"MY CABBAGES!!!"

[andraste]

Continuing my recent trend of jumping on bandwagons years after everyone else finished their ride and jumped off: I have started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender! Largely because all three seasons are finally on the same Australian streaming service at once. It is good and I am enjoying it. However, I am also annoyed with myself for not getting around to it fifteen years ago when I suspect I'd have appreciated it more.

I think I'm experiencing the same effect that people watching BtVS or reading Warren Ellis's initial run on The Authority for the first time do these days. Or people who just watched Iron Man, I guess, but I'm not sure any of those exist? To whit, it is sometimes difficult to appreciate a cultural artefact when it's influence is so pervasive that everything in its field shamelessly copied it forever after. I dare say I would be a lot more impressed by the long-form storytelling, worldbuilding and character arcs if this weren't 2019 and I hadn't already watched Steven Universe. (Which I am really, really glad that I have already saw and enjoyed while it's an active part of the cultural zeitgeist, instead of a decade from now when all cartoons are imitations of it in one way or another.)

Which is not to say that I'm not having a fun time! My fandom osmosis was full of weird gaps - somehow nobody ever told me that Aang has an adorable bat/lemur friend, for starters. Also, I love Uncle Iron so much already and I am only thirteen episodes in.

Also, I finally understand a couple of memes that I never did before! Including the one in the title of this post, and also what Ba Sing Se even is and who it is that has always been at war with them.

Comments

[astrogirl]

You know, I somehow managed to avoid too much in the way of distracting fandom osmosis before I watched ATLA for the first time a few years ago, which I am kind of astonished by, looking back, because it's everywhere. I think I must have seen a gazillion references and gifs and memes and just not noticed or recognized most of them. Whatever the case, I'm glad of it, because I appreciated it thoroughly and utterly with the appreciation of someone coming to it sufficiently fresh. And it did feel very fresh to me.

But then, I still haven't watched Steven Universe. And I have been overwhelmed by references to that, in a way that I can't help thinking makes it feel less fresh even before I've watched it. Which probably just means I need to get to it ASAP.

Also, Uncle Iroh is the best. *hugs him*

[andraste]

I'm glad to report that I am much less distracted by osmosis in Season Two than I was in Season One, maybe because I had somehow osmosed a lot less of what is happening now.

And yes, you should definitely watch Steven Universe! I suspect the big twist is going to become one of those 'everyone dies at the end of Blake's 7' bits of popular culture that's impossible to ignore, but it's very worth watching even knowing some of where it's going.

Also, Uncle Iroh is the best. *hugs him*

The thing that has impressed me most so far about Avatar: half way through Season One, I was thinking that it was weird that Iroh, being royalty and all, didn't have his own children to worry about. And then I thought about his attachment to Zuko and also the fact that there is a war on and went '... oh no' as I correctly predicted both the existence and the fate of Lu Ten.

Having now seen more of Zuko's horrifying back story, I am now wondering how Iroh managed to turn out so well given his horrible father, and how long the Fire Nation royal family has been a string of horrible fathers and various other nearby adult relatives trying to mitigate the damage.

[astrogirl]

Glad you're finding the osmosis less distracting!

As for Steven Universe, I have the sense that I've probably been spoiled for all kinds of things about it, but whatever spoilery things I've seen have been so jumbled-up, out of context, and hard to even make sense of without background knowledge that they've handily failed to lodge in my brain. :)

oh no' as I correctly predicted both the existence and the fate of Lu Ten.

Oh, my. *moment of silence for Lu Ten*

And how Iroh managed to turn out so well is, indeed, a good question. We can only be glad that he did!

[andraste]

As for Steven Universe, I have the sense that I've probably been spoiled for all kinds of things about it, but whatever spoilery things I've seen have been so jumbled-up, out of context, and hard to even make sense of without background knowledge that they've handily failed to lodge in my brain. :)

Yeah, there are a lot of things you can know about Steven Universe going in that make so little sense on their own that it just doesn't matter. I could tell you right now that THING is actually TWO THINGS inside a THING and even if I included all the nouns you would not get it until you got to the relevant episode. (I know because someone told me this in advance and all that happened is that I went 'oooooooh, now I know what that meant!' when I got to it.)

Oh, my. *moment of silence for Lu Ten*

I have now got as far as Tales of Ba Sing Se and cried appropriately at the picnic scene. That poor kid :(.

(Especially since he was probably doomed from the start - even if he'd survived the battle and Iroh had taken Ba Sing Se instead of turning around, it's not likely Ozai was going to give up on his plan of becoming Fire Lord. And since he is probably too smart to fight the Dragon of the West directly but knows how attached Iroh is to his son ...)

[astrogirl]

I think I've been in a few fandoms like that, really. Where it's hard to spoil somebody because if you try to explain what happens, it hardly makes any darned sense, at least without an entire show's worth of context.

And yes, poor Lu Ten. That absolutely does sound like something Ozai would do. Poor kid may not ever have stood a chance.

[musesfool]

Uncle Iroh! <333

It's amazing to me how AtLA just gets better and better and better as it goes on.

[andraste]

It's amazing to me how AtLA just gets better and better and better as it goes on.

I am now half way through, and it does! And so does Uncle Iroh, somehow, even though I feel like he already reached maximum wonderfulness when he hugged Zuko near the end of Season One.