The argument goes that Azula is from "azul" rather than any Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc word, and they'd probably toss in another few one-shot characters as well. I don't know which ones. Like I said, it's something of a stretch
Weird. I never saw that. I had some people who were talking to me earlier tonight... panning the actor choices not because they were white, but because some of them were horrible actors and/or tween-magnets.
Uh no. Chance correspondences between languages are extremely common. I'd lay odds there isn't a language spoken on Earth that doesn't contain a color word that sounds kind of like a non-color-word name in some other language. And yes, I'm including all those languages with the clicks. Some of them aren't even related.
What do I know about the language spoken in the Fire Nation (or anyway, from which it draws some or all of its names)? I have two samples: Azula and Zuko. And I think those are siblings, so either they theme-named their kids or this is a coincidence. Anyway, zu is apparently a sequence that occurs with some regularity. The sounds that occur on either side of it are in both cases pretty unexotic. Further, there's no reason to believe there isn't a morpheme boundary between, say, azu and la. There's no evidence to suggest this name has anything to do with the Spanish word azul and is not a randomly-arising coincidence. I can't speak to the creator's intent, but neither can the people who disagree with me, and unlike them
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What really gets me is that the specific comment was, "There's no way you can think Aang would be Asian." The main character of a show set in a blatant fantasy analogue of East Asia? Whose own culture resembles Buddhist Tibet really strongly? Well, he has wide eyes and light skin. Couldn't be Asian!
What I keep telling everyone is that I really don't care that the cast is white. What I do care about is the fact that a minority director had the chance to take minority actors and make them into household names and he didn't. I'm sure the people picked will play their parts wonderfully, but shamalamadingdong dropped the ball somewhere along the line.
Why do you immediately blame it on him? His plan was to pick mostly unknown actors from around the country - obviously, this wasn't his plan. The amount of control he got over the film had to do with the success of his last movie, and his last movie tanked.
I don't care what you think of his scripts or his past movies, but chances are that he had nothing to do with the casting.
Ah, I see. I based my opinion on the information I had regarding the casting and the fact that I came across numerous articles that implied or even outright stated that this was his 'hand-picked' cast. If that's not the case, then I'm wrong, but I wasn't trying to blame anyone.
I've heard (although this is just a rumor) that the amount of control he was given over the cast was tied to the success of his last movie. And...his last movie, not so successful.
So I'm suspecting the fault lies more with the producers.
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I had some people who were talking to me earlier tonight... panning the actor choices not because they were white, but because some of them were horrible actors and/or tween-magnets.
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What do I know about the language spoken in the Fire Nation (or anyway, from which it draws some or all of its names)? I have two samples: Azula and Zuko. And I think those are siblings, so either they theme-named their kids or this is a coincidence. Anyway, zu is apparently a sequence that occurs with some regularity. The sounds that occur on either side of it are in both cases pretty unexotic. Further, there's no reason to believe there isn't a morpheme boundary between, say, azu and la. There's no evidence to suggest this name has anything to do with the Spanish word azul and is not a randomly-arising coincidence. I can't speak to the creator's intent, but neither can the people who disagree with me, and unlike them ( ... )
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How the hell do they come up with this stupidity? o_O
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I don't care what you think of his scripts or his past movies, but chances are that he had nothing to do with the casting.
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So I'm suspecting the fault lies more with the producers.
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Sokka and Katara? Both white. Zuko? Jesse fucking McCartney.
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tho...lolling at anyone assuming they'll care about eyecolors LOL
did they even make the effort for Harry Potter?
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But seriously. Eye color = BIG FAT EXCUSE FOR WHITEY rather than anything meaningful.
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