Bad news: I've been procrastinating majorly in writing this last one.
My productivity has hit a slump. I suspect it's because I'm facing the monstrous "final boss"--this beast has four essays with unlimited word count. I wonder if this is how Link feels before he heads off to Ganon's castle.
I found managed to find a convenient distraction instead--I decided to watch all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender for free with my Amazon Prime account. I had heard about the cartoon series for a while. Dante Basco even visited my school this past spring. ATLA just never grasped my attention, I suppose, until I found myself desperately trying to weasel my way out of writing essays.
I'm too lazy to write a synopsis, so here's one I found on IMDb:
When the hostile Fire Nation threatens to enslave the Water, Earth, and Air Nations, a reluctant and irresponsible boy must face his destiny as the Avatar, the Chosen One who can restore the world order. This new animated series centers on twelve-year-old Aang, who must forgo his selfish wandering to learn to master his latent powers over the four elements. Only then can he conquer the Firebenders, the evil nation that threatens the world.
If I had discovered ATLA as a child, I suspect it would have been high on my list of favorite TV shows. If I finish a book or series and myself lamenting that I can't run over and visit their world again--or if I find myself dying to know WAIT SO WHAT HAPPENS TO THESE AWESOME PEOPLE AFTER THE WAR?--then I know I've found a gem.
I wrote a post about three years ago talking about how I rarely read fantasy these days. I've been thinking about this question more, especially after watching ATLA. I don't think I ever really turned my back on fantasy. I've always had a soft spot for epics, a hero's quest, war stories with multiple sides. Hell, I've been a huge fan of the Legend of Zelda series since forever, even despite the fact that I usually only watched my dad and brother play. Whenever my friends reminisce about the Harry Potter fanfics they used to read in their youth, I am loathe to tell them that the only fanfics I really read were ones dedicated to the Legend of Zelda and Inu-Yasha (yet another quest story, in a different vein).
I think there were a number of reasons why I started to veer away from these childhood obsessions and began devouring contemporary literature instead. At that point in my life, I was about to enter high school. High school in itself is another fascinating thing to me. I became less interested in these imaginary worlds and more invested in human stories--which oftentimes were tales of self-discovery and finding love. These intersected with what I was going through in my own life. This was around the time that I found Sarah Dessen and Francesca Lia Block, plus many "grown-up" novels by authors such as Alice Hoffman, Tracy Chevalier, and Janet Fitch.
And as much as I am sheepish to admit, the truth of the matter is that I still read a lot of manga to this day. I can't even count how many series I have read over the last ten years, and granted, some of them were pretty terrible. But in reading so many stories, I think I innately gained a sense of how stories are crafted and became keenly attuned to the common cliches in these narratives. Earlier, I asked myself which series have been my favorites--the ones that I have actually gone back to reread more than once, whose characters' names I can still remember without having to cheat. Off the top of my head, I came up with a list:
- Nana by Ai Yazawa
- Inu-Yasha by Rumiko Takahashi
- Basara by Tamara Yumi
- X/1999 by CLAMP
- Skip Beat by Nakamura Yoshiki
Anyways, enough of my musing. Back to what I thought about ATLA:
Characterization
In my opinion, this was the best part about the series, hands-down. Each character in the team had his/her own strengths, but just as importantly, his/her weaknesses as well. There is so much I can say about each character, because my understanding of each person became increasingly sharper with each episode. This is like the whole "show, don't tell" advice that people always say about writing. I could easily say, Katara is very motherly and sometimes overbearing, or, Zuko is very emotionally complex. But the best thing about watching this as a TV series is that in this medium, the creators are forced to show rather than tell. We see Katara nagging the other team members about the "moral" actions they should be doing. We see Zuko making bad decisions everywhere he goes, but we can see that his actions are a by-product of the good and evil warring within him.
Plot
Maybe I've become desensitized by violence (a horrifying thought), but I felt very strange about watching this story without the horrific violence of war. When a rebellion happens, the rebels are simply taken prisoner. Nobody is tortured or killed in order to "teach a lesson." The main character Aang says at one point that he's never killed anyone. My immediate reaction was, Huh. Well, maybe you didn't kill anyone directly, but you made tanks flip over, you knocked people off from cliffs, you smacked people around with Earth-bending that could have easily damaged their internal organs...
But given that this show is for children, I think the plot was at an appropriate level that wasn't too outrageously intricate. The storyline was a little predictable to me, but there's no great harm in that. The world-building with the four elements was well-done, in my opinion.
Fan Talk
This section is for people who've actually watched the series. I haven't yet found someone I can chat about ATLA fan-to-fan, so I'll just toss around a bunch of thoughts and potential spoilers here.
- Favorite Character. I liked Zuko's character a lot. Always been a fan of the archetypal redemption story arc. But there's one thing about him that constantly bugged me that I'll get into a second. Thus, Sokka takes the cake--he's hilarious and I found myself mirroring him in many ways (especially how he organizes itineraries excessively.) Appa was also a favorite of mine--doesn't everyone want their own flying bison??
- Funniest Moment. I was practically crying from laughter at the infamous "Baby, you're my forever girl" scene when Aang was going delirious from lack of sleep.
- If I could only bend one element, I would pick... Water. To me, it seemed like the most versatile. It could also heal, which I thought was very useful.
- Ships. I realized as I watching the series that there are rabid shipping fandoms out there on the Internet: Kataang, Zutara, Maiko, etc. I was expecting that I would hop onto one of these ships after I finished the series. (I was a HUGE shipper of Miroku/Sango from Inu-Yasha and Arashi/Sorata from X/1999.) But strangely enough, I didn't really get into any of these possible pairings. I was lukewarm about Sokka and Suki (to be honest, I like the story arc about Yue better). Toph and Sokka was a wishful fantasy I couldn't really picture ever happening. I could see Kataang happening in the future, but I was also somewhat unnerved by how motherly Katara's relationship to Aang was, given that Aang grew up without his parents. Zuko, with all his ships, needs a bullet point of his own...
- Zuko/Katara. I feel like Zuko's mother when I say this, but at the series' end, I came to the conclusion that none of these girls are good enough for him. Katara wasn't my favorite, but I liked her--she's loyal and fiercely protective. She had some cute moments with Zuko, especially when people mistook them for being a couple. They also look good together in a way that Aang and Katara do not. However, the series was pretty much set on Kataang, and I became pretty convinced as well that this pair was end-game. In my opinion, Zuko needed someone who could counterbalance his angst. Now, onto the one thing I disliked so much about Zuko...
- Zuko/Mai. I'm not sure why, but I HATED THIS PAIRING. I think the main culprit is that I really really really did not like Mai. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people complain about being bored. Oh, I'm so sorry--should I dance like a monkey to entertain you? Zuko once described her during a fight as being one big BLAH, and I was like YEAH I TOTALLY AGREE--SO WHY ARE YOU DATING HER? Mai talked with the drawl of a jaded teenager and just seemed like someone I would not particularly want to hang around. Also, after I went online and realized how people had been interpreting the whole "fruit tart" business, I seriously wanted to barf. I honestly don't see how this pair would survive in the long run, because his angst and her gloom would just drag each other down.
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