#im good at maths and english so science had to be my dump stat it is what it is

[whomst-the-hell]

i was thinking about it and i realised that i had sort of subconsciously been under the impression that atla was one of those star wars situations that tells you anyone can be magic but in actuality every major plotpoint just ties back to one single family every time (some of you may be saying “but rey wasnt a skywalker!” to which i respond “who was the primary antagonist then wiseguy” but this post isnt actually about star wars so fuck me ig) anyway what im getting at is, other than zuko, whose major theme is his relationship with his family and therefore with his nation as a whole (and also he was actual royalty so it was inevitable tbh), every single other main character’s parents were not explicitly benders, or were nonbenders. aangs parents arent ever even shown! i mean for a show where its canon that magic is genetic, they do a waaaayyyyyy better job at delivering the “anyone can be a hero” storyline than media that actually textually tells that story lmao

not only is the show about children, its also about lots of marginalised groups. all the characters are POC, toph is blind, katara is a girl (toph is obviously also a girl but her character doesnt really explore misogyny like katara ykwim?), sokka is just some guy even in the context of the magic system, even aang — the literal chosen one!!!! — is just a random kid who also happens to be the reincarnation of the most powerful spirit in the galaxy or whatever (thats a recurring theme of the show actually), and zuko ,who is the most nepo baby protagonist, isnt actually the prodigy of his family and is instead frequently upstaged by his little sister lol

like it would have been so easy to do a “and guess what the reason toph is such a great bender is because she’s secretly king bumi’s great niece!!!!!!” reveal, which is such a classic plot twist that tbh its barely a twist these days, but instead toph was a badass specifically because of the unique perspective she gained by being disabled and the way that allowed her to connect with the world around her ie the badgermoles — thats a way stronger story! the only relationship reveal we get (other than i guess aang learning he’s the avatar which kind of maybe counts??) is zuko learning he’s related to roku which. i mean he was already a nepo baby so it doesnt detract from his agency really and in fact reinforces his recurring “there are two wolves” conflict, which up to that point was mostly shown through azula and iroh (think his ba sing se fever dream wherein there were two dragons inside him voiced by azula and iroh respectively one advocating good the other evil, foreshadowing the final conflict of the season where he must choose between azula and iroh and he backslides in his moral arc by choosing azula which is a really cool narrative choice that tbh now that im thinking about it i probably should have made this tangent its own post but we’re here now ig)

also i was thinking about how bending is genetic but also skips generations (neither kya nor hakoda is a bender, and we dont know of any grandparent other than gran gran, who is a nonbender, and i think its a dominant gene bc ursa wasnt a bender to my knowledge but zuko and azula are, so probably neither kya nor hakoda had bender parents, but obviously katara is a bender, but sokka isnt, plus there were identical twins in the volcano episode where only one was a bender which does confuse me scientifically but i dropped science so whatever) and bending is shown as common enough that probably everyone has atleast one ancestor who is a bender so tbh it sort of circles back to being random lol

this post is really just me thinking out loud (well not. out loud. bc its written. you get it) so it might not be coherent but idk its another way that atla is very clever and has effective storytelling and creates themes subtextually etc etc ok thanks