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title: Bionicle - The Perfect Socialist Utopia published: 2019-01-16
the world of bionicle is one of the most obviously socialist stories i have read in a long time, which is ironic given the franchises real world roots in capitalism as, y'know, a franchise.
the three virtues
the inhabitants of the matoran universe were, in the beginning, without purpose, without a reason to be (also without free will and personality, but how they gained that is a story for another time).
the great spirit gave unto the matoran the three virtues;
- unity
- duty
- destiny
which they then followed as if religion, and were happier for it. all the problems in the bionicle universe stem from refusal to adopt one or more of these virtues.
unity
unity is the one i will be focussing on here. the matoran universe, particularly the two areas we got to see the most of (the tribal-like mata nui, and the city-like metru nui) have a society that, whilst involving forms of currency, is decidedly socialist in nature. matoran work their jobs not for (in most cases) any reward, but simply so they may follow the three virtues and play their part.
it is considered a bad thing to not enjoy working, despite there being no capitalist incentive schemes in these communities.
furthermore, outside of working directly, it is considered almost blasphemous to the great spirit himself to not strive for greater unity, a feat which has been shown, multiple times in universe, to allow many matoran or toa to merge together to form a new, stronger being. so stronk that the being itself is far more powerful than the sum of the individuals that made it.
the aspects of matoran life generally follow a very socialist pattern, both in practice and in the high held ideals that matoran strive to follow.
the great spirit robot
furthermore, the extended bionicle lore (outside of metru slash mata nui) has an even more literal example of socialist ideals in the bionicle universe.
for those of you who are unaware, the bionicle universe takes place, for the most part (and the part that people who are unfamiliar with the lore would know) inside a literal giant robot, and the great spirit mata nui is in fact the consciousness of this robot.
the city town of metru-nui is actually mata-nui's brain, and if the matoran were to stop working (not even working to power the brain, just if the city were to stop functioning for whatever reason) it is literally putting the great spirit into a coma, something the makuta teridax put into motion in his plan to take over.
this spirit would later in the story be ejected from the robot, and form its own body on a new planet, in which it helped the local inhabitants learn about the communist manifesto the three virtues and overcome its war-like tendencies, something that would later be revealed was the entire purpose of the robot.
final thots
the bionicle universe is made up of many individuals that follow socialist ideals, whilst literally using those ideals to power god, who themself goes around teaching others about the idea of socialism.
takanuva was fukken underutilised as shit