Avatar fanon that kind of puzzles me

[sholio]

Herbs that suppress prisoners' ability to bend their element. This one comes up in a lot of fic, and ... I don't know, the first time I ran across it I just thought, huh, interesting idea, but about the twentieth time, I started wondering if there's some bit of canon to support this that I'm forgetting. Because it strikes me as actively counter to what we saw in the show itself -- there were quite a lot of episodes in which we saw prisoners and prisons, and it was pretty well established how prisoners with *-bending ability are dealt with. Earth- and water-benders are isolated from their element; firebenders are imprisoned in metal cages surrounded by stone walls, so they have nothing to burn (or, in groups, they're guarded by enough firebenders to counter anything they might try to do). For prisoner transport, they bind someone's hands and feet so they can't make the moves required to bend their element.

If they have a chemical way of suppressing bending, shouldn't they have used it at some point rather than using various physical work-arounds?

This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/287902.html with comments.

Comments

[ga-unicorn.livejournal.com]

It's called laziness. Seriously. I'm not into the Avatar fandom, but it's something I've noticed in a lot of fic - there's a canon explanation for something, but it's difficult to work around so they make up something easy to use. In this case it's herbs/drugs, which makes the more discerning reader go hmmm... if this was available, then why do all the other bad guys go to all the trouble to arrange these camps to isolate benders from their element?

I can handle a little of it, but when it starts to become fanon I start to get annoyed. I've run into canon roadblocks in my own writing and been tempted. I hope I've avoided temptation.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Avatar but from what you've said it sounds like fanon. It's either an idea a lot of authors liked and so latched onto, or the product of people who don't know the show very well so felt the need to fill in the blanks rather than research.

I dislike most fanon cliches because they get used to death (Ex. Zelenka's still) but despise them when they make absolutely no sense (Ex. John escaping the infirmary for no reason when he's still severely injured). In my current fandom there was talk about one character being claustrophobic even though A: it was never mentioned in canon except as a means of distraction and B: considering what the character does it makes no sense that he would be claustrophobic. However, this particular piece of fanon is getting nipped in the bud pretty quick.