I think I actually don't like ATLA as much as I thought I did
I watched the original series a long time ago, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I know a lot of my friends were huge fans, and there's a big fan community on the internet too. The people I knew IRL would paint this series as like, the best thing ever, some kind of unique and revolutionary story.
That's a bit of an overstatement to me. A close friend told me "if you grew up watching martial arts movies, this isn't really that unique or revolutionary" and I think that's another way to put it that REALLY got me thinking more if I actually like ATLA.
Now, I will say that I adore the concept, the art, and the original series' writing in many of the episodes. Probably the BEST and arguably most revolutionary thing it did was Zuko's redemption (confronting his abuser / un-learning nationalism / making genuine amends) arc which is still held up to the standard of a redemption arc TODAY (that's more impressive than anything Bryke did with their self-insert character Aang, which is probably why they made a movie entirely centered on Aang). Katara's character was also pretty radical at the time for combating sexist beliefs and giving her a distinct and well-rounded personality who had her own goals, storyline, character development etc. outside of her supposed love interest (which got trashed post-series).
But the more Bryke pump out from this franchise, the less I enjoy it. For two reasons:
- The weeaboo thing. The original series did an okay job representing various cultures in SOME aspects, and it wasn't overtly offensive for the *most* part (of course, one could argue this, and I'll touch on that in a bit) otherwise it wouldn't have aged well (this is also arguable since Kataang still seems to have aged well despite it having one of the most obvious incel dynamics I've seen in media). What I mean by this is, they attempted to be respectful to the main / most visible cultural philosophies, language and symbols, practices, character designs - so that's probably why a lot of people can ignore the rest. That being, ignoring the bastardization of Tibetan Buddhism, racist depiction of the single South Asian character, racist depiction of 'sandbenders' and characters with Islamic names, Western beliefs of good vs. evil overwriting the Taoist philosophies of balance. This is to me an obvious low bar, and I have a feeling maybe they're trying to 'fix' some of that (i.e. make the new Avatar a not-racist depiction of South Asians). But... I went from "ok I'll enjoy this series I find that I have issues with, acknowledging these issues exist, but appreciating the good writing for some of these original series episodes" to ".........." when it came out from that recent event that Bryke decided to change the language that they had hired an actual translator for in the original series, to "Avatarian" (and modify the actual language characters). I don't know how the fandom is letting them get away with this.
- Katara, misogyny (and the fandom). I mean do I really have to explain? Everything that comes out of her relationship to Aang, and her sad fate in LoK makes me want to explode in fury. And the rest of the fandom thinks this is just normal, don't see problems with any of it, or comes up with 50 reasons to excuse it - refusing to acknowledge that what happened to her character were DELIBERATE decisions.
I have a lot of my IRL casual fan friends wondering if I'm seeing the movie, and I tell them that it's probably gonna make me sick if I watch it (I can't even handle the screenshots). Again this made me think - do I even like ATLA? Most casual fans would go see the movie.
I think I don't like it honestly. It's okay, and again I will acknowledge I love the designs and the overall premise/plot of the original, and it definitely influenced our culture (can't deny that!) - but there are too many obvious issues that STILL come up where I can't consider myself a "fan" at this point.
It just feels like the more they do, the less I can see this series in a positive light to the point where now it's not even positive anymore.
Maybe if they weren't churning out so much post-series content I would still be a regular fan.