#tlok criticism

[hikaaa-bi]

ranking TLOK relationships bc i'm bored.

mako x asami (masami?? idk what the ship name is): bad but not horrible. they were a very generic vanilla couple who immediately broke up because of korra. they had no chemistry whatsoever and mako cheating on asami got rid of any potential that was there.

makorra: ugh. i don't like this ship. despite all of mako's flaws, i think korra was the toxic one in this relationship. she constantly kept blowing up at mako when he was just trying to help and support her. she takes out all her frustrations on him, barges into his office and destroys it bc he was doing his job. smh mako deserved better. (i know he was kind of an asshole too but at least he got called out for it; also I'm not a korra hater, i just don't like her in s2)

bopal: i hate bolin okay. he's not interesting, he's not funny and his sexual harrasment towards ginger is played for laughs. i can't ship this character with anyone because he keeps making mistakes and never gets called out for it. besides, even if he wasn't such an ass, bopal was a boring ship anyway. it had no substance to it, it's just "boy meets girl and they fall in love". opal isn't a very interesting character by herself either.

zhurrick: i regret to admit that i found this ship cute at first. but looking back, varrick treated zhu li like shit and never gets a proper redemption. he just delivers a half-assed apology and proposes to her, and she says yes. yay, problem solved! zhu li deserves better.

eska x bolin: walking red flag. this was another case of the show using a serious issue as a joke. eska is actively abusive and possessive towards bolin and it's just treated as "haha crazy girlfriend". bolin gets reprimanded for not breaking up with her sooner? as much as i dislike bolin, this isn't right either. men being abused is a very real thing, and should be taken seriously. it's not funny and it's not pathetic.

jinora x kai: it's alright. not bad, though we don't get to see enough of them. but from what we see, they seem to care about each other and work well as a couple.

korrasami: lots of potential but it was underwhelming. i get that it was restricted, so i can't blame the writers here. they did do a good job of writing a believable friendship between korra and asami, so it's not much of a stretch to imagine them dating.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

“catra is a complex poc” fuck that. here are some ACTUAL poc animated characters who are just as, if not more complex than catra.

grace monroe (infinity train) • black american

connie maheshwaran (steven universe) • indian-american

katara (avatar the last airbender) • inuk

wolf (kipo and the age of wonderbeasts) • black american

suhara/shadowsan (carmen sandiego) • japanese

korra (the legend of korra) • inuk

jesse cosay (infinity train) • indigenous (apache)

lars barriga (steven universe) • filipino

azula (avatar the last airbender) • japanese

ryan akagi (infinity train) • japanese-canadian

luz noceda (the owl house) • afro-dominican american

(there are a lot more, so i'll be making a part 2!)

[wilcze-kudly]

Im sick and delirious with fever so i unleash these upon ye

[rightwheretheyleftme]

TLOK and the design of older women

Scrolling through the TLOK tag, I see so many posts saying “Thanks to The Legend of Korra, now I’m attracted to older women” and then they attach pictures of Lin, Suyin and Kya. Those posts always get a good chuckle out of me, but I’ve decided to be a party popper and analyze, why are the elderly women of TLOK so attractive?

And the answer is because they aren’t drawn like actual women in their 50s. They are drawn like 30 year old women and then they add the grey hair to convey that they are old. Let’s see the evidence:

Here is Tenzin, he is 51 years old in the 1st season. This is how he looks:

He has bags under his eyes, wrinkles, messy facial hair, and crow’s feet. These are all realistic signs of aging that we normally see in men above 50.

Now let’s see Lin Beifong. She is 50 years old.

Her face is completely smooth. There are no wrinkles, smile lines, or any signs of aging besides her gray her.

And those are just the examples that I used to prove my point. This disparity applies to all of the middle aged men and women in this show. Let’s keep going:

Kya and Bumi are both in their mid-late 50s. Bumi has wrinkles, under eye bags, and forehead creases. Kya has 0 physical signs of aging besides her hair.

Here are some more examples:

Again, I’m sorry to be a complete party popper, but the reason why everyone is so attracted to the elderly women of Korra is because these are not elderly women- they are 30 year olds with grey hair. Only men are allowed to age naturally in this show.

[longing-for-rain]

There seems to be this take that it’s somehow “devaluing” healing and by extension women’s contributions by criticizing Katara ending up as a healer rather than a warrior in legacy, but this really misses the mark. The point is that from the beginning, Katara explicitly wanted to use her bending to fight. She never refers to herself as a healer; she says that she has healing abilities. It is a skill to her, not a trait she wishes to define herself by.

But since we’re on the subject of devaluing the practice of healing, I’d like to pose a question I haven’t seen anyone ask before:

Why did Aang never learn healing?

It’s a valuable skill and one he could have really used. Other benders such as Zuko passed on their own skills like lightning redirection to Aang to aid him. Why not healing? Maybe it’s because he’s the Avatar and so narratively he doesn’t need—

Oh. Interesting…

It’s almost like the narrative of the show itself is presenting healing as a woman thing that isn’t important enough for men to value learning.

[fossilizedhysterics]

guess who finished tlok tonight and immediately had this come to him in a vision!!!!

[sjbattleangel]

If people talked about ATLA the way they talk about Steven Universe, Star Vs. TLOK and She-Ra.

"So Aang just ran away and froze himself at the bottom of the ocean, leaving innocent people to be conquered by the Fire Nation? What a selfish coward! He has blood on hands!"

"Ugh! The stupid chauvinistic crap Sokka says! The creators are misogynists!."

"Man, Katara is such a Mary Sue! The way she grew into a waterbender was so unrealistic. Bad writing!"

"Toph is blind? But how can we tell? A blind person can never do THAT! Nope, sorry. Not good enough. Doesn't count as real representation."

"Zuko is an irredeemable, imperialist brat, too easily forgiven. He doesn't deserve a redemption arc. He should've been killed at the beginning. The creators clearly have a thing for "Draco In Leather Pants".

"The King of Omashu, Imprisoned, Jet, The Deserter, The Cave Of Two Lovers, Avatar Day, The Tales Of Ba Singh Se, ect. Pointless filler episodes with nothing to add. More examples of sunk-cost fallacy."

"Azula is a powerful young woman who slowly goes insane because Mommy and Daddy didn't love her enough? The creators hate women and want them back in the kitchens!"

"So we're shown that there're innocent people in the Fire Nation who don't support the war yet the Fire Nation are still the bad guys? Trying to earn woke brownie points much?

"Aang doesn't kill the Firelord but drains him of all his powers, ultimately sparing him!?! THE CREATORS ARE FASCIST SYMPATHIZERS!! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!"

[madeby-meru]

Every single time I get a tiktok on my tl of that TLOK scene where Bumi and Kya basically tell Tenzin that Aang was not a good father to them theres hundreds of comments of people trying to justify Aang's parenting in every way possible and every argument just seems so absurd and completely unncessary.

He didn't have to be a bad father to be a good airbending master to Tenzin and he didn't have to be a bad father to keep the Air Nomad culture alive. But he was. He was negletful and absent to 2/3 children and very clearly favorited Tenzin over Bumi and Kya. I don't think there's any possible way to justify his behaviour (I'm not gonna talk about Katara at all cause we all know she is completely mistreated as a character post ATLA) and honestly? It's ok. Characters don't have to be perfect, characters can and should have flaws, and Aang being a bad father fits pretty well with his character imo.

There's no need to do all these mental gymnastics to justify him and somehow portray him as a wonderful father, specially when you're being explicitly told by the show that he was not.

[lovegrowsart]

what do you think of the take that katara not having a statue is in line with her character because she’s not someone who would boast about her achievements, but instead would be humble about them?

firstly, i think framing the idea of having a statue in recognition of one's achievements as "boasting" a little flawed, considering aang, zuko, sokka, and toph all have one or more statues in tlok - does that mean they were boasting about their achievements? toph, maybe, but zuko? the guy can't take praise if you paid him to.

but more importantly, no, i don't think katara hypothetically refusing a statue because she'd be "humble about her achievements" to be in line with her character presented in atla much at all.

exhibit a) book 1, ep 15: katara when she's recognised with the mark of the brave.

exhibit b) book 1, ep 19: katara after kicking the ass of every other one of pakku's students and being told she has "advanced more quickly than any student he's ever trained."

exhibit c) book 2, ep 1: katara when she's called the "mighty katara" by general fong.

in the avatar wiki transcript, it says:

Katara: (Pleased) Mighty Katara? I like that.

exhibit d) book 3, ep 3: katara when the jang hui village put up a literal statue of the painted lady (who katara is acting as!).

she is, in fact, the only one of the gaang to show a positive reaction like this to the idea of having an actual statue of herself in recognition of her achievements, which makes her lack of one post-canon even more egregiously baffling.

it's also not a bad thing or a flaw if katara did want a statue of herself to recognise her achievements, especially if it's not treated as a flaw for the rest of the gaang to have them. aang has a literal statue of liberty style statue!

she worked hard to master waterbending when there were incredible odds against her. she doesn't often get a lot of explicit gratitude and recognition for her hard work and how much she helps people. in fact, at the start of the show, sokka is explicitly ungrateful and sexist about how hard she works because the work she was going then was "women's work". she helped end the war by defeating azula, a prodigy firebender superpowered by a comet, and saving zuko, the future fire lord's, life. and that's just all that she does in the show, let alone all she could've achieved afterwards, so fuck yeah she deserved a statue, probably more than one, and she would've been absolutely in character and within in her right to enjoy having one.

[allgremlinart]

honestly I love Toph in tlok but my defense of her characterization would come off as Toph slander I think. Like, they didnt write her as a cop because she's the rich elite and a little close-minded and stubborn and emotionally crippled by her ego and cares more about proving herself in every way possible than facilitating any societal change, they made her a cop cus it was 2012 and they were white liberals and its all they could think of I guess BUT. It fits.

[rifari2037]

6. Do you consider the comics/LoK canon?

I prefer to pretend that comics and TLOK aren't canon.

ATLA is enough for me, even though the love story isn't good written. It's weird and rushed except for Sokka and Suki. I'm a Zutara shipper, but I wouldn't expect them to end up together either if the better story is ended with friendship.

Why I don't consider comics as canon?

I probably can't give to much criticism because I don't read the comics yet and I'm not interested to do so because I've read many criticisms about it before, this is one of them that I found recently.

There are other criticisms about it, most of them about the plot and how is Katara's role reduce, from Katara we all know to not more than Avatar's girlfriend. Those makes me less interested, though.

Plus, I probably can't stand reading Aang and Katara calling each other 'Sweetie' all the time. It wasn't romantic but cheesy to me.

Why I don't consider TLOK as canon?

Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoyed TLOK since Bolin exist, but I don't think it's as well written as ATLA. The conflicts, the arcs, the complexity. I have a lot of thoughts on some aspects that make TLOK no more special than ATLA, but I will only explain the most disappointing for me - and a lot of fans - here, which is how Katara is written.

Bryke always tells fans that Kat/Ang are perfect pairing. Since they became canon in ATLA, Bryke has many chances in TLOK to convince fans (especially Zutara stand) of what Bryke said.

But what we get are – Katara's role simply as the wife and mother of the Avatar's children. Like, having 3 kids doesn't make them perfect couple. And if Katara's role replaced by another character, would the main story change? No, not at all.

Zuko still the one who knew Aang more than anyone else, not Katara.

It doesn't matter if Katara only end up being a healer in her old age even though she wanted to fight when she was young. I mean, Toph also lives in the swamp and Zuko chooses to retire as Fire Lord.

But where was she when she was young? Where was she when Sokka was a leader, Toph was a police chief, Zuko was a Fire Lord, and Aang was the avatar? Where is her statue, while even cabbage man has it?

Not only that, Bryke also thought it's a brilliant idea to make Aang as a bad father. Unbelievable!

Bryke ignores all the opportunities of Zutara. But seeing how Bryke's favourite pairing is written, it's better that Zutara don't end up together. I'm afraid Bryke would destroy Zutara more than Kat/Ang.

[herbluefire]

unpopular opinion

tlok ending >>>> atla ending

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

honestly, i think the double standards with catra and glimmer stems from something other than pretty privilege, and it's something i've seen in a lot of media.

take, for instance, the atla fandom demonizing aang and katara but coddling azula. or the su fandom villanizing steven but making excuses for spinel and lapis.

and the reason for this is that villains or antagonists are always given more freedom to make mistakes, to do heinous shit, to be cold or rude or insensitive to others. the logic being that "they're the villain, of course they're gonna be horrible".

with heroes, on the other hand, there's this subconscious judgment whenever they make a mistake. heroes are meant to be perfect and as much as people say that they want more antiheroes, they always judge a hero based on how morally good they are.

which explains why katara is hated on for saying something insensitive out of repressed grief and trauma, but azula is coddled for committing multiple war crimes.

why glimmer is bashed for being kinda mean and making some bad choices due to grief and pressure, but catra's conscious choice to attempt genocide and willing participation in war is justified.

why steven is villanized for having a mental breakdown after years of suppressed trauma, but spinel's attempts to kill dozens of people on earth are excused.

why mabel is demonized for being kinda selfish sometimes and for being manipulated into giving away something she didn't know the importance of, but bill is loved by everyone.

why korra is blamed for trusting her uncle and losing her connection to the previous avatars, instead of unalaq being held accountable for manipulating her (unalaq isn't really coddled by the fandom but there's a huge victim blaming problem).

simply put, people want heroes to be pure. they want surface-level flaws like clumsiness and awkwardness, not REAL flaws. as much as these people say that they want more morally grey or complex heroes, the truth is that they can't even handle their hero being kinda rude to someone.

especially with characters like glimmer, mabel and katara, who have a more traditionally feminine aesthetic and is generally a good person, people expect them to be well-behaved and perfect all the time. even though both these characters were shown to be passionate and stubborn and fierce from the very beginning, people are still blindsided when they actually take a bold stance or act on their emotions.

and with steven, he was a nice, happy, easygoing kid in the beginning and he tried to remain optimistic throughout all the trauma he went through, so people just expect him to do that forever. to always repress his feelings and never give himself the space to express them, to always focus on being a therapist for literally every other character and to never prioritize himself.

and like sure, villains are meant to be evil. i'm not telling anyone to water down their villains. but there's a difference between liking a villain and excusing their actions. i like azula. i like all of the villains in tlok. i like bill cipher. i even like catra and white diamond minus their shitty redemption arcs.

but i'm not going to set double standards by justifying everything that a villain does and demonizing a hero for acting out of line once. especially if the hero actually takes responsibility for their actions and tries to be better, and the villains just get forgiven for doing the bare minimum.

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Legend of Korra is so tough when you’re sapphic & a Katara stan. Korrasami…but Katara character assassination…but Korrasami…

[rightwheretheyleftme]

I’m watching Korra book 2 and I have so many emotions about Aang’s neglect of his kids

After watching ATLA earlier this year, I started following a bunch of fan accounts and saw the same discourse regurgitated over and over again; One of the main points of discourse is whether Aang was bad father.

The discussions that I saw would always play out the same way. Aang’s detractors would say: “Aang didn’t take 2/3 of his kids on vacations. That’s neglect” and Aang’s defenders would reply “Aang is not a bad father! The places that he took Tenzin to were built for airbenders so Kya and Bumi wouldn’t have anything to do there!” And you know what? When I was reading those arguments, I thought that both sides had valid points and that this was a complex discussion.

Oh boy.

Now that I’m watching the episode, I realized that the people in this fandom are lying through their teeth. Aang only taking 1 out of his 3 kids on vacations is true, but the claim that that happened because Aang only visited places made for airbenders is completely false. Let’s recap the places that Aang and Tenzin went to:

- Kyoshi Island; to ride the elephant koi

- Ember Island; to build sandcastles on the beach

Now explain to me, why on earth does the majority of the fandom say that Aang went to airbender-only places? Kyoshi and Ember islands have 0 historical significance to the airbenders. These are just fun vacation spots, we know this because we saw the Gaang vacation at these places multiple times.

Moreover, according to Bumi, Aang was busy due to his job as the Avatar but he made time for Tenzin, only Tenzin. Kya agrees with this.

I’m so disgusted by this information. There is no way that a grown man in his 40s wouldn’t realize that taking only 1 of your kids on fun vacations and leaving the others behind is hurtful, the only possible conclusion that you can reach here is that Aang was intentionally trying to hurt his kids’ feelings.

And that breaks my heart.

This is not the Aang that I know and love. Aang is a fun, caring, accepting, and loving person. The behavior that I’ve described above is not only emotional neglect, it borders on abuse.

At first, I thought that maybe this storyline was meant to deconstrue the “The hero can do no wrong” cliché. Except that it ends with Kya and Bumi looking at a family picture and reminiscing about how happy they were. So no, there is no deconstruction; Aang is portrayed as a flawed but otherwise good father. Apparently, not loving 2/3 of your children enough to want to spend leisure time with them is a common flaw and not parental neglect, according to TLOK.

I feel so betrayed not only by the writers and the story that I love, but also by the fandom who silences victims of parental abuse when they are rightfully pissed off by Aang’s actions. I never wanted for Aang to be a neglectful father, but he is. Harassing people who are mad about his actions and calling them bitter Zutaras is a disgusting way to try to silence conversations about parental abuse.

Side note: Where tf was Katara while this was happening? Did she not take offense that her husband was neglecting 2/3 of her kids? Why didn’t Aang respect Katara enough to not play favorites with the kids she gave him?

[longing-for-rain]

ok, i'm curious. if katara had ended up with zuko and became fire lady, how do you think that would have changed her role/character in lok?

a lot of people seem to disagree that becoming fire lady would have been a service to her character.

That’s really up for interpretation since canon doesn’t really establish what exactly the political role of the Fire Lady is. I’m not even sure if it’s a canon title; at least in the past, it was a title that fans made up.

However, I imagine in that role, Katara would be very politically active. I’m not even sure she’d necessarily call herself Fire Lady; I could see her liking that, or maybe a different title to distinguish herself.

The biggest change would be her role in Fire Nation politics specifically. I believe Katara would have a strong desire for world politics, but being a head of state in the Fire Nation would give her an interesting angle to work from. She would have influence over the Fire Nation’s assets and how to use them. She would be instrumental in transitioning them from wartime to peacetime economy, and ensuring that the other nations are compensated for the crimes of Ozai’s regime.

I think she and Zuko would also be very supportive of each other personally (obviously) when it comes to politics. Zuko has immense respect for Katara and would trust her judgement. It would also be so much easier on them both to have that understanding when dealing with complex political issues together. It broke my heart to see how stressed, isolated, and alone Zuko was in The Promise with nobody to confide in and support him in his struggle to turn his nation around. Similarly, it broke my heart to see how loneliness and isolation also seems to be a theme for Katara post-canon.

So yeah! I think there is a lot of potential there, which is why fans like to explore this idea for Katara. It’s about emphasizing her political voice, giving her a way to continue her fight for justice, and giving her someone who respects her opinions and doesn’t leave her feeling abandoned. It’s a direct response to how she was treated in TLOK and it’s beautiful.