i’ve always kind of assumed that lo and li are azulon’s younger twin sisters and that’s why they were foisted off on azula, because she’s also a younger sister to the crown prince. but the fact that we never actually see them firebend is strange, because it implies either that nonbenders are instructing one of the greatest firebenders in the world, or that they are firebenders who simply do not firebend. and i think that the latter is more interesting, because it reflects how their position as elderly women devalues any firepower they might provide to the empire, passive and subdued even as they train ozai’s favorite weapon.
they are the ones to most overtly illustrate azula’s precarious relationship to femininity, after all. for example, noting the position of her hair after she successfully lightningbends in “the avatar state,” or emphasizing azula’s beauty when they introduce her in “the awakening.” and it’s clear that azula doesn’t really like them, dismisses and avoids them whenever she gets the chance. she can’t even tell them apart. their very existence is almost a humiliation. a reminder to azula that this is who she is destined to become once she lives past her usefulness. not the imperious azulon, her namesake, raised above on a fiery dais, but his sisters, insignificant and functionally powerless.
so of course “almost isn’t good enough,” of course “one hair out of place” is a failure. the only way azula can prove her worth to the empire she has devoted her entire self to in a way that matters is, perhaps, by being perfect, by being better and stronger than the discarded women who came before her. but that, too, is a delusion, that any amount of excellence will reward her in a way that compensates for the erosion of her very humanity. and yet, it’s all she has to cling to. so she gives it her all to excel within a system that will never really care about her because she has deliberately been made incapable of imagining an alternative. of simply recognizing the system for the failure that it is, conceptualizing a world beyond the bars of her gilded cage, and leaving.
337 notes
·
View notes
I saw your tags on the post about trick or treaters not speaking and I am v interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the concept of “developmental delays”! I‘ve seen the idea that disability is a construct, but I’m not as familiar with the idea that development is also a construct. You have really great takes as an educator and someone who like, actually GETS how kids work, so I am interested in your thoughts!
I also know that posting on this subject might be poking the bear, so it is 1000% cool if you would rather not comment 💜 Tysm!
Oh I'm happy to talk about it! I love talking about this stuff, thank you for asking me to 💙
This isn't exactly new ground; there's been plenty of research into and writing on the subject, and deconstructing "development" as a static concept was, ironically, a huge part of my most recent development class.
The idea is that our understanding of "benchmarks" of development, which informs the larger concept of development as a whole, is heavily rooted in the assumption that Western culture is The Standard. We prioritize walking, talking, reading, and writing, which means we cultivate these skills in our children from a young age, which means they develop those skills more quickly than they do others.
To use one of my favorite examples from Rogoff, 2003, Orienting Concepts and Ways of Understanding the Cultural Nature of Human Development:
Although U.S. middle-class adults often do not trust children below about age 5 with knives, among the Efe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, infants routinely use machetes safely (Wilkie, personal communication, 1989). Likewise, Fore (New Guinea) infants handle knives and fire safely by the time they are able to walk (Sorenson, 1979). Aka parents of Central Africa teach 8- to 10-month-old infants how to throw small spears and use small pointed digging sticks and miniature axes with sharp metal blades:
"Training for autonomy begins in infancy. Infants are allowed to crawl or walk to whatever they want in camp and allowed to use knives, machetes, digging sticks, and clay pots around camp. Only if an infant begins to crawl into a fire or hits another child do parents or others interfere with the infant’s activity. It was not unusual, for instance, to see an eight month old with a six-inch knife chopping the branch frame of its family’s house. By three or four years of age children can cook themselves a meal on the fire, and by ten years of age Aka children know enough subsistence skills to live in the forest alone if need be. (Hewlett, 1991, p. 34)" (pg. 5)
In the US we would view "letting an 8-month-old handle a knife" as a sign of severe neglect, but the emphasis here is placed on the fact that these children are taught to do these things safely. They don't learn out of necessity, or stumble into knives when nobody is watching; they learn with care, support, and safety in mind, just like children here learn. It makes me wonder if Aka parents would view our children's lack of basic survival skills with the same concern and disdain as USAmerican parents would view their children's inability to read.
Do we disallow our children from handling knives because it is objectively, fundamentally unsafe for a child of that age to do so- because even teaching them is developmentally impossible- or is that just a cultural assumption?
What other cultural assumptions do we have about child development?
Which ties in neatly with various social-based models of disability, particularly learning and, of course, developmental disabilities. If your culture doesn't value the things you are good at, and you happen to struggle with the things it does value, what kinds of assumptions is it likely to make about you? How will it pathologize you? What happens to that culture if it understands those values to be arbitrary, in order to accommodate your unique existence?
174 notes
·
View notes
So there's an actual in game reason you can't get lynel weapons anymore??
So I was looking over the monster statues, just examining the design, when I notice something I'd seen but never really twigged:
Those are nuts and bolts. Huh. That's not natural, that's been added on. In fact, you can still see part of the original scratchy lynel horn from botw underneath, even if it has mutated a bit like all the other horned monsters.
See, lynels, with lizalfos in a lesser way, are the only enemies in the game with the intelligence and cunning to forge weapons. A lizal can only manage one boomerang, shield or bow with varying spikes and occasionally repurpose some hylian armour (and often loot anyway), but lynels are capable of creating their own unique metals and using it to completely outfit themselves. Armour, bows, shields, spears, clubs, and swords, complete with sheaths and harnesses and decoration!
But in totk the particularly pointy ones are missing, leaving only shields, armour, and bows. Their weapons were subject to the Decay as well, but instead of trying to use them anyway, what did they do? They broke down their own weapons and repurposed them as enhancements to their own horns! Extra defence and a new devastating attack!
But... For what reason? They could have kept using those weapons just fine, everyone else is! It probably would have been more practical to start attaching things to the end, like the goblins have all started doing (albeit with mixed results, they seem to inordinately favour mushrooms). Why would the most feared enemy in the game feel the need to put more points into defence and intimidation, even sometimes utilising the rock armour?
What would they be feeling the need to so strongly defend from, even to the point of sacrificing huge attack power over it?
...
Link. It's Link.
The 5 nothing hero of hyrule, who built a whole community of speed running, styling on, brutally murdering lynels almost exclusively again and again and again. Moldugas, hinox, talus, they haven't changed a bit! They weren't at the center of every flashy slow mo clip since the first game came out!
But lynels in totk are running scared, they're building bigger horns to look scarier and armour to hide in, because once they need to get their short range weapons out its already over, or maybe link will just stop farming them for top tear weapons XD.
Tldr: unlike other monsters, which have branched out to kidnapping, riding flying monsters and rolling big spiky balls, lynels have gone entirely the other direction in order to try and scare the hero off after the last round of stylish massacres, and attached their old decayed gear to their horns.
Tldr tldr: botw link is the reason you can't get lynel weapons in totk because he scared them too much.
213 notes
·
View notes
Hello to my fellow Americans! I'm sure a lot of you, like me, feel angry and helpless about the situation in Gaza, especially since our own government is enabling a genocide by providing aid and weapons to Israel. Well, one way you can help is by contacting your congressional representatives!
Go to https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials to get a list of your elected representatives complete with their emails, their mailing address for letters, and their office phone numbers.
(Snail mail letters are most effective!)
Do not say "nothing I do matters". That is a disservice to the people of Gaza. We Americans are the ones who can most effectively put pressure on our own government. And of course we can continue to protest and boycott too. We must do everything we can.
98 notes
·
View notes