Parts of Darkness: One man's journey into the madness and mystery of Legends of Chima

thoroakenfelder · 2016-08-24T20:37:23.000Z

For some time, every time that I have heard the Legend of Chima mentioned, it's been half joke, half cautionary tale. The conventional wisdom says stay away, stay far away. There's a few people that are wild enough, dangerous enough or wily enough to have made some money on Chima. They say buy cheap enough and you can make money on anything. I began to wonder about the non-licensed LEGO Intellectual Properties. What is it that makes Chima such poison? Why are these LEGO sets reviled? I felt like I had to know more. I felt like I had to understand what makes one series less desirable than another. I decided to start with what I know of Chima. In the early days, LEGO was giving out Speedorz for free with purchases. I know because I got some. I was able to sell those eventually making about $5 each. As far as I was concerned, I made money, though not much, and notably less than LEGO was trying to sell the same thing for. My buy in was good, free with purchase. That doesn't tell me much though. I didn't keep the Speedorz because I was uninterested in LEGO sets that weren't really building sets. Now that those sets were long gone. I needed something else. I had to go further. Maybe the denizens of the land of Chima could help. Half forgotten memories of something that I sold off as an afterthought weren't going to do it. I had to look deeper. I had to follow the trail. I unearthed a handful of minifigures that came in a bulk lot, and a couple that were part of Target cubes that I had purchased. Nature's mistakes some might call these poor twisted creatures. That is, if there was anything natural about them in the first place. Anthropomorphic animals that wear animal head helmets. Are the helmets supposed to be part of them, or some representation of the animals that they once were? How could I know? I took off the helmets and was happy to see the dual sided heads, until I realized that they were worse than useless. The Chima helmets cover the entire head. No face is visible when they are wearing the helmets, but when you take them off, these freaks become some kind of grotesquerie with two faces. Every single Chima is like Professor Quirrel and Voldemort. It doesn't really matter how good or bad the figures are when something fundamental like creating dual faces without a reason slips by. Sure, you can turn the head around so they'll be angry, but the angry face will be just as hidden by the helmet as the happy face. This is worse than Batman's sweatband. I fled the tiny freaks with their shoulder armor and wings (fire wings are awesome by the way) and their transparent limbs and zombie-ish body damage. Is this why people didn't travel down into the dark heart of Chima? Is this what stops most people? My journey almost ended there, but I had to push on. I had to get to the heart of it. I had to observe. I had to see what the children saw, so I unleashed the torments of the cartoon upon myself. I thought that I knew what I was getting into. I've watched more than my fair share of licensed toy cartoons. I've seen the LEGO Movie and the LEGO Super Heroes videos. I thought that I knew what to expect. I thought I was prepared. I was wrong. The cartoon is dreadful. It's poorly executed nonsense. The main "hero" (Laval) is an idiot and the main antagonist (Cragger) is an easily manipulated fool. As far as I can tell, the "Chi" is some kind of naturally occurring steroid with hideously addictive properties. The Lions are the kingpins and the Crocodiles are the meth addicts that live in the swamp trailer park, constantly jonesing for their fix. The rhinos are dumber than a bag of hammers and the gorillas are too stoned to be effective at anything. The wolves are thug, the eagles are the lion's enforcers and the ravens are some kind of group of mercenary scavengers, easily distracted by shiny things. There's a collection of animals that just said no at some point hundreds or thousands of years before. Somehow, not taking the drugged water made them stronger and longer lived. I have to stop there. I can't relive the unspeakable horrors of this cartoon anymore. I lost days in there to madness. Was it a symptom of that madness to continue this foolhardy quest? It probably was, but I had come this far. I had to see it through. I needed to get a feel for these monstrosities myself. I had to build them to see if there was beauty buried within. I couldn't believe that they were all terrible. The underlying parts were the same as sets and themes that I enjoy. I found 2 sets on my shelves, but that wouldn't do. I couldn't do it with just a couple sets that I had found on clearance. I needed to dive deeper. I put out the call for sets that were cheap, expecting people to be thrilled to get their money back out of these beasts. Strangely, no one stepped forward. The only offers that I received were full retail offerings of used sets through Facebook and a few scattered offerings of new sets at a markup. People who spoke ill of Chima