(no subject)

[joiedecombat]

So now that Avatar is over, I wandered over to the Television Without Pity Avatar forum to see what other people had to say about the finale.


What people mostly seem to be saying about the finale is that the cast (and, by extension, the writers) were terribly unfair to poor Azula not to give her a chance for redemption.

Which, you know... maybe I'm just getting mean and cynical as I get older, but frankly, I'd have been affronted if Azula had gotten a last-minute redemption. As I mentioned in my last post, I really was hoping for her to meet a karmic death, but given that what did happen to her was probably worse than that, I was satisfied with her fate. And I don't really think it particularly speaks any less of Zuko or Aang or Iroh or anyone else that nobody tried giving her a let's-be-friends speech.

I really thought that Azula's treatment was pretty much telegraphed from way back. She's been consistently characterized as a sociopath who controls people by manipulation. The flashbacks involving her in "Zuko Alone" - tormenting small animals, her brother, and her friends with equal ease, displaying no grief for her cousin, casually expressing her hope that her uncle would die, and taking outright glee in the prospect of Ozai killing Zuko - are especially telling, as is her immunity to Toph's lie-detector.

And then there's the exchange between Zuko and Iroh in... I can't remember if it's "The Chase" or "Bitter Work":
"I know what you're going to say. She's my sister, and I should be trying to get along with her."
"No. She's crazy, and she needs to go down."
Of anyone in the series, Iroh is the most consistently portrayed as the voice of wisdom, and his advice has, as far as I can remember, always been depicted as being correct. At the time, I remember being quite impressed that the series went that route, having even the resident voice of wisdom state that the villain needs to be put down like a mad dog, instead of pushing for an ultimate reconciliation and redemption and blood-is-thicker etc.

So I'm really kind of puzzled by all the "Aww, poor Azula," and the various defenses and justifications being presented (all mostly based around "well, we never see her demonstrating any particular care for anyone but herself or potential for redemption, but that doesn't actually mean she's not capable...") Does anybody who actually likes her as a character have any particular light to shed?

This is an impressively negative post. To follow that up: I finally went to see The Dark Knight yesterday, after failing to quite be motivated to do so earlier. I wasn't as impressed with it as most of my friends list, I'm afraid. It wasn't by any means a bad movie, but I thought it reveled a bit too much in how scary and crazy the Joker is - and yes, the Joker should be exactly this crazy and scary, but I think the point was belabored at the expense of both the plotline and Batman's role in the story. Batman himself was essentially tertiary character compared to the Joker and Harvey Dent.

Plus, with regards to Harvey, there was practically another half a movie shoehorned in that could and probably should have been reserved for a sequel.

So, yeah.

Comments

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

As someone who hasn't had the opportunity to watch the last few episodes yet, but who very much likes Azula as a villain...I would have been disappointed if she'd died, because while she is awfully villainous, she's also very young and very much shaped by her background (she never had much in the way of influences telling her not to be villainous, and was rewarded by her father whenever she did awful things). I would also have been disappointed if Our Heroes had gone and forgiven her, because that would just be dumb. Ditto redemption. I don't think Azula always has to be a total monster--again, she's fourteen--but any form of redemption would be partial and it wouldn't happen overnight. I don't actually know the details of what happens, but merely defeating her and stripping her of power sounds like the best thing that could happen to her as a character: it'll be awful for her, but it also leaves open the possibility that she might someday learn a little about humility and actually having to treat people right, and while she'll never be nice, she might someday be able to grasp that she treated her friends and family wrong.

This is basically the reason I like Azula as a villain. She's pretty damn evil, without any secret nobility, but it doesn't come out of nowhere; she's not just a random psycho who's always been that way. It's easy to see how a privileged upbringing by a power-hungry father ensured that someone who otherwise might merely have been ruthless and kind of nasty became a full-blown power-mad sociopath. And this doesn't excuse her, but it leaves open more opportunities for development than simply "oh, she's just plain bad."

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

Hm. Put that way, I think that her ultimate fate in the finale may really be the best of both worlds - in that she certainly receives comeuppance for her actions throughout the series, and it's probably even more appropriate than her death would be - but the possibility remains open, somewhere down the road, for her to learn how to be a human being.

I am still kind of puzzled by all the sympathy, but, you know, it's fandom.

[infinitepryde.livejournal.com]

On TDK:

I don't think the Dark Knight was a perfect movie, or a perfect Bat-movie, by any stripe; and I think both Harvey Dent and Jim Gordon were better done than the Joker ... and yeah, I may be ostracized in some quarters for saying so. ;D

I *do* think that the Joker was warranted by ... well, one thing, and neither you nor I are all that much in the target audience for it, but oh, God, even if what happened in the theater I was in happened nowhere else, it was worth it.

Most of the audience was laughing with the Joker for most of the movie.

When the boat scene hit ...

... they realized they were in the 396 civilians.

And there was no more laughing.

Watching most of a theatre full of people get shocked into reevaluating how they look at things? That was what impressed me.

[elsewhere7.livejournal.com]

Wait, there are...Azula? As in 'the Turtleducks swim for their lives if she comes near the pool at the palace' Azula? The one who shot a 12-year old boy with lightning? The one who had two friends that she basically controlled through fear and unspoken threats? The one who is a complete and total sociopath, even before she went psycho bugnuts and never had a moment of remorse?

And people feel bad for her? They wanted her to be redeemed? Ozai wasn't redeemed, and my guess is post-finale Aang did the Chi-bending on Azula to take away her powers, then Fire Lord Zuko had her put in a straightjacket and locked away. And I consider that to be merciful (and IC for both Aang and Zuko).

God, is there no fandom where there are no crazies?