two things, i guess.Ā
first, despite popular insistence to the contrary, ATLA is extremely well-researched when it comes to the elements of asian spirituality and cultural aesthetics used to worldbuild the four nations and the concept of the avatar. there are concrete references, themes, symbols and ideas that resonate with folkore and fables from pan-asian history. emphasis on pan-asian. fandom insisting the show is bad actually because itās helmed by two white men, using absurd comparisons to cultural appropriation to dunk on the worldbuilding, and reducing every single character to a racist caricature, is wildly off-base and self-serving. while these analyses are well-meaning, theyāre fundamentally wrong, and lacking information and historical, political context. furthermore, itās wildly insulting to the asian and other people of color who did work on the show, whose cultures and fables are woven into the fabric of the show, to argue that ATLA is ultimately a storyĀ āby and for white people.ā please decenter the white gaze and whiteness/ western frames from your outlook. i promise you itās much freer on the other side.
itās also self-serving, because if we convince ourselves the show is bad, faulty, incomplete and racist, it lets us off the hook. suddenly weāre no longer required to seriously engage its themes and ideas, or the histories itās drawing from, because itās all bad, so letās just ignore everything about canon and indulge in AUs where theĀ āwar never happenedā orĀ āthe water tribe started the warā orĀ āaang died and my favorite character is the avatarā orĀ āzuko is the real heroā orĀ āsokka is a spiritual leader actually.ā itās fine to indulge in escapist fantasy now and again, but OWN THAT. donāt let your desire for fantasy and escapism warp your judgement of a show thatās actually cogent, well-researched and well-executed, and then insist youāre correct. take ownership for your point of view, your motives and biases, your desires, when engaging this text.
and finally, i know it feels daunting to familiarize yourself with a pan-asian cultural context - a context that, especially in the west (but also increasingly in asia as nationalist movements take hold) is rarely highlighted in popular media. no one is expecting you to learn the entire tao or recite buddhist chants or practice chinese calligraphy. each cultural influence in ATLA, by itself, would take a lifetime of study and discipline to master fully. no one is expecting that from you in fandom. in fact, you can, as many fanfics do, dispense with the cultural influences altogether and simply americanize/westernize the world until youāre comfortable enough to engage. after all thatās what tlok did. thereās no edict or law forcing you to make a bare minimum effort to understand pan-asian cultural influences before writing ATLA fanfic. but it would be nice, it would be ethical, respectful and kind, it would be a gesture of good faith not only to pan-asian diasporic and indigenous people in fandom but towards a larger sense of human compassion and even something like justice, if you at least tried.

















