[ SECRET POST #1946 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1946 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 092 secrets from Secret Submission Post #278.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - hit/ship/spiration ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Had they shown one scene where he didn't act like a 12 year old and showed some maturity

You mean when Katara and Zuko went on a field-trip and Aang told her that revenge wasn't the answer, and he turned out to be right? Or you mean whenever Aang demonstrated that violence isn't always the best way to solve issues and that we should try to talk things out whenever possible? Or you mean how Aang is only 12 and yet already has a better understanding of spirituality and pacifism than 80% of the cast thanks to his upbringing?

Or does the fact that he likes to goof off and makes silly faces sometimes negate everything else?

[(Anonymous)]

More like if they'd had him not try his damnedest to run away from his responsibilities the minute he hears something unpleasant, and have to be dragged back into being the Avatar kicking and screaming. The finale was the most egregious case of that. Using spiritbending to get out of doing something he never wanted to do anyway was not exactly a defining character moment.

I found Aang irritating as hell (I almost didn't finish the first season because of him), and while I think a lot of the vitriol he gets is unwarranted, on that point I'll give the haters their due.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, my biggest problem with Aang is that he never really has to make any hard choices during the saga. The plot warps itself around him so he can have his proverbial cake and eat it too.

"Aang, you have to let go of Katara in order to open your chakra! If you don't do this it will be sealed off forever! Or...you could just not give up Katara, and conveniently hit your convenient chi-blocking scar and access the avatar state that way, conveniently. I guess that works too."

"Aang! You have to make a choice! You have to choose between going against your long-held beliefs of pacifism to kill the Firelord, or you can stand by your beliefs but let the Firelord live with the possibility that he might escape and cause more havoc. Or...you could just conveniently learn the magic power of ~*spiritbending*~ from a magical convenient Lion Turtle so you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. I guess that's okay."

I think it's more obvious when you have a character like Zuko, whose entire character arc is made up of him making hard choices and going against the worldview of his people and everything he's known in order to do what he believes is right. And I'm saying this as someone who likes Aang, and thinks he has a lot of good traits. But it just bothers me that he never has to seriously challenge any of his worldviews.

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

I'm saying this as someone who likes Aang, and thinks he has a lot of good traits. But it just bothers me that he never has to seriously challenge any of his worldviews.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

More like if they'd had him not try his damnedest to run away from his responsibilities the minute he hears something unpleasant

Well he needs flaws. He can't be perfect. But having those imperfections does not make him any more immature than Zuko or Katara or Toph for theirs.

[(Anonymous)]

Problem is, the narrative never treated it like a flaw. Quite the opposite. Aang was often praised for doing so (Iroh in Crossroads of Destiny, everyone else at the finale), or at the very least told he wasn't wrong (Katara in The Storm).

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

But, as far as I can remember, nobody really addresses him on those flaws. Katara gets confronted for being too nosy and mothering (and she gets burned for being too trusting), Toph gets called out for being reckless (and unhelpful), Zuko gets like two whole seasons of getting crapped on for his life choices, then is called out in season 3 by like...everyone (seriously...everyone).

But I don't remember anyone ever confronting Aang about his whole avoidance issue. And I don't feel like he ever learned to NOT do that. Hell, he wasn't even going to confront the Firelord until who knows when until he found out that his only other option was "Let the Earth Kingdom burn to the ground, wheee!"

[(Anonymous)]

Hell, he wasn't even going to confront the Firelord until who knows when until he found out that his only other option was "Let the Earth Kingdom burn to the ground, wheee!"

JFC, thank you. I swear, Zuko was the only member of the group with his head on straight for the last few episodes.

[(Anonymous)]

But that was his defining flaw as a character, and he never had to confront it. A big part of character growth is confronting and learning to work through flaws, which Aang never really did. Whereas the other characters were frequently making difficult decisions and having to confront aspects of themselves that they didn't particularly like or want to admit to, whenever Aang faced a difficult situation, some sort of borderline deus ex machina popped up to save him from having to face his flaws.

Obviously, since this was a family-friendly all-ages-appropriate cartoon running on Nickelodeon, we can't have our kid hero kill the bad guy in the end, but there were other ways they could've forced Aang to challenge his views and confront his flaws.

Heck, they even tried to make him deal with the consequences of running away from difficult situations that he didn't want to deal with when he learned that the Fire Nation had slaughtered every living Air Nomad except for him, but it didn't feel like he really learned anything from that, because he just kept on running away from everything right up until the very last possible second.

I won't argue that Aang didn't grow as a character, because he certainly did become more mature as the series progressed, but all the other characters were constantly confronting their flaws, while Aang never really had to.

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

Exactly

[fadeinthewash.livejournal.com]

Being spiritual and pacifist is a mark of maturity? Certainly not signs of immaturity, yeah, but I wouldn't peg them as mutually inclusive with maturity either. There's a time and a place for everything. Punching someone for making fun of your shoes? Not mature. Gunning down Hitler to save thousands? Outside the mature/immature spectrum.

Besides, Aang's not exactly the picture of maturity. He ran from his responsibilities, or tried to, every time they came up. Every time one of the previous Avatars told him an answer he didn't like while he was on the lion-turtle, he turned to another one hoping for a different answer, like a kid getting told 'no' by one parent and trying to do an end-run with the other. (I thought Avatar Yangchen, another Airbender, had a very good point about the responsibilities of sometimes sacrificing one's own morals for the good of others/the world.) And, in an angry, huff, he decapitated one of those buzzard-wasps in the desert. But hey, all life is sacred.

A lot of that has to do with him being a young child. Young children are pretty much immature by definition. But still, such events were part of his character nonetheless, hypocrisy and all. Just because the narrative catered to his worldviews (last minute spirit-bending!) doesn't mean he really (figuratively speaking) walked on water.

[haro.livejournal.com]

Or does the fact that he likes to goof off and makes silly faces sometimes negate everything else?

This is how it comes across to me.

And to some of the other commenters, Aang sometimes having immature moments and being flawed doesn't negate that he is often VERY mature for his age either. It's not an either or.

But hey, this is the fandom that bashes Aang for being whiny while adoring Zuko (who is totally not whiny, of course).

[(Anonymous)]

Totally agree with you on the fandom and Zuko vs. Aang. Zuko IMO was just annoying. Treated his uncle like crap, mocked things he didn't understand, lashed out in an infantile temper tantrum any time someone said something he didn't like. He was tiresome and was forgiven so many times over the course of the series for the same stupid shit constantly.

But of course the fandom praises him to the hills and fails to remember any of that.