I don't know, I liked it well enough. And the song was great.

Spiritbending could have been introduced earlier, yeah, but even if it was a cop-out it gave Aang a way to stick to his principles and break the cycle of violence. De-powering Ozai and having him answer for his crimes prevents him from becoming a martyr and lets him be firmly toppled rather than making it seem like a coup. It's like how Iroh said he could take on Ozai, but the world would see it as trading one Fire Lord for another in a dynastic conflict.

But yeah, One Bad Apple was a bad episode because it ran into the standard anti-bullying problem.

Edited by theLibrarian on Nov 24th 2020 at 11:00:42 AM

Not entirely. I liked how it did have some nuance in that the new character was just bullying to avoid being bullied herself — but the other two bullies were just jerks who thought it was fun.

The fact that "Lost Mark" undermined this by giving Diamond Tira a Freudian Excuse is the one thing I don't like about that episode, which is otherwise one of my favorites.

Post of the Day #3074

Posted by d Roy on Mon, 22nd Jul '13 8:55:44 PM - Post #385022 in the old thread

I can only imagine if they really milked Cheese Sandwich for a bunch of cheese puns.

I can relate to Babs Seed. When I was a bully, my biggest driving motivation was fear of being bullied. I was a nerdy kid and cartoons and TV shows had taught me that nerds always, always get picked on by cool kids and athletes. I was terrified of being treated like Peter Parker or basically any high school protagonist ever.

So I got mean and lashed out at people before they could have a chance to lash out at me. I had an overdeveloped victim complex before I even entered middle school, where a joke at my expense or a person innocently sitting in my spot, the slightest perceived microaggression towards me, was interpreted as a precursor to Flash Thompson shoving me in a locker and taking my lunch money. And I didn't want that to happen so I "fought back". Violently.

It took until my mid-twenties to realize that the teenage me had actually been starting all the fights, not ending them. That I'd been instigating abuse against others rather than defending myself from abuse against them. That I was, in fact, Flash Thompson in this scenario, not Peter Parker.

So I get where Babs is coming from. Fear of mistreatment can make you do some terrible things.

But also, fuck Babs Seed (and fuck teenage me too while we're at it). Babs is worried about being teased, so she ramps up into violent aggression - and not even retaliatory aggression like me; she's trying to impress the perceived bullies she's afraid of by violently abusing kids that have nothing to do with it.

Babs is actually worse than me. She's not just irrationally mean and violent; she's a coward too scared to punch up, so she settles on punching down as a way of begging and pleading for the upper bullies to be lenient towards her. My behavior was abhorrent and a lot of my "punching up" was actually punching down and I just didn't know it. But Babs isn't even trying to pick the right fights. She's just being the bad guy because she's scared of the worse guys.

One of the problems with anti-bullying messages is that it's not really kid-appropriate, but retaliation is underrated. Bullies wield the threat of violence with abandon, so much so that many of them have never actually had to follow through on it. They've just learned that the threat of punches get results; if they do throw a punch, they often do it in a way that leaves no opportunity to fight back. A lot of bullies have never actually been in a real fight.

That's not to say this is the case for all bullies. But I can say from personal experience that having the shit kicked out of me swiftly brought an end to my bullying. A bully that's never been in a real fight doesn't really understand that the threat of violence can have violent consequences for themselves. I was top shit for years, picking fights and pushing people around, high on arrogance that I had this shit on lock. When I went Beast Mode, I got what I wanted, so why not go Beast Mode all the time whenever I wanted something?

That arrogance shattered when I lost a fight. Someone pushed back harder and left me curled up on the ground nursing bloody bruises. I'd always just assumed that if things came to blows, I'd win. Because I'm awesome. I was drunk on macho assumptions of invulnerability. Being trashed like that made me realize for the first time in my life that violence has consequences. It made me genuinely afraid of violence, because I never wanted to feel like that again.

I look back on the day I got shitstomped as a turning point in my life. Finding out that trying to punch my way through life could actually end very badly for me made me reconsider the way I treated people. It made me realize the universe didn't revolve around me; that I wasn't the main character of the story. It made me put down my fists, stop barking, and start actually listening to people.

My own rehabilitation was a long and winding road from there with a lot of curves, false starts, and twists to it. But I probably never would have even started if someone hadn't stepped up and answered my threat of force in equal measure.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 25th 2020 at 7:31:25 AM

I felt like One Bad Apple actually mildly foreshadows Lost Mark. The one thing to truly terrify DT is the threat of her mom being mad/disappointed in her. So when you meet her mom in Lost Mark you see how misaimed DT's desire to appease her really is and how her mom has shaped her worldview negatively. Plus it's a nice echo that the CMC form at DT's cutecenera, they earn their cutecenera by helping DT out of the goodness of their hearts, their first common enemy becoming a steadfast friend.

Post of the Day #3075

Posted by Badwolfwho on Sun, 4th Dec '11 6:14:09 AM - Post #49180 in the old thread

Reminds me of the G4 purists complaining about 21st century technology in Pony Life. I personally didn't give a damn, though we could have done without a whole episode of Rainbow Dash deciding what apps she really needs on her tablet.

And on the plus side, Fluttershy's attempt at an unboxing video was one of the better episodes.

Perhaps there should have been more emphasis on that, instead of just Aang's absolutist commitment to the rules of his airbender culture. That gives him a pragmatic reason to Take a Third Option, one based on properly performing his duties as Avatar rather than compromising them for his own spiritual fulfillment.

I read about Japanese Christmas traditions today, and found it particularly interesting how eating KFC became a huge Christmas tradition in Japan. Apparently KFC decided to market itself as a Christmas dinner due to the lack of turkey dinners in Japan, and basically filled a void since Japan didn't have a pre-established tradition. Japan also has a tradition of eating sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries on Christmas Eve, and Christmas is considered a romantic holiday like Valentine's Day.

It reminds me a bit of how the Changelings made up their own Christmas Hearth's Warming Eve traditions by misinterpreting the pony traditions since they had no pre-existing traditions of their own.

Edited by storyyeller on Nov 26th 2020 at 12:51:09 PM

Post of the Day #3076

Posted by ghostfacekiller 39 on Tue, 15th Oct '13 8:59:14 PM - Post #9820 in the new thread

Edited by storyyeller on Nov 28th 2020 at 8:36:50 AM

Personally, I didn't like the copout of Avatar's ending either. I also found it tone deaf. "No! Killing the tyrannical,mass-murdering conquerer is wrong! It's much more morally superior to permanently cripple and imprison them so they spend they test of their life completely helpless by using an ability no one IRL can ever use!"

I have similar problems with how some of the antagonists in MLP are handled.

Of course, in my country, life in prison is considered a cruel and unusual punishment and is thus illegal. I personally agree with that. I think it's far more cruel than just killing the person instead of extending their suffering as long as possible.

(Also, BTW, I am now married)

Oh, congrats!

Leaving the moral arguments aside for the moment, that does treat rather noticeably in the territory of a Space Whale Aesop. Agree or don't agree, you can't exactly do anything with that.

(Oh, and congratulations.)

Put under that lens, spiritbending actually makes a little more sense to me. If we consider the central message of Ozai's fate to be "Death penalty or life imprisonment?", then the Space Whale Complication is that Ozai has magic fantasy superpowers that make him difficult to imprison. So the writers added in a Space Whale Antidote so that he could be imprisoned like a real-world deposed dictator.

Sure, being able to use magic superpowers to strip away a person's natural God-given ability to command the magical elements at will isn't something we can really do in real life. But. Like. That's because people don't have those kinds of powers in real life, so the Space Whales cancel each other out.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 3:05:24 AM

I'm sorry, what thread is this again?

It's closer to amputation of someone's limbs to make it easier to imprison them.

I think MLP has similar issues on justice

I just realized that yesterday was the anniversary for two episodes, the 10th anniversary of "Dragonshy" and the 9th anniversary of "The Mysterious Mare Do Well". They both have opposite reception with the former generally seen in a positive light and the latter generally seen in a negative light.

Edited by jessicadicicco610 on Nov 27th 2020 at 3:19:10 AM

Eh, not really. Non-benders exist in the world of Avatar and the only disability they have is purely fantastic, it doesn't makes them less physically capable of everyday life. This is more like taking away a dictator's weapons and equipment before sending him off to jail, since Ozai on his own lacks the raw power to break himself out of jail but isn't crippled like a real person in life would be

I'm not sure the comparisons between depowering a dangerously powerful fighter and cutting off a normal human's arm are valid

Yeah, amputation is probably a bit excessive as a comparison, if only because losing a limb is a lot more debilitating than losing a combat-focused superpower.

You know, I always got the impression that my reaction to "TMMDW" was kind of the opposite of the fandom at large's — mostly, I just really don't like Rainbow's performance there and I am absolutely not convinced that she's a really sympathetic party.

For me, it's the timing that throws everything off. If they weren't already making up plans before Dash puts anybody in danger, then they might have a stronger point.

As it stands, Dash's friends would rather engage in hijinks then actually talk to Dash about her behavior.

It also doesn't help that telling Dash about her behavior was what actually worked while the hijinks (plus that part where everybody was basically patting themselves on the back) only served to make her depressed.

And since they're the ones that are supposed to be in the right, it does behoove closer examination of their behavior.

Edit: I think there is something in that comparison in that you're taking away something that was essential to their identity, something they've been born with and have always enjoyed, like taking the legs of a dancer or taking the fingers of a pianist.

Edited by fredhot16 on Nov 27th 2020 at 4:24:50 AM

Oh, I'm not disputing that point — like you said, the mare-do-well thing was extremely poorly thought out and very evidently unnecessary. At least on my end, however, Dash's behavior was also very poor and makes it very difficult for me to like her.

EDIT: That said, it's also worth noting that there are multiple occasions in the episode where people are put in direct and considerable danger by either Dash's incompetence or negligence and which are saved chiefly by the others' intervention.

Edited by Theriocephalus on Nov 27th 2020 at 6:59:41 AM

See, that's another weird thing about that episode: I don't think the fact the people were being put in danger by her behavior was even a point of contention in the story.

At least, from what I can remember, neither Dash nor the Mare-Do-Well cabal actually talk about this when the cat's out of the bag. Nobody pulls up that point to shame her about it.

When they get a chance to explain themselves, they say they engaged in this because they want Dash to be less arrogant and they don't bring up that point about her behavior nearly getting people hurt. What matters is that she's getting too big for her britches, a impression that's hard to ignore since it's the only thing they talk about.

Edited by fredhot16 on Nov 27th 2020 at 5:18:21 AM

People totally use bending in everyday, non violent life. We actively see that. In addition, having your bending taken away is completely different from never having been born with it in the first place. Korra actively demonstrates that and is right to do so. As having an ability your whole life and then having it taken away is not only traumatic, it means that you have to learn how to do everything you once relied on that ability for and it means that all the time you spent mastering it is now down the drain with you having never spent that time mastering another ability, meaning you will always be less skilled than one who never had it to begin with.

As for MMDW, I actually liked the episode a lot. And I was one with zero sympathy for Rainbow. But I also have no sympathy for Trixie in Boast Busters.

I think it's because the very core of my morality is based on acting like you are the least important thing in the Universe. I cannot stand arrogance. (Speaking of which, congratulations on dropping Trump, USA)

I liked MMDW more than most, but it helped that I pretended it was a montage taking place over the course of months. It makes way more sense that way.