#i truly honestly DO NOT believe their spiel that they toned down the sexism only

[rmorde]

Ok. I'm still mad about it.

Look. The ATLA Live Action writers were proud about removing "lots of iffy" things in the original AND giving the Fire Nation more scenes. Ozai being fan service-y is very suspicious too. Add on top of that how they screwed up Sokka's character...

Here's my take on what is going to happen:

One of the beauties in ATLA's writing was how they were able to humanize the Fire Nation. They are the evil bad guys but not all of them. They are victims too - people who suffered under tyranny and deserved saving too... WHICH CAN ONLY BE DONE BY SHOWING "IFFY" THINGS IN CONTRAST!

ATLA successfully showed that the villainous side (Fire Nation) are worth sympathy and empathy WITHOUT PROMOTING IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM.

HOWEVER, current evidence already seem to point that won't happen in the Live Action:

They are willing to destroy a main character's story arc and are proud of it because it's "iffy".

If sexism is "iffy", imperialism and colonialism would be under that category which meant the writer happily removed them or toned them down.

These would definitely give them the perfect excuse to give the FN more screen time to likely "subvert expectations" and show how they aren't really that bad. They're just misunderstood antiheroes and not villains. Considering the fan service-y Ozai scenes seen so far, it feels like they are angling for this shitty take. They're giving him tough but caring DILF vibes* (No fuck that because that's Hakoda's thing.)

In conclusion: Due to writers' cowardice and incompetency, ATLA Live Action will likely accidentally justify the Fire Nation's imperialism and colonialism. They will unintentionally promote it as "Not actually that bad and totally a good thing."

Villains totally can have caring DILF vibes. People can love them too.

The problem tho is the live action writers are cowards in writing actual villainous or questionable stuff aka "iffy" stuff. They're likely going to sand down Ozai's abusive streak and cruelty. Hence why the DILF vibes made me annoyed.

In the original, he is an evil asshole who is hot enough to be a DILF. But there is no mistaking that he is an irredeemable monster who destroyed his own family for selfish goals.

I don't think the live-action writers have the stomach to make such "iffy" characterization. They'll make Ozai a misunderstood "antivillain/antihero" DILF with Zuko Woobie-ness. He'd have no evil bad guy vibes. Just DILF... which so not what his character is in the original.