#I just suck at writing anything with aang
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okay, so I did just spend the entire day watching NATLA. I had no choice but to watch this all in one sitting with my friends because I knew that if I attempted to watch it alone, or in increments, I would simply never get past episode 1. and I was right. it, of course, sucked so bad. I intend to write an actual, articulate review of the show as a whole when I have time, but for now, here is a list of the notes I jotted down on my phone (including some quotes from my friends as we watched), cinema sins style (pluses indicate details I actually liked, however minuses are far more frequent; points I considered especially significant are bolded).
– NO COLON to signify the central tension of the entire show!!!
Episode 1:
+ Love Aang’s eyebrows, just a very cute kid in general
+ opening fight scene kind of serves
– Sozin does NOT
– This clunky exposition is so strange considering they clearly already assume we are familiar with the entire show
– What’s going on with Kyoshi (ie, where is Roku)
– Where is Katara narrating????
– Hideous fonts
+ AANG SO CUTE <3 (he’s giving Dewey!)
– He can just fucking fly without his glider I guess?
– Airbenders saying wow at airbending (ding!)
– Aang’s uggs
– Sky bison…… L (update: I lowkey came around on Appa, but only bc Momo was so fucking busted he looked incredible by contrast)
– Gyatso’s mustache L (update: many such cases going forward)
– What’s going on with the accents???
– Aang cannot fucking act for shit I’m so sorry to this adorable baby boy
– Depicting a literal genocide as an action scene. Fucking awful
– Aang actually trying to head back during the storm defeats the whole point of the whole inciting incident of his entire arc????
+ Waterbending Avatar State sequence in the storm actually looks cool
– I hate White Sokka
– I hate shein Katara
– They do NOT act like siblings
– I hate White Sokka
– Where is Katara I miss you baby girl
– ZUKO’S SCAR IS AWFUL
– Katara has no agency or passion or rage or emotion whatsoever?!!?!?
– Acting is SO BAD
+ Clunky exposition works for Zuko because he does have a propensity for monologuing all his intentions
– Sokka, however, does NOT
– How can Sokka be “the last man” of the Southern Water Tribe if there are like. Dozens of other guys only ever so slightly younger than him just standing around.
– Kanna just saying Katara’s monologue because Katara is a nothing
– WHY DO FIREBENDERS KEEP ATTACKING AT NIGHT
– Clunky ass exposition “he had to grow up fast” give me a fucking break
– Who the fuck is this white guy
– Katara has no motivations at all?? She’s just chopped liver I guess
– The cadence of every actor is so bad
– They can’t decide whether they want to be the cartoon or their own thing and instead they’re just nothing
Episode 2:
– KANNA JUST GIVES HER THE SCROLL?!?!? KATARA DOESNT GET TO SHOPLIFT. OR DO ANYTHING
– MILF ALERT!!!!
– I hate you straight nepobaby suki
– She’s so fucking weird
– White Sokka has a bad face and a good body. He should have a strikingly beautiful face and a scrawny, malnourished body. L
– Aang being afraid to airbend makes no sense
– Where is Sokka’s fucking Kyoshi Warrior feminization!!!!
– Sexist ass show
– STOP IT KYOSHI STOOOOPPPPP #NotMyKyoshi
Episode 3:
– This one rebel leader guy is giving Katara more than Katara
– Why are the colors so bland
– Sokka being scientifically minded makes no sense bc that trait (which, um, is actually quite crucial to his character) hasn’t actually been established at all up until this point (or retained beyond this one episode)
– This guy is giving jock who happens to be good at engineering, when Sokka should be a NERD who HAPPENS to be good at FIGHTING
– Azula and Mai are NOT GIVING
– Azula should present as sure of herself and incredibly poised. It’s actual crucial to reflecting how she has been shaped by abuse
– And Mai should be razor sharp (both physically and figuratively) and not give a fuck about any of this!!!
+ Katara hitting herself in the face was funny
– Redemption for beautiful Jet (my friend: “I love seeing a beautiful man die”)
– Freedom Fighters are GIVINGGG
– How can Kya “watch the sun rise every day” if they literally live in the South Pole
– They don’t understand Sokka’s daddy issues AT ALL. The simple fact that he’s actually communicating them is egregious
– The first time Katara actually gets angry is for Jet. But not even for the right reasons.
– The first exchange that Katara and Sokka have that makes any sense is in ep THREE (of 8)
– “Sokka was right. You are the bad guy.” WHO WROTE THIS 😭😭
– Jet is only going after the corrupt and collaborators…. So, um… he’s literally right???
+ The fight between Aang and Zuko is actually SO GOOD and understands their dynamic (sidenote: they’re the only kids who are actually giving their original characters at all)
+ Aang reading Zuko’s diary is so fucking funny
+ I love you Danny Pudi <3
Episode 4:
+ I love the interior of Bumi’s palace. Statues of Flopsy
– Omashu is in India now I guess and also everyone in the world lives here
– Bumi’s hat!?!?
+ The nomads sound like Fleet Foxes
– Katara and Sokka are literally switching roles in this tunnel
+ This one Earth Kingdom soldier is really serving.
– The fact that he’s ostensibly framed as in the wrong here though is INSANE
– Zuko is supposed to be ten here 😭 that’s a grown ass man with a BA in Econ
– Sokka’s necklace is plastic
– Katara and Sokka being like “we never used to fight at home” ……. WTF!?!?
– KATARA WOULD NEVER SAY THAT TO SOKKA SHE WOULD BEAT HIS ASS INTO THE GROUND EVEN IF HE WAS RIGHT
– Adults keep being so mean to Aang :((
+ Zuko’s hair is great
+ I like that Bumi gave Aang his bison whistle(?)
– Bumi’s anger is….interesting
Episode 5:
– Canonically 13 year old Zuko is also a grown ass man
– “How was I supposed to know she was a Fire Nation soldier” ummmmmm maybe due to your INSTINCTS and CONSTANT PARANOIA
– They keep alluding to escapades offscreen without actually depicting any of their grounded bonding moments so we have no reason to care about any of these characters whatsoever or their relationships with one another
– Sokka good with kids and names??? Preposterous
– Zuko kinda gay asf
– Zuko calling someone an idiot and Sokka never once does . Sounds fake
– Oppressed peoples are just a mouthpiece for oppression instead of real human beings
– Instragram ass makeup
– Aang isn’t having any fun
– Aang feels like he has no agency whatsoever because he only ever does what the adults around him tell him to do and never does anything of his own accord. Let him have a sillygoofy time!!!
– Constant clunky exposition and no understanding of its own narrative… it’s truly like if ATLA … was LOK.
+ JUUUUNE
– Hitting on Iroh for #feminism
– “I always thought I was spiritually attuned. I don’t know how he got in here though” is actually so Katara. Finally an actual Katara moment
– Wan Shi Tong goofy asf Guardians of Ga’Hoole ass CGI monstrosity
– What is with Sokka’s fucking white people references (all you need is love, bye bye birdie, etc). White devil I need him dead
– Sexy Kitsune for the furries
– Fox accuses him of making jokes to deflect “What? I don’t do that” WELL. HE DOESNT IN THIS VERSION!!! (Alluding to a character trait that they don’t actually depict is crazy. He literally says everything he’s feeling at all times in this and barely ever says anything witty. It’s like they’re TAUNTING us.)
– Kya sounds like she’s from the Upper East Side
– Why won’t they let Katara DO anything!!!
– Too economical with their storytelling leads to no real depth whatsoever
– Putting Katara’s flashback in Book 1 undermines the whole point of TSR
– I HATE YOU WHITE HAKODA
– If Sokka is so bad at ice dodging in this then why did they give him the mark of the wise ??????? None of this scene makes sense
– Why is Sokka CRYING (he doesn’t DO that)
– Koh looks so bad
– Aang doesn’t actually know how to fight Koh he’s just such a wooden actor that he happens to get away with it
– First Roku mention????? Lmfao
– Gyatso talking to Aang is so wack but at least he’s being nice to him
Episode 6 (aka the best episode by far):
+ Zuko just drawing an eye on the page is so real actually
– Azula’s flames aren’t even blue
– And she’s not mysterious or imposing at all!
– I HATE the makeup in the show
– The pacing is AWFUL and STUPID, no consideration as to WHY information is revealed when it is narratively/thematically
+ Okay he’s really giving Zuko lmfao
+ Ken Leung has made Zhao feel like a real person (but no one else is doing that ???)
– Low-budget fantasy C-dramas have costumes one million times better than this.
– What is with Iroh’s obsession with boats
– Quirked up old man Roku
– Zuko flashbacks don’t read as significant because his scar is nothing and he’s the same age
+ Aang and Zhao scene is great
+ I’d follow Zhao into battle
– Other friend: “This is the best episode so far and it’s because Katara and Sokka aren’t in it”
+ Blue Spirit mask actually looks like a theater mask
+ Using the original Blue Spirit theme!!
+ This episode actually slays
– Their commentary on narrativization is solely relegated to Zhao and no one else gets to participate in this thematic conversation, not even KATARA
+ I love the sassy gay scribe
+ LADDERS SCENEEEEE
+ Zuko canonically having good handwriting is so real
+ Aang and Zuko conversation is great
– Why does Aang keep assuming Zuko is compassionate and wounded when he hasn’t displayed any compassion, remorse, or pain
– Iroh stepping into the Agni Kai goes against his whole character
+ Ozai kind of rules tho
– WHY IS ZUKO ACTIVELY FIGHTING OZAI!!!!!!!!
– Zuko’s backstory makes no sense
+ Zuko’s thotty little collarbone
– Ozai’s scene here undermines the whole point of Zuko’s banishment
– Such bad dialogue it’s crazy
– How do the 41st division not know why they’ve been on this boat for the past 3 years when every piece of dialogue in this show is otherwise expository as fuck
– What’s the point of Gyatso leaving. They don’t explain it at all
Episode 7:
– The NWT is so grey and underwhelming. My favorite location in the whole show. Can’t have shit in Netflixworld.
– BECAUSE AANG JUST HAS VISIONS OF THE FUTURE NOW I GUESS
– PAKKU AND YUE LOOK SOOOOO BAD
– Yue looks like a Euphoria character in a party city wig
– This isn’t how Azula fights!!!
– I hate what they’re doing with Azula so bad
– Mai sucks too
– Their journey doesn’t feel earned at all because they didn’t hang out or learn anything or do shit
– Why is Yue in the kitchens if she’s a princess
– And why is she WATERBENDING
– Why isn’t she repressed!!!!! She shouldn’t BE “ordinary”
– Why is Sokka explaining his duties!!!! He doesn’t SAY SHIT!
– Why isn’t the guy playing Hahn playing Sokka and vice versa (I’m so fucking serious)
– YUE’S A FOX????? WHAT
– All the offscreen battles where we’re supposed to assume character development actually happened. Sure.
– Hahn being nice and respectful to Sokka makes no sense
– MILF Yugoda! (How would she know Kanna. Update: I guess that doesn’t even matter here )
– THEY DONT UNDERSTAND YUE OR HAHN OR WHAT PATRIARCHY IS. AT ALL
– Kuruk is too serious and Roku is too playful. It should be the reverse. Playing into racist tropes :/
– His eyes are way too blue I’m sorry to this man
– They all look like they know what iPhones are.
– Yue is so annoying . L
– This whole Yue Sokka scene is the most annoying thing I’ve ever fucking seen in my life. And entirely antithetical to their whole deal
– “My friends” this “my friends” that, except they never actually hang out. They just keep calling each other friends but they never actually show it in a believable way.
– They want to be edgy but they actually never fucking shut up about the power of friendship like we are all five years old. I think when they said they were “appealing to a Game of Thrones audience” what they really meant was just that they are also bad, incredibly misogynistic writers who depict sensitive topics without any care or nuance.
– I actually like the Fire Nation boats
– Zhao is working with Azula??? She wouldn’t KILL THE MOON
– Azula would never ask Ozai to do things she would wait for his command at all times!!!
– Since when is Sokka wise and emotionally mature enough to hold this conversation with Katara, and why isn’t Katara being impulsive. This fight is so planned out; all the excitement is lost.
– Her completely blank expression as Pakku humiliates her. I hate you SHEIN KATARA!!!!!!
– This fight is so dull and lame whereas in the original that fight scene literally changed my life as a kid????? #NotMyKatara
– “The Legend of Aang” EW
– Why isn’t Aang waterbending at all. Book 1: “talking about water in completely abstract, hypothetical terms”
Episode 8:
– Iroh telling Zuko how to break into the North Pole is undermining the one moment where he actually demonstrates his intelligence as an independent person
– Stupid ass liberal feminism I hate you
– So they are sexist but also not. Makes sense
– What the fuck is with this moon backstory shit. Who needed that
– Zhao going to the Fire Temple instead of Wan Shi Tong’s Library for info on the moon completely undermines the point about the role of knowledge in imperialist conquest
– Kuruk looks like a Star Wars force ghost
+ THEY KILLED MOMO (kind of made me laugh a lot, so… points for that I guess)
– But they could only feature him for all of five seconds bc they don’t have the budget to constantly animate his mangy rat ass
– Why is Yue helping MOMO instead of ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS
– They want me to believe that White Sokka has compassion for that little rat when I simply do not believe that this man cares for anyone or anything or even has a soul.
+ Zuko and Aang’s situationship/chemistry is crazy. They’re both kind of slaying actually
– That said, the kid who plays Aang is not a very good actor, he’s just adorable and has big ears and a Dewey voice. And the kid who plays Zuko has the easiest acting job in the show because Zuko is actually so over the top and dramatic that overacting feels authentic to this one character in particular (and no one else).
– Bending fights look stupid and feel thematically insignificant
– This red filter looks so bad
– Why do they keep dragging out fast paced scenes to explain everything so that they’re now boring af
– Hahn is just……. Okay go off woke feminist king. Sure. Why not
– All the exposition is so clunky and slow and undermining the actual point of the scene
– Not only is this not visually interesting, it also doesn’t translate tonally, and the primary actors can’t pull it off
– So NOW Iroh kills Zhao. Okay
– Zhao wouldn’t respect a teenage girl this much, even if she is the princess
– Koizilla looks bad :(
– RIP Ken Leung the Cunt Slayer. 5ever in our hearts </3
+ It’s actually so funny that Ken Leung apparently didn’t even know what he was auditioning for because he was by far the best actor in this show and nearly singlehandedly redeemed it. I love this guy so much.
– Me: “This isn’t a show. This is a farcical simulacrum of real art.” Friend, far more concisely: “This is a fucking joke.”
– Katara and Sokka barely even seem like they care about each other. Look at how they massacred by boy (and girl)
– Yue and Sokka alluding to fucking offscreen WOULD be a slay if they weren’t both annoying as fuck…
– Oh so NOW Katara talks Aang down from the Avatar State. Yeah. I buy that.
– “You’re not just the Avatar you’re my family” really? Because you’ve barely even talked
– The sequencing and pacing of the Siege of the Noth was nonsensical.
– “My daughter always made her own choices” NO SHE FUCKING DIDNT!!!!! THE WHOLE POINT OF HER CHARACTER. WAS THAT SHE COULDN’T!!! Shallow fucking libfem bullshit they MASSACRED my girl!!!!!!
– Why is Arnook comforting Sokka when Sokka should be comforting HIM
– Also Sokka would never express his insecurities to Arnook in the first place. NOT MY REPRESSED KING????
– Why is Sokka giving emotional support and Katara giving tactical support -_-
– They really think that “Gotta let go of the past to have a future” is such a fucking smart line they used it twice
– Conquering Omashu wasn’t a STRATEGY it just happened CONCURRENTLY because their imperialist regime is incredibly powerful … This show doesn’t understand its own politics at all.
– Azula has no poise or swag smh
– Aang doesn’t even know about Sozin’s comet because Roku didn’t tell him…
– It’s crazy that a show written in the 2020s is actually SO MUCH more sexist than a show written in the 2000s.
– TDLR; I hate you capitalism, I hate you Netflix, I hate you White Sokka, I hate you SHEIN Katara, I hate you heterosexual nepobaby Suki, I hate you girlboss Yue, I hate you visibly insecure Azula, I hate you whatever is going on with Mai, I hate you CGI Momo, I hate you wack ass pacing, I hate you clunky, idiotic dialogue, I hate you complete and utter lack of consideration into what made this show great in the first place, I love you Danny Pudi, I love you Ken Leung.
Which, in fairness, is all pretty much exactly what I expected this show would be. But at least actually watching it did indeed verify all my assumptions (although what they did to Katara specifically was even worse than what I had assumed, dear god), so I will be writing up a more in-depth review soon so that I can actually try to unpack why this show is such a dumpster fire, and how that reflects larger trends in media. But for now, all I can say is, I can’t believe I sat through 8 hours of this fucking garbage knowing it would be bad and it was. I’ve been saying this show would suck ass since the second it was announced, and yet it somehow managed to still prove worse than even my incredibly pessimistic expectations. A soulless, shallow, offensive work of profit that cannot even attempt to justify its own existence. I need to kill White Sokka with hammers.
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Alright let's break this silly argument down a bit shall we?
First off, yes, everyone in the Gaang has trauma. We know this, and we don't disregard that. We know that Sokka and Katara have trauma. We know Aang has guilt over what happens with the Air Nomads when he ran away. We know Toph has baggage because her parents kept her confined because of her disability. That's all been established.
Comparing trauma does not work in anyone's favor because it's different from person to person and the way that it's treated. Hell, there are FOUR types of PTSD and not all of them have to do with existential circumstances. Some of these types have nothing to do with being in a situation that causes panic.
But it's how we deal with our trauma that sets us on the path to healing.
In Katara's case, she had some pretty severe Survivors Guilt. Not necessarily PTSD, but it could be argued that she does have that. It changed her life irrevocably and that is something she had to deal with. She does get to deal with it in TSR but this leads to conflict between her and the group because there is this perception of her that isn't really her.
Sokka has to rise above his issues with being a non-bender and feeling left out. I also feel like he hides a lot behind his humor to deflect how he really feels about things. This is what happens when you have anxiety about meeting expectations. He has expectations he has to fulfill, and it never goes right. He's afraid of disappointing people he cares about and doesn't want to let them down. He isn't a failure, but when he does actually do something amazing, there is Imposter Syndrome. We don't see it much, but we do in NAtLA.
I'm not going to talk about Aang. I refuse.
Toph has been sheltered her whole life because she is blind. She is at home with herself, but she doesn't like anyone to do anything for her. She eventually learns that it's okay to have help when she needs it and that it's okay to have friends. (Not comparing trauma here, but she has the minor character arch out of all of them)
Zuko is... a lot to unpack. At the beginning, we know next to nothing about him except that he is the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, and he's hunting the Avatar to reclaim his 'honor'. He's hot-headed, but we never actually see him hurting anyone. He threatens, but he doesn't want to hurt people. That's the first sign that things aren't all they seem with Sifu Hotman. Throughout book one we get to know him a little better and see that he is Banished from home because of a 'misunderstanding' and he was also brutally abused by his own father. In the Netflix Adaptation it's more nuanced at how Ozai is playing his children against each other for his own benefit. It sucks but it's also good writing (some of the best writing is done with the characters of the Fire Nation) but anyway, we get an understanding of where Zuko's trauma comes from.
He has been emotionally abused by his narcissistic sociopath of a father because Zuko didn't have that 'spark' in his eyes at birth (not the entire reason but I'll get to that in a bit). Azula was the Prodigy, so Ozai put all his focus on to her. Then, his mother literally killed Azulon to save Zuko's life, but he doesn't find out until later. All of that plus the Agni Kai against his father is why he is so invested in finding the Avatar. Ozai seemingly took everything away from Zuko, but Zuko still loves his father and his people.
So why is he chasing the Avatar? Because he wants to go back to everything he knows. It's not just about getting back something that was never really taken away, it was all about getting back everything Ozai took from him.
Zuko never lost his honor, but he had everything else stripped from him and was humiliated for it.
He eventually grows through this and begins to heal himself with confronting Ozai on the Day of Black Sun. That was when he said 'fuck this shit I'm doing this my way' and that royally pisses Ozai off.
So if you don't like that our argument has better standing than yours, I suggest you go take some creative writing classes and learn about character development.
#fight me on this and youll lose.#it pays to go to college#adult opinions here#zutara#pro zutara#pro zuko#character development
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I hate that these YouTube videos complain and moan about how the Netflix live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender was a 'failure'...I mean, if that was the case, then why had it been renewed for not one, but TWO seasons, huh?
And like...I doubt the Avatar Studios stuff is gonna be anything groundbreaking. I don't even think Avatar Studios' content will be any good. Really, it's like, why is this even a thing? Just leave the franchise alone, Bryke, and just let people who can write and make your story a lot more enjoyable (Netflix's Avatar).
It just reeks of desperation and Bryke trying to be relevant. Avatar is not the next Star Wars, I'm sorry. It's a Nick cartoon that should've been an epic four-season (maybe five seasons, who knows?) show, but it shrunk to three, to make a failed shitty trilogy movie that the first movie bombed at the box office, thanks to the creators 'SUPER WISE' decision of canceling the fourth season because they want that trilogy movie series, and honestly? That itself was a bad idea. Bryke tries too hard to make their product the next Star Wars(which I think they're fans of, which says a lot), and it painfully shows. They try too hard. REALLY hard.
Like with Legend of Korra, they try to be super edgy with their 'story' and 'characters', but they just miss the mark on what made ATLA great. I mean, they don't even care about how the bending looks anymore in Korra. Really, there's a reason why they put the final season online, and it was just a bad show. Don't deny it, everyone. I'm certain it would've been good...but it was executed poorly and made not only a mockery of the characters in that show but the OG characters of ATLA(especially Katara). Well, maybe Zuko is the only one who's doing alright...but that just reeks of sexism doesn't it? Toph is all alone in the Swamp, and Katara is...not who she is...always sad about Aang's death...like get it together girl, you're mother-effin KATARA. Get with it!
And another thing, what more is there to tell? What is the next series even going to be? The Avatars are cut off after Korra, right? So...what now? And if you put the setting in some lame-ass futuristic steampunk or cyberpunk world and have bending in it, then...well, that's not really Avatar, is it? It's just its own thing at this point. And really, I don't want any new characters...I never wanted Korra's characters either if the writing they have for them was that bad.
I just think this whole Avatar Studios is just...again, desperation. Like why not reboot it or just...tell the same story, but with a different setting?
Sorry, lost track.
What I'm trying to say is, is that people act like the Netflix live-action of Avatar: The Last Airbender supposedly 'failed', which isn't the case. Y'all are just butthurt about how your 'perfect show' got 'tainted' by big corporations, and honestly, that's far from it. The people behind this live-action were very committed, and the actors were very respectful of their roles. The BTS looked like everyone was having a good time. And here you have idiots going on about how the live-action sucks because...what, Aang talks too much? No sexism from Sokka? Katara didn't act all rage-filled or whatever? I can get the criticisms, but still, I enjoyed it. I liked it. I want to see more.
It's just that this stupid fandom likes to put down the live-action because the cartoon is supposed to be this or that and it doesn't have this...when honestly, it's its own thing, but it's still Avatar! Let it be its own thing! You got the cartoon, now look at this NEW Avatar: The Last Airbender by Netflix! Look at the way they portray the characters, look at the direction they're going, look how they world-build, just look at it! It's almost like fanfiction, and really, isn't that what Avatar is? Fanfiction? It may be a cartoon show, but it's still fiction. They're not real people. We can do whatever we want with them. We're just borrowing their characters, story, and world.
This whole thing is an adaptation. So it's not your cartoon...but it's still Avatar.
I know I'm just rambling at this point, but I'm just kind of tired of seeing thumbnails on YouTube of people bringing down the live-action Avatar. I genuinely enjoyed it, and yes, while it may have some things to work on, the people behind the show will listen to their criticisms and work on that. But again, I still liked it.
Just know one thing...Bryke would've made the live-action of Avatar a whole lot worse if they were in control. I really do believe that. And as for Avatar Studios...I give it a year before it goes bankrupt. I know that's a little harsh, but I just know that the animated Avatar movie is going to be disappointing. ^^;
#avatar: the last airbender#netflix avatar the last airbender#atla#atla netflix#anti bryke#anti avatar studios#rambles#idk#whatever
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Episode 6 thoughts babey,,,,
Here are my thoughts on: episodes 1-3; episode 4 and episode 5!
Things I like:
Okay I see we’re starting off with emotional devastation write off the bat with a Zuko flashback. Dallas does a good job at portraying now-Zuko and before-Zuko. HES JUST TRYING HIS BEST HE JUST WANTS TO MAKE HIS FATHER PROUD OF HIM!! HE WANTS TO HELP OTHERS AND HES PUNISHED FOR IT!! 😭😭😭
Finally!!!! we are getting more Zuko and Zhao conflict. We needed to see more of Zhao as a villain
June flirting with Iroh is so funny and far better than in the og
anyone: this place is impenetrable. zuko: say no more 😉
oh my god they did the zuko sequence of him taking out those guards to get to Aang so well!
Love the whole zuko rescuing Aang from Zhao it was perfect ✨
Zuko meticulously finding out all the information he can about the past Avatars to the point where Aang says no one else knows this stuff is so important to me
Also I like how Aang and Zuko got a longer conversation than in canon. they had a nice moment there 😌 that will get Zuko Contemplating Treason for sure. Well actually - more treason than what he’s already done (thinking about you: siege of the north)
the 41st division being Zuko’s crew is an interesting choice!!! I’m actually sobbing about it!! To me it’s both a bad and good choice. I’ve explained my thoughts below and in the next section
Despite what I say below, Zuko’s crew bowing to him after they find out Zuko’s actions saved their life is such a good scene. Zuko seeing the product of having compassion and empathy for others as something positive, rather than something he’s ultimately punished for.
things I don’t like:
Zhao’s speech kinda sucked tbh. in the og it was much more grand and terrifying. He's on ground level with the soldiers instead of on that grand balcony. In the original he goats how fire is the superior element, how they're going to raze the Earth Kingdom to the ground. But in this one, it's just not the same level of brainwash-y propaganda-ryness that would have made SO much more chilling
idk but i preferred when Koh was a bit more mysterious and we didn’t really know much about him except that he stole the face of Avatar Kuruk’s lover and like some more vague info that leaves you intrigued about the mystery. like who the fuck is the mother of faces (i know she’s from the comics but still). And why did Roku steal it from him at all? idk im confused
Idk why they made Zuko stand and fight Ozai????? Ozai burning his own child who refused to fight him was a part of the horror of it all. Zuko refused to fight his father and begged for his forgiveness but Ozai still burned him anyway. I guess it still gets the cruelty across and that Zuko’s own compassion is used against him and Ozai is an irredeemable monster, but i still think it’s Not A Good Change.
Like I said above, Zuko’s crew being the 41st is not a bad thing! But I do just want to say that in the original, the attack goes ahead, and presumably, those soldiers die. It’s horrible. Zuko’s sacrifice is in vein and it was always going to be in vain because the Fire Nation as its stands would not allow it. Ozai would not allow it. I think that, like I said, it’s not necessarily a bad choice, but I think it does take away some of the horror of Zuko’s story (same as it does with making Zuko fight back in my opinion). HOWEVER, I do think it’s not all bad. I loved the scene where the crew bows to him - like I said above 🥹
Aang just giving Koh the statue and then all the people are just freed and he doesn’t even say anything wtf 💀
also i was so excited for roku’s appearance but i just thought it was disappointing. stop info dumping!!!! leave something up for interpretation I am BEGGING. “And she is Koh’s mother. Koh longs for the same thing we all do. Family.” maybe i’m being a bitch about this but it just annoys me!!!!!!! stop spelling things out! Koh is so much better when he’s mysterious and unknowable!! why is Roku's whole presence to be here and info-dump about Koh instead of all the meaningful and wise interactions he has with Aang in the original. simply ✨no✨
As you’ve seen from my previous entries, I try to have more positives than negatives but there were some things in this episode that irritated me and that i couldn’t ignore lol hopefully it gets better.... 😅
There were still parts i loved! Aang and Zuko's interactions were great and teh whole sequence of them escaping was wonderful. I likes Zuko interacting with the crew and Iroh trying to care for Zuko but not really knowing how to reach out to him.
On to the next one!
#zuko#katara#sokka#aang#iroh#ozai#roku#avatar the last airbender#koh the face stealer#jack talks#live action series#natla#netflix atla
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May I suggest (a shortened version of one of my most developed hcs): Zuko being sick and clingy and Sokka taking care of him super diligently. Staying nearby and bringing him food and water and more blankets (and his coat hehe) and anything else he needs.
Also Zuko refusing to take the medicine Sokka brings him "because it's gross" but actually it's because he's maybe not so secretly enjoying this and doesn't wanna get better yet
Eventually he realizes it's not fair to Sokka even though he doesn't mind at all and would do it forever, so he finally takes the meds and is on the mend.
But to make up for delaying it for so long he starts getting up to do things for himself and tells Sokka he doesn't have to worry about it anymore but Sokka's like "nonsense you're not all the way better yet, go back to bed and let me handle this"
Sokka trying to make soup at some point but he absolutely sucks at cooking (no idea if this checks out or not, he just has that vibe to me) so he asks Katara or Aang (or Iroh if he's around) for help. No one tells Zuko that Sokka didn't make it himself.
I feel like that's a weird place to end the hc but it's 4 in the morning and I don't know anymore lol. I hope it's coherent enough to understand 😂 I don't sleep anymore I just write this stuff
Also I have some drawings planned if I can find the time and motivation to actually make it happen. One of which is the scene I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about for no reason that made me realize I ship them!
This could literally be a whole fic and you know I would eat that up SO fast >>>
I’m a sucker for cutesy fluff about someone worrying and taking care of the other person so this hc is right up my alley 🥹
Zuko literally not wanting to get better so he can keep Sokka near him would be relatable af this is cutee
#also the soup not being even made by sokka is very canon accurate as well#im so curious about the drawing you mentioned wanting to do#zukka always deserves more art so YES DO IT
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I think putting Jeong Jeong in NATLA season 2 after Zhao has already been kicked off the show would potentially be funny just cause
No convenient way to get rid of him at the end of the episode which means they gotta drag him around with the Gaang until he either leaves on his own or get separated for Plot Reasons. I guess they could shoehorn in an Azula Attack but she doesn't really fight the Gaang one on one all that much, at least not in s2 so. They're Stuck With Him
Either they gotta awkwardly break the news to him that his ex-student tried to murder the actual moon he gets to drop it into a convo that he quit teaching because one of his ex-students tried to murder the actual moon. And he doesn't need any more of that on his conscience ok
This last point isn't funny but him having ANYthing to do with Yue's death even indirectly would ramp up Sokka's dislike of him so hard. I doubt the show would even get into the first two points let alone this one but can you imagine
1. i was going to say "well, sometimes the gaang just leaves a village at the end of an episode and that's normal" but then i realized that's almost as funny as bringing him along. just like yeah sorry you weren't a good fit as a firebending teacher. good bye. no scene establishing what aang learned from jeong jeong just. well that sucked. yip yip! i can see natla doing that. like why would you have a scene demonstrating the lesson a character learned. that would make logical sense or something
2. i can see natla jeong jeong dropping this lore really early bc in the actual episode aang only finds out later when he actually confronts zhao. which is good writing. we get jeong jeong's viewpoint on firebending, we learn he had a student who sucked, and then we find out it's zhao and we understand why he's so passionate about said viewpoint. meanwhile there's no such thing as a reveal in natla. only infodumps
3. i've considered this before and i think it might actually have the opposite effect. like yes, having trained zhao means he is somewhat implicated in her death but he also deserted the military because he hated zhao and people like him. sokka might feel weird about it but they're actually pretty aligned on the topic of Zhao Sucks. like can you imagine either of them learning that zhao was drowned by the ocean spirit? they'd be thrilled to know he had such a cosmically perfect ending.
i actually started writing a scene about that in a sokka & piandao fic that i haven't touched in a while, maybe i should dust it off. mostly i just think sokka & jeong jeong should be friends bc i like them both so much.
anyways yeah, adding jeong jeong into the show without zhao is gonna be really weird and i'm scared at the possibilities
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this is called giving Live Action Avatar a fair chance
the Netflix live action Avatar has always been a strange beast. it's a thing no one wanted after the disastrous 2010 movie. public perception of it was extremely low after Bryke walked out on it because of creative differences (disheartening as well as concerning). people tore apart the teaser stills and completely thrashed the early trailers. the news that Sokka's sexism plot was being altered had fans frothing at the mouth. the show seemed to be caught in this limbo where it had an incredibly low bar to rise above, in terms of trouncing The Last Airbender Movie, and infinitely high bar it would be impossible to reach, in terms of the original A:TLA.
now. if i can't go into a live action adaptation with an open mind, i will not watch it. live action Yu Yu Hakusho came out several months ago, and the vibes I got from trailer were not what I wanted, so I shelved it. if I'm going to sit down and watch a re-telling of one of my favorite pieces of media, I'm going to do my damnedest to go in with as open of a mind as a I can bear, because I like to have a good time and I can't do that constantly dogging on something.
so. my rule of thumb is generally this: treat any live action adaptation as fanfiction. if i can recognize the characters and recognize the plot, that's fine. i'm not looking for anything crazy, just interesting fanfiction. that's the level of closeness to canon i'm expecting. bar is on the floor.
and in terms of Good Television, my expectations are also incredibly low. good TV has 1. good writing 2. good acting 3. good action/SFX. for adaptations the best i'm looking for is ONE out of three. the lower my expectations, the more fun i get to have.
i'm explaining all of this because, while I have not seen reviews of Netlix Avatar yet, I know just how brainless the masses can be and i need you to know that THESEEE are the expectations you should be having when going into these things. Avatar: The Last Airbender is hailed as an example of a nearly PERFECT show. if you are expecting that kind of excellence from an adaptation you are simply deranged and I will not be reading your bad faith interpretations of the show.
with these expectations in mind, it's easy to see why i'm loving Netflix Avatar so much. why? because it cleared one of my very low expectations. the bending in the show looks pretty good! the writing of the show is average! some of the actors are quite charming! i am pleased!
i have seen 3 episodes so far ("Aang" through "Omashu", and yes these episode titles DO suck, I'll concede to that)
so, now that i've gotten that little manifesto out of the way, let's get into some actual Thoughts So Far:
-the way the first episode was structured was very cool. i like that they didn't throw us in at the same spot we started in A:TLA. and to avoid the horrible exposition dump the movie gave us, instead they just showed us the start of the war. i like the tactical inclusion that Sozin let word get out that the Fire Nation would attack the Earth Kingdom first to throw the Air Nomads off his scent. i also thought it was cool so show us a day in the life at the Easter Air Temple. the setting was gorgeous and I loved seeing all the monks doing their own thing. it made you feel so attached to the Air Nomads and their kindness and gentleness, so when they were attacked you truly felt for them.
-Monk Giatso's actor was fantastic. i was gagged that they had my crying less than 20 min into the first episode, what the fuck
-Gran Gran reciting Katara's opening speech line by line was funny, hokey, and exactly what I wanted. loved that for her and loved that for ME
-i like the change that Katara has to waterbend in secret for her own safety, not simply because she doesn't have a master
-it felt appropriate that they made Sokka take his warrior/protector role more seriously. the "i gotta go potty" bit from that like 6 year old in the original is hilarious but I don't think that sort of humor would have translated well to live action. i like that Sokka really was a leader to the ragtag group of kiddos and like one teenage boy. and him asking Zuko to duel with him one and one!! a very sweet early act of bravery
-in general i'm just really liking how they're approaching Sokka's character. all the fuss over "they're taking out Sokka's sexism" arc felt idiotic to me for weeks because like of course they did?? let's be SO real here, if you have never seen the original and are watching Netflix Avatar blind for the first time, are you going to rock with the protagonist who makes "girls' only jobs are cooking and sewing" jokes? in 2024? in this sociopolitical climate that shit would NOT fly and people would drop the show for stuff like that. no one would wait to see his character growth, people's attention spans aren't long enough for that these days.
plus, for all the naysayers boohooing because that's Sokka's whole character arc, it's literally not! that nasty personality trait sticks with Sokka for FOUR episodes. having his character arc revolve around his identity as a warrior is much more in-line with Sokka's ACTUAL arc. he can skip the "sew my pants" jokes so we can get to his real root of his conflict, being a non-bender and a novice warrior in a world of extreme violence and feeling inferior because of it
-i don't mind that they made Zuko less aggressive. again, with the bar of the original A:TLA being SO fucking high, ESPECIALLY because of Zuko, Netflix was never going to reach that level of excellence. so I'm okay with this Zuko being a little more level-headed and more of a mindless Fire Nation Greatness truther because it's a decent interpretation of his character, for fanfiction. consider everybody on planet earth know that Zuko will eventually be a Good Guy, we don't have to go out of our way to show that he's a giant asshole. we already know he's a good boy.
-on that note I love the bait and switch with the Jet introduction. seeing a cute boy flirting with Katara, I couldn't immediately tell if that merchant boy was just a one-off kind character, or maybe Haru because of his clothing and the way his hair was styled. to have him turn out to be Jet was FUN because it showed me that despite knowing the original canon forwards and backwards, this show can still find ways to surprise me. i had been talking with my sister about whether or not they were going to include Bumi (and his shenanigans) because that's a plot twist that worked when the show originally aired, but wouldn't hit at all in an adaptation where we all know who Bumi is already. where I'm currently at in the show I'm still not sure if we'll see his inclusion or not, but i still appreciated that new bait and switches are possible.
-this meant basically all the Omashu episode was very fun. they way they wove the Freedom Fighters and Mechanist's stories together was very interesting and i liked how fresh it felt
-Suki's actor is incredibly gorgeous. with and without the make-up. that needed to be it's own point because oh my god
-i love that she gave Sokka and fan and i'm DYINGGG to see him use it in a battle
-THEY INCLUDED KYOSHI NOVEL LORE AND I SCREAMED
-they included AVATAR KYOSHI FIGHT SEQUENCES AND I SCREAMED
-i probably should have mentioned this way sooner but Aang's actor is such a little cutie. he's doing such a great job capturing Aang's energy. both wise and playful and so so sweet. i love him
-i found it hilarious that they waited three episodes for Katara to bring up her dead mom. we all know that the super generic and boring critiques of Katara are 1. too much dead mom talk 2. too much hope talk 3. too motherly. i feel like the show intentionally waited two and a half episodes for Katara to bring up Kya and that's so funny to me. they also have only let her mention hope like twice lol. my girl is being STIFLED
-special effects are honestly really good? some of aang's flying is a little wonky but the firebending and waterbending so far as looked fantastic. i haven't seen much earthbending so far besides that opening sequence but i was impressed by that too. and Aang and Zuko fighting in Omashu with Zuko not using his bending? SO much fun. the choreo was awesome, i loved the set piece of fighting amongst all those scarves.
-building off that, Appa and Momo are very cute. the creatures al look pretty good too. ostrich horses look great
all in all, lots of really good stuff so far. i only have minor criticisms, and they're mostly things I can deal with. Iroh's acting is weird to me. it sounds like it's putting on a silly voice instead of speaking how he normally would, so it scans as off-putting. also in terms of costuming, Iroh's wig is WIGGING so much more than other cast members. it looks so glued on and shaped with hairspray. Mai and Ty Lee (one seen them for a moment so far) also just look like random cosplayers who wandered on set. and i guess both Monk Giatso's reveal of Aang being the avatar, as well as Gran-Gran's immediate understanding that Aang is the avatar, both happened extremely fast.
but yeah! those are my thoughts so far. again, I have no idea what public perception of this show is. i'm trying to avoid reviews and probably won't be back on tumblr until i've at least made it to episode 6. then maybe i'll come back and write more if my opinion drastically changes or I think the world will need another stern talking to about what to expect from an adaptation
#oh fuck i should probably tag this for spoilers but idk what tags ppl are using#live action avatar#netflix atla#avatar live action#ehh? i guess? don't read this if you haven watched episodes one through three yet#netflix avatar
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Hello @juniperhillpatient how are you doing?
So I just thought of a “role reversal” Azutara au question.
To provide context: Many (but not all) Azutara story start of (or gradually show) Azula and Katara on opposite sides. Either in morals or faction in both canon and au. Until they both do an ooopsie and fall in love with their mortal enemy (each other) and eventually join the good side. To both serve the good and be together. Or at least what they believe to be the good. That’s a simplification but it (hopefully) gets my point across.
It is often in these scenarios that Katara starts off on the more morally just side and Azula less so. Considering canon and all. Through of course everything is more nuanced than that simplification, it does serve the purpose of my ask.
Question: can you think of any AU ideas where Azula stars of on the more “morally righteous” (if such a thing even exist in actuality) side? Though really Azula is only on the “just” side by chance. And Katara on the more villainous side? And Katara has to overcome her own hurdles to join the “good guys”. Their personalities are in tact, Katara is just very misguided or just loyal to the wrong people.
An example could be found in the Districted Reality au. Where we had a “good” Azula and an “evil Katara (though no Ty still kept their canon personalities intact). Again though, such terms are oversimplifications.
Oh yes I’m so onboard 🤩 You know, I don’t always read enough fic much as I’d like to read more tbh because - well - you know not enough hours in the day haha - so I’ll be honest I haven’t read anything like what you’re describing although I’m sure it’s out there!
But I do like the idea as long as it ultimately stays true to the characters. I could certainly see Katara getting pushed to the “dark side” under the right circumstances. Say she loses more people - if Aang died & the war was lost -or in literally any AU if Sokka dies - I could see Katara getting pulled into a dark rebel side by someone like Jet or Hama. Or if we wanna go full AU what if the water family were vampires or werewolves or something & she’s loyal to her family & species even though they’re technically evil to humans? Ooh what if Azula’s family demon hunters in an AU like that? (Okay waaait yeah that’s totally something I might write someday actually…)
And Azula’s whole thing is loyalty. She was indoctrinated to the wrong side. What if she was born on a more righteous side? That could certainly be interesting. For me, Ozai has to be a manipulative toxic fucker in every AU or Azula’s character changes too much fundamentally for me. Just a preference thing. But Ozai could totally be on the right side of a conflict & still suck on an interpersonal level in an AU & I’d be down for exploring that.
Oh! Or what about a Descendants type AU? You know how the “heroes” realize they’re kinda wrong to banish the “villains” families & shun them by the end of the series & neither side is perfect? Something like that could also be cool although IDK Descendants is already basically Disney movie fanfic so maybe an AU of it couldn’t work for anything else 😂
Anyway yes! My thoughts are rambly I got nothing specific right now but I like your concept 😊
#this is just me rambling about the concept I’m sorry if it’s not quite the answer you were looking for hahaha#atla au ideas#asks
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watched the first episode of the live action atla adaptation and took notes:
-what is this opening. who are these people. am i expected to care about this random earth kingdom man because i really don’t
-opening fight is kinda meh :/
-sozin looks weirdly… nice? like he has “harmless old man” vibes. i don’t actually dislike this casting choice i think there’s a lot of potential to having him look friendly and approachable even as he does war crimes
-seriously did someone in the writer’s room watch rogue one before coming in and then go like “HEY I KNOW WHAT WE SHOULD ADD” WHAT is this plot doing here
-where is katara’s opening narration. like i get they aren’t adapting one to one but that’s such a loss. the opening cutscene from the original series was so good
-WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GAANG SERIOUSLY. WHY ARE WE STARTING WITH RANDOM EARTH KINGDOM MAN AND SOZIN
-all of these people are so fucking sweaty what is this
-sozin’s outfit is appropriately fuckable
-“my sights… are set… higher… because… it is… our time…” “[screaming]” wow very emo
-KATARA IS HERE!! MY BEST GIRL
-why did they change the narration. this is objectively worse.
-oh no this isn’t katara is it… dang :(
-air temple looking neat. why are we here tho. where are katara and sokka
-why is everyone watching aang jumping around like he’s a fucking celebrity. have they never seen an airbender before in the fucking air temple
-at least they say aang’s name right. step up from shamalalalam or whatever his name is. of course that bar is so low the devil declared it a tripping hazard, so
-these people do NOT talk like actual humans. have these writers never had to write natural exposition before
-genuinely what was the point of that first scene. WHAT does it add
-“when yangchen died the next avatar was born into the water tribe” what, does aang not know this. my fucking god this exposition is shit
-aang didn’t know he was the avatar?? and then didn’t immediately get an ego about it when gyatso told him??? who is this and what did you do with my BOY
-the acting isn’t bad but the lines are so shit it’s hard to tell
-aang is NOT sufficiently goofy
-appa’s kind of ugly :(
-TEAM ROCKET’S BLASTING OFF AGAIN (<— my unfiltered reaction to sozin going jetpack mode)
-unnecessary airbender fight scene. i think this is literally just here to look cool and honestly? 6/10
-aang just fuckin… wandered off? instead of willfully running away? bro you can’t take my boy’s agency like this
-i want a video of appa’s va making those noises into the mic. come on netflix do it it’ll be funny
-WHY is everything so WET all the time
-20 minutes in and i have yet to see the south pole. literally none of this is necessary to the story. you could cut all of it and nothing would change
-HERE SHE IS. FINALLY. IT’S HER
-no funny boat scene with sokka? insert no bitches megamind here
-oh they still have a boat scene. unfortunately it sucks ass
-WHERE IS PISSED OFF KATARA DECIMATING AN ICEBERG BY ACCIDENT
-seriously. they’re removing all the good scenes to fit more unnecessary action and/or melodrama filler in
-shitty zuko cameo
-WHAT is that scar. why is it so small. did he fall and get a scrape on his face? looks more like a scab than anything. 2/10
-baffling why the iceberg even reacted to katara when she’s apparently so fucking incapable she can’t even lift a water orb. they’re massacring my girl
-why does sokka want to leave this random child to die
-kanna!
-“it can’t be… this… is an airbender…..” i am rolling my fucking eyes
-iffy on this iroh so far but i’ll reserve judgement
-tumblr was right. zuko’s actor is absolutely putting his whole pussy into this. he can have rights
-how are NONE of these jokes landing. even the ones they directly crib from the original just… lose all impact
-why is kanna saying the intro dialogue randomly with no prompting. seriously these writers are SO. FUCKING. SHIT
-every emotional beat in this comes off more wooden than a fucking tree
-seriously. everything i could say about this just boils down to the wooden writing, unnecessary and poorly executed exposition, the action scenes shoehorned in for no discernible reason, inability to create any impact from anything ever, and the removal of all the good scenes from the original in favor of more unnecessary poorly written TRASH
-oh one more thing actually
-AANG TEACHES KATARA TO WATERBEND. GET OUT??
-basically
-they took all the good stuff out to fit in more melodrama and action, but their writing (and directing. and acting) is too shitty to actually sell said drama and their fight scenes are mid at best
-3/10
#and i’m only giving them THAT much credit because i’ve seen the original adaptation#sol speaks#text post#avatar: the last airbender#atla#atla live action#also there’s just. a whole bunch of unexamined sexism in here#like did you remove the sokka sexism arc because you thought it was too controversial or because you thought he was RIGHT?#phase 52
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My issues with the Avatar Live action show. (Spoilers)
before I get on with this… rant I guess, I want to stress that I do not “Hate” this adaptation, I actually think it’s pretty…. decent. Mixed in terms of being an adaptation but as its own thing i do think it actually is good. If a newcomer gets introduced to the franchise through this show, I’d mostly be okay with that (though would still stress to watch the original, especially hinting about the rest of the story if they’re really invested) before I go into my biggest problems I should quickly list its positives.
The characters, for the most part, are done well, they meet the core criteria of what made the original characters so beloved. The acting, for the most part, is good, overall the cast does a really good job at their respective roles. Costumes are amazing, sets, while not exactly 1:1, are still overall awesome. soundtrack is really REALLY good, stellar work all round. The action is not only great, it’s BRUTAL AS FUCK, it does not shy away from the themes of war and death and I love that 😈 some of the expanded editions to the lore are really interesting, big shoutout especially to the inclusion that zuko’s crew is also the battalion he defends in the war room, that was actually brilliant 👌 on top of that, references and inclusions of stuff from expanded material I mostly really liked, from the comics, to legend of Korra to even the kyoshi novels. As for the writing and story…. I can accept no adaptation is perfect and there will be changes, I think it follows the moments of the show decently and that the writing is… adequate.
overall rating for me is a decent… 6/10… almost was a 7 but… no.
okay now for the stuff that sucked!
The Characters that weren’t good:
Aang is not bad in this, character wise and acting is overall good, Gordon Cormier does a good job, he looks and sounds the part. My issues are how the character is written. Ill get into more about his biggest issues later on as it mostly has to do with writing and a few particular scenes, but for now I’ll harp on how repetitive and annoying his dialogue can be sometimes, way too many times has the character had the same “guilt scene” which hits the exact same beats: he sees devastation, he says “this is my fault”, he’s reassured it’s not. Again and again.
sokka is awful in this. And to be honest it’s not really the writings fault, Ian Ousleys portrayal does not do it for me, his line delivery is too monotone-ish, his emotional delivery is lacking, he has the same blank facial expression throughout the show. He has a decent one liner here and there, but the comedy and character is MILES away from the over expressive, hilarious and badass original.
zukos actor is decent just enough, and honestly it’s a little unfair to compare Dallas Liu to Dante Bascos performance, but admittedly I felt he was comparatively more underwhelming at times. Though if anything I was more annoyed at the look of his Scar. Don’t get me wrong, its leagues more noticeable than it was in the god awful movie adaptation… but it’s still not great. Remember how grotesque his scar is in the animated show, even at a distance, his skin is shrivelled, he can hardly open his eye, even his ear is half burnt off, they could of gone all out in showcasing his disfigurement, the greatest source of his self shame and most brutal showcase of his fathers cruelty and abuse… but no it’s just a dark red patch around his eye, it’s not even ugly to look at. Disappointing.
Bumi, while acted and portrayed really well by Utkarsh Ambudkar, is written very badly. His motivations have completely changed from the original, and no it is no where near as good, unlike in the show were he “toys” with Aang to teach him lessons about the journey ahead of him, offering wisdom and compassion to his old friend, keeping his identity a secret allowing Aang to realise who he is, making an emotional reunion when he realises another piece of his lost past is still alive: here Aang finds out immediately it’s him, and Bumi instead is pissed and petty that Aang left to the point HE TRIES TO KILL HIM, completely disregarding the point of the message and character from the original show. Oh and not to mention the ending scene with him, but again I’ll get to that scene later.
finally, biggest problem I’ll harp on the characters themselves is the diminishing, lack of focus and editing of the three protagonists flaws. Aangs childish immaturity, kataras inexperience, Sokkas rudeness and distrust. There are reasons why the show took these out or didn’t focus on them, but in my opinion this was a huge mistake to do. Character flaws are integral to character growth, throughout the original show we see the characters learn and grow with and out of said flaws to become more rounded and stronger characters, Aangs journey to embrace his destiny and responsibilities, Kataras growing wisdom and strength, Sokka accepting his wrongdoings becoming more open minded and accepting. Diminishing these ultimately take away a lot from these characters and it does them and the fans a huge disservice to outright ignore them at times.
Aang and Kataras bond is there… but it’s Seriously lacking!
I’m a Kataang shipper. Before I go into detail with this I think it’s important to point out a certain bias I might have with this, but regardless of any opinions about the original shows romantic themes, I’d still argue that Aang and Kataras relationship is one of the core and integral bonds of the original show (the others being Katara and Sokka, Zuko and Iroh, Aang and Zuko and Zuko and Azula (book 2 onwards) so getting this right is in my opinion important to any adaptation. Overall their relationship is fine in this iteration, but MAN it’s just not as good.
Imagine my utmost disappointment When in this version: Katara is not the first person Aang sees when he wakes up! Now I know that seems like a petty thing to harp on but really think back to the original show, how beautifully written their friendship was, how they constantly support and empathise with each other, how Aang is a source of Kataras hope, how Katara is an emotional rock for Aang when coming to terms with his loss and grief. All of it starts with the foundation of their first meeting in that first episode. After a hundred years of sleep, Katara accidentally discovers Aang (with Sokka) and rushes to save him, the first person Aang sees as he opens his eyes is her, he immediately, and essentially asks her out. Katara introduces him to her village, she’s enamoured by his playful attitude and abilities, there are hints of a blooming crush between them (mostly from Aang) they promise to explore the world together, they go penguin sledding, until finally, when Katara realises and breaks the truth about Aangs 100 year absence and slow realisation that everything and everyone he knew is likely gone, Katara tries to reassure him mentioning there may be a bright side: Aang responds with “I did get to meet you”. all of that build up and setup of the friendship (and budding romance) of our two leads is masterfully established in one, 23 minute long episode. Really think about that. It takes the original show 1 episode to set the core points of the two lead’s relationship in what takes this show AN ENTIRE SERIES TO PROPERLY ESTABLISH!
Not only is all of that practically absent in this iteration, but plenty of scenes and moments are either missing or lessened, Such as when Katara calms Aang out of the Avatar state, or how they begin to train and learn their waterbending together (more on THAT later), cave of two lovers is now given to Katara and Sokka?? (really missed the point of that episode) or how about the mutual understanding of each others grief through their own grief, oh yeah that’s another thing, in this version Katara, nor Sokka for that matter, ever mention to Aang that their mother is dead?! Not once. I don’t even think he ever knows, or maybe he finds out off screen? Big thing to not mention guys??
Now there are plenty of scenes in the show that do help build up their friendship here, but by missing core scenes, especially those from the first episodes, it just makes it harder for the show to establish that bond towards an audience, and again just pales in comparison.
No statue room???
I’ll be a little more brief here, but the fact that this moment is completely missing infuriates me. You have the quintessential moment where Aang is in full view of the scope of his legacy, a monument to hundreds of all the past avatars, a moment for our characters and the audience to visually realise the weight and burden that Aang Carries upon his shoulders… and you completely take it out??? What the actual FUCK???
Kyoshis premonition almost ruins the show!
as awesome and badass as Avatar Kyoshi was in this version, this one tidbit is by far not just a weird addition, it’s arguably one of the biggest fundamental flaws of the show, not as an adaptation, but the show in of it self. The idea apparently (according to behind the scenes comments) is that kyoshis premonition to Aang of the northern watertribes destruction is to give him more of an assentive to head “straight to the point”, removing the unnecessary detours and filler of the original. The problem with that is even for that reason, this addition is completely pointless, because Aang already has enough assentive to head to the north: LEARN WATERBENDING!!!
In the original show after Katara and Sokka save Aang from zukos ship in the 2nd episode, they establish that they must find Aang a water bending master so he can begin his first step in becoming the avatar, in fact rewatching the first few episodes, AANG MAKES THE SUGGESTION FIRST TO KATARA SO SHE CAN MASTER HER WATERBENDING! Even the god awful movie understood that that was enough reason to head north! And if you really want more reason and imperative for them to get there as soon as, why not just reiterate that there is a WAR GOING ON! The attack on the south, the genocide of the air nomads, accidentally bringing an invasion to Kyoshi island, these are all good enough reminders for the Gaang to showcase the need for Aang to head to the known one place in the world where Aang can possibly master an art integral to achieving his destiny.
But even worse than that, this addition seriously hurts the show going foward, because now, after Aang has been shown the impending doom destined for the north, he STILL detours from it, not once but twice! (And according to one gossiping bartender, possibly a few more times!!) in an attempt to try to showcase his nobility and compassion to always help those in need, every time he decides to stop to help a new problem, HE IS LITERALLY RISKING THE DESTRUCTION OF AN ENTIRE CIVILISATION!!! Priorities dude!!! It’s not like he’s given a time frame, for all he knows this premonition could happen at anytime, it could be already happening??? It is by far one of the biggest, if not THE BIGGEST flaw of the show.
Muddying the rules of the spirits and spirit realm
Aside from kyoshis future sight, too many instances does this show, in an attempt to expand ideas of worlds spirituality, often just make things more confusing. Another example is when Aang accidentally drags Katara and Sokka into the spirit world, which even with the reasoning they give it makes no sense whatsoever and it only serves an excuse to combine moments from other episodes into one. Or how about when wan shi tong… for some reason… explains that spirits can only talk to the avatar and only they can communicate with and talk to spirits… except that rule is completely ignored when Katara and Sokka can clearly hear what koh is saying? ooops???
Hai Bai has no agency or resolution in his inclusion here, he’s not even the central threat despite HIS forest being burnt. Instead of going on a full rampage against humanity for their destruction, he’s now just really angry about being wounded? Instead of hai bai kidnapping people, it’s now Koh, who while still really creepy in this version, his abilities are now greatly diminished. Instead of his lightning quick speed to remove the faces of anyone who show any ounce of emotion in his presence, here he can only prey on negative emotions, and is never shown to be especially fast (except the two jump scares). again it just pales in comparison to the intensity of the original scene.
Kuruk should know why his advice is horseshit!
while I like the inclusion of some details of the lore outside the original show, using it during Aangs scene with Kuruk significantly hurts his first scene, because now we have the writers completely miss the point and lessons of Kuruks life. Kuruks advice to “walk the path alone” to “distance himself from his friends” is not just obviously poor advice on its own, but considering that the past avatars are aware of events after their death, it especially doesn’t make sense coming from Kuruk! Avatar Kuruk HAD friends! the kyoshi novels go into detail about his closest companions as well as his secret deeds of hunting dark spirits. Yes Kuruk did it in secret and inadvertently and purposely distanced himself from the people he loved so that he could in his mind protect them, and that’s excusable because Avatars never have hindsight about some of the consequences of their actions, in fact past avatars often use their mistakes and their consequences as advice and warnings to the current avatar. KURUK SHOULD BE ADVISING THE EXACT OPPOSITE!!!
One of the major consequences of pushing his friends and keeping secrets was that when he eventually died mysteriously at a young age, his companions felt they had failed in their mission to serve and protect their friend, pushing one of them, Jianzhu, to fall into a path of political meddling and corruption, and being consumed with keeping his power and influence through back handed tactics like kidnapping, torture, intimidation and murder, eventually becoming Kyoshi’s earliest nemesis and one of her greatest enemies (highly recommend reading the Kyoshi novels 😍) Not to mention that Kuruks “advice” leads to an incredibly forced scene and trope where our hero attempts to push Katara away and “nobly distances himself to protect his friend”, only for the advice to be immediately ignored a few minutes later, making it entirely pointless.
AANG NEVER LEARNS WATERBENDING???
yes, through the entirety of BOOK 1 WATER, Aang never learns waterbending! Katara offers to show him some techniques she knows in one scene, but for some reason he’s hesitant to take her offer, which would have been interesting to explore, except they never really address it?? Worse even when they finally reach Pakku in the north, all that happens is that he’s kind of scolded for not starting his training, but not once is it seen or mentioned by pakku that he’ll teach him ANYTHING. If there’s enough time to have Katara shown water healing lessons as well as arguing and fighting Pakku to teach her combative techniques, WHY THEN DOES EVERYONE IGNORE TRAINING THE GOD DAMN AVATAR!!! The fate of the world rests on Aang learning the 4 elements, but for some reason they completely leave it out?
Now Katara is mentioned to teach him in the future like in the original, but the problem now in this version is that while Katara is gifted and talented, unlike the original show she’s never formally trained (outside of healing lessons) by Pakku or a master to warrant her to become Aangs official waterbending teacher. They are literally leaving the training of the most important person of their time to an AMATEUR!!!
a baffling diversion?!?!
Finally my last big problem with the show is the handling of the ending scene. Take in mind that the fire nation sends an entire fleet, no, hundreds upon hundreds of ships to invade, subjugate and snuff out an entire civilisation, and to take out the avatar, once and for all. Also consider the sheer loss of life and devastation that was unleashed by the ocean spirit upon them when zhao murdered the moon spirit, they got hit back hard and then some, honestly it was spectacular to watch! The problem, according to Ozai: “it was all according to plan”…..
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING FUCK?!?!?!
apparently it’s revealed that the North Pole wasn’t the “real target”, but instead a “clever ploy” to instead… invade Omashu?? First of all, who are you creating a diversion for??? We don’t see earth kingdom soldiers coming to assist the fight in Agna Q’ela? It’s not like we ever see waterbenders helping to defend Omashu when we were there earlier, it’s not like anyone outside the protagonists was aware of Aangs premonition (oh by the way why didn’t Kyoshi warn Aang it was a “diversion”??) WHO ARE FUCKING TALKING ABOUT???
and again, just to reiterate, you are saying you sacrificed an ENTIRE INVASION FORCE, big enough to destroy a whole society, which led to a huge loss of life and ships which YOU CLAIM was “to be expected”…. In order for you to take one city???? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING JOKING??? That’s not just bad writing, that is beyond STUPID!!! Oh and just to add, unlike in the show where Bumi willingly surrenders to avoid the destruction of Omashu, instead opting to wait for the right opportunity to free it later, saving his people doing so, here we see him bruised and bloodied after a siege! Yeah, one of the most powerful earth-benders in the world is taken out offscreen!!! CHRIST ALL BLOODY MIGHTY!!!
okay… rant over… 😮💨😮💨
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So Pocket Monsters Gen 9 Edition, or Pokémon Horizons, has aired 34 episodes this year, enough episodes to asses its quality thus far. And honestly, from the writing, the animation, the sound, the pacing, the ideas, and the characters including all the Pokémon themselves, this seriously might just be the best that PokeAni has ever been. It's already a far superior series to Pokémon Journeys, is at least on par with Sun & Moon, and on a technical level can be called better than even the Gen 1 era (The Beginning) of the original series! And it should go without saying that it's far stronger than anything PokeAni had to offer in Gens 2 through 6, where I strongly believe that the stuff that sucked about those series' always ended up outweighing the stuff that was solid in them in the end, sorry but not sorry.
And then there's Liko, who I could go on and on about why she's such a breath of fresh air and works fantastically as the lead of this series. But I won't, 'cause...that's sort of what this hot take concerns. With Liko being the first full-time main protagonist in a PokeAni series who is not Ash Ketchum (I say "full-time" to say Jimmy and Alain don't count here), it will naturally stand to reason that I'd think to draw comparisons between her as she's starting out and Ash in the Indigo League arc of the original series back when he was starting out. Not just trainer experience and battle-wise, but as characters.
So when I compare the two, and think on it deeply, as unbiased and objectively as I can manage, this is the conclusion I come out with.
Don't get me wrong, I would gladly and without a hint of hesitation take Liko any day over Ash from any of the Gens 3 through 8 anime, and that includes Ash from SuMo and Journeys who I actually liked! I'm beyond thrilled to have Liko as the protagonist of the current series instead of Ash, who'd really needed to be retired ages ago.
But neither my love for Liko nor my nostalgic adoration for Indigo League really factor into this. Between OG Ash and Liko, I find the former to be the slightly yet significantly stronger main protagonist than the latter. And it's primarily for a reason I couldn't even quite convey into thoughts or words until out of the blue, Suede returned to Youtube with a new video that just put it into clear perspective.
"Average kid who's really nice and sweet yet painfully average is going about his regular life when he suddenly recieves the CALL TO ADVENTURE through no fault of his own, usually through some kind of power that puts him above others. He's reluctant at first but through friendship or world-shattering stakes, he's won over, starts enjoying himself...." Switch the gender around and this describes Liko almost verbatim. She's much closer to what was usually the norm for young male protagonists in adventure anime, and I get the sense this was a deliberate choice similar to what was done with Avatar Aang and Avatar Korra, where the succeeding protagonist contrasts with the preceeding one. And that's another area where Liko works so brilliantly: she had to work up the courage to allow herself to be drawn into a new life by the call, as opposed to boldly but recklessly jumping at the call well before it had even actually come for her like Ash did after turning forever 10 years old.
However, there's another area of interest for Liko's character VS OG Ash's that Suede missed. Shall we call it the "Chosen One Factor?" You all know what I'm talking about, the trope in stories where the protagonist has been predetermined by fate to be the main character and to have a great big adventure where they realize their destiny, and usually due to the single factor of bloodlines; that they're related to someone big and important, so they must carry on that big and important family lineage in their own way. In Pokémon Horizons, it could not be more subtle that Liko comes from the blood lineage of Lucius the Ancient Adventurer, meaning that everything that has now happened to make her a trainer didn't simply just happen to her: it was destined to happen. It was, as Thanos would say, inevitable. And I in no way mean to suggest this is an inherently bad trope, that Horizons is doing it poorly with Liko, or that it's any worse off for doing it. I'm only saying that we see this thing done so frequently.
Ash Ketchum at the start of the original series, meanwhile? He's nobody. His father was a deadbeat who prioritized Pokémon training over raising a family. His mother gave birth to him while still very young and has to be both self-sufficient and a good parent to him all on her own. The last name "Ketchum" means jack shit to anybody in-universe. In fact, it's his chilhood friend/rival Gary who's the special somebody around town; he's the one with the big important family lineage, being the grandson of Professor Oak. Ash...is just a random 10 year old kid who's very passionate about Pokémon. More than that, the kid starts off as an absolute loser. He oversleeps and misses his chance to pick out one of the three Kanto starter Pokémon to be his first Pokémon partner. The Pikachu he's given doesn't get along with him at first. His sendoff party is dinky and low key compared to what Gary got. He has trouble dealing with the sort of low level wild Pokémon that most newbies would take down and/or capture in no time. He always thinks he knows what he's in for and what he has to do and has to be as a trainer who aspires to be "the world's greatest Pokémon Master" yet ends up missing several basic steps any new trainer has to take and has difficulty understanding information that could help him make those steps. His own Poke' Dex throws shade at him for being a "stupid traveler". This kid is a dense, thick-headed, ignorant boob and on top of that has got a heavily flawed personality. An absolutely disatrous little shithead, and I just fucking love him for it. In a sense he's actually quite like a younger precursor to Re:Zero's Subaru Natsuki, a young male who starts off with all the entitlement that a super special awesome and exceptional main character would feel is warranted only to find that the world does not exist to owe him anything and that he will have to struggle, suffer, learn, adapt, and perserve while being entitled to nothing because in truth there is absolutely nothing super special awesome and exceptional about him: he has to put in the work to make himself special, awesome, and exceptional. In its original conception and understanding, To Be A Master is about what's earned, not owed.
Now, as PokeAni dragged on and on and on and on AND ON with Ash still in the lead role, they messed up this initial setup with many occasions that seemed to contradict it and convey to us that actually yes, our main character IS a truly special boy because he just loves Pokémon more than any other mere mortal in this wourld could ever love Pokémon, that the world does exist to owe him shit and in fact mostly revolves around what he and his merry band of friends do, he encounters all the mythical and legendary Pokémon, he beats all the bad guys and shuts down the regional evil teams' evil plots, and he competes in all the Leagues of all the regions until he ends up the first ever Champion of one of them by winning its first ever League Tournament, and from there he gets to become the World's Strongest Master just like that. And while those major victories were legitimately earned and very rewarding to witness, it's a terrible shame they had to come after years of canon twisting Ash's character and function in the world of PokeAni inside out multiple times ad nauseum, and it had the unfortunate effect on many in the fandom, male fans especially, where they got overcome with this entitlement regarding the character, dead set on wanting to live vicariously through his experiences and project onto him as a power fantasy, wanting and expecting a consistently growing character who only gets better, smarter, savvier, more badass, more mature, and more respected the Poke' World over with each regional quest undertaken, and throwing hissy fits when the anime, due to various factors, did not deliver. This is what made the retiring of Ash's character and his replacement in the lead role by Liko such a sensible and positive direction for the anime to take and why I'm so, sooooo damn glad it's been taken.
So all in all, Liko >>>>>>>> Ash Ketchum for most of the anime, but the OG Ash Ketchum we had in Gen 1 >>>>> Liko in Horizons.
But both are superior to the player character of Scarlet & Violet.
#Pokemon#Indigo League#Pokemon Horizons#Pocket Monster#anime#Ash Ketchum#Liko#comparison#opinion#analysis
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Chris rewatches and liveblogs the awful The Last Airbender movie for the first time since it was released 13 years ago
ok I saw this once when it was in theatres when I was in high school and I never watched it again. I remember being disappointed and uncomfortable originally
I only remember Aang was pronounced differently and Katara was some blonde chick I remember literally nothing else so here we go
oh damn ok right away the bending animation is kind of giving but the weird cursive stylization of the element names in the intro… not a fan bc my bad Chinese reading self can’t read it and I wonder if that’s even like a real style lol I wouldn’t be surprised either way
Also like just KEEP the TV intro instead of plagiarising but a little to the left?? sorry I know I’m nitpicking
Why are Katara and Sokka like MAGA-white that’s SO uncomfy
Sokka is not giving me the correct vibes
Why would Katara go with Sokka to go hunting?? p sure that happened in the cartoon too but ???
Already changing my mind about the costumes and possibly the Sokka vibes
Okay Aangs tattoos fuck actually
Okay yeah the tone of this whole thing is so boring I can’t put my finger on it yet like something is DEFINITELY missing
Okay yeah the costumes suck
ZUKO??? why is his hair so boring why is his scar so tiny
Gran Gran is white too?? but all the other villagers aren’t lololol okayyyyy
First impression of the sets (like the SWT village were good) but actually they suck they make ZERO sense there are just like open windows and no door?? But it’s cold outside???
OH NO what did this film do to Appa I’m so sorry sweetie look how they’ve massacred my boy
IS THAT UNCLE IROH IM AHSJDKLFNFGSJSKD
EEROH again I guess that’s more accurate but WHY
The vibes in this movie are all off lolol how did Nickelodeon endorse this?????
Still not sure why this feels so flat like I really don’t care about anything happening?? Maybe bc the original show is so character driven and this movie hasn’t even let us get to know any of the characters?? I remember thinking the first time I watched this that it moves way too fast so I guess this all could come down to a pacing problem
Gran Gran’s explanation to like send them after Aang makes no sense at all actually
I know they were trying to be like accurate with the costumes (a laugh tbh) but I do think it was a mistake to get rid of the color associations
MOMO OH NO I’m so sorry sweetie
Again with the air temple set, the vibes are right but it doesn’t look quite like anything I ever saw in SEA or in research...
The sequence where he finds out the airbenders are gone is pretty good. Seems they could do more with that than in the show but okay now he’s having some weird vision with a dragon????
Wait Soe-ka? Knock it off w the names I s2g where is the franchise continuity
Are the gonna explain the weird ass dragon vision??
The FN ships are so bad
Zhao is not creepy enough. Asshole enough though.
I KNOW I’m nitpicking but even the food seems wack
Weird that the firebenders seem to be only able to manipulate fire here, not create it
I do wonder about the authenticity of the costumes. I’ve heard they suck but I’d be fooled which begs the question, why not just BE authentic to the cultures they’re supposed to represent
Is it the acting that’s flat here, the writing, or the directing? Whose fault is it??
Interesting choice to have the earthbenders imprisoned within reach of their own element. I kind of like that, showing how defeated their spirits really are
Of course they gave away Katara’s motivational speech
These bending motions CANNOT be based on real martial arts lmfao it seems so clunky
Wild how I just don’t care about any of these characters lol
The writing isn’t ALL bad like I actually like the way different plot elements were connected for the sake of the movie but the execution is just so bad
Princess Yue leads the NWT? Again… a Choice
Wild how they are leaving the best episodes out of this narrative. Like the ones that gave the characters life
LOVE that there’s an African-inspired Earth Kingdom village, I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot actually
Why does the Fire nation look like that?? Why does Ozai look like that??? Why are we introducing Ozai already I don’t like that choice either???
I HATE the Fire Nation aesthetic SO MUCH
Ozai is not evil enough AT ALL
I DO like the creative directions they took w diversity in the Earth Kingdom like in different towns
AGNI KEE I’m
Aww lil Azula is cute
What a weird ass way to fit in Zuko’s backstory. Again, I don’t find myself caring about it at all
Starting to really hate the bending actually. The elements don’t seem to be interacting w the movements of the bender at all
The statue room looks cool
The dragon again wtfff
The Blue Spirit. Cool but it doesn’t hit as hard bc we don’t CARE about Zuko or his past and tbh it probs won’t make any sense to a casual viewer anyway
Also why does his mask need to come with a wig I mean it looks so unserious
Iroh just creeps me out idek why
OH we’re blowing up Zuko’s ship NOW okayyy
Aww some Sokka/Yue vibes but it’s a real shame I don’t give a shit about this version of Sokka
I think one reason I don’t like this version of bending is it takes so much handwavinv before anything even starts happening
Not digging this NWT aesthetic either tbh
Pakku??? Why does he look like cheap knock off Theodin? Why is he like… nice???
Why is Aang trying to talk to this Dragon Spirit and not like… Roku?
Wild how the one thing they left the same from the actual show was how Zuko snuck into the NWT lol
Hate the spirit oasis, actually
Least helpful Dragon Spirit ever
Cool that iroh is the one who can make fire out of nothing (he obviously taught Zuko) but lolol what a random time to do that
Okay the scene between Yue and Sokka before she turned into the moon was nice. Probably the most emotion we’ve seen in the whole movie
More morbid that her body is still there though lol
And no Ocean Spirit to fuck things up??
Drowning someone w waterbending is very dark but actually a great touch
I like this idea of Aang mourning his people and using that to harness his waterbending and then he can beat the FN on his own without a spirit’s help. That’s nice.
Also the music for that scene was nice. The only good soundtrack all movie too
So he’s just scaring them with water?? Lmaoooooo not even like killing anyone they just all ran away?? that’s actually…. A fucking terrible plot point never mind
Sweet he gets another chance to like. Accept his role as avatar and bow back to everyone?
AZULA
Okay yeah that was AWFUL
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Some of ya'll don't have media literacy
I've not finished the series, nor am I going to. I've tried watching the Live Action and it fucking sucks. Episode 1 tells me everything I need to know. They murdered Aang's character growth and made him more serious rather than him act fucking 12 and want to just be a kid.
And they took that away. He is so rushed as a character that they practically cut most of seasons 1 and 2 that made him so great.
They also ruined Sokka because aparantly him being sexist and OUTGROWING IT was too problematic for the modern era. Like how is he going to get his ass beat by Kyoshi Warriors because of his arrogance and stupidity? How does he learn from it? We'll never know I guess.
I fucking hate modern writing because there's too much people calling things "problematic" in fiction it's retarded. People need to understand what made old shit good and enhance that. Actually what would be just better as a whole is reanimating the series for widescreen televisions and upping the resolution. They don't need to touch anything further.
One of the worst parts about all this is that aparantly people think this is "good" and they're fucking wrong. The point of Avatar was about growing up and growing as a person and learning from others.
This show is an abomination sent from Beelzebub who cannot fathom creating something as good as the original show so they take the original show and cut out things that made it good and called it a "masterpiece."
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i was wondering your thoughts on jaune as a character tbh. today i was thinking about atla and where it succeeded versus where rwby failed (especially because miles luna himself has compared rwby to atla multiple times).
one thing i disliked about rwby is that all four of the girls are super important in some way. ruby has silver eyes, weiss is the SDC heiress (richest company in the world), blake is WF leader’s daughter (also from a wealthy family), yang’s mom is a maiden. none of them are normal.
in atla, we have aang (the avatar), katara (who’s the last southern tribe waterbender… kinda?), toph (rich family daughter), zuko (firelord’s son) and sokka… who is completely normal. i like how they have a normal guy in atla which makes him relatable to the viewer.
the problem is in rwby, this normal guy is jaune. who ends up sticking along in the plot and being forced by the writers to be in situations which get him hate from the fndm. miles said jaune is partially inspired by sokka (dorky funny strategist type) but at the same time it means jnpr has to be part of the rwby adventures for jaune to be around. which makes people dislike jaune even more.
i kinda rambled but i was wondering yours thoughts on him? where did he fail where sokka succeeded and so on in your opinion?
He's fine on the surface but out of place if you look deeper.
This is more of a collection of scattered thoughts than anything, but to go at it:
I don't mind that everyone in team RWBY is special in some way. Is there something lost by not having a more "relatable" non-special character? Sure, but the girls are all from different enough backgrounds that you can get good worldbuilding and character interaction anyway...if you were a competent writer who cared about that kind of thing.
One thing about ATLA: I think Sokka is occasionally mislabeled as the "normal" guy when used as a basis of comparison with characters in other media. Sokka is the son of the Southern Water Tribe chieftain who gets Yue to fall in love with him almost immediately. The former comes up when he plans the raid on the Day of Black Sun. He's got prodigious talent with his boomerang, club, and sword - not exactly "normal," just not a bender like most of the main cast. The equivalent of a non-bender in RWBY to me is someone who doesn't have aura (or doesn't have it in levels high enough to be considered "combat ready").
The writers may have been inspired by Sokka but they missed how being a non-bender is not a non-starter in ATLA's combat whereas being auraless in RWBY very much is a non-starter.
So Jaune doesn't work on that level as a Sokka analogue, but he also just doesn't work as a character on his own! As many others before me have pointed out, it makes no sense that Jaune idolized his warrior lineage but was completely clueless when it came to aura in-universe. How did he fake his transcripts? Why did he wait until he was 17 or whatever to pursue huntsman-ing?
(Side note: Sokka's misogyny is called out explicitly in the narrative and he changes for the better. Jaune's bend towards toxic masculinity brought on by his own insecurities - exacerbated by Cardin - is never addressed. Like Weiss's racism, it's just set aside in a completely unsatisfactory lack of an arc.)
Jaune getting as much focus as he does has been talked to death. Suffice to say I agree that he gets too much. At first it was because the writers didn't know how to dump all the exposition on us and clumsily used Jaune to do it, then it was because...I guess Jaune deserved an arc more than the main characters? It got better in V7 but that goddamn scene in V8 brought that all crashing back down. There's a fundamental inability to use Jaune to boost the main girls' stories; he fails as a deuteragonist.
Don't even get me started on how Jaune's "strategies" suck. After V3, the show cannot write combat strategy to save its life. Like so many other character traits in this show, we're told Jaune has this talent but don't see it ourselves. we could...steal an airship?
He's a 5/10 character for me. Thoroughly okay but capable of getting worse if you stop to think - like some white bread that might actually be moldy if you squint.
#illusory-torrent#unofficial adam answers#rwde#jaune arc#plus his banana hair is dumb#i want to like him#truly i do. I don't like disliking a character because they're badly written#i prefer to dislike a character because the writer has written them to be that way#or because the writer failed to realize they wrote the character that way#not because the story's foundations are so shaky that the character shouldn't even exist as they do
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WiP Wednesday: The Tournament of Kingship
so I was actually working on a totally separate fic when this idea came to me and I was trying to figure out how to make it work in that ‘verse when I realized... I could just do canon lmao. So have post-canon Toph and Aang goodness.
After the war, Toph found herself a bit at loose ends. Having run away, she didn’t really have anything waiting for her after they ended the war. Sure, she could go see her parents… but really, why would she? Yes, she loved them. Yes, sometimes she even missed them. But no way was she forgetting the part where she’d been forced to invent a new form of earthbending in order to escape the people her parents had sent to kidnap her and bring her back into line.
She was willing to write to them (via Katara), willing to give them a chance to get to know her, but she was not stupid enough to willingly put herself back into a cage. She would not be seeing them in person – ever, because she couldn’t see.
At any rate, the months immediately after the war were strange, because Toph… wasn’t really needed anywhere. Sokka and Katara had eagerly returned to the South Pole to begin the work of rebuilding their tribe alongside their Father and Gran Gran, family reunited once more. Suki had fulfilled her promise to bring her warriors back home to Kyoshi Island. Aang, as the Avatar, was wanted literally everywhere and was going half mad trying to keep up with all the requests for his presence, zipping all over the world like a lunatic. Zuko, having newly been crowned Fire Lord, was working his butt off trying to reshape the Fire Nation and maintain the peace that still wasn’t quite trusted.
But Toph? Toph… didn’t have anywhere to go or anything in particular she needed to do or… really anything.
She was kind of… aimless, not really sure what she should be doing, so she just stuck close to her friends and ignored all attempts to talk about visits to the Earth Kingdom. In fact, she was avoiding the Earth Kingdom itself, because she just knew that if she was there, someone would have the bright idea to mention her parents being nearby and she just… didn’t want to deal with that.
As a result, she was pretty much always sticking around Sparky, because Sokka and Katara were both cool, but the South Pole was fucking freezing and had no earth.
Well. There was probably earth down there somewhere. And if it was there, then Toph Beifong could bend it. But she didn’t want to freeze her toes off just to learn a new form of bending again.
There was no danger of losing her toes in the Fire Nation and she enjoyed making uptight, racist nobles trip over themselves trying to figure out how to handle the personal friend of the Fire Lord, who was… well, Toph. Experimenting with the boundaries she could push was fun, but it did lose it’s charm after a while, especially when that while was spent doing nothing as her friend tried to drown himself in doing everything.
She barely even got to see Sparky some days.
He’d gotten used to her storming in and kidnapping him for an adventure, but there was a limit to how far Toph could push that. Zuko needed to be made to relax – but he also had a lot of work to do and some of it really couldn’t wait just because Toph was bored.
So when word arrived that King Bumi of Omashu had died, Toph wasn’t really doing anything in particular. Which meant she was the first one Aang found to tell the news to, and then he promptly burst into tears and left her trying to figure out how to play Katara’s role.
It was not a role she was comfortable with, but she did her best. She could understand why he was distraught. Bumi was all he had from his life Before and losing him brought back all the grief of losing everyone else he’d ever known and yeah, Aang had family around him, but he’d still lost his previous family and that just sucked.
So Toph awkwardly patted Aang on the back and let him cry into her shoulder and desperately wished that he’d found someone else first, because anyone would be better at this than her.
Thankfully, Zuko found them (eventually). He immediately wrapped Aang in a warm hug and let Toph slip away to find non-snotty clothes.
By the time she returned, Aang was in the stage of blubbering where he was starting to calm down and Zuko was walking him through some breathing exercises. They turned to her and Aang managed a smile.
“Sorry, Toph,” he said, wiping his face. “Um, actually, I came here to find you to give you this.”
Aang held something out in his hand, but Toph couldn’t tell what it was.
“Oh. Uh, it’s an invitation. Bumi wrote it for you before he–” he cut himself off, breathing deeply and then clearing his throat.
“What’s it an invitation to?” Toph asked cautiously.
“The Tournament of Kingship in Omashu.”
“The what?” Zuko asked.
“It’s – it’s the way that the King of Omashu is chosen. It’s how Bumi became King. Earthbenders from all over the Earth Kingdom compete for the crown and the strongest becomes King,” Aang explained. “Bumi invited you before he… yeah.”
“Why?”
“Um. Well, the King of Omashu is the Strongest Earthbender in the World and obviously that’s you, so…”
Toph’s eyes narrowed, and she felt Aang’s heartbeat spike in response. He wasn’t lying. But he wasn’t saying the full truth.
“Sparky, what’s the invite say?”
Zuko plucked the card from Aang’s hand and read, Hey Brat, if you want to call yourself the Best Earthbender in the World, then you’d better come wipe the floor in Omashu to prove it. With me gone, you might actually stand a chance.
Toph puffed up in offense at the very idea that she needed him out of the way in order to be victorious. Admittedly, they’d never gotten the chance to fight, so she couldn’t swear that she would win against him – but he couldn’t either. Their reputations both held them as the best, but Toph would never get the chance to see if he deserved that title.
Having spent the last few months doing exactly nothing, Toph really wished that she’d made some time to at least spar with Aang’s old friend. It would have been interesting, whichever way the match went.
They would never know now.
Toph’s lips pursed. “All right, where’s this tournament?”
“In Omashu, of course.” Aang’s demeanor was dimmer than usual, but he was upbeat and the relief she felt at that was absurd.
Well. Seemed like she’d be going back to the Earth Kingdom after all. And so close to home, too. No way that would end well, but like hell was she going to let someone else claim the title of Best Earthbender in the World!
“Well, let’s get packing for Omashu, then!”
She could feel Zuko’s wince and apology dripped off his words. “While I’d love to watch you beat people up, I really can’t leave the Fire Nation right now.”
Toph frowned. “You’re not allowed to work yourself to death just ‘cause I’m not here to stop you,” she threatened.
Zuko huffed a laugh. “Don’t worry, my staff have taken to following your example and pestering me about things like eating and sleeping.”
“Good.” Toph punched him.
“I have no doubt you’ll win,” Zuko said, no hint of a lie in his voice or his pulse. “So I look forward to working with the new King of Omashu when you’re done.”
“I’ll invite you to my coronation,” Toph promised.
“Guess it’s just you and me, then, Toph,” Aang said, bouncing on his toes. “We can take Appa whenever you’re ready.”
“Ugh.” For all that Toph loved Appa, she very definitely still hated flying on Appa. “Yeah, all right, lemme get my stuff.”
What felt like far too short a time later, it was time to leave her trusty earth and allow her senses to be narrowed down to Appa’s saddle. Zuko waved as they took off, according to Aang, and then they were headed towards the Earth Kingdom. For Toph, it would be the first time since the Day of Sozin’s Comet that she’d be returning to those shores.
Aang didn’t suggest a detour to pick up Suki or Sokka and Katara, and Toph couldn’t quite bring herself to ask, so it was just the two of them for the duration of the journey.
She really hoped he didn’t cry again, but his friend had just died. He probably would.
Fuck.
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Redemption arc squad for the bingo (Acxa/Farnese/Zuko/Riven/etc)
Redemption Arc squad yes (Did not include Zethrid and Ezor cause redemption - for what? Doing hot girl shit?) To start, here's the original so people have ease of access to see.
Send me more asks if you'd like me to say more.
First, Acxa
Unsurprisingly, she's the one who gets the bingo. Excluding a few others in the fandom, people get her wrong like the amount of parentfication she gets in the fandom is frankly insane why can't fandom be normal about her (saying this, as I proceed to not be normal about her). Her arc is great, and one of the few in vld that made sense, surprisingly enough. Only reason I don't give her the best is cause Haggar/Honerva is there. Of course saying so would be hitting the wasp's nest. She definitely should've gotten more screentime, and they wasted the fact that she worked with Haggar in s8 especially. Keith knew she was with Haggar in the Kral Zera no one bothered to ask her anything??? We should've gotten a backstory flashback in act 2 in my opinion. The way she went around backstabbing people like 10 times but you know she wasn't planning this shit out is the funniest thing what is wrong with her indeed.
Next, Zuko
Zuko, I don't have much opinions about as he was written very good and I'm pretty much satisfied with how the writers went about him. I'd say he gets top spot in Atla for best writing cause Aang's near perfect arc was messed up with the dumb thing to have his avatar state reopened by some random rock. Especially when the world building established that it was an emotional-psychological-spiritual thing. In that sense, Zuko was consistently the best. Zuko's most popular pairings suck and I almost forgot to put this cause my atla fandom experience was literally ten years ago but then I remembered zukk@. Zut@ra I never liked which is rich coming from me who likes friggin Rivelia but my excuse is that my fandom experience was shaped by exposure to that friggin ship war from way back then and that spoiled a lot for me. Katara deserves better and she's not a fixer, at least, not for Zuko she would. Fandom woobification besides that, annoys me especially when he can get all toxic masculinity sometimes (this was a thing established at the Beach ep). His arc is one that I'm always referencing so you could say I'm pretty obsessed with it. If you'd ask me about him 8 years ago I feel like I'd say more but I'm long overdue for an atla rewatch so I'd have to refresh.
Now Farnese
Farnese has one of the more interesting arcs in media I've seen recently. She's a bitch with little freudian excuse and does a lot of horrific things to boot. And YET her redemption arc is so so good Miura was a master at his craft Rest in Peace. I think she'd benefit more from screentime but this is just me wanting a good Berserk adaption post golden age. Her best character work is when she works with Casca and Schierke imho.
Finally, Riven
Riven I love a lot but she hasn't reached Meow-Meow stage to get the bingo (for League, that award I think, would go to Irelia). Her fandom reception is weird though, but that depends on who you look to. The cismale fans are really gross with her, and the friggin battle bunny skin is atrocious. The original that is. Which was a fan-inspired skin by the way. That and her popularity among this cohort really messed with her characterization, even in the writers room cause I'd feel like she should be Butch, but cause of it has since seen a more femme-mization in her splashart and other media. As with most non-arcane characters she needs more lore. I'd like to see a Zelda styled game for example, where she tries to atone for her war crimes in Ionia by helping people etc. Besides that I could see her working with Rell, Irelia, others. Sentinels of Light did her so dirty worse than Irelia for sure (maybe not as bad as Pyke or Rengar, but still). There were so many ways to handle that but they did her and Irelia's arc in the most superficial way that I'm dog-bites-cage-rail.jpg all about how it could've been done better. Btw, her popular ships suck cause they are with Yasuo, who I don't really like, and *shudders* Zac. Rivelia is next on the list after that but I do like that, but I have ~ issues ~ with how it was handled but also most fandom content for it is not my cup of tea at all (WHERE IS THE SPICE???).
Thanks for the ask Cat!
For everyone else, here is the original post.
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