#jet meta

because yes context does matter. and you CANNOT possibly think that these actions come even close to the atrocities of what the rough rhinos did to Jet’s village or what Ozai intended to do to the Earth Kingdom.

NO THIS IS NOT ME EXCUSING WHAT THEY DID. DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THIS.

all I’m saying is that context, intentions and knowing what is going on in a character’s head are actually important in that case for a better understanding of their actions.

let’s take a look at Jet. he’s an orphan boy, who grew up with this very idea that every thing that went wrong in his life was caused by the FN (which is true) and that the only way for him to survive is to fight the FN (which is, again, true). therefore, the logical conclusion to years of trauma, and impregnated ideas of vengeance and wrath is to loose touch with your sense of morality and ending up doing heinous things because he’s convinced that it is the right thing to do. the ONLY thing to do. to survive and to escape the war. what people like to forget is that Jet didn’t grow up like Sokka and Katara, who even though faced a terrible tragedy after their mother’s death, and had to live in a tribe that had been weakened by the FN, also lived in a sheltered place for most of their lives, with their Gran Gran and father’s love, with a community, a family. Jet grew up in constant solitude, hunger, pain, fear, death and had to become a parent to those around him. and that’s not me trying to compare them. but you cannot seriously think that they grew up in the same conditions. growing up like that you just CANNOT turn out fine. the absence of love and protection coming from an adult actually does that to a kid. as time passes he realises that he, as an orphan boy, has to do what has to be done in order to survive. the question of morality doesn’t even crosses his mind. because fear and anger are the only thing left for him to survive. and all of this leads to him drowning Gaipan, and committing this heinous crime. which well doesn’t really happen because everyone is safe ! everyone survived ! yes the village is destroyed but that’s material loss. that doesn’t come near the loss of actual people.

now for Zuko, his core character trait in season 1 is that he’s very short sighted. he only sees his goal, and never what’s in between that. this shortsightedness comes from years of obsession fuelled by extreme (FN) propaganda, indoctrination, trauma and anxiety in regards of what awaits Zuko if he never gets to catch the Avatar. like Jet, Zuko’s anger and fear brings what’s most ugly in him : his lack of regards for any collateral damage he might provoke while trying to reach his goal. which ultimately leads to Kyoshi Island burning down. however, they are a few things that need to be said here. he never steps a foot on Kyoshi Island with the intention of burning it. that’s actually where it diverges from Jet. Zuko is extremely short sighted and his only goal is to find Aang. nothing. else. which differentiates him from his sister especially. who wanders through the earth kingdom while yes chasing Aang but also never stopping (or at least trying) to expend the FN’s power in the EK. Kyoshi island burning down comes actually from him being shitty at managing his firebending (and his crew) in season 1. it’s quite literally collateral damage and most of the damage on Kyoshi Island actually comes from Zuko’s soldiers (who we never actually see receiving orders that would indicate Zuko wanting to burn the island. he only says “I want the Avatar” before splitting up, and go rewatch the scene if you don’t believe me). we do actually see Zuko shooting a few fireballs at Aang but we see only one of them actually hitting the cabins. so it would be logical to assume that it was Zuko’s crew, while fighting the Kyoshi Warriors that did it. after the gaang left, Katara even says “he would have destroyed the whole place” meaning it wasn’t destroyed. and then Aang eventually saves the village and Zuko and his crew leave.

what I’m trying to say with this is that I cannot keep seeing people actually demonising and adultifying Jet and Zuko’s actions (especially at the very beginning where both of them are clearly villains with the narrative intent of doing heinous things) with using these two specific scenes, where, ultimately, no one got hurt (except Sokka & Aang while fighting Jet and the Kyoshi Warriors while fighting Zuko).

this post isn’t me denying what they did. at the end of the day, Gaipan got destroyed and Kyoshi Island lost a lot of infrastructure and cabins. this post is me explaining why I’m tired of the over exaggerated claims in regards of these two characters.

the problem with this fandom is that people will talk about Jet and Zuko’s actions in episode 10 and episode 4 like they would talk about Long Feng’s actions or Ozai’s actions.

like, no, two indoctrinated traumatised teenage boys in a war cannot be held accountable in the same way that two adults (who funnily actually did kill people !) are held accountable. like, textually by LAW they cannot be held accountable in the same way. because of their age, because of the circumstances, the consequences, etc etc.

and what’s even more important is that both actually do their best to make amends. even though doing this after years of indoctrination is actually hard. jet dies while doing so and Zuko nearly dies at the hand of his father for doing so. (and that’s without even talking about his actions as a Firelord)

you can dislike Jet and Zuko as characters. but the hate these two get will always look ridiculous at the end of the day. because it’s either completely exaggerated or out of context or doesn’t apply to them because they actually did change. and did try to make amends.

Zuko could’ve stayed a racist, imperialist, dipshit. But by the end of the show, he turns into just a simple dipshit who accepted his life changing 180 with open arms. Yes he said some insensitive shit to aang about his beliefs and mocked his anti-violent views even when he joined them in season 3, but AGAIN, not only was he still learning how to be a decent human being, he was also blinded by his own hatred of his father, mixed with the very much pro-violent nature of the fire nation, PLUS the lack of education on Aang’s culture and philosophy which was AGAIN, taught around PRO-PA-GAN-DA the FN created. All of which, takes time to unlearn. On top of figuring himself and who he was, which is what most teenagers, more often than not will have a whole crisis about ALONE. I honestly don’t know how people expect a redemption arc to go, we’ve all had to learn how to be better about things, and the progress isn’t going to be liner nor will it always be easy. That is human nature. That is LIFE.

And on Jet’s case, why do people think it’s such a terrible thing to make some characters who were victims of war crimes, to be angry, to lust for revenge against the perpetrators, or be irrational and violent. THEY HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO. The FN took the last bit of Jet’s life that he barely even had and stripped all of that completely away from him like the savages that they are. Why is it a terrible thing to be angry at people who didn’t think twice about the families, the sense of community that his village had? I agree that Jet was going too far when he was trying to take it out on innocent people, but can you really blame him? He didn’t have an adult to help him out on the importance of emotional maturity and how to be angry at the ones who actually harmed you like Zuko did, and even if he did, teenagers won’t be emotionally matured TRULY until they develop into adults. He had to be the mock adult for the kids younger than him, he didn’t have time to decode himself and better his actions because he was too focused on protecting the freedom fighters and himself against the FN’s abuses.

People don’t realize that this is not babying them, or being so called “apologists” this is called understanding why these two are the way that they are. Why are they like this? And it’s so much to take in and talk about at once that you’d need an entire college level essay to completely break down and comprehend how deep war can affect not just adults, but teenagers and children. Those two groups don’t have true moral compasses, so the environment and circumstances can really impact and easily mold their minds to fit the standards in said situation in order to survive it. This is called self-preservation. A more than common trauma response.

I mean seriously, I heard someone say they can understand Zuko hate but not Iroh hate, when he has in fact, done much worse than Zuko has ever done in those 3 years at sea. I love Iroh, but he’s an adult, why are we choosing adults over traumatized and war-fed teenagers who mainly comply in that shit to seek approval from their actually psychotic, genocidal, narcissistic, and abusive father that would dispose of them if they didn’t fit his standards? Why are we quicker to blame the teenagedvictim of the FN’s attacks and cruelty, than the actual people, adults, who conducted the attacks?

Are we truly regressing as a fandom? The show wouldn’t give them their traumatic experiences and talk about their abusers if they wanted the viewer to antagonize the victims. Goes to show that the loudest voices screaming “irredeemable monster” and “they want people to feel sorry for him” never truly know who these characters are and how they operate, they need everything spoon fed to them which is very unfortunate. The real irredeemable monsters are right there in their face and they choose to look somewhere else.