#the atlas lion thesis

[armandofnowhere]

ARMAND + “In the jaws of the Atlas Lion”

A Tumblr post by @nightcolorz

A lyric from Caligulove by Them Crooked Vultures, inspired by this post by @wizardpink

Screencap of Interview with the Vampire 2x8, “And That's the End of It. There’s Nothing Else.”

Excerpt from TV Guide article, “Interview with the Vampire Costume Designer Carol Cutshall Delves Into Season 2’s Best Looks”

Screencap of Interview with the Vampire 2x7, “I Could Not Prevent It”

Excerpt from The Wrap article, “Interview with the Vampire Showrunner Hints at ‘Double Album’ Worth of Music From Lestat in Season 3”

Screencap of Interview with the Vampire 2x7, “I Could Not Prevent It”

Additional comment to this post by @mossycakes

[heliianth]

re: the lion-turtle - that's about my opinion as well. but you went on to explain that energy and lightning are metaphors for themes in ATLA, i don't have a good enough understanding of this so i feel as if i missed a point you made on fixing the plot of sozin's comet. thx for answering!

okay, so first of all. this is going to be long

this is what i said:

“energybending and lightningbending are both very thematically entrenched and metaphorically dense practices within the show, but the former needs groundwork, because all we have in the show is the conclusion of what it represents and not what its trying to say about aang as a person.”

and yk what, i kind of take back the descriptors “entrenched” and “dense” being applied to energybending, because its not exactly clear to me what it is supposed to mean other than “unbreakable spirit,” which is said during exposition. my conclusion may not even occur to someone else, whereas lightningbending is very clearly used as a narrative device and metaphorical tool and its meaning can be easily recognized by any viewer paying attention

im going to address this by way of talking about lightningbending specifically, because i feel like if i illustrate why that is a good metaphor, it might be easier to see what i wanted from energybending, because i simply cannot address both in the way id prefer when limited by a tumblr ask.

lightningbending has 6 significant thematic moments from what i can remember, all of which center around control and/or abuse. thats my “thesis”, i guess.

1

2x1; azula is practicing it on her ship

azula, as everyone whose dipped toes into atla can understand, is a character who is centered around the 2 ideas i mentioned: control and abuse, both of which inform the other. azula seeks control in almost every situation she's put in because abuse has conditioned her into obsessive perfectionism and this causes her to abuse others, illustrating a clear cycle of violence which she buckles under later. introducing lightningbending not only using her character but directly following it up with this moment:

sets up a thematic relation that is elaborated on in every instance i'll go onto mention. and it always involves members of the fn royal family, which is explicitly written as an abusive dynamic.

2

2x10, where iroh is attempting to coach zuko so he can use it himself. here we are told the following:

this is my interpretation, but whereas the introduction with azula is framed emphasizing control (considering a first-time audience would be unaware of how azula relates to the cycle of abuse at that point), the way lightning is described here is all about the former theme, abuse. words like cold-blooded give an apathetic or even sadistic tint to it as a practice and even the process of creating it—forcibly separating energies and bringing them back together in a violent collision, the direction of which the bender controls—is one that invokes a certain type of imagery.

zuko’s subsequent inability to lightningbend, instead resulting in explosions, is linked inherently to his own trauma in a way that iroh recognizes. instead, he teaches zuko lightning redirection:

notably, a technique learned by being considerate and appreciative of waterbending—discovered by an open mind*

lightning redirection, thematically, is the “freedom and healing” juxtaposition to lightningbending’s “control and abuse”.

after zuko gets a hang of it, he asks iroh to shoot lightning at him so he can practice, and iroh refuses based on the danger.

now, itd be perfectly reasonable to say i’m overexaggerating here, but to me this scene reads as an extension of zuko’s near-suicidal disregard of his own well being in favor of progress. whereas azula’s abuse has conditioned her into seeking control, zuko’s has taught him that achievement is necessarily sandwiched between and synonymous with pain. suffering has been his teacher, if you will.

meaning “hurt me so i can learn from it!”

and iroh denies him this. he says:

meaning “you do not have to hurt right now, or at all”

but zuko is not lucky, he is obviously still deeply stuck within his own ideas of struggle and pain, which is why he seeks it out himself when iroh will not provide it to him:

if previously lightning has not been illustrated as a tool of abuse, it is cemented here on the mountain

where zuko screams at the world (and, commonly considered, his father at some subconscious level) that it’s never held back, and to just hit him because he can take it now. that he is strong because he has been abused, and he is weak because he has been hurt by it. and he breaks down because it will not give him what he thinks will prove himself (which is, again, suffering)

3

chronologically, the third moment is in 2x20 when aang is shot by azula with lightning:

though i feel like 3x1 addresses the consequences of this if lightningbending is indeed representative of what i say it is. i’ll keep this brief because i dont want to narrate the premise of a whole episode, but aang being killed by azula’s lightning causes both zuko to return to an abusive situation and relinquish control over his own destiny back into the hands of azula and ozai, it also causes AANG to seek control and lose faith in himself as well as his friends’ ability to help him*. which is appropriate for what lightningbending has been set up as thematically

4

the direct thematic followup to the second one, in 3x11, the day of black sun ii—

when zuko confronts ozai, he is not seeking validation or repentance. it is for his sound of mind solely. hes spent the whole series dogmatically hanging onto propaganda, toxicity, and anger as a way to cognitively distance himself from his own victimization. but now hes realized “what an amazing lie that was”, and he can begin restructuring himself as someone who is free from all of it, and then can try helping the world restructure itself as an extension (because zuko unlearning the fn’s imperialism has always been deeply intertwined with him processing and acknowledging his own trauma/abuse) . but ozai cannot resist hurting him one last time by weaponizing ursa in order to trick zuko into lingering after the eclipse

and the audience, despite experiencing such a dramatic relapse after s2 and many smaller relapses before then, knows zuko’s growth is true because he redirects it. ozai’s lightning, his abuse and conditioning and manipulations, are rendered ineffective:

--> “you cannot hurt me anymore” 

5

we return to azula in 3x20. during the final agni kai, zuko provokes azula into “ending it” by shooting lightning, intending to redirect it.

and azula, who has since then lost the control she desperately needs for self-recognition and esteem, aims at katara standing behind zuko, instead.

(interestingly, this second shot of azula is EXTREMELY similar to the closeup in 2x1)

ive seen quite a few interpretations of this scene, but to be on-topic, i think this is supposed to (literally) illuminate how azula copes with her own abuse, which is to seek her own victims. historically this has been zuko, sometimes mai and ty lee at other intervals. but mai and ty lee are gone, and zuko is no longer someone she can hurt without consequence, so she does what she always does: aims it at someone uninvolved. she perpetuates the cycle of abuse because she does not know how to do anything else to make herself stop hurting.

then, obviously, this:

this scene has a lot of thematic density and im unsure how to unpack my feelings on it. despite the focus of this analysis being on the action of lightninbending and redirecting it, i think the important thing is not that zuko is hit by the lightning, its that he selflessly jumps in front of it, partially redirects it,  then is healed by a friend, and turns out okay*. the last three parts are the key, there, imo (and obviously this is also really important for katara as a character but this analysis would get soooooo long and unfocused if i talked about every character’s arcs in every scene ive mentioned)

6

the last lightningbending moment i want to point out (which actually happens earlier than the one in the final agni kai, oops) is another one during 3x20, where aang catches ozai’s lightning:

—hesitates—

—and redirects it into the air.

this represents aang simultaneously denying ozai’s power AND aang also refusing fatal retribution as an extension of ozai’s (and ozai’s ancestors’) beliefs—it is not a statement of healing from ozai’s abuse in the way zuko’s relationship to lightning has always been, but rejecting his control over aang’s narrative and the future of the world. ozai has created a world, “[his] world!”, where anything he cruelly considers weakness is criminal and justice is violence; he wants the avatar to play by these rules, and by not killing him with the tool he has created, thematically aang rejects his world too.

ozai later says (paraphrased) “your people did not deserve to live in this world” and aang proves him wrong from this scene onwards.

the 2 final scenes i talk abt, i think, are important to understanding lightningbending as a narrative device. the last times we see it are its hurt being healed (with the power of love and friendship, ofc) in 5, and then what it represents being rejected on principle in 6. lightningbending is not only used as a badass action setup, it also acts as a tool for a specific idea to be introduced and advanced in tandem with and informing the related characters’ development. then, its final uses appropriately say things about two of the most important characters in the series (zuko with 5 and aang with 6) and the resolution of their arcs.

hopefully this made my point easier to understand, and now its more clear that energybending Both introduced a good idea by hearkening back to “separation is illusory” (which is one of the more poignant themes in atla, imo) and is unfortunately not as strong metaphorically as lightningbending, which is very similar but is much more rich

[blatantescapism]

Crossover fic prompt:

what if Marcille got isekai-swapped with Aang about a third of the way through both stories. Pissed off lady just wants to get back to rescuing her girlfriend, but the only way to get back is to take on the Fire Nation. Sokka decides the best strategy to avoid panic over the disappearance of the Avatar is to pretend that Aang turned into a girl. Shenanigans ensue.

Marcille gets to enjoy applied academic research as she figures out how to imitate actual bending with her spells. (She also often says fuck it and uses whatever magic is most OP. Toph thinks she’s a hoot.)

Aang gets to have a fun vacation trying monster food. (Senshi immediately is like I’m a dad now, I must protect this child)

Everything seems to be going well…,

(Dungeon Meshi spoilers under the cut! Also Atla spoilers, although we’re rather past the statute of limitations there)

… but:

when Marcille brought her magic into the Atla world, she also brought a part of the Winged Lion with her.

and Zuko and Azula are both burning with unfulfilled wishes.

(The Spirit World is the space between and overlapping the two universes, and the source of both magic and bending. The Winged Lion is essentially a feral orphan Spirit.)

With the Winged Lion rooted in hosts in both worlds, things get messy and the dimensions merge. However, once the Atla spirits become aware of the Lion’s existence, they are able to contain some of the damage. Civilians are not helpless. Everyone’s actions matter. Atla folks are fighting monsters like wtf where did these come from. Political schemers from both worlds are trying to figure out the expanded chessboard. Heroes join forces. Regular folks establish trade. Ozai’s war crimes don’t lose meaning in the face of a larger threat.

It’s important that the spirit apocalypse does not overshadow the importance of individual character arcs. Everyone has to have their cathartic moment of badassery and personal growth, because that is absolutely key to the thesis of combining these stories. It’s about not allowing your self to be devoured by your passions; instead, being passionately true to yourself. Taking responsibility for your own choices, instead of trying to control others.

Zuko channels the lightning without letting it touch his heart. Aang accepts his role as the Avatar, but does not sacrifice his pacifist ideals.

Azula and Thistle both get nibbled on, but have enough personality left that they both get a hopeful ending where they might eventually heal from their shared experience of the “fucked up childhood / impossible parental expectations / toxic amounts of power / lack of normal human friendship / had a mental breakdown / demon ate me” situation.

I feel like Senshi and Sokka would vibe so hard. Chilchuck and Sokka too. It’d take a bit for Chilchuck to get used to his antics, but they would get along so well during strategy time

omg YES and can you imagine Laios and Sokka designing an invention together???

Oh lord, or eating Cactus

[thelastpilot]

I posted 1,507 times in 2021

107 posts created (7%)

1400 posts reblogged (93%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 13.1 posts.

I added 147 tags in 2021

#tlp draws - 31 posts

#my art - 31 posts

#my commissions - 20 posts

#pokemon - 13 posts

#little gherkin - 11 posts

#next day reblog - 10 posts

#lmao - 8 posts

#nino lahiffe - 8 posts

#anonymous - 8 posts

#djwifi - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 115 characters

#if you're wondering yes their is a naming convention and yes it applies to all 20 characters i have so far lmfaoooo

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Saw a noble Luxray go down in a Nuzlocke run and in its memory I drew a ghost type Luxray, haha. slapped some color on it

325 notes • Posted 2021-01-05 02:34:56 GMT

#4

Do you ever wonder what creatures in the world you share a birthday with? I wish i could know how many mice and deer and lions and leopards and moths were born on the same day as me, or even the same year! Wonder if there is any sea turtles out there with the same birthday as me. What a wonderful thought

375 notes • Posted 2021-05-22 21:52:49 GMT

#3

An absolutely amazing commission that I loved doing SO SO MUCH, because @winterlili asked me to do something deeply personal to me; a painting of Jade Turtle and Alya's first date from my own fic The Weight of Jade !

Getting to paint a scene from my own story was so incredibly fun for me, what an amazing time! Back when Carapace was just Jade Turtle and Season Two didn't even have a pending date. Oh those were the days!

588 notes • Posted 2021-12-02 01:41:00 GMT

#2

Hey ATLA fans! I got a bunch of AWESOME commissions from @aplaceofnonsense! Three illustrations of Yue, featuring one Katara and Suki! Couldn’t have been happier to work on these.

In order you have Modern Yue, Yue’s Destiny, and The GIRLS

View my commission sheet here !

635 notes • Posted 2021-02-17 06:25:13 GMT

#1

Is there any book where an immortal paints to pass the time and has published art under various pseudonyms across the centuries with different styles each time, but some art history student writes a dissertation comparing the art of every single alias this immortal has ever used and finds some quirk that is consistent across each. And instead of asserting that there is a common thread of inspiration with each of these artists this exhausted graduate level art history student downs like six cups of coffee and jokingly says that they're all the same person. And this poor Nosferatu looking mofo is like "OH SHIT, but also this thesis paper is super flattering"

cause i'd like to read it

4121 notes • Posted 2021-02-24 01:10:08 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[pigeoncentric]

i did an A:TLA rewatch and took notes because that’s just what i do, and here’s the notes if anyone wants to see my thoughts

i haven't watched atla since about a year before korra started airing, so like, around 2011. i should also mention that i never watched korra through to the end, but i guess i'll do that after this. if i feel like it. i do know that the biggest bottles were never popped

i have such a clear memory of the first episode. it must've been on nickelodeon pretty often, even though when it was airing, i only watched it occasionally. i remember they also aired the library episode super often.

aang's voice is so tiny and sweet

i gotta turn off my dumb adult brain and put my dumb kid brain back on so i can better appreciate the nickelodeonness of it all

sokka and zuko's first interaction.......

zuko's intimidating approach and then his tiny teen voice

SOKKA AND ZUKO'S SECOND INTERACTION............

zuko's like "i'm going home." with aang. he must be feeling an incredible mixture of feelings, thinking he has the avatar and can reclaim his Honor. but he also must be terrified to go back, and in disbelief... fortunately he's not going home like he said and there are even more confused feelings in between

i just remembered that iroh's voice actor dies between seasons :(

thinking a lot about dante basco... no thoughts in particular, just a lot of them... and how he shipped zutara lmao

"my troubles cannot be soaked away!"

hei bai looks like a ben 10

mounts list (added to as i progressed through the series): zuko's rhinos. earth armored ostriches. metal noshing mole. north pole goatyak. azula and friends' fur geckos. sabertooth moose lion if you're not a wimp. appa-sized beetle. moose with aquatic features. Eel Hound.

you can't out-mom-friend katara. even when she's yelling and being reckless

it's true... airbenders are weak to nets.

the n*tfli* captions are making several mistakes. eat my ass ne*f*ix and hire me to do flawless captioning instead you dumb fucks

YEAH! even by episode 13 in season 1 we already know zuko is a good boy! well also by episode 12. and earlier. well i've seen the series before.

i've just learned that zach tyler eisen is the voice of aang and i have to give him huge props for having the perfect voice. i pay a lot of attention to voice acting, usually in a nitpicky way, and i've never heard an english voice actor whose voice is perfect on the level of ikue ohtani... and when he was like 12 years old. incredible. i'm not being remotely sarcastic

i gotta be 100% honest. i had completely forgotten the existence of zhao and that he's actually a pretty important character, at least in season 1. also his voice actor is pretty good. generally the voice acting is good in this show, and i'm picky.

god the animation where aang makes one catapult catapult the other is so good. also appa just picked up and grabbed a guy. with his fist. wait how many toes does appa have? is that 18 in total? also appa has scutes on his ventrum. anyway i love that appa can pick up and grab a guy but generally chooses not to. gives it more weight when he does choose to

zuko tells turtle seals to be quiet and then touches them unkindly :(

zuko busted out of katara's ice orb instead of melting it :\

zuko put his hood up like iroh told him to but aang just has his naked bald head in the snowy cold :(

seeing zhao grab and bag the moon spirit fish made me feel sick. such a foul act

god. the quality rope. i noticed sokka mention it and was like, "was this a chekhov's gun or a red herring" and then a few minutes later there was a pointed pan over to the quality rope.

anyway examining the quality of the voice acting here leads me to a thesis i might gather evidence to prove: american english voice acting for cartoons is far higher quality than american english voice acting for anime dubs. or is that just something obvious that everyone already agrees on

anyway anyway, the episode ended without the quality rope being put to use. unless i missed it, which is entirely possible.

jesus i heard azula's first lines and got an instant flashback to all the tumblr drama about grey delisle and her tumblr account and how she pretended it wasn't hers or something let's just erase all of this from my brain right now

this is kind of out of nowhere and borderline inappropriate but i'm glad characters in avatar are illustrated with nipples when they're shirtless... it always disturbs me a tiny bit when shirtless characters are depicted with zero nipple, not even a hint of nipple. (Aladdin.) not just because it implicitly stigmatizes something everyone has, but also because this scenario always plays in my head where it's like, a little kid sees a cartoon character without nipples and they think, "so i'm not supposed to have these..." and they start feeling weird and bad about themself... all you need to depict a nipple is a single unobtrusive dot. nothing visually offensive or explicit about it.

even to an audience who doesn't understand any cultural context, you can't not see the significance of zuko and iroh cutting off their topknots...

fandom seems to see sokka as the silliest one when in fact at least 40% of his entire role as a character is to be the tsukkomi

underrated moment: "you've got an elbow leech." "WHERE?! WHERE?!"

zuko should be a good boy and only steal if it's from pirates

stealy zuko stealing money and buying iroh a teapot !

god i forgot what a tiny baby voice toph has... so tiny

zuko trying really really hard but doing a bad job hammering (tears)

azula set up zuko and mai for a lucky sukebe...

when zuko's mom told him not to forget who he is, she didn't mean to remember that he's a prince and an heir as he revealed to the unsuspecting earth kingdom village. she meant to remember that he's someone with at least the base level of empathy and compassion, unlike most of his immediate family...

i still think aang's voice actor did a great job but i bet it sucks to be a young boy doing an excellent young boy voice and then when you grow up a little and presumably experience some puberty you just Cannot do the young boy voice anymore. hopefully in most cases where that happens, it's at least not abrupt

placing a bet that the writer for episode s2:e10 (the library) is different than most of the other episodes. i don't like it very much, at least in the first several minutes. if it's a name i recognize from the credits of several other episodes, i might be a bit disappointed in them. seriously, there's one stinker after another. and with such a great concept of an episode...

i didn't recognize the name of the guy who wrote this episode so i thought i was right but no, he wrote a bunch of episodes. must have been off his game for this one... either that or i'm in a very unforgiving mood and don't realize it... also when i went on wikipedia to look at who wrote which atla episodes, i learned that the animation for the show was split between two animation studios, and they're both korean. ah, i guess that doesn't mean all the animation took place overseas, as DM movie has a headquarters in the US. according to wikipedia.

oh, they're BUZZards... i get it... i gotcha.

aang with a vengeance is both scary and sad to see. but he does understand that property damage is nothing compared to a life

people who love azula are the exact same as people who love vriska: [comment redacted]

they have american birds in the avatar world. i keep hearing an eastern wood-peewee going "pee-pee-uwee" in the background :3

the serpent's pass seems geologically implausible.

sokka should really get face paint all over his face when he kisses suki. or like, the cartoonish image of when someone is covered in lipstick lip smacks, but it should be suki's makeup color

appa's been through so much and now he has to meet a boarcupine?!?! fortunately he still knows how to pick up and grab... but still :(

he touched appa's scutes and read them like a palm...

longshot translated his meaningful stares into out-loud words for katara and friends

zuko forgot that azula always lies :(

zuko should know that being redeemed in his father's eyes is the opposite of what he wants...

i LOVE aang's passionate tsungi horn dance

there are spring peepers in the fire nation

god the dripping of the rotten clams is so excessive

you know how ultrasonic humidifiers can create water vapor without heating it into steam, by vibrating it super fast? let's try that with waterbending, it'll be cool

two different bad guys have been skipped across the water like a rock

i love the fake time lapse of cleaning the river... and it showed how with pollution in real life, stopping the source of the pollution is not enough. it needs to be removed as well

sokka deserves LOTS of credit just for being able to handle a boomerang.

GOD THE SLOW PAN OVER THE BEAUTIFUL SWORD (in 3:4)

sokka also deserves LOTS of credit for being able to admit he doesn't know everything.

i managed to forget that zuko turns his back on iroh, while remembering that at some point, iroh gets buff

the voice of sokka's master is the voice of the boulder. right? right? no? are you kidding me? i suck at this

seems like kissing azula would have immediate consequences, like something melting

zuko is poorly socialized

zuko still forgot that azula always lies. even when she's being somewhat humanized in an episode like this.

so avatar roku had earthly attachments he did not let go of, presumably. such as his wife. did he have unfettered access to the avatar state? that's what i would ask him during this expositionfest if i was aang.

so sozin could do heatbending... that's amazing. i think i missed that the first time around.

that's right, zuko came back and his hair is long enough, but he hasn't recreated his topknot.

hawky is the only atla animal that poops on camera.

if you're gonna bend sweat, you might as well bend spit, and it's a little easier to obtain

wait so... is combustion man also a heatbender? i'll have to look into it later. [looked into it later: the avatar wiki has termed it "combustionbending?" are you shitting me?]

ooh it's the bloodbending episode! i'm pumped.

someone made a post about how when they watched this show and they were a kid they were thinking about how the characters are hot, and now they're watching as an adult and the characters are all tiny children... that's how i've been feeling. also season 3 episode 8 aang's voice sounds a little bit pubertous.

anyway damn this bloodbending episode is outright traumatic. good shit

oh, now zuko's topknot is back.

appa's armor covers each individual toe <:3c

i seriously misremembered the course of zuko's character development. and the timeline of the invasion in general. but now i understand that zuko has to tell his dad to eat shit face to face.

watching zuko's "zuko here" practice speech hurts 100% as much as it did the first time i saw it. and when he's delivering it to the gaang it's impossible to watch. i didn't put my hands on my head-- they just went there unbidden.

i kinda can't help picturing dante basco's face every time i hear zuko talk. the whole time. it's sometimes not optimal to know the faces of voice actors. especially when you're like me and you're not good at pushing out unwanted mental images.

what the fuck, combustion man? he just loves assassination so much you can't take back any orders. also i can't help but imagine that if you put a slice across his third eye his combustion would be fully inhibited. well i guess that's not a problem anymore.

i like that the gaang are a variety of heights, and that they're all noticeably shorter than most of the adults they meet. it just makes it feel realistic

if it was a US max security prison and prisoners were escaping they'd probably just fucking murder them

i love how when mai starts up the gondola again and azula is like "what is she DOING!" and ty lee just makes an "iunno" noise

tfw your best friend abandons you because you wouldn't let her murder her own brother

chit seng didn't get to free his girlfriend and best buddy :(

funny how azula seems almost docile when she's getting everything she wants. typical narcissist. well ok not the least bit typical.

sokka ate the rose. i remembered this scene Too clearly. but i didn't remember that.

um... was that the full moon? when katara bloodbent that guy? i should've looked at the sky... i went back and looked and still didn't see if it was the full moon. maybe the wiki knows. i don't care enough to look it up properly.

i was wondering when the melon lord would show up

none of the teens understand the obvious solution of defeating the fire lord by beating him INTO SUBMISSION (or oblivion) instead of killing him. just like in every anime fight ever. it's over when you acknowledge you've lost or you can't fight anymore, not when you die. (for the #1 best example of ending a fight the right way, see the way luffy defeats crocodile.)

so i know aang's gonna defeat the fire lord by essentially hitting him with a forced purification beam to the face and make him realize the errors of his ways or something. the fun part is how we get there

bumi bending entire houses through the air

aw i forgot the turtle island didn't have a cute face.

jyong jyong firebent a jet platform to fly around on?!

i guess the firelord can fly around like bakugou katsuki

i forgot that aang took away his firebending... and sokka hops up to him like "well, look at you, buster"

i'm glad i decided to watch this again. even if i didn't do a great job paying attention tbh. well i did spend a bit of time carving a little wooden spoon while i was watching. anyway i was thinking i wouldn't move right on to korra but rather read some of the atla comics that i know exist but have never read whatsoever. i wonder if i can find them in some kind of library...

  i found the comics illegally on the internet and read a whole bunch (up until the end of the "zuko finds his mom" arc). i didn't write my thoughts down as i was reading, so i don't remember them. that's how my worthless brain works. i do remember that i found the comics satisfactory as an accurate extension of the show, and that i feel ambivalent about how azula is written/treated in the comics.

i don’t know if i feel like rewatching korra yet.

[ptw30]

i now a lot of voltron was edited but why cut Lotor's redemption arc in season 8 ? I don't believe it was just for allurance

I fluctuate on these points A LOT. 

On one hand, I believe there wasn’t ever a redemption arc for Lotor.  @kcwcommentary​ added great commentary here about the EPs’ “writing” process. Here’s a snippet about Lotor - 

They did not write Lotor to be a character. Per their own words here, they wrote him specifically to trick the audience. This explains why Lotor feels so inconsistent throughout the show, why he feels like two completely different characters. They weren’t trying to write him to be a whole, unified character with motivations that directed his actions in the story.

Please read his whole post about it. It’s really insightful. 

And this, I can believe. The EPs didn’t care about writing arcs and representation (no matter how many times they said they “cared,” their actions say differently, even just bringing up how many times they wanted to kill their characters - Hunk, Shiro, Allura, Lotor, etc.), so there was no arc to cut. The EPs never wrote one. 

On the other hand, I think someone might have sat down in the first season and plotted out the points for the rest of the series, which you can see here. There’s more evidence in Season 8 with “Knights of Light,” how the paladins go into the Void…not to save Shiro and yet they go through Shiro’s entire journey as a paladin. Say what? Oh, and Atlas and Voltron’s combination should have been six paladins and six lions becoming one. Instead, it meant nothing. 

So I do think even, in outline form, there were a lot of character arcs that eventually got butchered - including Lotor’s? I do. You can find my entire thesis paper here. 

But why were these arcs cut? I don’t know. There’s a good chance it was what KCW said in his post - the EPs wanted to manipulate the audience. So instead of fulfilling plots, they tore them apart. 

Part of me really thinks the EPs just wanted Keith in Black, and they did anything to their power to make that happen - including destroying all the characters’ development in the series, including Keith’s. 

And another part of me just thinks - the EPs are incompetent. They wouldn’t know true character development if it was delivered directly to them (which it was in Seasons 1 & 2).

[illusmeta]

s7 thoughts, in no particular order (spoilers yes)

1. Bex was right. This season hurt more than s6, if that’s even fucking possible...the last five episodes were just the most painful ride i have ever been on

2. HUNK DEVELOPMENT! IT’S A B O U T FUCKING TIME. I’m just. gaAAAAAAAH. 

2a. ok but WHY MUST HIS FAMILY BE THE ONLY ONE THAT ISN’T SAFE. the scene where keith talked to him was really fuckin sweet but also....just...give hunk his family??? 

2b. that being said we now know hunk’s connection to yellow is comparable to keith’s with black. yup. s3′s hunk not wanting black paladin was foreSHADOWING BICTH and it makes sense bc hunk is literally the team’s stability now soooooo <3 he honestly is the biggest hero of the team, fucking carried the team, deserves the world

2c. and HUNK HOLDING THE TEAM TOGETHER IN EPISODE 6??? i fuckin SCREAMED he deSERVES THE WORLD and i would die for him he’s my fuckin role model 

2d. self-care is making my inner voice HUNK and having him tell me to take care of myself...my crops are FUCKING WATERED

2e. and hunk care...is seeing shay again <3 my loves!!!

3. james griffin turned out to be less of an asshole than he could have been, give him a fucking medal lol but the subtlety of his learning to accept Voltron and specifically keith was pretty sick actually. apart from the heart-wrenching, this season had a great deal of subtlety in character development like that (before s8 or 9 when the stakes go way up of course) and i for one appreciated it 

3a. his team...also awesome. especially the girls, i love them 

4. ok but after that last episode when the whole thing just went silent...I legit thought the showrunners did it. fucking murdered everyone. keith said “it’s been an honor” and my tiny heart just broke. i keep telling myself that the showrunners can’t keep loading on impossible situations with everyone with their backs to the wall and still have it be believable but in that last scene...I believed it. I thought their luck had run out. and these guys...in a lot of ways, it feels like i’ve grown up with this show, from the end of freshman year to now. it felt like i was losing my real friends. and i thought that james’s crew had been brought on to replace them. kudos to the show for making something so incredible, but also...fuck. the adrenaline and tension has literally given me a massive headache and after i write all this down i’m gonna take a realllly long nap

5. I could write an essay on why Admiral Sanda was valid and then write another essay on why she wasn’t, but i could write a fucking thesis on why the showrunners got her arc just right

6. episode six...ohhhh my god. you know how s6 stuck a knife in my heart? well, that episode twisted it, pulled it out, and dragged my innards out with it. 

6a. seriously, think of the psychological horror of that episode. it’s one thing to die in battle, feeling you have a clear purpose and strategy and knowing you died for something. it’s another to die slowly, and painfully, without any sign that your actions ever mattered or that they can ever matter again, without any sign of hope. it’s another to die uncertain and afraid, unsure of what world you’ll leave behind, unsure of the people you’ll leave behind. small wonder everyone wanted to believe they were home. it was the first thing that kept them from going completely insane. they had to believe in it. 

6b. consider: the sheer mental force of will Hunk had to force the team forward and away. Think of just how in-tune with himself he has to be, how brave he has to be, to go against his own heart and his own team and push back and believe in himself. Honestly, Hunk is a miracle. he uses his caution to make him stronger. keith was right to admire him. he really was. 

6c. small bone to pick: i guess keith’s leaving the team has finally been...dealt with? i don’t think it’s finished but i generally think emotional development needs more focus in voltron. That’s what headcanons and fics are for, i guess? after all, it is still a kids show, and i guess the showrunners want to make sure the pacing matches that... 

7. sooooo. ships. we gotta talk about that. Wasn’t super happy with how axca was coded to be a love interest for keith. personally i’m still holding out for them finding out they’re related bc axca just seems like she’s coded to be waaaay older than keith but then again that might just be me. also: allurance maybe confirmed? I do hope that if the showrunners really want this to be endgame, they take some time next season to fully flesh out why allura’s not using lance as a rebound. like...come on. everyone knows he deserves better. 

7a. on the bright side: zethrid and ezor. nice. 

7b. double bright side: hunk and shay. NICe

7c. klance is gonna get all its mileage from episode 4 and the fact that red and black make cool wing boosters, calling it right now, the ship will never fucking sink lol tbh i don’t care that much anymore??? like, the whole show is just coming together so well and i’m happy with whatever??? as long as there’s no toxicity and everyone loves each other i’d be perfectly happy if keith and hunk became a thing 

8. the paladins with their families is just. Nice. 

8a. KEEF GOT A HUG MY BABY IS LOVED 

8b. Hunk’s flashbacks...honestly, he’s even more of a mama’s boy than lance is and he’s just. perfect. 

8c. lance and his sister lmao. veronica knows what’s up 

8d. pidge <3 again with the subtlety of the emotion the showrunners pulled off this season...10/10. everything shows on her face and it’s wonderfully done and alSO COLLEEN HOLT IS SUCH A BADASS. just fucking SNAPPED and gave Sanda the what-for. she’s valid 

8e. but question: where the FUCK IS SHIRO’S FAM I am INSULTED are you just gonna be like, “hey shiro can put his life on hold and pretend like he’s not hurting too? he came back and adam was dead. after all this time, thinking adam would outlive him. that’s harsh and i’m feeling it 

9. can we go back to the atlas? ok. that shit was fuckin relentless 

9a. so much screaming and sciency-mumbo-jumbo i feel like the showrunners were just throwing in random words with ‘o’s and hoping it worked 

9b. and shiro, powering up an entire voltron XL through his arm and his connection to altean magic?? completely implausible. honestly tho? i don’t fucking care. Shiro is magic, friendship and resilience are magic, the paladins’ resolve is basically the only thing holding voltron together at this point, and I DON’T CARE. they’re fucking badasses and they can do what they want. at least the showrunners used the small details, like sendak’s memories and the castle crystal thing. there’s my bar -- using past story details. everything else? whatever, i’m using this fiction to escape reality, not constantly poke holes in it 

10. if i had to pick favorite episodes: 6, 9, 10. maybe 12 and 13 for sheer emotional trauma. 

10a. this might be my favorite season, tbh. i honestly don’t know yet bc i’m still really Shook(TM) but while i can’t say the season made me happy (it actually fucking ripped up my heart and stomped on it), i can say it left a mark. and I think voltron has a future in saving the universe with the earth as its home base. 

10b. ok but allura needs to pull out that quintessence mumbo jumbo and give the lions a fucking UPGRADE WE ALL KNOW THAT’S WHAT HAGGAR’S DOING WITH THE COLONY AND HER WEIRD ROBEAST THINGS and ALLURA HAD THE SAME CRASHCOURSE IN ALCHEMY FROM ORIANDE SO GET ON IT PLS 

11. ngl, the characters in this season? fine. 

and now: a list of girls i thought were cute: 

- Allura (as always)

- Veronica (called it) 

- the girls on the MFE team (Leifsdottir and I forgot the other girl’s name, started with an R i think, either way she’s cute) 

- Ezor (i’m a simple fool)

- Romelle with her hair up is such a Look and I love it 

a list of guys: 

- Keith (as usual) -- seriously, why is his animation always 100000X more expressive and beautiful than everyone else’s?? someone up there loves anime pretty boys and I am NOT COMPLAINING like in episode 5 his faces of fear were just so beautifully and expressively drawn 

- HUNK. 

- james & kinkade (is that how his name is even spelled lmao) 

ANYWAY. i had feelings, thought I’d share

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Coming-of-Age Stories, and Where The Heck Are The Adults In This World

Recently, I finally watched all sixty-one episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) - a show that literally every friend I’ve ever had has been surprised to learn I never watched as a kid.

(Returning readers will already know that I never watched most TV shows as a kid. I’m making up for lost time now.)

Overall, I enjoyed ATLA. It’s an emotional adventure with complex morals and strong positive themes like the power of friendship and family. I had a lot of fun finally discovering the contexts for all the memes I’ve become familiar with because of Tumblr (like “Sparky Sparky Boom Man” and “That’s rough, buddy”).

But I also felt uncomfortable while watching, for one specific reason: how young everyone is.

Aang is twelve years old. So is Toph. The other protagonists, and several major antagonists, aren’t much older. It hit me in the middle of the second episode that I was watching kids play at war – a thought that I know wouldn’t have occurred to me if I had been watching as a twelve-year-old myself, but one that stuck with me for the rest of my watch-through. ATLA is a story about kids in a world of absent or incompetent adults, with the fate of the world in their hands. And that kind of weight just plain doesn’t belong on the shoulders of twelve-year-olds.

The show makes some ventures towards confronting the topic of the kids’ age, and how circumstances have forced them into adult roles far too soon.

Aang was taken away from childhood play because of his destiny as the Avatar and the monks’ fear of the impending war.

Sokka and Katara’s mother died when they were little, leaving Katara as the only “mother” Sokka can remember. Their father left to fight the war after that, leaving Sokka as the only “man” of their village.

Zuko’s father treated him not as a preteen son, but as an adult inferior, and physically tortured him in public over a perceived slight.

The show points at these situations as unfortunate, and in Zuko’s case outright states that it was wrong. But then it keeps going, as all stories about child heroes do, and shows that it’s necessary for the kids to save the world. It’s unfortunate that Aang and Zuko and the others were taken out of childhood so soon, but even when they do go to adults for help, they are turned away and told that only they can solve the problems. It is their plot-driven destiny to be adults before their time.

ATLA also gives us a supporting cast of children whose too-adult qualities are portrayed in a completely uncomplicated, even praiseworthy way.

Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors, Princess Yue, and Jett and his Freedom Fighters all are treated by the narrative as though in being responsible “adult” figures they are as they should be, even though none of them could possibly be older than fifteen.

Toph’s entire character arc revolves around her hatred at being treated like a child by her overbearing parents, and the narrative unquestioningly supports her – the only moment in which it seems her parents might actually support her (the letter from her mother) turns out to be a lie, and leads to Toph achieving her destiny as the world’s first metal-bender. There is no middle ground, and we never actually see or hear from her parents again.

And the villainous Azula, though she displayed a frightening level of competence in every other episode of the show, is finally defeated when she starts behaving in an age-appropriate childlike way. I might be reading too much into this (I am an English major, after all), but the four-episode finale arc left me with the impression that the show was condemning childhood. When push comes to shove, no matter how old you are, you better grow up, or else.

To be fair, this is a coming-of-age story. Naturally it’s pro-adulting. Also, twelve-or-so is the normal sort of age for these stories. That’s when Gregor enters the Underland in Suzanne Collins’s Gregor the Overlander, and when Lyra and Will’s daemons settle in Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass

For a twelve-or-so-year-old reader, as I once was for both these books, it feels perfectly natural. As Neil Gaiman said about his book Coraline: 

Reading audience number one is adults. Adults completely love it and they tell me it gave them nightmares. They found it really scary and disturbing, and they're not sure it's a good book for kids, but they loved it. Reading audience number two are kids who read it as an adventure and they love it. They don't get nightmares, and they don't find it scary. I think part of that is that kids don't realize how much trouble Coraline is in -- she is in big trouble -- and adults read it and think, “I know how much trouble you're in.”

A kid reading these coming-of-age stories sees “someone like me saving the world” and goes along with it, not having the external perspective necessary to stress about whether or not the child hero will be able to save the world.

But me? I’m twenty-three. I’m too old to see Aang and company as “someone like me.” I don’t connect with Katara or Toph nearly as much as connect to Uncle Iroh, the closest thing this story has to a constant responsible adult figure. I look at the child heroes and I think, “Where the heck are the adults in this world?”

The adults are gone, as is necessary for the plot. In order for a “kids save the world” story to take place, the adults must be absent or otherwise incompetent, as nearly all the adults in ATLA are. They’re dead, or they’re off fighting another part of the war in a distant land, or they don’t understand their children, or they’re just plain stupid. It puts me in mind of the make-believe games the next-door-neighbor children I babysat in high school would create: in those stories, their parents were always dead.

In her book Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Changing Representations of Women in Disney's Feature Animation, 1937-2001, Amy Davis examines the tendency of parents in Disney films and other fairy-tale kinds of stories to be either absent or otherwise unable to protect their children. This lack of adult guidance is what creates the circumstances for those children to go on an adventure. Grown-ups can’t solve the world’s problems, so kids must step up and solve it.

Or rather, the kids must step up and be grown-ups, and solve it.

But take it from a twenty-three-year-old: a twelve-ish-year-old is not a grown-up, no matter what they’ve been through.

When I was sixteen, it suddenly hit me that it’s ridiculous that Lyra and Will’s daemons settle at age thirteen. Settling indicates that their personality is done changing, that they are who they are and they’ve finished growing up. But at sixteen, I could tell that I wasn't the same person that I had been at thirteen. At twenty, I wasn’t the same person that I had been at sixteen. I’m different again now, though less dramatically. I’m still figuring things out, and there are still adulting steps that I haven’t yet taken, but I’m much more a grown-up than I’d ever have called myself at thirteen.

I can see the value in “kids act like grown-ups and save the world” stories. They’re not written for me, who’s beginning to find them troubling. They’re written for kids, who don’t find them troubled, because they don’t see the dangers that the child-heroes face. They see that the child-heroes succeed.

My mother doesn’t like The Lion King because it’s about a child being told his father’s death is all his fault. She told me so when I was little, and my response was that it’s okay, because we know Scar is lying and that Simba will defeat him in the end. I’m closer now to my mother’s perspective than to my younger self’s response in regards to how I watch ATLA.

We do need to tell kids that they can and will grow up to do great things, and the best way to do that is to show them people their age that they can relate to doing great things – even if it makes adults feel uncomfortable. While the adult behavior of the children might be unrealistic, the ideal that it encourages in them, to become people who save the world, is absolutely realistic.

ATLA is not a story intended for me, though it might have been if I’d watched it then. I’m content to recommend it to children Aang’s age, and to derive an entirely different kind of enjoyment from it by over-analyzing, critiquing, and otherwise completely picking it apart. As I said, I am an English major, after all.

By the way, I highly recommend Amy Davis’s book. It was an instrumental piece of my thesis research and a super interesting read.

Come back every week for a new Thursday Thoughts!

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[pinksnailsaver]

BBC 100 books tag

To answer @papofglencoe​‘s question about the weird nature of this list (particularly the redundancy of authors as well as Shakespeare/Hamlet and Narnia/TLTWATW), this list was voted by the public, per the BBC’s site:

In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favourite books.

Below and on the next page are all the results from number 1 to 100 in numerical order!

BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Bold the ones you’ve read (and italicize the ones on your reading list).

I’m changing the rules because the social scientist in me wants more input, and because there were 11 books on this list I’ve never even heard of.

* = haven’t read the book but saw the movie ? = never heard of this book b + i = read part but never finished

And if I can rec one book on this list, it’s The Secret History.

Thanks @thegirlfromoverthepond and @papofglencoe​ for the tag.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Harry Potter series - JK Rowling To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee The Bible (people have bolded this but I bet you haven’t read all of it) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Little Women - Louisa M Alcott Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Complete Works of Shakespeare (ditto what I said re: Bible) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk  ? Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger Middlemarch - George Eliot Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Bleak House - Charles Dickens War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck *Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame *Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy David Copperfield - Charles Dickens Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis  *Emma - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne Animal Farm - George Orwell The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ? Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood  Lord of the Flies - William Golding Atonement - Ian McEwan Life of Pi - Yann Martel  Dune - Frank Herbert *Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ? The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ? A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens Brave New World - Aldous Huxley The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov  The Secret History - Donna Tartt The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas On The Road - Jack Kerouac Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie Moby Dick - Herman Melville *Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens *Dracula - Bram Stoker The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ? Ulysses - James Joyce (my college bf wrote his thesis on this, which I had to read twice, so I’m counting it) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ? Germinal - Emile Zola ? *Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray Possession - AS Byatt ? A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell *The Color Purple - Alice Walker *The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ? Charlotte’s Web - EB White The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom *Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ? Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ? Watership Down - Richard Adams A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ? *The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas Hamlet - William Shakespeare *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I’m going to tag @sunsetsrmydreams​ and any of my followers who have actually read this whole post.