Avatar: The Legend of Korra.

[Syaoransbear]

The hundred year war wasn't that long ago. While Zuko most likely did some damage control during his reign as Firelord, as we can see even in real life, there's no eradicating that kind of racism within a single generation, especially when it persisted as a unifying force in FN for a century. Not to mention the EK having to adopt a similar model for survival during that same period. LoK just looks super multicultural because Book 1 was set in Republic City, which was established specifically for that purpose. The nations still exist outside.

 

Then again, TLA had a particularly nasty undercurrent of real-world racism as well, but I'm not going to comment on that as it's a very sore spot.

I still am not really sure how it's racism. They have the same parents, they are all the same race, they just follow different cultures. Bumi and Tenzin look identical except for their hair and beard styles.

 

 

And based on what transpired during the 3rd episode, it seems like the 'servant' comment was indeed supposed to be an example of how the other two were looked over their whole lives and basically treated like failures for not turning out to be air benders. I really don't believe it was racism, just commentary about their relationship with Tenzin and his celebrity status while the rest of the world doesn't even know they exist. If the lady assumed they were his friends it wouldn't have made it so obvious that they've been looked down on for their entire lives for not being air benders.

 

 

 

One thing that's really annoying me about this season is that they just totally dumped all the non-bender retaliation business. At Amon's rally there was a ridiculous amount of people there who were all upset about being mistreated by benders. Where did they all go? Defeating Amon would never make that problem go away. To non-benders it was just more non-bender oppression. I hope they revisit this, because that story is definitely not over.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Syaoransbear

[Lythiaren]

 

It's not a question of what it says in the story universe. It's the fact that someone, on a television screen, is assuming that the darker-skinned people are servants. It's sending the message that. Dark. Skinned. People. Are. Stereotyped. As. Servants. It's the message they're sending to the viewers and it's disgusting.

 

And people have been writing essays all week about how they've literally thrown out the entire characterization of the people we remember from TLA. Aang playing favourites? Aang, who never knew his parents, who spent his entire quest struggling with regret over how he ran away from everyone who treated him as family, who cried when a baby was born? Katara letting him play favourites with her children? Katara, who watched as a firebender killed her mother, who watched Sokka struggling with having no waterbending every day of her life?

Edited September 22, 2013 by Lythiaren

[7Deadly$ins]

Bumi... doesn't really seem brown to me in that scene.

 

No where was it implied that Aang himself played favorites.

Edited September 22, 2013 by 7Deadly$ins

[Lythiaren]

Going on a ton of trips with Tenzin and not his other kids, including Ember Island, which I remind you is a resort, smells an awful lot like favourites to me.

 

That aside, are you telling me that it was Katara who played favourites then? Katara, who experienced firsthand what it was like to be discriminated against for the specific bending she practiced, and who grew up with a nonbender brother who struggled every day to prove his worth despite being a nonbender? Are you seriously telling me that she'd subject her children to exactly what she and Sokka had to deal with as kids?

Edited September 22, 2013 by Lythiaren

[7Deadly$ins]

It could be that he took Tenzin to Air Temples, Kya to waterbending places, and so on. Where did it say that Aang took Tenzin and only Tenzin to Ember Island?

[Lythiaren]

Tenzin: And I've really enjoyed having you two around. Reminds me of all those great vacations we took as kids with Dad.

Kya: Uh, I think your memory's a little foggy. Bumi and I weren't on those great vacations. It was always just you and Dad.

Tenzin: No, that can't be right. What about the time he took us to Kyoshi Island to ride the elephant koi?

Kya: Nope, we weren't there.

Tenzin: Hmm. Oh, remember Ember Island? Those amazing sand palaces we built on the beach?

Bumi: You mean YOU built, we never saw the place.

 

[Source]

 

Not implied anywhere, you say?

Edited September 22, 2013 by Lythiaren

[Obscure_Trash]

Quite frankly I find Makorra unbearable because both of them are terrible people in really different and incompatible ways. Korra's solution to everything is to set it on fire. Mako still has less personality than a 2x4. I watched the first two episodes and felt a little ill afterwards because there's only so much forced "MAKO IS GREAT!!!" and bad writing I can stomach. Much of the dialogue came out forced and robotic (Desna and Eska notwithstanding), information is being told rather than shown, and this whole thing is already looking like a big trainwreck.

Ugh, yes. Their relationship is boring. I thought it was well established that Korra is a rash, brash, jump-into-action, impatient, (but very protective and fiercely loyal with strong opinions on right and wrong and a strong sense of justice) independent woman. She's always been snappy when under stress, and it doesn't really matter to who. Whereas Mako has always been that two-dimensional, quiet, narrowly focused, dedicated, patient man. They really don't mix well at all. For one, I really don't think Korra can even focus on having any kind of boyfriend right now, much less one with no personality who just keeps changing what he's saying depending on what he thinks Korra wants him to do rather than just acting like an independent person with any kind of personality.

 

Desna and Eska/Bolin relationship is hilarious, though. Bolin jumping and clinging to Eska when they're talking about the angry spirits. "I'll protect you, my feeble turtle duck." lol

 

I do like Bolin, Jinora, and Asami (and Korra of course).

 

~

 

I have to agree that the whole servant thing was in really poor taste. (Bumi does look fairly brown here to me but doesn't seem to have that same shade in any other pictures of him.) And the comments on not even knowing Tenzin had siblings just seem... really out of place. His siblings aren't useless or anything. Bumi's a rambunctious commander and Kya is a waterbender and a healer. I guess the wiki does say "Growing up, Kya and her older brother Bumi became distant to their father because of his fixation in preserving Air Nomad culture, most especially training his lastborn, Tenzin, being the only other airbender in the family." But it just seems weird to me.

 

Granted, I still have only seen like one or two episodes of the original Airbender, but yeah. x3

[Syaoransbear]

 

It's not a question of what it says in the story universe. It's the fact that someone, on a television screen, is assuming that the darker-skinned people are servants. It's sending the message that. Dark. Skinned. People. Are. Stereotyped. As. Servants. It's the message they're sending to the viewers and it's disgusting.

 

And people have been writing essays all week about how they've literally thrown out the entire characterization of the people we remember from TLA. Aang playing favourites? Aang, who never knew his parents, who spent his entire quest struggling with regret over how he ran away from everyone who treated him as family, who cried when a baby was born? Katara letting him play favourites with her children? Katara, who watched as a firebender killed her mother, who watched Sokka struggling with having no waterbending every day of her life?

I bet they whitewashed Bumi and Kya to try to make it so it wouldn't seem racist to have Tenzin, the palest, treated better than the other two, who would have both been dark skinned. No wonder so much white washing goes on. It seems like unless a character is light-skinned, you can never have them display any negative traits or have any characters treat them poorly without it being called racism.

 

So, Lythiaren, what is the solution? Can writers really never ever have a dark skinned person be mistaken for a servant, and only light-skinned people are allowed to be mistaken for servants? Doesn't that mean darker-skinned characters will always be more limited in the personalities they can portray and the experiences they can go through?

 

What's so derogatory about being a servant anyway, that's a legit profession. Most people's jobs revolve around being some sort of servant.

 

 

I disagree about Aang's favoritism being atypical of him. He believes he's the reason why his entire culture was wiped out, of course he's going to feel guilty and want to put all of his effort into making sure his culture lives on into the future.

 

Aang held his culture so dear to him. He really flipped out when the group of girls tried to imitate airbender culture and ended up just making a mockery of it. I actually do think him favoring Tenzin to try to preserve his culture would be typical of Aang. He really never cared that he didn't know his parents, all he knew were the monks that cared for him because it was part of their culture. Probably his way of showing them respect and maybe even feeling connected to them was to try to preserve the culture he loved so much as best as he could. But I still think the guilt he felt was a big reason.

 

But I'm sure we'll find out later that Aang actually did treat them all equally and Bumi and Kya were just too focused on the stuff they didn't get to do to remember all the stuff they did get to do with their dad that Tenzin probably wasn't a part of because he was studying airbender culture or whatever. Just a feeling.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Syaoransbear

[Lythiaren]

How about not having their characters default to the "they must be subservient and inferior" assumption upon meeting a dark-skinned character? "Oh, I thought you were fine by yourself." Is that so hard? How about not having their character go "OMG ARE YOU LIKE HIM???" and then showing disappointment when the siblings aren't like Tenzin? And these are people studying Air Nomad culture, which according to the writers is supposed to be extremely tolerant? Is it really that hard to avoid drawing up those kinds of uncomfortable, tasteless parallels?

 

And no. No, no. Ember Island was a luxury Fire Kingdom beach resort and Kyoshi Island is an important chunk of Earth Kingdom history. These are two explicit examples from which Kya and Bumi were pointedly left out. What exactly do these two places have to do with preserving Air Nomad culture?

 

The answer is none. None things.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Lythiaren

[Switch]

I really don't think it's racism at all?? o.o What Syaoransbear said...

 

 

And based on what transpired during the 3rd episode, it seems like the 'servant' comment was indeed supposed to be an example of how the other two were looked over their whole lives and basically treated like failures for not turning out to be air benders. I really don't believe it was racism, just commentary about their relationship with Tenzin and his celebrity status while the rest of the world doesn't even know they exist. If the lady assumed they were his friends it wouldn't have made it so obvious that they've been looked down on for their entire lives for not being air benders.

 

That makes total sense to me. o_O? I really don't think it has anything to do with skin color.

 

 

I liked the new episode. ovo Still some things I'm a little meh on but I enjoyed it.

[Obscure_Trash]

I bet they whitewashed Bumi and Kya to try to make it so it wouldn't seem racist to have Tenzin, the palest, treated better than the other two, who would have both been dark skinned. No wonder so much white washing goes on. It seems like unless a character is light-skinned, you can never have them display any negative traits or have any characters treat them poorly without it being called racism.

Yes, that's why white washing happens. Because white people are so post-racial that the only situations we can put characters of color into are demeaning and we don't want to be seen as racist when we do it.

[Switch]

Wait, when were Kya and Bumi whitewashed? I know there's a post on tumblr by Bryan Konietzko that shows Kya's model has the exact same skin tone as Katara's, Tenzin's is a bit off from Aang's, and Bumi's was meant to be inbetween Kya and Tenzin's. ono;

Did I miss something?

I probably shouldn't try to join in serious discussions but I'm reaaallly confused

 

Also that scene with commander Bumi on the ship, people's skin and everything else can look much darker or lighter depending on the lighting they're in, and the lighting in that scene seems to have him mostly in shadow? That video itself looks to be on the darker/lower quality-ish side too (at least compared to higher quality screenshots I'm seeing), so I'm kind of doubting they changed the skin tone on Bumi's model. I really don't think they'd do that. unu But it might just be me, I don't know...

Edited September 23, 2013 by Switch

[Syaoransbear]

And no. No, no. Ember Island was a luxury Fire Kingdom beach resort and Kyoshi Island is an important chunk of Earth Kingdom history. These are two explicit examples from which Kya and Bumi were pointedly left out. What exactly do these two places have to do with preserving Air Nomad culture?

 

The answer is none. None things.

I don't think Aang played favourites, I doubt the writers would ever portray him as a neglectful father who played favorites. But I think it is typical of him to put a lot of focus on preserving his culture. I just think his children are incorrect for thinking he played favorites, and I'm sure there will be some memories come up that show that Aang spent just as much time with the other two but they were so jealous of Tenzin for being a rare airbender that everyone else thought was so special that they forgot all about it or didn't appreciate it. I'm sure there will be some story that shows they were actually all loved equally because this is a children's show and that's just how they go.

 

Also, I assumed Aang brought Tenzin to those places because Tenzin is the one that has to train the next Avatar so I thought he would take Tenzin to all the places he went to on his Avatar journey so Tenzin would learn about all of Aang's struggles and Tenzin would be able to properly prepare the next Avatar for their task.

 

And for Aang, neither of those places were fun or were just resorts, they were important parts of his journey. Especially ember island where he met the lion turtle who gave him the ability to take away bending powers.

 

Yes, that's why white washing happens. Because white people are so post-racial that the only situations we can put characters of color into are demeaning and we don't want to be seen as racist when we do it.

It's not because light-skinned people can only put characters of color into demeaning rolls, it's the notion that darker skinned people should NEVER be put into demeaning rolls when a huge amount of shows are based around main and supporting characters being in demeaning rolls or being at a disadvantage for whatever reason but overcoming the odds anyways. If darker skinned people can never play the role of someone disadvantaged, don't you think that limits the amount of rolls they can play and TV shows end up being mostly lighter-skinned people? I guess I just don't really understand being like "If you have a certain skin color/gender/whatever, you can never play this type of role."

Edited September 23, 2013 by Syaoransbear

[Lythiaren]

Are you actually being serious right now?

 

Please, do tell me what your reasoning would be for bringing ONLY Tenzin to places that were important to his journey as an Avatar. Not as an airbender, remember Aang was a master at 13. These places were only significant to his development as an Avatar. And instead of bringing his entire family to see these places and do these things, he brought only one of his sons.

 

Only Tenzin.

 

 

 

Not his other two children.

 

 

 

 

Not Katara, who went through much of it right along with him.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Lythiaren

[Syaoransbear]

Are you actually being serious right now?

 

Please, do tell me what your reasoning would be for bringing ONLY Tenzin to places that were important to his journey as an Avatar. Not as an airbender, remember Aang was a master at 13. These places were only significant to his development as an Avatar. And instead of bringing his entire family to see these places and do these things, he brought only one of his sons.

 

Only Tenzin.

 

 

 

Not his other two children.

 

 

 

 

Not Katara, who went through much of it right along with him.

I'm sure we'll find out the reasons later unless they actually go with the whole "Aang is a terrible father" thing and they never talk about it ever again, it just happened to be my immediate assumption that he'd only bring Tenzin on avatar-related things because Tenzin would be the only one of his children who has to train the avatar. Bumi is a non-bender and would never have to train the new avatar, and Kya is a water bender. The next avatar was going to be a water bender so Kya probably would not be the avatar's first choice for water bending training since she has numerous amounts of family members to teach her.

 

Maybe it's just me, but you sound upset. I'm agreeing with you that Aang being a neglectful father is not typical of his character, but I'm saying that I think the writers probably have something planned to reveal that Aang was actually a good father to Kya and Bumi. Unless they are terrible writers, it would make no sense to introduce this conflict with no way of resolving it, especially since Kya and Bumi talk about it so frequently. The easiest way to resolve that conflict is to make it all just a misunderstanding or make some justification for it, because I doubt at their age they will suddenly accept it and move on, and I also doubt the writers would tarnish the reputation of their golden boy Aang by making him a bad father.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Syaoransbear

[Skypool]

I've seen the point argued that the trio's perceptions are somewhat tainted, each altered by outsider opinion (e.g. Kya and Bumi seeing Tenzin treated like a deity everywhere they went) and their childhood opinions, where judgments were made with that certain naive ignorance, misunderstanding, as someone above put it, as well. I thought this was a pretty reasonable theory in the fact Tenzin had completely forgotten his siblings' exclusions from vacation time with Dad. Children, I believe, perceive and remember things differently from the way they might have happened - a common fact of life. While this is by no means validated, I have a hard time believing Bryke would butcher a character they poured three seasons into, for the sake of family drama. However, I am of the complete acceptance that Aang wasn't the best father; what father is? My parents make mistakes. I get that.

 

I'm also hoping anything I wrote above makes sense. It doesn't seem like it.

 

Concludingly, feeling gray in this situation, I think I'm not going to give any official opinion until Bryke elucidates; I'm rather of the wish, however, that they let Katara explain what happened. She was there; she knows.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Skypool

[LibbyLishly]

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT POST; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

 

While I'm going to skip right over the racism debate, I'm pretty disappointed with this season so far for a number of reasons.

 

1. Dialog. The writing is very weak. While there is an interesting plot going on behind the dreadful Avatar whining, it seems that almost every line from almost every character is a cliche, and something we've heard in a billion other shows.

 

2. Oh God, Daddy Issues. Hmm, let's see, where have I heard just about every line coming out of Korra's mouth before? Only in every show that clumsily tries to create conflict by making a character resent his or her parent. Then to throw Bumi and Kya's daddy issues on top of that, with all three adults literally behaving as if they're pre-adolescent brats while they are freaking looking for a lost child who could be severely hurt or dead was just... I can't. I just can't.

 

3. Inconsistent Characterization. Korra is, frankly, insufferable this season. Last season she got on my nerves occasionally, but I liked her anyway - she was brash, headstrong, impulsive, and impatient, with an attitude that said hit first and ask the spirits later. But, as pointed out a page or two back, she was also loyal and compassionate. Out of nowhere, she's now acting like an entitled little with ZERO loyalty (seriously, who the heck just up and turns on their dad with whom they've never seemed to have a problem before on the say-so of an manipulative uncle who just came right the frick out of nowhere?) and no interest in anything that isn't what she wants. Yes, some of these struggles she's coping with were things she should have dealt with this season, since she needs to both grow as the Avatar and as an individual outside of that messianic identity, but so far it's been poorly, poorly handled. And her treatment of Mako is absolutely unacceptable.

 

Speaking of Mako, since when did he become Mr. Perfect Boyfriend? Literally no line that comes out of his mouth serves any purpose but to make us believe that he's the ideal boyfriend - and after his abysmal treatment of Asami in the first season, that seems a bit rich.

 

And speaking of Asami, where IS she? A tiny portion of one episode out of three to introduce us to some rich business man is not enough when she was such a major player last season. Hopefully something more with her comes up soon. But why on earth did she take Bolin with her to her business meeting? That doesn't seem like the most savvy move at all.

 

And speaking of Bolin, what happened? He's being played as nothing more than comic relief, even in his 'relationship' with the creepy twin. Last season his emotions and his development mattered much more. I hate to bring A:TLA up, because we all know this isn't the same show, but Sokka managed to be both comic relief and part of the emotional center of the show. Sokka was real, and Bolin was much more so last season. This season, he's being basically swept under the rug.

 

And I want Lin and Iroh to resurface now. >.<

 

So.... yeah. Blrgh. NOT happy with a lot of things going on this season. Even the animation feels like it's gone a bit downhill.

[Obscure_Trash]

Wait, when were Kya and Bumi whitewashed?

 

On the previous page, Lyth posted a video where Bumi seems to have darker skin coloring. As well, the screenie from the shot is on the Avatar wiki. Dunno if that was an attempt at shadows or bad coloring or whitewashing.

 

It's not because light-skinned people can only put characters of color into demeaning rolls, it's the notion that darker skinned people should NEVER be put into demeaning rolls when a huge amount of shows are based around main and supporting characters being in demeaning rolls or being at a disadvantage for whatever reason but overcoming the odds anyways. If darker skinned people can never play the role of someone disadvantaged, don't you think that limits the amount of rolls they can play and TV shows end up being mostly lighter-skinned people? I guess I just don't really understand being like "If you have a certain skin color/gender/whatever, you can never play this type of role."

 

It's black people being regulated to the role of 'mammy'. It's movies with the white savior troupe. The Help for example.

It's casting Lavender Brown as a black girl until she gets a noticeable part in the movie, and then she's re-cast as a blonde white girl.

It's shoving Latin@s into shows like Devious Maids where, surprise, surprise, all the POC are maids or other house servants.

It's misrepresenting and skewering culture when a white man steals the story of a Japanese woman, publishes her name after she asked to stay anonymous, fetishizing geisha's and misrepresenting them, making buttloads of money off of it from the book and the movie, and the Japanese woman's own memoir, published to clear up these errors, goes ignored. See Memoirs of Geisha and Geisha, A Life.

It's casting a character of color with a specific culture and background as the pale, fishfaced Cucumberback (Star Trek - I think the character's name was Khan?).

It's light skinned Asian men being infantalized like Hahn in Two Broke Girls.

It's Pacific Rim being heralded as great POC representation when it tossed about an ethnic slur without care as it what it meant, and displayed a fairly typical submissive Asian woman and the white man was still the ultimate savior in the end.

It's out right banning POC from auditioning for characters that are specifically described with non-white skin in the book they are based on (see Katniss in the Hunger Games).

It's taking a show that vast majority POC and making it into a movie where the only character cast as dark-skinned is the villain...who was originally light skinned (see Avatar).

 

Because, see, if we cast POC in parts where the characters are three dimensional, this starts to make POC relateable, and if they're relateable, then us white people lose our privilege and therefore our power. There are studies (fairly easily found through google) that show that white people, and even POC, feel less sympathy or empathy for people with darker skin colors. There are studies (still fairly easily googled) that show that when it is explained to white people that a specific action (such as stop and frisk or anything involving the US court system) is based on racial bias, white people actually support the methods more so than before.

 

The great thing about Avatar has always been how great it is with representation. When it originally came out, many kinds finally found characters that looked like them. That had their skin colors. Their eye shape. Their religion. And these characters had depth. They were diverse. They were good, they were funny, they were strong, they were weak, they were determined, they were kind, they were compassionate, they were angry, they could be anything. It gave a real range of representation to kids who, prior to finding Avatar, watched nobody on TV who looked like them. (There was a really touching open letter type thing on this, but I can't find it now. =\ I'll keep looking.)

 

And the great thing about the Avatar is that, unlike the Doctor, they could generate as any gender, any skin color.

 

So, for all intents and purposes, Avatar has been a downright radical show for race representation. So I would think that it would be reasonable to expect this to continue.

 

So. What was the purpose of the scene where Kya and Bumi are mistaken for servants?

-To show that Aang neglected them and favored Tenzin

-To show they hadn't visited before/weren't known to the people on the island

-To further the kind of bitter relationship Kya and Bumi have with Tenzin and a little bit of why

Now, the question is - was there a better way to accomplish all these? And the answer is - sure!

-Have the people on the island ask who the heck they are

-Have the people on the island side eye them and whisper-ask Tenzin who his guests are

-Have Tenzin 're-introduce' them to people on the island, all 'you guys remember each other, Kya and Bumi this is _Name_' and Kya, Bumi, and _Name_ being all 'uh, no, not really'

-Plus various other things they've already explored before we even got to this scene (and even after)

 

So why is it that the scene is so important to have the way it was? There were much better and much more fitting ways to write the characterization. Ways that wouldn't have been seen as offensive to some.

 

And I think LibbyLishly hit really well why it is that all this good stuff, all this good representation and character depth and etc. the show has really strived for and achieved has seemingly gone downhill.

 

We are getting really lazy writing. Whomever is doing the writing doesn't seem to care about the characters as much or what the show meant to so many kids and even young adults. They don't care to continue it. Or they completely forgot what they were doing and decided to change the characters and write what they felt like.

 

Speaking of Mako, since when did he become Mr. Perfect Boyfriend? Literally no line that comes out of his mouth serves any purpose but to make us believe that he's the ideal boyfriend - and after his abysmal treatment of Asami in the first season, that seems a bit rich.

 

Th-aan-nk you! Hit the nail on the head.

 

Out of nowhere, she's now acting like an entitled little censorkip.gif with ZERO loyalty (seriously, who the heck just up and turns on their dad with whom they've never seemed to have a problem before on the say-so of an manipulative uncle who just came right the frick out of nowhere?) and no interest in anything that isn't what she wants. Yes, some of these struggles she's coping with were things she should have dealt with this season, since she needs to both grow as the Avatar and as an individual outside of that messianic identity, but so far it's been poorly, poorly handled.

 

Yes. The Uncle is shady as heck. He's acting suspicious. He's being a jerk to Korra's father and quite obviously splitting a wedge between them. He's not being subtle at all. And she just up and goes with it? o_O

It seems a little out of place for her, too, to suddenly be like 'aw, yeah, spirituality!' when that's another part of the Avatar that she's really struggled with. She likes being good at things, and she gets frustrated when she doesn't succeed right away, so she's just going to jump back into something she struggles with after no convincing. Meh.

 

And speaking of Asami, where IS she?

 

And I want Lin and Iroh to resurface now. >.<

 

Yes, please!

 

Last season his emotions and his development mattered much more.

 

Ah, thank you for stating this. Been a while since I watched season 1 and my memory was really foggy, but I do remember him having actual depth now. Shame to lose that.

Edited September 25, 2013 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Lythiaren]

I'm sure we'll find out the reasons later unless they actually go with the whole "Aang is a terrible father" thing and they never talk about it ever again, it just happened to be my immediate assumption that he'd only bring Tenzin on avatar-related things because Tenzin would be the only one of his children who has to train the avatar. Bumi is a non-bender and would never have to train the new avatar, and Kya is a water bender. The next avatar was going to be a water bender so Kya probably would not be the avatar's first choice for water bending training since she has numerous amounts of family members to teach her.

 

Maybe it's just me, but you sound upset. I'm agreeing with you that Aang being a neglectful father is not typical of his character, but I'm saying that I think the writers probably have something planned to reveal that Aang was actually a good father to Kya and Bumi. Unless they are terrible writers, it would make no sense to introduce this conflict with no way of resolving it, especially since Kya and Bumi talk about it so frequently. The easiest way to resolve that conflict is to make it all just a misunderstanding or make some justification for it, because I doubt at their age they will suddenly accept it and move on, and I also doubt the writers would tarnish the reputation of their golden boy Aang by making him a bad father.

Yes, I am extremely upset. Because no amount of in-story justification or backpedaling from Bryke will excuse the fact that they presented that scene as "Look how much great stuff Aang did with Tenzin and no one else!" rather than "Look how obliviously privileged Tenzin is!". There's a lot of ways that could have been done tastefully without offending a good chunk of POC viewers. Sock covered that. But that's not the biggest reason I'm so upset. I'm upset because trying to explain it all away is extremely patronizing and dismissive of those viewers' feelings. This scene is one of many that just cemented the rest of Korra as a "marathon it later when I'm feeling masochistic" series for me, and I watch Attack on Titan! Because "they didn't mean it" doesn't mean anything. If someone haphazardly threw a rock and it happened to hit me in the face, no amount of "OMG I'M SO SORRY I WASN'T AIMING AT YOU" is going to make my head stop bleeding.

 

Riding elephant koi and making sand castles have nothing to do with training the next Avatar. The White Lotus didn't have to retrace Aang's journey to train Korra with earth and fire. Heck, if Kya and Bumi are to be believed, they even left Katara out of those trips ("It was always just you and Dad") and she was Korra's waterbending teacher. The fact that Tenzin would have to teach the next Avatar is orthogonal to the action of leaving his siblings and his mother out.

 

Between the horrendous writing decisions of the first season (eg. let's spend 4 episodes on a pointless love triangle square OH NO WE HAVE TO RUSH THIS ENDING), seeing Bolin being treated like a kicked puppy (Sokka was funny because he got himself into trouble; they're expecting us to laugh at Bolin's misfortune that is in NO WAY his fault), and hearing Mako compare Asami to a blood-sucking leech (how DARE she offer them unconditional support and resources and even almost get murdered by her own father for them, what a leech amirite???), I have exactly zero faith that this particular mischaracterization could possibly be explained away without offending people even more.

 

Because the only way it can be unoffensively explained away is that Kya and Bumi were left out due to illness and Katara had to take care of them. And given the current track record, I highly doubt that is the case.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Lythiaren

[Switch]

On the previous page, Lyth posted a video where Bumi seems to have darker skin coloring. As well, the screenie from the shot is on the Avatar wiki. Dunno if that was an attempt at shadows or bad coloring or whitewashing.

Oh yeah, I noticed that and mentioned it in my post. I think it was just shadows tbh. I really don't think they'd intentionally make his skin lighter. uwu;

Edited September 26, 2013 by Switch

[Lythiaren]

 

Really? Are you absolutely sure about that? He looks pretty brown to me. :|

Edited September 26, 2013 by Lythiaren

[Switch]

Huh. Where's that from? Never seen it before. o.o

then again i haven't seen a lot of things apparently

Edited September 26, 2013 by Switch

[senyi]

Huh. Where's that from? Never seen it before. o.o

then again i haven't seen a lot of things apparently

I've seen the tree float around the Internet. IIRC, the creators of TLA and TLOK drew the family tree.

[Lythiaren]

That's the one.

[Switch]

I guess that is kinda weird. unu; I really didn't know about that until now.