You really, really need to start reading my posts. It's starting to get pathetic just how much you're missing, how many extremes you're jumping to and how you're parroting some of the points I've been making right back at me as if you think those points somehow prove me wrong.
On to the rest of the post! (Also, as an aside - don't copy and paste posts into Notepad or MS Word and they try to simply copy and paste back into the forum. For some strange reason it reads several different kinds of apostrophes and dashes at random times, so I've spent the past 15 minutes trying to hunt down the various ?'s that litter this post in unexpected places, only to have new ones pop up when I copy it back from Notepad into here. Decided it's time to wave that white flag and let the post go without all the corrections.)
LifeCharacter said:
Tono Makt said:
Are you ever going to actually read what I post instead of assuming that "Being obviously identifiable as an (Element) Bender" = "Stereotypical (Element) Bender", when I keep on making it clear that I'm not looking for stereotypes? And ignoring much of what else I'm posting? I was thinking of replying point by point in a more organized fashion, but I think I'd just be wasting my time.
When you take "traits" to mean "they're a stereotype who has to be expressly identified by their element before anything else
because that's the only way they can ever be that element" yes, I am going to take that as stereotyping.
Here's a wonderful example of the extremes you're jumping to, showing that you're simply not reading my posts. Having identifiable traits associated with the element they're born into is not stereotyping.
LifeCharacter said:
"Mako and Bolin have obvious Fire and Earth traits" in no way means "Mako is a Fire Stereotype and Bolin is an Earth Stereotype", for example, and yet you act as if that's exactly what it means.
Except "having traits" is a worthless assessment of a charatcer.
Everyone has traits of Fire and Earth, because everyone gets angry, or stubborn, or passionate at some point. Mako and Bolin though, if you didn't know what they bended and took away their color scheme, would not come across as their element going off your stereotype test. Bolin is emotional, ostentatious, and passionate, but also well adjusted and easily manipulated, more a mix of fire and water than earth. Mako is calm, collected, and practical, like earth, rather than emotional like fire.
You would have trouble with Mako and Bolin, yes. I did say that, and you keep on acting as if I didn't. The fact that they would be more difficult to determine without their colour schemes doesn't negate the fact that they still have identifiable traits associated with their respective elements.
The facts about the other Avatars doesn't negate their obvious elemental characteristics beyond what you've mentioned, either. Korra doesn't have elemental characteristics of Water, and it seems that your argument is that she's the Avatar, so she doesn't need them... even though every other Avatar we've seen (save Wan) has had a core that is based on their own element while having traits more associated with other Elements to compliment them.
Except only a few of the other Avatars have had their first element at the core of their character. Yangchen isn't a spiritual pacifist at heart who loves all things and has a great sense of humor, she's straightforward and responsible and openly advocates discarding your spiritual needs (by killing someone) for the world. Roku really has nothing "Fire" about him: he lacks any overt passion or anger and comes across much more like air due to being Aang's spiritual guide who was a funloving guy who couldn't bring himself to kill people.
Discarding needs (spiritual or material) is something at the core of the Air Nomads. From what we've seen of the Air Nomads from Aang's time, he and his mentor are anomalies for Air Nomads, who seem to be a fairly serious bunch of people once they grow up. So Yangchen is showing another side of the Air nomads while extending the character to incorporate traits that can be associated with other elements. Roku's backstory makes him out to be a ball of activity and energy, always in motion and always active, as well as one who acted first and thought second even into his old age. When we see him narrating his own backstory he's sorrowful and apologetic for his mistakes, which he also hints that he might have seen if he had been paying closer attention.
And the reason I don't think Korra should have the elemental characteristics of Water is because I don't put character and personality up to inherent parts of bending, but to how they were raised (you'll notice that each element was raised in a culture that reinforced that particular stereotype). Since Korra was raised from age 4 on as the Avatar with all kinds of benders around her and teaching her, there's no reason for her to be overly related to water.
And at least an equal amount of those benders were Water Benders, not to mention her own parents (non-benders, but still Water Tribe). Even allowing for the possibility that Korra has NEVER interacted with the Water Tribe since the White Lotus found her, that she has not played with other water bending children, she hasn't gone to Water Tribe festivals, she hasn't been exposed to any Water benders and Water tribe members outside of her compound, she has still had at least an equal number of Water Tribe mentors. Little - to none - of which rubbed off on her.
My argument has been, is and will be that Korra does not have Water characteristics at the core of her character, which is making her unique among the Benders we've seen in Avatar over 5 seasons. This uniqueness among the entire show is standing out to me in a very negative way.
It'd probably stand out less if you didn't come up with arbitrary reasons why everyone else in the show has their element at the core of their personality despite plenty of them seemingly not.
Almost all of the benders have something of their Element at the core of their personality. Some - Mako and Bolin, as I've mentioned and you've mentioned - don?t have it very strongly. But they do have something there. Not Korra.
As for where water is when you're in an alley - pretty much anywhere. Behind dumpsters, pooled in eaves that haven't been cleaned lately, in the sewers under the ground (and pulled out through sewer grates or just plain through the earth; it's not like Korra is all that concerned with collateral damage, particularly when she's pretty good at fixing it after if she absolutely had to), in the pipes and other indoor plumbing in the city. Her own sweat is another source, as we saw with Katara on at least one occasion. Or heck, she could pull a Katara and wear a waterskin or other container holding a fair amount of water which she could open when she feels like there's going to be a battle about to happen. Finding water in a Coastal city is absolutely within reason. If the season had been based in Ba Sing Se, I might give the "Can't find water in the city!" argument actual consideration, but for a coastal city with some rather modern technology, it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Wow, so
Korra doesn't care about collateral damage? I can see why
you're so absolutely dumbstruck by her never tearing up the entire fucking city to find a bit of water to throw at people, because you seemed to have missed the entire part where she only tore up infrastructure when she first arrived and when she was having trouble fighting Tarrlok, avoiding it at pretty much all other times. How dare she learn and grow like everyone's bitching about her for not doing if it means she can't waterbend in an area that lacks water (the city being coastal means jack shit when there's hundreds of buildings between you and the ocean)! Water is lacking for the most part (a puddle you have to look for behind a dumpster isn't practical), and earth causes too much damage, leaving fire as the reasonable choice for everyone who's not
obsessed with Korra not being enough of a Water Tribe stereotype.
And again with the ridiculous extremes, the continued misunderstanding of either what I'm looking for or what a Stereotype is.
Anyway. She tore up city infrastructure more than just in the beginning ? she was doing it later on as well. Yes, she did get more subtle and concerned as time went on, but it was still a secondary concern for her; if tearing up the street to make a stone barrier was required, she tore up the street to make a stone barrier. There isn't a huge difference between that and pulling up water from underground lines.
As for being hard to find water in a coastal city - it's not. Being a coastal city DOES mean jack shit when it comes to water, and I gave you a few examples of where water could be found. You've just decided to ignore it, and basic climatology, to continue arguing with me.
And, again, firebending is what she just finished mastering. How much time do you think she spent focused entirely on that one type of bending for the sake of training and not using the others at much or at all? Do you think that a few days after you just finished mastering something you can just switch right back into how you were beforehand?
Considering how literally seconds after she uses Firebending, she uses Earth Bending? I think this particular argument of yours wasn't all that thought out. Maybe if the only thing she tried to use in fights (or other actions) was Firebending and didn't switch to Earthbending without an obvious change to her approach, this argument could have some merit. But she doesn't. So neither does it.
Heck, if her first instinct in a fight was to pop the cork and pull out a streamer of water, that by itself might have been enough for me to get past this issue. It would put Water bending as her default bending, the one she goes for instinctively because she's been raised in an area where it's easier to bend the ice under her feet than to pull the rocks up through the ice, or to create fire which isn't going to be as easy in the frigid cold of the Water Tribe lands. (That's what I meant about bending in the Water Tribe - she was born and raised there, where she's walking on ice pretty much all the time. Pulling up rocks and earth to bend would almost always involve water bending to get the ice out of the way so she'd be water bending at the same time as earth bending - why bother pulling up a rock that's just going to be pulverized in a sparring match when you can more easily bring up ice that's going to get just as pulverized?) But her first instinct is to use Fire, then if that doesn't work she uses Earth. Maybe - maybe - she uses Water later on, though now that she's become able to actually Airbend, she's as likely to use Airbending as Water bending it seems.
There's no reason why it would be her first instinct though! She didn't spend the first sixteen years of her life exclusively learning one type of bending like every other person on the planet, so she doesn't have that instinct that you say she must have to be Water Tribe. She's been firebending just as long as she's been waterbending. Instinct for her would say "bend," not "How dare you firebend; find a puddle right now!" Mixed with the muscle memory of having just spent a good amount of time mastering firebending, and she'd go with fire, the practical choice that pisses you off because she should totally use water like every other waterbender.
If either of us are pissed off, it's you - you're the one going off on hyperbolic rants and swearing up a storm while pretty much ignoring what I've been posting like you're too angry to read it. Bit of projection here, it would seem.
And there is every reason why her first instinct could be to water bend ? she was raised in the Water Tribe, in water tribe lands which are on ice, surrounded by water and ice, which have many buildings that are literally made of ice. As I said earlier, for much of her Earthbending it would make more sense for her to try that with Water because it would just plain be more efficient and more practical for her to do it that way. Pulling up a chunk of rock to block an incoming bolt of fire is tough when you have to pull it up through a few feet of ice; pulling up a block of ice to block an incoming bolt of fire is just as effective and much more practical.
This doesn't mean it would have to be her only reflex. It doesn't mean that she can?t work on developing other reflexes more suited to the environment ? there may be water available in the coastal city, but there?s far more Earth, and Fire doesn't have the same need for the element being physically present like Water does. That wasn't the case with Korra ? she started with Fire and Earth and has stuck there until, ironically, she came into stereotypical Water situations (out at sea, in the Southern Water Tribe) where the only bending she could use was Water bending.
Regarding the superficiality of Korra's connection to the Water Tribe and the rest of that, I did mention a few minor rewrites to the character, so acting like I said it would be exactly the same is disingenuous at best. And as Korra has been written, she has shown that she gets very tied to things very quickly - she fell into becoming the protector of Republic City in the first episode, embraced it for the entire first season and fought hard for the Air Benders and her new friends after barely getting to know them - it wouldn't even need to be written into the character that she could feel the same way about Water Tribe mentors since it's already there. You write it in to flesh things out a bit for the other characters involved and to show their connection to Korra. It could easily be framed as a problem that seems a bit more Black and White than the grey of Republic City, dealing only with the Water Tribe and not a whole bunch of somewhat independent Benders, strange new technology, lots and lots of non-benders in huge positions of power and now with abilities that let them equal benders, etc. So she jumps at the chance to get involved in something worthy of the Avatar AND something she's going to be more comfortable getting involved in.
The difference between Republic City and the South in this little rewrite of yours? She's not living in the South, nor has she seen how messed up the South is, nor does the South seem even messed up enough to warrant her getting involved. She wandered around Republic City a bit and found vagabonds, Equalists, and bending gangsters. What's she going to find in the South and why would she live there? A guy who wants to unite the tribe and bring spiritual balance versus people who don't, the exact same situation she had except lacking all the parts that gave her actual emotional investment like her dad being involved or her mom being arrested, or the hope of uniting the tribes and her family together again.
This particular comment of yours makes very little sense, as if you wrote it without actually reading what I posted about other ways to give her emotional investment into the situation. It?s like you're arguing for and against the power of her mentors ? for the power of her mentors when you argue that she?s been surrounded by non-Water benders as mentors for so long that she doesn't have to have any aspects of the Water tribe at all, and then arguing that her emotional ties to her mentors wouldn't be enough to entice her to come try to save their tribe in a time of need. While at the same time arguing that the influence of her parents on her personality is entirely outweighed by the influence of her mentors, but when her parents are in trouble that?s all the incentive she needs to drop everything to go help them.
You're arguing both sides of the discussion ? one side when it suits one aspect of your argument, then the other side when it suits a different aspect of your argument. Side one: The influence of her Earth and Fire mentors is so powerful that any Water tribe aspects that would have come from her Parents and Water mentors is entirely negated. Side two: Her mentors are not nearly as important to her life as her parents and her people, so she would drop everything to come help them where she wouldn't be willing to do the same thing for her mentors.
And I'll ask again - what aspects of Korra's personality are Water Tribe aspects? What part of her personality (not her clothing, animal companion or backstory "I was born in Water Tribe") can be traced back to living her entire life (up to the premiere) in the Water tribe? I see nothing.
What aspects need to be there if you don't believe you have to be some stereotype to bend an element? Especially since she grew up in an isolated compound surrounded by multinational guards and teachers who taught her about everything including waterbending equally that just so happened to be at the South Pole. She didn't spend her first sixteen years ignorant of her power or purpose like everyone else, meaning that she was raised as just another Water Tribe girl. She was raised as the Avatar, the master of four elements and the bringer of balance. She wasn't a waterbender first, then learned the other elements, she knew three of them at once.
There's no reason to expect her to be Water Tribe other than the idea that any bender with brown skin must be overly Water Tribe or else they're just wrong.
I wonder what you?re trying to say there. It can?t be that only the Water Tribe has darker skin; after rewatching some of the episodes in Series 1, particularly leading up to the Day of Black Sun, there?s a number of Fire Nation folk who are as dark as Katara and Sokka, not to mention some of the Earth Kingdom folk like The Boulder. Hmmm?
What aspects would I want to have seen in Korra from the beginning? Far more flexibility and adaptation while dealing with problems. She has learned to adapt, but she didn't start that way. Or more persistence when the first approach didn't work rather than giving up so often and getting frustrated. Perhaps being more subtle before she blundered into troubles ? instead of being almost a walking magnet for trouble, have her move around trouble spots then choosing to get involved in an explosive manner. Failing that, having people mention how different she is than they expect a Water Tribe bender to be would be somewhat sufficient ? ?You don?t act like a Water Bender.? ?I'm the Avatar, not just a Waterbender! Gah, am I going to have to beat that into everyone?s thick skull?? And the big one, the one that I've mentioned before and would probably have been able to make me overlook all the other aspects I've mentioned is if she tried to use Water Bending as a default. Even if it was just for an episode or two, where she discovered that it's not as easy to use Water bending in Republic City as it was in her compound at the Water Tribe. Then she could get the double whammy of having an obvious Water Tribe trait while at the same time as growing as a character beyond that trait.
I'm open to other ones; these are just off the top of my head.