Post by Firework on Oct 12, 2007 1:48:14 GMT -5
conspiracytheorist said:
brilliantlygreen said:
The only reason why people are so disappointed this season is because they've had over 9 months to create in their own mind what they want to happen. But people need to stop making up their own storylines and need to accept what Mike and Bryan are doing here.Or people could be disappointed because there's been a drop in overall episode quality between the first two seasons and this one. Who's "making up their own storylines"? Not me. Not dozens of other people who are upset at episodes like the ones we've seen so far.
I will accept anything and everything that happens in this show as far as the plot is concerned. The path Avatar takes isn't ours to mess with - many more people realize this than you think, if your tone in this thread is any indication of what you believe. If Aang, Katara, Sokka and Toph take a seemingly meaningless detour to some dumb Fire Nation village and help some people out (replace "Fire" with "Earth" and what do you have?), and the episode is awesome, then I'm okay for a whole week. But if the episode is polluted (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) with bad dialog and hard-to-believe character decisions, then I'm going to be frustrated.
It's up to the minds behind the show to sell us their story. It is up to us to buy it. Whenever you use "It's their baby/creation/life's dream/masterwork/whatever" as a crutch to excuse a mediocre episode, you are lowering the bar.
To those of you who are upset because "The Painted Lady" is being called filler: A filler by any other name would smell as disgusting. Want to nitpick? Want to say that since there's no manga equivalent, there can't be fillers? Or is your argument more general - that all episodes are created equal and calling one of them fillers detracts from the greatness that is Avatar, or somehow offends Mike and Bryan?
WAKE UP! All episodes are NOT created equal! Watch "The Blue Spirit", "The Storm", "Zuko Alone", "The Siege of the North", "The Crossroads of Destiny." Then watch "The Awakening", "Avatar Day", "Tales of Ba Sing Se", "The Painted Lady." They don't compare at all. Some episodes are epic, and some are letdowns BY CONTRAST. You don't hear ANYONE calling "Siege of the North" a filler. Well, why not? There HAS to be a reason.
Most of the arguments for Avatar (as if anyone here is arguing AGAINST Avatar ) rely on the "Avatar is such a great show, it delivers week after week, and you have no right, you can't judge, you don't work for this show, I'm talking to you like your mother does when she makes something special for dinner and you comment that you don't care for it and she freaks out at you!" line(s). But we watch this show in the present, not the past. If a show has been great in early seasons, and it slips a few notches, should we turn a blind eye and bear the new and un-improved episodes? My answer is no, as you've probably guessed.
Think about the flip side of this coin. Maybe instead of expecting too much, we aren't getting enough. It's subjective, right?
For the record, not all of us who are disappointed with the third season so far just want to hurry up with the invasion and the comet and the firebending lessons and the fight scenes and the Avatar state battles and whatever else you think it is we want. I have NO IDEA how this season is going to go, except that the invasion fails around the middle, and I happen to love it that way. I like to speculate and theorize but I don't mope around when things don't go my way or I don't get to see such-and-such in Episode 4 instead of Episode 5.
I agree with you here entirely. I shy away from calling episodes filler, but I won't scream and yell about it. "The Painted Lady" was a letdown and that word jumped to the forefront of some peoples' minds based on their experiences in other anime shows or exposure to the word through message boards. I think we should all be able to look over those kinds of "offenses."
Despite the fact that I agree about the filler topic, I find episodes like "Imprisoned" and "The Great Divide" to be much more satisfying than "The Painted Lady". If people find the need to call any of those episodes "filler," then I understand. The word gets thrown around a lot, so it's only natural that you're going to see it used to describe episodes like the above.
Apparantely there are some who can deny it. I love around 90% of what you've said in this thread, paleiko. But it's not so much that Aang is acting so carefree again or that Katara is being a secret hero. It's that, and the dialog, and the easy ways out, and the coincedences, and the ill-timed humor, and the squeezed feeling I'm getting from watching these episodes, and everything else. What it comes down to is episode quality! What is comes down to is every minute detail of the show packed up into one thirty-minute experience, and whether or not it all fits together!
What would any of you do, turn your back on a starving community that you could help? It's a very realistic dilemma. This show is asking you, what would you do, in a similar situation? Do you turn your back and keep walking and think oh, I'm going to be late for work... or do you stop and help the poor person on the sidewalk who needs someone to give them a hand?
This is such a complex question that I really can't answer it in full. However, I can tell you what the dominant thought in my brain was upon reading your question. I thought, "Well, what does my watch say?"
I love to help people. I'm rather good at math, so a lot of people come to me for advice regarding their Calculus homework or whatever course they're taking. I love to help them with their problems, and not because I get a rush from writing numbers on paper and solving the puzzle (like House from House MD on Fox... have you ever watched that show? It's an excellent show =D), but because I really love to help those people out, and to see them recognize what they were missing when I explain the problem to them.
But if I'm late for work already, and I need to be on my way, then that's the way it has to be. I might feel a little guilty about leaving the "poor person on the sidewalk," but that's something I will get over.
I am fascinated by these kinds of questions. I love the fact that this show makes you think. But I hadn't thought about that question until you brought it up (at least, not recently). The reason for this? "The Painted Lady" did NOT make me think! And trust me when I say that I am one of the biggest thinkers that I know. I lie awake at night thinking about things that normal people don't contemplate in their lifetimes, and for good reason. It drives me to make big long posts like this that nobody reads (well, that and a LOT of free time...).
"The Painted Lady" made me think of many things - about how Katara's mothering nature felt like a lesson I had already learned - about how Aang was probably disapproving of Katara's actions even when he used the "secret hero" line, but in light of the recent romantic tension between the two ("The Headband"), he went along for the ride - about how ridiculous Sokka saying "potty" every two seconds was - about how funny Appa looks with a purple tongue (and as a hill with horns!) - about how stupid the villagers were to not immediately accept Katara's help when it was revealed that she was the real painted lady - about how dumb that "You gave me a fish!" kid's voice sounded - about how Aang's wound probably wasn't helped any by the pollution in the river...
But most of all, I thought about how great a show Avatar can be, and isn't right now. And when that is the biggest thought you get in your mind after watching an episode, then something has to be out of place!
Thank you all (yeah, all one of you) for reading.
conspiracytheorist, thank you so much.
You helped explain what I have tried to say before but in much greater words. I wish I could have been able to get "The Painted Lady" issue across like you just did... would have saved me a lot of grief from annoying people.
Karma for you.