#“aang isn't old” my guy is 112

[stardustamaryllis78]

Aang and Aaravos are both old guys who mastered all elements/primal.

Both Avatar and Aaravos begin with A.

Just a food for thought.

[achillesmonochrome]

Why the New Version of Bumi Doesn't work (for me)

Here is the funny thing: I could had really liked this angle.

Look I love angst, anyone who has read my stories can tell you that much, I love writing about resentment and hate, and I enjoy the idea of exploring the bitterness of characters. In paper, this should work wonders for me, specially because Bumi kind of got on my nerves when he was first introduced in the animated show.

And is not like it doesn't make sense; he was the same age as Aang when the war started, and we don't know how he became king (was he always suppose to be a prince? was any other way? at that age this happened?) but seeing war at such a young age can affect a person, let alone when your entire life as a king, you had needed to be in a way as the leader, it is tough.

However...he being bitter feels so much more hollow when you remember Aang ended in this mess by accident.

I am putting this as a reminder because I swear for the life of me that the show doesn't remember this either by the attitude they have later on.

Aang didn't pretend to run away from his responsibilities, he just wanted to take some air in order to think, and got caught in a freak accident.

Let me put an hypothetical scenario to really sink in how much this shift the situation.

Imagine a single parent needs to run some errands, and leaves their 12 yo child in charge of looking over the oven because they are preparing a roast. Then the child decides that they don't want to watch over the food and decide to go out and play with some friends. The roast burns and starts a fire that almost burns the entire house.

Now let's go to a second scenario, similar to the first one, yet instead of the kid deciding to leave the house to see their friends, they go upstairs, and open a window to watch the scenario, fully intending to just be there for a minutes and then go back watching over food. Then, by some weird accident, falls from the window and is unconscious on the floor; which makes the roast get on fire and almost burns the house down.

In the first scenario, when the parent comes home and is furious with their child for what they did, you can understand why they are so angry. You may want to argue that they should be more understanding because is a child that shouldn't need to worry about those things; but you can understand why the parent would be pissed and be scolding their child pretty harshly.

However, if in the second scenario the parent reacted like if the first scenario happened, I think anyone would feel the parent is completely out of place and incredible cruel, heck you may want to fight the parent, I know I would.

And this is what makes the new change on Bumi feel so much worse.

It frustrates me because this could had been SO GOOD! Like, imagine if Aang HAD run away, and then sees Bumi the only person from his old life that is still alive, but now his friend is bitter, he is angry at him because he left, because Bumi lost his entire childhood and soul in this war, and is HIS FAULT!

Aang would not only need to grapple with the weight of his actions on the world, on people he never knew and had been marked for his actions, he would need to deal with someone that was important for him hating him for what he did.

Instead, we have an old guy being angry at a kid for getting lost in a storm. We have a 112 old man beefing with a 12 yo because he kid needed some air.

Look, I am not saying people haven't been angry at things even when is kind of unreasonable, is part of human nature, it happens; but I feel by making this an accident, it removes the most interesting part of this conflict.

And what we are left is...pretty cliche.

~The power of friendship~

I am not going to pretend "Things aren't always what they seem," isn't something that hasn't been told hundreds of times in fiction, but I feel if that has been told hundreds of times, the power of friendship has to be by the thousandth at this point.

In the animated show, Bumi shows Aang, in a pretty creative way (considering this lesson is normally shown with "person looks bad but is really nice!") that you need to think outside the box and look for more than appearances; this is something that actually Aang carries with him for the rest of the show, looking for an unusual master rather than being okay with any teacher.

The show isn't over (who knows if it would have more seasons but I am betting on it,) so who knows the repercussions it may have later on. Right now, it doesn't feel like much, specially considering was Aang teaching this lesson to Bumi, rather than Bumi teaching something to Aang.

Also, this may just be, but-

WHIPLASH!

(I am sorry for the random old meme, I had to.)

I know this Bumi has proven to be unstable in ways that the animated Bumi wasn't (he was random but he was wise and had a thought process behind the madness,) but even on that context it feels like Aang showing him how he never forgot about Bumi is not enough.

He goes in an entire rant about how day after day, year after year, he was taking hard choices, looking like he has been harbouring this resentment towards Aang for a while, that it was something that has really gotten to him.

But Aang shoes one whistle and is like...is fine, we are friends now :3

Aang doesn't even explain to Bumi that what happened was an accident (Which would make the situation much easier to digest,) nah, just one whistle and is fine.

Seriously?

So basically we remove the biggest reason why this could be a more meaningful conflict, we change it for a much more cliche version than the original (That is already saying something,) which who knows if it would have any impact in the future, and is also gone pretty quickly for how it was made to be a big deal.

Just...wow.

Again, I wouldn't mind changes on adaptation, I actually would prefer if live actions did more changes because if I wanted to watch the same thing I would watch the same thing.

But when you have a change like this one which is for the worse and not the best executed, then what's the point?