#(and asking the question of what does villainy mean in this context)

[marinecorvid]

blorbos from my brain

[zukkacore]

"Why do you like Starbreaker?"

me, internally: The themes introduced by Porter's godhood and Jace's servitude toward him are genuinely interesting. So much of Junior Year concerns itself w/ fairness n personal autonomy n devotion n worship n making your own meaning. The idea that Jace and Porter "have always been a duo" n the fact that Brennan has been holding onto this reveal since SY means that Jace was retooled to exist FOR porter. Porter's quest for godhood eclipses anything else that could have mattered about jace, his purpose becomes serving Porter on both a textual n meta level. On both levels he is contorted into someone alien to himself. Even though he is a character with few lines, Jace's voice in freshman year compared to Junior year feels distinct, he sounds younger, he sounds like he's looking for connection, he honestly sounds like a pretty recent hire, and in that context is it not pitiable what happened to him? Does that not make him similar to Sandra Lynn, a young person who was exploited by someone older than her and who uses religion as a tool for control? And yet the tone over and over again treats him with ambivalence in a world that is obsessed with fair. The text over and over again wants to reiterate this idea of characters getting to make their own meaning, but what does it mean to be a sequel to someone else? To be a footnote in their vision? Jace's life is a decision a GM made, he is Porter's sequel on a textual and meta level. He is continually denied interiority within the text (perfect example is sophmore year where teachers are not allowed to be hirelings when Jace is proposed than an immediate workaround is made for Gilear to come with the Bad kids). He never had a choice but to be a follower to the god of war because the other option was deathly silence, a prop or a martyr like Lucy or Yolanda. Is being remembered fondly and uncomplicatedly despite your flaws but being deathly silent better than being corrupted? The question of Jace's motivation is continually left unanswered n in that, part of the Starbreaker thought experiment is wondering how exactly Jace slots into this Plan, into Porter's life. He could simply be a lackey, sure, but is being forced to be a lackey for a god not in a way its own form of worship? To imagine Jace's subservience to Porter as a kind of love, a kind of toxic old man yaoi if you will, is maybe a way to play at a world where he gets a sense of purpose, or some kind of love in return, even if that life is fucked n compromised n broken, because he was asked "do you want this life" n he said yes. What does it mean to be a person who is contorted into villainy without a choice when the very undercurrent of your world is telling everyone else "there's always a choice!"? When the text condemns you for evil if you only ever can exist as a tool? Before Porter became Jace's world, he was practically egoless, no matter what tone his dialogue takes on. Every scene he's in, he's w/e the situation demanded of him, taking up no oxygen in the room w/out even a memorable gimmick to make him distinct n funny. Pure function. It wasn't a big life but it was his. Was wanting to live, being content to be a footnote to the Bad Kids the sin that condemned Jace stardiamond? Or was wanting to live even if he no longer was recognizable to himself the sin that condemned him? Or is it the fact that he enables cruelty, and is that fair when characters who are horrible in their own ways get a pass as long as they are fun and funny and memorable? Is his life better now that he is more of a presence in his cruel and twisted but albeit slightly more memorable state, if his life now condemns him to be hated forever? Does Jace get power from his deal with Porter? Is getting a time in the spotlight of the narrative its own form of power? Is Jace happy serving Porter? Would Jace be happy loving Porter? Did Porter give jace new life by destroying the old jace, by making sure all paths lead straight back to him? Is Starbreaker just our way of trying to say imagine Jace Stardiamond happy?

what I say: haha idk toxic co workers fucking is hot

[vibratingskull]

Hello there, I dunno if you remember but I'm anon who wrote in to you recently saying that I'm relatively new to the Thrawn fandom (I was asking about what clothes he wears other than his uniform lol).

I just wanted to ask your opinion on the differences the differences between different versions of the character (If that's OK?).

I understand that he is still a villain of the story (I mean he does still work for the Empire at the end of the day) but the scale of villainy seems to slide around depending on which interpretation.

The new canon books, is depicted as being more "grey area ish" in general and seems to be the "best of a bad bunch" kind of with regards to imperial officers. (While obviously still being party to some pretty terrible things).

I've not read Heir to the Empire or the other Legends books but I was reading about that story and he seems much more straight up villainous in that series it seemed like a big contrast?

I know that in Rebels, he also comes across as more evil, but from what I've seen online, most people seem to think that it's an inconsistency between Tim Zahns writing and Filonis?

I understand that this has been debated a fair bit online. I was just curious to hear your take as I like your works :) Do you think there's some retconning involved, or is it dependant on the perspective of who's telling the story? Or who is in charge of writing the media eg Tim Zahn vs Filoni?

Like I said I'm still a bit newish to Thrawn so still figuring it out 😅 .

This turned out to be longer than I expected lol. Feel free to ignore if you don't feel like responding 🙃

huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh... I'll be honest I am terrible at this kind of exercise, so 'I'll try to be concise and actually make sense 😅

I feel like Tim and Fil write him differently (I'm team book forever), but it is a timeline question: Where Thrawn is in his life, and in what context he is.

Its just that Fil write him like he was in the first trilogy (Heir of the Empire) of Legends when he is older and in a very specific context while Tim had the occasion to write him at different stage of life and confronts differents ideal, political structures and ideas.

Young Thrawn has a spark you wish would not go extinct while Older Thrawn is wiser in the way of wars, way more experienced in life and battles. They wrote him at two very different points of his life.

We also need to consider the context: Rebels/Heir to the Empire/Ashoka are from the Rebellion pov, Thrawn IS an enemy, the man to kill, we do not come to those medias to root for the villains but to have the comforting confirmation that Good will prevail over Evil, so why waste time fleshing the big bad guy in a more sympathetic life?

Thrawn 2017 and Thrawn Ascendancy however are from Thrawn's friends Pov, Ar'alani, Samakro, Vanto, Faro... People he knew personally and bonded with, their recollection will be way more sympathetic and forgiving of his actions.

What I find interesting is that the idea of a younger more merciful Thrawn dates back from Legends in fact! Thrawn's personality from Outbound Flight (very good book, highly recommend) is very reminiscent of the two new trilogies, especially Ascendancy because the context and timeline match.

So Tim really had in mind that this promising young man, this military genius who was ready to welcome and help humans on his ship, to help an endangered species to reclaim their own planet (with ulterior motives, granted) while the rest of his species would just kick them out or take them as slave for themself will someday turn into that old Admiral with nothing less to lose, ready to destroy entire worlds for his own goals and reduce entire species into slavery.

And it is at that point of the timeline that Filoni starts to use Thrawn for canon Star Wars.

Does that mean that Filoni really understood Thrawn character? No, not really. I think he understood him on a shallow level, he did say he did not read the last trilogies, probably not Outbound Flight either, only Heir to the Empire when he is """at his worse"""

Like do I think book Thrawn would have allied himself with witches? No

Would I think he would be okay to trap his soldiers in an endless loop of dying/resurrection to keep fighting until he can escape? HELL NO

Did I facepalmed myself watching Ashoka? More than once.

But Tim said in interviews he liked Filoni's interpretation of his character, so what do I know? (also we don't know how free Tim was to say his real opinion during the interviews, so take it with a grain of salt.)

Filoni may play all he wants with Thrawn, but he cannot take my books away from me and I'll keep re-reading and cheering for the bad blue guy till my death

TLDR : They write him at completely different points of his life and Filoni's grasp on the character is very shallow

[zalrb]

i am so so sorry if you have been asked this before but i have some trouble finding posts. but could you please shed some light on your thoughts on a good villain origin story, what makes a redemption arc compelling and what I'm most curious about : what a good morally grey character looks like?

OK, sure. So, for a morally grey character, actual complexity is something that is necessary. A go-to character for me would be Juan in Moonlight.

Juan [is] a man who loves Little 

he’s the first person (and perhaps the only person) to tell Little/Chiron/Black it’s OK to be gay, 

he gives Little a safe space

and he’s also a dealer who sells his mother drugs,

causing dysfunction in Little’s life, feeding one of the reasons why Little needs a safe space away from home at all

So, Juan is a morally grey character because he is not simply "bad" or the "villain", he clearly has true affection for Little and does what he can to provide him what he needs, but he is also not simply "good" considering that his vocation is one that directly destroys Little's family and most likely other families in the community, and though the movie never gets into Juan's backstory, we can infer that he's not simply a drug dealer out of greed, he is doing what he needs to do to survive but at what cost? The types of questions his character and his role generate are what make him a good morally grey character.

Or so many of the characters in Mad Men who make choices that can be understandable with context but aren't wholly moral or right.

In terms of a good villain origin story, for me

This is an odd example because I thought the origin story for the villainy was understandable/good but hated the kind of villain ths character becomes after the origin story because it was so unnecessary, but in Spartacus, there's Tiberius.

When we first meet Tiberius, he's gentle, not much of a fighter, and he has this intense bond with his friend Sabinus, which was strange because they never made them lovers even though Spartacus did not shy away from mlm/wlw ships at all, and yet they clearly weren't platonic either, anyway, they have a really strong bond

and Tiberius' father, Crassus, who was in charge of the army meant to crush Spartacus' rebellion realized that his army was too weak, his son was too weak because they retreated during a battle rather than stood their ground and fight so he decides that in order to win the war, his army has to be more afraid of him and the consequences that he will bestow on them than Spartacus so he implements decimation where the army was split into different groups, each of them had to draw from lots and whoever drew a stone would be beaten to death by the other men in his group, and he sends his son to be a part of it, which is already traumatic

but then during decimation, Sabinus is the one who must be beaten to death

and Tiberius has to lead the charge

and I believe does the final blow killing him

and at the end, he goes to his father and is like,

and he holds onto that day throughout the rest of the season and carries the stone with him

and after decimation, he's a monster, and like I said, while I don't like how they made him a monster, like the things that he did, I understood how that experience would make a villain because even though it's using "my friend/lover" died and "my dad was mean" tropes, it's not generic, the sheer brutality of what happened and his role in it has me like, yeah, that's a villain origin story.

In terms of what makes redemption arcs compelling to me, for me, they're never really "villains", like Zuko in ATLA was an antagonist, there was never anything he did in the show that I didn't think he couldn't come back from, or they're, again, morally grey characters like Eleanor in TGP where the entire show is dedicated to her learning to be a better person

[hamliet]

Watching/listening to the RWBY Volume 8 commentary (something I recommend doing for all volumes btw), when they came to the episode with Cinder's backstory they explained their intention as making us "kinda feel bad for Cinder, but not completely sympathize" with her. So contrary to what the "male authority figures bad, angry evil females actually good" crowd believes, I'm starting to think a Cinder redemption arc has more or less been thrown out the window.

I disagree with your conclusion, but I do agree that the sentiment does highlight what I see as an example of misreading among the fandom.

For why I disagree, I have a rule: never ever ever ever take creator commentary without a shaker of salt. No creator is going to give away secret future twists in a statement, and sometimes they outright lie. See for example Horikoshi Kohei once saying that Shigaraki couldn't be redeemed, when he is now being redeemed. Creators trying to explain their works face an impossible task and often contradict themselves, because we use stories to explore complex ideas a lot of the time. To quote Dostoyevsky:

“Don't let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”

But this principle aside, I think you're missing context. The context of the Volume 8 commentary is, well, Volume 8. Cinder seemed to be on a precipice here and made choices that led to her spiraling further into villainy. Of course you want to set up sympathy, but you're not going to have the audience screaming for her redemption right before she makes a horrible choice (or series of horrible choices). That's not a great writing choice.

Sympathy for a character must matter; to quote a Jenny Nicholson, the worst thing a work can do is make fans feel stupid for caring in the first place. If they are asking us to care about Cinder, even if not excuse her, I very much think that's in line with redemption.

However, I also have been saying over and over that I do not think Cinder will survive her redemption, and this quote kinda reinforces that to me (with grains of salt!)

I've talked about this at length before, but just to reiterate: I'm not against redemptive death even if it is one of my least favorite tropes; the reason it's a least-favorite trope and gets pushback lately is because it's become not only over-used but cheapened (as in, the set up is not specifically for this, and the writer is clearly just taking an emotional punch and avoiding answering other difficult questions like what if they survived?). I don't think this will be the case with Cinder. I'm not opposed to her surviving; the set up currently though, what with Cinder having a major role in the two major tragedies so far (both with her killing girls who are associated with red, just like Cinder is) doesn't look good. Plus, I think the set up is for Emerald and Mercury to survive their redemptions, and hence those pesky forgiveness questions will not necessarily be avoided.

But! As I said earlier, I do think your ask highlights the fandom issue. I think RWBY is the Twilight Zone of fandoms: I've never seen a fandom have such double-standards for male characters. Every other fandom, the female characters are the ones that get the double standards. And I know there is a subset of dudebros on YouTube and Rebbit (probably?) who probably still embody this, and are still licking their fragile toxic masculinity after RWBY deconstructed it and the girls in heels and short skirts sometimes are ending up with other girls instead of them.

This fandom, though... I'm sometimes baffled by how Mercury is treated in comparison to Cinder. Like, I know he has less development, but his backstory is such a punch, and every time he appears on screen his conflict is built up, that I am sometimes stunned that the woobifying is placed on Cinder and not on him--and like, by all means woobify both, but sometimes I see analyses that literally pit Emerald + Cinder against Mercury as Redeemable vs Irredeemable, and that is just textually wrong. Merc's the one who has the extreme wooby backstory and is likely to end up friends with RWBY+JNOR. He has the set up to survive redemption. He's clearly an abused child still being abused. Like, he's Cinder trapped with the Madame, wherein his Madame is Tyrian and Salem, and he has no Rhodes. I do not like this. I do not like this at all.

Like, Mercury gets called out on smiling after Beacon's destruction as an example of how he's truly sadistic while people handwave Cinder's murder of Pyrrha--which was fully unnecessary, by the way, because Pyrrha was already defeated. Cinder just killed her because she wanted to kill her for... reasons. I'm not saying write texts on how Cinder is the worst or anything; I love her and think she's going to ultimately be the one who saves everyone, but my goodness, be intellectually honest with yourselves.

Anyways. I do think the fandom has issues, though honestly those issues are probably reactionary and caused by legit pain (how female and queer characters are treated in 99% fandoms). But that doesn't make these reactionary takes textually supported or fair, or even not uncomfortable in their real world subtext (male abuse victims... do face obstacles in having their pain recognized).

[runephoenix6769]

Why Netflix aging up the Characters could spell disaster.

Ok, so I’ve tried to find confirmation that this is true and kinda found bubkiss so far.  But.... Zuko being aged up by two years does not bode well his motivation or Azula (or Sokka for that matter), narratively speaking and will massively change how their stories/character arcs hit.  It’s my belief that by aging up the characters they’ll kinda lose some of the soul of the show AND the poignancy of just how much pressure has been laid on the shoulders of Gaang and Azula's trio. The nuance of Children fixing a world broken by adults. (I shall preface by saying that anyone under 18 is a child and therefore even joining the military at 16 is still awful, but this post is being written within the context of the avatar universe, its societal norms and customs.)

Hear me out.  Within the show, all the main cast of children are supposed to be outliers and exceptionally skilled, even surpassing many of the adults in that world in terms of mastery of their elements and ability to execute strategy.   At 16/17 Rangi had her first commission after graduating from the Junior Corps in record time, to eventually become one of the youngest Lieutenants in Fire Nation Army service, during peace time.  400 years later we are in the midst of a global war, meaning the goal posts within the various societies would have shifted considerably. (Apart from the Earth Kingdom, they seriously need to get with the times.) Zuko is the heir to the throne of an imperial expansionist country, where military service is expected of many of the aristocracy. (If not every citizen doing something towards the war effort.) And has been since the reign of Sozin.  Being the heir, he would naturally be expected to take a military commission at 16/17, as precedent has been shown to us via Rangi. This would serve to foster loyalty from his soldiers, train him in ways of command to prepare him for taking over the Nation, etc etc.  Lets say that Netflix keep the rest of his story the same, so he is still ousted at 13 sent on a mission of folly as a cruel punishment. Well that just casts his 4 years at sea and his behaviour towards his men in an awful light. In four years he has not learned regard for the safety of his men? It makes the treatment of his men look callous instead of being a child who doesn't quite grasp how much his crew do for him, that they too have been ousted and separated from their loved ones! Four years of shite treatment would surely land a mutiny on his hands?  If anything, it serves to make him look whiny, and incompetently oblivious to the needs of others.  And what does it mean if they move the timeline of the Agni Kai up by two years, to 15?  It doesn't have quite the same impact. Remember what sits at the core of this show. It is ultimately about children trying the fix the world that the adults broke, violence, cruelty, child soldiers and the effects of war upon them, under intense pressure to succeed.  Zuko is supposed to be a child who hasn’t even begun to figure out what he wants.   His character arc in the show is supposed to be that journey!

Which brings me to Azula!  A child prodigy, who took down Ba Sing Se in a relatively bloodless coup at 14! Its meant to be an awe inspiring Herculean feat! A top notch military strategist, she is meant to be unmatched by any of her peers.  Her age in the OG show certainly explains her behavior, her not being developed enough in many ways. This contributes towards the deterioration of her mental health when she cannot reconcile the heavily cultivated sense of self with the reality culminating in the tragic and heart wrenching mental breakdown at 14! At 16/17, it makes it look like a huge ass hissy fit! OG Azula’s inflection moment begins in The Beach episode. She is begins to ask questions of herself in the form of small experiments. It takes the form of her hiding their identities on Ember Island.  It is as if she is trying to feel out if she is as witty and charming as she believes, but she comes to learn that she is woefully socially inept, people don’t like her for her, beginning the spiral of insecurity and self doubt. We are also told that Azula’s mother thought her a monster and she is massively hurt by that, though she plays it off as nothing.  This insecurity is blown wide open on the Boiling Rock cemented by Ty Lee’s betrayal and culminates in Azula, who is truly terrified that he might burn her in a way similar to Zuko, seeing her being sidelined by Ozai.  She takes as a form of punishment for her ‘failure’, a form of banishment, that she has been discarded like Zuko, when she had imagined being by her father’s side as they burned the world in celebration of their mutual victory rather than for what is truly is which is Ozai being a glory hog and reaping all the benefits from Azula’s hard work.  Which brings me to the suggestion by Azula to burn the world in the first place. A child suggesting that you ‘Burn the World’ smacks a whole lot differently when you think of it as a kid not quite grasping/understanding the ramifications of such a suggestion, but a 16 year old? Such a thing tips her from confused mentally unwell child with a crippling fear of failure raised without a lick of compassion to full blown villainy with nothing remotely sympathetic about her! The way the last Agni Kai is framed you are supposed to feel sympathetic towards her! Which makes me wonder if they are gonna paint Azula as unhinged straight from the get go? Her unravelling at the seams is supposed to be her journey!

Sokka.... at 17!  In the OG show, Hakoda does the right thing by telling Sokka to remain behind to look after the village because at 13 he is too young to go to war.  Why leave him behind at 15? Would that not serve to feed into feelings of inadequacy, that he was deemed too weak to leave and fight with the other men and boys of the tribe?  Now, I would argue that Sokka’s OG arc rivals Zuko’s redemption. He does feel inadequate and overcomes it. He also unlearns a shit load of misogyny! What 17 year old doesn’t take responsibility for his own clothes, in a tribe were adults are few and far between? What 17 year old expects his little sister to be his mother and bear the brunt of the domestic? How obtuse and unfeeling would that make Sokka? It would propel him to the side of boorish, lazy and entitled rather than the sweet teenage boy who grows to realise he has a lot to learn.  OG Sokka is humble as hell and not afraid admit when he is lacking! He will go and openly admit his flaws and learn from others who he had previously written off.  Suki gives him a glass of respect women juice and he keeps on chugging, only adding to the Sokka we know and love.  This is supposed to be his journey! 

OG Sokka is just as much of a genius as Azula!  They are both supposed to be exceptional. Having them sit at 16/17 figuring this all out within a war torn world were it would be totally normal for them to participate in the generational war machine kind of robs them of this. Their more child like behaviours, grappling with concepts and truly understanding their consequences is supposed to remind us that they are children, being asked to do something no child ever should! Aging them up casts these things in a whole other light, skewering the what makes this show so beloved!  If you change the core characters to the point their journey’s don’t make sense within the world they inhabit, or they become unrecognisable to the audience you’re trying to milk then really.....what’s the point?  

[supercantaloupe]

okay yeah actually, i’ll bite. i’ve got some of my own thoughts about the unsleeping city and cultural representation and i’m gonna make a post about them now, i guess. i’ll put it under a cut though because this post is gonna be long.

i wanna start by saying i love dimension 20 and i really really enjoy the unsleeping city. i look forward to watching new episodes every week, and getting hooked on d20 as a whole last summer really helped pull me out of a pandemic depression, and i’m grateful to have this cool show to be excited about and interested in and to have met so many cool people to talk about it with.

that being said, however, i think there is a risk run in representing any group of people/their culture when you have the kind of setting that tuc has. by which i mean, tuc is set in a real world with real people and real human cultures in it. unlike fantasy high or a crown of candy where everything is made up (even if rooted in real-world cultures), tuc is explicitly rooted in reality, and all of its diversity -- both the ups and downs that go with it. and especially set in new york of all places, one of the most densely, diversely populated cities on earth. the cast is 7 people; it’s great that those 7 people come from a variety of backgrounds and identities and all bring their own unique perspectives to the table, and it’s great that those people and the entire crew are generally conscious of themselves and desire to tell stories/represent perspectives ethically. but you simply cannot authentically represent every culture or every perspective in the world (or even just in a city) when your cast is 7 people. it’s an impossible task. this is inherent to the setting, and acknowledged by the cast, and by brennan especially, who has been on record saying how one of the exciting aspects of doing a campaign set in nyc is its diversity, the fact that no two new yorkers have the same perspective of new york. i think that’s a good thing -- but it does have its challenges too, clearly.

i’m not going to go into detail on the question of whether or not tuc’s presentation of asian and asian american culture is appropriative/offensive or not. first of all, i don’t feel like it’s 100% fair to judge the show completely yet, since it’s a prerecorded season and currently airing midseason, so i don’t yet know how things wrap up. secondly, i’m not asian or asian american. i can have my own opinions on that content in the show, but i think it’s worth more to hear actual asian and asian american voices on this specific aspect of the show. having an asian american cast member doesn’t automatically absolve the show of any criticisms with regard to asian american cultural representation/appropriation, whether those criticisms are made by dozens of viewers or only a handful of them. regardless, i don’t think it’s my place as someone who is not asian to speak with any authority on that issue, and i know for a fact that there are asian american viewers sharing their own opinions. their thoughts in this instance hold more water than mine, i think.

what i will comment on in more depth, though, is a personal frustration with tuc. i’m jewish; i’ve never really been shy about that fact on my page here. i’m not from new york, but i visit a few times a year (or i did before covid anyway, lol), and i have some family from nyc. nyc, to me, is a jewish city. and for good reason, since it’s home to one of the largest jewish populations of the country, and even the world, and aspects of jewish culture (including culinary, like bagels and pastrami, and linguistic, like the common use of yiddish words and phrases in english colloquial speech) are prevalent and celebrated among jews and goyim alike. when i think of nyc, i think of a jewish city; that’s not everybody’s new york, but that’s my new york, and thats plenty of other people’s new york too. so i do find myself slightly disappointed or frustrated in tuc for its, in my opinion, rather stark lack of jewish representation.

now, i’m not saying that one of the PCs should have been jewish, full stop. i love to headcanon iga as jewish even though canon does not support that interpretation, and i’m fine with that. she’s not my character. it’s possible that simply no one thought of playing a jewish character, i dunno. but also, and i can’t be sure about this, i’m willing to bet that none of the players really wanted to play a jewish character because they didn’t want to play a character of a marginalized culture they dont belong to in the interest of avoiding stereotyping or offensive representation/cultural appropriation. (i don’t know if any of the cast members are jewish, but i’m assuming not.) and the concern there is certainly appreciated; there’s not a ton of mainstream jewish rep out there, and often what we get is either “unlikeable overly conservative hassidic jew” or “jokes about their bar mitzvah/one-off joke about hanukkah and then their jewishness is never mentioned ever again,” which sucks. it would be really cool to see some more good casual jewish rep in a well-rounded, three-dimensional character in the main cast of a show! even if there are a couple of stumbles along the way -- nobody is perfect and no two jews have the same level of knowledge, dedication, and adherence to their culture.

but at the same time, i look at characters like iga and i really do long for a jewish character to be there. siobhan isn’t polish, yet she’s playing a characters whose identity as a polish immigrant to new york is very central to her story and arc. and part of me wonders why we can’t have the same for a jewish character. if not a PC, then why not an NPC? again, i’m jewish, and i am not native, but in my opinion i think the inclusion of jj is wonderful -- i think there are even fewer native main characters in mainstream media than there are jewish ones, and it’s great to see a native character who is both in touch with their culture as well as not being defined solely by their native-ness. to what extent does it count as ‘appropriative’ because brennan is a white dude? i dunno, but i’m like 99% sure they talked to sensitivity consultants to make sure the representation was as ethical as they could get it, and anyway, i can’t personally see and glaring missteps so far. but again, i’m not native, and if there are native viewers with their own opinions on jj, i’d be really interested in hearing them.

but getting back to the relative lack of jewish representation. it just...disappoints me that jewishness in new york is hardly ever even really mentioned? again, i know we’re only just over halfway through season 2, but also, we had a whole first season too. and it’s definitely not all bad. for example: willy! gd, i love willy so much. him being a golem of williamsburg makes me really really happy -- a jewish mythological creature animated from clay/mud (in this case bricks) to protect a jewish community (like that of williamsburg, a center for many of nyc’s jews) from threat. golem have so often been taken out of their original context and turned into evil monsters in fantasy settings, especially including dnd. (even within other seasons of d20! crush in fh being referred to as a “pavement golem” always rubbed me the wrong way, and i had hoped they’d learned better after tuc but in acoc they refer to another monster as a “corn golem” which just disappointed me all over again.) so the fact that tuc gets golems right makes my jewish heart very happy.

and yet...he doesn’t show up that much? sure, in s1, he’s very helpful when he does, but in s2 so far he shows up once and really does not say or do much of anything. he speaks with a lot more yiddish-influenced language than other characters, but if you didn’t know those words were specifically yiddish/jewish, you might not be able to otherwise clock the fact that willy is jewish. and while willy is a jewish mythological creature who is jewish in canon, he isn’t human. there are no other direct references to judaism, jewish characters, or jewish culture in the unsleeping city beyond him.

there are, in fact, two other canon jewish characters in tuc. but...here’s where i feel the most frustration, i think. the two canon jewish humans in tuc are stephen sondheim and robert moses. both of whom are real actual people, so it’s not like we can just pick and choose what their cultural backgrounds are. as much as i love stephen sondheim, i think there are inherent issues with including real world people as characters in a fictional setting, especially if they are from living/recent memory (sondheim is literally still alive), but anyway, sondheim and moses are both actual jewish people. from watching tuc alone you probably would not be able to guess that sondheim is jewish -- nothing from his character except name suggests it, and i wouldn’t even fault you for not thinking ‘sondheim’ is a jewish-sounding surname (and i dislike the idea/attitude/belief that you can tell who is or isn’t jewish by the sound of their name). and yeah, i’m not going to sit here and be like “brennan should have made sondheim more visibly jewish in canon!” because, like, he’s a real human being and it’s fucking weird to portray him in a way that isn’t as close to how he publicly presents himself, which is not in fact very identifiably jewish? i don’t know, this is what i mean by it’s inherently weird and arguably problematic to portray real living people as characters in a fictional setting, but i digress. sondheim’s jewish, even if you wouldn’t know it; not exactly a representation win.

and then there’s bob moses. you might be able to guess that he’s jewish from canon, actually. there’s the name, of course. but more insidious to me are the specifics of his villainy. greedy and powerhungry, a moneyman, a lich whose power is stored in a phylactery...it does kind of all add up to a Yikes from me. (in the stock market fight there’s a one-off line asking if he has green skin; it’s never really directly acknowledged or answered, but it made me really uncomfortable to hear at first and it’s stuck with me since viewing for the first time.) the issue for me here is that the most obviously jewish human character is the season’s bbeg, and his villainy is rooted in very antisemitic tropes and stereotypes.

i know this isn’t all brennan’s fault -- robert moses was a real ass person and he was in fact jewish, a powerhungry and greedy moneyman, a big giant racist asshole, etc. i’m not saying that jewish characters can’t be evil, and i’m not saying brennan should have tried to be like “this is my NPC robert christian he’s just like bob moses but instead he’s a goy so it’s okay” because...that would be fuckin weird bro. and bob moses was a real person who was jewish and really did do some heinous shit with his municipal power. i’m not necessarily saying brennan should have picked/created a different character to be the villain. i’m not even saying that he shouldn’t have made bob moses a lich (although, again, it doesn’t 100% sit right with me). but my point here is that bob moses is one of a grand total of three canon jewish characters in tuc, of which only two humans, of whom he is the one you’d most easily guess would be jewish and is the most influenced by antisemitic stereotypes/tropes. had there been more jewish representation in the show at all, even just some neutral jewish NPCs, this would not be as much of a problem as it is to me. but halfway through season 2, so far, this is literally all we get. and that bums me out.

listen, i really like tuc. i love d20. but the fact that it is set in a real world place with real world people does inherently raise challenges when it comes to ethical cultural representation. especially when the medium of the show is a game whose creatures, lore, and mechanics have been historically rooted in some questionable racial/cultural views. and dnd is making progress to correct some of those misguided views of older sourcebooks by updating them to more equitably reflect real world racial/cultural sensitivities; that’s a good thing! but these seasons, of course, were recorded before that. the game itself has some questionable cultural stuff baked into it, and that is (almost necessarily) going to be brought to the table in a campaign set in a real-world place filled with real-world people of diverse real-world cultures. the cast can have sensitivity consultants and empathy and the best intentions in the world, and they’ll still fuck up from time to time, that’s okay. your mileage may vary on whether or not it’s still worth sticking around with the show (or the fandom) through that. for me, it does not yet outweigh all the things i like about the show, and i’m gonna continue watching it. but it’s still very worth acknowledging that the cast is 7 people who cannot possibly hope to authentically or gracefully represent every culture in nyc. it’s an unfortunate limitation of the medium. yet it’s also still worthwhile to acknowledge and discuss the cultural representation as it is in the show -- both the goods and the bads, the ethically solid and the questionably appropriative -- and even to hold the creators accountable. (decently, though. i’m definitely not advocating anybody cyberbully brennan on twitter or whatever.) the show and its representation is far from perfect, but i also don’t think it ever could be. still, though, it could always be better, and there’s a worthwhile discussion to be had in the wheres, hows, and whys of that.

[starcloud-nova]

Favorite fics by some of your buddies on Tumblr and Discord?

God nonnie. You fucked up big time. You underestimated just how hard I can appreciate my friends. I’d like to formally apologize for how long and in-depth this got, but I would pick a stopping point and then go ‘oh! but i cant leave out so-and-so’ and then this got mega out of hand.

Organized by author and not genre! And if I didn’t include any of your works (or I did and it was not the one you wanted), please, don’t take it personally. I am trusting everyone who comes across this post to read the tags themselves, but for two of the fics I have left TWs in front of them.

Cassia’s fics:

Internet Enemies by @cassiopeia721 (x)

At school, Midoriya Izuku is ignored at best. At home, he's raised by a single mother who seems to be always taking night shifts, and who he communicates with almost exclusively through notes on lunch boxes and texts lying about his location. As such, Midoriya Izuku turns to the internet— or more specifically, an All Might fan server on discord— for companionship. Like most things in his life, it goes wrong eventually. It just takes longer than usual.

hypnic jump

Izuku finds himself somewhere he doesn't recognize in an oversized green jumpsuit with a hero he's never seen at his back. He's pretty sure he's dreaming, and subsequent events only solidify that theory into rock-solid certainty.

Paradigm Shift (Harry Potter)

Harry undergoes a paradigm shift at the beginning of his fifth year. (Slytherin Harry)

~~~

Kestrel’s fics:

Compass by @autisticmidoriyas (x)

Midoriya Izuku never had the chance to become a hero—or even to grow up. Fifteen years after his death, Akatani Izuku tries to save the life of a dying hero and in return receives a target painted on his back and a power humming in his bones.

All Might, Sir Nighteye, Ground Zero, Suneater, and Skyquake are left scrambling in the wake of Lemillion’s death to figure out who now holds One For All.

Intertwined with all this, the League of Villains’ war against Japan burns on. With the loss of Lemillion, the advantage is now theirs, and with the loss of One For All, victory is all-but-assured.

(What the villains don’t know is that One For All lives on in the blood of a boy who was always meant to be a hero.)

triskelion

A few seconds, and their lives—their life—is changed forever. Where three people used to exist, there is now only one.

While visiting the mall with their class, Izuku, Katsuki, and Shouto are the victims of someone whose quirk can fuse together objects … and people.

Permanently.

Facing down the fact that they may never be unfused, a long adjustment period lies ahead of them as they learn how to be themself and figure out where they fit into their families, their class, and their world.

the meaning of hope

One day, the smoke will reach its end. They hold out hope for that. Even with quirks, fires cannot burn forever. They will consume all their fuel, until there is nothing left, and they will wither and die.

~~~

Lilly’s fics:

Rise of the Rat Finks by Authoress_Lilly

“You're not in trouble Neito. You’ve been tapped to join The Rats.”

The boy blinks. “The what?”

Vlad opens up a folder and hands Monoma a flyer and a small pin in the shape of a rat. “It’s a sort of secret society here at UA.

Or: an excuse to put Monoma and Midoriya together in way too many words 😅

The Root to Villainy

Prompt: Izuku doesn't realize how fucked up his past was until Aizawa does an immersive class on villain origins.

Whoops?

~~~

Dance’s fics:

Never Take Your Problem Children To Costco by DanceInTheKitchen

“SECURE THE EGGS! I REPEAT SECURE THE EGGS!” Bakugou bellowed.

“YES SIR! AYE AYE SIR!” Izuku saluted.

Shouta is staring at his students, one of whom seems to be reenacting the Lion King with a carton of eggs while the other salutes him, and wonders. What the hell did he do in his past life to deserve this?? Past him must have committed some great sin, like putting sugar in his coffee, or being a dog person.

 Or, Aizawa, Bakugou and Midoriya walk into a Costco.

grow as we go

The dorms were silent, but out here in the open air, she felt both isolated and free. Isolated from the world, but free from the responsibility crushing her, isolated from her friends and family, but free from judgement. Up here, with only the stars and Iida as company, Momo felt like she could breathe.

They sat next to each other in silence, watching the stars silently crawl their way across the sky. Iida doesn’t break the silence, but he also doesn’t leave. It’s a silent promise, to listen if she needs it, or to keep her company if she doesn’t want to speak. It’s comforting.

She’s not sure when she speaks, it’s somewhere between staring up at the stars, and looking at the shiny dew covering the grass of the hills behind UA.

“I’m not ready.”

 Or, with graduation right around the corner, Momo has a conversation with Iida about what growing up means.

~~~

Azure’s fics:

A Helping Hand for All by azureskyy

Izuku doesn't know why everyone's talking about a certain hero analyst online. He's tried browsing through the forums and other sites, but he just can't find the person they're talking about.

Maybe he'll ask them later. For now, he has some analysis to do.

Or: Izuku is a well-known hero and quirk analyst across multiple social media platforms.

Not that he's aware of it, of course.

A Missed Chance

Two paths cross then diverge. In another universe, perhaps, they could have walked on the same path; they could have talked for the second time that day, and Izuku could have been given an opportunity that could change his entire life. And maybe, just maybe, he would have taken it.

But this isn’t that universe.

Or: What if All Might wasn't able to find Izuku after the Sludge Villain Incident?

~~~

Alice’s fics:

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by @makeitbluue (x)

“Did you think you’d be safe from me forever? That you could chip away at my power base and I would not care or try to hunt you down?” The man asks as he steps forwards.

Izuku scrambles backwards in his bed, searching the covers as he goes for his phone. If he can get a text off to All Might or Aizawa-sensei he can alert people to the potential danger.

But even as he moves, something in the back of his mind tells him he had heard this voice before. A different time, a different context, but the same voice.

~~~

Ely’s fics:

bend and break by @queenangst (x)

In a world where you can feel your soulmate's pain, Eijirou spends a lot of his life up until meeting his soulmate hurting.

draw and quarter

In District Twelve, no one volunteers.

When Aizawa Shouta’s name is called, no one says a word. He stands there for a moment, feeling all the world slow around him, and then he straightens his shoulders and walks to his death.

He will die fighting. At the very least, Shouta can promise that.

Shouta's name is drawn for the Hunger Games, alongside Shirakumo Oboro. No one from their district has ever won.

damage control

After All for One's defeat, Aizawa Shouta is grasping for ways to protect his students. At the same time, a discrepancy in Midoriya's behavior leads Shouta down a dangerous line of investigation and to a single question: if Midoriya is the U.A. traitor.

Between the Wind and the Water

Staying at U.A. for winter break, Izuku hopes it'll be a quiet chance to spend the holidays with Todoroki and supervising teachers All Might and Aizawa-sensei.

It's just his luck a gift-shopping trip turns into a gift from a villain, and Izuku's new Half-Cold, Half-Hot Quirk is not so easy to control. Neither are the secrets he's been carefully keeping.

a glimpse of tomorrow (looking back)

Subject: Aldera Time Capsule Ceremony Forwarded Message— This year marks ten years for the Aldera Middle School graduating class of 20XX.To celebrate, we would like to invite pro heroes Kingpin and Deku, Aldera alumni, to participate in a public time-capsule opening. We are incredibly proud to have helped them on their journeys to becoming heroes, and would be most honored to receive them as guests and for them to speak at the ceremony. [...]

"Well," Deku says, leaning over to turn the monitor towards him. His eyes flick over the contents of the email one more time. "If they haven't changed, then I guess we could return the favor."

Ten years down the line, Bakugou and Midoriya are invited to a time capsule ceremony at their middle school to read letters from their past selves, and look back on their past and how it shaped their future. For anyone else, it would have been a celebration.

For the two of them, it's an opportunity.

A look into Bakugou and Midoriya's past—through a future neither of them imagined—as pro heroes, agency partners, and friends.

of the mighty heart

It was just complicated. Kacchan had changed. Izuku had changed. What was between them was constant—Kacchan was always there—but even constants, Izuku supposed, could change, too.

...You saved me, sometimes you say Deku and it doesn’t sound so much like an insult, you say it like you mean it, you say it like you mean me.

After the war ends and the dust settles, Izuku is left in pain and feeling useless. There's still so much to do and people to save, and it's just... too much for one person.

And then there's Kacchan.

~~~

Fawn’s fics:

Bough Breaks by @fawnvelveteen (x) (trigger warning for discussion of rape/noncon)

In life, nothing is certain. Pro-heroes aren’t always the good guys. Children are not spared from the darkest realms of humanity. Izuku isn't acting like his normal self at school lately, and his homeroom teacher has taken notice. After learning about the mother’s new, unwelcomed boyfriend, Aizawa’s concern shifts into dread. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep his student away from harm.

Almost Moon (trigger warning for suicide) (Black Clover)

It was always at night. One of Noelle's squadmates, apparently, believes it's a good idea to walk across the rooftop, directly over her head while she is trying to get some sleep. Finally, she decides to confront the nighttime nuisance. What she discovers is something she never expected, nor did she wish to see.

~~~

Nez’s fics:

The True Successor by @neko-nez (x)

Toshinori is caught in a time loop.

~~~

Aodh’s fics:

new game + (the pros of being over-leveled, the catharsis of finally beating That One Boss, and a bonus social link) by @takeyamayuu (x)

Izuku hasn’t been noticed yet, being as far from the fight as he is. Or if he has, they’re dismissing him in favor of the larger threat of Aizawa-sensei. As they should, since he takes out the last one with a well placed kick, turning to face Shigaraki,

Izuku tenses, this is-

This is where his teacher’s arm is injured and then-

The Nomu.

One for All spikes to around fifty percent, his muscles stinging, bones creaking as Izuku darts forward, aiming for Shigaraki’s head with an axe-kick.

Second year Midoriya Izuku gets hit with a Quirk, skids into the USJ, and learns a little about self-care along the way.

~~~

Ghost’s fics:

fingerpaint bruises and a kick in the teeth by @ghoststrawberries (x)

There’s a sour taste in Shouta’s mouth as he stares at Jackrabbit’s bright smile. The smile he’s wearing in every clear photo of him. It somewhat reminds Shouta of All Might’s smile.

Jackrabbit might be a menace to the Commission, but there’s no way Shouta can believe that a man with that smile is anything less than good to his core.

“And I’m your last resort to handle this quietly.” He says knowingly, keeping his thoughts to himself.

“Precisely.”

Shouta’s gut response is to refuse.

The words “I don’t kill.” are halfway up his throat before they become stuck.

As an underground hero, sometimes Shouta Aizawa is called upon to do darker jobs than one might expect a hero to have to do. This time, when he's tasked with taking out a vigilante who's managed to bother the Hero Public Safety Commission one too many times, he's not sure he'll be able to follow through.

~~~

Amira’s fics:

And Now I See Daylight by @awake-my-oceans (x)

AnalysisOverload Current mood: HERO CON HERO CON HERO CON HERO CON

AnalysisOverload reblogged AnalysisOverload  Okay, let’s talk HeroCon. 

Look around, and you’ll see a lot of discrimination—against people whose Quirk is debilitating, against people whose Quirks scare us, against people who have trouble controlling their Quirk, against people who don’t have a Quirk at all. It’s easy to feel alone in a sea of discrimination.

Enter HeroCon:X.

A social media fic following Deku post-graduation.

The chaotic neutral’s guide to time travel

“You claim you are from the future,” Nedzu said, hopping onto his desk. “Do you have anything to prove this?”

Hitoshi fished around in his pocket. “Here’s my hero license,” he said, holding it up.

Nedzu opened his mouth, but Hitoshi kept right on going, producing a handful of odds and ends from his pocket. “Also a movie ticket, some dryer lint, some, uh, didn’t know I still had that but it’s old gum—“

That was when Aizawa walked in, capture weapon floating around him. “What’s the emergency?” he asked, clipped, as he kicked open the door.

“—and the left arm of a Deku plushie,” Hitoshi finished, unruffled. “My cat ate the rest.”

~~~

Aaaaaand that’s all I got. Thanks for making it to the end!

[beaft]

to the anon who asked for my thoughts on the lokey show (tumblr ate your ask and my response, i’m sorry)

context note: i have not seen the last two episodes yet. but here are some thoughts under the cut.

my prevailing stance thus far is "it could have been worse." 

my slightly more complicated stance is that it's not a bad show, per se. the acting is great, the character work is great, the script is mostly great - but it does suffer from having too many moving parts. there are a lot of clashing themes and ideas and plot threads and the whole thing just ends up tripping over itself a little bit. 

theme number one: God of Stories. (i’m doing little titles like it’s a video essay, isn’t that fun?) okay so. we've got the whole question of fate and predestination to play with, and that connects nicely with loki's "performative villainy" thing (i.e. the notion that he's cosmically doomed to be The Bad Guy, so there's no point trying to be anything else). honestly, i kind of wish they'd gone with that as their central thesis - stories that acknowledge their own fictionality and provide a commentary on the nature of storytelling are my jam - but so far, there just hasn't been as much of that as i would like.

 two: Investigating The TVA. this is more a thriller plotline - what is the TVA? who created it? is it benevolent or not? who are the timekeepers? this plotline was really prominent in the trailers, so it was a little jarring to find that loki and mobius only actually worked together for one episode. the writers seemed to be going for a sci-fi mystery coupled with “loki learns the meaning of friendship”, but then they backtracked and shifted focus from loki/mobius to loki/sylvie before we even had the chance to get a handle on mobius and loki’s dynamic.

which brings me to three: sylvie! i love sylvie, i really do. but (of course there’s a but) i’m a little confused about what her role is supposed to be, narratively speaking. she almost feels like more of a protagonist than loki himself does, in the sense that she’s the only one with clear goals and motivations (as well as more to gain/lose). not a bad thing, necessarily, but it does muddy the waters further in terms of who we’re meant to be following and rooting for. she's not a straightforwardly "evil" version of loki, which could have been interesting and tied into the whole “performative villainy” thing. she's a love interest, but also she isn't. she's an antagonist, but then she's not. there’s this weird tension between the loki-and-mobius buddy-cop friendship and the loki-and-sylvie fuck-the-cops friendship. 

finally, four: the romance. i don’t know exactly what the writers are trying to go for with loki/sylvie, and honestly, i don’t think the writers know either. is it narcissism or self-love/forgiveness? is Cosmic Destiny or is it two lonely people confusing friendship with attraction? it doesn’t feel necessary, and in the end it only serves to complicate an already-byzantine plot. i think this is partly due to the show’s brevity. six episodes aren’t really enough to do as many things as Loki is trying to do, and as a consequence the pacing feels very off: things happen too fast, relationships develop off-screen to save time, the status quo is constantly shifting and being upended. as soon as we get used to one dynamic or one situation, it’s replaced with another and the rollercoaster continues. i personally think it could have benefited from being twice the length, if only to give the characters some breathing room.

i’m also - forgive me - a little bit salty that we were promised genderfluid loki and didn’t get it. the bisexuality was a genuinely unexpected and lovely reveal, but i do feel that if you give an interview where you talk explicitly about genderfluidity and the importance of trans representation, you have a responsibility to deliver on that. (and no, a female loki variant does not a genderfluid character make, especially if she’s the only one. there’s also a variant that’s just a crocodile. it means nothing.)

and those are (some of) my thoughts on the lokey show, aren’t you glad you asked :)))

[panharmonium]

...and damn the consequences

These are just some thinky-thoughts that I suppose could be an addendum to this old piece about Morgana, since I saw a couple of different discussion threads in that general vein in the tag a while back, and you know reading about this show always gets my brain going. :)

Most of what I ran into was written with the intention of shifting the blame for Morgana's issues away from Merlin, which is something I appreciate, personally - I've talked plenty myself about the myriad reasons why Merlin does not owe Morgana his secret and does not deserve "blame" for the things she does.  

But when the blame is shifted (rightly) away from Merlin, it does sometimes end up getting pushed onto others.  And while I do understand where that impulse comes from, I actually tend to approach this from a slightly different perspective, so since I don't think I've ever typed up anything about this particular subject before, I figured I might as well set down a few potential things to consider about a) Morgana (in relation to Gaius, specifically), and b) the more general question of "the blame" (and whether it's really a productive line of discussion, given that the question only has one legitimate answer, for me, at least).

disclaimer, as always: these are just my own thoughts, and nobody is obligated to share them!  If my particular perspective isn't interesting to you, don't worry about it - I'm just hanging out talking to myself on my own blog, so feel free to scroll past and continue interpreting the show in whatever way is most enjoyable for you!

i. my favourite patient is always welcome

So, first of all - some thoughts about Gaius.

I was really surprised at how infrequently Gaius appeared, when I first started poking around in the fandom.  For such a major character, and for someone who is such a huge part of Merlin's life, I definitely thought he would be more prominent, but essentially the sorts of posts I've seen about him are mostly restricted to two things: 1) memes, and 2) call-outs (he's in a very similar position to Kilgharrah, in that way).   

I don't necessarily think those things do him justice, and there’s a lot more we could talk about when it comes to his character, but for now, the only thing I'm really interested in working on is maybe adding some nuance to the perpetual question of Gaius, Morgana, Merlin, and "the blame."  

(For clarity’s sake: nothing that follows necessarily means that Gaius makes the “right” decisions.  The entire point of his character's history is in fact his failure to always do the right thing - see: Kilgharrah's line where he tells Gaius to “do nothing," because “that is, after all, your talent."  What I’m saying in the section that follows is just that there's more to consider about the choices Gaius makes than “he's a coward.")

So - some things to consider, when we think about Gaius and Morgana:  

1) One thing I'm not always sure people realize about this show is that neither Gaius nor Merlin knows that Morgana has magic until 2.03.  

And I definitely can see why people don’t necessarily realize it, because as we all know this show can be a little haphazard/loosey-goosey with its worldbuilding, but just to help clarify: until 2.03, Gaius does not know that Morgana has magic.  He knows that "some of the things she dreamt" have indicated certain future events (NOT all of them, importantly - more on that later), but her dream-visions are also specifically stated to be a separate gift from sorcery - dream-visions and magic are clearly established to be different things in this show, and prior to 2.03, Morgana has only ever demonstrated one of these abilities.  

At the end of 1.07, Merlin asks, "Is she like me?  Does she have the gift?" and Gaius's response is, "I hope not, for her sake."  Earlier, he also says, "The gift of prophecy is too close to the work of magic," indicating that the two things are, in fact, different abilities (if equally dangerous ones, in Uther's eyes).  “It's said to be an innate ability.  Those who have it are born that way.”  Whereas magic, in the Merlin-verse, is a learned skill.  We spend so much time around Merlin that we tend to transfer his experience to all other magic-users, but we have to remember that Merlin, in this world, is directly stated to be unique.  He uses magic without spells, without study; he tells Gaius he was born doing it.  But when Gaius hears Merlin say this, his response is, "That's impossible."  It's not something that happens.  

In the Merlin BBC-verse, people can be born with the "gift" - the ability to use magic - but their magic doesn't just manifest on its own.  What happens to Merlin (being able to use magic "before he could talk," with no training and no spells) and Morgana (starting a fire accidentally) is NOT something that is indicated to ever happen to other magic-possessors.  We aren't being introduced to a world where magical children will automatically start manifesting their magic in dangerous ways unless they're trained to use their abilities (ie, the X-Men model, or the Force-sensitive child model, where choosing not to teach someone is automatically irresponsible ).  Magic, as presented to us in this show, is something that cannot be used without training or specific spells/power-amplifying artifacts.  Merlin (and, later, Morgana) are exceptions to a universal rule.

And this is just something to keep in mind, because it does provide some context for Gaius's decisions.  It doesn't mean people have to agree with the choices he makes - it doesn't even mean *I* always agree with the choices he makes, to be honest - but I do think it's worthwhile to at least remember that Gaius doesn't make his decisions thoughtlessly.  As far as Gaius knows, even if Morgana did have magic, there is no way that it could ever manifest and become an issue for her without her being trained.  If she doesn't learn how to use magic, she can't use it, period.  And if she can't use it, no one will ever know she has it.  And if no one ever knows she has it, no one can ever kill her for it.  

(Once we hit 2.03, the conversation changes, obviously.  It becomes clear that Morgana is some kind of anomaly as well, and at that point, the only appropriate path forward is to tell her she has magic.)

(Which is, of course, precisely what Merlin does.)

2) According to the show, only "some of" Morgana's dreams have actually played out in real life; others have just been regular nightmares (and we see later on that even some of her prophetic dreams are vague to the point of incomprehensibility - eg, she dreams about a raven in 2.01, but how would she ever know what that meant, or if it meant anything at all, barring external context?)  Some of the risk/benefit analysis on Gaius's part has to take this problem into account - what if he did tell her that some of her dreams might be prophecies?  There would be no way for anyone to sort out which ones were real and which ones were just nightmares.  And Gaius has known Morgana all her life - he knows what she's like; he knows how headstrong she is.  She would assume all of her dreams were real, and she would act on all of them, because what if the one time she ignored a dream, something bad happened to someone she cares about?  

Gaius is familiar enough with Morgana to know with absolute certainty that this is what she would do.  And he knows that this could SO easily end up getting her killed, either by Uther, who would quickly figure out that something was going on, or by the sheer dangers associated with Morgana throwing herself into confrontations based only on uncertain visions (or worse, regular old dreams).

3) We also have to think about what this show tells us about prophecy in general.  Trying to act on prophetic information, in this world, is firmly established as a dangerous game, one which, more often than not, ends up directly causing the outcomes one was trying to prevent.  Trying to change the future, in the BBC Merlin universe, backfires on people every single time.  In 2.10, the Crystal of Neahtid is framed as holding "a terrible power," and Merlin knows instinctively that "no good [will] come of it," even as he feels compelled to look into it.  In 3.05, Gaius himself says of the Crystal Cave that "the crystals are treacherous," and Kilgharrah says that "to change the future is no simple matter, Merlin.  To do so is fraught with danger."  In Season 5, of course, we all know what happens with Merlin's attempts to prevent Mordred from killing Arthur - it ensures Arthur's death!  And that's not even mentioning all the collateral damage it causes - Kara's execution, Mordred and Morgana’s eventual deaths, etc.

I thought I could alter the future, but instead, I caused it.  I made it happen.

What you did was dangerous, even for someone as gifted as you.

These are truths about the universe in the BBC Merlin world, not Gaius's personal opinions.  Gaius had been brought up steeped in the rules of the Old Religion; he knows how that world works.  The risk posed by Morgana interpreting all of her dreams as prophecies (and the absolute certainty that she would constantly attempt to alter their outcomes) is not a trivial concern or something he should ignore.  It is real, significant, and extremely dangerous, for both Morgana and the people around her.

So in general, I do think there's a broader context to what Gaius does than we typically look at.  I'm not saying that it isn't a sticky situation, and I'm not even saying that Gaius makes the right calls.  All I'm saying is that I think it's worth acknowledging that the decisions he makes are a) always sincerely intended to protect Morgana from a number of very real dangers, not just Uther, and b) founded on more than simple cowardice or carelessness.

ii. of course what really matters is the blame / someone you can blame

More generally -

Whenever I see discussion circulating about Morgana’s descent into villainy, occasionally the conversation can start to feel to me a little bit like that scene in Into the Woods where all the characters start going "so it's HER fault/HIS fault/YOUR fault" as they backtrack further and further along the chain of events and tear apart every single character's innocuous decisions (the consequences of which could not possibly have been foreseen) in order to escape any scrap of personal responsibility, until the Witch interrupts their bickering and rips them a new one for worrying so much about who to blame when they have a real problem to solve.

These blame-placing conversations about Morgana, much like this scene, are interesting and enjoyable to think about in their own ways, but they rarely get quite where I want them to go.  I definitely love seeing people articulate the "we shouldn't blame Merlin for what Morgana does" angle, but things often then slide into "we should blame X person instead", where X person is Kilgharrah or Morgause or Gaius or Uther or whoever.  

And for me, that analysis doesn’t quite hit the mark.  The correct endpoint of "we shouldn't hold Merlin responsible for Morgana's actions" isn't "we should hold X person responsible instead."  The correct endpoint is "the only person responsible for Morgana's actions is Morgana."

The last time I wrote about Morgana like this, I mentioned that ultimately, the difference between Merlin and Morgana for me is that Merlin owns his choices.  He feels guilt, he expresses regret, he apologizes for his mistakes, and he blames himself for his missteps (as well as for other things that aren't remotely his fault).  Morgana, on the other hand, never apologizes for anything (despite the fact that she's made plenty of mistakes worth regretting), and sometimes it feels like in fandom we don't necessarily expect her to do so, as if it's a benchmark we don't need her to meet.

So because I really do have strong feelings about the double standard we use when it comes to Merlin and Morgana, I want to talk for a minute here about Merlin and Gaius’s relationship, to provide a comparison.

Morgana isn't the only person who's had important information about her parentage and potential abilities withheld from her.  Gaius hides both Merlin's dragonlord heritage and the identity of Merlin's father all the way until the end of Season 2, when necessity forces him to reveal the information.  Merlin's mother, for her own part, has been hiding this information from Merlin all his life - out of valid fears for Merlin's own safety, of course, the same way Gaius is trying to protect Morgana.  But still, from Merlin's point of view, in the moment when the information is revealed to him, the justification offered by his guardians is unacceptable.  He is angry and upset, and he feels cheated out of knowledge he deserved to have, the absence of which has negatively affected him all his life.  “I had a right to know,” he keeps saying, on the verge of tears.

Has Merlin been harmed by the choices his guardians made for him, even if said choices were made to protect him?  Yes.  Does he have a right to feel hurt, betrayed, and angry?  Yes.  Is he entitled to every ounce of his righteous rage?  Absolutely.  

Is he also responsible for how he reacts, now that the information has been revealed?  YES.

Merlin has no say in what his parental figures do to him in the name of protecting him, and he has no choice about how it makes him feel.  He does, however, have a choice about what actions he will now take in response.  He can react in a way that hurts others, or he can choose a path of lesser harm.  And there's plenty we can say to justify both options, certainly, but either way, the decision he makes is on him.  

What that means, in short, is this: Merlin is not responsible for what was done to him.  But he is responsible for what he himself does next.  

The same goes for Morgana.  In absolutely no universe would we classify Merlin's behavior as acceptable if he'd reacted to the revelation of his Dragonlord heritage by assassinating Uther, claiming the throne for himself in the name of his murdered kin, and then shooting innocent civilians in the street when the knights refused to recognize his legitimacy.  We would never say that was okay.  And we definitely wouldn't then blame Merlin's downfall on Gaius, saying it was Gaius's fault for withholding information about Merlin's powers for so long.  The choice to act in a harmful way would still be Merlin's, in that situation.

The same standard holds true for Morgana - particularly when she has access to resources that Merlin can't even dream about.  She is rich, beyond his wildest fantasies.  One of her dresses costs more than everything Merlin has ever owned in his life - his house, his land, his livestock, every bushel of wheat he's ever harvested.  She isn't the 1% in comparison to Merlin; she's the 0.0000001% - a princess in all but but name, and one who would presumably be heir to her father's entire estate in addition to everything she already has in Camelot.  

Morgana has the wealth to go anywhere she wants, including places where magic is practiced freely (see Helva, as mentioned in S5).  She has the prestige to affiliate herself with powerful people outside of Camelot, if she chooses to do so.  Any person in her position would have a broad, high-status network of friends and allies, and indeed we do see that Morgana has political ties outside Uther's court (see: how easily she's able to go to Cenred, Agravaine, Annis in Seasons 3/4 and be admitted, recognized, and trusted, as well as her repeated ability to recruit and/or take command of external armies).  

She could leave Camelot if she wanted, learn about her abilities, and build a life for herself elsewhere.  She could stay in Camelot and use her considerable resources to work toward her people's liberation, without indiscriminately murdering and enslaving the innocent poor.  She could seek out other magic-users like Alator in the spirit of true solidarity, as opposed to just using them as tools to get what she wants and then turning on them when they decide that they don’t want to use her sort of tactics to achieve their liberation.  She has hundreds of options, none of which necessarily even require her to forgive or reconcile with the people who harmed her, and none of which are even remotely open to Merlin, who (like Morgana) is still learning about his own abilities, and who (unlike Morgana) has no money, no social power, and no connections that he can leverage or lean upon, besides a tiny village of dirt-poor peasant farmers on the other side of the border with Cenred's kingdom.

Morgana has options.  The choices she makes are hers.  Gaius's decision not to tell her about her dreams is not equivalent to her receiving a blank check for harmful behavior.  She has so many resources.  She has so much power.  She could have chosen so many other paths - like Merlin tries to plead with her, in the crypt, after he tells her that he does not believe she deserves to be executed, despite what she's done: “We can find another way.”

She's the one who says, “There is no other way.”  She makes that decision.  She chooses to dismiss the thousand other paths available to her.  

That's on her.  That is always going to be on her.

iii. i'm going to give you one more chance

This last section...it’s more just a muddle of feels-riddled musing as opposed to a real opinion.  It's not something that has a right answer or a solution; it's just something I ponder sometimes.  

When we talk about harm being done in the real world, we talk about how intentions don't matter.  And that is absolutely true, in terms of both the impact of harmful actions and the harm-doer's responsibility to own what they did/make restitution.  If someone knocks you down, and you break your arm, the impact of that event doesn't change depending on whether the person in question did it on purpose or not.  Your arm's still broken, either way.  Intent doesn't matter, in terms of impact and responsibility - the actual harm done is the same, and the person who knocked you down should still be apologizing and making amends, regardless of whether they intended for you to fall or not.  

However - intent does matter when you're considering the future of your relationship with the person who knocked you down.  It affects how you react to what they did.  It changes how you respond to their actions.  If someone threw you to the ground on purpose, you'd (probably) feel differently about that than if a friend knocked you down because they were trying to pull you out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, or because they were carrying too many things in their arms and didn't see you turn the corner.

I think about this sometimes when it comes to Morgana and Merlin.

I don't want to frame this as "Morgana should have forgiven everybody who hurt her," because I don't think that's the case.  I've written before about how I fully understand her reasons for ultimately rejecting Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Gaius, etc.  She's not required to reconcile with anybody if she doesn't want to.

At the same time, though, I do wonder sometimes about intent.  And sometimes I ask myself how things might have been different if Morgana had considered intent, before things went completely to hell, and whether the story’s ultimate outcome might have changed, if she had given even just one of these people a chance.

Morgana has plenty of reasons extend some degree of understanding to the people who caused her pain.  The vast majority of the people who caused Morgana harm did so either a) out of love, in a sincere attempt to protect her from being killed, b) without any knowledge of the fact that she needed help, or c) after they thought she was attempting to kill everybody in the city.  Everything Gaius ever conceals from her is concealed with the intention of keeping her safe.  Arthur knows absolutely nothing about Morgana's parentage until after Morgana has already violently invaded Camelot, and he knows nothing about her prophecies/magic, either.  Gwen, too, is never told anything about Morgana's parentage or her magic, even though Gwen supports Morgana when Morgana thinks her dreams might be sorcery.  And Morgana never comes to Merlin for help, despite his demonstrated support in 2.03 - what he does later, in 2.11, is a response to him legitimately thinking that she is actively trying to kill everyone in Camelot.  When she comes back a year later, he forgives her for it immediately, and when he realizes she has turned against them again, he STILL tries to talk her around, to offer his hand.  

So I think about that sometimes.  And I wonder what would have happened if Morgana had chosen to recognize things like this.  Merlin, for his own part, always chooses to recognize things like this when it comes to the people who've done him wrong (and by this I do not mean to say that his response is always the best one - I'm not talking about him consistently allowing Arthur to continue oppressing him and his community, here.  I'm talking about him, on an interpersonal level, being able to recognize when the people who've harmed him did so in an attempt to keep him safe, or without fully understanding the potential consequences of their actions.)  

Merlin understands that his mother lied about Balinor and the dragonlords in an attempt to protect him, and he continues to love her in spite of the fact that the deception legitimately hurt him.  He understands when Gaius gives Finna up to Arthur, because he know that Gaius sincerely believed her to be a trap laid by Morgana.  He understands many of the things Morgana does, too, and he gives her all kinds of chances - he knows why she tries to kill Uther in 1.11, and he holds no grudge.  He knows she tried to steal the Crystal of Neahtid in 2.10, and again he holds no grudge - he doesn't even suspect her, at the beginning of the next episode, when the entire city falls asleep.  He forgives her in 3.01 after she (as far as he knows) tried to kill the entire city at the end of the previous season, and even after she reveals herself to be a traitor in 3.02, he tells her he doesn't believe she deserves to be executed for who she is.  He still feels for her.  He still understands.  He wants to connect with her.

And, admittedly, neither Morgana nor Merlin are obligated to extend this kind of understanding to the people who've harmed them.  The impact of the harmful actions is the same, and Morgana doesn't have to give her friends a chance if she doesn’t want to.  She doesn't have to consider their intentions.

But she could have.  And I think that in some of these situations, there are compelling reasons why she should have.  

It's important to me to recognize that Morgana's choice not to ever consider her friends' intentions, particularly when it comes to people like Gwen, who didn't even understand what was going on and who were given no chance to prove their willingness to help Morgana before Morgana attacked first - completely obstructs the possibility of making amends, working things out together, making a connection, or seeking a more positive outcome.  Morgana’s actions come out of nowhere, for most of the people who know her.  She starts trying to kill them before they ever even know anything is wrong.  She doesn’t give them a chance to help her.

And she doesn’t have to, certainly.  But I wonder sometimes what things would have looked like if she had.

[cobra-diamond]

Mirror & Misdirection - The Distortions of the Mirror Scene

How excessive, myopic emphasis on the Mirror Scene distorted both the fandoms and Brykes’ understanding of Azula, and what the Finale actually says about Avatar’s most controversial villain.

Executive Summary

           To understand any fictional character, you have to understand their Goals, Motivations and Conflicts. This applies to Princess Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. 

           Ever since Azula was humanized in the Finale, arguments have raged over whether or not she has the capacity for meaningful growth and change like any other character, or any other human being.

           At the core of these arguments has been the infamous Mirror Scene where, while talking to an hallucination of her mother, Azula expresses doubt, regret and tear-stricken grief. As a thoroughly established villain who had never before shown such feelings, this scene was taken as character-defining.

           However, the Mirror Scene alone does not reveal all of Azula’s Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts. Instead, the Mirror Scene, when taken by itself, is only a Conflict. As a result, the Mirror Scene has distorted both the fandoms and Brykes’ perception of Azula by assuming she is entirely the work of complex, vague and puzzling psychological phenomena surrounding her mother, versus a variety of well-defined Goals and Motivations.

           In actuality, the Finale gives us two other scenes that, combined with the Mirror Scene, give us everything we need to understand Azula’s Goals, Motivations and Conflicts.

           In this article, I will provide an alternative explanation of Azula’s character that relates directly to the source material and which does not rely on psychological theory.

      ��    First, I will summarize the “Azula Debate” to provide proper context for this subject.

           Next, I will explain the character-building concepts of Goal, Motivation and Conflict and why they are especially critical to devising a workable understanding of Azula.

           After that, I will explain how the Finale yields Azula’s Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts, and I will provide an alternative explanation of the Mirror Scene as it relates to them.

           I will then explain why the fandom incorrectly fixated on the Mirror Scene and how this distorted both the fandoms and Brykes’ understanding of their most controversial villain.

           And finally, using these Finale-revealed Goals, Motivations and Conflicts, I will suggest a “path forward” for Azula’s further involvement in the Franchise.

The “Azula Debate”

           When the Finale aired in 2008, one of the most striking and controversial developments was the rapid humanization of Azula. For the first time, we saw the fearsome and always-winning Princess scared, paranoid, emotionally fragile and crying. It was a radical shift from our previous image of Avatar’s most hated villain. Nothing like it had yet happened in the Franchise.

           The topic of Azula’s newly-revealed humanity was so compelling that even Mike and Bryan were asked about it in the Sozin’s Comet novelization. While their answers were vague and disjointed, the fact they had an affirmative answer shows that Azula’s humanity wasn’t an accident; it was intended.

           And the fans saw this: they saw an Azula that was more complex than what they had been previously shown, or lead to believe existed.

           While Azula’s breakdown in the finale was well-animated, scored and voice acted, and the show wrapped up nicely overall, the Finale created more questions than answers for the Fire Princess, most of which still have not been answered to this day.

           What is Ursa and Azula’s relationship? What is Azula’s moral compass? What does she value? What is the extent of her empathy? What lines will she not cross? Why does she use fear to control people? Does she enjoy hurting people? Can she feel love? What does she want in life? Why did she throw bread at turtle ducks? Is she a sociopath? Will she reconcile with Ursa? Is she mentally ill? Will she ever rise from the ashes of her shame and humiliation? What happens to her next?

           These were the sorts of questions fans were asking in the aftermath of the Finale, and which fans are still asking.

           Unfortunately, the fandom did not approach this topic with unity.

           What began after the Finale was an endless back and forth about morality and affective empathy; psychology and personality disorders; juvenile delinquency and abuse dynamics; Dracos in Leather Pants and Freudian Excuses, with one side arguing that there wasn’t anything inside Azula worth exploring, while the other side desperately clung to the hope that there was potential for compelling growth in Azula. You could term the “anti” side the “Azula Haters” and the “pro” side the “Azula Fans”.

           The “Azula Fans” are a diverse group that cannot be generalized. In summary, they found Azula compelling for a variety of reasons, they had questions they wanted answered and they desired to see Azula fleshed out fully.

           The “Azula Haters” are equally a diverse group and so cannot be generalized. Overall, their motivations are primarily to relate Azula to real-world bullies and abusers, thereby preserving her as a platform to talk about escaping domestic abuse situations and how to give up on toxic family members. Relating Azula to the real-world in this way is not to develop the world of Avatar and its characters, but to express their own anger, cynicism and heartache over what’s occurred in their own and other’s lives, and teach lessons about it.

           The key point is this: the purpose of the Azula Debate was not to discover the truth about Azula and determine how to tell a story about her. It was to either admonish “Azula Fans” for being misguided and ignorant in their understanding of Azula, or to prevent the “Haters” from discouraging their last, major interest in Avatar.

           In the twelve years that have followed since the Finale, neither side has “prevailed”.

           Aaron Ehasz has spoken about the potential for a Post-Finale Azula arc whereas Mike and Bryan have said little, or nothing. Wheras the fandom can all agree about their love for the heroes, Azula is like talking politics at a family gathering; it will not be pretty and passions will be inflamed.

          While Azula was brought back in The Search and Smoke and Shadow comics, these works yielded few, if any, answers to her developments in the Finale, and she remains a divisive character. In fact, much of her complexities established in the Finale were ignored in The Search and erased entirely in Smoke and Shadow.

          It can be argued that the Azula from the show did not actually make it into the comics and still remains “in an asylum off the coast”, waiting to be further developed.  As a result, both Azula Fans and Haters argue to this day with no end in sight.

           Driving these debates is the fact that nobody, not even the Creators, have provided a comprehensive, question-answering, Franchise-consistent explanation for Azula that combines her wickedness with her humanity.

           To Haters, Azula is the embodiment of all things awful and terrifying that must be removed from society. To Fans, she is the potential for another compelling character-driven story utilizing the original cast.

           A word frequently used to describe these “compelling” additional stories about Azula is “redemption”. This is a vague word with multiple meanings. Typically, both Avatar fans and the Creators interpret this as a character who is morally good on the inside realizing their mistakes and atoning for them; these characters are not truly bad people; as long as we don’t think they have crossed any moral “lines in the sand”, they can be accepted into the circle of “good people”.

           This is what has caused debates surrounding Azula to be focused on questions of morality, affective empathy and psychological disorders instead of her Goals, Motivations and Conflicts; if “Haters” can prove that Azula is genetically bad, then there is no potential for a story about her because it is impossible for her to change and grow, and stories require their characters to change and grow. On the other hand, if “Fans” can prove she is “human”, then she does have the capacity to change and grow, and the themes of the Franchise can be applied to her.

           Unfortunately for Azula Fans, there are two seasons of wickedness, smirking and bedeviling Zuko to back up the Haters’ position.

           But Azula Haters also have to contend with the Finale. It demonstrated the existence of Azula’s humanity and was an intentional decision by the Creators; Fans are not “reading into” it. Even Katara felt Azula’s humanity.

           So who is correct?

           Well, the Haters are, for the most part.

           The show spent a lot of time portraying Azula as unnecessarily cruel without a shred of self-doubt, suggesting her villainy is not just a matter of her upbringing and choices, but intractable psychological defects. Even the Creators wanted Azula to reflect a “deeply rooted malevolence.” To counter this, Azula Fans point to the Finale, and more specifically, to the infamous Mirror Scene.

           The Mirror Scene shows Azula expressing doubt, remorse, hurt and even tear-stricken grief. The Mirror Scene has been used by Azula Fans to explain all of Azula’s humanity, sort of as a Rosetta Stone of her innerworkings. Even the Creators seem to think this way, as shown by their answers to the Sozin’s Comet interview, and their choice to make Azula’s relationship with her mother in The Search take center stage, and drastically so.

           THIS. IS ALL. WRONG.

           In order to understand a character, you have to understand their Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts. Any character, especially Azula.

           The Mirror Scene and her relationship with her mother are not what’s vital to understanding who Azula is, what she wants and how she fits into the Avatar world. This is not an attempt to be “edgy” or “different” or “contrarian”. You will never, ever find your answers in The Beach or in the Mirror Scene alone, no matter how hard you try. This is because the Mirror Scene is only one of three scenes from the Finale that must be taken together to understand Azula on a fundamental level.

           The Mirror Scene is not enough. It has not answered the fandom’s questions about Azula’s Goals, Motivations and Conflicts. It has not provided a compelling argument against the evidence that she is a monster whose villainy was only limited by the censors and, most importantly, the Mirror Scene is not Azula’s most defining moment.

           These three, together, are:

And I will explain why.

Understanding Characters: Goals, Motivations, & Conflicts

           This section gets into some of the “nuts and bolts” of storytelling, but it is necessary for understanding Azula; she is too complicated and the source material too thin on her. Stick with this and you should learn something.

           In order to understand a character, you have to have a clear understanding of their Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts. Other writers have different terms for these concepts (Need, Want, Desire, Obstacle, etc.), but they are universal to storytelling.

           Stories are not meant to be exact replicas of real life. Yes, they can say something about life, but ultimately, stories are about characters having problems to solve and their journeys to solve them. It is not enough for a character to just “feel”. They have to want things, need things, do things, and something has to prevent them from getting what they want and need.

           Conflicts are what prevent characters from achieving their goals (their wants and needs). Motivations are what drive characters to pursue their Goals, and Goals are what characters strive to physically achieve.

           Goals are physical; they can be touched, held, acquired. They can be a person, a place, or a thing. They are not emotional or psychological. “Love” is not a Goal. Being in the arms of someone or waking up in bed next to them, however, is a goal. Goals are what enable characters to be active in the story, to move through the world, exert force on their surroundings. Sitting on the sofa, or ruminating in a prison cell are not Goals; getting up to join the protest or hatching an escape plan are. At the same time, “wanting power” is not a goal, but “becoming president” is.

           For some Avatar examples, “Capture the Avatar” is a Goal. “Master all four elements” is a Goal. “Liberate Ba Sing Se” is a Goal, but “My mother thought I was a monster” is not.

           Goals, however, do not exist by themselves. They are the result of Motivations.

           Motivations are internal. They are abstract. They cannot be touched or acquired. They derive from the thoughts, feelings, philosophies and psychologies of the characters. Some motivations can be caused by external forces, such as fear of breaking the law, a military commander giving an order to a soldier, or the threat of dying from starvation, but those external forces are not Motivations: fear of imprisonment, commitment to one’s leaders, and the will to survive are because they are emotional, philosophical, psychological.

           Motivations are where characters encounter those moral “lines they won’t cross”. It’s where they doubt themselves and wonder if they are willing to go “all the way” to stop the villain. Motivations are what drive a character to question if they should kill the man who murdered their mother, if they should kill the Fire Lord and ignore their culture, or betray their uncle to return home. Without Motivations, characters are robots. With Motivations, characters become people.

           But a story where characters face no opposition is not a story. This is were Conflicts arrive.

           Conflicts prevent characters from achieving their Goals. They can come from a variety of sources: internal or external; emotional or religious; psychological or philosophical, or combinations thereof. Conflicts can stem from Motivations (for example, somebody violating their moral code), but they are not themselves Motivations. For example, if a character is motivated to carry on the cultural values of their lost people, but their duty requires them to violate that culture, their struggle to reconcile the two is a Conflict. Or, if a character is motivated to be the image of the son his father wants, but finds out that image is completely against everything he stands for, his struggle to remain at his father’s side or leave is a Conflict.

           The type of Conflicts that “build character” are the ones that result from Motivations, not merely external forces. A character simply climbing over a fallen tree is not as compelling as a character who must decide if they should cut down the tree when there’s a nest of endangered owls living in it. Characters must decide for themselves. They must struggle with their feelings and values.

           However, Goals, Motivations and Conflicts are not the end-all-be-all of character. Characters can have secondary goals and motivations. They can have quirks, flaws and personality traits that give them depth and round them out, but their Goals, Motivations and Conflicts are what creates a story about them. They’re why Zuko being willing to burn down Kyoshi Island does not tell us the full story of Zuko, but it tells us something about him. They’re why Azula hanging Ty Lee over a burning net does not tell us the full story of Azula, but it tells us something about her. And they’re why Aang killing a buzzard wasp in cold-blood does not tell us the story of Aang, but tells us something about what he’s going through and what will make him ignore his values.

           In short, we have to know a character’s Goals, Motivations, & Conflicts in order understand them, only then can a character be fully fleshed out in a story that makes them overcome diversity, change and grow.

 The Goals, Motivations & Conflicts of Princess Azula

           In order to answer the lingering questions about Azula, including how to tell a story about her in the Post-Finale world, you have to understand what she wants, why she wants it and why she is unable to have it. In other words, you have to understand her Goals, Motivations & Conflicts.

           As it turns out, the Finale gave us all of this. Now, keep in mind, the Finale doesn’t tell us everything about the Fire Princess, just like how the show doesn’t tell us everything about General Iroh prior to Lu Ten’s death, but the Finale tells us enough in order to develop a workable explanation of her character. This explanation of her character was revealed in three scenes, starting with the one in The Phoenix King where she is speaking to her father on the platform, followed by the scene in Into the Inferno when she is talking to Lo and Li in the throne room, and, finally, the Mirror Scene.

           Not everything is explicitly stated and neither does it explain her bullying, teasing, smirking and smugness, but it doesn’t have to. Those are flaws, quirks and other personality traits. These three scenes in the Finale give us the big stuff; the information that’s needed to tie her into the franchise at large and make her a product of the Avatar world versus a mere set of villainous qualities.

           And it begins with The Phoenix King.

Pivotal Azula Scene #1: The Phoenix King

           I’m sure you can picture it: Azula racing to join her father on the platform, getting told she’s being left behind, frightened because she thought they were going to burn the Earth Kingdom together, snapping at her father for treating her like Zuko, desperately insisting she deserves to be by his side, and, finally, flinching as she gets yelled at.

           That’s some big, heavy stuff, huh? She’s been afraid of being treated like Zuko all this time? Burning down the Earth Kingdom is some child-like, emotionally needy ploy to be with her father?? She feels she deserves to be by his side?!? Azula has problems?!?!?

           This scene reveals a portion of Azula’s Goals, Motivations and Conflicts.

           Before I begin, I must warn you: I’m not going to spend a lot of time using clever words and metaphors to convince you. If you ever have the urge to shout “But wait! I disagree with that and here’s all the reasons why!!” I encourage you to slow down, approach this with an open mind and try to ignore your existing ideas about Azula.     Forget about her smirking and smugness, her throwing bread at turtle ducks, her tormenting of Zuko and especially the psychological disorders that people have tried to tie her to. We are focusing on her Goals, Motivations & Conflicts as revealed by the Finale, not essays and fan interpretations. We are applying time-honored storytelling principles to Azula as if we were trying to tell a professional story about her.

Azula’s Goal #1: Be With Her Father

           In the Phoenix King scene, Azula said she wanted to “do this together.” She said she deserves to “be by his side.” She doesn’t want to stay behind. These are physical, tangible things. They comprise a Goal.

           Why does she have this Goal? Don’t worry about that right now; we’ll get to that later, but right now, the Phoenix King shows and tells that Azula wants to be in the presence of her father. She wants to stand next to him. She wants to do things with him, and she is willing to snap at him over it. This scene also reveals her Motivations.

           Hold on. Wait. Stop. I know you’re doing it; you’re thinking, “”But they’re both predators feeding off each other! ‘Be with her father’ must actually mean something sinister and her real goal is to extract power and influence off of him!”

           Stop.

           Relax.

           Forget all of that. We are exploring what the Finale shows and tells us. Ignore fan theories. We are in unexplored territory right now.

Azula’s Motivation #1: Not Be Treated Like Zuko

           Not being “treated like Zuko” is abstract. Being “treated like Zuko” means being openly disrespected, thought of as irrelevant, viewed as a disappointment, not being wanted, sent on fool’s errands, belittled and cast aside.

           Being challenged to an Agni Kai isn’t being treated like Zuko as the Agni Kai is a standard Fire Nation practice; child Zuko was perfectly willing to fight the general over his mere “disrespect”. If the General had burned him, would the General have been treating Zuko “like Zuko”? Neither is the act of being physically punished being “treated like Zuko”; lots of kids in the Avatar world probably get physically hurt by their parents. Terrible, but not unique.

           It’s not the physical abuse that makes someone be “treated like Zuko”, but the emotional. In a society where Agni Kais are commonplace and soldiers are expected to be tough and aggressive, being “treated like Zuko” is a state of mind; it is emotional, philosophical, psychological. Think of it this way: if Azula had been challenged to an Agni Kai, fought with aggression, and Ozai “merely” burned is favorite on the arm somewhere to end the fight because it had served its purpose, and later expressed pride to her because of her aggression, would that physical harm be treating her “like Zuko”? The Fire Nation’s leadership is supposed to have a warrior culture.

           In the Phoenix King scene, the Motivation behind Azula’s Goal of “being with her father” is not merely to avoid the physical harm of an Agni Kai, but her fear of being “treated like Zuko” and everything that means. This isn’t the entire message of the Finale, but it’s what this particular scene is saying, and Ozai’s response to Azula’s fear reveals one of Azula’s Conflicts.

Azula’s Conflict #1: Her Father Doesn’t Want Her

           Imagine if Ozai had taken Azula with him and they drank tea, played Pai Sho while and, together, lost to the Avatar. She’d probably be far less distraught than she was at the end of her Agni Kai with Zuko. Certainly her hair wouldn’t have been disheveled and she wouldn’t have been screaming and crying.

           What prevents Azula from achieving her Goal of “being with her father” is that her father doesn’t want to be with her.

          Look at that sequence closely, in particular the change in Ozai’s expression after Azula arrives. Is that the face of a man who wants his supposed favorite around?

           Wait. Stop. I know you’re doing it again: you’re thinking about Ozai’s capacity or lack thereof for love, why Azula feels this way or what her ulterior motive is or what psychological disorder is driving her to cling to him like a parasite.

           Once again… Relax. We’ll get to that. Just focus on what the Finale is telling us here: Azula wants to be with her father (a Goal), she is scared of being treated like Zuko (a Motivation), and her father is not giving her what she wants (a Conflict).

           Does Ozai assure her that he isn’t treating her like Zuko? Does he put his hands on Azula’s shoulders and tell her that that isn’t what’s happening?

           No!

           He buys her an expensive car to get her to shut up. Azula hasn’t been given what she wants in this scene. “Fire Lord Azula” is not being at her father’s side. Being coronated is not “doing this together”, in fact, it’s leaving her alone. It can be argued that Ozai manipulated Azula in this scene by giving her something she wanted, so how was he able to manipulate her?

           By understanding her Goals and Motivations, next of which are revealed in the Throne Room Scene.

Pivotal Azula Scene #2: The Throne Room

           Ever hear the phrase “show don’t tell” in storytelling? Show the reader what the characters feel and what they want? Show what a character is willing to do to achieve their goals? Well, sometimes you do need to tell a reader what a character is thinking in order to make it starkly clear to them, and in the Throne Room scene, we get just that: a clear statement by Azula of what her Goal is, and it is a whopper.

           In fact, this stated Goal by Azula is so monumental that it can be considered character-defining. It ties her royalty into her relationship with her father into her being a prodigy into her high standards (“almost isn’t good enough”), even into her struggles to be a “normal” teenager in The Beach. It makes the “Princess” in Princess Azula actually mean something. It makes “Princess of the Fire Nation” actually relate to the Fire Nation.

           Azula’s second Goal, as stated explicitly in the Finale, is to be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history. Those are her exact words.

           Be something; a physical condition. It requires her to take action, to be active, to accomplish things. It is a Goal.

Azula’s Goal #2: Be the Greatest Leader in Fire Nation History

           In the Throne Room scene of the Finale, Azula says that she will be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history. She says it. This is not an interpretation or “reading into” things. The Finale has told the viewer what the Princess component of Princess Azula wants to be when she grows up: the greatest leader in Fire Nation history. This is a Goal; something that can be physically achieved. While it is true that what constitutes “greatest” can be subjective, certainly it involves a combination of reputation and physical accomplishments, especially given the goals of the Fire Nation at the time: conquering other nations and advancing the country’s wealth and power.

           That this scene has flown under the radar for so long is mind-boggling. It is akin to asking a child what they want to be when they grow up, only this is a flame-throwing, feudal-era teenager who is being raised to command armies. Look at it this way:

           “Little Jimmy, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

           “An astronaut!”

           “Little Susy, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

           “A doctor!”

           “Little Princess Azula, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

           “The greatest leader in Fire Nation history!”

           Azula told us what she wants to be when she grows: the greatest leader in her country’s history. That is a pretty lofty goal that has been tempered by age or experience, something a young person could easily think they could achieve, but then again, maybe it wasn’t so unreasonable for her: she captured Ba Sing Se, defended the Capital from invasion and can bend blue fire and lightning at a young age.

           So, why would a princess strive to be the greatest leader of her country versus just lounging around all day? That is for her Motivation to explain.

Azula’s Motivation #2: Her Father’s Expectations + Pride & Belief in Her Royal Title

           This Motivation is really multifaceted, but in order to simplify things, it is being tied to her royalty in order to emphasize its connection to the Throne Room scene.

           If “being the greatest leader” is a Goal, then the reason why she wants to be the greatest leader is her Motivation.

           This is where some speculation becomes necessary. Even though the Throne Room scene stated this Goal very clearly, it doesn’t say much about why she desires this. You have two ways you can approach this question. First, you can cynically assume that Azula is motivated by nothing honorable or relatable, therefore she is closer to a parasite feeding off of the Royal Family, or second, you can assume she is a product of the world she lives in and so is motivated by things that can tell us about the Royal Family, the Fire Nation, and life under her father. Because the former results in no room for growth and change, and is entirely based on psychological theory, this article will assume the latter.

           Because there are no clear answers for why she has this Goal in the Finale, I am simply going to list a variety of potential Motivations. Most likely, the answer is a combination of these at the same time:

·         Ambition to achieve (like a great athlete striving for excellence);

·         Enjoys challenging herself;

·         Desires to be someone (famous, notable);

·         Internalizes her role as Princess and sees herself as nothing else;

·         Enjoys fighting, firebending and military subjects;

·         Enjoys politics, ruling and statecraft;

·         Excels at her royal role, so enjoys being good at it;

·         Believes in the purpose of the Imperial Government;

·         Takes pride in Fire Nation history and wants to contribute to it;

·         Enjoys having power over people;

·         Seeks praise;

·         It’s what her father expects of her;

·         Believes her father is a great leader and so wants to be like him;

·         It’s what’s expected of a Fire Nation Princess;

·         Wants to maintain the legitimacy of her family and “prove her worth”;

·         If there’s any sort of sexism in the Fire Nation, maybe she feels she needs to work “twice as hard to get half as far”;

·         Following the sexism angle, maybe she wants to distance herself from any “limiting” feminine roles;

·         And others.

           In the Throne Room scene, we are given a hint as to what might be one of Azula’s motivations for wanting to be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history: not being treated like Zuko (i.e. living up to her father’s expectations).

           Right before she gives the aforementioned line in the Throne Room scene, she says to Lo and Li that her father doesn’t think she “can handle the responsibility of being Fire Lord”. Perhaps one of the reasons for pushing herself toward ever greater achievements and abilities is to prove to her father that she truly does deserve to be “by his side” and not “treated like Zuko”.

           But Azula is also a princess. That is extremely important.

           Azula is a member of the Royal Family and is a military and authoritarian leader by default. The Throne Room scene is the chance to inject the Fire Nation into Azula’s character, not just emotional disfunction and psychological dependency. Remember what kind of country Azula lives in: it is full of walking flamethrowers who must be kept in line.

          Remember all the warfare in ancient Japan? No? Then take a look at this article, The East Asian Origins of Fire Nation and Its Villains, for an idea as to why the Imperial Government exists and why the Royal Family is very concerned about being successful, and using force and intimidation to do so.

           “I want to be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history” is the chance to use Azula to convey broader subjects about the Fire Nation’s politics, history, culture and how they effect someone who is either too young or unable to be what is expected of them: a feared military ruler in a militarized society at 14 years old.

           Also note that her goal of being the “greatest leader” was stated after she learned she would be Fire Lord. This means the Goal was not accomplished; the Motivation didn’t go away. Being Fire Lord is not being a great leader; it is simply being Fire Lord. To her, wanting to be the “greatest leader” comes from a much deeper source and, in fact, could be argued as a character-defining Motivation. Along these lines, Azula is not merely Azula; she is Princess Azula at all times, everywhere. To her, there is no “Azula”, but only “Princess Azula”. Her title is her identity.

           You might have to apply some artistic license here, but you can do so in a way that is both faithful to the source material and builds upon it. For example, while the show was active, there was a description of Azula from the viewpoint of the Fire Nation on Nickelodeon’s website. Note that it sounds very similar to what Zuko said about his sister in Siege of the North: Part 2. This heavily suggests that not only is Azula what her father wants, but also what the Fire Nation and Imperial Government want in a princess.

           To summarize, Azula’s second Goal is to be the greatest leader in her country’s history and her Motivation for this Goal is a combination of wanting to meet the expectations of her father and flat-out believing and taking pride in her role as Princess. But what about her Conflicts as a result of this Goal? Well, as the Finale demonstrates, she isn’t the greatest leader yet. Once more, some reasonable speculation is required.

Azula’s Conflict #2: She Struggles to Be a Great Leader

           Azula felt she had to compel the Captain into taking the ship through the tides right now in order to exert her dominance (this is explained in the Tale of Azula novel). She relies entirely on fear instead of using a combination of trust and fear, like someone who read Machiavelli but wasn’t old enough to actually understand what it was saying; she failed to understand Zuko’s motivations and so he turned against the family; she failed to understand that people are willing to sacrifice their lives for loved ones, or even make stupid mistakes, so she felt personally wounded by Mai; she didn’t know how to handle both Mai and Ty Lee’s betrayal and so lost all faith in her subject’s loyalty; and she banished all of her servants and guards instead of figuring out how to act differently.

           If Azula’s father is her “measuring stick” for success, then being at his side and doing things with him is not only protection against “being treated like Zuko” but also a sign that she is doing everything right as a leader in training. Remember that her Goal of being the greatest leader didn’t go away when Ozai gave her the crown; the Goal is coming from someplace deeper.

           But Azula begins to doubt herself in the Finale. She begins to feel paranoid and she doesn’t have the life experience and knowledge to tell her why Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her, how to adjust accordingly and what to do differently. She’s never failed before. She’s unsure of what the future will be and she doesn’t have her father to measure herself against. She is not yet a great leader.

           She wants to be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history, but how will she become that if she keeps failing and her father left her behind? She wants to be by her father’s side, but how can she be if she’s back in the Fire Nation struggling to have the loyalty of her closest subjects (guards and servants)?

           If Azula’s second Goal is to be the greatest leader in her country’s history and the Motivation behind it is a combination of her father’s expectations and pride and belief in her royal title, then her second Conflict is that she doesn’t know how to be a great leader or live up to her father’s standards. In the Finale, she is trying and failing and she doesn’t know what to do.

           This leads to the third and final pivotal Azula scene: the famous Mirror Scene.

Pivotal Azula Scene #3: The Mirror Scene

           If there were any key emotions during Azula’s breakdown, they were paranoia, fear, anxiety, grief, uncertainty and doubt.

           It’s been established by the Phoenix King scene that she wants to be with her father to avoid being “treated like Zuko”. Knowing what happened to Zuko, that must create a hell of a ton of fear, anxiety, stress and doubt within her.

           It has also been established that she wants to be the greatest leader in her country’s history. That must also create a ton of fear, anxiety, stress and doubt: will she be the greatest leader? Will she fail? Does she even have what it takes? What if she doesn’t? What if Zuko is better than her? What will her father think of her? What will her country think of her?

           During the Finale, she is paranoid about the consequences of disobedient, vengeful subjects who might assassinate her.

           She doesn’t know what to do or what the future holds.

           She is doubting herself, she is afraid she might fail.

           She feels grief, but about what exactly?

           There is a pattern emerging from the Phoenix King and Throne Room scenes. You have a teenage girl (remember, that is what Azula is) who is anxious and panicky about being left behind and mistreated by her father; you have a young, military ruler-in-training who has very high standards for herself and is failing to live up to those standards; and you have a member of royalty who is alone, afraid and doesn’t know how to deal with failure or handle what she is feeling.

           Remember what I said earlier about ignoring your existing conceptions and feelings about Azula? Well, you also have to ignore the 30-year old voice actress and general appearance of being older. You need to think about the franchise at large.

           What were the ages of the main characters: 12? 14? 16? 17 at most? Kids and teenagers, essentially. That is a unique selling point of the franchise—young people going through adversity—and it makes it easier to feel sympathy for them, just as the youth of the characters in the Hunger Games made it more relatable to kids and teens, and allowed adults to feel sympathy as well (adults are the ones who take care of kids and teens).

           In fact, the characters of Avatar being kids was an important part of the story: themes of family were critical to Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Mai, Ty Lee and even Azula (in the end). Therefore, you have to keep in mind the importance of youth to the main cast and franchise at large.

           How old is Azula? 14-15?

           Do you now see the pattern?

           Who do kids and teenagers rely on when they are in trouble?

           Who helps them understand their feelings?

           Who is supposed to have all the answers?

           Who tells them they’ll be okay, they’ll figure it out, they’re not alone?

           Parents.

           What is Ozai to Azula? A parent. A terrible one by our eyes, but still a parent. Is he there for her during her time of need in the Finale? No. Does he help her understand the myriad of feelings that are causing her to unravel? No. Does he provide guidance as to why Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her and how to learn from it? No. Does he tell her she’ll be okay, to not worry, that she’ll figure it out and she’s not alone? No. Could he have done these things? Yes, because he’s a parent of Azula. Did he? No.

           Would it have helped her to have a parent who could walk her through her struggles? You’re damn right it would have. She would have still had a platoon of Dai Lee and Imperial Firebenders to protect her and she’d have been Fire Lord.

           But she didn’t have Ozai, either physically or emotionally. She didn’t have a parent to help her. Teenage girl, military-leader-in training Azula couldn’t handle the tidal wave of adversity that struck her, and so she drowned. Lo and Li weren’t parents; they were advisors; subjects. Her servants weren’t her parents; is she going to expose her weaknesses to the people she doesn’t trust and whose respect she must command? Neither were her Dai Lee or Imperial Firebenders (her guards). But she wanted a parent to help her… And she has two.

           One of them, her father, not only wasn’t physically present, but also made it clear, in subtle ways, that he wasn’t ever going to be there for her “in that way”; she didn’t jump to the “you can’t treat me like Zuko” conclusion if it wasn’t clear to her that that’s exactly what was happening.

           So who is the only other person in the world who can say the things a parent can to Azula? Who is literally her only other parent?

          Her mother.

           Ursa is not Azula’s conscience speaking to her. Ursa is not a Freudian Excuse. Ursa is not a Shakespearean metaphor for god knows what. Ursa isn’t even a spirit talking to her through the Spirit World. Ursa is, in Azula’s mind, her parent and this reveals Azula’s third Goal.

Azula’s Goal #3: Have a Parent Who Can Help Her

           Remember what Avatar is based on: kids and teenagers going through adversity. Ask yourself this: do you believe that all of Avatar was a “lie” and that the “real” Avatar is full of nudity, torture, rape, grotesque violence, “grimdark” themes and the cast is really 18+? I don’t. Work with the source material; it’s what we have, it’s what was made.

           Azula is a teenager at the top of a feudal, military government who has extremely high expectations for herself, a father who has her living in fear of being spurned and abused, and who has certain proclivities (i.e. flaws) that are causing her harm. As a result, she is full of fear, anxiety, stress and doubt as a result of her struggle to achieve her Goals. She wants a parent to say and do the things that parents can: sooth their children’s fears, teach them life lessons and help them understand why they’re wrong and how to set them straight.

           Azula’s third Goal is to have a parent who can help her, physically be there for her, do and say the things that parents are supposed to in order to make her fears, anxieties, stress and doubts go away.

           You always had such beautiful hair?

           I wouldn’t miss my daughter’s coronation?

           I think you’re confused?

           I love you?

           Who the hell says those things to someone like Azula?

           A parent, or at least Azula thinks a parent would. She might not be able to put this combination of Goal-and-Motivation into precise words, but the teenage girl in her feels it. Her Motivation to achieve this Goal is her feelings.

Azula’s Motivation #3: Alleviate the Stress Caused by Her Goals

           Is having a parent the only way for Azula to alleviate her fears? No. She can achieve great things for her country, make marked progress in firebending, be praised by her father, be with her father, have friends to hang out with and, most importantly, she can alleviate her stress by making sure she never fails. If she works hard enough to never experience failure (“almost isn’t good enough”), then eventually she’ll come to believe that she can’t failure, and so won’t be burdened by it. It’s simply impossible… Like an inexperienced person would believe. There is certainly no shortage of highly talented young people in the real world who are both very confident and afraid of failure.

           No one wants to live with fear or anxiety or stress; it’s painful and draining. Same for Azula. In her time of great adversity during the Finale, these feelings were not unknown to her; she was already afraid of failure; she was already full of stress over meeting her father’s expectations and becoming the greatest leader; she was already guided by very high expectations. She already lived with fear, anxiety, stress and doubt and it was kept in check by being naturally talented, working exceptionally hard, having the personality for the environment she lived in and never failing. But in the Finale, she was struck by a tidal wave of failure and did not have the knowledge, or support, for staying afloat, like a teenager.

           In the Mirror Scene, Azula wants a parent—Ursa, Ozai—to help her with her problems, with her feelings, because she can’t handle them. She is motivated by the fears, anxieties, stresses and doubts of a flawed, inexperienced teenage girl who was raised to be a feudal, military dictator in a rapidly changing world, and is failing.

           But as we know, she didn’t find a way to alleviate her feelings in the Finale. Why? Because of her third and final Conflict.

Azula’s Conflict #3: She Doesn’t Have a Parent Who Can Help Her

           Could Ozai have helped her? In theory, yes. He knows how to rule through the same manner that Azula is emulating and he’s a 40-50 year old man with the experience, emotional maturity and, most importantly, respect of his daughter. Does he help her? We know he doesn’t. So during the Mirror Scene, Azula retreats to the other parent who could help: her mother, the one who, while not a military leader who rules through fear, can still tell her the sweet, soothing things that mothers are known to say, and say it with the authority of a parent.

           But Ursa is not physically present to say those things. Not only this, but Azula doesn’t even believe her mother would say those things, let alone mean them if she did. Why is her relationship with her mother this bad? We don’t know; the show or comics never showed or told us.

           However, “my mother thought I was a monster” is not a revelation of Azula’s Goals or Motivations. It is a statement that reveals one of her Conflicts: she doesn’t have a parent who can help her. Either she literally doesn’t have parents who are physically and emotionally present (Ozai), or she doesn’t believe she has parents who are (Ursa).

           To repeat, we do not have an explanation for “my mother thought I was a monster”, but ask yourself this: if the “Bear Mother” had actually been standing there during the Mirror Scene, would her words have sounded so haunted, shallow and detached-from-the-moment as if an inexperienced, confused teenager was saying them? Hell no. We’d have gotten the earth-shattering Mother-Daughter heart-to-heart that has eluded the franchise for 12 years (and which likely will never occur).

           In the end, Azula did not get the parental support she needed and she didn’t accomplish any of her Goals. She got swallowed by the tidal wave of failure, bashed against the rocks, swirled in the mud and dragged off to an asylum where she will wallow in her misery for all time, never to rise from ashes of her shame and humiliation. Her motivations did not leave her, though; they will burn inside her until the end of her days…

           Unless her story is advanced.

The Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits of Azula

           Before this article explains how and why the fandom and Creators misunderstood the Mirror Scene, I want to spend some time exploring Azula’s Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits.

           These are general terms for the variety of additional features that add “depth” to a character. Flaws, quirks and personality traits are separate from Goals, Motivations and Conflicts, but they can cause Motivations and create Conflicts.

           For example, if a character wants love (a Motivation) but they struggle with feelings of jealousy (the result of a flaw, quirk, or personality trait), then their Conflict becomes their struggle to overcome this part of their personality when dating their romantic interest. This is a rudimentary example.

           Another example would be a husband enjoying watching and hearing his wife scream when she finds fake spiders in the bed (YouTube can reveal lots of example of family members playing pranks on each other). Scaring his wife is not his Goal or Motivation in life; he simply enjoys doing it, and if he is trying to maintain a happy marriage with his wife, this flaw, quirk or personality traits creates a Conflict.

           This is how you have to approach Azula’s wickedness in the series. Remember how I said earlier not to think about all of that? Well, now you can.

           Smirking triumphantly while Zuko is burned for refusing to fight? Threatening the Ship Captain over a reasonable concern in order to exert her dominance? Throwing loaves of bread at turtle ducks as an 8 year old and still having turtle ducks swim away from her when she’s 14? Shoving Ty Lee to the ground and laughing at her because she upstaged her? Tormenting Zuko over something as awful as his father being ordered to kill him and enjoying it? Smugly hanging Ty Lee over a burning net to make a point? Enjoying teasing and inflaming Zuko? Smirking deviously? Has little respect for others perceived as beneath her? Makes flippant, dismissive comments? Can’t separate herself from her title? Doesn’t appreciate the “softer” sides of leadership (trust, loyalty, love, etc.)? What are these things?

           They are Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits.

           Azula’s primary Goals, Motivations and Conflicts are independent from whether or not she feeds turtle ducks by hand or throws the entire loaf at them, or smirks while bullying Ty Lee to establish her dominance, or enjoys teasing Zuko for his perceived weaknesses; Ty Lee would remain a subject to the Crown and Zuko’s problems with his father would not go away.

           Azula’s smirking, smug, nasty, sassy, Hyeena-woman persona is what makes her distinct. They are her flaws that create additional Conflicts and exacerbate existing ones. They are the quirks that make Azula a warm body and not simply a set of villainous specifications moving around on screen. They make her feel “alive”. They are the personality traits that separate her from all others in the show.

           Remember what Azula’s Goals are: be with her father, be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history, and have a parent to help her. For two of those, her wickedness will both help and hinder her.

           Not being concerned for peoples’ feelings and having no tolerance for weakness? Makes her able to manipulate corrupt, militant organizations like the Dai Lee. Pushing Mai and Ty Lee too hard and making them resent her? It got her their cooperation, for a time, but it ended up creating the chain reaction of fear, anxiety, stress and doubt that eventually ruined her. Embracing her father’s treatment of Zuko and doing everything necessary to avoid the same? Well, she never really got “treated like Zuko”, did she?

           Not having appreciation for trust and love and focusing solely on leading through fear? Makes her able to thrive in the current Imperial Government, but also incapable of adapting to failure. Teasing Zuko? Tormenting him? Perhaps her acting in “evil” ways strained her mother’s relationship with her and lead to the “monster” impression. Now that would be quite the flaw.

           Azula’s wickedness both helps and hinders her, and in the case of the Finale, contributed to her downfall. Her wickedness is a flaw. It harmed her. It prevented her from achieving her Goals.

           Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits only tell half the story of a character, and in the case of Azula, they’re not enough to understand who she is and what she wants, and more specifically, they’re not enough to advance her story in the Post-Finale world.

The Distortions of the Mirror Scene

           By not paying attention to the two other pivotal Azula scenes in the Finale, the Fandom and Bryke developed a distorted, myopic understanding of the Fire Princess where mental illness, unexplained issues with her mother and violent action against hallucinations comprised the sum total of her complexity.

          As a result, just about every piece of the Mirror Scene, from physical actions to key words, along with Azula’s Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits ended up becoming stand-ins for her Goals, Motivations and Conflicts in official franchise content: The Search and Smoke and Shadow.

           By focusing on Azula’s feelings and feelings alone, the Mirror Scene wound up becoming perceived as the pivotal scene for exploring her depth and even became the source of Bryke’s understanding of her when they wrote the comics. Take a look at these panels from The Promise and The Search to see what this means:

           Where are her unresolved feelings concerning her father?

           Where is her relationship with her country?

           Where is her connection to the “Princess” in her name?

          This is not to say that Azula’s time in the asylum couldn’t have resulted in her developing such extreme feelings for her mother. In fact, it does make a certain amount of sense: if she is spending her days racked by endless, gut-wrenching shame, humiliation and hopelessness, then the idea of her temporary psychosis from the Finale getting worse is reasonable; it becomes a Conflict for her to overcome.

          However, this is not portrayed as what has happened to her. Instead of the Azula from the Finale getting worse, we get the Azula from the Mirror Scene falling off the cliff; all of her complexities from the Finale are absent. Once more, it isn’t that Azula couldn’t have gotten worse, she definitely could have, it’s that Azula’s relationship with her mother alone does not explain the depth of her complexity established in the Finale, which includes her father and country. If she really is suffering from gut-wrenching shame, humiliation and hopeless, leading her to succumb to wacko delusions about her mother, those feelings have to be coming from something already established: her father and country.

           If you think I’m cherry-picking, go back through The Search. Scenes like the above happen over, and over and over again with zero mention of anything close to her Goals and Motivations from the Finale. Remember, feelings are not Goals or Motivations; crying about “destiny” and having “proof” in a dream sequence are not enough, especially when the Finale already established the myriad of things she wants, why she wants them and why she can’t have them.

          In The Search, Azula is not shown to be motivated by a sense off shame or humiliation over her defeat in the Finale, or sense of responsibility for failing to stop Zuko’s take over of the country. You would expect that someone who wanted to be “the greatest leader in Fire Nation history” would not be dismissive of what their failure resulted in, whether or not her enemies had outside help or not. The closest The Search comes to giving Azula Goals and Motivations separate from her mother is wanting to claim the throne from Zuko over arbitrary reasons of “destiny”. Never in the Finale did Azula espouse “destiny” or a desire to be Fire Lord just for the sake of being Fire Lord; it was tied to her desire to be the greatest leader and please her father. Instead, Azula spends the entirety of The Search lashing out at hallucinations of her mother and wanting to make the voices stop. Not once is her father or country mentioned as Motivation.

           Azula does not get portrayed like this unless “love” and “hallucinations” and “being confused” and “my mother thought I was a monster” are taken as the full extent of her Goals, Motivations and Conflicts. You do not portray Azula like this if you properly understand the Mirror Scene as depicting a troubled teenager believing their parent is lying to them (”Don’t pretend to act proud. I know what you really think of me...”) versus her conscience trying to “weaken” her with “love” (”Same as always, Zuzu. Even when you’re strong, you’re weak). In The Search, Ursa is not Azula’s parent in any capacity, past or present, and we are not shown how she has come to feel this way.

           You do not make Azula’s relationship with her mother this drastic unless you fully believe that everything about Azula can be acquired from the Mirror Scene and the Mirror Scene alone, and it appears this is precisely what Bryke believed.

          In a way, the Azula in The Search is an answers to the macabre question: “How much further out of her mind can Azula go if she believes her mother is the source of all of her problems and every key word and emotion from the Mirror Scene is carried forward?”

           To further this point, here are some key lines from the interview in the Sozin’s Comet novelization where Bryke discussed Azula’s “evil”, with commentary added:

           “As The Beach and Sozin’s Comet showed, she has a lot of unresolved issues with her mother.”

           Yes, it appears she does. Where do they come from?

           “She really feels that her mother didn’t lover her as much as Zuko, and this drives her crazy, literally.”

           Wait, what? She was already falling apart by the time the hallucination occurred. What about Mai and Ty Lee, her father and her role as Princess?

           “There are some truly evil people in the world, but in the case of Azula, her repressed emotions and jealousies corroded her spirit and made her become that way.”

           Made her become what way? She’s the Fire Princess; she enjoys being mean and powerful, and she just had a mental breakdown and fell flat on her ass in front of her nation’s capital. What “corroded spirit”?

           “And who knows, she might have a chance to heal.”

           Heal from what, her villainy? Her personality? Her breakdown? She wouldn’t be Azula anymore?? What are you referring to??

           By itself, the Mirror Scene does not reveal Azula’s Goals, Motivations and Conflicts. By itself, it only shows examples of things that give Azula grief and confusion and clearly recognizable human emotions that the viewer can relate to. In other words, feelings.

           Feelings are not Goals. Feelings by themselves are not even Motivations; they have to be in the context of wanting, needing, desiring something in order for them to become Motivations.

          “My mother thought I was a monster” is not a want or a need or a desire. It is a statement of a Conflict and nothing more, whereas, “My mother thought I was a monster (Conflict) and this eats at my soul (Motivation) because I want my mother in my life helping me (Goal)” is getting somewhere.

          Using the mirror scene as a sole reference is how Azula’s throwing of the hair brush in the Finale turns into shooting lightning at water, or her gripping her hair and screaming to reject the words of “love” from the hallucination, or her desiring to literally murder the physical embodiment of the hallucination; it’s because the writers are trying to wring every drop of meaning from this out-of-context interpretation of the Mirror Scene.

          It’s how her want for the throne is based on vague, brand new notions of destiny instead of duty to her country. It’s how you get not a single word from Azula about wanting to correct her image in the eyes of her father... Because the Mirror Scene didn’t say any of this; it was all about her mother, love and confusion.

           And don’t think this myopic, excessive emphasis on the Mirror Scene and Azula’s feelings was limited to Bryke. Oh no. Nobody is getting off easy.

           Take Aaron Ehasz’s comments about his brain bugs for a Post-Finale Azula arc in a hypothetical Season 4, which many fans have found inspiring and also devisive:

            He focuses on “pain”, “love”, “feelings”, “change”, even uses the magic word “redemption”. These are all abstract. Where are Azula’s Goals, especially those revealed in the Finale? Where is “I will be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history?” What does she want to accomplish in this Season 4? What will she be doing? Feelings are not enough. Motivations are not enough. There have to be Goals attached to them.

            “Azula is in the depths of her abyss” is not a Goal, whereas “Azula is in the depths of her abyss (Conflict) because she wakes up every day with gut-wrenching feelings of shame and humiliation that she wants to go away (Motivation), so she wants her normal life back (Goal)” is, once more, getting somewhere. And better yet: “she will do whatever it takes to end her misery” is the beginnings of a story.

           Now take a look at what author Gene Yang wrote when he was asked by a fan if it is possible for Azula to have “happy closure.” What does “happy closure” mean? Well, as someone who now understands Goals, Motivations and Conflicts, you know that it means a character achieving their Goals and no longer having any Conflicts, but what is Gene Yang’s answer?

           He says it’s not even possible.

           Of course it’s possible for Azula to have “happy closure”. Any character can. It’s a matter of them achieving their Goals or losing the Motivation for them. She’s not a robot.

           But hold on! Wasn’t Gene Yang just being vague? Wasn’t he only trying to make a point to get the fan to think for themselves? Maybe even hide the plot of Smoke and Shadow?

           You could have thought that at the time, but as we now know from Smoke and Shadow, Gene Yang wasn’t making a vague, thought-inducing comment to that fan. He was stating that Azula can’t achieve her Goals or change her Motivations. Remember what her Goals and Motivations were from the Finale: be with her father, be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history, and have a parent who can help her. None of those Goals and none of the Motivations behind them were resolved at the end of the Finale, or by the end of The Search; they were ongoing. We didn’t even find out if they had changed between the Finale and The Search. Now take a look at these two scenes from Smoke and Shadow:

           Not even Azula’s mother and brother know what she wants, and in fact, neither do Gene Yang, Bryke, and for the longest time, the majority of the Fandom.

           Why can this conclusion be made about the Creators? Because Azula’s Goals, Motivations and Conflicts established in the Finale, and which had not been resolved by the end of The Search, disappeared entirely in Smoke and Shadow.      

           Without hallucinations, without her mother’s voice giving her haunting assurances of love, without feelings directly attached to the Mirror Scene, there is nothing else inside Azula in the minds of the Creators. Once she runs away into the forest at the end of The Search, after hearing hollow platitudes from her brother, she becomes “weightless… free”.

           There are no unresolved issues with her father. There is no goal to be the greatest leader in her country’s history. There is no desire to absolve herself of her failures to prevent the old regime from falling. There is no sense of personal responsibility for failing to stop Zuko and thereby prevent the destruction of the colonies. There isn’t even a relationship with her mother if it can’t be tied to hallucinations.

           By placing all emphasis on the Mirror Scene in the comics, everything about Azula became searching for “love” and feeling “confused” because those were the key words used by the hallucination in the Mirror Scene. “Love” becomes just a word she needs to hear (“I love you, Azula” from the hallucination, “You’re still my sister” from Zuko) without regard to who it comes from (supposed to be from her parents) or whether it is actually meant (there is no reason for Azula to believe Zuko, or even seek it from him; he’s not a parent and he’s a mortal enemy responsible for her ills).

           There was nothing about one’s duty to their country as a Princess; there was nothing about living up to her parents’ standards, both parents’ standards; there was nothing about becoming the greatest leader in Fire Nation history, and becoming Fire Lord (either via the letter or vicariously in Smoke and Shadow) is not becoming the “greatest leader” to Azula. It simply means being Fire Lord. This is what was revealed  in the Finale when she still wasn’t satisfied despite being on the verge of being crowned. And finally, there was nothing about resolving her feelings of fear, anxiety, stress and doubt that resulted from her failures to achieve her Goals during the Finale.

           So why did this happen?

           On the Creators’ side, it’s impossible to speak for them, but judging by the interview in the Sozin’s Comet novelization, not even Bryke paid attention to the Phoenix King and Throne Room scenes. They became myopic about Azula’s relationship with her mother too, and forgot all about her other relationships and motivations, namely those involving her father, country and self. As a result, their understanding of their “favorite villain”, as they described her in the Art of the Animated Series, became a vacuous, distorted mirage (literally a ghost in Smoke and Shadow) of her former self and her Arc that was begun in the Finale was abandoned entirely.

           On the Fandoms’ side, it’s a combination of things:

1)    The Fandom had not been “primed” to have their view of Azula challenged, so the “subtleties” of her relationship with her father and country got overshadowed by Ozai donning a ridiculous outfit, Azula banishing people in a blue-colored throne room and “Oh my god, Ursa!!”;

2)    The Mirror Scene was “sexy”; it was eye-opening, jaw-dropping; it made you go, “Holy crap!” The eerie violin score was haunting, the voice acting was top notch and it had big, bad Azula on her knees sobbing like a wimp. Naturally, it stood out in peoples’ minds whereas the Phoenix King and Throne Room scenes fell behind the desk, and thirdly;

3)    Azula’s relationship with her mom is primarily about feelings. A show as visually stunning and well-voice acted as Avatar is, first and foremost, about inspiring feelings in the viewer. In fact, all stories are about inspiring feelings. The Fandom did not go into the Finale looking to learn about Azula’s complexities, so The Phoenix King and Throne Room developments did not receive the same amount of intense, emotional attachment as the Mirror Scene. Simply put, the hallucination of a mother telling her teenage daughter that she loves her, and that same teenage daughter collapsing into tears over it, is much more heart wrenching and relatable to kids and teenagers than the pressures of ruling a military feudal dictatorship in the image of the Big Bad.

Summary

           To understand a fictional character, you have to know their Goals, Motivations and Conflicts. Next, you have to identify their Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits, which add distinction and depth and provide internal sources of Motivation and Conflict.

Azula’s Goals, as revealed in the Finale, are as follows:

Be With Her Father;

Be the Greatest Leader in Fire Nation History;

Have a Parent Who Can Help Her;

Azula’s Motivations, as revealed in the Finale, are as follows:

Not Be Treated Like Zuko;

Pride & Belief in Her Royal Duties;

Alleviate the Stress Caused by Her Goals;

Azula’s Conflicts, as revealed in the Finale, are as follows:

Her Father Doesn’t Want Her;

She Struggles to Be a Great Leader;

She Doesn’t Have a Parent Who Can Help Her;

           The Mirror Scene and Azula’s relationship with her mother are not enough to reveal her Goals, Motivations and Conflicts. The Mirror Scene, by itself, is only a Conflict, whereas the two additional scenes in the Finale—the Phoenix King and Throne Room scenes—provide her other Goals, Motivations and Conflicts that make the meaning of the Mirror Scene clear: a teenager looking for the support of a parent.

           Excessive emphasis on the Mirror Scene and, by extension, Azula’s relationship with her mother, have created a distorted view of Azula that has harmed her portrayal in the comics and stymied explorations of her value to the Franchise. Instead of Azula being a feudal military leader-in-training who struggles with both her feelings and Goals, she has been reduced to both a myopic interpretation of the Mirror Scene and is limited to her Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits, none of which are enough to advance her story in the Post-Finale world.

Closing Remarks: How to Move Forward with Azula

           For those fans of Avatar who are curious about what to do with Azula’s Goals, Motivations and Conflicts, and makes use of her Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits, you have to ask this question: what value can more Azula bring to Avatar?

           No individual character will be more popular than the franchise itself, especially a hated villain who might have the ability to change and grow. Below is a screenshot from Google Trends showing the relative popularities between Azula, Zuko and Avatar: The Last Airbender search results. It demonstrates that secondary characters like Azula are nowhere near as popular as the franchise they are a part of.

           In order to make a character like Azula worth exploring in detail, they have to be made important to both the Main Cast and the Franchise at large. It’s not enough to just have “a” story about Azula; her Goals, Motivations and Conflicts have to be valuable to the Heroes and world of Avatar. There are no hard and fast answers as to how to achieve this, and the franchise has clearly moved on from Azula, but with Avatar being rebooted in live action form, here are some ways to begin approaching this in case the live action version moves into Post-Finale territory.

Azula’s Unique Selling Points

           These are the things that make a character fun, interesting and enjoyable to have on screen. In other words, likable. Toph’s cheekiness, for example, is a Unique Selling Point. Aang’s free-spiritedness is a Unique Selling Point. These can also be called the “fun and games” of a character. They are what viewers want to see, hear and feel when these characters appear on screen. For example, if Toph and Azula are going to appear on screen together after Azula is taken out of the asylum, there better be sass, like in Day of Black Sun.

Azula: Um, right. I think your friend just said that genius. And since you can't see, I should tell you I'm rolling my eyes.

Toph: I'll roll your whole head!

           So what are some of Azula’s Unique Selling Points?

Blue fire;

Lightning;

Skilled martial artist and firebender;

Royalty;

Intelligent;

Snarky and smug;

Smooth-talking;

Confident;

Female in a militarized society, but who does not eschew femininity;

Makes “princess” associated with power and aggression, not passivity;

Dark subject matter surrounding her (e.g. the unresolved emotions in the Finale);

Determination;

Emotional fragility;

Youth (the kid/teenager themes of the show).

Azula’s Value to the Franchise

      This is what makes a character more than just a background character or plot device. It’s what makes them create new fans of the Franchise, add interest, sell product. In other words, add value.

      Haru, for example, adds little value to the Franchise because he’s just a regular Earthbender with no Unique Selling Points and his relevance to the plot and characters is over. Iroh, on the other hand, is absolutely full of Unique Selling Points and provides insights into the Avatar world and its characters. His perspective adds value. His abilities add value. His importance to the Heroes adds value.

      So what makes Azula relevant to the franchise beyond just being a villain?

She can teach us about firebending through her blue fire and lightning;

She can provide an aggressive firebending female, which ATLA does not have;

She can teach us about the Fire Nation through the eyes of someone who doesn’t appreciate Zuko’s transformative policies;

She can teach us about what it means to be a girl/woman in the Fire Nation;

She can teach us about the Fire Nation’s military, government and history;

She can represent the “old” Fire Nation that Zuko must reform.

Azula’s Critical Relevance to the Heroes

           Since any story is ultimately about its characters, Azula not only has to be relevant to the Heroes, but critically relevant to justify deeper exploration. So to which characters is Azula critically relevant?

           Ursa, Zuko, and to a lesser extent, Iroh.

           As Azula’s mother, Ursa will be implicitly concerned with her daughter’s well-being regardless of how us fans feel; as a young member of the Royal Family who can firebend, she is relevant to the Royal Family’s continuation, and by extension, Zuko’s legacy; and as the sister of Zuko, she is Iroh’s niece, in other words, family.

           Essentially, if there is any drama surrounding the Royal Family in the Post-Finale world (and how could there not?), Azula is a fundamental part of it. I call this the “Royal Family Drama Triangle”.

Azula’s Critical Importance to the Plot

           Azula must also be essential to both resolving the Primary Conflict of the story. This forces the viewer or reader to implicitly care about Azula’s Goals, Motivations and Conflicts since she impacts the fate of the Heroes directly.

           What are some of the problems that Azula can be critically necessary in solving? To begin answering this question, you have to sit down and think about what kind of problems the Heroes would face in the Post-Finale world. This article series, How to Develop Avatar’s Season 4, provides one such scenario.

           One way to answer this question is to look at the unchanging aspects of Azula’s character, the thing’s that don’t go away whether she is a villain or not, and these are: 1) she is a young, firebending member of the Royal Family; 2) she is a member of the old regime that Zuko must reform; and 3) she is Ursa’s daughter. This suggests that the type of plot that Azula can take a major role in is one where the Fire Nation and Royal Family are at the center. Princess Azula of the Fire Nation might not care about the rest of the world like Zuko, but certainly she will care about the Fire Nation and its Imperial Government.

           Some of the specific problems in the Post-Finale world that Azula can help solve:

Quelling unrest in the Fire Nation over Zuko’s policies;

Stopping a rebellion against Zuko and the Imperial Government;

Saving the Royal Family from assassination/coup (i.e. eradication);

And others if you can come up with them.

How to Develop an Arc for Azula

           Finally, how do you go about developing an Arc for Azula in the Post-Finale world? Remember that to understand a character you need to identify their Goals, Motivations and Conflicts. This also applies to creating a character, but when it comes to creating an Arc, you have to add in the Epiphany.

           A character’s Epiphany is simple to describe, but difficult to execute: it’s how they grow and change in order to either achieve their Goals, or lose their Motivations and move on in life. The Epiphany is the result of the character’s journey to achieve their Goals combined with their Motivations, Conflicts, Flaws, Quirks and Personality Traits. It is, in essence, what the story is all about. For example, Zuko did not arrive at his Epiphany easy and his decision to betray Iroh in Crossroads of Destiny was not a random step backwards: it was the result of everything about him. An Epiphany for Azula would undoubtedly be complicated and multi-layered, probably much, much more so than Zuko’s.

           To begin developing an Arc for Azula, you first have to identify what remains of her Goals, Motivations and Conflicts from the Finale when the story picks up with her in this new Post-Finale story. Remember that she suffered a mental breakdown, was humiliated in the eyes of her nation and has been locked away in an asylum for some length of time.

           Next you have to devise a new Central Conflict that drives both her and the Main Cast through the story, something that requires all of their actions to solve. Then you have to establish her new Goals, Motivations and Conflicts in relation to that Central Conflict and the Post-Finale situation she faces, and finally, you have to put her in situations that test her, make her think, challenge her values, that make her change and grow. How you do this is up to you, but her are some pointers:

           Always think about her Unique Selling Points. Blue fire? Make her ability to produce blue fire important to the story and not just a thematic decision. For an idea as to how to tie blue fire into the Avatar world at large, see the article, The Science and In-World Reason for Azula’s Blue Flames.

          Azula was locked in an asylum? Make it have lasting effects on her that she struggles with. She is royalty? It better be more than just a title, but responsibility and a part of her personal code. Snarky, confident, intelligent and brave? There’s a lot you can do with someone who doesn’t shy away from danger and enjoys infuriating people, especially when they have the literal firepower to back it up.

           Always strive to make her add value to the Franchise. She is a female firebender, something that ATLA has a dearth of. This is good; make her femaleness mean something. Along these lines, she is a great opportunity for a “Female Power Fantasy”. Just ask R.F. Kuang about it. She is also not the victim of circumstance or the actions of others as many characters in Avatar are. This gives her a different type of change and growth story compared to Zuko’s.

           Use her to talk about the Fire Nation’s militarized culture, the same culture that “pure heart and unquestionable honor” Zuko somehow has to change. Use her to reveal the Fire Nation’s history and politics as it pertains to Zuko’s rule without going into “Info Dumps” since, as a princess, Azula would naturally be concerned with those subjects. Also use her to help advance Avatar’s East Asian themes. The fact that Azula is a feudal leader-in-training and female can give you a lot of material to work with (east Asian origins article).

           Maker her critically relevant to the heroes. Find legitimate reasons for why Zuko, Ursa, Iroh and even members of the Gaang would care about Azula’s thoughts and feelings; if they care we care. Don’t think this is possible? It is definitely possible.

           And finally, make Azula critically important to the plot. She cannot be a side character; she is too loathed and hated and has too much bad blood with the Gaang for her presence to be tolerated without some pressing need for her to be around. Whatever role she takes, it has to be big. It has to be obvious that Azula’s involvement is required. The Gaang has to think, “Well, damn, we need Azula’s help.” Zuko has to think, “I hope she makes the right decision and helps me. I know she can.” Iroh has to think, “I hope my niece isn’t killed.” Ursa has to think, “I want the love of my daughter. I want my daughter back.”

           In short, you have to make Azula important.

           Remember: her Arc in the Finale was not finished. It still can.

[iamanartichoke]

What do you think Loki would think of Kilgrave (from the tv series)? Would Loki be immune to his powers? How could Loki cheat and defeat Kilgrave?

This question has been sitting in my ask box (among others - sorry, anon :/) for probably a couple of months and I think about answering it at least once a week and I haven’t answered it yet bc I have no idea how to express how flaily I am at the idea of Loki encountering Kilgrave (believe it or not, I never thought about it before! Loki teaming up with Jessica, yes, but not crossing paths with Kilgrave.).

I also don’t know how to answer this lmfao, I have no idea. 

Well, I have a lot of ideas, but how accurate and/or in-character they are remains to be seen. .

Idk, buckle up. 

Under the cut bc it’s super long and I’m sure only like three people care about this. 

What do you think Loki would think of Kilgrave (from the tv series)? 

I don’t know if there’s a word that would encompass what Loki would feel toward Kilgrave. I think that there’s a number of things he would think, none of them particularly flattering. I think that the most succinct way to put it would be that Loki would think Kilgrave - basic, is the only thing I can think of. A basic bitch. 

I say that for a number of reasons and it’s not that I think Loki would think Kilgrave isn’t a threat. Kilgrave is evil. Kilgrave is irredeemable evil; there’s no redemption arc, no coming back from the things he’s done. He doesn’t want to come back from the things he’s done. 

It isn’t just that he mind controls people, and it isn’t just that he kills people. It’s the way he feels (or doesn’t feel) about it. 

Kilgrave could be a sociopath. (I don’t know enough about the diagnostic criteria to say that he definitely is, and on tumblr dot com, I feel like I need to disclaim that right off the bat. I’m not armchair diagnosing here.) There’s no empathy in him, no remorse for any of his actions, no inclination to do the right thing. It’s the exact opposite: Kilgrave’s particular brand of villainy is rooted in this purely sadistic need for power over others - quite literally. 

He doesn’t just want his victims to hurt or kill themselves. He wants them to do it as painfully as possible. He wants them to suffer, and he wants them to keep on suffering even after he’s no longer there to enjoy it. 

An example: Kilgrave uses his powers to hustle a ton of money in a poker game, and one of the players confronted him. Kilgrave told him to “see how long it takes to put your head through that post,” and the poor guy goes over and is just slamming his head repeatedly into the post, long after Kilgrave leaves. This is a particularly horrifying aspect of Kilgrave’s ability: the person isn’t freed from the mind-control after Kilgrave is no longer there, and it’s not the kind of mind-control that can be broken with “a really hard hit to the head.” The victims physically and mentally cannot stop doing what he told them to do, either until the thing is complete, or they literally die trying.

It’s brutal and perverse. But it’s significant to note that Kilgrave doesn’t hurt/kill everyone he mind controls. Whether or not he decides to make someone suffer seems to depend on 1) how useful they can be to him, and 2) whether he feels like it or not. There’s little rhyme or reason. He will mind control someone to give him their cell phone, mind control a second person to throw a cup of scalding coffee in their face, and mind control a third person to cut their own hands off, and all three of these things seem to be the same to him. He doesn’t see making someone cut off their own hands any worse than making someone give up their cell phone. He’s not any more horrified by it, and he doesn’t even think about it long enough to attempt to feel any real remorse. 

In this manner, Kilgrave mind controls, torments, kidnaps, rapes, maims, and kills his victims and doesn’t give it a second thought. He forgets them forever once he’s done with them. (What makes Jessica the exception is a whole other meta.) He’s motivated by the feeling that having power and control over other human beings gives him. He’s motivated by feeling invincible, and will do whatever he can to maintain that sense of invincibility. 

These things make Kilgrave terrifying as a villain, both to his victims as well as to the audience. What makes him a particularly formidable villain for the series is that Jessica is literally the only one who can stop him. He loses his ability to control her, and she’s strong enough to take him down. She’s the only real threat to him. When one is surrounded by regular human beings who are completely helpless to this brand of mind control, it raises the stakes and frames him as a villain you are going to be scared of. Ymmv, but I mean, I certainly wouldn’t want to cross paths with Kilgrave on the street. 

So why is he a basic bitch? 

Loki may consider all of these things, and he may further be mildly horrified if he actually saw what Kilgave does to some of his victims (’mildly’ because we don’t know what Loki’s threshold is; who knows what kind of Fucked Up Shit he’s seen by now), and he would conclude that while Kilgrave is certainly a threat in his own, human context, there’s nothing about him that differentiates him from any other would-be villain out there. There’s nothing compelling about him; there’s nothing that sets him apart. His powers are the only thing that make him significantly more threatening than any other human serial killer who kidnaps, rapes, and kills for no reason other than that sheer need for power and control over a victim. 

I mean, Loki’s opinion of the humans is pretty low to start with. When Thor says, “you consider yourself above them,” and Loki is like, “um yes?” - I don’t believe that’s a response that had anything to do with the scepter’s influence and everything to do with the culture in which he and Thor were raised. Odin compares Jane being on Asgard to a goat being at a banquet table. The W4 mention “throwing around a little lightning and they see us as gods” (paraphrase). Loki grew up in a world that is both physically and scientifically millenia beyond humanity, and as a prince besides (which grants him a level of privilege above even other Asgardians). It’s only natural, I think, that he would see the humans as lesser-than his own people. 

If Loki encountered Ted Bundy on the street, he’d not be overly impressed. Likewise, Kilgrave is not overly impressive to him. In the most general “here’s my reaction,” sense, Loki thinks that Kilgrave is what we would call a basic bitch. It’s similar to how he used his last breath to tell Thanos, “You’ll never be a god.” The implication being, you may have power, and you may be frightening, but there is nothing about you that is truly remarkable and there never will be, no matter how hard you try. 

That all said, if we dig a little deeper, I think that Kilgrave would give Loki a lot to think about, in a way? Kilgrave suffered through medical experimentation in order to get his powers, and Loki isn’t a stranger to torture. And I think that, in a comparative sense, Loki would be somewhat reassured at the fact that he finds Kilgrave’s actions appalling. Even going through whatever torture Loki went through, he didn’t turn out like Kilgrave. Kilgrave does things that Loki would never do. (The mind control aside, but to be fair, it wasn’t entirely Loki’s choice to do that.) 

Loki doesn’t enjoy violence just for the sake of it. He takes no pleasure in hurting or killing anyone and, in fact, seemed kind of repelled by it (does anyone else notice how Loki rarely looks at his foe when doing the violent thing?). Loki would never kidnap or rape anyone, and certainly not just to feel power over another person. He would never inflict torture, either. 

I say this fairly confidently because the consistent thing about all the misdeeds Loki has done is that they’re internally motivated. Loki’s desire for power isn’t rooted in the need to victimize others; it’s rooted in this deep-seated self-loathing that has him convinced that power - not just any power, but the power to be a king - is the only way he will ever have any worth. 

He never wanted to rule Asgard. I don’t believe he wanted to rule Midgard, either. It’s like Loki is seeking the illusion of power more than the actual power itself. He wants the worthiness and the validation; he wants to be taken seriously. He wants his own abilities, specifically his magic, to be revered as any other warrior’s skill. He just wants to be seen. 

So I think on some level that Loki, when confronted with bone-deep, unapologetic, irredeemable villainy (for lack of a better word) would think, I could have been worse. Thank the norns I’m not worse. 

Again, I may be completely off-base or wildly out of character - idk, I revised this like 12 times. But this is just my idea of what Loki would think of Kilgrave and I hope, if nothing else, it was interesting to read. 

Would Loki be immune to his powers? 

Yes. This is another thing that contributes to how Loki sees Kilgrave; his powers aren’t a threat to him personally. This is because Kilgrave’s ability is a virus. 

According to Kilgrave’s Wikia: 

Kilgrave’s abilities are due to “a virus that he emits through microparticles in the air. His power was revealed to be a side-effect of the viral treatment used to cure his childhood degenerative disease. His ability is always active as he cannot stop his body from producing the virus and anyone within his immediate proximity is affected” (Source). 

Now, I’m no scientist, but my takeaway from this is that, because Kilgrave’s powers are literally a virus, and said viruses (viri?) have this effect on the humans around him, someone with alien biological insides (Asgardian or Jotun, for that matter) would likely not be affected in the same way, if at all. 

It’s like how ebola or HIV (or covid, ugh), is potentially deadly to humans because of the way our cells respond to the virus cells. Someone who isn’t human wouldn’t have that same response. Of course, it’s entirely possible that a different effect could occur, or even possibly the virus could affect an alien but the reaction wouldn’t be as strong or overpowering. There’s no way to know for sure but, my limited understanding of science-y things leads me to believe that Kilgrave’s ability would be useless on anyone who wasn’t human.  (As a matter of fact, I think that it’s revealed that Jessica was able to break free from the control because she’s enhanced and her biology is different, but I’d have to watch those episodes again.) 

How could Loki cheat to defeat Kilgrave? 

Considering the above answer, there would be no need for Loki to cheat; Kilgrave’s abilities wouldn’t work on him, which leaves him powerless while Loki maintains his arsenal of magic, along with the whole super-strength thing. Loki would probably just have to hit him a few times to take him out. 

I’m sorry this is so long, but I really appreciate the question! Thank you! I hope that this was a decent answer overall.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I have seen many, MANY discussions/debates about ca:cw and I have never seen anyone mentioning that Rhodey's injury was a metaphor. How did you get that idea?

Short answer: I’ve actually read a lot on the subject.  I’m teaching a media studies class right now called “What Can Superheroes Tell Us About Psychology?” (because that’s the kind of shit you can get away with at giant universities) and hoo boy are superhero narratives More Ableist Than Average.  Anywhoo, a few of those readings:

I’m quoting hard from the chapter “Hyper-Normative Heroes, Othered Villains: Differential Treatment of Disability in Marvel” in a book on disability studies because it’s free.  A relevant passage:

“These metaphorical portrayals all fail to engage with disability as a social category and as an individual identity, thereby ignoring its context… Nick Fury’s missing eye does not change his aim with distance weapons (e.g. Captain Marvel) or piloting software. Instead, it recurs in the films largely in metaphorical lines such as Fury’s commenting on the death of a friend with ‘I just lost my one good eye’… One character in Avengers even questions the lack of accessibility in Fury’s multi-monitor computer console, and Fury’s assistant simply answers that he must turn his head more often to compensate. The franchise thereby emphasizes that Fury’s missing eye is only a metaphor for his discernment and ability to see details that others have missed, rather than a truly integrated part of his character or even an accurate portrayal of that disability.

“8. This treatment of disability as metaphor persists throughout the MCU. In Captain America: Civil War, superhero War Machine incurs a permanent spinal injury while fighting on behalf of his best friend Iron Man. Later on, rival superhero Hawkeye… ‘You gotta watch your back with this guy. There’s a chance he’s gonna break it.’ The film then equips War Machine with a fantastical prosthesis that essentially nullifies his disabled experience through giving him the same range of motion as his non-disabled [abled] teammates, entirely without side effects or need for maintenance. The MCU films thus present disability as a metaphor for inner morality and characterization. War Machine has few experiences of being a disabled man through his spinal injury, but is instead emotionally ‘disabled’ by the damage to his social standing he has incurred through his friendship with Iron Man… The MCU thereby offers no critique of ableism or inaccessibility, instead continuing to localize disability as a problem with the body and the individual.”

Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond by José Alaniz is also a fantastic resource, and you can buy it for money here or hopefully find it at a library if you have no money.  A few of the relevant points from his book:

Superhero stories often treat disability as a “problem” that must be “solved” through in essence nullifying the disabled experience of the character(s) through superpowers that run directly counter to the disabilities and/or fantasy “cures,” e.g.

Daredevil is blind BUT navigates the world in a way similar to sighted people due to his “radar sense,” meaning that he doesn’t get to have a lot of the lived experiences of blind individuals

Don Blake is mobility impaired and uses a cane BUT his cane transforms into mjolnir and imbues him with the power of Thor, meaning that he spends most of the story moving like a nondisabled person

Hawkeye is hard of hearing sometimes in some of the comics, BUT he often gets magical cochlear implants from Tony Stark that cause him to stop being hard of hearing

Characters that are disabled and remain disabled tend to be villains whose villainy is either implied or stated to come directly from their bitterness over being disabled, e.g.

Doctor Doom hates that he’s scarred by an explosion so much that he wants to take over the world to get revenge on the Fantastic Four

The Lizard only transforms himself because he ignores all scientific and ethical boundaries in his desperation to stop being disabled

Doctor Poison is described by herself and other characters as a “monster” for failing to (unlike Wonder Woman) conform to White Western conceptualizations of female beauty 

Characters like The Thing, She-Hulk, and Bizarro have the potential for some really interesting disability narratives.  However, the same publication pressures that prevent permanent injury or death to the characters also prevent the inclusion of “serious” “real-world” issues like discrimination unless it’s metaphorical (e.g. anti-mutant fearmongering as a metaphor for anti-AIDS prejudice).

The Big Damn Foundational Text on the intersection of disability studies and media studies is Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse by David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, and you can pay money for it here but it’s also available at a lot of libraries.  Anyway, a couple of relevant points from that book include: 

Disability portrayals abound in literature going back to pretty much the dawn of history, but most of those portrayals suck ass because:

Most disabilities are treated as metaphors rather than demographic characteristics, which means that the disabled character doesn’t get connected to other people with disabilities (including those in the real world) and offers no commentary on ableism — if Richard III’s spinal misalignment is just a metaphor for him being “twisted” inside, it doesn’t allow readers with spinal misalignment to identify with him

Disabled characters tend to exist to teach lessons to nondisabled characters rather than having their own journeys — Tiny Tim isn’t a person in A Christmas Carol, he’s an object lesson for Scrooge

Many disabled characters either get “fixed” so that they look outwardly “normal,” or their “ugliness” is used to make concrete the abstract “ugliness” of their personalities

Disability is treated as a “problem” that demands an explanation – Captain Ahab’s prosthetic leg and Joker’s facial scarring are treated as automatically demanding the question “why are you like this?,” even though no one would ever ask the same thing of their nondisabled co-characters

Authors’ implicit ableism tends to come out in their horror of disability, such as when they portray disabled characters preferring death to disability, going to extreme lengths to avoid or nullify disability, and/or declaring themselves “worthless” or “burdensome” in light of disability

Discomfort with disability — another form of implicit ableism – also comes out when disabled characters are overwhelmingly “killed or cured,” meaning that they don’t get to end their stories as living individuals who are still, in practice, disabled

ANYWAY, that’s a long-winded way of saying that I also haven’t seen any critics specifically talk about Rhodey’s disability as a metaphor first and a part of the character second, but that that doesn’t mean the shoe don’t fit.  When someone asks about the Accords in Infinity War, Rhodey also says he supported them but then “I’m pretty sure I paid for that,” and gestures at his own paralyzed legs.  He also also says in Endgame “I wasn’t always like this… but we work with what we’ve got” when talking to Nebula, BOTH about the fact that he’s disabled and about the fact that half the universe is dead and they’re all struggling to cope with that fact.  It keeps getting used as a metaphor and keeps NOT getting used as a part of his identity.  LET THE MAN TALK TO SOME OTHER DISABLED VETERANS FOR TWO SECONDS, FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

A couple of other (free!) readings that talk about that general problem of “we love superheroes and we hate ableism, now what?” even if they don’t mention Rhodey specifically: 

“Reevaluating the Supercrip” by Sami Schalk connects media portrayals of the paralympics to media portrayals of Captain America and the Doom Patrol.  (I swear to god it makes sense in context.)

“Seven Roads to Justice for Superheroes and Humans” by Mikhail Lyubansky gets into the glaring (for me, anyway) question of “why the fuck are sci fi psychologists all so evil and useless?” by explaining why Harley Quinn must be evil for Batman to be a vigilante.

“Superhero Comics as Moral Pornography” by David A. Pizarro and Roy Baumeister (again, I swear it makes sense if you read it) discusses the evolutionary tendency to judge people based on disabilities and why it’s so popular in superhero stories specifically.

Anyway, you probably weren’t looking for an entire annotated bibliography in response to that question, but I’ve never been one to use five words when 500 would suffice.

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 138: Kevin Party

“Did you guys break up? Can seven-year-olds even do that?”

Remember Doug Out?

The 125th episode of Steven Universe is a small but very fun story about Steven Universe and Connie Maheswaran, two best friends who work as a team to solve a mystery. Steven is already a teenager, and if Connie isn’t thirteen yet she’s awful close (she’s twelve and three quarters on Steven’s midsummer birthday, and school has been in session since Mindful Education), but this feels like a pair of children on an adventure. They’re chaperoned by Connie’s dad, they wear silly disguises and use sillier aliases, and they outright say that their goal is to “ruin some teen’s night.”

Doug Out ends in a cliffhanger, which leads directly to Steven’s abduction, which leads directly to Steven’s journey to and escape from Homeworld, which leads directly to the Breakup Arc, which ends here. That’s fourteen consecutive episodes telling one long story, which happens to be the same number of episodes between Catch and Release kicks off Peridot’s conversion and Hit the Diamond ends our barn adventure. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Act II and Act III of Steven Universe have similar sweeping midpoint storylines: both see a radical change occur, and while our middle act’s is more obvious (two new Gems join our crew and Steven saves the dang planet), Act III has the more important development for Steven himself. Because at the beginning of its sweep, Steven and Connie are kids, and at the end, they’re teenagers.

Granted, I see anyone under the age of 25 as a “kid,” but Kevin Party is a distinctly adolescent episode. The Breakup Arc as a whole covers new ground that a typical kid’s show wouldn’t, and even the one episode without much angst for Steven is about a bunch of teens starting a band. But it’s a whole new step to set an episode at a high school party, complete with drinking (age-appropriate drinks, I’m sure) and no adult supervision. 

After five episodes watching Steven either stressing about Connie or working his way through his guilt, it’s wonderful and devastating that when we finally see her again, she's having a blast. Her new look is one thing, but her effortless mingling with strangers is my favorite thing about Kevin Party. This isn’t a new aspect of her personality. She’s probably been like this for a while. But it’s the first time we’re seeing it, because it’s the first time Steven is seeing it.

In Bubble Buddies, Connie started out so shy that she feared dying without making a single friend, while Steven was so gregarious that he couldn’t help befriending everyone he met. Now he’s the awkward one, reduced to asking the likes of Kevin for advice, and she’s bloomed out of that social anxiety. And it’s not just a matter of her friendship with Steven changing her, even though that’s a major inciting incident: after he helps her come out of her shell, she’s able to practice interacting with peers on a regular basis in a scenario that’s way more helpful in understanding normal human interactions than anything in Steven’s life, because Connie goes to school.

There’s an unstated and uncomfortable truth that Connie needs Steven to have access to his magical world, creating an uneven power dynamic that’s easy to ignore because it fits into the general role of how a main character and side character work on a show like this. But Kevin Party‘s biggest reveal is that just because she needs him if she wants to have cosmic adventures, she doesn’t need him to have a fulfilling life, and she doesn’t need his friendship to be happy.

Thank. Goodness.

Codependency isn’t something to aspire to, and while Steven isn’t intentionally possessive of Connie (yet), their fight boils down to him treating her like a sidekick, someone who gets to do magic stuff with him under his terms. We don’t get to see what she was up to during the Breakup Arc, but I’m so glad her laughter here isn’t performative. She has enough self-worth to not define herself by the boy she likes or the adventures they share, and even if she’s upset that they’re in a fight, we know from our first look at her that she’d be okay if they never ended up reconciling. And that makes her choice to reconcile so much stronger than just shoving them back together because they’ve been apart long enough and the status quo demands it. She doesn’t need Steven in her life, but she wants him in her life, and that’s the difference between an episode about Connie remaining a sidekick in Steven’s mind and an episode about Connie establishing herself as an equal.

Steven and Connie’s affection has always bounced between platonic and romantic, and I love that even now we keep it ambiguous. Steven wears the shirt Connie got him in Steven’s Birthday, which is a gesture of friendship but occurs in an episode that dances around their mutual crush (complete with actual dancing). The moment of seeing each other again is shot like running into an ex, with time slowing down to let the absolute horror set in as the rest of the party fades, but Steven still refers to her only as his best friend. Kevin makes some of the subtext text through his confusion over the status of their relationship, but even if they’re teens now, these two are still young enough that don’t know how to express their deeper feelings.

Sadie Killer gets our guard down just long enough that Kevin Party’s new surge of drama hits like a truck: this is the original show’s most direct predecessor to the tone of Steven Universe Future’s latter half, where the anguish of watching Steven flounder in his relationship with Connie comes to a head. He makes the same mistake here that he’ll make in Together Forever: he’s so desperate for advice that he doesn’t question its source. Which is doubly frustrating because Greg Universe, who has told several stories on-screen about navigating a new relationship, is just a phone call away! I’m not saying I wish Steven actually called him, because all teens make mistakes and there’s any number of reasons he wouldn’t want to ask his dad in the moment, but it speaks to Steven’s inability to think straight when it comes to Connie.

In his final appearance, Kevin shows the closest thing he’s got to depth by helping Steven the only way he knows how. And unlike Beach City Drift, where he makes up a tragic backstory just to be a troll, it’s clear that the mysterious Sabine did a number on Delmarva’s biggest jerk. But I’ve got no patience for the notion that this episode is anything near redemptive for a guy whose idea of being helpful involves emotionally manipulating a vulnerable fourteen-year-old boy into emotionally manipulating a vulnerable thirteen-year-old girl.

Here more than ever, Kevin contrasts Steven’s self-destructive selflessness by being a black hole of self-importance. He only cares about Steven inasmuch as Steven can help him be more popular, not even bothering to ask for his name until it serves his needs. He’s so oblivious to his surroundings that he confuses Lion for a dog (saying that he’s allergic to dogs is a somewhat funny joke, but talking up Connie’s new life by saying she has a dog now is hilarious), and goes out of his way to antagonize his guests. To Steven, other people exist to be helped, which has noble roots but is catastrophic for his self-image. To Kevin, other people exist to admire Kevin.

“Psychopath” is a strong word, and I don’t wanna exaggerate Kevin’s villainy because that takes away from what makes him so insidious: unlike the Final Boss feel of the Diamonds, there’s an abundance of regular people who do the same awful stuff that Kevin does, and acting like he’s some extreme case detracts from the mundanity of everyday evils. Moreover, I remain unqualified to be an armchair psychologist, and the Hare Psychopathy Checklist has plenty of valid criticism, so take any diagnosis using it (or really any psych profile that involves a checklist you can do from home) with a grain of salt. But with all that said, I’ll just leave a link to it right here and let y’all do what you will with it.

The Big Talk gets five and a half episodes of buildup, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s so perfect that Connie’s reaction to negging is to do what she always does when she sees someone behaving badly: she gets mad and calls it out. Steven’s typical approach to unkind behavior is to double down on his friendliness, but Connie will always put her foot down and demand kindness, whether you’re her best friend or a galactic tyrant. New hair aside, Connie isn’t the one that changes over the course of the Breakup Arc: it begins with her making it clear that she’s hurt while Steven ignores her, and it ends with her making it clear that she’s hurt while Steven listens.

I love that Connie requires no prompting to explain why she didn’t text Steven back, because Full Disclosure shows that she understands how much it hurts to try and connect with a friend who won’t respond. I love that she did go back to talk with him in person while he was on vacation (meaning all of this could’ve been worked through way sooner) because adolescence is suffering and we needed one last little twist of the knife in this arc. And I love that Steven is wise enough to just admit what he did instead of try and defend himself, because their whole fight hinged on his refusal to acknowledge the gravity of his actions, both to Connie and to himself. He doesn’t say the word “sorry” until the very end of his admission, because he means it and wants to provide context for the apology rather than just say “I’m sorry” a bunch.

And it’s so perfect that they don’t end up forming Stevonnie during their reconciliation, and not just because that would’ve given Kevin a win. They make up, but it still takes time to let the lingering pain go away, and it makes Stevonnie’s reappearance in our next episode way more meaningful. After one last display of their fundamental contrast—Steven expresses sympathy for Kevin’s situation with Sabine, while Connie shrugs it off because having a backstory doesn’t mean it’s okay to be a toxic douche—they leave the world of teen parties behind, at least for now. They’ll go back to more adventures right away, traveling to space in Lars of the Stars and Jungle Moon, but they’ll never truly be the same.

Thank goodness.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

I love that Stevonnie’s disdain for Kevin is here for us even when Stevonnie doesn’t show up in the episode.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It’s not just the catharsis factor that gets this in my Top 25. Kevin Party is incredible at capturing the dread I associate with this type of teen party as someone who often felt like Steven as a kid (three traits that don’t work well with teen parties, even if like me you were a fairly social teenager: clinical depression, teetotalism due to the double whammy of that depression and family history of addiction, and having a bad ear that makes it impossible to hear people talk when the music gets loud enough). Beyond the personal connection, we also get one last look at the show’s greatest villain, and an episode that respects Connie so much more than a normal cartoon would. This is how you end an arc, folks.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Back to the Kindergarten

Steven’s Dream

Kevin Party

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Lars’s Head

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Doug Out

Are You My Dad?

I Am My Mom

Stuck Together

The Trial

Off Colors

Gemcation

Raising the Barn

Sadie Killer

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Dewey Wins

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

     6. Horror Club      5. Fusion Cuisine      4. House Guest      3. Onion Gang      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[tuz-on-ao3]

Hey, I was reading your fic (I really like it by the way! Sasuke's, my favorite character, and I think you wrote him really well :D), and I was wondering, what's your writing process? I know everyone has something different that works for them, but how do you plan out your chapters, or get ideas, or things like that (very vague, I know, I'm sorry)?

Hiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!! Thank you sugar plum for reading Maybe I’m Paying for the Things I’ve Done and liking my characterization of Sasuke, it’s very heartwarming and I appreciate it. 

As for my writing process, oof. As you know everyone’s writing process is really different and it has been a joy to learn more about other people’s process to help figure out what works for me. This is something you can absolutely cherry pick with and try things out for the first time. 

Timing: some people write better at certain points during the day, some people can start writing at 5am or write till 3am in the morning with a late start. I am a mix of both. I can start writing around 9am because that’s when my internal ticker is like “Let’s go to work now!” It’s just how my school and internship schedule line up. I also just write when I am bored(while in class sometimes) and late at night if I really have the momentum. Which happened for some of the chapters I have written for Maybe I’m Paying for the Things I’ve Done. So figure out what works for you. Also, timing myself sometimes helps, I use Pomodoro as a way to keep track of my work, I don’t necessarily take my short breaks. 

Initial phase of writing: I draft first and I backwards outline as I go along and then I hit a wall. The idea circulates in the back of my mind and I either get a sense of a scene or a situation that I want the characters to go into and I start writing. Writing the story informs me where it’s going to go, it comes to me during the process. However, I will hit a wall. The fics I write are rarely short(shoutout to the people who can do short and sweet, your sense of pacing is unreal and I bow to your greatness) so there is a lot of worldbuilding, plot, and character development that needs to happen. Important thing to note, just because you are writing fanfiction doesn’t mean you can skip worldbuilding. It is very important!!!!!! It doesn’t need to be the crazy amount that I do but you need to set your reader up in a place and time so give some context. 

Timeline: Things happen at certain places and times, and my characters will be a certain age when it happens, so I need to keep track. One of the walls I’ve hit is that for my current posted fic Sasuke spends time in jail, but how much time was not made clear in my non existent early planning and that changes the way things happen. And how old he is, and how much time should I spend on that prison sentence. If it was a long time then I need to talk about it as a life event that will have consequences throughout the entire fic, or if he was just detained until his lawyers came that changes Sasuke’s character. It also is a good way to talk about the criminal justice system of Konoha that I am making up. So I keep track of everyone’s ages, and birthdays, and sometimes I change them. I mean it is really hard for me to write baby ninja that go out into the battlefield when they are four years old and not make the entire fic about a shitty world like that. I don’t want to do that, it’s too fucking hard, and fluff feeds my soul. Also, seasons!!! That changes the way you set up your environment as well, from what I can tell Fire Country should have a monsoon season since they are so forested and are located near the equator of their world. So when that happens, if I decide to include that, is important for pacing of the story. I mean how long should this go on? Also, romance in the rain *hitn hint wink wink* who knows. 

Outlining: I didn’t use to be an outline and to some extent I still am not. I have done a previous post explaining a little bit of it but I backwards outline to keep track of what is happening because it’s a lot of detail and I don’t want to make mistakes. However, spreadsheets are my jam. I didn’t use to be this way but my internship has changed me and now I like spreadsheets as a way to be organized. Huzzah *throws confetti in the air* to being a boring adult person! There are a couple of way to do this but first actual writing notes: 

5 commandments of story 

Inciting incident 

Progressive complications 

Crisis 

Climax 

Resolution 

This is something that helped me a lot when it came to structure, because sometimes my plot points are all happening at the same time and I’m like this makes no goddamn sense, what is happening. Story Grid is a podcast, and a book, and a website that can help you talk about structure. They can also talk to you about the Hero's journey. Take or leave whatever works for you because a lot of their stuff doesn’t work for me. But in doing their spreadsheets and exercises I learned what doesn’t work in a story. It’s how I realized pacing was a problem in my writing, and that I needed to take time away. 

So they have sample spreadsheets that break down books into scenes, turning points, characters on stage, etc. Take what works and leave what doesn’t. 

Back to spreadsheets, I have a story grid one for Maybe I’m Paying for the Things I’ve Done which I will backwards outline for the chapters I have already posted and a weird visual index card thing with the five commandments on my computer to help me figure out what is happening in my story. 

It looks kind of like five boxes side by side with the five commandments written on each one. 

Sometimes there is more than one box for progressive complication and that is fine, it is also fine if every scene you write doesn’t have a resolution, because by the end of the fic you will have one. I split this up by chapter, expected word count, POV. 

Word count: Some people care about this, some people don’t. I don’t write stuff for ‘Maybe’ that is less than 10000 each chapter, there is way too much going on in the fic to do short chapters. For my other works in progress I find that I will be writing shorter, which is both easier and harder because it needs me to be concise and clear. Anyway, I do take notes from Story Grid in this because 50% of my words have to be for my middle build, while 25% each go to the opening hook and to the ending payoff. A scene is about 1200-2000 words. 

Wiggle Room: Shit happens, you don’t do as much one day and you do a lot another. It’s okay, your story will evolve at certain points, it will tell you what to do. Don’t worry about it that much. 

Struggle/villainy: Protagonists are often defined by their antagonists, and if that is the type of story you are writing make sure you spend just as much time on the villain of your story as you do the hero. They are major actors and deserve the attention. When I talk about the Akatsuki I am thinking that they are an international terrorist organization hellbent on kidnapping people that are systematically treated as weapons. There are a lot of moving parts for this. Also the characters themselves, Pein and Konana are radicalized in my story from peaceful revolutionaries to violent ones because they watched the leader of an institution murder their best friend, that will cause personal and political damage. It informs the way I write them or will. 

Sasuke's struggle isn’t necessarily against a person, it is against himself. He wants a home because when he was little the one place where he felt safe was violated by his own brother, that is a hell of a trauma. Then he left his former home to go to Oto. Place has a huge part to play in Sasuke’s characterization and I tag homemaking in my fic because I want to show the process of creating a home for yourself as a process of revival and change and hope and vulnerability. It is a huge emotional labor of love and will be a focal point in the fic. That’s why I spend so much time talking about these goddamn renovations and art deco, it matters. This is a boy who has traveled all over the world and is now trying to put all the pieces of himself into one place, how he does it will be incredibly revealing of his characters. 

Character: Emotional arcs are important for everyone. Try to figure out what your character is going to go through. It helps so much. Victoria Schwab asks her characters three questions:

What do they fear? 

What do they want? 

What are they willing to do to get what they want? 

See if this helps. Also, understand that you got to develop your side characters as well, they act as a foil for the main character and add richness to the story, you will notice if they are flat. Understand the dynamics they bring to the story and to the world. Are they a woman in a field that is more socially acceptable for men? How does that affect them? What does gender look like in this world and how does this affect your characterization? Have they gone through physical/emotional trauma? Because that shit will keep coming up in a story, healing takes time. Also this is a fanfic, do whatever you want honey bear. 

Vocab: the lovely @slexenskee told me to have a running doc of vocabulary and I am trying to do that. 

I also have a running doc for a fic/character where I put all my brainstorming, little scenes, lines, vibes, questions into. And a doc for the synopsis of any new fic ideas I get. 

Inspiration: Read, a lot. I read fics, I read fiction and fantasy books, I read non fiction and I read about other people’s writing process. I read the news, I read twitter threads, I read random quotes on Pinterest. I watch tv shows and take note of how they do characterization or pacing or plot. I listen to music, I couldn’t live without it. I am on Pinterest looking for vibes or aesthetics for my fics. When I first started writing, since my fic was inspired by another fic, I was worried it would be too similar, that worry is fading because I am doing more writing, and more reading as well. But you must consume culture in order to produce it. Also take breaks, sometimes you figure stuff out if you leave it alone or talk to friends about it. If you reach out to me about it, I will do my best to help so feel free. 

IMPORTANT: DO NOT BE A RACIST/HOMOPHOBIS/TRANSPHOBIC/MISOGYNIST. UNDERSTAND THAT WHEN YOU WRITE A FANFICTION THE CHARACTERS ARE CODED IN A CERTAIN WAY. DON’T GO AROUND MAKING PEOPLE OF COLOR WHITE OR MORE LIGHT SKINNED THAN THEY ARE. WOMEN AND NON BINARY PEOPLE EXIST ALWAYS, IF YOU ARE NOT WRITING THEM INTO YOUR WORLD THAT MEANS YOU ARE MARGINALIZING THEM IN YOUR WORLD AND IN YOUR MIND. IF YOU ARE CISGENDERED BE DAMN CAREFUL ABOUT WRITING TRANS NARRATIVES, PROBABLY DON’T. WHEN I DECIDED TO INCLUDE MY OWN CULTURE INTO SASUKE’S CHARACTER AND PAST I DIDN’T MEAN TO MAKE HIM LESS EAST ASIAN BUT TO ADD PARTS OF MYSELF TO THE WORLD. ACCEPT AND ADAPT TO CRITICISM COMING YOUR WAY IN THIS SENSE. I AM SURE YOU WILL BE FINE, THIS IS JUST A STANDARD DISCLAIMER. 

This was really long, and I hope you won't mind. Thanks again for this question, and let me know how your writing goes. Also listen to Deadline City the podcast.

#answers #fic writing #process #naruto 

[thegreymoon]

Salty Ask list: 9. Most disliked arc? Why?, 20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?, and 27. Least shippable character? The saltier the better!!!

Thank you for the ask, anon!! 💜💜

OK, I will answer both 9 and 10 (because the most disliked arc is no. 10 😅) I have already answered some of these earlier, so I will copy/paste those, if that’s OK! 

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

For Merlin:

Agravaine. He’s just the worst. So greasy and sleazy and just, yuck. Yuck, overall. He’s not even one of those characters one can love to hate, like, for example, Uther, who is also simply the worst, but who will preoccupy you in ways you never saw coming! When it comes to Agravaine, everything about him was so thoroughly hateful, frustrating and unenjoyable, the highlight of the entire season was finally watching him go splat against the wall! The second most hated is that girlfriend of Gwaine’s at the very end that was plying him for information. That entire sequence is just so mind-numbingly infuriating, I can’t even think of it without getting angry. It almost ruined Gwaine for me entirely.

For The Untamed:

Oh, finally an easy one!! 😂😂 Wen Chao, Wang Lingjiao and Wen Zhuliu are in a tight race for the first place here and who is winning depends entirely on who I’m looking at in that precise moment! Of course, Wen Ruohan and Wen Xu can get into the hate bucket too, but they were so bland and boring, they cannot really compare. Jin Guangshan is also the worst, I can’t stand him. The only reason I hate the Wens more is that Jin Guangshan is actually a competent villain on a higher scale of villainy than the previous lot. Jin Zixun is also awful, a ridiculously unredeemable character on every front and Su She can also have an honourable mention.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

For Merlin: 

Oooh! There are so many!! But I think the ones that I rant about the most often are those related to Gwen! Everything about Gwencelot makes me rage! I dislike him and how he treated her and just do not see this epic ~love~ there, at least not on his part, yet they kept bringing him back to mess up her life over and over again. 

Mind you, I am not the biggest fan of Arthur in this context either, he was a terrible boyfriend (though a somewhat better husband because Merlin picked up the slack), even though Arwen >>> Gwencelot by miles and miles. I hated how he would break up with her every five minutes over nonsense and then come crawling back. I hated how she always immediately forgave him, all grateful and relieved, and I always felt like she didn’t really have a choice because the power imbalance between them was staggering. Plus, the fact that she was the one who nursed Uther in his last months after everything he had done to her, and that Arthur had let it happen, infuriates me to no end. 

My loathing for that whole cheating arc is infinite. I hate how the writers could not make up their minds about what they wanted to do with her. On the one hand, they were such cowards in their attempts to keep her ideologically pure, they had already sacrificed a lot of her quirkiness and character to suit Arthur’s needs and wants and to make him look good, so they were reluctant to have her actually cheat because it would undermine him. I don’t understand why they even had to have that entire arc if they were so afraid to go there. She was supposed to be under mind-control, and then they pointed out that the spell works by bringing suppressed emotions to the forefront! Why was that necessary? I mean, you can’t have it both ways! Either do it and own it, or just leave it alone! It would have been so easy to have her choose Lancelot and develop a proper romance there, and then to have Lancelot die, and Gwen fall in love with Arthur afterwards, as he supports her while she grieves. But, no, they had to take this cheap shot at her and humiliate her and have her cleaning pigsties just so that Arthur can angst about it for a few episodes. I am forever mad. 

I also dislike the whole evil!Gwen arc (though a part of me did enjoy watching her go apeshit after quietly swallowing so much injustice throughout the entire five seasons of this show). I feel like they were intentionally undermining the character and her entire relationship with Arthur. The whole cheating nonsense so late into season 4 had already done so much damage, then they went and pulled this poorly-thought-out crap in the second half of season 5, when emotions were already running high and nobody was in the mood to be forgiving of someone trying at and almost succeeding in killing Arthur, who was so much more beloved among the viewers than her. Just imagine how much better spent that time would have been if they had... oh, I don’t know, developed Mordred more and given him a proper reason to turn against Arthur! 

Ugh 😒

For The Untamed: 

I dislike the whole Yanli/JZX romance. I don’t know what he’s like in the novel and the other adaptations, but he gets on my very last nerve in the drama and I never actually saw him do anything meaningful to redeem himself for all the crap he pulled and all the humiliation he piled on to her. I also don’t like the whole Yin Iron nonsense. It just doesn’t tie in properly and the plot holes and inconsistencies it leaves behind are gaping and huge (but, happily, nobody is watching this for the Yin Iron plot 😆). There had to have been better things to do there, especially since it is something that does not exist in the source material. The worst parts of the drama for me somehow always tie back to the Yin Iron. 

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?

For Merlin:

Hmmm… when it comes to the most popular ones, I think none of them, because they all get complicated and dark to some degree. But on a platonic level, when it comes to friendships, I would go with Merwen, Merlance and Merwaine. Merlin and Gwen are delightful together, but I have a hard time shipping them romantically without Arthur, there is just no path forward for me there that does not involve him too, and that tips the dynamic into something much more complicated (but still happy for all three of them because I am so not down for jealousy and competition between Merlin and Gwen, Arthur has two hands and he can damn well use them). 

I also think that Lancelot’s love for Merlin was pure, but I just don’t ship it at all and think that there was never anything there except for friendship (I can see Arlance going sexual, though). The same goes for Gwaine, I think that he loved Merlin unconditionally, and as far as friendship goes, it is pure, but if I ship them sexually, then all purity goes out of the window, not just as far as the sex is concerned (because the sex they would be having would be positively filthy) but also because I just can’t imagine a universe in which Merlin does not love and desire Arthur more. The angst, the pain and the darkness are off the charts.

As for the less popular ones, I think the purest is Percival/Elyan regardless of whether you see it as romantic or platonic. There is just so much mutual love, admiration and respect between them! No angst, no lies, no triangles, no drama, just taking care of and supporting each other and living in domestic bliss.

For The Untamed:

WangXian, no contest. They fell in love as kids and continued to love each other for the rest of their lives, even beyond death. The way they love each other is so absolute and so selfless! They both respect and admire the other, they are so supportive and accepting of each other, quirks, flaws and all, and they kind of set the gold standard as far as relationships go!

27. Least shippable character?

For Merlin: 

Eh... this is a tough one. I actually had to step away from this question and think about it and I didn’t come up with anything because the entire main and recurring cast is very shippable. There are, however, characters that aren’t shipped as much as they could be (Elyan, baby, you deserve better 😢), and then there are also characters that result in unsavory ships that are best left unmentioned (but because these are salty asks, I am going to mention them anyway). 

The first one that came to my mind was Gaius, but he is actually very shippable because there is no rule that says you have to ship him in the canon timeline. He has a serious canon het love interest, and a crack one as well. Also, let’s not forget Uther. I’ve seen the fandom float this one as a crack ship, but it is actually very serious and plausible. There is so much complicated history there, decades of it, and definitely a deep, albeit toxic relationship that can absolutely be (and likely even was) sexual. If I was less busy and more inclined to get anon hate, I would totally be open to writing it myself.

I have seen a lot of people list Uther as an answer here, but Uther is very, very shippable! Anthony Head is handsome and charismatic, and he has so much presence as Uther, he could have chemistry with drywall if the script called for it. Again, there is no rule stating that a ship should be wholesome and happy, so let me go over the most obvious ones. When it comes to m/m ships, I already mentioned Gaius, plus I definitely felt it whenever the neighbouring kings came over to visit Camelot (my personal favourite was Lord Godwyn). Uther also has three canon het ships (why, yes, I am counting the troll), most notably Ygraine and Viivienne, and he is 100% shippable with Nimueh (though I prefer Nimueh with Ygraine). Last but not least, there is Morgana. It is squicky incest, yes, but it is also very obvious, if you have the inclination to go there. My jaw was on the floor on my first watch when he confessed that she was his actual biological daughter, because up until then, I totally thought that things would get sexual between them in canon. 

Agravaine is also an obvious (I would even go as far as to say a semi-canon) ship for Morgana. Do I hate it? Yes. Do I think she slept with him to get him to deliver her Arthur’s head? Again, absolutely, yes. Even Kilgharrah is very shippable and he is a giant firebreathing lizard (obviously, laws of physics require transmorphing him into something smaller and (hopefully) human-shaped for the p0rn). 

For The Untamed: 

Jin Zixun and Jin Zixuan. I am forever mad Jin Zixuan (somehow) ends up having sex in canon anyway. My first thought for this was Wen Chao, but no, he is absolutely shippable. Like I said, the ship does not have to be nice, and Wen Chao is very nasty, but also very sexual (plus, there is always Wen Zhuliu).

The one character that I personally am the least inclined to ship is Wen Ning because he is so childlike and it feels like he never mentally developed into an adult. 

Salty Asks