the end of wyll's quest is....interesting. it was VERY cool. I thought having the archetypal fairy tale prince go "slay the dragon" was a fitting ending, I just feel like it was....a little underwhelming in some ways.
more under cut
first and foremost- I wish that it was not possible for your tav/durge to converse with ansur. I wish that it automatically selected wyll, because I simply do not think that this entire scene has as much impact if it is not wyll at the forefront of everything. which is why I also have to complain about the emperor here.
the reveal that he is balduran is.... well. I knew about this already, through accidental spoilers. Initially, I thought it was a stupid reveal. but reframing the reveal in the context of a fairy tale...well it makes perfect sense. it just FEELS a bit underwhelming and strange, because your player character is not wyll. this entire area feels like it was written with an avatar wyll in mind. and I wish that there were changes made to the companion wyll version of the game that made up for this. wyll is a character who is hugely tied to the main plot by virtue of being the duke's son. he spends the game searching for his father, while trying to deal with both mizora and the absolute. mizora is the one he sold his soul to to save the city before, the reason he was cast out. the absolute wants to destroy and steal his city. and ansur, a legendary dragon, might be his way of saving the city and getting his father's approval back. ansur had wanted to kill balduran because balduran had been infected with a mindflayer parasite, but had embraced his illithid nature rather than rejected it. I feel like there's some parallel that can be made to wyll there. in that he was othered, like balduran was, because he accepted mizora's help. ansur condemned balduran because ansur is a bronze dragon and therefore lawful good. wyll's father exiles wyll because wyll was "at best a fool, at worst a traitor," in his father's eyes and his father tolerated neither. wyll & balduran are both victims of the inflexible nature those of lawful good alignments have. they are both seen as monsters for what happened to their bodies. I wish that was emphasised a little more. like autoselecting wyll for the ansur dialogue & giving him dialogue with the emperor would have made this ending feel a little more complete, in my opinion. and it would have better demonstrated the point of having the emperor even be balduran. because that's such a fairy tale thing, the stuff of real legend! for the hero's mysterious guide to actually be some great old hero thought to be long dead. and I do think it works. it just doesn't feel as impactful if wyll is not your avatar.
I also wish this area was overall bigger & more developed. I know they redid wyll's character from EA. I know they had less time. I just. I wish that this area was as detailed as the sharran temple in act 2. it feels like SUCH a big deal, it feels like it should be bigger. especially since at lvl 12, you're just. unkillable.
but the dialogue afterwards, where he says he's in the mood for celebration and wants to make a celebratory dinner? SO CUTE!!! that man's joy is contagious!!! I could practically feel him holding back how much he just wanted to jump around with joy. and the sweet little "let's hope gale won't be too upset that I'm cooking for once and not him." I love you. you are too fucking sweet wyll. this fucking city does not deserve you. this playerbase does not deserve you. you are a true gem and I wish people saw you are just as beautiful and interesting as astarion and gale.
a cool possible scene they could add, to given wyll's questline more material IS that dinner he talks about. or preparation for it! something where he asks tav/durge to taste the food beforehand? or where your avatar can ask him about where he learned to cook, prompting him to talk about his time as the blade of frontiers? out in the sword coast on his own? this scene could easily be platonic or romantic, but be given extra options for a romantic relationship. but something like this could truly be added at an earlier point in the game too, it doesn't have to be tied to this particular moment.
but overall really cool area of the game. very cool bossfight. and a rather clever ending to wyll's quest, contrary to what his haters say. I love the commitment to the fairy tale theme. it just needs a bit more. maybe it feels more satisfying if you've romanced him. although I've heard his act 3 romance scene is currently bugged? his unromanced questline is slightly bugged (doesn't rob you of any material, though, it just replayed some dialogue for me). either way, I hope that gets fixed asap. I so badly need to experience this romanced version in my other campaign.
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*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.
I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.
But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.
Katara
So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.
They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.
And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.
Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.
This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."
"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.
Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.
In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.
But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?
No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.
And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.
In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.
Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.
Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.
The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.
Suki
Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.
They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.
Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.
Yue
Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.
"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."
Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.
They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.
Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?
June
June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.
Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.
She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.
Kyoshi
And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"
She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.
Azula
Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.
There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.
This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.
They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.
This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.
Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.
Conclusion
The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.
Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.
But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.
The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.
"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."
The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.
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thinking about arguing with husband!gojo. it’s funny because he’s the strongest sorcerer alive with several other, more wicked enemies harboring one sided hate for him, yet he’s anxiously glancing at you every now and then as you hiss at him. you’re the only one who can make him doubt his strength.
he usually finds you cute when you’re mad, but right now he doesn’t really appreciate the way your face is scrunched up and how you’re yelling at him.
it’s not his fault. he thinks you’re being so dramatic.
“you’re laughing at me,” you deadpan. “why do you never take things i say seriously?”
“because i honestly don’t think it’s that serious,” he fires back, and your eyes narrow. oh, fuck.
arguing with your husband is never fun. it’s probably because the both of you are stubborn; you’re stubborn because you’re simply right all the time, and satoru’s stubborn because if you’re not right, then he is.
you pause for just a second, but it’s enough to sprout a moment of extreme tension between you and your husband.
“right,” you scoff after you inhale sharply. “you just don’t care, do you?”
“don’t fucking say that,” satoru snaps. “i do care. that’s why i’m here.”
it takes everything in you to not shoot him another death glare. “so i should be thankful for the bare minimum?”
satoru blinks. he would’ve flinched, but he refuses to let you have that sort of power over him. “i’m not giving the bare minimum.”
“yes you are,” you argue back, voice straining as you swallow a lump of anger down the back of your throat.
the both of you are still. it feels like an eternity passes before the anger in you wanes. you’re exhausted and this fight with satoru is surely going to make the both of you upset enough to not talk for the rest of the night.
“i’m sorry that i’m not good enough,” satoru says, breaking the silence. you’ve never heard his voice so small, so pathetic—he’s never, ever shown you this side of him, and you’re starting to feel that dreading pit of guilt tug at your gut.
“that’s not what i meant,” you force yourself to say, sighing.
“but that’s what you’re thinking,” satoru mumbles. he avoids looking at your face.
“no it’s not,” you deny. “it’s never been about that.”
satoru gives you a wary look. “then what is it about? because i’ve done everything i can.”
“everything? really?” you sneer. “do you even love me anymore?”
silence. satoru swears he can hear your heart break.
“baby, don’t say that,” he groans, “c’mon, we were ten points away from three stars. that’s a single plate—one you didn’t turn in because you somehow forgot how to dash!”
you whip around to glower at satoru, your face twisting into an offended expression. “you set the kitchen on fire! how could i do something like serving a dish if the kitchen is on fire?!”
“baby, it’s the same button that it always has been this entire game!” he whines. “and you set the kitchen on fire! you keep forgetting to take the rice off the stove!”
you sigh exasperatedly, crossing your arms to act like some sort of shield between you and satoru’s (truthful) words.
“but you don’t chop up your stupid fish!” you protest. “so i end up doing five things at once!”
satoru opens his mouth to speak, but he knows you’re in the right. he opts to click his tongue instead.
“and every time i asked for help,” you add, frowning, “you just kept bringing out more of the dumbass cucumbers! we don’t have counter space for that!!!”
“that’s for prep to maximize our sushi making! throw it on the floor!”
“are you kidding me? that’s so unsanitary!”
“it’s a game!”
you’re both panting by the end of the fight. you’re biting down on your inner cheek and satoru is scratching the nape of his neck awkwardly.
“… sorry,” he mumbles. “i won’t bring out cucumbers anymore. and i’m also sorry for being mean about you not knowing how to dash.”
“good,” you huff. “‘cause i was seriously not gonna play anymore.”
“and…?” he prods, nudging you in your ribs. you can tell what he wants just by the sound of his voice.
“and i’m sorry for getting mad at you even though you’re doing you’re best at carrying me in this game…” you murmur, rolling your eyes.
satoru’s face brightens and he places a wet kiss on your cheek. “you’re forgiven.”
“love you, dummy.”
“love you too, baby.”
“no more cucumbers unless the ticket calls for them,” you remind him pointedly.
“yes, chef!”
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