james_davis_nicoll | About Avatar: The Last Airbender

About Avatar: The Last Airbender

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.

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Enjoy. Avatar is an excellent show.

My FNVS does not seem to stock it.

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

to order videos.

--H

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

You appear to be correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender

"Avatar: The Last Airbender (also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang)[1] is an Emmy award-winning American animated television series that aired for three seasons on the Nickelodeon television network and on Nicktoons Network. The show is set in an Asian-influenced world[2] of martial arts and elemental manipulation; the series follows the adventures of the main protagonist Aang and his friends, who must save the world by defeating the Fire Lord and ending the destructive war with the Fire Nation.[3][4] In the series' terminology, each episode is referred to as a "chapter," and each season as a "book."

The show made its debut on February 21, 2005, and the last episodes were screened on July 19, 2008; it is now available on DVD, the iTunes Store, and the Xbox Live Marketplace, as well as its home on Nickelodeon.[5] Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko co-created the series, and serve as executive producers alongside Aaron Ehasz.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was popular with both audiences and critics,[6] garnering 5.6 million viewers on its best-rated showing and receiving high ratings in the Nicktoons lineup, even outside its 6–11-year-old demographic.[4][7] The first series' success prompted Nickelodeon to order second[8] and third[9] seasons. Merchandise based on the series include scaled action figures,[10] a trading card game,[11][12] three video games based on the first,[13] second,[14][15] and third seasons, stuffed animals distributed by Paramount Parks, and two LEGO sets.[16]"

--H

Oh. How unfortunate. The show does exist on DVD, after all.

Yes, though anime-influenced.

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.

Anime-style material doesn't move well for them, I think.

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.)

Edited 2009-01-07 16:03 (UTC)

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.

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.)

Thanks for the essays! Good stuff.

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).

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.

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).

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.

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.

Pretty much. According to the creators (and one or two characters in the show), the difference between benders and non-benders tends to be at least partly genetic, but the difference between, say, a Waterbender and a Firebender is much more sociopolitical/religious.

Well, that's an interesting question - is a show made with the anime style and conventions, but not actually made in Japan, not anime? If a Japanese animator made a 100% homage to Disney or Warner Bros, never stepping outside the Western tradition, would that be anime?

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.

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).

Cool (though I don't remember in-show references.) Then we just have to quietly accept how eye color matched up to bending culture, or attribute it to Lamarckian influences, or Doylistically accept it as style...

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".

Guru Pathik talks about how all the elements are one and the barriers are in people's minds, as I recall.

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