In which I declare myself a fandom heretic

[moonspinner]

After the euphoria of Atla's Book 3 (Fire) wore off, I realized that I had some issues with it. And some is an understatement. It took me a while (another understatement) to put them together with any degree of coherency. I don't think I succeeded. But here they are, at last, to all intents and cathartic purposes.

Comments

[alexb49]

Just stopping in to commend you on being very politic in your discussion here. It is indeed ironic that those who comment negatively on deleting yukinoomoni's comment seem to not want this discussion to take place because it's 'been said before'. If it's been said before, then obviously there are differing opinions. Telling people to not have the conversation will absolutely in no way quash the enmity that seems to come so easily in this fandom. While I disagree with deleting comments, I can understand why a comment to the effect of 'this discussion should not be happening' would be something you wouldn't want derailing a thread. Since you seem to handle yourself capably here, I would suggest simply continuing that reasonable attitude to counter those opinions rather than deleting them

[moonspinner]

I'm not a fan of censoring either. But the comment (which has been reposted verbatim over here, by the way) would have derailed the whole discussion before it had even started. Saying 'this discussion should not be happening' isn't even disagreeing with anything in my post, just - indirectly - saying the post should be censored shouldn't have been brought up in the first place. Yeah, the irony is... ironic. :P

I have to admit that it took me a long time to first: admit to myself that there were problems in S3, and then: admit to other like-minded (shipper-wise) fans that there were problems in S3 because of shipping. At first, I was just glad that my ship had won! *bows head* Then, when I tried to speak up, I noticed how quickly the show defenders were eager to jump down any critic's throat and label them a "delusional" Zutara or worse. You know you've entered scary territory when you get defriended for daring to point at the Ember Island Players and suggest that Bryke might have allowed some of their fandom sentiment seep into the

[alexb49]

I'll just repeat that you seem more than capable at handling a derailing comment so feel free to do that rather than delete the comment. It's totally appropriate to remind someone to keep it on topic rather than make the debate about the debate and make this publicly viewable. If you want, issuing a warning and deleting the comment if the person persists in going off topic, but otherwise I would recommend keeping it public

[moonspinner]

No more deleted comments, pinky swear. Of course, it’s easy for me to swear now that the whole discussion has ended up being so tame. I wonder where the idea that it’d devolve into a raging wankfest came from? :P

See, the only way people will have reasonable discourse about how they think relationships were handled in this story is by not thinking in terms of 'my ship won!'.
WORD. Because having Aang and Katara suck face in the end doesn’t negate or erase all the other ways their story could have been better or all the other flaws in S3 that had nothing to do with shipping or the fact that while I am not a Zutara fan, I do not like fan baiting nor do I like creators engaging with fandom just so as to tell a section that they are ‘doing it wrong’.

Zuko the King of Angst angsts about dumping Uncle Iroh, and about his father once being a baby, and about his sister, and his mother, and definitely about Katara not liking him… but he doesn’t spare a thought for the girl who nearly died trying to get him to safety. How do Mai fans think

[alexb49]

I forgot to say something else about canon. While creators do what they wish with their intellectual property for it to enter the realm of canon, there's plenty of examples where the creators go off the flippin' deep end. As for the essentials of the finale of S3 being planned from the beginning, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a writer who would willingly admit that they pulled it out of their ass. I believe they said in the artbook that Mai wasn't in the first draft of their story outline at all and she was only introduced much later. For shows like Lost or Twin Peaks, when the show was in production the writers were adamant that they had some grand plan when afterwards they admitted that this was not the case

[moonspinner]

If they intended to show this as a moment of Azula testing Mai's loyalty, showing that conflict would have made the attack more meaningful, and Mai's rebellion later on more significant. That they do not allow her to show a second of hesitation at attacking someone who is carrying her brother makes her out to be a sociopath.When Azula ‘recruits’ Ty Lee there is this whole segue of moments - from her scowl when Ty Lee turns her down, to the circus show, to the sweat on Ty Lee’s brow when Azula ‘alters the performance’ to Ty Lee’s “Circus called. Azula called louder.” I’ve seen the argument that Mai was smarter and didn’t want to even give Azula the impression that she was resistant. But why then show that Mai was already bored on Omashu? That Mai already liked combat and already thought that Aang, etc. were her enemies and had already attacked them before Azula even showed? Why show Mai attack Sokka at all? Why doesn’t she hesitate when Azula has gone half-way across Omashu chasing down Aang and Bumi’s coffin? And beyond that, why go