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

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Enjoy. Avatar is an excellent show.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

My FNVS does not seem to stock it.

Would you let us know what you thought of it?

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

I love anime, despite being disappointed 90% of the time. There have been very few good productions, Vampire Hunter D, Appleseed and Ghost In The Shell [plus it's followups], being productions that I did like.

--H

Re: Would you let us know what you thought of it?

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I think A:TLA is an American show, not genuine imported anime.

Re: Would you let us know what you thought of it?

[affreca.livejournal.com]

Avatar is not anime (Japanese animation). It is obviously influenced by anime, but it was created by a pair of Americans (with most of the actual animation being done in Korea). It was made directly for Nickelodeon.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

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

Aside from the fact that racial appearances are supposed to be adaptations to local climate, there's plenty of room for creativity.

[kate_nepveu]

I disagree with the quoted bit:

1) Sokka and Katara are Water tribe, Zuko is Fire, hence the eye colors, which are thus not useful markers;

2) The clothes etc. are very strongly influenced by specific ethnicities (see this enormous screen-shot essay: http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/1007.html);

3) re: "vaguely Caucasian features":

http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html
http://shati.livejournal.com/239195.html

In other words: No.

(Edited for accuracy upon re-read.)

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the essays! Good stuff.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Live cast photos contrasted with their characters http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/12/10/first-look-the-cast-of-the-last-airbender/

screen-shot essay: I'm shocked, shocked, to realize that the water tribe had blue eyes and the fire nation tended to have red-gold eyes, and the earth kingdom to have green eyes. (Exception: Toph, blue. Then again, she's blind.)

Actually that *is* a bit odd, since on the surface the show leads you to think bending ability is hereditary, legend has it that the ancient ancestors *learned* the various arts (we even seen two characters re-learn from the source), so for RPG purposes I'd say that anyone (or at least any potential bender) can initially learn any element, but apart from the Avatar you're locked into that element. And of course people growing up surrounded by Xbenders will imbibe the moves and energies of X. But they never do tell us what happens in mixed marriage.

[(Anonymous)]

Kate, I'm sorry, but point #1 makes no sense to me. Eye color is a hugely important ethnic marker in TRW; should it be different in a fantasy world?

Clothes, etc.: you're refuting an argument I haven't made. We're agreed, that the look and feel of that world -- clothes, hairstyles, architecture, writing, music -- is almost entirely non-Western, mostly East Asian with odd bits skimmed from elsewhere.

Vaguely Caucasian features: this one is the most fraught. The artists drew Aang -- deliberately, one suspects -- with the vaguest features of all the characters; it's easy to miss because his face is so mobile, but in stills you can see that he's not much more than a smiley. So, it's a bit like trying to suss the ethnicity of The Yellow Kid.

That said, I have to point out that while many characters in that world have distinct epicanthic folds, Aang does not.


Doug M.

[avram]

What I'm seeing here is the intersection of Scott McCloud's "mask" theory of cartoon representation with the notion of the unmarked state.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Lee Ratner rebuts, noting that most of the audience (at least the vocal) part *perceived* the characters as Asianish, and that's what really matters. Also notes the anime influence and the odd Caucasianing of Japanese in anime; in a way, Avatar's characters look more Asian than many anime characters do. (Part of this may be the whole "big round eyes to look cute and show expression more dramatically" thing. Or, if you're going to slap green and purple hair down everywhere, why get picky about epicanthic folds?)

Juuni Kokki/the Twelve Kingdoms takes place in a fantasy world which does have some connection to Earth, but people show up (explicitly, in text, not just some animation convention) in almost every combination of skin and eye color. Non-hereditary too, due to divine changes in biology. There's no races, just scrambling everywhere, though blonde hair is unique to the kirin. (I've imagined fic about some blonde American soldier who gets swept off Okinawa and initially mistaken for the human form of a kirin. Soldier is extra ironic due to the pacifist nature of the kirin.)

[bwross.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Juuni Kokki also has the fact that people are born as fruit on trees (and thus everyone is adopted like cabbage patch kids). So it's not too surprising that things could be scrambled.

There's also shapeshifting furrys (which do experience racism in some of the kingdoms).

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Well worth seeing it. The creators put a lot of thought into the show and its background world, and one of the best things is the mundane ways of using the various powers the characters have. A good percentage of the population has magical powers, and you see them using it for things that you'd expect them to use the powers for, from warfare to entertainment to simple playing (soccer is a bit different when the players can physically reshape the field).

Re: Would you let us know what you thought of it?

[bwross.livejournal.com]

Avatar is really good. Especially for a NA show making use of anime styles... I think a good part of how they managed to get that to work (where so many have failed) is that they kept things straight. They didn't try to duplicate "wacky" anime stuff, instead they did things like take inspiration from works like Miyazaki. Not that there isn't humour (there's a lot of it), it's just that that part came more from themselves and not an obvious attempt to copy anime humour.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the ethnicity is totally blurred, though. Once you ignore the eye colour (which seems to be partially based on the element the tribe bends... Kitara is a water bender, Zuko is a fire bender), a lot of the blur is gone. For example, the Water tribes, which live at the poles, resemble the Inuit in look and dress. Water bending style, however, is clearly based off of Tai Chi (so there is that level of blur). In fact, each element's bending style is based off of a different marital art (with some room for exceptions... Toph is a non-standard earth bender based off of Mantis style).

Re: Would you let us know what you thought of it?

[(Anonymous)]

"Once you ignore the eye colour (which seems to be partially based on the element the tribe bends... Kitara is a water bender, Zuko is a fire bender), a lot of the blur is gone. For example, the Water tribes, which live at the poles, resemble the Inuit in look and dress."

-- except for the one water tribe that lives in the Great Swamp. They have grey or green eyes.

They also dress like South American Indians, with leaf hats and tattoos and all... while talking like L'il Abner and the Clampetts. "Whut ya reckon that thing is, Pa?" "Dinner."

Of all the weird mashups in Avatar, that one's my favorite.


Doug M.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

I find it ironic that there are please for ethnic authenticity in a movie adaptation of a series that itself was originally created as a simulation of anime. Cue Baudrillard. The Avatar series is itself an instance of Orientalism to begin with, so in that sense the all-white casting of leads in the movie adaptation is being true to form.

Sure

[(Anonymous)]

although I don't know if "Orientalism" is exactly right. I'm not seeing the ontological or epistemological distinction from the West here, nor the signifiers of power over the constructed Other.

Avatar is a child of the age of mashup videos. We may need some new terminology.


Doug M.

I don't know your tastes

[(Anonymous)]

in animated TV series well enough.

But if you liked, say, Samurai Jack? Or (in another direction) Justice League Unlimited? Good chance you'll enjoy this.


Doug M.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Even if the ethnicity is blurred, it's mostly blurred Asian. Especially with the culture/clothing. And the audience perceptions are generally Asian.

The prospective cast? Not blurred at all. It's not like they got some dark skinned French Mercedes to play Katara. They got Clark Kent playing Sokka.

A friend notes that there aren't many natural roles for Asian-American actors. Here we have a whole *series* and instead they Aryan Nation the leads.

Big/round eyes, epicanthic folds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_folds
http://cedarseed.deviantart.com/art/Guide-to-Human-Types-part-1-32046017
http://danbooru.donmai.us/data/6c8119998e1c18b9a67a4215afc9dc92.jpg

Aang's own eyes seem to vary between "vague fold" and "eyeballs so big there is no room for the brain".

Le Guin on the Earthsea casting seems relevant

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

http://www.slate.com/id/2111107/

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that from seeing the initial pictures I was dismissive of Avatar as some Yu-Gi-Oh or Dragonball clone, until someone who's opinon I trust forced me to sit down and watch the first episode. And then I was hooked.

Avatar, is literally, not only one of the best animated fantasy series I've ever seen, it's one of the best fantasy series I've ever seen in any media. Not only is the world building and plotting excellent, the character design, personalities and development is top notch. The series goes from somewhat light-hearted in the beginning, and becomes more and more series as the stakes are raised and the characters mature- and yet there is still a large dose of humor. One sign of the care involved in the series is that early on I had several questions raised about the home of two of the characters...which were answered in grim detail in the third season. Avatar also has one of my favorite villains; one who not only considers himself the hero of the story, has an excellent motivation to be doing what he's doing, and also really WOULD be the hero, if he didn't keep making the "wrong" decisions for all the best reasons.

The bottom line is this is a well crafted product, which has stretched the notion of what an American animated series is capable of, just as much, if not more so than Batman: the Animated Series did back in its day.

So my recommendation? Go on Amazon, and just grab the first season collection. It's well worth the price.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I dismissed the show based on the title. Airbender? What kind of a silly word is that? (I also completely dismissed TiVo recording The Big O for me. Yeah, I like TV aimed at women, but a title like that makes me dubious. Then, I noticed it was on Cartoon Network not Lifetime/Oxygen/WE. So I sampled an episode and initially dismissed it for another reason. Me, have kneejerk reactions? Impossible!)

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

This.

My only caveat is that it is still a kids' show on some level, so even though it pushes the seriousness boundary of American kids' programming much farther than it usually goes, it still glosses over some things that wouldn't be glossed over if they had made the same show intended for an entirely adult audience. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; but the fact that it was more adult than most kid-oriented programming sometimes gave me expectations that were not fulfilled.

But it really is a good show.

Re: Would you let us know what you thought of it?

[armb.livejournal.com]

> except for the gypsies, who apparently spring up like mushrooms

Does this also cover gypsies with explicit dimension hopping magic? (I don't have an example in mind.)

Re: Would you let us know what you thought of it?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

No, because they'd have a possible causal connection to our world. I mean secondary worlds with no connection to ours that have gypsies anyway.