First Spinjitzu Master

> "*But a child arrived, born of both worlds. The child understood the power of both. Without one, you could not have the other. But when the Oni and the Dragon fought over which side the child should choose, the child abandoned their world to start a new one called Ninjago.*"
> ― Mystake about the First Spinjitzu Master's origins.
>
>

The **First Spinjitzu Master** was the creator of Spinjitzu, the island of Ninjago, and multiple other realms. He was also the father of Garmadon and Wu, Misako's father-in-law, and Lloyd's paternal grandfather. He was born from the worlds of both the Oni and the dragons, the warring sides of a seemingly never-ending conflict within the Realm of Oni and Dragons. Unwilling to choose a side, he abandoned his original world to create a land in the realm of Ninjago using the Golden Weapons.

After defeating a dark entity of pure evil, the Overlord, and splitting the land into two halves (Ninjago and the Dark Island), he empowered humans with Elemental Powers to become his guardians. Eventually, he fathered two sons, Wu and Garmadon, and entrusted them with defending the Golden Weapons. Shortly before his demise, he sealed himself into a tomb deep in the Endless Sea, where the Realm Crystal was also stored away.

After the Oni were vanquished by the efforts of the ninja and his sons, the First Spinjitzu Master summoned Lloyd to an unknown place in order to thank him for saving Ninjago.

## Biography

### Early life

#### War of the Oni and Dragons

Long before time had a name, the First Spinjitzu Master was born in the Realm of Oni and Dragons. There, he was a hybrid of both the Oni and the dragons. At some point, he bonded with the mother of all Dragons, the Firstbourne. Together, they created the Dragon Armor, and sought to unite the two races of the realm, and end their long war.

However, after the two sides refused to end the war and began to fight over which side he should choose, the First Spinjitzu Master realized that even he could not end the conflict between the two races. Devastated, he took off the Dragon Armor and created the Realm Crystal to leave the Realm of Oni and Dragons and went on to find a new home, leaving Firstbourne behind to guard the Dragon Armor and hoping for his return.

#### Battle of Nine Days

Eventually, the child finally found himself in a realm of a vast ocean engulfed in chaos, caused by the sea serpent Wojira who ruled the sea and winds. With the help of the islanders and Merlopians, the First Spinjitzu Master engaged in a battle with Wojira, but she was too powerful even for their combined efforts. Nyad, the first Elemental Master of Water merged with the ocean by sacrificing her physical body to defeat the serpent. The First Spinjitzu Master then gave the Storm Amulet to the leader of the islanders and the Wave Amulet to the king of the Merlopians.

#### Creating Ninjago

With the seas now calmed and the realm at peace, the First Spinjitzu Master forged the four Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu in the Temple of Light using gold from the Golden Peaks. With the weapons, he created the island of Ninjago. At some point, he visited the Realm of Chima and left some his power in Chi orbs, creating Golden Chi. He brought the snake tribe with him to Ninjago where they continued to live as the Serpentine. The new land was in harmony for a while, but darkness eventually manifested to counterbalance the light of Ninjago. From the darkness came an evil creature called "The Overlord," who challenged the First Spinjitzu Master to a battle for the fate of the world.

#### Stone Wars

The First Spinjitzu Master fought the Overlord for a long time, with neither gaining the upper hand. Eventually, the Overlord created an indestructible army to aid him, nearly overwhelming the First Spinjitzu Master. To save the world from the grip of darkness, the First Spinjitzu Master used his powers to split Ninjago in two, destroying the Overlord's physical form and trapping the villain on an island what would come to be known as the Island of Darkness. This act balanced the forces of light and shadow, ensuring that the Overlord could never return to Ninjago.

With the Overlord defeated, the First Spinjitzu Master was able to seal away the dormant Stone Army in an indestructible tomb, which he buried deep beneath what would eventually become Ninjago City. At some point he traveled to the Island of Darkness to hide his Golden Mech in the Temple of Light, and gifted Elemental Powers to a select few to serve as their guardians, ensuring that their Elemental Powers would be passed to their descendants.

### After the Stone Wars

At one point sometime before his sons were born, the First Spinjitzu Master caught a young girl named Nineko stealing from him. Although she stole, the First Spinjitzu Master decided to train Nineko instead. Sometime after Nineko turned eighteen, the First Spinjitzu Master noticed that one of his katanas were missing and accused her of stealing it. Nineko tried to tell him that she didn't steal it, but he wouldn't listen and never trained her again.

Eventually, over the course of the millennia, the First Spinjitzu Master grew old. Feeling his time would very soon come to an end, he fathered two sons who inherited his tremendous powers. The eldest, Garmadon, with power over the forces of Destruction, the power of Oni, and the youngest, Wu, a future teacher to some ninja, with power over the forces of Creation, the power of Dragons. He taught them the art of Spinjitzu and how to harness their abilities, with the hope that the two would represent the balance.

The First Spinjitzu Master would create two scrolls that contained secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu. He deemed the Scroll too dangerous and when Wu and Garmadon returned home late, after initially questioning them, he soon sternly told them off when they wanted to read the Scrolls. He was furious with his sons when they disobeyed him and used the Scrolls to defeat Aspheera and hid the Scrolls. Because of this, the First Spinjitzu Master never trusted the two again.

#### Garmadon's Accident

At some point after this, the he and his sons began living in the Monastery of Spinjitzu. While he was looking over the Golden Weapons outdoors, Wu lost his katana in a sparring match with his brother. Knowing their father would get angry, Garmadon ventured over the wall to retrieve it. When Garmadon did not return, the First Spinjitzu Master got worried and went out to look for him, eventually finding his son near some bushes, wounded and extremely ill.

The First Spinjitzu Master attempted to heal Garmadon's wound, learning that he had been bitten by a strange viper. Garmadon lashed out at his father by stating he hated him and blamed Wu for it as he was shocked by this behavior, and the First Spinjitzu Master began to no longer recognize his oldest son as the same boy he was before. Unknown to anyone at the time, the viper who bit Garmadon was the Great Devourer, and its venom would steadily corrupt Garmadon into a ruthless, power-hungry villain who wanted to make the world into his image which was part of the Overlord's plan to return to Ninjago.

#### Spending Time with his Sons

The First Spinjitzu Master told Wu of the Never-Realm once, where he described it as the most distant and coldest of all the Realms in creation and told him to never step foot in it, saying that no method from Ninjago that could allow for interdimensional travel could work there and noted even he was barely able to escape from the Realm.

One day, the First Spinjitzu Master went fishing with his sons and told the impatient boys to have faith after they didn't catch a fish. The First Spinjitzu Master was then pleased when Wu caught a big fish and told his eldest son to maintain faith.

Sometime during Garmadon and Wu's childhood, the First Spinjitzu Master was encountered by a man who would come to be known as Quanish the Elder.

At some point, First Spinjitzu Master constructed a tomb underneath the Endless Sea to serve as both his final resting place and a sanctuary to hide the Realm Crystal from falling into the wrong hands. To ensure that only a true Spinjitzu Master would be able to find it, the tomb was guarded by three deadly traps which required the Sword of Sanctuary from the Cloud Kingdom to safely traverse. Before he departed, the First Spinjitzu Master promised to leave a clue leading to the tomb to his sons and inscribed three clues on his staff.

### Death

When Wu and Garmadon were young men, the First Spinjitzu Master charged his sons with the duty to guard the Four Golden Weapons against those who would misuse their power, warning them that the weapons were too powerful for any one man to handle. In his final moments, he sealed himself in his own tomb and died peacefully beside a waterfall, with the Realm Crystal in hand.

### In the Grasslands

At some point, the First Spinjitzu Master summoned Quanish the Elder to the Grasslands and offered him to stay, but he declined, saying that he had something yet to do in Ninjago.

In 2018, after the ninja defeated the Oni, the First Spinjitzu Master summoned Lloyd to the Grasslands and proceeded to thank and praise him for having done so much for Ninjago, giving his grandson kind and complicated words regarding life and the future, bowing before Lloyd. He offered his grandson a choice: he could come with him to the Grasslands and find peace and happiness or he could return to Ninjago and be the Green Ninja once again.

Lloyd took the latter option and the First Spinjitzu Master sent his grandson back to Ninjago by teleporting one of the petals from the Grasslands and having it float over Lloyd.

Not long after this, the First Spinjitzu Master summoned Quanish to the Grasslands once more, and the two spoke about their previous encounters and Quanish's search for answers in Ninjago. The First Spinjitzu Master told him that he would have all the answers he could ever want if he stayed, and Quanish accepted the offer, leaving behind his mortal body in Ninjago.

### Legacy

The First Spinjitzu Master's remains would eventually be found centuries after his death, in 2015, by Wu's pupils, the ninja, who sought to prevent the Realm Crystal from falling into the hands of Wu's first student, Morro. However, Morro would ultimately recover the crystal from the ninja and would go on to unleash his master, The Preeminent, onto Ninjago.

During the Day of the Departed, Wu returned to the ruins of the Monastery of Spinjitzu and drank a cup of Remembrance Tea in his honor.

In the Realm of Oni and Dragons, the First Spinjitzu Master's legacy is known by the Dragon Hunters. Upon learning that Kai, Jay, and Zane were Elemental Masters, Iron Baron deduced that they had been taught by the Master himself. Wu eventually begins regaining his memories, including one of his father teaching him and Garmadon how to fish, giving him the lesson to "have faith," which gives Wu the motivation to trust Heavy Metal. Furthermore, after fully regaining his memories, Wu reveals to the Dragon Hunters that he is the son of the First Spinjitzu Master, and Iron Baron takes advantage of the revelation, knowing that a blood relative will surely allow him to gain the Dragon Armor. After reaching Firstbourne's nest, Wu explains to Iron Baron that Firstbourne had seen the goodness in his father's heart, and therefore allowed him to ride her, unlike Iron Baron, in whom Firstbourne sensed darkness. Firstbourne eventually senses the goodness in Wu and allows him to wear the Dragon Armor, the same armor that his father wore during the war between the Dragons and Oni. Wu became the Golden Dragon Master and wore the armor in a final fight against his now-reborn brother Garmadon. After the final battle, Wu kept the armor, continuing his father's legacy.

The First Spinjitzu Master's legacy was not entirely good, however. After Garmadon was resurrected with the knowledge of darkness threatening Ninjago, having been reverted to his evil ways, he was so desperate to protect Ninjago that he hunted down his own family to make sure they would not intervene in his quest to unite Ninjago and gain his full power. Garmadon even subconsciously modeled the Colossus after his father.[26] Although Garmadon was, in a twisted way, honoring his father's legacy by protecting all he had created, his actions caused more harm than good. Lloyd, the First Spinjitzu Master's grandson, would ultimately defeat Garmadon and Garmadon passed down the responsibility of defeating the upcoming evil to his son, therefore indirectly entrusting to Lloyd the task of protecting his grandfather's legacy.

## Relationships

### Family

* Garmadon - Son
* Wu - Son
* Misako - Daughter-in-Law
* Lloyd Garmadon - Grandson

### Allies

* Firstbourne
* Keepers
	+ Mammatus' ancestor †
* Merlopians
	+ Nyad
* Mystake †
* Quanish the Elder
* Mambo V †

### Enemies

* Wojira - Attempted Killer
* Overlord - Dark Counterpart, Archenemy, Attempted Killer and Attempted Victim
* Stone Army
	+ Kozu †
	+ Giant Stone Warrior
	+ Stone Warriors †
	+ Stone Swordsmen †
	+ Stone Scouts †
* Great Devourer †
* Nineko - Former Student and Former Ally
* Oni

## Trivia

* The First Spinjitzu Master's name is commonly abbreviated as "FSM" by Tommy Andreasen and many fans.
* Although he has been mentioned and shown in flashbacks in several episodes, his face is mainly shown only in drawn pictures. However, in the episode "Tick Tock," his face is visible for a short moment, and it is shown to look a little like Garmadon's face when he was recently cured from evil.
* His first physical debut in the television series was in "Grave Danger," when his skeletal remains were shown holding the Realm Crystal.
* The First Spinjitzu Master's appearance changes in his various depictions throughout the series. For example, in his pictured appearance in "Way of the Ninja," he has a standard hair piece; in the flashback in "Tick Tock," he has a braided ponytail; and in "Grave Danger," his statue has a full beard.
* His voice is heard for the first time in "The Gilded Path."
* His true name is unknown, as he is only ever referred to as "the First Spinjitzu Master." This may be because while many know his legend, there are very few alive old enough to have known him in life.
	+ For unknown reasons, despite probably knowing their father's name, neither Wu or Garmadon has stated the true name of the First Spinjitzu Master, likely out of respect, but even when Garmadon was bitter at his father due to the Devourer's venom, he never revealed his father's true name. It may be because he simply had gotten used to calling his father "the First Spinjitzu Master" or may not have known his father's actual name at all.
	+ It is also unknown whether Mystake is aware of his true name but like with his sons, she never mentions it, although given that she had known him longer than his sons, it can be assumed she was aware of it and just never got the chance to say it until her death.
* While it is known he was a hybrid of the Oni and Dragons, what exactly the circumstances that caused his birth to be possible, and why he looked like a human remains a mystery.
* It is unknown if the First Spinjitzu Master ever needed the Realm Crystal, due to being half-dragon, he may have had the power to travel between realms like full-blooded Dragons.
* It is unknown how the First Spinjitzu Master wielded all four Golden Weapons in combat all at once, because in all the flashbacks and the appearance of his remains in his tomb, he is shown to have only two arms. In the tale of the Oni and the Dragon from "The Oni and the Dragon," he is seen pulling the four weapons into his Spinjitzu tornado.
* In Lloyd's family tree in The Book of Spinjitzu, there is a silhouetted image of a woman next to the image of the First Spinjitzu Master. The image is silhouetted because Wu does not actually know if he and Garmadon have a mother or not.
* Though he is almost always painted in a positive light, there have been some lines of dialogue and other implicit evidence that suggested that the First Spinjitzu Master was not a perfect being and that he may have preferred Wu over Garmadon or known Garmadon could become evil.
	+ Garmadon said Wu had always been their father's favorite in "Weapons of Destiny."
	+ Harumi said Wu and the First Spinjitzu Master had kept the truth from Garmadon and feared what he could become with his power in "True Potential."
	+ Young Garmadon said "Wu always gets everything" in "The Gilded Path."
	+ Garmadon said that Ninjago was built on power rather than balance in "Green Destiny."
* It's possible that the First Spinjitzu Master based Spinjitzu on the spinning movement used by dragons to travel between realms.
* According to an old fairy tale he is said to have mastered many elemental powers; explicitly excluded from this are the elements of Water, Wind, Amber and maybe Darkness though, as the former two (Water and Wind) belonged to Wojira, Amber being created by the Original Master of Amber instead and Darkness belonging to the Overlord or presumably came from the First Spinjitzu Master.
* It is possible that he is left-handed, as he is shown writing with his left hand in the flashback shown in "Never Trust a Human" when Wu and Garmadon came back home after they escaped from Serpentine Valley.
	+ It is also possible that he is ambidextrous, as he is also depicted wielding weapons mainly in his right hand, but simply may prefer writing with his left.
* In Rise of the Snakes, the First Spinjitzu Master is shown wearing an outfit identical to Wu's black kimono first seen in "Battle Between Brothers." Starting in Hunted, he is shown wearing a different suit, this time resembling to the Black Training gi which previously only worn by the ninja in sets.
* A connection can be drawn between the First Spinjitzu Master and the real-world concept of God, as both are said to be creators of their respective worlds.
	+ In "Codename: Arcturus," Wu says, "Oh, by the grace of the First Spinjitzu Master," which is a based on the phrase, "by the grace of God."
	+ In "The Storm Amulet," P.I.X.A.L. says, "Thank the Master," which is based on the phrase, "Thank God."

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Oni and the Dragon
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Gilded Path
3. ↑ Master of the Sea
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Way of the Ninja
5. ↑ The Biggest Race Ever
6. ↑ The Curse of the Golden Master
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Stone Army
8. ↑ The Day Ninjago Stood Still
9. ↑ Rise of the Spinjitzu Master
10. ↑ The Invitation
11. ↑ The Curse of the Cat-Eye Jewel
12. ↑ Never Trust a Human
13. ↑ Tick Tock
14. ↑ A Cold Goodbye
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 The Splinter in the Blind Man's Eye
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Grave Danger
17. ↑ Winds of Change
18. ↑ Endings
19. ↑ Day of the Departed