Updates! From unmoving pages into animation!

[sincere]

In Dr. Horrible news, Bad Horse is my new villain hero.

In video game news, I'm about halfway through Mercedes's story and fuck you, Beldor, fuck you so hard. Die in a FIRE. I'm not playing right now to avoid further screaming. Literally. Cornelius is totally adorable, and I love the little glimpses of Gwendolyn from his storyline. Meanwhile, in Persona 3, we just acquired Fuuka. Yeah, I'm slow.

In manga news, everything in D. Gray-man is absolutely sldkfjsldf awesome, and everything in Bleach is awesome. I want this fight like burning and I want to see Orihime involved. And sdlfkjsdlfkj ALLEN


Happy birthday, random guy!! Sokka's adventure was totally the fucking best in every conceivable way. Non-benders get the spotlight and continue to be awesome, birthday party with hotcakes in the hangar, and so much wanton destruction that kept me riveted.

Aang was funny. I rolled my eyes watching him pull Avatar after Avatar out his ass, hoping one of them would tell him something other than "Knife the bastard"; since Avatar's usually too good to go the route of "We had a pleasant chat and he changed his mind about burning the world!" I was pretty sure I knew how it would end. But it didn't (of course it didn't, I keep forgetting it's brought to us by the people who bring us Spongebob) and I was actually very pleased with the way it went down. Aang found an "Aang" method, and it was really effective.

I don't know why Zuko felt the need to take Katara in particular with him to kill Azula, since Sokka had more motivation to do so last I checked, and Toph still needed a field trip with him / would be much more useful on the ground than in an airship. Also, Zuko and Toph are just plain awesome together. I can only conclude that the creators decided that to finish up the show with a bang, they'd have to do something to make every single group of shippers happy. Aang/Katara fans, Zuko/Katara fans, Zuko/Mai fans, Zuko/Toph fans (are there any such fans? she glommed him and he blushed), Sokka/Toph fans (hand-holding scene!), Sokka/Suki fans...

Watching Azula's descent into total frothing lunacy was painful but very, very fitting -- Mai and Ty Lee's betrayals made her doubt fear, the only thing that's kept her going, and so she reverts to sulking about that and reviving the pain from when she realized her mother feared her.

WHERE'S ZUKO'S MOM? And why didn't we see Azula in the ending sequence?

Overall, the finale suffered from lack of googly-eyed Jet, but I think it managed to do very, very well. And everyone lived happily ever after, in Iroh's tea shop. ♥

Comments

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed all the Zuko/Katara leaning. It got to the point where I was wondering if they meant to go somewhere with that.

I was actually not very happy with what they did to Azula. I see why, and I see why it was a good direction to go, but... she was just such a good villain. You don't get unapologetic sociopaths that often. That and I always hated the "get power and become paranoid" paradigm. I'm seeing it in the GRRM book I'm reading right now too, and meh. Her thing with Li and Lo was pretty awesome though.

I rolled my eyes watching him pull Avatar after Avatar out his ass, hoping one of them would tell him something other than "Knife the bastard"

I really liked when he spoke to Yangchen, though. I really, really loved their attention to the nuances of Buddhist philosophy in Avatar (the whole letting go of what you love isn't really letting go, etc, but Aang didn't see that), and this just made me so happy inside. I mean, ouch that's a heavy spiritual dilemma to give to a 12-year-old, but I'm glad they put it in there despite it being a show for kids.

WHERE'S ZUKO'S MOM?

NEXT SEASON LOLZ. /not kidding

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

But that's what I'm saying. It wasn't getting power that did her in. She was pretty crazy throughout the entire two hours -- a tiny bit leaning psychotic when fighting Zuko, almost hysterical when talking to her father ("BUT IT WAS MY IDEA TO BURN EVERYONE I WANNA DO IT ME ME ME NOOOO"), and then once she'd been given power the reason for her increasingly strained behavior really became painfully obvious.

She couldn't trust anyone. Before Ty Lee and Mai betrayed her she thought, "If everyone fears me, then at least they fear me so much that I can control them." But then her ladies proved that she couldn't. That's why she descended into paranoia, not because Dad made her the fire lord. The only method she had of gaining and keeping loyalty failed spectacularly with the two people she counted on for everything she couldn't do herself.

So then a life of being feared for her cruelty and evil wasn't something she could convince herself was useful, it just made her pitiful, and when she became fire lord it agitated the issue, but didn't start it. Now she'd be the center of a lot of hatred, and anyone who didn't follow her orders to the letter didn't fear her enough and so they might betray her like Ty Lee and Mai and so she couldn't trust them. That's why she sent everyone away and started realizing she couldn't do menial tasks by herself and then got more crazy and started hallucinating her mom (the person whose fear made her convince herself that fear was a good thing, because it hurt her) and then got more and more fricking crazy.

I think the problem was that we overestimated Azula. We saw a totally competent bad guy, but a large part of that was just for show -- she had convinced herself of those badass philosophies to make up for the weaknesses we saw but found unbelievable, like her behavior in The Beach. Azula was kind of a sadistic little kid all along, not a competent bad guy.

Anyway! I'm not saying I didn't like the sequence, just that Aang's reaching was so obvious. XD Is there really going to be a new season, what. You lied to me. :(

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Oh, I found Azula's descent totally believable, but something about the presentation just bugged me the wrong way despite liking the vast majority of the elements (and the scene with her mother? OW I loved it).

Is there really going to be a new season, what. You lied to me.

I did not! Aang's story ends here, according to the creators, but they're planning to do new seasons and one of the major plots is Zuko's mother. I assumed that if Aang's story ended it would drop all the characters in favor of new ones, but then I heard about that plot and went "hmmm."

[slayerofgod.livejournal.com]

I can only conclude that the creators decided that to finish up the show with a bang, they'd have to do something to make every single group of shippers happy.

That's the way I saw it. They basically said "Here Zutara fans. Your pairing's not becoming canon, so here's a bone for you."

Also: I loved that moment where Azula sees a vision of her mother. It really lended credance to the thread from The Beach, which I thought was kind of tacked on by itself.

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

I was so surprised, but I totally agree. XD I always felt like The Beach was amusing but not especially great in terms of characterization; Azula was too inept and I was really not buying her sudden heart-to-heart. But this descent into crazy really drove it home. She seems like a secure villain, but she's convinced herself to be like that, convinced herself that fear is good and useful, because her mom's rejection really hurt her. And then when it turned out fear wasn't good enough to keep her friends in line... She just lost it.

That glimpse of Azula in The Beach was a hint that we were all overestimating her, even though we wrote it off as being forced.

[illianaka.livejournal.com]

Aang found an "Aang" method, and it was really effective.

See, this is precisely why I liked the way it ended. The battle concluded in a way Aang could live and be happy with. And, in so many ways, it was crueler than just killing him, but in many more ways it was the peaceful and actually very reasonable way to end the war.