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[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

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

My only quibble with the series is that I feel very strongly that they needed to sell Katara's romantic love for Aang a lot more strongly than they did. We see a ton about Aang's romantic love for Katara, but I can't think of any one moment that was clearly and overwhelmingly "Oh, she loves him that way." People point to the bit in the caves in Ba Sing Se, but she does clearly love Aang in a nonromantic sense, and he's the last best hope for a just peace, and he just got zapped. So there are other emotional factors involved.

People tend not to listen to me when I say this, because I also think Zutara is awesome. (Iroh ships it, people. What further proof do you need?)

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

I also ship Zutara, but only if something happened to Mai, who is also awesome, and thus I wish her no ill will.

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

I think Mai works better as Zuko's BFF. I can see them being together for a while and then realizing that they were too alike, and parting amiably and she becomes his grand vizier or whatever Fire Lords have.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

That's kind of what I see Aang and Katara doing.

Katara makes a bad match for Aang because she's the mother archtype. Not that this is a bad thing, but she tends to break out the asskicking only in defense, not offense. She is very much the mother bear or tiger.

I think she works much better as a mate for Zuko. She can fill his mother issues and provide a stable counterpoint to Zuko's hot temper. The same defense mindset works better as a ruler or ruler's mate. She will protect what belongs to her and her husband and if you piss her off, she'll kick your ass. But she's not the sort to go out and beat peace into someone's head.

As far as Aang, well, the kid's messed up. He has hundreds, if not thousands of voices in his head. On top of that, he has to somehow keep the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe from turning the Fire Nation into something very much resembling an egg dropped from thirty thousand feet.

Toph makes a better match. Buumi said it himself when telling Aang what to look for. She waits and listens. When the oppurtunity comes, she strikes, hands you your own foot and you will eat it, if only to keep her from beating you up some more.

Furthermore, Toph likes to travel. She's a free spirit at heart and she's willing to tell Aang when he's being an idiot. Katarra always sort of backed off from that sort of thing. Aang has to move around a lot, not only putting out post-war fires, but searching for Air Nomads. The Fire Nation can't have gotten them all. They're out there somewhere. Hiding in the mountains and remote areas.

Waiting and Listening . . .

The next generation of air benders...

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

Something that newroticgirl brought up was that if Aang can take away someone's bending power, what's to stop him from giving the power to someone else?

Re: The next generation of air benders...

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Good point, except that there seems to be no one criteria for why someone is or isn't a bender.

Here's another thought. If one's Bending is a reflection of the nature of one's spirit, then a Firebender could be born to an Earth bender.