Welcgome To My Specal Hell

Can we. Can we talk about. Ok consider. We all know about kids developing trust issues because of their parents. But I almost feel sometimes like Zane is the reverse? Like his dad raised him completely isolated in the middle of the woods and then erased his memory and left him completely vulnerable and alone. And we know from his behavior, especially in the first seasons, that Zane has a hard time adapting to people and grasping social boundaries, which already sucks for him but I feel like the implications of his upbringing go a lot deeper than that? I know I already made a post that was really similar to this but I'm on a slightly different track rn so hear me out

Like I feel like, intentionally or not, he made Zane COMPLETELY dependant on him in every conceivable aspect and then (by giving him straight up amnesia) he abandoned him without what little preparation he might have had to set him up for the outside world. And in doing that he simultaneously made it practically impossible for him to develop normal, constructive relationships with other people and also failed to give him to ability to discern when to trust people and when to be wary of their intentions.

So basically he put him in a position where he would be completely defenseless and wouldn't have the emotional or social maturity to protect himself from exploitation or abuse. It's super heavily implied (if not outright stated) that Zane was essentially homeless for however long he was wandering around before Wu found him, and it's like??? Can you imagine how traumatic that probably was all on its own? And if anything serious happened to him during this period there's a strong likelihood that he doesn't even realize it was wrong.

It'd be super interesting to have a clearer look into how he functioned pre-season one and the types of experiences he must have had. Plus I think it could serve to give some background to some of his behaviors and thought processes. Also I want to project my trauma on him as is my god-given right as an american

Works Cited:

My feelings which are always correct every time

Based on the music - this reads as a True Potential scene. Yeah the "becoming the Golden Ninja/USM" is probably intended to be Lloyd's True Potential (and then Garmadon in Rebooted says Lloyd has even more to learn) but this exact track plays when Zane/Jay/Cole/Kai reach their True Potential, plus this is the first appearance of the Golden Dragon.

nunchucks of lightning vs the storm amulet.

i dont even have anything to add. this speaks for itself.

you know boreal is zanes dragon because he manages to squeeze in 2 fakeout deaths and 1 real death in his exactly 5 minutes and 16 seconds of screentime

Here's something I think about.

In the first part of the pilot, Kai has to pass an obstacle course before Wu finishes his tea. Kai eventually accomplishes this by knocking the tea cup out of he hands, which is super clever! But Wu scoffs as he heads inside, which means that he probably didn't intend for Kai to do it this way, but still found it acceptable. So here's what I wonder:

How did the other ninja pass that test?

hot take: lloyd in crystalized was not out of character. my reasoning for this is... actually there's a lot of reasoning. one of the biggest complaints people have about crystalized lloyd is how he treats his father in comparison to early seasons lloyd and to that i say: early seasons lloyd had not been disowned nor had he been beaten half to death by his father. i don't think i would be as willing to work with my father had that happened to me. his reasoning (garmadon being oni) may have been flawed, but i also think he was putting his own personal reasonings (being disowned and almost killed) behind, and attacking the thing that didn't include how he was treated.

i understand why people would be mad about lloyd attacking the oni side of his father, given the fact that mystake was amazing and also sacrificed herself for him, but when people are trauma responding, they tend to forget the good things and focus on the bad. lloyd didn't want to bring his own feelings into it, because he has invalidated his own feelings. therefore, he attacks the thing that has nothing to do with him.

DISCLAIMER: i am not attacking nor am i intending to invalidate people who think that lloyd suffered "character assassination" in crystalized. i just feel the need to give my own opinion about it. i will most likely talk about this topic again because i am so passionate about it.

Let me introduce you to... a typical Ninjago season :

Lloyd gets kidnapped at least once

Cole adopts some traumatized kids / creatures he found in a forgotten, lonely place

Jay becomes the leader of a cult or something

Zane "dies" for the 182737492th time

Nya kicks something (or someone)

Kai runs straight into the danger powered with raw confidence and survives only by pure luck

New outfits for everyone

The animation had another glow up

Jay and Cole are paired for a mission but they have the worst influence on each other's dumbness and mess up so bad you wonder why they're still allowed to work together

Kai tries to show off but miserably fails

Lloyd thinks he's Steven Universe and tries to redeem a villain

Jay spends 99% of his screentime uncontrollably yelling

Wu reveals crazy family lore he was hiding since forever

Kai gets rejected by Skylor

Cole wants cake. Now.

Lloyd gets more daddy issues than he already had (you didn't know it was even possible)

Star Wars reference

Wth is Garmadon doing this time ?

Nya is constantly on the verge of committing murder

Kai bullies Jay

Pixal somehow manages to stay calm

Lloyd is still in his angsty teenage era except he's now a grown adult

Zane is silly, the worst things possible happen to him, then he's silly again

There's another plot hole but the lore is so crazy already no one is gonna care

Shout out to Ninjago City citizen still living here knowing their lives are in constant danger every single second they stay in this place

Nya and Jay keeps being the only healthy stable romance in the whole show

Dareth unexpectedly ends up being useful

Lloyd do the thing with his eyes when it's getting serious (you instantly start screaming)

Kai says "fiyah"

"Yep so I saw [a main character] falling of a rock so they're definitely dead." "But maybe they..." - "NOPE. THEY'RE DEAD" - "aww ok" (they are, in fact, alive)

The team yells "ninja, go !" at least once

Characters are listening to music. It's The Weekend Whip by The Fold.

Why does someone has to stay behind and why is it Zane.

"You know I'm very old I'm gonna die soon" has said Wu every single day of the past 100 years of his life

Nya builds crazy vehicles again

This is a found family trope and they want you to know it

You spotted a pride flag in the background of a 0.5 seconds action scene and you already know the homophobic fans are going to lose their minds over it again

Snakes. Snakes everywhere.

A villain has the most brutal death on screen and you wonder how th this got approved for a kid show, until the show itself makes a joke about it

"Gasp ! Are we... Gonna lose our powers ???" (no they won't)

Jay's parents are in danger

Crazy plot twist happens and you suddenly realize it's been foreshadowed every single season in the previous 10 seasons but you never paid attention to it until now

Something that happened in a previous season gets referenced and you nostalgia cry about it for a whole episode

"Omg, was that the last and final season of Ninjago ???" (no it wasn't, nothing can end this show, we'll all die way before it does, now get ready for the next arc because it's probably gonna last ten more years)

I do too, since Cyrus owns an entire server. Plus she was able to stall the Overlord's advances in the digiverse by writing a computer script on the fly, so I imagine she's well experienced like her creator.

ngl i picture pixal knowimg more abt the internet more than zane no elaboration

Me reading that:

I love that, according to tommy andreasen, jay regularly harasses the mailman