Bored and Looking For Entertainment

all this because they're more offended over zuko being called a colonizer, and the ship being colonizer x colonized, than the fact he took part in and benefited from colonization. tied an indigenous girl to a tree overnight, destroyed part of her village, threatened her people with fire, and spent most of his time trying to kill her and her friends, including hiring an assassin

his whole arc, and becoming the fire lord, is about him making sure that the future fire nation won't have the shameful term of colonizers. if he wasn't one it wouldn't be his job to fix things. and people, including zuko himself, wouldn't be scared of him ending up like his father

everyone defending and supporting that racist shit is disgusting. and if you have the nerve to try and use your own people's history of colonization say what 'real' colonization is, you're racist and disgusting. the need to try and erase the 'mean' words using the excuse he changed as if his past self was a different person. being forgiven doesn't magically erase the colonizer status, unless you think abuse victims forgiving their abusers means that we should never call the perpetrator abusive, or that people aren't allowed to dislike those with a past history of abuse or bigotry just because they changed.

The art in question was made in response to hate she received, not for her depictions of zutara, but just for shipping it in general.

The "colonizer" accusation gets thrown around not because people are denying his role in the war, but because it is ridiculous (and racist, because it also harms people who are affected by colonization to throw around these accusations over cartoon ships) to use that to attack zutara shippers for shipping it, especially since Zuko aided in ending colonization. That actually does change EVERYTHING about Zuko's colonizer status, whether you think it does or not. Everything. And if you seriously think it doesn't, then I'd question whether this is actually about being anti oppression and anti racist at all. You have a right to how you feel about the ship but you do not have a right to tell other people how to feel or that they're "disgusting" for liking or creating fanart, and the part about telling people not to "use their own history" to talk about how they feel about the ship is also something you have no right to do.

the themes of the show are based on real genocide and colonization. if zuko wasn't a colonizer it wouldn't be HIS responsibility to end it. and i do have a right to talk about their bullshit when they use their own countries history TO DENY CERTAIN KINDS OF COLONIZATION. some of you disgusting dingbats were saying the southern water tribe wasn't colonized, when they WERE. denying that alone is fucking racist. acknowledging zuko is a colonizer, and that's why he wanted to end colonization, hurts NO ONE. he was the prince of the fire nation.

But then you think the Fire Nation are seriously Japanese in any significant way so I'm not expecting much serious analysis or understanding from you. All you've got are claims or racism and attempts to shut down discussion.

anyways, is your ghoulish ass that braindead that you think that there were NO inuit that knew aleut and they were completely isolated? that there was no crossover or care by other native americans that some were being put in camps? especially when we know the usa government doesn't value us? that is a backwards ass mindset to act like these things are entirely separate when native communities often interact and intersect. so if MULTIPLE native americans are upset we have a right to speak up and no racists can change that lmfao. not every native american tribe was given blankets, not every black person was part of the tuskegee experiment. but these things still affect our groups as a collective. so some dingbat having a character based on native americans talk about 'colonizing blankets' with a colonizer (scary word i know 😢) then yea we have a right to be upset. especially the people whose culture inspired the water tribes.

the fire nation politically takes from imperial japan. so people have a right to be uncomfortable if something hits close to home. and i can't speak on inuit tattoos but one inuit was upset about the blanket design clearly being based off them. and knowing how voodoo works, even altering symbols is seen as disrespectful. to respect native americans, the artist could simply change the text. intent doesn't erase impact no matter how much you clowns deny it. especially as zutara fans have a history of being disrespectful towards native americans. to the point y'all try to tell both black and native americans what 'real' colonization is as if settler colonialism is the only kind. all because y'all can't handle zuko being called a colonizer

but can't expect much from someone ghoulish enough to claim something they're not just to try and shut an actual native american up. genuinely more embarrassing than anything i've seen. and while i didn't in the first place, i'm especially not gonna take a cornball like you seriously lmfao.

but if you like, since my post is such a grave offense to y'all. i can start posting the racist, ableist, and transphobic things i've been sent from, and seen zutara shippers say, in the tag? i'm not going to use anti-zutara because i'm not against zutara. like y'all need to understand i don't give a fuck about some racist ass fandom etiquette. what are y'all gonna do besides block? continue to whine in my mentions? it'd take me valuing your opinions to care. flood the kataang tag? don't see how that would affect me and i'd just find it funny y'all are unable to handle one person's post 😂

The Fire Nation takes almost nothing politically from Imperial Japan, the Fire Lord is an absolute dictator who has total control, the Emperor of Imperial Japan was mostly a figurehead who exercised very little control and was overruled by his general quite often and nearly overthrown when he surrendered. The Emperor was worshiped as a living god, the Fire Lord is so divorced from the tacked on later spiritual element of the Fire Lord that a whole other person is the Fire Nations religious head.

--

Ooh, Hungarian!

Having known friends who did try, your language actually is a gigantic pain in the ass. Hahaha. Hungarian, Basque, and Navajo would be my picks for languages people I know actually attempt and then go "Oh no!" about.

I'm sure there are plenty of other Native North American languages that would stump people just as badly, but nobody I know attempts any of those.

Obviously, language "difficulty" is inherently relative. Spanish is dead easy if you're a native English speaker with a big vocabulary and good verbal skills. Japanese is tricky. But I wouldn't say Japanese is really that hard in an objective sense. It's simply more distant from English than Spanish is.

(For reference, I'm fluent-ish but out of practice and never very colloquial in Spanish, can read a little Japanese, and have studied but am garbage at Mandarin, Russian, German, and French. Uh, plus some Old English and various other things. Korean, here I come!)

--

So are any languages inherently "hard"?

I'd say yes. I'd break it down by aspects of languages, and some things make them hard to learn at the super beginner phase while others are a pain even once you know a lot, but some genuinely are harder than others. It's not just about distance from one's native language.

Languages face pressure to be easy to produce, e.g. easy pronunciations, regular conjugations, limited vocabulary, simple writing systems. They also face pressure to be easy to understand, e.g. words that sound extremely distinct from each other, lots of words with specific meanings, unambiguous written forms.

In certain ways, reading Japanese is actually pretty easy. Characters are a nuisance to learn, but once you know them, they remove a lot of ambiguity from writing. They can also be used for puns, including visual puns. In Japanese specifically, they're often used for shit like all those proper nouns in One Piece that have furigana giving some ambiguous English loan word name as the pronunciation but kanji that make it more obvious what the proper noun is referring to.

ノースブルー with 北の海 for example. Even if you speak English, "North Blue" isn't that clear. 海 makes it clear it's the name of an ocean.

Characters also have a lot of internal logic (radicals, standard stroke directions). They're taught abysmally by most Japanese texts for English speakers that I've seen, but bad teaching isn't the same as the thing itself being hard.

I also think people often focus too much on the writing system, whether it's English's spelling... uh... quirks or Japanese' use of multiple systems together. In a practical sense, you have to know the dominant written form in order to study most languages easily, but the core of a language is speech, so I think classifying them as hard/not hard just based on writing is dumb.

What factors should we evaluate hardness by?

My main criteria are:

complexity

predictability

commonness of a feature compared to other languages

I wouldn't look at something being a language isolate in and of itself, but a language isolate may have features that are pretty uncommon in world languages, and that is something I'd look at.

To pick a really obvious example, the middle voice is uncommon. Most languages have active voice and passive voice. Other voices aren't that common. Though, wow, according to wikipedia:

Some languages have even more grammatical voices. For example, Classical Mongolian features five voices: active, passive, causative, reciprocal, and cooperative.

What the shit, Classical Mongolian? What is all of that???

I'm told Basque is full of the ergative and it confuses the shit out of learners.

Mandarin tones scare native English speakers because Tones Scary, but it only has the 5, and they sound decently different. As tonal languages go, that's really not that bad.

Grammatical gender isn't predictable from the nature of the thing (a table or whatever), but in many languages like Spanish, you can guess from what letter the word ends in. A language where you can't guess would be harder.

I don't really count quality of learning materials as part of the language's native difficulty, but that's obviously a factor too. English has a wealth of instructional materials for people coming from basically every language. A lot of Native languages of the Americas have learning materials in English or in Spanish or not at all, so you'd need to know one of those languages and/or travel to where the few native speakers are to learn.

Is English difficult?

English is not three languages in a trench coat, really. People say that because they're thinking about vocab and know fuckall about how languages work. Here's how I'd evaluate English:

Grammar: easy - weaksauce Germanic grammar with all the case-marking stripped out and some word order stuff solidified as a consequence; no grammatical gender; plenty of irregular verbs, but they tend to go in sets that have the same pattern; conjugations aren't that complex; we don't indicate politeness or formality with grammar

Pronunciation: easy to moderate - English has a medium size sound inventory compared to world languages. Many of its sounds are extremely common ones. The few that are less common you can get away with mispronouncing without being totally unintelligible. Still, th (θ and ð), r, ʒ, and possibly our ch and sh sounds are a problem for lots of learners. We have a lot of words that differ only by a similar vowel sound, and our vowels shift around between dialects, so that can be slightly tricky for listening comprehension.

Writing system: moderate - Our spelling isn't random, but chunks of it operate on one set of historical rules while other chunks of it operate on others. There is logic: it just doesn't apply to every word the same way. OTOH, the lack of phonetic spelling is helpful for distinguishing homophones while reading.

Vocabulary: moderate to hard - English has a fuckton of words. Just so many. There's no standard for judging what counts as an individual word, but however you slice it, English has more than our Germanic neighbors or the Romance languages we ripped off much of our vocab from. We also love our acronyms, which all sound the same because they are acronyms. (A thing one of my old language teachers bitched about from her English learning days.) Politeness and formality are often conveyed with word choice in ways that are hard to pin down. It's more of a sum total effect thing than one with precise rules. OTOH, most normal people use a very small inventory of words in speech, so you could get by with a much more basic set of vocab to start with.

Dialects: easy - English has no official standard and a number of countries where it's the official or de facto language, but they're all highly mutually intelligible and grammar works the same. (Well, okay, maybe less so if you're looking at the extremes of Caribbean creoles, but still...) The differences tend to be minor spelling changes and a handful of basic vocabulary items that mean something hilariously different. There is very little gap between written and spoken English compared to many languages with written forms. Writing is just speaking plus some extra vocabulary and a little more formality.

Speed of evolution: bad, v. bad, red alert - Every language has slang and evolves, but English seems to be especially speedy and gung ho about this, probably because we don't have much of a standard and we're so colloquial. We love coining new words, and anything that sounds like an affix gets shoved on all of the things. (And unlike an agglutinating language, this isn't something that's going to be clearly explained in a textbook.) English is neologism hell, especially if you're hanging out with nerds on tumblr.

--

Personally, I'd put English at the upper end of easy, edging into moderate. The hard bit is memorizing our eighty bajillion words, and that's easier than if the hard part is the basic grammar. Our spelling sucks, but most native speakers can't spell worth a damn either, so even moderate gains in that area make a learner able to get by with spellcheck.

And procedurally, we're pretty easy because we produce the full range of media, so you can easily find a book for 5-year-olds or 10-year-olds or 15-year-olds to practice on. Avoiding English on the internet would be a lot harder than finding some, and there are zillions of resources out there for learners.

For hard, I'd pick languages with shittons of case-marking or with way more than three grammatical genders. Procedurally, I'd pick languages from the Americas because genocide and forcible suppression of native languages have led to many of them having few native speakers, few closely related living languages, and not much media in them. Some don't have any written standard at all.

(Err. Not actually disagreeing with anything said above; just kind of using different definitions of "easy" vs "hard" languages. For me, rules are easier. Sussing out what counts as different cases that English doesn't mark is a fun puzzle.)

The info given by case markers is needed for understanding, but in English, it's buried in some other method. Sometimes several other methods: in some sentences, it's word order; in some, it's prepositions; in some, it's suffixes; in some, it's just implied by context. No really, literally, you cannot tell from the sentence on its own.

She made him cake = She made a cake for him.

She made him cake = She turned him into a cake.

...those are both correct. Fortunately, context is likely to make it very clear which one is intended.

Cases can be difficult to learn for English speakers, because English cases are marked with sentence order, the occasional preposition (...we are over here in preposition hell along with our neologism hell), and sometimes just implied by "well, these kinds of words kind of relate in this way. Usually." And many of our common verbs are irregular so it gets hard to figure out what's going on with them.

Cases have rules. Learn the rules; you can figure out the case and apply the appropriate bits to the word or sentences as needed.

It's a PITA hassle, but it make sense. (And, okay, there is a good argument for "PITA hassle" = "hard to learn language." But the point is: cases are a matter of memorization and practice. They're harder to sort out if your native language conflates several of them, but the rules don't change based on the mood of the speaker.) (Err. Mostly.)

English? English has sentences that drastically change meaning based on which word you emphasize. HERE HAVE 8 IDENTICAL SENTENCES WITH DIFFERENT MEANINGS depending on emphasis, and our damn grammar books don't mention this:

She said she did not take his money. (It was not someone else who said it.)

She said she did not take his money. (So I believe her. Or I don't, because what she says isn't trustworthy.)

She said she did not take his money. (But someone else did.)

She said she did not take his money. (She did not say she wouldn't.)

She said she did not take his money. (And thus she is still poor.)

She said she did not take his money. (But she won it gambling.)

She said she did not take his money. (But she took someone else's.)

She said she did not take his money. (But she did take something else of his.)

...Use the sentence without any emphasis, and someone might assume you meant any of those. (But they'll normally default to 2 or 5: the focus is assumed to either be on the fact that she made a statement, or the fact that she doesn't have his money now.)

“b” makes one sound. You see that letter, you know basically what sound it’s going to make.

A word with “i” and “e” in it as a dipthong ... yikes. And if you’re trying to spell the word and figure out whether the i or the e comes first, there are several guidelines but also a whole bunch of words that don’t fit the pattern that you just have to memorize.

Every language is going to have a lot of things that are regular and some things that are irregular, either “this one word/phrase is completely unique and breaks the normal rules” or “this rule has several exceptions, and some of those exceptions have exceptions, so if you’re trying to translate it you may need a flow chart to figure out which version of that rule is in effect for any given phrase or sentence to which it applies. But some languages have more irregular parts than others.

all this because they're more offended over zuko being called a colonizer, and the ship being colonizer x colonized, than the fact he took part in and benefited from colonization. tied an indigenous girl to a tree overnight, destroyed part of her village, threatened her people with fire, and spent most of his time trying to kill her and her friends, including hiring an assassin

his whole arc, and becoming the fire lord, is about him making sure that the future fire nation won't have the shameful term of colonizers. if he wasn't one it wouldn't be his job to fix things. and people, including zuko himself, wouldn't be scared of him ending up like his father

everyone defending and supporting that racist shit is disgusting. and if you have the nerve to try and use your own people's history of colonization say what 'real' colonization is, you're racist and disgusting. the need to try and erase the 'mean' words using the excuse he changed as if his past self was a different person. being forgiven doesn't magically erase the colonizer status, unless you think abuse victims forgiving their abusers means that we should never call the perpetrator abusive, or that people aren't allowed to dislike those with a past history of abuse or bigotry just because they changed.

The art in question was made in response to hate she received, not for her depictions of zutara, but just for shipping it in general.

The "colonizer" accusation gets thrown around not because people are denying his role in the war, but because it is ridiculous (and racist, because it also harms people who are affected by colonization to throw around these accusations over cartoon ships) to use that to attack zutara shippers for shipping it, especially since Zuko aided in ending colonization. That actually does change EVERYTHING about Zuko's colonizer status, whether you think it does or not. Everything. And if you seriously think it doesn't, then I'd question whether this is actually about being anti oppression and anti racist at all. You have a right to how you feel about the ship but you do not have a right to tell other people how to feel or that they're "disgusting" for liking or creating fanart, and the part about telling people not to "use their own history" to talk about how they feel about the ship is also something you have no right to do.

the themes of the show are based on real genocide and colonization. if zuko wasn't a colonizer it wouldn't be HIS responsibility to end it. and i do have a right to talk about their bullshit when they use their own countries history TO DENY CERTAIN KINDS OF COLONIZATION. some of you disgusting dingbats were saying the southern water tribe wasn't colonized, when they WERE. denying that alone is fucking racist. acknowledging zuko is a colonizer, and that's why he wanted to end colonization, hurts NO ONE. he was the prince of the fire nation.

But then you think the Fire Nation are seriously Japanese in any significant way so I'm not expecting much serious analysis or understanding from you. All you've got are claims or racism and attempts to shut down discussion.

all this because they're more offended over zuko being called a colonizer, and the ship being colonizer x colonized, than the fact he took part in and benefited from colonization. tied an indigenous girl to a tree overnight, destroyed part of her village, threatened her people with fire, and spent most of his time trying to kill her and her friends, including hiring an assassin

his whole arc, and becoming the fire lord, is about him making sure that the future fire nation won't have the shameful term of colonizers. if he wasn't one it wouldn't be his job to fix things. and people, including zuko himself, wouldn't be scared of him ending up like his father

everyone defending and supporting that racist shit is disgusting. and if you have the nerve to try and use your own people's history of colonization say what 'real' colonization is, you're racist and disgusting. the need to try and erase the 'mean' words using the excuse he changed as if his past self was a different person. being forgiven doesn't magically erase the colonizer status, unless you think abuse victims forgiving their abusers means that we should never call the perpetrator abusive, or that people aren't allowed to dislike those with a past history of abuse or bigotry just because they changed.

The art in question was made in response to hate she received, not for her depictions of zutara, but just for shipping it in general.

The "colonizer" accusation gets thrown around not because people are denying his role in the war, but because it is ridiculous (and racist, because it also harms people who are affected by colonization to throw around these accusations over cartoon ships) to use that to attack zutara shippers for shipping it, especially since Zuko aided in ending colonization. That actually does change EVERYTHING about Zuko's colonizer status, whether you think it does or not. Everything. And if you seriously think it doesn't, then I'd question whether this is actually about being anti oppression and anti racist at all. You have a right to how you feel about the ship but you do not have a right to tell other people how to feel or that they're "disgusting" for liking or creating fanart, and the part about telling people not to "use their own history" to talk about how they feel about the ship is also something you have no right to do.

the themes of the show are based on real genocide and colonization. if zuko wasn't a colonizer it wouldn't be HIS responsibility to end it. and i do have a right to talk about their bullshit when they use their own countries history TO DENY CERTAIN KINDS OF COLONIZATION. some of you disgusting dingbats were saying the southern water tribe wasn't colonized, when they WERE. denying that alone is fucking racist. acknowledging zuko is a colonizer, and that's why he wanted to end colonization, hurts NO ONE. he was the prince of the fire nation.

No but at this point it's madness! Leave this artist alone! You are ridiculous! They really understand nothing to the concept of fandom and AU! I'm so done... Also... the fucking comments... They are so fucking stupid. I have no world.

"no, I guess I don't."

Insensitive comparison to nazism, check.

Also on "but Aang DID take responsibility!" In canon, Katara is actually the one who shields Aang from people who blame him for the war. The idea of what would happen if she were to no longer act as his mommy/cheerleader is actually quite interesting.

Finally gathered my thoughts on the new Avatar movie, and my only question is: why did this "legend of a fancy, empty fanservice shell" even exist?

The movie was doomed at the execution stage of its concept and script.

The creators had a bulletproof foundation: one of the most masterfully written shows in television history (Avatar: The Last Airbender), the canon comics, and The Legend of Korra, which already showed us the characters aged, with children and grandchildren.

And that is exactly why the idea of focusing on "Aang’s struggles and rebuilding the Air Nation" feels entirely redundant.

1. The Redundant Arc and Zero Stakes

We have already witnessed Aang’s grief, guilt, and pain over his people’s genocide throughout the original three seasons. That arc was closed and beautifully processed. The comics already showed the Air Acolytes, and TLOK put a definitive period on this storyline by bringing back actual airbenders.

Because we already know the future, the audience has absolutely nothing to worry about:

* We know Tenzin and his kids will remain the only airbenders for decades.

* We know exactly how long the main characters live.

* We know the fate of their families.

There are no stakes. Will they die? No. Will the future change? No. The answer is already known, making the entire narrative arc completely empty. We didn’t need a movie-length repetition of Aang’s trauma just for the sake of it.

Merely drawing pretty, adult versions of the characters is not enough to make a good movie. A film needs a core conflict, meaning, and a fresh idea.

2. Fanservice Wrapping, Empty Inside

If we look at this film as a standalone (even though almost the entire audience consists of old fans), it is hollow. The characters aren't explored; their screen time adds nothing substantial to their personalities.

So, why does this movie even exist?

* To force-feed us the Kataang canon?

* To show off Aang’s bizarre, unrealistic new design with a mountain of muscles that makes zero sense for a vegan monk with his lifestyle?

* To make him look like a self-insert of the creators who desperately need to force the audience into loving him?

The creators seem so attached to Aang as their self-insert that they still cannot accept that he never became the most beloved character in his own show.

So adult Aang is redesigned to be as conventionally attractive as possible. Broad shoulders. Huge muscles. Constant shirtless shots. A heavy emphasis on his romance with Katara.

The message feels almost painfully obvious:

“Look at him. This is the hero you’re supposed to love. This is the man you’re supposed to admire. This is the man Katara is supposed to be obsessed with.”

Seriously, it felt like watching a high-budget fan-animation for a mediocre Kataang fanfiction. It is so primitive and cheap how Katara throws herself at Aang’s neck in almost every scene, completely stripped of her independence. Worse entirely, Aang risks her life for the sake of his own elusive, idealistic hopes, making him the absolute worst partner imaginable. Then again, knowing what a terrible, neglectful father he turns out to be in TLOK, his toxic selfishness here isn't even surprising. What is surprising and deeply frustrating is how the creators force Katara to blindly love THIS and submissively accept whatever crumbs of attention or respect he throws her way. Once again, Katara is reduced to being a mere appendage to the Avatar—a disservice they already started in TLOK.

3. The Nerfing of the Gaang

The rest of the characters fared no better.

Everyone feels like an extended cameo rather than actual living characters.

* Sokka:The brave warrior who wasn't a bender yet stood tall against firebenders amplified by Sozin’s Comet is gone. Instead, we got a cowardly, quirky inventor making stupid jokes. He’s a parody of his former self.

* Toph: Completely useless to the plot. She is just there.

* Zuko: Just a pretty cardboard cutout who lost all of his signature charisma. He isn't even necessary to the plot. Not to mention the sheer stupidity of the writing: the literal Fire Lord, ruler of an entire global empire, is casually piloting a zeppelin completely alone—no crew, no royal guard, as if he has absolutely nothing to manage in his own country. And watching the Fire Lord personally repair a ship... God, it looked so incredibly braindead.

The creators literally removed his chest scar and gave him zero meaningful interaction with Katara.

The authors' eternal fear of the Zutara fandom is honestly getting hilarious at this point.

It is especially glaring how they tried to deflect attention: "Quick, let's throw in some hints for Zukka, and let's have a half-naked Zuko catch Toph!" It’s a desperate attempt to distract Zutara fans, as if stuffing the movie with "cute" Kataang scenes wasn't enough to stop people from even thinking about Zutara. They feel so deeply uncomfortable with Zutara's mere existence that they have to forcefully shove Kataang down our throats while aggressively trying to erase any trace of Zutara.

4. What We ACTUALLY Needed to See

Instead of retreading old ground, the movie could have explored the massive blank spaces in the lore that actually lead into the future we know:

* The Birth of Republic City: Show the first rise of social inequality. Show how Aang failed to solve this issue, leaving it as a heavy mistake of the past Avatar for Korra to fix.

* The Bloodbending Ban: Give us a real story about why Katara had to ban it. Show us why it couldn't even be adapted for medical use. The canon ban still feels unconvincing—sub-bending is potentially useful, and even lethal lightning-bending wasn't banned but redirected for the public good.

* Characters with Unknown Fates: Give us someone to actually worry about! Where is Azula (did she redeem herself or is she still a threat)? What about Ty Lee and chi-blocking leading into the Equalists? What about Mai?

* Suki's Tragedy: Address the theory that Suki died young. It would perfectly and tragically explain why Sokka ended up alone and never started a family—losing two girls he loved could be his personal curse, making him close his heart to risk.

* Kanto: We could have been introduced to the mysterious Kanto as Toph’s future love interest—someone serious, with a personality resembling Lin, so the audience could see something familiar in him.

* King Bumi: Even showing old King Bumi sacrificing his own life to protect the heroes would have been better, so that the name of Aang’s firstborn finally received a powerful emotional justification.

But no. Instead, we wasted time on things that had already been said.

The Bitter Truth About the Creators

It is glaringly obvious that the people who made ATLA deeply emotional and complex were missing here. It was Aaron Ehasz and the brilliant room of writers who gave the original show its soul, layers, and emotional maturity.

On the backbone of that collective work, Bryke built a sequel franchise that proves once again: on their own, they simply do not know how to create something truly great.

It’s a shame so much money and years of work were wasted on this hollow fanservice. People will not be analyzing the depth of this movie years from now like they still do with the original ATLA. Because there is simply nothing to analyze.

That zk-anti person saw this and was inspired #sarcasm.

Oh, you know, these stupid victims of colonialism who live in fantasies. Because if you don't agree with me it means you are stupid.

To jump on USA as a Russian is certainly a choice. Russia is an imperialistic country with a long story of colonialism and with all that entails. And at the same time it's not only slavs who participate in Russian war aggressions, so this argument about minorities of colour also works here. You really think you know american politics so well that you decide to use USA as an example? I'm not an american, btw.

Yes, are we sure it is appropriate to equate (equate, not compare) absolutely real events with fictional? Do you have at least a bit of respect for these people? This is not a fucking cartoon.

Remember, this person wants you to take them seriously. Anti-coloniser made-up slur.

Yeah, a canon story about slav/inuit or brit/inuit e-t-l and not a hypothetical love story between people of fictional (heavily inspired but still fictional) ethnicities when? Ah yes, such stories exist and unlike Zutara they are harmful in many ways, you just don't want to pay attention.

And I'm glad you're admitting now that it's necessary for Zuko to care, because the line is usually that he's "corrupting her" by doing things like helping her get justice for her mother's murder and kataangers usually say that he should just keep it to himself.

Except the part your quoting is about how the characters behave. We're pointing out what is written into the show and the attention the characters give to each other. Why wouldn't the show runners want Aang to give more attention to his Lady Love and her deepest pain than her "most hated enemy" does?

That's the point being made.

Your counter point has nothing to do with the show and everything to do with fandom, the fans and how we engage with the show. Yeah, I happen to care more about Zuko's history with his father than I do Sokka and his issues. Sokka is someone else's favorite. That's not my responsibility. Yes I care more about Katara and her struggle reconciling being a survivor at the cost of her mother than I do about Aang and his toxic positivity, barely bottled rage that he unexpectedly unleashes on those around him whether or not they deserve it. That's my prerogative as a fan of a fictional cartoon show. He can be someone else's favorite character. He doesn't have to be mine.

Do you have any argument that come from within the context of the show about how Aang cares more than the rest of the gaang about Katara and what the war has taken from her, especially since he was affected in much the same ways?

Zutara shippers are so weird towards Aang. One time he was too perfect/bland but now he’s all of a sudden a bad person because the writers showcased his flaws😭❓(yall want spice but can’t even handle a couple disagreeing)

The thing about showcasing flaws is that they actually have to be presented as flaws. The movie has Aang act irresponsibly and yell at Katara but then does not show him learning from that or apologizing. It's not acknowledged as a flaw. This is also not a new problem and not a new criticism, the same is said about Aang yelling at all his friends in the finale for trying to help him, and Aang is never given an opportunity to learn from it because the narrative gives him a magic fix. That is what zutara shippers mean when they say he is bland and too perfect, not that he actually is perfect but that the narrative does not acknowledge his flaws, and that pattern continues from the series into the post canon materials, including this new movie.

This is not spice or being unable to handle a couple disagreeing. It's a male hero yelling at his female love interest because she called him out and then never having to apologize even when he's proven wrong because the narrative validates that behavior and encourages it.

No, she didn't. What she said was this:

What she discouraged was trying to rush the process through reckless behavior. The episode makes a parallel between Aang allowing Fong to try and force the Avatar State with Zuko believing Azula when she lies about Ozai wanting him back home. Zuko, like Aang, is rushing into a dangerous situation because of the promise of getting what he wants.

Katara, like Iroh with Zuko, begs Aang to slow down and think things through.

Katara also tells Aang that seeing him in the Avatar State was scary, but not because she is against the Avatar State itself. Seeing Aang unable to control that power was scary for her. What the Guru tried to get Aang to do, master that power through careful control and study, was exactly what Katara wanted.

Atla is a martial arts show that borrows from a lot of eastern philosophy. Strength through study and discipline rather than raw power is therefore a major theme.

Katara voices that Aang's inability to control his power makes her scared, and then because Aang doesn't listen to her, she is put in danger. Physically trapped and in need of rescue. Not because Aang chose the Avatar State over her, but because he made a choice based on raw emotion rather than temperance.

As much as Katara cares for Aang, I do not think that being put in danger because of his recklessness and needing him to save her is what she would want, nor is it a real display of love. It puts her in a position she should never have to be in.

And, upon writing this analysis, I actually realized that when Aang apologizes to Katara in the Crossroads of Destiny, it isn't because he gave up his attachment to her (because he didn't and if he couldn't do it with the Guru, no way could he do it in .5 seconds while she's being threatened by Azula and the Dai Li.)

It's actually meant to be the book-end to this, from the end of the first episode of book 2, after the gaang leave General Fong:

Aang apologizes to Katara and hopes she never has to see him in the uncontrolled Avatar State again.

Then, at the end of book 2, Aang goes into the Avatar State in a desperate moment in the catacombs, knowing that he never mastered the Avatar State, knowing he would break his promise to Katara.

That. Is heartbreaking.

I've never seen anyone take this interpretation, but I'm absolutely sure it was intentional, because it parallels Zuko's narrative so nicely. Zuko who makes a decision to trust Azula over Iroh in the first episode of book 2, putting both their lives in danger, and who makes the choice to side with Azula in the finale, betraying Iroh. Iroh who only ever wanted him to be safe, like Katara wanted Aang to be safe.

This interpretation makes a lot of sense, too, considering how angry Katara is with Aang in the Awakening, and why she felt so betrayed during the Crossroads of Destiny. Unfortunately, Katara focuses on how Zuko betrayed her and Aang's Avatar State arc is rewritten to be an external conflict instead of an internal one, and Katara's anger at Aang is redirected to have her be REALLY angry at her dad, so the show never acknowledges how Katara was actually betrayed by Aang.

That would've been a hell of a conflict if it had actually been addressed, though.