| “ | Only one can remain. | „ |
| ~ Master Chen’s most famous quote and motto. |
Master Chen is a major antagonist in LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu. He is the former mentor of Garmadon and Clouse exiled for starting the First Serpentine War, who invited the ninja and Garmadon to his mysterious Tournament of Elements.
He was voiced by Ian James Corlett.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- While having several comedic moments, he is still taken seriously by the other characters and his worst crimes are never played for laughs.
- When Kai gets the Staff of Elements, it corrupts him and nearly succeeds in permanently turning him evil, which raises the question if Chen has complete moral agency. That being said Chen still has a clear power hungry and sadistic personality, and he still had evil intent before he had the staff, as well as after he lost it. Not to mention, Kai's eyes glowed red as the staff corrupted him, whereas this effect did not happen to Chen.
- Chen doesn’t actually care about the Anacondrai, but only “worships” their power and strength. When confronted about the fact that he got the Anacondrai wiped out, he goes to their tomb and steals their stuff and uses their remains to make a hat for himself. He enslaves Pythor, the last survivor, just to become an Anacondrai himself and that isn’t even mentioning how he tricked them into going to war against humanity in the first place. The Anacondrai generals even say that Chen never respected them and only ever cares for himself before banishing him to the Cursed Realm with them. Even Pythor is angry with him due to this facts.
- While he initially cared about his daughter Skylor and showed some respect to Kai for siding with him, this goes out the window when Skylor turns good and Kai reveals that he would never join Chen. He abandons all care and tries to kill them both without a second thought.
- His relationship towards his right hand Clouse is basically pragmatic mutualism at best as he still acts rude to him a few times and doesn't show any concern about what his whereabouts (which was him being sent to the Cursed Realm by Garmadon), merely annoyance that he isn't there to translate the spell.
- Although many others such as the Overlord, the Omega, Morro, the Preeminent, Pythor, the Great Devourer and Empress Beatrix do worse, Chen stands out from them with lower resources.
Background[]
- He corrupted Garmadon even further by telling him to win no matter the cost, praising him for cheating to become his right-hand man.
- He convinced Garmadon to pass off Wu’s love letter as his own in order to win Misako’s love.
- He incited the First Serpentine War just because he was "bored" by lying to both the Serpentine and humanity that the other race would attack, leading to countless deaths and destruction.
- He brainwashed the Elemental Master of Earth to attack the other Elemental Masters and cause them to lose a battle
- Although he "accepted" exile to an island, it was only because he and the Serpentine had been defeated and because exile was a perfect opportunity to rebuild and attack Ninjago City later on.
- He is indirectly responsible for the Anacondrai genocide since the Anacondrai were forced underground and into cannibalism to survive after losing the war Chen tricked them into starting.
- He's indirectly responsible for all of Pythor's evil deeds, including but not limited to releasing the Great Devourer, which therefore indirectly makes him the origin of Harumi's villainy.
- He used Clouse's pet snake to kill hundreds of people who landed on his island. This isn't offscreen villainy since countless skeletons are seen in the snake's lair.
- He formed a cult of followers obsessed with becoming Anacondrai.
- He created a criminal empire by using a noodle house business as his front to fund his activities.
- He raised his daughter to be an evil tool of his will.
- He raided the tomb of the Anacondrai after Lloyd freed Pythor, stealing their remains to make Jade Blades for his tournament and a hat for himself.
- He stole Zane’s pink gi to add it to his Hall of Fame.
- He created a fraudulent Tournament of Elements to trick the Elemental Masters into participating so he can steal their powers using the Staff of Elements and transform him and his followers into Anacondrai.
Tournament of Elements[]
- He kidnapped Zane and stole his powers in order to blackmail the other ninjas into participating in the Tournament of Elements.
- Every time someone would lose during the tournament, he would secretly kidnap them and steal their powers, then enslave them to work in his factory.
- He used his own daughter Skylor to manipulate Kai and spy on the ninja.
- He forced Cole and Jay to fight against each other just because he was bored.
- He forced all the Elemental Masters to sleep in the same room just because Cole and Jay refused to fight each other.
- He turned the Elemental Masters against Lloyd and the ninja, making them all try to make Lloyd lose.
- Once the Elemental Masters united, he turned them against each other again by lying that whoever won this challenge would get his Staff and claiming that the ninja were lying about his evil intentions, leading to the alliance dissolving.
- He tried to capture Nya and forced the Elemental Masters to capture her as their next “challenge.”
- When he realized he hadn’t packed enough parachutes for Garmadon, he didn’t care and just dropped Garmadon off to his death with the rest of the contestants onto the island to capture Nya.
- It turns out that he didn’t even want the Elemental masters to capture Nya, the “challenge” was really a trick for Chen to capture the remaining masters by tracking their every move with “tools” he gave them to hunt Nya with, capturing all the Elemental Masters and stealing their powers at last.
- He personally defeated and captured Kai while sadistically revealing that Skylor was his daughter and he was using him all along (although Skylor actually loved Kai).
- While he spared Kai from slavery because he was aware of Skylor's feelings for him, he took advantage of the opportunity and tried to get him to turn on his friends.
- He defeated Lloyd and stole his powers.
- He tried to feed Garmadon and Nya to Clouse’s serpent.
- He didn't show any sympathy towards Clouse mourning over his serpent and cruelly calls it a mere snake
- After Skylor turned good, he kidnapped her and planned to use her (since she copied all the Elemental Masters’ powers) to make him and his followers Anacondrai even though the ritual might harm or even kill her, subverting any care he once had for his daughter.
- He recaptured Kai just to make Kai watch him succeed in becoming an Anacondrai.
- He kidnapped and enslaved the last Anacondrai, Pythor, to use Pythor’s sweat to make him and his followers permanent Anacondrai.
- He tricked the ninja into following his noodle trucks thinking that they were filled with his cult followers but were really empty so that the ninja would be divided, allowing him to conquer Ninjago easily.
- He started the Second Serpentine War and conquered several villages.
- He pretended to offer a truce only to reveal how Garmadon stole and plagiarized Wu’s love letter to Misako as his own just to turn Wu and Misako against Garmadon and out of revenge for Garmadon going against him in the First Serpentine War.
- He took over the entire East Coast of Ninjago and moved inward to conquer Ninjago City.
- He tries to kill all the Elemental Masters including his daughter Skylor when they confront him at Echo Canyon.
- Due to his near unstoppable power now, Garmadon was forced to sacrifice himself to the Cursed Realm to allow the actual Anacondrai to drag Chen into the realm, killing him once the Realm was destroyed in the next season.
Day of the Departed[]
- Once revived on the Day of the Departed, Chen tries to kill both Kai and Nya unlike the other villains who only choose to kill one ninja before he dies for the second and final time.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- His insecurities were played for some sympathy. Back when he was a child, Chen was bullied and told he would "amount to nothing" compared to the Elemental Masters just because they were born with powers and he wasn’t. And thus, he wanted to become an Anacondrai to become powerful and prove himself.
Trivia[]
- The non-canon Way of the Departed novel by Tommy Andreasen states that Chen and Clouse manipulated the Time Twins into turning against the other Elemental Masters. If the novel was canon, this would make Chen even worse by making him partially responsible for the Twins' crimes.
- In the Chen Mini-movies, he does not count as Near Pure Evil as it is non-canon and he is taken for laughs.
External Links[]
- Master Chen on the Villains Wiki
- Master Chen on the Ninjago Wiki
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 Near Pure Evils
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 Near Pure Evils
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