Wow, this is a cogent, thoughtful piece which nails a lot of my major problems with the show (missing mothers; the rushed ending; Katara's character in general), and which does a lot to explain my own dissatifaction with TSR. That being said, I kinda mostly ... disagree with many of your specific points. Hmmm.
First off, I definitely take issue with the idea that Katara's mother issues aren't given enough foreshadowing. Or, rather, I agree that they aren't given specific *moments* of foreshadowing, like the ones you pick up on for Zuko - but that's because Katara's whole character, from the first episode (hell, the first minutes) of the series is informed by her attempts to replace her lost mother. Her attempts to stop being 'the helpless little girl I was back then' go from picking up her mother's sock-washing duties, through her constant efforts to act as 'team mum', to flying off to exact vengeance on her mother's murderer: Kya's death is nothing if not a constant presence throughout the series, both for Katara and for Sokka. And while Sokka's admission to Toph in 'The Runaway' that he remembers his mother with Katara's face shows him (as you say) at least being honest with himself about the extent of his loss, Katara's response to overhearing this confession is to throw herself into being 'not so motherly', which gets both her and Toph thrown in jail - clearly she hasn't exactly come to terms with her grief.
Zuko, on the other hand, while no less prone to emotional flare ups than Katara, spends most of the series so far from acknowledging the epic extent to which his family is messed up that if it wasn't for flashbacks, dream sequences, etc, the audience would have no access to Ursa's role in his life at all. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that TSR is the first episode where we hear him say the word 'mother' - and we have to wait for the finale to hear 'my mother'. In some ways, Ursa's role is more like Hakoda's than Kya's: while Katara's attempt to fill her mother's place informs her everyday behaviour, and Zuko's catastrophic relationship with his father is, y'know, emblazoned across his face, it takes a lot longer for the significance of their other parents - not uncaring but absent - to become apparent.
So, I guess I'm more than convinced by the need for Katara to get some lost-mother-resolution time. I'm also convinced by her vengefulness: her combination of sweetness and inflexible grudge-holding rings very true to me, and we see it in action with both Jet and Zuko. It's a dangerous mix, and TSR is important plot-wise in defusing it before Katara gets face to face with Azula.
Talking of whom - I'm half-convinced by your arguments that TSR could have been a Zuko-Ursa story (though, as I say above, I think it would have needed to deal with Kya's death as well). Only half-convinced, though, because it's made explicit from 'The Beach' onwards that what's really needed to finish the story of the Fire Nation royals is an Azula-Ursa story. I'm ok, by the way, with that story *not* being finished: I can see Ursa's return being done well, but as it is her absence and Azula's breakdown are appropriately weighty symbols of how difficult it will be to repair the Fire Nation, let alone the rest of the world - important stuff to acknowledge, and hard to invest with emotional impact, especially in a programme for kids. Zuko's got his turtle-duck pond moping out of his system, discovered why his mother was banished, and shown, in that final scene with Ozai, that getting crowned Firelord improves your threatening skills somewhat - that's good enough for me as a conclusion to his story in 'Zuko Alone'. Azula's search for her mother - and, well, her sanity - on the other hand, would make an awesome sequel movie. Ah well.
Returning to TSR: bloodbending. I seem to be pretty much alone on the internet in being pleased with how it was used in this episode. Perhaps it's because I was annoyed it was introduced at all (or at least with how it was introduced, as a moon-powered scary-female technique), but I thought that its underplaying in TSR was deliberate and effective. It seems to me to follow a pattern of showing rather than telling when it comes to moral lessons which the show had already got quite a bit of mileage out of. Take stealing: in season one, we get the delightfully naughty moral that 'stealing is wrong, unless it's from pirates'! In season two, courtesy of Zuko, we're shown that stealing *is* wrong, and no way to reclaim lost dignity or status: the scene where Zuko presents his uncle with an astoundingly tacky teapot does a pretty good job of deglamourising his robin hood act. At the start of season three, it's back to the gaang, and 'stealing is pretty much justified when you're hiding out in an enemy country trying to save the world'. All this is good stuff, I think, gently poking fun at the aesop-riddled nature of children's tv while keeping a clear sense of what constitutes crossing over into outright villainy. The thing with bloodbending is that it's clear from the get-go that using it at all crosses that line: the show may acknowledge grey areas when it comes to nicking laundry, but not here. And fair enough, I think: it's a genuinely horrifying idea. So it's appropriate, I think, that bloodbending, more so even than Zuko's stealing, isn't allowed any usefulness or given any transgressive glamour: it's not a necessary evil but a tawdry, pointless one. By the time Katara meets her mother's murderer, she's already aware of how evil can be banal for its perpetrators: no wonder she doesn't forgive him, even if she's able to spare him.
So I certainly disagree that Katara's use of bloodbending here is frivolous or that she fails to confront its implications: it's her lowest point, and it gets her nowhere: it's Zuko who gets the location of the murderer out of her victim. Quite apart from this, there's a practical reason why she couldn't have used it on Azula: it can only be used under a full moon.
As for the lack of discussion - Aang can and does carry off an episode's worth of ethical back-and-forth; neither Zuko or even Katara are given to talking it out, and certainly not with each other. Given that I think the final scene with the killer would have been much more effective if it had been entirely silent (Katara's VA didn't really pull it off, I feel), I was pretty satisfied with Zuko's look of naked fear and Katara's exit: he's terrified and she's disgusted with herself; she won't sink so low again.
All that being said, I agree that TSR was easily the weakest of the post Zuko-joins-the-gaang episodes - and this despite its fantastic opening, Sokka getting laid, some excellent ninja-ing, and its general gorgeousness. I suspect this is partly because I'm not that taken by Katara in general; one other glaring problem is the constant use of euphemisms for 'die'. In fact, when I first watched it, I was half wondering whether Kya was actually alive after all: I couldn't figure out why everyone kept saying she was 'lost' or what have you in an episode explicitly about avenging her death. Queasiness on the part of the network, obviously, but it sticks out. Actually, I think most of my problems with the episode would be solved by cutting out most, if not all, of the dialogue from Katara and Zuko's fieldtrip: almost everything we need to know is there in the animation and sound design, while the script and the voice acting don't really hit the same (very high) standard.
I'll stop here - but thanks again for a piece which, as you can tell, I found pretty fascinating. And if Avatar proper got messed around in development as much as you suggest, I suppose it makes the giant pile of fail involving the live-action version more believable, if not excusable.
no subject
Date: 23 Jun 2010 07:43 pm (UTC)First off, I definitely take issue with the idea that Katara's mother issues aren't given enough foreshadowing. Or, rather, I agree that they aren't given specific *moments* of foreshadowing, like the ones you pick up on for Zuko - but that's because Katara's whole character, from the first episode (hell, the first minutes) of the series is informed by her attempts to replace her lost mother. Her attempts to stop being 'the helpless little girl I was back then' go from picking up her mother's sock-washing duties, through her constant efforts to act as 'team mum', to flying off to exact vengeance on her mother's murderer: Kya's death is nothing if not a constant presence throughout the series, both for Katara and for Sokka. And while Sokka's admission to Toph in 'The Runaway' that he remembers his mother with Katara's face shows him (as you say) at least being honest with himself about the extent of his loss, Katara's response to overhearing this confession is to throw herself into being 'not so motherly', which gets both her and Toph thrown in jail - clearly she hasn't exactly come to terms with her grief.
Zuko, on the other hand, while no less prone to emotional flare ups than Katara, spends most of the series so far from acknowledging the epic extent to which his family is messed up that if it wasn't for flashbacks, dream sequences, etc, the audience would have no access to Ursa's role in his life at all. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that TSR is the first episode where we hear him say the word 'mother' - and we have to wait for the finale to hear 'my mother'. In some ways, Ursa's role is more like Hakoda's than Kya's: while Katara's attempt to fill her mother's place informs her everyday behaviour, and Zuko's catastrophic relationship with his father is, y'know, emblazoned across his face, it takes a lot longer for the significance of their other parents - not uncaring but absent - to become apparent.
So, I guess I'm more than convinced by the need for Katara to get some lost-mother-resolution time. I'm also convinced by her vengefulness: her combination of sweetness and inflexible grudge-holding rings very true to me, and we see it in action with both Jet and Zuko. It's a dangerous mix, and TSR is important plot-wise in defusing it before Katara gets face to face with Azula.
Talking of whom - I'm half-convinced by your arguments that TSR could have been a Zuko-Ursa story (though, as I say above, I think it would have needed to deal with Kya's death as well). Only half-convinced, though, because it's made explicit from 'The Beach' onwards that what's really needed to finish the story of the Fire Nation royals is an Azula-Ursa story. I'm ok, by the way, with that story *not* being finished: I can see Ursa's return being done well, but as it is her absence and Azula's breakdown are appropriately weighty symbols of how difficult it will be to repair the Fire Nation, let alone the rest of the world - important stuff to acknowledge, and hard to invest with emotional impact, especially in a programme for kids. Zuko's got his turtle-duck pond moping out of his system, discovered why his mother was banished, and shown, in that final scene with Ozai, that getting crowned Firelord improves your threatening skills somewhat - that's good enough for me as a conclusion to his story in 'Zuko Alone'. Azula's search for her mother - and, well, her sanity - on the other hand, would make an awesome sequel movie. Ah well.
Returning to TSR: bloodbending. I seem to be pretty much alone on the internet in being pleased with how it was used in this episode. Perhaps it's because I was annoyed it was introduced at all (or at least with how it was introduced, as a moon-powered scary-female technique), but I thought that its underplaying in TSR was deliberate and effective. It seems to me to follow a pattern of showing rather than telling when it comes to moral lessons which the show had already got quite a bit of mileage out of. Take stealing: in season one, we get the delightfully naughty moral that 'stealing is wrong, unless it's from pirates'! In season two, courtesy of Zuko, we're shown that stealing *is* wrong, and no way to reclaim lost dignity or status: the scene where Zuko presents his uncle with an astoundingly tacky teapot does a pretty good job of deglamourising his robin hood act. At the start of season three, it's back to the gaang, and 'stealing is pretty much justified when you're hiding out in an enemy country trying to save the world'. All this is good stuff, I think, gently poking fun at the aesop-riddled nature of children's tv while keeping a clear sense of what constitutes crossing over into outright villainy. The thing with bloodbending is that it's clear from the get-go that using it at all crosses that line: the show may acknowledge grey areas when it comes to nicking laundry, but not here. And fair enough, I think: it's a genuinely horrifying idea. So it's appropriate, I think, that bloodbending, more so even than Zuko's stealing, isn't allowed any usefulness or given any transgressive glamour: it's not a necessary evil but a tawdry, pointless one. By the time Katara meets her mother's murderer, she's already aware of how evil can be banal for its perpetrators: no wonder she doesn't forgive him, even if she's able to spare him.
So I certainly disagree that Katara's use of bloodbending here is frivolous or that she fails to confront its implications: it's her lowest point, and it gets her nowhere: it's Zuko who gets the location of the murderer out of her victim. Quite apart from this, there's a practical reason why she couldn't have used it on Azula: it can only be used under a full moon.
As for the lack of discussion - Aang can and does carry off an episode's worth of ethical back-and-forth; neither Zuko or even Katara are given to talking it out, and certainly not with each other. Given that I think the final scene with the killer would have been much more effective if it had been entirely silent (Katara's VA didn't really pull it off, I feel), I was pretty satisfied with Zuko's look of naked fear and Katara's exit: he's terrified and she's disgusted with herself; she won't sink so low again.
All that being said, I agree that TSR was easily the weakest of the post Zuko-joins-the-gaang episodes - and this despite its fantastic opening, Sokka getting laid, some excellent ninja-ing, and its general gorgeousness. I suspect this is partly because I'm not that taken by Katara in general; one other glaring problem is the constant use of euphemisms for 'die'. In fact, when I first watched it, I was half wondering whether Kya was actually alive after all: I couldn't figure out why everyone kept saying she was 'lost' or what have you in an episode explicitly about avenging her death. Queasiness on the part of the network, obviously, but it sticks out. Actually, I think most of my problems with the episode would be solved by cutting out most, if not all, of the dialogue from Katara and Zuko's fieldtrip: almost everything we need to know is there in the animation and sound design, while the script and the voice acting don't really hit the same (very high) standard.
I'll stop here - but thanks again for a piece which, as you can tell, I found pretty fascinating. And if Avatar proper got messed around in development as much as you suggest, I suppose it makes the giant pile of fail involving the live-action version more believable, if not excusable.