Here's a special update for this liveblog, which I wrote for the release of Part 3 of "The Rift".
As you may know, in Chapter 12 of Not Stalking Zuko, Toph gets a letter from home from her mother. It's summarized in Installment 33 of my liveblog, but it essentially reveals that Toph's parents haven't budged on their opposition to her assisting the Avatar, and are no more convinced that she's capable of doing such a thing.
Canon finally sheds light on what happened with the Bei Fong family. The immediate reaction to the letter is never shown, but Toph coldly greeting her father, and Lao disavowing her as his daughter indicated that it fell on deaf ears. In Part 2, Toph made little progress in convincing her father to accept her as she was.
In Part 3, with father and daughter, among many others, trapped in a collapsing iron mine, Lao, with his and Toph's survival unlikely (a common catalyst for dealing with unresolved issues, since the threat of death helps people realize how small certain poblems are in the grand scheme of things), decides to tell her what happened. At some point after Master Yu and Xin Fu gave up on searching for her (which would likely put this at some point in Book 3), things fell apart between Lao and Mrs. Beifong, with her blaming him for driving Toph away and him conceding that perhaps she's right, which led him to get involved with Loban. One has to wonder if Lao initially blamed Toph for his wife leaving him, hence his bitterness toward her. But in any case, he says that he still thought of her, and apologizes to her, before she with the help of the students she trained, lifts the roof off the cave-in and saves everyone.
All in all, it was a nice conclusion to the plotline. Perhaps more detail could have been given about how the letter was received (possibly having Lao say "By the time your letter arrived, it was too late. The rift between your mother and I had grown too large, and I blamed you."), or whether Lao even got it; perhaps Toph sent it back to the Beifong estate and her mother got it, but not her father. Toph's mother could have been shown more, although it's possible that Toph was able to find her mother upon her return home, but not her father. In any case, Lao was shown in a largely human light, having his flaws as a parent but being a significantly more decent person than Loban.
So how does this relate to the fic, albeit while considering that if I picked up the third volume of The Rift today, the author, who finished Not Stalking Firelord Zuko in June of 2013, couldn't have known about it? I haven't read the rest of the fic, but I can gather the following.
- Firstly, and most obviously, Toph gets a response within the timeline of the show.
- Unlike in canon, the Bei Fongs are a united front, hoping to make Toph into the girl they want her to be. By contrast, while Lao is quite unhappy about how Toph turned out in canon, his wife blamed him for how things turned out. It's possible that she'd have reluctantly settled for letting Toph travel with the Avatar if, by doing so, Toph would return home if she'd survived, rather than refuse and drive her to running away.
- Finally, and partly related to the second point, there doesn't seem to be any breakdown in the relations between Lao and his wife Poppy
I also read through "The Rift," a nice look at how Mai still cares for and is loyal to Zuko even after their breakup, even if the final panel vaguely implies that it might not be permanent (They had a mini-breakup in "The Beach," as well as after Zuko left during the eclipse).
So how is this relevant to the fic? In the comic, the main villain is Mai's father, an Ozai loyalist who wants to re-enthrone Ozai and wants his children's help. This is a far cry from his behavior in the fic, in which he really does care for the well-being of his family, even if he's sometimes preoccupied by his efforts to provide with him. In this case, however, it's one of a few cases in which the author might not have been able to predict the comics, but this seems at odds with what little we've seen of him so far early in Season 2.
I also watched the second season of The Legend of Korra, and was largely disappointed. The series introduced a fair amount of interesting ideas, but it seemed to be a bit too much ground to cover effectively, the main villain wasn't as interesting, and the quality in general was somewhat lower. Of course, I don't have any plans to write a fanfic about how I think it should have gone.
Still, the two-parter about Avatar Wan was a nice part about the origins of the Avatar. When I saw how the lion turtles gave people bending, I couldn't help but think about the author's suggestions that the spirits wouldn't just let the airbenders go extinct. Of course, there's also the barrier that was in place from Avatar Wan and Raava's battle with Vaatu to Korra and Raava's battle with Vaatu and Unalaq ten thousand years later, at the end of Season 2 of Legend of Korra. Essentially, airbending might have come from the lion turtles, but it's now up to Aang, Tenzin and the airbending kids to keep airbending alive. Being the last airbender is "a terrible legacy," as the author puts it (and I do feel sorry for Kya and Bumi, who have their own personal issues due to feeling like The Unfavorite as non-airbenders), but it is Tenzin's responsibility to bear, and airbenders will likely remain an endangered species for generations.
As for the liveblog for this fic, it's on indefinite hiatus, but not necessarily permanently done. I still lack the motivation to finish it, but don't feel entirely at ease with leaving it as it is. Perhaps I may return at some point, but for now, I'm working on my Girls und Panzer liveblog, and should have the second episode liveblogged fairly soon.
For now, feel free to check back here every once in a while as I update other liveblogs. I don't make any promises, but you may be pleasantly surprised.
