I think twitter is a hellhole, but I think we have to think deeper about this. At what point do we acknowledge Bryke didn't do the best storytelling job? Yes there are jerks and assholes our here, but if you do a good job, your main character is not the least popular in the group and the flagship romance is not the most reviled in favor of a Fanon thing between a colonizer and a victim.
I'm an artist and I want to go to school for animation. I'd love to make a series like Avatar. But I feel like fandom papers over the mistakes of the creators because there are a few people out here being loud and stupid about the characters. I think there should be a discussion of where Bryke went wrong that resulted in Aang being an unpopular character and Kataang being an unpopular ship. I think here are a few possibilities:
Making Aang younger than Katara
Making Aang's ethnicity and circumstances unpalatable to the target audience
Making Zuko the main antihero instead of Azula
Making Aang sort of silly during serious times
I know this all may seem trivial, but I do think it was a mistake to make Aang younger than his eventual love interest. Aang should have at least been pubescent.
Most people know nothing about Tibetan culture except for the caricature of it that ends up in western media and vague stuff about the Dalai Lama. The arrows were cool, but Aang probably should have been based on a more "accessible" ethnicity.
Zuko sucked the air out the room with his arc. You can't do that unless you're going to put him with the main character. Zukaang would have been interesting but they weren't going there. Azula as the main antihero, however, would have been interesting. She's a better fire bender than Zuko and even though was as sheltered as him was less naive. She could have been a version of that girl June who was in a couple of episodes.
It's jarring to have the main character who is supposed to be the person saving the world be weirdly silly at serious times. You don't see that in Harry Potter or Twilight. Aang's behavior in episodes like The Great Divide and The Warriors of Kyoshi didn't do him many favors, and serious episodes like The Avatar State and Crossroads of Destiny came too late. Also, having him have a personality trait where he runs away from his problems is not a good trait for a hero. I know Zuko does it too but he's not the hero of the story.
You don't have to respond to much or any of this. I just think that it's sort of easy to dismiss people who hate Aang or hate Kataang as "dumb people on Twitter" rather than dive into where the source material sort of set up the situation of having Aang being unpopular and the most popular ship being between the two characters that saw the most outward growth. I've read your metas and I understand about Aang's flat arc, but Western audiences really aren't going to respond to that. If Bryke were not Western themselves then I'd shrug and say it was just a failure, but they should have known better. Avatar is going to be a cautionary tale for every person wanting to do a fantasy series and a blueprint of what not to do if you want your main character and the romance involving the main character to be the most popular.
If you read all this, thanks. I appreciate it.
hi anon!! firstly, i am a little overwhelmed that you took so much time to type all this out. secondly, i am a little overwhelmed by the contents of the ask, too, lmao. i have prepared a moodboard accordingly:
