#blame it on bryke

[the-badger-mole]

I get the frustration around shipping within this fandom. No, really I do. It does take up a lot of the bandwidth in the conversations around the show. I don't blame the fans, though. This is really Bryke's fault. They may not have started the ships wars, but they definitely threw napalm on the bonfire. Add that and the fact that when you really look at it, the friendships- the relationships that were supposed to be the backbone of the series- don't really add up to much. The biggest mistake was trying to make Aang the heart of the group and have so much of the "friendships" hinge on him. The kid has zero empathy and nil desire to actually get to know his friends.

His closest bonds are supposedly Katara and Zuko. I've talked at length about how little focus Katara gets in their relationship, platonic or romantic. His interest in her is very shallow, and mostly focused on the fact that she's pretty and sweet. Any moment of real, in depth friendship between them is Katara supporting him and caring for his feelings, but the moment she needed him to give her the same energy, he compared the death of her mother to his losing Appa for a few days, and compared her desire for targeted justice to Jet trying to do a deep cleanse of an entire community which included children (and possibly other EK citizens). Then the episode ended with his continued misunderstanding of Katara with no attempt at getting to know her better.

His other major bond is supposed to be with Zuko, but I have many of the same criticisms (minus his hyper focus on how pretty Zuko is). Honestly, I don't think Zuko and Aang actually had that strong of a friendship. We know they were "best friends" by the end because the narrative says so, but aside from that moment after Pouhai, and their field trip to see Ran and Shaw, they don't have a ton to do with each other. Even their training together is glossed over. Zuko is more narratively tied to Katara, and he has a stronger "bros" vibe with Sokka, and even Jet, for a quick moment.

If I'm keeping it a whole buck, Aang isn't really a great friend to anyone in the Gaang. The strong friendship beats have more to do with how they are friends to him than the other way around. He doesn't offer much by the way of empathy, or even a desire to know the struggles of his friends. I know that's mostly a failing on the part of the writing, but I do like exploring that as a character trait of Aang. His negative traits are a lot more interesting to explore than his positive ones.

I love the stories that explore the friendships within the Gaang. I love writing stories that do those friendships. In particular, I think the potential Katara, Toph and Suki, and Sokka and Zuko friendships had so much potential. And I'm right. They do. But let's be real here. The major points of interest within the show are the ships. And i think it was partially by design. Who else remembers how hard the show's promo material pushed the Zuko/Katara/Aang triangle?

[avatarfandompolice]

Funny how these edgelords will disown and hate on the original ATLA for being made by white guys ,even though said white guys went through the painstaking effort to make everything as respectful and accurate towards the cultures that they were influenced by as possible.

Meanwhile we have people who let NATLA get away with sexism, miscasting races as other races, using Google translate and literal gibberish for writing, and other things purely because non-white people were making it.

Let’s not forget M. Night is very much NOT a white person too. He managed to be extremely inaccurate and white-washy with his entire movie.

Are we really just to the point where we determine the merit of cultural and racial representation based solely on the figureheads of the property? If Bryan and Mike were doing everything in their power to be respectful, why are we beating them down, especially when none of the criticisms against them have anything to do with the representation in the show itself and solely to do with the race they are? Can we stop excusing disrespect and bad representation purely because the face of it isn’t white? I thought we were past this.

[messymosaic]

Hey, interested in your opinion about this.

Do you think Mako kissing Asami back was in character? When Korra came back from a war, this is what she would walk into. Don't you think it was a degrading thing to do Korra?

The fact that he is friends with a person who would act so desperately selfish says a lot about how he doesn't respect Korra.

I'm not sure how Makorra would work as long as he doesn't realize that. No self respecting woman would put up with that.

(I don't buy the "vulnerable Asami" excuse, nor do I think it justifies what happened)

The way this is a reach 🤌 so if I understand correctly, Asami instigated the kiss with Mako and somehow it’s Mako’s fault? It continually amazes me how Mako gets the brunt of the blame for the love triangle when it’s mostly Korra and Asami playing tug of war with him as the rope.

Vulnerable Asami? Try vulnerable Mako. What the fuck. He’s raw from a break up and Asami lunges for the attack??? That situation is at least 70% her fault.

Why is Mako friends with Asami? You mean why is Korra friends with Asami? The two of them giggling like besties in Book 3 like they didn’t thoroughly fuck with Mako’s head and actively disrespect each other’s relationships.

Why does the blame fall squarely on Mako here, when really it’s male writers blatantly not understanding female dynamics. Feminism? Maturity?? If I catch a bitch kissing my boyfriend that bitch better get out of my house. Best believe she will never be trusted again.

The writers wanted a Beautiful Liar moment so bad where two girls bond over being victimized by the same man. EXCEPT in both cases the girls instigated the betrayal (Korra kissed Mako while he’s dating Asami, Asami kissed Mako when the break up is so raw it’s not even pasteurized)

Pictured: NOT Korra and Asami

If there is any justice in the world (and Bryke knew how to write romance) Asami and Korra would’ve fought each other like the catty bitches they truly are.

I don’t even care about defending Mako or Makorra I just want to highlight that the Korra-Asami friendship makes ZERO SENSE. They’re so fucking toxic omg. And now they’re dating??? Based on their track record with respecting boundaries: good fucking luck with that.

Then you get Mako sacrificing himself in book 4 and people going “he should’ve died”, why??? Because two girls tossed him around like a frisbee?? Because you’ve got showrunners who can’t write romance???

Korra would be lucky to deserve Mako after all that. That is my core Makorra belief. It’s a fucked up girlfriend/pathetically in love boyfriend who’s too good for her dynamic!

This reply went off the rails but in my defense, that love triangle is a scourge on humanity. I’m not mad at anon I’m mad at the abysmal romantic development that mks have been trying to rectify with fics for years.

[stardust948]

This was too funny I had to share 🤣

[princessizumi]

god i wish that bryke would just confirm who izumi's mom is so i don't have to keep seeing the same three arguments everytime i search for her name on every single platform

[ecoterrorist-katara]

The West has been notorious in viewing and treating indigenous and Asian cultures as a monolith. Due to that, the idea of handpicking various aspects from those particular cultures seems to come from the result of a Western ethnocentric worldview. And due to how it does not acknowledge the differences in these various Asian and indigenous cultures….it’s hard to argue that it’s not orientalist. Especially since they combine these different aspects of those cultures in a simplistic manner to a western audience.

Whether the work encourages you to identify with the characters or not doesn’t matter in regards to if it is orientalist or not.

And I would suggest you research this show and Tibetan monks. If you don’t agree with their being orientalist aspects of the show, then fine, but that one aspect, in how they handled it, is orientalist.

Why specifically only Asian and indigenous cultures? what could two American Caucasian men find in those cultures that they think they can pick and choose certain things from them, and it end up being cohesive?

Whether a show encourages you to identify with its characters matters a whole lot in whether the show is Orientalist, because the whole point of Orientalism is making the Oriental Other look bad! If a work encourages you to identify with these “Others,” it’s actually breaking down the Orient-Occident binary.

To be clear, ATLA not being Orientalist doesn’t preclude it from being culturally appropriative. The important things to me are whether ATLA is harmful to 1) the cultures that inspired it or 2) the people from those cultures, and the answer to both questions is no. ATLA is not claiming to represent anything, and therefore it’s not spreading misinformation or stereotypes — with the exception of, again, Guru Pathik which I think was in poor taste.

I do take issue with how easy it is for fans to take the Air Nomads as representation of Tibetan Buddhist monks. I think Bryke should have gone further to incorporate more influences to get away from the impression that Air Nomads are Tibetan Buddhist monks (or Buddhists in general), because people now moralize about the Air Nomads using the plight of Tibetans, and the oppression of Tibetans — like the oppression of all real-life people — should not be shoehorned into a cartoon. Still, a child fan of ATLA wouldn’t think the Air Nomads are Tibetan Buddhist monks unless someone in their life tells them so, because the inspiration is not explicit in the text. It’s fans who draw asinine conclusions like Fire Nation = Japan / Air Nomads = Tibetans or Buddhist monks / Earth Kingdom = China / SWT = Inuit, and then interpret ATLA according to corresponding real-life dynamics, who inadvertently spread misinformation. I have never seen such ridiculous takes on Buddhism as I have in the ATLA fandom. Nobody with an iota of knowledge of South Asian or Southeast Asian politics would claim that Buddhists are always non-violent. Nobody who knows about monks would think monks can get married. But I can’t even fault the text; I fault people who take their information about Buddhism from a cartoon that never even mentioned the word Buddhism.

Fundamentally I think this conversation is about whether it’s okay for white Americans to take aesthetic inspiration from non-white cultures to create their fantasy worlds, and to what extent they’re responsible for the ways in which their fans interpret the sources of their inspiration. I’m fine with people taking aesthetic inspiration from my culture (beyond sacred and religious cultural practices, which I generally don’t think should be aestheticized by people who don’t understand them). I don’t know why Bryke chose to take inspo from Asian and northern Indigenous cultures; people can certainly say it’s culturally appropriative and decide not to watch it.

[thatoneguy56fanfic]

Since I’m rewatching B3, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about it.

I both love and hate how Bryke treated Queen Hou-Ting. I love it, because as a huge animal lover her whole “I hate animals” thing was just annoying. But also because she was absolutely terrible to her servants. Yet I also hate it, too. Mainly because Bryke has no subtly whatsoever. In fact I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t know what subtly was if it smacked them in the face. They went completely out of their way to make Queen Hou-Ting to be a completely unremarkable and downright unlikable character. All so they could conveniently kill her off a few episodes later.

Personally, I hated that scene. Because it simply didn’t feel as impactful as it could have. Let’s go on a little thought experiment for a moment: Imagine for a moment that Queen Hou-Ting wasn’t the horrible person that they made her in the show. Imagine that instead of taxing her people into extreme poverty, she instead was trying to help modernize her nation. Instead of screaming at her servants and making them live in fear, she instead was kind to them. Imagine that she was truly loved by her whole nation. Imagine instead that she helped Team Avatar convince the new airbenders to the fledgling Air Nation.

Now imagine that Zaheer and friends come in. They order Queen Hou-Ting to help them capture the Avatar, but she refuses. So Zaheer kills her. Watching a ruler who was actually loved instead of hated be killed off would’ve felt far more impactful than what we were given. But Bryke chose the lazy way and just made her into another completely forgettable character.

Not to mention that the whole idea of an evil ruler isn’t even an original idea for Bryke either. Did they suddenly forget about Ozai and Azula? Who were villains, but still managed to be actually interesting characters. Hell even Unalaq got better treatment than Queen Hou-Ting did. And I get it, she was never meant to be the “big bad” of the season. But it just irritates me to see so much potential wasted like this.

And don’t even get me started on the Beifongs. They deserve a separate post of their own.

[myinterestsvary-writes]

“I can’t wait until we have lots and lots of babies which may and may not include airbenders, I’m a little fuzzy on how all that works but I want you to teach me!…”

“I’m breaking up with you.” Over the most understandable but shallow of reasons because it just shows she never even really liked him and truly had the hots for Zuko who she went to immediately after lmaooooo and I understand it even more how Zutaran/AntiKataangers are offended because this is how so many seriously view them still

An oldie, but goodie… We made this silly little video for the Avatar panel at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. It occurred to me that the only versions out there on YouTube were videotaped from the crowd, so I thought I’d post a clean version here (if one can refer to this as “clean”).

Now, I don’t want to cast aspersions or hurt any feelings, but for some of you I feel the need to explain that this is all a joke.

joke |jōk| noun

a thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, esp. a story with a funny punchline: she was in a mood to tell jokes. • a trick played on someone for fun.

Who’s going to San Diego Comic Con this year? It is coming up fast. We’re cooking up a really cool panel that, while not a unique format, is different from anything we’ve offered in the past. Looking forward to seeing you there!

[sokkastyles]

If Bryke were not cowards, and if the ATLA writers had been allowed to do this (and also if they had the inclination to do this, I’m not gonna entirely blame Bryce for this one), I’m pretty sure that we would gotten flashback scenes during all of Zuko’s dates with Mai where he cannot help but remember Jin. We also would have gotten more scenes where Zuko was alone and he found himself thinking of Katara. Unfortunately Bryke are cowards so we don’t get to have nice things.

No one can tell me that Zuko didn't once think about what would have happened if Katara had healed his scar, if she hadn't left that cave, if he hadn't sided with Azula. Even just platonically, the show already creates a context where Zuko has an intimate moment with Katara that makes Azula correctly guess that he's keeping secrets that compromise what side he's on. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch to add romance to the mid.

As for Jin, imagine if she had acted as vindictive as Mai because Zuko ran away from her. She knows he's a firebender, she could put his life in danger if she wants to, decide he deserves it for spurning her. Or she could have decided she didn't want to deal with Zuko's obvious baggage, because, you know, it's just soooo much trouble to bother to pretend to like the person you're dating and only a paid therapist would love Zuko, which is what a lot of maiko/Mai stans seem to think.

Like damn, do you think Zuko ever thought about what would have happened if he had stayed in that tea shop, if he hadn't run away from Jin, if he had let himself be loved simply and honestly? Because I do. I don't think he would have wanted to continue to lie to Jin but to trade that for the lie that he's living in early book three, is that any better?

[kataraslove]

as someone who has recently read the reckoning of roku, it’s really not the anti fire nation propaganda that a certain subsection of fandom is making it out to be. yes, gyatso says those words to roku, but he’s angry - at both the world and at himself for the death of his sister. he later apologizes to roku. the book does not paint gyatso out to be in the right, and neither does it paint all fire nation citizens to be in the wrong. the narrative even makes a distinction between the good fire nation citizens (ta min and roku) and prejudicial fire nation citizens (sozin, primarily), and some morally ambiguous ones like dalisay, but they’re more or less abolished from any accountability for partnering with sozin.

avatar the last airbender does not do a good job at displaying much of the context associated with the crimes of the fire nation, aka the climate and perspectives that justified sozin eradicating the air nomads and many of the benders in the southern water tribe. we know from avatar that sozin wanted to conquer the rest of the world for fire nation domination and expansion, but we’re not given much insight into the causal factors that allowed him to conduct genocide and colonialism, beyond “he was able to do it all in one day with the power of the comet,” and “he was a very bad man.”

the reckoning of roku provides the context for all of that, the factors that contributed to sozin’s blood-thirst. which means seeing sentiment from sozin that view the air nomads - and their pacifist ways of life - as inferior and below human. the novel doesn’t particularly attempt to humanize sozin, not in the way that other medias do when exploring the backstory of their villain. at the end, the takeaway from the novel is that sozin is on the road to becoming the ultimate fascist we all know him for, but this time we’re provided more context into how he became that fascist, and why roku hesitated to kill him.

is it more critical of the fire nation than most of the franchise? yes, i would say so, and having a filipino author be the one to offer that commentary is an excellent decision by avatar studios. but the extent of the critique is still more or less along the lines of “this one guy was truly the operations behind it,” which is still consistent with what we’ve seen in atla. there’s nothing too radical introduced in terms of colonial theory, unlike what parts of the fandom are saying.

which leads me to my final point: if this is how badly a subsection of fandom (aka fire nation worshippers and zutara shippers [not mutually exclusive]) are reacting to the simple notion exploring how sozin committed genocide, then they’ve hit further rock bottom than i can imagine. not only that, but this type of reactionary behaviour risks alienating other parts of the fandom; for instance, fans of the avatar novels who otherwise would have given the ship and the shippers grace.

in other words, many of these hardcore shippers “criticizing” the roku novel have no one to blame but themselves if their behaviour leads to the alienation of regular fans. this loud subsection of fandom is so caught up in their one-sided, imaginary fantasy where everything in the franchise somehow revolves around aang/kataang vs zuko/zutara, that the Evil Bryke are always targeting them, to the point that they’ll fail to realize that the fire nation and fire nation characters are often absolved from accountability across the IP, and the fire nation is explored much more than the other nations are.

[longing-for-rain]

so I dunno if you've seen my "I just watched ATLA again" post (probably not) but something happened with it that is kind of bothering me and I was wondering if you'd be willing to take a look and tell me what you think of this.

my post was basically about how Katara was treated in LOK and how it's disturbing to me that she is completely absent from the narrative after ATLA in a way that she would literally never be if Bryke hadn't decided to assassinate her as a character. and someone responded to that with this:

is this even accurate? am I deluding myself or is this person just being a hater?? like it genuinely feels insane and scary to me that Katara was so easily sidelined now that she's married with kids, and this person says she actually wasn't that absent and that none of my concerns matter. and even though I never brought up Zutara in my post they decided the post was entirely about that and not my genuine horror at how Katara was treated after ATLA.

sorry if this isn't something you usually do. you were just the blog I thought of when this reply came because I know you're out here fighting these kinds of people and I needed another fan's advice.

No I think you’re 100% right. In fact, I think whoever wrote that post basically admitted as much without realizing it.

What these people fail to realize is, fictional characters aren’t real people. They don’t exist as autonomous beings. Everything they are is what is shown on screen. So if little to nothing of significance is shown about a character? That indicates the writers didn’t value that character and their story as much as the others. They didn’t consider it worth giving the same attention.

Admittedly she was unfortunately sidelined in the comics in LOK and didn’t have much involvement with the story or other characters…

Yes, exactly. Even the people who try and defend Katara’s treatment post-canon can’t avoid this fact. Her story was not valued by the writers. It was not included to the same extent. After becoming “the Avatar’s girl,” Katara’s role in the story was diminished. She ceased to be her own character with her own personality and arc.

…but she still accomplished a lot.

Ok, where? Did you forget that “show, don’t tell” is part of creative writing 101? I don’t care what they said Katara did or was in some supplementary material that came out over a decade later. They failed to show it in the actual story, which tells us everything we need to know about how Katara’s character was viewed.

You aren’t overreacting; you’re dead right. Sounds like this person ragging on you is having trouble separating fiction from reality and has a tendency to blame all media criticism on ship wars instead of actually thinking about it. Because I don’t know about you, but a large part of the appeal of Zutara to me is the fact that many fan-made narratives associated with it were created by women in direct response to the sidelining of Katara’s character. The continuing popularity of Zutara is in large part due to the fact it addresses many misogynistic and upsetting aspects of Katara’s fate, not the other way around.

[sunmoonmonsoon]

Gene Luen Yang, aka, writer of the bad ATLA comids admitted on the podcast that he's a Zutara fan and??? Yeah that makes so much sense as to why the comics struggled so badly with Kataang now??? It's because even the fucking writer wasn't into it but he was basically forced to include them because of Bryke's stupidity!! Oh man legit this makes a lot of stuff make so much more sense about the comics....

[burst-of-iridescent]

I’ve been reading a series where a guy is in a near identical situation to Katara was in The Southern Raiders. But what I find interesting is that no one really tries to stop him and the fandom considers it completely justified. I can’t help but think despite it being two different series and fandoms that Katara’s gender has at least something to do with this. When a male character wants to seek revenge and kill the murderer to do it, the narrative and fans justify it but when it’s a female character she’s vilified, seen as out of control and letting her emotions get the better of her. I hate when people say Aang was right to say what he did and try to stop Katara from making her own choice. It doesn’t help that we know Bryke is misogynistic based on well everything to do with their female characters post series after they didn’t have the talented writers who actually understood the characters helping them. And sure I know Bryke themselves didn’t write The Southern Raiders but we know from script leaks that there were more shippy Zutara moments that were cut and I think we know who’s to blame for that. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they still influenced the more problematic parts of that episode. Such as Aang and Katara never talking about or resolving their conflict, Sokka calling Aang wise beyond his years and never talking about or resolving his side if things with Katara, and even Zuko weirdly agreeing with Aang at the end that “you were right about what Katara needed.” Even though she literally just told Aang a second ago that he was wrong and she would never forgive him and doesn’t know why she couldn’t kill him. If you couldn’t tell I have rather mixed feelings about TSR episode.

Sorry for the ramble. How do you think their conversations (Katara, Aang, and Sokka) would go if they were to talk about it all after the episode?

oh misogyny definitely plays a part - just compare the way people react to inigo montoya from the princess bride vs katara in tsr - but i think the bigger issue is the overt narrative framing of the episode.

on a first watch, tsr appears to push a very simplistic idea of "violence = bad" and strongly favours aang's perspective, which encourages the viewer to see him as being in the right while katara and zuko appear to be in the wrong. the fact that aang never changes his perspective and both zuko and sokka are (forcibly and very uncharacteristically) made to take his side by the end naturally inclines the audience to do so as well.

it's only with a closer reading that you see a more nuanced take which highlights the flaws in aang's thinking and treatment of katara. katara herself makes it clear that what aang wanted her to do would not have helped her find closure, and she began her healing process without ever forgiving yon rha - which is exactly why i hate people attributing her decision not to kill yon rha to aang when she explicitly stated she did not and would not ever do what he wanted her to!

these are the same people who will also blame zuko for being a "bad influence" on katara, as if the only reason she hunted down her own mother's killer is because zuko convinced her to do it. katara isn't some weeping willow to be bent to the will of zuko and aang; her decisions are her own, not based on the whims of the boys in her life. can we please stop stripping katara of all her agency in the one episode that actually focuses on her trauma and healing?

rant aside, i do wish that katara had talked to sokka after this episode and i imagine there would be some apologising on both sides. sokka - a realistic sokka, because my god was he wildly out of character - would probably check in on her and admit that he was afraid for her safety and well-being. katara would likely apologise for the "you didn't love her the way i did!" remark and i think it would've been nice for them to finally talk about kya and for katara to bring up the conversation she overheard from the runaway about how sokka confessed to seeing her as a surrogate mother.

(imo the impact hearing that would've had on katara was largely downplayed in the show, and is likely part of the reason she reacted to sokka the way she did in the southern raiders, but that's a post for another time.)

the katara-aang conversation would probably have gone the same way that it did in canon, because the issues with their dynamic in tsr are part of the underlying problems with the kat.aang relationship in general. i would've liked to see aang have a little more of a reaction to katara saying she never forgave yon rha (he doesn't seem affected at all in the show), and for that to maybe prompt him to really reflect on what he said.

but ultimately what really has to be tackled here is aang's idealization of katara and his focus on clinging to air nomad values at the expense of those from the other nations - and those problems run too deep to be fixed in a single episode or conversation. the southern raiders would have been a good starting point, but unfortunately the finale never engages with these issues, and so what could've been a great arc ends up going nowhere at all.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

s its pretty bleak that people are afraid to disagree with takes in the zutara fandom because the fandom is so hostile against anyone that isn't part of the bigger hivemind . even if you ship zutara if you don't agree with everything someone say in the fandom you're the bad guy. they can blame it on bryke/kataang all they want but the real enemy of zutara is hostile zutara shippers ..

The zutara fandom is peak "Have you ever considered that maybe you're the problem?"

[ecoterrorist-katara]

I just saw a very long post talking about your friends to lovers Kat//ang post.

https://www.tumblr.com/mal3vol3nt/754643736340856832/hey-first-of-all-i-love-your-blog-in-a-world

You don’t need to read it all but I didn’t see many instances where they bring up the idea that Aang always viewed Katara as a romantic interest while Katara may have viewed him as just a friend.

They do however, bring up a few points about the EIP that I’d like to hear your opinions on. I don’t think much of it was in a lot of retaliation to your post but I’d like to overall hear your opinion on “Aang was dealing with a bunch of emotions regarding the play and not only how he felt regarding his relationship with Katara but also about his overall portrayal.”

Anyways, I thought you might be interested in seeing this since the overall point about the post was to rebut your argument

hey anon!

So — this user said a lot of things to defend Aang, but my focus was not on blaming Aang the character: I’m accusing Bryan and Mike of executing friends-to-lovers poorly.

So yes, I can understand Aang’s reactions to the EIP play, because obviously that play was racist and misogynistic and jingoistic etc etc. But all Bryke had to do was add a scene after EIP where Aang apologizes. “Hey Katara, I’m really sorry about how I acted at the play. I was mad about xyz but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” And then Katara can say, I understand, I don’t blame you, that play fucking sucked, let’s talk after the war. Turn that into 12yo-speak and voila, conflict resolved. And while I still wouldn’t love the ship, I wouldn’t be so indignant about it.

re: this user’s take on EIP and how Aang’s portrayal in the play is racist & colonialist propaganda, and therefore justifies his outburst, I’m putting it under a cut because it’s long and it’s a much more specific discussion of colonial dynamics than what most people are here for.

TL;DR: I’m tired of people claiming that colonialism = emasculating its subjects. That’s extremely historically incorrect, and also incorrect in ATLA’s own universe. Stop giving Bryke credit they don’t deserve!

I often see the argument from Aang defenders that he’s so angry about his portrayal by the Ember Island Players because there’s a history of feminizing colonial subjects. The fact that he was played by a woman is meant to be derogatory, and it’s not toxic masculinity for him to feel upset about it, and it’s reasonable for him to feel upset about Katara’s depiction.

First of all, he’s 12 and I don’t care if he shows toxic masculinity either way. Second of all, yes, Katara’s portrayal in the play is absolutely misogynistic and offensive, though it’s important to note that hypersexual Pocahontas is only one of many damaging stereotypes.

More importantly, it is very very wrong to say that colonialism requires the emasculation of its subjects. If you’ve seen colonial propaganda, whether it’s about Palestine or Algeria or Tibet or what is now Canada, you’ll know that colonialism usually does the opposite. Colonialism frequently posits a hyper-masculine, hyper-violent, hyper-savage version of its subjects, specifically men. In our world, colonialism is usually justified through the language of “bringing civilization,” and I’d use the term “white man’s burden” except Japan and China and Morocco can colonize just like the rest of them. Do you think the CCP talks about Tibetan monks as feminine, ditzy flower-crown wearers? No, they absolutely do not. CCP propaganda depicts Tibetan monks as violent sadists, and Tibetan Buddhism as a violent religion, and Tibetan people as needing Han Chinese roads and trains and schools so that they can learn to be civilized. (And incidentally, if you know anything about Southeast Asia you would not say Buddhism is an inherently peaceful religion, but that’s another conversation). Similar POVs can be found littered throughout history, and that’s because colonial propaganda fundamentally must justify violence and control, and it’s much easier to justify violence against people whom you’ve identified as inherently threatening.

More relevant to ATLA, we know that “the Avatar is super violent” is actually the flavour of Fire Nation propaganda, because Aang learns in the show and in the comics (Katara and the Pirate’s Silver) that the average Fire Nation citizen sees him this way! And the discrepancy between sweet, cheerful, vegetarian Aang and this bloodthirsty Avatar figure of FN propaganda is one of the greatest ironies of the show!

In addition, unlike real-life fascist states which are misogynistic by definition, the Fire Nation is not indicated to be misogynistic, canonically speaking. Women can fight, we don’t see them doing housework, Mai is the only one told to be ladylike and meek, etc. There are subtle, likely unintentional signs of power differences (we don’t see women in positions of political power in any nation til Korra), but it’s pretty obvious that the FN is supposed to be the less sexist one (and btw, it was A Choice to make the Inuit-inspired culture the misogynistic one, but that’s out of the scope of this post). EIP’s play actually waxes poetics about how fucking amazing and prodigious and powerful Azula is. So it doesn’t even make sense for EIP to denigrate Aang via his masculinity when they’re trying to prop up Azula in the same breath.

I’m tired of people stuffing surface-level anti-colonialist analyses into ATLA & giving credit to Bryke, of all fucking people, for writing an incisive portrayal of how colonizers & imperialists see their victims. I don’t believe the source text can make any points other than by sheer accident. The politics of ATLAverse are milquetoast at best and reactionary at worst (see: Jet, Hama, comics, LOK). I don’t think Bryke and the creators have read any anti-colonial literature or history, whether it’s about Haiti or the Congo; I don’t believe Bryke sat down and watched The Battle of Algiers and took notes on how to portray colonial resistance; I don’t believe Bryke read Burmese Days or The Colonizer and the Colonized in order to get into the psychology of the Fire Nation; I just don’t believe they or their writing team intended to take on the burdens of real-world tragedies with this show. A while back I think @sokkastyles found a post where someone was wondering if ATLA is a good representation of child soldiers, which is such a baffling failure of media literacy & empathy in general that I’m still disturbed by it. It’s a TV show for kids. It’s a great TV show for all ages, but there are some things that it will never be, one of which is “anything more than a rough parable about imperialism, colonialism, and genocide.”

And you know what? I don’t believe the average ATLA stan leveraging colonialism for a ship war has done a whole lot more thinking than Bryke. I recognize that I was very lucky to have taken multiple courses on anticolonialism and decolonization at institutions that genuinely value faculty who think about these topics, but that’s also the precise reason why I’m so against leveraging colonialism in most ATLA discourse unless I’m trying to set the record straight on something. I’m not an authority on anticolonialism or postcolonialism, but I sure as fuck can recognize when other people aren’t either.

[rightwheretheyleftme]

I just finished watching book 3 of The Legend of Korra. Here’s my top 5 things I hated the most about it:

caveat: I actually didn’t hate this season at all, I just wanted to continue this series

5. Poof! The genocide’s gone!

Let me preface this by saying that I thought that the storyline of Korra finding the airbenders was a nice change of pace and scenery and I enjoyed watching it. However, the bare-bones of this plotline are rotten for me.

ATLA treating the air nomad genocide with so much realism and severity is one of the greatest aspects of the show. Sure, this is a tv show for kids, but it’s still a fairly realistic portrayal of a victim of ethnic cleansing dealing with their trauma. We saw Aang searching for other air nomads, seeing his temples being destroyed, having to burn the last intact artifact made by his people (the staff), and the entire 4 part finale of the series revolves around Aang deciding that he is not willing to sacrifice his cultural and religious beliefs under any circumstances. On account of this, it truly shocked me that TLOK treats the air nomad genocide in the same way that Oprah approached her car giveaway:

The insistence that the air nomad genocide is something that the avatar could fix unintentionally conveys that Aang failed to fix it. Maybe if Aang had connected with Raava and meditated in the tree of time, he would’ve brought his people back- the narrative is saying. And I find that incredibly mean-spirited, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.

Aang died at 66 years of age, he never met any other airbenders after the genocide other than his own son; And TLOK killed Aang once again in season 2, so now he will never get to see the air nation’s rebirth. I know that this is a show about Korra, but I find this storyline to be not only an extremely immature way to treat a genocide (genocides can’t be “fixed”, bryke) but also a cruel insult to the protagonist of this universe.

4. Why the fuck is Varrick still here

Let me get this straight: Varrick took advantage of Unalaq’s colonialism to make himself rich. He bombed the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Center in order to incite a war between the tribes. He stole all of the weaponry made by Asami’s company and delivered it to the Northern Water Tribe so that they could use it to wipe out the SWT. He incriminated Mako, a 19 year old, so that he would take the blame for Varrick’s transgressions and spend his life in prison as a result. He manipulated and took advantage of Asami, another 19 year old. And many more crimes that I’m too tired to list.

So why is he in this season as a lovable sidekick? He escaped justice, Suyin yielded him, and when Lin understandably gets angry about that, Suyin tells her that Varrick shouldn’t be punished for his entire life just for a mistake. This isn’t Suyin talking to Lin, it’s the writers talking to the audience- they want us to forgive Varrick and accept him as our new sweet funny guy.

That makes me nauseous.

This is the sequel of a show about the dangers of colonization and imperialism. Why, why, why, WHY is the guy who aided colonization efforts the character that you want the audience to love? In moments like this, you can tell that this show was made by 2 white American men.

3. Mary Sueyin (Thanks for the pun!)

This already has been discussed ad nauseam. Suyin yielded a war criminal from facing justice, she also sent out the one person the Red Lotus wanted to capture and kill after them for her own vengeful reasons. The narrative never addresses this and continues to paint her as a flawless hero. It’s disconcerting.

2. Zaheer the Master

Sorry, I refuse to believe that a man who got his airbending powers just a couple of weeks ago is suddenly the greatest airbender in a millennium because he read some books.

Bumi: How can he fly like that?

Tenzin: He's unlocked powers of airbending that haven't existed for thousands of years.

Fuck off, writers. Fuck all the way off.

1. The torture porn

We didn’t need to see Korra getting tortured for so long in such graphic detail. I don’t want to accuse anyone of sexism, but I’m certain that these writers would’ve never treated Aang this way.

Overall pretty good season, 8/10.