The Ramblings of An Unamused Goat

the-cynical-idealist:

velinthesky:

swan2swan:

owldee:

savagelee:

macabremachinations:

geekinerddork:

awakeningeden:

writingfail:

savagelee:

atlaairbendingrules:

savagelee:

But if all she loves about herself is her bending and not anything else …

Sometimes I just feel like I’m watching an entirely different show from everyone else. *sighs*

I don’t get how Mike/Bryan can say that your abilities should determine your self worth and that if you lose them you aren’t/shouldn’t love yourself anymore. 

Really, it would’ve been wonderful if Korra had cried herself out and then thought- hey, but I’m still the Avatar. I can still help people. And then maybe they cut to a few months later and they show her meditating and understanding herself and helping people and then she meets Aang and restores bending if that had to happen. :-/

I agree. I wish they could’ve shown that people are more than their bending, especially since her rash actions have hinged on her being able to throw power around.

Bryke

just

omg.

what. the. hell.

That is a terrible way to view people. I’m not one to say this usually…but, Bryke? Your privilege is showing.

You wanna know why Aang was fucking amazing? Because the Avatar was NOT the entirety of his identity. He knew that he was a very wise, very kind, very talented, very charming, and very knowledgable kid. Thats who he was as a person and he had that confidence without the title of Avatar at his helm, and it made him so easy to love. He didn’t even want to be the Avatar half of the time.

I now see why Korra was held in a compound for all her life instead of being given a chance to obtain a social life and begin her training at 16 like she was supposed to. Not for any actual socio-political reasons in the Avatar Universe, or because Aang thought carefully about the place of the Avatar in the world and thought she’d be better off cooped up. Why would Aang, who got so much of his world view and experience from traveling all over and making so many dear friends from each corner of the globe, come to that decision logically?

He wouldn’t. Korra was cooped up in a compound so Bryke could play out this really sick situation of taking someones identity from them. A shallow, unhealthy identity that Korra should have fought, and in return developed into her own person. But Bryke doens’t even see it as unhealthy or flawed. They rooted for it and took solace in it. Thats really…disheartening. They don’t see any issue in Korra’s actions, nor her inability to learn. They truly feel like the love you have for yourself should ultimately be decided by your abilities, and if you lose those abilities you don’t have a reason to live anymore, or to love yourself, and you’re incapable of being able to return any love you get. Even if the theme was failure, and the degredation of her heritage, she shouldn’t lose all hope out of these.

Its apparent that Bryke not only has lots of issues with general storytelling and owning up to their privileges, but have bad concepts of general relationships and they should probably take a step back and realize how destructive their being by thinking this is okay.

/incoherent rant

Reblogging for the beautiful commentary.

Honestly, you guys are pumping out beautiful observations.

Very interesting commentary.

I can see that there were unfortunate and problematic implications that this book and its ending gave in this respect. As usual, I say I’m holding out hope for the coming books cause this will ultimately add to the story and revise different things. Like, ultimately Korra’s arc and learning as a character isn’t done and shouldn’t be done. She still has time to learn that her sense of self-worth based on ability and identity as a bender is faulty. Her story is not the same as Aang’s. Probably Zuko’s is a better parallel (something that took much longer than one season to resolve).

But that aside. I find this whole identity thing very interesting. Yes, it’s problematic what Korra ultimately did/didn’t learn this season about it.

But another interesting thing. In regards to Amon/Noatok. Like it was kind of the same struggle for him. Because for Yakone identity was solely equivalent to your abilities. That was exactly how he messed up his kids. Like, in that way I feel the narrative is really showing how fucked up and problematic that thinking is. That Yakone didn’t treat his sons as people, he was only looking at their ability to waterbend, and that was super dehumanizing and messed up.

Hence the main reason Amon really wanted to take away people’s bending…so they weren’t stuck, like Korra, incorrectly thinking that it was simply their ability to bend that defined them.

Although, then again…he still had issues in his thinking. One thing I’m thinking of is the whole “I will destroy you.” So in this way he’s still thinking - lose your ability = you are destroyed. He’s still falling into this flawed logic as he actively tries to fight against it. Which is also interesting cause I guess for him it’s that he doesn’t want to be defined by his bending because he is ashamed of it, what it’s caused him to do in the past. He still has the same problem as Korra in an interesting way. Ultimately neither can let go of their identity as a bender defining them more than anything else.

And the book really leaves this hanging as a problem without a solution. So I really hope they play with this in the future. Same as with the bender privilege storyline that was never fully explored, I’d say they have a lot more work to do with this in future seasons. That doesn’t mean they can’t or don’t necessarily realize that at this point in time the narrative is underdeveloped and has problems.

Um yeah. So. Not sure there is so much a point here as just getting my thoughts out. Yay thoughts.

Ooooooh, boy, all the thoughts I have on this part. Hoo boy.

Actually, I’ve come to forgive Korra as a character in this regard. It’s a huge character flaw, but it’s interesting to have a protagonist who doesn’t surge through it in the way that they usually do (any time a superhero loses his/her powers, they tend to get through the identity crisis…Korra…it’s different). 

However…

I have an individual thing to point out for the first half, but it’s that second half—the whole “measure her to Mako” thing—that just made my insides bubble with irritation. Like, “Korra’s having this huge identity crisis…but everyone wants to know…will Mako still love her, and can she love Mako?”

Me: I don’t care. I’m much more concerned with whether or not she was considering throwing herself off that cliff. I don’t think she was, but…I was more concerned for her self-worth because of HER, and not because of her scarf-wearing stalker. TALK ABOUT HER, DUDE. NOT ABOUT YOU. YOU TURNED THAT DECISIVE MOMENT IN HER LIFE ONTO THE SUBJECT OF MAKO. And now the creators are doing that, too…

Oh, lord, I got pulled into rant mode again. Mako’s like fine cheese in a mousetrap.

But seriously, guys. When a girl is in that mood and you feel like you have to talk to her, then the subject is HER. Unless it’s some form of “I’ve always admired” or “I like you because” or “I think you” or “I’m sorry you,” there should be no first-person pronouns. If it was in Latin, the “o” and “m” endings are off the charts. You sit there and you LISTEN TO WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY. I want to hear what Korra’s thoughts on the matter are. Not Mako’s.

Was that relevant?

I know this is the third time I’m reblogging this set, but I keep finding excellent commentary, so I regret nothing

It’s times like these where I think the fans could tell the story better than the actual creators.

It’s at times like this when I want to slap Bryke. THAT IS NOT TRUE BRYKE.

BRYKE SHUT UP

BRYKE Y U SAY THAT BRYKE

I don’t CARE what fucking Mako thinks - and Korra shouldn’t either.

We should’ve made Bolin go out to fetch her.

And no - I’m not saying that because I’m a Borra shipper - I’m saying that because of what Bryke said earlier about them being genuine best friends (BRYKE ARE YOU TAKING THAT BACK NOW HUH?), and how they interact. I’d rather have my best friend come out to get me than some guy who DIDN’T EVEN VALUE MY FRIENDSHIP a few episodes ago.

And UNRESOLVED IN HERSELF?

She was shut in a compound for most of her childhood - but I’m not going to blame this on Aang, because I still DON’T SEE HOW he could have come to the conclusion that the next Avatar should be locked up like a circus animal.

This…

this is just fucked up.

I’m sorry, but I’m starting to honestly wonder why the hell they even bothered to make a sequel if they were going to show THIS UTTERLY SHALLOW MORAL that your goddamn self-worth comes from being “special” and having a boyfriend who loves you and is willing to cheat on his ex and burn people’s faces off in order to wuv you.

And yeah. Why’d everyone glare at Bolin when he tried to point out the positives? She’s NORMAL, not severely disfigured or dead or even a non-bender (which is also normal). She’s just another airbender. Okay. So why’s he getting glared at? For being insensitive?

Ugh. I love you, Bryke, but you seriously had some major plot failures with Korra’s story.

I’m not even going to bother typing out an essay, because it’s Borra week and I need to catch up, but someone’s gotta fix the plot before I start to hate everyone.

And Aang. When did he get hit with the stupid stick? He should know better.

(Source: makos-lightningrod)