Stefanirob

[lacetulle]

Almée Couture | Whisper of the Earth

[azuremart]

The new Avatar movie: A talentless sequel to a once brilliant show.

Finally gathered my thoughts on the new Avatar movie, and my only question is: why did this "legend of a fancy, empty fanservice shell" even exist?

The movie was doomed at the execution stage of its concept and script.

The creators had a bulletproof foundation: one of the most masterfully written shows in television history (Avatar: The Last Airbender), the canon comics, and The Legend of Korra, which already showed us the characters aged, with children and grandchildren.

And that is exactly why the idea of focusing on "Aang’s struggles and rebuilding the Air Nation" feels entirely redundant.

1. The Redundant Arc and Zero Stakes

We have already witnessed Aang’s grief, guilt, and pain over his people’s genocide throughout the original three seasons. That arc was closed and beautifully processed. The comics already showed the Air Acolytes, and TLOK put a definitive period on this storyline by bringing back actual airbenders.

Because we already know the future, the audience has absolutely nothing to worry about:

* We know Tenzin and his kids will remain the only airbenders for decades.

* We know exactly how long the main characters live.

* We know the fate of their families.

There are no stakes. Will they die? No. Will the future change? No. The answer is already known, making the entire narrative arc completely empty. We didn’t need a movie-length repetition of Aang’s trauma just for the sake of it.

Merely drawing pretty, adult versions of the characters is not enough to make a good movie. A film needs a core conflict, meaning, and a fresh idea.

2. Fanservice Wrapping, Empty Inside

If we look at this film as a standalone (even though almost the entire audience consists of old fans), it is hollow. The characters aren't explored; their screen time adds nothing substantial to their personalities.

So, why does this movie even exist?

* To force-feed us the Kataang canon?

* To show off Aang’s bizarre, unrealistic new design with a mountain of muscles that makes zero sense for a vegan monk with his lifestyle?

* To make him look like a self-insert of the creators who desperately need to force the audience into loving him?

The creators seem so attached to Aang as their self-insert that they still cannot accept that he never became the most beloved character in his own show.

So adult Aang is redesigned to be as conventionally attractive as possible. Broad shoulders. Huge muscles. Constant shirtless shots. A heavy emphasis on his romance with Katara.

The message feels almost painfully obvious:

“Look at him. This is the hero you’re supposed to love. This is the man you’re supposed to admire. This is the man Katara is supposed to be obsessed with.”

Seriously, it felt like watching a high-budget fan-animation for a mediocre Kataang fanfiction. It is so primitive and cheap how Katara throws herself at Aang’s neck in almost every scene, completely stripped of her independence. Worse entirely, Aang risks her life for the sake of his own elusive, idealistic hopes, making him the absolute worst partner imaginable. Then again, knowing what a terrible, neglectful father he turns out to be in TLOK, his toxic selfishness here isn't even surprising. What is surprising and deeply frustrating is how the creators force Katara to blindly love THIS and submissively accept whatever crumbs of attention or respect he throws her way. Once again, Katara is reduced to being a mere appendage to the Avatar—a disservice they already started in TLOK.

3. The Nerfing of the Gaang

The rest of the characters fared no better.

Everyone feels like an extended cameo rather than actual living characters.

* Sokka:The brave warrior who wasn't a bender yet stood tall against firebenders amplified by Sozin’s Comet is gone. Instead, we got a cowardly, quirky inventor making stupid jokes. He’s a parody of his former self.

* Toph: Completely useless to the plot. She is just there.

* Zuko: Just a pretty cardboard cutout who lost all of his signature charisma. He isn't even necessary to the plot. Not to mention the sheer stupidity of the writing: the literal Fire Lord, ruler of an entire global empire, is casually piloting a zeppelin completely alone—no crew, no royal guard, as if he has absolutely nothing to manage in his own country. And watching the Fire Lord personally repair a ship... God, it looked so incredibly braindead.

The creators literally removed his chest scar and gave him zero meaningful interaction with Katara.

The authors' eternal fear of the Zutara fandom is honestly getting hilarious at this point.

It is especially glaring how they tried to deflect attention: "Quick, let's throw in some hints for Zukka, and let's have a half-naked Zuko catch Toph!" It’s a desperate attempt to distract Zutara fans, as if stuffing the movie with "cute" Kataang scenes wasn't enough to stop people from even thinking about Zutara. They feel so deeply uncomfortable with Zutara's mere existence that they have to forcefully shove Kataang down our throats while aggressively trying to erase any trace of Zutara.

4. What We ACTUALLY Needed to See

Instead of retreading old ground, the movie could have explored the massive blank spaces in the lore that actually lead into the future we know:

* The Birth of Republic City: Show the first rise of social inequality. Show how Aang failed to solve this issue, leaving it as a heavy mistake of the past Avatar for Korra to fix.

* The Bloodbending Ban: Give us a real story about why Katara had to ban it. Show us why it couldn't even be adapted for medical use. The canon ban still feels unconvincing—sub-bending is potentially useful, and even lethal lightning-bending wasn't banned but redirected for the public good.

* Characters with Unknown Fates: Give us someone to actually worry about! Where is Azula (did she redeem herself or is she still a threat)? What about Ty Lee and chi-blocking leading into the Equalists? What about Mai?

* Suki's Tragedy: Address the theory that Suki died young. It would perfectly and tragically explain why Sokka ended up alone and never started a family—losing two girls he loved could be his personal curse, making him close his heart to risk.

* Kanto: We could have been introduced to the mysterious Kanto as Toph’s future love interest—someone serious, with a personality resembling Lin, so the audience could see something familiar in him.

* King Bumi: Even showing old King Bumi sacrificing his own life to protect the heroes would have been better, so that the name of Aang’s firstborn finally received a powerful emotional justification.

But no. Instead, we wasted time on things that had already been said.

The Bitter Truth About the Creators

It is glaringly obvious that the people who made ATLA deeply emotional and complex were missing here. It was Aaron Ehasz and the brilliant room of writers who gave the original show its soul, layers, and emotional maturity.

On the backbone of that collective work, Bryke built a sequel franchise that proves once again: on their own, they simply do not know how to create something truly great.

It’s a shame so much money and years of work were wasted on this hollow fanservice. People will not be analyzing the depth of this movie years from now like they still do with the original ATLA. Because there is simply nothing to analyze.

[frogdisco2021]

Okay but ever since I learned that it's a popular fanon trope that Katara restarts Zuko's heart with bloodbending after the Last Agni Kai I can't stop thinking about it cause it would have been so perfect.

Like first of all, in the actual canon it's pretty vague how she manages to heal him and from what exactly (obviously getting struck by lightning but what specific injury was killing him?).

And then secondly, it would be such a perfectly executed, full-circle moment where this form of bending Katara was forced to learn against her will and that she is scared and ashamed of suddenly becomes something she'll be forever grateful for knowing, maybe even feeling some weird form of thankfulness to Hama for having forced her to learn, because without it she would've lost Zuko. It would be a curse that she turned into a gift, a weapon turned into a tool of healing.

It would parallel how Zuko (and Aang) formed a new, more positive relationship with firebending. Both of them saw fire as destruction and hatred, but learned that it is also a source of life and warmth. In the same way, Katara would learn that bloodbending is not just a means to reach into someones body and take control of them, to take away their agency and autonomy, it is also the gift that allowed her to save the life of her best friend after he sacrificed himself for her.

But noooooooooo bloodbending is inherently evil nevermind the pre-established theme of non-duality and separation being an illusion and that no form of bending is inherently good/bad or superior/inferior to any other. Bloodbending eviiiiiil always and there are no good uses for it because we here at Bryke incorporated have the imagination of a jellyfish.

[saintmarc]

[icaseybaybee]

[zagrebinaa]

[crosstimberlake]

[unintrude]

[curatwhore]

[holloweiss]

it’s late so yall know what that means. time for me to think about what Domain Expansions are, what they represent in this story and which criteria a sorcerer has to fulfill in order to cast them :D

so, the most popular interpretation I’ve come across is that they’re a tool of self actualization which only sorcerers who know their true self can achieve.

however, this view never quite sat right with me as it centers the self and individual a lot, which isn’t quite in line with their otherwise so strong Buddhist elements.

I think it stems from this scene where Megumi decides to follow Gojo’s advice and dares to imagine a stronger version of himself (basically clearing his mind of doubts and hesitation).

as many know, jujutsu has a lot of Buddhist influences, particularly esoteric Buddhism, particularly Japanese esoteric Buddhism, which pursuits the belief of “attaining Buddhahood in this very body” meaning in a single lifetime without the necessity of multiple rebirths.

One of the practices to achieve this is through the concept of the Three Mysteries (body, speech and mind), where the practioner uses mudra (special hand gestures) for the body, mantra (or chants) for the speech and mandala or visualization for the mind to achieve enlightenment in the Buddhist sense (which is the state of “awakening” where one is able to comprehend the true nature of things and becomes liberated from the attachment and ignorance that cause suffering). sounds familiar?

Because Domain Expansions, with a bit of innate talent, usually depend on these three aspects exactly.

Alongside using prominent mudra associated with various Bodhisattva, sorcerers use their domain expansion’s name as a chant. Furthermore, they must maintain a clear mind in order to visualize their techniques and the barriers into which they cast them. But if it were truly that easy, many sorcerers should be able to achieve it as long as they have the necessary knowledge, a grasp of their innate talent, and enough practice, right?

no, because as previously implied a complete domain symbolizes a high enlightened spiritual state only a few can achieve. people who are attached and never liberated from suffering, usually also never attain a domain expansion (which is time and time again proven in the story).

[himisuda]

How do you think sukuna got his tattoos? Was a born with them or something else?

thanks for the ask!! and i'm gonna be honest, i have no idea. i don't think that he was born with them, because i don't know why they would be. on the other hand, they do seem to have a supernatural element to them considering they appear on the vessels.

i think, at the very least, he wanted them.

(ch. 237)

when it comes to interpreting anything in sukuna's backstory i'm hesitant to say anything that might imply that he had been vulnerable/weak/abused in some kind of way, solely because of this line here. when kashimo asks sukuna if he was born the strongest or if he earned the title, he just says that he doesn't know. if there had been a point in time where sukuna had been weak or vulnerable, and sukuna overcame it to become the strongest, then i think that he would've just said that he earned the title. that's why i think that he at least wanted the tattoos, because nothing implies that anybody would've been able to force sukuna into getting them.

i know it's like a common fanon theory that he got his tattoos because they were given to criminals who committed heinous crimes, but i just don't think that anybody would be able to force him to get it lol.

as for why sukuna would get these tattoos? i don't think that he would've gotten it to make himself look intimidating because sukuna always lets his strength and (sigh) aura speak for itself, and also he already looks intimidating. if the tattoos were intended for criminals, i don't think that he'd brand himself with them just to tell people "hey, look at me, i'm a scary criminal."

(ch. 245)

he pretty much says so himself when confronted with his own crimes. he doesn't take pride in his crimes or whatever, he just doesn't care.

i think that they probably have something to do with his identity. they appear on all of his vessel forms to signify that hey, this is sukuna. the tattoos themselves are basically stand-ins for sukuna. the most likely guess i have is that they function as a way to separate him further from humanity, which is something sukuna deliberately does. but how the tattoos would serve to do that, i don't really know.

sukuna is very meticulous about the things that he does and everything with him has intentionality, so i don't think he just got them for the hell of it. the tattoos have to hold some kind of deeper meaning, significant enough for them to essentially represent sukuna.

anyway this is a very roundabout way to go: i don't know, they're tied to his identity in some way

[hounneybuonney]

JJK’s conservatives and the critique of them is shallow to me. The series keeps telling us that all they care about power, control, and protecting tradition, but they barely do anything that actually helps them maintain that power within the story. They seem to exist as an easy source of drama and conflict, but aren’t allowed to exist outside of that.

My biggest issue is that the higher ups/ conservatives never acts like they understands self-preservation. Actual real systems built around hierarchy, control and tradition usually work hard to manage powerful people. They reward loyalty, keep important members dependent on the system, and make sure dangerous individuals don’t become threats. But the higher-ups in JJK barely do any of that.

Gojo is the clearest example. The story says his birth changed the balance of the entire world. If that’s true, then logically the higher-ups should constantly be trying to keep him under their thumb. They didn’t even try make him loyal, limit his influence, or even build systems around the fact that he’s basically untouchable. Instead, they mostly just complain about him or try to kill his students while relying on him for practical everything. They fear him, but not enough to seriously adapt to the reality that he could destroy their entire system whenever he wants even when it’s explicitly obivous he wants reform of their system.

Even with someone like Geto, there’s barely any sign that the system tried to keep one of its strongest sorcerers bonded to him it before things completely fell apart. Even after he went off the deep end, they have no practical response that one of their most powerful sorcerers went crazy and massacred an entire village. For a society supposedly obsessed with maintaining their power and their way of approaching sorcery, they don’t even try to prevent any more Getos or even use him as a propaganda tool for the system. 

That’s the main issue: the higher-ups are more told about than they’re actually developed. The story says they’re powerful conservatives protecting the status quo, but they rarely act like rulers who genuinely know how to hold onto power or even try to. They don’t manipulate powerful sorcerers, they don’t build loyalty, and they don’t respond intelligently to threats inside their own system.

Because of that, they never feel like a real force running Jujutsu society. They mostly just exist to oppose the protagonists and represent “old traditions bad.” For a group that supposedly ruled the jujutsu world for generations, they come across as weirdly passive and underwritten.

[jjk-confessions]

I’m not even a fan of gojo, but a lot of the hate around him clearly comes from how popular he is with fangirls and fanboys. People don’t even seem to have an actual reason for disliking him as a character. Their issue is usually the fan obsession around him, not anything meaningful about gojo himself.

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[jjk-confessions]

My hot take is that this fandom over-inflates and exaggerates the relationship between Megumi and Gojo to astronomical levels than when you actually read the manga from top to bottom the fics become very laughable. Headcanons are one thing of course, but people genuinely getting upset when you say they weren’t that close is another. The point people like saying is Gojo raise Megumi and I disagree. I think Megumi has always been very capable of knowing right from wrong (in his own view point) and he had his sister and they were fine before Gojo came and they would have been fine even with him there. Gege himself said Gojo helped them with money stuff after the amount left by Toji and Tsumiki’s mum ran out. If he really raised him like a parent I don’t see why Gege wouldn’t just state that. After all he had no problem saying that in Geto’s case with the twin girls. That being said I think people need to actually read the source material and stop making things up as they go and forcing it as canon. They were mentor and mentee. And even with that barely because Megumi never asked Gojo to train him until that one time he wanted to start competing with Yuji more seriously. It’s okay for them to just be cordial it doesn’t ruin either of their characters.

I still remember how people were theorizing that Gojo would be so upset and sad to have to fight Sukuna and Megumi’s body and he really didn’t give it all that much thought. And how people thought Megumi would cry and breakdown about Sukuna killing Gojo using his body and Megumi doesn’t even acknowledge him at all. Doesn’t cry about it and doesn’t even say anything about it.

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[jjk-confessions]

“If the story doesn't tell you outright to care about megumi, or tell you that other characters in the story should care about him and his feelings, fans who never cared about him in the first place, aren't going to want to do so. That is what I personally noticed. Everything has to be spelled out to them when it comes to megumi and nuance isn't allowed. “

Sorry anon but Megumi is quite literally not the only victim of this. The people making potential man jokes aren’t real fans of the series so I’d say you should probably ignore them. But also Megumi fans don’t even understand what they want from him either. In one breath they’d say Megumi never wanted to be a sorcerer so him not playing a part in the final arc fight is in character then in another they get upset that he didn’t get stronger. Megumi is a good character but the most takes I see about him from dadjo fans are projections. Then they get mad when canon clearly doesn’t align with those takes. So many jjk characters seldom actually speak of their feelings so directly and a lot of things need to be read inbetween the lines. There are still people saying Yuji didn’t suffer as much as Megumi because uhhhh Yuji didn’t know most of the people he was forced to kill, or Yuji didn’t know this or that person for long so why is he upset…. Like to understand why that even hurt Yuji that much you should understand that Yuji is vastly different from everyone in that series. Life is precious to him, all life. He was also an orphan with his only close person being his ailing old grandpa. Excuse him for finally finding a home with people who are just as weird as him and getting attached really quickly. And so when people think time spent = quality, how else can you expect anyone in the series to speak about characters feelings in good faith while they are busy suffering scaling. That was just an example. Another is how shoko’s feelings are dismissed when it comes to her caring about Gojo and Geto but specifically Gojo. People saying she didn’t care if he was going to die, as if she needs to shed tears for you people to know how much she loved him. Heck her smoking habits came back x20 because of Gojo. Stuff like that is so annoying cause you can tell a lot of how people consume characters is either for powerscaling reasons or shipping ones, so they need to downplay one character to uplift the other.

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[jjk-confessions]

What does protagonist bias even mean ? I feel like it can’t even apply to Yuji here since jjk fandom makes sure to always remind us Gojo, Megumi or Yuta are the “actual” mc. So honestly most yuji fans love him as a character and not cause he’s the MC. Also to that anon that said Yuji can only reach out to people through his grandpa’s influence, I think that’s you taking Yuji’s own autonomy away and making his bonds kinda fake. It’s kind of like saying he only likes his friends because his grandpa told him to…..

His grandpa’s last words gave him a guide, everything else that happened after was Yuji’s own will, his own love, his own conviction, his own ideal. Yuji gets lonely is probably what you wanted to say. I wouldn’t say he was satisfied with just his grandpa. He was always a lonely kid which he’s said himself. He just never had much of a purpose until his grandpa gave him those words that served as an anchor to guide him as he fought through his own loneliness instead of succumbing to it like his grandfather did.

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[jjk-confessions]

yuuta definitely isn't the better mc because his story is jjk0, and neither is yuuji boring, but yuuta did end up getting the life and ending yuuji wanted. surely, that was meant to highlight the contrast between what yuuji and yuuta chose to prioritize throughout their life and story. one isn't better than the other. and that doesn't change the fact that yuuji is arguably one of gege’s best written characters, hands down.

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