u/ducknerd2002

TL;DR: Zane's best seasons are 1, 2, 3, 8, and DR4. Zane's worst seasons are 15 and DR3.

Back in the earliest days of Ninjago, Zane was a brilliant character. He may be an android (to the surprise of everyone, including himself), but that doesn't mean he's not human. S1 Ep7: Tick Tock, the episode where Zane's past is revealed, remains one of the best Ninjago episodes to this day, and >!his sacrifice!< in the S3 finale is a genuinely emotional moment.

His S4 plot as the Titanium Ninja was good, but afterwards he gradually started to become a less interesting character. He was often relegated to simply being the smart robot with minimal affect on the story, and he has had multiple fakeout deaths, most of which >!reuse the music from his original sacrifice!<.

He was a lot like his old self in the Oni Trilogy - especially S8; Zane's behaviour in the Snake Jaguar part of the story was perfect, and it had the only post-S3 fakeout death to actually work. He doesn't do too much in S9 or S10, but he still feels like his old self.

For most of the WildBrain era he was largely just comic relief where the joke is 'funny robot says funny robotic things'. The main exception is S11 where he >!defeats the first hall's main villain!< and >!is brainwashed into becoming the tyrannical Ice Emperor for 60 years!<. His brief time as a noir detective in S12 is also pretty fun, but he gets relegated to 'villain uses his robotic power source for their machine' at the end of the season.

The worst of it is in S15 for 2 reasons:

• There's a multi-episode subplot of Zane turning off his emotions just so he can relearn that emotions are important in a filler episode.

• He has yet another fakeout death that >!uses his Ice Emperor persona just for jokes!<.

The trend continues in Dragons Rising (the post-timeskip sequel series) - he's the 4th Ninja to be reintroduced to the story, but in S1 and S2 he's solely relegated to B-plots and minor contributions.

S3 seemed like it was setting him up for more, but all that happened was him reuniting with PIXAL before having another fakeout death, and then he just goes on vacation for the second half of the season and skips the whole adventure. The only Ninja who had it worse this season was Cole, but that's another story.

Fortunately, we now have S4 Part 1, the newest Ninjago season. Here, Zane actually feels like a person:

• He uses slang to seem cool ("I say 'janky' now, Lloyd.")

• He bonds with the Arc Dragon of Life ("I may sometimes struggle to communicate my feelings, but I feel them as deeply as anyone else.")

• He helps Lloyd by suggesting art as a form of meditation ("Love is also an important and powerful tool. If it helps, think of drawing as a form of meditation. Pencil to the paper, breathing.")

He may not be the most important Ninja in S4, but he doesn't feel nearly as neglected as he does in past seasons.

It's still a few months until S4 Part 2 releases, but I truly hope it manages to match Part 1 with how it handles Zane (and everything else; S4 Part 1 is genuinely great). If it does, it will be the best Zane has been since 2018.

There are 2 separate Old Towns in Ninjago City. I am not joking - the Old Town in Dragons Rising is separate from the one from the Oni Trilogy.

Good lord, there are so many forests. There are 8 separate forests just by the end of the WilFilm era:

• Forest of Tranquility (where the Fire Temple is located)

• Birchwood Forest (Dr. Julien's home)

• Wildwood Forest (location of the Fangpyre tomb)

• Blackwood Forest (where Cole was a lumberjack)

• Hiroshi's Labyrinth

• Primeval's Eye

• Chen's Island

• The Dark Island

There are 2 separate deserts, both of which have Serpentine pyramids within them.

The Dark Island is the same size as Ninjago's mainland, but it only has 4 locations (Beach, Garmadon's Camp, Temple of Light, Celestial Clock), none of which are particularly big.

There is a lot of stuff in Ninjago City.

The cove where Misfortune's Keep resides will probably be renamed.

What about the Realms? Would they do a post-Merge or pre-Merge world? If they choose pre-Merge, are the other realms gonna be accessible? If they are, would they use the in-game map, the canonical ways of accessing them, or both?