there are so many amazing and powerful benders in atla but what i love about zuko is that whether or not he can use his bending in that moment has zero (0) bearing on how much he’s going to absolutely kick your ass. no bending? that’s fine - he’s got swords. no swords or bending? that’s fine - he’s literally just going to beat you up. if you’re REALLY unlucky then you get all three. as a treat.
strongly dislike athena. because how are you gonna construct a daughter. someone who seemingly perfect. so perfect that they don't wound your pride. but refuse to acknowledge her existence for years. and then give her a crumb of a mother's approval. only to disown her like a year later. and then send her on a quest that no child of your has ever come back from. so much for the goddess of wisdom.
"The rain obviously was very atmospheric and for my taste I would have had thunderclaps all over the place! But Ken [Branagh] was keen not to overdo those tropes. And hopefully we found the sweet spot of having some fun but without overdoing it. But again, it all leads into this: the house has been there longer than the humans that are currently inhabiting it. The weather itself is subsuming the house and the house is sinking. It's rotting, it's leaking, it's groaning. The electrics are dodgy. You have the feeling that anything you touch might be the last thing you ever do. Just to give it that jagged, dangerous feeling of hum, of atmosphere, of the danger that they're cut off from the outside world and reason."
- Lucy Donaldson, the editor of A Hauting in Venice (Art of the Cut interview, September 21 2023)