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highfantasy-soul · 1 month

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Things I LOVED about NATLA Episode 8 - Legends

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

The Aang Gaang working together in the fight!!!!

Honestly it felt so natural to have all three of them taking out the Fire Nation ship that I completely forgot it didn't happen like that in the animated show!

In the animated version, Aang took out the ship while Katara and Sokka just stood on the ice wall - showing them in battle together and working with synergy was phenomenal

Aang doing AOE damage, Katara taking out soldiers with precision, and Sokka shouting battle plans and taking out the command center - really great way to SHOW the roles each play in battle

The Gaang complementing each other was soo cuutteee!!

"Lu Ten would have been proud to have you as his father" 😭😭😭

Then the Iroh hug!!! 😭😭😭

"I'd say it's 50/50! …. 60/40 😬"

Lol oh Sokka, you're so bad at optimism

Let's go Katara!!!! Going to even the odds!!!

The war balloon showing up early!!!

The entire battle of the North was sooo intense!

I really felt a lot more of the danger and panic than in the animated version

LOVE that Pakku's change to allow women in battle came here, with Katara and the other women standing up to him

The animated show doesn't even have any women helping at all in the battle - we don't even see them healing the wounded. To me, the live-action actually addressed the systemic issue of the sexism in the North rather than just having Katara be the token woman who wanted to fight

"You KNOW we can make a difference!" "We?"

The shot of all the women standing there in traditional clothing was super powerful to me

I know some people think it's 'virtue signaling' or whatever and complain about the shot of all the women heroes in Endgame or Captain Marvel's 'standing up after being knocked down' montage, but call me a stupid woman, those scenes actually mean a lot to me. Why is animated Katara railing against Sokka because she has to do the laundry seen as the height of feminism and yet a group of indigenous women standing up and backing one of their sisters in her bid to make systemic change actually the opposite of feminism? It makes no sense to me.

I LOVE Yagoda backing Katara!!

Katara isn't some 'outsider coming in to change a culture's savage ways' - she's simply the catalyst for the people WITHIN that culture to stand up and say 'yeah, now is our time, change needs to happen and we've known it for awhile'

Yue wanting to be out there helping her people 😭😭

Her father's talk with her really reminds me of Eowyn and Theoden from The Return of the King - even if you want to help defend your home, if you're in a position of leadership, staying alive so you can lead in a fallen chief's place is an important role to play, too

Sokka and Hahn's ….tension as he promises to take care of Yue 👀

The student calling Katara 'master'!!!! 😭😭😭

In my in-depth analysis, I go into why I think it's a title she's completely earned despite her lack of formal training but suffice it to say that if you have an issue with them calling Katara master, then shut the fuck up

Ooohh adding a time-table for the Fire Nation attack with the Ice Moon caveat!

I like adding to the depth and lore of the world which makes it make a whole lot more sense that the Fire Nation would attack the WATER TRIBE during a full moon

LIONTURTLE REFEREEENNCCEE!!!

I like the Fire Sage actually knowing spiritual stuff and finding value in it - even though he's using it to help Zhao hurt them

Yes, Iroh. Zhao is most definitely planning on tampering with the spirit world 😬

Avatar Kuruk coming to Aang!!!!

I really like that concept - like on the Lionturtle, the past Avatars can appear as a mirage to give warnings

And connecting Kuruk's battle against the evil spirits to the Fire Nation twisting the weapons of defense into a weapon to harm - soooo goooood

"Killing the ocean spirit would deprive people all over the world of their lives!!! I'm not a monster!!" 🙃

Aahhh, twisted logic at its finest: after all, what's the point in ruling the world if there's no one to rule

Oooohhhhh and Kuruk's voice beginning to layer with the other Avatars as he talks about how Zhao can't be allowed to meddle with the primal forces of nature!!

Such a great use of the voice alteration that happens when they go into the Avatar state!

Hero Momo!!!!!

Omg I was SO WORRIED they actually killed Momo!!!!

Sokka and Momo's relationship is so cute how they developed it 😭

I like Yue telling her story this way better than in the animated series

Here, the story is connected to what's happening directly: she's saving Momo's life the same way her life was saved and letting us know the spirit oasis water has healing properties beyond regular healing

Zuko and him fire blasting out from beneath the ice - cool in every adaptation!

"How do you know that?" "Because I helped design the thing" 😔

Love that we're getting a direct tie from the war balloon to Sokka - just like with Kuruk's spirit knife and like Sokka said all the way back in Omashu: the Fire Nation can turn anything into a weapon

Though Iroh won't fully stand against Zhao yet, he's totally stalling as much as he can

Zuzu!!!!

"This is about you and me!" aawww classic Zuko - walking into a massive thing and thinking it's still just about him capturing Aang 😅

We've got bigger fish to fry, buddy - oh, shit. No. Oh god. Why'd I use that turn of phrase?? Too soon! Too soon!

Love the full circle moment here with Katara and Zuko's showdown

Aang is now letting her fight while he goes off to another task, trusting that she'll be ok

"Go easy, enough people have been hurt already." "I don't care. "I wasn't talking to you 😏"

Damn right, Aang! Putting respect on Katara!!!

Also, Zuko's face as he realizes Aang doesn't see him as the most important thing here 😬 that's gotta hurt

KATARA V ZUKO ROUND 2!!!!

Love that they're getting a rematch so we can see just how far Katara has come in her combat/waterbending training!

The bending is GORGEOUS!

You can see every move each of them are making and watch the respective elements respond to their movements perfectly.

"You little peasant!!" Oh Zuko, you silly, angry boi "You've found a master, haven't you?"

"Yes, you're looking at her" - DAMN STRAIGHT!

Despite Pakku not agreeing to train her, she's taught herself. She clawed tooth and nail to learn everything she could from every source she had available - she observed other benders and created a waterbending version of the move, she practiced in every spare moment, she grappled with her emotional and spiritual trauma and came out the other side with a more holistic view of bending despite the world telling her to stop - so yeah, she IS her own master.

While I do love the "You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun" line, I'm ok with the siege lasting only a day instead of several like in the animated series.

Zuko's little field trip with Aang takes an entire day with nothing really going on in the battle, it's just a few minutes of screen time until we can get back to night again so we can see the moon being killed.

Streamlining it and having Aang seek council before the battle starts rather than in the middle of it I think was a good move. We didn't need a cliffhanger mid-episode like we did in the animated series since it's all a single episode.

Zhao's plan revealed is such great character work - he's just as egotistical as the animated version, down to wanting to be declared 'the moon slayer', but there's so much more depth in the live-action version

He's so ambitious that he actually believes he could become Fire Lord and doesn't take Iroh's threats seriously at all - his pride ensuring his downfall.

LOVE that they kept the blood-red moon as the moon spirit is captured!!

Aang trying to talk down his enemies yet again 😞

No matter how clear their antagonistic motives, he truly believes the best in people and always wants to give them the chance to do the right thing

Oof Zhao cutting to Aang's fear without knowing it: Zhao thinks the Avatar doesn't matter on its face - Aang is afraid he's not good enough as an Avatar TO matter

This sets up Aang's decision to give himself to the ocean spirit - he accepts that he isn't good enough - he doesn't matter, but the ocean spirit does

Iroh shot first!!

In the animated show, Iroh only attacks after Zhao kills the moon spirit, here, he's trying to help the Gaang by distracting Zhao enough for them to save the spirit

But they're too late

They kept the black and white shading where only things bathed in fire or the ocean spirit's blue light have any colors!

I think this entire battle sequence was amazingly done

You can FEEL the terror, you can SEE the cost of such an attack

It's not gratuitous violence - it's showing the realities of war without showing gruesome injuries

I love how Hahn and the other Norther Water Tribe Warriors got to have a heroic stand even without waterbending. Despite their best resource being taken from them, they aren't going down without a fight.

Iroh unleashing on the soldiers and Zhao running like a little bitch!!!!

I love Aang's speech here - he's "following" the advice of past Avatars by putting the world's needs above his own, but it's out of despair, not balance

He's surrendering to a power greater than him because he doesn’t feel like he's succeeded in being the Avatar (which unfortunately, through no fault of his own, is true) and so he's willing to fully lose himself to another power to save the world.

MONGO KOI-ZILLA!!!!

It's WILD that this happens only HALFWAY through the episode!! They really let this sequence breathe and gave so much room for all the character moments to happen

Iroh hugging Zuko while he just stares at the giant koi fish 🤣😭

"Uncle, what is that?" "That, that is wrath" - CHILLS

Zuko ready to fight that monster fish to get the Avatar 😭😭😭😭😭

He really is a crazy dude

"He's a small man who's going to meet a small end"

So right you are, Iroh

Zuko v Zhao!!!

LOVE how the live-action made Zhao a cerebral rather than physical antagonist for Zuko

Even though Zuko beats him physically, Zhao destroys Zuko mentally by revealing all the truths about the royal family dynamic

"You were the fire in which her iron was forged"

DDDAAAAMMMMNNNNN 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Love how each adaptation has Zhao die in a different way 🤣

Honestly, I like all the ways ppl have decided to kill him

The ocean spirit taking him, waterbenders drowning him, and now Iroh killing him for attacking Zuko

I do think I like the animated death the best, but Iroh killing him to protect Zuko is also a nice way to end him - Iroh isn't about this 'give them infinite chances', he's a soldier who's not afraid to get his hands bloody.

The entire attack by the ocean spirit is phenomenal - beautifully shot and you can now feel the terror from the fire nation soldiers

Yue getting the agency to realize she can save the moon and sacrificing herself was a good change

"It's worth it to be alive, even just for a night"

"The world needs you. I need you" 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I think it was a really good choice to move Katara talking Aang down from the Avatar state and telling him they're family to the final episode rather than way at the beginning like it happened in the animated series.

That declaration holds a lot more truth as we've SEEN them become a family

Seeing the actual loss from the battle was heart wrenching, but I think it was really needed

Poor Hahn and the young waterbender

I love that Sokka didn't fight in the big battle - his place was being there to support someone else and provide comfort in a terrifying moment for her. His heart is what was needed in this battle, not his combat skills

And Pakku giving Katara her due - she EMBODIES change and growth, always finding a way no matter how many people tell her no

And she got her spirit water!!

"I'm tired" "Then you should get some rest. A man needs his rest" 😭😭😭😭😭

"How do I do this without causing so much pain?"

Oh Aang, that's a question you're going to be grappling with for awhile.

It's such a wonderful way to sum up his character - he doesn't want to cause pain, even to the point of giving people chances they don't deserve - but that quest to find an answer is the reason the world is saved and Aang cements his own legacy within the Avatar line.

Closing with another lesson from Gyatzo!!!! 😭😭

"Let go of your past, or you'll never have a future" - thesis statement right there

Let's not misinterpret this line to say 'forget the past' - this is a Buddhist version of 'letting go' which is to say 'don't cling to the past so much you cannot take steps into your future'

The Gaang's banter over Sokka always thinking about food!!!! So cute!!

I love the scenes here at the end with the Fire Nation

Ozai still holding out hope that Zuko will surprise them with some 'hidden' reserve of strength, but still willing to let him fall so 'the strong' can rise

Azula taking over Omashu!!!

And the comet!

Makes sense that they didn't give a time-table as kids grow fast and we can't just draw them the same age: Gordon is a growing boy so we need to give some space for how much he grows through the filming process

#natla #avatar the last airbender #netflix avatar #atla #natla positivity

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malwarewolf404 · 7 years

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I just got a cool idea.

So my biggest criticism about LOK’s plot is that it didn’t stick to one sole villain, in the manner that ATLA did. Granted, the four villains were all very complex and interesting characters, arguably even more so that Ozai, and they did show growth and development in our main character, which was something ATLA didn’t show quite as prominently. My issue with having four different, complex villains who either died or changed their ways at the end of each season is that they just didn’t seem nearly as intimidating or powerful as Ozai. Aang spent nearly a whole season talking about how it will not only be very difficult to defeat Ozai and how anxious he is to, but also struggles with the morals of taking another’s life, even one as evil and powerful as Firelord Ozai. In that same time Korra had to meet, fight, struggle with, and defeat one of her villains. This sacrifices Korra’s struggling time in exchange for showing us the more gritty side of the life of the Avatar: people want you dead.

For a while I’ve pondered on what could be done differently in another Avatar’s story. Roku would be a very interesting character to follow, but in his time, the Fire nation was celebrating 100 years of peace. Republic City was the location of a war on two separate occasions, and of course Aang lived in a world plagued with war, so thematically Roku may not have a very interesting story by comparison (although would would never catch me complaining about having a series or even a miniseries about Roku, expanding on what we saw during ATLA.)

If we’re to follow the Avatar Cycle however, the next story should be about a member of the Earth Kingdom.

Here’s where I may get a little biased. LOK was cool. It was a great fucking show with LGBT rep and more lore-building and yeah just fuckin great. But in my opinion, LOK began to depend so much on two things that really diverged it from the original Avatar series. The first was it’s historical similarities to real life. As far as I know, ATLA doesn’t have very strong historical ties to any particular time-period. It does it’s own thing. The Fire Nation has huge metal war machines. The Earth Kingdom is a rigid and vast monarchical society with more cultural aspects than any other place. The air nomads are an all but extinct spiritual people, once immersed fully in tranquility and peacefulness. The Water tribe is so unique and out-of-this-world, it’s hard to find the words to describe it. Avatar did draw some cultural aspects from real-world countries and peoples (hence the source of the different nation’s ethnic parallels and so forth,) but other than that it pretty much did it’s own thing.

Korra? Korra tried very hard to draw parallels to the early twentieth century. Inventions, the idolization of cities, the strong parallels between Republic city and New York City, freaking jazz music for crying out loud. They definitely do keep the Avatar flare to it, but it feels almost undeniably different from the previous content. Now granted, different can be good, I just feel like they could have tried a little bit harder to show 60 years of change in the Avatar universe than just slapping a bunch of Roarin’ 20′s New York parallels onto it.

So what’s my idea?

Well, I was thinking, instead of stumbling forward into an Avatar’s life during some sort of weird Cold-War era parallel, our next Avatar could be from before Aang, before Roku, hell, why not go all the way and make it before Kyoshi, Yangchen and Kuruk too. This also plays into my desire to have Korra and Asami’s ending as kind of a final word, like there’s no avatar after this!!! It ends with two beautiful bisexual women journeying together!!! fuck off!!!!!

So yeah, I wanna see an Earth Kingdom Avatar who came before Kyoshi (meaning it went our Earth Avatar, A fire Avatar, Yangchen, Kuruk, Kyoshi, etc.) This is bound to be set in a really interesting time period, where a lot of curios stuff happens. For example sometime near here, Won Shi Tong brings his library to the physical world. The Northern Water tribe breaks off, forming the both the Southern Water Tribe and the Foggy Swamp Tribe. During this period, the Sun Warriors of the fire nation begin to fade into obscurity. During this time, the Earth Kingdom is united under one rule, the rule of Ba Sing Se. Oh and that’s another thing, it is during this time period that the four nations begin to form, humanity splitting into kingdoms based on their bending art.

All of this takes place 345 years before the Air nomad genocide, and this is important because during this same era, Yangchen’s predecessor, Yangchen, and Kuruk all lived and died. The Avatar the lived before Yangchen’s predecessor is the one I think we should follow next, because it could potentially take us back to an Avatar series that brought back the feel of feudal east-asia, and could take place during a rocky formation era where kingdoms are fighting to survive, fighting one another over land, and just generally doing ancient human nation formation things. It could potentially make for a great story.

#ATLA #LOK #I just want to specify: I absolutely love LOK #I just feel like it is different from ATLA #in several good ways #but I miss ATLA so this post is just me being a nostalgic critic #shhhhh #Avatar

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