In Defense of Mai: Fandom Misperceptions and Answers to Her Detractors
This was originally part of the Fire Nation culture essay, but it was off topic enough that I decided to expand it into an essay of its own.
It's a strange feeling to find out that something you take for granted is anything but evident to other people. Like when you think small dogs are the cutest things in the world but your friend sees them as annoying little yappy dogs. Or when you feel your significant other is the best thing that ever happened to you but your friends and family hate him or her. Large or small, these mismatches in the way we see the world make for conversations that are exhilarating, exhausting, and everything in between.
In this fandom, I experienced something like that in fan perceptions of Mai. I wasn't puzzled by the shipping--I ship a lot of different things, and can understand where Zuko/Katara, for instance, comes from. But the way some fans saw Mai just seemed completely out of whack with what I saw in the show. Disagreeing with her choices or disliking her because they don't like her personality, I could understand. My confusion was that many fans who disliked Mai didn't seem to know what her choices or personality were. That, or we had watched completely different shows, which is a possibility.
My argument isn't that OMGYouShouldTotallyLoveMaiBecauseIDo!!!11!, which is silly. Rather, my argument is that if fans are going to dislike Mai they should at least know who they're disliking and why. I firmly believe we should be as wise in our hatreds as our loves, otherwise we end up looking foolish.
So let's look at two of the arguments made by fans who dislike Mai, and match them against the actual show. This is not an exhaustive list of the reasons fans dislike Mai, but rather the ones that I think are unsupported by the events of ATLA.
- Mai is cold and emotionless about everything, including Zuko. Related: This makes her incompatible with Zuko because he is himself highly passionate and craves love.
- Mai is lazy. She would rather complain about how much things suck than go out and do something about it.
There are other possible complaints about the character, including that she allowed herself to be led by Azula for too long, or that she was too dismissive of Zuko's vulnerability in "The Awakening." I might disagree about the interpretation of these events, but these are valid criticisms because they are based on actual events in the show. Mai has certainly done bad things, mostly in assisting Azula, and the moral implications of her actions should not be dismissed. I do feel Zuko has done even worse things and doesn't get nearly as much flak as Mai does, but again this is a matter of interpretation and different viewpoints can be equally valid. For an answer to these points of contention, see yukinoomoni's Why I Love Mai.
The charges of coldness and laziness, however, may have been valid early in Mai's appearance but do not apply past a certain point. These are not points of disagreement but an issue of what happened on the show, so I feel comfortable in saying that these opinions are simply wrong if one is talking about Mai past the midpoint of Book 3. And if Mai detractors dislike her for her Book 2 actions, why the selectiveness? Why cut off the show at Book 2 where Mai is concerned and purposefully ignore her character development in Book 3? Zuko doesn't get that kind of treatment; I haven't seen anyone say only Book 1 or Book 2 Zuko counts and Book 3 is somehow not canon or not important. Yet this seems to be the position of the people who most dislike Mai, and it's not a valid view of the canon unless canon has an arbitrary cutoff point.
"People are saying what about me now? Sorry, too busy being awesome to notice."
So let's examine the criticism of Mai for coldness and laziness. First I'd like to get a feel for where Mai's detractors are coming from. I have a theory that for many anti-Mai Avatar fans Mai is a reminder of a cool, uncaring girl they knew, the social careerist who could care less about friends or boyfriends other than as status symbols, who expects the world to cater to their every whim rather than go out and make something happen.
I won't deny that Mai has elements of that detestable high-society girl. Unlike Ty Lee who willingly left her noble background behind, and Azula who, whatever her faults, was never afraid of getting her hands dirty, Mai in her earliest appearances seems not to care about anything enough to lift an elegant finger. She seems, in other words, to be a creature of perpetual ennui and entitlement. Contrast those characteristics to Katara, a character who has a lot of passion and energy (very Fire Nation characteristics, as explored in the culture essay), and I can see why fans would think Katara would be a better match for Zuko.
However. Yes, there's a 'but' to all this, so Mai's fans can feel free to put away their throwing knives. Even though Mai's critics have some basis in canon, I believe the above conception of Mai is a misreading for two important reasons. First, it ignores the fact that Mai is a character who cares too much, not too little. Second, it assumes Mai's character is static, ignoring most of her later development in favor of first impressions.
On the first count, the seemingly preposterous claim that Mai suffered from an excess rather than deficiency of passion, let's ask what may seem like an obvious question. Why did Mai's upbringing lead her to hide her emotions away? Because it hurt. It hurt to be told her thoughts and feelings were wrong, and it hurt because she cared about what she believed in. Her choice to lock her feelings away did not mean her emotions did not matter to her, it meant they were so important that she had to protect them at all costs, much like armor protects the most vulnerable parts of the body. (Unless you're talking chainmail bikini, of course.) I have no idea why viewers buy Mai's facade of being cold and uncaring, despite every indication otherwise and every piece of character development the writers threw at them.
This brings us to the second and more serious misperception of canon, the mistake of ignoring character development. The truth is that in Book 3 Mai cast off even that pretense of aloofness. From her initial 'I don't hate you,' she went on to openly admit on "The Beach" that she cared for Zuko. This is a particular act of courage, not just because of her usual defense of I-don't-give-a-damn, but because she's opening up in front of Azula who is notorious for using people's vulnerabilities. In light of later events we can read Mai's declaration here as a warning shot--one Azula was not emotionally astute enough to recognize. Later on, Mai showed her softer side even more openly as she cheered and comforted Zuko throughout episodes like Nightmares an Daydreams.
And when Zuko seemingly stomped on her feelings by leaving during The Day of Black Sun, making her worst fears of rejection a reality, did she crawl back into her shell and stay there? No, she put everything, including her life, on the line on "The Boiling Rock, Part 2" to save his. This is the part that boggles me most about allegations that Mai is emotionless and uncaring. She may be one of the few characters in fiction to willingly risk her life for a loved one and STILL be accused of being an unfeeling witch. What does she have to do, jump in a pit of lava? Except then people will say she was so cold and selfish that she killed herself. *facepalm*
"This is my cold and uncaring face. Trust me on this."
As for laziness, yes, she was whiny little bitch in her initial appearances. That's not some unforgivable crime, it's something 90% of teenagers and for that matter adults do according to my unscientific estimates. And even that is negated by later development. Yes, leading such a restricted life made her unwilling to show initiative, and that led her to follow Azula into some terrible deeds like the capture of the Kyoshi Warriors and the takeover of Ba Sing Se. Even if Mai weren't already affected by her upbringing, you can't ignore Azula's effect on people. Ty Lee didn't lack for initiative or passion, but she still followed Azula when Azula cowed her into submission. It's valid to criticize Mai for her choices because fear is not an excuse for bad deeds, but completely ignoring her reasons is a case of selective perception.
Furthermore, just like the charge that she lacks passion, the charge of being lazy is invalidated by later developments. Besides all the emotional support she gave Zuko during his internal turmoil, are the people who think Mai has no initiative saying she lazily risked her life for Zuko's and lazily defied Azula? We're either talking about a whole new definition of laziness or a case of serious canon-cherry-picking.
So unless Mai's detractors are going to make the incredibly tortuous argument that her every show of emotion and every change she went through, including and up to risking her life for Zuko, is a sham designed to bag herself a prince of the Fire Nation, the accusation that Mai is a cold and uncaring social climber falls apart in the face of canon. Actually, the social climber angle doesn't even make sense because Zuko was a disgraced traitor when Mai saved his life at Boiling Rock. In addition, the way she directly defied Azula made it all too likely that she wouldn't be alive to enjoy the fruits of her relationship with Zuko even if Zuko did take the throne. If anti-Mai ATLA fans are alleging that she foresaw this entire sequence of events--that Zuko would be Firelord, and she would live to see it--on Boiling Rock, that makes Mai a genius or a seer and therefore awesome on a completely different level. I don't know if hating on a fictional character is worth the energy of adopting these far-fetched theories, but whatever helps you sleep at night.
Above: Inserted to make it hard for anti-Mai Zutarans to sleep at night.
In sum: It's perfectly fine to hate Mai. I just wish people would hate the character Mai who was actually in this show called Avatar: The Last Airbender, and not the imaginary show that was cancelled after Book 2. There are valid reasons to dislike Mai, but "cold and uncaring" and "lazy and whiny" are not two of them.
It's a strange feeling to find out that something you take for granted is anything but evident to other people. Like when you think small dogs are the cutest things in the world but your friend sees them as annoying little yappy dogs. Or when you feel your significant other is the best thing that ever happened to you but your friends and family hate him or her. Large or small, these mismatches in the way we see the world make for conversations that are exhilarating, exhausting, and everything in between.
In this fandom, I experienced something like that in fan perceptions of Mai. I wasn't puzzled by the shipping--I ship a lot of different things, and can understand where Zuko/Katara, for instance, comes from. But the way some fans saw Mai just seemed completely out of whack with what I saw in the show. Disagreeing with her choices or disliking her because they don't like her personality, I could understand. My confusion was that many fans who disliked Mai didn't seem to know what her choices or personality were. That, or we had watched completely different shows, which is a possibility.
My argument isn't that OMGYouShouldTotallyLoveMaiBecauseIDo!!!11!, which is silly. Rather, my argument is that if fans are going to dislike Mai they should at least know who they're disliking and why. I firmly believe we should be as wise in our hatreds as our loves, otherwise we end up looking foolish.
So let's look at two of the arguments made by fans who dislike Mai, and match them against the actual show. This is not an exhaustive list of the reasons fans dislike Mai, but rather the ones that I think are unsupported by the events of ATLA.
- Mai is cold and emotionless about everything, including Zuko. Related: This makes her incompatible with Zuko because he is himself highly passionate and craves love.
- Mai is lazy. She would rather complain about how much things suck than go out and do something about it.
There are other possible complaints about the character, including that she allowed herself to be led by Azula for too long, or that she was too dismissive of Zuko's vulnerability in "The Awakening." I might disagree about the interpretation of these events, but these are valid criticisms because they are based on actual events in the show. Mai has certainly done bad things, mostly in assisting Azula, and the moral implications of her actions should not be dismissed. I do feel Zuko has done even worse things and doesn't get nearly as much flak as Mai does, but again this is a matter of interpretation and different viewpoints can be equally valid. For an answer to these points of contention, see yukinoomoni's Why I Love Mai.
The charges of coldness and laziness, however, may have been valid early in Mai's appearance but do not apply past a certain point. These are not points of disagreement but an issue of what happened on the show, so I feel comfortable in saying that these opinions are simply wrong if one is talking about Mai past the midpoint of Book 3. And if Mai detractors dislike her for her Book 2 actions, why the selectiveness? Why cut off the show at Book 2 where Mai is concerned and purposefully ignore her character development in Book 3? Zuko doesn't get that kind of treatment; I haven't seen anyone say only Book 1 or Book 2 Zuko counts and Book 3 is somehow not canon or not important. Yet this seems to be the position of the people who most dislike Mai, and it's not a valid view of the canon unless canon has an arbitrary cutoff point.
"People are saying what about me now? Sorry, too busy being awesome to notice."
So let's examine the criticism of Mai for coldness and laziness. First I'd like to get a feel for where Mai's detractors are coming from. I have a theory that for many anti-Mai Avatar fans Mai is a reminder of a cool, uncaring girl they knew, the social careerist who could care less about friends or boyfriends other than as status symbols, who expects the world to cater to their every whim rather than go out and make something happen.
I won't deny that Mai has elements of that detestable high-society girl. Unlike Ty Lee who willingly left her noble background behind, and Azula who, whatever her faults, was never afraid of getting her hands dirty, Mai in her earliest appearances seems not to care about anything enough to lift an elegant finger. She seems, in other words, to be a creature of perpetual ennui and entitlement. Contrast those characteristics to Katara, a character who has a lot of passion and energy (very Fire Nation characteristics, as explored in the culture essay), and I can see why fans would think Katara would be a better match for Zuko.
However. Yes, there's a 'but' to all this, so Mai's fans can feel free to put away their throwing knives. Even though Mai's critics have some basis in canon, I believe the above conception of Mai is a misreading for two important reasons. First, it ignores the fact that Mai is a character who cares too much, not too little. Second, it assumes Mai's character is static, ignoring most of her later development in favor of first impressions.
On the first count, the seemingly preposterous claim that Mai suffered from an excess rather than deficiency of passion, let's ask what may seem like an obvious question. Why did Mai's upbringing lead her to hide her emotions away? Because it hurt. It hurt to be told her thoughts and feelings were wrong, and it hurt because she cared about what she believed in. Her choice to lock her feelings away did not mean her emotions did not matter to her, it meant they were so important that she had to protect them at all costs, much like armor protects the most vulnerable parts of the body. (Unless you're talking chainmail bikini, of course.) I have no idea why viewers buy Mai's facade of being cold and uncaring, despite every indication otherwise and every piece of character development the writers threw at them.
This brings us to the second and more serious misperception of canon, the mistake of ignoring character development. The truth is that in Book 3 Mai cast off even that pretense of aloofness. From her initial 'I don't hate you,' she went on to openly admit on "The Beach" that she cared for Zuko. This is a particular act of courage, not just because of her usual defense of I-don't-give-a-damn, but because she's opening up in front of Azula who is notorious for using people's vulnerabilities. In light of later events we can read Mai's declaration here as a warning shot--one Azula was not emotionally astute enough to recognize. Later on, Mai showed her softer side even more openly as she cheered and comforted Zuko throughout episodes like Nightmares an Daydreams.
And when Zuko seemingly stomped on her feelings by leaving during The Day of Black Sun, making her worst fears of rejection a reality, did she crawl back into her shell and stay there? No, she put everything, including her life, on the line on "The Boiling Rock, Part 2" to save his. This is the part that boggles me most about allegations that Mai is emotionless and uncaring. She may be one of the few characters in fiction to willingly risk her life for a loved one and STILL be accused of being an unfeeling witch. What does she have to do, jump in a pit of lava? Except then people will say she was so cold and selfish that she killed herself. *facepalm*
"This is my cold and uncaring face. Trust me on this."
As for laziness, yes, she was whiny little bitch in her initial appearances. That's not some unforgivable crime, it's something 90% of teenagers and for that matter adults do according to my unscientific estimates. And even that is negated by later development. Yes, leading such a restricted life made her unwilling to show initiative, and that led her to follow Azula into some terrible deeds like the capture of the Kyoshi Warriors and the takeover of Ba Sing Se. Even if Mai weren't already affected by her upbringing, you can't ignore Azula's effect on people. Ty Lee didn't lack for initiative or passion, but she still followed Azula when Azula cowed her into submission. It's valid to criticize Mai for her choices because fear is not an excuse for bad deeds, but completely ignoring her reasons is a case of selective perception.
Furthermore, just like the charge that she lacks passion, the charge of being lazy is invalidated by later developments. Besides all the emotional support she gave Zuko during his internal turmoil, are the people who think Mai has no initiative saying she lazily risked her life for Zuko's and lazily defied Azula? We're either talking about a whole new definition of laziness or a case of serious canon-cherry-picking.
So unless Mai's detractors are going to make the incredibly tortuous argument that her every show of emotion and every change she went through, including and up to risking her life for Zuko, is a sham designed to bag herself a prince of the Fire Nation, the accusation that Mai is a cold and uncaring social climber falls apart in the face of canon. Actually, the social climber angle doesn't even make sense because Zuko was a disgraced traitor when Mai saved his life at Boiling Rock. In addition, the way she directly defied Azula made it all too likely that she wouldn't be alive to enjoy the fruits of her relationship with Zuko even if Zuko did take the throne. If anti-Mai ATLA fans are alleging that she foresaw this entire sequence of events--that Zuko would be Firelord, and she would live to see it--on Boiling Rock, that makes Mai a genius or a seer and therefore awesome on a completely different level. I don't know if hating on a fictional character is worth the energy of adopting these far-fetched theories, but whatever helps you sleep at night.
Above: Inserted to make it hard for anti-Mai Zutarans to sleep at night.
In sum: It's perfectly fine to hate Mai. I just wish people would hate the character Mai who was actually in this show called Avatar: The Last Airbender, and not the imaginary show that was cancelled after Book 2. There are valid reasons to dislike Mai, but "cold and uncaring" and "lazy and whiny" are not two of them.