Avatar

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Okay, so recently my siblings got me forcibly into Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I watched the whole thing.

Holy shit, now I understand what y’all were talking about. This was an amazing fantasy world, beautifully animated, great story, great characters,* and it was intelligent. It’s also not set in Standard Fantasyland, for which I am eternally grateful. It’s definitely up there as a favorite series.**

Also, I kind of generally want to be Toph. She’s a badass muthafucka and I think she wears a snood. How many blind snood-wearing rock-hurlers have you met?

However, I have one rather unnerving question open for discussion about this show, and it pretty much sums everything up for me:

Which is creepier: that I have a powerful crush on Uncle General Iroh, or that when I confess that to other people their only response is, “Well, of course!”?

But come on, dude can crush prison walls with his face (SHUT UP YOU WEREN’T THERE AND NEITHER WAS THE CAMERA) but if you try to kill him he’ll serve you a cup of tea and tell you some nonsense before resorting to BREATHING FIRE. That is the correct approach to any situation. So I suppose I can see where they’re coming from.


*Somehow, the adolescent rage and confusion and flailing that drove me absolutely crazy with Harry Potter does nothing but endear Zuko to me, even though he’s such a little snot. Maybe I figure he deserves a little more angst. At least Harry’s scar didn’t boil his eyeball.

** I’m also even more confused as to why they even want to make a movie from it.*** My plan is to deny it exists—partly because it’s already a perfectly good TV series, and partly, of course, because of the unforgiveably boneheaded whitewashing.

***Answer: money.

Comments

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

I just chalk it up to her headbands having teeth of Cartoonium. Or you know, being held down and in by the power of Toph's sheer awesome.

I loved how her introductory episode was such a sendup of pro wrestling. I saw it for the first time when I was still watching WWE religiously and spent most of the earthbending tournament having paroxysms of laughter. This was not helped by recognizing Mick Foley voicing The Boulder.

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

I KNOW!! Fire Nation Man = Nikolai Volkoff from the ooooold days of WWF, and The Boulder is so very Randy Macho Man Savage. I've brought my roomies into the Avatar fold, and we often say things to each other like "The Boulder is confused" and sing the songs from The Cave of Two Lovers.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

My absolute favorite exchange from the show gets quoted back and forth between me a nd a friend of mine to the point of becoming an in-joke.

"I know what you're going to say. ($gender_pronoun) is my ($relationship) and I should love/get along with/respect ($gender_pronoun)..."

"No. ($gender_pronoun) is crazy and needs to go down."

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

God, and the delivery of that line was hilarious. Iroh holds these truths to be self-evident, by god.

"Calmness! Serenity! That's why we're drinking tea!"

"... Oh, yeah, that too."

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

I think we need to hang out and quote Avatar. *nodnod*

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Mick Foley voicing The Boulder

WATE WUT

Dammit, now I'm gonna have to watch this series.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

"THE BOULDER IS CONFLICTED ABOUT FIGHTING A YOUNG BLIND GIRL."

"Sounds to me like you're scared, Boulder."

"THE BOULDER IS OVER HIS CONFLICTED FEELINGS AND IS NOW READY TO BURY YOU IN A ROCKALANCHE."

You haven't seen this series? I join with the many other fans obnoxiously demanding to know why not!

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I don't know! I keep hearing how awesome it is, but, y'know, Nickelodeon... (also, I watch almost no TV).

Also, GWIP.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kinda didn't expect Nickelodeon + anime influences to turn out well. Silly me.

You'd probably have an extra appreciation for it because it actually bases each "bending" style on real martial arts--with attention paid to style. It's also as carefully animated as the hula from Lilo & Stitch to be accurate.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

Wow, I'm not familiar with the series but that seems like quite a neat system. I've been looking into element/animal martial arts for a while - thank you for that link. n_n

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I honestly think you'd really enjoy this series. There are some interesting inspirations drawn from Tibetan Buddhism, and a lot of really great fantasy elements and character development. My only real complaint is that some of the characters seem to pick up techniques awfully fast.

One particular thing I like: the whole series takes the philosophy of martial arts as a defensive, deflective technique very seriously--the protagonists and their "side" focus not on utterly destroying their opponents (individual or nation), but on deflecting attacks and then making peace.

Also, there's Iroh the tea-loving firebreathing pai sho player. His lifestyle is the kind I want.