[Fanfic] The Old Ways

[thewaterbandit]

Title: The Old Ways
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Ahna (Southern Water Tribe), Lee (Fire Nation)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Sort of a companion to Kesuk's piece. Ahna Kicks Ass.

Comments

[skelody]

Oh my ♥

I love the, the spin -- I mean, all right, haven't really done more than dip my toes in AtLA fandom, so I dunno, but it's interesting to see the regression of the Southern Water Tribe in light of empowerment and cultural retrenching -- hate-influenced though it may be -- rather than simply "Oh, technological regression, how sad."

yay I use too many dashes~

[thewaterbandit]

I haven't really seen this in fandom either- it's mostly my own thoughts along the lines of noticing that the Southern Water Tribe had a really strong sense of cultural identity in the show (Sokka's coming-of-age, the ritual warpaint, the function of Katara's waterbending as not only a nifty way to fight but, as Sokka said in the very first episode, 'a part of our cultural heritage') and wondering how they'd managed to hold on to it as one tiny village. Also it's kind of a cool answer to the Fire Nation's technological superiority- yes, they have this power that allows them to dominate the other nations in warfare, but they've lost huge amounts of their roots along the way (It's significant to note that out of all of the bending members of the Gaang, Zuko connects with the origin of his bending last, and he was ignorant of the true source before). It's a suprisingly deep angle for a kid's show and I'm pretty sure it was deliberate on the creators' part.

(You use too many dashes, I abuse my brackets)

[futuresoon]

Daaaaamn, I got chills from this. Like skelody said, the take on "cultural destruction = cultural resurgence" is a hella interesting one, and one I'd never thought of before--now I want to see Ahna interacting with, like, Katara's mom or someone, the last few Waterbenders. But I can totally deal with the next one being the one where Lee goes slowly bonkers. :D (Okay that sounds horrible. But it's interesting, dammit.)

[thewaterbandit]

Ahna probably really cherishes her Waterbenders because of how precious they are to her culture, as well as how few there are left. It's one of the things that bothered me most about the show; how the Fire Nation was systematically trying to destroy everything that made the nations different.

I'm hoping that doing the Lee-goes-crazy fic will stop him popping up in all of the others' stories because damn, he's an attention whore.

[flying_girl73]

Very very nice.

Maybe part of the other legends of the Water Tribe refer to their Nations as "The Children of the Wolf and Moon". But maybe that'd be overboard since you already have Child of the Moon for Waterbenders. I like how you use the Wolf as well because of how the moon is the bending side of the Water Tribe with Wolf is the warrior side. Nicely done.