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michaelmatsumoto:

“We will be together for all of your lifetimes. And we will never give up.”

Here it is, folks! “Harmony”- the centerpiece and final entry of my triptych tribute to the amazing, forever-inspiring “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “The Legend of Korra” series! It’s been a long time coming, but I hope you all enjoy! Together, “Peace,” “Harmony,” and “Balance” equate my love and affection for such a phenomenal project that achieved so much. Thank you Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino for your vision that has been nothing short of one of the greatest animated series I’ve ever known!

I was browsing your ATLA tag ad saw posts about the fire nation gang and the Beach episode. I loved that episode and in retrospective it is kinda telling that all the fire nation kids except Azula got to have an outburst about their personal problems. I think the contrast btw Z creating a giant fire and A with the fire under the ashes is telling about how the 2 contrast each other cope with things in different ways. A also missed the chance to face her personal problems before they destroyed her

Hello!  And yeah, it’s really telling because it was written this way just so Azula definitely wouldn’t have the same place in the narrative as the other 3 at the time of the beach episode and for the rest of the series, which is why her issues were foreshadowed then but not addressed before the last episodes. 

Mai and Ty Lee were foreshadowed since their very first introduction to be potential traitors to Azula’s side, because Azula always ruled them with using fear. As for Zuko, I don’t even think I need to say anything. xD

However I don’t agree about Azula missing the chance to face her problems, if just because her mindset made it impossible and that’s why it took her two “friends” betraying her to admit that she even had issues in the first place and anyway all of Azula’s mindset during ATLA is 98% Ozai’s fault. 

I mean, looking at this episode in particular, it’s the only time that Azula is presented as this young lady who wouldn’t mind having the opportunity to enjoy things besides fighting, ruling and being a tyrant once in a while (when even in Zuko’s flashback she always was a pest who enjoyed destruction) and I’m ready to bet that it’s because this side of her truly exists too. 
That’s why she tried so hard to flirt with Chan, why she went from one kiss to ruling the world with him and why she even admitted to Ty Lee that she was jealous of her natural with people (aka men in the context of that scene).

So Azula was built as a multi-layered character and that’s why the beach scene only foreshadowed a part of her personal issues, but as a main villain, she couldn’t get an outburst at the same time as the other “good” characters.
In a way, the beach episode showed similarity between Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee in that aspect and, well, they all ended up betraying Azula, didn’t they?

TL;DR read this post if you haven’t, it’s amazing. 😉

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a nice day Anon!

irresistible-revolution:

One of the many reasons i love “The Beach” episode in AtLA is it really shows us how political dysfunction/ imperialist expansion filters down into the interpersonal, like you can’t be part of an imperialist national mechanism without that shit fucking you over on a personal level: there’s Zuko and Azula with their problematic family, there’s Mai and then Ty Lee who was tired of being a carbon copy I mean these are all kids that are stifling under the narrow roles ascribed to them (which is what happens in highly industrialized, capitalist nations which prioritize efficiency, compliance and utility rather than creative expression and interconnectedness). Ofc the Gaang has family issues too – Toph and her parents, Katara and Sokka’s early loss of a parent figure etc – but you don’t get the same sense of dysfunction and trauma and pain that you do with Mai/Ty Lee/Azula/ Zuko, or at least it feels different. And I really wanna know more about these four FN kids in their childhood and how they found each other and formed these bonds through and in spite of their dysfunction and ugh feels about kids growing up during war i mean this is really one of the strongest things about the show: war and militarization affects everyone in some way, not just in terms of losing land and resources but also in how fully we can engage our own humanity