#3) ATLA is all about Aang making bad and difficult decisions

[idolomantises]

Have/do you watch atla? If so, who's your favorite character?

I love ATLA. Katara remains a strong favorite but after rewatching it in March, i think Aang is almost tied with her.

[eriklehnsherrific]

just saw quite the heated discussion on communist twitter about the “damage” dealt by atla and its pacifist teachings and its inspired some thoughts from me. 

i think it is a valid critic that because atla was written by american white dudes during the bush administration, you probably aren’t going to derive the most revolutionary mores from the show. that’s understandable, and i can understand some viewers’ frustration with aang not killing ozai at the end because of the “violence is always bad!!!” message that the show really hammers home. but i think the original idea that atla is counter-revolutionary because of this lacks some nuance.

for starters, even given the incredible amounts of bias that comes with the show’s writers and writing, atla is still a pretty revolutionary show. especially because it is, at the end of the day, a kids’ show. i’ve written extensively about how atla teaches its audience about anti-imperialism through the lens of critical pedagogy, but i’ll spare you from listening to my whole spiel about it. in essence, it is still widely impressive that a show like that was able to deliver such a message through a kids show on a kids network in a country that was actively engaged in a pointless, imperialist war. as for it not being “revolutionary enough” by failing to more thoroughly teach redistributive justice and presenting nonviolence as something that is “holier than thou”, i have a few qualms.

1. aang is a pacifist monk. obviously its worth knowing that the tibetan monks that inspired some of the air nomads did hold slaves until the communist revolution, but the air nomads are indeed fictional and thus wholly pacifistic. all he has ever known is pacifism and nonviolence. moreover, aang is the only remaining part of a genocided community. the philosophy of the air nomads is literally one of the only things aang has left from his culture and community, so naturally it is extremely important to him.

2. this one i cannot emphasize enough: aang is a literal child. he is 12. asking a child to kill someone, even if that someone is a genocidal warmongering imperialist, is a difficult thing to ask. aang never wanted to be a part of the whole war to begin with, understandably so, because he was just a kid; kids shouldn’t have to make these kinds of decisions. as older members of atla’s audience, it can be easy to put ourselves in aang’s position and be at peace with that kind of decision because 1) this world isn’t real, so our perception of a character’s decision does not materially affect us at all and 2) we, the older audience, are not children. maybe this is a hot take, but it isn’t that unrealistic for a child to be freaked out by the thought of killing someone, especially if killing is against what that child considers to be important. hell, i’m an adult and i am freaked out by the prospect of having to take life. i don’t think i could do it either. 

3. violence as retribution is dangerous. a very smart observation from a different user in the discussion was that violence is a necessary tool of the proletariat because the bourgeoisie will not give us liberation willingly, but this is because violence is serving a means to an end. without this, violence as retribution is a difficult cycle to end. it very much reminds me of the last of us part 2, and how revenge is not always fulfilling and more often than not leads to more death and destruction. the desire for retribution is valid and justified, but acting on it just makes things worse. 

4. we have to remember that this is a kids show. the show is already pretty subversive in including topics on imperialism, colonialism, forgiveness, etc., with most of the deeper revolutionary stuff being noticed by older viewers. these topics are already difficult to understand, so it has to be dumbed down and simplified a bit for the audience of 6 to 12 year olds. there’s a reason why atla is a kids show and not an adult animation or even specifically a y/a animation, and that’s because the intended audience is children. i think its a bit ridiculous to expect a kids show to have a scholarly level discussion of anti-imperialism. while i think teaching these kinds of things to children is super important, as enjoyers of art/intellectuals/anti-capitalists, i think it is also important that kids shows are fun to watch. atla is fun to watch for a whole host of reasons. 

sorry for the length of the rant, but my passion for atla even after my hyperfixation on it has dulled is something that makes me think a lot. while i do consider myself an intellectual and anti-capitalist, sometimes i think we take things way too seriously. shows like atla, even with all of its flaws and deeper meanings, are allowed to be fun. storytelling doesn’t have to be perfect nor does it have to have perfect intentions for it to be important. people deserve to have a respite from intense intellectual thinking sometimes. anyways happy monday!

[thevictorianghost]

You said in your finnrey/zutara post that studio meddling was involved for both. I knew that this was the case for finnrey because of racist cowards. But I never knew that was the case for zutara? Tbh I just assumed from the get-go that aang and katara were the main ship and I thought it was cute for them to end up together in the end. Though it is really interesting to learn that zuko and katara could’ve also been a serious thing and I think they could also work together rather nicely. What happened behind the scenes that caused it not to happen? Was aang originally gonna be set up with toph or have no love interest?

Oh hello! Hi! My first anon. Welcome :)

Before we start: I’m going to write Kat/aang, A/ang and Bry/ke like that so it doesn’t appear in the tags and I’ll bold some sections for emphasis. 

I don’t think the writers even considered Toph as a love interest for A/ang. It was always about Kat/aang vs Zutara.

It’s no secret at this point that Dante Basco and Mae Whitman, who voiced Zuko and Katara respectively, ship Zutara. Dante Basco is known as the “captain of the Zutara ship”. They’ve written multiple times about Zutara on Twitter and Dante Basco said in an interview that he really thought, at one point, that Zuko and Katara were going to end up together, that he thought it was going that way, and that he loved the idea of fire and water together.

As for the writers, it’s a bit more difficult to find information, since the show ended 15 years ago. But Aaron Ehasz, head writer of ATLA, has come out and said there was supposed to be a fourth season and it was dropped in favor of the movie. He said it on Twitter on April 1rst, 2019 (while also saying sorry for picking that date, it wasn���t an April Fools!). He said that M Night Shyamalan wanted them to focus on Book 4, but Bry/ke (Bryan Konietsko and Mike DiMartino) “wanted to focus on the movie”. You can find those tweets here. Not about Zutara per se, but it does show not everyone was on board with how the show was going to end behind the scenes.

Speaking of the movie, when asked about The Last Airbender, M Night Shyamalan also gave his input on the situation. He talked about how, by the time Book 3 came around, he wasn’t sure if the series was supposed to end there or if there was going to be a Book 4. He said to Bry/ke: ““Dudes, I gotta know this. This is critical! This has to end. This has to end. If it doesn’t end, I’m not on board. But if you don’t want to end it - it’s all good.”  They were like “no, we saw it as three seasons for each element that he has to learn.”  And I said “great.”” This is where it gets interesting, though: “At that time they hadn’t even decided where things were going to end, even like who Katara was going to end up with. All of that stuff hadn’t been figured out yet.” 

It’s interesting to me how he mentions this is who Katara will end up with. Not A/ang, not Zuko. It’s always about Katara.

 Someone who interned on ATLA has been quoted as saying that “If you check out the I.P. Bible then you’ll see a Kat/aang endgame was never planned from the start, it was supposed to remain a one-sided crush throughout the whole show.“ and that “The actual decision to make them a couple came about much later at Bry/ke’s request, largely because they were frustrated at the popularity of Zutara.“ Of course, not everyone in the production was full on one side or the other, as the post says some were neutral about it. “Some of the crew liked Kat/aang, I know Joaquim [Dos Santos] was a big Kat/aang supporter but more of them were neutral about it, Ehasz was not fond of Kat/aang but he didn’t mind too much since he’s a mature adult and all that.”

Avatar Extras (special events on Nicktoons where episodes of ATLA were shown with fun facts) were released where it was said that Zuko was supposed to be Katara’s love interest. It was said two times at least. I’ve only ever found screencaps of these, but I found these here on Tumblr. 

When asked about these in the Avatar Extras, Bry/ke said that it was just a joke and that Kat/aang was always in the DNA of the show. But if you’re here to tell fun facts to your audience about your show, maybe put a disclaimer that says some things might not be as truthful as they think they will be?

And the intern mentioned earlier also said that “No one was having full-on ship wars in the writer’s room but we did joke about it, and we toyed with the idea of Zuko and Katara falling in love a couple of times.“ So that goes well with the Avatar Extras.

Meanwhile, other writers, like John O’Bryan, have been quoted talking against Zutara in favor of Kat/aang. EDIT: Thank you to @exhaustedhope for giving me a source for this quote! This link also has a few images for the quote, so I’ll add them here.

Thank you again! And also the use of Zutara fanart to badmouth the ship in favor of Kat/aang? Dude.

If this was the way people behind the scenes were thinking of Katara and A/ang’s and Katara and Zuko’s relationships... well that doesn’t really make me think “Kat/aang was in the DNA of the show” either, huh? Zuko was never officially her love interest, Katara never actually “went after that guy”. But the thought that she might made them uneasy. 

(Btw, let’s not forget Zuko actually does care about Katara, enough to put his life on the line for her in Book 3, so that mischaracterizes Zuko.) 

This comment by John O’Bryan fits with this vision of Zutara Bry/ke has, where Zuko is nothing but a broody, emo “bad boy” who doesn’t care about Katara at all. It’s shown pretty well in their dreadful “joke” made at Comic Con in 2007. You can find the video here. Here, Katara ends up with A/ang and “should have never doubted the will of Mike and Bryan!” (yuck). So Kat/aang was always the “right” way for them to end the show, right?

But then! Even Bry/ke themselves have said that Kat/aang was forced. They said it in 2014 when Korrasami became canon in Legend of Korra. On Korrasami and Kat/aang, they said this: “Originally, [Korrasami] was primarily intended to be a strong friendship. Frankly, we wanted to set most of the romance business aside for the last two seasons. Personally, at that point I didn’t want Korra to have to end up with someone at the end of series. We obviously did it in Avatar, but even that felt a bit forced to me.“

So they admitted that Kat/aang was forced. They even mention the ATLA ship wars in the post. “Either direction we went [about Korrasami or Makorra], there would inevitably be a faction that was elated and another that was devastated. Trust me, I remember Kat/aang vs. Zutara. But one of those directions is going to be the one that feels right to us, and Mike and I have always made both Avatar and Korra for us, first and foremost.”

Okay. So what’s real about the behind the scenes of ATLA and what isn’t? Was Kat/aang in the DNA of the show, or did they go back and forth between Kat/aang and Zutara like they did with Korrasami and Makorra? 

There have been conflicting informations scattered across the Internet over the years. Some people say one thing and others react, saying the opposite and that the first thing was false. Some people lied, or joked, to mess with the audience and toy with Zutara - or not, or maybe, or perhaps... What I think, though, is that not everything was set in stone. Some people were for Zutara and some people were for Kat/aang. And even after all of that, the big takeaway for me was: the end result that Bryke wanted so badly was lackluster in and of itself.

[beyond-far-horizons]

Analysing the Zutara Cave Scene from a Writing and Psychological perspective

Forgive me, I’m an enthusiastic newbie to the ATLA fandom and Zutara (mainly because I knew the ship was perfect for me but was not canon and so I held off watching it for years.) So I know you’ve heard it all before but I wanted to break down this famous scene in more depth from my background as both a writer and a student of psychology. It’s also important since the age old ship wars are being resurrected (which I want no part of) and Zutara and this scene has been looked down on and belittled from some quarters. 

Warning - Wall of Text TM incoming!

The main thing that gets most people is these mortal enemies going from hating each other to being open and vulnerable in about five minutes of screen time. I get the impression more time and therefore more conversation has gone on off screen, but it’s amazing that Katara goes from tirade at the literal face of the Fire Nation (a country whose plagued her people and killed her mother, and Zuko himself who has hunted her and her friends, captured her at least twice and has had several intense fights with her) 

to tenderly touching Zuko’s face and “let me use our one of its kind Holy Water TM to maybe heal your face.” 

Also as others have pointed out Zuko lets this ‘peasant’ (who defeated him, wounded his pride and foiled his lifelong goal several times) touch his scar when he doesn’t let anyone else do that at this point, even girls he’s been close to. 

I doubt many Zutara shippers think this happened because the two suddenly decided the other was hot, even though there might be an unconscious physical attraction under all the animosity. But no-one can deny the writers were trying to show a shared connection that makes them open up to each other. That to me makes the relationship much deeper whether it’s platonic or romantic. 

Katara, despite her understandable rage at Zuko, is surprisingly open to forgiving and helping him as soon as he  -

a) mentions they have something in common - the Fire Nation being responsible in some way for the loss of their mothers.

b) his resolution to make his own destiny and overcome his difficult past associated with the scar.

I just love this about her character. She’s passionate, feisty and full of integrity but she can’t stop herself wanting to help make things better, even to one of her worst enemies. Her compassion is such a strength and it comes out even more when she realises she’s accidentally hurt his feelings re his face.

Zuko in turn is softer with her than I’ve ever seen him with others, even Iroh most of the time. He doesn’t get angry or even really defensive and he opens up about his mother for the first time. Extraordinary considering he’s talking to an enemy.

But this isn’t the first time he’s tried to win Katara over against his normal combative persona. When he captured her in Ep 9 you’d expect him to threaten her, especially surrounded by his men and bloodthirsty pirates. Instead he asks for her understanding and tells her (the little peasant and enemy of the Fire Nation) about his lost honour.

He then goes momentarily into full skeevy villain mode (which I loved) and offers her necklace back by placing it round her neck. (As an aside, yes this was totally the wrong tactic considering it was her mother’s who the Fire Nation killed, but I do love that he unknowingly offered her a Water Tribe betrothal necklace.)

Analysing it more deeply from a writing and psychology perspective, I’d say Katara represents the integrity and vulnerability that is at the core of Zuko’s character - the thing that got him that scar and banishment from his warlike family. 

The same side he struggles with and that Iroh tries to heal and encourage within him. It’s masterly from a writing POV that they brought this mirror up and allowed Zuko to connect and own this aspect of himself again briefly before Azula (the opposite representation and Zuko’s ‘shadow’) literally crashes the party. This is truly his ‘crossroads of destiny’, raising the stakes and therefore making us  - the audience - ache all the more when Zuko makes the wrong but understandable decision to choose Azula and his family’s version of him and betray not just Katara but Iroh too (dat angst.)

(As an aside look at the framing of the above shot. They do this alot showing him literally caught between two sides. In the previous scene with Azula and Iroh, they show both the unscarred and then scarred profile of Zuko to show the ‘two sides of him’ symbolically represented by Azula and Iroh.)

Two sides, Fire and Water, the battle of opposites and the bringing of balance is of course the core of ATLA, and Zuko and Katara’s fraught relationship sums this theme up perfectly. Another reason so many still ship them and feel aggrieved by the non-canon ending. 

I think Zuko is so wounded by Katara’s refusal to forgive him and so determined to earn that forgiveness is because she represents his true ‘honour’ - the right way to be - to fight for balance and justice with integrity no matter what. Thus he must make amends to her, not just as someone he has wronged, but as the mirror of that aspect in himself. 

Thematically this is tied up beautifully in him asking her to join him to defeat Azula in the final season and them working together to do so. 

(As another aside, the theme of balance and Yin and Yang is also mirrored in Zuko and Katara’s relationship and character development. At the start Katara is the caring, altruistic almost motherly sort and Zuko is the angry, aggressive pursuer. However like Yin and Yang that contain an aspect of the other within them, whenever Katara meets Zuko she becomes more aggressive and is allowed to process her grief and anger, unlike with her friends. Zuko, in turn is often softened by her, reawakening his compassion and deeper feelings. Yes these aspects are also fostered by others, but Season 3 highlights this dynamic to Zutara allowing Katara to address her anger and Zuko to practice caregiving and support.)

Coming back to the Cave Scene -  the most poignant part for me isn’t actually the face touch (even though I love it). It’s the final glance between them as Katara and Aang leave. Katara looks back worried, it’s as if she can sense the threshold Zuko is on and feels torn between staying and supporting him and her duty to Aang. I feel if they had had more time together Azula would have had less chance to turn Zuko. 

He looks back at her softly and there’s a beautiful musical cue, hinting at things unsaid and unfinished, she gives him a final lingering glance, still anxious, then goes. 

We all know what happens next. 

Conclusion

Looking at this from a purely plot point of view it - 

raises the emotional stakes and therefore make Zuko’s betrayal hurt worse.

Sets up Zuko knowing about Katara’s healing abilities and Spirit Water so he knows there is a possibility the Avatar could be saved. This all plays into the shenanigans of Book 3, letting Zuko go back to the Fire Nation, Azula giving him the credit and then letting down her father etc.

Giving Zuko more character development work to earn everyone’s trust esp Katara’s when he finally makes the right choice.

However I’m surprised that Bryke didn’t realise how this episode would look to the eyes of most fans esp Zutarians. Yes you could say it’s hetero-normative and why can’t they be just platonic etc but it was the Noughties, it’s a kids show and they are blatantly playing into those well known tropes - Zuko’s previous verging-on flirtatious treatment of Katara, his uncharacteristic softness and openness with her, her touching his scar, the music, their lingering glances, Aang’s jealous look (you could argue it was animosity towards his enemy but while we get this from Zuko, it is definitely played as suspicion about a potential rival so close to ‘his girl’ from Aang’s side.)

Ultimately the writers didn’t choose the romantic route, which I feel is a real shame and missed opportunity because of the depth of feeling and potential there. But what I really resent is when people act like Zutarians were stupid and/or biased for seeing and loving that potential. I hope this analysis has shown that the romantic subtext was strong (and much more believable for me than with Katara and Aang) and in line with the core themes of ATLA itself. This also refutes the suggestion that Zutara was somehow dark, toxic or shallow cos ‘he’s a bad boy’ or something. 

Zuko was owning his own struggles, emotions and destiny in this scene, it’s why Katara finally opens up to him. She doesn’t have to ‘do the work for him’, but she supports him in it as he supports her later on when he earns her forgiveness. And that’s why I love it!

Thank you for coming to my TED talk...

[hundredyearavatar]

Is Kataang a Nice Guy ship? | Kataang vs Zutara

In a previous post, theadamantdaughter proposed that my understanding of Zutara could be applied to male preference for Kataang in relation to Nice Guys. I encourage you to read the previous post as this post will test and build on a lot of the ideas presented in that thread. In particular, my (perhaps misguided) definition of “self-insert” and then the rebranding as the word “relationality”.

I thought I wasn’t able to test their theory (whether proposed in earnest or not), but it turns out that I have data on romantic relationships. Let’s see if this can reveal anything to us.

Primary ATLA F/M Ship by “Have you ever been in a romantic relationship?” and Gender Notice that there might be an increase in Kataang preference in males who haven’t had romantic experience. It’s difficult to tell simply by looking if these two proportions are actually different or just the product of natural randomness. Normally, I’d say “we can’t know”, because there’s no pattern to compare it to. But, since the idea of Kataang being linked to Nice Guys was in my head, I noticed that the difference is larger than 10 percentage points. This is relatively large – perhaps large enough to be identified with a statistical test.

Using a contingency table (a type of statistical test), I’ve found that there is a significant difference between the two groups. If you’re familiar with the test, I found chi-square(df = 3, N = 195) = 4.00, p = .046. Good enough for me.

What this means is that we can be 95% confident that males who haven’t been in a romantic relationship actually do prefer Kataang more than males who have been in a romantic relationship. This statistical test makes no claim about why we see this difference, but merely that we are in fact seeing a difference. At this point, these results could be used to support a link between Nice Guys and Kataang. It’s prudent to do a bit more digging, so let’s take a look at another comparison.

Primary ATLA F/M Ship by Primary ATLA F/M Ship by “Have you ever been in a romantic relationship?” and Age and Gender A key observation in this chart is that the correlation of romantic experience to Kataang isn’t observed in males aged 18 and under.

We might understand this as indicating a relationship to Nice Guys. We can reason that “Nice Guys” (definition which is yet to be clarified) are going to be these males who haven’t been in a romantic relationship after becoming 19. We could then argue that <18 males who haven’t been in a relationship have no reason to adopt a Nice Guy viewpoint, which is why there isn’t a difference in Kataang preference. Hold this thought, as we’ll return to it later.

Speculation about why we see the pattern So now we have something that needs to be explained: that 19+ males who haven’t been in a romantic relationship tend to prefer Kataang more than those who have been in a relationship. We’ve approached the data with a hypothesis regarding Nice Guys, but it isn’t really a defined model. I think we have a general understanding of what it’s suggesting, but I want to get into the nitty gritty of what’s going on.

The basic idea is that if a male hasn’t been in a romantic relationship, then their views (particularly if they’re older) on romantic relationships are likely to be different to males who have. Of interest to us is the Nice Guy: a male who is frustrated because (as they see it) for some males it’s easy to enter into a relationship, while they themselves as “nice guys” haven’t been able to find a girl. Possible additions to this model of a Nice Guy include the view that females can be shallow, and that males can behave badly or disrespectfully in order to woo a female. While I think we can think that 19+ people (regardless of gender) who haven’t been in a romantic relationship could be frustrated with that situation, it’s not entirely clear to me that these additions of how they might view other people is necessarily a part of the Nice Guy. It’s hard to separate the meme from reality.

In the context of Kataang, Aang could be seen as a nice guy getting the girl in the end. Using my understanding of relationality that I explained in the previous post, these males are personally engaging with the relationship between Katara and Aang. This relationality could take multiple forms, from relating to Aang, to being attracted to Katara, to seeing value in the destined nature of their relationship.

In the previous post, I reasoned that we make our decisions first and then justify them later. We could use the current findings to challenge this theory, as we could argue that not having been in a relationship at 19+ is a draw towards Kataang. We could reason that <18 males don’t exhibit this Nice Guy effect because there is little expectation regarding relationships, so they aren’t Nice Guys.

But this chart suggests otherwise:

["Have you ever changed primary ship?" by "Have you ever been in a romantic relationship" and Age and Gender]

The majority of people don’t change their shipping preference. This supports my theory that we make our decisions early and then justify them later. A choice that a male made up to 9 years ago about a children’s TV show may be linked to whether or not they have been in a romantic relationship by today. That’s freaky. But having or not having been in a relationship isn’t causing people to choose Kataang – they’re just correlated. We want to find the reason that these two are linked.

I’m beginning to suspect that we are actually making a measure of personality. If the likelihood of entering into a romantic relationship is linked to certain personality traits, then perhaps this relationship/no-relationship comparison is actually a personality-type/personality-type comparison. For example, extrovert/introvert in a broad sense.

But, as you may have noticed, this puts us at odds with what we observed when we included Age. <18 males didn’t exhibit any difference. According to the reasoning I just put forward, <18 males should still exhibit these personality traits and so we should see an increased preference for Kataang in those who haven’t been in a relationship. Let’s look at this chart:

70% of <18 males haven’t been in a relationship, so I reason that we’re observing a dilution effect. If we took these <18 males and fast forwarded 9 years, my model predicts that we’d see the relationship/no-relationship pattern present in them too.

This is the model that I put forward. Males who haven’t been in a romantic relationship tend to prefer Kataang because of yet unidentified features of their personality. This type of personality tends to prefer Kataang, and also tends to result in no romantic partners. Personality is higher up in the causal network, and romantic experience and shipping preference are influenced by personality. In terms of the Nice Guy Hypothesis, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that males 19+ who haven’t been in a romantic relationship are more likely to be Nice Guys. So the answer to the question “is Kataang a Nice Guy ship?” is: these two things seem to be linked in some way.

theadamantdaughter’s proposal, if taken seriously and literally, can be understood as the idea that being a Nice Guy increases the likelihood that the male to “self-insert” (in the hard or soft sense of the word). Using the terminology of my previous post, this can be converted into the less dramatic proposition that Nice Guys have increased relationality with Kataang. However, there’s an important distinction between these two things being related, and these two things interacting. If we adopt my personality model, then it’s not immediately clear that the Nice Guy mentality was applied in the original preference for Kataang. If someone becomes a Nice Guy later in life, then how could a Nice Guy-related relationality be relevant to a decision made prior to becoming a Nice Guy? My model seems to suggest that this relationality isn’t important.

There are many other things I haven’t discussed. Alternative models that account for life choices or even single-sex schooling. A model which argues that the original Kataang choice might have been linked to a proto-Nice Guy mentality. Whether or not Zuko is seen as the “bad guy”. The potential support for my personality model through a link between romantic experience and female Maiko shipping. The trend with age and change in shipping preference. The possibility of linking Nice Guy to Kataang through also accounting for when people watched ATLA. These are interesting ideas, but this post is long enough already. All in all, hats off to theadamantdaughter. If it weren’t for their comments, I don’t think I would have noticed this extremely interesting pattern. Online interaction is a funny thing.

[nyangibun]

any fandom. 1, 10, 16.

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

In the GoT fandom, I honestly don’t get nor can I stand people who ship Sansa with Littlefinger. I’m also not fond of Sansa x Sandor either but I can sort of see it more. Sansa x LF though is just gross.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

Aang in the ATLA fandom because listen, here’s the thing: Aang is a wonderful and amazing character from Book 1 all through to Book 2. But then you get to Book 3 and it goes to shit. He is essentially a displaced child in a century that’s not his own, he’s lost everything and everyone he ever knew, and so it makes sense he imprints on the first person who shows him compassion and kindness. That, of course, being Katara. Although she isn’t much older in age, she has always had to shoulder burdens far beyond her years so she slips easily into the mother figure role for a lot of them. It’s even canonically acknowledged in the show. And Katara mothers Aang more than anyone else. She constantly tries to shield him from the bad things in life, tries to console him when he throws childish tantrums, indulges him and takes care of him. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve any of it but Katara is also a child herself no matter how mature she is and Aang never once offers the same comfort that she offers him. It’s entirely one-sided on that front. 

And it was also canonically acknowledged in the show that Aang’s love for her is an anchor, holding his growth back, not allowing him to reach his Avatar state. He’s supposed to let her go. He’s supposed to learn, just as the other characters did, that war is about making difficult decisions and sacrifices. But in Book 3, Aang didn’t sacrifice anything. He didn’t have to because he got on a magical turtle and found out he could beat Ozai without having to kill him, without having to sacrifice his morals for the greater good or let Katara go at all. In the end, he got everything he wanted. He got a wife who catered to his every whim and mothered him, keeping him stagnant in his growth and development, and disillusioning him into thinking he can get away with anything as the Avatar. Again, this is even canonically acknowledged in the comics where Aang is shown to disregard Katara’s feelings for his own, making her feel underappreciated and then eventually his own children’s feelings by having a favourite he dotes on. 

Basically, this is super long and I’m sorry but I’m still so angry about this. I loved Aang so much and they just fucked him up so badly. 

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Man oh man… If I could change anything on any show, I would go back to ATLA, give Aang the development he deserves, and make Zutara canon, like they deserve. 

In the GoT fandom, I would get rid of Sansa’s Ramsay storyline and find a different way to bring her closer to Jon. Give her more time as Alayne Stone. I would rewrite the entirety of Season 7 that focused more on characters and sensical plots than dragon spectacle. I would do a lot of things differently. Far too much to write in one post anyhow xD 

Thank you for sending these in!!

+ Salty Ask List +

[theironweasel]

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and why Avatar hasn’t completely spoiled me.

Spoilers for both franchises!

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is what I was looking for from the Original Series. While still not quite at Avatar Level for a number of reasons It’s just a step below and I believe I will consider it one of my favorites and I definitely want to rewatch it someday! I will do some comparisons between both the Original Series and Avatar as my gold standard for storytelling.

The Music. This is something I will give the Original series, there were a number of really memorable tracks, such as Dante’s Theme that really helped give some atmosphere. Brotherhood on the other hand while having a serviceable soundtrack, doesn’t have anything very memorable or any tracks that really elevate a scene beyond its other qualities. Avatar is, of course, renowned for its music, Legend of Korra, in particular, had top-notch music that elevated many scenes emotionally into truly epic, sad and many other emotions.

The Humor. The humor is about on the same level as the original series, though even more exaggerated at many points. Though there are a number of more natural humor moments, like a guard snapping to attention with “I’m awake!” Other than a few moments like that the humor doesn’t work that well and it’s pretty much abandoned in the last third of the series, which makes sense given how serious things get but even Avatar managed to get good jokes in near the end. Hell one of the best jokes in ATLA is the war balloon “birthday party” in the penultimate episode. I think this may also be a dub issue, unless an anime is focused on comedy it can be very difficult for a dub to pick up on the comedic timing necessary to make the jokes work.

The Pacing. Although better than the original series, a lot of the plot of the last half of the series feels kind of like padding and could have been condensed into 2/3rds or even half the number of episodes and the series would have felt a lot tighter. The Final Arc especially drags on for way too long though it does pay off for the most part.

The Plot. This felt like a significant improvement over the original series. First, the scale felt a lot bigger and more epic and where the original could come off as convoluted, Brotherhood feels more like it’s complex. While there are plenty of twists and turns I never really had difficulty keeping everything straight up until towards the end and it wasn’t that bad and all the stuff going on helped give things an epic feel. However, like I said earlier it does feel like the plot is stretched out more than it needs to be, I wish it had been trimmed a bit to keep things going at a better pace.

The Characters. Again, a significant improvement over the original series as the side characters get a lot more development and more tend to have full arcs such as Scar and Greed. However, this is where I feel the show could have lived up to Avatar but didn’t quite make it. I think the key to being on that level, for me at least, is with the characters. As I said in my FMA review, ATLA and LOK were great in creating minor characters that had interesting personalities and designs such as Huu, Ryu, and the Nomads. But they don’t overstay their welcome, only appearing in an episode or two and often with a lot of space between appearances. Even the less interesting of these tend to have arcs that lend to character development for the main characters such as Haru to Katara, Teo to Aang and Tahno to Korra. Brotherhood while focusing more on character development than the original series it does tend to have too many side characters to get on the same level as Avatar’s characters. While LOK isn’t quite as strong in this regard it knows when to put certain characters in more minor roles when they aren’t relevant to the story or their arcs have finished. I think the definitive difference comes in several points. First, while I wouldn't call the characters in Brotherhood one note, as many have two or three levels to them, however what Avatar, particularly ATLA, did was make characters with many layers such as Zuko and Lin Beifong or even characters who were almost two people in one such as Katara where this fact isn’t even fully looked into until the last regular episode before the finale but is also a fact that can be seen from the very first episode. The other aspect I think that Avatar has is it’s cast and voice director that manages to give some of the best performances I’ve ever seen from comedy to drama, from John Michael Higgins legendary Varrick that manages to be both hilarious and occasionally intimidating and believable as both a Villain and Hero, to Mae Whitman as Katara who manages to have some of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the show almost purely through her performance from breaking down in tears over how hurt she feels because of her absent father to making the word “Me” one of the most powerful and emotional moments of the series. I will give Brotherhood this, while I wasn’t super invested in most of the characters, I did appreciate how in the end they managed to use some of the characters very well. In particular Greed’s sacrifice and Hohenheim's arc with his family, both of which were played well enough to get me teary eyed, even if I didn’t really care much about the characters themselves.

The Fights. While being better than the original series fight scenes, having a bit more creativity and energy, I do think Avatar has spoiled me forever so that only purely fight focused animes can live up to the level of Avatar as they are extremely well thought out with real martial arts and elemental abilities that make the fight scenes feel so intense. Additionally, I feel Avatar has a wonderful ability to incorporate emotion very well into the fights both in the lead-up and how the fights play out. From the beautiful and almost artistic fiery destruction that was the Last Agni Kai to what may be one of the best fight scenes of all time in the final battle between Korra and Kuvira that has such strong intensity and speed with constantly shifting tactics and moves. Additionally, the fight cinematography is fantastic, always showing us the battlefield and movements of the characters, rarely resorting to speed lines or distortion to make the action look faster and more intense, something Brotherhood was guilty of even in it’s most epic and near end fight scenes such as Scar vs. Wrath.

The Villains. This was one of the biggest improvements from the original series in my opinion. While most of the villains are still pretty one note, they are handled much better. First, they don’t have the bizarre desire to become human despite how the reasons were only explained, poorly, in a single line. Two, contrary to the original series, the villains loathe human beings and revel in their own inhumanity, but for some at least it is a cover for their envy of humanity and while it’s the same idea as the original series it is done in a much more compelling way. In particular what they do with Greed is fascinating, showing how Greed as a concept is really just seeking empty things that a person believes will make them feel whole but that ultimately what they are “greedy” for is the love of other people, showing how it isn’t just an evil. This was hinted at in the original series, but Brotherhood makes it a complete Arc. And while I found Homunculus himself to be boring most of the time, I did really like his final moments which made me wish we had seen a deeper exploration of this aspect of his character.

Winry. She is done a lot better in Brotherhood, making her more 3 dimensional. When she makes a mistake she feels guilt and will actually apologize and try to change, and her issues with her parents’ death are fully explored and resolved. Finally, while her relationship with Ed doesn’t get an Avatar super romantic ending, it does feel way more resolved than in the Original series as in this they at least admit their feelings.

Izumi. This is probably the best improvement from the original series. While she isn’t an amazing character in Brotherhood, she was so insufferable in the original and was around far too long. While she is still a bit of a wacko, the hateful aspects of her character are toned down to almost zero. While she still has the brothers live on an island for a month, she doesn’t have some dude beat the crap out of them and the show does actually question if this is the right thing to do and implies that Izumi may have a skewed perspective. And she is able to have a legitimate emotional moment with the brothers without resorting to violence and recognizes her mistake in not telling them about messing up herself. Again while she is not an amazing character in Brotherhood, she was so bad in the original that it almost ruined the show for me.

The Ending. Again, while I feel the final arc lasted way too long the payoff was mostly worth it. While there were some plot details that were a bit confusing and some metaphysical stuff that made me raise an eyebrow (Avatar was great in establishing its metaphysical aspects in preparation for the finales). However I feel that most of if not all the important characters have satisfying resolutions to their stories, with Hohenheim finally wanting to live in his dying moments, Roy realizing he has to ascend to power while doing good instead of waiting until he’s there, Scar learning to look beyond his hate to do what’s best for his people, and probably the best with Ed. While Ed was a good character, I never really loved him, but I will give him credit for having one of the best resolutions to an arc I’ve seen, deciding to give up his power in order to save his brother. And I love how the seemingly indifferent/malevolent Truth was actually pleased in the end to see Ed make the right decision, that despite his harshness and some mean-spiritedness, Truth ultimately wants Humanity to learn and change for the better and will punish anyone both well and ill-intentioned who has the hubris to play god.

Ultimately, while I can’t put Brotherhood in the same ranks as Avatar, I do place it as one of my favorite shows I’ve watched and look forward to rewatching it someday and would like to share it with a friend who may enjoy it. But here is where I can define a tangible difference, I can show Avatar to anyone, I watched it with my rather intellectual father and he loved both series and even liked some of the humor quite well. I don’t feel him or certain other people would appreciate Brotherhood on that same level even though I am pretty close myself.

[lj-writes]

I have to admit that I don´t ship characters and mostly read anything well written regardless of pairing, so shipping wars mostly pass me by. But I did see some of the Zuko verses Aang fight in atla. I read both, though canonwise I kind of routed for Mai and Zuko. And saw the Katara/Aang ship a bit critical because of the ages involved. As far as Zuko and Katara are concerned, most of what I read involved either Zuko after he joined the Gaang or an elaborate redemtion story first. Do you (cont)

[Image: Screencap of continued ask, saying, ”(cont) of Zuko and Kylo Ren as comparable characters? Because I really can´t see it as far as character developement goes. With Zuko you have somebody who starts out on the bad side, but seems to strugle from the start with being ruthless, partiularly we see him destroy plenty of stuff, but also help his men. And of course over the second and third season we see him work for his redemtion. Kylo in contrast started on the good side and, while struggling with something, also deliberately (cont)”]

[Image: Screencap of continued ask saying, “(cont) kills, takes part in genocide and comits patricide. They are both very prone to throwing tandrums and do moraly wrong stuff, but with Kylo I do not get the feeling from the way his story is told that there is something to redem in him. With Zuko, there were hints in the first season (since for Kylo we have only one movie ): That he lets Aang go after he rescued him from Zaos fortress, the way Iroh and him act, the rescue of the crewmember. With Kylo we see no hints of better traits.“]

I love that you asked me about two of my favorite shows, and my two favorite villains! One of them is a former villain, of course, something I’ll be discussing in more depth.

On whether Zuko and Kylo Ren are comparable currently, their actions are not comparable and will never be. There are Kylo Ren fans who compare the two, but Zuko put his foot down and said “no” to mass murder while Kylo Ren either ordered it (at Tuanul village at Jakku) or stood by and allowed it to happen (the Hosnian system). Even one movie into Kylo Ren’s story and three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender long finished, the scale of Kylo Ren’s crimes are already incomparable to Zuko’s. In that sense Zuko has shown himself to be much more moral and principled, especially since we know he was already championing the value of his subjects’ lives before the show started and that was what got him burned and exiled. As you point out, Zuko and Kylo had different starting points and actively defied their upbringing, Zuko toward morality and peace, Kylo toward aggression and murder.

That said, I would like to argue with or at least qualify a few of your assertions to make the following points: Zuko’s redemption was much more complicated, and Kylo Ren’s redemption more plausible, than you portray. See below the cut for the full argument.

You said: “And of course over the second and third season we see [Zuko] work for his redemtion“

Book 2 was of course an important part of Zuko’s journey toward redemption, but I disagree he actually worked toward redemption during that season. He was deprived of his royal status, had lost his hope of going home, and was trying desperately to deal with despair. In fact, at the end of Book 2 he turned on Aang for a chance to go home, breaking the fragile beginnings of trust he had built with Katara. This decision made him complicit in Aang’s death at Azula’s hands, and Aang was only brought back because of Katara’s healing power and Spirit Water. In early Book 3 Zuko hired an assassin to go after Aang when he learned Aang had survived.

Zuko was doubting himself heavily by this time, yes, foreshadowing his redemption, but he still did these terrible things. When he was finally faced with the choice whether to be complicit in genocide he made a final, clean break with the Fire Nation. This decision was based on his earlier development including time spent in the Earth Kingdom, but that doesn’t erase what he did while these developments were happening.

I bring up Zuko’s uneven progression because there are parallels to Kylo Ren’s arc here. Kylo is also doubting himself deeply, and also committed immoral and violent acts in the midst of his doubt. In this sense it’s ironic that you don’t think Kylo Ren’s narrative supports a redemption arc when Zuko, who is indisputably redeemed, has similar elements in his own story. Of course, to reiterate, I don’t think the magnitudes of their crimes are comparable, I am only making the point that wrongdoing does not preclude redemption.

On that note I think it’s worthwhile to distinguish two concepts, culpability and redeemability. Culpability refers to how blameworthy one’s actions are and redeemability to how capable the person is of redemption. I’ve seen both sides of the debate conflate these two, for instance some of Kylo’s fans trying to downplay the culpability of his acts to say he can be redeemed, and some detractors pointing to the exceedingly heinous nature of his crimes (culpability) to say he can’t be redeemed. Both arguments confuse culpability with redeemability and are not helpful.

It’s true that culpability and redeemability can be inversely related. Small misdeeds are generally easier to come back from, large ones harder. Certainly no one worth listening to argues that Kylo Ren’s redemption, if it happens, will be easy or cheap. There is nothing that inherently links culpability and redeemability, though, and in some cases they may even contradict.

Let me apply that to Kylo Ren’s case with what we know about the character:

He committed or was complicit in atrocities including torture, mass murder, and patricide

He is deeply conflicted about his actions, and had to act against his deepest inclinations for some of them (most notably the murder of his father)

The first points toward culpability. His acts were heinous and, short of being mind-controlled and unable to understand and control his actions, Kylo was responsible for them.

The second point toward both culpability and redeemability, but in different directions. By that I mean, his doubs if anything increase his culpability but also increase his capacity to be redeemed, that is his redeemability. This is the kind of case I was talking about where culpability and redeemability might not have an inverse relationship, but rather a factor that increases culpability might also point toward greater redeemability.

First, culpability: Some fans have pointed at Kylo Ren’s deep internal conflict as proof that he is not fully responsible for his actions, but actually it is his doubts that seal his responsibility. It shows that he clearly understood what he was doing and knew his actions were wrong, but went ahead and committed these crimes anyway.

Second, redeemability: Though Kylo’s still having a working conscience and actively working against it makes his actions all the more blameworthy, it also shows that his conscience is still strong and he could, if he decides to, turn away from the First Order and even work against it. It has become immeasurably more difficult for him to do so, yes, but that’s what makes the story all the more high-stakes and dramatic much as Zuko’s complicated redemption process made his story all the more memorable and believable.

Let me move on next to your discussion of Zuko’s and Kylo Ren’s personal characteristics. It’s interesting that you mention them both having temper tantrums, because we know that Zuko’s violent rages were his reaction to his father’s abuse. It may be that Kylo’s rages are similar, except there is no indication that Han or Leia abused him and the best available evidence points to Snoke.

I relate to this a lot because I used to throw frequent tantrums, too, before I came to grips with the emotioal and verbal abuse I had suffered. I showed abusive traits, too, such as shouting and throwing things in an intimidating way and even hitting my then-boyfriend (now husband). Of course the abuse I went through excuses none of my actions, and Zuko and Kylo Ren remain responsible for their actions as well. In fact taking full responsibility for one’s life is often an important step in recovering from abuse.

You also said: “[Zuko] lets Aang go after he rescued him from Zaos fortress, the way Iroh and him act, the rescue of the crewmember. With Kylo we see no hints of better traits.”

Actually Zuko did not let Aang go. He was in no condition to capture Aang due to the injury he sustained helping Aang escape the fortress, and he helped Aang for self-interested reasons.

It’s true that Zuko’s interactions with Iroh and his men revealed the early glimmers of his humanity and eventual redemption, but there’s no saying that these character moments have to happen early in order to be effective. Also the pacing of a season in a television show is very different from that of a cinematic movie. There simply wasn’t room in the movie for an antagonist, particularly one that is still largely mysterious, to have all these positive human interactions. Kylo’s humanity is still implied, however, in his struggles with his conscience and in the fact that those who knew him best, Leia and Han, saw something worth saving in him. We still have two more movies to go and it’s possible that we’ll learn more about his motivations and who he is as a person.

None of this, I repeat, excuses anything Kylo Ren did nor lessens his crimes in any way. In fact, as I explained above with the difference between culpability and redeemability, the factors that make him possibly redeemable make him more, rather than less, culpable for his despicable actions. But I do think he can still be redeemed and it could be a great story.