Let's Talk

I mean, I obviously get why. They're the same age and on the surface they have very similar personalities and beliefs.

But I very much dislike that people are more accepting of Aang's pacifism than Steven's (or categorize Aang as the same as Steven). Especially because in my opinion the Crewniverse handled it much better than Bryke did.

Aang's pacifism was thrown into the second half of Book 3 last minute and even contradicts some of what they already established about him and the Air Nomads (Gyatso taking out like 12 firebenders and Aang himself using excessive force like in Siege of the North).

Obviously I can't say this for sure, but I'm pretty confident that the reason for this was that Aang's arc was supposed to be coming to terms with his trauma by letting go of Katara. That's what Book 2 seemed to be setting up specifically.

This scene implies that he replaced his love for his people with his love for Katara. Ergo, he projected his loss onto the first person who showed him care and affection after being frozen for 100 years. And he refuses to let that go when told to.

This was never brought up again. And then we were hit with his refusal to kill out of nowhere in the middle of Book 3. It feels like they were looking for a replacement conflict and happened to land on pacifism and used his culture to justify it.

It never even came up during the Invasion, where they literally had an episode about Aang stressing out about facing Ozai. This circumstance is possibly even more pressing considering that Aang would have had a very limited amount of time to even fight him. So why did this never come up?

Meanwhile, they tell us very early on that the Crystal Gems don't shatter. They always bubble corrupted gems and Rose's sword was specifically designed to poof, not shatter. It's reasonable to infer that killing was taboo for Steven.

Sure, the Bismuth episode is the first time they verbalize it. But we've also been told that Steven has cried over snakes. He's always been established as a gentle, sensitive soul in a way that Aang wasn't shown to be.

Aang refusing to kill Ozai is contentious because it was brought up last minute and was given a deus ex machina to get out of it. Steven not killing the Diamonds shouldn't be contentious because that was something he was always firmly against.

I also hate to bring this up, but what did people want Steven to do? They've established multiple times that they barely stood a chance against Homeworld the first time and that was before their entire army was corrupted. They lost to just Blue and Yellow and the only reason they went to Homeworld was to negotiate with White about the corrupted gems. There was no feasible way to defeat the Diamonds, which they've told us multiple times.

Making peace with the Diamonds was ultimately a better outcome than killing them even if he could. Steven reversing corruption and systemically stopping the colonization of other worlds and the oppression of gems is fundamentally more beneficial than shattering them.

Sparing Ozai had no systemic benefit. In fact, I would argue that his presence still did harm since he was able to weaponize Azula and had a bunch of loyalists in the comics. The one thing I'll give Aang is that the end of the war being peaceful set a more peaceful precedent, but not everyone subscribed to that.

(I actually don't hate Aang sparing Ozai if you can believe it. I just hate how people bend over backwards to defend it. I've seen people legitimately ask why Katara isn't criticized for soaring Yon Rha, a retired old man who can't do anymore harm. Like, why are we playing this game?)

So obviously in my version Katara was already councilwoman (can't believe Bryke stole it from me smh🙄). The whole Gaang INCLUDING SUKI is in Republic City trying to establish it.

A lot of the movie is the day to day of the Gaang. How they try to manage peace among the different nations and cultivate respect for each other's cultural differences and how they establish political and justice systems that treat every citizen equally.

(We get A LOT of adult Sukka moments because they deserved better)

I think The Denied are Chi-blockers and would be the beginnings of the Equalists. Like Amon found them/their descendants when he left the South Pole and made them more organized.

(I don't remember if the show or comics ever confirmed this but in my version Amon took bending through a combination of bloodbending and healing to block Chi in a more permanent way than Chi blocking. Bloodbending is a requirement, so effectively only Katara and Suma could figure out how to reverse it. But this ain't about him)

The big revelation in this movie would be that in trying to stop The Denied (who are instead attacking benders all over the Earth Kingdom), Aang stumbles across a village of airbenders in hiding instead of Tagah. Since it's absolute bullshit that the nomads were all wiped out, my version has descendants of survivors hiding in the Earth Kingdom.

The movie would mostly be about Aang at first being happy to find other Airbenders, but uncomfortable about how different their culture is from his. It's been 100 years and they've become disconnected from what Aang grew up with. And he struggles to accept it, wanting them to live on Air Temple Island with him in Republic City. They don't want to, content where they are.

Aang starts to get pushy, but the Gaang talk some sense into him. Katara, Sokka, and Zuko are gentle about it at first, Toph is not, giving him the hard truth (one of the many appeals of Taang for me is how their contracting personalities and backgrounds represent the show's theme of balance way better than Kataang, and that would really be on display here. They aren't dating at this point, they don't start until way after Republic City's already been established).

In the middle of their argument, The Denied attack. The Gaang fight to protect the Airbenders and during so, Aang realizes his friends are right. He's projecting his own pain and trauma and not thinking about theirs. After The Denied are defeated, Aang apologizes sincerely and promises that they'll be free to live how they want in peace.

A few of the Airbenders actually speak up and agree to go with him, wanting to connect with their lost culture. Most of them choose to stay behind and Aang has to make peace with that.

(This would address my major gripe with adult Aang's character that Bryke keeps using his trauma as an excuse for his actions instead of making him address and process his trauma and behavior in a healthy way. The movie for some reason seems to double down on it when they had the chance to at least call him out since as we see it persists even into late adulthood and negatively impacts his relationship with his children. But they can never hold him accountable no matter what awful thing he does)

The movie would end with Republic City built and beginning to thrive with a wave of new immigrants coming in. And of course because I love my Harutara, Haru would be shown among them.

It shows that their bond goes past the caretaker role that Governor Thropp tried to force on Elphaba. It shows that they had a genuine sisterly bond where they saw each other as equals.

But in Wicked For Good Elphaba does kneel at Nessa's wheelchair. Why? Because she's asking for something. Obviously, we know this is because Elphaba is desperate and tired and just wants at least one person on her side. But from Nessa's POV, it makes it seem like her sister is forgoing their actual bond in order to placate her and get what she wants.

Do they not realize they're making themselves look worse? Not only does this just prove it would have been the easiest and most sensible direction to go for her character to begin with and they had no justifiable reason not to do it, it shows that they're not even bothering to be consistent across the media they put out for this franchise.

The comics and LOK are made and have been established for 15+ years at this point. Content that they either approved or were directly in charge of creating. If they wanted to do better by Katara, all they had to do was do something with her healing instead of doubling back.

Show her traveling the world and giving aid to people affected by the war. Show her training doctors and opening a hospital in Republic City. Show us why she's the best healer in the world. They didn't have to retcon what they did, all they had to do was put actual effort into their decision instead of writing her off the way they did in LOK.