Karalora

I'm fine with the Biggoron Sword not being included. Any set/theme is going to have a limited "budget" for new part molds, and I don't feel the Biggoron Sword is quite iconic enough to spend that budget on when there are so many other unique things in OoT or any other Zelda game. I'd rather have a molded monster head, Majora's Mask, or Ezlo.

The dress on the flower lady looks nice, between that and the S29 "unicorn elf" we're getting a mini-boom in parts for nature nymph type characters.

Can I just say that I despise the term "kidult?" What a miserable portmanteau that is, both aesthetically and in the implied judgment against what some people choose to do with their time and money.

I assume the LEGO designers are relying on well-worn character design tropes without interrogating them too closely, and you know what? That's fine. These things were codified in pulp adventure and fantasy of previous generations, when both the production and consumption of things were very much a "good old boys' club." LEGO play is very much not that, which robs the tropes of much of their baggage. Whenever someone accuses me of reading too much into something, I know I'm on the right track.

It's complicated. Visual media has a bad habit of using a female character's hair color as shorthand for her personality. Blondes are either innocent or extremely catty, black-haired women are sultry, brown-haired women are virtually unrepresented...and redheads are "fiery." Which is to say they're assertive and maybe a bit quick-tempered, but never to an extent that might be perceived as threatening to the presumed male audience. Because red hair is also, for some reason, coded as "sexy." It's kinda the opposite of feminism, actually--the red hair is essentially "permission" for the woman to be in a more active or combat-focused role, because she has a striking enough appearance to justify her existence.

In the case of the modular vehicles or Dreamzzz, I think the intent is that the builds should be modular within the fiction that kids might be playing. Having to completely take apart and rebuild something would bring the game to a grinding halt, but modular constructions could be altered within the flow of play.

Your first guess is correct. "Dubious food" in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is what you get from cooking an illegitimate combination of ingredients, and the pixelation is a joke: "This is so bad, we won't even show it to you." (It still restores a quarter-heart of health when you eat it, and there's a unique animation of Link steeling himself before shoving it in his mouth.)

No, it totally tracks!

If the price increase is less than overall economic inflation, then what in the world are you complaining about? Sounds to me like the company is doing its best to keep sets affordable even with pressure from the overall economy to raise them a certain amount. Well then maybe it's a good thing if fewer people can afford LEGO so they can avoid this dangerous messaging. I have to say, you have completely lost the thread here. You're just grasping at straws to criticize TLG. Why are you even here if you hold the company and their products in such disdain?

This is a nonsensical statement. Those "2 decades" are roughly the time that LEGO sets were reliably priced at about 10 cents per piece. And during those 20 years, the average size of a piece gradually decreased. It's a kind of "shrinkflation" rather than standard inflation, but it slightly disguised the fact that the toys were steadily getting more expensive alongside most everything else. In any case, you can't characterize what LEGO is doing as price-gouging, because LEGOs are a luxury, and a rather specific one at that. If you can afford them, props to you for your success in life, and if you can't, you'll have to do something else with your leisure time and/or decoration space. Options are abundant in this world. I'm not defending everything they do in pursuit of profit; corporate business practices are generally reprehensible. But TLG, at least, as the purveyor of a product no one actually needs, isn't actually hurting anyone in the process.

"Irish Parade Fan," maybe?

Do my taunts aggravate the crrrippling arthrrrritis in yer index fingerrrrrrrs?

The Nintendo tax--especially for this relatively prestigious brand--says hi. Look, I'm not going to claim it's not a high PPP (and I'm also not going to say TLG isn't profit-motivated like any corporation), but I honestly think that's what we might have to expect going forward, just from normal inflation + increased production costs for specialty plastics. LEGO stuck with a rough 10 cents per piece for a long time by progressively decreasing the size of the average piece, but I think that tactic has gone as far as it can and the only thing left is to raise the PPP.

A plaid bag of skin that screams in battle? I think the word you're looking for is "Scotsman."

Are we assuming that it does?