Avatar: The Last Airbender

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Anyone else find the decision to code Raava as femme and Vaatu as masc an interesting (although not necessarily bad) choice? (64.media.tumblr.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/avatar

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been doing a lot of reading into various spiritual concepts and practices from around the world and typically light/order/yang is masculine and dark/chaos/yin is usually feminine. Is there another concept that's being referenced or is this just a minor but interesting artistic decision?

I was a little disappointed that they played Raava as "good"; I've always preferred media like Babylon 5 where it turns out the vorlons are fucking with humanity too, but I can see why they might not put all that in a kids show.

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[–] aeronmelon 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Literally never thought about it until now.

It makes me think about how the current era of Star Wars is slowly explaining that the Jedi and the Sith are both wrong, and you need a balance between both the light and dark side of the Force.

but I can see why they might not put all that in a kids show.

For kids shows, Avatar and Korra have some hard fucking shit in them!

[–] PopOfAfrica 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

These two double handedly killed the lore of the Avatar. Went from mysticism to religion

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Yep. Spirit world went from an alien mysterious and dangerous place to another good v evil battle. I appreciated the attempt at an origin story that had been lost to time. And the world building was nice and well done. But the essential story and its premises were underwhelming.

[–] brucethemoose 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don't really get this, as it doesn't invalidate anything else in the spirit world. All those other ancient spirits are still there, and the Avatar is still the Avatar.

Being light/dark is a big screw up, but TBH I think it's an interesting plot point for the future. Perhaps the next Avatar realizes Korra was "wrong" like Wan was, and that there has to be a balance between Yin/Yang, Vaatu/Raava.

[–] PopOfAfrica 1 points 4 months ago

It removes the mystery. Itd be like explaining the force as coming from some god dude on a far off planet. Korea failed at show dont tell.

[–] brucethemoose 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I was a little disappointed that they played Raava as “good”

Yeah, I dunno how they went in that direction. Yin/Yang was even hinted at in Book 1 (not to mention the original series).

The creators outright said B2 was their most troubled production in the commentary, but maybe they had plot constraints for the intended audience that they just had to follow, aka "good vs evil" rather than something more ambiguous. Personally, I think Unalaq should have been a "moderate" breakaway of the Red Lotus that (in the end) teaches Korra balance, and how it was wrong to just imprison Vaatu for 10,000 years, and Korra ends up binding with both in her soul.

That would've been a really cool struggle in B3/B4 as well. And an excuse to "neuter" the Avatar State.

As for male/female, I feel like its:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WomenAreWiser

But maybe there's a more accurate trope.

[–] VindictiveJudge 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Try this trope:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FemaleAngelMaleDemon

[–] brucethemoose 1 points 4 months ago

That's it. It even mentions Vaatu and Raava.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Nah. I agree with Hello Future Me (on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HelloFutureMe) about Korra.

Good show but with problems and Raava and Vaatu are probably the biggest one. The female v male and good v evil that they wrought out of the spirit world to explain the origins of the avatar were just ... meh. The female/male divide is a trope and doesn't really add anything IMO. If anything I think I always found their voices kinda weird in how human sounding they were. So if anything it is a distraction (masked by, IMO, the bigger problems with that whole story).