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#since the fire nation is more culturally chinese than the water tribes
mah-o-daryaa · 4 months
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ATLA Modern AU: Avatar Edition
This is going to be a slightly different post. I don't think people ever consider the past Avatars in an AU set in a modern setting. Where do you think they would come from, if they had IRL nationalities?
For sake of simplicity, let's say the AU takes place in the United States, since most ATLA Modern AU fics I've read take place there, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area. We could also use NYC as the setting, since Republic City is roughly based on 1920's Manhattan. I think this task would be much easier if we consider the real-life influences for each of the four nations. I'll be using this post as a reference for these influences.
For example, the Air Nomads are based off of Tibetan Buddhists with some Nepalese and Bhutanese influences, so it would be pretty obvious to make Aang Tibetan in a Modern AU. The same would also go for Yangchen, although I would personally prefer Bhutanese or Sikkimese Yangchen because the Western Air Temple (I'm not talking about the episode) is inspired by Bhutanese cliffside temples. Another option would be making both Aang and Yangchen part of a Tibetan diaspora living in India. Kyoshi, being half-Air Nomad, would also be of Tibetan ancestry.
The Fire Nation is inspired by a combination of Chinese and Japanese cultures, while Ember Island being inspired by Southeast Asian, mostly Thai and Cambodian culture. In a Modern AU, I can see Roku being Thai, while Wan and Szeto would most likely be Chinese, Szeto is from Hong Kong/Macau. I also have a particular desire for Korean Wan, for no other reason than the fact that his VA, Steven Yeun, is Korean. I also wouldn't mind Wan being part of a Chinese diaspora from Malaysia or Singapore.
The Earth Kingdom, being the largest and most diverse of the four nations, is inspired by many Chinese dynasties, various ethnic minority groups in China, and even other Asian cultures altogether. However, we'll be paying attention to one specific cultural influence in Kyoshi's appearance: Heian/Edo Japan. She wears samurai gear and kabuki makeup. How in the name of the Moon Spirit am I not supposed to make Kyoshi Japanese (half-Japanese, anyway)? Kyoshi Island, formerly known as Yokoya, is literally ATLA's equivalent to Japan in the real world. There are even Ainu influences in Kyoshi Island, what with the clothing of the people in Suki's village.
The last nation is the Water Tribes, and the last two Avatars left are Kuruk and Korra. Now, the Water Tribes actually have a more diverse range of cultural influences than what we might expect. According to both @atlaculture and @kkachi95, the SWT is based on Inuit, Yupik and other First Nation peoples, with some Polynesian influences as well. The NWT, in addition to these influences, is also influenced by Mongolian and Siberian peoples. Since Kuruk is from the NWT, in a Modern AU, he would probably be Siberian, mostly Yakut, but I wouldn't mind Mongolian Kuruk either. For Korra, since she is half-NWT and half-SWT, I think she would be mixed like Kyoshi, except Korra would probably be half-Inuit, half-Yupik. I also want Kuruk and Korra to be part of a Mongolian or Central Asian diaspora living in Russia (I'll admit, I'm only saying this because I really want them to speak Russian), but that probably wouldn't work due to the differences in their cultures in-universe.
I have an idea for a Modern AU involving the Avatars, as well as their backstories for said AU, but that's for another time. For now, I turn this question over to you guys, and I want to know your thoughts on my nationality headcanons.
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wishiwasntstillhere · 4 years
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bitterburn: awful work
i’m writing an atla bitterblue!au, called bitterburn. this chapter is “awful work.” basic premise: ba sing se never falls, ozai is semi-banished and drags his family out to sea, the southern water tribe flees north to escape genocide and katara gets kidnapped along the way, so sokka goes after her. this part is set a little after sokka frees her, after they’ve escaped and found shelter in hama’s home for some time.
CW: death, funeral
...
Sokka wakes up with a start. He always does, these days. The first thing he does is check for Katara. She’s there in the other bed, her back turned. She’s there, and his boomerang is in his hand, and they are safe in Hama’s home.
He breathes out.
Sunlight streams through the window––he gawks. It’s almost noon.
“Hey Katara, wake up.” He nudges her. “It’s almost midday.”
She rolls over slowly and opens her eyes. “Midday? That’s awfully late.”
“Yeah, I’m surprised Hama didn’t come wake us up. Think she decided to give us a break or something?” He doubts it, but the corner of his mouth quirks anyway.
Katara sits up, movements sluggish. “I hope she’s alright,” she says. But she doesn’t move more than that, despite how she looks at the door. Her eyes aren’t right.
Alarm bell, is that you?
“You’re awfully tired,” he remarks, in an offhand kind of way. His eyes are probing. Bags under her eyes, weird bruise on her arm––was that there before? Dong, dong, dong. Warning. Sister in danger. Dong, dong, dong.
“Full moon last night,” she says. “I didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”
Rolling out of bed, he gets to his feet. “We should go check on Hama,” says Sokka. He doesn’t bother watching her this time. No point, as long as she’s lying to his face.
“Yeah, okay,” says Katara, quiet.
-
At Hama’s door, Katara stills. Nothing seems wrong, but Sokka finds himself reaching for his boomerang anyway. 
“Katara, what’s wrong?” he asks, trying to be patient.
“Nothing.” He waits.
She doesn’t say anything else.
Nothing, huh?
Teeth gritted, he opens the door. Hama’s in bed, eyes closed in peaceful slumber. 
No, he realizes. Her chest is not rising. His steps stutter to a halt.
“She must’ve died in her sleep,” Katara says. Her voice shakes.
Shock courses through him, stiffening his muscles. “Did- did you know? Is that why you-?”
His sister stumbles back for a moment, eyes wide. “I didn’t- I-” Something in her eyes changes, and she lowers her arms, face downturned. “I knew she had died. I just… didn’t know what to do.”
He swipes at his eyes, furiously. Hama wasn’t Gran-Gran, but she was close. Sokka bites his lip, feeling another swell of hopelessness, another wave of sorrow-fury crash through him. Another guardian down.
But Katara needs him, and Hama needs to be buried. He sucks in a deep breath.
“Okay. Well. We need to…” What do they need to do?
How are they going to live? They can’t depend on Hama, they can’t depend on the inn anymore. He turns away from the body, looks at Katara.
First things first.
“I’m going to dig a hole. Can you-” He wishes he did not have ask this of her. They’ve buried enough family. “Can you prepare her body?”
Mute, she nods.
They get to work.
-
Digging is lonely work. It’s hot work. It’s awful work.
Sokka throws himself into the rhythm of it. The shovel cuts the dirt. Chht. He heaves it away. Thump.
He needs to figure out what they’re going to do next. Chht. What they’re going to do afterward. Thump.
Maybe they can sell the inn, get some coin. Chht. And then where? Thump.
They had planned to go up North, before. Chht. He had hoped Hama would be able to help. Thump.
But it’s not the first time they’ve made the journey by themselves. Chht. They can do it again. Thump.
Someone wanders into his line of sight. Old Man Ding peers at him curiously. Chht. This is sure to be good. Thump.
“Noticed you weren’t here on Market Day. Things alright up in the inn?”
Sokka pauses, wiping his brow. “Our great aunt passed away last night.”
Ding’s brow furrows. “Ah, but she was so young! Oh, last night was the full moon––she didn’t wander off, did she?”
One of Sokka’s brain gears does a funny little creeeeak.
The full moon…
“No, sir,” he says, looking at the shallow hole he has so far.
“Ah,” says Ding, scratching his head awkwardly. “Should’ve known, that’s what all the digging was for.” His face droops into solemnity as he addresses Sokka again. “I’m sorry, young man. Please carry my condolences to your sister. Do you have incense?”
Ah, shoot. “No,” says Sokka, wary. “Or at least, I’m not sure where Hama keeps- kept it. She usually got it out.” He hopes that passes.
“Ah, then you’ll be needing some for the funeral. I’ll see if I can secure any for you, get it back here tonight. Have you no white clothes?”
“No,” says Sokka again. White is for mourning, he knows that much… “We didn’t expect to- We didn’t expect to stay so long, or for her to-”
The old man nods. “Well, that’s just bad luck. Shouldn’t be wearing red, anyhow. Don’t forget to hang some white on your door, let people know. Don’t want any customers coming in while you’ve a body in the house still.”
He fumbles, an artless “Oh right, I forgot- that. Thank you.” Old Man Ding walks away.
In his haste to make sure Hama received the proper rites, he’d forgotten where they were. Would the funeral be suspicious? Would their departure be reported? What does a Fire Nation funeral even look like, anyway?
He gets back to work. Chht. Thump.
They need to bury Hama. And then sell the inn, and then leave. As quick as possible. It’ll be a real shame if they can’t get a good price for the inn, but Sokka feels a large sense of urgency in their departure. 
Chht. Thump.
A whisper of cloth. He looks up.
“I’m done,” says Katara. She looks wrung out.
He casts a glance down at the hole. “I’m almost there.” He feels the hours piled on him in dirt and sweat and longs for a bath. “Listen, Old Man Ding came by. He’s going to bring incense later tonight. I don’t know… I don’t know if he’s going to stay to watch, so whatever you want to do before then, Water Tribe stuff... probably- try and do it before.”
“Oh,” she says, but it’s like there’s not enough air in the word. He doesn’t need to look up to know there are tears in her eyes again. Yeah.
He wishes they were allowed to keep just one thing.
Katara has hung the white by the time Ding comes back, and he hands them the incense. Sokka looks at it blankly for a moment, trying to fathom how this is supposed to go, and doesn’t even grab it. In the end it’s Katara that moves, bowing with the flame in her hands and thanking him hoarsely. 
Luck, ironically, is on their side for once. Ding bows back, and leaves them to the burial.
They wrapped her in a sheet, the closest thing they had to the skins and furs she would have been wrapped in at the Pole. Together, they lower her into the shallow hole at the base of the tree.
There are words meant to fill the space, here. But Sokka is too young to have learned all the chief’s duties. All the funerals he’s attended were for kin.
“She was… the last of the Southern Waterbenders,” says Katara.
“May her next life be peaceful,” he prays. 
Sokka casts the first mound of dirt, then Katara.
It’s silent work, filling the grave again. Easier than before, and harder. When it’s done there’s nothing left to show but a dark, uneven patch of earth.
Katara lays Hama’s comb at the head of the grave. “I know we can’t leave it, but…”
Sokka nods. Earlier he had amassed a pile of stones, so they take each one and lay them down over and around the come. A tiny cairn for a silent burial.
They’re not sure exactly what to do about the incense. They settle for lighting the incense and letting it smoke from a small pot in front of the cairn, like what they’ve seen in passing at shrines. The smoke has a heavy smell to it.
On the short walk back to the inn, Sokka puts his arm around his sister. She shudders, sniffles, and breaks away to make them dinner. He gives her her space.
The night is long. 
He listens to his sister weep, wide awake. He listens to the house creak, the wind whistling.
Moonlight brushes their window screen. It’s waning. Does she feel it? Had Hama felt it as strongly as his sister seemed to?
Last night was the full moon––she didn’t wander off, did she?
Full moon last night. I didn’t sleep well.
She must’ve died in her sleep.
He wonders.
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a subtle detail among the cultures in atla: the water tribes have extremely limited depictions of written and visual culture although it’s clear throughout the series the characters, at least from the southern water tribe, are perfectly literate in the lingua franca and use it in messages and on maps to communicate when necessary. As opposed to the secular uses of writing and image prevalent throughout the Earth and Fire Kingdom (used for advertising, government propaganda, and policing of citizens) symbolic depiction seems to have spiritual relevance in the Water Tribes. Even compared to the murti-style statuary representations in the air temples, the water tribe’s visual culture seems particularly ascetic. 
Refined symbols are painted over the ajna (third eye) chakras during rites of passage and warrior ceremonies. Pictograms also reside on the gate in the Spirit Oasis, along bridges, and on the protective wall to the NWT, suggesting a mystic significance, even power, to these rare images. This aligns with a number of indigenous belief systems that historically restricted symbolic depiction to impermanent forms during community ceremonies (for a really complicated and interesting example of controversies around this iconoclasm in the face of colonial tides, see Hastiin Tlah, a nadleehi/non-binary spiritual leader and weaver in the Navajo Nation in the first half of the twentieth century).  In fact, even much of their architecture has a temporary quality, being made of snow and ice or tents of animal hides. When you observe the significance of visual representation in the Water Tribe culture, it adds to the importance of the Waterbending scroll Katara finds in the first season. It’s not simply a book someone took from a library. Katara likely saw it more as a pillaged sacred relic that wasn’t supposed to be seen by those outside the community. 
More prevalent and important to Water Tribe epistemology, especially in the moment of their history the audience finds them, is the oral tradition. Since visual representation is instilled with dangerous power, the passing of culture through stories and relationships takes a central role in their culture. “Earth. Fire. Water. Air. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days.” That’s the first line of the series, and those first four words can be understood as an established tradition to opening an oral story (and the written Chinese characters alongside images of benders that accompany it point us to a kind of traditional/spiritual storytelling incantation in this practice rather than simple communication). The Water tribes’ oral traditions and limits on recording knowledge, on one hand, made the water tribe’s knowledge vulnerable to erasure through means of genocide, a fact the Fire Nation takes advantage of in their sieges of the SWT--especially directed at the women who served in that community as the maintainers of spiritual knowledge, not to mention their connection, too, to healing practices.  But the intangible qualities of oral epistemologies make them elusive, too. They adapt and persist within the broad community in the face of formal attempts by conquerors to eradicate individuals through acculturation and violence. It’s this quality that opens the series and makes Katara’s faith in the Avatar’s existence and return possible. Her mother gifts her life, a grandmother gifts her the stories, and she holds them, embodies them, and shepherds them out for others into the world as a form of resistance.
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citrina-posts · 4 years
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Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?
I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.
There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.
Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?
The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.
But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).
It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.
1. Growing Up Asian-American
I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.
So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.
2. My Own Biases
Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.
I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.
These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.
White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?
3. What It Does Right
This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.
But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.
If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?
I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!
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catie-does-things · 4 years
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Patterns in Given Names in the World of Avatar
Or, Naming Your Avatar OC’s: Beyond Baby Name Lists
Naming an original character in any fantasy setting can be a tricky business. Do you use a real name? Do you make one up? Either way, it has to sound like it fits into the established world - but you don’t want it to sound too similar to the names of canon characters, either. In this post, I will offer an analysis of canon names of major and minor characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, looking for discernible patterns in the names of each of the fictional cultures of that world, and offer some suggestions based on my own experience for how to choose or create names for original characters in that world.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with using a “baby name list” for inspiration or even taking a real name from one of the cultures the show is based on and using it. But since the fictional cultures of the show are not complete carbon copies of real cultures, just picking a name from a list of Inuit or Japanese names won’t always give you one that actually fits in with the Avatar world. And maybe you’ve seen enough Water Tribe OC’s named Nanook (I’m guilty of this one myself) and want to get a little more creative. In that case, welcome to the advanced OC naming class.
And yes, there will be color coded spreadsheets.
Methods and Goals
To get a feel for what sort of names will sound like they fit into the world of Avatar, we of course have to look at the names of canon characters. For our purposes, I chose to exclude characters who only appear in spin-off material such as the comics or Kyoshi novels, and only look at the given names of characters from the two shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. I have sorted the characters by nation, as well as into cultural subdivisions where applicable. LoK characters from the United Republic of Nations have their own category, since in most cases we do not technically know the specific cultural origin of those characters’ names - though based on the patterns below and other context clues, we can make a reasonable guess for many of them. Characters whose names appear to be nicknames or pseudonyms (such as Longshot and Lightning Bolt Zolt) have also been left out. 
The aim of this analysis is to look for phonetic and other patterns in the names of each cultural group within the world of Avatar. We will be looking at the names as spelled using the Latin alphabet, since this is how most fan fiction is written, and how the character names are given in official material, but keep in mind that within the world of the show, all nations use the Han Chinese writing system, so names or syllables spelled differently in the Latin alphabet might be represented by the same character in-universe, or vice versa.
Finally, my guidelines and suggestions for how to choose or create OC names are just that: guidelines and suggestions. These are not rules. It’s your OC, you do what you want.
Without further ado, let’s start looking at some names.
The Water Tribes.
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We don’t have quite the sample size for Water Tribe characters that we’ll see for some of the other nations, but 28 names is still plenty to look at. Notably, we have far more male (18) than female (10) names, a pattern we will see repeated without exception. Draw your own conclusions.
Water Tribe names appear to mostly be two or three syllables long, with most of the one syllable names being from the Foggy Swamp Tribe. Hahn from the Northern Water Tribe is the only other one syllable name. Two syllable names are the most common with 19 names, which is about two-thirds of the total. Three syllable names account for 5 out of the total 28, or less than one fifth - still, this makes them more common than names of the same length in any other nation, and more common than one syllable names in the Water Tribes, especially if you exclude the Foggy Swamp. If you’re looking to use an authentic Inuit or other Arctic indigenous name for your Water Tribe OC, I would be wary of names longer than three syllables, though, as we have none of these in canon.
Consistent with Inuit names, we do have a lot of /k/ and /g/ sounds. The letters K and Q are pronounced the same in Water Tribe names, though in Inuit they represent different sounds. 18 out of the 28 names have at least one of these sounds, with /k/ being far more common than /g/ (17 vs. 2 names). Of course, having the letter K in your Water Tribe OC’s name is by no means necessary, and especially if you are creating a lot of Water Tribe characters, you probably want some variation.
The digraphic consonant sounds /ch/, /sh/, and /th/ are almost totally absent, with the exception of one name from the Foggy Swamp, Tho. The /r/ sound is also never found at the beginning of a name, and the /j/, /l/, /w/, and /f/ sounds are totally absent. The /v/ sound is absent from all given names, but notably appears in the surname Varrick not included above.
Regarding gender differences, both male and female names can end in -a, but this is much more common for female names, with 3 male names compared to 8 female names having this ending. Notably, this accounts for all but two of the female names, and all of the female names end in a vowel. Consonant endings appear to be exclusively masculine, with final /k/ sounds being common, whether spelled with K or Q (8 out of 18 male names), though masculine names can also end in vowel sounds.
There do not appear to be major differences between the Northern and Southern Water Tribe names, however the three names we have from the Foggy Swamp Tribe are definitely distinct - all one syllable, and all open syllables ending in vowels. These sound more like Earth Kingdom names, as we’ll see, which makes sense given the location of the Foggy Swamp.
To my knowledge, only handful of the Water Tribe names are authentic Inuit names, and they are all characters from LoK: Desna, Yakone, Noatak, Unalaq, and Tonraq, or 5 out of the 28 total names. Yue is an authentic name, but a Chinese one. The main Water Tribe characters such as Katara, Sokka, and Korra all have invented names. So yes, you can pick from an Inuit baby names list (and Nanook does fit the patterns we see above), but you are by no means limited to this.
The Earth Kingdom
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Since the Earth Kingdom is the largest of the nations, it makes sense that we have the most names to look at here, with 79 names total, including 56 male names and 23 female names. I’ve included Jet with a question mark, because he may be using a pseudonym like the rest of the Freedom Fighters do, but his name is also plausible as the one his parents gave him. Macmu-Ling, the name of the haiku master in Ba Sing Se, may also be a surname, but this is unclear given the limited information on the character.
One syllable names are much more common in the Earth Kingdom, accounting for 30 out of 56 male names and 10 out of 23 female names. This is roughly half of all Earth Kingdom names, or 40 out of 79. Two syllable names account for 34 out of the 79, or about 43%, with three syllable names being rare overall, just 5 names or 6%. Overall, Earth Kingdom names tend to be shorter, which is consistent with a basis in Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese names.
Unlike with Water Tribe names, there do not appear to be specific sounds that stand out as distinctively Earth Kingdom. Notably, nearly all names begin with consonants, with only 6 names beginning with a vowel, and always A or O. All of the consonant sounds found in English are represented in at least one name. The /ch/, /sh/, and /th/ digraphic sounds are all present, though not abundantly common. The Earth Kingdom being large and diverse, this greater diversity in names also makes sense.
There is evidence of unisex names in the Earth Kingdom. Wu is used by both a male and female character (Prince Wu and Aunt Wu), and the name Song which is listed as female above we will see again as the name of a male earthbender in Republic City. Other names could also be unisex, but as most are only used by one character, we have no way to know. The only noticeable gendered pattern seems to be that several female characters have English names, which I separated into the fifth column above. This seems to be exclusive or near-exclusive to Earth Kingdom women. Jet could also be interpreted as an English name, but as previously mentioned, this is possibly a pseudonym anyway.
The few named characters we have from Kyoshi Island all have authentic Japanese names, or at least names taken from the Japanese language - oyaji is an affectionate term meaning “old man” or “father”. Kyoshi is distinct from the rest of the Earth Kingdom in many other ways, including a history of isolationism which Japan also has. As for the sandbenders, we only have two names, but Ghashiun stands out as rather distinct in its spelling. Visually, the sandbenders resemble the Tuareg people of the Sahara region, so that might be the direction you want to go if you’re looking for authentic names to use for your sandbender OC’s.
The curious name Macmu-Ling is based on the surname of the writer for the episode she appeared in, Lauren MacMullan.
Fire Nation
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We have 13 female names and 33 male names, for a total of 46 known Fire Nation names. 
Two syllable names are most common, with 20 male and 6 female names, accounting for 26 out of the total 46, which is more than half. 15 names have one syllable, which is about one third of the total. Only 5 names have three syllables, or just one tenth, and once again there are no names longer than that. 
The letter Z stands out as appearing in 8 names, while it’s much more rare in the other nations - though notably the Z in Zhao is pronounced differently than in the other names. Also worth noting is that all the names with Z other than Zhao - that is, all the names where Z is pronounced as it would be in English - are names of members of the royal family, with the exception of Kuzon. The digraphic sounds /ch/ and /sh/ are both present, but /th/ is not. Other absent sounds include /v/ and /w/.
The Fire Nation gives us our only example of gendered variants on the same name with Azulon and Azula. This implies that the -a ending is generally feminine, though we only have two female names that use it. Ilah ends with the same sound, albeit spelled with a silent H. There is also one masculine name, Yon Rha, that ends in -a, though with a different pronunciation (/ah/ vs. /uh/). The -on ending may also be masculine or generally masculine, but again, only two names use it. Female names are also more likely to end in the /ee/ sound, whether spelled -i or -ee, with 6 of the 13 female names ending this way. Only two male names end with this sound, and one of them, Li, is unisex. 
In terms of basis in real world cultures, the Fire Nation often gets heavily identified with Japan in fanon, because they are an island nation with a history of imperialism, but what we see in canon is much more of a blend of Asian cultures, like the other nations. Some names, like Izumi and Roku are Japanese in origin, but some are also Chinese or Chinese-based such as Chan and Lu Ten. And as with the Water Tribes, the main characters like Zuko, Azula, Iroh, and Ozai, tend to have invented names. (Zuko especially would be odd as a Japanese name, since the -ko suffix in Japanese is feminine.) The name Ursa, curiously, is Latin - the feminine form of the word for “bear”. So while you certainly can use Japanese names for your Fire Nation OC’s, as with Inuit names in the Water Tribe, you’re not limited to that by any means. In fact, based on what we see in canon, I would say that if you’re creating several Fire Nation OC’s, you should have about an even mix of Japanese, Chinese, and invented names.
Air Nomads
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With only 13 names, of which 9 are male and 4 are female, this is the smallest sample we have for any of the nations - understandably, since the Air Nomads are all but extinct for most of both shows. We’re even technically assuming that all of Tenzin’s children have Air Nomad names, but this is probably a safe assumption.
Two syllable names are still most common, with 9 of the 13, or about three fourths of the total. There are three names with three syllables, or a little less than one fourth. Aang has the only one syllable name.
With so few names, it’s hard to draw firm conclusions about phonetic patterns. The -a ending is seen on one name for each gender, as is the -i ending, and the -o ending appears on two male names and one female name. The -u ending only appears on one male name, but given the small sample size this doesn’t necessarily indicate a female Air Nomad name couldn’t have the same ending.
We do have clear and distinct real world basis for several Air Nomad names. Tenzin and Gyatso are both taken from the religious name of the current Dalai Lama. Rohan is an Indian name, and Laghima is a Hindu term for the spiritual power of becoming weightless. (Coincidentally, Rohan is also a French surname, but it was presumably the Indian name that the show meant to reference.) Pasang is a Nepali name, though a female one as far as I can tell, whereas it is used for a male Air Nomad. Tibetan, Nepalese, and Sanskrit names would thus all be good places to look for inspiration for your Air Nomad OC’s - though again, don’t feel limited to that. Chinese inspired names would also fit in, and Aang, like all the main characters, has an invented name.
United Republic of Nations
This group of character names, all from The Legend of Korra obviously, has to be considered differently. While we can make educated guesses as to the fictional ethnicity of most of these names, the fact is that many of these characters may be of mixed heritage and we can’t say for sure what the origins of their names are. In the chart below, I have color coded the names according to my best guess for nation of origin, rather than by gender. Names left in white, in my opinion, could be either Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation, and nothing about those characters gives us further clues.
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With 31 names, we do have a decent sample size. Presumably Mako is a Fire Nation name and Bolin is Earth Kingdom, and based on the sound they do seem to fit in with those nations respectively. Raiko has a question mark because it is unclear if this is a given name or surname, but it does seem to follow the Zuko and Mako pattern and thus be most likely Fire Nation in origin. We also have the name Yasuko, for a character who is supposed to be of Fire Nation descent, using the -ko suffix on a feminine name.
Ginger and Buttercup I have designated as most likely Earth Kingdom because they are English names, and as we previously saw, only Earth Kingdom women seem to have names of this variety. Pema is presumably of at least partial Earth Kingdom descent based on her green eyes - this is also a real Bhutanese name. Characters like Lu, Gang, Daw, and Chung are all shown wearing green, and have one syllable names of the kind which are most common in the Earth Kingdom.
Hasook has a very distinctively Water Tribe name, and is of course a waterbender. Tahno and Ming-Hua are both waterbenders as well, though their names are less distinctively Water Tribe. These could simply be less typical names from one of the two polar tribes, or they may have Foggy Swamp Tribe heritage. (I believe this was a popular headcanon for Tahno, at least.) The possibility also exists that they have mixed heritage and may have Earth Kingdom or even Fire Nation names in spite of being waterbenders.
Conclusion
Like everything else in the world of Avatar, the names of the characters are inspired by and based on many real world cultures, primarily Asian, but no one fictional nation in the Avatar world corresponds exactly to a real world culture. When we look for or create names for original characters in this world, we want to respect the real world basis of these fictional cultures, but simply picking a Chinese, Japanese, or Inuit name from a list may not always jive with what we see in canon, in addition to running the risk of being a bit stereotypical.
With the canon patterns outlined above, fan fiction writers and fan artists should feel free to expand their search for names to other Asian, Arctic, or North African cultures, such as Thai, Burmese, Nepalese, Yupik, Aleut, or Berber names. Baby name lists can be helpful, but are often dubiously reliable, especially for non-Western cultures. Personally, when I want to give an OC an authentic name, I prefer to use Wikipedia to find real people from the culture or cultures I’m drawing on. I’ve joked about my own tendency to pick names of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean saints for my fan fiction, but searching for Wikipedia lists or categories of artists, philosophers, or scientists from a given culture can also be useful.
Wherever one chooses to look, name lists are best treated as a starting place - a name from a given real culture won’t necessarily fit into a given Avatar culture, and a name from a certain Avatar culture does not have to come from any particular real world culture. Fans should also feel free to invent names of their own, as the creators of Avatar did. Of the 20 major OC’s in my story Fate Deferred, half of them have real names or variations on real names, and the other half are invented.
And if you want to have a female Earth Kingdom OC named something like Jasmine or Crystal - these are also perfectly in line with canon.
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lightdancer1 · 2 years
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ATLA AUs worldbuilding, the Earth Kingdom:
The Earth Kingdom is heavily based on Imperial China, largely that of the Qing Empire even if Kuei's immediate ancestor was named after a Ming Dynasty Emperor and incorporated a mishmash of a number of warlike conquering autocratic Chinese Emperors like Han Wudi and Tang Xuanzong.
As with the Qing Empire it has provinces in most AUs, though in the Fire and Water and Earth and Air verse the system has changed slightly to the older-model Commandery that tends in practice to be ruled as a near-independent fiefdom by generals who nominally profess allegiance but are almost independent warlords in their own right.
Each province in peacetime blended a civil official and a military official and the two in theory worked together to keep control of the region, with the civil officials having Yamen/village headmen answering to them and the military officials oversights of garrisons and unless the entire kingdom was drawn into a war, responsibility for lower-scale threats. In the southernmost regions like Omashu, there was a de facto independent monarchy since before the time of Kyoshi, with the Kingdom of Omashu set up not so much in the line of the Earth Kingdom but as an autocratic hereditary monarchy which in practice tended to be ruled by any warlord capable of seizing the throne and thus more than slightly unstable and thus Ba Sing Se de facto allowed it to exist as long as it was sufficiently weak.
As with IRL China the Western territories were the most distinct and unlike the broader Earth Kingdom, among the last-conquered and they were Earth Kingdom from anywhere to 150 to 50 years before the Fire Nation conquered them themselves under Fire Lord Sozin in the opening campaigns of Sozin's war.
The northern territories centering on Ba Sing Se speak a language akin to Mandarin but have a set of cultures that in the past were nomadic and freely ranged to conquer as much of the Earth Kingdom as they could. The Hu-Ting Dynasty itself is the second iteration of one of these from a culture patterned on the Jurchen and/or Manchu, which is at least part of why the deeply Han culture of Omashu ignores it whenever possible. As with the Chinese world the cultures of the North tend to be heavier with a cultural vice of gluttony, the cultures of the South were absorbed somewhat later and include multiple minorities. Gaoling Province is specifically based on Vietnam, with the Foggy Swamp Tribe including the Hmong and a few of the other 'Montagnard' peoples and the Hmong proper as neighbors who retain more of their original cultures.
The Si Wong Desert people include elements of the Fremen from Dune and are the major Semitic nods in-universe, with cultural patterns of tribes, local gods and temples, and a desert-nomadic vibe. In the real Asian world the Asian desert nomads included the Mongols but as they're Fire National in this AU I went with the pire-Islamic Arabs instead. This vast cultural gulf between them and the rest of the Earth Kingdom is one reason why the Earth Kingdom usually elects to ignore that the Si Wong territories are technically within it until the Hundred Year War shook them into it.
The military structure varies from the elite Bannermen-style forces, which as mentioned before are the ones that reliably do the best against the Fire Nation. There are also new-model military units based on Fire Nation models formed by Marshal Zheng Guofan which did so much to make the Hu Xin Provinces campaign a 20 year campaign and as difficult as it was for the most victorious Fire Nation General to win.
The bulk of the Earth Kingdom Army is peasantry that couldn't outrun the impressers, who get their military training by actual combat in a system that is highly inefficient and wasteful of human life. Given the Fire Nation annexed the western territories and roves ever more deeply at will the Earth Kingdom couldn't afford more formal practices even though it gravely wished to have the chance to wield them.
The Dai Li are a secondary element that if they did deploy (and the few occasions even under Long Feng where they did deploy en masse they actually curbstomped mercilessly any garden-variety Fire Nation force so unlucky as to face them) would be among the most powerful and dangerous forces in the Earth Kingdom. Earth King Yong Le's mass deployment of them was a key factor in extending the Siege of Ba Sing Se and ultimately in the Earth Kingdom's victory.
The Dai Li are nominally supposed to be a Jedi-style religious-monastic order safeguarding the Earth Kingdom from tyrants without and within, but unlike the Jedi they turned into later-model Janissaries through their growth in power during the war and in the last stages of it made a serious bid to seek power in the near-subcontinental expanse of Ba Sing Se at the expense of the broader kingdom.
They were not *supposed* to become an analogue of all of the many secret police agencies in real life but this is what they did because of their performance in the war and in the pursuit of power under King Kuei.
Earth Kingdom languages are based on all the Chinese languages, Mandarin and Manchu in the North, the various southern languages in the south, with Vietnamese, Bai, Hmong, and Thai languages among others spoken in the southern expanses.
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justasingaporegirl · 3 years
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Thoughts on Languages in ATLA and LOK
Okay, so we know that for practical reasons everyone in the Avatar Universe spoke English (so that the audience can understand what is being said, and also because it would take too much time to invent a whole language system) but I have an Opinion on how languages might work since realistically the whole world is not going to speak just one language
disclaimer: I’ve not actually read the comics or the Kyoshi novels so just roll with me based on what is shown in the animated series itself
#1: Common Written Language
Throughout the show we see that all writing is done using Chinese characters. Written Chinese is a pictorial language meaning that there is no link between the written word of the language and the spoken aspect, so a person can become fluent in speaking the language and not know how to read/write, or vice versa. So in the world of Avatar there is a common pictorial written language, so everyone from any part of the world can understand what another person is writing if not what they are speaking. (How did this come about? I don’t know, maybe some Avatar generations before Aang decided “hey you know what will bring harmony to the world it’s a common written language” but you get my point)
#2: Lingua Franca
My idea is that each of the Four Nations speak a different language, but by Aang’s era a lingua franca has been established and that is the Fire Language. The Fire Nation had conquered pretty much the whole world at this point so it’s only reasonable to expect that they’d force the whole world to learn their language too. Fire Language is still commonly spoken during Korra’s time, sort of how English remains the lingua franca today even though the British Empire collapsed like 50 years ago.
#3: Everyone is bilingual
Or almost everyone. Expanding off the idea above, everyone would be taught Fire Language growing up, right? I see it being taught as a first language during Aang’s time (when the Fire Nation controls like 98% of the world) but by the time Korra comes around some schools are starting to offer it as a second language rather than the first. (also, schools during the Hundred Year War used Fire language as their mode of instruction 100%) Non-Fire kids would also learn their own native languages as a 'mother tongue’ language during the Hundred Year War, then as their first language (and the mode of instruction in schools) when peace is restored. I don’t see schools in the Fire Nation teaching other nation’s languages during the War except as a second language option taught at intermediate/advanced schooling level. (The students who take these courses are usually being groomed for positions in government or diplomacy) After the War, Fire Lord Zuko makes it mandatory that Fire Nation schools have to teach a second language as well as the customs and culture of said language. This continues up to Korra’s lifetime, so pretty much everyone in the Avatar universe can speak at least two languages.
#4: Dialects
Even though each nation has their own language, there’s bound to be some slang or dialects in different parts of each nation. The nobles of the Upper Ring in Ba Sing Se would speak much differently from the poorer residents in the Lower Ring. The differences in the dialects are not major enough that a person from the Upper Ring could not understand a person from the Lower Ring, but some expressions and vocabulary used might confuse both parties.
#5: The Water Tribes share a language
This one is a bit of a wildcard but hear me out. Before the War, the Northern and Southern Water Tribes were pretty close, right? Because they interacted with each other so often they spoke the exact same language, give or take some differences in vocabulary (think British English vs Australian/American English) But then because of the separation of the two Tribes during the War each side began to develop their own versions of the language so it becomes more like two different dialects. The differences are jarring to those not used to it, but if you listen VERY closely you would be able to get a general idea of what the other person is saying.
That’s also why I think Sokka made that comment about ‘doing an activity’ when he met Yue. The word Sokka used means ‘romantic date’ in the Southern Water Tribe but in the Northern dictionary it’s more like, ‘an activity’.
By the time Korra comes around the two tribes have been interacting again for quite a while so while the two tribes continue to speak their own distinct versions of the language, it’s not completely unintelligible to the other. (Again, think British vs American vs Australian English)
#6: Republic City’s linguistic smorgasbord
Pretty much everyone communicates in Fire Language since it’s the Lingua Franca, but over time elements from the other languages have slipped in to form Republic City’s own pidgin language. It’s very common to hear words or phrases in Earth Language thrown in the middle of Fire Language sentences (Earth because it’s the largest nation geographically and by population, so a significant number of the Republic City population would have Earth Kingdom roots.) You also have words from the Water Tribes thrown in as well, creating a unique mishmash of languages that somehow everyone in Republic City understands (basically it’s the Avatar version of Singlish).
(No one except for Avatar Aang actually knows the Air Language since it died with the Air Nation. Aang sometimes let slips slang terms or expressions from his native language, especially during Important Avatar Broadcasts so Republic City kinda picks up on that and it’s not uncommon for a person from Republic City to just. Say Air Language slang with a straight face. I’m thinking like President Raiko unironically saying the Air equivalent of “’sup dudes” during official meetings ‘cause that’s how Republic City speaks. Aang thinks it’s hilarious but also worries that no one will take the Air Nomads seriously if they knew what those slang terms actually meant.
#7: Zaofu 
Like Republic City, Zaofu has a similar mishmash of languages, except that instead of mixing languages spoken in the Four Nations it’s just a mix of every single dialect in the Earth Kingdom since most of the citizens are from or are descended from the Earth Kingdom.
Anyway those are just some general thoughts, let me know what you guys think! 
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mostly-mundane-atla · 4 years
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One of the things I like about Avatar is that for the most part the characterization makes sense in the context of the character's culture, like how Zuko is concerned with honor and mixes that idea with his father's love in his head, which reminds me of Confucianism (fitting, since the Fire Nation has a lot of Chinese inspiration). Do you think that same idea applies to Sokka & Katara's characters and the water tribes?
This is a difficult question to answer as we don't actually see much of the Water Tribes' culture until near the end of Book One, where its entire purpose is to cause conflict, and then it's never really brought up again. Even then, that's specifically Northern Water Tribe culture. With the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom we actually see a lot of different people raised in similar cultures. Iroh and Zhao are very different from each other and both have even less in common with Mai or the school kids we see or Jeong Jeong, and Suki is not the same as Toph and neither of them are the same as Long Feng or Jet. By sifting through their differences, we can find what they share and by that fully understand the values they were raised by. Water Tribe characters in the original series tend to be a fair bit more, I guess the right word is homogenous? Pakku is a smug chauvinist and Hahn's an asshole, but outside of that, they don't really get the same kind of driving force, goal, or direction that Zhao or Suki do. Hama has her whole bitter revenge thing, but that's just a single episode. So what is Water Tribe culture, anyway?
When Iroh describes the Water Tribes he says, "The people of the Water Tribe are capable of adapting to many things. They have a deep sense of community and love that holds them together through anything." This fits with both Katara and Sokka as both have been praised, and rightly so, for their resourcefulness and ability to adapt when the situation turns on them. Sokka is also very loyal to his friends and loved ones, and Katara will do anything to help a community she was welcomed into.
The people of the Water Tribe have also been shown to have a strong sense of duty to the community and justice. Sokka refers to it as regaining his honor to Zuko when he explains why he has to rescue his father from the Boiling Rock, Katara and Pakku's duel was entirely over the both of them insisting on what they believed was right rather than what was practical, and Hamma was trapping Fire Nation citizens in a cave because they had to pay for what she believed they allowed to happen to her people.
And to springboard off of what you said about Confucianism, they seem even more formed by Inuit/Inupiat culture, even though as far as I can tell that was mostly an accident. Sokka treats the animals he hunts respectfully without considering them inherently inferior if the one he named Fu Fu Cuddlypoops is any indication (failure to respect your kill is believed to anger the animals, causing them to avoid you and leave your family to starve). He also uses humor and sarcasm as a way of humbling himself and others while being able to handle most personal insults, which is considered a strength and important social skill. For Katara's part, she (mostly) respects elders and tradition, loves children, and tries to keep the group's conflict to a minimum, all of which are highly valued.
Though going by this, the Water Tribe character most shaped by their culture is Yue. Along with displaying all the canon Water Tribe cultural things, she also makes a point of choosing her duty to her community over her affection for Sokka (an Inupiaq teacher's aide from when I was in high school had to explain to the students that Inupiaq stories about romance aren't happy ones as romance is not prioritized at all and stories featuring it as a theme are usually cautionary tales about jealousy and possessiveness). And her sacrificing her life to become the moon actually echos an old Inupiaq story of a hunter who sacrifices his life to bring the caribou back so his people don't starve.
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liquidink21 · 4 years
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If I were doing the Avatar Remake
Just a list of things changes and tweaks to the original I would make to Avatar if I was in charge of this netflix remake, given that we’ve all lost hope in it and now I’m just speculating to make myself feel better. I’ve already made a list of things it really needs, and this list includes them, but I’m just going to go hog wild with my imagination and opinions on Avatar. In a rough order of when I think and them and what episode it becomes relevant.
How long are these new episodes going to be? I’d like to extend them for more story content, though am wary of overdoing it. How does thirty minutes sound? Enough for some more depth to some episodes.
I think it should be pointed out earlier on that there are more villages across the South Pole. This is canon, and would make the Southern Water Tribe feel more alive.
Aang’s friends from the past: in addition to Kuzon and Bumi, give him a Northern Water Tribe pal. He’s never been to the South Pole, and was deliberately coming to make new friends somewhere the Monks wouldn’t think to look for him. We can reference this friend again when we reach the North Pole.
Somebody, probably Iroh, mentions Zuko’s name in front of Aang. It’s always infuriated me that the Gaang know’s Zuko’s name suddenly in Warriors of Kyoshi without anyone telling them what it is. I don’t think it needs its own episode, just somebody says it while he’s captured.
The terms of Zuko’s banishment don’t restrict him from the colonies in the Earth Kingdom, so they don’t consider those colonies to be proper Fire Nation territory. I feel they should have their own name, just to make the politics of the show feel deeper. “The Eastern Protectorate” is a nice reference to the Chinese “Protectorate of the Western Territories.” Zhao can namedrop it when they go to his port.
The fact that Kyoshi Island has such a different culture from the main Earth Kingdom should be brought up. The answer is a mix between isolation and cultural exchange with the Southern Water Tribe. Katara and Sokka probably have a passing knowledge of the island. “Oh, that’s where we are.” Also, if Aang knew to come here for the Koi fish, how didn’t he know about there being Kyoshi revering settlements there?
There should be an adult Kyoshi Warrior training the others. She approves of Suki training Sokka, and comments on the rarity of outsiders and men being Kyoshi Warriors. I feel Sokka is the first outsider, but there was another man. Adult warrior gives the explanation that when she was a young trainee, a man working on the docks was teased for “fighting like a girl” so warriors taught him exactly like a girl.
There should be an Earthbending Kyoshi Warrior. I mean Kyoshi herself was a bender, the art can’t be exclusively a non-bending form.
Maybe point out that there are multiple villages on the island. This is in fact canon.
Haru’s mother and village could use some actual names.
We never see any non-bending Earth Kingdom soldiers. I loved how the Fire Nation has different uniforms for its bending and non-bending warriors, and I’d like to see the same for the Earth Kingdom troops.
I want to know more about those pirates? The captain is ethnically a Fire Nation citizen. Is there a story behind that? A navy deserter? Like an opposite of Jeong Jeong, deserting not for ethics but because he didn’t like duty getting in the way of fortune? I’m probably just overthinking it.
The names of the Freedom Fighters are obviously pseudonyms, and Jet probably urges the Gaang to adopt some themselves.
While I don’t actually feel that Aang lying to the two groups in The Great Divide is an unforgivable wrong, I feel the lie itself was a little demeaning and could have been a little more sophisticated.
I have seen that post saying there needs to be more Indians in Avatar than just Guru Pathik, given how many Indian concepts are in the show. Many people also share the opinion that there should be Indian airbenders, so yes they should appear in the flashbacks in The Storm (and The Southern Air Temple as well). Also some Earth Kingdom villages should be Indian based as well. I think the market from The Waterbending Scroll could be a good place to start, maybe the port from The Storm as well, though probably somewhere that isn’t just a background place as well. Maybe the nuns in Bato of the Water Tribe too.
Iroh could be less creepy with June.
Ah, The Northern Air Temple. Honestly I feel that while the ultimate message of Aang being okay with the Mechanist and his people settling in the Air Temple is okay, I feel it needs to end with a greater emphasis on the Mechanist’s people being more respectful to the site. Ramming pipes through historical mosaics and demolishing statues is really not on. Also, while Sokka being cool with industrialisation is in character, I do think he’d disapprove the desecration.
I feel the fact that a lot of the Fire Nation’s technological might (not all of it, though) is riding off the back of a blackmailed Earth Kingdom citizen is something that could be brought up more often.
Yue’s story with the Moon Spirit needs to be explained almost immediately, so that it’s not kind of an arse-pull when the plot needs it.
Legend of Korra makes a big deal about the South gaining independence from the North, but they’re already treated as separate nations? I think it should be mentioned somewhere, probably from Hahn, that the South is technically subservient to the North, though operates with a great deal of autonomy that comes with not being able to contact each other.
The North is pretty sure it’s the original Water Tribe, but can’t say for sure. Hahn thinks of the South as nothing but a colony, though Arnook is more progressively minded and notes there are no records of who came first and treats the South as a sister tribe.
I think there’s another character worth adding, a captain of the Northern warriors. He can appear several more times throughout the series, which I’ll elaborate on.
Zhao comments “there’s a reason they’ve survived a hundred years of war” whereas other comments suggest the Northern Water Tribe has been sitting out of the war. Apparently the North did take uniforms from soldiers 85 years ago, so I think the idea should be that they received one big siege back then, and since then they’ve been experiencing raids since then culling their villages and forcing them into that single fortified city-state. Since then, their ability to send ships out has been impeded by Fire Nation ships patrolling those water but not engaging the city itself until Zhao’s siege.
Yue, when mentioning the waterbenders learning from the Moon, should reference humanity receiving bending from the Lion Turtles, just to introduce the concept that bending could be given and therefore by implication taken away.
There’s a historical character I want to introduce: an Earth Kingdom general that was nearly able to push the Fire Nation out of the Earth Kingdom around half-way through the 100 Year War, but was taken down by internal Earth Kingdom politics. The Fire Nation had to do its conquests all over again because of him. It would help fill out a century of history that is poorly explained. I think he could be introduced by Sokka asking General Fong how they still have an outpost on the west coast when most of that region has been occupied by the Fire Nation.
Azula’s blue fire should be depicted like blue flames are in real life: very straight jets rather than the flickering things you see in the animation. Since it’s basically just powerful fire, I think it should be seen with a couple of other firebenders, though Azula is the only one that exclusively uses it. Jeong Jeong and Iroh would be good people to use it.
I saw a post once by a Korean rightfully upset that the only Korean characters in the show (Song and her village) are lumbered in with the essentially Chinese Earth Kingdom as if they’re the same culture despite Korea obviously being separate and having a poor history of China attempting to enforce hegemony over it. I think maybe something could be made of Song and her people being a distinct culture that has had a generally poor relationship with the Earth Kingdom at large. Maybe the previously mentioned Earth Kingdom general was screwed over for being of this culture.
I’m not sure how to depict the Swampbenders. They'll no longer be caricatures of the guys in the next studio, so they’ll be more respectfully treated and not hillbillies. I’m not sure if they should be Vietnamese (given the original characters have Vietnamese names) or southern Native Americans (given they’re waterbenders, and the other waterbenders are Inuits).
After failing to get Bumi as Aang’s earthbending teacher, they throw around suggestions. Since Aang is learning waterbending from Katara they consider a similarly aged Earthbender. Katara suggests they go find Haru, while Sokka suggests the earthbending Kyoshi Warrior I mentioned before.
I saw a post once suggesting that the Beifongs were collaborators, and while I think this is somewhat extreme, I would like to explore the interplay between their wealth and their position in the war. Also, the fact that Toph had been sheltered from the war and has far less of an emotional stake in it needs to be explored in more detail.
In the Zuko Alone flashbacks Azula really needs to be made out as a normal child with a bad influence (her father) instead of an inherently bad child. My sister points to this episode and claims Iroh or Ursa should have just drowned her and that’s something incredibly fucked up to say about a ten(?) year old.
In that vein, Iroh’s “no she’s crazy and needs to go down” line really needs to be changed to something more compassionate. Most Avatar meta states that Iroh doesn’t actually hate Azula; he’s just prioritising Zuko’s safety, and his line here needs to reflect that.
Aang should recognise the Lion-Turtle, and know that they gave humanity their bending powers. Just to keep that concept in mind, so that when it comes to the energybending climax it’s less of an arse-pull.
Wan Shi Tong’s morale compass and lumping a bunch of kids attempting to avoid genocide in with conquerors needs to be called out more, and I feel Katara should be the one to do it.
Suki gets to stay on for one extra episode and help fight the Drill. It also makes for a better explanation of how she got back. Right now it’s implied she went back across the Serpent’s Pass; in my own she’d explicitly head along the wall and go back with the ferries.
I want more discussion of Ba Sing Se’s social stratification. Was Jin able to visit the Jasmine Dragon? Or was she blocked from entering higher rings?
Toph’s lie detecting thing made into a spiritual or chi related thing. The whole heartbeat thing is pseudoscience.
The Northern Water Captain I mentioned earlier reappears, having met and joined his men with Hakoda’s. Hakoda praises his son with helping bridge the gap between the two water tribes.
Ty Lee gets more appearances in Book 3, even if just in the background. She got some nice development in The Beach and I want to see more of it as Azula’s brought her out of that circus and back into the Fire Nation nobility.
Sparky Sparky Boom Man’s tattoo has a different design that is not a villainised appropriation of a Hindu symbol. Something nice and geometric, maybe sun based.
Hawky at some point returns to Team Avatar. I want them legitimised as a member of the Gaang! Equal status to Momo and Appa! Also I suppose bringing a letter back from the Beifongs could have significance to Toph. But let Hawky return!
Hama has a more compassionate ending. I feel after she’s led away, Sokka figures it’s pretty fucked up that they’re handing one of their own over to the Fire Nation so they go and rescue her. They give her a choice between joining them to fight during the eclipse or returning to the South Pole to help rebuild the Southern Water Tribe (given that there’s Notherners helping rebuild she could help make sure they rebuild it in the style of the south and not a facsimile of the north). She chooses the latter.
No weird Guru Pathik during Aang’s hallucinations please.
While discussing the allies that Hakoda picked up, he mentions some people he couldn’t get: they couldn’t find the Kyoshi Warriors, the Sandbenders didn’t want to come, the Omashi Resistance wanted to use the eclipse to retake their city, and General Fong’s outpost had been overrun. Just flesh out things a little.
Sokka and the other Water Tribe warriors should be wearing that facepaint for the Invasion.
I want more interaction with The Duke, Haru, and Teo with the Gaang.
Chit Sang’s girlfriend and friend join with the second escape instead of being strangely absent. Also, who is he? Sokka probably looks him up to make sure they’re not bringing a serial killer into their midst. Preferably not, I like to think they were thrown in there for opposing the war.
I’d like Suki to learn from Hakoda that the other Kyoshi warriors are alive, if imprisoned.
Suki doesn’t like wearing prison clothes and attempts a facsimile of Kyoshi islander clothes by stealing Katara and Haru’s clothes.
Some more emotions between Sokka and Suki relating to her imprisonment please. There’s a lot of pent up trauma there and I’d like them to work through it.
People like to play up Katara’s “you obviously didn’t love her as much as I did” line into an insight to a horrible character rather than just something stupid said in the heat of the moment, though I do think Katara should apologise, if only to show the haters that this isn’t her personality.
Training with Aang, Zuko finds out he has the peace of mind to do lightning. He wouldn’t use it against Azula, but it would be a nice demonstration that his inner turmoil is more or less resolved.
The adult Kyoshi Warrior I mentioned at the very beginning of this reappears as a White Lotus member. She, for whatever reason, has a replacement warrior uniform for Suki, because I feel Suki shouldn’t have to go through the climax in a Fire Nation disguise. Also maybe Sokka should be wearing his warpaint too? I mean it’s culturally significant to him.
You want lightning? No I don’t. Azula’s growing inner turmoil denies her the use of lightning, mirroring Zuko’s original inability to use it when he was lost and confused. So when it comes to sneakily zapping Katara it’s just her fire, but a flame more concentrated (and by implication, rage-fueled) than we’ve ever seen from her. A veritable beam that Zuko has to put his all into deflecting, opening him up to an attack. A non-lethal attack; Azula still has that line about “the family physician”. She doesn’t want Zuko dead and leaves him be when he’s down. Despite going off the deep end there is a spark of compassion in her that stops her from doing that.
As I’ve stated previously, Aang needs to do something slightly more significant and spiritual in order to access the Avatar State again rather than that stupid rock. Some sort of spiritual lesson.
As I’ve said a few times now, the Lion-Turtles should be known to the audience by now, along with their ability to give bending to humans, so that the ability to take bending has been implied.
The weird orange-vs-blue lightshow with the energy bending was kind of melodramatic, though the corruption-vs-purity thing could still be visually represented by Ozai trying to physically overpower Aang and failing.
Possibly to be continued.
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jyndor · 4 years
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more word vomit on avatar and how it frames marginalized peoples’ desire for revenge from an american, just what the world needed right now
so I have a lot of thoughts about how avatar frames vengeance and forgiveness, in particular for people who are the victims of imperial destruction. I do understand why people think that wanting revenge can make people bitter and disallow healing, and there is some validity to this. and resentment definitely can be an obstacle to healing emotional pain.
hama is a woman traumatized by the genocide of her people, by the unending cruelty of fire nation imperialism. when she develops her bloodbending skills, she feels like she is taking back some control from those who wronged not just her but her culture and civilization. but by becoming the titular puppetmaster, she is victimizing fire nation civilians who have done nothing to her.
she serves as an important foil to katara. in her conversation with zuko in crossroads of destiny, she tells him that he represents the fire nation in her mind, and she even says she is wrong to do that (which is kind of funny given that he did fuck with the gaang a LOT. she would have good reason to think of zuko’s face as being the face of an empire she hates when during a big chunk of the journey, he was the one coming after them) since her pain stems from her mother’s murder. and zuko is not the man who murdered kya.
when the gaang travels through the fire nation, katara is the first to really recognize the impact that imperialism has had on the fire nation’s own citizens. she risks sokka’s timeline and lies to the group about appa being sick just to become the painted lady and save some fire nation citizens. when these people realize that a waterbender has appropriated their sacred spirit, they are furious until sokka tells them that they can fuck off with their shit, and that they are alive to be pissed at her because katara saved them. still katara feels guilty about potentially desecrating such a culturally and spiritually important figure for these people.
when she and zuko go on their glorious ninjas of love and revenge journey to fuck up the southern raiders, katara decides to spare the life of her mother’s killer because she realizes that avenging kya is not going to bring her back or make katara feel better. she would just be killing a shitty old man who doesn’t even care about what he did.
I’ve already talked a bit about why I feel like aang’s forgiveness shit in that episode is fucking stupid and out of character, so I am not going there right now. katara explicitly didn’t forgive yon rha, but she was able to forgive zuko, and this is where I’m gonna bring hama back into this. katara forgiving zuko for the wrongs he did (specifically betraying her in the catacombs of love) makes sense because zuko worked to redeem himself and to make up for his actions. 
we don’t know a lot about what hama’s experience was like in the village or while running her inn. aang’s assumption upon hearing that people are going missing in the woods is that the villagers are doing something to make a spirit angry. and that’s interesting, because in the end we are to assume that they didn’t do anything except live as fire nation citizens in a fire nation village unlucky enough to be near hama’s inn.
her desire for justice warping into bitterness and insanity is kind of the crux of the episode. hama ends up imprisoned by the fire nation once again, and this time it’s not because she’s a waterbender standing up to fire nation imperial might, it’s because she hurt innocent people with her waterbending.
and here is where I get conflicted. those fire nation people never did anything to hama in the same way that I personally never did anything to peoples who have been harmed by american imperialism, but because I am an american citizen, and in particular a white american citizen, I have benefited from the violence done to those peoples and their cultures. and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that those villagers probably are not against fire nation imperialism.
it doesn’t even matter since the point the writers are trying to make is that when your need for justice turns into a need for indiscriminate vengeance, you end up re-victimizing yourself above all else. I think that is an interesting message.
but that brings me to jet.
so jet is way more sympathetic than hama, and it’s not just because he’s a cutie. he is literally the leader of a guerilla group called the freedom fighters, which lol I see you and your social commentary, atla. being "freedom fighters” is how western powers have historically framed the “good” rebels in any given conflict. jet isn’t deliberately targeting innocent civilians, but he isn’t going to stop his attacks just because they might become collateral damage.
jet blurring the lines between fighting for liberation and being a terrorist is a nuanced take on the issue, especially considering when the show aired. jet is characterized by his justifiable anger at the fire nation. he has legitimate grievances, personal grievances.. the irony is that he is willing to put his own people at risk just to get back at the fire nation.
in the second season, despite genuinely wanting to change his ways, jet’s hatred of anyone who is fire nation is what gets him imprisoned and later killed... by his own people, no less. he isn’t smart about how he fights against fire nation imperialism. he loses the moral high ground when he loses sympathy for two refugees just because he thinks he sees iroh heat up his tea with firebending. forget for a moment that zuko and iroh are in fact firebenders and that iroh in particular is quite responsible for damage done to the earth kingdom. when jet decides to go after them, he still thinks of them as refugees. and despite knowing this, jet can’t accept that the fire nation has also hurt its own people in its fight for supremacy.
the story about jet isn’t necessarily dealing with forgiveness, in the same way that hama is never asked to forgive the fire nation for its crimes against her and her people. the narrative suggests that both jet and hama would have been better served if they hadn’t associated fire nation randos with the fire nation military and government. if they had just aimed their anger at the fire nation government.
which... okay, come on. like, I appreciate that I personally have not dropped bombs on weddings in iraq (which of course is itself an invention of the west), but my government is still my government, my tax dollars are my tax dollars. I’m not gonna be offended by some guy in iraq hating americans indiscriminately even though I personally object to my government’s foreign policy. my personal objections didn’t save that guy’s family. murdering american civilians to avenge murdered innocent civilians would be a bad thing, and legitimate grievances wouldn’t stop the us from probably nuking everyone at this point so like I really don’t recommend it.
but the feelings? well, I can’t argue against them because I’ll never, ever understand what it’s like to be on the receiving end of american empire.
context is ALWAYS important. avatar ran in the mid 2000s, during the height of the wars in afghanistan and iraq. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a story about how imperialism harms children took off during a time when these illegal wars of aggression were becoming less and less popular in the states. it is also an american show, written by americans for an american audience. it appropriates several cultures to which the creators do not belong, and it does so lovingly and respectfully... sometimes.
centering conversations about imperialism on the forgiveness of the marginalized peoples is... kinda weird. given that a lot of the peoples that inspired different aspects of the show have been oppressed by western imperialism - the inuit people obviously inspired the southern water tribe, the sun warriors are an amalgamation of different mesoamerican civilizations, the swamp water tribe is influenced by cajun people, not to mention the massive influence drawn from chinese cultures - I think we should have seen some post-war stories in the show (fuck the comics, if you care about things enough to write extra materials, put them in the main medium of your fucking story since otherwise most people will not see them).
stories about reparations from the fire nation. stories about the ethics of removing the descendants of fire nation colonists from the earth kingdom. stories about zuko and katara searching for ursa lol I’m sorry. I think an american audience could have really benefited from those stories.
idk guys, what do you think?
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seyaryminamoto · 4 years
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Benders not of the 4 elements
Hey, I found your fic a few days ago, and I just wanted to say that I’m really surprised at the quality (in a good way lol.) There’s a few things I disagree with (for example, Iroh’s portrayal - he comes off much more as bumbling to me rather than someone hiding something, as well as the personalities of a few characters, but I won’t go into it here) but generally it’s actually very well written! I do have a question, though: what’s with the mentions to benders that aren’t from the 4 elements? That’s the biggest contradiction to canon I’ve found, and it honestly seems rather confusing, considering that’s it’s not a very significant detail at all to change, but still feels ‘off’ to me, I guess. I’m at chapter 107, so maybe there’s something I’m missing from the later chapters, but I still find it weird especially since I’ve always found the natural symmetry of the four elements rather satisfying.
Thanks for the submission! It’s good to know you’ve enjoyed the story and you consider it’s of good quality :D
We could probably spend a very long time talking about why I portray Iroh as I do, but I could probably just summarize it and then direct you to many analyses of Iroh’s less flattering canon traits, which compelled me to portray him as a much murkier character than canon did...
I can understand why you perceived him that way, but Iroh wasn’t merely bumbling in the show, especially considering he becomes Zuko’s moral spine and acts far more seriously throughout the final season of the show than he did beforehand. He has canonical ties with the White Lotus which, as you have already seen, isn’t portrayed at their most flattering either in my story, since I’m hinting at separate factions and corruption within their very group… and of course, once you pay close attention to Iroh’s actions when you watch the show, you might notice Iroh is not only full of contradictions and several displays of highly hypocritical behavior, but he’s also a complicated character who committed terrible deeds in the past, deeds that the show is happy to gloss over and excuse him for at every opportunity. I’ve turned him into more of a mastermind with his own agenda to give the character a more serious tone, as well as to acknowledge his constant rivalry with Azula in the show, where they were outright portrayed as the two forces battling over Zuko’s soul (a rivalry that, to my utter confusion, seems to go ignored by the majority of the fanbase despite it was a major theme for two whole seasons).
Alright, so, for further analysis of the character: Ursa vs. Iroh in how they handled the sibling relationship between Zuko and Azula, sexist behavior displayed by Iroh during the show that he’s not called out for, Iroh’s not-so-humorous reaction at Zuko’s entitled behavior (a display of his serious side as early as the first episode), analysis on Iroh’s three different “faces” and how they play into viewer’s perception of the character. I figure there’s more... but I’d rather not spend all day digging into my blog’s archives for it xD
In short, my portrayal of Iroh really isn’t gratuitous, or just an attempt to make him more problematic than necessary. Sure, it is a much darker Iroh than seen in canon, or in most other fics... but even in a recently released book, Legacy of the Fire Nation, Iroh is portrayed speaking of Ozai far more sympathetically than he speaks of Azula. He outright blames her, rather than Ozai, for the misfortunes Zuko suffers during his younger years, when it’s plain as day Ozai is the main culprit for most of Zuko’s problems, if not all of them. So, if recently released canon material presents an Iroh that behaves so mercilessly towards his niece, I’d think I’m not that far-off in how I portray him...
Anyways! Closing that point, since that’s not really why you’re here...
The thing with elements is that, despite what you may have thought while watching ATLA, it’s absolutely feasible and possible for there to be more than four. Many cultures have five elements rather than four (Ancient Greece had aether as well as the typical four, I believe Hinduism featured the void, there was Heaven in Japanese culture...), to say one thing.
And then there’s China, they also have five... but they don’t even have air in their five mythological elements.
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Those five elements are the ones featured in the Chinese Zodiac’s cycles, for instance. Curiously, the Avatar world’s calendar features the years named after the animals of the Chinese Zodiac (can be seen in the Library episode, specifically): yet, while borrowing their calendar, their four classic elements are different from the five elements Chinese Mythology relies on. Curious, isn’t it? :’)
Avatar wasn’t the first big story I got invested in that featured the elements as the setting’s magic system. I started off by being a huge fan of a particular show where there were no less than TEN elements: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Metal, Wood, Thunder, Ice, Light and Darkness. In Avatar, some of the elements I’ve described here have turned out to be subsets of other bending skills: Thunder (in Avatar, Lightning) a subset of Fire, Ice and Wood of Water, Metal of Earth. With the background I had, as a fan of that other show, I was quite amused to see elements that other cultures and stories have separated and distinguished from each other tucked into umbrellas of each major bending art of the Avatar world...
In ATLA’s finale, the lion-turtles that are both loved and hated in the fandom showed up with a huge sudden twist: energybending. This has been loved and hated too, and it can be interpreted as though energybending is the superior form of bending, sure... but what the lion-turtle says is:
“In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements but the energy within ourselves.”
It virtually proposes that energybending itself created each bending art. Who’s to say, then, that even within LOK’s concept, there couldn’t have been more than four lion-turtles granting bending powers? Or that, if there were more, they might have been able to grant even more powers than the known ones? I’d even go so far as to say that the lion-turtle, by saying “we”, could have even been referring to humans with abilities to energybend, and that this skill wouldn’t have to be relegated to lion-turtles alone. Seeing as, before LOK arrived, the understanding of the matter was that firebenders had learned to bend from dragons, waterbenders from the ocean and moon, earthbenders from badgermoles and airbenders from sky bison, why not assume these lion turtles taught people how to ENERGYBEND, just as all those other animals had taught them how to bend the elements? :’D it was, before LOK, a perfectly acceptable interpretation of this big, last minute revelation. And the implication that the Avatar’s arrival happened AFTER the energybending era was over, could even be read as a hint at another erradicated culture: energybenders themselves.
At any rate, I’m pretty sure that I wrote the early chapters of Gladiator, where I first brought up the topic of various other bending skills, long before LOK’s big “Beginnings” episodes had aired, based mostly on that lion-turtle quote and my own previous experiences with other magical-element-based settings. This, paired with the implication that energybending used to be the main bending form of the past, and that it was lost to time, felt like fair basis to suppose that perhaps there could be even more bending arts that could have been lost to time in the Avatar World. I mean, if you think about it, had Aang been killed irremediably somehow in Sozin’s time, an entire bending race would have been gone. Why would it be impossible for previous bending groups before the Avatar’s time, the period the lion-turtle referred to, to be erradicated too?
It was all, of course, conjectures, theories and guesses. But, at that point in time, said conjectures and guesses were perfectly plausible, as, like I said, LOK’s lion-turtle based mythology hadn’t been established properly yet.
There will be some exploration into a certain kind of bending I referred to (namely, lightbending, which will have a different basis than what Azula has heard or read about so far). Still, my idea was basically to propose that a world that has been a victim to so many wars, where there are strange skills that only a few people practice (like combustion bending, or blood bending, or plant bending), it was possible that entire groups who practiced unusual subsets of bending could have been victims of other kinds of wars, just as airbenders were. And that, if the connections of those subsets with their parent elements were lost to time, in contemporary times it could look like those subsets were whole elements of their own that were decimated through warfare.
Soundbending, also mentioned early on in Gladiator, was often debated in the fandom as a possible subset for airbending before LOK was finished airing (there were huge theories on the subject). I featured Azula talking about it once because I thought it might become a thing in the franchise’s future (and then it didn’t :’D). Plantbending seems pretty instinctive to the waterbenders we see using it, yet, as most waterbenders seem to spend their whole lives in the poles, it’s natural that they wouldn’t think to bend plants since they wouldn’t really need to... hence, it’s another perfectly plausible bending skill that could have been practiced in the past, when, presumably, waterbenders fought earthbenders for territory in the large continent. Once the waterbenders settled in the poles, the skill could have been lost easily enough. The bending possibility itself isn’t gone, for it’s a subset of water, but if there were whole tribes (like the Foggy Swamp one) with a culture based around plantbending, wars could have easily seeen them destroyed and their bending art “lost”.
So, in the end, Gladiator won’t end up warping the whole four-element concept, despite canon itself kind of lends for warping by adding the fifth, energy, but I do explore these other possibilities of bending largely inspired by my other experiences in certain stories with more than four elements. I’ll stick to working within the parameters of bending subsets, and I do explore certain strange bending things that have absolutely no connection with anything that happened within the show... yet, while I didn’t start out with a set-plan on how I’d work with these bending possibilities, by now I can safely say the idea is to perceive them as subsets that resulted in small clusters of cultures of their own, cultures that were lost to time and warfare, just as airbending nearly was.
I hope this is a satisfactory and clear enough answer, if you don’t like it that’s fine too, but four elements, while they may sound very instinctive to us in modern times due to how popular it has become to split things in those four (the western zodiac, for instance, divides the zodiac signs in the ATLA four elements, as you probably know), it’s not a given, absolute thing that, when speaking of elemental magic, it has to be those four elements and nothing else. The number of elements can vary in different cultures, the types of elements can vary too, and testing a few bending possibilities beyond canon’s boundaries sounded like a fun enough idea to hint at, as long as I didn’t pull off something completely OP like VOIDBENDING... just imagine that, someone with the ability to create black holes xD sucks their whole world into it and that’s that, story over (?)
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aliwept · 5 years
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🌻 talk to me about atla I haven’t watched that show since I was like 12
send a sunflower to listen to me talk !!  aka coral continues to talk way more than he needs to n this entire post was the result of hyperfixating on panels so it’s probably reading way into it.
ok first of all .. big mood i rly gotta rewatch soon .. .. . also i’ve said this before but not like . straight out and mmm i love a lot of what they do but … the fact that no black people or like .. even indian coded people (until prince wu showed up in legend of korra).. bothers me ?  i say ‘even’ cause as far as i can tell the idea was to take out white people and ….. the opposite? or even that they’re just on the other side of the globe undiscovered i dunno but . taking out white people? sure. but humans ……. when we first evolved we were black !!!!! not to say that black people aren’t evolved cause fuck no but //… it felt really unnecessary in a tv show / cartoon that otherwise focuses on asian / brown people??
tho i’ve seen people in discourse about whether aang is supposed to be white (esp considering his blue eyes which the other moks didnt have.. personally i think of him bein child of monk (for the primary ability / culture) & waterbender (for the eyes) but the point stands) which wld be .. Bad bc monks aren’t white!! and to have the only white rep be . the savior of the world …. (white saviorism, basically)and that he’s the peace-seeker wld be ! Hm ! but he isn’t .. clearly not white like . the fire nation is ??
n i dont like that korra is seen as his ‘’’aggressive opposite’’’ when she’s clearly brown ?? but also like.. they couldn’t change the original series so that they have the avatar to be brown in the first place is .. as good as we cld really get ig? but we dont have anyone .. more aggressive than her in the entire series and idk it’s just weird. like i get that the next incarnation means she’s native bc water (can the avatar be mixed, anyw ??)
but like they did the same thing in atla too, where the only brown rep (’‘‘brown’‘‘ since asian people are often brown too.. but they mostly had chinese — the fire nation — and /…. who knows with the air nation and .. i think it was korea with the earth nation? i’ll need to check) is where.. everyone is like that? like we see.. the fire nation king and he’s violent and stuff but we also see iroh who’s not. we see a lot of earthbenders who are prone to violence (and similarly this cld be a . Problem) and .. fuck im sure there’s someone who’s peaceable …. toph’s parents? but they were also .Bad so. and then the air nation & being peaceable we dont see anyone who’s rly .. Violent? which if they really are meant to be white wld be . Problematic.  esp cause that wld make them the victims of colonialism instead of the perpetrators / havingthem be in a sympathetic light
esp if like. the idea was being like their elements water is harsh? but like. fire n hotheaded. so water as its opposite shld Not and! idk
um but then with the water tribe we don’t .. see peaceable people. that they were all mad at aang (well at least the grandmother) and i guess the mom could be seen as peaceable ? but nothing really else. sokka and katara are both prone to easily giving in to anger, and while their dad…. is generally so (??) we don’t really get any good rep (just like w the earth nation) that lasts more than like. an episode,, and i guess yue but she dies (just like katara & sokka’s mom, the only other ‘‘‘‘peaceable’‘‘‘ person besides women that were affected by the northern water tribe’s sexism). again im probably overanalyzing but !! things i kept thinking about through the show .. thought i’d mention
and as for adding in black people .. like it seemed like an unnecessary exclusion ? maybe for laziness w animating or .. this was the best they could get? but idk it just bothered me a lot while watching the show. it wldve been great to seeing them throwing off their oppressors (the fire nation, in majority) but also having variations in types of people instead of the constant lack of variation in media (specifically with either oversexualized or ‘’’animalistic’‘‘‘ / unfeeling charas)?
n that they would .. replace white people’s role with chinese (?) / japanese people feels like pushing off the weight of colonialism? it wldve been nice imo if we saw the fire nation as white ? like it’s not a big deal or anythin but it’s somethin i‘ve been thinking abt
generally tho i rly like how they handled the southern and northern water tribes, but i do have some problems ?? like how the southern water tribe is seen as … primitive almost? at least in comparison to .. everyone else (except the air nomads except not rly cause even they had their own vehicles of flight things that cld only be opened w air bending etc etc).. really reeks of native stuff which is very valid and i liked how they showed that they weren’t.. v sexist? because native american culture .. Generally (i’m sure there’s exceptions, minor or not) promotes equality ?
um but then they kinda took that out with katara doing all of the washing and being the one to take care of sokka (despite being younger(?)) which is ….. more like indian ?  and so it felt like .. they were just like ‘’‘native indian’‘‘‘‘ and indian and equating them.. and also not giving a very good representation? and generally just. Smushing them together.
and then that .. the northern water tribe is the ‘‘‘advanced’‘‘‘‘ one, but then they’re really sexist? which makes it seem like . if you’re going to be an advanced culture there’s gonna be sexism .. and a lot of it is me reading into it cause it’s a kids’ show but .. they gotta be careful when working with colonialism and race specifically as the only markers between tribes and that Didnt happen.
& the swamp benders????? like they were just pretty wack overall but they were native american coded as well but .. in a different way? and it wasj ust .. iffy to me
also that they didn’t have mixed-race people was ????? to me. just. in general. like even after the peace we dont see people w more than one bending ability ?? asdgkmdsfkjdskjg anyway yea this is too long imma stop it here
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twatd · 6 years
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6000 Years of Murder – Part Two: Sun Kings Last A Long Time
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Tim: The Wicked + The Divine #36 finally gave us a definitive list of every damn Recurrence that has occurred since Ananke first started exploding heads, so we thought we’d take a walk through the annals of history and provide some context for what was happening at the time. Welcome to 6,000 Years of Murder.
In our second octet of Recurrences, the Bronze Age starts to get some traction, Egypt and Northern China dominate our Early Civilisation Showcase, and it’s still Big Boi Season when it comes to proboscideans. Spoilers (for real-world history, mostly) after the cut.
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3128BC – Egypt Gillen notes in the letters page for this issue that he could easily have spent many, many pages of this section purely in Egypt. And while that’s clearly not what ended up happening, this little chunk of eight panels spends almost half its time there – and for good reason. In 3128BC, we’re just over 20 years into the reign of Menes aka Narmer, the first pharaoh to unify Upper and Lower Egypt (aka the upper Nile River and the Nile Delta respectively) and the founder of the First Dynasty.
It’s during this period, which lasts until around 2686BC, that the capital will move from Thinis to Memphis, and many of the hallmarks of what we think of as Ancient Egypt will emerge, from hieroglyphics to architecture to religion. This period is also when the idea of the pharaohs as god-kings, acting as intermediaries between the divine and the people of Egypt, emerged.
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3036BC – Crete Egypt isn’t the only place where interesting stuff is happening, however. In nearby Crete, the Minoan civilisation is beginning to get into the swing of things. While the Bronze Age proper won’t truly arrive for a couple of hundred years, Crete during this period holds the “promise of greatness”, according to Kinder & Hilgemann in the Anchor Atlas of World History.
As time goes on, the early Minoan cities will become centres of commerce and craftsmanship, enabling the development of an upper class that will expand their influence and eventually become nobility and monarchy. The Minoan culture will go on to form the template for the Mycenaean Greeks, basically the beta test for what we think of as Ancient Greece. Which I guess makes this Recurrence the buggy pre-alpha for Socrates et al, and may explain why this is one of the few glimpses we get of a young Ananke/Minerva/whatever you want to call her.
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2942BC – Japan We cross over into the 30th century and Ananke’s latest trip takes her further East than she’s ever been before, to Japan during the Early Jōmon period. As a relatively isolated island nation with little in the way of domesticated animals, Japanese culture at this point is comparable to pre-Columbian North America, i.e. hunting and gathering with a sprinkling of agriculture. The name Jōmon comes from distinctive pottery produced during this period, generally accepted to be among some of the oldest in the world.
To get more specific, as the Jōmon period stretches on for a long damn time, the culture at this point was relatively sedentary, with pit-houses and large pottery vessels not suited to frequent travelling. Japan was undergoing a population explosion at the time, and sustained itself with small-scale agriculture including soybeans, gourd and even peaches. (Mmm, peaches.) Fish was also a big deal, both along the coast and in deep-water lakes. The Jōmon period will remain relatively stable until around 300BC, when the Iron Age hits Japan and rice farming takes off in a big way.
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2849BC – Northern China Between this Recurrence and the next one in Northern China, there seems to be some kind of competition going on for coolest names. Based on the mountains in the background of this panel, I suspect we’re dealing with the Majiayao culture of the upper Yellow River region, which also coincided with the supposed period of the Three August Ones and Five Emperors.
Let’s start with the Majiayao. Known for distinctive pottery which featured black pigments in sweeping parallel lines and dots, this early civilisation is also responsible for the oldest known bronze object in China, a knife found in Dongxiang dated to between 2900BC and 2740BC. As for the Three August Ones and Five Emperors, these are mythological culture heroes along the lines of Prometheus or Māui, credited with bringing the use of fire, houses, farming and silk weaving to people, as well as imparting morality and wisdom. Sounds suspiciously like a successful Pantheon to me...
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2757BC – Egypt We head back to Egypt just in time for the end of the Early Dynastic Period and the start of the Old Kingdom aka THE AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS. I’m not kidding – that’s what it’s called in serious historical circles. The Old Kingdom won’t officially kick off until around 2686BC, and in fact the tail end of the Second Dynasty is a relatively obscure period for ancient Egypt, but it’s around now that the capital officially moves to Memphis, close to Giza where the Great Pyramids will be built.
Speaking of pyramids, it’s also during this time that wealthy Egyptians start demanding fancier funeral practices, and the construction of mastabas (imagine the bottom quarter of a pyramid) becomes commonplace. These will later become Step Pyramids, and finally the grand pointy constructions we all know and love. Language and agricultural practices are also developing at speed, and Egypt is quickly becoming the dominant cultural and economic power in the region.
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2666BC – Northern China If our first trip to Northern China involved the Majiayao, I’m fairly sure our second features us paying a visit to the Longshan culture, named after the modern town of Longshan, or “Dragon Mountain”. This late Neolithic civilisation, centred on the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas, is also called the Black Pottery Culture. See what I meant about cool names? Like the Jōmon and the Majiayao, the Longshan culture was known for its distinctive pottery, and represented a period of intensified agriculture of millet, rice and wheat, and increased domestication of pigs, dogs, sheep and cattle.
Those Three August Ones and Five Emperors are still kicking around too, with the Huangdi or the Yellow Emperor supposedly reigning during this time. Regarded as the creator of the calendar, the initiator of Chinese civilisation and the ancestor of all Chinese people, he was until relatively recently thought to be a historical person rather than a mythical figure, and is still a powerful nationalist symbol in modern China.
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2574BC – Egypt We’re basically ping-ponging between Egypt and Northern China at this point, and it’s easy to see why. Check out those PYRAMIDS IN THE BACKGROUND YO. While we were off visiting China, the Old Kingdom period began, marking one of the high points of civilisation in the lower Nile Valley. We are most likely here during the reign of Khufu, known to the Greeks as Cheops, who commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza and who, according to Herodotus was a heretic and a cruel tyrant. But what does the Father of History know, right?
As you might imagine from a culture capable of producing monuments that are still around today, Old Kingdom Egypt had gotten pretty advanced. The rulers of the formerly independent states became governors subject to the Pharaoh, funneling taxes towards him. Architects, masons, artists and sculptors all mastered new techniques as Egyptian art flourished. As in Uruk last time, it seems like this leap forward in progress might have helped Ananke’s quarry escape her.
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2483BC – Wrangel Island Then again, maybe not. Wrangel Island, positioned in the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, wasn’t exactly winning awards as a beacon of civilisation back in the 25th Century BC. What it did boast was the last surviving population of woolly mammoths, which would still be hunted by pre-Inuit cultures until around 2000 BC, when they finally went extinct. Feel free to blame that on Ananke if you like.
What was life like for these tribes, living in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth? Well, they were working with stone and ivory tools and probably hunting reindeer, which migrated annually across the ice. Linguist Michael E. Krauss argues that Wrangel Island may have served as a way station for cultures following the reindeer, and there may even have been trade routes between what is now the north Siberian coast and Alaska. Within 500 years, the cultures in this area would switch their focus to fishing and hunting sea mammals, an innovation that would shape Arctic culture right up to the modern day.
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citrina-posts · 3 years
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Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?
I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.
There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. 
Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?
The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.
But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).
It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.
1. Growing Up Asian-American
I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.
So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.
2. My Own Biases
Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.
I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.
These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.
White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?
3. What It Does Right
This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.
But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.
If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?
I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!
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avatarsymbolism · 7 years
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We shouldn’t try to find one-to-one parallels when we try to equate Avatar events and cultures to real life ones, since a lot of the stuff in Avatar is a mix of different things (like how the Fire Nation also has Korean and Thai influences in additional to Japaneses ones), but I still find it both interesting and funny to point of parallels because: 
We start off with the Fire Nation (Imperialist Japan mixed with fascist ideology) taking over regions that represent Tibet, another that’s a mix of different Chinese eras, and two lands that have both Inuit and Native American Influences
I wish I had a proper source, but the Drill seems to be inspired by one of Hitler’sw failed oplans to to druill under the English Channel or something like that. Something like a secret tunnel (haar har). 
D-Day fails (”The Day of Black Sun”)
But then, the Allies eventually succeed in taking down the fascist power 
While in real life there’s a much more complex history of imperialism, the comics and Korra IMMEDIATELY give imperialism a a big fuck you by showing how 1) imperialism sucks and is beneficial to NO ONE (not even the guys spreading it), and 2) at the end of the day mutual trade is more beneficial than imperialism and colonialism.
But that’s not the point I really want to focus on. What I find hilarious is that, to do this, we start to see shift where the world turns into 19th century Japan a bit in that sense that everyone is much more open to trade. (minus the opart where Avatar!Matthew Perry forces everyone to open up their ports). 
Although, it should probably be noted that this process began during the war, and that, as we see in “The Promise,” it’s not exactly a fair system. 
 Anyway, what’s  also kind of funny is that the Water Tribes are now apparently going to be like the Middle East with the oil drilling plot with ��North and South.” But, the kicker is, the people coming over to fill in the role of the Western countries is the South’s sister tribe. So, it would be like if Saudia Arabia had already been this large, unified state in the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s fall, and now they’re going over to claim other, smaller states in the name of unity and technological innovation (ok, maybe not the best, most accurate analogy, but I tried). 
They’re even using all the usual arguments for imperialism, like damn.
LOK, of course, continued this tradition by giving us the Equalists as a stand in for the Communists, Unalaq being a really badly done theocrat, Zaheer being  an actual anarchist, and Kuvira being a fascist. 
And, while there are some holes in the story’s lore, and while many of these stories could have been improved upon (whether it be in the show in the comics), I commend both show and comics for trying to continue this theme. 
But honestly, what makes Avatar such an awesome series in terms of worldbuilding is that you can look at any number of historical events and ask yourself “what would the Avatar equivalent of this be?” And if you’re lucky you might be able to find something. Also it’s fun because of the all the historical parallels, and because headcanons are fics are really fun to make. 
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maaruin · 4 years
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Arnook’s speech in Siege of the North
According to this blogpost by a military historian battle speeches in the Greek and Roman tradition and the cultures that followed it are made up of the following parts.
I) an opening that focuses on the valor of the men 
II) a description of the dangers arrayed against them 
III) the profits to be gained by victory and the dire consequences of defeat 
IV) the basis on which the general pins his hope of success and finally 
V) a moving peroration; the big emotional conclusion of the speech.
These elements can be moved around, but normally most the them are there. Now, let’s take a look at the speech Chief Arnook gives to the Northern Water tribe. Which elements are there, which are missing.
The day we have feared for so long has arrived. The Fire Nation is on our doorstep. It is with great sadness I call my family here before me, knowing well that some of these faces are about to vanish from our tribe, but they will never vanish from our hearts. Now, as we approach the battle for our existence, I call upon the great spirits. Spirit of the Ocean! Spirit of the Moon! Be with us!
The thing with battle speeches in media is, of course, that they have a different purpose in universe and out of universe. In universe the are supposed to increase the will to fight, ease the fear before battle, and prepare soldiers for the stress and terror in the confrontation. Out of universe, they are supposed to tell the audience how to feel about the battle. For the audience, this speech conveys: 1.) Be sad, people will die (hint hint), but they will do so in a noble way and be remembered; 2.) the Water Tribe is fighting for it’s existence, if they lose, all is lost; 3.) there are spiritual forces at work, the moon spirit and the ocean spirit, which could help (hint hint).
So as a setup for how this battle will play out, it is not bad. But what about in-universe?
I) The speech doesn’t mention the quality of the man fighting. Instead, it starts straight with...
II)  “The day we have feared for so long has arrived. The Fire Nation is on our doorstep.” The purpose of telling the soldiers about the enemy is to make them mentally prepare themselves for what they will face. That would normally need to include more details. Especially since the Northern Water Tribe is not used to fighting the Fire Nation. Ask Aang, Katara, and Sokka before the battle about them so you can tell your soldiers to prepare for fireball-catapults, fully armored firebenders, komodo-rhinos and tanks. Those seem to be the thinks that could be most terrifying for a Water Tribe warrior, so it makes sense to prepare them for this.
III) “Now, as we approach the battle for our existence,..“ I guess that counts as profits gained by victory and consequences for failure. If we win, our tribe lives on, if we loose, our tribe stops existing.
IV) This is interesting. On what does the leader pin his hopes of victory? The Moon and Ocean are part of it, but I think “It is with great sadness I call my family here before me, knowing well that some of these faces are about to vanish from our tribe, but they will never vanish from our hearts. “ also counts in a way. This part of battle speeches often focuses on common identity, and here Arnook calls the warriors his family and tells them that those who die will be remembered by those who live. Emphasizing sadness here is, I guess, not the normal way you encourage people. But I could imagine the Northern Water Tribe to have a more fatalistic outlook than the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom. I suppose in the harsh conditions of the north life is often sad, but doing ones duty to the tribe is a way that this sadness can have meaning. This attitude seems to be the one Yue has, by the way. She doesn’t love Hahn, but she loves her people, which means that she is sad about her arranged marriage, but will go along with it. Maybe the soldiers (who aren’t idiots) think along similar lines about the prospect of their death in battle. So when they face the enemy, no matter the outcome they have done their duty and the tribe will love them for it. I do think metioning the advantages they have wouldn’t be a bad addition, though. The moon and ocean may support them in spirit form, but they give practical advantages as well: They have a lot of water available, while the Fire Nation forces are on the ocean, which is their element. The Moon is almost full, so waterbending is strong. In addition, they also have layers of defenses: walls and canals. All in all, their position isn’t that bad. (Most movies and series seem to leave advantages of the heroes out to make them seem more desperate.)
V) The invocation of the Moon and Ocean works as an emotional conclusion of this speech, I’d say.
So I’d say it isn’t too ba, if the Northern Water Tribe culture has an outlook on life that focuses on the tragic and the duty to ones people. But could do with a more practical side: explaining what the enemy is capable of and explaining their own advantages. Of course, all of that pre-supposes that Water Tribe battle speeches are similar to battle speeches of the Western tradition. I’m not familiar with battle speeches in Chinese history or how Inuit warriors increase moral in preparation for battle. But I doubt the creators of the series based this particular speech directly on the cultures that served as inspiration for the series and the Water Tribes in particular. 
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