#idk Man morros one of my favourite characters i think abt this stuff a lot

[ups3tti]

I have many thoughts on Morro and Wu and feel the need to explode about it. Woah be upon ye

Their entire story is so tragic and grief-filled to me it gets me every time man.

I feel like Wu's "he was my greatest regret" line is often misinterpreted as placing the blame on Morro but I never took it that way? I always felt like it was an admittance of Wu's own fault. I also try and keep in mind the context of the line, like Wu is telling this story about Morro to the *ninja.* The ninja aren't gearing up to fight Wu's former student/kid he loved, they're gearing up to fight a vengeful spirit who's threatening the lives of their friend and all of ninjago. The purpose of that story was to be truthful about what Wu knew about Morros past so the ninja could understand who they're dealing with and what he has to do with Lloyd and Wu, not so that Wu could express his own genuine emotion. He IS Wu's greatest regret because Wu failed him and now it's coming back to bite everyone he cares about.

And then when Morro died, God that scene always gets me but it's not even because of Morro's last lines (though they still hit like a truck) it's because of Wu's heartbroken yell of Morro's name after he lets go. He was pleading with Morro to stay and take his hand even after everything but Morro would not let him fix this, he didn't think he should be saved. It just gets me man it's so painful. And then there's Wu's feverdream/vision in s7 in which the version of Morro he has in his mind calls him out as having made many mistakes and failing him, like dude that guilt has stuck with Wu since Morro died and probably even since he left the Monastery. He's so viscerally aware of how he failed Morro and you can see that reflected in how he taught the rest of the ninja, going to find them, keeping the green ninja prophecy from them, making them rely on each other as a team unit from the beginning. He did not want to fail another.

Another thing is that I'm always skeptical of Wu characterization that involves making him out to be a terrible teacher/father figure in the context of Morro especially because it's normally used to minimize or justify Morros actions/try to make him more redeemable yk? I'm definitely not saying Wu's a blameless saint but at the end of the day Morros is capable of making his own decisions and boy did he. It's part of the point of Morro's character that he was unable to move past things no matter how hard Wu tried. If you still want a figure to blame for Morro's descent into rage and malicious intent, the Preeminent, literal embodiment of Ninjago hell whom he spent decades with and all her cursed spirits, is right there.