#the perils of culture clash...especially with a devoted water tribe mother | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

swan2swan · 8 months

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Annual reminder that Aang wasn't a terrible dad, that one episode was badly written and had poor perspective. Aang was a busy, working dad who had a lot of stuff to do, and then suddenly his third kid was a full-on Airbender and he was literally the only one qualified to teach this baby, so then he finally had an excuse to put his family before his duties ("My family IS my duty now, suckers!!!"), and so Kya and Bumi were all "What the heck, Dad???" because they were now teens (iirc) and they missed out on all that stuff.

It was basically Aang going from "my family has 20% of my time" to "my family has 40% of my time". Still not enough, probably, but Aang could finally go and explore his own culture without feeling guilty about leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself.

#poor dude probably had all kinds of mental issues #also literally everything else about his dadhood has been outstanding #his son gets a high rank in the navy #his lesbian daughter gets to go do her thing #tenzin had it hardest of all the kids #we can also get into the whole part where Aang's whole culture separated parents from their kids #so he wasn't exactly raised with a child-to-biological-parent bond himself #the perils of culture clash...especially with a devoted water tribe mother #you've got a culture that says ''Family is EVERYTHING parents will teach their children for LIFE''#meeting a culture that says ''Everyone in the world is your family so you have to treat them equally''#.....gosh that story really needs to be explored more #and they could NOT have delivered it more clumsily #or wrapped it up more frustratingly #''here we are lamenting all our insecurities and inner doubts but LOOK THIS FAMILY PHOTO SHOWS US HAPPY WE MUST HAVE BEEN HAPPY''#I mean...they were #but it was also poorly executed #legend of korra #tlok #atla #how to tell the casuals from those who take this seriously #''aang was a bad dad'' do you even READ SUBTEXT

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