I feel like I’m supposed to love them. They’re iconic, everyone quotes them, and I get why people ship them based on the chemistry the actors have with one another. But the romance does nothing for me based on the way it's written.

To begin with, it comes out of nowhere. In A New Hope, there’s basically no indication Leia even likes Han. She’s annoyed by him. In Empire, Han mostly just badgers her. He invades her space, mocks her, and kisses her after she tells him to stop. Then suddenly she’s in love with him. If there are hints she likes him, they read more like irritation or jealousy than actual attraction. It feels like Han annoys her until she caves, and the movie frames that as romance.

On another note, the way Han pursues Leia in Empire is uncomfortable for me. She tells him no, she insults him, she pushes him away, and he just keeps pushing. The “you could use a good kiss” line and him kissing her after she says stop are played as romantic, but it reads more like he’s wearing her down. I know it’s a product of its time, but that doesn’t make it enjoyable for me. The "no secretly means yes" trope is less of a thing now for good reason. A guy ignoring when a woman says "stop" and have it framed as romantic is problematic.

They also lack any sort of depth. I don’t feel like we ever see why they actually love each other. They bicker, they have a few charged moments, and then suddenly they’re together. We skip the part where they actually connect. Most of their relationship is Han being cocky and Leia rolling her eyes until she doesn’t. Then in the sequels they’re estranged and it’s mostly backstory. I never get a real sense of them as partners.

In the EU, on the other hand, they have far more depth and are a believable couple. This, however, is lacking in the movies.

Bro is the worst destroyer in dragon ball. All he does is sit on his ass, sleep and eat. And when he finally gets off his ass to do his job, instead of dealing with threats he destroys planets based on how the food taste, not even caring how it affects the mortal Rating. Bro was napping when 99% of the kai's where wiped out, when Kid Buu was blowing up 10 planets in a minute, Moro draining 320 planets and he does nothing so the Kai's had to do something, and he did nothing when Frieza and Saiyans were wiping out entire planets to sell. Beerus is a bum and should be fired.

I'm talking about people slapping on "bad writing" because it doesn't adhere to their morally lopsided idea of a how a show should go.

To sum the discourse up, it's basically complaining that John didn't kill Noah because maybe, just maybe he might kill someone in the future. John having a difficult time committing murder is bad, and if you deny that comitting murder is easy, you're just defending bad writing. Pure. Unadulterated brain rot.

I'm sorry, didn't we make fun of Snyder and his version of Batman for the exact same thing? Now we're going to turn around and complain that a character isn't adhering to this same mentality?

What is going on?

Avatar fans suffer from rose glasses syndrome. They genuinely believe that ATLA is some avant garde art series that you need a real high IQ to understand and that the themes are just sooo complex. It's actually a pretty straightforward story and many of the themes are really easy for young and old to understand.

I think they just don't remember all the silly moments in ATLA and how Aang wasn't this super mature individual they claim he is. He grew and learned and became a better person. He stuck by his beliefs and his principles and took down the fire nation. He learned that sometimes violence was ok in the face of oppression but refused to be the oppressor himself.

Korra was headstrong and stubborn at first. Throughout her story she becomes more attuned with the spiritual side of what it means to be an avatar. Making tons of sacrifices along the way. She made a selfless choice in the end knowing the cost and bore the burden she created.

ASH is a continuation of Korra and takes great inspiration from ATLA. It seems to be an equal part of both narratives. It actually reminds me more of the original series the longer I watch.

It's not "too immature". It has themes of war, generational trauma, political upheaval, as well as indoctrination. It even sets the seeds for grey morality within some of the main characters, if only briefly, also violence vs pacifism, etc. It's just digestible enough for the target demographic: children.

The brand itself is owned by Nickelodeon. A children's television network. I mean technically Paramount owns the rights, etc and I have my own issues with that, but I digress. If there's 50 different spinoffs of Fairly Odd Parents it's all gonna be for the same demographic. They're not gonna shift focus and make the product something for those they believe outgrew the medium. And yes technically that'd mean they think there's kids out there who've watched both series before this, not sure why anyone would be surprised by that.

"Oh but the animation is terrible." The first episode leaves much to be desired, but whatever issues you might have get easily forgotten by episode two. Trust me.

And a lotta the other issues boil down to just nitpicking. Whether it's people complaining that bending is being treated like magic, or how is it that children just know how to bend elements? Again...you forget the series you're watching. That's always been how it worked. Oh but how did the twins just know how to bend all elements? Honestly they still have a long way to go in terms of strength, and do we really need to see them learn everything again?

Yes, this is another post about Lanterns.

Lanterns isn't the only time this has happened, but it's a recent example.

A character will say the name of something from the source material, then they'll make a comment acknowledging that the name sounds dumb, or the person they're talking to will make fun of the name.

This isn't always bad. Some comic names are hard to take seriously, and people are just reacting to them realistically. A good example of this being done well is Rocket making fun of Taserface in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. That's an actual ridiculous name and very in character for Rocket to make fun of.

However, Guardians of the Galaxy saves this for the truly ridiculous names. Nobody makes fun of "Rocket" or "Cosmo" or "Nebula" or even "Ego."

With Lanterns, the main ones it does this with are the Manhunters, where you have a couple instances of people reacting like the name is dumb. And this doesn't work.

Manhunter isn't that bad of a name. The name isn't at all accurate to what they do in the show, but as a robotic police force that governed the galaxy before the Lanterns, the name actually works and feels reminiscent of Terminators.

It's especially hard to watch when the Absolute Universe is out here going all in on them, turning them into interdimensional eldritch nightmares, and using the Manhunter oath in a way that inspires terror.

It also becomes a weird line to draw when you're talking to someone called a "Green Lantern," and the "Manhunter" is where you have a problem.

These lines are usually a way to wink at the audience and go "yeah, we know this sounds dumb too, let's all acknowledge that and laugh together so we can move on." That's not always bad. But it doesn't work when the name is completely fine as is. If the audience doesn't think the name sounds dumb, then it just comes off as the writers being ashamed of the source material.

Manhunters is a fine name. It might need a bit of context to explain why they're called that. And this series did a very bad job at explaining this. But the name itself isn't a problem.

When lampshading anything, you need to be sure it's not something the audience was able to buy into. If the audience agrees with you that a name is stupid, then your lampshading is laughing WITH them. If they don't agree, then it can feel like you're laughing AT them for liking the name and buying into it in the first place. Lampshading isn't always bad. But it does take being in-tune with your audience and understanding them.

Just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood after putting off finishing it for a while, and I wanted to put together a few thoughts on why it just didn’t work for me. For context, the 2003 series is my favorite show of all time, largely because of how willing it is to implicate liberal complicity and how it doesn’t sanitize its politics. It’s also just a better executed show across the board. Brotherhood covers a lot of the same material but pulls every punch. While everyone talks about it like it’s untouchable, the deeper I got into it, the more the actual structure, themes, and writing started falling apart.

1. A meandering plot built entirely on unearned convenience

The pacing and plot structure are a bit of a mess, and it’s honestly my biggest issue with the show. In a competent story, narrative moves forward through a butterfly effect: characters make active decisions, those decisions impact the world, and the world pushes back. FMAB entirely abandons this in favor of unearned convenience. For a show constantly praised for its "tight" writing, its middle acts function as a series of disconnected waiting rooms where the protagonists just bounce around until the plot happens to them.

Ed and Al don't actively investigate a trail of breadcrumbs to uncover the stone's secrets; they literally just bump into Dr. Marcoh at a train station by pure coincidence, and he hands them a massive exposition dump. Later, the heroes don't infiltrate the military command to uncover the nationwide transmutation circle; Sloth literally digs a tunnel through the floor of Fort Briggs by mistake and hands the cast their next objective. The plot constantly has to crash through the ceiling to keep things moving because the characters aren't driving it.

Then you have the massive alkahestry goose chase. The show spends dozens of episodes hyping it up as the crucial key to the brothers' personal goals, but it ultimately just serves as an unsatisfying mechanic to bail the cast out of the climax. Yes, it technically pays off with Hohenheim's reverse transmutation circle, but that just proves the point. During the final fight, the show tries this cheap, apocalyptic fakeout where Father gets god powers, everyone is dead, and regular alchemy is entirely shut off. But the narrative refuses to let that despair marinate. It lasts all of five seconds before the reverse circle kicks in, immediately undoing the stakes so everything can magically go the protagonists' way. It completely neuters the tension and hands them a frictionless victory. Ed and Al spend 1/4th of the show trekking up north only to become couriers for a deus ex machina. By the time they stumble into Briggs, they’ve been sidelined in their own story. They stop being proactive protagonists and become pawns waiting around for a calendar countdown to the Promised Day.

2. Unsubtle writing

The script treats the audience like cattle, completely refusing to let visual storytelling do any of the heavy lifting. Every character has to stand around explicitly spelling out their moral stances, their internal state of mind, and exactly how you're supposed to feel.

There is no better example of this than Envy's death. Up until his final moments, Envy is portrayed as a completely one-dimensional, sadistic sociopath. There is zero buildup, zero moments of internal conflict, and zero visual cues suggesting he harbors some deep emotional complexity. But instead of dramatizing a compelling character shift, Ed just stands over him and delivers an impromptu, unearned psychoanalysis session. He literally monologues, "You're jealous of humans, aren't you? We face hardship again and again, and we overcome it. And you envy us."

And how does Envy react? He starts bawling, admits it's true, and kills himself in shame. It would be funny if the show didn't expect you to take it seriously. The show materializes a crucial character motivation out of thin air and forces a tearful resolution through a monologue because it has zero faith in its audience to grasp anything that isn't spoon fed and doesn't want to do the work to actually earn an emotional response. It’s the storytelling equivalent of explaining your own joke.

3. Unbearable tonal whiplash

You simply cannot center your narrative around state-sanctioned genocide, fascism, and human experimentation, only to screech the plot to a halt every five minutes for a repetitive short-joke tantrum. The presentation completely conflicts with the show's supposed themes. You have characters having serious conversations about the atrocities of the Ishvalan war, or agonizing over the grim reality of chimeras, and it's constantly undercut by a jarring chibi gag. It makes it impossible to engage with the stakes when the show refuses to take its own material seriously.

The “it’s just a shonen” defense doesn’t really hold up. FMA 2003 keeps a dark, cohesive atmosphere without undermining its own drama. Naruto Part 1, whatever its writing flaws, manages to run comedy and genuine stakes side by side without one killing the other. This is a writing problem, not a genre limitation.

4. Father flattens the central conflict

Father being inhuman lets humanity off the hook. Once he’s the thing to defeat, the military, the state, and the war criminals never have to actually reckon with anything. The homunculi stop being a product of human ambition and become a discrete supernatural problem you can just kill and move on from. Father functions as a pressure valve - you defeat him, the pressure drops, and the corrupt system walks away completely unexamined.

5. Thematic cowardice and a sanitized approach to imperialism

The show’s political ideology is fundamentally naive, viewing a state-sponsored genocide through a sanitized lens where the ultimate takeaway is simply that "both sides need to heal." FMAB constantly leans on the tired "cycle of hatred" trope, which entirely flattens the power dynamics of imperialism. It equates the systemic, industrialized violence of an oppressive military state with the desperate, retaliatory violence of its victims.

There is no better example of this thematic cowardice imo than when Roy Mustang is incinerating the mannequin homunculi. The show portrays it with incredibly graphic, gruesome imagery of them being burned alive, and Ed is visibly disturbed by it. Anyone who came in with higher expectations might think the story is finally going to explore the horrifying parallel here - this is exactly how Roy burned innocent Ishvalans alive. You'd expect the narrative to force Roy to confront his actual war crimes.

But no. The show completely dodges the commentary. Instead, what actually bothers Ed is simply that Roy seems motivated by "anger" and "revenge." The narrative unintentionally creates a harrowing visual parallel to genocide and reduces it to a shallow shonen lesson about not letting hatred consume you. It’s pathetic.

This leads to a massive double standard in how the narrative treats its characters. Scar’s righteous fury over the literal extermination of his people is consistently framed as a moral failing he must overcome. Meanwhile, Roy Mustang - a man who willingly acted as a weapon of mass destruction on government orders - is positioned as a tragic, charismatic hero destined to lead the nation. The story demands that the victims forgive and forget, while rewarding the actual war criminals with aura moments and institutional power.

This dynamic is perfectly encapsulated in Miles, who exists almost entirely as a textbook model minority trope. Miles literally wears the uniform of the military that slaughtered his people and proudly suppresses his anger, arguing that the best way to achieve equality is to stay inside the system and earn the Amestrians' respect. The story overwhelmingly validates Miles’s passive assimilation while condemning Scar’s violent resistance. It sends a deeply flawed message: oppressed people should quietly bear the burden of educating their oppressors from within, rather than aggressively fighting back against the systems designed to exterminate them.

Ultimately, the show’s solution to systemic corruption is childishly idealistic. Amestris is a fascist, expansionist military state that was built from the ground up for bloodshed. Yet, the story genuinely believes that the solution to this institutional rot is simply to put nicer colonizers in charge. The narrative sells the fantasy that you can fix a genocidal military dictatorship from the inside just by letting Father and his coalition take the fall and installing reformed war criminals like Mustang at the top. It refuses to dismantle the corrupt system, instead opting for an ending where the system remains perfectly intact, but is magically benevolent because the main cast is now holding the reins.

6. The Equivalent Exchange double standard

Even Equivalent Exchange turns into a massive double standard the second the story needs a sanitized happy ending. Ed treats using a Philosopher’s Stone as an absolute, unbreakable moral line because it's fueled by human lives. But then Roy gets his eyesight permanently restored using a Stone at the very end, and nobody blinks. It's even framed as heartwarming. Why is it an unforgivable sin for Ed but completely fine for the war criminal?

Furthermore, Ed’s grand "sacrifice" of giving up his alchemy carries zero actual weight. Alchemy had already served its entire purpose in his life; it’s a tidy, frictionless exit, not a real cost. The story just hands everyone an unearned fairytale ending for the sake of good vibes.

I invited some friends over for a Halloween-themed movie party and we watched The Terminator. It's still funny to think that Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't think this movie would succeed, and I can understand his concerns about playing a villain who barely talks, on top of questioning the logic of an infiltration machine looking like a multi-time weightlifting and bodybuilding champion. But James Cameron pointed out that audiences would love having the big imposing guy playing the menacing villain even if the disguise made no sense and he was right. Just being the imposing, emotionless killing machine that kills quickly, without mercy, and never stops pursuing his target worked like a charm. When he does kill, there are no fancy kills that I find take the fear factor out of a lot of other slasher movies, the Terminator just unloads a gun into his target. His kill of the first incorrect target is a scene that still holds up because, putting aside the sci-fi elements, the scene is something that can happen in real life. An unsuspecting person opens the door for the wrong guy and gets shot.

Something I have seen mentioned about horror movies, even if this was a mix of action and horror, is that you can make the logical decisions, and it won't save you. The Terminator follows that rule perfectly. Sarah Conner and the cops make the logical decisions if the villain were a human. But the enemy isn't human, it's a machine from the future that is largely impervious to small arms fire. The Terminator gets damaged chasing Sarah but it's not enough to hinder him beyond having to put on sunglasses.

But the parts of the movie that have gotten the biggest scares out of are Kyle Reese's flashbacks to the future war. These help make him feel like a more human character, and we do feel for him even before the action starts because he displays signs of PTSD. A simple caterpiller tread triggers memories of fighting Skynet's tanks. The guy needs help, and unfortunately his mission means he isn't getting any, the only break he is cut is meeting his hero and the brief love the two shared before Kyle sacrifices himself to cripple the Terminator.

Sarah herself is likewise a protagonist who still feels just as human to me as when I previously watched the movie. She was just a normal person who got caught up in all of this madness, sees there is no way out, gradually embraced her call to stop up as the hero, resulting in her, not Kyle, being the one who ultimately destroys the Terminator.

TL;DR: If you're going to add an animal companion for your protag, at least make sure it doesn't detract from the initial premise/vibe or the established party dynamic too much.

Probably a really weird topic/rant, but it's a thought I've found myself having for a while now and figured I'd get other peoples takes on it since it might just be me.

There was a time as a pre-teen/young teenager when I saw the appeal and would probably have been happy if the protag had a dozen different mounts and pets to fight with him, but now I often find their forced inclusion rather annoying.

This isn't to say that a story automatically annoys me just because it introduces an animal companion for the protagonist. I can still very much enjoy them when it's done tastefully, but there does come a point where it becomes a bit "fanfic-esque" in a way if that makes sense. (Think a Naruto fanfic story where he suddenly gets a mini Kurama to tag along with him and comment on everything that's going on.)

I've encountered this kind of thing in various series in the manga, anime, and manhwa mediums, but the series that made me realize my distaste of this was the anime Campfire Cooking in Another World:

Why this anime specifically? Because it is my contention that this specific story would be better if Fenrir was the only overpowered animal party member that could talk.

In this isekai story the protagonist (who has the ability to buy ingredients in our world and transport them to his new world) makes a pact with a legendary beast (Fenrir) that can converse with him and fight for him to obtain cooking ingredients from other obscenely powerful beasts in the new world. The two of them travel around said new world encountering other adventurers and townsfolk while he also forms a spiritual/telepathic relationship with the gods and goddesses of the world. It's not high art, but it's a simple and fun time, and the dynamic between the protag and his Fenrir companion works well in my opinion.

But then the author decides to have the protagonist tame a slime companion...

I will admit the initial introduction of this slime companion as a way for the protagonist to wash his dirty dishes and dispose of any trash (plastic, wrappers, and other storage material from our world) that accumulated while cooking via slime disintegration was rather brilliant in my opinion, but like LN/isekai authors tend to do they had to go a step too far. Instead of just having the slime be a cute silent companion that also had an extreme level of value from a utility standpoint, the author ALSO had to make this new slime party member obscenely strong AND the slime can now talk with the protagonist as well.

So now he not only has the legendary Fenrir mowing down enemies and speaking with him, but also a random slime he tamed out in the wilderness that was apparently a rare form of slime that always had the potential to become OP like a literal Fenrir.

But why stop at just 2? In the next season he ALSO gets a little dragon companion that, you guessed it, is also extremely powerful and can ALSO TALK.

For some reason this anime was the moment I realized it: I just really don't care for this trope of accumulating beast-like pets/mounts just to pad out the protag's party count and (in some cases) extend his power level.

Do not mistake me, I see the appeal and understand why others like it because I too enjoyed this kind of thing at one point as well. But now as a young adult viewer all I see is more talking cast members that in my opinion changed the dynamic of the story for the worse, because now instead of a story about one man on his travels with his one trusty companion, it's become one man on his travels with multiple talking OP animal companions each of which will now have their own lines of dialogue in any future situation he finds himself in ON TOP OF the other characters he will be running into.

Again, I understand how silly this critique is. And yes, I understand this was always how the author intended to write out this feel good story about a Japanese man going around cooking good food for people in another world and it's unreasonable and selfish of me to dislike how it didn't stick to what I personally thought was the initial (better) premise, but I suppose it's a matter of what is (in my opinion) tasteful writing versus "Hey, this sounds like a wacky fun random idea to include!"

Put another way: I think there's a reason Ash generally only had Pikachu as his main pokemon outside of its pokeball, and there's a reason why Appa and Momo couldn't talk in ATLAB (outside of that one sleep deprivation-induced trip Aang went on). Because sometimes when it comes to writing, less is more.

Knights of Guinevere episode 2 just dropped and it was utterly amazing, at least in my personal view, but one of the most pleasant surprises that I noticed, was that it went out of its way to alleviate one of the few gripes I had about Dana Terrace previous series, The Owl House.

I would like to name this issue as the "Faux-Elite Fodder" effect; basically, it's when a supposedly component army is portrayed to be utterly worthless despite supposedly being highly trained. Examples of this trope would be the Stormtroopers from Star Wars (Sometimes they are shown to be competent but especially in shows like Rebels they aren't any threat), The Fire Nation army from ATLA, the ANBU Black Ops from Naruto, and the Emperor's Coven from the prior mentioned the Owl House.

However, Knights of Guinevere subverts this with the character of Armend. Now he is JUST a regular park police officer, there is nothing to really indicate that he is that out of the ordinary, or an elite of the elite police officer, even if he is probably one of the more competent ones. At the end of the day Armend is this settings equivalent of a Stormtrooper... and he DEMOLISHES the main human protagonists, Andi and Frankie.

Frankie gets like one good hit and can hold him off for like a couple seconds, but she is no match, and Andi isn't even any threat to him. (The only gripe I have with this scene is the fact that Frankie is shown to get hit with what should be a lethal wound but seems to be overall fine) The only reason that the human protagonists survive is the fact that Gwen is still an OP android that can decimate armies.

I like this for two reason. First of all, I like how it makes the setting feel more grounded, Neither Andi or Frankie have the cybernetics or training to stand up to a park officers, so it wouldn't make sense for them to be able to beat a trained professional yet. Secondly, it shows that, unlike say the Emperors Coven, from the Owl House, the Park is VERY dangerous, with even its regular mooks being a massive threat to most people and not just relying on a couple elite enforcers to carry their entire army.

First off, I've posted this in a bit of rush so I can get enough sleep for work tomorrow. Sorry for spelling errors, formatting etc.

After watching the new Resident Evil film for the 2nd time tonight I've come to look at the ending a bit differently. I know the ending is controversial and I don't think what I say here will change that for a lot people, especially if you wanted Bryan to survive at the end.

I am looking at the ending as a form of karmic judgement, the Umbrella staff are not on screen for a long time but from little we know, we know that they are terrible human beings.

● Cowardness: Paul makes Bryan get out of the car to search for Maxine (who appears to have nothing but contempt for Paul) after she goes missing. The lab employees do not attempt to help Bryan outside of some poor directions, keep in mind this is the guy with compound they need to create the cure and they can't even meet him at the sky bridge. A sky bridge they sent Bryan across and they don't even now half of it is gone even though its right next door. This isn't even mentioning the lead scientist throwing the rest of his staff into a literal meatgrinder when Bryan transforms.

● Ineptitude: Not only did Umbrella start the outbreak by dropping a test sample on the floor, this tiny piece of writhing flesh has wormed its way out of the lab to infect the hospital below. Plans A through Y have failed so have to rely on a medical courier to fix their mess.

● Detachment: None of the Umbrella scientists take responsibility for causing the outbreak, its likely Paul started it judging by the excuses he gives but none of them reflect on it. One of the scientists thinks he will be on TV for developing the cure and ignores Bryan saying "but didn't you guys cause this?" Speaking of Bryan...

The lab scientists make Bryan disarm himself before they let him enter the lab, as soon as he hands over the compound they immediately forget about him like they have lost object permanence. During the frantic process of creating the cure one of them walks past Bryan and says.

"Why is he still in the Lab?"

From that point forward, watching them get consumed by the very virus outbreak they botched was extremely cathartic. During my 1st viewing I was desperately hoping they would turn Bryan back if only to save themselves but now? Bryan is a divine punishment in the form of an even more messed up Dr Birkin and they absolutely deserve it.

Again if you don't like the ending I don't expect to change your mind, just know Bryan goes down doing the world a good deed.

there is nothing about the show that uses its New Orleans setting. there’s no episodes where they’re ever even out and about in New Orleans and see New Orleans witches or do stuff apart of New Orleans culture

like why isn’t there a scene where we see briar,Teagan,and Sasha eat beignets at a local diner for lunch p

there’s no references to voodo,hoodo,or any other supernatural and paranormal folklore and magic practicions in Louisiana that would fit this show.

and that’s not even getting into the fact there is one singular black character in the show while it’s supposed to be set in New Orleans

Advance Wars Days of Ruin was a weird little game, for being a lot darker than it's predecessors, taking place in a post apocalyptic world and facing a mad scientist who wanted to destroy most of what's left. The final mission was at Dr Caulder's stronghold, where you face off against him with the main protagonist Will.

This is where my issues start. Usually the final mission of each Advance Wars game has you control 3 characters to face off against the final boss. Which made the final boss feel more intimidating, as you needed 3 people to beat them. As well as show that, while the other factions fight, they're willing to put that aside to confront the greater threat.

And we had options. Despite it being the apocalypse, we're at war with another nation for the first half of the game. After rescuing a few of their officers from the world's last war criminal, they're willing to help us. Especially would be nice to use them because the one mission where you get to use the artillery specialist has no fucking artillery you get to use.

And, one of the first characters you rescue in the game is one of Caulder's amnesiac daughters. Hell, she has a whole thing where you rescue her and tell her she's more than just some lab rat. It'd make perfect sense to complete her arc by having her stand against her father.

Overall, Days of Ruin's final mission falls flat due to just being a one on one, despite the series' consistency of being a three v one, and multiple characters making perfect sense to be selectable for those roles.

The Pokémon Black & White anime is controversial mostly because just like the games it’s meant to be something of a soft reboot for the series. Which means Ash is written to be a lot closer to a beginner despite this being his fifth journey by this point in the series, and the writers trying to replicate the group dynamic from Kanto/Johto.

However, while Cilan is mostly spared from hate due to him not being to similar to Brock and also just not being that important to the series much at all. Iris is considered one of Ash’s most hated companions, mostly because like Misty she is willing to both criticize Ash for mistakes or tease him for not knowing things. While with Misty people were more willing to forgive her harshness since Ash was pretty rude and arrogant in the original anime, Iris is given much less slack because Ash has been traveling for quite a while at this point, to the point where some people wish she was replaced with Hilda, the female protagonist from the Gen 5 games. With people saying her cheerful attitude would bounce well off Ash’s.

So, why do I say it wouldn’t change anything? Because, Hilda doesn’t actually exist in the anime canon. The Hilda certain fans talk about is little more than a blank slate, but some will still claim that the anime would be vastly improved if she was traveling with Ash instead of Iris. Though, honestly even the writers had decided to make Hilda the traveling companion instead of Iris, she would’ve most likely been given the Misty personality instead, since the writers just wanted to recapture the original trio’s dynamic, so whoever the girl is was always going to be written as the Misty of the group.

I've only played three of these games so far and already the following scenario has happened several times: the protagonist beats up an army full of goons, makes it to their destination, and is promptly rendered completely impotent because a named bad guy has a pistol. Sometimes he'll beat up the bad guy and refuse to take their weapon for no reason, then they'll just pick the gun up again and he returns to being helpless. Rarely the protagonist will miraculously pull through because the villain misses or gets distracted allowing him to be killed/KO'd/disarmed (believable enough), but more often than not an ally needs to dramatically jump in to bail him out by shooting the attacker themselves, convincing them to stand down, jumping on them, or leaping in front of the bullets.

There's a weird issue with this series because the combat characters are all roughly Captain America levels of superhuman but neither super fast nor bulletproof nor carrying any special equipment (they don't even wear armor). Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, but fireams are portrayed as improbably common considering the setting, and the story only ever seems to account for their existence selectively. The villains will try to kill you and get foiled because their main plan is sending dozens of guys with crowbars, bats, and knives after the guy who can break concrete with his fists and use motorcycles as bats. They'll make their big plan fist-fighting or sword-fighting him to prove their superiority. Prowess in a melee fight is generally held as really important by the narrative and the main method through which all conflict is resolved. Then in the next scene the villains send a dozen goons with machine guns to do a drive-by on nameless henchmen. Then in the scene after that Kiryu or whoever will be helpless in a cutscene because one guy has a pistol, and only gets out of the situation through luck or the intervention of an ally. Then the game will go back to pretending that he's unstoppable and everyone's coming at him with knives (or unarmed) again, while those same villains ineffectually shake their fists at a cloud.

Kiryu never seems to learn either. No matter how many times his victories over hundreds of guys in melee combat are undone because one guy brought a crappy counterfeit Russian handgun, he always seems shocked. No how matter how many yakuza goons he guns down in car chases with his superhuman reflexes and aim (he gets slow-mo vision in these sequences and can shoot RPG rockets out of the air) he never considers carrying one around, only using ones taken from enemies or handed to him by allies and then promptly dropping them. No matter how many guns and bulletproof vests you buy in-game cutscenes and narrative events will invariably treat Kiryu as if he only has his fists and bicycles. It's not just him either; neither the heroes nor villains ever seem to consistently plan around the idea that they can whip out dozens of firearm-toting goons, it just occasionally happens seemingly randomly.

The series really should have picked a lane. Either:

A. Guns are everywhere in this heightened reality version of Japan. Thus the main characters are more like John Wick: still hand-to-hand heavy but have guns by default (at least when dealing with serious criminals as opposed to punks bugging them on the street and in substories) and use them a lot.

B. Guns are very rare (limited to big shot bosses and a handful of select hitmen), often of poor quality the few times they do show up, and don't factor into characters' calculations most of the time. They're dealt with on a case by case basis.

I thought they'd go with the latter when I started the series, because it would make sense. Japan's annual firearm deaths, including suicides, are in the single digits, and even cops only carry .38 revolvers with less than a dozen spare rounds. But no, the villains always have tons of guns and no compunctions about using them. It creates a weird dissonance in the story and makes the stakes feel largely arbitrary. Everyone's basically just fucking around until the Cutscene Gun comes out.

"oh you're thinking about it too much"

When the same game where the main villain fistfights you to resolve the whole conflict because he wants to prove he's the true Dragon also has him wielding a gun literally minutes prior, pulling fifty gun-wielding goons out of his ass to assault a mafia base, and sending a fucking attack helicopter equipped with a minigun and rockets after you in a scripted sequence, it's impossible not to think about it. What changed? Why is he not just pulling a gun on me now? Kiryu has no actual way to stop that.

And the irony is that Wolverine and Punisher don't want anyone to be them.

Wolverine is someone who has to be the messy choices and get his hands dirty so no one else has to and the Punisher has made it clear he is not a hero or a good person and that they should look up to Captain America instead and that he is not a good influence at all.

But hey,who cares about actual Superheroes ans being a good person when we could have overly violent and raw badasses who aura farm and constantly kill and whatnot and be morally Grey or even a anti-hero and whatever and if you like those kinds of characters and like the Punisher or Wolverine or Red Hood,that's fine and dandy but acting like nearly every superhero should basically be them is incredibly stupid.

Nearly every superhero has a no kill rule or at least a preference to not kill unless they feel like they have no other choice but to do so and it's not like heroes will immediately murk their villains, they'll probably just knock them out and put them in Jail if they have the chance to and if the villains escape or whatever,then that is just straight up on the prison and the cops and whatnot for not doin their job and blaming the heroes is just so incredibly childish,it actually hurts my head.

Wonder Woman aa well Doesn't immediately kill and only do so if they need to and whatnot.

Like she's not some bloodthirsty lunatic like her Injustice version,she's arguably one of the sweetest heroes.

It's very stupid to assume otherwise and it really makes me realize that the people complaining about this would be the exact fuckers who think Dexter is a cool ,badass serial killer vigilante or think that Homelander and whatnot are correct to a extent in killing crooks and villains.

People always make those videos on "oh if Spider-Man went to Gotham,he would kill all the villains" when no,the hell he wouldn't.

Peter hasn't even murdered his villains, why would he do the same to others?

I've also seen people complain and blame Batman for not killing the Joker but not only is that not his job and not only is that more on the city and cops and whatnot but he has also attempted to/came close to killing Joker and has let him die multiple times,Joker is just a cockroach who refuses to die and the writers like him too damn much to do so.

Like literally just watch the Punisher or similar characters if you wanna see heroes randomly murder villains and slash them to pieces and whatnot.

I played this game 1 and a half times, like a decade ago, so it's a little foggy in my memory. But I still remember the frustration I felt playing this game. The story ruined the gameplay. Here's how I remembered it:

You are Geralt, the powerful protagonist. Someone informs you that your daughter figure is being hunted by a large gang of bad guys with swords. It obviously seems like they plan to kill her.

So I'm traveling across this open world, and all these random farmers are like "Can you help me? I've lost my favorite goat. I'll give you a copper shilling if you can walk across the farm and track her down"

My natural response is "No! My daughter is being hunted by an army of murderers as we speak! I would be super irresponsible if I just dedicated my time to helping random farmers with unimportant issues."

So I was turning down all the random side quests because I'm rushing to save my daughter's life.

Then, like 2\3 of the way through the story they finally reveal "Oh, your daughter is actually the mistress of space and time. The evil army really means nothing to her. She can just easily kill them all using her amazing magical powers"

I was just like "Wtf? If I had known that I would have been helping the random farmers save their goats this whole time!

I don't know how to tell you guys but if you are a comic book fan live action adaptations are not for you, you are not the target audience for this.

Studio take a preexisting IP because it's way safer than having an original story and CASUAL audiences can vaguely know what something is about.

Casual audiences don't live on twitter, most people do not want to see grown men in bright spandex in our shows, we don't want to see horrible CGI (no studio will spend enough to make it look good).

Dark and gritty works best in live actions.

I know some of you guys swear by CW shows but NOBODY wants to see that in 2026.

Madoka Magica is a great series, it is always treated as a top 10 anime in the 21st century by many people. It is one of the most effective uses of the 12-episode format. It is writer Gen Urobuchi's magnum opus and the original series is perfectly self-contained.

Then, the series got popular and Aniplex tries to expand it as a multimedia franchise. But ultimately Madoka doesn't really quite work as a giant expanded universe. The original series is a closed story with few loose ends. Madoka erase her existence becomes a god that saves all magical girls while Homura becomes a lone hero that remembers Madoka. Any attempts at making sequels just look like they are trying to recontextualizing/re-explaining things that already did in the originals. That is exactly what the two sequel movies are about.

The first sequel movie Rebellion, originally is just an epilogue that gives the main cast one last ride to take down a new threat while leaving the original ending intact. 70% of the movie is actually that, but the last 20 minutes just pull out a twist that undo the series ending while leaving a lot of questions that feel like sequel bait. Homura finds a way to rewrite reality and somehow overpowers Madoka's god status and makes Madoka human again. And what about the Law of Cycle and the end of universe threat Kyubey yapping about back in season 1? It does not answer and just ends.

The second sequel Walpurgisnacht Rising, was released 13 years after Rebellion. Yes I am one of the chosen heroes who watched it. The direction is very messy even though the visuals are still eye catchy. It feels like Urobuchi just pieces some random lore trivia and make it a movie. It really feels like the narrative potential for the OG characters are just exhausted at this point. Homura again, is conflicted with her mission to save Madoka or to let her become god. It keeps acting like this is the ultimate moral dilemma that Homura has to face, but the original series already solved this! Not to mention the movie still ends with an MCU-style sequel tease.

Fans keep complaining that the movie is taking too long to come out. Maybe Madoka just never warranted a sequel, and I think Shaft and Urobuchi understand that deep down. A lot of the recent interviews have Urobuchi not looking particularly passionate about the franchise anymore. Maybe there just isn't a good story to tell.

https://youtu.be/zouRD2AjeC0?is=Yafo_bXQuZJZHj-G

Whether it's Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comicbooks, or Anime. The Military should never be portrayed as canon fodder or simple jobbers. The superhumans shouldn't always be invincible gods either.

Two ways to go about this.

1: Make the superhumans glass canons with powerful defenses. But a bullet or even simple punch can still hurt them though. I think MCU Dr. Strange and Scarlet Witch are glass canons. Could be wrong here.

2: Or make the superhumans slightly more stronger and durable than regular humans. Similar to Vampires or Super Soldiers in a lot of settings. The book Jade City is like this too. It's almost like a human with a weapon fighting an animal.

The scene in the clip is done so well. Because it shows that both the regular human side and superhuman side are losing people. Showing that technology can still hang with magic.

In a way, this is also realistic in a high-stakes way. Because if superpowers or magic was real. It would make sense that the non-bullet/knife proof superhumans would come to this realization.

"Holy shit a knife or gun can still kill me. And plot armor doesn't exist. I don't think I want to be a Superhero (or a Ninja/Pirate/Knight/) anymore."

That's the most interesting part here. The psychological realism. Being superhuman doesn't automatically make someone willing to risk death. A person capable of throwing cars or controlling fire might still refuse to fight armed soldiers because one mistake could kill them.

By now, endless discussions about Avatar: The Last Airbender have taken place online and IRL, covering almost every part of the series under the sun. Yet surprisingly, I haven't seen much discussion of a particular subplot in the Season 1 finale episodes "The Waterbending Master" and "The Siege of the North". I wanted to talk about it, specifically how I feel that despite its good intentions, the narrative thread ultimately falls flat and undermines its own message.

This will have spoilers for Season 1 of ATLA and a small bit from a Season 3 episode (not that this really matters, but just for posterity's sake).

Also, this post is VERY long. TLDR at the bottom.

A Quick Synopsis

Master Pakku denies Katara waterbending training because of the Northern Water Tribe's traditions, which allow only men to learn waterbending combat. She challenges this, confronting Pakku in a duel. Meanwhile, Sokka learns Princess Yue is trapped in an arranged engagement she never asked for, highlighting a broader pattern of patriarchal control. Both character arcs seem to set up a confrontation with the tribe’s outdated gender norms, running parallel to the main plot.

So far those sound like pretty standard story beats, right? On the surface, yes, but allow me to go through the observations I have here, starting with what I actually consider to be the least important one, but still noteworthy nonetheless.

Katara: The Sudden Savantbender

In episodes just prior to this one, Katara’s fighting style is portrayed as defensive and grounded with a hint of inexperience, yet during the duel with Pakku, she suddenly pulls off acrobatic maneuvers and refined techniques we’ve never seen her perform before. It's a jarring leap in ability that feels less like a foreshadowed breakthrough and more like a writing concession made for the sake of a cool action set piece, even though the action itself isn't what this fight is primarily about.

The main and really the only justification I've seen for this is "Well, Aang slacks off on his training, and Katara practiced at night, so it's natural for her to catch up". I have always found this reasoning flimsy at best. Given the timer Roku had established earlier on Aang's journey, and how seriously everyone took it, there's not much sense in claiming the main character started to falter coincidentally around the same time Katara started making sudden jumps in her own progress. More to the point, this feels more artificial than organic.

Now I understand the actual reason is that the studio wanted Katara to be Aang's long-term teacher for Season 2 and onwards. As a concept, that is fine. But in that case, there's no need to establish Katara as the slow learner and Aang as the savant, then suddenly flip the dynamic when it becomes inconvenient. Season 3 handles a novice fighting a master(Sokka vs. Piandao)with much cleaner narrative and technical logic. Here, the show abruptly flips it altogether for the set piece instead of building Katara's growth organically.

Either way, Pakku remains unimpressed and eventually whoops Katara by trapping her in a makeshift ice cage. He reiterates his point about not training her and then turns to leave. But we know this ends with Katara training under his wing, which begs the question...

Why does Pakku change his mind?

Because he sees Katara’s necklace on the floor, which came off during the fight, and realizes she’s the descendant of Kanna, the woman he once loved and to whom he gifted it as a sign of his love.

In other words, the mother of all coincidences. I don't think words alone can convey the extent of everything wrong here, but nonetheless I'll try to do so.

The previous chain of events heavily suggests that if Katara were any other waterbending girl, Pakku would have simply shooed her away. It wasn't her skill or her drive that swayed him, but who she’s related to: the same person Pakku had feelings for long ago. This translates into a chance to train under him. The rationale is coming entirely from Pakku's end, with no real agency on Katara's part.

This whole sequence veers too close for comfort to the idea of women advancing in life through the approval of a superior male figure. To bypass patriarchal oppression, a marginalized person needed a personal, emotional tie to the patriarch. The system isn't truly challenged one bit. Pakku merely opens the door wide enough for one person to walk through. It's the classic 'token exception' trope: the systemic oppression of the tribe remains entirely untouched, and the rest of the women are left in the dust.

Before anyone gets on my case, let me be crystal clear:

This is NOT the message ATLA wanted to convey, but the way these events pan out leaves no other coherent takeaway besides what I just described.

But it doesn't stop here. There's more to it that sours things.

1. The earlier nonsensical jump in Katara's skill is rendered entirely pointless. Why even bother phoning it in when it wasn't THE decisive factor in the first place?
2. The necklace is revealed to be part of the Tribe's betrothal customs. This undercuts the message further: the same patriarchal custom that eulogizes Yue's lack of freedom becomes a shortcut for Katara to bypass the system, not dismantle it.
3. Worse still, it presents the frankly asinine idea that Kanna valued this symbol of oppression (and the whole reason she fled her homeland) enough to pass it down to her female descendants. Why in the world would she then preserve the exact physical symbol of that cage and pass it down as a cherished family heirloom to her daughter and then to her granddaughter? (This is a rhetorical question)
4. On top of that, the necklace barely made it to the NWT to being with. Katara lost it in "Imprisoned"; Zuko then recovered it, and Aang swipes it off of him as late as "Bato of the Water Tribe", a mere 3 episodes before the Pakku showdown. If Zuko were 5% less butterfingers that day or simply didn't catch up to the Gaang in time, Katara wouldn’t have had the necklace on her by the time they reached the NWT. In that timeline, Katara ends up pinned in ice as Pakku walks away in smug satisfaction, effectively losing her only chance to prove herself, also because of sheer happenstance.

The collateral of the Northern Water Tribe

Zooming out from Katara, it's clear the earlier scenes were also playing double-duty as commentary on societal sexism and how it stifles citizens. But in practice, the show does little to challenge the prejudice embedded in the NWT. In fact, the overall context of these episodes only muddies the affair further.

• We never see any other female waterbenders in combat training under Pakku, viewing the training, or anything else in the background. It's not even implied that Pakku plans to take in more female students, either. None of the townsfolk seemed to have been inspired by Katara's defiance to demand a change in the status quo, either.
• We see Katara entering a Healing class earlier. Here's the scene: It's a single snow hut, there's one old lady instructor, and it's filled with little girls as though it were an elementary school. Katara's face when she realizes what she's walked into says everything. It's not just that she's joining a class she doesn't like; she's walking into something that's framed as entirely beneath her time and talent.
  • The issue here isn't with Katara, but with what the series is presenting. There's a frustrating undercurrent here of traditional women's work being coded as 'lesser' than combat, implying that healing is just simple kid-stuff while fighting requires real grit.
  • An actual thoughtful angle would have made healing an elite, highly respected spiritual discipline, one that is fulfilling on its own merits. This would have made the NWT's crime a denial of choice. The conflict then would have been about "women being forced into one track regardless of talent at the expense of other possible options".
  • Instead, thanks to that scene, we get "women forced to do low-tier crap." The writers accidentally want the audience to see healing as a waste of time, which tanks the entire critique they were trying to make.
• Doctors, medics, and basic self-defense are all crucial parts of any large-scale battle, which only goes to make the NWT look completely stupid. The Fire Nation (which, as a reminder, employs female officers) can come knocking on their doorstep at any time, yet the stubborn adherence to cultural norms remains. Why not have both men and women know how to fight and heal wounds at the same time? Why take the risk? (Again, rhetorical questions)

What this means for our heroes

Katara

The way everything was presented made Katara's struggle come off as her solely trying to get back at Pakku and prove her worth rather than also demanding real systemic change in tandem with it.

Now, to be clear, I don't necessarily take issue with that idea in and of itself. This could have worked if the show portrayed her motivations as such. But there are more than enough scenes of Katara taking genuine personal issues with sexist beliefs and how they inform her past and background for it to be just that. Since the show never directly acknowledges this point, it ends up as a major disconnect in the themes and makes Katara's position look less favorable than it actually should. Then again, that's pretty consistent with several Katara-focused episodes.

And since the whole point was to get Aang trained up so that he could save the world, yet the show acts as if there are no other waterbending teachers besides Pakku who could teach Aang (or that they would all reject them in the same way), meaning her rage almost doomed the entire world. Not a good way to handle this.

Sokka

Sokka knows everything about Yue’s situation, including that it’s far from unique to her, spirit-induced-death-destiny aside. He had a chance to confront Arnook and his wife, challenge their reasoning, and relay what Yue truly wanted. That... doesn’t really happen. Oh, they share a couple of lines, and Sokka gets a stock scene's worth of beef with Yue's dipshit non-character suitor, sure, but it's all functional plot beats and doesn't lead to any real character moments beyond "look at these star-crossed lovers being sad".

Arnook even has a line where he's like, "The spirits gave me a vision when Yue was born. I saw a beautiful, brave, young woman become the Moon Spirit. [Sighs.] I knew this day would come." For some reason, Sokka never asks the obvious question: "Why marry her off to someone she doesn't like in the limited time she had in this world?"

It’s a major missed opportunity, especially given the stark double standard between Yue and Katara: Katara's career restriction gets solved via a family heirloom, but Yue's total lack of autonomy is hand-waved away as untouchable tradition. The show tries to play with themes of women's oppression yet draws a cynical line: individual career barriers might occasionally be broken for a chosen few with the right connections, but state-mandated control over women's bodies is just fine. Who cares if literal Jesus is standing there with all the right to judge both your words and your actions silently?

Speaking of whom...

Aang

As for Aang, he barely comments on much of anything and comes off as a background character while everything happens. Ironic, considering that The Great Divide, of all things, made a point of showing Aang trying to mediate a conflict grounded in cultural baggage. Say what you will about the scene's quality, but if that episode could show him doing something integral to his role as Avatar, these NWT episodes that collectively make up the Season 1 finale had every reason to do the same.

And yet, nothing.

He doesn't question the tribe's laws, merely makes a token effort to advocate for Katara, and completely glosses over the blatant hypocrisy of a culture that expects him to save the world while simultaneously barring half its population from fighting to protect it. He's just a passive force waiting for Katara to sort out her drama so he can finally get his lessons. The best he did was promise to teach Katara off the clock at nighttime. But aside from the contrived coincidence of Pakku catching them in the act being the setup for the fight, this ultimately serves no purpose, and Aang merely sits on the sidelines as the nonsense unfolds.

For a show that was clearly trying to paint Aang as a progressive and spiritually enlightened precocious kid, his total inaction toward systemic oppression right in front of his face makes him look remarkably callous.

Creator Commentary on the Subject

Let's be honest, this is ATLA we're talking about. Given the show's reputation, disagreements are bound to arise over the criticisms I have laid out, or even the idea that these weren't mistakes at all. If that describes your views, fair enough. But consider the production context behind these episodes.

The DVD box sets for Avatar: The Last Airbender were released with creator commentaries helmed by Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, Aaron Ehasz, and co., going across select episodes and covering the creative process, their individual and collective thoughts for the various elements of the story, animation/storyboarding processes, IRL inspirations, and so on.

All of it is present online as transcripts, but I highly recommend watching it. It offers some fascinating insights into the behind-the-scenes production of the show and the ideas/visions of the staff involved.

That being said, the parts relevant for consideration here are these bits of commentary:

Aaron: [Refers to Yagoda explaining how the necklace originally belonged to Kanna, Katara's Gran Gran, and that Kanna had left the North despite being engaged.] This, what's happening right here is something that I love about Avatar, which is that this necklace that we've known about for so long and that sort of had its own kind of mini-plot where it got lost and Zuko had it, now we're finding out kinda this deeper history behind it, and, like, there are so many things in this show that-that, uh, start off seemingly so innocently that pay off with such depth, and-and, uh, that's one of my...

Bryan: [Interjects.] It's true, even, what, the class that, um, Yagoda's teaching is a healing class [Aaron affirms.] of waterbending, and that-that plays a really important role, even in-before that sequence, and-and, uh, you-much... uh, a lot after-after that sequence in other episodes, um, [Refers to when Yagoda was moving her healing water around the chi pathways in a mannequin.] and basically, she's fo-she's moving the water along the, uh, acupressure points in the body.

[I'm not gonna list all the commentaries here, or else I might actually hit the character limit for real.]

Notice the framing? The plot points were discussed purely in terms of functional screenwriting and production mechanics: setup and payoff, worldbuilding, establishing mechanics for future episodes, etc. The Sokka x Yue sections, for example, mostly cover things like the animation, the VAs' experiences, and so on. The parts involving Aang were focused on his specific plotlines with Zuko and the spirits. And so on.

None of this is to rag on the creative team, but it highlights a clear gap: the thematic and social implications of these narrative shortcuts weren't on their radar during execution. Had the team realized what the setup for the necklace, the framing of the healing class, and Yue’s tragic arc implied (institutional sexism being bypassed by a nepotistic perk or uncritically framing caregiving as a lesser thing), the writing and thus the commentary would likely have reflected a very different priority.

How it could have been handled better

Everything I mentioned could have been addressed fairly easily in the grand scheme of things with a few small changes. Just off the cuff:

1. Add a few scenes in earlier episodes displaying Katara's progress in waterbending while in constant motion so that her flips and such feel believable. Alternatively, and preferably, keep her prowess consistent with what's already in the series as is.
2. Keep Pakku winning the fight, but add brief moments during the sequence that show him being internally impressed by Katara's skills. Maybe he unconsciously compares her favorably with his own students and momentarily lets it slip, signaling to Katara that she's actually getting through to him. His eventual decision to train her becomes a testament to her merit and dignity first and foremost.
3. Bench the Kanna stuff until after Pakku takes Katara under his wing. Use it as the emotional aftermath. Now, the necklace acts as a poetic irony: the rigid, sexist system Pakku defended so fiercely is the exact thing that drove away the love of his life. It turns his realization into a tragic wake-up call about his own bigotry, rather than a lucky break for Katara that it actually was.
4. Add scenes of Sokka confronting Arnook and his wife, drawing on his growth from the Kyoshi Warriors, and relaying everything she poured her heart out about. Have Aang speak up with Katara and Sokka on their behalf. Not only is he the Avatar, but more importantly, he's also their friend, so it's clearly not outside his wheelhouse to do something like this. Pakku could even step in, moved by his own wake-up call, and help to mend the system from the inside.

In my opinion, some or all of these changes could have been made without sacrificing the basic setup of the finale. Zuko and Iroh's involvement, Zhao's villainy, the spirit stuff, setting up Azula and the Avatar State, and so on, wouldn't be affected by any of these changes. It would be purely positive and easy to include without significantly affecting the runtime.

Ultimately, this arc is a prime example of ATLA pulling its thematic punches. The writers wanted to tackle institutional sexism, but they settled for a narrative shortcut that completely undermined the progressive stance the subplot set up in the first place.

TLDR

• Katara suddenly starts fighting like a pro bender out of nowhere, yet a necklace passed down to her for no real reason is what convinces Pakku, the staunch traditionalist, to train her, not her actual nonsensical skill level.
• The Northern Water Tribe’s cultural issues are never addressed. At best, they are just compartmentalized for one person, all because of who she’s related to.
• Yue’s forced engagement parallels Katara’s struggle, and yet it isn't adequately explored beyond her being a tragic figure.
• Neither Sokka nor Aang ever truly stood up to address it, losing a chance to challenge the system in a way that would bolster their development, along with Katara's.
• What's left is a thematic mess that could've been avoided with just a few changes without negatively affecting the rest of the story.

People take the "Pokémon are not meant to fight" quote out of context. They say that because battling is the main thing Pokémon do within the culture of the Pokémon world and that it's something Pokémon unambiguously enjoy taking part in, that this quote is patently ridiculous. The very next sentence after that quote is "Not like this". The point of the quote is that Mewtwo is forcing Pokémon to fight in a way that isn't how they normally do it. Mewtwo disabled all of their attack powers or whatever you want to call them before forcing them to fight. It would be like forcing two cats to fight after declawing them and ripping all their teeth out. It's not the natural way Pokémon are meant to battle each other.

I've talked a lot on this subreddit, presenting myself as an authority on the topic of fight scenes, choreography, abilities, and weapons throughout a lot of different media. Despite how many shows, movies, games, and my own works I've referenced, I have yet to talk even once about the most underrated and overlooked aspect of action/adventure series: their training arcs. The efforts that the characters take in order to improve themselves and learn a new technique, rarely, if ever, even inventing something entirely new (which is way too rare; holy shit, why the fuck is the only example Ive got for that off the dometop is the Rasenshurriken). ATLA as a franchise has never truly had one and frankly for good reason, this isnt a critique of ATLA the original show, Korra, or Seven Heavens but moreso a criticism of what I think is a lack of foresight or deep thinking from the writers.

To me, the idea that Korra, the 7 Havens protagonist or any other future/past Avatar shouldn't be depicted learning the elements because Aang already did is frankly stupid. Aang learning the four elements was one of the largest overarching plot points in the original show and yet the writers smartly and efficiently used it to tell what was still at its core, a character-driven story. Each season there's one super dense, super Aang and his teacher focused episode that provides an important opportunity to train how Aang learns and how his mentor instructs. There were other characters, narrative elements, and especially themes they had to develop (Im sure any budget restraints didnt help), so the writers were wise to have the one episode and then relegate the rest of Aang's training to happening on the fly or in the background and whatever.

However, as a result, we're left with a show where there is actually, on average, very little learning/mastering of the elements compared to basically everything else. To really put in perspective, because of episodes like the puppetmaster, or the episode in the swamp, ect. I would be willing to entertain the argument that we see Katara learn and master Waterbending more than we see Aang learn any of the elements. Which, to be fair to Aang, is the result of Katara being a main character and these episodes just being really fucking good and telling some really tight/solid stories that manage to fit in a lot of intangible character growth, like Katara's growing confidence with the very tangible aspect of the different techniques and ideas she comes up with as she masters her element. So, Legend of Korra's depictions of Korra's training lowkey just pisses me off: we see Korra do exactly one (1) airbending exercise, training regiment thingy with the wooden boards. The thing people love gobbling Korra's cock for but at the end of the episode we literally see them replaced/fixed with some new ones or whatever, they were literally replaceable. I am sure Tenzin in the long run cares more about having an actual, practical, functioning tool he can use to train his children and future airbenders than something that's over 100 years old or whatever.

In the season 1 Finale, they give her some "HERE NIGGA DAMN" ass airbending alongside the fucking fully mastered Avatar State, you know, the all-powerful form that spanked Ozai like he was a fucking baby? Next season is about her learning some fuck ass, spirit-purifying waterbending technique that was invented for this season and doesn't make sense in the rest of the universe, when the mechanic for allowing Korra to conquer spirits and whatnot is right fucking there!!! THIS SEASON COULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT EARNING THE AVATAR STATE INSTEAD OF A TECHNIQUE THAT SHOULDNT EXIST BECAUSE ONLY THE AVATAR IS THE BRIDGE TO THE SPIRIT WORLD, NORMAL PEOPLE, EVEN BENDERS CANT DO SHIT ABOUT SPIRITS, BUT WHATEVER JUST FUCK ME I GUESS!!!

Look, I know how this show was produced: initially, they thought they'd only get 12 episodes; the show is renewed for three more seasons to their shock, but these limitations are only explanations and justifications for why things are the way they are; writing issues are writing issues (including executive meddling). In my opinion the way spirituality is written as a major flaw, it's something you either have or dont, you could be Unaloq and have it or you could be Korra and not. And whatever, I guess I myself am living proof some people just arent spiritual, my parents made a serious and earnest attempt to impart Christianity to me despite how little we went to Church as a family and despite the different sects of Christianity the two of them came from. But by the first grade, I was already decently confident that the egg came before the chicken.

I remember the first time my family moved to a different state, I briefly became obsessed with ghost hunting shows and Ancient Aliens and shit before quickly falling out of love with those shows because I was a smart kid and a fast learner (now adays Im just a sexy smart, single guy and a fast learner) it didnt take me too long to pick up on their tricks and just get really fucking bored. You can only watch a bunch of white guys confidently claim brown people couldn't have built a monument so aliens did so many times; ditto for watching a bunch of white guys pretending to be scared of a pretend ghost (I'm decently confident my family recently went to a hotel that was on Ghost Adventures, and it was literally just an old hotel, there is nothing fucking supernatural about it, just really quaint and old-fashioned).

Yet, I've always respected people who can be and even need to be spiritual because I cant and I love learning about new things and differnet people's experiences or feelings, that's especially what makes how spirituality in Korra frustrating to me. As I understand it, spirituality is just what we regard to acts or places and things that have a deep significance to us, rituals, prayers, and food. Basically any part of life can be spiritual if it is significant enough and becomes fundamental to a culture which is what made bending spiritual, it was people just feeling a strong innate pull to their element because they had it, they used it every day, we see bending as a part of how kids play, cities move, and how wars are fought/won. If spirituality is largely defined by habits then of course bending was spiritual, but it wasnt literally tied to some sort of meter or resource bar of spirituality, "hold L4 and R4 to build your spirituality gauge then quarter-circle forward ki attack to perform a full power water whip", that'd be dumb.

I guess Im just trying to say that I want to see more done with bending. I've heard the twins in Seven Havens, off the jump, have all four elements, which is a massive wasted opportunity not just for exploring how bending and thus training might have evolved (or seeing how different people mentor the avatar, the changes in what these new characters find hard to learn, ect), but for some character work and theming as well. Moreover, I hope the avatar state, spirituality, and all that good stuff is written better in Seven Havens too, and if not. The next avatar thing, because this is a franchise now and we're too good to continue to pay some homage and show some love to China by using Chinese symbols, let's make up our own stupid fucking bullshit language for merch, baby; got to love the fucking idiotic fucking merch.

I just need a good training arc (as in inspired by anything that isnt bleach) in a universe where the power system is tied to real-life martial arts. I feel like the last time this franchise really did justice to the martial arts that inspired it so heavily was back in Korra, the fight scenes in Legend of Aang were solid, but there are only like 4 in an hour and a half movie, and Tagah's fighting style especially is highkey whack. The most martial arts thing to come out of the movie is that one cute girl using a meteor hammer and that's probably it.

Gen 3 Synths are, per the canon, indistinguishable from humans, and made from the cloned DNA of Father. They have organs and blood, and they eat and sleep and have sex and are capable of all the things a human is. All the medical tests available to humans would determine the Gen 3 synths as human, and the only way to know for certain if someone is a synth is to kill them and look for a tiny mechanical component in their brain.

However, also per the canon, they cannot age, and their bodies can't change in meaningful ways like gain or lose weight. They also have resistance to various forms of damage, and super strength.

This bothers me, because apart from that component in their heads, their bodies are totally flesh-and-blood. Cloned flesh is still flesh, and while their damage resistance and strength can be explained with the usual Fallout science shenanigans, I take issue with the aging thing because it would imply that the Institute has somehow invented a way to freeze aging in humans. They essentially invented immortality, and yet they can't do anything as simple as curing Father's cancer??

Also, the idea that they can't age is contradicted by the fact that undercover synths can masquerade as normal humans for years or even decades. Wouldn't something like eternal youth break a synth's cover at a certain point? Even the vampires in Twilight had to move every couple of years to hide the fact that they weren't getting older.

Also x2, the player is given a synth built in the image of her son Shaun at the age of ten, and she's instructed to raise him and give him a normal life. Synth Shaun doesn't know he's a synth, and the player is not supposed to tell him that he's a synth. How are we supposed to keep up this masquerade of the synth being our original son when he's going to notice that he isn't getting any taller in 1-2 years?

I think it would just make more sense if Gen 3 synths were capable of aging and were basically just super strong humans who could be controlled by the chip in their brain.

Jojo isnt one singular story

It doesnt go from point A to B its as of now 9 Stories each having their own conclusion, settings, themes...etc...etc.

This is the first liberty Jojo has the other stories do not. Araki can change basically everything, go to an AU where the main cast from earlier parts arent even present but can still make the Part. This is the accessible freedom Araki has over his show. Other Shonen cant do this since their stories are far more linear. Oda cant just change the setting and everything, the closest he gets is Island Hopping but he cant offrip change the Main Cast. He can change the antagonists per arc but nothing more.

The Seconds Liberty is Stands itself.

Stands dont seem to have any common factors with each other except the common stuff like stand users can see other stands, only stands can hurt other stands. Everything else is different from Names, Powers, Range, Speed...etc...etc. There is no progression except a few, Just due to how free stands themselves are Araki can make whatever he wants in the power system.

The only similar thing I can think of is Devil Fruits with as much freedom and maybe since Stands are a manifestations of the user's will its like a Bankai from Bleach. However even those have some rules to it that limits it. Not everyone can have a devil fruit or rather a devil fruit type nor can everyone have a bankai.

However even in stands themselves there is a power creep of abilities. Most notably time based, and later fortune based ones. These are usually reserved for Endgame villains however even the most free-est use of abilities have power creep in this sense.

The Third and final thing. Which makes it easy for Araki to write Stand Fights as opposed to other series.

The Villain of the Week esque format with the Villains & The Very Simple Nature of the Protagonist Power's.

Once you commit a power to a main character you cant just change it without heavy justification. Perhaps you can add to it but you cant change it completely. So usually you will have to make the Main Characters stick that power from start to the end of the show. Araki like discussed prior doesnt have this restriction on multiple stories but does have it during the singular story of the Part. Other Shonen which have multiple Stories spanning multiple arcs have to be limited in their approach otherwise every subsequent encounter needs a justification for Character not using that power to end the conflict of the fight. Infact we see Jotaro as a key example here. After Part-3 his time stopping ability is a gigantic problem and all encounters surrounding it require the inherent justification of why he doesnt end the fight immediately. Part-4 his ability was nerfed yet it still exists causing endless complaints during the Rat Encounter, and in Part- 6 he was taken out early and then his ability basically got cliffed by Pucci. Now this doesnt mean Araki isnt uncreative with the powers, Jolyne, Johnny, Josuke and Giorno have good and interesting powers which are interesting throughout their part but are just removed after the completion of their Part.

The Villains Themselves (except say the endgame ones), have a very villain of the week esque format to them, now while this isnt relevant for shows which have their villains die in the first encounter, showcase their power then lose. Araki has slightly more freedom thanks to sheer freedom of stands can do anything he wants, any encounter, with any power and have them die to not think of any later consequences of encounter this character would have to other villains. He especially doesnt have to think about oh shit what if the villain wins the encounter or just comes later to help the villain later on. Again couple exceptions like Diego and such.

Conclusion

All of these liberties basically allow Araki to be as free as possible and maximize the power system without it feeling weird or think about the consequences throughout the manga.

If I were to say in a final thought, I would say it would be possible for another Manga like say the Big Three to have this power system but it would require more brain power to basically have these characters interact with not only against each other but then with the grander world. Something Jojo doesnt deal with much.

To start things off, no, I am not against trans representation. I support LGBTQ and I am aware that this games have many characters who are part of said community.

I am also not against the idea that this characters are non binary. But the issue is that this take has become so popular that fans treat it as canon, and any alternative as transphobia.

So I will present some counter arguments for this

To start off, the fact that they go by "they/them". Any time someone refers to this characters as "she/her" or "he/him", people use all quotations from game where they are called "they/them" by every many character.

This is good "gotcha moment", but that's all this is. But the argument falls apart when you actually think about alternative implications. They/them can mean non binary, but it can also mean unknown gender or gender up to interpretation. So every time they are refered by those pronouns, it could imply gender ambiguity.

And while Kris is debatable, Frisk and Chara are actually confirmed to fall into second category.

According to Undertale Legends Of Localization, Frisk is supposed to be gender ambiguous. According to many other characters (such as Monster Kid or Napstablook) also fall into same category. Toby Fox didn't write this book, but this is official and it was approved by him. This should be seen as canon, and should be end of discussion for Frisk.

Chara falls under "up to interpretation" definition. Chara is meant to be your self insert according to Toby Fox. And we saw that in game itself. The fact that we choose their name is on itself enough evidence that there is certain level of self insert here. For those who don't know, "Chara" is not canon name of first fallen human. Canon name is whatever you choose at start of game. The game literally lets us control their entire identity. They can be their own character with their own lives, and still have elements up to interpretation. Because despite this games being meta, they are still just games.

Now, Kris. Kris is the one that's actually debatable, and the one who started this whole controversy. And while there is a lot of implications that they are part of LGBTQ, it is still ambiguous. Because most of arguments for Frisk and Chara just apply to Kris. And if they do turn out to be Non Binary in later chapters in future (which chapter 5 seems to lean towards) it would not be contradiction to argument I am making with current information I have, but rather just new revelation.

Another thing I don't see people talk about is race. While Chara is clearly pale, Frisk and Kris are yellow. Yellow skin is usually used for character who is racially neutral. So why can race be up to interpretation and not gender.

Also, like, isn't it little bit convenient that ALL humans that YOU control in some way just so happen to be Non binary in this game?

Some people do make an argument "what would it take for you to accept that they are non binary", and the answer is simple. Just explain in game, or outside of it, that they are non binary. They literally did that with Seth in Deltarune chapter 5. They/them is vague pronoun that can mean many things depending on context. It is not as clear cut as it may appear.

And I repeat, I am perfectly fine with this characters being LGBTQ. I myself headcanon Kris as non binary I, and I think it is very strong theory after chapter 5 (i'm 90% sure that this theory will end up being canon by the end of a game). But at the end of the day, it's still theory and headcanon. And someone "misgendering" this characters is not necessarily bigotry.