Avatar 3.16 The Southern Raiders
So. Yeah. I was going to hold off until Saturday. BUT, PREDICTABLY, I CAVED.
RAMBLING REACTIONS:
RAMBLING REACTIONS:
- That was pretty much pure awesome. IT WAS EVEN BETTER THAN I WAS EXPECTING. WOOOO.
- So like. The biggest chills were from how BADASS KATARA WAS. I looooooooved just how her waterbending stunts got crazier and crazier even as she was getting more and more ( Read more... )
Agreed. =D
Re: Aang taking a life in the name of justice
As I said elsewhere in response to someone else:
"I disagree! =)
Aang's pacifist, anti-violence stance and his purity are major components of his character, to the point that he's even a vegetarian. And it's thematically significant in his character arc: e.g. the destructiveness of the Avatar State is portrayed as a bad thing, and the one time he killed something (in "The Desert") was incredibly important in terms of showing his turning to the "dark side" for those episodes. And never mind that the theme of the show is the power of Love and how Love/Peace/Balance should be pursued instead of Power/Violence/Aggression.
And actually, based on that trailer statement, I'm surmising the exact opposite. That is, because of the statement in the trailer (mostly HOW he says it and WHEN he says it in that it seems to be towards the beginning of the movie), I'm actually betting that he will NOT kill Ozai. In that moment we see in the trailer, Aang's willing to violate his moral purity and his personal convictions for the Greater Good because Everyone Says So. That's the sense I get from it. But as the Hero he'll need to be his own person, firmly asserting his pure, pacifist nature in the moment of triumph. When Aang becomes the fully realized Avatar Aang, he'll need to be Avatar and Aang equally, not letting the divine rage and power of the Avatar engulf his true personality.
And so wow, yeahhhhhh. Basically I feel that it's extremely, extremely likely that Aang will pointedly NOT kill Ozai as a major character statement. And then maybe Ozai can die at his own hands or something?"
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You're certainly right that based on what we've seen of Aang so far, he'd rather not kill Ozai. But how is that going to solve the world's problems? If there's a single person on this show who's beyond redemption...well, besides Azula...it's Ozai. If Azula is "crazy and...needs to go down" (Iroh), what are we to think about her dad?
And all issues of character development aside, Ozai deserves to die. The deaths of thousands all over the world are on his hands. Anything else is unfair to all of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe families who lost sons and daughters and husbands and wives so he could become more powerful.
Peace and balance are certainly worthy things to pursue, but sometimes they can't be accomplished without bloodshed. In our world, anyway. Maybe it's different on Nickelodeon. But despite its fictional aspects, Avatar has always retained very strong moral connections to the real world, and I hope they won't change that for this issue.
We've all heard "Give peace a chance" and "All you need is love" from our cartoons before. I'm hoping Avatar won't fall into the same groove, because it's becoming a rut.
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Well, like the trailer mentioned spirits attacking. What if there was some kind of pheonix spirit of the comet or something and it ended up killing him? And what if he doesn't even die? What if he becomes humiliated and chained up?
I'm not speculating any of those things - but my point is that lots of things can happen other than Ozai dying by his own stupidity, or even DYING.
As for the rest of your argument: I actually wasn't arguing that killing Ozai would be bad or that it would be better for Aang to spare Ozai. I was simply saying that the SHOW is going that direction. And you totally have the right to disagree with the point the show is making, or think it's cliche, or think it implausible.
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