Autobiography of a Legend

Sensei Garmadon, My Father

I talked about this in the last chapter, but after the final battle, my dad was never the same.

Now, when most people say that, they mean it in a negative way. But for me, it was in the best way. When I went into that battle, as I've detailed, I was all but ready to never see my father again. The prophecy said I'd defeat him, and to me, that meant I'd have to kill him. When the Overlord took over him, I knew that the battle had to be fought. I wasn't able to worry about whether or not I could handle that fight, because I had no choice but to fight. And so, when my father crawled out of those rocks after the battle, it was like I'd been given my own personal miracle.

Sensei Garmadon wasn't the same person that Lord Garmadon was. Without the evil flowing through him, he seemed far more calm, collected, and was a person that I could look up to. When my dad was evil, I always had to tell myself in the back of my head that he wasn't the person that I had always wanted to meet. I was a kid at the time, and while I admired him, I think I also knew by the time he left that he wasn't exactly the greatest person out there. My love for my father was being constantly tested, and I only got to see the dark side of him. Sure, he was doing evil things out of a sense of obligation, and doing everything he could to protect me while being strung along by what he felt was destiny, but he was still evil. When dad was purified, I was able to see the man that my mother fell in love with, the brother Wu had fought so hard for, and the father I'd always truly been hoping for.

Sensei Garmadon, my father, was an amazing teacher. I learned more in the few weeks that I spent traveling with him than I did almost the entire time training under Wu. He never held anything back like Wu did. He was upfront, forward, and he didn't believe in forcing any of us to learn on our own unless it was something that we needed to learn on our own. If we asked him a question, he would answer it. Sure, he could be coy, but when you talked to him you never felt like he was doing it like Wu. Wu would be cryptic and annoying just to make our lives harder. When Sensei Garmadon made us figure something out, we felt like we learned something beyond just what the lesson was saying.

He was also kind. I always felt like I could turn to him. Even if I did something wrong, or felt like I was going to mess up badly, he never judged me for it. He'd scold me, yes, but he never forced me to go through anything alone. When I felt down, he'd be there to help me figure out what was going on and how to handle what was getting me down later. He always made time for me, even if he had to push himself to do it. I never felt like he saw time with me wasted, even if we ended up doing nothing but sitting in silence. He always did what he thought he needed to make me feel better. He... he loved me.

That was something that was always there with whatever my dad did: he never stopped loving me. Even if I was angry at him, he never let anything get in the way of his love for me. He did what he felt he needed to in order to keep me safe and get me ready for what was going to happen next. He never let me take anything for granted, but never made me feel like anything I cared about was worthless.

I think there's one thing that comes to mind when I think about my dad, and how much he really cared about me. I was really into Starfarer at the time, and I'd been collecting all my old comics. Well, when the Bounty crashed on the Dark Island, all of those comics burned up. I was upset by it, since I'd spent a lot of time working on keeping them all in good condition and all that. I never even mentioned it to my dad. On one of my breaks during my tour, I went and visited him, and when I got there he said he had a surprise for me. He'd gone and not only rebuilt my collection, but even got me limited run copies, gotten me a special sleeves for all of them to keep them safe, and built me an airtight case so I could store them without worrying about cleaning them. I never even told him about it... he just found them all, and gave them to me.