ATLA Meta

needed somewhere to stash all of the atla meta I've accumulated

[irresistible-revolution]

two things, i guess. 

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 it’s 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, they’re fundamentally wrong, and lacking information and historical, political context. furthermore, it’s 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 story “by and for white people.” please decenter the white gaze and whiteness/ western frames from your outlook. i promise you it’s much freer on the other side.

it’s also self-serving, because if we convince ourselves the show is bad, faulty, incomplete and racist, it lets us off the hook. suddenly we’re no longer required to seriously engage its themes and ideas, or the histories it’s drawing from, because it’s all bad, so let’s just ignore everything about canon and indulge in AUs where the “war never happened” or “the water tribe started the war” or “aang died and my favorite character is the avatar” or “zuko is the real hero” or “sokka is a spiritual leader actually.” it’s fine to indulge in escapist fantasy now and again, but OWN THAT. don’t let your desire for fantasy and escapism warp your judgement of a show that’s actually cogent, well-researched and well-executed, and then insist you’re 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 you’re comfortable enough to engage. after all that’s what tlok did. there’s 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.

[basingstokemercury]

"character deserved better" (but they were never going to get it that's the stuff great tragedies are made of) vs "character deserved better" (but the writers really blew it)

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Me when I spread misinformation about a show on the internet and so called fans believe me because it fit their biases about a certain character :)

1 - Zero surprises, I've been telling you guys these people haven't watched the show in years, if ever, and will latch onto obviously false, easily disprovable claims about Aang being abusive to prop up their own ship.

2 - I've been telling you guys that the "Katara should have kept her scars!" nonsense has always been their attempt to force a parallel with Ozai, as if there's no difference between accidentally hurting someone and deliberately mutilating someone's face.

[atlametas]

'ATLA dropped the ball on Kataang in the second half of Book 3' and 'ATLA should concentrate primarily on friendship and shouldn't be about romance' are contradictory opinions that I don't think we should engage with anymore

[atlametas]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but the Blue Spirit is not a vigilante or a selfless entity. He is not a manifestation of 'goodness.' Zuko invented the Blue Spirit so that he could steal Aang away from Zhao, only to turn around and imprison Aang himself in order to win favor back with his father. The Blind Bandit and the Blue Spirit have more in common as alter egos - identities utilized to cheat, steal, and lie - both of which are dropped by their respective characters when they face the repercussions of their actions and become better versions of themselves. Aang's Kuzon and The Painted Lady are meant to serve as parallels - revolutionaries that push back against colonialism and serve as ways for Aang and Katara to interact with Fire Nation citizens in meaningful, compassionate ways.

[shifuaang]

you mentioned an article of lok being "inescapably white"... but the voice actors in both atla and lok are white people... minus zuko and iroh's first va??

I think it's really important to keep in mind the context surrounding both shows and how they were handled differently based on media at the time. Yes, a diversified voice cast would have been a better choice to embody the Pan-Asian world that ATLA was based on, but it was also made in 2005 when there was less awareness and lobbying surrounding representation. LOK was made in 2012, a full seven years after ATLA - a full seven years in which the show-runners and producers had likely heard feedback and criticisms about including more Asian and indigenous peoples in the cast. And yet the LOK voice actors are comprised mostly of white people, many of whom are more recognizable names and voices that arguably weren't chosen as the best fit for the characters but, rather, for their notoriety (unlike ATLA's cast).

All that being said, the article's focus is less on the 'inescapable whiteness' of the players behind the scenes, and more of the themes and plotlines and settings woven into fabric of LOK. Obviously Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko headed both projects, but ATLA was a heavily researched and meticulously crafted show with far more input from people of color in both collaborative and technical aspects.

I would highly recommend you read the article itself, as it goes into way more detail than I have time to right now. But it basically boils down to LOK being majorly Western centric and Western inspired, unlike its predecessor which took the time to establish a world that honored and respected Pan-Asian cultures, philosophies, and subject matter.

[atlametas]

Anyway, if you want to read an extremely well-written article on how LOK leans into narratives and aesthetics that are directly caused by western imperialism and colonization, click the link above!

[atlametas]

"If you watch the leaked movie, Paramount will see this as a financial failure and not fund any future Avatar projects!"

Consider this: That is exactly what I want to happen.

[avatarfandompolice]

Always baffles me to see people bitching about post-ATLA stuff being “too westernized” because I watch the OG and see plenty of westernized stuff. It’s an American show for an American audience that happens to be influenced by Asian cultures and art styles. They speak English. They use American slang. They have plenty of environmental things based off the US. Not to mention that most of the same people are working on all the new stuff, and 99.999% of the people who didn’t continue on past ATLA on staff were white men.

All of this screams closeted xenophobia too. Like you think anything “non western” just means things that are explicitly never seen in America or American culture. As someone who has been to several countries across 5 continents, there’s tons of overlap. People aren’t confined to one way of acting, and especially importantly, they don’t all look as stereotyped as a lot of these Anti-Bryke, Anti-Post-ATLA people think they should. Which this all doesn’t even really matter, because again, this is a fantasy show that is merely influenced by things and not a documentary.

And this is all to be critical of a movie that was so careful about representation that they made sure even the voice cast was accurate to the cultures which the characters were influenced by. Stop trying to attach your developed disinterest in a franchise on some broader political/anthropological issue. It’s embarrassing.

[atlametas]

Respectfully, you cannot glean my exact, nuanced thoughts and feelings towards ATLA and all of post-ATLA content from a single post in which I said two sentences and wrote a handful of tags. I am not anti-Bryke. I am highly critical of their work, but I think they are generally good-hearted people who don't deserve a lot of the nasty vitriol sent their way. I have made and reblogged many, many posts defending ATLA's right to exist as a Pan-Asian fantasy (which includes the Asian diaspora and Asian American culture) without it being a 1:1 ratio of the real world/history. I have also made and reblogged many posts discussing the issues I take with LOK, which I feel are justified and supported by contextual arguments. I didn't even read/write ATLA fanfic until about five years ago (I've been in the fandom 20 years) and mostly only engage in sapphic rarepairs, which I do not expect to ever be canonized. I am allowed to be upset about my favorite show being turned into a franchise and express my earnest frustration without being accused of closeted xenophobia or being brainless.

[atlametas]

"If you watch the leaked movie, Paramount will see this as a financial failure and not fund any future Avatar projects!"

Consider this: That is exactly what I want to happen.

[dreamchasernina]

“Katara deserved better”

And then it’s Katara ending up with the boy who worships the ground she walks on, thinks she can do no wrong, gave up God mode for her, helped her commit environmental terrorism, cheered her on when she was beating misogyny out of an old man, was ready to take her to the other side of the world to find her a teacher when he’d just met her, constantly says he believes in her, that she’s amazing, that she inspires people and he’s proud of her.

But yeah, Katara deserved better.

[the-badger-mole]

Aang shows absolutely no respect for her. He doesn't care about how she feels about him. He doesn't respect her culture, her ambition, or her bodily autonomy. He doesn't even respect her as the mother of his kids. If he did, he wouldn't blatantly favor one over his siblings. Aang didn't "worship" Katara. He idealized her. Anything that didn't fit his "forever girl" image of her, he ignored or chastised (as if he had the right...). Yes, Katara deserved better. She deserved so much better than Aang and that lame story Bryke farted out for her

And Zutara shippers deserve more than bored antis clogging up our tag. You're blocked, pest.

[calamitousgumption]

The way I read whatever dreamchaserina said and thought they were talking about Zuko and being a bit confused on the "she deserved better" part because I thought they meant she almost had Zuko and Bryke took him away from them. Like Aang is way too young for her and they're in no way equal to each other. She is a mom to him. That's not the kind of dynamic and way to talk that will make anyone think you support feminism..

[dreamchasernina]

Oh no no no don’t preach feminism to me when your friends call Katara a baby making machine for having 3 children, scream from the rooftop that there’s no way Katara had any agency in her marriage when it’s freaking KATARA, When you interpret caring moments as “motherly” when it’s a 14 year old girl, when you think the only way Katara would’ve made any difference in the world is if she’d married Zuko and became some sort of a firelady when Katara doesn’t need that bullshit status to influence the world for the better.

She freaking ended the war, she’s one of the strongest benders in the world and your wierd ass fandom goes out of its way to make her some kind of damsel in distress who needs to be saved by Zuko. And I’M misogynistic?

The ship I support is not the dynamic for feminism? But shipping her with a man who tied her to a tree, threatened to burn down her village, blackmailed her, attacked her multiple times, betrayed her trust, sent an assassin after them is peak feminism?! Just admit you’re in it for the aesthetics and don’t bring feminism into it, because you’re just embarrassing yourself.

And to address your tags, I NEVER TAGGED IT ANTI KATAANG OR ZUTARA, your friend was lurking around Kataang tag cause they’re bored out of their mind and really need a job.

[kataraslove]

@calamitousgumption all of those things are canonically what aang does for her, says to her, or what she does with aang. since when did zuko help her commit ecoterrorism? when did zuko offer to take her across the world to learn waterbending upon their first encounter (zuko and katara’s first encounter was one in which he manhandled her grandma)? when does zuko ever give up god mode (aka the avatar state) for her? when does zuko tell katara that she’s amazing, that she’s inspirational, or that he’s proud of her?

your only rebuttal is that aang is significantly younger for her, but he’s not. the age difference between katara and aang is the exact same as katara and zuko. according to you, katara and aang are in no way equal to one another, that she’s just a maternal figure to him; except you had just confused everything that aang canonically did for katara as what zuko does for her. and under your mistaken beliefs, you seemed quite content with accepting those actions as declarations of love, as qualities that katara deserved in a partner. it’s too bad for you then that zuko doesn’t exemplify nearly half of these actions or tells katara any of these things.

the dynamics that women choose to enjoy in fictional contexts are not reflective of how they perform and engage in feminism in real world applications. do you enjoy the “i’ll save you from the pirates scene” - a scene in which katara is kidnapped, tied up to a tree and humiliated, her mother’s necklace (the very last connection she has to her dead mother) dangled up in front of her for extortion? should i call you a faux feminist for defending that scene, as there is nothing empowering of a 16-17 year old prince of the colonialist nation tying an indigenous 14 year old up to a tree? shall i discuss further the power imbalance and the implications of such a scene like that glorified in fandom, especially during a time when the number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is at a record high? what about the “i rise with the sun, you rise with the moon,” quote, with it’s inspiration taken directly from imperialist japan’s rising sun flag? we’re all aware of how the fire nation’s imperialism and colonialism is based off of japan’s imperialism. should your fandom truly be glorifying such a quote, portraying it in a romantic light, when the context of the scene is zuko boldly declaring it to katara after he put her in a concussion? where are the feminist implications of that scene, as i fail to comprehend it.

i’m not going to take your feminism seriously at all if it revolves entirely on what cartoon ship YOU want women to enjoy or not to enjoy. and if you want to talk feminism in atla fandom spaces, I can tell you that, as a person who has spent lots of time in those very same fandom spaces as you, the zutara fandom is anything BUT a feminist haven (quite the opposite actually…)

[dreamchasernina]

📢📢📢👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[azulas-daddy-kink]

The most thing I dislike about zukka fanfics is how they make zuko the twink softer guy and sokka the alpha male, like zuko is canonically taller and more muscular than sokka,

This meme was made for Zukka

[obliqueletterkennyreference]

i think the funniest tweet i saw today was someone saying "why ship zutara when zukka is right there" and like you don't even have to ship zutara but uh. it was a real hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby moment to me. like yeah... why ship the two characters with a 3-season long enemies to friends arc.... when the two guys who barely interacted are right there...

[ironinkpen]

can't believe there are still people out here in the year 2023 that genuinely think aang should have killed ozai

[ironinkpen]

"even avatar yangchen said—" that's not the POINT, the point is that aang is the LAST airbender the LAST air nomad the LAST person following these teachings, the point is that if he breaks his vows the air nomads will truly die out with him, forever. the point is that the monks taught him all life is sacred and even if ozai is a piece of shit who everyone agrees deserves to die, aang refuses let ozai force him to give up the last thing he has of his people, their lessons, refuses to let ozai wipe the last air nomad from the earth and finish what his horrible family started. the point is that aang beats ozai because his spirit is unbendable, the point is that he takes the man whose ancestors set his on fire and robs him of the ability to hurt anyone ever again, the point is that the Fire Lord ends the fight kneeling before the Last Air Nomad and THAT is the ending aang deserved

[kg-day]

I'm getting really tired of anti-Kataang arguments because they're all so tired and willfully ignorant. But the one I am going to be addressing right now is the idea that Aang "broke Katara down" because, genuinely, what the fuck are y'all talking about with this shit???

Aang did not persistently go after Katara until she finally agreed to go out with him. He only reveals his feelings to her TWICE in the show. That's it. And when she very plainly yells at him and rejects him (being very explicit about the fact that her rejection did not stem from her not having feelings for him, but because they were at war), he does not bring it up again. So where's the persistence? Where is he continually disrespecting her boundaries? Where is her constant rejection of him that he ignores? Is it not there? Because I'm 100% positive it's not there.

Also, this post is in response to some bs I saw in the Kataang tag (please stop fucking tagging zk shit in this tag for the love of god), so I will also be addressing some of the bs I saw in that post that ties into this. But who else in the show tells Katara to be with Aang? I'm waiting... oh, wait, nobody does. Where tf are we pulling this idea that not only Aang, but other people pressured Katara into being with him?? "She repeatedly has to be told to love him until eventually she feels obligated to return his feelings just because everyone thinks he deserves compensation for saving the world." So we're just blatantly making shit up, I see.

The only time anyone talks about Katara and Aang being in a relationship is Sokka in season 1, where he jokingly calls Aang her boyfriend; that is it. Literally no one in the rest of the show ever brings up Katara and Aang as a couple. No one champions him to her. No one forces her to love him. No one brings it up, period.

I want to add that this take doesn't just pull shit out of thin air and make up events that never happened, but it wildly mischaracterizes every single character. Aang is not some abuser who can't take no for an answer. The only reason he even kissed Katara a second time, or felt that she returned his feelings, is that she kissed him back the first time (and had also kissed him before and shown him physical affection on numerous occasions). Should he have been more receptive to her when she said she was confused? Absolutely, but the second she lays that hard boundary, he backs off. The second kiss wasn't right, but to act as if that moment was more than a single instance is stupid and willfully ignorant. Katara is also not the kind of person to be forced into literally anything. She has always been a person who stands her ground, and she does so, even against Aang. Sokka would never force his sister to be with someone she doesn't want to be with, and I'm sorry, but the rest of the gaang does not care enough to consistently try to get Katara to be with Aang.

None of these things happened, and I am sick of seeing people act like they did. If you want to see a relationship where a girl is forced to be with an abuser who consistently oversteps her boundaries and everyone else around her has to convince her of why she's in love with him, go watch TVD, but ATLA is not that show. Katara is not a damsel in distress, nor is she a prize. Zuko is not her white knight — which is ironic in and of itself that I even have to say that because the dynamic they want to give zk has Zuko being her "savior" and her being with him because of that, but I digress. And Aang is not her abuser.

This is why I will always have a problem with people who try to play both sides, "just ship and let ship". This has nothing to do with the fact that people ship zk, but rather that zk and anti-Kataang are very hand-in-hand in a diabolical way. That side of the fandom has, for 20 years, done nothing but make up false narratives about the show and Kataang in order to prop up their own ship because they can't handle that zk is something that only ever had potential and not canonical evidence. So they have to manufacture that evidence. If all people did was prefer zk, but let Kataang live, it wouldn't be an issue, but that isn't what they do.

Anyways, I'm really tired of seeing braindead ass takes from people who magnetically repel away media literacy.

[kataraslove]

i’ll never understand this viewpoint because when was katara ever told by anyone that she HAD to love aang? that she had to return his feelings out of an obligation? aunt wu never once suggested this to her. all she told katara was that she would end up with a powerful bender (not THE most powerful bender) and katara naturally came to that conclusion herself for someone she supposedly felt nothing but brotherly feelings for (yeah right, lmao).

aang, throughout most of the show, does not outright confess his feelings to katara. he gets close, on two occasions, but when he’s interrupted by others, he doesn’t even try again for an extended period of time. he’s had the opportunity to directly confess his dream to katara in nightmares and daydreams, but he still doesn’t do it. it’s not until he genuinely believes he’ll never survive in the day of black sun does he finally kiss her (which felt more like a “do or die” trope being fulfilled by the writers but that’s besides the point).

you want to know who katara was actually pushed to by multiple people? the boy that she was told repeatedly that she must have secret feelings for? zuko. if anything, her choosing to pursue a relationship with aang (instead of zuko) breaks those expectations set by their imperialist society. we see in the series that colonialist propaganda spends a significant amount of time pushing the notion that katara must view aang as a younger brother - instead of a romantic potential - because he isn’t “masculine” enough for her, not in the ways that zuko is.

and we witness how uncomfortable katara’s is over a hypersexualized version of her forced into a romantic relationship with someone she just came to terms with trusting again, all in the name of satisfying a paradigm set forth by the fascist nation to degrade and dehumanize her. it’s why - even after being pushed by everyone and anyone to to fall in love with zuko, why even after zuko took lightening for her (if we are to read that romantically) - she still doesn’t pursue a romantic relationship with him; and instead with the boy that she has had actual various romantic encounters with, with the boy that imperialist society actively discouraged her from viewing romantically.

[darklinaforever]

Let's be clear because I'm fed up. Saying it's normal for the film's plot to be rather simple because it's for children... You're lying to yourselves. First of all, the film is for all ages, and just because a film is for "children" doesn't mean the complexity of the plot should be forgotten. We're talking about ATLA. The original show was complex and for children. The film has no excuse. Stop refusing to accept the flaws of a franchise you love; it's becoming unbearable. The worst part is that they don't help their case by saying the film is roughly like TLOK in terms of plot. Because Korra's storylines are known for being less good than ATLA. There's a reason why we criticize what was done after the original show. Whether it's the comics, TLOK, or this film, everything is always less complex and simpler than in the original show. And since your franchise started with three complex and well-written seasons, despite being aimed at children, you don't have the right to use the argument that it's for children and that this story in the same universe is simple. You're making yourselves look ridiculous by doing that. I really see you as a bunch of clowns. It's obvious you're just trying to justify the drop in quality at all costs.

[teratocore]

I’m gonna start being a major LOK hater again bc even just looking at the new series promo material rn it’s like it’s not even remotely the same universe anymore. LOK was already borderline bad fanfiction but there’s no actual throughline from ATLA to Seven Havens in my mind. It’s like he writers decided they’re completely tired of Avatar and want to do something different while using the popularity of the universe they destroyed to do it. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth tbh.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Also with the new movie leak I find it very weird that some zutara shippers I saw on tiktok flat out admit they can see kataang's chemistry and are now shipping it after the movie now that Aang is attractive and buff as an adult

CALLED IT!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Every time anyone says the equivalent of "Katara should have chosen Zuko over Aang" or "Zuko should have chosen Katara over Mai" I want to tear my own hair out because in canon there was no choice! There was no love triangle! Katara didn't have romantic feelings for Zuko and Zuko didn't have romantic feelings for Katara!

It's a genuinely shocking inability to separate fanon and canon. I'm just waiting for one of them to go "the show dropped the ball by not addressing the issue of dual benders", completely ignoring that this shit is exclusively a fanfic thing.