I'm no longer following LoK mostly because I was enraged by the handling of the political side of the plot in Book 1, but I wasn't a fan of the abuse storyline either. (At least one of my LJ friends saw an echo of rape culture in the Equalist storyline as well--the Lying Bitches Who Lie angle--and I'm inclined to agree.) At least Book 1 gave the subject the gravity it deserved, but it was such a one-sided portrayal: Both the villains of the story were abuse victims and both die in a murder-suicide, because evidently abuse a) turns you evil and b) makes you too damaged to live? What?! It was a far cry from the nuanced, multifaceted portrayal in ATLA which you described so well. And in Book 2 the portrayal of abuse seems to have gotten worse, not better, even with the addition of staff writers from ATLA.
More and more I'm beginning to wonder if DiMartino and Konietzko were responsible for the more emotionally resonant parts of ATLA at all. They greenlit everything, sure, but that's not the same thing as coming up with it. amyraine has pointed out (http://amyraine.livejournal.com/21451.html) that much of the really good stuff in ATLA was by Aaron and Elizabeth Ehasz. The "Return to Omashu" episode, which introduced Ty Lee and Mai and set up much of the abusive dynamic, was written by Elizabeth Ehasz. As shown in this visual representation (http://bankuei.tumblr.com/post/25763644437/kernels-a-visual-representation-of-legend-of) of writing and directing credits, neither DiMartino nor Konietzko was responsible for writing the bulk of ATLA episodes. With their greater involvement in the writing of LoK we may simply be seeing the unadulterated results of their creativity without the influence of better, more thoughtful writers.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2013-10-02 02:18 am (UTC)I'm no longer following LoK mostly because I was enraged by the handling of the political side of the plot in Book 1, but I wasn't a fan of the abuse storyline either. (At least one of my LJ friends saw an echo of rape culture in the Equalist storyline as well--the Lying Bitches Who Lie angle--and I'm inclined to agree.) At least Book 1 gave the subject the gravity it deserved, but it was such a one-sided portrayal: Both the villains of the story were abuse victims and both die in a murder-suicide, because evidently abuse a) turns you evil and b) makes you too damaged to live? What?! It was a far cry from the nuanced, multifaceted portrayal in ATLA which you described so well. And in Book 2 the portrayal of abuse seems to have gotten worse, not better, even with the addition of staff writers from ATLA.
More and more I'm beginning to wonder if DiMartino and Konietzko were responsible for the more emotionally resonant parts of ATLA at all. They greenlit everything, sure, but that's not the same thing as coming up with it.