Role Playing in Avatar.

[Lokathor]

It was painfully obvious that the entire wrap-up to season one was done in such a frantic and sloppy way because they didn't know if there was gonna be a season two. Now, even if they had known, they might have done things poorly, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of a doubt.

They were promised 26 episodes with a 13/13 split for season 1 and 2, but they were later told that they instead had to do a 12/14 split midway through season 1. So their Season 1 arc's pacing was fucked at that point, and the last episode of season 1 is actually two episodes in a one episode bag.

But Tumbling Down says that they also don't have any writers so man maybe they're just fucked for all of season 1 and 2.

[infected slut princess]

and Wang Fire!

That is the only STD i've never had.

[Josh_Kablack]

So season 2 is kind of a mess and takes really disturbing liberties with previously established canon. But the most recent episode did have Iroh's spirit hosting a Magic Tea Party.

[Fuchs]

My nieces love TLA, and love LoK. I think my sister will murder me for having introduced the kids to the availability of Avatar and LoK posters.

[Wiseman]

So, Opinions on Avatar Wan's story?

[Shatner]

Art was excellent. Story was good. Simple, heroic, and not bogged down in "we can't write well" like the rest of LoK.

There was discussion a while back about making a Dominions 3 mod to include the Avatar: The Last Airbender nations. Given their tech, they'd have to be middle era. I bring that up because the setting from Wan's story would be perfect source material for an Early Era Dominions mod. Big magic held by few people with low tech doing heroic stuff. Oh, and people practically tripping over spirits; spirits EVERYWHERE.

[Dean]

Could someone fill me in on this Avatar Wan business? What it is, who it is. I'm very critical about the shows I watch and while I watched a lot of Avatar I only watched a couple episodes of LoK before I got the feeling it was going to turn out sloppy and unrewarding. I haven't been watching it but still maintain a fondness for the Avatar universe. If "Avatar Wan" is a series of episodes or something that are really good and not based around professional wrestling with bending then I would be down to watch it.

[Maxus]

Avatar Wan is the story of the First Avatar. Evidently they went with this more Japanese Woodcut/painting art style. Can't speak for the rest of it, I only saw a coupla minutes in passing.

[Shatner]

The Avatar Wan stuff is a pair of episodes that show up in the middle of the current LoK season. Korra has to get some exposition about who the latest BBEG is that the latest evil leader is secretly working for. To do this she has to commune with Wan, the very first avatar. And from there you get two episodes that feature virtually no LoK characters because it is set hundreds or thousands of years in the past. Also, the art is different and quite cool looking.

Season 2: Episode 7 and Episode 8, if you're interested.

[Tumbling Down]

So, Opinions on Avatar Wan's story?

Well, it did have a few patches of bad writing, but they didn't overshadow everything or really detract from the story, so I didn't much mind.
Especially since the story was simple and straightforward for a change instead of being weighed down by shitty side-plots and Shades of Grey that turn out to actually be brown. I also can't exactly say that I was sad not to have the regular main cast show up much.

I also liked that bending was cool again and actually gave you a reason to give a fuck, because LoK has otherwise felt like being trapped in an endless game of 4e.
And of course I was happy that they went back to the good animation studio, because I'm not sure how much more of that Naruto shit I could manage.

Could someone fill me in on this Avatar Wan business?

LoK season 2, episodes 7 and 8. It's a two-part origin story for the avatar. It only has Korra showing up for like 10 seconds in each episode, so it's not really connected to the main story, and it's perfectly watchable on its own.

[Mask_De_H]

The Ukiyo-e style they did the flashback episodes in was beautiful.

Also apparently I have a higher tolerance for shitty writing because LoK hasn't been bugging me too much.

[Rawbeard]

LoK would be fun, if Korra wasn't a clished angsty teen brat. The Wan episodes were fun, reminded me why I liked the original series. LoK seems to know what people liked about it, but not why.

[Josh_Kablack]

So, Opinions on Avatar Wan's story?

It was a neat little diversion with a really appealing ancient era art style, but it just happened to completely invalidate a lot of the setting's history which had been established by the first series. Cue internet fandom flamewars between "shits all over cannon" and "no, it was beautiful, you just didn't get it".

[Lokathor]

Well I'm not gonna go look everywhere to see what history it invalidates, so you better post it here.

[Rawbeard]

Another thing that I dislike about LoK is the blandness of the "villians". They are all evil for evils sake, with convoluted plans so they can go "I was evil all along" at some point. Turning a comic relief character into a mustache twirling (literally) villian is not something that speaks of good writing. I am not interested enough to find out, if they switched out the writers when they went into making LoK, but if anyone has any insight it would be appreciated.

Until last episode I actually had a slim hope the main antagonists goal was not "I want to destroy the world, because I am evil and that is what evil people do". But alas, after Mustachio MacEvilpants I should not have been surprised.

I don't quite see how Wan's little adventure contradicts established lore, might be not remembering it, though. Watched it couple of years ago, so I am not charged up to full on fanboy rage levels.

[Seerow]

Rawbeard: You do realize this is the sequel to the series that had Firelord Ozai as the main antagonist, right? With Azula as the biggest constant threat?

Evil for evlulz sake is pretty much what Avatar villains do.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Actually, one of the great weaknesses of LoK's first season was the complete unwillingness to address whether Amon (whether or not he was sincere) was actually voicing legitimate grievances held by the population; I mean, he seems to have a *lot* of followers.

For fuck's sake, the whole Equalist movement was based on the premise that the benders were a privileged class, and the response of the city was to have their all-bender police enforce a curfew on non-benders.

[Rawbeard]

Rawbeard: You do realize this is the sequel to the series that had Firelord Ozai as the main antagonist, right? With Azula as the biggest constant threat?

Evil for evlulz sake is pretty much what Avatar villains do.

The Firelord was barely evil, he was just the head of the Fire Kingdom, very konservative, but he did not want to set the world on fire and watch it burn, nor did he kick puppies to remind himself that he was evil. Azula was a broken socioopath and at the end she just fell apart. She was the closest to Evil, but not for evils sake.

Thinking about them males LoK villians look even more shallow.

[Seerow]

Rawbeard: You do realize this is the sequel to the series that had Firelord Ozai as the main antagonist, right? With Azula as the biggest constant threat?

Evil for evlulz sake is pretty much what Avatar villains do.

The Firelord was barely evil, he was just the head of the Fire Kingdom, very konservative, but he did not want to set the world on fire and watch it burn, nor did he kick puppies to remind himself that he was evil. Azula was a broken socioopath and at the end she just fell apart. She was the closest to Evil, but not for evils sake.

Thinking about them males LoK villians look even more shallow.

Did you actually watch the series finale? Holy shit. I wanted to assume you were being sarcastic, but then you went on being completely serious when addressing Azula. The whole deal with Sozin's comet was Ozai was planning to literally burn an entire continent to the ground. So yes, he very literally did want to just set the world on fire and watch it burn.

[Rawbeard]

I am not sure you understand the motivation and inspiration for that. Or what was happening in the setting at the time. His plan was reasonable, albeit monstrous. He did not do that for the lulz, evil or otherwise.

[Username17]

Firelord Ozai wasn't just burning the world so it would be broken, he was committing ethnic cleansing so that his people would rule all four kingdoms for a thousand years. It was a very reasonable plan if you happened to really care what the borders of the Fire Nation were and didn't mind a little genocide here and there to make them bigger.

The comet plan wasn't about setting fire to the whole world, it was about setting fire to enough of the Earth Nation that the Fire Nation could colonize it.

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

So Fire Hitler instead of Fire Joker.

[Dean]

^Exactly. And Hitler is a much more interesting character to examine or interact with than the Joker. Because you could explore the stories that made Hitler or Ozai decide that their personal gain and the gain of their followers was worth a million deaths. But the Joker literally has no history because at some point you just have to acknowledge that he has no motivations or story arcs. He's just a plot device, an evil Macguffin basically. Which is what the LoK villains feel like to me.

[Rawbeard]

The Equalists were way more interesting than some revenge driven super blood bender. Korra learning to not be a raging bitch through her spiritual quest would also be more interesting than a mad man who wants to kill everyone, ever.

couple more episodes to see if they turn this around, but I am not holding my breath.

[BearsAreBrown]

It was a neat little diversion with a really appealing ancient era art style, but it just happened to completely invalidate a lot of the setting's history which had been established by the first series..

Like what? Am I missing something obvious here?