The Original Concept of Hero Factory

[Lyichir]

Methinks it's to do with a thinness of character where Ekimu and Makuhero are concerned. It makes them more interesting, if only by suggesting hidden depths.

Except I personally consider the characterization of Makuro in the books (a wealthy industrialist who at the protest of his skeptical financiers reworks his successful business into a humanitarian organization, and very nearly loses his own faith in the cause due to the Factory's early failures) to be plenty deep, much moreso than making him a generic corrupt businessperson would be. And while he was featured too rarely to really give that chance to shine in other media, making him secretly evil would also require him to be featured more if it were to be done right. Turning an underdeveloped hero into an underdeveloped villain doesn't make them a better character, it simply wastes what little character development they've already gotten by retconning it all away.

[Lord-Vorahk]

Dume was a red and black jerk who owned a giant vulture and used it as a pet/spy. There's hardly any twist to him being evil in one way or another. I'd even go as far as to say that the only thing that was remotely surprising in this case was the fact that he was being impersonated, instead of being flat-out evil. The actual twist here was that a character who seemed obviously evil was revealed to be a good guy.

And while Makuta's jealousy might've been justified, it doesn't make unleashing bloodthirsty monsters to attack innocent villagers any more forgivable. Ekimu might've seemed somewhat morally ambigous due to the bad writing but at least he didn't command an army of sick abominations like Makuta did. I know Bionicle always seemed to have that unwritten rule saying that most of the time when there's some kind of conflict, war or danger, everyone is fine, unless stated otherwise... But I find it hard to believe the Skull Spiders and the Beasts were so utterly ineffectual that there weren't any casualties among the Okotans.

We didn't have any indication that Makuta had intentionally unleashed the monsters himself until late 2015, and even then, that was on Ekimu's say-so, whereas before, it seemed like the Skull Spiders were born from him but not explicitly carrying out his will, and Kulta was his own entity..