome and it's a crime that it wasn't used.
I'm so mad this look wasn't used. While I (unlike a lot of people) really like what they did with Harumi returning, and think the concept of her being a reanimated corpse brought back by the Overlord is awesome, the fact that she doesn't look even a bit undead or like she had to be reconstructed with magic or technology really bugs me. She just crawls out of the rubble completely clean and undamaged.
Not only would this design make more sense, but there's also this to consider: It's reminiscent of Cyrus Borg's walker-chair-thing from season 3, tying it closely to the Overlord, and it's even more spider-themed, which fits in with Harumi's Spider Hacker robot from Season 8 and the Spider Bombs used in Crystalized... The operator, essentially the leader of the army of mechanical spiders being a part-mechanical spider herself is some very nice theming, it makes her a literal spider queen. And, speak of the devil...
Supposedly, this design was rejected by LEGO (or the writers didn't pitch it to LEGO because they assumed they'd reject it) because two years prior to Crystalized's release, LEGO Monkie Kid had a villain called the Spider Queen. There are a few reasons why I hate this reasoning:
First, there's the fact that their designs look nothing alike. In this concept art, Spiderumi is literally eight-legged and eight-eyed (The mechanical eye, as you can see, is actually seven small, hexagonal eyes all positioned close together.) The Spider Queen, meanwhile, who also has nothing mechanical about her, is spiderlike only in the aesthetic of her clothes, with her dress having a cobweb design and her headdress having spider's legs on it. Other than both being female and both being spider-adjacent, they have nothing in common (using the showrunners/LEGO's logic, the Spider Queen herself should've been scrapped since, four years before she was conceived, we got a Spider-Girl minifigure for LEGO Marvel Superheroes!)
And secondly on this point, and more importantly, even if you think they're similar, why shouldn't this design be canon to Ninjago anyway? Because it'd be copying Monkie Kid? Well, if anything, Monkie Kid was copying Ninjago: Harumi's obsession with spiders and use of the Hacker Spider predate the Spider Queen (and the Monkie Kid show as a whole) by two years. She's the original spider-obsessed girlboss villain, and she's deserving of this badass design!
Lastly, in regards to why this design should've been used... It just makes her so much creepier! Take a look at the comments on Tommy's Tweet: a lot of fans are legitimately scared of Spiderumi. And honestly, I adore it whenever Ninjago has the chance to be creepy, which isn't often: One of the only examples of it is the trailer for Season 8, with the creepiest things in it being the reveal of the Spider Hacker accompanied by, what else, Harumi singing her spider song. It's clear this aspect of her can be played for scares!
So, with all that said, is it any wonder that I think they should've given Ninjago's greatest villain and equally great design for her return from the dead to get her revenge?!
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Subscribe to the channel for more bullshit like this.
Okay so I took a screenshot of that moment where the Overlord is charging up his darkness beam or whatever and the oni trio are standing there like "Oh shit what do we do" and zoomed in on just Garmadad... and is it just me, or is there something viscerally fucking funny about him standing there like this with his four arms at his sides and a blank expression on his pointy demon face in like 144p?
You are invited to join the Council of the Crystal King... Happy Halloween : )
Everyone is throwing a temper tantrum meanwhile I'm just here like... (Waters Christofern)
So... The second clip from Ninjago: Crystalized that I uploaded just got taken down... And YouTube gave me a copyright strike. Not sure how a 20-second clip gets me a strike when other people can get away with uploading entire episodes, but what can ya do? I took the other clip down myself, just to be safe.
My respect for WildBrain and the way they animate NInjago has increased tenfold. I used to think realistic, un-LEGO-like hair was a bad choice... No more. This hair flip alone is maybe the most satisfying bit of animation in the entire series.
SOLD! But also it's legitimately a pretty good game lol
Dareth, or Saul Goodman? Who's your man? Who are you calling?
I wish that YouTube had a button that was, like, the opposite of a subscribe button. You know, an "I'd never show even the slightest amount of support for this YouTuber, ever, I want absolutely nothing to do with them" button. Huh, I guess that's a bit long. An anti-subscribe button. Yea, that's it. And pressing it increases that YouTuber's number of anti-subscribers, and blocks their channel, comments, videos, playlists, etc from ever appearing in your recommendations, feed, search results... Basically just makes them invisible to you. I know there's a mute button, but that only works for notifications on comments, and nothing else. I'm talking, like, a button that filters that person out completely. As far as you know, they don't even exist, all trace of them has just been removed from the internet as far as you can see. 'Cause, while I'm not gonna name names, there are a LOT of YouTubers who I'd anti-subscribe to.
Hi, my name is Conflict! I make "character theme songs" type videos, as well as other fandom-related edits, plus memes, and sometimes rudimentary music. Feel free to subscribe if you want, I don't want to pressure you to do so but if you enjoy my content go ahead, although I must warn you that I don't have a very consistent upload schedule.