#aaron ehasz critical

[icedsodapop]

It's always been rather amusing to me how the more toxic Zutara shippers have adopted Aaron Ehasz as "their guy", worshipping him and calling him what made ATLA great while shitting on Bryke, when Ehasz has never even seemed to ship Zutara at all:

Here he is in 2024 basically saying Zuko and Katara are sibling-coded:

And there's a bit of frustration seeing how these stans also spread the idea that Ehasz is a feminist king who understands female gaze becos he "ships" Zutara as opposed to Bryke when Ehasz has literally been accused of sexist behaviour by two employees on The Dragon Prince. (Not saying Bryke aren't sexist or can't ever be sexist. But, just pointing the irony of lionizing Ehasz)

[nexstage]

So, I've read Aaron Ehasz’s ideas for Azula’s redemption arc if there was a possibility for one but sadly there wasn't, and I like it, partially though. Why? Because there is only one tiny, backfiring and nagging problem with it: Zuko as Iroh 2.0 for Azula.

Like, ok, if there were another season of Avatar for Azula to be redeemed, I would love to see her trying to fix her relationship with Zuko and understand his POV while he does the same for her even with all the angsty fights, and a lot of trauma to recover from.

What I don't think it's a good idea is to have Zuko in the position of a second Iroh to help Azula recover and make amends with the people she has hurt. And I have a good explanation for this.

Number 1: Zuko is not emotionally ready

Look, he might have redeemed himself but the job of helping his sister whom he has a deeply complex and chaotic relationship is beyond his league. Heck, it was bad and irresponsible enough from the writers to free Iroh from any responsibility and put Zuko on the throne even though he has spent the majority of his time chasing Aang and then surviving in the Earth Kingdom which neglected his studies about politics and militia of the Fire Nation.

And don't make me start with the emotional baggage and other stuff he really needs to work on. There is a lot he still must take care of himself before having such a responsibility as the “redemption path” for Azula.

Besides, for him to be ready what Zuko needs is some time for himself to figure out who he is and what he wants. What's his purpose or the choices he has? The same goes for Azula. They need time and space for each other to find themselves after being abused and pitted against one another by Ozai for years. Because having your identity based on being superior to your sibling to not be punished or reach an unrealistic expectation is not healthy at all.

Number 2: Redemption arc or Plot Device arc?

In one of the ATLA posts I've made on Tumblr, I talked about how Azula’s framing in the show didn't let her be a relatable character or be genuinely complex because the ATLA crew wanted her to be just a standard cool villain; therefore, her tragic backstory and complexities were just accessories that could enhance others’ arca but not hers. Well, I think that post can be applied here because what would Azula’s redemption be if given the chance to be made for a new season? A proper way to deepen Azula’s character or just a way to put Zuko on a higher pedestal than the one he has?

I think the second option is the most plausible. Of course, it is speculation but with the show's framing of her character, her treatment by the hands of the comics, and how people have described her as irredeemable, evil, and sadistic while ignoring the environment, factors, and people that have made her this way, I doubt this redemption arc had been made for her character only and not to enlighten someone else.

And with how Ehasz has described it, my doubts have increased too: “At the deepest moment in her own abyss, she would have found: Zuko”, “Zuko -patient, forgiving, and unconditionally loving”. Yep, this seems more like an attempt to turn Zuko into Iroh 2.0 and Azula into Zuko 2.0, and her redemption arc into Zuko’s redemption arc 2.0.

Number 3: Showing off Zuko’s questionable traits

“Zuko -patient, forgiving, and unconditionally loving”, honestly, I don't know if Ehasz knows Zuko’s character at all and his dynamic with Azula from A to Z.

First, patient? Sure, Zuko has matured and it's normal to relapse in moments of stress but since when he is patient? He wanted to enter a storm in The Storm episode despite how dangerous it was and even fought one of his crew members when he scolded him for his recklessness. He attacked Aang for not training hard enough and not taking Ozai seriously even when Zuko didn't tell the Gaang about his father’s plans to burn the whole Earth Kingdom sooner. And let's not talk about how his character was handled in the comics.

Forgiving? This one is a bit difficult. I could just put that Zuko criticized Aang’s air nomads' beliefs about forgiveness and how forgiving the man that killed Katara’s mother was the same as doing nothing but I also take into account that Zuko said to Aang that he was right about violence not being the answer Katara needed to heal.

Forgiveness and Zuko are very complicated. Zuko has all the right to not forgive Ozai for all the pain he put him through or Azula for the animosity between them, but it would be interesting if he forgave her to have a new chance at siblinghood or just to have his own chance at healing.

However, it's a hard question to answer if he is forgiving. Let's not forget that Zuko, as the Blue Spirit, attacked the man that humiliated Iroh when they became EK refugees. But there is also the fact that even after Azula attacked Iroh in The Chase, Zuko didn't tell him “Uncle, we have to find Azula so we can avenge you”, instead he said, “I know what you're going to say: she's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her”. Now, according to this phrase, Zuko thinks Iroh has a better way to deal with Azula that doesn't involve violence even if he knows that if he doesn't improve his firebending, his chances against her will be slim. And because Iroh is the most amicable of the older fire brothers, Zuko trusts his judgment and experience about siblinghood.

Last but not least, unconditionally loving. That is very complicated to answer too because the only source of supposedly unconditional love was Ursa before she disappeared and then Iroh took her place but both favored Zuko over Azula for different reasons which isn't the best example for an impressionable child about how unconditional love is or should be.

Look, I’m not saying that Zuko cannot be any of those things but it takes time and effort, and perhaps that’s why Azula’s redemption is important for Ehasz because it would give Zuko the chance to show forgiveness, patience, and unconditional love when it should be about Azula and how she becomes a healthier and better person instead of being the plot device to show off Zuko’s traits.

Number 4: If not Zuko, then who?

Azula has been failed by the adults of her family in so many ways. Ozai abused her by turning her into a soldier and weapon; Ursa favored Zuko over her because he was easier to deal with and Ursa couldn’t find a common ground between them to understand her daughter; Iroh barely cared about her and then told Zuko to fight her two times even when the second one he had said earlier than if he fought Ozai it would feed the cycle of violence. Hypocrisy at its best, uh?

While Ursa is still hiding, I think the best option is Iroh as crazy as it is. Despite the bad blood between them, Azula and Iroh have a lot in common: they are the cunning, successful, and powerful prodigies of their fathers. Both were favored by Ozai and Azulon respectively. Both were affected negatively by the war: Azula’s whole childhood was robbed by Ozai when he started to mold her into a weapon, and Iroh lost Lu Ten which broke his will to fight in the Ba Sing Se Siege. Both create their own firebending moves and are excellent fighters.

It would be great to see how Iroh’s opinion of Azula gradually changes from negative to sorrowful and positive after understanding that she was also a victim of Ozai’s machinations and that her talents were twisted and abused for his gain and not the crazy girl that needed to be taken down like some kind of final boss from a video game or rabid animal.

It would also be fun a comradeship and respect between two jaded prodigies of the FN royal family. He could tell Azula about his adventures in the Spirit World and what he learned from the other nations, his adventures in the Earth Kingdom with Zuko as refugees which could be emphasized by Zuko explaining how terrible the war had affected the people.

About Ursa, if the comics didn't exist and the discovery of where she was and what she has been doing since her disappearance had been handled much better, I bet she would be distraught that one of her children had ended up in an asylum and her mental state is in such disarray. It would be the start for Ursa to reach out to Azula to make up for her shortcomings as a mother and have a common ground between them, to form a solid and healthy mother-daughter relationship.

And while Iroh and Ursa would be responsible to take care of her emotionally, she could meet other people in the Fire Nation to help her see the error of her ways and the wrongness of the war.

Her friends Mai and Tai Lee could be part of the team if they meet again and reconcile so Azula doesn't have to travel only with Iroh and Ursa but also with people her age. And the Gaang can be of help for her redemption too, though it will be much more difficult after what happened in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se.

All in all, those are the reason why Zuko as Iroh 2.0 for Azula’s redemption arc is a bad idea. I mean, he can be a part of her redemption arc, but if he is put on such a pedestal it would backfire for both of them. Better if she has a net of support and builds her own path post-war instead of being the copy-and-paste of Zuko’s redemption arc just to make him look better.

[raayllum]

Transcript of Aaron Ehasz Interview (Sept 2024)

Podcast link here. Transcript down below with bulk under a read more.

R: Alright so welcome back to the Wordswithdragons podcast, and today I’m joined by a very special guest, the co-creator of The Dragon Prince, Aaron Ehasz. 

A: Hello, thank you for having me today. Glad to be here.

R: Thank you so much for being here. Um, yeah, so, as we semi touched on, it is the 6 year anniversary of The Dragon Prince this September 14th.

A: Yeah.

R: Do you have any thoughts, reflections, feelings about the show having gone on for this long and being such a big part of people’s lives?

A: I mean for starters, it’s really hard to believe it’s been on for six years. Like that seems insane to me. Cause it seemed like we had — Justin and I had been working on it for so long before it finally came out because we had worked on the story and then gotten feedback, and help in improving that pitch and bringing it out and we had it set up at Netflix, and we had to — we wrote the pilot obviously, and we didn’t know where we were gonna produce it, and found Bardel. So there was so much time between even just starting to think about it and when it came out.

R: Yeah, cause that was like 2015, right?

A: Yeah, I guess we started the journey in 2015 and we got with Bardel by the end of 2016, and it got released evidently in 2018, so... Yeah, yeah, cause I remember even we were writing kind of the end of season 3 when we had that panel with Marco and named the character after Marco.

R: Oh yeah.

A: The character [chuckles] from the first episode, we only had an opportunity for him to say his name out loud in that last episode because we were writing the ending while we were showing the episodes for first time, so. Anyway, that’s my reflection, it’s great it’s been six years.

R: Yeah. I know The Dragon Prince has been a really like — both life changing and I think, like, life affirming experience for a lot of people, myself included. So we just really appreciate everybody’s hard work on the show and are very excited for season 7 and hopefully beyond as well. As well for any future projects that Wonderstorm comes out with, like Bonders sounds amazing.

A: I feel — well first of all, thank you for saying that it’s life affirming, that’s such a nice thing to hear about something you’ve worked on, but I also agree that Justin and I feel a ton of gratitude for the whole team and the work and heart that everyone put into making this. I think people wanted it to be meaningful and special and that takes a certain kind of energy and vulnerability to build something like that, that you share, and our whole team really did give that in building the show.

R: Yeah. I think for sure. I think that’s like, um, I was even — I was rewatching some of the show earlier for — for a parallel, and it was the scene between Avizandum and Zubeia when she goes to him in like her kind of corruption dream semi-nightmare, and obviously that’s such a heartfelt, touching scene, and it’s always so strange. Because on the one hand, you should hate Avizandum, he killed Sarai and Rex Igneous has rightful criticism of him, but then you watch that scene of him and he really did love his family, so I think the show being able to draw out those strong, conflicting emotions for so many of the characters is one of the reasons why it connects with people to the degree that it does.

A: And that’s one of the themes you probably see in the show — just gonna make a quick —

R: Yeah, yeah for sure. 

A: Avizandum, which is that being a good dad can make up for awful lot of [R laughs] monstrosities, as long as you’re doing it in the name of being a good dad. I’m joking, uh. Of course, yeah, Avizandum was always meant to be a complicated figure like many of our characters. 

R: You mentioned that you guys have been working on — I think season three during this panel with Marco, or Marcos, and I remember, I think you’ve said before that the seasons get worked on concurrently, that there’s a decent amount of overlap.

A: Yeah.

R: I’ve always wondered, because we know — obviously, I’m a big Rayllum fan — but I’ve always wondered, cause I know they weren’t originally planned, and then you guys were boarding season two when you were like, “Hey, maybe this should be a thing,” and then probably like shifted and tweaked things or changed things to write more towards that in the future... Um, I’ve always wondered, if there was time, like at that time, to go back and change anything in season one for them, or the season one that we see was just like that?

A: I don’t recall there was time to change season 1 — that does happen because we are working on things in parallel because we are working on something in the script and then some time later we are working on the later stage of production, like an animatic, and we’ll be able to kind of give notes or even make changes with the knowledge of what’s coming, so that has happened. But in the case of Rayllum, I don’t think so. I mean, I think — again, I remember...

R: It was a while ago, yeah.

A: We were rekindling, or when we were realizing that something was being kindled between them, it was watching an animatic so that shouldn’t have informed our writing of season one, but our later stage stuff. But we weren’t trying to force anything so it got in there naturally and I don’t think we went back and changed anything.

R: Yeah, that’s what I’ve always — they had those kind of vibes to me from like episode two and three, obviously season two brought a lot more people on board, but I was always curious. Cause in season one, like, I think, it feels so natural, it feels so organic, and like I’ve shown — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s a great way to connect with friends and family and you kind of catch up with each other like through the show, of “oh have you seen the new season yet?” and that sort of stuff. And so when I’ve shown the show to like my brother-in-law, who is not plugged in at all, he also kind of picked up on it in season one, so I’ve always been curious. 

A: You know, what else, I’ll even say, I think we initially, intentionally planned they weren’t going to be a couple. We were like “Oh yeah, no, they’re—”

R: Friends, yeah.

A: Friends, with different views of the world and they journey together, and we don’t want them to be a couple. We’re not — we’re definitely not targeting it. I think we were intentionally not targeting it, and then it was “too bad creators! [R laughs] We’re going to fall in love despite everything you’re planning.”

R: Well, that very much I think even fits what they represent to each other, of like you don’t have to do this path that you think you have to do...

A: Yeah.

R: You can be something new. I always kind of felt like Ezran and Zym were — felt very kind of like designed as foils, as like a pair, of like through Zym, Ezran learns more so like how to grow up, and they’re both like the princes who will be king, and then Callum and Rayla also kind of felt sort of like developed as a pair, in terms of like — he needs to gain more confidence, she’s pretty confident on the surface.

A: Yeah.

R: She needs to learn how to open up, he’s really good at being open especially in the beginning.

A: Right. 

R: So I was always like...

A: He needs to be murdered, she needs to learn how to murder someone.

R: Yeah! They complete each other, yeah. Uh... Some other questions that I had [rapid typing]. So I guess, maybe, I have some questions that are more season specific, in respect to time, but I also had like more general questions. 

A: Okay.

R: So, one of the things I’ve always love in general and really love about The Dragon Prince is its like use of philosophy and like its deeply interested in ethical and moral questions, and presenting some answers for some of them, but like are those the right answers? We don’t know. 

A: Right.

R: So I know King Harrow’s choosing of Lady Justice’s blindfold is a pretty apt comparison to John Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance—

A: Yes.

R: Of, you know, you strip away everything that you could have, like advantages, disadvantages, and think, would the system work for me? Which has been useful when I’ve like, had to tutor students in philosophy actually, but I was curious, were there any like philosophical concepts or ideas that people really, or you really, wanted to work into the series? ‘Cause we have a lot of trolley problems.

A: Right. Um, probably. I mean like, I should say, I was a philosophy concentrator in college so I absorbed a lot. Things like  Rawls, I had a class with John Rawls, and thought that was a really interesting concept and I liked including it, and I thought we can include it in a fun way, the idea of justice. So other philosophy probably makes its way in, it can makes its way in accidentally or subconsciously, so nothing specific right now comes to mind. I will say, as with kind of Avatar before this, I don’t like to have — I’m not trying to have a right answer, ever. I’m trying to have the characters have a deeper understanding of what they’re struggling with, and y’know, move in a direction of deeper understanding, so if anything, it’s more interesting to me to see conflicts between maybe philosophical approaches that are different and see how — Oh well, this has these kinds of results, and positives and negatives, and this has... so that the audience can have a chance to say, “Oh well okay, I have some thoughts on that,” or “here’s what I feel,” and that’s why sometimes I think we see the fandom actually kind of go back and forth—

R: Yeah.

A: On — around characters and people’s choices, and things like dark magic or Viren, which are controversial, are things where like, I do not have a strong point of view on... the kind of binary right or wrong of... Viren in the long term. He’s made a lot of wrong choices and he’s made a lot of choices for good. 

R: Yeah.

A: He is an arrogant and power hungry person and he’s also a caring and loving father and someone who wants to have a positive impact on the world, right, like?

R: Yeah.

A: So those conflicts play out in him. But similarly, I think with maybe most of the philosophical ideas I can think of, I’d rather get to like a place where everyone just has a chance to entertain those thoughts and ideas and struggle with them, or hold them in an authentic way, and then can come to their own conclusions and feelings. I mean, I have some deep feelings about like, the world, and how can people be optimistic or not pessimistic or—y’know, what it means to hold onto hope or what it means to try to move past conflict, and I have beliefs that there are conflicts that get so you know, kind of sewn in, that they feel they are impossible to untangle, and especially if the game you’re playing is who started it, or who did the worst thing, where you can’t just ever untangle it. You can’t ever find a right or wrong, so how do you get past that? That’s one of the questions I was hoping Rayla, Callum, and Ezran would try to—

R: Figure it out.

A: Struggle with. Anyway, I’m giving a very long winded answer—

R: No, no.

A: That’s the philosophy that comes to mind. If something comes to mind for you, you can bring it up and I can go, “Oh yeah, that was probably influenced by so-and-so.” [R laughs] Or maybe not.

R: Well, one of the things I loved about season six was kind of — you see, even... One of the things I thought was really interesting was we see, not quite like that return to trolley problems, but we see Aaravos at the end of season 5 is telling Viren you have to make the sacrifice so that you can live, and then we see Rayla tell Callum, “Hey, if the choice ever happens, you also have to sacrifice me,” for — so Callum can live, but also for like the greater good and that sort of stuff. And then you have Kpp’Ar, who — I love Kpp’Ar, I think he’s terrible and interesting and I love him.

A: Awesome. He is — we’ll learn a little more about him in the future, but yes.

R: And obviously when Viren’s like, “A child will die,” and this is a kid that Kpp’Ar would’ve known, and we see in The Puzzle House that he loved these kids, and whatever is up with the Staff is bad enough that Kpp’Ar’s like, “Okay. I’ll make that sacrifice.” Which feels very much in a way like he’s given up on dark magic, and to a certain degree he’s both given up on the mindset of dark magic, and maybe also hasn’t given it up in the same way. Like I love that — Claudia, you know, obviously, puts Viren above all else, is she always right to do so? Maybe not, but we get why she’s doing it, that’s a hard thing to say. And then we have Callum, who also seems inclined to put Rayla above all else, and because we like Rayla more, we’re like “Yeah, he can do that, it’s okay for him to do dark magic for her, that’s fine,” even if there’s also like, consequences. Cause most characters in the show, like you said, everybody kind of wants the same thing, they wanna have a positive impact on the world, they want to protect their loved ones, but what constitutes that world, what they think is a positive impact, or who they want — how they protect those people, that’s all very malleable and can fluctuate. Viren says “Claudia, you’re on the wrong path,” and we’re like yeah, he’s right, and Karim says the same thing about Janai, like the exact same thing, and we’re like, well he’s wrong.

A: Yeah. I mean a lot of things come to mind when you’re talking through that, but one is there’s often a conflict between rigidity and rules and some kind of compassion, or emotional decision, and those decisions are hard, right? Like I dunno, maybe Kpp’Ar should’ve said, “Okay just this once, it’s Soren,” or not, I don’t know. I mean obviously Kpp’Ar had taken himself to some deep horrible place and he really had, actually. And was like, “Okay, dark magic is just corruption when you start and keep going down this path, but this Viren’s kid so I don’t know.” One of the things here, I think there’s a relationship between — you know, sacrifice plays a role here. Sacrifice and thinking about generations and generational conflict and thinking you know maybe in a way I think is interesting. I think about the beginning of season 6 when Claudia has done all of this and sacrificed another life but also sacrifices some of her soul or whatever to save her dad and he’s like “No no! This is not the way! A parent is supposed to do this for a child but never the other way around,” right? And there’s something to that I find interesting which is — it’s almost the inverse of children having the opportunity to start anew and break cycles, parents potentially have the opportunity to make sacrifices that don’t pass by burdens onto their kids, but sort of like that’s the mirror I see a little bit, in terms of how do you have generational change and evolution? It’s somewhere in younger generations being able to not get stuck on conflicts and burdens, but also the older generations recognizing that they may have to be the one to take the — and this is I think a natural... I dunno, it’s something I think about a little bit and came to mind when you were talking. So we’ll see more about what is the meaning of sacrifice and when — when do you... trade? Yeah.

R: Yeah.

A: Side note on sacrifice. You’re familiar with Game of Thrones? You’ve watched all of Game of Thrones?

R: I’m decently familiar, yeah.

A: Okay.

R: And if not, I can have Kuno explain it to me later, so.

A: One of the things I love about the sacrifice Ned made, that we didn’t realize he’d made until I think the very end of the series, we realize — a sacrifice to his kind of reputation, right? And I’m talking about him representing Jon Snow as his bastard to protect him, right? Think about that, that’s a sacrifice, he had to go through the anger — he didn’t tell his wife the truth, he didn’t tell anyone, because it was the only way to protect the child, and as a result he lived with — even though the truth is that he was a really honest, good, or evidently he didn’t go cheat on his wife, he sacrificed that part of his reputation to protect Jon, at least how I see it. I think things like that are kind of interesting. I dunno.

R: Yeah. Yeah, I think it speaks to that idea of — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s so much about choices.

A: Yeah.

R: Like one of the things I really really liked about season 6 was that, you know, Callum is like, “Okay, I’m going to get myself purified, healed of dark magic,” and Rayla was his light, which was very validating, cause I had noticed in season two there was like some framing so I was like well “Maybe, maybe” you know? And then slowburn buildup but it was — I think that was a great moment that really paid off. And he’s told “if you ever do this again, it’ll corrupt you completely.” And whether he will or won’t — I personally think that he will, but spoilers, you know — but whether he will or won’t, I think it’s really nice because now whatever choice he makes, he’s making with the full context, of what this would do to him.

A: Yeah.

R: Whereas in season two, yes he was making his choice to do dark magic then, and I don’t necessarily think he would make a fundamentally different one if he had known what it would lead to, but there’s a different kind of awareness. Like I always of it would’ve been so easy to have Harrow not know that Viren was going to kill Zym, cause that’s such an easy way to kind of let Harrow off the hook of well Viren went off and did this on his own, and Harrow had no idea, and blah blah blah, right? Cause we like Harrow, he’s a — again, he’s a good dad, we’ll forgive a lot. And instead, it’s not his idea but he’s fully aware, he signs off on it. And I think constantly pushing characters to make hard choices — kind of like what Ezran says, “these aren’t dreams, these are choices.”

A: Yeah.

R: You can choose love, you can choose to make... It’s something that makes all the characters feel so fully developed and interesting, so I always appreciate that you guys push them to make the hard choice. 

A: Yeah. Cool. Thank you.

R: One question I did have is, uh, Karim is one of my favourite characters.

A: Okay. Unusual person. A lot of people hate — or love to hate...? I love him too. 

R: I also love Kasef, so I think I just kind of love everyone, because I’m like well, they’re really interesting. I feel like [Karim’s] arc was one of the things I loved most about season 4 because you can see him really wrestling with his choices and I love watching him fail, cause that’s kind of all he does, so that’s always fun. But I am really curious obviously now he’s been betrayed by Sol Regem, Katolis is in ashes and maybe they’ll blame Karim for that cause Sol Regem is like — dead, and now, presumably his only hope is going to be that his sister doesn’t execute him on the spot? 

A: Yeah.

R: So is there anything you can tease about Karim’s arc in season 7?

A: Yeah, so — so it’s not just Karim, there’s an army of people who betrayed Janai, and — and...

R: What do we do?

A: Yeah, what do we do? That will be something we’ll have to see them grapple with pretty much right away in the season. Especially cause [Karim’s army] showed up for this battle where they were never even — they were just planning to sweep up the ashes afterwards, so when they didn’t get the dragon support they needed, I suspect they lost really quickly. 

R: Yes, yeah.

A: So uh... Yeah, but basically as of the start of season 7 — all of them are prisoners of Queen Janai and the question is — what do you do with that? What do you do when you have an entire army and your own brother who betrayed you? And so that’s — we’ll find out.

R: Yeah. [Laughs] 

A: But yeah.

R: Yeah. Another question I had going forward was Terry and Claudia obviously I thought had a really beautiful relationship arc, particularly in season 6, and we saw in season 4 the lengths he’s willing to go to for her, and how Terry, I think, is a great example of how there’s a lot of character traits where we think “oh, if you’re a selfless, helpful, accepting person, you’re a good person,” and I feel like Dragon Prince does a really good job of how, Rayla’s selflessness can be great but it can also be kinda bad, or, um, Terry can be super accepting, maybe a little too—

A: Yeah.

R: —accepting sometimes, right? So I feel like at the end of season 6, it will presumably be him, Claudia, and Aaravos for a little bit now that he’s out of the prison. And it feels like maybe Terry might hit a breaking point?

A: Here’s what I will say — Terry is a really special character and if you watched him, he’s so good, and what we’ll find out is, he is — there is an episode called TRUE HEART and he is someone who has a true heart.

R: Oh that’s so sweet.

A: It’s very impossibly rare and special — but also we all understand what a true heart is in some way and we’ll learn a little more about that. But yeah, the question of what will Terry do, what can he do, is difficult because he has a very strong sense of right and wrong, but he has a very deep capacity for love and he loves Claudia with all of his heart. Where does that present an impossible conflict, it may... we’ll see a challenge.

R: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

A: I’ll also throw in like I sometimes see some parallels between Terry and Uncle Iroh—

R: Yes.

A: Though Uncle Iroh I think has a very different journey. Iroh is kind of a recovered problematic person who now has some wisdom and enlightenment, so in terms of the difference between the purity of a true heart versus where Iroh is more of a later stage enlightenment, the love that they have for the kind of complicated person that they are with is similar to me. And the way that they both sometimes have to, or don’t have to but...

R: Choose to?

A: You have to give that person the space — you can’t force them to choose right or wrong, you can be there with them, you can try to guide them, you can — but ultimately you have to give them the space to fail, and eventually, you may have to turn your back on them. 

R: Yeah.

A: At some point. I don’t know. But um yeah — I still see them as connected characters in my mind. 

R: I think I can even see some of that with even the way Callum is with Rayla, like season five onwards, of like “I’ve hit my turning point, I’m not mad at you anymore, and you can steal my key, you can lie to me, and I’m not going to have you open up to me out of guilt or obligation, I want you to tell me what’s going on when you want to tell me what’s going on, and I’m going to give you the space for that.” So I think it speaks to that unconditional love that I think—

A: Yeah.

R: —a lot of the characters are blessed to have. But I do see the Terry Iroh connection. So another thing that I thought was really interesting was — obviously next season is dark magic, and I’m very hopeful that maybe we’ll learn more about the origins of dark magic or Elarion, even. 

A: Great.

R: Because I know when I was watching Sol Regem burn down Katolis, it made me think of what might’ve either happened or almost happened to Elarion in the past, you know? 

A: Yeah.

R: Even down to Ziard and Viren both die, kind of deflecting and trying to save people, with the same staff, you know, and how the cycle continues to just always repeat itself over and over again. And if there was like — yeah, cause burning down Katolis was a massive shakeup, you know?

A: Yup.

R: And what maybe the process was there, with the — Aaravos seems like he’s trying to repeat the cycle of like “Oh I’m going to take down the dragon monarchy or I’m gonna use that vacancy to my advantage, and mess with the Sunfire elves.”

A: He has a specific vendetta against Sol Regem, obviously, but it’s one where he has played it out in... What’s certainly meant to be implied, even though we’ll find out more later, is that one of the great mysteries of Sol Regem’s life is that his mate disappeared and he never found her. He’s the freaking Dragon King, and she disappeared. And though we don’t know how or what happened, while she was buried alive. He killed her. He didn’t even realize it, somehow. Somehow, Aaravos manipulated him into killing her, and he doesn’t — I dunno, I assume Sol Regem does understand when it must have happened, but that moment, it’s like an impossible — it’s meant to be just...

R: Awful.

A: He’s tortured him for 1000 years or whatever, without him knowing he was being tortured by Aaravos, and now he’s given him the mercy/cruelty of knowing the resolution to the mystery was that he killed her. And one of the things that worked well with that was that, we had sort of said Sol Regem can smell the truth from a lie, so he has the horrible curse of being able to know this is the deep dark truth. So I dunno, I think um, are we going to find out more about that? So, if we can eventually get the Book Three novel out [R laughs], we will find out more about that.

R: I did wonder, I was like “Maybe this is something that was gonna be in the book three novelization.”

A: Yes, we will find out more in the book three novel, it may be a year or so before unfortunately. And then I don’t think we’re gonna get too deep into that in season seven, that’s part of — it is involved in what we’re thinking about as the third arc, understanding and resolving the third arc, is gonna go a little deeper into...

R: Some of the history, yeah.

A: Some of the stuff that happened with Sol Regem. But yeah, no, I — it’s enjoyable to have these figures like Aaravos and Sol Regem who are ancient and operate over the course of centuries and are incredibly powerful, yet they can’t — or at least Aaravos,  they can’t conflict directly as easily, and so Aaravos has played this really complicated game. Anyway, but yes Sol Regem is part of that, but there’s — there’s more, there’s more people who — beings that took from him. He feels that Leola was unfairly punished and that that was — you know, he sees a future and he has something... All this time, a burning — it’s the twisted form of his love, in which he’s full of hate right now to the beings who brought this about. Obviously, Sol Regem played a role because he’s a rules dragon.

R: Yeah, yeah.

A: He is the one who betrayed her to the Cosmic Council ultimately — but how do you punish the Cosmic Council? That’s a bit more complicated.

R: Yeah. No, I remember finishing season six and just being so impressed with the story. Like, taking that direction, and almost doing a lot of recontextualization, because it’s one thing to have like your worldbuilding where “magic in the story works like this” and it’s just very kind of like hand of God, you know? Like oh — cause the magic system has always been unfair, that’s why we have Callum, you know? It’s another thing to say we’re going to have characters in the story who are responsible for it being unfair. And now we’re just going to have that in terms of conflict and themes of destiny. We have about seven, ten-ish minutes left I think.

A: Probably seven, if that’s okay?

R: Yeah. Of course. 

A: I’ll throw one other thing in there, which is that — cause characters experience things that change them: has Aaravos experienced — I’ll phrase it as a question, even though probably the answer is here, has Aaravos experienced much that has changed him in the last — since the death of Leola? I mean certainly some things, and is what’s happening now changing him in any way? Is it satisfaction, is it the relationship with Claudia, and what does that mean to someone? That’s a question that I think we’ll have to watch play out a little bit.

R: [Intrigued] Okay. Yeah. One thing that I really liked about Leola’s character was I felt like she had pieces of each of the main trio in her? Of this very helpful innocent well meaning child, kind of like Ezran — and I have also always seen Ezran as autistic as well cause I know that Leola canonically is — and then you also kind of have the whole oh she gave  / helped humans have primal magic, which obviously Callum has. And even just being this young elven girl punished for her compassion and mercy, that felt a lot like Rayla. And when making the choice for Leola to be Leola, was that something intentional or like the choice for it to be a child rather than another loved one?

A: It was very intentional that it was a child... And we talked through other versions of Leola that could’ve been, in other ages, genders, relationships with Aaravos that an important person was lost. Some of the things I liked about the way, Leola both as a child, children are the cycle breakers.

R: Yes, yeah. I think it was the strongest choice.

A: And in particular also, the idea of coding her autistic was a little bit like not as cued to kind of accept the social order and the order of things, but actually more open in a way to in what some people see as like — something that’s broken which is not taking those cues, something else about that — not being bound by it that allowed her to have compassion that crossed the line in terms of the perceptions of what the Cosmic Order needed to be in it — but it made her more, both as a child and an autistic person, to make that choice and do what she did that changed everything.

R: Makes a lot of sense.

A: [Her being a child] also frames it with some innocence obviously right? It’s not calculated, it’s kind. 

R: Yeah.

A: So I dunno.

R: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been curious about how Ezran might be challenged now that Runaan is back in the picture.

A: That’s a great question. That’s a great question. I mean, it’s so weird, it’s like no one even asks that, it’s like “Cool,” Rayla’s like “I’m gonna go get him. Awesome! Runaan’s back.”

R: Yeah I’m like either — either Callum is like “Ezran will be totally fine with it,” and Ezran  is probably not going to be fine with it, or maybe Callum knew that maybe it wouldn’t be great, and kept it under wraps. Yeah, I’m so excited for that like trio, potential broyals conflict, so...

A: Well, I mean, Ezran is a very special kid and he’s very positive and kind and forgiving and all of this. But we’re talking about, Runaan is back.

R: Castle’s destroyed.

A: Katolis is rubble. Where does that leave him?

R: Yeah.

A: You know? I mean — so I’m excited about that part of Ezran.

R: I know the fandom is really, really excited for Ezran to get to be — not that he hasn’t always been complex, but to get to be like messier, of letting his emotions maybe get the better of him and that sort of thing. So people are definitely hype for that, for — cause I feel like season six really brought home a lot of things for Soren, and it seems like season seven is going to do a similar thing for Ezran, so that’s — that’s really exciting. Um, with our final couple minutes, I wanted to see — do you have any questions that you want fans to ponder or to be thinking about?

A: Um... Gosh. I don’t think I have anything specific that we haven’t talked about, but you know. On some level, like, you know how do you take the tragedies and conflicts that we all inevitably face repetitively and relentlessly and kind of learn to move forward in hope and optimism? I think that’s more of a question of like how do you personally learn to process — all the kind of bullshit in the world, and process it, and still move forward as a kind, connected—

R: Measured person.

A: —hopeful person? That’s a challenge we all face in our lives, so that’s like...

R: Yeah. Well, I think the show does a good — really good job at asking and challenging that — that question. Uh, yeah, I think — I think that’s our time for today, uh. Thank you so much, this was... 

A: It was my pleasure. 

R: This was a lot of fun.

A: It’s always my pleasure reading your theories and your—

R: [Gasps] Oh my gosh.

A: Honestly, I came on today and to tell the truth [R laughs] a little bit intimidated.

R: Oh my God. 

A: You’re so—

R: I also felt intimidated [laughing] so don’t worry.

A: You’re so insightful and articulate, that I almost am like [R laughs] what if they catch me that there’s something not as smart in the show as I thought it was?

R: Oh my gosh, no, you’re fine.

A: [Overlapping] So anyway, I really enjoy what you write—

R: [Overlapping] I’m also a writer so I know what it’s like to be like “I did this subconsciously,” it’s — yeah.

A: I love what you instigate in the fandom and the kind of conversations you support and engage in. I’m a huge fan of yours, so.

R: Oh! Thank you so much, that’s so sweet. Um. And I am a huge fan of yours.

A: Yay. That’s a great way to end a podcast.

R: That is a great way. Okay. Alright, well thank you so much, hope you have a great day, great week, uh, and — yeah. Okay.

A: Alright, and I’ll see you soon, we’ll do this again sometime, I hope. 

R: Yes! Yeah. Okay.

A: Alright. Thanks again. Alright, bye.

[the-zk-directory]

Zutara Probably Would Have Been Canon in Season 4 – The Masterpost

| [Intro.] |

If you’ve been around or within the Avatar fandom for any period of time you have probably, one way or another, become aware of one of the most intense shipping wars not just of any children’s show, but possibly just in general, one that is well over a decade old by now, approaching two.

Katara and Aang (Kataang), though canon, are often criticized for being one-sided, bad for each of the characters, and rushed. The creators of Avatar though – Mike & Bryan (collectively known as the entity ‘Bryke’) – have stated in the past that Kataang “was in the DNA of the [show] from the start.” (x)

Statements like the above are one of the reasons Zuko and Katara (Zutara) fans have been labelled ‘conspiracy theorists’ when they claim things that contradict Bryke: namely, that Zutara as a pairing was not only a serious consideration during the show’s run, but the likely outcome if the show had continued on for another season, which it seems it almost did.

(This hypothetical ‘Book 4’ was, for a long time, considered a Zutarian conspiracy theory in itself.)

But let’s back up.

How did these so-called conspiracy theories start?

-----------

| [Intro. To The Rumours + Who Is Aaron Ehasz?] |

For a long time, the only thing that Zutara fans could latch onto were rumours. People who claimed to have worked at Nickelodeon, worked in the artistic community and knew things, met a writer in person, etc. This may not sound promising on its face, but the thing is, most of these rumours were consistent. Most of their content concerned the one-time possibility of season 4, and one man in particular: Avatar’s head writer Aaron Ehasz.

We’ll go into those rumours in depth in a second. For right now, here's a little teaser: (x)

But first, who is Aaron Ehasz (& ex-wife Elizabeth Welch) and what were his contributions to the development of Avatar?

[Who Are the Ehaszs, and Why Does Everyone Bring Them Up?] -- (x)(x)

Bonus: (x) (Note that the poster is Giancarlo Volpe btw, another writer on Avatar.)

-----------

| [The Main Rumour Sources – Tumblr Blogs ‘Kataraandzuko’ & ‘Zephyrita’] |

Now we can get to the rumours themselves. The two main sources are both now-deactivated tumblr blogs. ‘Kataraandzuko’ is the first one we’re going to talk about. This person claimed to be an assistant writer/intern on Avatar Books 2/3 with inside knowledge of what went on behind the scenes in the writer’s room.

Meet ‘Kataraandzuko’: (x)

Zephyrita, similarly, claimed to be someone who interned and studied at Nickelodeon Studios in 2007 as an animation color stylist (according to (x)). It seems significant to mention that Zephyrita also claimed to not actually be a Zutara shipper.

(Besides reblogs, a good amount of her original posts can be found on the Wayback Machine. I took screenshots of a few of them and posted them to my blog individually with the links to the rest underneath.)

Meet ‘Zephyrita’: (x)

By the way, while I don’t know when the blogs were first started or when the first rumours concerning season 4 were posted, they seem to have been around since at least late 2015-2016. It’s hard to tell with the blogs and original posts being deactivated, but that’s the earliest I’ve seen. (If anyone sees anything earlier, let me know.) This will become important later.

-----------

| [Controversy: (A conversation I had with…)] |

Now, I said we were going to talk about Kataraandzuko first and the post that we’re going to talk about specifically is this one: (x)

In it, Kataraandzuko claims to have had a conversation with Aaron Ehasz in Philadelphia. Why they were both in Philadelphia is not stated in the post. According to what Kataraandzuko wrote, Aaron seems to strongly imply that he had wanted to explore a romantic relationship between Zuko and Katara. This supposed conversation was turned into a tumblr post and written down in a style reminiscent of an interviewer and interviewee.

Being the only well-known rumour post to be written this way meant it, kataraandzuko themselves, and all the rumours generally would come under a lot of fire when Everything changed when Aaron Ehasz attacked Aaron Ehasz himself came out and said this: (x) in September, 2018.

With Aaron himself basically shooting down the idea that a season 4 (and, by proxy, Zutara) was ever seriously considered or planned, people who had viewed Zutara fans’ theories as nothing more than wild, imaginative conspiracies by desperate shippers felt like they had been proved right: (x)

-----------

| [Other Rumours] |

And yet, rumours persisted.

[This (x) for the record, is kataraandzuko’s follow-up post to their ‘Conversation I had with Aaron Ehasz in Philadelphia’ post. I’ve reblogged a number of their other posts too. But fine, Aaron said the interview was fake, so let’s disregard everything ‘kataraandzuko’ said for now.]

Here’s someone who claims to have been present at a class that Aaron gave a lecture at at UC Berkeley: (x)(x)

(this class seems to have been real – here’s a link to people talking about it 12 years ago; the link on the page appears to have changed though: (x) )

Here’s another post concerning that class, though I’m not sure if the person they’re talking about who attended is actually the same person as above. (x)

Other posts from Reddit, 4chan, & Deviantart: (x)(x)(x)

-----------

| [Evidence Against Kataang] |

[Series Bible] Of course, rumours aren’t really ‘evidence.’ And, while it’s hard to find evidence for something that never happened, it’s not hard to take a look at Avatar’s original series bible, or series outline by Bryke, and see that, though indeed, the series bibles only outlines three seasons, it also doesn’t outline endgame Kataang or suggest it being anywhere near ‘the DNA of the show.’ In fact, Aang and Katara & Sokka separate at the end of this version, with the latter two returning home and Aang going off to search for airbenders. (x)

[“A 50/50 Chance”] Off the record, Bryke even seemed to admit themselves that there might have been a back and forth regarding who exactly was going to end up with who. See here (x) an account of a Kataang fan who thanked Bryke at a comic con, only to be told: “Well, it was a 50/50 chance.“

[M. Night Interview] This was confirmed by a third party as well. ~Certain~ movies he’s made may not have lived up to their expectations but I see no reason why M. Night Shyamalan would lie when he says that at the time he talked to Mike and Bryan regarding a potential live action movie, there were a lot of things that hadn’t been figured out yet, including “who Katara was going to end up with.” (x)

And so, with or without a direct confirmation of season 4 by Aaron (when the world needed him most, he vanished), it seemed there had still been wiggle-room at some point in time for the potential of ~certain things~ to have, indeed, been under consideration, fourth season or not.

-----------

| [Aaron Confirms on Twitter] |

BUT THEN.

100 Years passed and my brot—

On April 1, 2019, Aaron emerged, as if from an iceberg, to share some thoughts on an Azula redemption arc (x), confirm this was not an April Fool’s joke, and to state the following: “Yes, I always believed there would be a 4th season.” (x)

Zutara fans, realizing they had been right about this, and wondering what other strongly associated theory they might have been right about, rejoiced: (x)

One half of the infamous Bryke, Bryan Konietzko, did not. And, in fact, indirectly called Aaron a liar: (x)

And, It is worth mentioning, in the interest of giving everyone the full picture, that Bryan is not the only one to question Aaron recently. In late 2019, allegations came out of Aaron creating a sexist and toxic work environment. (x)

(Personally, I think your mileage may very on how serious or substantial you may find these claims.)

But with regards to the topic at hand, the Season 4 claims, someone on a Reddit thread here (x) recounts: “Also I wasn't really sure where to put this but Jean Paul Bondy, an artist who worked on ATLA, jumped in AE's twitter thread to say ‘I don’t remember this at all. Obviously I wasn’t party to discussion you three had. But I was always under the impression we were only doing the three.’”

Just recently, in 2023, Jack De Sena (Sokka’s VA) also answered a question about season 4 at a con: ((x) -- 27:30)

“I’ve heard subsequently that there was like, conversations about season 4 and stuff, but, at the time, it definitely felt like we were only doing three. Like, I was being told at the time like, they had conceived of this like, closed arc, three season… thing. So, while they were planting some seeds for like, here’s other story elements that we could explore in other areas when we have the time, it definitely felt like, ‘okay, this is, this is the journey we’re going on together, it has reached a logical conclusion.’ So, it did feel, to us while recording it, quite final and complete.”

“I was always told it was a set three,” confirms Zachary Tyler Eisen (Aang’s VA)

-----------

| [Discussion] |

So, in a sense, we’re back where we started. Though, I would question how much, exactly, artists and voice actors, who I would assume typically only start working on scripts that have already been decided on long beforehand, would really know about any behind the scenes discussions among the writers about potential trajectories and arcs for the show as a whole (and how long those would take to play out).

And Jack did mention that he’s heard now that there were “conversations about season 4” – I’m assuming he’s heard that from more trustworthy sources than internet rumours. And, if he did, then that directly contradicts Bryan seemingly saying he never had the slightest interest in making a fourth season and was always firm on that.

After looking at everything, it seems clear to me that, to the direct contradiction of a few rumours on my blog, Avatar was probably NOT pitched as a 4 (or more) season show. I do think it was probably pitched as three. But I also think, after the show was greenlit or as it was going on, Aaron saw the potential for more seasons and pushed for them. Maybe those discussions didn’t make it very far out of the writer’s room. Maybe there was a point in time where Aaron felt he had been successful in convincing Bryke to go for a fourth season. Or maybe he always felt like he’d be able to get them there eventually. Maybe the movie finally put an end to any of Aaron’s hopes. I don’t know.

But, it’s kind of irrelevant. If the ‘conspiracy’ is that Aaron was setting up the show for a Zutara ending in season 4, then it doesn’t matter how close, in reality, we were to a fourth season. What really matters is whether or not Aaron thought there’d be one.

“Yes, I always believed there would be a 4th season”

And it seems he did.

-----------

| [‘Zephyrita’, ’Tizuyan’ & the Smoking Gun] |

Now, you may have noticed that there was someone mentioned before that we never talked about: Zephyrita. I waited because I’ve noticed something that I’ve never seen anybody else talk about, and decided it needed its own section.

Zephyrita was, of course, one of the two main bloggers that claimed to have worked/interned on Avatar back in the day and posted things they supposedly remembered from behind the scenes, things that all supported the Season 4/Zutara theory.

Given that Aaron indirectly called out the other main blog as a fraud, causing us to have to disregard them for now, you may wonder why anyone should view Zephyrita’s credibility as any different. Here’s actually a post of someone arguing with her about this and Zephyrita’s response: (x)

“’You can’t prove you worked at Nick!!’

What type of proof do you need? Why do I have to prove something as insignificant as this anyway? Like, working there isn’t some exclusive club and I didn’t write an entire episode, I just interned and studied there but I did get to talk a lot with the staff. I wanted to intern at CN but I ended up with Nick in the end. This was all back in 2007 and I’ve been working in advertising since then. You want me to just ring up Tim Hendricks and ask him how he is after almost 10 years? […] I would post my studio pass as ‘proof’ but that contains confidential info.”

So let’s get into why I believe Zephyrita.

(x) – This is a post where Zephyrita is asked what some of Aaron’s ideas were that didn’t make it into the show. Most of her response has to deal with Zuko and Katara, but it also includes this little tidbit about Aang at the end:

“Aang would leave on a self-searching journey after feeling the consequences of energybending and getting jealous over how close Zuko and Katara had become.”

In another post (x), she shares “my friend yan no longer has tumblr because people on this site are RIDICULOUS but she told she wanted to put in some extra info about the ideas that ehasz had:”

‘Yan’ I’m thinking is another deactivated user – ‘Tizuyan’ – who also used to post about the unexplored ideas Aaron had. (Admittedly, I’m not sure how they claimed to know any of it.)

But Zephyrita shares the ideas that ‘Yan’ supposedly gave her, including this one: “zuko and katara develop an understanding and bond that the other characters can not comprehend. they grow very close and sokka starts to suspect there is something going on between them. aang starts feeling jealous but tries to hide these feelings (ehasz said he would start feeling “weird” lmao). this would play a part of his growing darkness.”

In yet another post (x), Tizuyan herself writes “They would have fit very well within the possible Book 4 where Aang became “dark” and traveled back to the Air Temples for solace (where he examines himself, and finds a bunch of flying bison + winged lemur)”

So, to summarize, there would have been consequences to energy bending that would have caused a growing darkness in Aang. And as said before, all these posts are from around 2015-2016, if you go back and look at their earliest, still-existing notes.

Why is this significant?

-----------

It is significant because in 2019, after confirming he always thought there’d be a fourth season on twitter, Aaron Ehasz did an interview (x) where he talked a little bit more about what his ideas were for Season 4, beyond an Azula redemption arc. Obviously, there’s nothing in this interview about Zutara. But. But. There is this:

“Ehasz reaffirmed his earlier stated plans for a longer arc for Azula but also divulged additional details. One plotline would have followed up on Aang taking away Fire Lord Ozai’s bending at the end of the third season.

‘My feeling about that was like there’s always a cost, right? There’s always some balance. You can’t just be like I’m the Avatar, taking your powers away. It’s a great power, but part of it is you just took all this evil into you. To take it away from someone else you’re holding onto it to protect the world.’

For Aang that would have been an incredible burden and something Ehasz would have wanted to see him deal with.

‘The story I wanted to tell with Aang was about him struggling with taking some of that inside and probably a considerable amount of anger and guilt and big feelings. By the way, guess who would be the best person to have a mini vacation with? It’s Zuko! Someone who’s processed a lot of anger on his own, right?’”

So… basically… there would have been consequences to energy bending that would have caused a growing darkness in Aang.

It matches up perfectly.

And not only that, but you’ll notice in the interview he also mentions wanting to focus on Iroh and his spiritual transformation, and mentions something relating to the potential for existing airbenders. This also matches up well with other things that were written in the latter two tumblr posts linked above.

So, what are the possible explanations? Liars/delusional shippers on tumblr who were falsely claiming to have insider knowledge on Avatar just so happening to have hit on some of the exact same season 4 plot points as the head writer, 3-4 years before season 4 was even a thing that had been acknowledged publicly? Aaron Ehasz trolling the internet and coming across these theories and then repeating them as if they had been his own ideas for… some purpose?

Or that maybe some of these blogs had been telling the truth?

This is why I called this section ‘the smoking gun’ – I believe that Aang can save t- that DenofGeek interview, along with those old rumour posts give credence to everything else Zephyrita/Tizuyan had to say. (And we’ll get back to ‘kataraandzuko’ later.)

Link to Zephyrita’s posts and comments: (x). The only other post of mine that I know Tizuyan appears on is this one: (x)

-----------

| [Zutara Evidence – External and Textual] |

And there’s more concrete evidence than just rumours. We’ve already gone over the ‘hard’ evidence against the idea that Kataang was planned from the start, but up until now we haven’t gone over the evidence that exists to support Zutara specifically.

First, here’s just a post (x) showing, besides what we’ve already gone over, how Zutara was teased in some of the promotional materials, as well as some comments (including the ‘Avatar Extras’) made by some other writers on the show, further confirming what Bryke once privately acknowledged to a fan – I’m not sure if the chance was exactly 50%, but it seems it was definitively higher than 0.

And, it seems, high enough that little bits of foreshadowing (or…potentially, a major amount of foreshadowing, depending on your view) did make it into the show itself.

Much has been made of the parallels that exist between the ‘Cave of Two Lovers’/’Crossroads of Destiny’ episodes, namely the two lovers with a red and blue color scheme from opposite sides of a war that come together in a cave of glowing crystals… and the two characters with a red and blue color scheme from opposite sides of a war… that come together in a cave of glowing crystals.

Here’s a few posts that break this down in depth: (x) (x) (x)

And here’s just another little piece of external evidence, another comment by a writer – and actually the writer of ‘The Cave of Two Lovers’: (x)

(I noticed he also mentions the series bible saying Zuko and Katara were supposed to end up together??? Yeah, I don’t know what that’s about. Make of it what you will.)

-----------

| [Bryke Being Nasty to Zutarians] |

^^Is it necessary for me to write this section? No.

But, in a way, it’s what led to my interest in this. I’ve said before that if Mike and Bryan had just been normal adults about all this, said that Zutara was a thing that was considered, that could have happened but didn’t, respected their friendship/bond in canon, and just said to all the Zutara fans, “sorry it didn’t go your way this time; hope you can still enjoy the ending anyway!” we wouldn’t have a problem. I would have just thought it was a shame and missed opportunity, and then moved on with my life and not really thought about it ever again.

It's the apparent lying and immaturity and seeming… mean-spirited-ness (?) that gets me. I don’t understand it.

In a rumour from Tizuyan ((x) - this is the second tizuyan post that I linked at the end of the second to last section) she writes: “Bryke despise Zutara.”

 This would certainly explain why Zuko and Katara hardly ever seem to have positive interactions in any of the material beyond Avatar’s original series, that is if they even interact at all.

(See Bryan’s out-of-nowhere response to the neutral question, “Can we expect a reunion for the returning characters from The Last Airbender [in Legend of Korra]?” which was:

“As far as a date night between Katara and Zuko, I think you are going to have to stick to the fan art for that." (x) (Not sure if there was any more to this answer or not; I can’t find the original interview, though I know I remember seeing it way back when.)

It would also explain the contents of this rumour (courtesy of Zephyrita) (x) regarding the writing, or re-writing, of ‘The Southern Raiders’ episode.

And it would explain Bryan’s infamous, “Come on kids! ‘Zutara’ never would have lasted! It was just dark and intriguing” comment. (x)

What it wouldn’t explain is the even more infamous video that Bryke debuted at 2008 San Diego Comic Con, and which Bryan (who really seems to be the main instigator in all of this, apparently) has since reposted to his own tumblr account: (x)

You know, the one where Bryke mock Zutara fans with their own fanart and say that “Women who think that Zuko and Katara should be together will forever have doomed relationships.” Yeah.

I have no further comments on it other than what’s already been written in the reblogs linked above.

(And all this is all the more frustrating when Bryan himself seems to have had a slight change of heart when it comes to the ‘DNA of the show’ and writes in late 2014 in a post on The Legend of Korra: “Personally, at that point I didn’t want Korra to have to end up with someone at the end of series. We obviously did it in Avatar, but even that felt a bit forced to me.” (x) (Like, HUH?! Since when?!)

-----------

| [Aaron Ehasz Again + Final Thoughts On The Kataraandzuko “Interview”] |

Meanwhile, Aaron himself painstakingly tends to avoid discussing Zutara, unless it’s brought up to him directly, in which case he usually just gives a wishy-washy answer about how he tries not to actively ship any characters. Though, we will go into an interview that’s slightly more interesting than this in a little bit.

First, I must bring to everyone’s attention a video that it seems no one else has noticed, as the post only had 4 notes on it at the time of writing this. (x)

Here is Aaron Ehasz at a comic con in 2006, which I believe would be sometime before season 2 had finished airing, showing the audience various ships from the show (most of them ridiculous) before at the end getting to Maiko (called Maizu), Kataang, and lastly (which I feel is significant)… Zutara.

This really appears to me to be Aaron showing the audience the ‘serious ships’ under the guise of this being just some funny game, and using the strength of the cheers from the crowd as a way to gauge interest for a potential endgame ship. Either for his own purposes… or for the purpose of possibly convincing someone else. I interpreted this video this way even before I just re-watched it while writing this post and realized that Aaron actually says this directly:

“We really want to hear what you have to say. I want you to know you have a lot of influence and power right now… ‘cause your, your cheers or boos will really… affect it.”

And I think it might make sense to combine this with the rumours here (x) about the supposed lecture at Berkeley where Aaron once flippantly remarked that Zutara couldn’t happen because it “would have made the six year olds cry” and the rumours by jhenne-bean herself, the one who claimed to have been at that lecture, who gives more context here (x):

“GURL IT WAS TOTALLY 50/50 even during the last season.

Actually, Nick execs pushed Kataang.

Because without it (according to one of the head writers that came and spoke to my class last semester) the “six year olds would cry.” Obviously that’s not the sole reasoning behind their decisions, but the intended demographic did sway the final outcome.”

(So, based on all this, I’m thinking that Aaron was probably a little disappointed in that video above when the Zutara cheers didn’t overpower the Kataang ones. [So am I, Aaron. So am I.])

-----------

Now, the only actual filmed interview with Aaron Ehasz about Avatar that I know of is this one: (x) in 2019, where he’s asked questions by fans. Yes, Zutara is brought up, though the surprising part is it’s seemingly at Aaron’s own prompting. For that reason and others I find this interview to be very interesting; I actually did a breakdown of it here (x), which I encourage everyone to consider.

If you’ve read through that breakdown, or just watched the video in question, you will have seen that the “fake” interview from before (x) was once again brought up. I put the word ‘fake’ in quotes because that’s how Aaron appeared to refer to it in the interview – with air quotes. And so now it’s time for my speculation on this “fake” interview:

I think it’s fairly clear that Aaron does not want (or, for some reason feels unable to (?)) speak freely regarding his opinions on how the relationships of Avatar did (or did not) play out. I think it’s safe to say he has avoided saying anything ‘on the books’ that would place him at odds with Bryke (though that post about M Night wanting to focus on season 4 and Bryke wanting to focus on the movie cut it pretty close) or put him on a definitive side of the shipping war, one way or another.

That’s why it makes sense to me that a rumour on the internet that wasn’t just any rumour, but was written in such a way so that it looked like an official *interview*, with Aaron’s name appearing before statements supposedly attributable to him and everything, would be something he’d want to make sure everyone knew was not actually official. If that conversation between kataraandzuko and Aaron actually happened, he would have believed it to be, at the time, a private conversation. He never would have intended for the person he was talking to to post their conversation and make it look like he said these things on the official record.

So, yeah, despite Aaron calling that post out specifically, I think it’s still plausible that that conversation could have actually happened and that kataraandzuko wasn’t lying. Her (?) original tags even say to take it with a grain of salt since it was written from memory.

And notice the line, “I wanted Aang to defeat Ozai and go through some emotional turmoil after taking the Fire Lord's bending.” Sound familiar?

Here’s another variation of one of kataraandzuko’s posts from before (x) where they talk more in depth about being an intern at Nick and what they saw behind the scenes of Avatar, even admitting, “Haha, it’s not hard getting an internship at Nickelodeon. They’re not strict and they accepted me on my first attempt. You just have to be a university student with a lot of motivation.”

(And witness at the end of the post another defensive-Bryke-Bryan example.)

Could all their posts be lies? Sure. But they always seemed credible enough to me. And given everything else we’ve gone over, can you really say anything they posted sounds all that crazy?

So, for your consideration, here’s my tag of all ‘kataraandzuko’s posts: (x)

-----------

| [Summary of All Rumours] |

Also, for your consideration, now that we’ve got all the context behind us, is this post which lists every major piece of gossip about what season 4 would have included had Bryke the universe allowed it to exist: (x)

And a post which I think perfectly encapsulates everything here and my final stance on it: (x)

----------

...And so. We should be all caught up now. 

I hope this post will be useful to anyone who’s confused about the little bits and pieces of things you might have come across or heard regarding season 4 or zutara or Aaron Ehasz or supposed conspiracies. (Or to anyone who just got tired of seeing everyone else, confused, talking about it this way, without the full context.)

If there’s anything major that you feel I missed here, feel free to let me know and I’ll consider adding it in. Otherwise, enjoy the show, enjoy your ship, and I hope you enjoyed reading. Goodbye, everybody! 😊

[vlackevil]

I’m not sure you’d want to read this, but if you do, what do you think

https://www.tumblr.com/empressofthesunslittlecorner/748486832898048000/a-rant-about-aang-and-byrke?source=share

My thoughts, it’s ridiculously dumb. I wish people would stop mischaracterizing these great characters and stop spreading lies in for the sake of shipping. But some people are just dumb.

Is like what I always said:

This people are just imbecile and stupid, zutara always makes lies about the show and writers.

“Aang kiss her without consent twice”

Katara is the one who most initially the kisses, even in the Cave of Two Lovers she express wanting kiss Aang and get angry when Aang say no, and dance with him. In the invasion she kiss him back, in the ember Players was a wrong kiss and Aang never do that again. But this zutara shippers are so hipocrity they romantizes and sexually the moment when Zuko kidnapped Katara and blackmailed with her necklace of her mother or when say is romantic when Zuko insult her “peasant useless”, or Sokka kiss Suki without she know it and they dont criticize that.

“A lot writers want zutara”

Where is the prove? Because I have the prove where Aaron Ehasz confirms he and the writers make all happen in natural and organic way (making Kataang happens) and confirms all about he want zutara is fake interview zutara make about him.

[burst-of-iridescent]

Hi, can I ask why we hashtag anti bryke? They did give us a great story except for the love story ending which was lame. Maybe that’s why he hates us so much because he doesn’t like to give us the satisfaction? Or is it a chicken and egg thing and he hated us first, reason for the anti bryke hashtags?

two reasons: 1) tagging correctly is just proper tumblr etiquette, and it's good to cover your bases when criticizing atla so you don't accidentally cross paths with antis and 2) bryan and mike have never failed to be real assholes to zutara shippers, like that lovely incident where they took fanart made by their own fans and used it to make a parody video mocking zutara at a fan convention, which featured gems such as "women who ship zuko and katara will forever have doomed relationships". real fucking classy to take something fans of your show invested time and effort in for free, and use it to publicly make fun of them just because they had the audacity to use critical thinking skills in their choice of ship instead of lapping up your half-baked self-insert romance.

(they never apologized for this either; in fact, bryan later went on to put the video up on his own tumblr and called it a joke. yeah dude, zutara shippers definitely found it funny when you basically declared open season on us to the rest of the fandom.)

i would heavily hesitate to say they gave us a great story: bryke are good visual guys, and we can certainly thank them for conceptualising atla, but the people who truly made atla great were the writers, particularly aaron ehasz and elizabeth welch. and if you want proof of that, all you have to do is look at what happened when bryke didn't bring their writer's room over to LOK with them. hmmm, i wonder which avatar series is better known and lauded for its strength of storytelling?

[crowcaws]

I've had some thoughts brewing ever since I finished NATLA, and watching Friendly Space Ninja's review of PJO really brought up a lot of feelings after sitting on it for a month so I'm going to try and articulate those thoughts here.

It's very interesting this fixation on the "word of god" and its involvement making or breaking a screen adaptation, to the point where you get unwavering devotion when a creator is on board, and outright disdain when a creator isn't on board. Both are completely reactionary takes that are unhelpful, especially when adaptations can be, sometimes, excellent without their original creators involved, and awful (cough fantastic beasts cough) when they are involved.

Regardless of whether or not NATLA was bad (it wasn't, it was just fine) I love that people are going "HA I bet Netflix regret losing BRYKE!" as a sort of gotcha, as if Korra didn't prove like a decade ago that Bryke are not infallible screenwriters. As if those same people, when the show was first announced and Bryke were on board, didn't even think to consider that Bryke are just two of the writers that made a great show.

Because fandom has a problem where it doesn't actually care or consider if the original creators are a good fit or not, if their involvement will harm the adaptation or help it, or if their recent work is still up to scratch with their original work. Fandom just wants a security blanket in the form of a name on a credits list, to the point of almost cult-like devotion that makes or breaks their opinion of content before it's even released.

This devotion is how you end up with fans doing logical backflips when their perfect book accurate Percy Jackson adaptation that "Uncle Rick" promised is now changing a bunch of stuff for not very good reasons, and now they have to either do mental gymnastics to justify questionable choices or admit that Rick can be wrong.

Percy Jackson had Rick Riordan on board and that series, let's be honest here, was just fine too. It wasn't groundbreaking, it did not surpass the source material on most points (I say most because all that Sally content was inspired) and fell short in a lot of ways that have been outlined by critics more articulate than I. Some of that, I suspect, was due to Rick's fixation on this adaptation being the antithesis of the 2010 movies to the point where it feels like they refused to let the show be fun and colourful in parts where it should have been. His involvement, as a book author delving into screenwriting, cannot be proven to have been more beneficial than if he had simply consulted and set boundaries and left it at that.

And of course Joanne is a fuckwit. But even creatively, you can't tell me that the fantastic beasts movies were better for her meddling.

But back to PJO and NATLA: I genuinely feel like we got very similar end products with both shows. An underwhelming foray into live action adaptation that suffers from too few episodes and disappointing characterisation save for a few standout roles (In this case, Sally, and Zuko and Iroh), and some problems aside that each show varies on, but ultimately still delivers something entirely and completely watchable. Percy Jackson has at least a tiny bit better characterisation overall, but cannot hold a candle to the fight choreography and special effects in NATLA (partly because in PJO they had a bad habit of cutting away or writing out every time anyone was mean to do something heroic or actually fight.) And yet you cannot speak a bad word about PJO, but NATLA is torn to shreds.

Back to NATLA and the Bryke: Almost nobody, in this whole time from the NATLA announcement to airing, has made comment on the absence of Aaron Ehasz, who was not involved with Korra either. They were happy to celebrate when Bryke was involved, and mourn when they departed, but you should have been mourning Aaron this whole time, if anyone. Aaron wrote Tales from Ba Sing Se, if you weren't aware. Arguably the most memorable episode of the Last Airbender, so emotionally rich and captivating that even hearing the instrumentals of that song in NATLA brought me to tears.

So why wasn't Aaron's absence ever felt? Well, that is because the fans saw "original creators" in headlines and ran with it without question as a sure sign of victory (and then failure when Bryke departed). Because fandom doesn't really care WHOSE name is in the credits, fandom just wants that sense of security -- and it's a false sense of security, because Annabeth and Katara both still ended up gutted of their depth at the end of the day. The presence of Rick didn't save Annabeth any more than the absence of the ATLA writers doomed Katara.

[heppyhenry]

My main thoughts on the execution of the “Rayllum subplot” in S4:

So from what we know so far, the only point of Rayla leaving for two years was to create dramatic tension between her and Callum, which is… not a good writing decision, in my opinion. It seemed very forced and out of character for Rayla to leave for that long only to ultimately give up, return to Katolis empty-handed, and pretend that nothing ever happened and things can just go back to the way they were (besides her waiting to talk to Callum about their relationship). I don’t understand why writers continue to think that there has to be constant drama between love interests in their shows; is it so unrealistic of a concept to simply portray a healthy, wholesome romance between the leads where they don’t all of a sudden act like completely different people than usual just for there to be an emotional rift? Not every relationship needs to have some major conflict in order to keep the audience engaged. I would have much preferred for them to deal with some minor conflicts here and there instead of this ordeal, because their relationship is already such a small subplot as is that this season barely spends any time at all focusing on it. Really hoping that changes in Season 5 or else we legitimately might not see them fully get back together until Season 6 or even 7.

Wonderstorm themselves said that the audience would not need to read TTM to understand S4’s plot. While that is technically true, not reading it certainly does make Rayla’s absence and abrupt return feel even more awkward, confusing, and out of place. I really thought the handling of TTM’s ending in the show itself was executed very poorly.

With both of those thoughts in mind, however, I actually do think their relationship was handled nicely this season (that is, when the show actually took some time to focus on it lol). Callum’s anger and resentment was completely justified and I’m very glad that he and Rayla didn’t make up immediately. I also appreciate that the writers took several moments to show that they still do love and care for one another, and that this isn’t a complete reset of their relationship, nor is it a “will they, won’t they” scenario. We all know they will eventually rekindle their love, it’s just going to take a little more time before Callum is ready to have a Big Feelings talk with Rayla.

Also wanted to share my thoughts on people’s criticisms of the overall writing quality of S4:

I think people should keep in mind that Season 4 is the “set-up season” for the rest of this new arc, similar to Season 1. I see a lot of the same flaws in Season 4 that I did in Season 1 and while I do think that most of them could have probably been avoided simply with better execution, I also think that it makes sense why they occurred when remembering that the writers have to get the proverbial ball rolling for an entire multi-season arc in just 9 half-hour episodes. Those kinds of constraints are not easy to work around, and I think the failure to use all of the available time given in the best way possible is really what has led to the majority of this show’s problems.

Furthermore, here’s something to put into perspective: Aaron Ehasz, one of the lead writers of The Dragon Prince, was also the head writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender, a show that - according to Aaron - the team takes heavy inspiration from. That show had 3 seasons with 61 total episodes. TDP will end with 7 seasons, but only 63 episodes. There is a big difference in the amount of time that Ehasz has had to work with for each individual season’s story; because of this, I think that his approach is to simply put much more focus into the overarching story. In my opinion, I think it’s only fair that the audience does the same. I say this not to completely justify the growing pains of this show’s writing quality (particularly in its newest season), but rather to shed some light on potentially why it has probably been more difficult for Aaron this time around, and why it is important that we all stay patient and wait for the entire story to be finished before making any definitive claims about the show’s quality.

I do, however, 100% agree with the criticisms of TDP’s attempts at humor. It feels like there is less and less effort put into the comedy aspect of the show with every new season, which is really disappointing. Less fart jokes, please?

[thetrapperstrap]

Thank you @violets-and-books for tagging me

1) 3 Ships— Ethari/Runaan (TDP), Eda/Raine (TOH), Caleb/Essek (Critical Role)

2) First Ever Ship— Dagur/Hiccup (HTTYD)

3) Last Song— I, Carrion by Hozier

4) Last Movie— Rio (2011) by Blue Sky

5) Currently Reading— Book 1: Moon by Aaron Ehasz & Melanie McGanney Ehasz[

6) Currently Watching— Helluva Boss

7) Currently Consuming— Nothing

8) Currently Craving— A Strawberry Smoothie

Tagging: @legend-of-the-fandoms @the-floral-skeleton @entropysoup @biblicallyaccuratecanine

[krytus]

let me recount the night's events. for posterity. so, earlier tonight --

no wait. further back. so, last week --

no, still further --

so, in 2001 dreamworks released shrek. three years later they released the sequel. this year, tomorrow, marks the 20th anniversary of the film critics have called revolutionary. genre-defining.

of course, in preparation of this sacrosanct ritual, we had to rewatch shrek (2001) which we have on dvd i love you physical media. i cant find it. :( it bothers me i cant find our dvds so i rummage my entire closet.

hey look i have the tdp s1 novelization? forgot lol. bored enough to read it. man viren fucking sucks. lol. finishing it who cares harrows parts are over.....

wait.

viren's spell to put runaan in the coin... is "your soul is my treasure". isnt that the line harrow said in the weird flashback in the last season of tdp??

oh.

wait.

hold on.

all this time... all this TIME its been right there? canon confirmation that harrow ISN'T dead? and it even aligns with "he isn't in the bird" like. ooh aaron ehasz must have thought he was so fucking clever. but. whatever. there it is. harrow isn't dead.... but he isn't alive either. but he kinda has to be brought back because if they dont bring runaan back theyre not gonna beat the bury your gays allegations. man i still want to hit aaron ehasz with my car. do you know he lives in california. harrow isnt dead. hey do you know they describe being put in the coin as worse than death. LOL. SAD....

[hitemwiththeoop]

see, i think this all summarizes as the toxicity of the fandom pushing the creativity of the authors.

it's no secret that the TLOK backlash was loud & insane and it's still is. you'll still find people trashtalking the show and talking about how better ATLA was compared to it. i feel like this has marked the creative decisions taken by bryke lately, especially when it comes to the azula redemption arc situation.

the movies also have a part in it. i mean, to have a movie especially dedicated to zuko, ATLA's fandom favorite character, says a lot, but not only that. the special focus given to kyoshi in comparison to the other avatars because of the impact she had in the fandom can be easily noticed.

my point? the creators are doing what they can to keep the fanbase pleased and i fear this is going to lead the show to a hellhole

let's begin with:

we all know how much the fandom has wanted an azula redemption arc ever since the original series' finale. we've seen it everywhere: on tumblr, on twitter, on instagram, on fanfics, you name it. it's been so much so that some have argued that the only reason the creators didn't redeem azula was because they didn't like her. aaron ehasz even said that he intended to have her have a redemption "longer and far complicated than zuko's". yet the creators never fully confirmed it, only saying it was possible she could heal in the future.

the comics give us but little hints at azula trying to become better, and in fact, it seems her mental state only worsened in the course of them. many fans have criticized the comics for their writing and characterization of the characters (when it comes to my opinion, azula's was on point).

yet when you think of it, with barely hints of it, you wouldn't see that a redemption arc for azula was ever the original intention. it wasn't ever implied in the first comics nor in TLOK, and in fact it seems it was only recently that it was incorporated. ehasz revelation of wanting to give azula a redemption arc was coincidentally brought up when the series' popularity re-spiked after years of being on the low, as it was made availaible on netflix during the pandemic.

a discussion was brought up about the representation of physicological damage and mental issues through azula's character, and realizing how much her upbringing had molded her way of being, fans began claiming she deserved a redemption arc like zuko did using her age and vulnerability as an argument. this has sparked much debate, but we ought to recognize that prior to these years, this analysis of azula wasn't visibilized the way it has now.

one has to wonder, if the series' fame hadn't resurged, would've the creators felt compelled to make a redemption arc for azula?

i've mixed feelings about this comic. it came out during the time the kyoshi's novels began becoming popular, and it feels like it was made as a move to give the fans what they'd been wanting: seeing more of kyoshi in official media. putting aside how wild it is that avatar kyoshi somehow appeared in front of suki (she could've been imagining for all we know), it does seem strange that we didn't get any more about her before in the prior comics when the chance had been given. instead, we saw a bit of roku and yangchen in the promise and the rift trilogies (and nothing of kuruk, smh).

that and that kyoshi's too going to get her own movie feels a little odd to me. she's really become the breakout character, and though i'm glad she's receiving the attention she deserves, i feel it takes away the importance other characters have in the plot and that i wish were explored also. true, we've got the dawn of yangchen now, yet i know it's not going to get nearly as much recognition as the kyoshi novels.

then, there's the new earth kingdom avatar series.

given the show's newfound popularity is no wonder avatar studios has decided to launch new media, yet, why develop another show when there's already so much to explore about the two series? it feels it's because they think no one will want to see more about korra because of all the backlash it received. it has only been recently that TLOK has found more acceptance among the fans (and more comics have been coming out because of it). yes, there's an upcoming movie about her, but the fact that it's been placed after the adult gaang movie and zuko's, one thinks it'll be the most delayed.

i'm all for avatar getting new media out and exploring the universe we didn't have a chance to see all of in the original series, but im afraid that launching all this stuff to please the fans will end up being detrimental. the games, the comics, the movies... theyre getting out all this new content as fast as they can as if theyre trying to take advantage of the popularity they've regained before it goes out, and to avoid it doing so, theyre trying to do what the fans want them to. that of course implies many things in the plot will be made so that its liked by the fans and no independent thought goes into them. that limits the creative capacity of the writers and all of those who will work at avatar studios.

honestly i REALLY hope this doesnt end badly thats all.

[ladyandherbooks]

Hi @ladyandherbooks. Anon here. Hope all is well. Always love your blog. Keep being awesome, fam.💜

I honestly think it's still incomprehensible to me sometimes that some youtubers I've watched discussing TDP talk so harshly and so negatively about Runaan and his relationship with Rayla, that they don't see him as a father to her. While I admit that it's because there is a lot of important and critical information about the Moonfam backstory/flashbacks still missing or how Runaan and Rayla's relationship was like before the events of S1, with the exception of Bloodmoon Huntress, they continously see Runaan in such a horrible light and saying some things along the lines of like "why is Rayla crying over Runaan in S5E1, that they want Rayla to feel anger, resentment and conflicted with him, that it doesn't make her emotions real, that they were never even close, that Runaan didn't even care about Rayla in the beginning, why are the writers disregarding her emotions, especially since in the beginning of S1 he tried to kill her. Which obviously was never in Runaan's agenda and was never his intention to begin with.

While I think that it's a bit overkill, I truly believe that the writers would never ignore this. I really think that they will have some way of telling and confronting this on-screen because they know that Runaan will have a lot to answer for once he's freed, especially being confronted by some of those heartbreaking and damaging moments with Rayla, which he will have some apologies to make to Rayla.

It really makes me curious how they will bring the moonfam into the storyline. Of course, since Aaron Ehasz confirmed we'll be learning about Runaan and his important story.

I apologize for the long post. I just wish some of them would look deeper or be more optimistic about Runaan and the Moonfam.

Thoughts?

Hi anon,

Firstly, thank you, that was very sweet and very nice to hear that someone enjoys my theories and tdp posts so much.

Secondly, I tend to ignore youtube comments as they're often just wrong, ridiculous, over the top, take your pick. For example I recently saw someone comment on a clip of Kimdael's fight with Janai where the commenter stated that Janai was a much stronger and more skilled warrior than Runaan because she beat Kimdael. Which was confusing and wrong as Janai never defeated Kim'dael in battle and the only reason Kim'dael left her later was because her own life was on the line. Not to mention that it's also very hard to compare them as warriors given their very different skill sets and fighting styles.

In general I think it would be best for you to just ignore these commenters and fellow tdp fans as I suspect that these seemingly anti Runaan fans are probably not going to be happy with whatever happens to him in the next 2 seasons, especially in regards to his relationship to Rayla, especially if they can't understand how much Rayla loves him and how much he also canonically loves her too. They'll never be satisfied with any reconciliation, forgiveness or heartwarming moments between them, not when they've convinced themselves that Runaan is the bad guy who's never truly loved Rayla.

Just stay or create a little pro Moonfam bubble for yourself and block, ignore, cut out anyone who doesn't also love the Moon fam and want good things for them.

As for the Moon fam being brought into the storyline I have 2 ideas for you.

1) Runaan knows who Aaravos is and knew about his mirror so he must know some important info and possibly even be descended from someone who helped to imprison him.

2) I do think that at least the Moon family and Dragang will be staying in the Silvergrove at the end of season 6, the timeskip between seasons 6 and 7 and at least the beginning of season 7. It would allow a lot of characters to stay in 1 place, safe and hidden from Aaravos and his allies etc and would also allow for the conclusion of the Kim'dael arc as we now that she also lives in the Moonshadow forest. Plus it would be nice to see things switched up, where instead of Rayla staying with humans, the humans now stay with Rayla and her fellow Moonshadow elves.

I could also see some other characters, namely Janai, Amaya, Gren, Corvus and Kazi also staying there too, especially if Karim triumphs in the Civil War. It would also ensure that Janai could also face Kim'dael again after their last encounter and perhaps even some drama regarding her knowledge of the Bloodmoon Huntress and her family's inaction when it came to stopping her from killing and at the very least, the decision to not tell the Moonshadow elves of her existence and home.

[newsconduct]

Dragon Prince Season 5: Is it Renewed Or Canceled?

Dragon Prince Season 5: Is it Renewed Or Canceled?

The Dragon Prince is a fantasy computer-animated television series created for Netflix by Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond, produced by Wonderstorm, and animated by Bardel Entertainment. The series has earned critical acclaim for its story, themes, vocal performances, animation, and humor, which showcases its popularity among viewers and gives an insight into the show’s popularity worldwide. So,…

[ceruleanwhore]

TDP should’ve gone full YA and all the kids’ stuff in there drags it down

The Dragon Prince had a lot of potential to be really good but it’s just another example of a show where they tried to appeal to both kids and adults and, in not just picking a lane and staying in it, the quality turned out… not great. At times it honestly just doesn’t make sense, like how Gren, the way he’s written and portrayed, never could have possibly become a freaking commander. Not to mention just how many of the characters are or act like complete idiots for the sake of an attempt at humor, which, for me, just wrecks it. Let Soren be serious and intelligent and show how he constantly struggles and pushes himself to be ‘good enough’ because, no matter what he does, Claudia’s still the favorite and his father still doesn’t value him. Let Gren be gentle and kind, but not stupid, but, then, when he gets taken by Viren, show a whole new side of him; show us the commander. Let Claudia hide her intelligence under her quirkiness because she uses it as a tool to disarm people so they don’t take her seriously or suspect just how crafty she can be. But no, they didn’t do that, so, instead, we just have a few iterations of Dumb: The Personality, you know, for the kids.

Also, the thing with Rayla’s hand really pissed me off. It’s so common in shows like this and avatar for the team to put a character in a really tough situation and then just… bail them out so they don’t have to actually deal with consequences or fix the problem (think the lion turtle). Rayla should’ve lost her hand, period. It would’ve been really powerful, for a moonshadow elf to lose their hand in exchange for saving the life of the prince they were sent to kill. I mean, think about that- they gave us literal assassins and killed characters but losing a hand would be too much? It’s almost like saying that someone sustaining an injury that would leave them disabled is “too adult” but freaking assassination isn’t. This is where we get back to that core issue of them trying to appeal to kids- they feel like they can’t have Rayla lose her hand because that would be like punishing her for doing something good and that’s not an easy thing to show kids or explain to them. See also: the absolute fuckery of Soren’s temporary paralysis. He should’ve stayed paralyzed or, if Claudia forcibly cured him, ignoring his expressed wishes, she should’ve been punished for it, or don’t do it at all, but this ableism shit needs to die, quick. That whole thing seemed to be for the sake of not punishing someone who just turned out to be good, as well, and it’s fucking dumb.

 So, then, I consider the black and white morality to be part of how it’s aimed at children, so I’d like to cover that as well. To start with, there’s the way that Viren was made into a clear cut Disney villain instead of being a more intelligent, subtle, morally grey character who is convincing to the audience in their belief that what they are doing is right and good. There’s also the very set “primal magic good, dark magic bad” schtick which they took so far that they actually gave Callum, a fucking human, primal magic just so he could do magic but like not in the bad way. Along with that, we’re supposed to be convinced that the humans are at fault for everything (because dark magic) and Xadia did nothing wrong all while it’s supposed to appear that there’s some sort of debate around this in the show in an effort to make it appear less black and white than it actually is. How do we know this? Because the moonshadow elves are shown as being justified in their revenge on Harrow and the conflict ends when a human and an elf return Zym to the dragon queen and she suddenly doesn’t care that the son of the man who killed her husband is in front of her and everything’s good because they helped Xadia and rejected dark magic.

And, then, there’s Claudia. They went so hard on how literal they were with her in relation to dark magic that they actually had her hair change. The fact that she was good and then kept using dark magic and turned eeeevil is bullshit and just, again, reflects that super black and white view the show has. Instead, she should’ve remained normal, stayed with Soren (because that’s what they did when their parents split anyway), and then she should’ve been the one to kill Viren and that should have served as the turning point for her due to the psychological impact of having killed her father, even though she knew it was right. Then, like in the show, she would get the Aaravos bug and become his new pawn or whatever, slowly turning evil until, in some finale, she’d have to face Callum (who would still be in love with her because I am sick to death of the trope where someone has been in love with someone else for a really long time but then just drops that to be with someone else) and then, in a way that would parallel the death of Viren, Callum would have to defeat her, the new villain. But no, instead we got bullshit.

[the-zk-directory]

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Has the Zutara fandom ever analyzed this (x) interview with Aaron Ehasz? ‘Cause I really think we should...

I think it’s the only time he’s ever directly addressed Zutara publicly. And, of course, he doesn’t say much, and certainly doesn’t confirm the rumours -- but I still find this video incredibly interesting, especially within the context of said rumours.

Girl (Ingrid): “Okay so, if you could change one thing in the legend of Aang, what would it be?”

^^Starting off with an interesting exchange because she knows what she’s really asking

^^And he knows what she’s really asking.

AE: Y’know, I’m, *stutters* --- It’s hard, because I’m happy with how it turned out…

                                                           ----x----

AE: I’ll tell you the one thing that comes to mind…

                                                          ----x----

AE: …which is not what you’re expecting and it’s a little bit… petty *proceeds to go into something else which, while interesting, is not at all related to shipping*

                                                          ----x----

AE: I don’t know, that’s probably not the best answer you were hoping for but uhhh… MAYBE that’s the thing that I would change…

                                                          ----x----

AE: but, I respect the choices that the directors made and that Mike and Bryan made, y’know – probably good reasons.

“I respect the choices Mike & Bryan made” does not sound to me like someone who always agreed with the choices Mike & Bryan made.

So, he successfully deflects away from talking about shipping. But then he gets a little bold:

AE: What were you hoping I was going to say, Ingrid? *jump cut* What would you change?

Ingrid: Are you sure you want to know this? Are you sure?

AE: You can tell me. You can trust me. You can tell me. I wanna hear it.

Seems he really wants to hear it. Hmm, why would a writer, who, ~potentially~ had quite a few arguments with the creators of a show in which he advised them about a certain topic (advice which would have evidently been ignored), and who seems ~potentially~ unwilling to speak about the topic directly (but ~potentially~ still harbors a bit of frustration about the whole thing)… be so eager to hear an audience member’s public opinion on said topic?

(Especially when said opinion ~potentially~ validates his side of the ~potential~ argument?)

Just a hypothetical.

Ingrid: I would like Zuko and Katara to be together…

AE: *nods*

Ingrid: [...] because, that scene, where she almost uses the water from the oasis to heal his scar it was, like, so much tension…

AE: …yeahhh

Ingrid: And they seemed like, so in love…

AE: yeah

                                                          ----x----

*jump cut* (I believe)

AE: I will say, I’ve seen some “fake” interviews with me online from time to time in which… I’ve seen fake interviews with me where – where it was not actually me

“fake”

This is interesting; I actually only noticed this as I was working on making this post. Why does he put air quotes around ‘fake’?

Definition of air quotes from idioms.thefreedictionary.com:

A hand gesture done when speaking to draw attention to a particular statement or indicate that it was someone else's words or that one is skeptical or critical of its use (similar to scare quotes in print media). Air quotes are made by curling the index and middle fingers of both hands at the same time in order to mimic the shape of quotation marks.

AE: *proceeds to wheedle out of giving an answer one way or another on ZK vs. KA by just saying that he lets the characters guide him, blah, blah, blah.*

No one brought up the rumours either. He brought them up himself, only showing that he’s well aware of them, but doesn’t want anyone to mistake what was written in that “fake” interview (this one (x)) as something he’s said publicly.

                                                         ----x----

AE: Like the question: Are you Zutara? *jump cut* I try not to root for ships because… I have to stay open minded to what the characters are gonna tell me and what -- what it’s going to tell me and the other writers. So, we try to follow them through on their stories and figure out what’s happening and pay attention to like, the signals that the characters are giving us, and then be open to the natural thing happening right.

I mean, sure, this is what a good writer’s supposed to do.

But like, clearly, as the show was coming to a close, there must have been a pairing that he felt was the more natural thing, right? Which one was that? Did Kataang feel like “the natural thing” to him???

He doesn’t tell us. And if he did feel the canon pairing was a natural ending, I don’t know why he wouldn’t just say that.

If it was a non-canon pairing that felt more natural to him though, well…

(“I respect the choices […] Mike and Bryan made, y’know – probably good reasons.”)

AE: So, if I rooted for it, I would contrive something, and it would feel contrived.

Cue Mike and Bryan (technically just Mike): “we always had a soft spot in our hearts for ‘Kataang.’” (x)

                                                           ----x----

*jump cut*

Last note: I really want to know what was said right before this.

(‘Cause if I was Ingrid, I would have pressed him for a real answer and then just agreed to not put it in the video.)

She’s laughing too. I JUST WANNA KNOW.

[avatarfandompolice]

Just found out Aaron Ehasz started posting recipes for Dragon Prince-related food items right after ATLA’s official cookbook came out.

Like seriously how can you sit there and say Aaron isn’t 100% just trying to feed off of ATLA’s hype at this point? Dude has no interest in legitimate marketing. He just wants to capitalize on past work that he was only fractionally responsible for.