Ninjago Headcanons: Horns

Ninjago headcanons: horns

Both oni and dragons evolved very sensitive horns: dragons in order to better sense minute shifts in the wind in order to manoeuvre in flight, oni in order to sense vibrations in the environment in order to make up for limited eyesight in bright environments.

For both oni and dragons, their horns are the most sensitive parts of their bodies. Having them broken is widely known to be the most painful experience.

Because of this, dragons developed ranged elemental abilities— launching a ball of fire far away from one’s face is a much more pleasant experience than having a ball of fire explode in the vicinity of one’s horns. Even though the elemental masters don’t have the same reason for keeping their elemental abilities at the longest range possible, they still inherited this from the original elemental dragons.

Furthermore, this led to elemental dragons not needing to necessarily develop immunity from their element. Elemental dragons’ resistances are based on their natural environments: earth dragons resist fire, fire dragons resist lightning, lightning resists ice, ice resists earth.

The oni developed better eyesight and abilities within the shadows where their senses are heightened (and their natural enemies are disoriented) in order to improve their self-defence capabilities.

The First Realm peoples carry the genetic capability to grow horns, but their environment is so inhospitable that malnutrition heavily stunts their growth. Because of this, the peoples of the First Realm tend to rely on technology rather than natural physical abilities to level the playing field. As their evolution diverged from oni and dragons, large horns proved to be more of a weakness than an advantage over enemies: humans evolved thinner necks and more flexible spines for increased mobility, and the imbalanced weight caused pain and weakness.

(Oni, on the other hand, have thicker necks, denser bones, and less mobile joints. Their skin is also thick, acting like armour. As a result, they’re able to balance the weight of large horns, at the cost of mobility, which they compensate for with their heightened senses.)

As descendants of the First Realm peoples, the people of Shintaro historically carried the genes to grow horns; however, this trait slowly vanished over time. Even so, horns (particularly well-formed and symmetrical horns) have always been considered fashionable (indicative of good nutrition and high class), and good headwear incorporates faux horns or horn-like designs.

Wu and Garmadon could have horns in their human forms. They choose not to for the sake of conformity.

Lloyd could have horns in his human form. I think it would be funny if he did not know this.