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coriphallus · 5 months ago

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DA: The Veilguard Spoiler review pt2 - The Grime

this is a hard one to tackle without strawmaning anyone because itll be a direct response to alot of defense ive seen for the games morality system so ill just start by saying, iykyk

never a genre has been better equipped to discuss ethics than the interactive medium of games and yes, bioware games have been doing it since baldurs gate and no, theyve not always been 'centrist' and 'conservative'. im not even gonna entertain that idea. do you remember the cultural landscape DA:O released to? the landscape it was developed in? dont give me that just because zevran doesnt write in his little notes -that you can conveniently read- 'gay good. not me but me bisexual'

Thedas is a flawed world and its a world thats just as desperate to hang on to its status quo as our own. every time you play an elf thats thriving, or a human thats queer, or a mage thats not institutionalised you exist in a world that doesnt want you, it is an act of defiance that you do.

im sure we can all see why these games were so popular with the audience they can only weakly try to pander to today.

derailing time again; so one of my favourite paintings of all time is saturn devouring his son. it makes me feel so uncomfortable that it gave me nightmares as a child, and i still cant look at it without feeling this knot in my throat. i hate it. i hate how it makes me feel, how that man looks at me in terror like its begging me for help while cannibalising another. weird story but i was bewitched by that painting as a little kid.

it is not a well drawn painting, the proportions are all over the place, brush strokes crude and inelegant. it doesnt even have a deeper story nor was it intended for an audience. i will never know what goya thought of when drawing it.

i thought alot about that painting later in my life when i was struggling with mental health problems, i thought about goya alot too as an adult and after learning about his life. i stared at his paintings and remembered when i told my dad that i hated [saturns] big eyes and hed jokingly said "it would be scarier if he didnt have eyes"

i know what the drawing looks like now, nearly everyone with a little access to the internet does. if somebody removed saturn from it, we'd still be left with a brutalised headless carcass of a man in a canvas too big for itself. if we removed that too all we'd be left with would be void.

i dont want to live in a world where all i know of goya is his rococo work, i dont want to stare at the painting of a void knowing what filled it before. i hated every second of germinale but i never wanted it to be anything other than itself, the story it tells could never hold credence otherwise.

DAV has done its best to paint over it, but its still on the old canvas and i cant look away from the negative space its left, i know whats under it and it unsettles me, infuriates me. it hands me a palette with baby blues and pinks and tells me to paint over it to make a prettier painting. didnt i hate the eyes? wasnt it gross before?

i am not going to write why we need some grime in art, but its absence is disheartening. and to those who say hanged people in the streets or blighted villagers is dark and mature ill say no. its a kids idea of maturity, its the aesthetic of it with no substance. it means nothing to me if rook can just drench themselves in gallons of blight as they crawl through it. the horror of blight has never been the black goo and slimy tentacles, or the monster woman with way too many tits. it is watching people you love slowly fade away, it is a woman who was forced to cannibalise the contaminated flesh of her friends because the woman she loved betrayed her, it was the sheer scale and inevitability of it.

one area we go to is overrun by it and the game begs me to feel hopeful that flowers are growing again when it never let me lose hope. people have already prevailed, they have roofs over their heads and a steady supply of food on their tables. their spirit is unwavering.

its bad, everybody says. the sky is grey and soil is blackened, as my rook turns some statues to access a haunted house whos inhabitants are long gone and the only story they could ever tell is gone with them.

if the question is do i want to see famine? plague? misery? abuse? assault? the answer is yes. yes. i want to see it all of the filth. i rather face the fucking monster head on with its big bulging eyes and misshapen limbs than stare at the abyss its absence leaves on the canvas.

and if nothing else, this bastardization is disrespectful to the people who gave the IP its fame.

Why choose to be good?

back in the bsn days ive wondered why, even in a fictional universe where your choices have no real-life repercussions what-so-ever, players had more 'good' playthroughts than 'bad'?

what happens when you start killing NPCs, when youre needlessly mean to them? the game actively closes off its own content. you get less out of the game. just as, completely incidentally, you'd get less out of your life if you just started killing everyone around you. The world would be emptier, youd be alone.

in that quote i stole from good place chidi doesnt ask "why be good?" the wording is painfully deliberate. doing good is always a choice, and often not the easy one. what makes the act matter is that you chose to do it, even when given 6 other options not to. did i stop in the middle of an important quest to help a man retrieve an heirloom from a darkspawn infested hut? did i hear what that heirloom meant to him?

i cant stop thinking about that speech ever since playing this game after knowing its predecessors.

So, why do it then? Why choose to be good, every day, if there is no guaranteed reward we can count on, now or in the afterlife? I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.

i cant stop looking at this game that spits on its own legacy and think how could they have missed what fundamentally makes us human so bad, what makes us relate and empathise with eachother. what makes us pick the option to interact with an npc who openly hates what hawke is, and allow us to see the traumatised man underneath.

these characters of fiction are written by real people. i have absolutely nothing in common with a guy from canada yet for a brief moment in time i feel a sense of camaraderie as ive felt with goya that i couldnt articulate as a kid.

Nothing too terrible

DAV says it over and over again -as its wont to do with every piece of its flimsy morality- that people can change, people can be redeemed yet it shines as the game with most static characters in its franchise. it simply says things, and since it has nothing to show for it it makes sure to say it repeatedly, in case you missed it.

so when i first played DAO i was in high school, i started with a human noble because fresh out of dark side edgy kotor fame i wanted to be a posh brat. also because, ya kno, we were poor my entire life up until that point and i wanted to have power.

i committed to it, even as the game stripped cousland of everything he had, because i thought a man like him would. i picked the racist options, the sexist options, the options a man in couslands place would. halfway point of the game as i exhausted the initial dialogues something happened; this man who got paid to kill people, who showed no remorse nor care for his victims, begged my cousland to stil his blade.

and i did. i thought maybe he would be as confused as i was, maybe he had a moment of clarity but from thereon bit by bit he was less of an asshole. the characters grew around me, and my character grew around them. i chose to be good because -textually- we were in this together, at the end of all things.

rook is not a character, theyre a mascot. and quite frankly i think they may be a very evangelical mascot because they remind me of evangelical preachings of jesus more than the man from the bible (and i say this as someone whos only exposure to christianity has been through foreign media and the bible ive read that one time). they are the epitome of do no evil and their existence hinges on the frail concept of moral purity. theyre not a person trying to do good, who wants to be good, they are 'good'

-and lemme tell you its a wild choice to have someone like that locked in a prison of 'regret'-

rook can be mean to only one person in the game, and thats someone they dont even have a personal beef with for the most part. but even then they would be shouting at a wall because the game doesnt only undermine them with its narrative, but also every npc in the game suddenly gets possessed by the ghost of wattpad rejects past for a moment to tell them everyone can be redeemed. and i believe it because i played the other games, i believe it because i know zevran and sten and morrigan, isabela and thom and iron bull and dorian. i know it because i can see the vague shapes behind the new coat of paint but i am not rook.

so no, the game fails to get people-can-change points by its own merit, and it cannot gain points from its prequels because it destroyed them. none of those characters i watched grow exist in this universe. zevran cant exist with DAV crows, fenris` story cant exist in an imperium with invisible slaves only glimpsed through empty cages and broken chains left scattered on the ground. i dont know which morrigan this NPC is, is it the woman who grew to learn kindness, who begged to sleep with her friend just to save them despite knowing it would play into the plans of a destiny she so desperately tried to break free from? or is she the clever puppet her mother groomed her to be who wanted to harness the power of a god? i dont know her, i dont know this dorian or this isabela beyond their names ipso facto this is not a sequel.

bellara asks an assassin why he is trying to save the world and his answer is "ive done some things in the past im not too proud of. nothing too terrible, but some of it was bad." and i can hear the games desperation for me to not engage with its material in that 'nothing too terrible'

lucanis never killed anyone innocent, taash never harmed an animal they could shoo of or reason with, emmrich venerates the dead and is friends with every wisp he pulls to use in menial labour, davrin joined the wardens willingly because he wanted to do good...

rook tells harding that her anger is justified when shes not even allowed anger of her own.

nothing too terrible.

aside from creating boring and nonsensical and static characters it creates a dreadful echochamber that we're forced to sustain. No taash is not valid, their gender is but their behaviour is not and for the character to grow and mature it needs to be addressed. lucanis doesnt need to be pampered in shock blankets he needs to see how repressing his problems and jeopardising his health puts people around him in danger etc etc. they are adults and they need to learn more complex ways of healing. and if rooks flaw is that theyre an enabler, then that needs to be acknowledged by the narrative in some way too, and not mindlessly endorsed because they say some buzzwords.

none of these interpersonal relationships feels real because none of these people feel real beyond some draft of themes and tropes. some interactions literally remind me of two bots in facebook comments

i look at this dialogue wheel with familiar symbols and all im reminded of is hawke telling carver he carries every death with him, of him telling his uncle that he wasnt fast enough, of him begging the person he loves to tell him that his mothers death wasnt his fault.

and they dont. they just sit there with him.

#veilguard critical #da:tv spoilers #bioware critical #personal #long post

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radfemreader · 3 months ago

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Book Review: Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles

I read this with my feminist book club in spring last year. (Although the book club fell apart a few chapters in - might this have been the book's fault? (it wasn't))

This book is "The Women's History of the World" as the subtitle puts it. The author endeavors to reframe commonly held beliefs about history to center women and remove the bias of (male) historians. She starts with prehistoric times and continues through to almost modern day.

Unfortunately, I absolutely hated this book and I'm shocked that it is recommended as often as it is. Within the first chapter, there was an anecdote that interested me, so I did some additional research and could find nothing that supported the author's assertions. As I continued reading, I kept researching little bits that struck my curiosity and multiple times discovered inaccuracies such as the author presenting myth or opinion as fact, misrepresenting sources, etc. to support her narrative.

For example, she describes an archeological rock carving as depicting a woman being attacked - I looked it up wanting to see pictures, and both personally would never have interpreted it that way and could find no where on the internet where anyone else had ever interpreted it that way. Perhaps Miles just had a different opinion, but she stated it like fact and didn't present any justification.

Another example, she cites Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin for the fact that the native people of Tierra del Fuego would resort to cannibalism of their women before they would eat their dogs. That immediately seems like racist falsehood, so I looked it up. It was supposed to have been said by two native boys who had previously been taken by the Europeans. Within the same chapter Darwin wrote that it was impossible to get reliable information from these hostages and elsewhere calls one of the boys a known liar, so any reader using this source should see the cannibalism is unlikely to be true, and any further research would find multiple more trustworthy sources saying that it is not. I have to consider Miles' choice to repeat this this "fact" either willful misrepresentation and racism, or incompetency.

There are more, but I also couldn't keep researching every factoid. I just lost my trust in what the author was reporting to me and took the whole book to be questionable.

Beyond that issue, I also found the structure of the book to be disjointed and confusing. It's roughly chronological, but also by theme, and I couldn't keep track of what was happening at the same time in different places. It's an insanely huge undertaking to look over the entirety of history, and yet somehow the book felt very repetitive. She writes with a casual ("witty" as reviews put it) voice that I found grating. The first half drags, it picks up in the middle, rushes through the last chapter, and then just - stops. No conclusion, no reflection, just an abrupt (but welcome) end.

I will caveat my negative experience with a few things. I've never been especially interested in history, in part because I don't like the ambiguity that comes from interpretation of artifacts and limited records. Since I don't read much history, I'm not sure if some of the things I didn't like are really more about the genre than this book specifically. Also, the book was written in 1988, so perhaps there are things that were fine at the time and are just out of date now - although it was reissued in 2001 and the opportunity to make updates was not taken.

In summary, I recommend this book to no one. I found it inaccurate, racist, and poorly structured. I acknowledge that maybe there is some merit here that I didn't fully appreciate. If you're someone who did like it, I'd love to hear why. As it is, the only way I can understand the success and praise of this book is that the concept is so strong - people really want to read the women's history of the world, and I'm not aware of any other book that attempts to deliver it. Perhaps though, it's not a concept that is possible to do well in the length of a single book.

#my reading #Who Cooked the Last Supper?#Rosalind Miles #Book reviews

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mariacallous · 5 months ago

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Within hours of Luigi Mangione being charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Monday, online stores were flooded with T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and other merchandise praising the alleged shooter and featuring phrases like: “In this house, Luigi Mangione is a hero. End of story.”

On Etsy, WIRED found almost 100 listings featuring products with Mangione’s name or image. These include a tote bag featuring pictures of the alleged shooter alongside the phrase “Mama, I’m in love with a criminal” and PDF copies of a mocked-up cover of Time magazine featuring Mangione as Person of the Year and the tagline “Healthcare revolutionary, leading the charge to transform global health.”

These sellers are trying to cash in on the internet’s peculiar fascination with Mangione, whose good looks and privileged background have garnered him fans despite him being accused of a high-profile murder in broad daylight. The fascination with Mangione is a worrying trend, researchers say, that shows behavior that used to be confined to the fringes of the internet becoming mainstream.

Much of the merchandise is being sold by print-on-demand websites, which allow anyone to design and sell a range of products. On one such site, called My Porch Prints, one seller is offering a mug featuring a heart-shaped image of a topless Mangione alongside the words “I love my boyfriend.” A number of print-on-demand merchants are selling a stylized version of the Luigi character from Nintendo's Mario video games holding a gun and wearing a green hoodie. Another hoodie available on multiple online stores, including one called Chill Guy, features an image of Mangione surrounded by love hearts.

There are also multiple different T-shirts and hoodies being sold on sites like Nobele T-Shirt, featuring designs with the phrase “Free Luigi” on them, while many others use the phrase “Deny, Defend, Depose,” the words Mangione allegedly inscribed on some ammunition.

Finally, a T-shirt featuring the McDonald’s logo with the word Mangione superimposed on it is also being sold online by custom gift shop ModParty, referring to the fact Mangione was captured after staff at the fast food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, identified him and called the police.

Etsy, My Porch Prints, Chill Guy, Noble T-Shirts, and ModParty did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This unusual situation meant that as internet sleuths worked to discover as much information about Mangione as possible, platforms such as YouTube and Instagram were working to shut down his accounts. X initially shut down Mangione’s account, but after CEO Elon Musk said he was "looking into it" the account was restored.

Google was also forced to remove reviews of the McDonald’s where Mangione was identified on Monday, after Mangione supporters review-bombed it with negative comments and one-star reviews.

Before his identity was revealed on Monday, his online supporters, primarily on TikTok, Bluesky, and X, had created an entire fictionalized version of the shooter as a left-wing revolutionary hero who was standing up for the millions of Americans whose lives have been impacted negatively by interactions with the health care system.

Videos glorifying the killer flooded TikTok, while one person decided to get a tattoo of the alleged shooter’s face. In Washington Square Park in New York City, a look-alike competition was held on Saturday.

Indeed, “Deny, Defend, Depose,” which is widely viewed as a pointed critique of the health insurance industry in America, has become a rallying cry online in recent days as the focus moved away from the shooting itself and onto the shooter and his motives.

However, the fictionalized version of the shooter that was created online does not match reality. Mangione, who allegedly had a handwritten manifesto admitting to the killing in his possession when arrested, is a software engineer from a privileged background. He also follows popular right-wing influencers, such as Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Jordan Peterson—though he has also criticized some of the arguments put forward by these figures.

During a brief court appearance on Monday night, the police did not outline a motive for the shooting, but based on Mangione’s online posts and reading lists, it appears that the pain from an injury suffered while surfing could have played a significant part in his motivation.

Despite Mangione not fitting the idealized hero that many online created in the time between the shooting and his arrest, the alleged shooter’s fans have continued to post fan fiction about him.

On Archive of Our Own, a repository of fan fiction, half a dozen pieces of prose about Mangione were posted in the hours after he was identified. In one piece entitled “McGuire Road Designated Dispersed Campsite,” an author with the username basedIdiot imagines Mangione and another man on a road trip trying to escape from New York. “‘Oh, am I not your beloved?’ Luigi Mangione mockingly fainted into the other man’s arms,” the author wrote.

In another, an anonymous author imagines Mangione in Texas where he is planning to assassinate Tesla, SpaceX, and X CEO Elon Musk, inscribing the bullets he was going to use to kill the billionaire. “For Musk, he’s kept it simple. X. X. And lastly, X. Mocking goodbye kisses,” the author wrote. “But also a reference to one spoilt, psychotic rich brat’s latest 44-billion-dollar toy to break.”

Another imagines the suspect as the author’s lover while at the University of Pennsylvania, where Mangione studied engineering. “Luigi Mangione turns to you,” writes an author with the username Princesscockdestroyer, who claims she’s writing this fan fiction during her final exams. “He mouths ‘I love you’ then takes off down the street. As you watch him disappear from you, from your life, from any promise of a future together, you can’t help but finally realize that you love him too.”

One of the posts imagines Mangione hooking up with a K-pop star in a motel in Ohio while on the run.

On TikTok, videos with images of Mangione’s smiling face, featuring the Britney Spears song “Criminal,” are also racking up tens of thousands of views, while hundreds of videos with the hashtag TeamLuigi have been posted on TikTok in the hours after Mangione was arrested.

A report published last week by the Network Contagion Research Institute called the phenomenon of online accounts glorifying the shooter as a “cause for concern,” pointing out that it mimics the type of response typically seen on fringe platforms like 4chan and 8chan in the wake of mass shootings.

“While this phenomenon was once largely confined to niche online subcultures, we are now witnessing similar dynamics emerging on mainstream platforms, amplifying the risk of further escalation,” the report’s authors wrote.

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onlinereputationindiaseo · 5 months ago

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How We Help You Remove Negative Comments from Internet

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reputematters2 · 2 months ago

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The Role of Reputation Monitoring in Sustaining a Positive Online Presence ?

In the digital age, your online reputation can significantly impact your personal and professional life. Proactive reputation monitoring is essential to ensure that your online presence remains positive and accurate. By continuously tracking your digital footprint, you can address potential issues before they escalate and build a trustworthy image. Here's how reputation monitoring helps maintain a positive online presence:

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reputematter · 5 months ago

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Strategies for Removing Negative Content from the Internet

Protect your reputation by learning how to find and delete harmful content from the web.

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reputematters · 5 months ago

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Fake Removal Reviews: A Complete Solution

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emxly-elxzabeth · 1 month ago

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Week 8 Blog #6-

Does a Cyborg try to make up for their lack of origin stories through us?

In the reading of Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway, we learn how cyborgs are “machine like” along with a hybrid of our own reality. Haraway addresses this as, “machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, Self-developing and extremely designed , and many other distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves are frighteningly inert"(Haraway 2018). We can compare this to last week's Black Mirror’s episode where everyone is a cyborg trying to fit into the merit system. This concept has me inquiring about do cyborgs not have an initial background. We talked about this inside class, however, we subconsciously implanted reality into these cyborgs.

Will Visual cyberculture inspire our society in a negative way? (K O'riordan)

In Gender, technology, and visual cyber cultural Virtually Women by Kate O’Riodan we see, a fake woman “the most celebrated virtual persona to date…as the “cyberbabe”(O’Riordan 2000). The concept about how men view women can be interpreted in our everyday lives. The reading also goes on to say, “the female face is thus the future present of the convergence of cybercultural forms such as mobile telephony, computer games, hand held devices, and the internet” (O’Riordan 2000). Our society must err on the side of caution moving forward about how we represent women in the digital world.

Do we socially view all women as maternal figures?

In the documentary we discussed and talked about in class, Seeking Mavis Beacon, we see two young women trying to find a real life woman whose identity has been essentially stolen and used for AI marketing. However one of the most curious parts is how they materialize Mavis. We see her showing off features while talking to kids, teaching them. Most of our childhood teachers are women. They even had a photoshoot with her walking a little boy. For the marketing standpoint, the likeableness and stereotype of a woman is to be forced to be maternal.

Does AI take away identities and perhaps genders for money?

Talking more into Seeking Mavis Beacon, it was quite alarming to know that the real person that the character was based off of was Renee L’Epernace. She was a Haitian immigrant working at a perfume store when she was approached by one of the creators of a new software. They offered her only $500 to do a photoshoot and that was it, however they used AI to market off her face for future ideas revolving around the software. While the creators were making millions off their new and booming business software. They would use AI features to “soften” her face and hands to resemble Renee. They didn’t even ask permission or allow her the right to forget. This is what we learn in class, they can not be removed from the project essentially. It’s so crazy to me they basically stole Renee’s identity and reprogrammed her to someone she isn’t. You saw her face but you didn’t see her because it was just a fake persona.

Donna Jeanne Haraway. (2018). Cyborg manifesto. Camas Books. (Original work published 1985)

O’Riordan, K. (n.d.). Gender, technology, and visual cyber cultural Virtually Women [Review of Gender, technology, and visual cyber cultural Virtually Women]. (Original work published 2000)

Jones, J. Olivia McKayla Ross. (2024). Seeking Mavis Davis [Review of Seeking Mavis Davis]. In G. Feiln (Ed.), Neon.

#tcl25 #TCL25

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sherrachan · 1 year ago

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My Honest Review of the Netflix ATLA Live-Action

I've seen a lot of negativity around Netflix's new ATLA live action, so as someone who has been both a fan of the animated series since it first aired, but also found a lot to love in the live action despite its flaws, I wanted to write a few (hahaha) words showcasing a non-indignant review from that perspective. I've decided to highlight three categories: what I thought it got right, what I'm neutral or biased about, and what it did not do well. And just to be VERY clear, I absolutely support anyone's right to like or dislike whatever they please for whatever their reasons are. However, if you are going around harassing, threatening, or body-shaming CHILD actors, who are in fact actual people and not fictional, please do everyone in the world a favor and remove yourself from the internet. There is literally no show on Earth bad enough to justify that kind of behavior.

For anyone not interested in reading the full review, my overall rating: 6.9/10

Let's start with what went right...

Zuko

I. Love. Dallas. Liu. This is not to remotely downplay the fact that I also love Dante Basco. From what I've gleaned from interviews, it seems they had even collaborated on his performance via Zoom calls, which I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for. I've noticed a lot of blind reactors to the animated series initially find Zuko annoying and one-dimensional for most of the first season. Though this is not entirely in line with my own opinion, I can't deny that his extra depth in season 2 came a bit out of left field even to me back when I watched the series as it aired between 2005-2007. Dante himself has said he was not given any foresight into his character and thought he was playing a straight villain at first, so he accordingly acted a straight villain. Thus, contrary to some other naysaying I've seen, I don't think it was a bad decision at all to showcase Zuko's more vulnerable side sooner. Speaking of that vulnerable side, Dallas I believe has an amazing career ahead of him. In spite of some clunky writing, he manages to both sell most of his lines in an intense way I completely buy, and also he just has this amazing ability to telegraph whole paragraphs with tiny fractional changes to his facial expression even when he's not speaking any dialogue. That my friends, is called good acting. I felt his scream of rage at Zhao during episode 8 through my entire body. He has a way of capturing both Zuko's petulant teenage angst and the still-a-child energy of being stupid and needing a guiding hand from his uncle. His and Iroh's chemistry and bond was probably the single biggest highlight of the series for me. Perhaps only rivaled by the extra bit of interaction between him and Aang in episode 6, which quite literally had me sobbing and smiling at the same time, and between him and Ozai where he was banished, which just had me sobbing. I cannot emphasize enough just how well his anguish is translated on his face without a single spoken word.

Dallas is also a skilled martial artist who did most of his own stunts, and visually, it is a treat to watch him perform in that aspect as well. The Aang/Zuko spar in episode 3 had some big Jackie Chan energy and I was smiling ear to ear the entire fight.

Iroh

This I know will be a less popular opinion, but Paul Sun-Hyung Lee I think brought a very nuanced performance to Iroh. While nothing can ever replace Mako's place on the most beloved character performance pedestal, I think it would be disrespectful to attempt to only replicate that performance and would come off as a caricature. Dallas and Paul had not met in person until the day they began shooting, so it takes an episode or two for them to shine as a duo, but shine they do very early on. The same clunky writing that plagues everyone's performances here and there finds no exception with Iroh, but I disagree with opinions I've seen of him being stiff and/or fake.

I feel his stiffness is being intentionally leaned into in a way that's supposed to highlight the idea that maybe Iroh is using his jovial nature to mask his pain over losing his son and worry for Zuko. It makes sense in the darker context of the live action, as we see even more clearly that he could very well have been as much of a butcher as that one Earth Kingdom soldier said he was. There's a scene in episode 4 of him while captured by the Earth Kingdom soldiers where this soldier singles him out over personal vendetta for killing his brother during his siege. While holding a massive rock over his head in rage over Iroh's seemingly uncaring attitude towards his atrocities, it is my interpretation of that pointed stare-down between the two that Iroh was trying to play the part of the villain that guy so desperately wanted to see in him. You could see Iroh's actual pain break through on his face immediately after everyone's back was turned. Thus begins the first of a series of flashbacks that ruin absolutely everyone's tear ducts, where Paul showcases just how sincere his Iroh can be. The added scenes between him and Zuko and Ozai peppered throughout I think make this series worth a watch by themselves. In my head, I've already adopted them into canon. As for where our truly laid back Uncle Iroh is to be found, though his narration in episode 6 about the "mask being who you truly are" was directed toward Zuko, I tend to think that will eventually pay off as true for himself, too.

Ozai/Azula/Zhao

Speaking of Mr. Fire Lord and family, Ozai has become a lot more interesting as a character to me when he's given a shred of humanity. Though we don't yet have the full picture of his motivations, you see that tiny grimace of regret as he burns Zuko's face after their Agni Kai, and I am intrigued. Again, this is not to downplay Mark Hamil's incredible performance in animated, but from a writing perspective, I've always found Ozai rather a cartoon cutout (pun intended) of an evily evil man who just wants to rule the world. Watching the cogs spin behind the scenes at the palace this early on has really added some extra layers for me. Azula benefits from this as well, as you see Ozai pitting the siblings against each other to see who will emerge the "better" heir. Zuko's motivation may subconsciously be geared more toward regaining that shred of humanity from his father moreso than his approval, in spite of what he says to himself and the viewers. But Azula is most definitely going for that approval, and I think beautifully sets up her eventual downfall into paranoia and gives them an even more tangible dichotomy in my opinion.

Ken Leung plays Zhao as a slimy little bastard in this version and clearly loved doing so. Though I was initially sort of raising an eyebrow at it, I've since decided that I am 120% in. Watching him claw his way to the top with Azula's help and piss all over anyone in his way has been extremely entertaining. I'm not even going to pretend Jason Issacs wouldn't ham it up that much, because we all know he would. In all seriousness, I think he strikes an impressive tightrope walk of being over-the-top without being too over-the-top, though I'm sure that is partially a matter of taste. I'd love to capture even half of his energy and doll it out to some of the rest of the cast, to be honest.

Omashu, Bumi, and Colliding Plots

Though I am well aware the way multiple animated show episodes' plots were smushed together was done to save limited runtime, I actually think this was very well executed in Omashu. Everyone still retained core aspects to their characters and they played nicely off each other to make one bigger plot that spanned 2 episodes. It comes down to a trade-off in either making the world feel bigger by having more side quests, or making Omashu feel more important. Though I am still undecided on if that trade-off was worth it, I can't deny that for what was done here, it played out very well. Not as well in the episode 5/6 attempt, but as episode 6 is my overall favorite episode starting at the Blue Spirit stuff, I'll leave the rest in the neutral category. Bumi's characterization specifically I know is controversial here. What I will say is that I've seen an equal number of blind reactors to the animated show who are utterly put off by his attitude as there are those that completely loved him, and literally nothing in the middle, so at least it's consistent in that regard. Personally, I find his more jaded (pun intended again) attitude suited for the tone the live action series is going for. That is to say, I think he works in the context of this version of the story, and neither would fit in if swapped. Fighting the same war and being responsible for all the lives affected by it for 100 years would damage anyone's mental health. While I personally think by the end of episode 4 that they are setting him up to tee towards a more positive outlook reminiscent of his original counterpart, I still find his attitude in the live action justifiable. I never personally found Bumi all that compelling in the animated series when he was first introduced, though I grew to love him as the story progressed and they gave him just a bit more serious dialogue. I will get into my reasoning on that later, in a more general sense.

I loved the incorporation of elements from the other media. I was incredibly shocked when The Mother of Faces name was dropped, and then again when I recognized facets from Korra, other comics, and the novels. I also loved the early focus on some of the other Avatars besides Roku, though I do tend to think Roku himself got a bit shafted, at least as it stands now. While it remains to be seen if he eventually gets the attention he deserves, seeing more of Kiyoshi and Kuruk really added to the depth of the lore for me. One of the biggest arguments I see against the live action is that it doesn't add anything to the story, to which I can only disagree. There would be no point to watching purely a 1:1 remake, and I feel that all of what I'm remarking on in this positives category is proof that I did take away many new things, some of which I treasure dearly now.

Koizilla and Yue

One of my biggest peeves with blind reactors to the animated series is them, more often that not, not grasping the significance of Aang merging with the Ocean Spirit, if they even recognize that is what happens in the first place. You'd be surprised just how many are unclear to this fact and just think it's Aang being a badass, or even that he's the one who drags Zhao under the water, in spite of the fact that you can see La set Aang down before doing this. It happens so often, I can't write it off simply as all these different people being unobservant. Whether you want to blame the writers, or Nick's censorship, or the runtime, or whatever else, it just isn't conveyed clearly enough in the animation. Though with little to back up my theories, I was always under the impression that this merge was involuntary on Aang's part, and he was not in control, which is partly why he was so terrified of the Avatar State going into season 2. Going by the live action's take, I have to walk that back a tiny bit in the sense that it is explained Aang offered himself up, but I admit to feeling vindicated with the rest.

I think the live action did better justice to this merge overall. I know I will get dragged for that, but between the added emotional weight, the screentime and (clearly most of their) budget for Koizilla, and giving Yue more of a personality, I'm happy we clearly understand what's going on and her sacrifice. Granted, her dialogue is perhaps overly exposition-y, and yet I cannot complain because evidently there was not enough exposition in the animated series to drive it home the way it did here. In a personal anecdote, my husband who watched the animated series with me but remembers nothing of it because that's just how he is, liked this final battle the best out of any episode for most of these reasons.

Speaking of Yue, Amber Midthunder did an amazing job with what she was given. No, her writing (once again my main complaint) was not the best. Her wig was wigging. I still didn't quite buy her and Sokka's attraction. But through sheer force of the actress' charisma, Yue as a standalone character transformed into someone I actually gave a shit about, which is not something I can claim of either of her previous portrayals. I like that she had more agency for herself, I like that Han wasn't just an unlovable moron there to make her sad, I liked her being a Waterbender and using all that power to make ice cream (I sure would,) I liked her dying with a tearful smile on her face. So sue me.

Onto the neutral...

Sokka

NOTE: I won't be mentioning Ian's controversy surrounding his heritage here, simply because nothing has been proven one way or another and I'd rather just not get into it with only speculation to go on.

Sokka overall I think does the heavy lifting for the Gaang in this version. As mentioned several times by now, everyone suffers here and there from questionable scripting, but as with Yue, Ian Ousley's natural personality shines through plenty enough to sell it. I KNOW people love Jack De Sena and his humor and comedy delivery, heck, I love these in Jack De Sena too. I don't think it would work nearly as well in this version of the world without being total and utter tonal whiplash. Ian brings a grounded quality to Sokka while maintaining a biting sarcasm that I think still earns his place. Additionally, I found myself getting emotional at a number of his scenes, and can personally really relate to his anxieties about not being able to shoulder all his responsibility. Hence why this goes into the neutral category, I can't deny some personal bias here because of that connection.

When talking about episode 2 specifically, and the removal of his overt sexism, I have to be biased again. For the same reasons as I mentioned in Bumi's bit that are coming up, I never found this aspect to be anything other than cringey. From a storytelling standpoint, after episode 4 of the animated series, it ceases to even really be an overt thing anymore, bringing it instead to the level where it is in the live action, so I don't even think it's really that significant of a change. As to what I mean by where it is in the live action, Sokka's arc still tackles internalized misogyny, I think. Toxic masculinity can harm the bearer of it just as much as it can harm those externally affected by it. For anyone wanting to argue me on this point, I have been a firsthand witness to both my husband and multiple male-identifying friends who have been irrevocably harmed by it, so I really don't want to downplay the fact that this is still a significant character flaw. How well it was executed by the writers is definitely debatable, but as with Bumi, there's merit in the concept. There's a running theme of Sokka learning he doesn't have to be a strong warrior to still protect those he loves, and letting go of the shadow left by his father when Sokka was put in such a demanding leadership position at such a young age. It was a big loss not putting him in full Kiyoshi gear though, I will give you that.

Aang and the Overall Story

I'm torn on Aang, because though I miss a lot of his playfulness in the live action, it is also true that I often felt, especially in season 1 of the animated show, that it never seemed like all the horrific things that happened to his people affected him as much as it should have. Again, this is all up to debate on how much Nick interfered with the creative process of the animated series, or the writing, or the runtime, etc. But, in general, it just never felt like emotional scenes were lingered on quite long enough to really let them sink in a lot of the time. This is not to say it always felt that way, but after multiple rewatches over my life, I find myself more and more unsatisfied when it does feel like that. I know showing the genocide of the Air Nomads is a hot button topic, but it at least can be said that it set what to expect for the tone of the live action. I personally felt nothing but horror and sadness while watching that scene, and I think that is the intended response by the creators. Though I think the pendulum was swung a bit too far on Aang's characterization, I did appreciate him feeling more gravity towards his circumstances. I also do understand them going for "coming to terms with the present" as his arc for this season, even if I think they dragged it out a bit too long for my liking. As a side note, it should be mentioned that Gordon Cormier is also a talented martial artist who did most of his own stunts as well. Watching some of the behind-the-scenes footage of him was a real delight. And this is where I have to own up to the disclaimer I've been alluding to...I was 19 when ATLA first started airing in 2005, and thus was quite a bit beyond the target demographic at the time, so I recognize this show was not written for people my age. Regardless of its universal appeal and overall amazing execution, there are always going to be some things about the animated series I find childish or stupid that I cannot gloss over with nostalgia the same way people who were younger can. I am certainly guilty of doing so for things that were relevant during my more formative years (hello, Sailor Moon.)

Conversely, you also could say that I am more open to criticizing the parts of the animated series I don't think hold up so well, as few in number as those things are. I will say for anyone who wasn't around at the time, you are very lucky to not have been exposed to the constant fights and protest campaigns with Nickelodeon to even continue/finish the series, the annoying ways they kept sabotaging the syndication, the toxic forum threads fighting over the stupidest little nitpicks, or the equally toxic ship wars (okay, maybe still those.) You'd honestly be very surprised how nostalgic all the negativity over the live action has been, because it's practically a mirror image to the negativity over animated at the time, only now with the extra punch-shyness of having the Movie That Shall Not Be Named casting a shadow over everything.

All that being said, at last we are now on to the negative...

The Writing/Pacing

While I still hold that there are gems to be had in the live action series, this is where the show starts deducting the big points from my score. There is no doubt by most that there exists a significant writing problem on this adaptation. Most especially when it comes to dialogue, which often is clunky, exposition-heavy, rushed, or very canned-sounding. I honestly cannot place the blame on the actors themselves, as I think it is more apt to lay this at the feet of the showrunners. I'm sure there's a lengthy list of excuses, many valid, as to what happened exactly: Child acting labor laws, COVID separation, Netflix's overlords, budget, timing, etc. The fact remains that there were definitely some scenes I cringed my way through, Katara's interactions and fight with Pakku spring to mind most readily. ...Katara in general, to be honest, who got did pretty dirty in her characterization. When I see interviews with Kiawentiio where she's simply being herself, I see the energy I was looking for, so I don't think she was miscast at all. Everything has a heavier tone in the live action, so I understand where they're coming from with her starting out subdued and somewhat repressed. I appreciated the fact that they were very forthright about what happened to her mom in ways the animated show couldn't be. All that being said though, I just cannot justify why they didn't start breaking Katara out of her shell sooner or why they kept so many badly-read takes (not just with her, to be fair.) They can absolutely still keep the tone grounded while still allowing her inner fire to come through, and perhaps we will see that yet to come. I'm hesitant to blame the youngest among the cast for any perceived lack of acting skill because A) I'd sooner blame the writers and B) Yo, they're kids, and kid actors need time to develop skill.

In the matter of time, I think the series would have benefitted enormously from just a bit more of it. Ideally, like 2 more episodes to round out the main cast. I'd even take 5-10 minutes here and there per episode. One of the biggest flaws aside from the dialogue I see is a lack of interaction between our current main trio, which is where the heart of the Gaang lies. I know they CAN do it, the Fire Nation crew certainly was elevated by all the little touches here and there. I don't know why the main cast couldn't get the same treatment. This one also goes in the pile of "hope for the future," because if we do get a continuation (and I do actually hope for this,) one would expect a lot of these issues to be ironed out and for the cast to have even more experience and chemistry together to work with.

Additionally, there are a number of places where even my permanently blank-slate husband could tell things had been condensed to a point of feeling rushed. As I mentioned, though 6 is overall my favorite episode beyond this, there is no denying that Roku and the Fire Temple scene in general got shafted by pacing. It is sort of ironic that in animated I often felt that emotional scenes were rushed, but in the live action I just as frequently find myself wishing some of the slower moments of levity got their due as well. There is middle ground to be had somewhere, and once again I find myself hoping that this is another major area where we see improvement.

The negatives seem like a short section compared to the positives, but that's only because I have a harder time dissecting the parts that I can't even actively remember even after 2 rewatches. Nothing really made me actively angry at the live action enough to ramble on about at length, there were just a significant enough amount of forgettable or flawed parts of it that it hurt my overall impression. And really, calling a scene forgettable is maybe worse than calling it stupid or bad, because you can at least have a good time making fun of those.

Conclusion

One thing I hope people take away from this, if they bother to read this novel of a review at all, is that nothing will ever replace my love of the animated series. It's not going anywhere, and nothing can tear it down from its pedestal as proved quite decisively by Shyamalan. If I'd give animated a 9.5/10, then comparatively a 6.9/10 for the live action seems like a big downgrade, but I don't necessarily believe things have to be perfect to be worthwhile. I mean, I grew up on fantasy movies from the 80s and 90s, so I am a master at suspending expectations, trust me. It's an above-average score, simply because the things I took away from it and loved outweighed the things I didn't love. It made me ugly cry about 5-6 times, and I think that counts for something. My husband tells me he gives it a 9/10 and that he quite enjoyed himself. It is often difficult for me to get him interested in any media, because he has the attention span of a cabbage, so for him to actively ask when we were watching more was rather impressive. For these reasons, I pointedly reject the idea that the live action has no heart whatsoever, and I have reasonable hope that we will both get another season and that it will do better. EDIT: Turns out they greenlit seasons 2 and 3 the day after I wrote this. Woo!

Since he's a big WWE of the 90s fan, after the last episode, we had a fantasy casting roll for The Boulder, and that was the most we'd laughed together in months. It's a nice note to end on, don't you think?

#avatar the last airbender #atla #avatar live action #atla live action #atla netflix #discussion

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