#for an example I have kleptomania so I tend to steal a lot of things

[werewolfdog]

I find another reason of why M's familial attitude and treatment towards me are impacting me so deeply much is the fact— taking this in now— that while I had a dismissive and emotionally distant father who pulled the abandonment card when I was thirteen, my mother is never as truly caring and understanding as he is.

[arceneades]

Burrrffoooooot!

I'm on this discord server with like 20 other people who all play DnD with the same GM. Dude runs at least 3 campaigns at all times, he's a beast of a GM, but that isn't the point.

Point is, it's also a fun little community of DnD nerds but we do have a couple of people who occasionally comment that they hate Kender and Tasselhoff Burrfoot in particular.

If you don't know what a kender is, and you don't know Tas, I have no idea why you would be reading this but I will fill you in. If you do, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

Kender are a humanoid race in the "Dragonlance" fantasy novels. They are shorter than humans (or elves or dwarves) but typically slightly built. They are a lot like hobbits, except that kender don't feel fear and have no sense of property rights. They just steal stuff, not because they're greedy, but almost as a compulsion. They don't think about it, they just absentmindedly pick pockets or shoplift or whatever. Tasslefhoff Burrfoot is a character in the Dragonlance books. He's a kender, so he tends to "find" a lot of items that other people "lost."

So the typical complaint is that Tasslehoff is a joke character, that kender are an annoying race, and that the whole thing should have been dropped kicked out of the franchise and thrown into the sun. Because people see the "you must have dropped that" part of Tas and they don't see anything else.

This is an extraordinarily shallow reading of the character, of course. I would argue that in the original series, no character goes through as many changes as Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Here's an example quote of how his worldview changes:

Something had changed inside Tas. He would never again be like other kender. Through grief, he had come to know fear; fear not for himself but for others. He decided right now that he would rather die himself than lose anyone else he loved.

Okay. You see that, right? This character changes so much that a part of him will be forever separated from his home, from the culture he grew up it. These are young adult books, coming of age stories. Tas is the one who comes of age.

So if people think the character is shallow or one-dimensional, it's because they just can't see past that one dimension. They are stuck seeing kender the way that most people in the world of the books see kender: as lazy, thieving pests.

Some strong feelings towards fantasy races is pretty common. For example, I'm pretty annoyed by JRR Tolkien's elves. They're just so... perfect. They live forever, they're smarter than everyone else, better looking than everyone else, and they know it. They think they are better than other people because they are better than other people. Gross.

But, you know, give me a specific elf and I'll judge that elf on the basis of their behavior, not on the shape of their ears. Legolas is a great character and I would happily buy the man a beer at The Prancing Pony.

We have a word in the real world for people who can't see people as themselves, but can only see them as stereotypes based on their origin.

When it comes to kender, and especially to Tasslehoff Burrfoot. This really, really bother me. Much more than it should. I mean, what do I care if other people like or don't like a character I like or don't like? I'm not the character.

Except I sort of am, in the case of Tas. Because to me, his kleptomania is a standin for my neurodiversity. His trouble was my trouble.

Because remember, Tas doesn't steal because he's greedy. Kender don't have much of a property sense. They really only own what they're wearing and their sling-staffs. Kender don't lock their doors, they consider it impolite to be protective about mere things. He doesn't consciously lift things, he just does it. Most of the time, he doesn't know what he took or who he took it from. He never tries to keep anything that someone asks for.

Tasselhoff tries. He tries to follow these rules but he can't internalize them, they never become second nature. So if he isn't constantly vigilant over his behavior, he'll act normally (for a kender) and that will cause trouble and then someone will yell at him.

If you're neurodivergent, this probably sounds a little familiar.

What's even harder is that sometimes his friends want him to pick a lock or a pocket and while he's happy to do so, it's pretty clear that there are times when it is okay to be a kender, and times when it is not okay to be a kender... and he has trouble knowing what the difference is.

Again, if you're neurodivergent, this probably sounds a little familiar.

And I guess that's the thing that really bothers me about all the hate toward kender in general and Tasslehoff in particular. It feels personal. They're saying it isn't okay to be a kender, but I feel like they're saying it isn't okay to be neurodivergent. They say it isn't okay to be Tas, and I feel like they're saying it isn't okay to be me.

[hoesoflamentation]

seeing people call mammon "scummy" or a "bad person" hurts my heart. here's why.

i'm sorry if this is out of nowhere, but i just have a lot of ~feelings~ right now...

so like, usually the argument i see for this is "mammon steals from the people he loves most (& can't stop)."

i have a lot of thoughts about this, but i'll start with this one: why do we view stealing as one of the worst things a person can do? sorry if my inner anarchist is showing, but i really don't know that we should be punishing people for theft the same way we punish them for violence.

to me, the way lucifer treats him for the things he does is much, much worse. (i love luci, i do, but physical abuse is never justified, nor is it a proportional punishment for taking something that doesn't belong to you.) not to mention, belphie literally killed us and yet so many of us -- myself included -- are eager to forgive and forget just because we like him as a character.

and, like, mammon doesn't steal for the hell of it. it's canon that he is in crippling debt. look, i'm not justifying theft irl -- but as someone who has been in debt, i understand how oppressive and debilitating that can be.

look, the way i personally view the brothers' sins is akin to addiction. from my pov, mammon is basically suffering from kleptomania. and it's sad, but our society tends to see addictions as a moral failing, when it's a result of uncontrollable factors like genetics and environment.

and i get why people say this, i do. because mammon's sin is one of the only ones that hurts other people. take beel's sin, for example, or belphie's. binging or oversleeping only affects them, not so much the others around them.

but is stealing alone enough to make someone a "bad person?" i mean, mammon clearly cares so deeply for others. he is always taking the blame to protect his brothers, even though (arguably) they don't deserve it for the way they treat him.

i'm not saying you have to simp for mammon, or even that you have to condone his actions. i just think the discourse in the fandom about him sometimes goes a little far. to me, mammon is like anybody else: most of us are morally neutral and just doing the best we can. him being a demon or even a fictional character doesn't change that, imo.

[maxgrayarchived]

Learning How to Write a Redemption Arc from Avatar: The Last Airbender

    Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender is a legend in redemption arcs, and the first example many people think of. He went from being the Avatar’s enemy, his biggest goal being to capture the Avatar and deliver him directly to the Fire Nation’s most vile tyrant, to being the Avatar’s good friend and ally. He makes plenty of mistakes along the way, but he atones to them and becomes a better person. 

    Today we’re going to be talking about Zuko, and what makes his redemption arc so effective. 

    For those who don’t know anything about the series, the show’s intro for the first episode tells you all you need to know: 

    “Water. Earth. Fire. Air. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace, when the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads- But that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, only he could stop the ruthless fire benders, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years have passed and the Fire Nation is nearing victory in the war. Two years ago, my father and the men of my tribe journeyed to the Earth Kingdom to help fight against the Fire Nation, leaving me and my brother to look after our tribe. Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Air Nomads, and that the cycle is broken, but I haven’t lost hope. I still believe that somehow, the Avatar will return to save the world.” 

    The show follows Avatar Aang and his two friends, Katara and Sokka, as he learns the four styles of bending to defeat Fire Lord Ozai. Let’s break down Zuko’s general demeanor in each book (season) to get an overview of what his arc looks like.

Zuko, Book One

    In Book One, Zuko is, irrefutably, our enemy. We may have some sympathy for him at times, but it doesn’t change the fact that his goal is to capture the Avatar, and ours is to keep him free and kicking so he can save the world.

    He doesn’t have much hope for redemption in this book. He’s a total asshole, he doesn’t treat his crew well, and he’s selfish. However, we have his uncle Iroh, a man who is impossible not to love and happens to love Zuko very much.

Zuko, Book Two

    This is the main part of Zuko’s struggle. He’s faced with many hard decisions, and tends to go back and forth with his morality. He makes tons of mistakes and takes several steps backwards, and he’s drowning in anger and confusion. It’s the most critical part of his arc.

Zuko, Book Three

    Book Three is our payoff, and the peak of Zuko’s redemption. He finally knows what he really wants in life, and has faith in his destiny- His real destiny, the one he chose for himself. He joins the Avatar and his group, and earns their forgiveness and trust.

Motivations

    Zuko’s main motivation, and more importantly, why, was clear from almost episode one. Yes, he wanted to capture the Avatar, but the why was something we could sympathize with. When a child thinks the reason their parents don't love them is their fault, especially when they think they did once have their parents’ unconditional love, they will put themselves through hell to get it back. 

    Avatar gave us all the ugly details, as well. When Zuko stands up and speaks against a plan that would end up with the intentional deaths of new Fire Nation soldiers that he believes to be innocent, his father demands Zuko to an agni kai, or a firebending duel. Zuko originally misunderstands and agrees to fight the general he disrespected, only to be faced with his own father. He refuses to fight, dropping to his knees in respect and pleading for his father’s forgiveness, only for Ozai to severely burn the left side of his face and banish him from the Fire Nation. He told Zuko that he could only return home if he returned with the Avatar, something that was thought to be impossible by almost everyone in the Four Nations.

    To make it even harder to watch, his Uncle Iroh is the one telling this story, and as Zuko screams in agony while his father burns him, Iroh is so distraught that he has to look away. (There’s another thing to be said about how Iroh, a respected war general, drops everything to go with Zuko when he himself could remain safe and free in the Fire Nation, but that’s a different topic). 

    Afterwards, one of Zuko’s crewmembers says, 

    “So that’s why he’s so obsessed. Capturing the Avatar is the only chance he has of things returning to normal.” 

    His motivations don’t justify all the shitty things he does, not by a longshot, but the simple, humanizing act of saying exactly why he does what he does goes a long way. He’s not just an angry kid being needlessly cruel. He’s not an evil person, and we knew that from the beginning. 

Mistakes

    Mistakes are one of the most important parts of a redemption arc, because they’re what humanizes everything and makes the transformation believable. It’s impossible for a person to get better in a straight line. They will make mistakes, and they’ll backtrack. 

    But be careful: There are some things you can’t come back from. Don’t overdo it. 

    In the Crystal Catacombs in Book Two, Zuko makes a HUGE mistake. He has to choose between Azula (his sister), his father, and his nation… And his uncle. He chooses Azula, and attacks the Avatar (directly after trying to convince Katara that he’s changed lmaoooo). He’s so caught up in the idea of getting his father’s love ‘back’ and regaining his title that he ignores how much his uncle loves him and all that he’s done for Zuko. 

    There was also an episode, way early in Book Two, where Zuko splits up from Iroh entirely, because they had “nothing left to gain from traveling together.” He hurts Iroh’s feelings and makes himself more vulnerable for… What? Some teen angst? That’s the kind of shit I did in high school, and still sometimes now but come on. 

    He made a lot of mistakes with Iroh, in fact. He was constantly mean to him and taking out his anger on him. In “The Storm,” one of Zuko’s crewmembers says this, 

    “What do you know about respect? The way you talk to everyone around here, from your hard-working crew, to your esteemed uncle, shows you know NOTHING about respect! You don’t care about anyone but yourself! Then again, what should I expect from a spoiled prince?” 

    He made the mistake of trusting Azula MULTIPLE times! When Azula comes to Zuko after two years of his banishment, in the beginning of Book Two, she claims that Ozai had changed his mind and wanted Zuko home. He believes her, even though there’s not a single trustworthy thing about her. After she leaves them to talk it over, Iroh and Zuko have this conversation: 

“He cares about me!”

“I care about you! And if Ozai wants you back, well, I think it may not be for the reasons you imagine.”

“You don’t know how my father feels about me. You don’t know ANYTHING!”

“Zuko, I only meant that in our family, things are not always what they seem.”

“I think you are EXACTLY what you seem: A lazy, mistrustful, SHALLOW old man who’s always been jealous of your brother!”

Finally, the last one that bears mentioning, happens at the start of Book Three. Zuko goes up to the Gaang and tries to convince them that he’s a good person now and should teach Aang firebending. They yell at him and tell him to leave, but after he does, Toph insists that Zuko is right and they should try to get along. She sneaks out later to talk to him, but she came in the dead of the night and Zuko is now an enemy to pretty much all four nations, so when he hears someone moving, he makes an intimidating ring of fire around his camp. However, Toph is blind, and she accidentally steps back onto the fire.

Zuko shouts apologies and tries to help her, but she’s panicking and hurries back home. 

This is part of one of Zuko’s main arcs: Him learning how to control his firebending enough to not hurt innocent people. 

Significant Steps 

    Like I mentioned: Don’t overdo it. Characters undergoing a redemption arc need to take positive steps in the right direction, but a lot of writers (me) get caught up in the mistakes part and lose all the redemption. 

Among the many little hints and glimpses of hope you have, there should be a couple of major decisions that show your character’s progress- And the decision part is important. 

In the first season, Zuko has a choice between saving his kidnapped uncle, and chasing the Avatar. He chooses his uncle, and good thing, too, because if he was mere seconds later, Iroh would have lost his hands. This also happens in a later episode, “The Storm,” when Zuko and his crew are caught in a typhoon. Zuko sees Appa, Aang’s bison, flying overhead and the crewmember who previously disrespected him and politely asked what Zuko wants to do. 

He hesitates, before saying, “Let him go. We need to get this ship to safety.” He also apologizes to his uncle, who immediately accepts it. 

Zuko is given the option several times to put his search for the Avatar over the safety of his family and crew, and he never takes it. Moments like this keep him from being completely irredeemable. 

There’s another scene, at the beginning of the phenomenal episode “Zuko Alone,” where we see Zuko barely conscious, stumbling along on his ostrich-horse, presumably days without food. He passes a couple who’s cooking food on the road. He reaches for his broadswords to indulge in his newfound kleptomania, but stops as he realizes the girl is pregnant. 

There’s also the very critical moment in Book Two, after the Gaang had been separated from Appa and were frantically looking for him. Zuko finds Appa, ends up letting him go, and evens drops his vigilante “Blue Spirit” mask into Lake Laogai, renouncing his search for Avatar. Iroh finds him, about to steal Appa, and yells at him, saying that it’s time for him to look in and ask himself the big questions- “Who are you, and what do you want?”

Dropping his search for the Avatar means abandoning a destiny that had been forced on him for two or three years (which is a long time for a 16 year old). It’s so scary and uncomfortable at first that he falls into a harsh sickness, but when he comes out of it, he feels much better. We see him smile for maybe the first time in the entire show! 

There are also the moments that solidify his redemption, during and after the Gaang accepts him as one of their own. He goes with Sokka to The Boiling Rock to try and rescue his father, a prison where no one has ever escaped from, and goes with Katara to confront the man who killed her and Sokka’s mother. During the final battle, he sacrifices himself to save Katara and almost dies! It’s impossible to still hate him after that. 

Sympathy & Humility 

    We should care about these characters the moment you start their arc, starting slowly and building as their redemption does. 

    Avatar starts early, with Commander Zhao. We definitely don’t like Zuko at this point, but we meet him and then we meet Zhao and they’re enemies and Zhao is so much more of an asshole that we find ourselves rooting for Zuko. After Zhao, a grown ass man, demeans Zuko, insults him, and pokes at his banishment- little reminder that Zuko is fucking sixteen years old -Zuko challenges Zhao to an agni kai. Zuko wins this, but as he’s walking away, Zhao attacks him from behind! Iroh steps him and says this: 

    “So this is how the great Commander Zhao acts in defeat? Disgraceful. Even in exile, my nephew is more honourable than you.” 

    And he’s got a point. 

    Zhao ends up going from a minor headache to a big fucking problem in that book, and even though we know if Zuko wins, he’ll have a chance to capture the Avatar, we’d rather take our chances there than have Zhao around one moment longer. I mean, he tried to kill the moon, for fuck’s sake. 

When we meet Azula for the first time and she tells Zuko that Ozia regretted his banishment, an important but understated part of that scene is how goddamn happy Zuko is. We see all his excitement and relief, and then all his pain and anger surge back up when it’s revealed that Azula was taking them home as prisoners. 

After Zhao died and Zuko was huddling in a cave during a snowstorm with a captured Aang, he talks about his homelife, specifically mentioning something his father said: That Azula was born lucky, and Zuko was lucky to be born. We see countless flashbacks, especially in “Zuko Alone,” of Zuko as a little boy just trying to win his father’s approval. 

We root for Zuko countless times in that episode, actually, and this is before his redemption. “Zuko Alone” is such an important episode because it’s Zuko’s very first, real look at the war and what it does to people. After Zuko finds out that the family he is staying with has a son fighting in the war with a very real chance of dying soon, he makes a decision that he had purely good intentions with, but he’s so ignorant and naive to how the war works that he almost causes their only other child to be put in the war as well, and has to go rescue him. 

In the episode “Crossroads of Destiny,” Zuko and Katara have a moment in the Crystal Catacombs of old Ba Sing Se, and it’s, like “Zuko Alone,” one of the first times he can actually put a face and a name to the victories of The Fire Nation- When Katara tells him about her mom. He doesn’t have any excuses here, and is forced to admit that the Fire Nation hurt him, too.

In “The Ember Island Players,” when the Gaang is watching a play that… Kind of, tells the story so far, Zuko says this: 

“It takes every mistake I’ve ever made in my life and shoves them back in my face.”

He talks about his greatest regret- Betraying Iroh -and his he’s afraid he’ll never get to redeem himself. Later, Zuko and Iroh reunite, and Iroh says that he was never angry, he was just sad because he thought Zuko had lost his way. Zuko admits that he did lose his way, but he found it again.

We see Zuko struggle so much throughout the show with his morality and making the right decisions, so when he finally does, it’s a huge relief. He makes mistake after mistake, but nobody wants him to fail, not because we want another good guy, but because we see that he has good in him and we see how much Iroh believes in him.

Glimpses into the Future 

    It’s important that we have an idea of where this character is going to end up. We want something to look forward to so that we can push through the annoying stuff. 

    In the episode “The Blue Spirit,” the first time we see Zuko in his anonymous vigilante alter ego, we see what a great team he and Aang make when he rescues Aang from Zhao. They have a great battle chemistry and communicate well without Zuko needing to speak, then after Zuko is knocked out and Aang finds out his identity, he saves Zuko because Zuko saved him. 

    In “The Storm,” when Iroh is telling the crew how he got his scar and the conditions of his banishment, Iroh tells us, the audience, exactly what’s going to happen later in the series. 

When the crew member says that Zuko finding the Avatar is the only chance he has for things returning to normal, Iroh says, 

    “Things will never return to normal. But the important thing is: The Avatar gives Zuko hope.”

    Iroh recognizes that the kind of love Ozai would give him, if any, isn’t the kind that Zuko craves. Zuko only realizes this himself in Book Three, when he's back in the palace, back with his girlfriend Mai, and he’s won his father’s and people’s respect back. He admits to both Azula and Mai that something is wrong and he’s still not happy. 

A Good Mentor

    Most of the show, we see Iroh and his infinite patience trying to guide Zuko away from the same mistakes he made when he was younger. Before the start of the show, Iroh was a greatly respected, and feared, war general. This is referenced countless times throughout the series. He was so successful and respected that even leaving the Fire Nation to follow the banished prince couldn’t tarnish his reputation. Iroh had fallen into the same trap most of the Fire Nation did, that to be a man meant you had to be powerful, to be hurtful, and angry, and violent. He lost his only son to this ideology and was terrified of losing Zuko to it as well. At the end of Book One, before he and Zuko split up, Iroh’s begging him to be careful and admits that ever since he lost Lu Ten, he sees Zuko as a son of his own. 

    After Zuko’s betrayal in Ba Sing Se, Iroh leaves Zuko and forces him to make his own choices, which is when Zuko finally steps up (after some struggle). 

Iroh made it very easy to care about Zuko, alongside Zuko’s moments of humility and glimpses of hope.

Summary

In short, Zuko is such a legendary character because he was well-rounded, and humanized. He never overstepped to the point where he couldn’t be redeemed, and even when he was at his worst, we knew who he could be, and that he does have good in him.