Talk:Avatar: The Last Airbender

Like we needed some animu-loving newfag to shoehorn his newest Asian-esque obsession into a traditional tabletop gaming wiki.

• I'm inclined to agree. I understand why Adventure Time has a page (it's basically just a D&D cartoon with a ton of memes and things to keep our ilk happy) but Avatar: TLA has literally nothing to do with /tg/ while at the same time not being hated like the OTHER Avatar to a point where a page for it is in-fact justifiable. That's just my two-cents, anyone else want to weigh in on this? CrazyThang 19:51, 2 August 2012 (BST)

• As it says on the page it's an original, non-Tolkin rip off fantasy land. It has a mix of steam punk, magic and kung fu!

C'mon people, we're Fa/tg/uys, the over weight kings of roll play. If you can't think of anything to do with a setting like this I think you might be on the wrong site.

Also, /tg/ has already ran an Avatar (not the rage inducing one) quest. And had several Avatar related threads. : SkyDog 00:35 3 August 2012 (gmt)

• • Slippery slope. Give me ten minutes and I can find either A) something like Avatar:TLA or B) something that is a "non-Tolkien rip off fantasy land". Now I wasn't aware there was an Avatar quest. Is it archived? If it is, it should definitely be linked to on the Avatar page. That would be a much better reason IMO to keep this page. CrazyThang 18:01, 3 August 2012 (BST)

• I think it's in the archives. I'll check; watch this space for a link. SkyDog 18:15 3 August 2012 (GMT)

• Aaand I'm back! Link-> [1] I didn't realy follow it while it was running; turns out it was a fairly short lived quest. Non the less, this does make it officially /tg/ related. Also, I did find a few other Avatar related threads in the archives. SkyDog 18:20 3 August 2012 (GMT)

Why does this page exist? As it stands it just seems to be more concerned with spouting off Avatar's "awesomeness", and contains no information as to why it may or may not be relevant to /tg/. This isn't like FIST(ING) OF THE NORTH STAR where have 40K characters barging in to offer their opinions on it, or point out the perceived similarities between FIST(ING) and 40K. Just give a brief (snarky) outline of what the show's about and write primarily on how it connects to tabletop. Otherwise, I vote for deletion. On another note, I watched the first Avatar series and I thought it was crap. The only good thing I can mention of it are Clancy Brown and Mako. But in the fagged-up world of Avatar, THE MOTHERFUCKING KURGAN ended up kneeling to some prepubescent spoiled bitch-brat Japanese princess. So Fuck Avatar.

• It's great to hear your personal opinion on it. It is certainly valid and important for the side in general to know that you didn't like it.

I do agree that it doesn't have uch connection to the rest of the site at the moment, but that's not undoable. Many of the characters in the shows can be compared to 40k characters and such, and the setting is comparable to Legend of the Five Rings. It is also an interesting setting for PnP games, and in the bottom of the page, there's links that allows you to play in the setting. To that end, the page here adds to what the author/DM needs to know about the setting without going in to too much detail. That said, the only problem you seem to have with the page, other than a lack of connection to /tg/ at the moment (which can be fixed), is that you don't like it, so you want it gone. Clap clap slow clap. TheWiseDane (talk) 10:33, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

His bitter ranting aside, it does need more substantial connections to /tg/.and at least from my perspective comparisons alone won't cut it. Homebrews and the like, on the other hand, would work much better. --Newerfag (talk) 12:36, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Ghengis motherfucking khan also has a page on here, which also has nothing to do with traditional gaming as far as I understand it(I know Doombreed and stuff but that's only based on assumption)

A: It is a fantasy, reasonably interesting setting, and therefore a sphere of interest fairly close to /tg/, B: as already stated there have been threads on it, and C: It doesn't cost anything to keep pages up, and if it really isn't /tg/ related then no one's going to look up the page on 1d4chan anyway. Deleting pages in general is annoying, I'm still annoyed Pinelights page got deleted, I used to read it whenever I was bored for amusement.

"Iroh: Zuko's uncle. Basically what would happen if one of the dirtier-minded Buddhas could shoot lightning, breathe fire, and drink enough tea to cause a younger man's heart explode."

Iroh couldn't lightning bend.

• Are you thinking of General Iroh? Cause Uncle Iroh is the OG lightning-bender. Oh wait, the General could LB, too. You just fail at Avatar.

Since its come to this

So we can give an opinionated list on why we think "X is a Mary Sue"; but I'm somehow not allowed to even state that Korra is bordering on Mary Sue territory? Tactical Mehren (talk) 14:50, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

• She's not a flat character and despite her skills she is often bested due to rushing in on things or the people she is sent up against having the upper hand. You could call Gandalf or Picard a Mary Sue/boardering on Mary Sue by that overly broad set of criteria. --A Walrus (talk) 19:50, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
• We could go down the list of character traits if you prefer. #1 "Does their personal morality always perfectly match objective reality? To put it another way, is there no difference between describing their opinion and simply narrating what was actually going on in a scene?" No, it doesn't. because she's an idealist when the reality of her world is decidedly more complex, so she's forced to adapt her worldview to match reality instead of reality warping to match her worldview. Over the course of the four seasons, she has to learn when to use force and when not to and the repercussions of using the wrong attitude at the wrong time. additionally, she has to allow for differences in values and to see beyond her own perspective and see from the perspective of not only other people, but spirits from another dimension, and learn the value of compromise instead of always getting what she wants all the time. so hey, right there, already not a Mary Sue. --RdV (talk) 05:57, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

So you're still going to ignore that she was able to bend all 3 elements at age 4 without any formal training from a master (something that took Aang whole seasons to do each as a teenager, is somehow outdone by an overly sassy toddler who's only explanation is: "deal with it"), able to still bend while having her powers sealed through what I can only call the power of friendship, and fixes this entire problem sealed bending with a lazy Deus Ex Machina? Jesus, just throw her over to Japan and give her two swords so I can re-name her as tanned Kirito with a vajayjay. And this is JUST the ones on the top of my head because these were the 3 most memorable moments I can never forget about LoK, simply for how stupid it is as trying to show us Korra is a competent Avatar that can hold a candle to her predecessor, when really she typically only gets by, either with plot armor, setting-defying convenience, or bad writing.

Funny thing is, I just also described how the Space Marines get by through most of their problems, a faction we have no problem throwing into the MS corner. If you don't want to list it here, fine, I'm not wasting my time on an edit war over single, harmless joke that somehow everyone's taking offense to. Besides, there's about a dozen people on Youtube proving my point as it is. Tactical Mehren (talk) 09:00, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Like I said below, the show's really badly written, all of that would knock her immediately into Mary Sue category, but then we have shit like Psychic Bending, lightning bending without any of the technique that made it possible, outright bending elements that were already established to be impossible to bend, suddenly switching back to being impossible to bend those sorts of elements, etc. Stuff that shouldn't happen now happens all the time, including the fact that Korra randomly gets de-powered for no fucking reason (as in she's so much weaker in certain situations despite everything you mention here) and without any explanation besides "the narrative needs her to be weak here". That's all before we get into how there's suddenly different bending strengths (as if it's suddenly the force), even though everyone in TLA was more or less equal in how strong they were as benders and what separated them was knowledge, application and the talent to combine the two. Arguing that she's a Mary Sue in this show is like claiming the problem with a pile of shit is that there's a fly on it. -- Triacom (talk) 09:36, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

• I find it hard to argue whether or not she's a Mary Sue purely because of how awfully written Legend of Korra is. If you want to say she's arguably a Mary Sue, then I'd agree even though I don't necessarily see her as one. If we were to just use The Last Airbender as the standard and have her in that then she'd be a Mary Sue, but The show shits all over what was established in The Last Airbender (as well as itself) all the time to the point where her doing ridiculous shit is just the norm. If we were to say anything about her like that, it would be more appropriate to explain why the show is bad as a whole. Here's the short version: awful writing, forgetting entire plotpoints from itself and the series it's based on, retconning to hell and back, fucking up basic mythology, logic that makes no fucking sense no matter how you look at it (A GHOST STARVES TO DEATH for example), forgetting how character's powers work, forgetting which power controls what, forgetting that their powers can't control everything, the list goes on and on. -- Triacom (talk) 07:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

RDV, saying "we've discussed this" at least implies you participated in the discussion, instead of writing one paragraph and not contributing any further. If you and Walrus aren't going to allow the article to say she borders on Mary Sue territory then I'm sure as hell going to link it since that implies the same thing. -- Triacom (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

a flawed character is not a mary sue. a mary sue is a character akin to a mobile deus ex machina, incapable of failure on even the slightlest level, and yet she fails at all sorts of things over the course of the series. her overconfidence has her bending removed, her lack of spiritual awareness sees the avatar cycle destroyed and centuries of wisdom lost, her lack of foresight sees her captured, poisoned and so weak she's confined to a wheelchair. the fact her powerlessness unlocks another ability and that her determination sees the cycle start over are both examples of magic hand waving like you'd find in the epic myths of Greek Mythology, but the fact it takes her years to remove the remnants of the poison and that she struggles with self-confidence after that? that shows character growth and struggle, like a boxing champion who loses the belt but comes back and reclaims the title. you complain that the show is badly written to the point she's a mary sue, but I can't see anything other than a protagonist overcoming the obstacles the writers throw in their path like any other story, and that her journey is just as valid as any other.

that aside, by calling someone a mary sue, you're essentially saying "your fun is wrong" because you don't like it. why not let people enjoy what they want instead of trying to drag something through the mud when you don't agree with it? it doesn't harm you to let people have fun without your approval. -- RdV (talk) 06:40, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

>Why not let people enjoy what they want instead of trying to drag something through the mud when you don't agree with it? It doesn't harm you to let people have fun without your approval.

Tell us more, man who refuses to let us call out Korra's bullshit and refuses to either compromise or listen to our PoV. Tactical Mehren (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Everyone just needs to let this go. It's literally just some wording and a hyperlink, not the end of the fucking world. On one hand, it's just a simple fucking joke about her being a Mary Sue, which, as far as I can tell, was backed up by the editor. On the other hand, if multiple users correct your edit, don't fucking keep changing it back.

Except it didn't state on the front page that she was a Mary Sue did it? It only said she was 'borderline' Mary Sue since she gets everything handed to her to a ridiculous degree. Avatar state? Just given. The elements? Just given, and at a far younger age than everyone before her for no reason at all. Overcoming most of her problems? Either the solution is handed to her or given via dues ex machina (season 2 being the most egregious example) and if it wasn't for other shitty writing, like the Avatar being far weaker than normal with no explanation, she wouldn't even have gotten her ass kicked. -- Triacom (talk) 18:58, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to help you all avoid spending three days sniping at each other until the section resembles a TVTropes forum thread and escalate this right now. Based on the thread so far and the recent contributions of the parties involved, I'd say that the people going "s-she's totally not a mary sue, y-you guys" should go back to /co/umblr and take their shit opinions with them. Oh, and List of Mary Sues should probably fuck off and die. OriginalPrankster (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Here's the problem, we already tried that shit. It's up to them if they listen this time or not I guess. As for the Toph vs Bumi thing, an interesting argument can be made there, but it's not a good idea to say that they're tied and then immediately add that one is better than the other, as that's just contradictory information. -- Triacom (talk) 09:01, 3 October 2018 (UTC)