Alexandrina

I'm probably focusing on entirely different priorities to everyone else - but what are the dark green bricks at the sides of the Ministry set? To my eye they look like the old octagonal bricks, but surely they're not being resurrected?

Oh, excellent find! Cheers! Fortunately tan 1x2 bricks are common enough that I can just keep these three permanently together to preserve the sticker. A good job they weren't salmon or light green...

Been sorting through a joblot and happened upon a tricky one. Very clearly a sticker from a Friends set, but it's attached to bricks that don't correspond to that sticker. I've scoured Bricklink, but can't find any sticker assemblies comprised of three tan 1x2 bricks stacked on top of one another - and indeed, stickered assemblies seem to have ended in 2011, so there shouldn't be any in Friends sets anyway. Curious to know what set the sticker came from. For reference, the joblot is an eclectic mix of sets but I've found stickered bricks from 3185 Summer Riding Camp, so a set released around 2012 would be my guess.

6769 - Fort Legoredo 6416 - Poolside Paradise 21322 - Pirates of Barracuda Bay 40516 - Everyone Is Awesome 4735 - Slytherin 6374 - Holiday Home 6494 - Mystic Mountain Time Lab 5870 - Pretty Playland 6242 - Soldiers' Fort 6097 - Night Lord's Castle Only one of these is a set I owned in childhood (fond memories of waiting for the Amazon man to deliver the Soldiers' Fort!) and in fact I've acquired all of the others within the past two years. Oh, and I fully anticipate coming back to revise this list by the end of the year.

I'm not sure on exact dates but around about this time - and certainly a few years earlier when Agents came on the scene - the only Lego store in the UK was at Bluewater. I distinctly remember badgering my mum to drive me the hundred odd miles to go there just for the Lego store. I'm inclined to agree with the idea that these themes were planned to be one-and-dones. Invariably when they got a second year it was smaller and with less exciting sets, and iirc even Ninjago had this pattern until it pushed through to become an evergreen theme. To me that says that the second year was a response to a theme doing unexpectedly well; themes that did consistently well beyond the second year don't get lumped in with these short-lived themes because they become standards, so the options to go off as precedent are limited.

Among my favourite parts of late - all of which I've discovered through random bulk buys - are: The octagonal brick: The Technic rubber bumper: The Belville wall lattice:

I wonder if people expecting the set to be made primarily of standard bricks will be in for a surprise. After all, for all Knights Kingdom got derided for large prefabricated pieces, they've been a hallmark of Castle since the early days. Other than the original castle, the major sets have always included wall panels, BURPs and LURPs, crenellated roof pieces, raised baseplates and other such parts. Surely it would be more of a departure from the theme if none of these were present in the set. I'm personally expecting some rock pieces as the minimum.

I'm not sure anyone called anyone a hypocrite. My reading of Aanchir's comment was that there's a spectrum of opinion among AFOLs; certainly she never said that it's wrong to want unlicensed themes. It's a bit deceptive to not count certain themes (Creator Expert, Chinese New Year) that contain minifigures, or (Friends) contain an equivalent of minifigures - while counting Super Mario, which has never included proper minifigures. If you count all the core themes without regard to whether they include a specific definition of minifigure, you actually get a pretty equal balance, with a slight edge to Licensed themes: to your list we can add Friends, Creator, CNY and Technic to the unlicensed themes and Disney Princess to the Licensed themes - for a total of 9-8 in favour of the Licensed themes. In the case of Speed Champions, is it really a Licensed theme in the traditional sense any way? It uses yellowhead minifigures and as far as I can tell the only license is for the brand name of the car - which is no different to the old Esso/Shell sets from back in the day. Star Wars was first produced in 1999. A lot of AFOLs, myself included, have never known a time when Licensed themes did not exist - so it's not something new. Even so, I appreciate your view because it's true that the proportion has increased - I'm not sure why, but it seems like there are fewer action themes as well as fewer classic themes. In my childhood, there was Knights Kingdom, Space, Sports, but also Alpha Team, Drome Racers and latter-day Adventurers (not that I ever got any of those sets as a child; my first Dark Age hit early, so I missed a lot of Silver Age sets through childhood apathy!) Why does this read to me like you're saying Aanchir's opinion - which dissents from yours, in terms of what themes she enjoys - is invalid? Is it "acting like a cyborg constructed in some Lego PR lab" to enjoy a theme Lego produce? To be satisfied with the lineup as a whole? Nobody was insulted by Aanchir's comment. Nobody was told how to think. It was just one individual sharing her view on a forum for Lego fans, in a thread specifically devoted to sharing views.

Have Lego not released multiple spaceships since the Disney acquisition of Star Wars? Just like the notion that Lego weren't doing castles while Harry Potter was active (a notion dispelled by the Knights Kingdom I sets coexisting with the first Harry Potter run, the Kingdoms sets coexisting with the second Harry Potter run, and the series of sets starting with the Blacksmith coexisting with the current Harry Potter run) this seems more like trying to find an explanation for the lack of the theme. After all, Pirates sets have been all but non-existent for the last seven years, and it's not exactly down to a licensed pirate theme taking up real-estate.

Another unpopular(?) opinion of mine: minifigure heads were better before Lego started giving them white pupils. The OG heads are imo the best by far - and worse, the transition to white-pupil eyes precipitated the end of the 'standard set' of faces as they were no longer compatible with the rest of the line. They tried to replace the standard smiley and female head with direct analogues (the decidedly-creepy heads with pupils but no eyebrows) before realising that if you're going into detail with pupils you need eyebrows too or it looks weird, but we never got a replacement for the pointed-moustache smiley

When was this? I know there was controversy over them removing the kiss from the end of Star Wars 9 for the China release, but that was a few years back now and so minor I thought it sure to blow over

Fleshies in Duplo predate them in System, don't they? I have a catalogue from 1994 with fleshie Duplo figures in it. Come to think of it, has Duplo ever had yellow heads?

Unfortunately, that's not what she's doing. What she's doing is using her sizable platform to give voice to extremists, while decrying any attempt by anybody to voice an opposing opinion. Unlike some, I'm not personally against continuing to consume the media (I haven't read the books for many years, but that's because I've been reading other things, not because of a boycott) but the situation really isn't as simple as "don't read it" and everything's dandy - Herself is part of a cabal that is having genuine, tangible negative impacts on my life and the lives of others like me, and that wouldn't disappear if I simply chose not to read the Harry Potter books any longer. In any case, it's not as if Lego don't have precedent for severing ties with those who espouse hateful views. Once upon a time, there used to be Lego promotions in the Sun and the Daily Mail - every day, go to WHSmith or Toys 'R' Us with the coupon and get the polybag of the day. I actually remember badgering my mum to buy the Sun every day and take a trip to Smiths especially to get the sets, as I was emerging from my first Dark Age. But the Sun and the Daily Mail frequently espouse problematic views. Concerns were raised, and Lego severed ties with the papers. Promotions in the Sun don't exist any more, for Lego. That's not 'cancel culture' or any other buzzword - it's Lego deciding that another organisation is not compatible with their ethos as a company, and choosing not to deal with them. I also don't remember much uproar when they stopped affiliating with those papers, barring a small irate fringe. Partly this was probably because it happened in a less-polarised time, pre-2016, but it was also partly because xenophobia and homophobia have reached the point where most decent people are explicitly of the opinion that they are wrong. It was an easier sell to the public that those papers were problematic. When it comes to Herself, we're dealing with a much more niche issue. For better or worse (definitely for worse!) trans people were not in the public eye so much ten years ago - let alone twenty or thirty or forty years ago. Generally speaking, people don't harbour hate towards trans people but also have little experience of trans people. I've had a wonderful time with people in my own life accepting me as who I am - even people who you wouldn't expect (think: dyed-in-the-wool Conservative members). In most cases, even among the most supportive friends, there's a huge degree of ignorance regarding the actual realities of being trans. What this means is that right now, most people aren't voicing their views. The few who are are the loud minority, and in the UK they take the form of an anti-trans contingent which Herself is at the forefront of. She's amplified by the right-wing press here too - everything she says is echoed verbatim by the Mail, the Times and the Telegraph, and anyone who dares to voice disagreement is mocked by the same papers (if they have a platform of their own; more often, said papers act like dissenting views do not exist). But times will, inevitably, change. As more people actually come to know a trans person in their life, they realise that the scary boogeymen Herself goes on about do not exist* (*NB: I'm not interested in being linked to fringe cases where one individual does something bad; trans people are not a monolith, you know what I mean, and focusing on one individual case to discredit an entire population is a dishonest way of talking) The short of it is that, at some point in the coming years, Herself's views will be seen for what they are. It's a bad look for Lego to be associated with her, so perhaps it's in their interests as a company to distance themselves - not because of what she says (even though what she says is wrong) but because of how the public might perceive them if they remain linked to her. There's a corollary point, though: this is all opinions. Nobody here is demanding that Lego stop producing Harry Potter sets; it's just some people saying they would personally prefer it if Lego stopped the sets, and others decrying it as cancel culture - and that's both dishonest and a reflection of why this whole thing is an issue in the first place. There will always be people wanting a certain theme to end, for whatever reason. Maybe because they feel it's getting in the way of their own preferred themes being made. If I said that I wanted Lego to stop making Ninjago, or Marvel, or Friends sets, I'm sure I'd get a barrage of replies arguing the merits of those sets. Certainly some people would point out that I could just not buy those sets. I could respond with reasons for this: "I want Ninjago to end so there's room for a new action theme in Lego's portfolio" or "I think the licensing budget spent on Marvel could be better spent on such-and-such licence" or "I'd rather they stop doing Friends and pivot to a minifigure-based theme with the same ethos a la Paradisa". And so the discussion would go - just one individual expressing an unpopular opinion, and people riffing off that. I could even say that I would like to see Lego stop producing Harry Potter sets because I'd rather they spend the licensing money on The Wheel of Time, or because I'd rather see a conventional Castle theme and I feel like Harry Potter is in the way of that - and it would be it. So why is it that if someone expresses this exact view - for reasons related to their own life experience, or the experience of someone close to them - then 'cancel culture' gets brought up? It's not cancel culture. It's people not wanting a certain theme to continue, and expressing that view in the specific thread for doing so.

I really hope they don't use up minifigure slots giving us three different factions of soldiers. Lion knights are a certainty if the set title is accurate, and I'd imagine they'll include a Black Falcon while the parts are in production (how many sets over the years have had a token 'enemy' figure as a prisoner?) But this is an opportunity to get other kinds of minifigure. We'll probably continue to get one off sets every few years even if Castle never returns as a full theme, so there's ample opportunities for old factions to be modernised (and with B&P, every AFOL who wants to army build a faction will have no trouble doing so!!) Other figures are far harder to fit in one-off sets that are more Blacksmith size than Lion Castle size. I can guarantee that there'll be another set released in the next five years with a medieval knight included. What about lords and ladies, liveried servants and maids, horsemasters, stewards, etc.? If we're having lots of figures, I hope we have lots of different types of figure.

My instinct when approaching this would be to have a white layer, and then a green plate layer over the top, leaving gaps where the art is exposed. I tried to knock up a quick render in Stud.io just to see if I was making a complete pill of myself even suggesting it but apparently my computer is on strike and refusing to render anything - and no bricks handy either, so I can't tell if my method would work. You could possibly use cheese plates to smooth any gaps, but if you've got diagonals at all then it becomes more complicated. If you figure it out, I'd love to know what you did!

Tbf, it might be that Lego themselves pick four or five old sets and that's all that can be bought. Whatever the case, we'll find out as and when Lego unveil it properly!

I don't think this point makes Ideas sets less likely than in-house sets to be re-released. I'm not sure Lego ever clarified what they meant by 'purchasing discontinued sets', but assuming they did mean re-releasing old sets, then - licensing notwithstanding - an old Ideas set is just as likely, surely, as an old Pirates or Alpha Team or Paradisa set.

Oooh good spot! I'm in dire need of more varied medieval women's headwear for certain projects I'm working on, so I REALLY hope this is a portent of things to come and not another missed opportunity.

Perhaps I misinterpreted the recent comment thread, but I never got the impression that anyone was attempting to use EB to further their cause. It seems to me that people are using the thread devoted to unpopular opinions to express their own opinions. Not only is that an oversimplification of things, but I'm not actually sure it's accurate. Every voice I've seen in this thread that would like to see the Harry Potter line ended holds ambivalence towards the theme itself. Many comments express their favour of the books, or the films, or indeed the sets. People have an issue because the author - the person to whom, eventually, money goes to from merchandise based on the franchise - is actively espousing hate and is close to reaching the point of saturation where she is seen unfavourably by the general population. Nobody's saying "I don't like Harry Potter, therefore Harry Potter sets should be banned". People are saying "Lego are at risk of having their brand name sullied by association with JK Rowling, therefore it might be prudent for them to wind down their association with a franchise whose latest entries are seeing diminishing returns and whose sets are not of the same quality as their peak". Incidentally, I can't imagine you'd make a comment like that if someone posted here that they'd like Harry Potter to end because it's eating up the market for genuine Castle sets - an opinion which could legitimately be boiled down to "I want it gone because I don't like it", and which I vaguely recall actually seeing said once, though I can't remember when or what thread and frankly don't care enough to trawl through the EB archvies for it. It really does feel as though the reason people have an issue with the HP theme is the cause for concern here.

Even if you limit the context to Lego alone, this holds true. The amount of times I saw people weighing in to say that they disagreed with Everyone Is Awesome (or, in some cases, that they disagreed with the existence of LGBT+ people full stop) far outweighs the amount of times I've seen people advocating for Lego to drop the Harry Potter line because of Herself's prejudice. When trans people are saying that they feel uncomfortable with Lego's continued association with the author and her brand, those people should be listened to - and certainly not dismissed out of hand. This is soooo important. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion on the matter, but if you have no personal stake in an issue you simply cannot know what it's like to have that personal stake. When Herself first started being outspoken, I was in the phase of questioning my gender but not out as trans - it was easy then for me to mentally divorce her words from the reality of the world. I wasn't even an impartial party then, being as I was actively engaged in introspection around my gender, but I can definitely remember how much easier it was to ignore things then compared to now, when it's my day-to-day reality that Herself is seeking to quash. Things like Everyone Is Awesome are a step in the right direction, but Lego might easily find themselves holding the bag if Herself's comments take a turn for the even-more-sinister-than-they-already-are. I don't know the intricacies of the licence, but perhaps it would be best for them to think of winding the theme down even if they're still tied into the licence for a few years yet

Ah, I'm on the same page now! I think the days of parts packs are long past now (they feel like a 70s thing to me, but that could just be my perception). The basic buckets of today are much the same as the basic buckets of the late 80s/early 90s - a lot of bricks, a cross-section of the Lego colour palette and the standard brick range - it's just that both the amount of colours and the amount of bricks have increased vastly. I believe the sets you're referring to - those boxes full of roof tiles, or windows, or 4x4 corner bricks, or such - evolved into the Service Packs that faded out in the late 90s, and later what Bricklink calls the Bulk Bricks sets. It's a shame that they're not produced any more, I agree - based on the timing, I'm guessing that they were sort of replaced by Pick a Brick and Bricks and Pieces. Presumably once they had the ability to make up orders of bricks to the purchaser's specifications, it no longer made sense to try and guess which bricks they should pre-package into bulk lots. Intuitively to me, it seems there's a difference between the demographic who want specific bricks in specific colours (MOCers, most likely and the demographic who just want a vague amount of bricks in any colour at all (parents of young children who are just being introduced to Lego for the first time)

Not sure that's good evidence of your point. Bricklink has that set containing 1,504 pieces. Of those, 785 - more than half - are standard bricks or plates (791, if you include the handful of double-height bricks). Of the remaining 713 pieces, there's only 10 - a selection of pearl-gold cones and reddish brown facet bricks - that aren't in what I'd call the 'standard range' of other parts (arches, slopes, headlight bricks, jumpers, basic SNOT, etc.)

Unfortunately my all-time favourite piece lost its fight years earlier than the goat. Too soft for the fight, I hear...

When did the mould change? I know I have some armour kicking about from the Kingdoms era but that might still have been the old horses. Anyway, for all we know TLG has a Survivor contest in their head office every year - taking old moulds and pitting them against one another in the arena! Losers get melted down for scrap... On the subject of moulds, this is probably going to be a very controversial view, but I would love to see the original wall-panels return (and maybe a cheeky raised baseplate?)

This is an interesting one, imo, because the bottom line is that Rowling as an individual is dangerous and getting more so. In that regard, she is not a good individual for Lego to be promoting. The other hand of the argument is that the license is with Warner Bros. and pertains to the films, rather than the books - and the films are collaborative projects which owe a lot of their success to the cast and crew. I'm not aware of any major cast members who rank anywhere close to Rowling in degrees of transphobia, and indeed a lot of the core cast - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, Evanna Lynch, Eddie Redmayne, Miriam Margolyes and more besides - are outspoken in support of trans people. The films' success affords them the status to publicly challenge Rowling's views (and the UK press certainly aren't, so someone has to!) So I don't know how I feel. I personally buy some of the sets because I refuse to let Rowling's bigotry interfere with what I choose to spend my money on, and she's rich enough that the proceeds from the sets I buy are barely going to make a notch in her finances - but I completely see why others would feel strongly about boycotting the entire line, and if it were to be ended today I'd probably shrug and go "yeah, you know what, that's totally fair".