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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2277 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 4, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Nah, it pretty much avoids the shonen power curve as seen in Dragon Ball. The main character starts out reasonably close to the top of his game.

What? The whole arc of the show is for Aang to learn to wield all four elements so that he can have the power he needs to fight the Fire Nation. Not to mention that he only beats the big bad through the use of the soul-bending power he gets late in S3. The show is shonen anime power curve through and through.

The soul bending bit is by far the weakest part of the show and is the one thing I truly dislike about it (much more than season 1 starting clearly as a kids show). It undermines the roll of the Avatar and one of the most important lessons Aang has to deal with - to be the arbiter of justice, you must sacrifice your own spiritual needs to protect the world. In the same episode, they completely undermine this important lesson with the soul bending. I understand why they did it (it is a kids show) but it undermines an important parallel of the real world, that to be the arbiter of justice is to sacrifice your own humanity protect other peoples.

What makes avatar great is that there clearly is a power curve where characters get more powerful over time, but what's much more important and prominent is that the characters grow and have emotional and physical challenges over time. The avatar is stupidly powerful, yes, but in Shonen anime the character arc is about getting more powerful to defeat the bad guy, while in Avatar it's much more about the change from a kid to an adult, and the emotional and moral growth you have in that journey. Diminishing it to just a 'shonen anime' overlooks a lot of what makes it popular.

But it starts with him already being a master of Air, and once he has good teachers he learns Earth and Water near instantly. Fire is only a problem because he is reluctant to use it due to an incident.

Aangs arc has more to do with accepting his role and using his inherent power rather than getting stronger by beating progressively stronger foes.

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