are you actually anti aang genuinely
So this ask is from a few weeks ago and I just saw it now, and was genuinely surprised seeing it as I couldn’t think what I could have said for it to be in my inbox? But then looked back and it’s from probably right after I reblogged a fic snippet that addressed an event that happened in the atla comics during the boiling rock episodes! I’m generally not anti any character, but I like exploring their more negative traits and aspects of their personalities that would cause tension and strife with other characters, and how those characters would react. I know some people don’t like it to go quite so far so I try to tag appropriately. Hence the anti Aang tag so people could avoid it, because that fic was obviously not going to go easy on him.
That comic in particular (I can’t remember the name of it, I just know of it as “the lava fissure incident” via fandom)is just. Not good and wild to be considered canon material, and it plays into a lot of Aang’s immaturity and… possessiveness(?) towards Katara and his relationship to her without addressing how those negatively effect others, and does imply it’s Katara’s fault for upsetting him.
What happens is that while Zuko and Sokka are off at boiling rock, Aang tries to talk to Katara about the kiss before the invasion without actually mentioning it, and Katara genuinely doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he’s being unclear. Aang gets upset, creates a rock ball around himself, and makes it so hot lave bursts out and almost burns Katara. The comic ends with Aang looking sad etc. it never addresses how he got angry and almost seriously hurt his friend because she didn’t know he was talking about an emotional moment.
From what I recall it’s framed as sort of “well if Katara had acknowledged the kiss Aang wouldn’t have done that”. That is what I don’t like. Not that he did these things (though I don’t like that) but that it’s just left as just an outburst of emotion that was mostly Katara’s fault anyway. That it’s not something to address about his emotional state or regulation of his anger. I think it’s a failure of the showrunners and writers that there isn’t a resolution to those issues that are not confined to this comic, but in the series as well. It would have been interesting and fulfilling to see a resolution to his possessiveness of Katara and inability to let her go that the show itself brings up but never concludes in a way that feels right.
I wouldn’t say I’m anti Aang, but I’m anti ignoring character flaws and set up character arcs that go nowhere.