Tarrlok’s Perfect Fucking Face: an Appreciation in Five Parts
Part Three: When Tarrloks meet
filed under: animated characters who are way too good-looking
Legend of Tarrlok by *Firii
This has been on my blog before, but I need it on here again because reasons.
okay i know i posted this a while ago, but i decided to tweak the colors a little hopefully it should solve my dilemma
also i still have no idea if i should have extra panels with mako bolin and asami sad faces but idk i’m impatient
Like I said in the last post, I wanted to focus on how the deaths of Mako and Bolin’s parents and Asami’s mom not only affect them, but how they may be affecting Korra too. As the Avatar and a bridge to the Spirit World, she might be feeling guilty about how hurt her friends are over their lost ones and how she can’t just whisk them away to the Spirit World to see them again…supposedly
i have no idea where i’m going with this anymore here you go leave me to die
There’s a post going around about the sexism in Legend of Korra and “why did they do it???”
Honestly I just think Bryke have no gosh-danged idea how to write shows. I honestly don’t think they meant to have all the women be tied up to men (Like Korra and Asami’s general awesomeness being completely undermined by the stupid romance “sub”-plot), they just had/have no idea what they were even doing.
Generally I think the show would have just been a lot better without Mako, lol
Hopefully they actually went and got some of the old writers back for 2, like I heard they did?
Hahah, that was actually my post that I wrote some months ago on first arriving here.
[Honestly I just think Bryke have no gosh-danged idea how to write shows. I honestly don’t think they meant to have all the women be tied up to men (Like Korra and Asami’s general awesomeness being completely undermined by the stupid romance “sub”-plot), they just had/have no idea what they were even doing.]
Yes, good point. With ATLA they were at least supported by the other writers, who corrected some of their potential foibles.
And yes, they did get some of the old writers back for 2. We’re still waiting to find out if they’re going to rectify anything though.
Writing Fail in LoK: Sexism Against Women - Whaaa? That doesn’t even make sense thematically!
It has come to my attention how ludicrous it is that in only seventy-years time in the Avatarverse the view of women has changed. As has been discussed already, there are many many failures in the writing of the women in Legend of Korra.
For example, Lin is (presumably) the only metalbending woman, and on the council of Republic City, there is only the one woman, who I have developed this headcanon that Azula in her middle-aged years saw the regression that was going on towards women in the various nations and figured a way to get around her brother so that the Fire Nation woman is allowed to speak on the council.
But, there’s only one woman on the council. Only one. Shouldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t there be an even balance? After all, in ATLA, women were the backbone of the series. Katara takes control of her own life and decides to join Aang on his quest so she can learn waterbending and and fight alongside Aang to defeat the Fire Nation, Suki demonstrates that feminism and femininity can coincide by dressing in beautiful clothes but proving to Sokka that she’s a warrior, but also a girl, and both of these qualities together aren’t bad, instead very very good. Gran-Gran leaves her familiar home in the NWT to defy everything she’s ever known to follow her own path in life. Smellerbee, whilst a background character, also is accepted into a group of boys as herself and the fact that she’s a “tomboy” isn’t brought up once since she is comfortable in her own skin. Azula capably shows off her skills in firebending and is a shrewd planner who easily defeats Long Feng and tells him that he was never a player in her game of circumventing him, whilst Mai and Ty Lee defy the usual conventions (i.e labels) that would fit them like “goth girl” for Mai, who is a loyal girlfriend to Zuko and is competent with her knife-throwing skills, lethal in her own deadly way. Ty Lee defies normal conventions and goes to the circus to escape the conformity of her family life and is a brilliant fighter in the new art of chi-blocking, which only she knows in the context of ATLA.
But essentially, my point is that all these women in ATLA are the backbone of the series and are given the respect they need, even though they have to fight for it like Katara did to convince sexist Master Pakku to train her in waterbending instead of settling for the stay-in-kitchen ideology of being trained as a healer instead.
However, the writing fail comes in when the bridge between both series falters to make its connection to the leadership and nobility of the women in Legend of Korra, which blatantly makes no sense. There is no reason for the sexism present in the show, since it was deconstructed largely in the themes of Avatar: The Last Airbender since characters from Katara and Azula and Mai and Suki and Ty Lee show themselves to be feminist, bold, and yet feminine women. Their femininity is not devalued, unlike in Korra, for them to be feminist and speak for themselves and fight and protect their own interest.
What’s more, if anything, Legend of Korra should have been more progressive, following in the steps of its predecessor, Avatar the Last Airbender, since even though the show is set in the 1920s, this is a fantasy and so historical constraints of the era shouldn’t apply to it, but the issues already reiterated many times already about how the women in the show aren’t allowed to stand on their own but are usually introduced with some connexion to a man shows a pitfall.
Korra, Lin Beifong, Pema and Asami Sato’s character arcs would have been more beneficial to them if they weren’t so connected to a man for them to move forward in their lives, although Lin has the upper hand on them since she is in the metalbending corps because of her mother, Toph Beifong, and so has that element to her character that Korra and Asami lack, since they are introduced tied to men in some way – actually, both are introduced, to some extent, tied to Mako. Korra is connected to Aang by virtue of being his successor, but she stands alone as her own person – that is, until Mako enters, whilst Pema is introduced primarily as Tenzin’s wife and we don’t know any real backstory to her.
The point I’m trying to make here is that another writing fail happened because of the context of the setting, but it shouldn’t have been! It’s obvious in retrospect that the 1920s was a sexist, racist, violent era, especially in the US and around the world, but that does not mean Korra needed to follow those precepts in the creation of the next part of Avatarverse, since seventy years of time between the end of the Hundred Years War of Avatar the Last Airbender and LoK should have progressed women even further along in the Avatarverse and it should have been a story more focussed on the abilities of the women, since they were the ones who primarily caused the end of the Hundred Years War through their strength, ferocity, and fortitude.
So what caused the regression to this wholly sexist attitude in Legend of Korra? Since Bryke didn’t even explain that to us, it is hard to know honestly, but for the first show to portray feministic characters like Katara who combat sexism favourably and then create a sequel where the women are marginalised in favour of men is incredibly poor writing, since it loses the groundbreaking appeal Avatar: the Last Airbender exudes in its writing of female characters with their lacklustre presentation in Legend of Korra.
Here is the post I was talking about Avanna.
This is great and you bring up a lot of excellent points. I biggest problem with AtlA (as most of my problems with storylines/characters stem) is that we were given a set up for a great character and it fell through. I love some romance as much as the next person—it’s a huge part of human nature—but not when it damages a character. Especially with what happened to Korra.
I can also see how LoK took a step backwards in terms of feminism. There were some strong characters in AtLA all around, regardless of their social expectations. LoK lacked that indubitably. I LOVED AtlA for that, among other things, and LoK just didn’t “do it” for me the way it should have. It had all the elements; the style, the story, the characters, it was just terribly handled. The show was enjoyable, and at the same time disappointing, and that’s why I never got really attached to it.
My biggest problem with LoK too is that it really gave us a great set up for Korra but then it fell through so hard and the romance only served to undermine her character and highlight her selfishness all the more. >.> The romance damaged all of the main four characters and it’s obvious. I’m still wondering how the writers are going to repair them in the next book, but I doubt it will even happen, and so I’m not all that excited for Book 2 as well.
[I can also see how LoK took a step backwards in terms of feminism. There were some strong characters in AtLA all around, regardless of their social expectations. LoK lacked that indubitably.]
I remember that I wrote this analysis post because I’d gone on a rewatch of AtlA around the time I wrote it and it really made me do a comparison between LoK and ATLA, and it was a bit flooring how well women were treated in Avatar and how there’s woman from all different areas of life, and all of them were lovely, independent, strong characters, and if there was romance in their lives, it was more of an underpinning to their story arcs and not forced or brought in simply to appeal to teenagers afflicted with shipping madness!
[I LOVED AtlA for that, among other things, and LoK just didn’t “do it” for me the way it should have. It had all the elements; the style, the story, the characters, it was just terribly handled. The show was enjoyable, and at the same time disappointing, and that’s why I never got really attached to it.]
Same. ATLA is a show you can revisit over and over and still learn new things about the characters or awaken new insights (just check out swan2swan’s ATLA liveblogging that he does) but with Korra everything was so atrociously handled (I’m still not over that out of nowhere murder-suicide and how it made no sense for Tarrlok especially!! :@) and so the show still leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth and I haven’t ever felt the urge to rewatch it since the horribly written finale and how makorra took over show, broke asami and bolin’s heart and just yeesssh. Blechy.
angelrin89 replied to your post: avannakjbj replied to your post: 12, 13, 14, 15…
the sad thing is that Bryke didnt have those writers for season 1….so they were able to write ATLA season 1, with still strong female characters like Katara, Yue and Suki….also overall it was great. wth happened lok?!
I still have no idea what motivated them to go forward with making sure their writers from the previous show were on hand since everyone can always use a bit of peer-reviewing!
And yes, I love Katara, Yue and Suki… and what’s more, you’ll notice that none of them were connected to each other because of romance nonsense.
Writing Fail in LoK: Sexism Against Women - Whaaa? That doesn’t even make sense thematically!
It has come to my attention how ludicrous it is that in only seventy-years time in the Avatarverse the view of women has changed. As has been discussed already, there are many many failures in the writing of the women in Legend of Korra.
For example, Lin is (presumably) the only metalbending woman, and on the council of Republic City, there is only the one woman, who I have developed this headcanon that Azula in her middle-aged years saw the regression that was going on towards women in the various nations and figured a way to get around her brother so that the Fire Nation woman is allowed to speak on the council.
But, there’s only one woman on the council. Only one. Shouldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t there be an even balance? After all, in ATLA, women were the backbone of the series. Katara takes control of her own life and decides to join Aang on his quest so she can learn waterbending and and fight alongside Aang to defeat the Fire Nation, Suki demonstrates that feminism and femininity can coincide by dressing in beautiful clothes but proving to Sokka that she’s a warrior, but also a girl, and both of these qualities together aren’t bad, instead very very good. Gran-Gran leaves her familiar home in the NWT to defy everything she’s ever known to follow her own path in life. Smellerbee, whilst a background character, also is accepted into a group of boys as herself and the fact that she’s a “tomboy” isn’t brought up once since she is comfortable in her own skin. Azula capably shows off her skills in firebending and is a shrewd planner who easily defeats Long Feng and tells him that he was never a player in her game of circumventing him, whilst Mai and Ty Lee defy the usual conventions (i.e labels) that would fit them like “goth girl” for Mai, who is a loyal girlfriend to Zuko and is competent with her knife-throwing skills, lethal in her own deadly way. Ty Lee defies normal conventions and goes to the circus to escape the conformity of her family life and is a brilliant fighter in the new art of chi-blocking, which only she knows in the context of ATLA.
But essentially, my point is that all these women in ATLA are the backbone of the series and are given the respect they need, even though they have to fight for it like Katara did to convince sexist Master Pakku to train her in waterbending instead of settling for the stay-in-kitchen ideology of being trained as a healer instead.
However, the writing fail comes in when the bridge between both series falters to make its connection to the leadership and nobility of the women in Legend of Korra, which blatantly makes no sense. There is no reason for the sexism present in the show, since it was deconstructed largely in the themes of Avatar: The Last Airbender since characters from Katara and Azula and Mai and Suki and Ty Lee show themselves to be feminist, bold, and yet feminine women. Their femininity is not devalued, unlike in Korra, for them to be feminist and speak for themselves and fight and protect their own interest.
What’s more, if anything, Legend of Korra should have been more progressive, following in the steps of its predecessor, Avatar the Last Airbender, since even though the show is set in the 1920s, this is a fantasy and so historical constraints of the era shouldn’t apply to it, but the issues already reiterated many times already about how the women in the show aren’t allowed to stand on their own but are usually introduced with some connexion to a man shows a pitfall.
Korra, Lin Beifong, Pema and Asami Sato’s character arcs would have been more beneficial to them if they weren’t so connected to a man for them to move forward in their lives, although Lin has the upper hand on them since she is in the metalbending corps because of her mother, Toph Beifong, and so has that element to her character that Korra and Asami lack, since they are introduced tied to men in some way – actually, both are introduced, to some extent, tied to Mako. Korra is connected to Aang by virtue of being his successor, but she stands alone as her own person – that is, until Mako enters, whilst Pema is introduced primarily as Tenzin’s wife and we don’t know any real backstory to her.
The point I’m trying to make here is that another writing fail happened because of the context of the setting, but it shouldn’t have been! It’s obvious in retrospect that the 1920s was a sexist, racist, violent era, especially in the US and around the world, but that does not mean Korra needed to follow those precepts in the creation of the next part of Avatarverse, since seventy years of time between the end of the Hundred Years War of Avatar the Last Airbender and LoK should have progressed women even further along in the Avatarverse and it should have been a story more focussed on the abilities of the women, since they were the ones who primarily caused the end of the Hundred Years War through their strength, ferocity, and fortitude.
So what caused the regression to this wholly sexist attitude in Legend of Korra? Since Bryke didn’t even explain that to us, it is hard to know honestly, but for the first show to portray feministic characters like Katara who combat sexism favourably and then create a sequel where the women are marginalised in favour of men is incredibly poor writing, since it loses the groundbreaking appeal Avatar: the Last Airbender exudes in its writing of female characters with their lacklustre presentation in Legend of Korra.
Here is the post I was talking about Avanna.
