#bryke crit

[lunaathorne]

Me: the so called "atla renaissance" is just people taking various digs at katara, but more importantly being in constant fear that katara is the female character who canonically has the deepest and most meaningful relationship with the fan fave male character. thus in retaliation, these atla "purists" have decided that zuko is gay and in love with katara's brother, thus effectively removing the brown, feminine woman from being the object of the star male character's desire but also, under the guise of being cool and gay and above ship wars, erasing katara and mai as possible threats to their gay ship, by a) making homophobic jokes about katara or ALWAYS making her the token straight of the group and b) hamfistedly shoving mai into ty lee's arms like yesss lesbians even though if you search for mailee on ao3 they are about 90% a side ship in z*kka fics. apparently the coloniser colonised power imbalance is only valid when the colonised subject is the feminine brown woman. :)))))

Girl at the bar: um I think I see my friends

[comradekatara]

I feel like the novels have the right idea in terms of ATLA spinoffs—going back in time, not forward. Korra and the comics were poorly written but I think post-atla spinoffs were a bad idea in the first place.

exactly. it’s clear they have no idea how to write a postwar landscape, nor should they. fleshing out past avatar eras, or even spinoffs about characters whose stories are only alluded to (kanna bildungsroman!!!!!) is just a far better expansion of the world they’ve created. atla is a perfectly self-contained story that does not need any kind of epilogue, and lok basically turns atla into a tragedy with the way they butcher the atla characters and the politics. the fact that they feel the need to turn avatar into some sprawling franchise is genuinely devastating to me. i’ll probably have to retire this blog before that happens tbh. L :(

[sokkabackbender2021]

How do people on here have an atla blog when half of their posts are tagged anti bryke?? 😭😭

[sunandmoongobrrr]

Korra and her Brutalization: A Legend of Korra Meta

In honor of International Womens’ Day, I want to talk a little bit about Legend of Korra and the treatment of Korra (and to a small extent other women) throughout the show. Content warning: there's some disturbing scenes that I show here, but if you've watched all of LoK, you should be fine.

Korra starts off confident; she is a young avatar who is eager to learn and feels suffocated from the isolation she is kept in from a very young age. But that doesn’t stop her, and like the headstrong girl she is, she moves to Republic City to make a difference and step into her role as the avatar.

Korra immediately starts to doubt herself; she becomes unsure of her abilities and frustrated with herself, and through that she learns to become emotionally vulnerable with Tenzin. To me, this was really great. It showed that you can be confident and vulnerable, and that the two aren’t necessarily independent of each other.

(I’m going to be honest, the 2nd season I didn’t really remember much of, so I’m just going to skip over that. Because what I really want to talk about is season 3.)

In season three, Korra faces the Red Lotus, an “anarchist” group that essentially wants to kill her. And they get pretty close. First, I want to talk about how Tenzin is beaten by the Red Lotus. This has been brought up in Lily Orchard’s (in?)famous LOK video, and while I disagree with her on many many topics of the show, I really think she has a point here. When Tenzin is being brutalized by the Red Lotus, the camera pans away. It is SO painful to see him like this, and the directors know it. It’s TOO painful to see it, so they don’t show you it, and the episode ends before we can see him be defeated.

Contrast that with Korra. They show you every detail of this. And I mean every detail.

It’s disgusting, and they refuse to treat her with any sort of decency or respect like they do Tenzin. It’s almost like they want us to enjoy her torturing. It’s genuinely gross.

People will often refute this by saying “LoK is just a darker show! Look at what they did to the Earth Queen!” And while yes, it is marketed towards an older audience, there’s still no point in brutalizing Korra this way. The main difference between Korra and the Earth Queen is that… well, Korra’s the protagonist. We’re supposed to be rooting for her, and while the Earth Queen being suffocated was definitely dark, it wasn’t unprecedented. The audience was never supposed to like the Earth Queen—she exploited and kidnapped her own people, so of course we wouldn’t care THAT much if she died. But we’ve been with Korra since the beginning. We’re supposed to want her to be happy, and why on earth would we want her to be tortured brutally in such a disgusting way that gives her absolutely no dignity? If we want her to succeed?

(here Zaheer uses the same technique used on the Earth Queen to suffocate here on Korra. for some reason)

In Season 4, the main focus is on Korra and her healing from the brutal things the Red Lotus did to her. She is clearly still struggling, and it could have been another great way to show how being physically strong and confident doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable. But they make a lot of bad choices in this season.

One of my main gripes is that in order to heal, she has to return to her abuser, Zaheer, and HE has to teach her how to feel better.

I don’t want to compare LoK to ATLA, although it’s very important to mention that a show that’s a direct sequel, uses its old characters, and banks off of references, should be able to be compared to its predecessor. But I think it’s important to compare Korra’s arc here to Zuko. This doesn’t come out of nowhere; Korra has a lot of similarities to Zuko. The chopping of her hair is a significant turning point in her arc, and there’s an episode called “Korra Alone” (which is clearly a direct callback; shown below).

The difference between Zuko and Katara is that, a. Zuko never had to accept his abuser, and b. Zuko started off as a villain.

One of Zuko’s major points is when he confronts his father—his abuser. He does not bow to him and give in, saying that maybe he had a few good points or his heart was in the right place, but he directly says that Ozai was wrong for what he did. This isn’t the case with Korra. For some reason, Korra has to learn to trust her abuser. The person who did this to her:

And she has to hear him out.

This leads me to my second point, and what’s basically the complaint I have; despite being a protagonist, the show treats Korra like a villain. It frames her torture scenes as if we’re supposed to be excited that she’s being brutalized, as if we’re supposed to think she deserves it. And it’s not even handled properly as one of the villains we know so well—Zuko, who was able to overcome his abuse and become a protagonist who we root for. Again, Zuko and Korra aren’t directly the same characters, but there are parallels between the two and the show encourages their comparison. When it comes to Korra, however, we’re supposed to believe that she deserves everything that comes to her; the brutal scenes and the lack of dignity, even if she is a protagonist.

And in the end, that’s what we’re meant to believe; that Korra deserved what happened to her. In the finale, Korra says, “I finally understand why I had to go through all that. I needed to understand what true suffering was, so I could become more compassionate to others.”

This is, to put it short, ridiculous. I hate this so much I can’t even begin to say how much I hate it. No, Korra did not have to go through the torture she went through. She did not have to go through the mercury poisoning. She did not have to go through every hardship she did. This “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is so harmful because Korra’s healing revolved around accepting her abuser and thanking him for the awful things he did to her. Korra wasn’t even that cocky by the end of the first season, so what it’s essentially indirectly teaching girls is that if you’re confident, you’ll pay. It’s disgusting.

Zuko got a banishment to the Earth Kingdom, got to have his ideas and practices challenged, but he never got physically tortured. I truly, truly believe that one of the main reasons why Korra is quite literally villainized by the show is because she was a confident, brown teenage girl. None of the male characters are treated with such disrespect and we never get told that they need to be “humbled” by abuse.

This is not completely resolved to LoK; there are some aspects in ATLA that I think could’ve been fixed had there been more women in the room. I tag her a lot (bc her metas are awesome), but I really recommend you read @araeph 's Katara: Consumed by Destiny series. I also have a meta here about how Katara is treated in ATLA, specifically in “The Fortuneteller.” (I want to emphasize that while I am anti-Kataang, I don’t believe that Katara’s treatment had to do with the ship itself or that kataang is inherently anti-Katara. It’s just a note about how her character is treated in this episode and beyond.)

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re ‘glad’ that LoK didn’t feature Suki or Mai or Ty Lee, because they can’t imagine how poorly they’d be represented. And honestly, I can’t blame them.

This isn’t to say that we need to stop watching LOK or even ATLA. I think the internet has this weird problem where we’ve been told that the way to get rid of problematic media is to just stop consuming anything even remotely problematic altogether. But certain aspects of media will always be relatively problematic, since as content creators we sometimes input our biases into the things we create. The solution, then, is not to banish anyone who puts any harmful stereotypes into their content from society, but to actively and healthily criticize it. Bryke are not God, but they’re also not demons put on the earth to suppress woc. They’re white guys that have implicit biases that have worked their way into the content they produce. I think the lesson learned here, is to have women, especially BIWOC, in writing rooms, to prevent atrocious acts from happening to future Korra's.

Happy International Women’s Day, y’all.

[callonpeevesie]

I think I may be on to something here

[anarchistfemmoire]

Prinecess Zeisan sucks

CW: Talks of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Not super in depth, but I know how it can ruin one's day to talk about. Also, TW for my rambling. I'm sort of sick and very emotional while writing this & my genuine apologies if I did not explain myself well. Also, I decided not to censor out names so this would stay out of certain tags because I do think it's important to discuss this sort of thing.

So, I'm sure we've all heard about the ATLA-inspired tabletop RPG game. It's a pretty cool project, and I'm glad the creators were able to get their creativity out. Am I tired of Bryke's cashing in on ATLA? Yeah, but I'm also a shill and I enjoy some of the new content that's come from it. I'm also sure that a lot of people have heard about Sozin's sister, Princess Zeisan.

To give you the gist, she's a nonbending Fire Nation princess, who devoted herself to Air Nomad teachings, training under Sister Rioshon, who she grew to have a romantic relationship with, until she decided that Rioshon didn't suit her dynasty-toppling needs. She instead married Khandro, the leader of a renegade Air Nomad group called Guiding Wind. They were able to make an alliance to protect themselves against Sozin and Fire Nation expansionism.

"Sozin could not control his rage when Zeisan proposed to Khandro, and saw the Guiding Wind's beliefs as a threat, which he was willing to stop by any means necessary, and refused to back down from fighting Zeisan now that he was Fire Lord." And he was right to assume they were a threat. Zeisan was certainly conspiring against him, using Khandro's political leverage as a tool, something she could weaponize against her brother.

And whether the creators intended this or not, the Air Genocide is no longer one of just blind hatred, of racism and ethnocentrism, and the belief of an inherent superiority over other nations that they'd wish to "share with the world." Sozin's propaganda is vindicated. There's someone within that ethnic group, actively working against him, and after all - if not her, why not them all? And whether the creators saw this coming or not, there is fans who now say things like, "Oh, so he must have genocided the Air Nomads to get back at her, because he was mad at her betrayal." Again, erasing the actual causes of genocide - dehumanization, hatred, and feelings of superiority.

It's irresponsible to deny this aspects, and yet, it feels like Bryke is always skirting around it. There's very few instances of examples of the genuine racialization of Air Nomad people, and many of them are either played a little too comedically even though these racial stereotypes feel very real (re: the comic talking about air nomads having wings and practising witchcraft, which, as a Jewish person, ring very true, and yet seem to have very little affect on Aang) , or people have taken it as genuine Air Nomad culture (re: "What would you know of fathers? You were raised by monks." Why are we believing what the racist has to say about Air Nomad culture?). That's not to say they never depict those aspects, or that it's entirely the writers' fault for not understanding just how little media literacy some of their fans would have, but here we were, and consequences mean more than intent.

However, it used to be fine. I don't expect ATLA to literally give me a depiction of genocide that my ancestors' feel. I don't expect it to be something you could present to the UN as an example of genocide. I really don't. And things before Princess Zeisan were basically fine. In fact, there were a lot of things that felt very true to me, personally.

But Princess Zeisan isn't respectful. She isn't a genuine defector. She wasn't just incidentally there. And her existence creates more than just a scapegoat, more than just Sozin taking a gamble to blot the Avatar out of existence in one fell swoop. The effect its had on fandom discussion is already palpable, if I'm being honest.

I guess it all comes down to: genocide does not need a motivation. There doesn't need to be some truth to the reason the victims of a genocide are being targeted. In fact, it's actively harmful to do so - it's victim blaming. And sure, it's fictional. I get that. But to a lot of ATLA fans, genocide will probably always feel vaguely fictional to them - something that's real, that they were never be able to empathize with or understand. And that's a good thing; the less genocides there are, the better. But that also means, there is a responsibility to depict it properly or not at all.

[klm-zoflorr]

I still don't understand why Avatar is still hailed as a masterpiece of good writing when the main storyline was solved when the protagonist was litteraly HANDED a solution to his problems as a prize for arguing for 10 minutes with his friends about an issue that they made up in the last 5 episodes.

[sakiye]

@bryankonietzko  @michaeldantedimartino Hey! How are you doing today? So, I just wanted to talk, just a little thing?

What made you decide to culturally appropriate the third eye and the tripundra from hinduism and buddhism? 😳

[katara-stan-club]

getting annoyed thinking about how Katara is the only character who is maligned for having crushes in the Gaang within the show 

Sokka’s feelings for both Suki and Yue are treated seriously and handled pretty well in my opinion, and no one teases him for being openly affectionate with them. hell, Zuko walked in on Sokka preparing a romantic evening for himself and Suki and said absolutely nothing about it! Toph’s crush on Sokka is not really touched on by any of the characters (except when she kisses Suki’s cheek thinking that’s Sokka, but again! no one makes a deal out of it!). Zuko and Mai were a couple and the closest that is mocked is when Sokka is kinda disbelieving when they talk on the way to the boiling rock, but again: Sokka is not mean or teasing about Zuko being in a relationship. I feel like Aang’s crush on Katara needs no explanation on how the narrtive treats it.

yet, whenever Katara is shown to have any feelings for someone, the story/other characters seemingly punish her for it. Meng calls her a floozy in The Fortuneteller (and Boy do I have Thoughts on that comment) and Toph teases her about a supposed crush on Haru. just everything about Ember Island Players screams “how dare Katara like someone who isn’t Aang?” it mocks her crush on Jet and doesn’t allow her to have an on screen reaction to his “death”, which she almost certainly would have reacted to given how upset she was when the real Jet was injured in Lake Laogai. the entire balcony scene is framed about what Aang wants (which like I guess is somewhat understandable, he is the main character) and Katara’s feelings (or seemingly lack thereof) are forced to take a backseat to Aang’s. and then by the end of the show, her confusion is magically unveiled and she actually loved Aang the whole time guys, don’t worry!

I don’t remember much of the comics, but from what I remember even the air acolytes treat her feelings for Aang as an obstacle! she can’t win narratively no matter who she likes/is with. 

I just hate that every other canon crush/relationship is treated with respect, but Katara is the only one who is made fun of for liking anyone. it just reads to me as her being punished for not having a crush on Aang, which they could have easily written into the show!! they actively chose not to have her reciprocate until the very last second!! can’t this girl be allowed to have crushes without being mocked for it!! 

[rolandtowen]

okay but the thing that pisses me off the most about Aang kissing Katara without her consent is that those scenes were written by adults. Bryke had the opportunity to teach all of the kids watching the basics of consent in this scene - Aang could have asked to kiss her, Aang could have said he respected Katara's boundaries, Aang could have told Katara that she could feel confused for as long as she needs and he won't push her - but instead?

Instead they have their protagonist non-consensually kiss his love interest. What's the lesson that little kids (and adults) got out of that scene?

That you can get away with it if you're a hero? That it's okay if you're in a relationship? That this will somehow win over your love interest in the end?

None of those lessons are good. I really hope that with the new content, be it Netflix or Avatar Studios, that the problematic writing of the past is recognized and rectified.

If you're going to create kids media, do it fucking right.

[lunaathorne]

i tried to search the anti bryke tag but all that showed up was abt zutara. what are the racist issues? obviously u don't have to answer this you don't owe it to me to explain this but i would love to learn

yeah I mean.

for a show named "avatar" and its generous freeloading of buddhism and hinduism and chakras and third eyes and reincarnation cycles, atla had the grand total of one (1) indian character who was voiced by a white actor imitating exaggerated tamil accents and drinking banana and onion juice (haha, so funny, geddit, cause we indians eat wonky stuff....with our HANDS!!!! like uncivilized people!!!) not to mention that ugly ass scene in nightmares and daydreams when pathik appears in a dream on a lotus (I think?) singing CHAKRAS CHAKRAS with several arms, in a blatantly offensive imagery associated with ma durga/and or several hindu deities who carry weapons and sacred symbols in their arms.

white people in general like to pretend India doesn't exist as part of Asia and they can borrow our aesthetic without representing us, so our great rep in atla is:

names like katara and bumi, rohan and kuvira derived from south asian languages and some of these are very popular Indian names. but don't you be fooled, none of these characters are indian!!!

evil assassins having third eyes on their forehead like our hindu deity Shiva doesn't have a third eye and isn't the destroyer of EVIL.

The fucking golden temple of Amritsar was the sight of much political turmoil and also is EXTREMELY sacred to the Sikhs and the design was literally bootlegged in Korra to make a pro gamer compound. A temple turned to a cutesy sports complex.

most people having south asian and/or arabic names like ghazan, zaheer etc being painted as big baddies.

there's an ugly desi woman caricature in the korra comics but I haven't read it, my indian and Pakistani friends have though. Wouldn't you know it she's a bad guy.

atla is chockful of white liberal propaganda which is why people love some war criminals of the fire nation but lose all sense of comprehension when it comes to victims of oppression like jet and hama who GOD FORBID would have decided to rebel against their oppressors. They could have easily made jet evil in some other way but they specifically villainized his proactive resistance. "jet killed innocents" how about bryke are white liberals, how about ppl chew on that for a hot sec. Don't even get me started on lok.

katara's character is so dear to me but she's not written canonically in the beautiful emancipation arc people think she has. her trauma is second place to aang and she spends 3 seasons fcking mothering him (lol brown girls can relate we do have to coddle our manbabies I'll give you that) only for bryke and fandom to treat her like shit and leave her unrecognised because uwu internalised misogyny in the name of ship wars I guess. [ For ref see the way she is treated when it comes to LGBTQ headcanons/ some popular m/m ships]

many people rightfully express indignation at the shyamalan movie for casting desis as fire nation but sometimes criticism was just "WHY ARE THERE INDIANS IN ATLA?" I'll riddle you one better: in the first place, why aren't there Indians in atla?

[comradekatara]

the comics fucking suck we know this but i did always love the concept of zuko’s little sister kiyi she is very cute. and even though i don’t think it makes logical narrative sense for ursa to still be alive or anything that happened in “the search,” i do think that kiyi as a character could exist and function in a similar way wrt postwar zuko’s character development.

here’s how i would rework it to tie into (what i consider to be) more compelling themes in a postcanon exploration of the world:

like a year or so after the war, aang is in the fire nation when he meets a woman named noriko and her young daughter kiyi. it turns out that the reason they came all the way to the fire nation capital from a rural town in the colonies is because kiyi is very sick and they hoped that they could find a better doctor who could heal her in the most prosperous part of the nation. of course, aang’s like “well as the avatar I can definitely help :)” but he ultimately just foists this problem onto zuko, mostly because zuko has just discovered that firebending has healing powers, and aang thinks that zuko could use his newfound ability to help kiyi. only, he still has no clue how to control it because he has yet to study it with katara (they’ve made plans to study healing together, but only in correspondence, since she’s busy with reconstruction in the south pole, and he’s still in the fire nation). ultimately, they learn together and help keep kiyi’s illness at bay, and zuko just grows very fond of her, noriko reminds him a lot of ursa, and he comes to consider them part of his family (even if they’re not actually biologically related).

in summation: zuko makes new friends/family while also exploring new & healing uses for his bending—an extension of his self-actualisation arc in book 3—without any of that convoluted nonsense we had to witness in the c*mics. win win if u ask me

[listless-brainrot]

got into a discussion about how adult aang is bryke’s self insert and i remembered how the lok concept books had mike saying ‘everyone always assumed my bald head was the inspiration for young aang‘

who said that. who said that

[lovemineallmine]

as much as i love atla and tlok it's really hard to ignore the characterization that was really really bad, korra's entire arc is especially uncomfortable to watch if you analyze it

[eternalwormdevouringconneticut]

when avatar makes most of the protagonists vaguely white and give traditionally ethnic features to the villains/not good characters

[shrinkthisviolet]

its saturday where i live, but feel free to tell me anything about your headcanons/wips

Gladly! Okay so:

Late bloomer firebender Izumi is just...I love her so much. Grappling with not feeling like a good enough heir to Zuko, as well as feeling like not a good enough princess for her citizens. Doesn’t help that the Fire Sages didn’t fully embrace her as a princess until she firebent at age 8, and even then, they wondered after she turned 13 if she’d ever marry well

Bumi is a POC, half-Air-Nomad, and half-Water-Tribe. This is canon ofc but like...canon ignores it. Not me though! I’m not mixed, but I do understand what it’s like to grow up as part of two worlds–born to parents from one country, and raised in an entirely different country. Bumi’s situation isn’t quite like mine, but he feels torn between his two heritages too. He lives in both, and isn’t ashamed of either, but often feels like he’s Water Tribe by default because of his facial similarities to his mother and nonbending status. Tho his parents and brother fiercely remind him AND Kya that they are as much Air Nomad as they are Water Tribe

Mizuki is named after Yue in my AU, since Mizuki means “moon” (in canon, I figure there’s just a “waterbending unity” reason). This is because Izumi and Yue are good friends in my AU–technically since birth (Izumi was born at the moon’s peak), but again in the past. Yue even tries to platonically matchmake Izumi and Zuko after what happens in Ba Sing Se, trying to get them together so they can talk to each other and work things out (but ofc Yue is still angry about what went down in the crystal catacombs, as she should be [that’s a spoiler tho 😉])

Izumi goes by Shui in Ba Sing Se because it means “water,” which is similar enough to her own name’s meaning (“fountain”) that she’s hoping to spark some kind of recognition in Zuko...even tho he has no clue who she is 🤦‍♀️

For her birthday, Bumi gets Izumi a package of origami paper. Izumi tries to fold 1000 paper cranes after Ba Sing Se, wishing to save Zuko, but she’s so emotional that she keeps burning the paper. Katara eventually discovers what she’s doing and this sparks an argument between them. Izumi ends up throwing the few folded cranes (and the paper) overboard

I’m toying with the idea of Hama joining the White Lotus in my AU, based loosely on @visit-ba-sing-se’s AU. It would give Izumi some closure with her (you can imagine how Hama would react to seeing a firebender traveling with a Southern waterbender), and it would also give Hama herself a chance to be more than the horror-esque figure she is in canon. Not that I think she’s totally redeemable (blaming an entire Nation for the war isn’t a good solution for anyone), but she deserves somewhat of a sympathetic lens. And how are you gonna vilify bloodbending totally when healing is likely very similar? Just CONNECT THE TWO BRYKE

Jet doesn’t die. I don’t believe does in canon, and it always felt reductive. Why kill him when he’s starting to make amends? When he’s moving on from his trauma and pain?

Aang and Katara love ALL THEIR KIDS EQUALLY and take them on vacations and teach them ALL about BOTH CULTURES (wtf do you mean “they were bored” Bryke?? Tf no they weren’t, you were just lazy). And the kids are VISIBLY AND BEHAVIORALLY MIXED

Toph is a foster mom, and Lin and Suyin are her two current foster kids (whom she adopted). She runs the foster home with Jet

Katara and Sokka are both chiefs of the SWT, but Sokka prefers to travel so he mostly handles the ambassadorial type stuff. Katara is also a waterbending teacher, the best in both tribes 😌

Mai may be “Firelady” in title, but everyone knows she’s as much in charge as Zuko is. Though mainly, she champions education reform (in which she works closely with Aang to reform the curriculum) and helps expand Toph’s foster home to the FN. She never wants any child to feel like a burden to their parents

Senna is Sokka and Suki’s daughter, and Korra is their granddaughter. This makes Korra’s birth very emotional, as you can imagine 😭

Ty Lee was part of the Kyoshi Warriors for about five years, while they were guarding Zuko. But since they spent more time on the Island than in the Palace, with Ty Lee usually left to guard Zuko along with one of the other girls, she had a suggestion. She became Zuko’s permanent guard, became a standby Kyoshi Warrior (not really one anymore, but willing to help out if necessary), and said that if they missed home, then that’s where they should be (not in a rude way ofc, it was just the most practical solution). Ty Lee adored being part of a group but still regarded as her own person, but she didn’t need that anymore. She knew she had them to lean on, but the past 5 years had taught her to trust herself, her own opinions, and her own skills (which is something she DESPERATELY NEEDED post-canon)

Some of these are exclusively part of my AU, but some are applicable to canon too 😂 I kinda just let my thoughts go nuts here. Hope you enjoyed it!

And if anyone wants to send an ask about a specific fandom or AU, feel free!