#cinimatography

Avatar The Last Airbender

Ok, so in rewatching Atla for the quintillianth time, I've made a point to study it more than usual, and I'm noticing some fantastic stuff. Therefore, as I watch it, I've decided to take notes and leave em here if any yall would like to use them.

So, in the episode Imprisoned:

There's a light motif to katara that's so heavy handed, I can't believe I've never noticed it before. It all started with what I thought was an animation error at first...

But as I watched I noticed it was deliberate af.

This girl just had a full freaking halo over her head. Already we can tell that she's made out to be an angel *spoiler alert*. This happens right after the nameless mother of Haruk reveals what the fire nation has been doing to their poor village, mentioning that her husband was taken by them, and that Haruk could be taken too. Visually, we can already see what's gonna happen.

Welp, after it does happen, katara isn't satisfied with being the messenger anymore. She turns around to face her own halo, and takes responsibility over her influence over Haruk (which resulted in his capture)

Now this is where it gets interesting. The prisoners are looking at katara, whom, up till this point, had the halo, but they don't really listen to her, even though the shadows suggest the light is coming from her. But in reality, the halo has moved to the fire nation fellows on the tippy top of that wall there. THAT'S the message they hear.

The bright a$$ servalence light rings the message loud and clear that rebels will be caught, and will be punnished. Even though the prisoners can't hear katara's small voice right now, she stays stubborn as ever, determined to make her voice heard no matter what. As the servalence light circles around her, giving her that perfect halo again, she works out a way to override the fire nation's influence once n for all.

Last, but not least, at the end of the episode, katara realizes that she lost her necklace in the fight, only to be found by zuko in the coming hours. As he lifts the necklace, the shadows suggest the light is coming from the necklace's direction. Yet another spoiler!???

Since season one her character has been building up to have some sort of breaking point. Since season one she has tried to prove that she can also fight and help people. Since season one her mom has always wanted more out of her, and she was never good enough.

This season is when it came crashing down. I could say so much about this but I’m just going to cut to the chase. Trish was an ex addict. She was tired of feeling powerless and being the one that gets saved. It makes total sense for her to jump at the shot of being extraordinary because that’s what has always been shoved in her face. Having powers she wouldn’t have to feel weak, not in control, or feel the need for drugs or stimulants. She has wanted to be able to take care of things herself. Trish was still going through shit after being on those combat stimulants and scared shitless over the side effects that could kill her. The girl that was told that she always needed to be a shining star and perfect, logically in her mind had to fix her mess so she didn’t have to face telling her friends she fucked up. Again. And needed saving. Again.

While I was cringing and annoyed at the choices Trish was making, it was great character development and from her perspective I can see why she made every choice she did.

It was shitty of Trish to kill Jessica’s mother. But for once she wanted to be the one that did the saving and after all Jessica has helped her through she couldn’t let Jessica get stuck in the crossfire even if that means sacrificing their friendship.

We all know that Jessica would have blamed herself until she died if her mom was killed by the cops. At least now she has someone else to blame so she can get on with her life.

What was it that Jessica said,”I’d rather have you alive than dead”? Something like that.