#I'm actively looking at what becoming a Ninja did to Nya's character as a case study of what to do the OPPOSITE of.

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A rant all about how Nya's character was ruined.

This summarizes and extends upon a conversation had on this post, by @parachutingkitten

Nya's entire character in Seasons 1-4 was about her being strong on her own merits and independent and being her own person, instead of being what others expect of her or trying to imitate her peers' strengths. She even deliberately turned down the chance to check if she was destined to be the prestigious Green Ninja, because she was happy with being a Samurai instead, cause that was the identity and strength she built for herself.

The uniqueness in her skillset and role on the team was in itself a crucial part of what MADE her character strong and independent. It was a path she chose for herself in contrast to any of the outside influences she had.

Season 5 making Nya a Ninja, especially under Wu's insistence and explicitly against her will, sabotages every part of all of this.

Now She's a shell of her former self with everything that made her character actually interesting either stripped away outright or turned into a bland and weak facsimile. All she has left to give her even a modicum of character depth is some vague sense of independence that is constantly shown-not-told and/or outright undermined.

She rightfully gripes about being forced to be the gray Ninja in seasons 6 and 7, but both seasons then proceed to deliberately undermine her independence, with Season 6 ending with her will being overridden by Jay's and Genie magic, and Season 7 introducing a new Samurai X.(Which I have more to say about later.) Nya's discontent with her situation gets dropped entirely, with Nya effectively resigning to her fate.

From then until all the way in Seabound, there's no pushback against her independent nature to highlight that she IS strong or independent, and nothing else to give her any other character depth. She literally becomes a glorified water fountain that also happens to be married to the electric one.

And then Seabound is somehow even WORSE.

Seabound's ENTIRE plot is literally summarized as "Nya getting screwed over by her powers: The Movie." Powers that she wasn't originally supposed to have, mind you, not just out-of-universe, but as this Season reveals, apparently IN-universe. (I don't even KNOW what that's about.)

The story yet again does an ass job at portraying Nya as independent and then screws her over. Yet even worse than Seasons 6 and 7, because it literally amounts to her being mildly annoyed at her mother's presence and the brain-dead arc-phrase of "I don't like crumbly cookies," culminating in her resigning to her apparent fate yet again and literally sacrificing her sense of self and identity to her elemental powers.

Seabound's ending is frankly one big metaphor for what Season 5 did to her character.

They also, weirdly consistently, screwed Nya's character using Pixal. Prior to Season 8, she was flat as cardboard and yet was undeservedly given the Samurai X mantle. Then the Season 8/Movie redesign traded in Nya's iconic and unique hairstyle for one literally identical to Pixal's. And Pixal even stole Nya's role as the Mechie,(despite already being the techie) a field where she reaches ridiculous heights by the time of Crystalized. (Speaking of which:)

Crystalized puts a cherry on top of this character-assassination sundae by finally separating Nya from that accursed element, and having her even make the choice to take back her Samurai X identity, but then it, despite the main threat of the 2nd chapter literally being the exact situation where Samurai Nya should be MVP, randomly proves pointless and ineffective, forcing Nya to come running back to her elemental powers. (Even worse, for the sake of CRYING FOR HELP.)

It's like she has some kind of toxic relationship with the element of water that fate and the writers are actively pushing and preventing from being severed.

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago nya #nya ninjago #nya smith #even with the basic premise of my AU: Elements of Destiny involving Nya being one of the 4 Ninja #I'm actively looking at what becoming a Ninja did to Nya's character as a case study of what to do the OPPOSITE of. #Also honestly Pixal can go F herself. #She's on astronomically thin ice when it comes to being included in EoD #and if she is she's likely going to be a minor character