Nitpicky but generic observation

[sincere]

I was watching Avatar and although overall it's very shiny, there's this one thing that drives me crazy. I just watched the Painted Lady episode, and I am not pleased.

Yes, it's very heroic of you to want to save everyone. Very -- Nickelodeon cartoon of you, even. But the one small problem is that it's stupid.

The lives of these people will be better if you take down the Fire Lord. You don't need to chase off every bully you meet on the way to the Fire Lord. Those bullies belong to him. If you fix the big problem, the little problems will be much easier to overcome, if they don't vanish entirely.

But because we had to cry about little problems, three or four days of time that is hypothetically really precious (even losing one day required an extra hour of travel daily to get to the Fire Lord in time) were wasted. And in the meantime, you lied to all your friends, endangered your world-saving mission, and set an army of firebenders on an innocent village. And then you taught them a lesson about helping themselves -- not that you ever once tried to get them to do that.

I really wish you would have learned something, instead of being the moral high ground there. Aang had to learn something when he tried to do things all by himself. But that was like, two whole episodes ago, and we need to have filler episodes of cute and uplifting to get through before plot resumes, right?

Bah.

Comments

[ladycrysiana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, while I can respect needing to show the Fire Nation (in general) as Just Normal People, one of the problems with the start of this season has been how episodic it is. (Ep 10 and 11 make up for it almost entirely, but there you go.)

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

I just finished The Beach (I think I don't have the proper fangirlishness to enjoy this episode fully), so I'm making my way there. I appreciated the Sokka's master episode, because it was filler but at least is served a purpose other than "Fire Nation has humans in it who are just like other humans". But the Painted Lady was just -- blah. Stop being a goody-goody and save the world already. :(

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Sokka's Master didn't have a purpose, though. Where did those insecurities come from? He's always been the leader of the group, the most intelligent, and just as valuable as anyone else. That's one thing I really loved about the show, since so often the powerless character is relegated to the role of damsel in distress, but Sokka and his boomerang are just as awesome as the bending.

It wasn't a bad episode, but I couldn't help thinking WTF. I guess they were just going through everyone and thinking, what can we make them insecure about? Sokka doesn't seem to be insecure about his abilities!

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

I don't think he is insecure about his abilities, but I think it's reasonable to assume that he'd be sulking about feeling useless in a situation like that, where everyone had a task and he couldn't help because he had no powaaz.

Everyone is allowed a moment of gloom or two, I think, even if they're not that way in the grand scheme of things. Maybe he was PMSing? But he got a new sword and learned new skills, and that was important in making him more awesome. Assuming those skills/that sword come into play, there was still a purpose to the episode.

Although I think it's pretty sad if the only way they could manage to get him there was by making him mope about something that had never bothered him before. I could have rewritten that script without taking him to the limits of IC.

I play the devil's advocate here, but I half-think that this episode was more directed at the fans, in an effort to prove to them that just because Sokka isn't a bender doesn't mean he can't be awesome. An unnecessary effort, because everyone thinks Sokka is awesome.

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

The phrase "Sokka isn't a bender" makes me think of... Bender.

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, stumbling block! I have no episode 6.

[yami-chan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with you entirely. It actually really annoyed me that Katara really didn't understand the whole point, even at the end. I think Sokka was the only one that really got that but it wasn't portrayed as well.

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

But Sokka is comic relief so his opinions don't count.

Katara rarely holds onto character flaws for longer than a few minutes, but it's usually not this bad. But this was a little over the top. Sokka was pretty awesome, though -- because, yes, he understood the need for urgency and he was trying to plan accordingly, but at the same time he's not shallow, he stood up for her choice because even if it was impractical and stupid, it was done out of compassion.

[hauntedreality.livejournal.com]

I think it is trying to give some balance, though it is doing it in a way that makes it seem more like hypocricy as you pointed out.

But you can't ignore all the details for the sake of the big picture and you can't ignore the big picture for all the details. You have to strike some kind of balance or the ends start justifying the means and the next thing you know you're one of the bad guys. That's how fiction works, right? ^_~

Then you start killing the younglings and such. No good. No good.