Headscratchers / Ninjago

• What elements are Wu and Garmadon the masters of? Can’t be light and darkness since those elements are already taken.
  • They're stated to be Creation and Destruction respectively, also supported by the fact that Wu seems to take after the Dragon half of his heritage while Garmadon quite clearly takes after the Oni half. Also, only Light is taken. You're probably thinking of Shadow which isn't quite the same thing.
    • Light, Darkness, and Shadow are all taken. Light and Shadow are possessed by two minor character elemental masters and Darkness is the Overlord's power.
  • Is there any evidence that each element can only have one master? In season 4, Kai thought Skylor was a fellow master, and Ray and Maya are still alive as of the Hands of Time arc. The previous Master of Ice could have sacrificed his power to pass it to Zane, but he's a special case as robots don't have bloodlines.
• So the family that Harumi ends up saving......why did they need her help exactly? All she did was get them to a emergency exit that they easily could've gotten to themselves without her. Harumi and her parents had no choice but to use the elevator due to the stairs being destroyed and what lead to their deaths because there was no room for them. But this time there was nothing wrong with the fire escape. Seriously did nobody in the building notice that emergency exit door and try to escape that way instead of everyone trying to cram into the elevator? I can understand it may have been stuck or jammed as Harumi kicked it open but ANYONE could've forced it open!
• Let Me Get This Straight..., Zane ends up angsting about the fact he's a robotic plastic toy person as opposed to a real, actual, organic... plastic toy person?
  • Not sure if all the characters are actually made of LEGO in-canon or if it's just a visual cue or a marketing ploy. Whatever the case, we know that that is considered organic in their world.
  • They probably aren't aware that they're made of Lego. At least, no one else is.
    • I personally go with the latter case (that everyone appears as if they're made of LEGO because of the toy series). I'm pretty sure they see each other as humans in the real world see each other. See Season 11's anime cutscenes. Plus, there's a lot of fanart portraying the Ninjago cast more humanlike.
• In Child's Play, why did Zane turn into a child with the other ninjas when he is an robot that was never a child?
  • Magic.
  • When the others asked him, even he couldn't think of an explanation.
  • The Megaweapon is made out of all four of the weapons, maybe putting them all together gave it something that could make things that are non-human (like animals... but for our example, Zane) correspond with the spell, and the effects as well
• During the Tournament of Elements We're treated to cameos of not one, but two villains from the Ultra Agents Toyline: Toxikita and Invizable(Whose name is now Paleman) as the masters of poison and light respectively. It says on the Lego wiki that these two are the same villains and not just characters who happen to look like them. Does this mean Ultra Agents and Ninjago take place in the same world? And if it does, this just raises even more questions, such as where are the agents during everything that winds up threatening the world? Is Astor City on the other side of the planet and only a few people from Ninjago have been there?
• Um, at the end of "Wrong Place, Wrong Time" Lloyd is still older. How exactly did this happen if Garmadon never had the mega weapon in the present, and never unleashed the Grundle?
  • The weapon was destroyed so that Garmadon wouldn't keep trying to change the past and so that they could go back to their own time. Everything that led up to the awakening of the Grundel still happened, only that Garmadon no longer had the Mega Weapon.
  • Basically it's a Temporal Paradox. But it hasn't been explained in the later episodes and will probably never will be.
    • It becomes a Stable Time Loop if one considers that the Mega-Weapon was not retroactively destroyed, but just shot into space while in the past (taking The Slow Path to return to the present while in space) with the help of the past Golden Weapons. The first iteration of the ninja being in the past may have slightly changed history, but the changes are stable over further iterations; the most significant change being when and how Nya got kidnapped. No further explanation is needed.
  • The whole thing could have been chalked up to "the time traveling never happened but now there's no mega-weapon" if Lloyd hadn't questioned if Garnadon had a mega-weapon.
  • I'd explain it like this: it did exist, but Lloyd simply didn't know about it (he is unobservant). In terms of the "base" timeline's history, the weapon was destroyed at the moment immediately following the Ninja entering the portal.
  • How did the weapons end up on the comet in season 3? If the time traveling was undone, the weapons should've stayed in Ninjago.
    • The original (past) Golden Weapons stayed in the past, where they would eventually be fused into the Mega-Weapon (awakening the Grundel, et al), taken back in time, and shot off to the comet.
• How did Zane not know he was a robot? He had to notice the subtle differences between him and the other ninja.
  • If we lived in a simulation, how would we be unable to know? That's kind of the question you're asking.
  • He's probably more of a cyborg with synthetic skin.
  • But still,his body seems to have quite the number of quirks (all the little compartments everywhere. How didn't he notice he operated differently from the other? Then again...
  • His program hid his true identity. He didn't question his own behavior and body because he was set to function as the average human. Even when the others found him to be a bit distant and strange, they didn't think much of it.
• How is Zane a descendant of one of the First Spinjitsu Master's elemental guardians if he's a robot?
  • Perhaps Dr. Julien was a descendent of the original Master of Ice and found a way to pass on his powers to his "son" to continue the lineage chain.
  • Dr. Julian isn't the Master of Ice (who was shown in flashbacks). The writers confirmed that Zane having the element of Ice will be addressed in Season 8, so there must be a non-heditary way of passing on elements.
  • Possibly Zane's core is made of the same metal used to made the Time Blades and the Master of Ice intentionally transferred his power into it?
  • In episode 78 it is revealed that before Dr. Julien died the ailing Master of Ice visited Zane and somehow transfered his powers to Zane. Still this in itself is bizzare.
• If the Staff of Elements needed the powers of every Elemental Master for Chen's spell to work, how was it able to be cast without Water, Time or Wind?
  • Probably through Kai.
  • True, but that still doesn't account for the absence of Morro's Wind.
  • There was a post on Tommy Andreasen's Twitter page that said that Chen only needed a certain amount to complete the spell.
  • Chen probably only needed the "awakened" elements that were in active use for his spell. At this point, Nya didn't know that she had the element of Water, Morro was still in the Cursed Realm as a ghost, and the element of Time was trapped in the Time Blades.
• What's with Lloyd's treatment post Season 3? I mean seriously, he's the freaking chosen one...and yet post season 3 he gets kidnapped, possessed, drained of his power, possessed again. Did they just have no idea what to do with him when the series got Uncancelled?
  • The only time where Lloyd was depowered is in Rebooted, where the Overlord purposefully captured him to drain him of his Golden Power and become the Golden Master. He's shown in that season to be too cocky over his powers to the point of misusing it, and being captured and depowered served as a wake-up call. This was necessary because from a writing point of view, Lloyd would have been too OP if he still retained the Golden Power, and would resolve any conflict too quickly.
  • He also only got possessed once (by Morro), and that was because he was led into a trap and thus taken by surprise. It's also his first time encountering a ghost, and presumably fighting off a ghost possession must be difficult since it took most of the season to do so. Not mention that he was completely drained when Morro left his body. Otherwise he's completely fine in seasons 4, 6, and 7 - with the writers giving him an arc where he learns to become the leader of the ninja.
  • There's also the fact that he's only the "Chosen One" in reference to the Final Battle against the Overlord. You know, that battle that happened at he end of season two? Especially once he chose to surrender the Golden Power, he's just a ninja, just like the others.
    • This comes up again in the final season - but until then, he's just a ninja.
• Why didn't Nya jump down to the rest of the group in The Last Hope when they fell off the cliff? Everyone's just standing on the falling rock and General Kozu takes a relatively long time to capture her.
  • Because the rock was falling. Up on the cliff, she might have been captured but her life over the next few minutes was in less danger. One might quibble about long term survival strategies with the benefit of hindsight (and knowing that those on the rock did survive), but in that moment Nya was scared.
• How long was Garmadon in the Underworld? In Battle Between Brothers, Wu and Garmadon look the same age as they do in the Serpentine Wars flashbacks in season 4 and 7, which took place 40 years ago. This would imply Garmadon was banished for around that long, but that makes it literally impossible for Lloyd (who is no more than 12 in Season 1) to have been born.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness ?
  • We can probably chalk it up to, like many things in the show, the Ninjago timeline basically running on bullcrap and being more confusing then the Zelda timeline.
  • I always assumed Misako had somehow found a way to the Underworld to see Garmadon again, and they had had Lloyd then.
  • More Likely, with Wu and Garmadon not being in the same realm as each other, it may have speed up their aging.
  • Even more likely, the Lego look does not show fine details of aging. The question arises from what the characters look like, but 25 and 60 years old can look identical in this case.
  • A few years can also be explained by the fact that seasons 4 and 7 are some time later than season 1, so 40 years before season 4 is less than 40 years before season 1. This does not account for most of the discrepancy, but it assists any of the other solutions.
• Expanding on the above, how old are the ninja, exactly? They're said to be teenagers, though they can apparently legally drive motorcycles and jets and all their other vehicles. I'm pretty sure it was said somewhere that Nya is younger than Kai, and Lloyd...well, it was discussed above. But Harumi's backstory raises a few questions. It's said she was a kid at the time that the ninja and Lord Garmadon fought the Great Devourer. Yet, by the time Sons of Garmadon and Hunted take place, the ninja still look as old as they were at the beginning, but Harumi is now Lloyd's age. In one episode of Hunted, it is said that the ninja are still teenagers. But in March of the Oni, Jay is apparently old enough to propose to Nya.
  • Harumi was as old as Lloyd would have been without the age-up in the flashback, so her age makes sense. Wordof God says that those with Elemental Power age slower than a normal human, so they may literally still be roughly the same age as from the start. As for the driving, there are laws here in the real world that permit underage drivers to operate vehicles during emergencies, and considering 90% of what the Ninja do is during a crisis that would definitely apply to them. If not that, than either Ninjago has a low minimum age for a license or they are frozen at 16. As for the proposal, 18 and 19 are still technically teen-ages although they'd be considered young adults. Although Wordof God said it was culturally more akin to what we consider a promise ring, not a full on marriage proposal, so YMMV.
• It is unknown what happened to Ninjago's government following Garmadon's fall from power, as the Emperor and Empress were killed by the Sons of Garmadon and Harumi sacrificing herself to save that family.
  • It is stated when they first appear that the Emperor and Empress are figureheads without any real power, so it is possible the Ninjago government abolished the monarchy following the death of the royal family, provided that there were no relatives to claim the throne.
  • It is stated that there is a mayor of Ninjago City, meaning she likely is the true head of government.
• If any soul can be absorbed into the Sword of Souls by physical contact with the blade, why didn't Nadakhan just surprise-assault everyone whose souls he wanted instead of forcing them to wish for it?
  • On top of that, partway through the season, Nadakhan forces Clancey to wish Lloyd and Cole's souls into the sword. Why didn't Nadakhan force Clancey to wish all of the ninja's souls into the sword, or do either of those things when he got infinite wishes?
  • And when he did get his unlimited power, why didn't he wish for something like "I wish to enslave all of Ninjago"? If infinite wishes upon marriage is a trait that all Djinns share, why hasn't Djinjago collapsed ages ago?
    • I bet getting infinite wishes made Nadakhan complacent and overconfident, so he decided to have fun taunting the ninja before killing them.
  • On the subject of this, when Lloyd wished for wisdom, what part of that statement allowed Nadakhan to accelerate Lloyd's aging? It's like if he granted the wish, but then picked up a gun and shot Lloyd dead because nothing said he couldn't do that.
    • Lloyd specifically wished to be "wise like Wu." Either Nadakhan decided to interpret that in a "with age comes wisdom" way or he decided to make Lloyd "like Wu" in more ways than one.
• The thing that grinds my gears the most is Nadakhan being a Karma Houdini in "On a Wish and a Prayer". Here's the thing: Zane just wished that Nadakhan can't twist his words and that any damage Zane receives, Nadakhan receives tenfold. Nadakhan then thinks "Oh, if I delete info from Zane's head, it doesn't count as damage!" It may be true, but then he deletes PIXAL! Not only he made Zane suffer from the worst kind of pain possible (heartbreak), but he treated PIXAL as if she wasn't a person!
  You'd expect: Nadakhan to have a heart attack, since pain=damage.
  Instead: He gets away with basically killing PIXAL scot free, almost as if HE HAS NO HEART! Seriously, what did Delara see in this jackass?
  • It’s likely Nadakhan treated that as a technicality by harming PIXAL instead of Zane.
  • The thing that bugs me about that scene was how Zane gets outwitted. He's obviously been planning his wishes carefully, but he gets tripped up by Nadakhan noticing a loophole in the damage-being-done-tenfold thing. It seems odd that an advanced robot who is preparing for this exact scenario would make such an obvious mistake that could be prevented by simply adding "and my friends" into the wish. Furthermore, why does Zane waste his third wish on getting sucked into the Djinn Blade? He had a chance to make one last gambit and threw it away.
• So how exactly were the Cursed Realm and Djinjago destroyed? The Preeminent may be dead, but it still exists. Does that mean that the Preeminent's death is enough to destroy the two realms?
  • The Preeminent wasn't just in the Cursed Realm, she was the Cursed Realm. She also shared a bond with Djinjago (which may or may not be a sentient creature itself), that's why the destruction of one world took down the other one.
    • Well, that is my point! The Preeminent may be dead, but it still exists, meaning that the Cursed Realm still exists! My question was, is killing the embodiment of a Realm enough to destroy said Realm and it's sister, even if said embodiment might still exist within the Departe Realm?
    • The only explanation I can think of is that by killing the Preeminent/Cursed Realm Nya broke the bond between her/it and Djinjago, and it couldn't be fixed since the "place" where the destroyed realm was no longer existed, nothing to bond with.
• Something that has been bothering me for quite a while. The First Spinjitzu Master was buried with the Realm Crystal long before Nadakhan and his crew ran into Soto. So how the heck did Soto banish all of Nadakhan's crew to the other realms?
  • There are plenty of other ways to access other realms, like Traveler's Tea or straight-up magic. The Realm Crystal is just the most convenient way to travel to other realms because it can access all of them, is easily portable, and doesn't seem to have prerequisites to use, hence why it's dangerous enough to have been buried with the First Spinjitzu Master. Soto's crew could have created portals to other realms with Traveler's Tea and shoved Nandakhan's crew in, or used some other realm-accessing method that hasn't appeared onscreen.
• So do Elemental Masters retain their powers after having kids or do they lose them once their kids develop powers? It's not made especially clear.
  • Ray and Maya explicitly lost their powers in favor of Kai and Nya, though when and how that happened isn't entirely clear (when they were born, when they awakened their powers, some other time....). No other former elemental masters have appeared (outside of flashbacks before their successors existed and one brief flashback of Cole's mother which doesn't address whether she still has her powers or not), so it could always work out differently if the plot needs it to, but for the time being, it seems safe to assume that there can only be one wielder of a given element at a time, except for the element of Time.
• If Zane was able to be controlled by the remote one of the kids had at the start of rebooted in the classroom, why didnt the overload ever think to just. control him himself?