Broken Link

Last bullet point of the trivia has a broken link - anyone know what it's supposed to go to? Intelligence4 (talk) 05:55, 30 May 2017 (CET)

Toa Statues

This article mentions the life size carvings of the Toa from Chronicles 1 under the history and landscape sections. However, in 2007, Greg strongly implied that Cathy Hapka's depiction of the Toa receiving their gold Kanohi is not canon. Here is an exact quote from a PM I still have in my inbox: Me: "Just one question, are Hapka's books 100% canon?" Greg: "I would say 90% canon, as I know her "getting the gold masks" scene differs from what was told elsewhere." Turaga of Force (talk) 13:00, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

And it will mention, as Greg said that the book was approved by the Story team, while the MNOG not, so the depiction from the book is canon.--Surel (Talk) 13:56, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

The link you provided only regards whether each Toa received their gold Kanohi from their Suva or from Kini-Nui. It doesn't say anything about HOW the Toa received their gold Kanohi at Kini-Nui. It is referring to the MNOLG episode where Lewa emerges from the Le-Suva with his gold Miru, and even the MNOLG itself later disregards that when the Toa all receive their gold Kanohi as they approach the Suva Kaita. Since all 2001 sources are in agreement on how the Toa got their gold Kanohi (MNOLG, TLOMN, maybe others; and the fact that all imagery we've ever seen of Kini-Nui, from 2001 imagery to MOL, shows no statues of the Toa), and Chronicles 1 didn't come until two years later and was written by someone not on the story team who we know for a fact went against Greg's advice on another issue, that differentiates it from other book/comic vs MNOLG inconsistencies. While Greg said the book was approved by the story team, he also said it is only 90% canon, and I think that inferring that the book is right on statues vs Suva Kaita because Greg said that the book is right on Kini Nui vs Le-Suva is a weaker inference than inferring that all 2001 sources are right on lack of statues because Greg specifically used Chronicles disagreeing with other sources on the gold Kanohi as his basis for claiming that Chronicles is only 90% canon. Turaga of Force (talk) 21:51, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

90% canon also refers to the Manas fight, as the tower from MNOG are canon, but the Kaita only fought 2 manas. And as it was established, the Manas are naturally loyal to the "evil," and very territorial, so simply knocking their masks off wouldn't have changed them. And that in some part she goes against the comics too, which were already been canon.--Surel (Talk) 22:40, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I didn't mean that the statues/gold Kanohi are the only thing noncanon in Cathy's books, just that that is the example Greg gave, which imo is pretty definitive proof that the official version is that there are no statues of the Toa at Kini-Nui Turaga of Force (talk) 22:46, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The fact is, that without direct evidence, which would be the quote from Greg, with visible evidence that he answered, we won't count an unseen pm above then the actual quotes from the archives. And as you never posted this in the OGF topics, it's hard to sure that it's not only personal preference.--Surel (Talk) 23:28, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

And just to be clear, I'm talking about this quote, which directly mentions the toa statues at kini-nui, and Greg still dais that the book version is the most canon, so I don't understand why we wouldn't consider them canon.--Surel (Talk) 23:36, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "direct evidence". How is posting in a BZPower thread any more credible than posting on a BS01 talk page? If posting in OGDT is "direct evidence", then so is the word-for-word quote I posted on this talk page.

Regarding the link you provided, that is not the link you posted above. The link you posted above was to post 1694 (which is specifically about Le-Suva versus Kini-Nui), not post 7165 which you didn't link until your last edit. Post 7165 does mention the faces so I will agree that it is more credible to your argument than the first link you provided, but it is about VNOG which is mostly non-official. Greg has said that most games are unofficial with the exceptions of Tales Of The Tohunga, MNOLG, and MNOG2 which are mostly official, so naturally he would disregard something from VNOG.

All of the art of Kini-Nui done by Christian Faber (who, unlike Cathy Hapka, is actually part of the Bionicle story team, if I'm not mistaken) shows that there are no Toa statues at Kini-Nui.

Regarding "as you never posted this in the OGF topics, it's hard to sure that it's not only personal preference". I really can't conceive of anything that I would stand to gain by lying just to get some false info put on a wiki. You could just as easily accuse anyone of making stuff up in OGDT, it's not like Greg read through all the posts to make sure no one ever falsely attributed stuff to him. Here is a screenshot of the PM from Greg explicitly saying that Cathy's books are only 90% canon, and explicitly using the gold Kanohi inconsistency as grounds for the claim that Cathy's books are not 100% canon: https://brickshelf.com/gallery/Darth-Turaga/BIONICLE/Greg/7.png

Sure, maybe it's a fake screenshot I made to lie to you guys, so go ahead and accuse me of lying again if it makes you feel better. I really don't care what's on the wiki, I'm just letting you guys know that you have some incorrect info on it. According to Greg, Cathy's gold mask scene is not canon. Do with that info what you will. Turaga of Force (talk) 01:27, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

And yes, the PM was actually about MNOLG, not VNOG, the user made a typo. But Greg could easily have seen "VNOLG" and just assumed it was something from the Voya Nui game that's not canon and Greg probably never played and immediately assumed it to be something unofficial. Regardless, that's kinda beside the point since he made it pretty clear that Cathy's version of the gold mask scene is unofficial. Turaga of Force (talk) 01:37, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

While I don't doubt their legitimacy - Why did you not post these before, back in 2007? ~ Wolk (talk) 02:03, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I didn't assume you were lying, I said we need evidence. Because we need a source if we want to use it on the page, something we can link, and people have access to. And don't assume Greg was stupid enough to think that VNOG, which was about the Inika and Voya Nui have the Kini-Nui scene, in December, 2006. If this question were from, like, 2010, I'd agree, but VNOG in 2006, when it came out was pretty new stuff, and he always said that only most of the locations and the rahi are canon from the game. Greg wouldn't think that the VNOG had a Toa Mata at Suva thing, and he was asked about the Suva/Toa in MNOG for years. I'd say he realized the guy made a typo, and answered him neverthelast.--Surel (Talk) 07:43, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

@Wolk I don't remember, I probably didn't bother because I didn't think other people would care much, or just didn't get around to it. I just went through my inbox and found a whole bunch of Greg PMs, most of which I never posted, all of which I now uploaded to my BrickShelf. Folder is not yet public, but if you replace "7.png" with any number 1-15 in the URL I posted above you can see them all. I don't think much else is new info, but maybe the bit about Artahka-style masks (i.e. why Tahu's Hau is different than Lhikan's Hau, etc), not sure if that info is floating around elsewhere.

@Surel Fair enough, but my reasoning on what may have been Greg's train of thought is pretty much that Greg answered hundreds of questions a day, he didn't have time to give a lot of thought to each individual question, so he probably just quickly read the question, saw "VNOLG or book?" and gave the default "book" answer, especially since the Le-Suva gold mask part of MNOLG is clearly not official.

To be clear, I completely understand that there is evidence in both directions on the gold mask/Kini-Nui issue, but my argument would be that the evidence for the MNOLG version outweighs the evidence for the Chronicles version for the following reasons:

It's a 2001 event/location and all 2001 media (Christian Faber's art of Kini-Nui, as well as all promotional images and videos of Kini-Nui, and MNOLG, and the unreleased PC game) are fairly consistent with Kini-Nui's appearance and with how the Toa got their gold Kanohi (the notable exception being the art of Tahu holding a gold Kanohi, but that art contradicts everything including Chronicles, since Tahu still has his red Hau in that picture)

Mask Of Light (movie) shows Kini-Nui looking roughly the same as the other sources. It has 6 spires instead of 4, but still no statues

Cathy wasn't on the story team, and Greg has said she went against his advice on the shadow Toa, so we know she went against the story team

While some of the answers of Greg placing Chronicles over MNOLG seem fairly direct/definitive, this could easily just concern the Le-Suva scene (each Greg quote I have seen putting Chronicles over MNOLG is in response to a question that mentions Suva vs Kini-Nui, although one does also mention the statues), and doesn't take into account my first point that Christian Faber's work (which is a big factor imo, since Christian was to my understanding a key part of the story team and one of the original founders of Bionicle), MOL movie, etc all show no statues, and I would argue that what Greg told me is more definitive since he clearly referenced the gold Kanohi himself and is the one who brought them up in that instance, bringing them up solely for the purpose of saying Cathy's books are not 100% canon

Ultimately, there is some contradicting info, and I fully acknowledge that some Greg quotes would suggest Cathy's version is the real version, but for the above reasons, it is my position that the 2001 version is the "most official" for lack of a better term, and that at minimum we shouldn't just be assuming that Cathy's version is the right version without stronger proof than what I've seen.

In the end it's going to come down to what someone wants to believe, there's some arguments for both sides. I'm just putting my position out there along with what I believe is a solid basis for it. Turaga of Force (talk) 22:30, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Do you think you could forward the PMs to Planetperson so that they can be added to the archive as text, thus allowing them to be searchable? ~ Wolk (talk) 23:11, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure, I'll do that now Turaga of Force (talk) 03:11, 7 May 2021 (UTC)