I do feel like the way Kyoshi was written in the Avatar reboot was lowkey influenced by the fandom's perception of her. Cause like in the original show she's really just portrayed as a pragmatist who's willing to kill if necessary. Like Aang is conflicted about killing the Fire Lord and she's like "well if I were in your position I'd do it but that's just me. Good luck." And then people started making memes where she's like a murderous psychopath who thinks extreme violence is always the solution. And it was funny at first cause it was just exaggerating for comedy but now everyone thinks she was actually like that in the show when she really wasn't. And then in the remake her introductory scene is her angrily yelling at this 12 year old that he needs to stop being a little pussy and be a ruthless warrior or whatever and the only explanation I can think of is that someone in the writer's room maybe looked at a few too many of those memes.
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I meant Hama and Katara... But thank you for the Kanna & Katara Link. I'll go theough it.
ohhh yes i obviously have so many thoughts on hama and katara as well..... hama is the embodiment of who katara could have become had a) her circumstances been slightly different (and worse) and b) had she had less emotional strength & resilience & desire to cling to her own humanity at all costs. like, the fact that katara gets multiple figures who embody the terror of her submitting to her most vengeful instincts and perpetuating the cycle of violence instead of working to end it is honestly quite beautiful, as that tension culminates in "the southern raiders" and katara lets herself prioritize her own humanity over her pain and rage and (totally justified) desire for revenge.
i know a lot of people think that hama and jet are the most politically confused aspects of the show, since they do play into the thing lok does where it's like "all oppressed peoples who employ radical means of resistance are simply cackling mustache-twirling terrorists," and while i do think that the way hama is framed at the end of "the puppetmaster" is in poor taste and lacks nuance, it's also pretty clear to me that a) their trauma is portrayed as sympathetic b) their stories are depicted as tragedies and c) atla doesn't actually demonize violent methods of resistance. like if katara wasn't literally the main character i'd feel much more comfortable making that critique (because lok does do this and it's liberal bullshit and it sucks), but we see katara use violent means of resistance as early as episode 6 of the whole show. she's literally framed as a hero for doing ecoterrorism; even when she's actually in the wrong in that situation, her desire to do whatever it takes to help people and encourage them to fight back against their oppressors is celebrated unconditionally.
the lesson katara has to learn from them is that she must never let her anger and desire for revenge consume her over her love for humanity and her drive to help people. jet and hama are both deeply traumatized in a way that made them prioritize wanting to wield power over others in the same way that they were once made vulnerable and helpless, and katara recognizes that instinct in herself too, that instinct in every person who has been subjected to that degree of violence. hama targets fire nation civilians out of spite, because she was once a regular girl from the southern water tribe who was targeted for reasons beyond her control, made to fight and treated like a villain. the reason she goes after "regular people" instead of targeting actual combatants is specifically because she knows that if the roles were reversed, the fire nation wouldn't care about differentiating her people in those roles; she's giving them a taste of their own medicine.
she used to be a resistance fighter who fought back against the imperialists on her land with everything she had, and it didn't work. she suffered unimaginable horrors, and in the process discovered an ability that would allow her to make others suffered the way she did. no, she's not a good leftist or whatever, but her motivation is understandable. she's driven by pain, not reason, just as katara and zuko are in "the southern raiders," just as aang is in "the desert" when he loses appa, just as sokka is in "the boiling rock." when one is hurting that badly, the desire to ease one's pain supersedes logic, supersedes one's core values in general, the values of grief taking its place. hama has been grieving her entire life; whoever she was before the raids is gone, and now she is someone shaped wholly by pain. and had katara not met hama, been traumatized by her, and thus vowed never to be like her, who knows whether she would have had the ability to take a step back and recognize within herself that she is standing over that precipice, and instead walk away from the threshold of violence, and back towards herself.
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I've started and deleted three drafts now trying to get my thoughts into a coherent recommendation, but there's just so much.
Let's start with the basics: You should read the graphic novel if you're a fan of the original show. You just should. It's new content of your old faves, and I'm telling you now that the art and writing are great and that you should give it a shot based on that alone.
But as for exactly why I'm losing my mind over it this much...?
It... feels like watching the show. But a version of the show unafraid to explore its own worldbuilding. A version of the show where continuity and character growth matter. A version of the show without jokes written by people far too old to understand mid-2000s teens.
And it is actually, honest-to-goodness funny. I went in fully braced for a badly shoehorned "fruit loop" one-liner, and instead I got incredible deadpan asides like this:
The art, too, manages to perfectly ride the line of looking enough like the original style to be convincing, but improving on the expressiveness of the characters' faces and actions to elevate it to something arguably better than the show:
(Like, I'm being so serious when I say the fight scenes are among the best I have ever seen in comic form. I'm the kind of person who tends to go for anime over manga because the fights are harder for me to follow in little sequential snapshots, but I can tell exactly what's happening in these battles AND they still look super cinematic and cool.)
And the story. Man, the STORY.
I won't spoil any of the plot here, but it's... really good. A little winding and goofy toward the beginning, but once things get serious, it really grabs you and refuses to let go til it's done. (Much like the best episodes of the show! Funny how that works.) It has a satisfying conclusion, but it also leaves a massive door open to continue telling more stories in the setting.
And I want more stories in this universe. The threads being dangled here might be even more enticing than those left by the original show. There is potential here for an INCREDIBLE series of comics.
We just have to prove how badly we want it.
If you can't buy the book yourself right now (it's relatively cheap for a graphic novel--I think it was about $15 even with tax from my Barnes & Noble), then please at least let other fans know it exists (I wouldn't have had any idea if not for tumblr) and keep the hype going on social media. I'm stoked to see that DP is trending on tumblr, at least, and I hope the same is true elsewhere. It's a small thing, but it's something corporate decision-makers take note of.
Fingers crossed we get to see more someday. This is one series that deserves to come back from the dead.
But, whether or not we get that continuation: welcome back, Phandom. Congrats and happy release day. 💚
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Is your face ok? Flying cats and phones hurt
yeah I'm fine, the noise was mostly because she managed to get me in the mouth and also I was wearing a tank top, so lots of claw-to-skin contact.
No bloodshed. This time.
Also, you know how when you meet a person who has the same name as you and you immediately have to mentally determine which of you would win in a fight to the death, either physically or psychologically? For the first time in my life I met a potentially Superior Hell. This was a couple weeks ago now, and Potentially Superior Hell has sent tribute in the form of several entire cowhides, which I assume is so that we can be friends forever instead of eternal nemeses. Either would be lovely, honestly.
I think I'm gonna need to take some of that leather and work on making some kind of shoulder armor so Malice doesn't maul my left arm entirely off. Her balance is not always to be trusted.
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