#I always liked the idea of FSM giving his power to people as a gift.

[the-ninjago-historian]

I KNEW I HEARD THIS SOMEWHERE! So, has this been retconned since Dragons Rising, orrrrrrrr....

[destinysbounty]

This will probably be disproven once season 16 comes out, but given what little we know about it I think it's reasonable to say that while Zane and Nya's losses are very similar, they both come in two very distinct flavors.

When Zane died, the team had already been in a bit of a precarious position what with all the drama going on between Jay, Cole, and Nya. They were already at each other's throats, but were willing to at least work together and even still kinda got along on a few occasions. But after Zane's death, that begrudging camaraderie went away, and the only thing that could really get Cole and Jay back on the same team again was the idea that Zane might actually be alive. Not to mention what Kai said - "Maybe without Zane, there is no team." And when Lloyd tried to bring everyone back together in season 4, there was a lot of unspoken animosity between not just Jay and Cole, but the rest of the team as well. Jay and Kai both regard Lloyd a bit coldly, and Cole doesn't appear to be too pleased that Kai is there, and they all generally seem rather prone to arguing and fighting amongst themselves. However they fell apart, it was probably pretty messy.

Zane, I think, is what held everyone together. He was the glue that kept them all in one piece. He doesn't often take center-stage, he's very rarely placed in a spotlight/leadership position within the team and doesn't often take charge (the Ice Emperor incident notwithstanding), but he's always there as a subtle yet powerful source of support operating in the background.

The beginning of season 6 indicates that Jay had confided in Zane about what he saw in the Tomb of the FSM, and Zane was the only person he told about his intentions to use genie magic to make Nya fall in love with him. When Cole fell off the Bounty and Kai desperately tried to steer the ship back and save him, Zane was the one to stop him, to tell him it's pointless, and to console him in the wake of that loss. There are multiple instances throughout the series of someone being hurt or upset, and Zane is there with a comforting smile and a shoulder-pat. When a tragedy befalls the team, Zane is quick to check on his teammates and prioritize their emotional wellbeing.

He's their Emotional Support Nindroid. So when he died, everyone struggled to remain whole in his absence.

But Nya, she holds a different role on the team, and it would be ridiculous to assume her loss would have affected them in the same way. She may not be the one holding everyone together, but her role is just as important: she's their motivator. Not just in the sense of her being Kai's motivation for becoming a ninja, but because she's always the one pushing everyone to keep fighting and never quit.

In season 4, she's one of the few people who didn't abandon the team in the wake of Zane's death. In season 9, when they thought everyone was dead, Nya was the one to help Lloyd get back on his feet, and pushed him to keep fighting anyway. She was the one who kept the resistance moving. And at the end of season 8, where Kai is questioning whether or not this is a battle they can win, she insists they'll figure something out. Her arc in season 5 is about learning not to give up on things she's not instantly good at (cough cough gifted child syndrome, anyone?), and she seems to have taken that lesson to heart ever since.

She doesn't back down and she doesn't give up, and she inspires this sentiment in the rest of her team as well.

Given what we've seen from comics, magazines, and leaks, it seems like when they lost Nya, the team also lost their drive. Their motivation. They didn't have some big and nasty falling out, but they just...couldn't keep going. They went their separate ways because they just didn't have the will to go on. Like an engine running on fumes. In the leaked footage from season 16, we see what appears to be the team deciding to keep fighting, and a few sources have translated them as saying "For Nya". It sounds like what brings the team back together is them using her memory to motivate them just as Nya herself had done in the past (but again, the season hasn't come out yet so this is mostly conjecture).

Long story short, while Zane and Nya's losses are very similar, and I'm sure season 16 is gonna feel a bit repetitive in that sense, I'd also like to think that their reasons for splitting apart are different each time. Zane and Nya both play equally vital roles within the team's dynamic, which subtly influences the ways in which their friends grieve their loss.