case: (Default)
Case ([personal profile] case) wrote in [community profile] fandomsecrets2012-05-01 06:40 pm

[ SECRET POST #1946 ]


⌈ 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.

(Anonymous) 2012-05-02 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
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) 2012-05-02 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
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) 2012-05-02 04:30 am (UTC)(link)
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) 2012-05-02 04:33 am (UTC)(link)
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) 2012-05-02 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
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.