Before I Watch Avatar the Last Airbender

I am a Huge Avatar the Last Airbender fan.

I remember when the show came out in the mid-2000s, I watched the show live on Nickelodeon with my parents. It's one of the only shows that we watched together as a family that we could all agree on because we all loved it. I remember that excruciating wait for the latter half of season three after the Day of Black Sun episode and waiting to see when those finale episodes would finally premiere. I also remember the crushing disappointment of watching the live-action movie in theaters. I know a lot of people have problems with live-action retellings of books and TV shows in a different format nowadays, but that live-action movie is my lowest point. Nothing has disappointed me more as a live-action than this adaptation. So when I heard that they were doing a live-action TV show, I was very skeptical just like the rest of the fandom. We've already had one disappointing live-action, we don't need another one.

As stuff has come out about the adaptation, I've been losing my dread a little bit. First off, the casting looks right this time around, and I'm glad they've cast more accurately this time. Also, they are pronouncing the names correctly, which was my biggest gripe with the movie, so they are already above the movie in terms of adaptation. The original trailer for the show looks pretty good, and I could already tell some of the events of the TV show from the clips that we saw in the trailer and that got me excited. But then I saw that one interview that's been going around about things that they've changed in the show, like Sokka's sexism and Katara's motherly instincts, and that makes me worried.

I've seen a surge in recent years where female characters in media are expected to not have a love interest or be super feminine if they're wanting to be strong characters, and that's something that annoys the crap out of me because strong female characters are good characters who just happen to be female. They can still want long-term relationships and children, they can still wear dresses all the time and still be maternal, loving, and caring while still being a strong character. I've seen a lot of people talk about the newer Disney princesses being better role models for kids because they are independent women and because they don't need a man to save them. Not needing help doesn't make a character strong, knowing you can't do everything on your own and asking for help makes a character strong.

Look at Mulan (the original cartoon, not the live-action), she knows what needs to get done to save the emperor, but in the climax of the movie she needs help and is not afraid to ask for it. The other soldiers help because she has proven herself to be more than capable, and they go along with her plan. To follow that, the general of the army is so enamored with her that he uses returning her helmet as an excuse to go after her and pursue a relationship that is finalized in the sequel. Mulan is a strong character who is still a great fighter and feminine. You can do both, and that's one of the great things about Katara, and I'm afraid of them trying to make her seem otherwise in this adaptation.

Also, I've heard that they want to show Fire Lord Sozin wiping out the Air Nomads, which I believe is unnecessary because the cartoon did a great job of showing the devastation of his actions without actually showing it. The show is called The Last Airbender for a reason. It's things like this that make me wonder if these were the reasons the original creators left the team for the show in the first place.

TV networks are always trying to take these more lighthearted shows and turn them into a much darker adaptation, and that bothers me and many other fans a lot. It can work for a show like Shadow and Bone where the tone of the book content that they were adopting from is already dark, like anyone who says that "Six of Crows" is their comfort book needs therapy, end of story. But having a darker adaptation of the lighthearted Avatar the Last Airbender doesn't seem right to me, because even though the show centers around a war, they still make a show that can bring hope and happiness to its viewers, and any adaptation needs to hold true to that feeling.

The first season of the live-action premieres tomorrow, and I'm really hoping they don't mess it up. It would be nice to have an adaptation of this amazing cartoon do justice to the source material.