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More Avatar:TLA thoughts (who's surprised?)
I rewatched the first couple episodes of A:tLA (I just went in to check a canon thing, and then couldn't stop) and it made me reflect all over again on how well put together the series is.
One of the challenging things about genre writing is working within limitations -- in order to get published, it basically has to conform to a publisher or editor's idea of what an epic fantasy or a mystery or a romance should be. Really skillful genre fiction, then, manages to succeed on two levels: on the one level, it's a romance or an action SF novel or whatever -- just entertaining, fun, and conforming to genre expectations, so that people who pick it up know what to expect -- but if you look deeper, or stick with it long enough, it turns out to be operating at this whole other level as well.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that quite so brilliantly with a kids' show before. American children's TV is incredibly limited as a genre; not only do you have heavy-duty content restrictions on what you can show or talk about, but there are also all these expectations that network execs have for the show, and that parents have when they tune in -- that you'll have plucky kid heroes, and comic bumbling villains, and cute animals, and happy endings all around.
What's fascinating to me is how the first few episodes of Avatar conform to all the kids'-show trappings -- the plucky kids and their cute animal sidekick(s) outwit the goofy villains -- but at the same time, it lays all the groundwork for what comes later ... and it's obvious that they knew exactly what was going to come later. These are the characters at the start of their journey, and knowing where it takes them, you can see that it was planned from the start, and you can see how the writers carefully crafted the characters to fit the formula and yet laid the groundwork for the ways it was going to break out.
It's really incredible.
Even beyond that, it's just fascinating to go back to the start and see how much the characters evolved and developed and changed. Zuko's evolution as a character hit my narrative kinks really hard, but going back and being able to compare the other characters' journeys and their evolution into the people they became is equally striking. Katara is just incredible -- the way she went from this:
... to the healer/warrior who takes out Azula all by herself:
And Sokka -- oh Sokka; I felt for him so hard in this episode, being the only "man" in the village (and really just a kid), and standing up to a whole warship all by himself (definitely a Crowning Moment of Awesome for him -- the first of many) ... and it's really amazing to think about the way he went from a 15-year-old struggling to be a warrior (so tiny and brave!), with his comic screaming charge at Zuko, getting brushed off like he was nothing ...
... to the guy who fought the Fire Nation army, and destroyed an armada of airships, full of firebenders with an army of two ...
And of course there's Zuko -- it's painful, almost, seeing him like this, so obsessed and miserable and full of rage. And yet, it's also fascinating to see how it works so well on both levels: there's Zuko the comic villain, comfortably foiled by the kids.
And yet there's also Zuko the raging anti-hero, lurking underneath -- the one who would grow from an angry, self-loathing failure into a hero, a king, and kind of a loveable doofus. He's so much more ... comfortable in his own skin, I guess, when he's finally come to terms with himself and found a place in Team Avatar. He probably smiles more in any given episode from the last half of season three than in the entire two and a half seasons preceding it.
And so much of his later story arc is just hinted at in the first couple of episodes, while never really arousing the audience's suspicions that it means anything, because you don't have the context yet. I love how there's that comment about going home, for example, after they take the Avatar on board his ship, which just sounds like what one would say at the end of a mission. And yet it means so much more, in light of later episodes. Or his uncle worrying that he's pushing himself too hard and trying to get him to go to bed, foreshadowing the genuine love and concern for his wellbeing that continues throughout the series and becomes so important later on.
... Oh, and this is just a random observation, but you have no idea how much it delighted me when I noticed it and realized what it meant: the night isn't dark! If they're in the Antarctic, and it will soon be the winter solstice on the other side of the world, then it's summer here -- and the night isn't dark. That thrilled me all out of proportion to its actual importance. And it's not just the way they depict night on this show, because when they're in the temperate zones later, the nights are dark (at least reasonably so). But this is Antarctic summer -- or late spring, perhaps -- so the sky is still blue at night and it's light enough to easily see. I just -- eeeee! When was the last time that anything actually got that right?
In conclusion: oh show, how are you so awesome? :D
One of the challenging things about genre writing is working within limitations -- in order to get published, it basically has to conform to a publisher or editor's idea of what an epic fantasy or a mystery or a romance should be. Really skillful genre fiction, then, manages to succeed on two levels: on the one level, it's a romance or an action SF novel or whatever -- just entertaining, fun, and conforming to genre expectations, so that people who pick it up know what to expect -- but if you look deeper, or stick with it long enough, it turns out to be operating at this whole other level as well.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that quite so brilliantly with a kids' show before. American children's TV is incredibly limited as a genre; not only do you have heavy-duty content restrictions on what you can show or talk about, but there are also all these expectations that network execs have for the show, and that parents have when they tune in -- that you'll have plucky kid heroes, and comic bumbling villains, and cute animals, and happy endings all around.
What's fascinating to me is how the first few episodes of Avatar conform to all the kids'-show trappings -- the plucky kids and their cute animal sidekick(s) outwit the goofy villains -- but at the same time, it lays all the groundwork for what comes later ... and it's obvious that they knew exactly what was going to come later. These are the characters at the start of their journey, and knowing where it takes them, you can see that it was planned from the start, and you can see how the writers carefully crafted the characters to fit the formula and yet laid the groundwork for the ways it was going to break out.
It's really incredible.
Even beyond that, it's just fascinating to go back to the start and see how much the characters evolved and developed and changed. Zuko's evolution as a character hit my narrative kinks really hard, but going back and being able to compare the other characters' journeys and their evolution into the people they became is equally striking. Katara is just incredible -- the way she went from this:
... to the healer/warrior who takes out Azula all by herself:
And Sokka -- oh Sokka; I felt for him so hard in this episode, being the only "man" in the village (and really just a kid), and standing up to a whole warship all by himself (definitely a Crowning Moment of Awesome for him -- the first of many) ... and it's really amazing to think about the way he went from a 15-year-old struggling to be a warrior (so tiny and brave!), with his comic screaming charge at Zuko, getting brushed off like he was nothing ...
... to the guy who fought the Fire Nation army, and destroyed an armada of airships, full of firebenders with an army of two ...
And of course there's Zuko -- it's painful, almost, seeing him like this, so obsessed and miserable and full of rage. And yet, it's also fascinating to see how it works so well on both levels: there's Zuko the comic villain, comfortably foiled by the kids.
And yet there's also Zuko the raging anti-hero, lurking underneath -- the one who would grow from an angry, self-loathing failure into a hero, a king, and kind of a loveable doofus. He's so much more ... comfortable in his own skin, I guess, when he's finally come to terms with himself and found a place in Team Avatar. He probably smiles more in any given episode from the last half of season three than in the entire two and a half seasons preceding it.
And so much of his later story arc is just hinted at in the first couple of episodes, while never really arousing the audience's suspicions that it means anything, because you don't have the context yet. I love how there's that comment about going home, for example, after they take the Avatar on board his ship, which just sounds like what one would say at the end of a mission. And yet it means so much more, in light of later episodes. Or his uncle worrying that he's pushing himself too hard and trying to get him to go to bed, foreshadowing the genuine love and concern for his wellbeing that continues throughout the series and becomes so important later on.
... Oh, and this is just a random observation, but you have no idea how much it delighted me when I noticed it and realized what it meant: the night isn't dark! If they're in the Antarctic, and it will soon be the winter solstice on the other side of the world, then it's summer here -- and the night isn't dark. That thrilled me all out of proportion to its actual importance. And it's not just the way they depict night on this show, because when they're in the temperate zones later, the nights are dark (at least reasonably so). But this is Antarctic summer -- or late spring, perhaps -- so the sky is still blue at night and it's light enough to easily see. I just -- eeeee! When was the last time that anything actually got that right?
In conclusion: oh show, how are you so awesome? :D