#and yeah completely correct about the protagonist centered morality it's one of this fandoms many problem areas

[astralleywright]

not but an eye-opening post into the thought process of the fandom is someone saying "how dare they not think of how the other god-loving pcs will react to this!" yes. the other pcs. because fuck the feelings of the npcs, they don't matter. only the pcs matter. they're the heroes and thus have the right to choose for everyone, so the moment that they betray their coda of "black and white beat the bad guy and run" they're evil. who cares if some pcs were handed everything on a platter by the gods? they deserved it for their divine right of being main characters. it reminds me of d20 "anti ratgrinder" arguments that said they deserved to die for being jealous of the pcs.

no because like, for a while there the most common argument for keeping the gods was how many people followed them and looked up to them. while the counter-argument was about how many ppl they had killed and the fact that, after 800+ years of self-reflection and feeling bad, they were raring to do it all over again like. genuinely tragic for those who followed the gods to lose them, it will in fact be a massive loss socioculturally and I think it would make complete sense for many mortals to mourn that, even if they simply leave instead of die. but it will not be as massive a loss as the amount of deaths that would happen in a second Calamity lmao

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Comparing ATLA’s Jet to Cowboy Bebop’s Spike

(this is so late, but. Happy birthday @the-hot-zone​, hope you had an amazing day) 

In my opinion, Cowboy Bebop is one of the greatest shows ever created. It hits a lot of my personal favorite attributes in a TV show: cowboys, fantastic music, absolutely spectacular animation, really deep themes and characters with rich inner lives, worldbuilding that’s thought out. Simply put, it’s a masterpiece. 

I started watching Bebop this summer, at the height of the ATLA Renaissance, and the first thing I noticed about protagonist Spike Spiegel is that he looked a hell of a lot like Jet from ATLA. And it wasn’t just the looks either: like Jet, Spike is the leader of a ragtag group of misfits living on the fringes of society. Like Jet, Spike is a smooth talker. Like Jet, Spike is compassionate and cares for other people, and like Jet, the world has hardened Spike to the point where his virtues can still lead him down the wrong path. And while Jet isn’t named for Spike, there’s a character in Bebop named Jet (he sort of plays the right hand person role that Smellerbee plays for Jet in ATLA.) They’re not completely similar--Spike isn’t fighting for anybody’s liberation, whereas for Jet that’s a core aspect of his character--but it was enough to make me wonder about how Jet was designed and how much influence Bebop had on his character design and on ATLA as a whole, and whether looking at Spike can illuminate some of the conversations we’ve been having about Jet. 

A little about the inspiration and process of ATLA: Bryan and Michael were working on shows like Family Guy when they decided they wanted to make something more sincere and more cinematic. They were both really inspired by anime. Bryan said “Back in the late '90s I was getting pretty disillusioned with working on sitcoms -- then I saw Princess Mononoke and I was emboldened. My heart was so much closer to that kind of story, those kinds of characters and that type of tone. After that, Cowboy Bebop really inspired us in terms of being a great example of an epic series that had a wide breadth of tones. Then FLCL came along and rewrote the rules for everything, as far as I'm concerned!” I haven’t seen FLCL, I’ll admit, but having seen both Bebop and Princess Mononoke--yeah, I get that. Both are incredible pieces of art that, for me personally, make me want to push myself as an artist, and I cannot recommend both enough if you haven’t seen them already. 

So, Bryan and Michael decide they want to make something inspired by shows like Bebop and movies like Princess Mononoke, they get a pilot order from Nickelodeon and, as is custom at the time, they start reaching out to East Asian animation studios to help them with the animation. This video is a great source for how ATLA in particular interacted in this environment, but suffice to say that Bryan built a relationship with the studio that did a lot of work for ATLA, JM Animation, and gave them a lot of creative freedom in making the visuals of the show. This included designing Jet and the rest of the Freedom Fighters. 

[ID: An image of Jet from ATLA from the shoulders up against a sky background fading from blue at the top to white at the bottom. He had dark skin, shaggy black hair, black eyes, eyebrows turned way up, a smirk on his face, and some wheat in his mouth. He is wearing a red jacket with a gray popped collar. End ID] 

[ID: An image of Spike from Cowboy Bebop from the shoulders up against a sky blue background with trees behind him. He has shaggy dark brown hair that has a slight bit more curl in it than Jet’s, dark brown eyes, light skin, and a closed mouth smile on his face. He is wearing a blue suit with a yellow shirt that has a popped collar, and a skinny black tie/ End ID] 

So, let’s look at the character design. Both Spike and Jet have these long, angular faces, shaggy dark hair, long necks, broad shoulders, dark eyes, some popped collar element to their attire, etc. While both characters are pretty tall and lanky, Spike’s height is more immediately obvious than Jet’s--in fact, I wouldn’t think of Jet as a tall character had I not seen some fandom height comparisons. The most obvious and immediate differences between how the characters physically look are their clothes, which are very different (likely due to the setting--ATLA is set in a proto-industrial war-torn society and Jet in particular has had to scavenge his clothes from Fire Nation troops, while Bebop is a space epic set in the far future), the lack of mouth wheat for Spike, Spike’s incredibly normal looking eyebrows versus Jet’s adorable long division eyebrows, and, of course, their skin tones. Colorism is something that people bring up a lot when talking about Jet’s character, and I have to wonder why Jet, a character that was so clearly inspired by this light-skinned character who was morally ambiguous in Bebop, was made darker-skinned when explicitly coded as a “villain” in ATLA. 

In fact, colorism is a super important aspect of how Jet and Spike’s stories are told. To its credit, ATLA has two MCs (Sokka and Katara) with dark skin (not that the fanartists who whitewash them notice) while Bebop has just one (Ed). However, it’s important to note that Sokka and Katara are each portrayed in ways that Aang or other lighter-skinned characters in the show simply aren’t. For example, despite both characters being literal teenagers, they are sexualized within the text of the show. Another example of the colorism in ATLA is, of course, Jet, a Brown boy leading a resistance against oppressive colonialist imperialist forces, being so unambiguously vilified. Yes, within the text, Jet has some sense of complexity, especially in Book 2, but even that is undermined by his death at the hands of the Dai Li. Jet is never given the subjectivity of a character like Zuko. In fact, it’s pretty clear that Jet’s redemption and subsequent death happens when it does to demonstrate what Zuko is capable of if he makes the right choice. Whether or not this is a good decision writing-wise is another discussion, but the fact of the matter is that in using Jet to further Zuko’s arc, bryke used a Brown teenage boy/victim of imperialist violence to prop up the narrative of a light-skinned prince/perpetrator of imperial violence. This is not to say that Zuko shouldn’t have been redeemed or that Jet shouldn’t have died or that the narrative shouldn’t have dedicated time and attention to Zuko’s story, but it is to say that ultimately, the writers of the show decided that Jet’s subjectivity was a tool to further Zuko’s actualization. 

Contrast this to Spike. Bebop is about a lot of things, but a core part of it is exploring Spike’s backstory and way of looking at the world. It’s part of what makes the show the show. It’s the thing that keeps you liking the guy even when he says or does something absolutely unconscionable. Nothing in the show is more important than Spike’s subjectivity. The show may have individual episodes that focus on the other main characters, but it’s pretty clear that it’s really *about* Spike. Where does Spike come from? What is his obsession with the past? Why do all these people want to kill him? Who is Julia? These are all prescient questions that I had as a viewer of Bebop, and these were questions that were not only important to understanding Spike Spiegel, but to understanding the narrative that the writers, director, and animators are telling. Bebop is nothing without Spike’s subjectivity, and the people behind the show invest in his narrative even though he does some pretty horrible things! (kills many people, is part of a crime syndicate at one point, says some pretty misogynistic crap, hell, the whole concept of the show is that he and his buddies hunt people down for money.) As I said before, Spike is morally ambiguous, an antihero, and the people behind Bebop run with that, because that is an integral part of the story that they’re telling. 

You could certainly argue that ATLA, being a show for children, needs clear heroes and villains, to be unambiguous in its depiction of right and wrong. And to an extent that would be correct. But let’s not forget that ATLA is not shy in its depiction of morally ambiguous characters. That’s an integral part of what the show is. Characters like Zuko, Iroh, Mai, Azula, and Ty Lee are beloved despite (or perhaps because of) their complex moral frameworks. Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee in particular move between designations of villain, victim, and hero pretty fluidly (Iroh and Azula are two other conversations in themselves.) I personally am okay, and in fact delighted, to have Zuko, Mai, Azula, and Ty Lee in the show because I think their stories and the ways that they move between evil, good, and morally gray are incredibly compelling. We know why they act the way they do, and we can condemn or validate their actions while always knowing exactly where they’re coming from. 

But then I see Jet. Jet, whose village was burned down by the Fire Nation. Jet, who survived by himself and helped 5 other people survive along the way, while leading an organized resistance against the Fire Nation on wits alone. Jet, who somehow ended up in Ba Sing Se, his new family cut in half, wanting to start over. So much of him is a blank slate. Where Spike in Bebop, or Zuko, Iroh, Mai, Azula, and Ty Lee in ATLA, get fleshed out, have the writers convey specific information that helps the audience understand their actions and motivations, even if they’re wrong, Jet never gets that sort of care in his narrative. Jet never gets to be the center of ATLA, even for a moment, even in his own death. There’s always something more pressing, something more meaningful, than Jet. You could argue (I certainly would) that the show would be better if we spent more time with him, if the writers cared to understand him, but unlike Bebop and Spike, the show doesn’t revolve around the audience understanding Jet. The story is coherent without him. In book 3, despite the fact that Jet sacrificed his life for them, the Gaang only brings up Jet once, and that’s to condemn him. Jet’s story is a tragedy, an important one, but only insofar as it props up other pieces of the narrative. And that’s the most tragic part of it. 

[itsclydebitches]

I think one of the bigger things that bugs me about Volume 7 is that it seems like they just thought of a few plot points and then thought of the easiest, fastest way to connect all of them together without much thought into it. Like, take the "Amity Tower diverts resources from Hole In The Wall" plot point. Not only would it be OOC for James to ignore that, considering his defensive behavior, but also, the resources required to repair the wall and build the tower don't overlap. (1/2)

Which is precisely what I mean when I say that the lack of care that goes into the major plot points/world building has a massive impact on the characterization. You can’t separate the two because it’s (obviously) through the plot that we get to know these characters. It’s a series of persuasive steps: 

Step One: Decide that we want to make Ironwood the end-game villain of the volume 

Step Two: Provide one reason for his villainy, namely that he’s letting the people of Mantle go unprotected

This is where the writing stopped and where many people in the fandom stop too. The claims of “Ironwood abandoned his people long before he decided to take Atlas up into the sky” and “Of course he would shoot Oscar. How many kids do you think he’s killed by leaving the wall open?” are disconnected claims because the show failed to do the all important final step of: 

Step Three: Persuading the audience that Step Two proves Step One. Leaving the wall open is indeed a villainous action. 

What would be an example of a story failing at Step Three? If Ironwood 100% did not have the resources to fix that hole. If he made an attempt and it failed due to circumstances outside of his control. That wouldn’t be villainous. It would simply be a tragedy and Step Three has not done its job of proving that this event (can’t close the hole) equals the desired result (we want him to be a villain). What we actually got, however, was a more complicated scenario wherein the story just… didn’t give us any more information. See, Step Three is actually multiple sub-steps. The story needs to do the work of proving that Ironwood not filling in the hole is in character (which as you point out, it’s not) or otherwise do the work of explaining why his character has suddenly changed so drastically. It needs to explain to the audience how resources for a satellite are the same resources for a concrete wall. It has to explain why, if this was so important, Robyn didn’t fix it with all the resources she stole. Or, it needs to give us insight into why the wall remains unfixed: oh yeah it has been damaged multiple times in the last year and each time we patch it up the grimm tear it down again super fast. We’ve come to the realization that it’s more prudent to put our resources towards additional robots to fight off the grimm and, in the long term, completing the project that I believe will defeat Salem (which then no one corrected me on) rather than wasting those resources on a defensive maneuver that clearly isn’t working/is wasting limited materials. And if we had gotten something like that then, again, not villainous. That’s a man making smart decisions based on inaccurate information, information our main group could have corrected weeks earlier. The very generalized claim of, “Ironwood isn’t protecting his people” not only ignores the context required to understand whether he can protect his people in this particular way - Are the Amity resources the same as wall resources? If not do we even have wall resources? - but likewise ignores all the other ways he IS protecting his people. He’s got an army literally saving lives in the opening episodes. He’s got Penny out there doing the same and providing hope. He’s giving talented fighters early licenses so he can get them to help with everything from wall patrol to preschool crossing. He’s currently trying to build the machine that he thinks will save the entire world. The story failed to take all of that into account when it suddenly insisted, “He’s a bad guy who doesn’t care about Mantle.” 

By not clarifying any of the above questions the writing demands that we stop at Step Two and have faith that there’s indeed a connection. We must do the mental work to assume that fixing the wall will keep people safe, that these resources he’s using for one project are the exact kind Ironwood needs for this other project, and that other people with access to resources (like Robyn, like the Council) all had Very Good Reasons for not taking action themselves, thereby putting all the blame on him. That’s how you reach, “He’s clearly a murderer for not fixing that” out of a story that simply didn’t do the work to prove that Ironwood is a villain because of this. That this functions as proof of his villainy. And as you say, we’re seeing this a great deal in RWBY now. We’re given plot points whose justifications are treated as fact, but the only way you agree with that is by ignoring either a) how often this “fact” is contradicted by earlier episodes or b) the lack of information proving its truthfulness. Examples: We’re supposed to accept that the group has to steal an airship even though the fandom very easily thought of numerous other options, we’re supposed to accept that Ruby is strategic in lying to Ironwood even though past episodes damned that behavior in Ozpin, we’re supposed to accept that Ironwood is evil for choosing Amity over the wall even though it makes no sense why those two things are lumped together and the story’s heroes told him to prioritize the tower. That’s the issue right there: Ruby straight up tells Ironwood to keep working on Amity and only Ironwood gets heat for doing what she wants. And would have gotten more heat if he’d dared disagree. That’s the protagonist centered morality: your heroes are inherently right for doing all the things they damn others for, even when they have knowledge that doing this thing is arguably useless. At least Ironwood thinks that sacrificing some of Mantle’s safety will lead directly to Salem’s defeat. What’s Ruby’s excuse? And if the answer to that is, “She realizes that bringing the world together is still the only way to win” then you’re working under the same kinds of assumptions. The story has not done the work to prove/explain a) how banding everyone together is useful against immortality and b) why that mystery usefulness outweighs all the canonical harm we’ve seen happen when people learn about Salem. You need to both assume things that haven’t been introduced and ignore things we’ve actually seen in order to prioritize that justification. 

Despite my love of Ironwood as a character I’d be totally down with him as a villain… but RWBY needed to do the work to make him into one after six and a half seasons of him being a hero. The whole wall situation is just one small failure out of many in that regard. 

[jedi-order-apologist]

@gffa replied to your post “<p>NEW TCW EP SPOILERS! So I’m *already* seeing people hating...”

"they <i>wanted</i> Ahsoka to be right, even if we can point out why she isn’t even within the episode itself" This is my issue with the previous arc and this one (and some of the supplementary material), that I can feel what they WANT me to think, but previously established context + the actual events surrounding the conversations + even FIVE MINUTES of logical thinking about consequences (which somehow never seem to get addressed in the episode itself) like THEY WOULD BE STARTING ANOTHER WAR and Dave's expressed in the past that the Jedi shouldn't be fighting in the war at all, so the idea that Ahsoka is right to look down on them for not fighting for Mandalore is just BAFFLINGLY CONFUSING TO ME. 

Yeah it’s very weird, because...I mean, it’s not uncommon in many franchises to come up against Fridge Logic that the creators didn’t necessarily intend, because there are just way more fans than there are creators, so of course collectively we’re going to end up putting way more thought into analyzing every little bit of the story in a way that they don’t when constructing it, because they’re focusing on the big picture stuff of getting it all to work together, and that’s completely understandable - but here it’s really weird because it always felt like they tried to put thought into these things, more so than most shows I’ve watched, anyway, so this apparent absence of really thinking it through, or even more than that, the mixed messages and the messages that are only touched on with false nuance, that really need more in-depth exploration...it’s disconcerting.

I probably wouldn’t be nearly so uncharitable about how Ahsoka was handled here if the last bit of Word of God from Filoni that I had heard hadn’t been that Ahsoka has a more balanced view on compassion than a lot of other Jedi. But because that is the last WOG I heard, I’m coming in with the impression that that’s what he’s meaning to portray, and yet...chastising Obi-Wan for not putting personal feelings above duty, for considering the bigger picture of his responsibilities, for not rushing impulsively into something that will have repercussions for more than just Mandalore, for not siding with her above all else - that’s what I’m supposed to see as a balanced perspective on compassion? That’s what I’m supposed to think is narratively “correct”? This self-centered, emotionally irresponsible behavior?

I like Ahsoka; I don’t want to condemn her for her unresolved hurt or behavior resulting thus - I want to have sympathy for that. But when I come away with the impression that they intend for the narrative to condone her behavior, that they want us to agree with her, and especially when I know much of the fandom will, I’m not inclined to be charitable.

In the end it feels like they’re slipping away from the framework of right and wrong established in-universe, where caution, selflessness, and prioritizing duty and the bigger picture is “correct” and impulsiveness, selfishness, and prioritizing personal desire is “incorrect” - towards an out-of-universe framework of right and wrong where all of these things alternate between correct or incorrect depending specifically, solely on how they respectively facilitate or interfere with the goals of the characters we like. In other words, it strays a little too close to Protagonist-Centered Morality for my liking.