(no subject)
First, happy birthday to me! Yay!
In more important news, OMG AVATAR FINALE LOVE LOVE WANT MORE SQUEE.
Lots and lots of thoughts here. I'll start with the stuff I didn't like, to tone down the squee.
First, what the hell happened to Hakoda and Haru and all those other guys? Was there a point to them at all? Especially Chitsang (or whatever prisoner guy's name was), who joined up at the end of Boiling Rock and did nothing else of merit ever? They could've at least joined up with the White Lotus to take back Ba Sing Se or something. They escaped in a damn warship, and we never see them again. Sloppy.
I hated the bit where they asked Iroh to take down Ozai, and he went all "That is the Avatar's duty because of DESTINY" shtick. I hated it when Zuko made the same excuse in "The Day of Black Sun" and I hated it here. It's just such a...cop-out way of doing things. Yes, the story demands that Aang defeat Ozai, but I feel like the characters should be less concerned with that and more concerned with, y'know, just getting Ozai stopped.
Zuko's mom. We get that bit at the end and no closure? YOU BITCHES. (I demand spin-off! Or a movie or anything to clear that up. Pretty please?) Also, would've liked to at least see Azula in prison there somewhere. Really, what did they do with her? Did Aang take her bending too, or was that something he could only do once (or would only want to do once, since it's dangerous to do?) Or can she still bend and is locked up somewhere plotting revenge? A little hint would've been nice.
Also, as far as closure goes, I'm torn on the thing with Toph's parents. It would've been nice to have some closure there, but on the other hand, having them show up all "Oh honey we're so proud of you blah blah" would've been too...trite. So I dunno. (And Hawkey! I demand to know what became of Hawkey!)
Also torn on the Azula vs. Katara fight. Because on the one hand, I feel that should've been Zuko's fight and Zuko's win. On the other, he was winning before she played dirty, and I would've been annoyed if Katara was the only girl left out of the battle entirely.
And Azula herself. I'll have to think about that breakdown. On the one hand, it seemed very sudden, but on the other, it makes some sense. Maybe we'd seen more of her in the eps leading up to this, just so we could see the slow unraveling and it would've seemed a little less sudden. As the Ursa-apparetion-thingy said, Azula's always kept people in line through fear. Now her "friends' have betrayed her and she can't understand why -- can't understand that it's not really a friendship when they only follow her because she'll kill them if they don't, can't understand that there are some things that can cause people to overcome fear and act in spite of it. Add to that Ozai not allowing her to come with him --"You can't treat me like this, you can't treat me like Zuko!" -- and she starts to lose it. Even if he made her Firelord, he's still leaving her behind, where she can't really do anything but wait for the news that the world has been conquered. Azula's always been the favored child (for everyone but Ursa, and so she hates Ursa) and can't deal with being marginalized, being betrayed, being defeated, because no one's ever prepared her for it. So she starts to lose it, and lose it big. And her at the end, defeated, crying and screaming and raging like an animal, was actually very sad, I think. Poor crazy Azula.
Now. Onto the SQUEE.
Zuko and Iroh. LOVE. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I squealed out loud when they hugged. Damn, Zuko, why do you have to be so adorable? I've been waiting for that reunion all season, and it didn't disappoint.
Aang's dilemma was awesome in that they even let him have it. So many shows -- and not just kids' shows -- gloss over that entirely. "To defeat this person you have to kill him." Usually that's either glossed over entirely by neatly sending the person to jail (where they may kill themselves or die from outside forces) or the matter is taken out of the hero's hands entirely (see: any Disney movie where the villain falls to his death.) Take something like, say, the ending of The Lion King: technically, to regain his throne, Simba should've killed Scar. But he doesn't, and no one ever suggests that he should, when logically you'd think at least someone would've brought up "Oh yeah, you'll probably have to kill your uncle in cold blood. That okay?" So instead, Simba lets Scar go and gets to be all heroic, and then the hyenas kill Scar, because he needed to be killed to be neutralized as threat, and since the hyenas were set up as bad guys, it's okay for them to kill him. Avatar didn't take that track. Aang saw that he had to kill Ozai, everyone told him he had to kill Ozai, and Aang found another way -- not because the censors demanded it, but because Aang the character demanded it. Because Aang won't compromise his belief that all life is sacred, and because if Ozai had died another way, by falling or whatever, it would've destroyed Aang as a character. Aang wouldn't accept that death, even if he didn't actually deliver the blow. So Aang searches, and finds his own answer.
And on that note, I love that they were able to make it very clear what Aang's dilemma was. None of this "destroy" or "defeat" sugarcoating, the show made it very clear that everyone expected Aang to kill the Firelord dead. Sokka chopping "the melonlord" in half was pretty hardcore when you think about it (since he's basically advocating chopping Ozai's head in half and then you remember that Sokka's a child of war, after all).
I want to be Toph when I grow up. There's something awesome in a show where the resident badass is a tiny blind girl (it was in the previous ep, but I also loved how thrilled she was to be portrayed by a big beefy dude in the play. Oh, Toph). In fact, all the girls were awesome. Avatar has some of the best female characters on TV, I swear.
The music. I want a soundtrack, now. Especially for the Zuko vs Azula Agni Kai, which was EPIC. And the animation was stellar, too. When the Fire Nation troops start sending down fire from the airships and burning everything it was just breath-taking. Everyone really outdid themselves in this ep.
I'll probably have more coherent thoughts and criticism later, but for now, once more: OMG SQUEE.
In more important news, OMG AVATAR FINALE LOVE LOVE WANT MORE SQUEE.
Lots and lots of thoughts here. I'll start with the stuff I didn't like, to tone down the squee.
First, what the hell happened to Hakoda and Haru and all those other guys? Was there a point to them at all? Especially Chitsang (or whatever prisoner guy's name was), who joined up at the end of Boiling Rock and did nothing else of merit ever? They could've at least joined up with the White Lotus to take back Ba Sing Se or something. They escaped in a damn warship, and we never see them again. Sloppy.
I hated the bit where they asked Iroh to take down Ozai, and he went all "That is the Avatar's duty because of DESTINY" shtick. I hated it when Zuko made the same excuse in "The Day of Black Sun" and I hated it here. It's just such a...cop-out way of doing things. Yes, the story demands that Aang defeat Ozai, but I feel like the characters should be less concerned with that and more concerned with, y'know, just getting Ozai stopped.
Zuko's mom. We get that bit at the end and no closure? YOU BITCHES. (I demand spin-off! Or a movie or anything to clear that up. Pretty please?) Also, would've liked to at least see Azula in prison there somewhere. Really, what did they do with her? Did Aang take her bending too, or was that something he could only do once (or would only want to do once, since it's dangerous to do?) Or can she still bend and is locked up somewhere plotting revenge? A little hint would've been nice.
Also, as far as closure goes, I'm torn on the thing with Toph's parents. It would've been nice to have some closure there, but on the other hand, having them show up all "Oh honey we're so proud of you blah blah" would've been too...trite. So I dunno. (And Hawkey! I demand to know what became of Hawkey!)
Also torn on the Azula vs. Katara fight. Because on the one hand, I feel that should've been Zuko's fight and Zuko's win. On the other, he was winning before she played dirty, and I would've been annoyed if Katara was the only girl left out of the battle entirely.
And Azula herself. I'll have to think about that breakdown. On the one hand, it seemed very sudden, but on the other, it makes some sense. Maybe we'd seen more of her in the eps leading up to this, just so we could see the slow unraveling and it would've seemed a little less sudden. As the Ursa-apparetion-thingy said, Azula's always kept people in line through fear. Now her "friends' have betrayed her and she can't understand why -- can't understand that it's not really a friendship when they only follow her because she'll kill them if they don't, can't understand that there are some things that can cause people to overcome fear and act in spite of it. Add to that Ozai not allowing her to come with him --"You can't treat me like this, you can't treat me like Zuko!" -- and she starts to lose it. Even if he made her Firelord, he's still leaving her behind, where she can't really do anything but wait for the news that the world has been conquered. Azula's always been the favored child (for everyone but Ursa, and so she hates Ursa) and can't deal with being marginalized, being betrayed, being defeated, because no one's ever prepared her for it. So she starts to lose it, and lose it big. And her at the end, defeated, crying and screaming and raging like an animal, was actually very sad, I think. Poor crazy Azula.
Now. Onto the SQUEE.
Zuko and Iroh. LOVE. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I squealed out loud when they hugged. Damn, Zuko, why do you have to be so adorable? I've been waiting for that reunion all season, and it didn't disappoint.
Aang's dilemma was awesome in that they even let him have it. So many shows -- and not just kids' shows -- gloss over that entirely. "To defeat this person you have to kill him." Usually that's either glossed over entirely by neatly sending the person to jail (where they may kill themselves or die from outside forces) or the matter is taken out of the hero's hands entirely (see: any Disney movie where the villain falls to his death.) Take something like, say, the ending of The Lion King: technically, to regain his throne, Simba should've killed Scar. But he doesn't, and no one ever suggests that he should, when logically you'd think at least someone would've brought up "Oh yeah, you'll probably have to kill your uncle in cold blood. That okay?" So instead, Simba lets Scar go and gets to be all heroic, and then the hyenas kill Scar, because he needed to be killed to be neutralized as threat, and since the hyenas were set up as bad guys, it's okay for them to kill him. Avatar didn't take that track. Aang saw that he had to kill Ozai, everyone told him he had to kill Ozai, and Aang found another way -- not because the censors demanded it, but because Aang the character demanded it. Because Aang won't compromise his belief that all life is sacred, and because if Ozai had died another way, by falling or whatever, it would've destroyed Aang as a character. Aang wouldn't accept that death, even if he didn't actually deliver the blow. So Aang searches, and finds his own answer.
And on that note, I love that they were able to make it very clear what Aang's dilemma was. None of this "destroy" or "defeat" sugarcoating, the show made it very clear that everyone expected Aang to kill the Firelord dead. Sokka chopping "the melonlord" in half was pretty hardcore when you think about it (since he's basically advocating chopping Ozai's head in half and then you remember that Sokka's a child of war, after all).
I want to be Toph when I grow up. There's something awesome in a show where the resident badass is a tiny blind girl (it was in the previous ep, but I also loved how thrilled she was to be portrayed by a big beefy dude in the play. Oh, Toph). In fact, all the girls were awesome. Avatar has some of the best female characters on TV, I swear.
The music. I want a soundtrack, now. Especially for the Zuko vs Azula Agni Kai, which was EPIC. And the animation was stellar, too. When the Fire Nation troops start sending down fire from the airships and burning everything it was just breath-taking. Everyone really outdid themselves in this ep.
I'll probably have more coherent thoughts and criticism later, but for now, once more: OMG SQUEE.