That's the thing, they didn't. Mel confronts the fact that she's pretty dang racist against vampires, and Charlie gets an awesome fairy (which completely subverts the be careful what you wish for theme the book otherwise had) and nobody ever dealt with anything below the surface. They're shiny without substance. Which sometimes is okay, I had a hard day when I read these, and shiny was A-okay with me.
Read it, agreed with a lot of it, disagreed with some. I think LoK the first season was about something real, that at its heart its about Korra confronting the fact that failure is possible, and realizing that her self confidence is fragile, and dealing with this is what sent me into a spiral of depression in collage. It's about Korra being a hothouse flower, and leaving the hothouse. Unfortunately, this makes it a story about the character growth of a privileged person with the backdrop of oppression, in which that oppression is never meaningfully dealt with. So, eh. Anyway, I'm watching Korra because I like Korra and care about her, but I care about her like I care about Zuko. I watch her and say "no, honey, no!" and feel like Iroh. But the narrative disagrees with Zuko, and shows and acknowledges why he needs redemption, and why what he did is wrong, and understandable, but wrong, and not excused by his pain. The narrative agrees with Korra, which is incredibly frustrating.
One of the lines in overlithe's essay, "In the third story, magic being gone from the world means that the protagonist will no longer have any cool powers and how they’ll have to go back to being one of the sheeple who don’t even know about dragons." really struck me. I actually think this could have been a fantastic story for LoK if done well. Overlithe criticizes that this is what Korra is about, but I think that this could have been a wonderful season two. If she hadn't gotten her bending back at the end of season one, and season two explored her feelings of responsibility for the world, and how this can be patronization, and how heavily her self esteem was based on being special, and how she lacks purpose, and how society is rapidly changing with many of the benders no longer benders, etc. It would have been a damn good story. But it would only be a good story if it presupposes that the sheeple aren't really sheeple, and it's the heroine's own inability to grasp this that is the real problem.
Reading the essay reminded me a lot with my conversations with my grandmother about fantasy, and convincing her that it wasn't a waste of time, and of my own novel, which is fundamentally a family story with magic as a backdrop
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2013-12-13 03:32 pm (UTC)Read it, agreed with a lot of it, disagreed with some. I think LoK the first season was about something real, that at its heart its about Korra confronting the fact that failure is possible, and realizing that her self confidence is fragile, and dealing with this is what sent me into a spiral of depression in collage. It's about Korra being a hothouse flower, and leaving the hothouse. Unfortunately, this makes it a story about the character growth of a privileged person with the backdrop of oppression, in which that oppression is never meaningfully dealt with. So, eh. Anyway, I'm watching Korra because I like Korra and care about her, but I care about her like I care about Zuko. I watch her and say "no, honey, no!" and feel like Iroh. But the narrative disagrees with Zuko, and shows and acknowledges why he needs redemption, and why what he did is wrong, and understandable, but wrong, and not excused by his pain. The narrative agrees with Korra, which is incredibly frustrating.
One of the lines in overlithe's essay, "In the third story, magic being gone from the world means that the protagonist will no longer have any cool powers and how they’ll have to go back to being one of the sheeple who don’t even know about dragons." really struck me. I actually think this could have been a fantastic story for LoK if done well. Overlithe criticizes that this is what Korra is about, but I think that this could have been a wonderful season two. If she hadn't gotten her bending back at the end of season one, and season two explored her feelings of responsibility for the world, and how this can be patronization, and how heavily her self esteem was based on being special, and how she lacks purpose, and how society is rapidly changing with many of the benders no longer benders, etc. It would have been a damn good story. But it would only be a good story if it presupposes that the sheeple aren't really sheeple, and it's the heroine's own inability to grasp this that is the real problem.
Reading the essay reminded me a lot with my conversations with my grandmother about fantasy, and convincing her that it wasn't a waste of time, and of my own novel, which is fundamentally a family story with magic as a backdrop