#murder milfs and sad wet cat boys galore

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Genuinely fascinated at the showrunners of live-action ATLA misunderstanding the purpose of a character arc so badly. Like, I don't live in that fandom, I'm not super emotionally invested, but it feels rather on the same level as the guys who made Game of Thrones saying "themes are for 8th grade book reports" and Disney trying to shoehorn extra modern feminism into the Beauty and the Beast live action adaptation. In this case, characters need arcs, and sometimes that means a good character does bad things at first so they can learn to do better, because it's REALLY IMPORTANT ACTUALLY that kids get to internalize that doing bad things now doesn't mean you're bad forever.

Meanwhile we've got the Wheel of Time adaptation over here saying "The first books were written with only a loose outline of the series arc and for an audience more than a generation removed from today's sensibilities. We're going to tighten up the story structure, avoid repeating some character beats to death the way the books did, and generally make this a smoother journey than the books are, as well as shorter, but still with all the satisfaction of an arc trajectory well executed. Also make it queerer." Like, legitimately, I'm in Discords with people who Know Their Shit, and even the costume department read the brief and had a professional costumer predicting book 14 plot points just from embroidery on an outfit and a certain camera-cut in episode 1x02. In season 2, some other authors were analyzing the story beats and showing us in full-spoiler channels exactly how the changes being made are setting up the endgame in some ways better than the original author was equipped to when he thought the story was going slightly different places.

Good adaptations are possible, but you need someone at the helm who understands why a story is doing what it's doing. Rafe Judkins's team is doing incredible work on WOT but he also hired a book consultant, who read the series dozens of times, and can help balance the needs of the original story against the needs of the television medium. You can't adapt a story unless you understand the story, and it seems like the ATLA people are doing a lot of the same things that Disney's live action adaptations of their former animated hits have been doing: adapting the superficial layer of the story without understanding its underpinnings and why those resonated so much with audiences.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #wheel of time #wheel of time on prime #i know i'm risking Being Perceived and getting attention #by saying and tagging anything on a hot button topic #but i can't help wanting to make this comparison #and also i really want literally everyone who can to try the wot show #it's not gonna hit with everyone and i know that but it's SO GOOD #so much better than we had any right to hope it might be #murder milfs and sad wet cat boys galore