Most Tragic Tournament - Tumblr Posts

PROPAGANDA UNDER THE CUT: [SPOILERS AND POSSIBLE TRIGGERS AHEAD]

ANTIGONE:

LLOYD GARMADON:

VOTE LLOYD THE PROPAGANDA DOESN’T EVEN MENTION HALF THE SH!T HE GOES THROUGH (including straight-up dying— kinda multiple times) NOR ANY OF THE MOVIE WHICH, TO SUMMARIZE—

He's the second most HATED PERSON IN THE CITY (second only to the dad he’s never known who’s an evil warlord) just because he’s the son of said warlord no matter how much he tries, has songs bullying him REACH THE NUMBER 1 CHART MULTIPLE TIMES, has a mental block on catching/throwing because of his absent dad, gets told by his uncle on his birthday (which his dad also attacks on) that his hands are the wrong hands, constantly defends a city that hates him as the Green Ninja, accidentally causes the destruction of his city, watches/thinks all his friends DIED because of him, gets bullied by said friends (we ignore this part), goes on a dangerous quest, loses his uncle, has to team up with his dad who bullies him in front of his friends, gets captured and nearly thrown into a volcano by crazy generals, LOSES HIS DUCKING ARM, gets locked in a crumbling and unstable temple with no food by his dad after he thought he broke through to him, watches his dad (who he still cares about despite Garmadon being a sh!tty dad) get eaten by a cat, and just...

Poor Lloyd. There is so, so much trauma.

Have I mentioned he’s had visions of all his friends and family dying? And has had to watch his family die multiple times? Believed them dead on different multiple occasions? Is the DEFINITION of “prophecy chosen one” who gets put through SO MUCH by the universe?

PROPAGANDA UNDER THE CUT: [SPOILERS AND POSSIBLE TRIGGERS AHEAD]

ANTIGONE:

LLOYD GARMADON:

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

Ooooo all very interesting points! I love the summary and the analysis (100% agree on Lloyd’s fatal flaws) of agency and being doomed by your own hand vs. being doomed by the narrative. I personally think both are very tragic in their own regard, and there’s absolutely a very valid argument to make about which could be considered more tragic, but I’m playing devil’s advocate (or I suppose Oni’s advocate) for Lloyd, so goes—

You want agency? Sure! :D Let me find some examples of some of the other situations where Lloyd DOES make active choices that lead to his own suffering.

Season One, Rise of the Snakes— Lloyd intentionally opens the Serpentine Tombs, which directly snowballs into: his betrayal at the hands of Pythor, multiple kidnappings, nearly getting killed in a volcano in a cage sinking into lava, and the release of the Great Devourer (a massive f-u world-consuming snake) that directly causes Harumi to hate Lloyd’s guts for getting her parents killed in the serpent attack & gives Garmadon access to the Golden Weapons which further brings the prophecy closer to fruition.

Season Two, Legacy of the Green Ninja — Lloyd intentionally decides to use Tomorrow’s Tea to save his family (who have been turned to kids via magic) from a resurrected ninja-hunting dinosaur monster, knowing he’ll get hit by the blast and getting aged up (at least physically, not necessarily mentally) and losing his childhood. Everyone tried to dissuade him from this. He did it anyway. The prophecy is closer than ever because he’s “of age”.

Season Four, Tournament of Elements — He decides to open the portal to the cursed realm (I’ll admit, he was a bit forced by the situation, but he still had the activeness of doing it himself) and intentionally banished Garmadon (leading to his later death) in exchange for some ancient warriors to save the day (this results in the escape of the ghost who later possesses and traumatizes Lloyd)

Season Six, Skybound— Lloyd intentionally sacrifices himself to an evil djinn’s blade of souls because he thinks Jay can defeat him with a wish. This gets him sealed away in the sword like a battery (and in the original season concept of the sword, would be a confirmed death and his empty corpse would fall to the ground).

Season Eight, Sons of Garmadon— Lloyd choses to trust Harumi and is very active in his self-assigned role of protecting her, only to be backstabbed (almost literally) and nearly killed in a cave, then nearly killed by his resurrected evil father, which— oh yeah! Lloyd INTENTIONALLY sneaks out to confront/fight Garmadon by himself despite everyone telling him not too, leading to his suffering at the hands of his father in a prison that is broadcast to the entire city (so everyone sees their hero get beaten up within an inch of his life). As a direct result of this fight, Garmadon becomes strong enough to form a massive stone Colossus that destroys the city and supposedly kills Lloyd’s family in front of him, to which Lloyd blames himself

Season 12, Prime Empire — Lloyd choses to participate in a 1on1 fight with an NPC (context: they’re trapped in an evil videogame) despite Nya and Jay offering themselves to fight instead. This results in Lloyd having to fight an NPC Harumi, who Lloyd manages to kill despite his hesitation and trauma, but is killed in response. As it’s his final game life, he gets cubed (aka turned into an energy battery for the game to make a portal to the real world for the AI to escape). Yep, this counts as a death. Again.

Season 16, Crytalized — Lloyd intentionally disguises himself and infiltrates the newly formed Council of the Crystal King (yes, the acronym is as unfortunate as you think). He gets caught by his own badly-lying hand and realizes he fell into a trap, and Harumi blows up the subway tunnel and supposedly kills Lloyd’s family. He blames himself because he was the one who insisted they use his plan (he also succumbs a litttttle bit to darkness and nearly murders Harumi with oni powers)

And those are just some off the top of my head!

Unrelated to the above, but I personally think the worst (best) tragedies are the ones that could have barely been avoided, especially by human mistake. If it’s completely unavoidable, it’s more despairing, but if there was a glimmer of hope to avoid it all… and it was missed… that is the most human tragedy.

Ex 1. Antigone had (from your summary, at least) multiple chances to not-die. Had she taken one, it could have been avoided, but alas, she didn’t.

Ex. 2 Lloyd & Garmadon’s relation had multiple points where all the trauma and heartbreak and unfixableness could have been avoided (if Garmadon hadn’t been bitten by the evil-venom of the Great Devourer, if Lloyd hadn’t released the Serpentine that release the Great Devourer and give Harumi her motication to use Garmadon to hurt Lloyd, if Lloyd didn’t sacrifice Garmadon, if he’d found a way to free Garmadon before the Cursed Realm was destroyed, if he hadn’t believed Harumi, if he hadn’t led her to the final mask needed for her ritual, if he hadn’t gotten himself captured and used as a distraction to give Harumi the chance to finish the ceremony, if he hadn’t gone to fight Garmadon on his own, if if if)

What do you think?

P.S. Thanks for being really respectful and civil, it’s fun having these soft debates that get you to analysis media :D I’ve been rotating thoughts about cycles all day ahsjsjsffs

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