Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra -

[FaramirG]

So some new details have been revealed about the Live Action Avatar show on Netflix

https://www.theilluminerdi.com/2021/02/19/avatar-the-last-airbender-kim/

Already they are fucking up the character dynamics from the original show. Sokka was the older brother and leader of the group due to his age which resulted in him making foolish decisions because of his arrogance. At the same time Sokka was the most emotionally mature of the group due to his age and the wisest using his brains to compensate for his lack of bending. Katara by contrast was the younger sibling but was more grounded in reality at times than her older brother so there was a comedy dynamic between the two siblings. Katara was also slightly more inexperienced with the real world than her older brother which led to her making naive foolish decisions and drove her character arc of losing her mother at a young age. She was still haunted by it but Sokka had come to accept it as a dark part of his life. By changing their ages to make Katara the older sibling, presumably to make her the more mature leader of the group, they are throwing Avatars character dynamics under the bus in favor of wokeness. Typical Netflix.

Holy shit, no wonder Bryke left the show. They didn't do the best job with Korra, but even they weren't this bad, By making Katara the older sibling, she is now 16 years old and assuming they stick to the plot, she'll have a romantic relationship with 12 year old Aang. Or they cut that relationship entirely, which removes yet another key relationship of the main cast, a huge part of the main trio's character development, and a critical plot point, Aang being unable to fully let go of everything because he cares about Katara, which makes him hesitate to enter the Avatar state and lets Azula hit him with lightning while he's doing his big slow transformation. Either Netflix has just come up with a storyline where a high school junior molests a 6th grader, or they've cut one of the biggest moral dilemmas limiting the protagonist from just going full force of nature and killing everyone, and knowing Netflix, it's hard to figure out which is more likely.

And that's without even beginning to get into the stuff you pointed out, how Sokka being the eldest son and the eldest male left in his whole village influenced his character, and Katara being forced to grow up despite her younger age influenced her character. They're just shitting on everyone. At this point I'm half expecting them to introduce Aang as a tall avid hunter who loves eating meat, hunted by his nemesis, the pacifist Zuko, egged on by his evil Uncle Iroh, while gentle Azula tries to get them to come home where Fire King Ozai just wants peace for everyone.

 

[starborn427614]

Holy shit, no wonder Bryke left the show. They didn't do the best job with Korra, but even they weren't this bad, By making Katara the older sibling, she is now 16 years old and assuming they stick to the plot, she'll have a romantic relationship with 12 year old Aang. Or they cut that relationship entirely, which removes yet another key relationship of the main cast, a huge part of the main trio's character development, and a critical plot point, Aang being unable to fully let go of everything because he cares about Katara, which makes him hesitate to enter the Avatar state and lets Azula hit him with lightning while he's doing his big slow transformation. Either Netflix has just come up with a storyline where a high school junior molests a 6th grader, or they've cut one of the biggest moral dilemmas limiting the protagonist from just going full force of nature and killing everyone, and knowing Netflix, it's hard to figure out which is more likely.

And that's without even beginning to get into the stuff you pointed out, how Sokka being the eldest son and the eldest male left in his whole village influenced his character, and Katara being forced to grow up despite her younger age influenced her character. They're just shitting on everyone. At this point I'm half expecting them to introduce Aang as a tall avid hunter who loves eating meat, hunted by his nemesis, the pacifist Zuko, egged on by his evil Uncle Iroh, while gentle Azula tries to get them to come home where Fire King Ozai just wants peace for everyone.

What they're doing is what I would refer to as actual "bad writing". Something that betrays a media products morals and values in a cheap attempt to broaden the audience or introduce elements that don't gel with the original plot. You've given examples of both sides of this.

 

[biscuitscilia]

So some new details have been revealed about the Live Action Avatar show on Netflix

https://www.theilluminerdi.com/2021/02/19/avatar-the-last-airbender-kim/

>Nikita
>Sleepy Hollow
>Leverage
Holy shit, I'd rather have M. Night back.

egged on by his evil Uncle Iroh

Funny enough, that was Bryke's original idea for Uncle Iroh before Ehasz came onboard.

 

[Commander X]

By making Katara the older sibling, she is now 16 years old and assuming they stick to the plot, she'll have a romantic relationship with 12 year old Aang.

"That sucks that you're the last of your kind, haha."
"Wow, I would have never guessed you were that young."

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

View attachment 1938989

"That sucks that you're the last of your kind, haha."
"Wow, I would have never guessed you were that young."

Yeap, this is gonna be a bad touch.
Damn it those animu-lovers who liked straight shota, they gonna like the live-action... no wait.
It's a live action? That'll be a nightmare to ride to newcomers.
I'm sure the Fire Nation's wonderful women trio gonna aging up in this shit too. And Zuko gonna get a patch and acting like a veteran agent, lmao.

 

[One Man Bland]

So some new details have been revealed about the Live Action Avatar show on Netflix

https://www.theilluminerdi.com/2021/02/19/avatar-the-last-airbender-kim/

Already they are fucking up the character dynamics from the original show. Sokka was the older brother and leader of the group due to his age which resulted in him making foolish decisions because of his arrogance. At the same time Sokka was the most emotionally mature of the group due to his age and the wisest using his brains to compensate for his lack of bending. Katara by contrast was the younger sibling but was more grounded in reality at times than her older brother so there was a comedy dynamic between the two siblings. Katara was also slightly more inexperienced with the real world than her older brother which led to her making naive foolish decisions and drove her character arc of losing her mother at a young age. She was still haunted by it but Sokka had come to accept it as a dark part of his life. By changing their ages to make Katara the older sibling, presumably to make her the more mature leader of the group, they are throwing Avatars character dynamics under the bus in favor of wokeness. Typical Netflix.

I had a feeling something like this was going to happen. I speculated back when Bryke first announced when they were leaving that this show was going to be nearly impossible to cast accurately for due to a myriad of reasons that would require either tweaking the character ages or extending the timeline - with either option causing long term cracks in the story’s foundation - and it looks like they went with age adjustments. It could be because of wokeness, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because they were already looking at slim pickings for Katara casting between the ethnicity constraints and taichi and other martial art knowledg/trainability that it was simply easier to aim for an older girl who would either be well past puberty and therefore less likely to undergo noticeable developmental changes over the course of a longer production schedule, or can more easily pull off passing for 16 than 14.

Either way gotta love how it sounds like they grabbed the first Asian guy (or at least I’m assuming Asian given the surname) in their contacts list to run this. I’m sure the guy mostly known for sports news before he started making schlocky action fantasy shows like Sleepy Hollow is definitely invested in making a thoughtful adaptation.

Holy shit, no wonder Bryke left the show. They didn't do the best job with Korra, but even they weren't this bad, By making Katara the older sibling, she is now 16 years old and assuming they stick to the plot, she'll have a romantic relationship with 12 year old Aang. Or they cut that relationship entirely, which removes yet another key relationship of the main cast, a huge part of the main trio's character development, and a critical plot point, Aang being unable to fully let go of everything because he cares about Katara, which makes him hesitate to enter the Avatar state and lets Azula hit him with lightning while he's doing his big slow transformation. Either Netflix has just come up with a storyline where a high school junior molests a 6th grader, or they've cut one of the biggest moral dilemmas limiting the protagonist from just going full force of nature and killing everyone, and knowing Netflix, it's hard to figure out which is more likely.

Maybe I’m biased because I always thought the vast majority of the romance in ATLA and its sequels spin-offs was absolutely terrible, but off all the changes aging up Katara does I think cutting an on-screen romance between her and Aang is the least daunting. The final chakra can easily be written around by having it revolve around struggling to let go of all his new friends rather than just Katara - which could arguably give it more impact since not the potential loss of one person that’s at stake, and I’d even argue would make more sense considering Book 2 has nearly half a season of Aang going through the stages of grief with the loss of Appa where he actually compromised his morals twice in the desert and nearly went full Avatar State on a guy, yet Appa does not count as an "earthly attachment." Besides, ATLA already misrepresented a lot of the philosophy revolving around the seventh chakra and how earthly attachments are defined (Kung Fu Panda 2 actually tackles the same subject much better), Katara and Aang never even talk about the seventh chakra thing so it’s not like it has an impact on their relationship in canon, and it has nothing to do with Aang’s final dilemma of whether killing Ozai is wrong (again the subplot about Appa being snatched has more in common with this than Katara) so it doesn’t change the conclusion in that regard.

I really don’t like the idea of aging Katara just because of what it‘s going to do to her and Sokka’s dynamic, or her and Toph’s dynamic, or even just little things like how that means she’ll be marrying age at the North Pole and what that could potentially do to the plot points there. But to be honest I probably won’t shed a tear if they decide to cut a romance that was already a weird element even in the original:

Spoiler: Ursa Pro-Child Marriage Confirmed

Edit: grammar

 

[biscuitscilia]

View attachment 1938989

"That sucks that you're the last of your kind, haha."
"Wow, I would have never guessed you were that young."

The "marry a powerful bender" line is gonna hit a bit differently, I can already tell.

 

[Muttnik]

Ughh I hate the age change, as well as the stupid implication that Zutara is likely to happen. Didn't they say this series was going to be more sexual so as to cheaply convey Game of Thrones shit? I don't like where this is going...

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

I had a feeling something like this was going to happen. I speculated back when Bryke first announced when they were leaving that this show was going to be nearly impossible to cast accurately for due to a myriad of reasons that would require either tweaking the character ages or extending the timeline - with either option causing long term cracks in the story’s foundation - and it looks like they went with age adjustments. It could be because of wokeness, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because they were already looking at slim pickings for Katara casting between the ethnicity constraints and taichi and other martial art knowledg/trainability that it was simply easier to aim for an older girl who would either be well past puberty and therefore less likely to undergo noticeable developmental changes over the course of a longer production schedule, or can more easily pull off passing for 16 than 14.

Either way gotta love how it sounds like they grabbed the first Asian guy (or at least I’m assuming Asian given the surname) in their contacts list to run this. I’m sure the guy mostly known for sports news before he started making schlocky action fantasy shows like Sleepy Hollow is definitely invested in making a thoughtful adaptation.

Maybe I’m biased because I always thought the vast majority of the romance in ATLA and its sequels spin-offs was absolutely terrible, but off all the changes aging up Katara does I think cutting an on-screen romance between her and Aang is the least daunting. The final chakra can easily be written around by having it revolve around struggling to let go of all his new friends rather than just Katara - which could arguably give it more impact since not the potential loss of one person that’s at stake, and I’d even argue would make more sense considering Book 2 has nearly half a season of Aang going through the stages of grief with the loss of Appa where he actually compromised his morals twice in the desert and nearly went full Avatar State on a guy, yet Appa does not count as an "earthly attachment." Besides, ATLA already misrepresented a lot of the philosophy revolving around the seventh chakra and how earthly attachments are defined (Kung Fu Panda 2 actually tackles the same subject much better), Katara and Aang never even talk about the seventh chakra thing so it’s not like it has an impact on their relationship in canon, and it has nothing to do with Aang’s final dilemma of whether killing Ozai is wrong (again the subplot about Appa being snatched has more in common with this than Katara) so it doesn’t change the conclusion in that regard.

I really don’t like the idea of aging Katara just because of what it‘s going to do to her and Sokka’s dynamic, or her and Toph’s dynamic, or even just little things like how that means she’ll be marrying age at the North Pole and what that could potentially do to the plot points there. But to be honest I probably won’t shed a tear if they decide to cut a romance that was already a weird element even in the original:

Spoiler: Ursa Pro-Child Marriage Confirmed

View attachment 1941368

Edit: grammar

I never considered the comics canon; but yeah, i think romance in ATLA seems very awful of how they written the plot.
The only one i always thought which seemed close of a natural relationship was Zuko & Mai. Neither Aang & Katara seems more deep than love, more like real friendship in the cartoon, as far i can remember.
In TLOK was more fucked up; i mean, Korra swinging between Mako & Bolin in the first-half of the S1 and later acting like nothing happened until the S4 finale and that hand-holding with Asami.
For some reason main characters relationships are always being strange & weird meanwhile the secondary ones are ironically better. I don't really want to think at this point; let the franchise dead with flowers seems a better option rather that this atrocious alternative.

 

[One Man Bland]

I never considered the comics canon; but yeah, i think romance in ATLA seems very awful of how they written the plot.
The only one i always thought which seemed close of a natural relationship was Zuko & Mai. Neither Aang & Katara seems more deep than love, more like real friendship in the cartoon, as far i can remember.
In TLOK was more fucked up; i mean, Korra swinging between Mako & Bolin in the first-half of the S1 and later acting like nothing happened until the S4 finale and that hand-holding with Asami.
For some reason main characters relationships are always being strange & weird meanwhile the secondary ones are ironically better. I don't really want to think at this point; let the franchise dead with flowers seems a better option rather that this atrocious alternative.

I don’t consider the comics truly canon either, but I always thought it was hilarious that in their efforts to make Katara and Aang the "one true indisputable together 5ever OTP" because they were just that insecure about it, they ended up having characters voicing their support of it with the same kind of talking points pedophiles typically spew when trying to overturn age of consent laws.

Although I always thought Zuko & Mai were the worst written couple of the show, actually. Not only did their writing break some of what I’d consider the cardinal rules of writing a romance you want your audience to actually root for - they never spoke a single word to each other before getting together completely off-screen, it’s never made clear exactly why they like each other afterwards outside of shallow surface-level reasons, all their scenes together seem to only happen to foreshadow their inevitable mid-season break up, literally every storyline involving the two of them is about a break up, and the writers took two characters where the one thing they actually had in common was how much they loathe being left idle and then made it so the only activity that they engage in together when they aren’t arguing is sitting still & staring out into the middle ground in complete silence- and it always felt like Bryke viewed them together as being nothing more than a Drama Bath Bomb they can just plop into whatever B-plot they want to spice up. Which to me made it not only a slog to sit through their storylines since they were mostly boring manufactured drama, but actively made me less invested in those B-plots because why should I care about their relationship when the only thing these two seem to have this stupid fight->break up->make up->repeat cycle that the writers clearly intend spam every time they’ve run out of ideas? Which is apparently all the time because the break up plot happened 3 times in a row?

I still stand that the big reason the side characters typically had better dynamics is because Bryke were lest invested in them, so they were less likely to fall victim to all the really shitty romance cliches nobody but them ever seemed to like.

 

[Marissa Moira]

View attachment 1938989

"That sucks that you're the last of your kind, haha."
"Wow, I would have never guessed you were that young."

This is what happened with Padame and Anakin.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

I'm nettled because I can't tell if they wanna do /ss/ or Zutara. I actually want them to do the former, just to see if they have the balls.

I don’t consider the comics truly canon either, but I always thought it was hilarious that in their efforts to make Katara and Aang the "one true indisputable together 5ever OTP" because they were just that insecure about it, they ended up having characters voicing their support of it with the same kind of talking points pedophiles typically spew when trying to overturn age of consent laws.

I didn't read enough of the comics to witness them doing any of that, myself. That's... wildly unnecessary, given the entirety of the series proper. We're talking a two year difference, and that's without considering that Aang is actually 98 years older than her. Did they really take all those Zutara talking points to heart even though their pairing had the exact same age gap?

Weird.

This is what happened with Padame and Anakin.

Difference is, the fun didn't begin until Anakin got a little older. At that point, it ceased being a case of /ss/ and started being a case of "older female younger male" and "childhood friends".

Unrelated: "I don't like sand" is literary genius and I'll fight everyone who disagrees

 

[One Man Bland]

I didn't read enough of the comics to witness them doing any of that, myself. That's... wildly unnecessary, given the entirety of the series proper. We're talking a two year difference, and that's without considering that Aang is actually 98 years older than her. Did they really take all those Zutara talking points to heart even though their pairing had the exact same age gap?

Weird.

Hilariously, the answer is yes. Apparently they were so salty about Zutara that there was something of an embargo on Zuko and Katara ever having one-on-one screen-time together again. Hence why Katara isn’t present at her own granddaughter’s Air Nomad graduation ceremony.

Which is probably the most hysterically pathetic thing I’ve ever heard. Imagine being a couple of 30-something year old showrunners and being so threatened by a bunch of teenagers on the internet that you go out of your way to make sure that two characters never get another chance to interact with each other again, lest those teenagers use those scenes to make YouTube AMVs to pop songs or some shit.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Hilariously, the answer is yes. Apparently they were so salty about Zutara that there was something of an embargo on Zuko and Katara ever having one-on-one screen-time together again. Hence why Katara isn’t present at her own granddaughter’s Air Nomad graduation ceremony.

You know what they say, though "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"-- and theirs was a reaction to a bunch of teenage fangirls who never let up on a "bad boy/innocent girl" pairing for thirteen years while criticizing the canon pairing for having the same age gap as their own and for having an "immature" younger boy (who spent the entire series learning how to shoulder the responsibility of being God incarnate).

Sounds like pseudo-autism all around.

 

[One Man Bland]

You know what they say, though "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction"-- and theirs was a reaction to a bunch of teenage fangirls who never let up on a "bad boy/innocent girl" pairing for thirteen years while criticizing the canon pairing for having the same age gap as their own and for having an "immature" younger boy (who spent the entire series learning how to shoulder the responsibility of being God incarnate).

Sounds like pseudo-autism all around.

I think the age gap probably could’ve been worked around. Hell, I’m willing to bet if you made a compilation of all the scenes of Katara & Aang just hanging out, showed them to someone who’d never seen the show and told them that they got married in the sequel, people probably would’ve bought it. I honestly think Bryke’s romantic is just clumsy and cringeworthy enough that it makes most of the canon pairings off-putting rather than charming, and it only got worse in the comics and Korra.

Still, it’s hilarious that they’re so easily swayed by an audience of tweens and teens that they’ll actively hinder their own characters and story instead of, you know, realizing that they’re dealing with a bunch of loud nobodies and ignore it.

 

[starborn427614]

To this day I still think Mako was a peace offering to all the crazy Zutara fans pissed that their ship never happened. It's not surprising that the moment shipping was introduced to Korra the quality dropped like a rock.

 

[One Man Bland]

To this day I still think Mako was a peace offering to all the crazy Zutara fans pissed that their ship never happened. It's not surprising that the moment shipping was introduced to Korra the quality dropped like a rock.

You know, looking back I wonder if a lot of the main characters in Korra were partially the result of Bryke struggling to figure out what made Zuko so wildly popular.

I mean, think about it: Mako is the most obvious from being a firebenders to his tragic backstory to his design and right down to his name. But Korra herself uses fire more than any other element despite being born in the SWT and has a similar tempermental hotheaded impulsiveness and even later gets an episode called Korra Alone that references the Zuko-centric best episode Zuko Alone. Then there’s Asami, another Fire Nation character who comes from a powerful influential family before finding out her father is EVIL for reasons relating to a missing mom. Even Wan has shades of this with him being a firebender despite this being logic-breaking within the context of both in-universe and narratively/symbolically, with a similar journey of finding himself by traveling alone in the world to eventually having his previous world view challenged that makes him change his ways.

To me, that kinda reads like they understood that the above elements were the broad strokes of what made people like Zuko so much, but they didn’t understand the whys. Because figuring out the whys requires dissecting the character’s motivations and the internal reasoning behind a character’s actions, and knowing that requires having at least a passing interest in understanding people in general. And based on everything I’ve seen and read, Bryke just don’t have that.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

I think the age gap probably could’ve been worked around. Hell, I’m willing to bet if you made a compilation of all the scenes of Katara & Aang just hanging out, showed them to someone who’d never seen the show and told them that they got married in the sequel, people probably would’ve bought it. I honestly think Bryke’s romantic is just clumsy and cringeworthy enough that it makes most of the canon pairings off-putting rather than charming, and it only got worse in the comics and Korra.

I don't think the age gap ever had to be worked around-- it's two whole years. They're already age-mates, and on top of that they're war comrades. These people are old enough to die in a war, but somehow two years of age is too big a gap for smashing? You gotta be kidding me.

It's not surprising that the moment shipping was introduced to Korra the quality dropped like a rock.

I think the quality dropped (well, dropped further) because while Korra wasn't that great a character to begin with, they tried to give her a playboy approach to her relationships without actually making her a playboy. It's weird when you think about it-- she plays passive most of the time like a typical girl despite her generally aggressive personality, not pursuing Mako until after he gets involved with Asami and allowing herself to be puffed up enough by Bolin to go out on a date with him while still being interested in having an actual relationship with Mako. Accordingly, she comes off as a triple homewrecker-- she sets the brothers at odds and consequently messes with their pro-bending team dynamic, and Mako and Korra's kiss during the latter's date with Bolin is the retroactive spark in the powderkeg that kills Mako and Asami's relationship.

To me, that kinda reads like they understood that the above elements were the broad strokes of what made people like Zuko so much, but they didn’t understand the whys. Because figuring out the whys requires dissecting the character’s motivations and the internal reasoning behind a character’s actions, and knowing that requires having at least a passing interest in understanding people in general. And based on everything I’ve seen and read, Bryke just don’t have that.

It's more like they didn't have their actual writing talent for LoK.

 

[Absolutego]

It's more like they didn't have their actual writing talent for LoK.

It's really not a coincidence that the first couple of seasons of The Dragon King ring more as an Avatar successor series than Korra ever did.
100% Aaron Ehasz was the secret talent behind the success of the Last Airbender, and it's a pity the idea guys couldn't bring him in for the Legend of Korra. Bryke worked for broad scope stuff but they suck ass at dialogue and character bits.

 

[One Man Bland]

I don't think the age gap ever had to be worked around-- it's two whole years. They're already age-mates, and on top of that they're war comrades. These people are old enough to die in a war, but somehow two years of age is too big a gap for smashing? You gotta be kidding me.

Let me rephrase that. I don’t think the age gap was a problem either, by all accounts in another show I don’t think it would’ve even registered. I think it was more the combination of the voice actor choices and Aang’s design gives him a prepubescent air to him that works great for his personal journey - not so much next to a female character who sounds and acts significantly older than him despite only being 2 years, and whom the show draws direct comparisons to acting like Aang‘s mom on multiple occasions. If the show really wanted to make Katara & Aang work, it never should’ve been treated with such all-encompassing seriousness by Bryke in and out of canon.

Then again, Bryke went on for years that Kataang was the DNA that held the show together and everyone was wrong if they thought the show would be better without it, only to go "yeah we never actually wanted Katara and Aang to get together" to try and make it sound like they wanted Korrasami to happen that badly. So frankly I don’t trust their judgement on anything at this point.