Yeah...having re-watched avatar with my son not that long ago I don't see where the issue is. Downplaying/removing his chauvinism and sexism only serves to negate his character arc and more importantly undercuts the hilarity of watching his shit get kicked in by Suki and the Kyoshi warriors. I think if anything: the only part that has aged poorly is the part where Suki falls for him. Still kinda would have preferred it if he had thought that's where it was going and she'd have been like "....whoa....dude...we're not...no...just no...". Too many of these stories end with these characters getting romantically entangled with each other and not enough end with them just coming to respect each other as peers.
yeah but on the other hand suki and sokka are kind of a cool low key part of the last season. Sokka with the lei is so funny.
Suki is a really bland character though, if you took her out of the final season not much would change
I feel a big part of the finale is that Sokka, previously believing that women are useless on the battlefield, leads two women in destroying the airship fleet.
Also Sokka going from an incompetent know it all to a capable leader and tactician.
The best part of his character arc is that he doesn’t simply become more humble or something, like half of it is basically just “oh yeah I’m smart AND other people are smart too, it’s all coming together”
Yeah I just rewatched recently too and the sexism seems unnecessary. Just being a know-it-all or even just fighting his own twisted sense of warrior masculinity is enough of a start point for his arc.
The space sword episode being his redemption, one of my favorite episodes
If they leaned into the toxic masculinity aspect that would work great, but it might make a new generation of eggs
You can't fight sexism by just not talking about it...
deliberately show how sexist sokka was, and show how he changed his mind as he was proven wrong
that's the only way to fight sexism
It is time to make sokka a flaming homsexual twink who flirts with every man in the series no matter how out of place it is eventually leading to the sokka/zuko ship.
Netflix make it happen.
They're already doing it with Mihawk in the One Piece live action, and it works pretty well
When you consider that the live action performance has that kind of almost-understated flamboyance that is really rare in anime, I think it could just be taken as a legit read on the character.
I 100% see how the actor got that vibe from the character, it's not at all out of left field or anything. It's just more... Played up? Present? I dunno the word for it.
I was just reminded of live action Mihawk. That dude was the highlight of the show for me.Makes sense. Yeah, Mihawk is great, though I thought Zoro was surprisingly good despite losing some of his goofiness. The fact that he still gets constantly lost but plays it off is funny, and the "not calling your moves" bit was a genuinely good addition even if it meant Zoro no longer called his (maybe he will warm up to the concept later if they have another season?)
Honestly the whole cast was great, Mihawk was just the standout for me. Live action One Piece has made me change my mind on "why remake animation in live action?"
Speaking of the live action One Piece adaptation, what did everyone think of how they handled Arlong? They turned him into a Killmonger type character (Fishmonger?
) where he was mostly a mean sadistic gangster with a disdain for humans in the original arc. The manga did establish the oppression faced by fishpeople in depth later on and even gave a backstory to why Arlong and his gang in particular hated humans, but in the Netflix show he was kind of doing a speech in every scene he was in.I'm glad they're incorporating things Oda established later on in these early parts but I kind of felt this was once again a situation where the one character using revolutionary language is a violent murderous psychopath
I enjoyed it, but I know the whole story and I think that recontextualises things. Feel like (with that knowledge) it's a good depiction of how people/movements can get corrupted/lose their ways or the like over time. Nazbols come from somewhere.
Without that though, it's kinda just another killmonger.I guess Arlong's new revolutionary ambitions didn't quite mesh with his previously established role as some asshole shaking down a hapless backwater village for protection money
Also, an unrelated note- what did he need the Grand Line map for? He's from there
Same goes for Buggy who's already been there. I know they just used the map as a way to tie the first season together and it's not a massive deal, but stillI see it more like the reverse happened. Along is what happens you have no theory.
He starts off as a revolutionary and ends up as a petty warlord tyrant. This happens because he no longer has Fisher Tiger (Mao or whatever) to guide him, but instead has to rely on himself. He only half understands the revolutionary theory and this ends up as a sort of fish man Pol Pot.I would assume the map was just a result of the story being written over 25 years and things changing a little bit. Or it's some grand metaphor, who knows? Or Arlong couldn't find his way back thru the waterfall mountain thingy.
Without going back to the manga to check I don't remember the map as important in it. They needed one to get up the mountain but it wasn't this larger overarching plot element. Not saying it's bad or anything, much like with the Garp thing they probably did it to give the first season some structure so it wasn't just "Luffy and co. bumble from one island to the next and beat up random bad guys"
Yeah, that bit stood out to me too. I wasn't familiar with the anime or manga, but people here usually talk about it being based. So I was pretty surprised that it felt like they were poisoning the well on revolutionaries.
We're all balking at this, but like half this site used to be on the "audiences are too dumb to handle any amount of moral ambiguity! All media must be blatant morality plays or else everyone will get turned into fascists form watching Breaking Bad!!!" We kinda asked for this
They had him get owned and learn that women aren't weak like four times. He learned to actually fight in a dress and make up. It was not subtle.
He learned to actually fight in a dress and make up
what if they do this scene anyways?
If he wasn't sexist before then what's the point of the scene? They're not going to have a scene where Sokka explores his gender identity.
They're still gonna have it, because in their brains a dude being weird about women warriors isn't sexist. I'm lathing it right now
Yeah and Hollywood exec dorks always take the worse interpretation of things
I mean yeah? They wanna make money and they focus grouped this to be unprofitable. That's not what you were arguing, as far as I understand. You were writing that hexbear users thought only the most obvious morality plays should be left in, and that this wasn't one (we kinda asked for this).
I disagree, I think it was an obvious morality play, and now I don't get the point you're making.and now I don't get the point you're making.
Yeah I don't either I'm and idiot
Edit: sorry that was petty, was in a bad mood when I first typed that out.
Lemme reframe what I was saying, "morality play" wasn't really the right term to use. There were people on this site who seemed to think fans always emulate the negative attributes of the characters in the media they consume, not matter how blatant the writers try and make it that these are flaws, or even if they evolve past the flaws. The fans always end up emulating the douchebag version of the character so we need more media where the protagonists are upstanding people from chapter 1 to give people better figures to admire.
The only places I’ve seen this talked about is Rick and Morty and Breaking Bad and, while I am a Lib because I have not finished either so I am literally speaking without investigation, what I’ve seen of Rick and Morty makes me think they REALLY like pushing the “Rick is a cool superhero science man who doesn’t care about dumb stuff like fee fees” angle, even if it’s done in an ironic tone. And neither piece of media has any actual, persistent and memorable examples of actually good behavior depicted in a positive light, as far as I know, which is HUGE, because if you just mock someone and then leave it at that, then people are going to interpret that however the fuck they will and 80% of the time it’ll be assuming you just thought murder was good or whatever. Because having bad things happen and then not providing even a glimpse of what a good thing could have looked like without mocking that too will result in viewers just assuming the point is nihilism.
Rick and Morty is a good example of people trying to write flawed characters and mostly failing. They've made attempts to flesh Rick out, including an extended side plot about him going to therapy, but it seems like every time they get close to doing something interesting with it they end up reversing it, and I suspect it's probably because the network wants to keep milking the IP, and having Rick actually resolve some issues would effectively be the end of the show so they're holding off on that till they hit a season where they barely make any profit and decide it's time to close up shop.
Breaking Bad has it's flaws but overall I think it handled things a lot better. It does become glaringly obvious what a terrible person Walter is becoming as the show goes on and he pays dearly for his crimes in the end. I think the number of fans who still celebrate him as a hero is overstated, every fan I've met of the show IRL is fully aware he's the villain. Yeah there are dumb Reddit 14 year olds but they have their head so far up there ass I don't think you can make thing blatant enough for them, really that's the actual problem here, no piece of media can be made misinterpretation-proof, I've seen people almost willfully misinterpret works where the author basically delivered a monologue at the end laying out their intended message in excruciating detail. People are going to read into something what they want to read, you really can't stop them and you can't really hold authors accountable for it, the only real solution would be just to not make media anymore.
No need to apologise, it wasn't perceived as rude on my end.
There were people on this site who seemed to think fans always emulate the negative attributes of the characters in the media they consume, not matter how blatant the writers try and make it that these are flaws, or even if they evolve past the flaws. The fans always end up emulating the douchebag version of the character so we need more media where the protagonists are upstanding people from chapter 1 to give people better figures to admire.
Yeah I remember some of those discussions. UlyssesT was often very active in them... It could get difficult not to share the consensus opinion. Generally those kinds of discussions suck because they end up being very black/white. I don't like it. I get what you were trying to say, which was also why I asked about your point - I was wondering if I had misunderstood something. I agree with you on the point that some users here have some very definite opinions on how entertainment should be, and those opinions are kinda weird/silly because yeah, then you do end up with removing Sokkas sexism and the like.
I never said anything like that and I will be reporting this comment for libel.Like I unironically kind of (not really but kind of) think that and also Sokka’s arc literally WAS that, we’re balking at it BECAUSE they’re removing the obvious morality play
Okay, "Morality Play" wasn't the right term to use. But there are a lot of people who think fans only ever emulate the bad features of protagnists regardless of whether those are presented as flaws they grow out of or not, so protagonists in media should always be morally upright people from chapter 1.
I might be confused on this but doesn't a morality play involve some flaw or sin causing a tragedy? So Sokka would have to be sexist and then get karmically punished for that?
Yes, and ironically the original Avatar was actually a pretty good example of a show that wasn't ambiguous in its messaging. However coked up media executives are dumb and always going to take the worst interpretation of everything.
Yeah looking at your comment I think I agree the earlier naive interpretations of “no protagonists should be bad” is dumb, but clarity is really important in media and artists do assume viewers are able to see their message too often
I don't think Hexbears have any influence on these things
The Hexbear discourse on this seems to be reflective of boarder online discourse about, which does influence things. Producers do read twitter, or at least they used to, sadly.
I think it's more how liberalism does not like to create media that truly grapples and discusses hard topics outside of cis white female sexism experiences, whitewashed talks on racism (i.e. Malcolm X extremism) and shit within the suburbanite bubble.
For being a kids cartoon I have to say Avatar was a good introduction to the harm of war, propaganda that is fed by an empire, and themes on humility and respect.
This is what happens when people refuse to read any literary theory. Sorry folks, only reading Lenin is not going to help you understand art.
yes, big, we're all looking for the guy who did this, energy.
(but breaking bad is bad actually, not because it is too ambiguous, but because it constantly indulges the audience and never challenges identification with a ressentiment-filled loser.)
Inb4 legend of korra live action remake happens and they somehow make it even more hamfistedly anti-communist by making korra a mix between Hillary and AOC and Amon a Bernie sanders knock-off in a Zhongshan suit
For a second I got very mixed up and thought you were suggesting a Bernie Firelord Ozai, which would be very funny but for different reasons.
Water. Earth. Fire. Air. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. But that all changed when the Fire Nation redistributed their land. Only the Avatar mastered all four elements. Only he could stop the ruthless firebenders from their dystopian program of social progress and the abolition of class. But when we needed him, he disappeared.
And then idk the show is about the other three nations invading the Fire Nation in order to do a Bourbon Restoration.
Hella major growth and development. ...oh and good character writing as well.
FR FR though Iroh getting secretly Jacked in solitary was so goddamn cool and I'll be astounded if they even try to replicate it in the live action series.
I don't understand how you get rid of it. For fucks sake it gets resolved in like episode 5. Women beating up a sexist asshole is fucking evergreen.
That's what's weird about this removal to me, it's so quick and easy to show, even if I disagree about it being a huge important part of his character, it's like a very minor removal in terms of screen time
In film it is often important to compare impact to screen time. All you need for this arc is 4 scenes. The opening fishing scene with the sexist comments. The backstory of the men leaving to go to war and leaving sokka with too much responsibility. Him being shown as a fairly shit warrior. Then the kyoshi scene where the boy with the weird complex and shit for skill thinks he can beat professional warriors because they are women. First off, thats hardly any screen time for a satisfying arc. Its not the highlight of book one but its quick and doesn't take away from anything else. And the thing is that all those scenes will probably be in this show, they just won't provide character development. So they took away character development without freeing up screen time for other arcs. Amateur.
I can only guess that they thought some people might stop watching during the opening scene with the sexism. The thing is though that those dudes still exist. Sokka is a saint compared to your average 13 year old andrew tate/alpha content stan. Its still a relevant arc, unlike the "girls like bad boys" bit in book 2 (the sokka teaching aang how to flirt bit not the Jet arc). Idk even that one. They could change it to pick up artist shit I guess. I'd rather can it though.
Yeah Im on the same page as you, Im surprised they bothered to take it out considering how easy to put in it is
Everything I see about the writing sounds bad and the outfits also look like shit. Every character looks like they're a high end cosplayers, not someone who lives through a war. Why is everyone's clothes perfectly ironed and clean
Every character looks like they're a high end cosplayers
2D and 3D have such different aesthetics, the only good way to costume an adaptation like this is to find a costume director who has never seen the original and get fresh ideas on set. But doing that would entail taking on the risk that the new ideas might suck, so Netflix would rather make something that will definitely suck but won't generate a ton of online complaints.
One piece live action has managed to pull it off the best so far, and it still looks bad.
Okay? I'm talking about the costumes, comrade. Its a netflix show adaptation of a child's cartoon. High end cosplay is the only thing you were ever gonna get. Why would you expect the costumes to look as though they're realistic characters living through a war
I will riot if they cut "my girlfriend turned into the moon"
"... That's rough buddy".One of the trends of enshittification of writing in Hollywood recently has been this idea that people like characters at the end of their arcs better, so on a reboot/adaptation/whatever they should just start at that point of the character growth rather than go through it on screen.
I still can't tell if it's because of board rooms demanding it or writers being allergic to writing characters with bad traits.
Blocking is how actors are arranged and move in a film scene. If you want to know more.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Positioning of characters in a scene in relation to the environment and, in television or movies, the camera
As far as I'm aware, the nuance between the two terms would lie in that they blocking specifically refers to it from a character perspective. Can I see what they're doing? Can I see what their face while they're emoting? I think it's more to do with live theater than television or film. For example, before rehearsals you might "block out a scene" where you read your lines with your counterpart while standing in the correct position and planning out when you need to be where.
Composition on the other hand, would be directly related to the camera and where things are to make a good shot. They overlap for sure, but blocking I feel is more limited in the scope of what it can refer to.
Basic cinematography and staging doesn't exist in late stage capital, just treat production and grift
JUST MAKE NEW THINGS
