Lugad

If you managed to get through the slog of net-zero information that was my take on Seanin (tl;dr - he was never real), you'll remember I mentioned hearing - somewhere - that one plan for Lugad was to have him be another Mystic Knight: the Mystic Knight of Light. His phrase would've been, "Light behind me," then the concept got retooled to be Liam as the Mystic Knight of Storm instead.

I don't know where I originally read that. I've scoured all of Wikipedia's version history, and the only results coming up are still those snippets from the Fandom wiki and the mention of it on TVTropes.

What boggled my mind is how I distinctly remembered reading that first Fandom Wiki comment during 2020 or 2021, and completely agreeing. I was even going to chime in and say so but couldn't be bothered (damn, I wish I had. That would've been an excellent timestamp to help narrow down my search), and that's all because I'd separately read the same thing as that guy. It was on a wiki-like site with a white background, and it was an expanded page about behind-the-scenes trivia stuff. There was a bullet point saying, "At one point, Lugad was being considered as a Mystic Knight, and would have had the element of 'Light'." Something along those lines. I guess I'm still on the hunt for it. It feels like I might've found it somewhere else on TVTropes - as a subpage of its main page - but I've been scouring its version histories too and nada so far. :/

But! That is not the true mystery here.

As someone who likes this show a normal amount, the question isn't about whether I read that Lugad had any assocation with the element of light or was being considered for the role. It's that at least two people heard the same rumour, so where did that rumour come from?

BUT!

Check out what I found on Deviant Art: something called the Mystic Light Knight Wolf.

It's from Power Rangers. What the artist (SuperHeroTimeFan) wrote in the description was, "Starting off on new art for my Power Rangers entries this week, I show off a design, once again for the Mystic Force Rangers, but based on a toy-exclusive design. This is the Mystic Light Knight Wolf, from the same line where I have been doing all of the shield designs for the main five Rangers. The colors are based off of the original figure, seen here, and the design by RAatNYSBA, seen here."

When did Power Rangers Mystic Force come out? 2006, bbyyyy

And the Japanese show it was based on came out in 2005.

I have no way of confirming this. It's speculation. But I think it's a pretty solid guess that some folks got their wires crossed between Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog - a show created as an in-house Super Sentai series for Saban - and the actual Super Sentai series that also had 'mystic' in the name. The Power Rangers version even had an apprentice to a sorceress, according to Wikipedia, and the Red Mystic Ranger (a fire guy, obviously) was the son of that sorceress. And his name was Bowen. And Bowen had a dragon. So.

According to the Fandom wiki again (which I don't like using but :/), they also had a guy who "wasn't initially billed as a Power Ranger," but ended up being their psuedo-'Sixth Ranger' anyway. That was the Solaris Knight, who has power of the sun. Strap yourself in for this conclusion, but the sun is traditionally a source... of light uwu

It's not a clean one-to-one mix-up, but if you played enough rounds of Telephone, I can definitely imagine how someone would confuse these shows and come up with, "Lugad was going to join the other Mystic Knights in Season Two as their 'Sixth Ranger' (presumably before they knew they wouldn't have Angus), and he was going to have the element of Light." After all, the Fandom Wiki comment was in 2020, the TVTropes theory was in 2012 (omg yeah, January 26, 2012, that's ages ago), and folks did more damage in less time with Seanin, which still plagues us as a rumour to this day. :') This might have even spawned from a crossover fanfic, and it's a cool crossover to spawn from.

The case isn't closed, to be fair. But until a whole bunch of information comes out of thin air, I'm comfortable living with a few solid theories for now:

I'm joking - I'm actually on board with "Light behind me." :D I like it. Look at the care put into that: behind. A unique direction to fit the existing pattern, instead of barging in to duplicate one already being used.

Seanin.