ain't no such thing as a quick-fix

[glass_icarus]

yifu asked: if there's one thing (or two) you'd like to fix about A:TLA, what would it be?

Um, a fourth season? Hahaha, just kidding! Or, well, not really, but a hypothetical S4 wouldn't necessarily be a fix, in and of itself.

The things that I would most like to fix about A:TLA are things I think everyone's already gone over: the lack of older female characters who aren't evil or absent or dead, the stuff with the guru that just feels fake and inserted as well as sadly stereotypical, the need to know what happened to Zuko's mom, AZULA. Since a story arc focused on Zuko's mom would actually require a fourth season, if I had to pick just one thing, I would pick Azula.

It's not that I find her ending totally unbelievable; if there's one thing I do believe, it's that Azula's weak points are her inability to trust and her mother issues, which can't be leveraged successfully by the Gaang in a way that would allow them to win the war. Not even by Zuko. (Azula's so much better at manipulating Zuko than he'd ever be at manipulating her, and even with all their baggage, she's still his little sister. Between his honor and his family issues, I just don't think Zuko would fight that dirty.) No, it's that her slide into the downward spiral happens offscreen and too fast. The road from ice-cold deadly prodigy-princess to emotional collapse has to involve a hell of a lot of intermediate phases, and Azula's characterization and her plot arc suffer for this lack.

Just as important to Azula's downslide is the destruction of the Fire Nation trio, which I also could have done with more of. How do Mai and Ty Lee and Azula cope with the loss of their bond? These childhood friendships gone bitter have such potential for exploration; it's like Sozin and Roku playing out all over again except with three people. I took a stab at working out the mechanics of the actual fracture in no returns or exchanges, but the process and the aftermath is something that deserves so much more detail! It's one of the things I'd really like to explore further, or see someone else explore, AHEM. ;) But then, I am always up for a DANGEROUS LADIES EPIC.

Comments

[yifu]

Lin in LoK is not explored that much, and stands out for being the only living/active/not evil older lady. In S1 anyway. (I didn't watch S2 because Tumblr assured me it's best forgotten) But yeah, those Fire Nation ladies. They deserve a season all of their own.
Thanks for replying :)

[glass_icarus]

Yes, Lin is great! I still don't automatically consider Korra as A:TLA-verse, which I guess is an interesting brain-distinction, lol.

[alexseanchai]

Have you read the AtLA comics? If you haven't, I don't exactly recommend them, but you might want to.

[glass_icarus]

I haven't, though I've thought about it! Maybe I will cave and do so for a specific comic/story arc? I enjoy noodling through gap-verse storylines in my head without any reference to new material though (and actually, given Korra S1, I sometimes have the impulse to do an epic rewrite >.>).

[alexseanchai]

In that case you may want to consider reading AtLA: The Search. I think it might rely on some stuff from The Promise, though, it's been a while since I read the first two of Search and I haven't had the chance to read part three yet, and Promise comes first.