Worst Prisoner chapter 3 notes:
One billion thanks to the gorgeous Boogum for her amazing beta skills!
Today I would like to ramble about:
Sokka and Zuko, at this stage, would have a relationship very similar to Jake Peralta and Doug Judy from B99.
The Fortune teller was a not a Kataang friendly ep.
The White lotus needs more women!
Spare a thought for Uncle Iroh!
So I love Brooklyn 99. It's great. I saw the second Doug Judy episode and heard all of Jake's crazy theories for how Doug Judy would escape, like using a lobster claw for stabbing. I could actually really picture Sokka having a similar attitude to Zuko at this juncture. Sokka is not going to give him an inch, if it looks like he could use that inch to his advantage.
Zuko lowkey respects this, and recognises how smart Sokka is, despite calling him an idiot/moron etc. I think he would also be almost entertained by Sokka's ideas of how everyday objects could be used as weapons. Sokka is nothing if not versatile and creative.
Despite respecting Sokka's intelligence, Zuko is going to be on a mission to Annoy Sokka! I really like their bromance, but I think it would get off to a rocky start, given the circumstances. I also think the idea of them being handcuffed together and stuck with each other is hilarious.
The fortune-teller is also not a Kataang friendly ep. Marsreds on tumbler wrote a lovely meta about this and I agree 100%. It really sets up the fact that Aang's crush is a mirror of Meng's. It is unrequited. It could have been beautifully resolved in a similar scene, with Aang realising Katara didn't feel that way about him, and that is okay. That would have been wonderful for his character development. Aang, let me save you from season 3's terrible writing. I know you're better than how bryke wrote you! Season one Aang was such a sweetheart.
I also think everyone knows about Aang's little crush. Sokka knows. Katara knows. Zuko knows after only one morning with them. Aang was not at all subtle. The scene where Katara runs away from his love confession in the episode is ridiculous. She can actually hear him, but she just blithely pretends that she is deaf and runs away. This is the Katara solution to Aang's crush in season one/two. Feigning deafness and running away/changing the subject.
Sokka's teasing makes much more sense to me, when I think about the fact that he knows. He's a very intelligent and perceptive character. He also knows how awkward it makes Katara feel. I noticed he only ever teases Aang for the crush, because he knows it is one-sided. Sokka has a few drive-by comments to Katara in the Jet ep, and that's because he knows she has the feelings then, and he doesn't approve of Jet.
Anyway, I think his primary motivation would be (as it often is) concern for his sister. I actually don't think Sokka is that much of an overbearing brother, who would want to dominate Katara's love choices. His objection to Jet was that Jet was a psycho, not that Jet was interested in Katara in general.
THE WHITE LOTUS NEEDS MORE WOMEN!
So I will add them. Aunt Woo is just one of several female White Lotus members we will meet. I'll tell you this now: Yugoda is also going to be in the secret club, mostly because I never liked how it was such a boys club (especially up in the Northenr Water Tribe, which is already ridiculously sexist).
I think a female influence would balance it out, and save the society from the obvious pitfalls that happen in LOK. I also think, narratively speaking, that some of these female mentors could provide stand-in maternal figures for various members of the Gaang, who are all still young and several are grieving from the loss of their mothers. We can't just dump all the maternal emotional work on poor Katara! Girl is busy!
But let's spare a thought for Zuko's, poor long-suffering Uncle. Uncle Iroh is just beside himself at this point. Zuko has been missing for days. Iroh's been looking, but he would have only found the blood-filled-clearing-of-horror and a torn shirt. Iroh is hitting up all his contacts like crazy. The entire White Lotus network has gotten a similar note that could be summed up as: “Holy Crap – where my nephew at?” Now he's going to get two answers in one afternoon, one significantly more alarming than the other, but both equally strange.
So I also just planted a little seed here, about there being more deserters than just Jeong Jeong and Che. I mean there is obviously more than two. That camp has a fair few people in it, after all.
I actually think that Ozai would not have been well-respected as a Fire-Lord. He's feared. Very feared. He's a scary dude and a bit unhinged. After what he did to his own son so publicly for something so minor, all of his critics would have shut the F up out of plain old self-preservation. Nobody wants to poke that crazy dragon.... So he would mostly rule by fear. Also the Fire Nation is a dictatorship with obedience to the Fire-lord seen as paramount.
But Ozai wouldn't be beloved by the people. He wouldn't be seen as a wise and good leader. He would have been seen as usurping Iroh. The whole succession thing would have stunk to high heaven as well. How the hell did he explain his wife vanishing and Firelord Azulon changing succession just before he died – the same night his wife vanish? I theorize Ozai handled this situation by being the scariest bastard ever, so that people would be too terrified to ask him sticky questions.
I think he would have favoured brutal approaches, such as the plan promoted by general Bujing that causes the Agni Kai between him and Zuko. These are not ...good plans. Morality aside, from a practical perspective these plans are actually seriously wasteful and harmful to moral, if heaps of young units keep being slaughtered. I think that deserters would have become increasingly more common during his reign. Jeong Jeong would have deserted during Ozai's time.
Ah, my papaya spouses, how you will regret the words you have hastily spoken in front of Sokka this day.
So Zuko and Katara had such an interesting dynamic. In the CoD, they just...opened up to each other...within like 2 minutes...of being in the same space. Within one conversation, Zuko let Katara touch his scar, which I think would have been really bloody personal, right there, and Katara offered to heal him, and I just....gaaah.
Never forget that Zuko and Katara came together in “The Crossroads of Destiny” entirely on their own. There was no saving each other from Zhao, no good word from Iroh, no necessity of a firebending teacher. There was just the two of them, in a cave of glowing green crystals.
These two would gravitate towards each other pretty quickly. Because they have been thrown together by crazy circumstances a lot earlier, it makes sense that some of their development would happen a lot sooner. The subject of missing/dead mothers happens here, because I feel like that subject would come up pretty quickly.
Katara would be the first one to properly break the touch barrier. She is a touchy-feely person after all. Poor season one Zuko is so touch-starved and affection-starved. Poor boy. He gets so little love. I think Katara reaching out to comfort him physically would have surprised the bejeezus out of him. I think she would initiate most of the touching between them, especially at the start, but Zuko would learn quickly and mirror her gestures of affection.
And now for a culinary note:
I, like Katara, thought I didn't like papaya. I always found them too sweet and cloying. Then I tried papaya and lime – oh boy! Taste sensation. The flavours balance perfectly. The fruit is a metaphor for their love! They balance each other out. It also ties in nicely to Aunt Woo's prophecy for Katara. Katara will come to love papaya and lime, even though she thought she didn't like it at first.
Kataang was plain old papaya: sweetie, sweetie, sweetie – blergh, too cloying for me.
Zutara is papaya and lime: mmmmhhh delicious balance.
Next chapter there will be shenanigans with a volcano. Who comes from a volcanic archipelago and can redirect heat, but also makes dumbass choices without thought of consequences? We all know who.
