Goodbye... space sword

[tempestuously]

After sitting through hours and hours of Neopets and PetPet advertisements on Nickelodeon, I have completed my Avatar Book 3 marathon. I will be purchasing the DVD as soon as my card has money on it again, as Suncoast sucks and is all out. Some things I picked up upon rewatch:



- Zuko's transformation to the side of good wasn't as abrupt as I thought and actually had decent set-up.
- Seriously, Zuko and Mai is my favorite Avatar pairing ever, with the exception of Jun and Iroh.
- I still really hate Katara in this season. I think the only episode I somewhat tolerated her in was The Painted Lady and even that was iffy. I'm annoyed by her godmode, annoyed by her backstory, annoyed by the emphasis on how beautiful she is, annoyed by her self-righteousness, annoyed by her mothering and pretty much annoyed every time she opens her mouth. I loved Katara in Season 2 and liked her decently in Season 1. But Katara is everything I despise about girl characters in Season 3.
- And number one champion reason why I hate Katara in Season 3: SHE STEALS ZUKO'S FIGHT. I don't care what anyone else thinks. This infuriates me to this day because it was Zuko's fight and while I understand the significance of him protecting her and getting injured and all that, IT WAS HIS FIGHT. I'm iffy about how she wins too since I think Azula could just burn her way out of that as she has done before. Maybe she was too shocked? ZUKO'S FIGHT. Ahem.
- I am no longer as upset about Azula's going crazy. I think it makes perfect sense and I actually really like the idea of Azula as a very complex young woman who has built a world for herself and can't function without it, despite how powerful she is. I think it makes her a really intriguing character. And the pain in her final scene and in her visions of her mother is just so very real. It sucks for Azula, but it's damn good writing. Also, I think the creators said she's getting psychiatric treatment or something so that's nice. |D;;
- I do like that the lightning misdirection comes back thrice in this season. Nice touch.
- I love Zuko and his fail. I want the spin-off to have his and Mai's kid too.
- Still moody that blood-bending was only ever used for ONE scene after its introduction.
- I am sad there is no resolution between Toph and her parents.

I also caught RuPaul's DragU this week. Normally, I would have no problem with this show and I would like to emphasize that I only saw one episode so I have no idea whether the rest of the episodes follow a similar pattern. But I was severely squicked at the idea of taking women with extreme self-esteem issues (one was afraid to dress feminine because she had been raped) and then grading them on how well they demonstrate their feminine qualities at a mock-graduation. Especially giving them a C! That's just twisted. I like the idea of drag queens helping women from various walks pretty up, but I think it would work much better if it were more "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" than another competition show. I had some problem finding humor in one drag queen stealing another queen's wig for her protege when said protege was the former rape victim. Yeah.

And to conclude we shall have our whacky news of the week:

Man sprays semen on women at store. What is the world coming to?

Robbery victim uses feet to text for help. A much better version than what happened to another women in July.

Obama is against Prop 8 but has also said he's against gay marriage. Where do you go with this?

I will return with the final part of my writing meme tomorrow.

Comments

[rubyd.livejournal.com]

I was disappointed that Katara was at Zuko's fight instead of, say, TOPH? Why did you send the earthbender onto airships? Airships that are flying over water? About to burninate things?

[nayami.livejournal.com]

This is another very good point, especially after all the attention they paid to Zuko and Toph bonding a bit. But yes, the planning in this setup was a bit off. Toph had some awesome moments on the airship, but it was really out of her element. Literally.

[crowphoenix.livejournal.com]

You know my stance on the over eager man at the store, and he definitely should have asked.

[dragonsong12.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't really know what they were thinking with putting Katara at that fight. It's like "we don't know what to do with her....oh just send her with Zuko!" She just had no reason to be there. At all. It was so shoehorned.

Upon rewatch, I've decided that Azula's madness probably began at the Boiling Rock, since Mai and Ty Lee betraying her meant she had no control over them (and in Mai's case, I'm doubtful she ever did have control, she thought she did, but it seems to have been Mai's decision from the start "she can throw all the lightning she wants at me, I'm not going down there"), and she just doesn't know how to handle not having control.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on Katara. The one point that really got me? "You didn't love our mother as much as I did!"
...and she never apologized for it. Never. I can't forgive her for that. I can see saying it in the heat of the moment, but that's a horrible thing to say, and she never apologized, or even tried to. *grump grump grump*

[nayami.livejournal.com]

I don't know why Zuko would take her. I mean, it was his fight. Why would he bring someone else who could really only serve as an additional target? He never expected Katara to fight with him. Mrr, it was just more of them making Katara out to be a power-girl, and this time it seriously short-changed a crucial moment in the story. All of us were waiting to watch Zuko take down his sister after everything. I think it would have allowed more closure for the two than the detachment we got with Katara's victory. I mean, the whole while Azula is still talking about Zuko. It all felt awkward.

Oh Azula's madness definitely began at the Boiling Rock. I'm pretty sure that's one of the first times we ever saw Azula lose her temper. It was the shock of losing what she had always believed she had. I think it was more than just control though. I think Azula really did care about her friends. In "The Beach" episode, she feels bad when she makes Ty Lee cry. I think it was just too much to have the only two people she ever really trusted turn on her. It's what destroyed her trust in everything, from all of her servants to even Ozai, as seen in the scene where she's afraid he's leaving her. And really, he was.

God, that moment made me want to deck her. And yeah, she never apologized, and they just let it go. I'm surprised Aang never got on her about it. How can you say that to your brother? Nobody even really brought up how outright bitchy she was being that whole time. They just let her get away with it. And I admit it, she rubbed me the wrong way with the purely vicious way she threatens Zuko after it's clear the idiot is stumbling all over himself trying to earn Aang's permission to teach him. It just felt unnecessarily cruel and another OMG KATARA IS SO BADASS moment. Mrr.

[dragonsong12.livejournal.com]

I agree with pretty much everything there. (GOD! That end fight! RARGH!) But I'll argue the point of her bitchyness towards Zuko. That one I actually felt was justified. I mean he'd convinced her to trust him in Ba Sing Se, and then immediately threw it back in her face, almost getting Aang killed. It was awesome, and it made his character more complex and interesting, but yeah. To her, his bumbling was just a repeat, she'd fallen for it once and the consequences were dire, she wasn't about to fall for it again.
...not to mention her similar experience with Jet, now that I think on it...
But yeah, that one felt pretty natural to me. As a viewer, I was on Zuko's side, but if I put myself in Katara's shoes I would've felt the same. I think it would've been much weirder if she accepted it easily (In fact, I was a bit thrown off that she agreed to go along with one Aang wanted, I expected more of a fight there, so bravo for putting the mission ahead of a personal grievance!)

[crystaldawn.livejournal.com]

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, pretty much everything you said there. I have issues with the way the writers can't seem to write a girl as being a. feminine and b. not a mother in some capacity at the same time. All girls must be Action Girls that can kill you with the blink of an eye, or else they are moms. Or Yue, who nobly sacrifices herself after being around for all of two episodes. Katara is the absolute worst example of that trend.

For the first season, she swung wildly between being annoying Team Mom and annoying tomboy who just wants to fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight omg healing is useless (but she'll take a class anyway just so it can come in handy in later episodes). I felt like she had some really stupid, annoying, selfish moments (like the thing with stealing the waterbending scroll from the pirates and the crap in The Great Divide) and they just were never reconciled with how we were *supposed* to view the character. Then the thing at the Northern Water Tribe just seemed so damn cliche. OMG Katara is fighting sexism by being an Action Girl who just wants to fiiiiiiiiight, healing is girly and anything less than kicking ass is stupid and undignified and beneath a STRONG GIRL like Katara!

The thing that got me about the temper tantrum she pitched in the Northern Water Tribe was that, yes, she *was* fighting sexism. It's just that the story was framed in such a very typical way (which... let's be honest, how many women in America today have literally been outright told "You can't do that because you're a girl"? I HAVE, but I grew up in the redneck South, so it's not THAT common). She wasn't going against the grain and being a rebel, she was conforming to our very Western expectations of what a girl should act like. I got the deep impression when watching those episodes that I was supposed to be going "You go girl, girl power!" at her, when all I felt was "Wow, way to belittle women who do 'girly' things that aren't manly and strong enough."

Then in the second season, she firmly gets squished into the role of annoying Team Mom because they added Toph, the resident tomboy. Any spunk she once had has been transferred to Toph and now Katara is pretty much just there to nag and remind everyone to be nice to each other. It felt like since they added more girl characters, they could stop shoehorning all the traits they thought little girls liked into one girl character and could specialize more, so that they're neatly split into a dichotomy of girly girl (which in this case means being motherly, because that is the ONLY ACCEPTABLE VERSION of being girly) and awesome tomboy.

So yeah, a lot of my problems with the series boiled down to two adult men not knowing how to write a believable woman that wasn't an Action Girl or a Mom. The closest they got was Ty Lee, but they just explained her behavior away in The Beach as her needing validation from as many boys as possible, teehee~ I still love the shit out of Mai and Ty Lee, though.

Completely agreed about Zuko, Zuko's fight with Azula, and Maiko, though. That is my ship, man.

[nayami.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't mind some of the stuff Katara did in S1 since they all pretty much did some dumbass stuff throughout, though the stealing from pirates is ok bit was a little weird. And I liked the stuff with her and Pakku since it wasn't just about her but about Pakku holding a grudge for being jilted and hiding it behind culture. That fight got Pakku to realize what he already knew: that Katara was a fully capable bender and that his bitterness was all about his personal injury. It wasn't so much sexism in his case but projection. So I thought it was a unique twist on the usual story. And it wasn't about belittling the healers but about rejecting a conformist society that chooses who you marry and what role you take and such so Katara's frustration at being placed with the healers makes sense. This is helped by the fact that Katara is also a healer and understand the importance of that power and role. They made this very clear in the scene where Katara explains why her grandmother left the Northern Tribe, because she wanted to forge her own destiny. It's much more than simply a woman's role.

Second season, I liked her more because I got to see both her jesusy side and her ditzy side and her smart side. It made her more than just the power-girl. Katara wasn't all powerful. She could hold her own, but she wasn't invincible. Also, nice that the random dad bitterness wasn't in this season. I liked when she figured out the Kyoshi thing but let Sokka have his fun too. I liked how freaked out she was that Ty Lee could take her down and how she analyzed how it was done. The girls never thought of each other as rival girls but as equal warriors. Warriors who could still do things like flirt with boys and pretty themselves up. I wouldn't say Toph was so much a tomboy but more than she didn't want to be the socialite her family planned for her; she was rebelling against her weak status. She became tough to compensate for everyone considering her weak. This again is less of a feminist thing but more of a reaction to her being blind and small. But we also see that Toph does want to be pretty too and can gussy up when need be. The important thing with Toph is that she's fully capable of being noble but chooses not to because she just enjoys being laid-back and free. I thought the clash between her and Katara made sense, owing back to the elements, where water is more flexible and changing while earth is steadfast. This shows especially in the episode where Toph trains Aang in earthbending. I liked how Katara was willing to think of others a lot in this season, particularly when she agrees to stay behind and plan so Sokka can join their father and when she helps Jet, despite her very valid apprehensions with him. I think S2 balanced the healer and the warrior perfectly; that's why it's my favorite take on her.

Also, Ty Lee doesn't need validation from boys. She just wants to feel like an individual. That's why she acts so damn quirky, to escape being just the same as her gaggle of sisters. I liked that her backstory managed to be both hilarious shallow and yet somehow deep and relatable at the same time. I would also argue that Mai is not so much an action girl as one who can defend herself and was probably trained in her skills because of her family. Otherwise, Mai is probably the most normal of the lot.

I think the creators do a fairly good job with women (with the exception of Yue but that was a bit rushed), but I think they just love-fested too much on Katara in S3 and her character suffered for it.

[crystaldawn.livejournal.com]

Some of the stuff she did in Season One was explainable because she's just a 14 year old girl. 14 year old girls do stupid shit. And I agree that she was the most likable in season two. I really did like the way her and Toph were together in Ba Sing Se Stories. But yeah, all too often she got god status for no explicable reason.

Yeah, that was Ty Lee's explanation for it, and I think it's valid, but Mai's observation in that episode was also pretty valid. Both she and Mai had relatable backstories because they were perfectly normal things that teenagers rebel against.

I liked the women they did have, with the sole exception of Katara (and what WAS with the random daddy hate?), but I wished they hadn't seemed like they were all Action Girls.