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LEGO Ninjago and the number four…

(Written by Nathan K. – ntk743)

We haven’t talked about LEGO Ninjago for a while, so I thought to revive the topic a bit with something interesting; have you noticed that the producers of Ninjago must love the number 4? I have! Over the couple of years that Ninjago was in production, I’ve found many things in Ninjago that has to do with the number four. 🙂

LEGO Ninjago - Four Ninja

For example, there are four main ninja, four weapons, and four elements (we won’t get into all that just yet). But why is four the main number in Ninjago? Maybe LEGO just picked a random number, or maybe they picked the ninja and noticed that there are four, or maybe it was totally accidental? Who can tell? 🙄

LEGO Ninjago - Four Paths

So I contacted LEGO some days ago to ask the question and here is the response I got: “The reason that there is so much focus on the number 4 is because there are 4 different elements in the land of NINJAGO to control.” So as you can see, they have decided on the four elements first (fire, earth, lightning, and ice) then added other things with the number four.

LEGO Ninjago - Four Elements, Four Weapons, Four Ninja

Here’s a list of what I noticed comes in fours in Ninjago: four ninja, four generals in the skeleton army, four main snake tribes, four elements, four kinds of snakes in each of the four snake tribes, four action-cards in each spinner set, four different kinds of stone-army men, four weapons of Spinjitzu, four Fang Blades, four Golden Snake Staffs, four Lloyd minifigures in different suits, four skeleton army men (not generals), three four-armed characters, four dragons, one four-headed dragon, and four sets with four minifigures in 2011-2012. What else?

LEGO Ninjago - Characters

I may have missed several more fours in the land of Ninjago, so if you noticed more, please just say so in the comment section below! Hope you enjoyed this post, and look out for more articles about the upcoming new season of LEGO Ninjago! 😉

LEGO Ninjago - Characters Book

And if you would like to learn more about all the LEGO Ninjago characters, the LEGO Ninjago Character Encyclopedia is a great book to browse. And it also comes with an extra-special Green Ninja minifigure! You can get the book on Amazon for just a little over $10. See here: LEGO Ninjago Character Encyclopedia

You might also like to check out the LEGO Ninjago section for more news, reviews and discussions, or select from the following posts:

{ 59 comments… add one }
  • Zubashi May 2, 2013, 11:46 AM

    Also, 4 living Garmadon’s (Wu, Garmadon, Misako and Lloyd)

    • ntk743 May 2, 2013, 2:58 PM

      Great one! I wish I thought of that one!

  • Fire Ninja Jedi May 2, 2013, 11:51 AM

    I also noticed the abundance of fours! Ones that weren’t mentioned:
    1. We have the 4 elemental blades that were used to help Lloyd find his full potential (Gold Ninja) by putting the blades into the four columns of the Temple of Light.
    2. Weren’t there four posters in the Temple of Light that told the Ninjas’ story?
    3. Don’t forget about the four-armed Mech Garmadon used to fight Cole’s Power Drill (I should build that one day…)!
    4. Each Ninja had his own vehicle in a separate set (with the golden weapons).
    5. The Fangpyre tribe had four main vehicles in sets (well, the Bite cycle came with Lasha, a snake from the Venorami tribe, but in the story, the Fangpyre tribe made them: Fangpyre Truck, Rattlecopter, Fangpyre Mech, and the Bite Cycle. The vehicle that wasn’t a main one but there was just one of them, was the Wreaking Ball.
    6. If you count the Overlord (he wasn’t made into a minifigure), there were 4 4-armed characters. (Samukai, Lord Garmadon, Stone Army General, and the Overlord.
    7. 4 Mechs in the story: Golden Mech, Kai’s Fire Robot (should really be named Kai’s Fire Mech since a mech needs someone to operate them), Lord Garmadon’s four-armed Mech, and the Fangpyre Mech.
    8. I had to find one more (to make it a multiple of four) so here it goes! There are 4 Ninja outfits. If you leave out Kendo Armor and leave out NRG, there are four different Ninja outfits: Regular, DX, ZX, and the newest one (basically an upgraded ZX outfit). Since Kendo Armor was only used in 1 episode, and the NRG used in once each time for each ninja (except for Cole who used NRG twice), I don’t think they should be counted as ninja outfits 🙂

    Sorry for the long comment, but I think you’ll enjoy these other 8 facts about the 4’s of Ninjago 😀

    • ntk743 May 3, 2013, 8:37 AM

      I don’t know if I would really count the overlord in number 6. He went into garmadon’s body so I would count it as garmadon

    • lego trooper 91 May 3, 2013, 1:13 PM

      Zane used his nrg 2 times 😉

      • ntk743 June 11, 2013, 11:55 AM

        Three really…

    • JAY THE ULTIMATE NINJA May 4, 2013, 1:16 PM

      there is 5 mechs. u forgot samurai x

  • Coz May 2, 2013, 12:11 PM

    Weird thing is the number 4 is foreboding in either Japan or China. I think it’s Japan. 4 might be good in Danish:)

    • ntk743 May 2, 2013, 2:54 PM

      ha ha! 😆

    • Fikko3107 May 3, 2013, 1:11 AM

      It’s in both. This is because the chinese word for “4” and the chinese word for “Death” is quite similar.

      • Håkan May 3, 2013, 9:49 AM

        And Japanese culture and language (although Japanese and Chinese languages are unrelated in their foundations) have been greatly influenced by the Chinese throughout history.

    • Purpleninjaofpower2012 May 3, 2013, 4:54 PM

      That’s true 4 is foreboding because it is pronounced the same as the word for death

  • Tenny1028 May 2, 2013, 12:19 PM

    Four episodes to the starting season. (I forgot what it’s called)

  • ninja of stealth May 2, 2013, 12:22 PM

    well… how about the four hiding spots for the weapons of spinjizu? plus there is no more four ninja… there’s five! 😀 ooh aah… umm yeah. so yeah

    • ntk743 May 2, 2013, 2:57 PM

      Well there are four MAIN ninjas (lloyd wasn’t a ninja until late in season 2 and the four hidings spots is kinda like the four weapons, but I like it 🙂

  • ninja of stealth May 2, 2013, 12:23 PM

    nice tenny, you made it three min. ahead of me!

  • ninja of stealth May 2, 2013, 12:39 PM

    does anyone else think that Dr. Julian has an evil robot army? and Zane’s part of it and Zane doesn’t know!

    • ntk743 May 2, 2013, 2:56 PM

      I don’t know… It sounds cool though!

      • llg52 May 2, 2013, 8:08 PM

        Why would Julian have an army of evil robots? He told Zane to PROTECT those who can’t protect themselves, not destroy them. But I do think that there’s an evil robot that has something to do with Julian. Maybe there was a prototype for Zane that went rouge and turned bad and so Zane has to battle him. or something like that.
        🙂

  • the brick guy May 2, 2013, 12:44 PM

    i noticed that as well but one thing i never understood was why jay is the lightning ninja and not water as it is a major element:s
    his symbol does look like a octopus though:)

    • lego trooper 91 May 2, 2013, 1:08 PM

      it those look like a octopus but i all ways thot of it as a lignin cloud 😉

    • Bug May 2, 2013, 2:12 PM

      My guess would be that Lego thought Zane (ninja of ice) was too close to water to make Jay be the ninja of water. Also lightning is fast and water doesn’t have a special trait like speed(lightning), strength(earth), heat(fire), cold(ice).

    • admin May 2, 2013, 3:05 PM

      I also always thought Jay’s cloud with lightning symbol looked like an octopus! :mrgreen:

      • gid617 May 3, 2013, 8:07 AM

        Lol! I did think it looked weird… but an octopus didn’t occur to me! Cole’s does look like a bulldog face or something though…

        • ntk743 May 3, 2013, 8:39 AM

          yeah, I never thought of it that way!

  • lego trooper 91 May 2, 2013, 1:19 PM

    and lord garadons fore arms 😉 and the ninjas live in fore different places 😉 (hose,destinys bounty and two hotell rooms)

  • darkon May 2, 2013, 3:53 PM

    Don’t 4get that season 4 will premier in 2014! 😀 Wow! There really are a lot of 4’s! By the way, I just bought the comic, “Warriors of Stone”. The sneak preview at the end is really awesome! One of the new villains is a giant six-armed robot, and at least two of the others look like insectoid warriors.

  • awesome May 2, 2013, 3:57 PM

    ummmm…what?
    i don’t get that.

  • awesome May 2, 2013, 3:57 PM

    i don’t get lego troopers comment.

    • Ninja Girl May 31, 2013, 2:40 PM

      I get it.What he’s saying is that Garmadon has four arms and the Ninja have lived in four different places.A house,the Bounty,and two different hotel rooms.But that’s incorrect Leg Trooper.They lived in a monastary,the Bounty,a hotel,then that dumpy apartment.I just thought I’d point that out.

  • awesome May 2, 2013, 3:58 PM

    i got the blue thinga ma jig!!!! yay!!!

  • D.B. Bricks May 2, 2013, 4:34 PM

    the 120 dollar summer sets both had four armed figures!

  • ntk743 May 2, 2013, 6:04 PM

    Admin,

    My parents are interested about how you pay taxes on the income on the affiliate programs. If you would like to get back to me about this it you may want to email me instead of posting it here.

  • llg52 May 2, 2013, 8:03 PM

    I think they got most of the ideas for NinjaGo from the old Knights’ Kingdom story. Four ninja, four knights. A bad guy who starts good and turns bad later. Of course there’s a lot of difference between the story’s now, but the main base of the story is the same.

  • CrazyBricks May 2, 2013, 10:39 PM

    fire ninja jedi you forgot that there are not 4 mechs there are 5 the fifth one is the samurai mech

  • NRG PYTHOR May 2, 2013, 10:42 PM

    I always wondered why the number four was used so much. At least I now have an answer 🙂

  • CrazyBricks May 2, 2013, 10:48 PM

    Fire Ninja Jedi there are five mechs the fifth is the Samurai Mech

  • CrazyBricks May 2, 2013, 10:48 PM

    Oops I said that twice

  • Fikko3107 May 3, 2013, 1:26 AM

    Perhaps you should look at this…
    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ninjago

    • Fikko3107 May 3, 2013, 10:08 AM

      Specifically the part titled “Five-man band”.

  • 12dw1 May 3, 2013, 5:27 AM

    could this mean there are going to be four series of Ninjago?

    • ntk743 May 3, 2013, 8:41 AM

      what you mean? You mean with the robots? 😐

  • ike May 3, 2013, 12:52 PM

    There are other patterns in LEGO as well, the element fire, and the color red. Kai is bolth red and firey, and was the hero in the early ninjago series. Furno is the same way, the big hero in hero factory. If you go way back to early bionicle, the main character is red through the entire series. though it is a bit of a strech, Laval in chima has firey red hair. (Can lions even have red manes?) The red team in galaxy squad seems to be the bravest, and the atlantis sets main color was red. In lego castle the moast frequent good guy color was red. Even the LEGO logo had a 4 stud red brick. has anyone else noticed this pattern?

    • admin May 3, 2013, 6:32 PM

      Wow! Never thought of those! Sharp eyes! Start to sound like LEGO is some kind of a cult with all kinds of hidden numbers and colors with deep meaning! 🙄

      • Ike May 7, 2013, 3:23 PM

        and if you decode it you can find the lost city of LEGO :-0

    • JAY THE ULTIMATE NINJA May 4, 2013, 1:21 PM

      also in the power rangers the leader is almost always red. (i know the power rangers thing was off topic) -_-

  • lego trooper 91 May 3, 2013, 1:17 PM

    and the triple tiger shasa had four moves 😉

  • darkon May 3, 2013, 4:24 PM

    As I said before, yes there is going to be a season 4 of Ninjago premiering in 2014! That will mean that there will be four series of Ninjago (2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014). It is also likely that lego will make a Fourth minifigure with Four arms (Some of the new enemies are robots, and one of them does appear to have multiple sets of arms). 🙂

  • JAY THE ULTIMATE NINJA May 4, 2013, 5:06 PM

    what happened to the contest page.

    • admin May 5, 2013, 9:23 AM

      I moved it over to Community News. Normally that’s where I keep all the contests. I decided to keep the Ninjago contest under the Ninjago section until it was running because it was mainly relevant to Ninjago fans. But now that the contest is over, and to stay consistent with the structure of the site, I moved it over where all the other contests are. 😉

      • JAY THE ULTIMATE NINJA May 10, 2013, 6:29 PM

        how do i get to that

        • JAY THE ULTIMATE NINJA May 13, 2013, 11:45 AM

          the community news i mean

          • JAY THE ULTIMATE NINJA May 20, 2013, 12:32 AM

            how do i get to the community news, there 🙂

  • NRG PYTHOR May 5, 2013, 11:24 PM

    Spring… It reminds me of the good old days of Ninjago…

  • Fangtom The Return May 6, 2013, 5:18 AM

    Don`t you think since Ninjago is older that most of the new themes won`t it get abandoned and lost until someone says hey I rember Ninjago lets bring it back!?

    Just sayin’

  • ChrisMasterofLightning May 23, 2013, 9:43 AM

    I just found pics of a possible season 4. It looked liked adutions for a Ninjago Musical…they’re on brickepedia, under new pics check them out!

  • the green ninja May 29, 2013, 8:49 PM

    That’s awesome

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