About Avatar: The Last Airbender

[james_davis_nicoll]

Over in soc.history.what-if, Doug M. says I have to point out that while the /world/ of Avatar is very Asian influenced (and in a charmingly syncretic way...love that Balinese monkey chant), the ethnicity of the characters is quite deliberately blurred. Ang has pale skin, brown eyes, and vaguely Caucasian features; Saka and Kitara have olive skin, vaguely Asian features, and blue eyes. Zuko and the other Fire Nation characters tend to look Northeast Asian, but their eyes are usually orange, red or gold. In fact, this was one of the fun aspects of the series; the various "tribes" were to some extent racially distinct, but in ways that didn't map to here-and-now ethnic groups.

I have not seen Avatar but the above makes me want to track it down. I don't see any particular reason why the particular constellations of associated features in humans in secondary worlds would occur as they do in our world [1] if the histories of the worlds are distinct (and assuming we're not talking about a world crafted by some Dull God too uncreative to avoid blatant ethnological plagiarism).



1: A special stabbity-stabbity to all those authors who have secondary worlds with nations and ethnicities unlike our world's except for the gypsies, who apparently spring up like mushrooms everywhere even in worlds where their historical roots do not exist.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Sorry, I was going too fast, because I really ought not be spending time on this today--

First, I'm relying heavily on the content of the links I posted, which say the most important things much better than I could.

What I meant about the eye colors is that this one characteristic has been obviously overriden for Avatar-world-specific worldbuilding purposes. Saying "Since Zuko has yellow eyes, his appearance can't be modeled on Chinese peoples" is like saying "Since Zuko can blast fire" ditto. It just does not strike me as useful.

As for Aang, he's _young_, and one of the ways you show youth is big round eyes. And "not much more than a smiley"--did you *read* those links? Because that's exactly what they're talking about.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

In this case though, Aang's a smiley face for a Western audience, so he's Caucasian. :p

Eye color for me is overridden by other markers. If someone has dark skin and blue eyes and non-European clothing, I don't think "dark skinned European", I think "Other with odd eyes".

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I *read* those links -- that's where I got the smiley face point /from/. Honestly.

There are young characters with epicanthic folds. (Including, oddly enough, one of Aang's airbending playmates.)

Zuko-- even eliding eye color the characters are still ethnically blurry. Fire Nation have black hair, may have epicanthic folds or not, and show a wide range of facial features -- Zuko looks vaguely NE Asian but (for instance) Admiral Bad Guy from Season One does not. Similarly, even without blue eyes, the Water Tribe aren't just Inuit -- Katara with brown eyes would look French or Spanish; give Magic Moon Princess dark hair and eyes and she'd look like Romy Schneider. On the other hand, Sour Old Water Master looks like a blue-eyed Fu Manchu.

Also, not to belabor the point, but why does "overriden for world-building purposes" take eye color off the board? All Fire Nation have black hair. That's probably another aesthetic worldbuilding choice; should we ignore that too, and try to guess what Zuko would look like blonde?


Doug M.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm sorry but I do not have sufficient patience or time to continue this conversation.

[(Anonymous)]

That's fine. Thank you for your time.


Doug M.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was going "did you actually bother to read those links? You are repeating an argument that has been thoroughly demolished multiple time."

Strangely

[(Anonymous)]

I missed that.

If an argument's been demolished, I don't think it was one I was making.


Doug M.