#tlok fandom discourse

[star-pocalypse]

Breaking News: girl who spent years defending Katara sees the Seven Havens announcement and has a hysterical breakdown as she realizes she's going back in the arena

More at 6

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

korra 🤝 mabel

being hated by fans for being manipulated and taken advantage of by a villain

[allgremlinyaps]

also while I'm in a poking-the-beehive mood, I will at some point have to write a little meta blurb about the take that the creators of atla/tlok had a "fetishistic obsession" with "brutalizing" Korra. look. this is actually some very old 2010s discourse and while its a concern that I take seriously when people bring it up, I just dont think it holds much water. As someone for whom Korra is, like, THE character I'm protective about, I promise I'm super sensitive to any hint of mistreatment of her and... I think there really is a fundamental difference between how Korra and her struggles are treated in this show and how people like say COUGH Joss Whedon COUGH HACK treat female characters and their suffering... I dont have time to get into it tonight cus I need to go to bed so instead I'm just gonna let this fester here unaddressed like so many of my other possibly divisive posts LOL...

but like when I saw that discourse cropping up again in *2024* and VERBATIM to how it was said in 2013... . lol no... I'm not 11 anymore I can actually voice my opinions on this coherently now sdhshs (hopefully)

[matt0044]

A video was made to generate thoughtful discussions rather than be "Avatar/Korra bad" and TheStoryteller's legit enough in my book. It's called:

Avatar’s Hidden Fear of Real Change

My take?

To me, Korra actually does take things away from her enemies. Amon's was a more personal one in how her resolve and confidence would be challenged in seasons to come. However, Unalaq would lead Korra to think that maybe the spirit portals should remain open and takes his points about the world losing connection with the spirits in its modern forms. Zaheer might've been bad about it buuuuuuut he still killed the Earth Queen (with a very real fallout) and forced Korra to reckon if the world needed, well, her.

Now Kuvira has a point about the potentially stolen land buuuuut it was meant to be a symbol of peace with the Earth Kingdom involved. Furthermore, she still rebuilt the Earth Kingdom into something very... dictatorial as the Earth Empire. Heck, Korra sparing her and talk her down once she was depowered feels like natural extension of Aang vs. Ozai.

Personally, I feel like the comics could stand to be adapted as a new season with us seeing Kuvira go free and reform herself but I digress.

Now in terms of writing and production crew, at the very worst, it's more the blind leading the blind. Blind to their potential biases and not so well aged attitudes. Fact of the matter is that none of us are as woke as we believe to be.

That's the benign truth. But even then, I still stand by my reading.

I think Korra’s stance is more, “Changes to the Status Quo will be ugly but necessary as they expose what needs to be rethought.” Amon’s takeover of Republic City led to them restructuring the council into a presidency, one with a non-bender who could see the perspectives of those Amon enamored.

However, that still led to an imperfect society with a president concerned with reputation and polls. Thus not the blanket solution as it may’ve felt.

Each villain after exposes something off about Korra’s era but they seek to overhaul the world overnight. The truth is that when society is this entrenched in these systems, a sudden revolution is going to cause a lot more problems in the aftermath. Kuvira’s Earth Empire was a knock off effect from Zaheer’s killing of the Earth Queen after all.

Maybe it’s the recent years but I’ve come to realize that there won’t be a neat and tidy society reform that will be all happily ever after. Prejudices linger like a bad stain and while it’s important to get it out, it may not be for many generations until it gets out.

Whole reason why Trump was ever nominated was because he spoke to the people who didn’t like how things were changing like legalized gay marriages and more scrutiny put on cops post-Ferguson. He spoke to those who wanted to say the quiet part outloud.

But is it really portraying the systems and status quos as a full on good thing as some try to claim if corruption is still present?

In Season 1, we have the corrupt Tarrlok and the rather complicit council. Especially with how he had the police be more hard on non-benders out past curfew who weren't causing any harm. While one can make the argument they don't do more with it (time limits on episodes aside for now), there is an acknowledgement that he's using the corruption in Republic City's flawed systems.

At best, the show doesn't portray change as impossible but really hard and how the anger it inspires can be taken advantage of. It shows the systems maybe in too neutral of a light but Avatar Korra has frequently been shown to fly in the face of authority:

-going vigilante on the Triads and getting arrested for it.

-Going against Tarrlok, especially when her friends are arrested because of it.

-Defying the Earth Queen's authority and freeing the airbenders even if her laws permit her to do with them as she wishes.

My read on her character post-Book 1 is that she's "play by the rules unless said rules are bullshit." As Avatar, she learns that she has to be responsible more during social unrest but that doesn't mean that she'll stand by if she's needed.

I don't deny that a story about industrialization in Avatar's world would be worth exploring. But that feels like a conudrum that the Gaang had to contend with well before Korra's time with how the comics show the gears of industry spreading out of the Fire Nation.

See, the mistake people make about Amon is that he's less a civil leader and more a cult leader taking advantage of non-benders' discontent. He believes in his own hype but he sees himself as king of the castle and all others as his loyal subjects. Even so, the Equalists do what they do out of a desire to change things. Hence, why the reveal of Noatak's bending dissolved his cult of personality.

There's also how Zaheer and Kuvira are shown as two sides of the same coin with anarchism and fascism. Varrick represent capitalism and he only ever remotely becomes a "good guy" when he's stripped of his fortune, escaping Republic City to start over in Zaofu.

I could reccommend a video essay I like but honestly, I recommend returning to the show proper. It's there on Netflix if you got it. I think people, be they blind Korra haters or critics that are a bit more honest, haven't truly sat with the show with a rewatch. It's worth really seeing what the show overall is saying for oneself.

I also feel that some underestimate how much East-Asian culture in infused in the show. Though Bryan and Mike are caucasian, they've very much worked to make sure they respect the culture that Avatar's world is inspired by. It's worth delving into the behind the scenes info. The artbook's cool.

[moondustgleam]

Honestly the virulent korra haters are full of red flags for me. Why do you hate an (admittedly kinda) mediocre show so much? Why do you dedicate so many hours of your finite life to a whole ass community of people who get together solely for the purpose of dunking on a fictional woman who has no negative bearing on the real world? Why are you so obsessed with atlas "perfection" that anything even slightly disappointing from the creators feels like a personal attack? (That applies to the dragon prince too) If you don't like korra just pretend it doesn't exist my guy. Don't like don't watch. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I promise you can find happiness in something other than rewatching Lily Orchard

[lying-on-floors]

I love being a multi shipper sm <3333

Yes, I have OTPs that I rarely stray from, but that doesn't mean I don't like other ships they're in. Sometimes, I make em a polycule, idk depends on how I feel.

Example:

Sokka + Suki = <3

Sokka + Zuko = <3

Sokka + Zuko + Suki = <3

Idk, life's just better as a multi shipper <3<3<3

[justanotherthrowaway1950]

The Red Lotus and Azula Would Be Enemies

Note: When I say Red Lotus in this post, I am referring to Zaheer’s four man team unless otherwise noted.

Azula and the Red Lotus are arguably the Gaang and Krew’s most iconic villains, beloved for challenging their respective Team Avatar not just physically, but mentally as well with their tactics and mind games.

That and, as of the time of this post, they are the ones who have come closest to killing their era’s Avatar, with Azula actually succeeding in (temporarily) killing Aang.

So it is no surprise that fans often theorize what would happen if they ever teamed up, either in a what-if situation with all five of them in their primes, or an elderly Azula teaming with the Red Lotus after the events of TLOK or in a AU, and for good reason.

Imagine P’Li and Azula applying pressure using their unprecedented control over combustionbending and lightningbending respectively.

Imagine all the combos Ming Hua and Azula could pull off with their deadly and precise bending.

Imagine Ghazan and Azula slowly but surely overwhelming opponents with their mastery over their rare sub-element bending arts of lavabending and smokebending respectively.

(Yes, this post assumes that the smoke that Azula and the Fire Warriors produced while masquerading as the Kemurikage in Smoke and Shadow was generated through smokebending.)

(Moreover, that smokebending is a rare sub-element of firebending considering no else before or after the events of Smoke and Shadow have been shown to (purposefully) generate smoke, let alone with the control that Azula and the Fire Warriors display.)

And imagine all the dastardly plots and mind games Zaheer and Azula would concoct as they meticulously plot to take down their shared foe(s).

However, there is one massive problem that would prevent the Red Lotus and Azula from ever teaming up: the fact that they would be moral enemies.

This is because the Red Lotus are anarchists who kill monarchs and loathe the concept of states, let authoritarianism. Meanwhile, Azula is a genocidal, colonizing, authoritarian monarch who believes in the divine right to rule.

(Yes, Azula is genocidal since, regardless of who you think actually came up with the plan to genocide the Earth Kingdom, the fact that Azula was eager to join Ozai in his failed offensive, and was upset only because he told her she couldn’t join, is proof that is she more than ok with genocide.) 

Therefore, if Azula and the Red Lotus were to ever meet each other, they wouldn’t join forces, but instead would try to kill each other, viewing the other as the embodiment of everything they fight against.

Hell! Considering how diametrically opposed they are to each other, they might even join whatever version of Team Avatar is present to take out their opponent.

“Ok, you bring up a good point about how their diametrically opposed ideologies would make them natural enemies. But you don’t think they don’t have enough pragmatism to temporarily join forces and take out their shared opponent(s) before turning on each other?”

Azula does considering she was able to work with Long Feng and the Gaang to overthrow the Earth Kingdom and find Ursa respectively, provided she isn’t actively psychotic of course, but not the Red Lotus.

This is because the Red Lotus not only spent over a decade in their tortious prison cells and didn’t rat out anyone involved with the broader Red Lotus organization, but also didn’t rat out Unalaq, who betrayed them and the broader Red Lotus organization.

So no, the Red Lotus and Azula would not be able to overcome their deeply-held ideological differences to form a pragmatic partnership.

“But wouldn’t they be able to realize that they are natural allies, even for a temporary amount of time, considering they both want to end the Avatar cycle and commit mass murder?”

Ugh, as much as it disgusts me to type this out, Azula and the Red Lotus want to end the Avatar cycle and commit mass murder for different, totally incompatible reasons.

Azula wants to genocide any group of people who refuse to recognize the Fire Nation’s (supposed) innate superiority and submit to their rule, and therefore wants to end the Avatar cycle, or at least kill the current Avatar, because the Avatar is the only being capable of stopping the Fire Nation from imposing its will on the world.

Meanwhile, even assuming the Red Lotus is aware of Vaatu’s desire to eliminate humanity, they want to release Vaatu and reopen the spirit portals, regardless of how many casualties occur, because they think it will give people true freedom, and thus lead to a better world.

Accordingly, they seek to end the Avatar cycle because the Avatar, by their nature as the Avatar of the Spirit of Light and Peace, would be diametrically opposed to their plan and never stop fighting them, even if they successfully release Vaatu and reopen the spirit portals.

Or in other words, Azula and the Red Lotus’ reasons for trying to end the Avatar cycle and attempting to commit mass murder are tied to their diametrically opposed worldviews.

“But Azula from Smoke and Shadow onward creates chaos with her schemes of hers. So maybe her and the Red Lotus aren’t as diametrically opposed as you make them out to be.”

Even if the means of achieving her goals are chaotic due to her lacking mental health, everything Azula has done post-Sozin’s Comet is consistent with her being a genocidal, authoritarian monarch who believes in the divine right to rule.

For it is explicitly said multiple times in the comics and extended lore that she wants to either turn Zuko into a tyrant like their forefathers before them, or if that fails, retake the throne so she can sheer the Fire Nation back in the direction it was under Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai.

Therefore, all learning about Azula’s efforts to return the Fire Nation to its former “glory” would do in the eyes of the Red Lotus is turn her from a despicable tyrant and oppressor who needs to be punished for her crimes to a mad dog who needs to be put down for the sake for freedom.

But in no case would it make Azula and the Red Lotus any less antagonistic towards each other.

So to conclude, even though on the surface they would seem to be natural allies, Azula and the Red Lotus’ deep ideological differences rooted in the fact that Azula is a genocidal, authoritarian monarchist while the Red Lotus are spiritually attuned anarchists would make them natural enemies. 

In fact, the real question about a potential Azula-Red Lotus team up should not be how they would work together, but instead who would be driven to ally with the version of Team Avatar present to take down the other.

[creativheroann]

Since when do you need canon support to ship your ship???

[rightwheretheyleftme]

I’m watching Korra book 2 and I have so many emotions about Aang’s neglect of his kids

After watching ATLA earlier this year, I started following a bunch of fan accounts and saw the same discourse regurgitated over and over again; One of the main points of discourse is whether Aang was bad father.

The discussions that I saw would always play out the same way. Aang’s detractors would say: “Aang didn’t take 2/3 of his kids on vacations. That’s neglect” and Aang’s defenders would reply “Aang is not a bad father! The places that he took Tenzin to were built for airbenders so Kya and Bumi wouldn’t have anything to do there!” And you know what? When I was reading those arguments, I thought that both sides had valid points and that this was a complex discussion.

Oh boy.

Now that I’m watching the episode, I realized that the people in this fandom are lying through their teeth. Aang only taking 1 out of his 3 kids on vacations is true, but the claim that that happened because Aang only visited places made for airbenders is completely false. Let’s recap the places that Aang and Tenzin went to:

- Kyoshi Island; to ride the elephant koi

- Ember Island; to build sandcastles on the beach

Now explain to me, why on earth does the majority of the fandom say that Aang went to airbender-only places? Kyoshi and Ember islands have 0 historical significance to the airbenders. These are just fun vacation spots, we know this because we saw the Gaang vacation at these places multiple times.

Moreover, according to Bumi, Aang was busy due to his job as the Avatar but he made time for Tenzin, only Tenzin. Kya agrees with this.

I’m so disgusted by this information. There is no way that a grown man in his 40s wouldn’t realize that taking only 1 of your kids on fun vacations and leaving the others behind is hurtful, the only possible conclusion that you can reach here is that Aang was intentionally trying to hurt his kids’ feelings.

And that breaks my heart.

This is not the Aang that I know and love. Aang is a fun, caring, accepting, and loving person. The behavior that I’ve described above is not only emotional neglect, it borders on abuse.

At first, I thought that maybe this storyline was meant to deconstrue the “The hero can do no wrong” cliché. Except that it ends with Kya and Bumi looking at a family picture and reminiscing about how happy they were. So no, there is no deconstruction; Aang is portrayed as a flawed but otherwise good father. Apparently, not loving 2/3 of your children enough to want to spend leisure time with them is a common flaw and not parental neglect, according to TLOK.

I feel so betrayed not only by the writers and the story that I love, but also by the fandom who silences victims of parental abuse when they are rightfully pissed off by Aang’s actions. I never wanted for Aang to be a neglectful father, but he is. Harassing people who are mad about his actions and calling them bitter Zutaras is a disgusting way to try to silence conversations about parental abuse.

Side note: Where tf was Katara while this was happening? Did she not take offense that her husband was neglecting 2/3 of her kids? Why didn’t Aang respect Katara enough to not play favorites with the kids she gave him?

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

honestly, i think the double standards with catra and glimmer stems from something other than pretty privilege, and it's something i've seen in a lot of media.

take, for instance, the atla fandom demonizing aang and katara but coddling azula. or the su fandom villanizing steven but making excuses for spinel and lapis.

and the reason for this is that villains or antagonists are always given more freedom to make mistakes, to do heinous shit, to be cold or rude or insensitive to others. the logic being that "they're the villain, of course they're gonna be horrible".

with heroes, on the other hand, there's this subconscious judgment whenever they make a mistake. heroes are meant to be perfect and as much as people say that they want more antiheroes, they always judge a hero based on how morally good they are.

which explains why katara is hated on for saying something insensitive out of repressed grief and trauma, but azula is coddled for committing multiple war crimes.

why glimmer is bashed for being kinda mean and making some bad choices due to grief and pressure, but catra's conscious choice to attempt genocide and willing participation in war is justified.

why steven is villanized for having a mental breakdown after years of suppressed trauma, but spinel's attempts to kill dozens of people on earth are excused.

why mabel is demonized for being kinda selfish sometimes and for being manipulated into giving away something she didn't know the importance of, but bill is loved by everyone.

why korra is blamed for trusting her uncle and losing her connection to the previous avatars, instead of unalaq being held accountable for manipulating her (unalaq isn't really coddled by the fandom but there's a huge victim blaming problem).

simply put, people want heroes to be pure. they want surface-level flaws like clumsiness and awkwardness, not REAL flaws. as much as these people say that they want more morally grey or complex heroes, the truth is that they can't even handle their hero being kinda rude to someone.

especially with characters like glimmer, mabel and katara, who have a more traditionally feminine aesthetic and is generally a good person, people expect them to be well-behaved and perfect all the time. even though both these characters were shown to be passionate and stubborn and fierce from the very beginning, people are still blindsided when they actually take a bold stance or act on their emotions.

and with steven, he was a nice, happy, easygoing kid in the beginning and he tried to remain optimistic throughout all the trauma he went through, so people just expect him to do that forever. to always repress his feelings and never give himself the space to express them, to always focus on being a therapist for literally every other character and to never prioritize himself.

and like sure, villains are meant to be evil. i'm not telling anyone to water down their villains. but there's a difference between liking a villain and excusing their actions. i like azula. i like all of the villains in tlok. i like bill cipher. i even like catra and white diamond minus their shitty redemption arcs.

but i'm not going to set double standards by justifying everything that a villain does and demonizing a hero for acting out of line once. especially if the hero actually takes responsibility for their actions and tries to be better, and the villains just get forgiven for doing the bare minimum.

[tamras-shieldmaiden]

Me after reading some questionable character takes and the alleged Earth Avatar series leaks:

do you ever see some discourse or objectively bad/wrong takes about your blorbo and you're just like

[hello-nichya-here]

I saw this take on Azula. What do you think:

“the way the atla fandom treats azula reminds me so much of how the spop fandom treats catra. don't get me wrong, i actually love azula, i think she was a very interesting and complex character. but that doesn't take away from the fact that she was still dangerous and toxic, willing to manipulate and control and kill without remorse.

one huge example of azula being coddled by the fandom is when the comics came out, and she was restrained and put into a straitjacket. i saw many fans complaining about how this was ableist and demonizing trauma and mental illnesses.

which.. i mean i'm sure azula has her fair share of mental health issues after all that she went through. but she wasn't restrained because she was mentally unstable, she was restrained because she was (at that point) the strongest firebender who could and would kill everyone in a heartbeat.

literally it feels like people sometimes forget that this was a fantasy world where people had magic powers. azula had to be restrained because she was a firebending prodigy who has killed once, and will kill again. yes, she was mentally unstable but she was also a threat to everyone.

and you can see, in this universe, how every criminal was restrained in some sort of way. In tlok, the red lotus were each contained in custom-made high security prisons because they were that big of a threat to everyone around them. ming-hua was disabled and she was not provided prosthetics in her prison, but this was because she used water as her prosthetics and was a waterbending prodigy with criminal intentions.

if azula was mentally unstable but not dangerous, the straitjacket would not be necessary. and i know that irl there's a lot of history and ethical discourse surrounding the use of straitjackets but in azula's case, i believe it was necessary. it wasn't ableism or demonizing mental illnesses, it was simply a safety measure to assure that no one else got hurt by azula.”

The tags said “again I promise you. You can sympathize with a villain without taking away their actions that made them a villain in the first place. Just saying.”

The writer of said comics full on admited that the way Azula was treated in the asylum was deliberately to justify her condition getting worse through the story, hence her only improving when she's away from it. He wanted her to be abused to get "crazier" and didn't realize that it painted Zuko in a terrible light to allow a place like this to exist at all, let alone send his own sister there.

Azula was being restrained and beaten CONSTANTLY, despite not doing a damn thing. We see it happening. And to try and justify that by going "well, but she COULD, potentially, do something" is literally THE EXACT SAME EXCUSE that was used to justify that kind of mistreatment in real life asylums.

Much like you can't have the black character linched by the fantasy equivalent of the KKK and expect people to not see the racism in that punishment, regardless of said character being a bad guy, you can't send the mentally ill character to be abused in an asylum and expect people to not see obvious demonization of mental illness and disabilities just because they were a bad guy. This is beyond just "Azula, the character, deserved better", this is a case of "these writers are telling their audience, of mostly children, that ableism is okay"

Atla is a fictional story, yes. One that literally said "everyone is capable of great good and great evil." One that shows us characters overcoming trauma through spiritual healing. One that shows us a criminal in the freaking Boiling Rock getting treatment for anger issues. One that literally Zuko himself say Ozai is not beyond saving, even if he understandably doesn't feel like sticking around to see it or try to play any role in it.

Anything that goes "Actually, just beat the villains into submission, no mercy, or second chances, or basic human decency, ever" is an insult to the message and to the original show - hence why Korra and the comics should have never fucking existed.

You can enjoy Azula as a villain and not want her to be redeemed without excusiving bad, intolerant writing just because it has bad things happening to her. I promise.

[geeky-zombie]

My fav ATLA and TLOK characters !

Water benders :

Eska/desna

Hama

Amon

Ming-hua

Katara

Fire benders :

Azula

P'li

Zuko

Iroh

Iroh (ufg)

Earth benders :

Lin

Toph

Kuvira

Bolin

Ghazan

Air benders :

Jinora

Zaheer

Bumi

Kai

Ikii

Non benders :

Mai

Jet

June

Suki

Ty lee

[elastijubilee]

Particularly with shows that are part of "franchise" such as spin-off or sequel series. "It sucks balls because it didn't do exactly what the original one did," doesn't add to the conversation.

I continuously wonder how some people's understanding of media literacy and being able to decipher between genres can be so broken.

I have a lot of frustration with snobbery that seems to stem from over intellectualizing while simultaneously demonstrating lack of critical thought beyond what they consider superior.

Calling something bad writing simply because it's not what you wanted based on other TV shows you like is not a good criticism. It's also arrogant. It can be a foundation but only giving the baseline is not explaining yourself. And it's especially annoying if you can't explain why something is bad but you can go off on side tangents that you think show off how smart you are.

That might seem contradictory but maybe I'll explain more in a rant someday...that nobody but a few will read 🙃

[i-am-extremely-mad]

I've managed to avoid most of the negative discourse surrounding the ending of Arcane, but it sucks that it just had to rear its ugly head. Oh well. If nothing else, we at least got Vi and Caitlyn reconciling, and Jayce managing to talk Viktor down (and possibly more, depending on interpretation).

Assuming they don't get revisted in a later series, I'm going to headcanon that Vi, Cait, Sevika and Ekko all work together to create a version of Piltover/Zaun similar to the alternate version Ekko and Heimerdinger found themselves in (or at least start creating such). I'm also going to headcanon that Jayce, Viktor, Jinx, Vander/Warwick and Heimerdinger all reappear in some form at some point later down the line.

The negative backlash and discourse was almost painfully predictable.

For the most part, the inviting atmosphere in the Arcane fandom over the past 3 years has seemed too good to be true.

Although I'm a little more shocked that it practically happened overnight.

But again, maybe that's because I avoided similar situations with TLOK and She-Ra, at least in the beginning (in the case with TLOK, simply because I wasn't on Tumblr at the time).

BTW, I love that headcanon. I hope that the creators of Arcane will confirm such a thing in their future projects.