Silly Avafandom Beliefs Refuted by "The Headband"

[the_fox_bandit]

IIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiit's that time again!

That time where we talk about how the NEW EPISODE of Avatar refutes the silly ways Avatar fans misinterpreted the show in the past!

Here we go then!

Fanon Steamrolled by Canon:

1. Zuko is, in fact, a dweeb. I love Zuko. He's a great character. Much of the reason I love Zuko is part of the same reason Mai hearts Zuko; he's such a dork. He's so... adorkable.
   
   But so many Zutara fanfics and fanarts have imagined Zuko as a dashing, smooth prince who knows how to woo the ladies. Such a firey lover he could make any girl blush. So passionate he could melt his woman's face off with his smoldering gaze. So charming he could make any lady swoon into his arms. The Zutarians imagined him as a consummate romancer, a passionate kisser, a fiery dancer. While they sometimes portrayed him as awkward and dorky at Katara's first advances on him, the relationship has pretty much always been characterized as hot and steamy and intimate and passionate and smoldering as soon as it began.
   
   You'd think Zuko's lack of social skills would've told them that this was all very OOC.
   
   You'd think Zuko's behavior on his date with Jin would've told them even more that this was very OOC.
   
   And now "The Awakening" showed them otherwise, yet again. Mai comments on how she hates the color orange. Zuko finds this hilarious and endearing, but he responds not like a smooth romancer. He responds like a dork. He snickers like a dweeb, telling her in a very dweeby way that she's beautiful. I MEAN, LOOK AT HIS FACE. You TRY AND TELL ME THAT'S NOT A DORKY SNICKER.
   
   Mai, being the hot and awesome ninja that she is, tells him romantically that she doesn't hate him. Instead of responding to this in a clever, romantic way, he says a very, very dorky thing: "I don't hate you, too."
   
   Commence maikout. Because Zuko doesn't need to be smooth for Mai. In fact, I think that if Zuko was smooth, she wouldn't be attracted to him like she is. He's so endearing to Mai (and to me!) 'cause he IS so adorkable.
   
   So, the Zutarians were way off in their estimation of Zuko's character. Worse, it is actually Aang who is so much of what they imagined Zuko to be. In their mindset, Aang couldn't possibly romance Katara. Their romance would be nothing but fluffiness and innocence, and not at all about romantic desire. Their romance couldn't possibly be hot, because Aang wasn't smooth and passionate and confident enough... not like Zuko!
   
   And here you have in "The Awakening," Zuko being something like what they imagined Aang to be, and Aang being how they imagined Zuko to be. Aang was suave and smooth and... did you see that hot dance? That firey dance? The smoldering looks Katara and Aang were giving each other? Zuko may not know how to romance a lady, but Aang sure does, with zest.
   
   Yeah. I thought so.
   
   
2. Mai is not in it with Azula. So many anti-Maikos... whether Zutarians, Zuko/Song shippers, Zuko/Jin shippers, or just plain anti-shippers... have said that Mai is in it with Azula. And so they pin their hopes of Zuko turning against Azula and "becoming good" as tied up with him breaking things off with Mai.
   
   BZZZ! WRONNNNG!
   
   In "The Headband," Azula interrupts a maikout. Mai does NOT look pleased! Even after Azula tries to shoo her away, they keep maikingout. But of course, then Azula gets her way; Mai knows better than to openly rebel against Azula for something relatively insignificant.
   
   And then, after Mai has passed Azula and knows that Azula can't see her facial expression, Mai shoots her a dirty look, a "YOU HAVE TO SLEEP SOMETIME, AZZIE. KEEP THAT UP AND I'M GONNA KNIFE YOU"* look. It's a significant look; they play a sound effect that says PAY ATTENTION TO THAT LOOK. IT'S SIGNIFICANT FOR FUTURE PLOT. Aka, foreshadowing (a concept which Zutarian-canonists don't understand). The look is reminiscent of foreshadowing way back in "Crossroads of Destiny," when Azula comments to Kuei that it's terrible when you can't trust those closest to you, and Mai and Ty Lee** give each other a quick look, out of Azula's eyesight.
   
   SO, NO. MAI IS NOT IN IT WITH AZULA. MAI IS AS MUCH OF A VICTIM OF AZULA AS IS ZUKO... YOU KNOW, JUST LIKE WHEN THEY WERE WEE.
   
   * Hyperbole.
   ** TY LEEEE WHERE AREEEEE YOUUUUUUU?!
   
   
3. The show is NOT CONSTANTLY SERIOUS. Some people seem to think THAT EVERYTHING IN THIS SHOW IS SERIOUS. This is a pretty big misunderstanding, because the show is like HALF COMEDY, yo.
   
   The presupposition that the show is OH MY GOODNESS SO SERIOUS makes people start doing something called over-analyzing and taking certain things that are meant to be jokes as SERIOUS SIGNS OF GRAVE IMPORTANCE. See: the running gag in "Bato of the Watertribe" where Jun teases Zuko about his "girlfriend," which is not "subtext" but exists entirely as a JOKE to make people LAUGH. It is supposed to make people laugh because the assumption is that the audience will find the idea of Zuko/Katara ABSURD. (Which it was, and is!) At the same time it reinforces Zuko's character (his apparent asexuality because of his obsession with daddy's love, and also his disdain for Jun as an inferior, so that her barbs don't even bother him)... but that doesn't take away anything of the fact that it's not there to foreshadow some imagined giant romantic storyarc about FIRE & WATER. It's there as a joke.
   
   Because I'll say it again. THIS SHOW IS, like, HALF COMEDY. IT'S HILARIOUS. Most of my real world friends find the show HILARIOUS. My brother-in-law loves the show almost solely on the basis of Iroh and Sokka being hilarious, and okay, yeah, the actions and tanks and stuff too.
   
   And "The Headband" was utterly HILARIOUS. It was VERY FUN and FUNNY from beginning to end (from the flying, talking cloud to the headmaster telling the guards to stop dancing). It was all epic and exciting and real and it had heart and powerful, powerful pathos to it, but it doesn't mean that every line is OH MY GOODNESS SO SERIOUS.
   
   ...
   
   FOR SERIOUS.
   
   In other words, stop over-analyzing Mai and Zuko's interaction. Stop saying that their lines were so twisted and that their relationship is THEREFORE DOOMED. Why? Because those lines existed primarily as... you guessed it...
   
   ...A JOKE.
   
   Yesterday I was showing the episode to a couple of friends. The one friend, as soon as we came to that part, laughed hysterically, and said, "Emo teenagers." Mai isn't emo (she's a goth), but, you know what? I didn't say anything because my friend got it in a way that most of the Avafandom seems incapable of. That friend got that it was a spoof of "emo teenagers" in love.
   
   ...Which means that it's not meant to be analyzed to death for DOOOOM, but it's meant to be laughed at.
   
   And at the same time, because Avatar is only half comedy and not a full comedy like (say) Spongebob or Hannah Montana where humor can be used at the expense of characterization, etc., the humor doesn't take away from the reality that's still there. In other words, just because the Fire Nation school was played for laffs doesn't take away the fact that very serious propagandization and imperialist nationalism was going on all over the place. And just because the episode poked fun at the Fire Nation kids doesn't change the fact that we were supposed to feel compassion on them and find them adorable and awesome. And just because Sokka's "depraved little fire-monsters" comment was a (rather lolarious) joke doesn't take away from the fact that the episode also had heart: being honest about Sokka's prejudices in the first place, and then helping him to move beyond that just a little more.
   
   So, Mai/Zuko? Played for laughs. Yes, absolutely. But does that take away the fact that Zuko told Mai that she was beautiful, that Zuko and Mai told each other that they loved each other in their own way? No, it doesn't. Does it take away from the fact that the scene showed growing bad blood between Azula and Mai and foreshadowed more? No, it doesn't.
   
   
4. Aang's love for Katara is still intact. Some people completely and hilariously misunderstood the entire point of the Book II finale. They thought that Aang had given up Katara and started to ship Aang/Cosmic Energy (replacing Aang/Toph as a frequent tag-along ship for canon-Zutara, I guess!).
   
   Well. Guess what? Aang still is in love with her. He's oblivious to all the Fire Nation girls crushing on him, and he still loves Katara with all the love of an extinct race. The end.
   
   
5. Katara looks up to and is in looooove with Aang. We all know about one of the biggest, most radical Zutarian-canonist misinterpretations of the series of them all: the "Katara is Aang's Mom" view. Pretty much every single episode makes that view crash and burn... and "The Headband" is no exception, doing it with quite aplomb.
   
   Especially in the dance scene.

   Click to view

   
   
   People could try to interpret Katara's "Where were you, we were worried sick!" as being Aang's mom, but make no bones about it, girlfriends and wives say that kind of thing all the time, too. Her tone seemed pretty girlfriend-ish to me, but it's time to move on to...
   
   ... THE DANCE!!
   
   When Toph points out Aang is dancing pretty well, Katara gets suddenly happy. And quickly gets jealous (#1, #2, #3, #4) that he's dancing with On Ji (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8).
   
   Then, following on the heels of that jealousy and dejection, Aang asks her to dance. She's surprised and then nervous that she'd be good enough (playing with her hair, looking off to the side). She's very nervous; note how very rapidly she's stroking her hair, and how very anxiously she glances to the side. Listen to the tremor in her voice as she rapidly stammers through excuses. She's feeling very insecure, right on the heels of being impressed with Aang's dancing skills and being jealous over On Ji.
   
   BUT then Aang, smooth and confident, changes her mind. She can't help but smile and he gives her the boost to get on the dance floor, and she's thrilled, and Aang's the greatest thing in the world right at that moment.
   
   She gets nervous again when she realizes everyone is watching, but Aang comes to the rescue again, smooth and confident. He's suave, as he basically tells her, "It's just you and me, baby." She immediately blushes with romantic eyes, and then gazes at him with flirty, smoldering eyes. Smiling, she throws herself into the dance of hotness with her all, circling him and moving in perfect sync with him. And then they swing into each other into an ALMOST KISS and then they smirk and it's all very much the kind of thing you only really see with people who are already a couple.
   
   (And there's even sweat dripping off their faces. Avatar characters just don't sweat, like, hardly ever. Even when there's a big fight action sequence.)
   
   After nonstop beaming, she finishes off in his arms, beaming at him, sweat pouring off their faces as they breathe heavily.
   
   When they leave on Appa, the euphoria still isn't worn off, her being all "<333333333333 Aang! TEE HEE" *heart aflutter* still. And she fangirls him for the 10 millionth time in the series, and leans in to give him a kiss on the cheek, with flirtatious half-lidded eyes.  Smooch!
   
   So, "The Headband" destroys yet again another fandom misconception.
   
   
6. Aang is smooooooooooth and knows how to romance a girl. Fandom did not think this. At all. See #1 and #5 above.