I watched the show Avatar The Last Airbender for the first time in my life in 2019 on a friend's recommendation. I was somewhat bothered by it seeming appropriative and orientalist, and how it was basically a show about Western imperialism set in the exotic trappings of Eastern and indigenous cultures. Still, I enjoyed those trappings and the martial arts choreography.

But then early on it did anticolonial freedom fighters dirty yet that was portrayed as a good thing, and that bothered me. I chalked it up to children's cartoons in the mid-2000s having to follow certain tropes about violence and didn't just ragequit there. Then when they did the blood-bender dirty I rationalized it away with "well they're kids who haven't been imprisoned and tortured like she has, they haven't learned that you have to be merciless when fighting merciless colonizers." Then when Aang did some bullshit peace-policing and manipulated Katara into not taking the justified revenge she so clearly needed yet that was portrayed as a good thing, I figured hey, I wasn't raised Buddhist, I don't know how this spiritual system handles things, maaaaybe this is in character... (but it was still very shitty of him to get in her way). And I was very close to the end and wanted to see how this played out and I'd already excused a couple bits of lib shit so I kept going.

Despite those flaws, I persisted in watching and found it pleasant and enjoyable enough. When it ended I wanted more. But the very first episode of Legend of Korra was an utter disappointment -- the liberatory heroes of the first series had just implemented neoliberalism and the setting was some uninspired 1920s new world shit, and the political questions that were being set up seemed utterly boring. So I stopped watching and dropped the entire franchise like a hot potato.

Well, apparently the ATLA story gets continued in comics and I was wondering if they're at all good or not. I want to read them because I want them to be good -- there's enough fun stuff in the first series that it could be and there are questions the show left unanswered I think I would like to know. But at the same time the world-building and rank liberalism in some of the plots make me fear that I would just ruin what enjoyment I got out of the show the first time around. If they have even a drop more of liberal "killing your oppressors makes you worse than them" bullshit in it I feel like it would sour any positive feelings I had about the show.

I guess now that I've typed it out the answer is obvious: Don't bother, there's better shit out there to read that isn't written by politically illiterate culturally appropriative liberals. Still, I'd welcome any comrades' thoughts!