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that-spider-fan-over-there · 6 months ago

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Midoriya Izuku: Narrative Structures and Character's Emotion(al Repression)

Repression as A Story In Four Acts.

Or: Reaching Tenku to Save Tenko.

Izuku hasn't accomplished his goal of saving Tenko because according to literally every law of storytelling, he has yet more internal conflicts to solve, which he hasn’t addressed due to his nature of repression, which itself comes from other fatal flaws. Therefore, Tenko’s salvation, which should’ve been the “reward” for Izuku’s difficulties, is now another obstacle at the “end” of act 3 before Act 4 eventually begins. To elaborate:

BNHA, as of now, is split in three sagas — U.A. Beginnings (001-099); Rise of Villains (100-306) and; Final War (307-onwards); similar to the three-act structure in the west. However, by splitting Act 3 into Act 4; we meet East Asia's method of splitting a narrative: Kishōtenketsu. Using the Hero's Journey wheel as a counterpart, roughly we have:

Act 1/Kiku (起句) — Call to adventure, the inticing incidents and stage's set-up for;

Act 2/Shōku (承句) — The rising action; true conflict that will soon culminate, leading to the climax, so we head into:

Act 3/Tenku (転句) — The transformation that leads to the resolution of conflicts, so the story meets the denouement;

Act 4/Kekku (結句): the epilogue. If the consequences must come to fruition, the results must bloom at the end as it wraps up.

Similarly, BNHA presents the classic Four Conflicts: Against Man and Society; All For One and the hero world; Nature, the nature of Quirks; and Self, arguably the most important of them all.

As such, Izuku’s story is easier to see when split into these acts, and so are his conflicts. Planting this seed: Izuku wants to be a hero, but being quirkless is his status quo until the Sludge Villain incident. Presenting the question: How can Midoriya Izuku be a hero? Katsuki being attacked and All Might’s offer are the inciting incidents, and everything from USJ onwards are his brushes to growing conflicts that grow into the Kamino Incident, ending his personal arc in Act 1/Start of Act 2 during Deku vs. Kacchan 2 and The Three.

The rising actions and the new development from Kamino, lead to the rush to control One For All, becoming a new Symbol and what that entails, and more subtly, fixing his and Katsuki’s relationship (i’ll get to this one. oh boy i’ll get to this one soon.) These are Izuku’s conflicts.

His role as one as Toshinori's successor officially puts in center stage of the conflict alongside Katsuki (subtly, also a successor, permanent deuteragonist) and Tenko (foil, recurring antagonist, and the Big Bad’s successor). If controlling the current form of OFA was already accomplished (45% at least), it needes to evolve into another phase; one that ties with his fatal flaws and challenges his virtues. As such: Overhaul Arc shows Eri’s ordeal, Sir Nighteye’s doubts of AM’s choice, and subsequent death (the former conflicts), and Joint Training Arc introduces unlocking of Black Whip (his latter one) are his turning points.

All feed into his insecurities and repression of emotions such as (oftentimes righteous) anger, uncertainty, vulnerability and heartbreak. He doesn’t solve these conflicts just yet, instead choosing to brush it away or let them play out as they happen, a passive instance. For the former arc, it’s understandable because he was under Sir Nighteye’s internship orders, but the latter is a special case, as it ties with an emotional conflict in which we only saw his thoughts at the very beginning of the turning point.

Which, before entering Arc 3, also brings me to another topic: Narrative rewards and punishments.

The root of Izuku's character is stubbornness: When Izuku sticks to the convictions he believes in, and he does it stubbornly, often the hopeful narrative of Boku no Hero Academia rewards him, but when he goes against it (contradicting his morality and/or the story’s messages), the punishment ends up being severe. He’s far from the only example, but he’s the most prominent one. As such, BNHA prides itself in introspection of motivations and embracing every emotion and experiences as stepping stones to be the greatest you can be.

Izuku… Stubbornly also hasn’t gotten that kind of introspection yet. Keyword being yet. He's the character we know little about despite spending so much time in his point of view, and it's deliberate. The few moments he does, is when the roots of his insecurities are reinforced, or when he's dealing with someone else’s obstacle. Talk about others and avoid thinking about yourself.

If I were to describe Izuku; the best descriptors would be: kind, but melancholic. Altruistic, grateful, mostly selfless, but will destroy himself for others without realizing. Reckless, sticks to his values. Competitive and a little envious, but it's born out of admiration, pride and love. But overall, keeps so close to his chest while spouting praises for others out of what he wished he had before.

But in one sentence? This little shit is such a stubborn mule it'd get him killed.

The best example is from Act 1 itself, Summer Training Camp arc. In this, we see the first glimpse of someone he should strive to be: Someone who wins to save people. His reward is saving Kota and Tokoyami, but his recklessness in reaching for Katsuki alone and without a plan ends up costing him a win. The tally goes to the League of Villains; not a total disaster, but they got what they wanted in the end.

Happens again in Act 2, by failing to rescue Eri the first time he and Mirio meet her. Both find out she was tied to Overhaul’s operation, and the feeling of guilt is one of the reasons that makes them want to try again. Somewhat related to Izuku, it’s Sir Nighteye’s conviction that Izuku is unworthy that proves years of fatalistic views wrong too late, as his unwillingness to see what makes Izuku a good choice ends up being corrected as he’s already mortally wounded.

Gentle, La Brava and Lady Nagant are also good examples of the narrative punishing these characters for their nihilistic views, and when they’re shown they have another choice, the story takes them out and as they’ve changed their minds to a more hopeful view, gives them another chance in Act 3. After all, second chances and atonements are Boku no Hero’s cup of tea (Sir Nighteye's wasted his in fatality, stubbornness, unwillingness to change). Which is why characters like Muscular, Ending and the Sludge Villain are not given the grace of a proper sendoff, and All For One got such a rather undignified finale.

Returning to Izuku: Because his internal conflicts weren't challenged yet, and therefore the only visible developments he’s gotten were merely power upgrades, this bites him back by the end of Act 2 and continues in Act 3, the first hit being the most critical one. The things he repressed for the sake of others aren’t willing to stay like that anymore. Furthermore, going against his one consistent conviction and fighting Tenko with tunnel vision on winning, regardless of who needs saving, brings another conflict for him.

Izuku is trapped in Shōku. And that leads to Act 3, where his flaws branch out into four main symptoms amplified by trauma in the Dark Hero Arc, which remain, at the time of this writing, unsolved:

Detachment, fueled by selflessness. Choosing to take every risk on his own, Izuku has thoroughly detached his wants and needs from each other and himself. By not letting others get hurt, that means he doesn’t care if he himself gets hurt anymore, accidentally making himself a martyr. Detaching himself could arguably be the reason he doesn't acknowledge Katsuki at all in the battlefield, or doesn't really ponder on what happens to the vestiges/quirks when destroying AFO (and lets Tenko... well, we'll get there.) All For One vs. One For All.

Recklessness: Izuku’s naturally that by design, and it’s treated as the mark of a hero: "intervening even when they don’t want your help". At its most extreme, however, he goes alone, so Izuku can’t rely on others for help, and the way he wants to fix everything turns into his modus operandi on overdrive. Despite being careful and calculated, he ignores who and what he needs to continue, until he physically can’t. He’s on the other side of that sentence without realizing it. Suicidal recklessness.

Arrogance: A fatal flaw hidden in him but mirrored in his biggest foil. By believing he’s the only person that can handle AFO, hiding all his emotions and trying to be pragmatic, he becomes increasingly arrogant. “All of you, you can’t keep up”, a sentence fitting for someone like Katsuki, not Izuku. He still shows shades of this, even as others try to convince him he's not alone, and the narrative proves him wrong by letting other characters interfere.

Finally, the ropes of repression. Izuku isn’t a very introspective character for himself; he’s a very unreliable narrator because he never stops to fully talk about what he feels; the last time we got something like that was in Deku vs. Kacchan 2. As Deku, he wants to be strong, dependant, not let others worry about himself. As Midoriya, he’s the friend who lends you a shoulder to cry on (and cries along), gives you good advice, is there for you. But who is he as Izuku?

What are his other interests, his feelings on society, or on what is and isn’t fair? More recently, Katsuki’s apology, death, what does that mean for them now? Tenko’s identity as that kid who was crying and as Tomura, who hurt the people he loves, what does he think? Toshinori, as someone who was an idol and now it’s a label closer than mentor-mentee, almost dying? He hasn’t had time to reflect on them, but only recently Izuku's lack of introspection has become noticeable for the audience- placing us in Katsuki's shoes; intuitively, we know what Izuku's gonna do, but can we really tell what Izuku's currently thinking? If at all?

Not-so-recently (for the audience), he’s "moved on" very quickly from Lady Nagant blowing up in his face, seeing All For One single him out as a target, two mobs being so hostile Danger Sense got triggered, and Aoyama's role as a traitor. Except, not really. Everything Izuku’s gone through has been locked in a vault, and despite every character being reactive to it, Izuku doesn’t allow himself to dwell on anything that’ll make him remotely angry or sad anymore. There is one exception and even then Mirio had to prevent him from letting it out.

By failing to start introspecting in Act 2 in any of these, they bring back his internal conflicts, while adding a new two new ones to a pre-existing one, leading us to the Classic Man vs. Conflict part of this meta:

Control One For All (Man vs. Nature): Izuku had the theoretic part of it down; using it as his tools to help, but being Quirkless for so long means he lacked the intuitive part of it; the one that treats Quirks as muscle memories instead. So instead of second nature, they’re more like advisor crutches that can easily lose control; and momentarily as it was, they have, in Deku vs. All For One.

He controls only the mechanics, but never secured himself in believing they’re his power. And since Izuku is easily someone willing to give more than he should, it’s very representative that in giving up One For All, Izuku essentially embodied the definition of “you give an inch, they take a mile”. Or better, you give Tenko a hand, All For One takes an arm. It wasn’t the wrong choice, but an easy trap he fell in.

Izuku, while able to work out the theory, never really gained full control of a Quirk supposedly his own. Which is why it’s so odd his Quirk gets taken away now. Whether he shall remain Quirkless or receive a version of OFA, remains to be seen. I believe it isn't the last of OFA yet, but it's always a 50/50 chance.

Being a future Symbol of Peace (Man vs. Society/Men):

“Men are not born equal. That is the lesson [Izuku] learned at the age of four.”

At this point, “being a symbol” means something else now. For this to even have a shot of happening, Izuku has to find out what being a hero means, by including him as a person in the narrative. And for that, All For One, as the man representative of society’s worst symptoms, needed to go.

It’s no coincidence he and Izuku have many similarities, as both have a fascination with Quirks, are the only ones capable of wielding multiple at once, and grew as lonely; AFO by having a Quirk, Izuku by lacking one. Izuku can be possessive, he recognizes this as an ugly trait, but AFO acts out and relishes in it. It makes too much sense that he's one of the few characters able to lay a hand on AFO; If Yoichi is the version of Izuku whose love wasn't strong enough to reach out, AFO is the version of Izuku lacking understanding, love or empathy.

We Are Here and Midoriya Izuku: Rising show he is by all accounts considered one by every character, but his Rising isn’t finished until he finds out what being a hero means to him, without disregarding his personhood, and realizing he was always one, Quirk or not. He has succeeded in proving society wrong, and proved AFO wrong in every way that mattered. A quirkless nobody defeating the Demon Lord wannabe.

As stated in a previous post of mine, Izuku’s own Rising chapter is the opposite of his Origin because now everyone supports him, roots for him. Despite being weak, he has the strength to get back up and try to do his best… But this isn’t his best right now, which is why Izuku’s Rising isn’t finished.

Control your heart/His relationship with Katsuki/Saving Tenko (Man vs. Self):

This is Izuku’s true conflict; the question of his own personhood tied to the worthiness of his dreams and feelings.

“Can someone be a hero, even without a Quirk?”

Starting with the first conflict, from That Which Is Inherited to The New Power and All For One, “control your heart” are introduced as new arc words for Izuku himself; and a foreshadowing of the problems he’ll face when not addressed. In fact, Izuku’s aware the trigger for Black Whip must’ve had an external factor. Whether he’s oblivious or willfully ignoring what exactly happened is unclear, but he’s at least aware of who triggered it. And not thinking about it only makes Katsuki suffer the brunt of it, his Achilles’ Heel.

The second is the constant conflict since MI: Origin— Izuku isn’t someone blind to Katsuki’s flaws; in fact he’s the most aware of them, despite fandom perception. The thing that a lot of readers seem to miss is that he admires all of Katsuki, even if he was envious of him, and as those flaws ended up causing him a lot of pain. Which is noticeable the lack of interactions on Izuku’s part upon rewatching the first two acts as he was often the one seeking a relationship with Katsuki, while currently it’s the other way around.

It’s not a coincidence but a red sign; a herring or a flag, depending on the ending of One For All vs. All For One: Despite the bullying, Izuku still chose to perceive Katsuki’s good and heroic traits, when by all accounts he’s within his rights to refuse Katsuki in his life. I bring this up because Izuku and Katsuki are the main foils of the story… Which also makes Katsuki a foil of Tenko’s. This is an interesting factor. Izuku could’ve chosen to react to Katsuki’s apology then and there, but there might be three reasons not to:

The emotional conflict parallels Deku vs. Kacchan 2; Act 1’s turning point for the story was Kamino, but the incident pushes them together. Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship is the true turning point of the story as a whole because they’re the ones who fully feel the effects of the incident. The side effect intrinsically ties them, as a unit, to the main plot. Their choices are the true climax of the story.

Izuku forgiving Katsuki before fighting Tenko reveals Tenko’s fate or worse, seals it in a worse one. He hasn’t processed it, and intuitively, we know Izuku will do it, but to have it happen right before confronting Tenko means his actions are downplayed. Everything Izuku did would be a given, and meaningless. What does it mean to give a hand to someone in pain, when this person hurts you? He wanted to save Tenko, but wouldn’t that mean accepting that crying kid is also the man who hurt the ones he loves?

Izuku controlling his emotions isn’t just about Katsuki. He’s a huge trigger for his feelings… Including what he doesn’t like feeling. Repressing everything, detaching himself from that kid who once tried defending a kid in a playground despite having no Quirks, only means Izuku isn’t doing his best. That’s the mask of the “Deku, who’s strong, who’s fine, who can do everything, who always does his best”. Izuku reaching out to Tenko meant to share that sadness, the burdens from when they were young. Tenko did, so in theory, he shed the Shigaraki Tomura mask, but Izuku didn’t, so he’s still bottling his emotions to its breaking point.

So. Izuku's still in his Shōku. But we’re stuck in Act 3. Tenku (heh). Not enough resolutions, no conflicts fully solved. The Status Quo was challenged, changed? But where’s Izuku’s own turning point? The lack of introspections turns what should be Izuku’s rewards for going through the hero’s journey into an obstacle yet to be surpassed. His emotions are the turning point of the entire story, after all, right?

Narratively, Izuku has internally failed to pass the third part of the Kishōtenketsu: Transformation. His emotional conflicts weren’t dwelled on, and as such, he could only do so much to save Tenko. He can’t relate to Shigaraki Tomura, only Shimura Tenko, the crying kid. Every person is a hero in their own story, but anyone can be a villain. It’s what makes us connect to them. Izuku refused until he couldn’t anymore.

For comparison: Ochako doesn't know Toga Himiko, but her tears humanized her in Ochako's view; she wants to know what does Himiko value, what drove her to be who she is. Shoto doesn't truly know Touya, but knows the path it took for him to become Dabi, and wants to reconnect with his brother, at least a little. Shoji and Koda don't agree with Spinner but it's because they know what drives the mob to follow him. Hizashi doesn't see Shirakumo in Kurogiri but Aizawa does, which is why he becomes crucial in the endgame. All of them have a chance at surviving.

As it is, Shigaraki Tomura decayed, marked by All For One. Does that Izuku doing his best lead to a sacrifice? Neither heroes nor villains win. Which brings us back to reward and punishment: Izuku’s punishment for not solving his conflicts, means reaching out to Tenko was a doomed plan from the very beginning. His heart was not controlled while he had One For All, he’s unconvinced he could be a hero from the beginning despite earning his title, and he failed to save that crying kid. Using a power meant to save.

What message would that bring then? Both for a groomed child to believe he was born a monster, to die knowing that was true, that he never had a choice? Does that mean he could've only found peace in his death? And what does that mean for Izuku, who wanted to avoid an outcome where that kid died? Especially when Izuku previously would be fighting tooth and nails, blood, sweat and (many) tears to stop Tenko from destroying himself?

The story isn’t black and white, but it has always depicted abuse victims and their survivors respectfully, and the idea of the child that needed saving the most, dying before a chance of redemption goes against one message: That anyone can, and deserves to be a hero, in any way, shape or form. To have that glimmer of hope, of faith. It brings me the quote:

"Tenko, do you still want to be a hero?"

If Tenko doesn't get a choice, or a chance to respond, that means Izuku wasn’t doing his best just yet.

This enters prediction territory, which I don't usually make, but. In my honest opinion?

I think this is the moment Izuku finally reaches Tenku —Insecurities and repression of righteous anger, over not being able to keep his promise of saving that kid, uncertainty, for not being able to be a hero that saves people with a smile, vulnerability over realizing this is it, this “was the last act” of Hero Deku, and heartbreak. How can he call himself a hero if he can’t save a single child? Whether he likes it or not, now this is his Tenku, because Midoriya Izuku doesn’t walk away from this without being able to save Tenko.

He can’t; otherwise he can’t be considered the World’s Greatest Hero, if he doesn’t fulfill his half of “Win to Save, Save to Win”. That means a perfect victory, minimal to no casualties, is unachievable. All For One wins even if he loses, name tied to Shigaraki Tomura, the Symbol of Fear. He doesn’t get One For All, but gets to take down Tenko with him, so Tenko doesn't get to die free, even as a sacrifice of his choice. Unlike Eri, who was freed from the shackles of Overhaul, Tenko didn't get that chance. The Shimura bloodline dies, and Izuku doesn't prove their generation is different, better than the previous heroes. That doesn't sound fair, does it?

A failure he seemingly couldn’t avoid, or one he could’ve but was unable to? The lowest point Izuku can face, where he’s faced with the worst things that can happen to him has happened twice already in the same arc already; if we consider the time in-universe, the time between Katsuki’s death and Tenko’s death was at worst in the same hour. With everything that happened since the start of this saga; it’s been at best a month’s overdue of a breakdown. Thus, the missing introspection from him.

I believe it’s now beneficial that Izuku can't access One For All: there are no signs of the mask from “the strongest Hero who always does his best”— This is the Quirkless kid who wanted to save people with a smile. And if he can’t do that, does that mean he’s the useless Deku who can’t do anything?

Despite being more receptive to words, Izuku is a character who can't be trusted with what he says, instead what he does. He mumbles all he sees, cries rivers for others, but those green eyes will show you waters waiting to turn into a flooding storm. His actions will always overcompensate for his true thoughts he'd never share, because his thoughts only matter when you ask: What do you really know about Midoriya Izuku?

Nobody would have an answer, except for the one person who managed to misread him for ten years.

Izuku is by far the most reckless character, and stubborn to a fault. He'll pretend he's fine so others won't worry, so he can keep lying to himself a little more, but it's a mask to hide how much he's gonna hate himself, think he's a failure for this. Seeing him give up like that isn’t like him, now, is it? And that truth needs to come from the person, who, while not the only one to make Izuku question his worth, is the only one that can take him out of this mentality. Someone who matches that stubbornness, makes him listen to the truth. And makes him truly let the flood out, even if others think it unpleasant.

To counteract hopelessness, Izuku needs Katsuki. To finally ask out how any of what he experienced was fair. What good was all this pain. Why all of this, for a fight he lost this badly? For a person he couldn't save? For a dream that will never happen? For a Quirk that was never his, that he didn't get to keep? For a life where no one believed in him, were they proven right not to? Didn't he deserve better? He would know, having tried to leave him behind for a decade and realizing he can't go through it, when they just started being equals again.

If their feelings did become one, Katsuki then must be able to read Izuku like a notebook kept close to his chest and give him the right, truthful answers. Their walls aren't around anymore and Katsuki's now become the more emotionally open of the two, so he can make Izuku open up his damned heart and put it in his nerdy All Might’s shirt sleeve.

Izuku was Katsuki's hero before a Quirk. It's Izuku followed him when Katsuki didn't want him, who tried to save him even when he was told to take a swan dive off a roof. It's Izuku who still risked his life for a month to help others at the cost of his own health. If Izuku fought to save, to catch up to everyone so far ahead, why's he shutting down at the finishing line? Why stop fighting now?

In any case. Izuku needs to break down and someone to build himself up. Katsuki’s role as Izuku's closest one ends up being indispensable here— bringing in mind BK: Origin. If not seeking victory is unlike Katsuki, then so is Izuku thinking salvation’s too late. Contradicting their core beliefs is the lowest point, and pulling each other out of the spiral is the goal. The world and Class 1-A are connected to Izuku, but Izuku has yet to connect to himself. Both Tenko and Katsuki are now tied to One For All, through All For One and leftover embers, so why not make this count? From Katsuki, to Izuku, to Tenko.

These are guesses that rely on an outcome that might not happen in the story, but right now, I’d like to believe Izuku’s vault isn’t locked in nine keys anymore. There’s only him and a closed door, in a room that has always been locked, he never thought to open it before. Sometimes, it knocks, and he ignores it. And now it's time to open it and see what's on the other side, connecting him to what he’s been holding onto for the entirety of this story. Rewarding him one last time as he finally catches up.

By reaching Tenku, the story is allowed to continue, and wrap up in Kekku, the fourth act.

Izuku constantly breaks the expectations of everyone in-story. So maybe, he has some of One For All left. Maybe he’s somehow connected to it. Maybe he’ll keep it, receive a new version, or that’s One For All’s last hurrah. Maybe, there’s a chance he can take everything back, and start anew. But connecting to his emotions would help him understand Tenko. And in return, Tenko would finally take a comforting hand.

Either way, realizing what he’s been missing will be the key for the narrative to reconnect to him: Izuku doesn’t give up on anyone. There are no more people telling him what he’s supposed to be or what to do, no legacies tying him down— there’s only him, confronting the last of the Status Quo of the narrative. His actions are the ones that’ll restore this narrative to one of hope. Rain has finally faded to light. Starting with a death, ending with a rebirth.

The consequences will still exist, and must be faced by as many characters as possible, and if, hopefully when that happens, we can start to see the fruits of the turning points: Izuku’s own blooming realizations have to be the hand that’ll lead to Tenko’s Rising. Only then, the world they knew can rise from their mistakes. And maybe Izuku will be there, at peace, graduating with Class 1-A under cherry blossoms, knowing everyone gets to smile once again.

And only then, we'll know if Midoriya Izuku has gone further beyond his dreams of being a hero.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, even a little bit.

#I TRIMMED SOME PARTS AND IT'S STILL THIS FREAKING BIG I GIVE UP XD #HERE YOU HAVE MY SLIGHTLY JOINTED THOUGHTS ABOUT MIDORIYA IZUKU #wish I had a better title for this post but it's okay I did my best on this impromptu essay from yesterday-#Boku no Hero Academia #Midoriya Izuku #BNHA Spoilers #BNHA Meta #MHA Spoilers #this was brought to you by: looking up structural narratives. being way too defensive and hopeful about Izuku's character.#and wanting to talk about him getting the meaning of out of hand #i don't even know if I said everything I wanted and that's the worst part XP #oh well I got most of it out of my system anyways #long post

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masterghandalf · 4 months ago

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Embers Review: Part II

Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? First, I’d meant to get this review up pretty soon after the first part (here), then I’d meant to get to it shortly after wrapping up my reread/commentary of the whole fic (here, and then that got away from me, too! But, finally, we are here with the long-awaited second part of my Embers review; let’s do this! Anyway, last time on our journey through Vathara’s epic Avatar: The Last Airbender fic Embers, we introduced the fic, discussed what I liked about it, raised the question of whether the fic is really Fire Nation apologism as it’s commonly accused of being, and gave a rundown of a lot of the worldbuilding of Vathara’s version of the Avatarverse. I’d initially planned to wrap things up in two parts, but I’ve since decided that characters deserve a whole section to themselves, because this fic has so damned many of them, both canon and OCs, and talking about them deserves a lot of space. So today, we’ll be discussing that, looking at canon characters first and then at Vathara’s various OCs. I’ll note that this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive rundown of every character in the entire fic, just the ones who contribute something of note to the story as a whole. Next time, we’ll wrap things up by looking at the overall story, the fic’s themes (both the ones Vathara is trying to communicate, and some that I think probably slipped in subconsciously) and the fic’s relationship to its source material, as well as my overall thoughts. If that sounds interesting to you, join us after the cut!

For fair warning, this part of the review will be mostly critical, because I rather strongly disagree with Vathara’s interpretations of a lot of the major canon characters and/or what she does with them, and while I like a lot of her OCs conceptually, I have issues with how a lot of them are used in the broader context of the fic. That said, once again I’d like to stress that though I’m critical of many aspects of this fic, it’s not intended to be a personal attack on anyone who does like it; different strokes and all that. With that out of the way, onward!

Canon Characters Zuko: In canon, Aang was the primary protagonist and Zuko was the deuteragonist and foil; Embers reverses those roles, making Zuko the primary protagonist, and he’s clearly Vathara’s favorite character and she wants to give him a lot of time to shine. Unfortunately, I feel like in her drive to put Zuko at the center of the story, Vathara ends up overwriting a lot of what makes the original character compelling to begin with. Canon Zuko, despite being a prince, is very often the underdog, a talented but “normal” firebender who continually has to struggle against everything the universe can throw at him. Embers Zuko, though, is special. He’s a yaoren. He’s a dragon-child. He’s a fire-healer. He was secretly a super-talented firebender all along. He’s a Fire Nation great name (and Vathara puts a lot more emphasis on the status of the Fire Nation aristocracy – and aristocracy in general – than canon does). He’s Kuzon’s reincarnation. The White Lotus was secretly grooming him to be the world’s savior if the Avatar never returned. Even his characteristic bad luck is actually revealed to be a side-effect of a bargain between the spirits! It’s all just a bit much, and for all the fic rails against acting like the whole world revolves around Aang, it often feels like it just shifts things so everything revolves around Zuko instead. This also leads to the weird running theme where it feels like every aspect of Zuko’s personality is somehow tied to his being a dragon-child/great name/yaoren etc.

Another aspect of canon Zuko that the fic papers over is his moral ambiguity, and how he’s torn between what his conscience tells him his right, versus what his society and especially his father have told him he’s supposed to be doing. Embers sands off a lot of Zuko’s rough edges from the get-go, giving him an altruistic motive (keeping Azula off the throne) for wanting to capture Aang and become Fire Lord that he never had in canon, explaining how his canonical acts like attacking the Southern Water Tribe and Kyoshi Island were never really that bad, and generally acting like the Gaang should have always understood he was an honorable opponent who never meant them serious harm. When push comes to shove, his internal conflict also gets resolved rather easily at the end of the Ba Sing Se arc as he breaks with his father officially with a minimum of fuss. Beyond that, Zuko is pretty consistently presented as someone who is experienced in the ways of the world (except when he needs basic things about dragons, spirits, society outside the Fire Nation, etc. explained to him…) in contrast to the Gaang, who are presented as ineffectual and naïve, with the exception of Toph. On top of that, it often feels like his canonical trauma from suffering and abuse is used as something of a bludgeon to shut down anyone who judges or criticizes him (and is made worse than in canon, as well, including details like Azula repeatedly trying to kill him when they were children) while other characters’ trauma isn’t given the same courtesy. In general, I just can’t help but feeling like the fic shoots itself in the foot – in its efforts to make Zuko cool, it ends up with everything that makes Zuko Zuko getting lost in the shuffle.

Iroh: The fic’s handling of Iroh is… unusual. For the first half of the fic or so, he’s one of the most in-character of the entire main cast, and Zuko-Iroh bonding moments are something Vathara generally is very good at. He does get some of the same treatment as Zuko regarding having his edges sanded off, but it’s less noticeable because even in canon, Iroh’s already had his character development from ruthless warlord to wise old master before the series actually began. On the downside, once the fic hits the halfway point and especially once Shidan enters the picture, Iroh’s characterization takes a nosedive. It almost feels like Vathara has decided Zuko has traded up to a better mentor and doesn’t need Iroh anymore, since it turns out there’s a lot going on that Iroh doesn’t know about, his plans with the White Lotus have inadvertently helped make Zuko’s life worse, and there’s just not much he can offer that Zuko can’t do better for himself – even Iroh notes that Zuko’s battle plan against General Fong is better than he would have done. And then in the final arc Iroh and Zuko just end up feuding with each other for no real reason, like Vathara has decided she just has to have conflict between them – and in the end, Zuko gets vindicated and the two of them rather quickly reconcile, making it feel all the more like a sudden plot device. I’m just genuinely not certain what happened here.

Aang: As mentioned previously, Aang and Zuko more-or-less have their spots swapped, with Zuko becoming the main protagonist, and Aang becoming the deuteragonist and foil. And Vathara admits that she has a hard time writing Aang, and it shows. Aang isn’t really presented as evil or a bad person, but his portrayal is still very negative in that he is presented as a naïve, ignorant child who means well but has no idea what he’s doing, no real conception of the consequences of his actions, and consistently makes every situation he’s involved in worse. Furthermore, by her own admission Vathara has a hard time getting into his mindset and value system, especially his pacifism, so his commitment to Air Nomad values is mostly reduced to him spouting hollow platitudes all the time and expecting everyone to agree with him about them, and being confused when they don’t. From his arrival in the Fire Nation in the back half of the fic onwards, he also falls into a rut where he seems to have an epiphany, only to immediately forget it and screw something else up, resulting in him needing to be lectured by everyone else again until he has his next epiphany and the process repeats; only by the very end of the fic does it feel like his lessons have actually stuck. He’s also presented as being entirely ignorant not only of the way other cultures work (Vathara has to handwave to explain why Aang, who had implicitly spent much of his childhood traveling with Gyatso and had friends in the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, could be so sheltered), what dragons are and even his own people’s “true” history, and so constantly needs other people to explain these things to him. Now, Vathara does ultimately allow Aang to start maturing and to save the world… but it feels like it takes a very long, rather uncomfortable road to get there.

Katara: Ooof. If Vathara doesn’t seem to get Aang, she seems to really have it out for Katara. Katara is presented as manipulative, self-righteous, selfish, judgmental, ignorant, parochial, and outright homicidal towards Zuko in particular and the Fire Nation in general, a terrible influence on Aang, and we get several lengthy ANs explaining just how horrible Vathara thinks she is in detail. Further underscoring this point, whereas Zuko’s childhood trauma is played for sympathy, Katara’s is presented as the reason why she is (in Vathara’s opinion) so profoundly messed up as a person without the same sort of empathy. Even her canonical Team Mom role is ultimately presented as her using her noncanon waterbender mind-control powers to essentially force the people around her into a found-family relationship, regardless of whether that’s what they actually want or not. Now, ultimately, after an extended humiliation conga during the Ba Sing Se and Beach arcs and nearly dying from element sickness, Vathara does seem to decide Katara has suffered enough and lets her somewhat redeem herself and drift closer to her canonical characterization, but it still feels like she’s the least prominent and developed of the Gaang after that point, is still a bad influence on Aang, and provides the opening for the sea serpent to attack the Gaang and Zuko. So even at her best, the fic’s Katara feels very much like a mixed bag. I genuinely wonder if Vathara just took Katara’s third-quarter-of-book-three anger at Zuko, stripped away all the context from that, and decided it was her default mode and everything else was just pretending, because that’s what it often feels like.

Toph: Toph, like Zuko, is clearly one of Vathara’s favorite characters. Her primary role is to be the voice of reason in the Gaang - she’s the only one who’s practical, the only one who actually befriends Zuko, and the only one who understands how the world really works (which results in the odd situation where Toph – whose entire understanding of the war before joining the Gaang came from spying on her dad’s business meetings – understands the war itself, the political and military situation, and Fire Nation culture better than people who’ve actually lived these things). Unfortunately, it feels like the end result of a lot of this is that Toph seems to exist largely to do three things – to do cool earthbending stuff, to be right while the Gaang is wrong, and to be Zuko’s bff (to the point that while he’s fighting the sea serpent, the human connection that keeps him going is Toph rather than Iroh). And like with Vathara’s take on Zuko, it feels like all of this leaves relatively little room for who Toph actually is.

Sokka: Weirdly, Sokka may be the one who feels the most like an actual person out of the whole main cast. He doesn’t get shilled the way Zuko and Toph do, but he also doesn’t really get bashed the way Aang and Katara do, either. He clearly believes in his culture’s values, but he’s also willing to see other people’s point of view. He’s actually recognizable as his canonical self, something that a lot of the other characters aren’t, and he gets some good moments with Aang and Katara that actually feel genuine. He even gets the kill on Ozai in the final battle! On the other hand, Vathara does something really weird with him in the later part of the fic, where he gets forcibly spiritually adopted by Temul and made spiritually part Fire Nation… because every character Vathara likes has to have some connection to the Fire Nation and/or aristocracy? Now, the fic admits this isn’t supposed to be a good thing – Temul wasn’t doing Sokka a favor, she wanted to hurt Aang by stealing one of his friends – but it still feels like in the actual story it only has positive consequences (as Sokka gets new understanding of the Fire Nation and free lessons from a master swordswoman out of the bargain), and in the end the plotline sort of gets swept under the rug without amounting to much of note. It’s just a really weird choice for the character.

Azula: Hoo, boy. I have issues with what Vathara does with Azula. First off, in the first part of the fic Azula is basically the most visible antagonist, and it feels like Vathara just wrote her by going down a list of stereotypical “sociopath” traits and checking them off. The result is that Azula, while not necessarily more evil than her canon self feels differently evil, if that makes sense, with a lot of focus on her hurting people, messing with their minds or wanting to cause death and destruction for the lulz rather than in pursuit of actual goals (including going out of her way to set Zuko and Mai up despite know that, in Embers, they’re cousins and therefore off limits… for some reason), how she apparently repeatedly tried to kill Zuko when they were kids and how she’ll destroy the Fire Nation if she inherits the throne (how she’s meaningfully different from the past three generations of tyrants the Fire Nation has been under isn’t really established). Much is also made of the fact that she’s a “dark dragon” which is apparently fancy dragon-child speak for “sociopath.” And then… Amaya comes in and “heals” her, and almost immediately afterwards Azula starts getting character development. And I hate it. The message – intentional or otherwise – is that Azula was just born broken and the only way she could ever become a good person is if someone came in and “fixed” her against her will, and as a neurodivergent person myself, that makes me deeply uncomfortable. And as the fic moves into its back half and Azula becomes the protagonist of her own subplot as she tries to unravel the real villains’ schemes, we’re repeatedly assured she’s changed and is totally different now… but honestly, there’s very little evidence of it in the text. She seems slightly less murder happy and slightly more pragmatic and willing to work with people rather than use them, but really, the fic’s ultimate assurance that she now cares deeply about the Fire Nation and will be a good great name for the Caldera comes completely out of nowhere (especially with aforementioned repeated statements earlier in the fic that Azula would destroy the Fire Nation if she ever took the throne)… and the final implication that she’s absolutely planning to use her position to rebuild the Fire Nation’s empire (which everyone seems to be weirdly fine with?) just makes it feel all the more like she never really changed, no matter what the fic tries to say the contrary.

Mai: Mai, like Sokka, feels weirdly in-character, and stands out among the rest of the cast because of it. The biggest divergence is the revelation that she’s actually a close cousin of the royal family, therefore sinking the Maiko ship because of complicated family-tree related reasons (and freeing her up to be paired with one of Vathara’s OCs, Min Wen). That said, her arc across the later chapters plays out somewhat strangely, as we make a big deal about her splitting with Azula… only for her to end up teaming back up with Azula like nothing ever happened in the back half of the fic. But in general, Mai feels like she’s rather a background player, compared to the other people around her.

Ty Lee: Another big one. In canon, we know basically two things about Ty Lee’s backstory before she ran off to join the circus – she’s the daughter of a noble family, and always felt overshadowed by her six identical sisters. Vathara throws that completely out, to reveal that Ty Lee is actually from a sect of elite assassins sworn directly to the Fire Lord – and, oh yeah, she’s also secretly an airbender. I know the “Ty Lee is an airbender” theory was popular in the fandom back in the day, but I never cared for it (it always felt like it boiled down to “she’s quirky, she has grey eyes, and she’s very agile” and not much more) and I don’t much care for it here. Now, this basic character concept – an airbender assassin, raised to be loyal to the Fire Lord, who goes out into the world and has to wrestle with how all the propaganda she’s been fed her whole life is a pack of lies – is actually interesting in a vacuum, but as Ty Lee’s backstory, I find it kind of baffling. He characterization also plays into some of what I think of as the fic’s “elemental determinism,” with her canonical flightiness being exaggerated to practically fair folk levels of blue-and-orange morality, and Azula directly attributing Ty Lee having a “mind that works according to alien rules” to her being an airbender. I just find this a rather puzzling take on the character, especially putting her next to Azula and Mai, who though I have issues with Vathara’s take on them as well, are much more recognizably themselves.

Fire Lord Ozai: Ozai is the big bad in canon, but in Embers he’s mostly demoted to being one of three main antagonists, and of the three he’s the least prominent overall, the least powerful, and also the first to die. Otherwise… he’s pretty much in-character, so far as can be told from his handful of in-person appearances (admittedly, Ozai’s a pretty straightforward evil overlord in canon, so this might not be hard). On the other hand, I think the fic doesn’t do a great job of establishing his exact relationship to the other villains – he’s working with Makoto, and Makoto’s working with Koh, but does Ozai know about Koh? It's not like Ozai will be left with much to rule over, if Koh destroys the world… And does Makoto know of his involvement in the death of her son Azulon, or does she just think it doesn’t matters, since Ozai is still her grandson? Either way, Ozai’s characterization and role in the story are pretty straightforward, even if he’s often overshadowed by villains bigger than he is.

Makoto: The second member of our villainous triumvirate, putting her here because she’s very technically a minor canon character – technically she’s two minor canon characters, actually, albeit reinterpreted in such a way as to be entirely unrecognizable compared to them. She’s not a bad villain, necessarily, but I think she’s the wrong villain for the story – her existence is part of an overall trend of the dragon stuff taking over the story entirely, and it also rather overshadows the Fire Nation’s canonical crimes to learn that an ancient evil dragon has been pulling their strings since Sozin’s time. Unfortunately, despite how she’s hyped up, her actually on-page track record… isn’t great. Zuko drives her off from Asagitatsu at about the two thirds mark. She fails to kill Aang at the Day of Black Sun and subsequently vanishes from the story for a long stretch. And then she finally gets killed off by Zuko and Langxue without accomplishing that much at the final battle. I’m also left a bit confused about her motive – it’s not entirely clear when she went bad, when and how she allied with Koh, and what exactly her angle in all this is beyond wanting power and hating most humans. Basically, I think there’s an interesting character and effective antagonist here, but she’s unfortunately rather underbaked, and I can’t help but feel like she’s in the wrong story and the wrong setting.

Koh the Face-Stealer: The third, final and most powerful member of the villain triumvirate and true big bad of Embers. And, okay, I’ll be frank – I do not like this take on Koh. I much prefer his canonical self, as the creepy, dangerous keeper of eldritch secrets. Embers Koh feels like a pretty generic “great evil” type of villain, who is too removed from the story to feel like much of a direct threat, and who doesn’t come across as terribly threatening in his handful of on-page appearances. And while I’ve seen Korra criticized for making Vaatu too much of a Western-style Satan analogue (which I don’t particularly agree with – not every big, scary supernatural thing is Satan, people! - but… that’s a topic for another time) Embers Koh feels much more… Satan-y. He’s the Avatar spirit’s estranged, rebellious child, he works primarily by manipulating and corrupting humans, his ultimate goal is to end the world, he even commands a legion of damned souls – even his ultimate desire for his “parent’s” approval fits with certain traditions where Satan is understood as the enemy of humanity and not of God, and ultimately believes God will come around and see things his way. What noticeably seems to be missing is any parallels to the figures Vathara said actually inspired him – Nidhogg and Jormungand. The way he’s finally defeated is fairly clever, but also doesn’t feel particularly well foreshadowed. Ultimately, I just think Vathara makes Koh a rather dull villain, and much less interesting than his creepy-awesome canon self.

Wan Shih Tong: Is also a villain in this fic. I’m not entirely sure what motivated Vathara to change him from a cranky misanthrope who wanted to punish the Gaang for lying to him and tricking him (because… they did) into an outright co-conspirator of Koh’s who’s been stealing knowledge from people and was even responsible for the Misty Palms Oasis drying up(!), but there you have it. It also feels like for all he gets built up, his subplot never gets much resolution beyond his agents being banished from the Earth Kingdom by the Earth King, and he never actually shows up in person. But it still feels like another case of a questionable direction to take a character in.

Long Feng: Splitting the role of main antagonist in the early arcs with Azula, Long Feng feels pretty in-character, though I can’t help but feel Vathara makes him less creepy and more mundane compared to his canonical self. He’s also given a war hero backstory his canon self didn’t have, which plays into the fic’s overall softening of the Dai Li, though he’s not really made more sympathetic otherwise (in fact, he feels like he's the only member of the Dai Li who’s actually villainous – all the others are presented as honorable punch-clock villains!). He also makes it through the events of the fic’s take on “Crossroads of Destiny” alive and without being backstabbed by Azula… only for her to kill him off immediately at the beginning of the next arc, which makes it feel like Vathara spared him, immediately realized she had nothing more to do with him, and quickly course-corrected and killed him off anyway.

General Fong: Becomes a major antagonist for several arcs in the third quarter of the fic. Fong wasn’t a good guy in canon, but he was more of a reckless fool who was unconcerned with collateral damage in pursuit of what he thought would bring his side victory – this Fong is an out-and-out war criminal who basically feels like the Earth Kingdom’s version of Zhao. Which is part of a broader trend of characters who don’t like the Fire Nation being exaggerated (and those who are already villainous made worse) in Embers. Ultimately, though Fong ends up getting killed off anticlimactically off-page, seemingly to show how war is hell and what a great general Zuko is becoming.

Jet: Jet is another victim of the “characters who don’t like the Fire Nation getting made worse” trend in the fic. Canon Jet was a ruthless guerilla fighter who crossed a line when he started targeting innocent civilians, but at least started with good intentions and was genuinely trying (if not always succeeding) to change for the better during the Ba Sing Se arc. Embers Jet is basically a serial killer who specifically targets Fire Nationals and actively revels in the collateral damage he causes. But, while we’re repeatedly told he’s a threat to anyone of Fire Nation heritage who crosses his path… he’s also kind of incompetent, being consistently and effortlessly shown up by Zuko whenever they encounter each other, with Zuko considering him more of a nuisance than anything (and Embers Zuko, unlike his canonical self, seems to hate Jet from the beginning). Ultimately, I really think that Vathara does not like Jet and feels the need to both demonize and humiliate him whenever he’s on-page, and in the end he just sort of vanishes from the story with a vague handwave, with his storyline entirely unresolved.

Earth King Kuei: Personality-wise, Kuei is pretty recognizable as his canonical self – a well-meaning but incredibly sheltered and naïve young man who’s spent his whole life kept in the dark by the Dai Li so Long Feng can run the Earth Kingdom in his name. But he’s also the beneficiary of one of Vathara’s recurring trends – how awesome the aristocracy are. It turns out he’s secretly an immensely powerful spiritbender, and that being Earth King gives him a ton of spiritual powers, including the ability to banish Wan Shi Tong and his agents from the Earth Kingdom! Sure, the Earth King was compared to a god in canon – but that was by Long Feng, justifying why he should be kept locked out of actual responsibility. And then he ends up being courted by some sandbenders… and drops out of the story entirely, his subplot completely unresolved, until he gets a cameo at the end.

Hakoda: Hakoda’s portrayal is somewhat inconsistent. Vathara seems to like Water Tribe warriors more than she does their benders, and so Hakoda is generally presented as a reasonable and level-headed man, but beyond that she can’t quite seem to decide if he’s an ignorant barbarian who needs to be shown the ways of the world or a seasoned and capable military commander; it mostly seems to vary based on what makes the other characters she likes more look good and/or what best serves the needs of the story. He still gets off better than his daughter, though – though it’s a bit strange that the most in-character Hakoda feels in the whole fic is a moment where we immediately learn he’s actually under Katara’s mind-affecting influence during it; not sure if that was deliberate or not.

Teo: Teo’s role in the fic isn’t huge, but still feels worth mentioning. Teo, like several of the other Northern Air Temple inhabitants, is in the process of becoming an airbender… which for some reason means he and his people have to start espousing Air Monk ideals so Zuko can complain about them, however little sense that makes. Vathara is at least willing to allow him to be somewhat open-minded, though, which is better than Aang gets, but it’s still weird that detachment and non-violence get associated as inherent airbender traits, even among people who weren’t raised as airbenders. Also, Zuko lectures him about ableism (regarding Toph) at one point, in a scene that feels absolutely backwards.

Piandao: Mostly feels like his canon self, but with some significant changes to his backstory. Specifically, he was involved with Kuzon and, more pertinently, with Temul, with him being her adopted heir and the lord of Shu Jing (rather than just a wealthy swordmaster who lives in a fancy house) which seems to point more towards Vathara’s love for nobility in general and the Fire Nation nobility in particular.

Captain Jee: Formerly Lieutenant Jee. On the one hand, seeing that Jee survived the North Pole and ultimately got to reunite with Zuko is nice. On the other hand, it really feels like Jee’s only real role in the story ends up being to conveniently deliver Suzuran and a ragtag bunch of misfits crew to Zuko right when he needs them, and the character himself and his relationship with Zuko doesn’t feel like it’s given as much focus as it could have.

Fire Sage Shyu: The friendly Fire Sage who helped the Gaang in “Winter Solstice Part II,” brought back here to become Aang’s firebending teacher. On the one hand, I do think that using Shyu here, instead of someone more obvious like Jeong Jeong, is rather clever. On the other hand, we have an entire subplot about the Gaang having to break him out of the Boiling Rock, and he delivers some ominous warnings about a Fire Sage conspiracy to assassinate Zuko and Azula, and then… that’s it. He vanishes from the story completely, and never even gets around to teaching Aang any firebending (ie, the thing he was supposed to be there to do). I honestly wonder if Vathara forgot about him.

Kuzon: From what we see in the show itself, Kuzon really doesn’t seem to have been anyone important – just a guy Aang knew in the Fire Nation way back when. But it was always a common theory that he was someone important, and Vathara takes that and runs with it. He was a nobleman, a master firebender, master spy, helped save Air Nomad children from the genocide, and was Zuko’s past life and Ursa’s grandfather. I don’t much care for it, tbh. It reeks of the idea that background details can’t just exist – everyone and everything has to be important, and of course a main character like Aang couldn’t have had a friend who was just a guy, he has to be a super-important person. It’s just… not a take I much care for.

Lady Ursa: I really don’t think Vathara knows what she wanted to do with Ursa. On the one hand, Ursa is given way more emphasis than she was in canon. She’s Kuzon’s granddaughter, she’s a dragon-child, she’s the reason Zuko has unusual abilities like fire-healing, and we’re given a lot of emphasis on her family, home domain and bloodline. On the other hand, despite all of this Ursa herself is barely in the fic. It turns out the question of “where did Ursa go after she was banished?” was “chilling in her hometown,” which is rather disappointingly mundane. We’re told she may have been attacked by a spirit at some point and has spiritual trauma that makes her not want to see her children… but nothing ever comes of that. She shows up dramatically at the climax… but her only contribution is to speak a single line of dialogue and put a reassuring hand on Azula’s shoulder. She never even gets to interact with Zuko. It just feels like Vathara decided to tie the character to a whole bunch of important stuff, and then never actually gave her anything important to do for herself.

Gyatso: Gyatso’s portrayal is weird, since he’s pretty much exactly like his canonical self, but Vathara never really explains how a society like the one she gave the Air Nomads could have produced him. He’s just… the token decent Air Monk, apparently. Though even he is given a moment where he seemed to think that the Air Temple culture being destroyed was a good thing, so long as the children survived, which… eesh.

Fire Lord Sozin: On the one hand, Sozin is presented as being villainous, like his canonical self, and is still responsible for starting the war and ordering the Air Nomad genocide, which are presented as bad things. On the other hand, it feels like he gets a few inches of whitewashing. One of his major motivations for his crimes turns out to have been love for Makoto, rather than desire for power or to reshape the world for himself. For another, it turns out the Fire Nation hated the Air Nomads long before he showed up. Finally, apparently watching the position of Fire Lord literally kill his father was what convinced him he needed to direct the Fire Nation’s aggression outward (despite canon indicating the Fire Nation of Sozin’s youth being in something of a golden age). None of it is enough to redeem Sozin as a character, mind… but when even Sokka is expressing some sympathy for the guy, I have to side-eye it.

Past Avatars: Roku, Kyoshi, Yangchen: Really, none of the past Avatars come off well; Vathara seems to be going for the idea that every Avatar creates problems their successor will have to solve but takes it so far that it ends up seeming like having an Avatar in general causes more harm than good. Roku is presented as being completely worthless, doing nothing but upholding the status quo and betraying his own people (who he was never really a part of) in the process- I think canon Roku would absolutely agree that he wasn’t a very good Avatar, but I think this is taking things a bit too far! Kyoshi gets it worse, becoming a racist reactionary who committed genocide on half the Fire Nation and then imposed the Fire Lord on the survivors, thereby starting the whole mess everyone else is still dealing with (yeah…). Kuruk I’m skipping over because the fic doesn’t really dwell on him, but even Yangchen is presented as having been a brainwashed victim of Xiangchen’s cult and needing to be rescued by the yaoren before she could do anything, and then died the last time Asagitatus blew, with very little trace of the woman who was both a devout Air Nomad and, implicitly, one of the greatest of all the Avatars. And Vathara also decides that they’re not actually Aang’s past lives, just separate human hosts of the Avatar Spirit… apparently for no other reason than to give Aang something else to be wrong about.

Ja Aku: So far as I can tell, this is Vathara’s name for the kid who told Aang it wouldn’t be fair for the Avatar to play on any team. …and for some reason she had him survive the genocide and grow up to be Fire Lord Azulon’s favorite assassin. What. This is never actually resolved in any way, and he never shows up in the present story (past the flashback Kuzon’s assassination) so I’m assuming he died in the interim, but really, this detail is just dropped on us and then nothing is done with it.

Chin the Conqueror: Seems to be mostly unchanged from canon, though Vathara ties him into her overall conflict as another pawn of Koh’s (like seemingly every major warlord in history…). He’s also used, weirdly, to underscore how everyone always hated the Air Nomads, since apparently he used resentment of them to fuel his rise to power, and Toph indicates he’d have genocided them if he could. But overall, he’s one of the less consequential historical figures in the fic.

The Lion-Turtle: Shows up briefly near the end of the fic, with his sole contribution being to give Aang a ride to the North Pole, which makes it feel like Vathara included him more out of obligation than because she had anything interesting to do with him. We also don’t get much information on how his species fits in with the radically rewritten prehistory of the Avatarverse in Embers.

There are also a handful of canon characters – including Suki, most of the White Lotus masters, and the Mechanist, among others – who appear in the fic, but whose roles are brief enough, and whose personalities are kept close enough to their canon counterparts, that I’m not going to bother discussing them individually.

Original Characters Amaya: Amaya is arguably the most prominent of the fic’s OCs, as Zuko’s healing teacher and Iroh’s eventual love interest, so I’m going to go ahead and start with her. And I have to say, I don’t much care for her. To start off with, there’s something rather uncomfortable on how she seems to come off as the token “good waterbender,” especially whenever she’s lecturing Katara (who is usually written to come off as much worse in comparison). In those circumstances, it just makes it feel like the character is there to knock another character down. Worse is that she seems to have a pretty appalling lack of medical ethics – she performs her spirit healing on Iroh (so he and Zuko can pass in Ba Sing Se) without ever making it clear to either him or Zuko what she was doing, despite the fact that we almost immediately learn that this healing can go rather badly wrong (and does, for Zuko), and she does something similar on Azula later on. That’s bad enough on its own merits, but there’s a laughable bit later in the fic where Katara is outraged that Amaya always asks for permission before healing someone (because Katara apparently thinks a real waterbender always knows what’s best…) when we know for a fact that Amaya does nothing of the sort. IMO, it’s a bad first impression, and makes the fic’s later attempts to repeatedly tell me I should love Amaya leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Huojin: Huojin is… there. Imo, he’s probably the least interesting of the fic’s major OCs, basically just there to be a level-headed and reasonable Ba Sing Se city guard (who happens to have Fire Nation heritage, because of course he does). He’s supposedly based on Jim Gordon, but honestly, I have a hard time seeing any similarities between the characters, beyond the fact that they’re both cops. Beyond that, I don’t really have a lot to say about the character.

The Wens: If Huojin is probably the least interesting of Vathara’s OCs, the Wens are probably among her better ones, at least initially. The sequences of Zuko befriending a relatively normal Earth Kingdom family are some of the better parts of the fic, and it’s also interesting to see Jinhai and Suyin exploring their Fire Nation heritage (because here we have characters for whom wanting to learn about and be part of Fire Nation culture makes sense!) and even Min gets a fairly interesting arc as he starts out a loudmouth bully and wannabe Dai Li agent but ends up being humbled by the troubles he goes through and learns to appreciate his family. On the other hand, Meixiang is a character who really feels like Vathara’s mouthpiece (albeit one of several, and probably the least obvious about it) when it comes to evangelizing Fire Nation values, and the revelation that she’s related to the Fire royal family kind of undercuts the Wens’ characterization as normal people caught up in big events (though it does underscore the fic’s fixation on royalty and nobility). And then, about two thirds of the way through the fic, despite being major characters beforehand they just sort of… drop out of the story and make only a handful of token appearances afterwards, leaving their arcs largely hanging. I think this really epitomizes a problem the latter part of the fic has – all the stuff with spirits and dragons really takes over the story, and ordinary people get left in the lurch.

Shirong: I’m torn on Shirong. In a vacuum, the idea of an honorable Dai Li agent who just wants to serve his city but gets caught up in events beyond his control, that force him to question his orders and everything he thought he knew, could be really compelling. Unfortunately, Embers as a whole as a problem with trying to whitewash the Dai Li, and I think Shirong really epitomizes that, because instead of being an outlier he actually ends up being her template for how the Dai Li in general are characterized, as honorable men willing to do the hard but necessary things to defend Ba Sing Se, who happen to be led by a bad apple. And as a whole, that makes me really uncomfortable. Speaking of uncomfortable, there’s something about how, after Shirong becomes a yaoren and a firebender, that he seemingly has to transfer his loyalty to a Fire Nation lord (Zuko, in this case) when it’s clear he wants to be a loyal subject of the Earth King that really rubs me the wrong way. As the fic goes on, he also feels like he keeps getting demoted being less a character in his own right and more a sidekick to Zuko and Langxue, who eat up most of the page time in the yaoren side of the story. Overall, I’d call him an interesting concept for a character, marred by… questionable execution.

Agents Quon, Bon, Bolin and the Dai Li in General: Lumping all of these guys together because, frankly, they all blur together. Like I mentioned with Shirong, Vathara’s idea of the Dai Li seems to be that they’re honorable men who want to protect Ba Sing Se and were just led astray by that dastardly Long Feng, which considering the sorts of people who tend to belong to these sorts of secret police organizations in real life seems… naïve, at best. Even Quon, Long Feng’s second-in-command, turns out to be a good guy when out of Long Feng and Azula’s influence – and speaking of Azula, they don’t join her of their own free will, but because she used her magic mind control powers on them. Furthermore, Vathara adds an entire idea that the Dai Li are supposed to be an order of exorcists and spirit fighters that has no basis in canon but gradually eats up their entire characterization here, until it’s hard to remember that they were ever supposed to be a secret police force. Occasionally the fic will nod at the Dai Li being bad – Zuko is disgusted by what he sees at Lake Laogai, but then we just turn around and are apparently supposed to assume that the people responsible for those atrocities really aren’t that bad, honest! The Gaang are even reprimanded by Amaya for assuming the Dai Li are evil… when they’ve been given no reason to think otherwise. Honestly, the whole thing bugs me.

Xiu: Not a huge part of the story, but she keeps popping up at various points, seemingly to offer a normal person’s perspective on things and/or to give Zuko or the Gaang someone to talk to. When it comes to fulfilling those roles, she’s… fine, and I don’t really have a lot to say on her otherwise, beyond that it does seem a little improbable that this random weaver keeps popping up all over the world just in time to run across the important characters (maybe she and a certain merchant of cabbage should start a support group).

Teruko: Teruko is another character who feels like she’s mostly there to be Vathara’s mouthpiece. As a dragon-child from Byakko, her primary role in the story seems to be to stand around delivering exposition about Byakko and/or dragons, at least until Shidan shows up and takes over the duties from her. When she’s not doing that, she’s clearly meant to be a cool tough girl type who everyone likes and looks up to, and as Zuko’s self-appointed bodyguard/aide/big sister figure she mostly has an excuse for hanging around even when she’s not really doing anything but backing Zuko up. That said, her role is kept specific enough that she feels like she largely avoids being too much of a spotlight-stealing-squad, though like most of the Byakko characters it’s hard to avoid the feeling that she’s supposed to represent what the Fire Nation is supposed to be like… which might be a plus or minus, depending on what you think of Vathara’s take on the Fire Nation. And at the end of the fic, she suddenly seems to be about to get together with Shirong… I’ll admit I’m bad at reading subtext, but I’m not sure that was foreshadowed at all?

Suzuran’s Crew: These guys are basically there to be one acme ragtag bunch of misfits ready to jump ship from the Fire Nation and side with Zuko, as essentially admitted in the ANs. Unfortunately, despite the amount of time we spend with Suzuran I feel like all of them aside from Teruko are pretty underdeveloped, having about one major personality trait – lovable klutz, grizzled NCO, charming ladies’ man, etc. – each, and despite the amount of fanfare they’re introduced with, it doesn’t really feel like they end up doing too much (aside from Sadao, said lovable klutz, learning Zuko’s firebending style) beyond dropping in occasionally to remind us that they’re there.

Shidan: Probably Vathara’s biggest mouthpiece, even more than Teruko. Like his fellow dragon Makoto, I don’t necessarily think Shidan is a bad character so much as I think he’s the wrong character for the Avatarverse. He’s potentially interesting in concept, as an ancient dragon hiding out among humans, seeking revenge for his slaughtered people, who fell in love with a human and sired a bloodline along the way, but unfortunately in execution he mostly seems to show up only to overshadow the other characters in the story. He’s an uber-mentor who knows more about what’s really going on than Iroh; he’s yet another character who lectures the Gaang on everything they’re doing wrong; he even killsteals Hama during her fight with Katara. In a lot of ways, he’s indicative of the dragon plotline as a whole, which isn’t a bad fantasy story on its own merits but sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the Avatarverse and tends to take over the whole story whenever it’s brought up. And then, weirdly just before the Day of Black Sun he wanders out of the story and never returns to it, leaving his entire subplot unresolved.

Langxue: Langxue is another character who, in theory, could be very interesting – an unlucky kid who is empowered as a yaoren, has to deal with new memories and new powers and a destiny he’s agreed to without really understanding what it means. Unfortunately, it feels like he mostly gets regulated to being “the yaoren who remembers his past life,” which mostly means he gets to lecture people about the real history of the Embers!verse, how yaoren work, they’re relationship with the Avatar, and so on – and to berate other characters, like Iroh and the Gaang, whenever they’re doing things wrong. Unfortunately, the fact that he suddenly gets his past life memories and now has to deal with that is mostly overlooked, and it feels like the fic never makes any real distinction between Langxue and Hyourin and generally treats them as the same guy, with continuity of existence. His relationship with his surrogate big sister, Saoluan, is sweet, but doesn’t really get enough focus, IMO. Basically, this is another case of a character who had potential that I didn’t really feel got realized.

Saoluan: Langxue’s adopted big sister. She’s another character who had interesting potential, as an adult Kyoshi Warrior from a generation above Suki, and also as a normal person who gets thrust into having to deal with spirit-y weirdness when her little brother becomes a yaoren. Unfortunately, it feels like Saoluan’s main role in the story is to be wrong about things, and to have to be corrected about them by Shidan/Zuko/Langxue himself – she’s even explicitly made a hypocrite so her criticism of Zuko for his attack on Kyoshi Island can be ignored. I also can’t help but feel like from her perspective, when Langxue recovered his past life memories that her little brother was suddenly taken away and replaced by a stranger… but the fic never really delves into that to any significant degree, and it feels like a missed opportunity. I do like what we see of Saoluan and Langxue’s dynamic when the yaoren stuff isn’t being centered in the narrative, though. Unfortunately, Soaluan is another character I feel had a lot of wasted potential.

Tao: Tao is Aang’s spiritual teacher. He’s not an uninteresting character, especially when we learn that he’s seeking atonement for his (minor and indirect) role in the Air Nomad genocide, the revelation of which is also a rare moment where Aang feels in-character as well. Unfortunately, I don’t think Vathara likes him much, probably because he hates the Fire Nation (with very good reason, as it happens). Almost everything he teaches Aang about spirits, the Fire Nation, and bending turns out to be either flat-out wrong or at least fatally flawed, and he seems to make Aang’s personal issues worse, rather than better. And after Aang runs off to the fire Nation, Tao stays with Hakoda’s fleet… and becomes yet another character who disappears from the story, his arc unresolved.

Eshe and Amisi: Two sandbenders (technically, a sandbender and an airbender) who come to Ba Sing Se to court the Earth King. They’re introduced with much fanfare… and then, because Vathara decides to abandon the Ba Sing Se plotline two chapters later, they vanish from the story (noticing a pattern here?) save for a brief cameo at the end.

An Lu-Shan and Yakume: Huojin’s boss and the Fire Nation sergeant put over his company during the occupation of Ba Sing Se, respectively. I don’t have a lot to say about them individually; they just seem like two more of the gruff, professional, dutiful veterans this fic is replete with already, and they don’t really stand out. Their storyline feels like it’s essentially a buddy cop kind of thing – an Earth Kingdom guardsman and Fire Nation soldier are forced to learn to work together! They fight crime (literally)! But in the broader context of the fic, it’s kind of hard to ignore that Yakume is part of a hostile military force occupying Lu-shan’s city, and that Yakume is part of an overall trend of presenting the rank-and-file Fire Nation soldiers as honorable men and women serving their country, with the real problems coming exclusively from the leadership, and so I have to side-eye it a bit. And then the Ba Sing Se plotline peters out and the two of them, guess what, vanish entirely from the story.

Temul: Okay, I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between what Vathara says she’s doing with Temul, and what she’s actually doing with Temul. Per the ANs, Temul is supposed to be a representation of how even a nasty, bigoted person can become a hero and do the right thing under the right circumstances (in this case, defying Sozin and helping save Air Nomad children from the genocide). On the other hand… almost all the terrible things Temul says and believes about Air Nomads are borne out by the story, so the moral comes off as more like “as obnoxious as the Air Nomads are, their children don’t actually deserve to die for their parents’ sins” which is… a rather different (and decidedly more uncomfortable) thing. And then there’s also her forced “adoption” (which reads more like mind-rape) of Sokka, the consequences of which the fic never, IMO, adequately wrestles with. And of course, because she was a dragon-child in life, as a ghost she’s extra-special and extra-powerful.

Shih and Gyate: Aang’s biological parents. Okay, the fic dances around the idea, but… it’s pretty clear that’s what they are. As ghosts, bound to the Western Air Temple they don’t get a lot of focus, but considering the fic’s overall focus on bloodlines, clans and heredity, and how unnatural everyone else things the Air Nomads are for raising their children communally, there’s something kind of off about the implication that Aang can’t save the world unless he knows his biological family. And of course, Shih turns out to have been a renegade Fire Nation onmitsu, because why wouldn’t he be?

Asahi: Zuko’s ostrich-horse. They’re clearly meant to have a deep Aang-and-Appa style bond, but I don’t think Vathara does a great job of showing it. After Zuko and Asahi are separated at the beginning of the Ba Sing Se arc, despite how distressed we’re told Zuko is I don’t think he thinks about her at all until they’re reunited several arcs later, and even after that her appearances tend to be sporadic at best. Still, there’s something appropriate about Zuko having a cranky ostrich-horse that he seems to be the only one capable of bonding with, you’ve got to admit.

Boots: The betobeto spirit Zuko sends the Gaang’s way. He essentially ends up becoming another team pet for the Gaang, and really doesn’t add much to the story, beyond being Toph’s partner in mischief and showing that Aang doesn’t know as much about spirits as he thought he did.

Skylord Subodai: The idea of a historical Air Nomad leader being the Avatarverse’s equivalent of Genghis Khan isn’t entirely without merit. Unfortunately, it’s almost entirely in the service of how the Fire Nation are the only ones who remember the real history of the Air Nomads and how terrifying they were, and the implication that the Air Nomads have no moral high ground over the Fire Nation because Subodai conquering the world in the name of “peace” is no different from Sozin conquering the world in the name of “prosperity.” The implication that the Fire Nation really did battle an “Air Nation army” and had lingering cultural trauma from it, and that was the basis of the propaganda in the history textbook Aang read… isn’t great, though in another fic I might let it slide.

Xiangchen: Despite having been dead a thousand years, Xiangchen really feels like he’s posthumously one of the fic’s main antagonists. It turns out the Air Nomads’ entire religion was a sham, created by this guy who only believed in peace because he hated warriors, who brainwashed everyone to go along with him (including Yangchen, before she was rescued) and was being guided by visions that were being sent to him by Koh. Needless to say, I can’t help but find all of this super uncomfortable, and a lot of it feels like it’s aimed at Aang explicitly – hey, your culture’s greatest hero, the guy you admire more than anyone, was actually a monster as bad as Sozin! Have fun with that! I can get trying to grey up the Air Nomads a bit, but I feel like Vathara takes it too far, and Xiangchen, as the root of the problem, epitomizes that.

Avatar Kesuk: Arguably the one who really started this mess; a Northern Water Tribe Avatar who went mad two thousand years ago and had to be put down, earning humanity Koh’s enmity in the process. Considering the rest of the fic, and how the Avatar in general, waterbending and things related to water, and Water Tribe women who aren’t Amaya tend to be portrayed, the idea that it was a female Water Tribe Avatar who was responsible for everything going wrong has me side-eyeing it (especially with the repeated assertion that the next Avatar will also be a Water Tribe woman, and the assumption that this will also be a bad thing). It doesn’t help that she’s only introduced about three-quarters of the way through the fic, without any real foreshadowing before that, which makes it seem (whether it’s true or not) that it was relatively late in the game that Vathara decided on just what Koh’s beef was and hastily added Kesuk in to explain it.

Ping: Okay, Ping… is hard to talk about. She was the victim of sexual assault from Fire Nation troops, and a subsequent honor killing by her own family. I’m not the best person to say whether the fic handles such dark issues in a responsible manner, so I’ll refrain. I do think it’s a bit… off how Ping is basically a McGuffin who exists to set off a plot Zuko stumbles onto, which is driven entirely by how she died rather than anything she did while alive; and also that the fic heavily and rightly emphasizes how horrible her family’s actions were… but mostly glosses over the Fire Nation soldiers who raped her in the first place. But at least she’s happy with Lu Ten in the afterlife now? *shrugs*

Conclusion Embers is well known for its huge cast of characters, both canon characters and OCs. And it definitely deserves that; even just looking at the prominent ones here, and clumping some related characters together, it clearly has a ton of them. And, to Vathara’s credit, a lot of her OCs are genuinely memorable, and generally, with a few exceptions (Shidan…) don’t take over the story at the expense of the rest of the cast. Unfortunately, I think a lot of Vathara’s characterizations of the canon characters are… odd, seeming to be less reflections of their canonical selves and more being bent into particular shapes to make particular points, and as other reviews have mentioned, when Vathara doesn’t like a character, hoo boy, it shows. Several of the OCs (Meixiang, Teruko, Shidan, Langxue, and Temul being the most obvious) also fall into a trap where it feels like they’re being used as an authorial mouthpiece, to lecture the other characters and/or the reader about how the world really works, which if you don’t agree with Vathara’s takes can get a little wearying after a while. I think the fic also has trouble juggling its large cast – even with its massive size, it’s pretty clear Vathara ends up not being able to keep all the balls she’s put in the air spinning, and a number of characters (Shidan, Shiyu, Tao) or whole subplots (Ba Sing Se, the Wens) either fizzle out anticlimactically or just vanish completely without any real resolution to their arcs. Still, even with the flaws, managing as large a cast as she does is pretty impressive for a fic of this scope. Anyway, next time – and hopefully the wait won’t be as long *fingers crossed* - we’ll wrap up the review entirely, focusing on overall plot, themes, the fic’s relationship to canon, and my final thoughts about the whole thing. See you all then, and thanks to everyone who’s stuck with me on this!

#critical #embers #embers critical #fanfic review #reviews #avatar: the last airbender #long post

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robotlesbianjavert · 1 year ago

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i’ve been following you for a while and i love your blog! got a question however: i see you blogging moral orel and i’ve never seen it but from what i’ve read on wikipedia, how would you compare the bad dad to bnha’s bad dads. is he fit to join the club. looking at him gives me afo vibes somehow.

eyyyyy thanks for following and keeping up !! you're a trooper. anyways clay puppington is way way worse than the bnha bad dads. like easy clear. one of the best characters! but definitely the worst dad.

moral orel primer

The thing about Moral Orel is that it's an edgy-ish mid 2000s satire about hypocritical fundamentalist Protestant environments and how badly one eager and god-loving kid can be lead to misinterpret the bible. It's got that irreverent humour. Skip the episode "God's Xhef" if you ever watch it. To set up my point, one of the running gags for the series is that at the result of Orel's shenanigans is Clay taking Orel to his study to belt him. And then his pants fall down! haha.

The series then takes a swerve, starting from the first season Christmas episode and leading into the third season, for a darker, more character-driven narrative. It delves more into the citizens of Moralton, the impact that their Christian environment has on them and their relationships with each other, and bits of history to understand how they turned out the way they did, etc

One of the characters most impacted here is Clay. While he's always been the second-most prominent character after Orel himself, and their relationship is central to the story, it's with this new take on the story that Clay really becomes the deuteragonist of the series. He becomes that much more fascinating a character, and his treatment of Orel and his family becomes that much more vile. Sadly the third season is cut short, reportedly after execs saw a particularly dark episode (not Orel or Clay related!) and thought. hm. that wasn't funny.

I lay that all out to explain that while Moral Orel starts off as a pretty silly, shock-value cartoon about how weird Christians are, it also depicts a lot of serious subject matters, and the treatment of that is much more frank and realistic and difficult as the series progresses.

So while he becomes a much more developed character that the audience can understand, Clay's abusive behaviour loses a lot of that wink-wink satirical irony. He's also CRAZY pathetic.

also it's got the mountain goats! that's how i first found moral orel!

how comparable is it to bnha?

First things first, I do think there are largely interesting things to say about how BNHA depicts abuse, despite the downhill trend of writing in the third act that I complain about all the time. I don't think every aspect is perfect, but it's like. I do think there's more positive to say there than how other stories depict abuse. There's actually lots that I love about what the series does, or think that it could do were it not hobbled by things and stuff.

Ultimately, there isn't really a bulletproof way of comparing fictional abusive situations to another, because respective to real life you can't compare one abusive situation against the other.

But one can compare things like the genre and structure of a story, who the intended audience is, what the production of the story is like, how much time and focus can be devoted to certain subjects and what the actual focus is meant to be, etc etc.

Moral Orel can pull together different elements of abuse, like the suffocating environment of Christian fundamentalism, the abuse of a self-destructive alcoholic, the neglect that comes from mutually disaffected and inept parents, the generational nature of abuse, so on and so forth in a sincere way. Meanwhile BNHA, as a weekly serialized shonen battle manga whose creator has become increasingly rundown, has Things To Say, but doesn't necessarily have the same capacity to devote its power to those things. Abuse is vital to the themes of BNHA, but it's not the center of it the way it is for Moral Orel.

So when Clay does his thing, stripped of the fantastical couching of BNHA's bad dads, it just feels more real and it feels worse as a result.

anyways.

clay SMASH bnha's bad dad club

Never a question that Clay is a worse dad than Enji lmao. However one feels about Endeavour's arc, or how well-written or 'deserved' it is, or how successful and genuine Enji is in his efforts, at the very least he's realised that he's done wrong and wants to atone for it, while also grappling with the fact that there may be no way for him to do that. spoilers but clay shan't do this. you get flickers that he has regrets, but he'll NEVER change baby.

I guess Clay gets a one-up where his marriage with Bloberta is mutually destructive, harmful, and toxic in comparison to Enji unambiguously abusing Rei though. so failmarriage win.

Kotarou is actually similar to Clay though! Lots to say, to compare and contrast. I'm actually kind of obsessed, especially because what I said about Clay being more realistic also applies to Kotarou - Kotarou just gets less screentime. They're both deeply affected by their childhood and relationships with their own parents in ways they take it out on their children (the "explained but not excused" idea behind fictional depictions of generational abuse). They also project an image of the upper(?)-middle class family man and Patriarch of the household, either to make up for the failings of their childhood or because it's what expected of them as a man in their world. (Wee bit of conjecture on Kotarou's part but I think it has solid grounding.)

But there's also significant differences. Physical abuse is normalized as corporal between Clay and Orel, on top of the emotional abuse, manipulation, and neglect. Kotarou's abuse of Tenko is largely emotional, with the big slap implied to be the first time that abuse manifested as physical and a line crossed for the rest of the family. And while I'm sure some people would debate this, the idea that Kotarou promised Nao a home full of joy feels genuine. He did want that, the happy family full of smiles he lost as a kid, only for his own resentment to poison everything when Tenko can't obey the rules Kotarou created and enforced to achieve it. Clay, on the other hand, like. There's bits of him implying he loves his family but doesn't have the means to show or act on it, but when he has a whole speech about the sacrifices he makes for his family, family never rings as more than an obligation that he has to put up with for the appearance of manhood.

And Shigaraki can have xyz feelings about his dad forever, but he accepts and espouses the one true lesson Kotarou taught him, that heroes can't do shit all. His father was always a scary and domineering figure, but it feels like while he will never forgive him, Shigaraki does understand him more as an adult. Meanwhile, Orel tries as hard as he can to honour thy father until he can't anymore.

Again, I think that Clay and Kotarou are probably most comparable in terms of being the Bad Dad with some similar hang-ups and relationships to their kids, but part of what makes Kotarou interesting is that we don't know what he would have done had Tenko's quirk not triggered how and when it did. With his family finally willing to push back against him and himself feeling regret for hitting Tenko, could he have changed? We don't know! But much like I said when talking about Enji, Clay's never going to change.

All For One has become more of a cartoon villain that I am determined to turn into a dress up doll for my own amusement than a bad dad and is more evil guardian or whatever. BUT there's one thing that I almost forgot about when I was first writing this up, but realised is actually soooo interesting.

There's a lot to say about AFO and Clay being the primary "teacher" to Shigaraki and Orel! I that while AFO does influence Shigaraki's villainous ideals, he also lets society and Shigaraki's experiences speak for themselves. And frankly, Shigaraki has a lot of leeway and agency in evolving his ideals through his own experiences, particularly after AFO's incarceration. He sees AFO for what he is, probably has for a long time, and is determined to establish his own identity outside of AFO regardless of what Shigaraki has learned from him. Clay is much more strict and obvious about imposing his worldview on his son, but while Orel is desperate for his dad's approval and love and can be led to do things that feel wrong for that love, Orel never absorbs those lessons the way that Clay wants him to, and separating himself from his father and come to terms with what Clay has done is a much more difficult process.

but mostly i just think that clay could do this

and afo could do this

beautiful world.

#abuse discussion cw. obviously.#sorry if you didn't expect an essay but i Love Moral Orel. i need to rewatch.#thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk at length. about. moral orel. i love you anon.#bnha bloggin #moral orel bloggin

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paperbackpercolate · 24 days ago

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Review: "Strange Sally Diamond" by Liz Nugent

Published: 2023 Page Count: 317

Reclusive Sally Diamond is thrust into the media spotlight when she tries to incinerate her dead father, causing widespread outrage. Now she’s the center of attention, not only from hungry reporters and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she does not remember. As she begins to discover the repressed memories of her horrific early childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

Date Started: 17 October 2024 Date Finished: 22 October 2024

Strange Sally Diamond is like a psychological case study from the perspective of the individual being studied.

What begins as a simple story of misunderstanding and the inner world of a woman who self-describes herself as "socially deficient" quickly becomes a story of abuse, abduction, and lies.

After her adoptive father's death, information concerning Sally's birth parents and the events of her adoption which turns her world sideways as she learns to come to terms with the truth of who she is.

When beginning this book I found it very similar to Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. But as the story progressed I realized it was much darker and intense than I had initially assumed.

Anyone who's taken an intro to psychology class is probably familiar with the "Genie Case Study"- the story of a little girl raised for the first several years of her life in extremely abusive and neglectful conditions.

Without giving away too much of Strange Sally Diamond, let's just say that if you were moved or intrigued by that incident, or if you recall Lane DeGregory’s Pulitzer Prize winning article The Girl in the Window, you would enjoy this book.

While in all fairness, the ending is a little bleak, the journey to get there is well worth the read.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the 2016 film Room, if you have any interest in psychology, or if you enjoy morally gray and unreliable protagonists and deuteragonist.

"In the outside world, you will find more people who are kind than people who are not. Seek them out."

#currently reading #october of 24 #reading #strange sally diamond #liz nugent #crime novel #mystery

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zuko-always-lies · 3 years ago

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Zuko Centric-Morality and the Fire Nation

Often times it seems within ATLA’s narrative whether Fire Nation characters are “good people” is determined by how nice they are to Zuko or how nice they are to people who are nice to Zuko, not by any of their other actions. This is definitely true with respect to fanon and within the the fanbase.

There are four Fire Nation characters which violate this rule, notably with three of them being from Book 1. These are clearly good people, and are presented as such, without having a real connection to Zuko or Iroh. They are Piandao, Jeong Jeong, Shyu, and Chey.

However, beyond that a certain pattern becomes clear. Iroh inflicted decades of imperial violence upon the world and isn’t being very proactive about stopping imperial violence in the present(he even gives Zhao good military advice during Zhao’s attempt to conquer the Northern Water Tribe!). He’s nice to Zuko, so from the beginning(long before his White Lotus connections were added) he was always presented as a “good” person, and the fanbase thinks of him as perfect.

Lt. Jee and Zuko’s crew become respectful and nice to Zuko once they find out about Zuko’s backstory, so they’re presented sympathetically and as “good people” from that point onward, and Lt. Jee tends to be positively depicted in the fanfics where he shows up. Never mind that helping Zuko at that point involved inflicting imperial violence on world...

Zuko and Iroh loved Lu Ten, and I believe we’re supposed to believe that Lu Ten loved Iroh and Zuko back and was kind to them. Lu Ten is framed entirely sympathetically, and in fanfiction he’s almost always presented as “a good person.” Never mind that he was an adult soldier who died fighting in an imperial war of aggression.

Ursa laughs at the thought of Ba Sing Se burning to the ground, and if we look at her original intended backstory, it becomes clear that she must have supported the war. The decision she made to murder Azulo and support Ozai coup is also responsible for the Big Bad of the series being in power, although she didn’t exactly have good choices there. Yet, because she was a good mother to Zuko, she’s almost always considered a good person by the fanbase, and the narrative frames her as angelic.

Ming, the guard who was nice to Iroh, is almost always presented positively in the few fanfics she shows up in(maybe one of the reasons she’s so kind to him is because she thinks very positively of his achievements as Dragon of the West? That would be an interesting take).

Mai commits treason to save Zuko’s life and is generally kind to him, so she’s “a good person” and not a morally grey character according to the narrative and fanbase, even though she voluntary joined up with Azula for her own enjoyment and regarded engaging in imperial conquest as an enjoyable hobby. Definitely there are very few fanfics which grapple with what she did during the war and why she did it.

Ty Lee is always nice to Zuko, at least in their two canon interactions in the present. More importantly, she commits treason to protect Mai, who committed treason to protect Zuko. That marks her as “a good person” in the eyes of the narrative and fanbase, even though Ty Lee was clearly shown as having a blast helping Azula engage in imperial conquest. Like with Mai, there are very few fanfics which grapple with what she did during the war and why she did it. Remember, the Dangerous Ladies conquered Ba Sing Se together(and with Zuko’s help, of course).

On the other side, we have Ozai and Zhao, who are mean and awful to Zuko and are painted as evil for it. In fact, the thing what really confirms their awfulness in the eyes of audience is how mean they are to Zuko, not any of the other heinous stuff they did. We also have Azula, a younger sister who made the unforgivable mistake of being nearly as mean to her older brother as he was to her.

It’s funny, though. On one hand we have Zuko, Piandao, Jeong Jeong, Shyu, and Chey. These are people who had to fully come to terms with how awful the Fire Nation actions are and how their own actions aided the Fire Nation’s war of conquest as part of the process of becoming good people. If I’m generous, I might throw Iroh into this pile.

On the other hand, we have Lt. Jee, Lu Ten, Ursa, Ming, Mai, and Ty Lee. These are “good people,” according to the narrative and particularly the fandom, because they were nice to Zuko or Iroh, even though they played their own roles in perpetuating the Fire Nation’s imperial war and never came to terms with it.

Dare I mention that many Azula “redemption” fanfics center entirely on her becoming a better sister to Zuko? Dare I mention that the head writer of ATLA’s ideas for an Azula redemption arc seems to center around Azula becoming a better sister to Zuko and a nicer person, not with her coming to terms with the Fire Nation’s imperialism?

It seems like ATLA’s narrative and fandom suffers from a case of deuteragonist-centered morality. Which is funny, because for the first two and a half seasons Zuko was a villain and “being nice to him” or “being kind to him” would frequently involve helping him do bad things, or at least allowing him to bad things.

#Azula #Zuko #Ozai #Iroh #Lt. Jee #Lu Ten #Ursa #Ming #Mai #Ty Lee #Zhao #Piandao #Jeong Jeong #Shyu #Chey #Protagonist-centered morality #deuteragonist-centered morality #Seriously this is pretty questionable writing

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fuckdamn · 2 years ago

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if i had a nickel for every time my favorite character from a vince gilligan tv show was the troubled and deeply traumatized deuteragonist who nonetheless has a stronger moral center than the increasingly irredeemable protagonist and struggles to function under the weight of their own crushing guilt i would have two nickels. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice actually no it’s not weird because of course they are narratively parallel because brba/bcs are mythic in their storytelling with potent themes of death and birth, adulthood and childhood and innocence and ignorance, autonomy and its absence, legacies and how they’re built and destroyed, points of no return, the image of the ouroboros invoked in brba 2.12 phoenix and 2.13 abq remains burningly relevant over a decade later and it hurts so fucking bad anyway jesse bummed a cigarette from kim jesse and kim scene hahahaha epic cool

#lotte.txt #bcs spoilers #bcs #brba

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hyperfixation-hideout · 2 years ago

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Oscar isn't even a side character? XD Side characters would be Illia, Sun, Velvet, Winter and so on Oscar isn't one of the top main characters but he is still a member of the main cast lol

Right?? Oscar's not as much of a main character as RWBY but he's a strong deuteragonist with tons of plot relevance. Hell, I'd honestly say that narratively speaking he's more of a "main character" story-wise than JNPR. His role as Ozpin's reincarnation automatically put him high in the ranks of important characters, but he certainly wasn't acting as a main character early on. Important, yes, but not central or a major role, and only by proxy of Oz. He steadily became more involved in the storylines the main characters were in and began some arcs/conflicts of his own, but I can absolutely see why someone would see him as a side character even up through Volume 6.

But in Atlas? Sure, he was absent for a good chunk of the middle of v7, but he was a major player in it from the moment he confronted Ruby about lying to the moment he crash-landed in Mantle. He had more screentime in the v7 finale than any other character, was the inciting factor in bringing Ruby's inner conflict to the surface, was key advisor to Ironwood's moral quandaries (even being the one to convince him to open up to the council while he was mid-breakdown), was the reason Ruby changed her mind and decided to tell Ironwood about Salem, was the one to tell Ironwood, was the one to disobey the group's instructions and go extend another chance to Ironwood, had a whole speech about trust and fear (multiple, actually), got shot, unlocked magic, and took Ozpin's return in stride. He had a much larger effect on the overall plot and themes of v7 than JNR, or heck, even Weiss (they did play roles, of course! Just not as impactful cumulatively. Blake and Yang are debatable, but telling Robyn edges out arresting Jacques in terms of big-picture consequence, imo). Oscar was at the heart of the volume's core dilemma, along with Ruby, Ironwood, and to some extent Penny.

And Volume 8? Man, oh man, volume 8. Fun game: watch the first 10 chapters of v8 with the perspective that Oscar is the main character of the show. I know he's not, but just pretend as a thought experiment. It works perfectly. Team JOYR had more direct plot interaction for most of the volume than RWBN (Penny being an exception, of course), so when that yt channel posted "movie" versions showing each group's journey, a lot of people noted that it worked better to watch the RWBN one first and then JOYR, since the latter has higher stakes and feels more climactic and important to the story. There were comments like "wow, if you think about JORY as the main characters this volume makes a lot more sense." A large portion of that video was Oscar/Ozpin content. He got kinda shafted in the last couple chapters, but up until then, from a literary standpoint, Oscar was effectively serving as the primary protagonist of the volume, with Penny as the central character and Ruby as leader.

He was the first protagonist shown on screen for the volume, was retrieved and questioned with a setup for conflict with Oz, got captured by the show's Big Bad (prompting JYR's story to center around his rescue), was interrogated and tortured by Salem, was then tortured by Hazel for information, refused Ozpin's requests to take over and escape, came up with the idea to sabotage Salem from within, worked together with Oz to chip away at Hazel's devotion, had an introspective scene reflecting on the person he used to be and who he is now as well as fearing who he'll become, took over and took the risk of telling Hazel the password, which led to him trusting them and helping them escape along with Emerald (who had overheard Oscar revealing the password), BLASTED SALEM WITH MAGIC TWICE, blew up the whale that was destroying the kingdom (saving countless lives and allowing an evacuation to even be possible), killed Hazel as a sacrifice to save JOYRE, advocated for the group to give Emerald another chance even if they choose not to forgive her (she & others wanted her to leave; Oscar was the catalyst for her joining forces), vouched for Oz with a heartfelt speech, had the final moment of the reunion scene (framing his & Ruby's reunion as significant and cutting it off with him having to defend Emerald), and was constantly echoing the volume's core themes while mediating conflicts and bridging gaps to facilitate cooperation. He both acted as and was framed as the protagonist for much of the volume.

RWBY as a franchise is very centric on teams RWBY & JNPR. Look at the merch, the spinoffs, the supplemental material. Oscar's not given the "main character" treatment in the franchise, and is often (nearly always) absent from side content entirely. It's not surprising people don't tend to see him as a main character. But in the actual show? He is one. He's not THE main character, but he is A main character, and has more than earned that spot in the last couple volumes. I simply cannot see an argument for him being a "side character" after volume 8.

#well this got lengthy #ah well #oscar pine #rwby meta #rwby character analysis #quinpost #quinanswer

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isthatmanahimbo · 2 years ago

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Continuing on with a previous entry’s rugged-mountainous aesthetic, we have fan-favorite Hashibira Inosuke!

Inosuke is a deuteragonist of the smash hit animanga series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, first published in Shounen Jump in 2019 and promptly rocketing to the top of sales lists worldwide in the years following. Inosuke was abandoned in the woods as a child and raised by a family of boar, and part of his character design is the boar head that he wears more often than not – this further reinforces the overall theme of family and foundation in Demon Slayer as Inosuke strives for more strength to carve out his place in an ever-expanding world.

Even discounting the boar's head that he wears, Inosuke's design is striking – where other characters choose to wear the standard uniform of the Demon Slayer Corps, with their own distinctive patterned haori, Inosuke chooses to go bare-chested, pelts slung all over the lower half of his body. Although the main cast are all shown to be physically at their peak due to their profession, Inosuke is notable in that he is the only member of the younger half of the cast whose physique is noted on by his peers – it is remarkable, Zenitsu wonders upon first meeting him, that someone so fucking shredded could have such soft facial features. Inosuke's physicality gets him into and out of scrapes, as his fighting style centers around instinct, sensations he can pick up on his bared skin, and good old-fashioned bullheadedness. No fancy breathing styles for this guy when shredding-gnashing-tearing will do the job just fine.

At his introduction, Inosuke starts out quite selfish in his stated desires and in his perception of himself, not putting any sort of sense of justice or hatred of demons as his motivations for joining the Demon Slayer Corps, merely the desire to get stronger. Upon meeting Tanjiro, Nezuko and Zenitsu, and others along their journey, Inosuke promptly face-heel turns into a more magnanimous worldview. Heart-Full can't be stated as his greatest character trait, but he makes long strides in that area very quickly upon being shown even the barest kindness, and it becomes clear that his selfishness has nothing to do with any underlying maliciousness, it is purely his inexperience with an outside world. He may have to outsource his moral compass from time to time, but the important thing is that he knows when to ask.

Another result of this isolation in his upbringing is his less-than-refined mental acuity. Some of it can be written off as naivete or inexperience, for one example believing that a never-before-seen steam train is a forest spirit and lord of the land (and wanting to jump out of the window to see if he can win in a footrace), other instances are less optimistic. What else should one do when one is dropped by a headbutt than run headfirst into tree trunks to try to harden one's skull? The logic is infallible.

Luckily, Inosuke has a gang of closeknit friends that he can outsource that mental heavy-lifting for him – and boy is Inosuke smitten with his chosen people. We get regular instances of Inosuke going googly and heaving dreamy sighs when someone close to him (usually Tanjiro) does something impressive or hands him a compliment. He isn't picky on gender, either – Inosuke makes mental grabby-hands for the slightest hint of affection whenever anyone speaks to him, and it is not difficult to impress him. This boy Chads and is Chadded in return, like any good polycule.

Comin' through, comin' through – we got a grade-A Himbo comin' through!

Total Himbo Score: 19

#is that man a himbo?#whoa mama! rating: himbo #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #hashibira inosuke #inosuke kny #inosuke demon slayer

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paragonrobits · 4 years ago

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an important thing about Aang and Zuko’s character arcs is that they are deuteragonists of the same larger story, with Zuko learning to accept that his nation is wrong and must be brought to balance and to atone for the crimes of his forebears, while Aang grows into a more proactive, decisive figure.

from the beginning, they have this dynamic; Zuko has the resources, the skills and the sheer obsessive determination to go straight for what he wants without anything holding him back. However, Zuko spends much his arc learning that he is wrong. That his entire nation is corrupt; that his family is horrendously guilty of unspeakable evil against the entire world, and that everything he wants is pointless. His character arc is him suffering so that he intimately understands this.

Zuko is decisive, but he is always wrong.

Aang is perhaps the wisest and most spiritually keen person outside of the White Lotus. He is the moral and ethical center of the series, as well as a comedic relief in a world of constant war trying to force itself to be Serious and Grim all the dang time. Aang knows the right thing to do, and he is principled enough that he refuses to simply do the pragmatic thing, as he notes repeatedly that pragmatism won’t actually help anyone long term. And he is correct; the quick solutions advocated by other characters would ultimately be counterproductive. When Aang commits to a decision, it invariably winds up being the correct one. And yet, him actually commiting is a problem, as much of his life problems is him being incredibly avoidant and passive.

Aang lacks decisiveness, but he is always right.

Their respective character arcs center on two things:

1. Zuko internalizing Aang’s own goals and working with him, in defiance of what his ancestors have done.

2. Them gaining traits from the other one, perhaps in a sense learning from each other’s traditions; Zuko learns the freedom of Air, while Aang gains the sense of resolve that seems to be a Fire trait. Seperation is an illusion, and so they learn from one another as they bring about peace and understanding.

#atla #aang #avatar the last airbender #zuko #meta #analysis

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insufferableprotagonistpoll · 8 months ago

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Round 3

Propaganda why Marinette Dupain-Cheng is insufferable:

She easily gets away with bad, stalkerish behavior, it always feels like she can ‘do no wrong’ unless the show wants us to pity her, and the show writers want us to think she is a quirky and socially awkward girl when throughout the series we see her be friends with basically everyone in Paris with many connections to high up places.

I get she has social anxiety but the way she goes about stalking Adrien is kind of the worst like she even has creep shots of him hanging in her room? That’s weird. I think Adrien’s going through enough without having to deal with the main character being his stalker lol. I know they’re (spoilers) at this point but in the beginning it was so sus

In the newest season, Marinette hides the fact that Hawkmoth was Adrien’s dad. This leads to the bastard getting a statue and honored as a hero after his death. Adrien now never gets to know the fact that his abusive and neglectful father was the one trying to kill him and is instead proud of him.

Her crush on Adrien is like a black hole for her character. Things she’s done because of it:

1) stolen property

2) ruined dates

3) humiliated other characters

4) has a chart of Adrien’s daily schedule for the next year in her room (this is stalking)

5) broke into his room and sniffed his pillow (also a crime)

6) sniffed, took the hair from, and tried to kiss what she thought was a wax statue of Adrien

7) convinced her parents to let her go to China. Why? Not because she wants to connect with her mother’s heritage, not even because she’s a budding fashion designer and Shanghai is considered a fashion hotspot. It’s because Adrien was there.

I started the show, watched one episode, and never tried again. I simply do not vibe with her.

shes annoyinng anf shes a stalker

I love fanon miraculous but by god she has got to stop obsessively stalking her crush and generally making a ton of other terrible decisions. I’d submit Adrien too but he’s more of a deuteragonist

More propaganda

Anti propaganda

Propaganda why Aelin Ashryver Galathynius is insufferable:

Your basic Mary Sue. Styled as the incredibly cool best-assassin in the land at only 18, she nevertheless is constantly snuck up upon, distracted by pretty boys, and possesses not an ounce of wit. In a competition between murderers and thieves to win a place as the King's Champion, she sees a bag of chocolates on her bed that she didn't put there and immediately starts eating it and gushing about how much she adores chocolate - nevermind that they just had a trial involving poison, which several of her competitors are adept at. She's always right, and other characters exist just to tell her how awesome and beautiful and wonderful she is. And then she turns out to be a super special magical fey princess!

I generally don't believe that a Mary Sue is a bad thing, but the only thing I remember about this book was how she had been in prison for years but was super young but was also still the most super-specialest assassin. And she kept reading when she should have been training or sleeping. Like, girl, this is not final exams where you can stay up all night and then roll into class in your pajamas and still squeak out a C. It's supposed to be life and death. Her character traits didn't make her relatable, they made her a moron

Heir to a kingdom plus turquoise eyes plus best assassin in the world plus protagonist centered morality

Anti propaganda

Propaganda why Dean Winchester is insufferable:

Really mean to Cas (called him a child, zero respect for him, calls him family and casts him out when the angels are looking for him), and an absolute dick to Jack (threatening to kill him CONSTANTLY)

>Was a misogynist (loved to call women skanks, bitches, hoes)

>Used gay as an insult multiple time during the show's run (idc if he's gay an homophobic, that's still insulting)

>Beat up his brother for being possessed

>Beat up his brother for losing his soul (not his brother's fault)

>Used dubious consent to get his brother possessed in a different unrelated possession incident after possession was being used (badly...this is supernatural after all) as a metaphor for SA

>Threatened to murder his brother when he was hallucinating (yay we aren't ableist)

>Locked a child up in a box

>Threatened to kill the child he locked up in a box

>Made a creepy, sexual comment about a barely-legal high school girl

>Got the woman and kid he was living with memory-wiped

misogynistic scumbag. theres also a few different times that dean finds teenagers sexy with the most recent and prominent example that i can recall being the scooby doo crossover episode in season 13 where hes super into daphne who in the version they chose for the episode is 15-16 and is interacting with her as if shes a real person cause they got magicked into the episode. he treats everyone around him like shit and the only time the narrative agrees that thats a bad thing is when he has the mark of cain put on him and hes acting no differently than he does usually its just now acknowledged that hes treating others like shit. ive been rewatching the show for shits and giggles with a friend and wow he really does not treat anyone well but i wanna focus on how he treats sam for a second cause dude's hobby seems to be ignoring what his brother wants and lying to sam about doing stuff that directly concerns him the demon blood and souless things are reasonable cause those were both Bad for sam but theyre still part of a wider pattern and the most prominent example of this being when dean tricks sam into letting gadreel possess him and actually gaslights sam about it with the whole ordeal ending when its revealed gadreel lied about who he was and while possessing sam murders a friend of theirs. his voice is just also stupid as fuck im sorry this is just petty but he just sounds like hes trying so hard to be gruff n intimidating but he just sounds like a kid pretending to be batman

Dean’s list of sins is crazy long because of how long the show ran, but the key thing for me is that post-locking Sam in the bunker (season 4 I think?), I just can’t enjoy their relationship anymore. I normally love their sibling dynamic, but Dean’s ultimate worst past-the-point-of-no-return moment for me was demonizing (pun intended) his little brother for being “addicted” to demon blood, which only happened because of a series of events that were either Dean’s or someone else’s fault, not Sam’s. I also really dislike how the fandom treats Dean like this angel (pun intended) who has done no wrong and even tries to justify the MULTIPLE times he’s beaten up and otherwise abused his little brother. Canon Dean is like the polar opposite of fanon Dean: he’s homophobic and racist (jokes about a Black man being sexually assaulted in prison), misogynistic (take a shot every time he calls a woman a slur and you’ll die of alcohol poisoning), and abusive.

#marinette dupain cheng #mlb marinette #miraculous ladybug #mlb #aelin ashryver galathynius #aelin galathynius #celaena sardothien #throne of glass #dean winchester #supernatural #supernatural dean #insufferable protagonist poll #insufferable protagonist tournament #tournament poll

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algernoninwonderland · 2 years ago

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There are many pieces of media with protagonist-centered morality, but ML is probably only piece of media with deuteragonist-centered morality

Nah. I want to be fair when I have negative things to say about a piece of media, and your assessment simply isn’t true when taking into account the broader media landscape. (Also, TV Tropes is a very flawed tool and I don’t think it’s useable for serious critical analyses in most cases).

What is true, however, is that the degree to which the deuteragonist ends up always being right in Miraculous is almost comically excessive.

#ask #ml

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noelleification · 4 years ago

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I wrote an essay about she-ra supremacy and i want to share it with you

For context, my English teacher and I have been in an elaborate pissing contest for the past year. He said fan fiction was bad, so I wrote a sonnet about Banana Fish. He said you couldn't write about death using bright language and colorful metaphors, so I wrote a flash fiction piece about it.

One thing that he's done this year that we disagreed on was making us read The Plague by Albert Camus during a global pandemic. So, my most recent attempt at fucking with my teacher was writing an essay about why She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) is better than The Plague.

So, here is my essay. :)

"Recently I was asked, “What is the job of a novelist, and did Albert Camus accomplish this when he wrote The Plague?” While most of my classmates answered yes, I was less taken with the novel than they seemed to be.

The question “What is the job of a novelist?” is difficult to answer. Quite simply, art means different things to different people, and giving a yes or no answer to such a complex question seems impossible. Still, while The Plague definitely has something interesting to say, its message isn’t profound when compared to other, “lower” forms of art. It’s easy to assume value in The Plague because of it’s status, but after reading the novel, I was somewhat unimpressed with the one-note characterizations that served to deliver an ultimately average message.

In contrast, I have repeatedly been overwhelmingly impressed with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, a 2018 remake of a He-Man spinoff cartoon from the 80s. The new She-Ra broke boundaries in terms of representation, and the show’s resolution was made meaningful by the well-developed characters and important themes. Due to its complex characters, important messages, and groundbreaking representation, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) is a more important and influential piece of art than The Plague by Albert Camus.

The complex characters in She-Ra are much more rich and well-developed,than those in The Plague. Characters in The Plague are flat and one-dimensional—instead of real, relatable human beings, these characters come across as ideas. They represent something, but they’re not flawed, multi-faceted characters in their own right. On the other hand, She-Ra’s characters—from its heroes to its villains to its side characters—are infinitely complex and well-developed.

The most prominent example of this is Catra. Catra, the deuteragonist of the series, is the childhood best friend of the protagonist, Adora. In order to understand the complex role that Catra fulfills in She-Ra, it is important to understand the background of the show.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power takes place in the fantasy world of Etheria, in which women with magical powers, called ‘princesses’, rule and protect the land. The central conflict takes place between the Rebellion and the Evil Horde. The Horde, ruled by Hordak, is an army dedicated to wiping out the princesses and taking control of Etheria.

Catra and Adora are two child soldiers raised by the Horde. They grew up together and are best friends. However, when Adora finds a magical sword inside the forest and discovers that she is the legendary warrior She-Ra, she defects from the Horde and joins the Rebellion. Alongside two new friends, Bow and Princess Glimmer, Adora fights to defend Etheria from the Horde.

Catra, however, feels betrayed when Adora joins the Rebellion. While Adora’s arc is quickly established as a redemption arc, Catra spirals into a corruption arc for many seasons. Because of her pain and betrayal, she becomes the right-hand woman of Hordak. She lashes out at those closest to her, makes it her life’s mission to stop Adora, and hurts dozens of people on her way to the top.

Still, Catra is not a one-note villain. Her pain and betrayal is explored deeply throughout the series. Even at her worst moments, Catra is sympathetic. Flashbacks of her childhood show her deep emotional bond with Adora and the physical and emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of the Horde. She is shown breaking down multiple times throughout the series, and her relationships with characters like Scorpia show her humanity, even when she is hell-bent on destroying the Rebellion. Despite Catra’s actions, she is a deeply sympathetic character.

Catra is a complex villain, but she is an even more complex protagonist. In season five of the series, after a series of events lead her to reflect on her actions, Catra betrays the Horde to save Adora. This is not an easy decision for her to make. Catra is emotionally tormented—betrayed by those closest to her and held captive by the same force she once swore to serve, Catra saves Glimmer’s life in a last-ditch attempt to do “one good thing” in her life. Catra believes she will be killed for her actions, and in what she thinks are her last moments, she cries, “Adora, I’m sorry. For everything.”

Of course, Adora is not content to let Catra die. She saves her childhood friend, but when Catra is rescued by the Rebellion, she does not immediately change sides. Catra is shown to be bitter and cruel to Adora, Bow, and Glimmer as she struggles with her own internal conflict. Catra continues to lash out at those who are trying to help her, and it is only when Catra begins to face the consequences of her actions by apologizing to a friend she betrayed that she is able to start on the road to redemption. Her redemption is complex, and it is an arc that continues for most of season five. Catra does not flip a switch that takes her from “evil” to “good”—it is a grueling process that is only made possible by the forgiveness of those around her.

Catra is not the only character with a complex arc. Despite being the protagonist, Adora is a deeply flawed character who has to learn and grow over the course of the series. Season four sees Glimmer betraying her friends and falling deeper into a spiral of fear and hatred after the death of her mother. Even Shadow Weaver, Catra and Adora’s abusive parent figure, is not easily classified as “good” or “evil.” Shadow Weaver is a morally grey enigma who serves whatever side she believes will win and, in the end, makes the ultimate sacrifice by dying to save Catra.

It is worth noting that this is not a full redemption of Shadow Weaver’s character. Unlike Catra, Shadow Weaver has a ‘death redemption’—instead of truly facing the consequences of her actions, she sacrifices her life, which almost seems like taking the easy way out. This form of redemption arc is less satisfying to viewers, especially because many believe Shadow Weaver died for Adora’s sake, not Catra’s. Noelle Stevenson, the show’s creator, has confirmed that Shadow Weaver is not meant to be a fully redeemed character. However, this incomplete redemption once again displays the complexity of She-Ra’s characters. They are not good or evil—instead, they are every shade in between. Contrast this with the static, one-dimensional characters of The Plague, and it is clear that She-Ra’s characters are far more well-developed.

In evaluating the value in a piece of art, it is important to look at the message and theme. The Plague does, in fact, have multiple important themes that it discusses. It centers around love, mortality, religion, humanity, and ethics, all of which are important philosophical topics that force the reader to think. I will not make the claim that these issues are not important, because they absolutely are.

However, it would be irresponsible to dismiss the important messages that She-Ra contains just because it is a show made for children. She-Ra explores a number of complex and thought-provoking themes, such as love, loyalty, justice, grief, forgiveness, and redemption. It does this through its rich characterizations and complex relationships. Despite She-Ra’s PG rating, it nevertheless discusses colonialism, unhealthy and abusive relationships, environmentalism, psychological trauma, and self-worth.

Once again, a fascinating example of these themes comes from Catra and Adora. Catra and Adora were emotionally and physically abused by their parent figure, Shadow Weaver, from a young age. Catra in particular was told she is worthless, and this goes on to drive every one of Catra’s actions for the first four seasons of the show. She-Ra does not shy away from the aftermath of Catra’s abuse. It shows in detail the resentment she holds for those around her, including Adora, for their perceived wrongdoings. Her breakdowns are vivid and heartbreaking.

Despite all of her trauma, Catra craves Shadow Weaver’s love deeply. Some of her most horrific actions in the show are driven by her feelings of heartbreak and betrayal inspired by Shadow Weaver.

However, the abuse that Adora suffers is just as insidious, if less obvious. Adora was raised to believe that she had to be perfect and that the well-being of those she cares about is solely on her shoulders. This message deeply affects Adora’s character throughout the series and plays into some of her most profound flaws. Adora is prone to wanting to face everything alone. She doesn’t want to burden her friends, so she hurts and burdens herself. She blames herself when her friends get hurt, and she ultimately ends up seeing her life as worthless. Adora’s struggles with her self-image are directly tied to the abuse she suffered at Shadow Weaver’s hands. In the final episodes of the show, Adora is willing to sacrifice herself for the good of others.

Shadow Weaver’s influence is to directly to blame. She is present as part of the Rebellion during the fifth and final season, and she is the character who plants the idea in Adora’s head of sacrificing herself for the world. Even when Catra stands up to her on Adora’s behalf, Adora is unable to see her own worth. This results in a number of heartbreaking scenes where Catra pleads with Adora to think about what she wants, not what is expected of her. In the penultimate episode, a character finally tells Adora that “[she] is worth more than what [she] can give other people. [She deserves] love, too.”

Dismissing the messages of She-Ra as being “lesser” or “childish” is, in many ways, a straight, white, male perspective. Privileged groups are able to easily grasp their own worth, as they are never taught that they are worthless. It might seem more valuable to talk about more philosophical concepts if messages like those in She-Ra are seen as a given. But for many, self-worth is not an expectation. LGBT people are considered lucky to be accepted by their families, and they still face homophobia or transphobia on an almost daily basis. Their identity is seen as something to be ashamed of. It takes years of un-learning these patterns that a cisgender, heterosexual individual might never have learned in the first place. The same goes for other marginalized groups as well—women are often seen as less intelligent, and this idea is enforced through constant dismissal and belittlement of their thoughts and ideas. Individuals of color face daily prejudice and have been excluded from these conversations for centuries. Therefore, it is equally important for art like She-Ra to reinforce these messages that marginalized communities might never have been taught.

The messages in She-Ra might not be as philosophical as those in The Plague, but they are doubtlessly more emotional. Driven by the lovable characters and relatable issues, She-Ra made audiences feel in ways that I doubt The Plague ever has.

While The Plague is important from an ethical and philosophical standpoint, She-Ra is important from a much more human one. LGBT people are much more likely to be abused, mentally ill, and impoverished. These are some of the same issues faced by the characters in She-Ra. Given that the audience of She-Ra is largely LGBT, seeing these messages reaffirmed on-screen is deeply moving. A high-brow message is important, but if one doesn’t have the basics of self-respect and self-love, these conversations cannot be had.

It is possible that some might dismiss She-Ra and it’s messages compared to The Plague because it is a modern-day animated show instead of a classic novel. Here, we get into another interesting conversation: high art vs low art.

High art is renowned. It is old and has stood the test of time. People see it as beautiful, historical, and fundamentally important, despite the fact that they don’t rock the boat. Van Gogh paintings and Roman statues are examples of high art: priceless pieces with recognized worth. The Plague is another example of high art.

Low art, on the other hand, is art ‘of the people.’ Anybody can make low art. Current music, literature, art, and television is seen as less worthy or important than older pieces with more widely recognized importance. Some “instant classics” can almost immediately be placed into the realm of high art, but for the most part, newer things are always seen as less important than older ones. Low art is comic books, Taylor Swift, graffiti, and yes, She-Ra. They might be just as artistic and valuable as older pieces of art, but they will not be valued the same.

Here’s the thing, though: high art almost always starts out as low art. Modern day romance novels are seen as trashy even though Jane Austen’s novels are renowned. The Beatles are now seen as one of the best bands of all time, but during their peak, they were dismissed due to their primarily female fan base. Most famous painters didn’t become popular until after their deaths, because before then, their pieces were “low art.” Dismissing She-Ra because it’s low art is biased and, ultimately, ignorant.

Moreover, low art is more likely to be queer, female, poor, and PoC. Anybody can make low art, but art by privileged creators is more likely to be seen as ‘valuable’ in the long run. While underprivileged creators can and have gained notoriety and acclaim for their art, there are more road blocks in their path that keep them from ever being on equal footing with other artists. Dismissing all low art as less valuable is dismissing the perspective of those from marginalized communities.

I will not make the claim that She-Ra is a better piece of art than The Plague. The Plague is a piece of literature that has withstood the test of time and remains relevant to this day. Given that She-Ra is still fairly recent, it’s impossible to tell what it’s legacy will be, and in the end, it is a cartoon aimed at a less mature audience. Even more than that, though, art is subjective. What speaks to one person might not connect with another, and calling one piece of art “better” than another is impossible.

However, I do believe that She-Ra is more important than The Plague. The distinction here is that She-Ra did something that has never been done before. The message of The Plague speaks deeply to people, but it is not breaking any glass ceilings.

She-Ra, on the other hand, is revolutionary. The representation is She-Ra is truly remarkable. Not only is the cast mostly comprised of female characters—which, in a world of male-dominated entertainment, is a rarity—She-Ra also embraces diversity of all types. The majority of the main cast with the exception of Adora is nonwhite, and characters of all different body types are featured. While women are typically forced into a cookie-cutter mold of beauty, She-Ra characters are treated as beautiful no matter what their size or ethnicity. This is a message that young people, especially young girls, need to see.

She-Ra also pushes back against toxic masculinity. Many of the main male characters in the show reject gender roles—for example, Bow is almost always seen wearing a crop top with a heart on it, and Sea Hawk has an undeniably flamboyant presentation. King Micah cross-dresses in the final season. Despite this, the male characters are never made fun of for their feminine traits, and instead, their presentation is embraced. They are also not stereotyped as gay for refusing to fit into traditionally masculine roles. All three characters listed above have female love interests.

The most groundbreaking part of She-Ra, however, is the LGBT representation. She-Ra features multiple loving LGBT characters and couples, and the main characters of the series were confirmed to be in a loving sapphic relationship. They said “I love you” and shared an on-screen kiss. She-Ra even features an important non-binary character who uses they/them pronouns, and their identity is always treated with respect.

Furthermore, the entire story centers around the relationship between Catra and Adora. Their romance is not a throwaway side story; instead, their love is the driving force of the entire narrative. Finding LGBT representation is hard, and finding sapphic representation is harder—but what truly sets She-Ra apart is that this was in a children’s TV show. In a world where many believe that LGBT relationships are not “appropriate” for children, She-Ra made history by teaching kids that it’s okay to love who you love and be who you are. She-Ra made people feel something. Audiences were crying during the series finale, and the show has amassed a cult following of LGBT viewers well into adulthood who have never seen their identity represented in such a meaningful way before.

The Plague is undoubtedly a valued piece of high art, but its messages nevertheless do little to progress society. For this reason, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a more important and influential piece of art than the Plague."

#she ra #catradora #spop #she ra and the princesses of power

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hyrule-kingdom-updates · 4 years ago

Note

OOC; To Mod - hello! I’m doing a fun thing where I hop into the askboxes of different writers and ask them about their favorite works! This specific blog is like. A huge undertaking, so if you wanna geek out about it, go for it! This can include anything, from arc development shit to fun facts about the blog and how it operates. This is such a cool idea anyways, and I’m sure people would love to hear about it. :)

I am going to geek out about this so hard that you’ll regret ever talking to me.

Hmm...What to talk about that won’t spoil the future of HKU...Oh I know! How about I ramble about

HKU and the Long and Arduous Process of Making Characters and Themes

I will try to avoid details when I can, but I will be discussing the latest developments with Siv, Larc, and Astor, so consider yourself warned for spoilers and catch up if you haven't yet! :3

Waste not, want not: Why I find it important to not waste characters and time

In Hyrule Kingdom Updates, Asivus "Siv" Hartell is the protagonist. Zelda(Mallory) is the deuteragonist. Then finally, LinkLink is the tritagonist. They are the perspectives that I would find most important. However, all in all, I would consider there to be six really important characters in order for HKU to work, that being: Siv, Zelda, Link, Larc, Astor, and Zavis.

Now, I say "really" important for demonstrative purposes because really, all characters are important. Every single one of them. Characters are the lifeblood of HKU, and I spend a lot of time making sure that they don't give off the impression of being self-inserts or just there for fun. I mean they are, but I spend a lot of time making sure they don't seem like that *wink wink*

This is what I define as the essentials for any "good" character:

Someone who provides an interesting/new perspective on the themes of the story

Someone whose wants and needs enhance the plot

Someone that can be understood as an individual

Yet someone that wouldn't be important to the story, without their bonds and relationships to the other characters

I don't really care about how likable a character is, or relatable, or how funny or badass they are; that's all secondary. Third-endary, even. If a character doesn't do enough to serve my story, I cut them, and merge their ideas with an existing characters. Caricautures are for comic relief, and in order to maintain a reader's interest an immersion into my story, I want to consistently give them characters that are well thought out and important. Whenever there's a new face, or an unexpected appearance, I want it to be wordlessly understood that I'm not wasting their time, that there is something this character has to offer.

A reader finding value in something/someone is one of the most important things a writer can have, because it is that particular investment that drives the story, or at least, my story. I cannot stress enough how vital characters are to HKU because this quite literally wouldn't work if you removed even one person from the plot. If you don't find these people important and interesting then EVERYTHING'S ruined. Everything. Every post is a battle for your attention and time, every piece of dialogue is a line I cast into the sea just hoping that there's someone swimming in the ocean because at any MOMENT you could click away, and I know this because I AM a reader, and I WOULD click away if I found something boring. So every plot point is just a battle between the writer me, wanting to spew everything, and reader me, who knows what the essentials are, and what to do to keep a person's investment.

This cycle of writing the story and characters, and understand what is essential and interesting to a reader is what led to me cutting over 20 characters and arcs from HKU.

That's how much time I spend on these fictional fuckers, no one is wasted or expendable. I think the only character that I could write out if I wanted to would be Hestu, and that's mainly because I did actually forget they existed until the Lost Wood's arc rolled around.

So with those points in mind, let's look at some of the characters that I spent a lot of time writing for, that is Siv, Larc, and Astor.

Welcome to the shitpost blog: First Impressions and Establishing...Everything

Welcome to @hyrule-kingdom-updates, and thank you for following! This is just a little comedic blog featuring funny posts from characters who live within Breath of the Wild Hyrule.

Hook, line, and sinker.

There's a lot of reasons why I started HKU this way, (one of them mainly being that I knew no one would read it if I opened immediately with the plot) but the main reason being I believe it was the fastest way to get you interested in the world and the protagonist.

The theme of HKU centers around trauma, and asking the question of what's the right way to deal with the malice(not the goop but like, real-life malicious things) of the world.

So if you want to move a story into a direction that plunges a fictional fairytale kingdom into the realities of life, you first have to establish that fictional fairytale kingdom and it's characters,

Even from the very first post I am working to establish character.

Now, it might seem silly, but there's actually a lot of information that you automatically take in from these two posts alone.

The diction and lack of proper punctuation implies that the narrator is more casual and down to earth

The narrator is aware that people are reading these "updates"

The immediate contrast between the "professional" introduction and humerous shitpost provides insight as to the sense of humour present

The orator is new at their job, and perhaps wants to keep their position

The narrators updates are under the influence of the Royal Family, perhaps more specifically, King Rhoam.

The establishment of Rhoam being in power and Urbosa being alive tells as to when in the timeline of Hyrule we are

Addressments like "don't worry" and "wish me luck" imply that there is value in the reader's opinion and perspective

The goal of the shit post says was basically to establish the world, and what kind of person Siv is. On a meta level, I want you to laugh at the shit posts because that's what Siv is doing. I KNOW you're enjoying the shitposts, therefore it more believable for you to understand that this is something Siv does as well. There's an unspoken distance between you and the world, even if your asks impact it. For you, this is just another funny day in the life, and the same can be said for Siv, but the difference is that for him, it actually IS a reality.

That's why I really enjoyed these days because I was just schemeing behind the scenes, knowing how I was going to turn this all over your heads.

So, you know how he is at the start. Siv is an apathetic individual, he laughs off whatever shit comes his way, and cares only for himself. His view of the world of Hyrule is through the lens of someone who seems to have accept that he has no control over his life, his very job is dictated by royals.

And though he has no respect for authority, and has been deemed a lowly criminal by most people, he still seems like a pretty decent guy. Human. It seems pretty apparant that even though he pretends to not care about the world, he obviously has human morals and wants, and would more than anything like to have control over his life, but he seems to have accepted that's not going to happen.

Siv isn't just sarcastic, or just apathetic to everything, or just a rebellious person. There's a subtle layer to everything, but it's all wrapped in a clearly understandable line of logic. Therefore he is

Someone that can be understood as an individual

At this point in time, if you asked him how to deal with the woes of the world, he would probably shrug his shoulders and say, "laugh it off. Sometimes that's how it is." Whether this idea is something he will main remains to be seen. Therefore as our protagonist, he is

Someone who provides an interesting/new perspective on the themes of the story

Oh brother, it's time to go on a journey: Change and motivation

Now, another way that I break down characters is like this

Want - what they want on the surface

Lie - the belief that they have that prevents them from obtaining their need

Need - what they need to do in order to become better

So, let's break down Siv at this point.

Want: Siv wants to have control over his life, and to do what he wants in order to be happy

Lie: Siv tells himself that there's nothing he can do about his situation, and to just accept the world as it is

Need: Siv needs to learn to give a shit. About himself, and others. He needs to understand that while not everything in life can be controlled, the aspects that we do have power over, like our actions and relationships with others, are important.

Now, Siv doesn't actually go our searching or acting towards his want OR his need, as his lie tells him that he should just take what he can get, and dig in. So far in the story, there is still a distance between him and the reader and the world, because he can choose when to answer asks. He can choose when to confront questions.

So in order to really kick off the story, we have to take that choice away from him.

Enter: The Quill of Roost. Well, more like the quill enters Siv, as he eats it, and we soon discover that now, he can't really escape the questioning voices. Notice that Siv only did this in an effort to do something good, to be a hero. Maybe we'll come back to that later.

So now that we've forced Siv to leave his comfortable apathetic lifestyle, we can start to poke and probe him into a new person. He now has to listen to people more, both literally and metaphorically.

Siv's brother, Arcadius (also known as Larc, by Siv) is a foil, in that he's his opposite. He's not a criminal, he's the respected Captain of the Royal Guard. He's the golden boy, a hero in his own right. He generally respects authority and likes order. I mean, the first time you meet him, he talks like a "how do you do fellow kids" school teacher.

AHe's adored (and simped over) and has a loving family, and lives society's definition of a perfect life.

Yet, despite all of this, there is a deep saddness to Larc that is ever present. He seems to greatly sympathize with Asivus, and has a lot of (yet unseen) regret and guilt. Simiarlly to Siv, he constantly thinks about the unfairness/malice of life, but since Larc seems to have gotten the good end of the stick in life, Larc just convinces himself that any malice or negative emotions he might feel are unjustified, that they don't exist. That he's pathetic to think as such.

But of course, ignoring it doesn't make it go away, Larc still has these emotions, he's still not happy, but he's become to accustomed to them being there and not dealing with them, that's he's almost apathetic about it, similarlly to Siv.

He attempts to find happiness and satisfaction in authority, the the order the kingdom has to offer. He believes that the best thing he can do is be autonomous to whatever the world hands you, whether orders from a king or a father.

But despite this, he understands that deep down, this isn't making him happy. He still hasn't directly dealt with the regrets and guilts he has, even though he tries to hide it under "orders" and the like. He's too much of a coward to do so. Thus, he just concludes that he doesn't deserve to be happy.

Want: Larc wants someone to tell him what to do to be happy. He doesn't want conflict or confrontation, just peace.

Lie: When the life Larc lives doesn't clear his regrets, Larc tells himself that it's because he doesn't deserve to be happy. Thus the very least he could do is do as he's told, and someone like him doesn't deserve to talk back

Need: Larc needs to learn that he does deserve to be happy, but the road to doing so isn't smooth. He needs to learn to care about himself, and actually confront and deal with the problems in his life, instead of running away and being autonomous.

Therefore, Siv and Larc's outlooks on life have contridictions, theirfore their actions also oppose each other at times, and that conflict helps move the story, and make things more fun to watch.

Overtime, we can see their lies start to break down, based on their interactions with other characters, and in their attempt to even help themselves and each other. The autonomous nature and apathy they have starts to break down, whether despite, or because, of their wants and desires.

Now, Siv and Larc just on their own are cool, but with the way they're designed to highlight the theme, and affect the story based on their character driven actions, it makes them both interesting and perhaps even relatable characters, as they are

Someone whose wants and needs enhance the plot

And of course, this pattern isn't just present in the Hartell bros, but in pretty much every character (Except Hestu)

Hey what's that?/We have an older brother/You thought there were two but there is another: Character interaction is pretty cool

So. Siv has allowed himself to open up a little. He dares to be vulnerable for the sake of being happy. He's actually started to rekindle and create bonds, with characters like Larc, Zelda, Link, and Zavis.

But the thing about being open to change and love, can inevitably lead to pain. It's just a reality of life.

Enter: Didymos Astor. Just as the Champion gang comes together, Astor comes along to fuck things up.

On a meta level, Astor is an intriguing character simply because the expectation for him didn't amount to much to begin with. Age of Calamity Astor was just evil for....unstated evil reasons. Therefore writing him was practically just creating an entirely new oc.

So playing with the meta-ness of Astor, there's a lot of mystery to him that I maintained, but in such a way were I actually made sure to eventually answer those mysteries.

At first you don't know why he does what he does, but you do understand that his goal is to help Calamity Ganon rise. He also seemed absolutely confident in his decisions, he believes that his path is the best one.

Then slowly, information is revealed that allows you to understand Astor. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I purposefully did this in parallel with Siv slowly being hurt and betrayed by the people he once let himself be vulnerable with. The understanding of Astor comes with Siv's lack of understanding of the world around him.

Astor at this point in time, is basically a representation of listening to that little voice in your head. Both metaphorically, and quite literally. An "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude.

And of course, because this is HKU, he's not purely an evil villain, and he has an understandble line of logic in his actions, and even morals, as...different as they may be. I try to be very precise with my characters as I don't want to use backstory as an excuse for their actions, I fully intend to let their consequences play out, but at the same time I do want you to understand why someone does something besides just "he evil."

Astor used to have a close relationship with the old Queen of Hyrule, a literal symbol of hope for the kingdom given she possessed the power of Hylia. He himself wasn't a very important person, just some random orphan that probably only got a place at the castle because he was friends with the queen. But when she died, and the fate of Hyrule was apparantly sealed, so too did his hope. A much more depressing outcome of the "you can't control life so be apathetic" view that Astor shares with his brother.

He tried to apply logic to his situation, whether by trying to justify the end by saying that everyone in Hyrule is a fool, or a bad person, or by twisting the memories of his better days into something worse so that he doesn't have to feel as bad.

But of course, the TRUE and absolute reason he does all this, is to save Zelda, because as much as he would loathe to admit it, there's a part of him that still cares. If siding with the Calamity is the only way to save the last connection to the light of your life, then so be it. In a cruel world like Hyrule, why should he be able to enact just a sliver of justice in it.

And honestly he might be right. In the hundreds and thousands of timelines out there, I think there's only two were Zelda actually survives. Not very good chances *wink wink*

He couldn't care less if he looks like a villain as he does this. In fact, he would probably want to. He's been ignored his whole life, so some dramatic time in the spotlight to prove everyone wrong would be euphoric.

Want: Astor wants power over his life, even just a little bit. Just enough to rid the world's vermin, and save Zelda.

Lie: Hope is a lie and everything is doomed. We deserve to lose

Need: If Astor wants to be an actually good person, he needs to learn there are aspects and realities of life that you can't predict or control or assign logic to, yet despite that life is good anyways. Hope isn't always about winning, but about letting yourself live as best you can, and persevere.

Astor is a blast to write, because sometimes he's a stupid emo teen that you can bully for being called "Didymos," and then two minutes later he's a genuinely terrifying villain, and then two minutes after that you're feeling just even the slightest bit of sympathy for him. He's a cunning, cucking, emo bastard and if Larc didn't exist he might just be my favourtie character.

But another thing I love about writing Astor has to do with my fourth point on how I craft characters:

Someone that wouldn't be important to the story, without their bonds and relationships to the other characters

People being enjoyable on their own is great, but I think the best part about writing different characters is seeing how they fit together, like puzzle pieces. This again goes to my point about how no character is wasted, because a complete puzzle doesn't have extra pieces (except Hestu)

So let me just talk about my themes of trauma and how I use malice in HKU

I made this venn diagram awhile ago, but it's kinda....bad. Lmao. So let me summarize in a way that's coherant.

When you get traumatized by something, or something terrible happens to you, even if that experience gets solved, you will probably still have that memory for the rest of your life. That experience, and the consequences that it had, will be something you have with you for a long, long time, and the reality is that sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.

And so the question of HKU becomes...well what exactly do you do with it? Is it a strength, or a weakness, or do you pretend it doesn't exist?

Asivus is the protagonist of the story because it is from his perspective that we explore the most viewpoints and angles of the stories theme, not just through Siv himself, but from his perspective of those around him, and his relationships with them. Again, per the "no character wasted," because quite literally everyone has an opinion on the subject.

For now, let's just focus on Siv, Larc, and Astor.

Hartell Bros and using pictures to appeal to the neurodivergent asshat (AKA myself): The Journey to find your need

This is pretty much where these characters stand at the start of HKU.

Through the beginning arc, Siv becomes less apathetic and actually starts to care, about others, and himself. And eventually, he even follows the hope (ambition) to help Zelda save Hyrule. Now, at this point, Siv doesn't respect Astor, and he envies Larc, so he moves further away from their respective "places" and values. He allows himself to be vulnerable.

Meanwhile, circumstances threaten the most important thing in Larc's life, his family. These circimstances force Larc to go against his usually autonomous lifestyle, and actually act out of personal ambition, and try to take the helm on his life.

Finally, Astor has been in his spot for awhile, ever since he became set on helping to revive the Calamity. And over the first few arcs, nothing happens to him that forces him to change. He stays in his place, because his brother's relationships to him basically make him a moral compass of what they DON'T want to be. (Almost like...getting bad advice, and not taking it.) Astor at the moment is a stationary catalyst who tries to convince Siv to share his viewpoint. And this doesn't happen yet.

So its because of their interactions and relationships that their characters move to here:

HBut the thing about letting yourself be more autonomous, or vulnerable to other people, is that while it does have great benefits, you still might get hurt by other people, so you need to learn how to handle these situations properly.

Asivus does not handle this properly.

When Zavis betrays him, and makes him look like a fool, Siv books it out of the vulnerability department as fast as he can. When Link seemingly shows Siv that the future is broken, and that the world is unfair and out to get him, Siv detaches himself completely from being content (apathetic) and when Siv see he can't rely on anyone to save him, even Zelda, then he moves further into control.

So yeah, Siv's character quite literally wouldn't exist without his relationship to others, and they, him.

Meanwhile, Larc is forces even further into the control and ambition department by being turned into the literal emodiment of ambition and power: a Hollow. Thanks Astor! So for a brief amount of time, he lives at the extreme ends of purple and red, and once he recovers, he desperately wants to move back towards the blue and yellow areas because it wasn't exactly the best of experiences for him.

So now Larc is no longer autonomous to the world around him, and after he is truly revealed as a traitor thanks to being kidnapped and almost dying and the world finding out about everything the gang's been up to, Larc really cannot return to his "following orders" lifestyle. He's on the edge of being where he needs to be, but he still is of the mindset that he doesn't deserve to be happy. So while he allows himself to be in control of his choices, and to follow and protect his family, he rejects hope for himself, and dips into just not caring about himself.

Finally, Astor. His change starts small, but the fact they he shifted at all when he's spent so much of the story as immovable is significant. In a combination of not liking Siv's extremes, and actually expressing hesitation the more he interacts with Zelda, Astor moves out of the yellow and just barely dips into the side of ambition, and the desire to actually change a seemingly unchangeable situation. But it's just barely, and he still sides with Ganon.

So thus, after all those interactions, the Hartell Bros stand around here:

And where will they go from here? Who knows! I'll give you a hint thought...things are really looking Up for Siv (wink wink).

The beauty is that you don't even know if anyone will ever truly live in that perfect harmony that the middle offers, because let me assure you, the people that DO live in that perfect middle, are currently dead. The movement toward that center is a positive character arc, but will everyone achieve a positive character arc? People can enter there sure, but the hard part is staying, of keeping those ideals. And Hylia...don't even get me start on how Link, Zelda, Zavis, and everyone else fits into this, I'd be at here for another six hours.

And also, I think my little graph is a good example of my other themes on mortality and how it's not black and white. There's no extreme good end, and extreme bad end; being a good person is a harmony of the different difficulties every day has to offer.

And then ALL OF THIS, I hide under the guise of mystery, and plot, and humour, and shitposts; evil soup, hot sword people, disaster gays, giant robots, cucking, ninjas, knights, musicians and seers...Just a constantly battle between not being too preachy and not going too off the rails, I myself am constantly trying to find that center harmony as I write HKU.

But make no mistake, this is probably the most fun thing I've written...ever. It kicks my ass sometimes, but it's so....I don't even know how to describe it, it's just great. There just so many things that I have to think about to deal with the story and the characters and it's work but I'm really passionate about it so it's FUN and I love it and I will ramble about it again one day because, fuck man...

Writing is badass.

#consider this my gift of content in these Launo-less days #not that he's dead #well. not that he's NOT dead #but uhhh #yeah #out of character

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