Ninjago, The Realm Where Anything Is Possible And Potential Is Limitless, Where Destiny Is Defied

Ninjago, the realm where anything is possible and potential is limitless, where destiny is defied

And the Cloud Kingdom, the realm where everything is pre-written and narrative is limited, where destiny is defined

Heyyyyy. I have a Ninjago theoryyyyy.

So, I'm pretty sure it's said/implied in Season 14 that FSM didn't create the realm of Ninjago, but rather he showed up and then created the continents of Ninjago and the Dark Island, which eventually split to seal away the Overlord.

Now, we also know from Season 6 that sister realms exist, because the Cursed Realm and Djinjago are sister realms. I read somewhere that people think these two have no similarities, but that conversation will be shelved for now.

I think Cloud Kingdom and Ninjago are sister realms.

Why do I think that? First off, the only destinies we've seen Cloud Kingdom work on so far has been people in Ninjago or the Cloud Kingdom. Not saying that it isn't possible that they write destinies for other realms, just thst we haven't seen it yet.

Now, remember that conversation we shelved? Yeah, my cat knocked it off the shelf and splayed it out on the table, so now let's talk about the "relations" (?) between the Cursed Realm and Djinjago, and how that can sort of apply to Cloud Kingdom and Ninjago.

First off, let's think about what the Cursed Realm and Djinjago literally are. The Cursed Realm is the place where you get sent to when you've done many horrible things in your life, and get placed into what I assume is a brutal, choiceless dictatorship, judging by the cages and chains we see. Djinjago is a land filled with djin's, people similar to genies that can grant three wishes for you.

The Cursed Realm strips you of your choices, while Djinjago essentially makes your choices limitless (within the three wish parameters, of course). Their inhabitants (from what we've seen from Seasons 5 & 6) are very cruel and manipulative. They have strong similarities and opposites.

So, how does this apply to Ninjago and Cloud Kingdom? First off, Ninjago and Djinjago rhyme, and Cloud Kingdom and the Cursed Realm are two words, thee first word starting with a "C" and the second word being some form of big location. Second, Ninjago was originally a realm completely covered by water, and Cloud Kingdom is literally a kingdom in the clouds! What's more opposite than the sky and the sea??

Speaking of the sky and the sea, the two elements the FSM never mastered were wind and water. Wind being sky aka Cloud Kingdom and being very tied into destiny (cough cough Morro who literally rewrote destiny and Euphrasia who is a destiny writer cough cough), and water being sea aka Ninjago. Yeah, Wojira basically controlled both, but she's a serpent that has dragonlike wings.

My conclusion? Cloud Kingdom and Ninjago are sister realms, because I've found evidence that supports my theory and none that disproves it.

Sorry for any typos, I am eepy.

Shoutouts to (the SPBNR Discord server)’s name headcanons of—

Aki — Bizarro!Kai, name comes from an anagram of Kai, also (possibly, please politely correct me if I’m wrong!) can mean “bright”, “shining”, “autumn”, “sparkle”, “daybreak”, and/or “love, hope” depending on the writing in Japanese

Nane — Bizarro!Zane, name come from flipping the Z into an N (can be a dialectal variant of “None”)

Cage — Bizarro!Jay, name comes from the letter sounds it makes (Jay = J, Cage = K + G (but a soft g)), also comes from a birdcage that could trap a bluejay (his backup name is Corvid)

Chons — Bizarro!Cole, name comes from the chemical formula for coal (ex. C137H97O9NS is bituminous coal). He tried to get the nickname “Chronos” instead (a fitting name considering the scythe). It didn’t catch on

Okay, after watching Ninjago since the start and being in the fandom for a while, I think the weirdest thing to me is people actually remembering and making fics and designs of the evil versions of the ninja that literally appeared in one episode in the second season. Like. What

Honestly I should just stop questioning the Ninjago fandom

OOOOOO I love your thought process so much (Cole & theatre works SO WELL- Apollo could work too because song and dance, and Lloyd as Apollo fits super well too)

In the version I've got with @genderfluidkai, we've been playing around with-

Hephaestus Kai and Poseidon Nya (with the same mortal parent) who got locked in the Lotus Casino for a bit

Automaton Zane built by Daedalus/Dr. J, blessed by Boreas (Greek god of the North Wind)

We thought about Gaia or Demeter for Cole, but settled on the Earthshaker epithet of Neptune (yeah, Cole's a Roman demigod everyone mistakes for a Greek and takes to Camp Halfblood!)

Same with debating Jay for Zeus, Hephaestus, or Hermes, but we decided that he's actually a child of Thor that everyone mistakes for a Zeus kid (he and Cole get brought to CHB after outrunning a norse lindwyrm and a Strix- Cole football-tossed Jay through the camp barrier)

And for Lloyd- or at least young S1 Lloyd- we thought Dionysus because chaos and gremlin energy while still having life (and also Mr. D being a very tired Garmadon who only has a soft spot for his son was just too funny)

Oh, and Morro's an eidolon (son of Notus) who was friends with Kai and Nya in life before they got stuck in the casino and he died via monster attack

[[Bonus movie!Dorksquad because we merged the show and movieverse for this AU-]]

Kai = Venus (roman Aphrodite)

Nya = Victoria (roman Nike)

Zane = Norse Frost Giant in disguise

Cole = Apollo (roman)

Jay = Jupiter (roman Zeus) and a praetor (we gave him SO MUCH ANGST lol)

Lloyd = Pluto (roman Hades)- Morro hangs around him because Green Cousins go brrrr (in this AU, the show and movie Lloyds are cousins - and fun fact, the two Jays are half-brothers through Cliff on their mortal sides)

Have you ever read any of the Percy Jackson books or the like? If so-

Any thoughts on a Ninjago Demigod AU?

OHHHH DUDE I LOVE PERCY JACKSON I GREW UP WITH IT!

Man a demigod AU…….. that’d be so fascinating omg

My first thought is Kai and Nya being children of Hephaestus. The god of blacksmithing and fire? Perfect for Kai. Craftsman, metalwork, so Nya. I considered Nya being a child of Poseiden but I couldn’t bear to separate her from Kai GDKSHDK

Jay is VERY obvious. Child of Zeus, he hates Zeus tho cuz he sucks so he spends all his time crafting with the Hephaestus cabin kids instead

Zane would be an automaton I feel, perhaps one given life by one of the gods? Maybe Athena?

Ngl I had a hard time placing Cole. The big earth deity that sticks out to me is Gaia, but she’s a Titan and I’m trying to stick with gods. I ended up going with Dionysus, his godly parent being the god of theater just hit to me

With Lloyd I’d go with a child of Apollo. Prophecy. Healing. Apollo is practically the sun itself, the thing that gives Life to everything on earth. Idk it feels very Lloyd to me

Do you want to hear movie!bruise headcanons @angeldrawsstuffs, @fanfalc-616, and I have because it is exactly what you describe because Blue is an anxiety potato who is very good at sitting in his crushes’ lap and Black is a dense laidback guy who nods along to music and pets Blue’s hair and thinks “man I’m so lucky to have a good friend like Jay”

no cuz every bruise story i've read is jay being completely oblivious to cole's reciprocated feelings. where's cole being oblivious to jay's reciprocated feelings. where's them staring at each other a little too long and jay blushing and cole going "man i wonder if he has a fever." where's cole bending over backwards to justify every one of jay's more flirtatious behaviors because "he's touchy-feely, he does that with everybody, it doesn't MEAN anything" in an effort to not be disappointed. where's cole pulling away from jay out of fear and not understanding that the hurt that flashes through his eyes isn't from being best friends, but from feeling like a rejection of his own romantic feelings. do you see it. do you See My Vision.

A fair opinion! If I may make a counterargument with context—

There’s inherent tragedy in the reason WHY Lloyd has to kill his dad. It’s interconnected in one MASSIVE series arc that is incredibly tragic in terms of the themes of family Ninjago has always strived for.

Lloyd, young 8-year-old Season 1 Lloyd, once looked up to his father. He wanted to be just like him, evil and all, even when Garmadon was banished to the Underworld Lloyd’s whole 8-year-old life. He finds out he has to fight his father (possibly to the death),something his father, corrupted by evil, does not want. There’s struggle on both sides to avoid this fight, but destiny finds a way. Lloyd is a child when he has to fight his possessed dad, and after a very emotionally grueling battle, manages to win. His father is finally free from evil. Everything should be happy.

Except Lloyd is trapped forever by destiny, by the narrative, by the cycle of war and grief and tragedy that Ninjago writes (seriously, cycles and spinning are central themes in this series). And he only gets his father back for a short while before he has to sacrifice him to save his home, has to banish him to the Cursed Realm & therefor get him “killed”. It’s a theme of sacrifice that Lloyd has always had to do— sacrifice his childhood to the prophecy of the Green Ninja, sacrifice his powers, sacrifice his father, sacrifice his life, all for “destiny” (which is literally written as a narrative in-universe by the Cloud Kingdom).

And then the next season, his father dies when the cursed realm is destroyed, all because Lloyd opened the portal there in the first place allowing some ghosts to escape & sent his father to that realm.

And Lloyd grieves.

A few seasons later, Harumi (you’ve seen her mentions in Lloyd’s propaganda, it’s this whole other tragic thing) resurects Lloyd’s father, but only the evilness. There is no trace of the man he once was. Lloyd fights him again, tries to reach out to him the way he once did in the prophecy battle—

And is beaten within an inch of his life and thrown through multiple walls by his father. His father takes over the city, destroys it, sends a vicious manhunt after an injured Lloyd. His father (at least from Lloyd’s perspective, unaware they escaped) murders multiple members of Lloyd’s family. Over and over, Lloyd is hurt by him.

And then we see a mirror that shows your deepest, darkest fear. And when Lloyd stands before it, he sees himself becoming his father. The thing he once wanted more than anything has become his greatest fear. He is scarred, never to recover, having lost all hope and love for the person he once loved more than anyone, his idol, his hero, his father.

(And that’s not even touching all the stuff with Garmadon in the movie, nor all of Lloyd’s other traumas like dying multiple times or getting possessed or being isolated for years thinking all his friends/family is dead or watching said friends and family die multiple times or everything else)

I recognize that there can be debate over how to define tragedy, like Greek tragedies hardly all followed Aristotle's definition and those were in turn different from things like Shakespearean tragedy or modern definitions of "tragic character" but I think at the very least a tragic character should have a coherent arc, quality over quantity. A bunch of UNRELATED bad things happening to a character just because a show has gone on for a really long time isn't really telling a coherent tragic story. Especially when some of the bad things happening are literally repeats of each other. Like I haven't watched Ninjago but I keep hearing about how Lloyd had to kill his father 3 times, but I think reusing a "he has to kill his father" plot point over and over again while not having him die for real just to give each season a new plot is a lot less tragic than a more coherent narrative where someone just has to kill their father once and this ties into their overall character arc.

Very valid opinion

AHHHHHHH LOOK AT HOW AMAZING AND ADORABLE THIS IS—

AWWWWW Bumblebee is so freaking cute-

May I request Arin teaching Percival how to ride a dragon? Or at least doing that whole HTTYD-style trust bonding "it's okay the big giant dragon won't hurt you you can put a hand on their snout" thing?

IGNORE HOW ARIN LOOKS LIKE HE'S JUST COPY AND PASTED THERE, i struggled a lil with the pose also yes bumblebee is adorable