New Fandom
Okay I've just gotten into Avatar: the Last Airbender thanks to Vathara's fic Embers.
I find I really like the series. A lot. And it's actually given me a het OTP. Weird. (It's Zuko/Katara btw, in case you're curious.)
But one thing about it that bothers me, the Avatar. The whole Avatar cycle of rebirth strikes me as rather... questionable. I mean the Avatar is reborn again and again to serves as a bridge between the four people, but he/she doesn't get any rest periods like rebirth cycles are supposed to give people.
Which leads me to this question: Is the Avatar really all that they are portrayed as, or did they do something so horrible (possibly to do with how the hell they can channel all four elements) that they were punished by the spirits to the cycle of rebirth. Never allowed to know any true rest for however long, and since spirits/gods/kami have a certain reputation for dealing out some truly epic punishments (literally), that can be for a very, very long time.
The whole reverence of the Avatar is something that might have cropped up over time and the birth of the Avatar cycle was eventually forgotten.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share my thoughts on the newest fandom to eat my brain.
I find I really like the series. A lot. And it's actually given me a het OTP. Weird. (It's Zuko/Katara btw, in case you're curious.)
But one thing about it that bothers me, the Avatar. The whole Avatar cycle of rebirth strikes me as rather... questionable. I mean the Avatar is reborn again and again to serves as a bridge between the four people, but he/she doesn't get any rest periods like rebirth cycles are supposed to give people.
Which leads me to this question: Is the Avatar really all that they are portrayed as, or did they do something so horrible (possibly to do with how the hell they can channel all four elements) that they were punished by the spirits to the cycle of rebirth. Never allowed to know any true rest for however long, and since spirits/gods/kami have a certain reputation for dealing out some truly epic punishments (literally), that can be for a very, very long time.
The whole reverence of the Avatar is something that might have cropped up over time and the birth of the Avatar cycle was eventually forgotten.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share my thoughts on the newest fandom to eat my brain.