Who was the worst ATLA character?

King Kuei

Maybe it's because of my weird thing for goth chicks, but I loved Mai. However, I feel that she and Zuko were a totally incompatible match. I suspect this is because the writers changed their intentions for her character halfway through season 3.

When Mai is introduced, she's a sarcastic rich girl who is bored with life. Her parents are depicted as sweet and accomodating bureaucrats who are so far removed from the war that they can be the governors of a recently colonised city without having to deal with the actual brutality involved with said colonialism. Mai is desperate for adventure because she doesn't understand the risks. She jumps into a fight with Aang not because she deeply believes in the Fire Nation cause but because she's looking for a cheap thrill. The key here is that Mai is so inoculated by her privilege that she doesn't care.

And that's a very sophisticated point for the series to make. Not everyone who is involved with imperialist or authoritian governments is some true believer. I highly recommend watching Full Metal Jacket. The guy who gets way to passionate about the ideology - Private Pyle - blows his brains out. The guy who can make sarcastic ambivalent comments and joke about John Wayne - Joker - is able to shoot an unarmed woman point blank in the head (and it's implied he raped her). Mai is like Joker.

I'm ranting. So 1/?

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Literally just waifuism.

Season 4 Katara or Jet

2/3

In season 3, Mai is supposed to represent the sort of life that Zuko needs to ultimately reject. She's a spoiled Fire Nation noblewoman. She is so much like him a few months prior and representative of the sort of woman (and thus, life) he was supposed to live. Mai's cool indifference to Zuko's trauma is a microcosm of the Fire Nation's behaviour towards the rest of the world. Mai shrugging and saying that she wasn't asking for Zuko's life story when he understandably airs his terror at seeing his physically abusive father for the first time in years demonstrates the same obliviousness most Fire Nation noblemen have towards the suffering in the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe. There is a fundamental lack of empathy for people who are the victims. Who cares about Zuko being terrified to face the man who burned his face in front of a snickering crowd? Who cares about some Earth Kingdom villagers having their life savings snatched by some Fire Nation soldier so he can buy some extra snacks at the commissary?

It's this lack of empathy that resonates with Zuko. He sees how he is being treated and realises that his personal truamas are

indicative of a larger cultural mindset in the Fire Nation. Zuko gets everything he wants - his father's presence, his crown, servants, nice clothes, tasty food and a well-bred upper class girlfriend. But he isn't satisfied because he is a compassionate person who needs love in his personal life and politics. That's why he leaves. That's where Mai and Zuko's romance should have ended. Their values are fundamentally incompatible. She doesn't understand him.

Except pic related is my waifu.

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3/3

Instead, the show completely backtracks in a desperate bid to make Mai a good match for Zuko. It starts with the Beach, where Mai gives some sob story about how her parents are mean, neglectful and controlling. Except that is not what we see at all. When Mai runs after Aang, her parents don't freak out. Her mom is shown to be friendly and concerned about her and her brother. So where is this tragic family backstory coming from? It's nonsense contrived to make Mai have family drama to weakly link her to Zuko.

Same with Mai's alleged "fear" of Azula. Ty Lee was the one terrified of Azula. Mai openly said that Azula could shoot lightning at her and deliberately disobeyed orders. This is likely because Mai's family is privileged enough that even the Fire Princess couldn't murder her at will. Mai has no real reason to fear Azula, so Mai suddenly acting as if she was terrified of Azula in the Boiling Rock feels cheap. Ty Lee's show of courage was infinitely more satisfying because she demonstrated genuine terror of Azula's wrath.

Mai and Zuko's romance feels so contrived. At the end, Mai shows up and Zuko is shocked. You think if he loved this girl the first thing he'd do after stopping Azula with Katara would be to hop on Appa and bust her out of jail. Instead, he just sort of forgets her uncle is the warden. It honestly feels like Maiko was just decided upon on the last minute because Zuko couldn't be single so they had her show up.

I liked some of Mai's confrontation with Azula. I think it showed that she was overcoming her apathy and learning to care about people. However, she shouldn't have gone back to Zuko, someone she clearly isn't compatible with, to be a noblewoman - a life she openly expressed contempt for. I think Mai should have had one little moment of friendship with Ty Lee and then gone out into the world to find her own path.

TLDR: Mai makes structural sense, but she was ruined by shoehorned shipping nonsense.

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Ozai gets my vote too. I mean they built him up as a real threat which he was but considering he was the final boss they really underdeveloped him compared to Azula. I dont think he needs a whole episode to himself or anything but a little more here and there showing us just why he is the way he is or what his final goal really looks like could have gone a long way.

I think Ozai would benefit from a fight with Iroh. I mean, those guys never even talk on-screen, do they? That would not only showcase him as a fighter (before he faces Aang, the only fight we see him in is Zuko humiliating him) but also gave him some legit development aside of being abusive father. Ironically, the way it is presented, Ozai makes more sense as Zuko's final antagonist and Azula as the series one. The main Ozai's sin is what he did to Zuko, he had some evil plans, but even they come from Azula. And Azula aside of tormenting and manipulating Zuko, grieviouslt harms Iroh, later imprisons him, defeats and imprisons Suki, takes over Ba Sing Se and nearly kills Aang.

Thanks for sharing. I've always been indifferent to Maiko, but you made some damn good points.

Wrong.
Katara is underappreciated.

This faggot easily for coming out of nowhere and creating a stupid deus ex machina that robbed the ending of any moral conflict. also for fucking ruining the lore in Korra but that's a whole nother discussion.

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This desu.

Also, June and her retarded mount.

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ATLA really overdid its Katawank at some point. Her overcoming Azula while Aanga struggles with Zuko was ridiculous. And "muh hardwork" when she becomes a master after days/weeks at most of training and learns every trick of Hama (including bloodbending) in a matter of minutes, getting everything right the first try.

I always consider Azula's defeat not coming from her fucking up lightning bending to be the biggest tragedy of the original series. We know what it looks like when done improperly, we know just being not balanced mentally is enough to fuck it up. It would have been the perfect cap off to her relationship and comparison to Zuko. Sure Zuko taking that bullet is nice and all but it doesnt speak much to the relationship with his sister, which is partially what the fight is about, who is fit to rule. Hell even have her flames go back to orange. Even if it messes up the color dynamic it would have been a good visual to show that Zuko has closed the gap and that she is slipping. As is Katara pretty much fucking clowns her in close quarters after Zuko Mr. President's her and it was pretty unsatisfying. Like why didnt she even try to melt the ice like we have seen Zuko do before?

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>Katara: Well, you never loved our mother like I did!

Sokka truly was the better sibling.

I was actually talking about their previous fight (end of season two) when she almost beats Azula until Zuko steps in after he overcomes Aang. Even though Aang had an edge over Zuko back in S1 before mastering water- and earthbending. Aang fooling around instead of learning in North Pole and somehow having to learn from Katara for the next few months despite their enormous talent difference was also stupid as fuck. Seriously, they should have her be a prodigy like Azula or Toph if they really needed to wank her so much. Zuko is the hard-working guy done right. But yeah, Azula not failing to generate the light was really a missed opportunity.

Should have ended the thread there, tbqh

Completely agree, there was no need for all that "Zuko tanks lightning to save Katara", at least if they didn't intend to make them a couple afterwards.
Azula getting injured by her own lightning because of her mental state would've been so much better ending to that fight.

Katara was the healer of the group and they made a point mid season 1 that Aang was better at picking up water bending techniques, fast forward to the end of the series and Katara who has practically no bending experience is outpacing Aang and within a few months she's competing with people like Toph and Zuko who trained their whole life.

Reeked of feminist creep, them not wanting a girl who wasn't amazing at combat.

The biggest sin is the character inconsistency from episode to episode, but if we pick one character, that would be Katara. She was often annoying and boring, and despite often being treated as the voice of reason she acted like a retard even when we were well into Season 3.

She wasn't the voice of reason, that was Sokka. She was the heart of the group. That's why Painted Lady is the only non-cringe "falling out" episode, because it comes from a genuine value conflict and not one or two characters being an ass to conclude on a unit/trust message. Though it too is rendered stupid once you realize the group ended up 4 days to early in the gathering spot despite wasting few days in few different places even though they were supposedly in a hurry. In the end, Sokka comes off as a retard. The writing was really all over the place in season 3.

Shipping is cancerous to childrens TV shows, especially in the age of tumblr like TLA was. Luckily it was only a few seasons long or it would have ended up like Adventure Time with show ruining match ups like we see in Korra

also Zuko and Mai was aiiiiiiiiids

The existance of Lion Turtles was hinded since the episode the team visited the library in the desert. I will agree though that it could have been handled better.

Has anyone here read legacy of the fire nation? If so, have they just left Suki out as the preview images suggested?

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so Yang is not FIRED her again?

Mai was pretty shit but Katara was worse I still fap to her rule 34 tho

also Azula best girl too bad we never got the story of Zuko helping her turn her life around

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I just realised Toph never gets much individual fights aside of literal jobbers from her hometown. I mean, Katara and Aang gets to fight Azula and Zuko multiple times (Aang also fights Zhao and Ozai once each), Zuko also fights Azula and Zhao a lot but Toph pretty much always cleans up fodder. And she's probably the strongest in the Gaang, Avatar state aside.

Both Mai and Ty Lee feel like they had focus episodes that were cut from the schedule. Though you really need to rewatch Full Metal Jacket, your analysis is totally off.

Aang has to generalize rather than specialize, so Katara gets better at waterbending while Aang has to learn earth and fire bending, so he only comes out ahead when accessing the Avatar state. Likewise, Toph is largely self-taught and Zuko was never presented as anything other than run of the mill when it comes to firebending.

yeh? blindless is a crippling weakness when the opponent is a non earthbender

>Zuko was never presented as anything other than run of the mill when it comes to firebending.
Yes and no. He's a fucking great firebender and was trained by one of the greatest firebenders of his era, but he's not a prodigy.

>Aang has to generalize rather than specialize, so Katara gets better at waterbending while Aang has to learn earth and fire bending
You really ignore the gigantic advantage he had over her talent wise. She immediately learns everything she came up with herself, including what she couldn't do. Making her his master was really forced development.
>and Zuko was never presented as anything other than run of the mill when it comes to firebending.
Are you retarded? He beats Zhao, and he's supposedly a master. And it's the very beginning of the series.
>Toph is largely self-taught
She's taught by bedgermoles. And she's the best earthbender sans (maybe) Bumi.
She generally seemed to manage as long as the enemy doesn't fly and the she has earth around her.

I dislike Mai and Ty Lee in general because of how much of a waste of space they were in Book 3 except for being used to kickstart Azula's insanity.

Their screentime would have been better used to develop Ozai as a character.

>all these people saying Katara is worst

How can so much awful taste be possible?

>trained by one of the greatest firebenders of his era
>Zuko was never presented as anything other than run of the mill when it comes to firebending
this meme again xD
first Iroh did his best not to teach Zuko anything and second Zuko was gimped by his unwillingness to embrace the philosophy of his element but he was overflowing with talent that's why he could so easly create new moves or coppy others and use them
and this is also the reason why he was able to ultimately become stronger than Azula despite the fact that the princess worked hard her entire life to get where she was and Zuko just had to be told that using his element doesn't make him a Hitler
that's why

*blocks your path*

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Aang's powelevel is horribly inconsistent, he loses against Jet and against the archers but easily defeats Zuko in nearly all of the fights while never taking them very seriously

He was glider-less against Jet, I think early on he needed it to fight Zuko as he avoided direct combat. And he was only a bit better than him when both fought seriously and Zuko was concentrated.

Because she was relegated to B-plot in both season finales, she did fight Azula in Day of Black Sun

She was always relegated to B-plots when plot-relevant episodes happened, that's kinda my point. And yeah, but that wasn't much of a fight, given that Azula was powerless and running away most of the time. Also, by the way, it was fucking retarded, Aang has fucking superspeed.

Yeah, Aang and Toph defeated like a hundred Dai Li during the Lake Laogai and Earth King episodes and suddenly struggle against two of them just so Azula can get away.

I think it's because instead of fighting/standing their ground they were just running around

>defeated like a hundred Dai Li
but those were just mobs and not named characters

His episodes were all pretty decent

that bandit guy they tried to make katara's crush with no payoff at all

The pay off was Sokka being right as always and Jet's later redemption arc ending with his death.

The payoff was the twist that the gang of Peter Pan freedom fighters were mass murdering terrorists all along.

desu there aren't any AtLA characters I outright dislike. Well aside from ones you're supposed to dislike like Ozai, but even then I think he's an effective character.

Its Jet you inbreed.

Everyone in TLA is a prodigy, EVERYONE

fpbp