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This Article Contains Spoilers -
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| “ | Like I said, don't care so much. Usually when someone wants something too badly, they'll trip over their own feet. | „ |
| ~ Ronin’s advice to Nya, also foreshadowing his betrayal. |
| “ | Hey ninja, if you’re getting this message, I’m sure you might have some choice words for me. But I wanted to tell you that wasn’t me who sent you to this trap. I was under the control of Morro. I know you think I’m a crook for taking the sword, and I wanna make things right by offering my airship Rex as a peace offering. I know it’s not what you had in mind, but I’ve remotely entered the location of the tomb. The real one this time. Morro has a head start, but Rex should get you straight there in a jiff. And if it’s any consolation, this’ll be the last you see of me. If Nya wants to know a reason, tell her it’s because I care. | „ |
| ~ Ronin’s prerecorded message to the ninja after saving them from Morro’s trap. |
Ronin is a major character in the Ninjago franchise, serving as a major anti-hero in Season 5, a supporting character in Season 6 and 9, the main antagonist of the Island mini-series, a cameo character in Season 14, and a supporting character in Season 15.
He is a master thief and cunning mercenary who alternates between being an ally or enemy to the ninja, depending on the circumstance.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- He is incredibly charming and suave, often making sarcastic and witty remarks that serve to make him more enjoyable.
- At some unspecified point, he tricked the ninja and left them in a precarious situation to escape scot-free but only did so because it was just business and not out of any personal malice.
- He is a master thief who successfully stole countless priceless artifacts from across the world to sell at his pawn shop with no one being able to stop him.
- When he is confronted by the ninja who demand the Scroll of Airjitzu he stole, he gives them the runaround and changes the subject to asking if they want to buy the priceless aeroblades made from Deepstone that could defeat Morro and the ghosts and when Kai gets back on subject, he charges them 200, honestly being shocked that they never “pinched” anything and when the ninja proclaim that all of Ninjago depends on them getting the Scroll, he changes his mind…and increases it to 400 since they are even more valuable.
- When Kai tries to negotiate with him to lower the price of the scroll, he tricks Kai into negotiating for an even higher price which forces the ninja to go out to get money to buy the scroll.
- Despite being threatened and grabbed up by Morro, he retains his charm and composure, offering a “fair” deal to buy Morro’s armor and pretending to not even know what the scroll is like he did with the ninja and most notably, tries to con Morro out of more money than he did the ninja by offering to go “find” the scroll for 500.
- He told Kai to cut him free so he could fight off Morro and the ghosts but when Kai refused to until he gave the ninja the scroll, he refused and told Kai to at least use the aeroblades to kill a few ghosts as it turns out he was telling the truth about the areoblade’s abilities.
- Despite being tied up, he still dodges ghost attacks with the ghost being unable to land a single shot on him.
- He frees himself by jumping up when Jay threw an aeroblade so the blade would cut the rope knots and actually gets the better of Morro before calling his ship to emerge from under his shop so he can escape with the scroll, genuinely apologizing to the ninja for leaving them hanging but emphasizing that since the scroll was so important, he couldn’t just give it away.
- Despite Morro knocking him off his ship, he escapes and puts up a good chase against Morro, the ninja, the Soul Archer, and the other ghosts, using his aeroblade to cleanly take out two ghosts, only losing the scroll to Morro right after running across the village of Stiix and after just outsmarting the Soul Archer’s tracker ghost arrow and going to get his ship to return back.
- He returns with his ship right to Kai after Morro defeated him and escaped, pointing out how Kai needed a ride but exploiting this to his advantage to get Kai to give up something he had and forcing Kai to come up with something when Kai claimed he had nothing lest he leave him as he had the upper hand, getting Kai to give up not only his share of Wu’s tea shop but all of the ninja’s shares so Ronin could become the majority share-holder. He then honors his deal by rescuing Kai and returning him to the ninja and even out of altruism, gives them another method to find the Scroll of Airjitzu and learn the art to stop Morro by going to Yang’s Haunted Temple and wishing the ninja luck that they get Lloyd back before departing.
- He charmingly introduces himself and his character to Nya, Sensei Wu, and Misako and revealed how he was now the majority share-holder but assured them when they started to worry that the ninja were fine and he gave them another route to get the Scroll of Airjitzu and stop Morro.
- He offers some advice to Nya on sneaking out of her Water Ninja training to go help the ninja as Samurai X but refuses to give her a ride and go behind Sensei Wu’s back…until Nya offers him a load of money. He takes her out at night, opening up to Nya about his backstory and detecting that intruders have infiltrated her cave, discovering it was Morro and his ghosts and advising Nya that they should leave and confronting Morro was not a good idea. However, when she refused to listen, he left to go get an aeroblade and saved Nya from ghosts.
- He pointed out that Nya didn’t think her plan through when she shot a bomb at Morro (who was possessing Lloyd) to stop him from summoning more ghosts and grabbed Nya to retreat when Nya wasn’t thinking clearly and blindly wanted to get back her suit despite the fact that they were outnumbered and didn’t stand a chance. Even when surrounded by ghosts, he suggested that they could make a deal and when rain appeared out of nowhere and forced the ghosts to retreat, he pointed out to Nya that it wasn’t luck as she had summoned the water and finally got Nya to admit that she was the Water Ninja.
- He accompanied and helped the ninja in getting to Cloud Kingdom to get the Sword of Sanctuary and captured Ghoultar, but in reality was using the ninja to help get the Sword of Sanctuary so he could steal it to pay off his debt even though he was growing to care for the ninja with Ghoultar impressively noting how convincing he was but Ronin clearly being troubled and having regrets over it.
- He saves Nya from the Soul Archer’s tracker ghost arrow and later on gives good advice to Nya when she was trying to move water to not give up but also not try so hard as he learned from experience that when someone wants something too badly, they trip over their own feet which despite Nya’s skepticism, gets successfully proven when she was able to move water without really thinking about it while she was arguing with him.
- When Nya confronted him and revealed she had already taken the sword when he went to the shed to steal it, having figured out from his previous comments that henwas going to steal it to pay off his debt, he told her he didn’t want to hurt her and despite Nya having the sword (which allows you to see your opponents next move and should theoretically make you nigh-impossible to defeat), he distracted her and outsmarted her to get the sword, sarcastically reminding her that if she tried too hard she would (literally) trip over and single-handedly defeating the ninja, Wu, and Misako without really having to use the sword before escaping in his ship. Except that hs ship was empty and a trick to successfully throw the heroes when they went pursue it while he sailed away on a small boat. When Nya, who stayed behind, saw him and tried to reason with him, asking why he was doing this, he reminded her why and acknowledged that Nya was probably right that Morro would never hold up his end of the bargain if Ronin gave him the sword but that it was his only shot and when Nya tried to stop him by reversing the current of the water, he extended the sail to boost the ship and overpower Nya’s concentration, successfully getting away but not before genuinely apologizing to Nya and wishing it never had to come to this.
- He gave the Sword of Sanctuary to Morro and got his soul back but when Morro told him to capture the ninja, he defended the ninja and refused, deciding to keep his cursed soul and asserting that the ninja were his friends and he wouldn’t harm them at the risk of being captured by Morro instead, proving that beneath his hardened exterior, he wasn’t completely selfish and was willing to sacrifice his own self-interests to protect the ninja.
- He saves the ninja from falling to their death in a lava pit in the Caves of Despair by sending his auto-piloted ship to pick them up and a pre-recorded message explaining how Morro had possessed him to send a message to them to go to the Caves of Despair as a trap and gave his ship to them as a peace offering with the coordinates to the real tomb so they could go stop Morro, wishing them luck and remorsefully assuring them that this would be the last time they would see him if it was any consolation and telling them that if Nya asks why he was doing this, it was because he cares.
- He returned to save Lloyd from Morro and get the Sword of Sanctuary from him, leading the evacuation of Stiix when the Preeminent was released and cutting the rope so the ship could sail off along with fighting Morro and getting onto the ship to pilot it and set it to maximum speed when Lloyd returned from the Cursed Realm to face Morro.
- He makes a deal with the Police Commissioner to capture all the ninja, who had been framed as criminals, in exchange for getting a full pardon for his crimes and the bounty reward, single-handedly outsmarting and capturing all the ninja with ease and handing them over to the police while getting his reward and a pardon, achieving his goals.
- He with the police rescue the ninja when they were stranded on a island and reveals he got a message from Jay saying that he was being held captive on Djinjago and rallied everyone to go get him back.
- He took advantage of Jay calling for help when the ninja were captured to make the Police Commissioner let him go when he was being arrested and went out to rescue the ninja, giving the others garden tools in the shed they were holed up in to get creative and buying time for Jay to free the ninja from Nadakhan’s sword by leading the others in fending off Nadakhan’s pirates with the garden tools they had.
- On the Day of the Departed, he went to Jay’s parents scrapyard and rescued them from Samukai and defeated him, telling Jay that he definitely came to rescue them and not because he want to “borrow” some free scrap metal.
- Despite Garmadon taking over Ninjago and the ninja’s seeming death along with the fact that it was more monetarily beneficial to side with Garmadon, he remained on the ninja’s side and stood up against Garmadon’s tyranny, putting up a fight when the Sons of Garmadon were hunting him before finally going down when several of them overwhelmed and toppled him, eventually breaking out of prison with the other captured members of the Resistance and helping the ninja take down Garmadon’s Colossus.
- When the police hired him to capture countless prisoners who broke out of Kryptarium, he used this as an opportunity to put the criminals to work for him and discovered the secret Island of the Keepers that housed a fortune of gold and gems, having the criminals build a sophisticated, fake Wojira to scare the Keepers and disguised himself to implant the idea in their heads to give sacrifices of gold and gems to appease “Wojira”, maintaining this scheme for about a month and successfully conning the Keepers into giving away all they had. *However, when the Keepers gave Jay as a sacrifice since they ran out of everything else and the other ninja came to rescue him, he revealed himself to the ninja just as they discovered he was responsible for the scheme, explaining how he discovered the Keepers and recognizing that since they were sacrificing people, he cleaned the Keepers out and piloted the fake Wojira to cut his losses while he was ahead and escape before Twitchy Tim crashed his boat into his to sink them both. He then got out and tried to escape before the ninja caught him and he accepted his defeat and surrendered.
- He attended Nya’s funeral and mourned her death after she sacrificed herself to save the world from the (real) Wojira.
- Despite the fact that the ninja sent him to prison, he ultimately still respected them.
- During the Overlord's invasion of Ninjago, he rallied a group of villains to escape prison and help the ninja save Ninjago, saving P.I.X.A.L and Zane from the Overlord's Vengestone army.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- He is a thief who has stolen countless artifacts from across the world.
- He captured Zane and P.I.X.A.L. and sold them to Chen, essentially trafficking sapient beings.
- He captured the ninja and handed them over to the police even though he knew they were framed in order to get the bounty on them and a full pardon for his crimes.
- He constructed a fake Wojira to scare the Keepers of the Island and con them into giving away all their valuables as “sacrifices” to appease Wojira, enlisting the labor of prisoners he was hired by the police to track down and was supposed to bring to justice, but instead having them work for him.
External Links[]
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 Magnificent Baddies
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Franchise-Wide Season 5: Posession / Day of the Departed Season 6: Skybound Season 7: Hands of Time Season 12: Prime Empire | ||