Maybe the reason the Overlord put so many anti-Zane villains on the Crystal Council (Aspheera, the Mechanic, Mr. E) was bc he didnt want to take any chances of facing him in combat again. Like sure, Lloyd defeated him, but it only took like a year for him to come back. But when Zane defeats him, it takes him 12 whole seasons to regain full power again. The Overlord saw that Zane managed to rebuild himself within mere weeks after their fight and went "hell no im not fucking with that guy twice" - and then proceeded to stack up his team with as many Zane villains as he could find
I think the most insane part of Crystalized is the fact that Kai and Jay would've fucking killed each other had Nya not shown up when she did.
Like when you look at that fight, there was intent to either kill or seriously injure from both of them. Kai was aiming his fireballs at Jay and Jay was aiming his lightning at Kai, and neither of them were holding anything back. There was murderous intent from both of them there. Kai caused an explosion bad enough to set off the sprinklers, something explosions from their mechs don't even do. Had Jay not jumped out of the way, he would've either been in the ER or in the Departed Realm. To remind everyone, this fight started basically because Kai didn't like how Jay was coping with losing Nya. Since the first 12 episodes of Crystalized were released, people have been complaining about Kai's grief vs Jay's grief in Crystalized; this fight addresses it. This fight wouldn't have started without Kai being upset, angry even, with how Jay's grief presents. It's consistent throughout the first 3 episodes of Crystalized too; Jay thinks he's the only one who remembers Nya because he's experiencing a psychosis and Kai progressively gets more and more annoyed, culminating in Kai and Jay trying to kill each other in the hangar bay.
Can. Can we talk about this more. Like Jay and Kai have always had some level of conflict between them, but they've never fought with intent to kill each other with the exception of their fight in The Shape of Nya, which was caused by differences in how they were grieving. I. I really don't think we talk about this nearly as much as we should
”i’ll give you two options. option a; i take lloyd with me, you do exactly as i say, and i won’t have to do anything you’ll regret. or option b…”
ik comparing ninjago and monkie kid is tired and annoying but harumi and macaque are so similar and as an avid fan of both i have to intervene (more rambling under the cut)
i wouldve LOVED if harumi’s arc in crystalized went the same way as macaque’s arc in s3; both of died and came back to life in very similar situations but harumi’s motivations wouldve been a lot clearer if it was presented like macaque’s
both characters died in a tragic and bad emotional state but were brought back to life to basically be omnipotent power person’s main man. bc of their blinding hatred for the “heroes” and also just bc they didnt want to die they decide to take up the offer and give up their soul (basically) to be brought back to life and destroy the world for their new “master” (idk a better word)
but where it diverges is that the narrative of s3 constantly emphasizes macaque in pain and how at his lowest point he doesnt even care about trying to get his “revenge” anymore, he just wants so desperately to stop being under lbd’s control and stop being in constant pain bc of it.
if harumi’s arc emphasized those things more it wouldve been really good and way more believable for if she would join the ninja in fighting mr overlord. i actually have wayyy more to say for this type of au but to summarize harumi and macaque (sinistershadow duo) FOREVER!!!!
also wouldnt this look have gone hard for harumi in crystalized. like ik she was originally gonna show up in a spider freakazoid thing but monkie kid already took that which is ironic but i mean the crystal stuff being what keeps her body together wouldve gone hard