I advocate for moving Zuko from the group Team Avatar to Fire Nation because it's a huge spoiler and he only joins for a small portion of the runtime. Agreed?
To be a Master
I have notice that some people are moving comic book characters into some of the character pages that only feature characters directly from the show and not the spin-off till now. Since it has become apparent that the Avatar franchise is still continuing in-spite of the Legend of Korra ending months ago, I ask should the whole Avatar character page be reorganized into a similar view like the Star Wars page or Middle Earth?
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Why isn't Guru Pathik listed on the character sheet?
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With the exception of the gang, it might be better to organize the character list by nation.
InformationWantsToBeFree
What has happened to the Mai pic?!?!?!
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That's fixed now.
"Remember, writers are the only adults who get to spend all day in their pajamas playing with imaginary friends."
Thanks
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RoyIII
I think the Lion Turtle needs a spot on the Mentors section. There are certainly tropes that apply to his big fuzzy mountainy self, and in a time of need, he was more beneficial to Aang even than the past Avatars. The dude has earned it.
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I agree, also, You Could Always Edit It Yourself.
"Remember, writers are the only adults who get to spend all day in their pajamas playing with imaginary friends."
Toph was added to the cast specifically to expand its female membership and for the intentional enjoyment of female viewers; therefore, she is an Affirmative Action Girl.
Katara isn't a soap-box sadie. A soap-box sadie describes someone who tries to impose political views on others, not someone who just insists on acting on the same beliefs the whole party already shares. The only time in the series where she tries to impose anything like a political view on anyone is in the Waterbending Master, and even there she is not so much trying to change the society as trying to get the training that she crossed the planet and risked her life to get. She also insists that, even if she hates Pakku, Aang has to be pragmatic and accept his training even if Pakku is unwilling to teach Katara. She doesn't act like a feminist activist so much as an intelligent and powerful woman who doesn't appreciate being fucked with because of her gender. Other places where she is accuse of being a Soapbox Sadie are "Imprisoned" and "The Painted Lady". In "Imprisoned" she is not insisting on trying to rescue the earthbenders because of ideology or self-righteousness, but because she feels personally responsible for Haru's imprisonment. Also, Aang and Sokka do not disagree with her goals or methods, just her tactical priorities. In "The Painted Lady" it's pretty obvious that she isn't acting primarily out of ideological concern for the environment but rather out of concern for the suffering of the villagers whose lives are being made a living hell as a result of the environmental damage. Once again, the rest of the party (Sokka and Toph anyway) object to this on practical, not ethical or ideological grounds. In Fact, both Sokka and Aang act much more like Soap-Box Sadies than Katara does. In Aang's case its his pacifism and his insistence on standing on principle in "The Waterbending Master" and "Avatar Day", For Sokka it's his insistent Skepticism in "The Fortuneteller", "The Cave of Two Lovers" and "The Swamp".
I'm not sure why no Character Alignments have been given for the Characters, since they seem to have otherwise been mined for all concievable tropes. Unless there is some reason that they have not been given, this is what I'm thinking for alignment: Aang: CG(S1)=>NG(S2)=>LG(S3) Katara: NG(S1-2)=>CG(S3) Sokka: LG(S1)=>NG(S2-S3) Toph: CG leaning towards CN Zuko: LN(S1)=>CN(S2-S3)=>LG(After Day of Black Sun) Azula: LE Ozai: NE Leaning Towards LE Iroh: LG Mai/Ty Lee: N Zhao: NE Ursa: N Leaning Towards NG Long Feng: LE Suki: LG Jet: CE => CN Bumi: CG Pakku: LN Hamma: LE Hakoda: LG
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Apparently it's against the "rules" to put Alignments in unless there's an alignment system present in canon, or whatever.
I agree with your assessments, btw.
"Remember, writers are the only adults who get to spend all day in their pajamas playing with imaginary friends."
Yeah, I've heard that Alignments are supposed to go on YMMV tabs or their own pages now, not on a work page (apparently because they're too subjective). I'll give you that in a lot of cases they are, but there are certainly characters (particularly in an archetypical series like ATLA) that individual alignments can really some up quite well. I always found them a useful shorthand for a characters general motive and methods, myself.
''All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us..."
I actually thought it was a good thing tit was removed as although I also enjoy categorising characters based on alignment, it could cauuse a lot of uneeded debate and i really kinda doubt there are that many characters that can accurately be summed up by an alignment especially as it means a different thing to different people.
Don't you think Azula is a Villain Sue, or maybe a deconstruction at the very least. She is practically unbeatable in bending combat (Curb Stomped Aang and Zuko in their Mêlée à Trois), she is able to manipulate Zuko every chance she gets, pretty much all of her plans succeed since she thinks through things that no one would be able to (until season 3), and she is also Dangerously Genre-Savvy.
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No, she isn't, because she does lose in the end. It's all part of a standard three act structure. Villains tend to have a lot of victories at the beginning and in the middle, since You Can't Thwart Stage One and the second act is where things usually go to hell. She did have to make a tactical withdrawal when she realized she was outmatched in "The Chase," and she learned her lessons by the time Ba Sing Se rolled around so that she was able to conquer it with support instead of by her lonesome (a Villain Sue will usually opt for the latter). She is certainly very skilled and cunning, but she kind of has to be in order to go toe to toe with the freaking Avatar and win. I personally like how she prefers to outwit her opponents rather than overpower them.
It's certainly arguable, but I've never seen Sue tropes in character pages other than for notoriously bad fanfics, so it might be a moot point depending on what the actual rule is.
Perhaps she is a subversion because she does lose in the end, or maybe a deconstruction as she works exceedingly hard to maintain her self-image of perfection and she has to be perfect to maintain favor with Ozai.
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She's not even close to unbeatable in bending combat. Iroh beats her the first time he appears, Aang beats her one-on-one in the drill, in Crossroads of Destiny she is clearly shown to be having serious difficulty with Katara until Zuko steps in, Zuko is also shown to have the upper hand against Aang (who had previously beaten Azula) seconds earlier in the same fight, indicating that he's at least close to her equal in fighting ability. She only fights Zuko or Aang four times in Season 3, Black sun is a special case, the Boiling Rock she seems evenly matched against Zuko and Sokka, but they're more interested in escaping than in killing her, in Southern Raiders she's evenly matched against Zuko and in the finale she's clearly losing to Zuko. Overall, although she's the most powerful character (other than Iroh) at the start of Season 2 when she first appears, Zuko and the Gaang have leveled up so much by the time they reach Ba Sing Se that in season 3 the power comparison goes roughly like this 1:Aang, Iroh, And Ozai in no particular order 2:Azula, Zuko, Katara, and Toph, with Azula probably having a slight lead over the other three 3:Mai, Ty Lee, and Suki 4:Sokka
After thinking a lot about the series finale, I realized that Aang's Karmic Jackpot undoes a LOT of his Character Development. I know this is a kid's show and Aang does have genuine reasons to avoid killing Ozai (he is twelve and believes in the sanctity of life), but it's not like Bryke shied away from mature scenarios before. The way it was handled just leaves a bad taste in my mouth—he was so focused on NOT KILLING ANYONE EVER that he completely ignored the other Avatars' advice that the needs of the many (the world needing to get rid of Ozai) outweigh the needs of the few (Aang's religious beliefs).
Bryke could have handled it by a less ambigious version of Jet's last scene (Aang striking the final blow or hitting a vital spot by mistake, leaving the wounded Ozai as he struggles to get up, CUT TO AANG'S VICTORY SPEECH YAY). Instead Aang desperately looked for another answer (good thing the island he's on is actually a Lion-Turtle!) and finds a really neat compromise—Energybending! Another option would have been to introduce Energybending earlier or as a random thing that Aang learned from the spirit world but didn't want to risk using until the finale.
To top it all off, he gets his last chakra conveniently unblocked (again: not bad in itself, but the timing is VERY suspicious). It's not like the Avatar can't have a family, it's just that they should know that some things (the good of the world) are more important than others (Katara). Aang screwed up his ability to enter the Avatar State by flat-out refusing to let of Katara, so he should have been forced to live with that mistake. It's not like he can't kick ass with the four elements themselves.
Keep in mind that I still think the finale was an epic piece of epicness—it's just that compared to the rest of the series, it's a really surprising letdown to have Aang conveniently get everything in the end, compared to everyone else who needed to make hard decisions and live with them.
Edited by Sharysa
Is Sozin really a Complete Monster? I won't dispute that he did horrible, evil things, but he says he wanted to share the prosperity of the Fire Nation with the world, so isn't he more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist? He clearly does have a conscience and he does display some redeeming features in the sole episode in which he appears. He struck me as less blatantly evil than villains like Zhao, Azula and Long Feng, none of whom are listed as Complete Monsters.
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Yes he is! If he truly wanted to share the prosperity of the Fire Nation with the world, he would not want to burn the entire Earth Kingdom to the ground. That excuse is to give him a front for his Omnicidal tendencies.
Edit: whoops, I guess I read it wrong. For no apparent reason, I do this all the time. I thought it was talking about Ozai, so no, Sozin is not a complete monster.
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Um, Ozai wanted to burn it to the ground. Sozin just wanted to conquer it. Also, he was portrayed somewhat sympathetically, at least in a tragic "what could have been" sense. So, you're wrong.
Watch the episode again. Sozin was definitely a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
Yeah, Sozin never says he wants to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground. That's all Ozai.
"Our nation is enjoying an unprecedented time of peace and wealth. Our people are happy. And we're so fortunate in so many ways. [...] I've been thinking. We should share this prosperity with the rest of the world. In our hands is the most successful empire in history. It's time we expanded it."
Not well-intentioned at all, nope.
Edited by ProgenyExMachina
Andrew
I'm not going to start an edit war, but given the number of times she's clearly depicted as being flat out wrong about something, and showing remorse for being wrong, it's ridiculous to call Katara any kind of a Mary Sue, much less a Jerk Sue.
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Agreed. The entry is here, if anyone feels like contesting the removal:
- Jerk Sue: Treads the line a few times because she is rarely called out seriously on her more vicious or reckless actions in comparison to other characters.
I'm also tempted to contest the Well Intentioned Extremist entry; however, it specifically states that it's borderline. I assume that it's in response to The Painted Lady. I disagree with that example, but I can see it as YMMV.
Given how he has just as much narrative focus as Aang and a lasting impact on the lore after the series, shouldn't Zuko be moved to his own page? It just seems like while the show is called "The Last Airbender", it was just as much Zuko's show as it was Aang's. Plus, it would resolve the 'should Zuko be on the Team Avatar Page or the Fire Nation Page" thingy.