Story-Driven Castle Themes?

[Lego David]

For me, Castle is not a general term, but a specific theme focused on stereotypical stuff from the Medieval period: Castles, Knights, Robin Hood, Crusades, etc. 

The stuff @MAB describes would fit more as subthemes of Pirates rather than Castle, too be honest. Fun fact, we almost got a theme set in the time

period MAB describes called Europa, but it was never released for unknown reasons.

Thy they decided not to release such a cool theme is beyond me. 

[valon]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

Castle doesn't have to literally mean a castle though, does it. We rarely get a true castle within Castle. They could do forts, palaces, and so on. As above, extending Castle to mean not just a couple of centuries in one region, but to cover more of the world and history, might make it a little less boring to buyers. They could do a stately home facade like Highclere or Castle Howard or Balmoral. Obviously Windsor which is still used along with Victorian era soldiers. Any era could contain soldiers and have the Castle vibe. Or they could do a twist. They could do romanticised castle, more fairytale like (Neuschwanstein and so on). Or Victorian style follies. They could even do something like Belvedere Castle in Central Park to get American appeal. Or they could do something towards Monster Fighters, vampire castles and so on. 

Personally, I'd prefer some non European ones though. Persian or North African or Chinese would be a nice change.

 

[MAB]

Yes, I know both of those. Having more Persian and North African style, especially now we get so many more parts in dark flesh / dark nougat would be great. There were some great torsos in PoP.  And again, it is not strictly a castle but has the Castle vibe, it is a fortified residence with soldiers.

[Alexandrina]

Just now, MAB said:

And again, it is not strictly a castle but has the Castle vibe, it is a fortified residence with soldiers.

That's too vague a definition really, though. Are the various Soldiers' Fort sets from Pirates actually Castle sets? The Death Star?

When Lego did Vikings, they did it as its own theme rather than as a subtheme of Castle, even though Vikings had a lot in common with Castle - the periods were simply too distinct. If they ever did Rome, or Greece, or Victoriana, or Aztecs, they'd surely do the same.

[MAB]

30 minutes ago, Lego David said:

For me, Castle is not a general term, but a specific theme focused on stereotypical stuff from the Medieval period: Castles, Knights, Robin Hood, Crusades, etc. 

The stuff @MAB describes would fit more as subthemes of Pirates rather than Castle, too be honest.

Pirates means something quite narrow to Pirates fans too though. 

It is about pushing boundaries. So to me, early Tudor would still fit into medieval - axes, swords, bows and spears. Late Tudor, gunpowder through cannon and muskets came in . So I can understand why some would see a crossover there. Although still too early for Pirates based on naval uniforms. Plus pirates does really need to be mainly at sea.

19 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

That's too vague a definition really, though. Are the various Soldiers' Fort sets from Pirates actually Castle sets? The Death Star?

When Lego did Vikings, they did it as its own theme rather than as a subtheme of Castle, even though Vikings had a lot in common with Castle - the periods were simply too distinct. If they ever did Rome, or Greece, or Victoriana, or Aztecs, they'd surely do the same.

I don't know. They haven't done Vikings again so it is unknown. LEGO designers have indicated that internally they considered Nexo Knights to be a castle theme even though it wasn't badged as such, so if they did a Roman (or Vikings) theme and it was called Romans (or Vikings) and it kept the Castle badge of the shelves but gave us sets with some historical warriors and some locations, then I wouldn't care that Castle had gone away. Of course some may complain that there needs to always be a European based medieval theme available and that other regions or eras do not count even though LEGO may decide internally that such a theme replaces Castle for a while.

In the same way, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Harry Potter are not badged as Castle, so none of them should be considered as Castle even if they look similar to differing amounts

[MAB]

19 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

That's too vague a definition really, though. Are the various Soldiers' Fort sets from Pirates actually Castle sets? The Death Star?

 

So what is the non-vague definition of Castle?

[valon]

2 minutes ago, MAB said:

So what is the non-vague definition of Castle?

i think that castle is a theme with knights and castle, i agree that until columbus could also be considered castle though, i think that after columbus, it is more pirates though. I think a roman theme would not be castle, but be really cool, a medieval arab theme, could be castle sort of

[Alexandrina]

10 minutes ago, MAB said:

So what is the non-vague definition of Castle?

I would say that Castle is a theme encompassing the Middle Ages (5th to 15th Century roughly, with some leeway) and fantasy elements inspired by that. Castles themselves wouldn't be strictly necessary - but the broader state of a feudal system with kings and lords and knights, combat primarily using sword and axe and bow rather than guns, and technology at a pre-industrial level is what defines the genre. There's definitely room to blur the lines a bit - Fantasy Era, for instance, bridges the gap between Lord of the Rings and classic Medieval - but there's only so far those lines can be blurred. If say a Victorian theme with no castles or knights qualifies as Castle, it starts to beg the question "why are sets split into themes at all?"

You're not alone in appreciating historical minifigures and sets from periods and places other than Medieval Europe. I would love sets based on the Classical Era, or early Japan/China (I'm not clued up on the history of other parts of the world, so I don't know what there is to possibly get - but I don't see any reason why say African history couldn't make good sets either). I just don't see them as being Castle sets.

[Black Monarch 88]

I’d be down for an Age of Chivalry theme that focuses on various medieval tales such as King Arthur and Knights of the Round table, William the conqueror/Normans vs. Saxons, Richard I/Robin Hood, Siegfried, William Wallace. 

[zoth33]

14 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

Does any theme really need that many races? I have a decently-big interest in fantasy as a genre and I'm not entirely sure what all of those are. The general public will be even less so. Dwarves and elves are well-known (and presumably halflings are Hobbits, in which case they'll have decent cultural penetration) but minotaurs are in the public eye indelibly linked to ancient Crete and hence would look out of place in a medieval setting. Equally vampires are linked to Dracula and the Gothic Victorian literary genre, so would also feel out of place in a medieval setting. Demons? Too controversial. No way Lego ever have an in-house theme with a faction called "demons". Mer-people? How are they interacting with other races? In a medieval setting, there's not going to be much deep-sea diving, so either you have to contrive a way for them to interact or they have no impact on the main storyline - and in that case, just make them a separate theme. Imps bring to mind Lincoln Cathedral more than any fantasy characters. Wererats are a term I've never come across before, so the general public's got no chance - and while the name is descriptive enough for me to imagine, I have no idea what the difference is between dragon men and draconians (I presume you don't mean the alien race from Doctor Who), and how is that difference going to be conveyed in Lego form?

The problem a lot of people (myself included) are having with this is that we're coming at it from adult lenses - with particular focus on what we would like to see. There's a lot of discussion on having loads of races - but no suggestion of how they could be incorporated into a storyline. If it wasn't based on a story, it would be easy: stick cool-looking figures in the sets, and let the kids figure out how they all relate to one another. But with a story, it's harder.

Looking at the episode guide for Ninjago, the average season seems to have sixteen episodes, with a runtime of eleven minutes each. (I'm assuming that a theoretical new TV series would follow the current format, rather than going back to a format Ninjago dropped two years ago). Let's cut thirty seconds an episode for titles and credits, leaving us with 168 minutes of content in a season - and sets in the initial run will be based on the first season, since Lego are neither going to spoil future developments in their own IP nor commit to something which they have no idea if it will be profitable or not.

Now, Episode 1 will likely be devoted to introducing the main characters, probably with a minor obstacle for them to overcome and a mystery hook at the end so people come back next week. I'm actually writing a brickfilm series right now, and eleven pages into Episode 1 - which is where the episode would cut off in a Ninjago-length episode - I've just reached the first wrinkle. To achieve this, I've delayed the introduction of half of the main cast and most of the factions until later episodes, and two of the main characters who have appeared get only fleeting introductions at this point. My main cast as demonstrated in the first eleven pages consists of five main characters - Lego will probably go a similar route.

So what happens next? Personally speaking, if I was in charge of planning a Lego Castle series, I'd split the cast up. Episode 1 is introduction, Episode 2 is the big problem that the series has to solve - and at the end of Episode 2 the main cast are in two separate groups. This allows you more flexibility in storytelling. You can by default have two storylines, and thus three factions (if we're counting the main characters' faction as distinct from anybody they interact with) in every episode. For some episodes, one faction might not appear. The balance over sixteen episodes would probably be something along the lines of ten episodes featuring all the main characters (including two at the start when they're all together and one at the end for resolution of the series arc) and three episodes devoted to each group. When splitting the storylines, you'd have to be aware that you've got five minutes per storyline - so in practice you'd get a lot of two-parters or more split stories. I'd be surprised if more than five factions could be properly introduced in one season. Maybe you'd have one or two more as minor roles, but these are also the sorts of roles that rarely get turned into minifigures.

Over time you could definitely get loads of factions - after all, other than the main characters, no faction needs to appear all the time. But I'm wary of people listing off two dozen niche fantasy races and (over time) people getting excited about the prospect of this happening, when in reality you'd be looking at at least seven or eight seasons before you could properly introduce all the factions you've listed thee.

Who said it had to be medieval?  Were talking about castle which could also be fantasy oriented.  Also if you have a decently big interest in fantasy then you should know all of those things they are all over fantasy books, games. etc.  Hobbits are a type of halfling but that's just what Tolkien uses as their name other writers use other names.  Minotaurs are all over the fantasy genre like the Chronicles of Narnia,  Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, etc.  Mer-people once again in a lot of fantasy books.  Vampires all over fantasy.  Draconians are from Dragonlance.  Demons lego has done before in Nexo knights those are demons even if the word wasn't used also NInjago has Oni which means demon.  Also there are many Were races not just wolves within the fantasy genre.  Do you read fantasy at all, or play fantasy video games or table top games like D&D or Magic?   All of the things I mentioned are all over the fantasy genre.  I was just giving example of races they could use over several years not all at once.  Read my post.  

Secondly I'm not here to come up with a tv show for you.   I was just citing examples they could draw from.  I have ideas for my own fantasy/castle lego world.  That's what I was saying you could do this over several years not just a one shot season.  Did you read what I said or are you just trying to argue.  I was literally just saying that lego could do something interesting in the castle/fantasy line if they wanted.  

14 hours ago, Lego David said:

That's the exact thing they did with Bionicle, and it worked pretty well there. In 2001-2003, you have a story with the original 6 heroes, and then 2004-2005 they completely changed the characters and setting into a prequel story, then 2006-2007 they changed the main characters again, but continuing from where the 2003 story left off, until finally returning to the original 6 heroes in 2008. I honestly have no idea why they haven't used this strategy again for Ninjago. Changing the main characters every 2-3 years can help a lot in keeping a story fresh, but sadly no other LEGO theme has ever done it besides Bionicle. 

Right they could make things interesting by keeping it fresh and changing things up.  

18 hours ago, MAB said:

I think for something like that to work, they have to both get the story right (as in interesting) and make sure users can engage with the story, which is often a problem as the cartoons are rarely freely accessible in all countries. Otherwise if people's favourite heroes just disappear from sets, there is less continuity and hence buy in and the sets appear to be a somewhat random mixture. One of the good things about Ninjago is that you can pick any set in any era and you can identify the heroes and villains, even if you don't know the story arc. 

If sets are heavily linked to a story, they need to make sure everyone gets access to the story.

Ok but I was just answering Lego Davids original question.  They could do it through several mediums like a show, comic or book or even do an online series.  However they do it would be up to Lego.  I was just saying they could do something really interesting that both kids and adults would like if they did it right.  Or even aim it at teens/adults.  

[MAB]

Fantasy possibly is the best route to go if they were to do anything for more than a year. At least that way, there can be more interest than just a couple of human based armies against each other sticking to a few hundred years of mainly English and French history, obviously avoiding overlap with Scandinavia and a couple of hundred years of English history to steer clear of Vikings. Instead bring in trolls, dwarves and elves, skeleton armies and dragon powered flying machines as in the past.  Or open up to the wider sword and sorcery genre to include cyclops and centaurs and so on, so influenced by more than just Arthurian style myth or dragons.

In a time when LEGO is trying to broaden worldwide appeal, it would seem strange to me if they focussed only on a small portion of North West European history year after year, and if a theme would be longer running it has to be more then just repeating the old sets. Otherwise, I can't see Castle ever being more than once every ten years or so.

[Alexandrina]

6 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Who said it had to be medieval?  Were talking about castle which could also be fantasy oriented.

If you take away the grounding in a medieval aesthetic, you run the risk of a theme not feeling like Castle at all. 

6 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Do you read fantasy at all, or play fantasy video games or table top games like D&D or Magic? 

I have read and played my fair share of fantasy - certainly far more than the average consumer who will be buying potential sets. Just because I maybe haven't read the same things as you doesn't mean I have no interest in the genre.

6 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Secondly I'm not here to come up with a tv show for you.

I'm well aware of that. However, discussion about the form a possible Castle TV show might take is not outside the remit of the thread, and is something I have a personal interest in, so I wanted to contribute in that regard. I'm not trying to say your ideas are terrible or anything, and if I came across that way then I'm sorry, but this is a public forum and posting here means you open your ideas up to be engaged with by other members of the community - across the full breadth of the topic. 

In any case, I specifically mentioned in my own comment that I was also talking generally - particularly about AFOLs' tendency to focus on what they want (myself included) - and using your comment as a springboard for discussion. The truth is that I am really enjoying this thread, so I try to engage with it as much as I can. 

6 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Did you read what I said or are you just trying to argue.

There's no need to be rude. Yes, I read what you said. I synthesised a response based on what you said, too. And argue? No, I took what I and built a comment off that. If nobody was doing that, this thread would just be people saying what they want to see with no engagement from the community and it would fairly quickly wither and die. I'm enjoying reading it, so I want to engage with people and keep the thread alive. 

1 hour ago, MAB said:

Fantasy possibly is the best route to go if they were to do anything for more than a year.

What I would be wary of is Lego's past. Fantasy Era lasted a couple of years, not really noticeably longer or shorter than any other Castle subtheme, but they went immediately to a more grounded theme in Kingdoms. I wonder if internal data suggested that sales were poor or kids weren't responding well to the fantasy elements. (This, of course, is pure speculation.)

I would personally prefer a highly grounded theme with no non-human characters, but anything swordish would have my money provided the sets were good. 

[MAB]

51 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

What I would be wary of is Lego's past. Fantasy Era lasted a couple of years, not really noticeably longer or shorter than any other Castle subtheme, but they went immediately to a more grounded theme in Kingdoms. I wonder if internal data suggested that sales were poor or kids weren't responding well to the fantasy elements. (This, of course, is pure speculation.)

I would personally prefer a highly grounded theme with no non-human characters, but anything swordish would have my money provided the sets were good. 

My meaning there was that fantasy is not so narrow and rigid compared to realistic, they can bring more varying elements into a storyline in different yearly waves as they do with Ninjago. Dragons one year, trolls another, sea serpents another, skeleton armies another, centaurs and satyrs another, and so on. Enough to keep it looking a bit different and not just good knights in blue/red vs bad knights in black, year after year. Otherwise if the story is somewhat limited to traditional Castle themes, it is essentially one year and done. That may be OK if LEGO starts going back to what they did a decade or so again, where the standard fare was short, one (or maybe two) year, in-house themes (Atlantis, PQ, GS, MF, and so on), but recent history points against that happening and that they tend to go for longer running in-house themes. From that point of view, Castle is probably dead if it doesn't expand to more than just repeating what has already been done, with token sets in other themes (as in CMF, IDEAS and Creator) instead. The CMF has possibly been the best Castle (and Historic) theme for the past 7-8 years from a minifigure parts point of view.

 

 

[Alexandrina]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

From that point of view, Castle is probably dead if it doesn't expand to more than just repeating what has already been done

The thing is, City has kept going throughout by repeating the same standard sets and just changing the setting slightly sometimes. There will always be people who eat up every Castle set that comes out even if it's making the same thing as a previous set, and there will always be kids just getting into Lego/people who missed the last set, for whom Lego having done something in the past is not enough. For example, I don't own a Castle. I own plenty of medieval sets, but no castles, since they were either before my time or came out in the years when I could only afford the smaller sets. 

I think Castle - and yes, I include fantasy in this - is absolutely ripe for picking. In the past they've always sidelined female characters - but there's a huge market of young girls (and boys) who are more interested in princesses than knights, but who can still be well served by a good Castle theme. It doesn't have to be all about swords and slashing - a well thought out theme can unite the traditional Castle audience with the Friends/Belville audience, perhaps by accepting that many people won't want all the sets and designing accordingly. 

By this, I don't mean to suggest that half the sets should have minifigures and half should have minidolls. But rather than having a theme full of knights fighting knights, have say a Lady's Bower set, with a princess minifigure and a lady-in-waiting, maybe a Knight too. Some of the Knights audience won't be interested, but there will be a lot who want anything medieval, and a whole new audience who might overlook Castle otherwise. 

I've deviated, I think, from the original point here! Easy to follow my rambling train of thought. 

[Lego David]

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

What I would be wary of is Lego's past. Fantasy Era lasted a couple of years, not really noticeably longer or shorter than any other Castle subtheme, but they went immediately to a more grounded theme in Kingdoms. I wonder if internal data suggested that sales were poor or kids weren't responding well to the fantasy elements. (This, of course, is pure speculation.)

Castle was among the top selling themes of 2008, because of the Fantasy Castle subtheme. After that, Castle sales slowly started to drop, until we got to the very poor sales of Castle 2013 which was the final nail in the coffin for the theme. 

[Alexandrina]

Just now, Lego David said:

Castle was among the top selling themes of 2008, because of the Fantasy Castle subtheme. After that, Castle sales slowly started to drop, until we got to the very poor sales of Castle 2013 which was the final nail in the coffin for the theme. 

It's good to know the data - thanks! It's odd to me that Lego never tried another fantasy castle theme, but perhaps they thought it hewed too close to Lord of the Rings!

[valon]

7 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Castle was among the top selling themes of 2008, because of the Fantasy Castle subtheme. After that, Castle sales slowly started to drop, until we got to the very poor sales of Castle 2013 which was the final nail in the coffin for the theme. 

 

6 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

It's good to know the data - thanks! It's odd to me that Lego never tried another fantasy castle theme, but perhaps they thought it hewed too close to Lord of the Rings!

i agree that fantasy is castle, even if there are not normal knights, fantasy magic elf knights in a castle still fits the defintion of castle( and is as epic as normal knights ), lego did do a theme like that after 2013 castle  nexo knights, lego thinks it is castle, wich i agree  ( it has knights )  but it was bad castle

[MAB]

5 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

The thing is, City has kept going throughout by repeating the same standard sets and just changing the setting slightly sometimes.

Yet many complaints about 2013 Castle was that they were lazy copies of 2010 and so on.

City can afford to repeat ideas as it is almost the default LEGO range for younger kids that people will buy. I don't think Castle can get away with it.

 

[Alexandrina]

30 minutes ago, MAB said:

Yet many complaints about 2013 Castle was that they were lazy copies of 2010 and so on.

How many of those complaints were from kids, and how many from AFOLs? I doubt Lego would do a story-driven theme - Castle or otherwise - aimed at adults (though I would be down for it if they did!)

I wasn't around the community in 2013, so I'll not profess to be an expert, but many of the complaints I've seen - particularly those that still recur recently - are more aimed at the childish design of the 2013 wave, particularly in regard to the heraldry, rather than that the sets were copies of previous runs.

[valon]

50 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

How many of those complaints were from kids, and how many from AFOLs? I doubt Lego would do a story-driven theme - Castle or otherwise - aimed at adults (though I would be down for it if they did!)

I wasn't around the community in 2013, so I'll not profess to be an expert, but many of the complaints I've seen - particularly those that still recur recently - are more aimed at the childish design of the 2013 wave, particularly in regard to the heraldry, rather than that the sets were copies of previous runs.

that is what alot of people hated, i like the sheilds though

[Aanchir]

On 3/11/2021 at 7:23 AM, Alexandrina said:

Demons? Too controversial. No way Lego ever have an in-house theme with a faction called "demons".

Most of the the enemy characters in the Monkie Kid theme are demons, and frequently referred to as such — for example, the villain character bios on this page appear under the heading "Demons and Other Bad Guys". Some of these characters' names even identify them as demons, like the Demon Bull King from sets 80010 and 80016, or the Gold and Silver Horn Demons from set 80015. Obviously, the term "demon" has different significance in Chinese legends and folklore than it would have in medieval Christian or Islamic societies, but in any case, LEGO certainly doesn't seem to have any aversion to the use of that term.

For my part, I think a story-driven Castle theme could be quite enjoyable, and can see a few different ways that it could be done. One such way would be sort of like what we saw in Knights' Kingdom 2 or Nexo Knights, in which the main characters are a team of knights serving a particular king/kingdom, sort of like King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.

Another approach would be to focus on a team of traveling adventurers brought together by shared goals or circumstances, rather than by allegiance to a particular kingdom or crown — kind of like the protagonists of The Lord of the Rings, the Prydain Chronicles, or a typical Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

Either way, the storyline would likely follow a "quest" narrative which allows the characters to travel to the various locations and interact with the various supporting characters and villains over the course of their adventure. With the "Fellowship" approach, you could even assemble the team over the course of the initial adventure — for instance, beginning with just a couple of protagonists traveling to different villages/kingdoms to recruit allies for their fight against the main antagonist and their army, before finally approaching the villain's seat of power for a final confrontation.

And even a story like this based around a close-knit team of protagonists is not without army building potential! The protagonists could each lead their own faction which shares their color scheme and heraldry, providing even more strategic incentive for them to unite their forces against a larger enemy. Even though the main characters in this approach remain the principal drivers of the storyline, their forces can play an important "backup" role — for instance, defending the "home front" against attacks while their leader embarks on a quest with their newfound teammates, or helping to breach an enemy stronghold's defenses so the protagonists can get in to rescue the true king, retrieve the magical treasure, slay the dragon, destroy the villain's cursed artifact, etc.

After all, it's not particularly difficult or expensive to turn a heroic knight character into a generic footsoldier — all you have to do is give them slightly less impressive helmet/armor pieces and a more generic face print, sort of like what LEGO did for the "good guy" pawns in the Knights' Kingdom Chess Set , or the generic "Hero Knights" and "Rogue Knights" serving under Sir Kentis and Dracus in the Battle at the Pass set.

I'm not too picky about what the nature of the enemy faction should be — I'd be totally fine with either fantasy creatures or a human army, as long as they look scary and clearly stand out from the protagonists. For that matter, there's nothing wrong with having an army of fantasy creatures led by a human ruler/commander (like the skeletons and evil wizard from the Fantasy Era sets), or with a human/mostly-human army led by a non-human leader (like the Sky Pirates and Nadakhan the Djinn from LEGO Ninjago).

Fantasy elements like wizards, dragons, elves, dwarves, etc. definitely expand the possibilities for characters, sets, and stories compared to a more "grounded" approach, and I predict that I would greatly prefer a Castle theme with fantasy elements over one that eschews magic or fantasy creatures altogether. But even in a fantasy world, human characters without any supernatural abilities can still be plenty interesting in their own right!

Moreover, even if the next Castle theme did avoid overt fantasy elements, I would ideally like for it to include characters like female adventurers/knights or queens regnant who would likely be considered inaccurate (or at least rare/unusual) in the context of actual medieval history. After all, these sorts of characters have been included not only in medieval fantasy fiction by modern writers, but also in legends and folklore transcribed by actual medieval writers like Geoffrey of Monmouth! Moreover, powerful female characters tend to be fairly popular among kids regardless of gender, even if boys might not relate to them as closely as girls would.

In my own case, Princess Storm from Knights' Kingdom I was by far my favorite character from that theme, and the one most likely to play a central role in my play sessions. And one of my main frustrations with Knights' Kingdom II which informed my childhood MOCing efforts (besides the lack of horses for the large-scale action figure characters) was the lack of ANY female characters whatsoever!

Needless to say, I can't pretend that my childhood experience was in any way "typical", particularly in matters of gender. I still thought of myself as a boy back then, although in hindsight there were plenty of hints to the contrary that I can trace back even earlier in my childhood.  But regardless, the value, importance, and appeal of characters like this to kids of any gender should not be understated!

[Alexandrina]

15 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Moreover, even if the next Castle theme did avoid overt fantasy elements, I would ideally like for it to include characters like female adventurers/knights or queens regnant who would likely be considered inaccurate (or at least rare/unusual) in the context of actual medieval history. After all, these sorts of characters have been included not only in medieval fantasy fiction by modern writers, but also in legends and folklore transcribed by actual medieval writers like Geoffrey of Monmouth! Moreover, powerful female characters tend to be fairly popular among kids regardless of gender, even if boys might not relate to them as closely as girls would.

I could not agree more on this point. It's true that in real-life medieval history, strong women weren't abundant - but they definitely existed. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Matilda of Flanders, Joan of Arc, Queen Matilda of England... these were the heroes of their stories. And so what if they were the exceptions? Stories are always about the exceptions. Not all Hobbits had boundless courage and crossed the known world to destroy the powers of evil and their artefacts - but Frodo did, and so we get the Lord of the Rings.

We're also living in the modern world, with the modern state of the fantasy genre. Much as Lego aren't ever likely to make Game of Thrones sets, it's still a fact that A Song of Ice and Fire is one of the modern-day titans of medieval-inspired fantasy - and it features many women in positions of power. There's no reason a revived Castle theme, especially one with multiple factions, would need to avoid having powerful female characters.

But the worry would be that Lego would fall into the trap of thinking strong = badass fighters. There's room for women skilled at sword and bow, shieldmaidens and huntresses, but I think it's equally important to see representation for women who have and exert power while also being feminine - in all that entails in the medieval context. So many of the real-life female icons of the Middle Ages played the roles expected of them by society, but played them well. Ideally a Lego theme would have at least two major female characters - the warrior and the lady. Over time, they can develop into more rounded characters less defined by their archetypes, but having those two starting points is a good jumping-off point.

[zoth33]

13 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

If you take away the grounding in a medieval aesthetic, you run the risk of a theme not feeling like Castle at all. 

I have read and played my fair share of fantasy - certainly far more than the average consumer who will be buying potential sets. Just because I maybe haven't read the same things as you doesn't mean I have no interest in the genre.

I'm well aware of that. However, discussion about the form a possible Castle TV show might take is not outside the remit of the thread, and is something I have a personal interest in, so I wanted to contribute in that regard. I'm not trying to say your ideas are terrible or anything, and if I came across that way then I'm sorry, but this is a public forum and posting here means you open your ideas up to be engaged with by other members of the community - across the full breadth of the topic. 

In any case, I specifically mentioned in my own comment that I was also talking generally - particularly about AFOLs' tendency to focus on what they want (myself included) - and using your comment as a springboard for discussion. The truth is that I am really enjoying this thread, so I try to engage with it as much as I can. 

There's no need to be rude. Yes, I read what you said. I synthesised a response based on what you said, too. And argue? No, I took what I and built a comment off that. If nobody was doing that, this thread would just be people saying what they want to see with no engagement from the community and it would fairly quickly wither and die. I'm enjoying reading it, so I want to engage with people and keep the thread alive. 

What I would be wary of is Lego's past. Fantasy Era lasted a couple of years, not really noticeably longer or shorter than any other Castle subtheme, but they went immediately to a more grounded theme in Kingdoms. I wonder if internal data suggested that sales were poor or kids weren't responding well to the fantasy elements. (This, of course, is pure speculation.)

I would personally prefer a highly grounded theme with no non-human characters, but anything swordish would have my money provided the sets were good. 

I'm not trying to be rude it just seems you were missing my point.  I am also trying to engage you in witty banter about the topic.  That's why I am asking questions.  I was just giving my ideas of things they could possibly do.  It came across as if you were attacking all my points by saying what is this never heard of it, like your dismissing all my points just because you don't agree with what I said.  If you do a little research you could easily find what I was talking about.  And yes I mentioned a lot of races to give examples.  All of what I mentioned are all over all forms of fantasy that's why I used the more generic ones.  I could have named Ithilids or otherwise known as mindflayers which some might not know what that is.  A lot of kids know centaurs, minotaurs, fawns, etc from things like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson or The chronicles of Narnia.  You don't have to take away the castle aesthetic if you do fantasy, you can still have castle structures that represent more medieval times.  Like I said this would be an ongoing developing story which would change over time.  

[Alexandrina]

48 minutes ago, zoth33 said:

It came across as if you were attacking all my points by saying what is this never heard of it

Not even slightly. Again, I was engaging with your points and the wider topic of the thread, using your post as a springboard. I could have looked up all those races, yes - but one small point I was making is that Lego needs to have a wide market to sell lots of sets. Most people know very little fantasy, so it stands to reason that having loads of different races that are unfamiliar to the general public would put some potential customers off buying in.

48 minutes ago, zoth33 said:

It came across as if you were attacking all my points by saying what is this never heard of it, like your dismissing all my points just because you don't agree with what I said. 

On the contrary, I was "attacking" your points - and more accurately I would say I was responding to your points - as part of the ongoing discussion. Do I personally want to see exactly the same things as you? No. But that's neither here nor there.

I could have talked about the structure of a TV show without quoting anybody, but I prefer to engage specifically with other users - otherwise the thread becomes people talking past one another and just wishlisting - which I know is part of the original post, but it doesn't need to be the extent of the thread.

And yes, I disagreed with a number of the things you said, at least in my comment. Part of that is playing Devil's Advocate for the sake of conversation. It adds more interesting dimensions to the thread. Equally, when I put suggestions out there, I expect and indeed welcome opposing views and counterpoints. It's part and parcel of online discussion.

To go back to the original crux of the topic, I think the potential of a great story driven theme is exciting - but it's also more risky than a standalone theme. If the series were done well, the sets would sell, but if the series were to flop it could take the sets down with it. 

Whatever comes, I just hope it brings good historical parts. 

[zoth33]

26 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Not even slightly. Again, I was engaging with your points and the wider topic of the thread, using your post as a springboard. I could have looked up all those races, yes - but one small point I was making is that Lego needs to have a wide market to sell lots of sets. Most people know very little fantasy, so it stands to reason that having loads of different races that are unfamiliar to the general public would put some potential customers off buying in.

On the contrary, I was "attacking" your points - and more accurately I would say I was responding to your points - as part of the ongoing discussion. Do I personally want to see exactly the same things as you? No. But that's neither here nor there.

I could have talked about the structure of a TV show without quoting anybody, but I prefer to engage specifically with other users - otherwise the thread becomes people talking past one another and just wishlisting - which I know is part of the original post, but it doesn't need to be the extent of the thread.

And yes, I disagreed with a number of the things you said, at least in my comment. Part of that is playing Devil's Advocate for the sake of conversation. It adds more interesting dimensions to the thread. Equally, when I put suggestions out there, I expect and indeed welcome opposing views and counterpoints. It's part and parcel of online discussion.

To go back to the original crux of the topic, I think the potential of a great story driven theme is exciting - but it's also more risky than a standalone theme. If the series were done well, the sets would sell, but if the series were to flop it could take the sets down with it. 

Whatever comes, I just hope it brings good historical parts. 

Of course we are not going to want the same things we are different people.  That's the problem nowaday's a lot people get offended when they don't get what they want from Lego like it's something personal.  Lego has to make something that appeals to enough people to make them money and drive the demand for the product.  Of course if you look at a piece of art and I look at the same piece we are going to get different things from it. But I think we can find some common ground here and just say that if Lego makes a castle line we would both be for it no matter what we get as we are itching for that niche to be filled.   I just want lego to make something along the castle line and if it has fantasy elements great if not I will still buy it.  The blacksmith shop is a great start and the 3 in 1 creator castle set should be nice.  But I'm hoping for a full castle/fanstasy line.  I like that we get some good figs in the CMF's like the recent knight, viking, jaguar warrior, and centaur.  I was just saying what I thought would work well.  What storyline do you think would work well?