Avatar: The Last Airbender & Korra (SPOILERS)

[Channy]

The teeth I think are the biggest turnoff.

Thanks Howl, shall I jot you down as the first order once I get the prototype going?

 

[Shademp]

Spoiler: Miss Sato has mastered all the elements

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Dark Horse is continuing Korra: http://io9.gizmodo.com/dark-horse-is-finally-getting-around-to-continuing-the-1787417173




X

 

[Carlie]

"Now they’ve returned from the spirit world to find New Republic City in chaos, with the assistance of a giant spirit portal inside it."

The girls: We leave you alone for 5 minutes guys!

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Korra Comic preview: http://io9.gizmodo.com/get-a-look-at-korra-and-asamis-first-date-in-the-new-le-1792406139




X

 

[Carlie]

 

[Shademp]

Spoiler: Didn't realize this parallel in season 3 of AtLA until now

 

[Shademp]

Preview of the Legend of Korra comic was just posted on the official facebook page

 

[Carlie]

So Turf Wars: Part One came out a couple of days ago, I haven't read it but I've been looking at the plot. I've been curious as to how they were going to deal with homosexuality in the Avatar universe. If they were going to say that homosexuality has been there and accepted, we just hadn't seen it. Or if they were going to go with a more realistic route of it not being widely accepted and thankfully IMO they went with the latter which is better for development in the story. The Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom in particular have a "is fine so long as you don't broadcast it" mentality about it which I guess in part was done to explain why Kya's sexuality was never mentioned in the series.

Spoiler: Spoiler tagging this part because of specific plot points in the comic

Korra and Asami have to come out to people specifically Korra's parents. This doesn't go super well because while they're fine with her sexuality, she plans to be open about it with everyone and they warn her not everyone will be tolerant of her sexuality and argument ensues. We also find out that Avatar Kyoshi was also openly bisexual during her time but failed to change the view of how homosexuality was viewed in the Earth Kingdom.

 

[Shademp]

Those are some promising plot development. Also, I had no idea Kya was a confirmed homosexual character! That's neat.

I'm unable to find the original statements by Bryke, but this article that recaps the new comic says the following:

Asami and Korra’s burgeoning relationship prompts Kya to come out to them and explain a brief history of queerness in the Avatar World. How did you approach incorporating a history of queer representation/struggle into this universe?

 

[Carlie]

Kya's sexuality was something that most of the fandom just assumed during the series run and Mike and Bryan confirmed I think a couple months after series ended along with Aiwei. I think it was in one of their blog posts but it wasn't the main topic in it, it was more of a "oh btw Kya and Aiwei are gay" kind of thing. It really wasn't the best way to go about it but at least she appears in the comic discussing her sexuality. That still leaves the issue of them remaining quiet abut Azula's sexuality even though everyone knows she's gay (or as the meme says "everyone knows Azula was in love with Ty Lee") and Grey DeLisle/Griffin confirmed it a couple of years ago.

 

[Shademp]

Azula's sexuality even though everyone knows she's gay (or as the meme says "everyone knows Azula was in love with Ty Lee") and Grey DeLisle/Griffin confirmed it a couple of years ago.

*Shad's obliviousness intensifies*

These are both things I neither knew about nor even thought about.

I was too busy reacting to Azula's levels of cray-cray.

 

[Ite]

Very cool! I wonder if we'll see any gay males who aren't villains.

 

[Carlie]

Azula's sexuality even though everyone knows she's gay (or as the meme says "everyone knows Azula was in love with Ty Lee") and Grey DeLisle/Griffin confirmed it a couple of years ago.

*Shad's obliviousness intensifies*

These are both things I neither knew about nor even thought about.

I was too busy reacting to Azula's levels of cray-cray.

Oh Shad I had a good chuckle out of that.

Very cool! I wonder if we'll see any gay males who aren't villains.

I really hope they do, five females to one male villain is very uneven representation.

 

[Clement Rage]

Didn't many people also assume Azula was in love with Zuko?

Fandoms tend to interpret everyone to be in love with everyone, so I tend not to take it seriously, never knew anything but Korrasami was canon.

Don't see it making a good arc, though... who the hell can tell the Avatar what to do?

 

[ForceStealer]

lol, yeah I too admit the only impression I ever got of Azula was

 

[Flare]

This reminds me that I never watched the new series on this. I should eventually get around to it.

 

[Carlie]

So I shamefully only became aware of this yesterday but a certain pair of VA's decided to have some fun on instagram with the marriage equality ruling.

Video 1

Video 2

Guys there's a reason why stuff like this exist.

 

[Channy]

Chalk me up on the Azula surprise bandwagon. I mean, you definitely can tell she was very protective of Ty Lee, but I took that to be in a big sisterly way.

 

[Shademp]

Lesbianism and all its glory, but here's the REAL reason we watched ATLA.

Sokka <3

 

[Lex]

@ people surprised by Azula, I wrote a post about this when the Korra finale aired. I will copypasta it to save you the damage of going to Tumblr:

I&#8217;m seeing a lot of &#8220;oh they&#8217;re just more like friends or sisters&#8221; or &#8220;this came out of left field&#8221; on the final scene and I feel like I have to say something about this because I feel like a large group of people are looking at this with a big fog over their eyes.
First of all I don&#8217;t &#8220;ship&#8221; any pairings in the Avatar universe, so please bare that in mind while you read this.

As a homosexual man exposed to heterosexuality in media (especially this kind of media) my entire life, Makorra in the early episodes neither surprised nor bothered me. It&#8217;s boring, it&#8217;s generic, it&#8217;s a normal expected pairing. It neither adds to or detracts from the story to me. I would take issue if they&#8217;d spent an excess amount of time on any pairing throughout the series, but thankfully any sort of attraction/romance was told in nice subtle ways following the middle point of Book two.

I wouldn&#8217;t have minded if the series had had a Makorra ending, I wouldn&#8217;t have liked or disliked it any less. But that does not mean I&#8217;m not impressed with the ending, because I&#8217;m impressed as hell that they chose to do something as progressive as they did. There were very subtle Korrasami hints in season 3 and slightly more overt ones in season 4, but never in my life did I think they&#8217;d end the show like that. For me it was the cherry on the cake of a great finale.

I&#8217;ve seen people super shocked like &#8220;where did this come from&#8221; but they obviously didn&#8217;t pick up on the subtle cues that were dropped throughout books 3 and 4, and they&#8217;re not to blame for that, society is. Because you don&#8217;t generally look at lingering interactions between people of the same sex in a TV show and think &#8220;that&#8217;s romantic&#8221; like you would if they were of the opposite sex. If you&#8217;re watching members of the opposite sex interact, your brain is wired to look for cues of romantic attraction because of decades of your brain being hammered with it in the media, and if it&#8217;s members of the same sex that switch that tells you to look for these cues is in general turned off unless it&#8217;s overt. The funny thing is if you rewatch it with the ending in mind, you can now recognise those cues when they appear and it&#8217;s kind of hilarious how the show has managed to retroactively subvert its own tropes in this way. It&#8217;s quite brilliant.

And for the people floating around flat out denying that it could POSSIBLY EVER be romantic, I want you to replace Asami with a male character in that final scene, then tell me you think they seem like siblings. They could have gone through that portal with their arms sideways around each other smiling - THAT would have been an ambiguous ending. This one wasn&#8217;t.

Literally less than half a day later, Bryan Koneitzko posted this, excerpt:

I love how their relationship arc took its time, through kindness and caring. If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens.

Tl;dr, you are predisposed not to expect it so you rationalise that because they're the same sex it's "sisterly" or "friendly" affection, when to someone like me or Carlie (or really, the vast majority of anyone who identifies as queer) it's patently obvious. This phenomena isn't exclusive to media either. It's how your uncle Joe Gay managed to pick up guys at your cousins wedding without any of your relatives realising he was actually a homosexual

I can't for sure say that Azula is a gay character but I can for sure say she's in love with Ty Lee.

 

[Tennyo]

I still haven't gotten around to watching any seasons of Korra beyond season 1, so I can't comment on her relationship with Asami and how it developed (I really need to rectify this why haven't I?).

HOWEVER

Makorra was absolutely awful and if they had ended the show on that it would have ruined the whole thing. I say that with much confidence despite only watching one season.

 

[Lulcielid]

Just read Turf Wars part 1 comic of LoK, first impression:

6/10

Losses many points mostly for having (IMO) heavy-handed writing on the LGBT message (good message but still heavy-handed).

 

[Clement Rage]

@ people surprised by Azula, I wrote a post about this when the Korra finale aired. I will copypasta it to save you the damage of going to Tumblr:

I’m seeing a lot of “oh they’re just more like friends or sisters” or “this came out of left field” on the final scene and I feel like I have to say something about this because I feel like a large group of people are looking at this with a big fog over their eyes.
First of all I don’t “ship” any pairings in the Avatar universe, so please bare that in mind while you read this.

As a homosexual man exposed to heterosexuality in media (especially this kind of media) my entire life, Makorra in the early episodes neither surprised nor bothered me. It’s boring, it’s generic, it’s a normal expected pairing. It neither adds to or detracts from the story to me. I would take issue if they’d spent an excess amount of time on any pairing throughout the series, but thankfully any sort of attraction/romance was told in nice subtle ways following the middle point of Book two.

I wouldn’t have minded if the series had had a Makorra ending, I wouldn’t have liked or disliked it any less. But that does not mean I’m not impressed with the ending, because I’m impressed as hell that they chose to do something as progressive as they did. There were very subtle Korrasami hints in season 3 and slightly more overt ones in season 4, but never in my life did I think they’d end the show like that. For me it was the cherry on the cake of a great finale.

I’ve seen people super shocked like “where did this come from” but they obviously didn’t pick up on the subtle cues that were dropped throughout books 3 and 4, and they’re not to blame for that, society is. Because you don’t generally look at lingering interactions between people of the same sex in a TV show and think “that’s romantic” like you would if they were of the opposite sex. If you’re watching members of the opposite sex interact, your brain is wired to look for cues of romantic attraction because of decades of your brain being hammered with it in the media, and if it’s members of the same sex that switch that tells you to look for these cues is in general turned off unless it’s overt. The funny thing is if you rewatch it with the ending in mind, you can now recognise those cues when they appear and it’s kind of hilarious how the show has managed to retroactively subvert its own tropes in this way. It’s quite brilliant.

And for the people floating around flat out denying that it could POSSIBLY EVER be romantic, I want you to replace Asami with a male character in that final scene, then tell me you think they seem like siblings. They could have gone through that portal with their arms sideways around each other smiling - THAT would have been an ambiguous ending. This one wasn’t.

Literally less than half a day later, Bryan Koneitzko posted this, excerpt:

I love how their relationship arc took its time, through kindness and caring. If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens.

Tl;dr, you are predisposed not to expect it so you rationalise that because they're the same sex it's "sisterly" or "friendly" affection, when to someone like me or Carlie (or really, the vast majority of anyone who identifies as queer) it's patently obvious. This phenomena isn't exclusive to media either. It's how your uncle Joe Gay managed to pick up guys at your cousins wedding without any of your relatives realising he was actually a homosexual

I can't for sure say that Azula is a gay character but I can for sure say she's in love with Ty Lee.

Well, the thing is, fandoms ship everyone with everyone as a matter of course. Zutara had a huge fan following that thought they were destined to be together. Every character in Death Note is shipped with each other, and every close relationship is assumed to be romantic. Also, sworn enemies? Suppressing their feelings for each other.

Every relationship is assumed to be romantic, regardless of what actually happens in canon, which can leave other audiences skeptical of romances unless it's pretty explicit.

'No, that's not romantic' is probably just denial, but 'that's not necessarily romantic' can just be a reaction to exposure to shippers.

 

[Shademp]

About Azula's sexuality...

I've watched ATLA twice and I don't think I'll ever be able to see more than the insane, perfectionist, power-hungry individual who eventually goes over the edge when she loses her friends and her paranoia is allowed to fully blossom. Her sexuality never crossed my mind because I feel the story doesn't focus on that, apart from showing how she naturally scares away the guys in the beach episode.

Feel free to point me to any scene with Azula that you think hold gay/bi overtones but chances are I still won't see it.