Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-27404492-20170511131216/@comment-27082610-20170626041632

Ren has become significant. Li and (whatever his mom's name is, don't care to look it up) have not simply because their deaths were a driving force for one episode. The antagonist of that arc is dead, and everything about it's been resolved. Their relevance is only going to decrease with time.

And as has been stated there's no similarities between Hattori and Li. On the other hand, he's basically just Hanzo transferred into Maya in terms of appearance.