Embers Discussion: Spoilers from Ch 30

[Herr Bad Moon]

Spoilers 

I've tried to keep liking this story.  I really have.  But with Chapter 30, it's about time I threw in the towel.  I was ok with Zuko being Captain SuperGreat! and getting all kinds of Marty Stu power ups, I could tolerate Katara being a five star biatch to everyone but Aang, and I could live with but dislike the apologism for the Fire Nation that was written into the background.  Now?  Now Katara is so axe crazy she's genocidal, and due to the magic plot power that was given to Water and Fire benders, everyone around her becomes genocidal too!  I just had to throw up my hands.  Despite it being very well written, it's descended into the kind of character assassination that I haven't seen since the Fiance Wars back in the old days of the internet.  Vathara, you had me, then you lost me.
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Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"

[Jorlem]

I agree, its bad, but I don't think its quite as bad as you are making it out to be.  I think that a significant portion of Katara's apparent character derailment is coming from stress.  They just came out of Ba-Sing-Se, where no one would listen to her, and she wasn't allowed to do anything.  Now that they've left and met up with her father, it still seems as if no one is really listening to her, they've barely made any progress on dealing with the preparations for the eclipse, and she is being forced to work with the person she has thought of as one of her worst enemies to heal Aang.  Contrast that to canon, where after leaving Ba-Sing-Se, they met up with her father, captured a Fire Nation ship, and set out towards the Fire Nation in preparation for the invasion.  What will make or break this for me is what Vathara does with Katara next, now that Zuko has left.
On the subject of the element power ups, Air and (presumably) Earth got them as well.  In his AU, some airbenders had some sort of mind reading/truth discerning ability, and earthbenders were implied, somewhere along the way IIRC, to have some sort of mental fortitude thing.  All of these metal powers seem to depend on the mindset of those involved, so, for example, the Dai Li were vulnerable to Azula because they lacked the 'wait for the right moment' earthbending philosophy, and instead had a philosophy that was more along the lines of 'attack first'.  This philosophy was close enough to the standard firebending philosophy that Azula could take advantage.  Also, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that a waterbender from the Foggy Swamp would be resistant or immune to Katara's emotional control, due to the lack of shared cultures, while people from either polar Water Tribe would be particularly vulnerable, because of the shared cultural background.
But yeah, it really depends on what the author does next.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Black Aeronaut]

Personally, I don't think it is really character assasination as much as it is more like a real-world portayal. Observe these comments by the Author:

In I Could Do Anything, If I Only Knew What It Was, Barbara Sher describes the rage against the ordinary. Ragers are charismatic, often skilled, often geniuses. They work hard, they may be good at what they do - but they want to be the absolute best. Without having to start from the bottom. Or put up with the ordinary scutwork the rest of us take for granted. They charm people around them into fixing their problems, over and over again. And they always have problems. Because when they were young, they were horribly betrayed by the world - and they want to be rescued. More than anything in the world. Katara's central motivating idea - the Avatar will return - fits the rager's profile point by point. 1) Her fantasy requires the act of an outsider to come true. 2) The end is a rescue or reward that comes only to special people. 3) She'll be "discovered" as special (the last Southern waterbender). 4) Her life is pointless without this happy ending.
This can be fixed. Ragers can learn to find the root of their problems, and move past it. But it takes hard work, self-examination, and admitting a little brat inside you wants something it can never have. Katara can break out of this - if she listens, really listens to her family and friends, and realizes that she wants, desperately, for someone to make things right. To rescue the little girl who lost her mother, and grew up too soon.
Except in canon the creators hooked her up with Aang, who wants to be mothered and have excuses to be irresponsible.
(Insert writer banging own head against wall.)
...Yeah. That relationship is going to end so well. I think I'll take my chances with Azula....

And if you look at the bibliography he has there, you can see that what he is doing is applying real-world rules to each of the character's psychological makeup, background, and culture, and rewriting the story accordingly.
As for the power-ups... chill.  Zuko ain't the only one.  He's just the one that gets the most screentime.  And I strongly suspect that there are others that are going to wind up bending more than one element later on down the line.

[Valles]

...nrgh. OK, around my own connection and IE woes, there is a big difference between the kind of quasi-psychotic behavior attributed to these 'ragers' and an effective child being quite unhappy with, and unable to make fine distinctions about, the people who killed her mother... And these maximum-negative interpretations are -consistently- about the show's nominal heroes.

It's... wearying.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Herr Bad Moon]

blackaeronaut wrote:And if you look at the bibliography he has there, you can see that what he is doing is applying real-world rules to each of the character's psychological makeup, background, and culture, and rewriting the story accordingly.

This would be fine, if the author started the AU from ground zero.  But they didn't, they started branching out after Book 2 started which means you have to accept Book 1 happened.  Which means if Katara had some horrible vendetta against all Fire Nation peoples, she and Jet should have been high-5ing each other while a Fire Nation settlement gets washed away. I also wonder why the hell Pakku didn't mention this emotional manipulation bending when training the freaking Avatar and another water bending prodigy, people who could concievably reach the upper eschelons of water bending.

As for the power-ups... chill. Zuko ain't the only one. He's just the one that gets the most screentime. And I strongly suspect that there are others that are going to wind up bending more than one element later on down the line.

Again, this would be fine, if the time that wasn't spent focused on Zuko doing awesome stuff cuz he's awesome was spent on people not talking about how deadly and determined and resourceful Zuko is.  Unfortuneately, that's pretty much what they do, taking some time out to explore how dumb and spoiled and borderline sociopathic Katara is becoming. 
I guess I'm just upset that a story I really liked has in my view devolved in such a way.
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"

[Lordpanther14]

The story is very much on Zuko's side and so having so many chapters where the Fire Nation are justified for their actions followed by explicit explanations on why the Gaang's actions have culturally wrong is getting annoying.  That Zuko could have been so much worse and gone back to punish the water tribe village for Aang's breaking parole, strikes me as a more vindictive take then the woe is me, he broke our ship and some of our soldiers were almost killed by the dunk in arctic water previously harped on.
I think Vathera is also writing under some blinders as in the author notes I read how Zuko has wrong accusations and his views are being changed as well but if that is occuring, they are largely being changed so that the situation was even worse then he thought it was going to be.  Insert angry blow-up here from Zuko, and everyone else realizing they've made a grave error.  Now that Zuko's going back to Ba Sing Se, I'm hopeful that the lack of Katara and Aang will place the story in a setting that doesn't have as many predictable emotions and events occuring. Personally I think the back story has been given enough attention and more energy needs to be spent on current events and battles, the Avatar world is real enough after everything Vathera done in the previous chapters and while cultural differences are interesting, they're only going to hold attention for so long.

[ECSNorway]

What I'm seeing: Zuko is being forced to grow up. He's seeing the consequences of his actions and dealing with them.

Katara and Aang aren't.

Zuko is Not Taking This Very Well, and given pre-existing feelings between them, Katara isn't taking his reaction very well either.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Rusco Ducam]

Something that was mentioned a few chapters back:  all this is taking place right around the anniversary of the death of Katara and Sokka's mother.  So, we have a series of very stressful situations at a very bad time of year, culminating in the near-death of their best friend.  Seems to me that emotions are running a bit higher than usual at the moment on that end.

[Jorlem]

 I also wonder why the hell Pakku didn't mention this emotional manipulation bending when training the freaking Avatar and another water bending prodigy, people who could concievably reach the upper eschelons of water bending.

You know, I wonder exactly how common emotion bending is.  From the way Hakoda and the other Water Tribsmen have described it, it sounded as if they were describing a legend, not a commonly known bending technique.  For all that Pakku is a master waterbender, he could have dismissed emotion bending as old wives tales, and chose to focus on waterbending techniques that were known, and had obvious and distinct results.
Also, some more speculation on my part, but I wonder if Katara's emotion bending has started a sort of feedback loop that is warping her own emotions as well.  The moon's pull on the ocean's causes tides, but the moon has tides too, even if they are a lot less visible.  She 'connects' to the Water Tribesmens' emotions, pulls on them, and then their emotions pull on hers, whichs pulls on theirs again, and so on.
Also, regarding Jet, rewatching the episode, it wasn't a Fire Nation settlement, it was an occupied Earth Kingdom village.  Also, quite a few of Katara's responses to Jet fit in quite well with the background Vathara set up.  She only starts attacking him when Jet implies that he's disposed of Sokka, and when she stops him by freezing him to a tree, she says "I can't believe I trusted you.  You lied to me! You're sick, and I trusted you!"  And freezing him like that, at the poles that would be a death sentence, barring rescue or inner firebending, wouldn't it?
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[deadpan29]

The overall writing skill is so high that I keep going back and probably will continue to do so, but there are factors that keep this from being as good as it could be.
(1) Katara: Some level of anger and suspicion at the Fire Nation is justified.  In canon, her lasting anger and suspicion at Zuko in the last season was also justified, as he had turned on her and Aang earlier.  But even then, she could work with him for the greater good.  Here, while the characters around her have depth and a few power-ups applied to them, she has been reduced to a one-dimensional screeching harpy.  It is justified as a more realistic reaction by a girl her age from the culture and place in that culture she comes from, but she seems to be the only character subject to this kind of "realism".
(2) Zuko: Given the people and entities in the world he inhabits, he hasn't quite reached the point of being over-powered, though he does hug the edge more than is wise for the sake of the story.  On the other hand, while he may not have quite reached the level of too many powerups, he is pulling those powerups from too many places.  He is a dragon-blooded, fire-healing, moon-touched waterbender, drawing on the memories and skills of a past life.  Any one of these could be the basis of a good story.  All of them is just ridiculous.
(3) Fire Nation Culture/History: That the Fire Nation has been given some admirable cultural values and historical reasons for its actions is a good thing, adding depth and realism.  That Zuko, Iroh, and anyone else arguing about virtue/honor/history from the Fire Nation position always wins or at least gets the last word is bad and throws the attempt to present a more balanced picture too far in the other direction.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Jinx999]

Agreed. The writing's good enough to carry you on with it - despite the flaws, but it is flawed and Katara is way out of character.
And Aang is still portrayed as he was at the start of the first season, without any character growth.

[deadpan29]

Chapter 31, Katara suffers consequences for recent actions.  Commenters in other locations say Vathara has been seting up Katara as the Woobie to explain some aspects of her behavioir.  I can't agree.  The Woobie is a character you wish you could comfort, not one you wish you could smack some sense into or one that makes you feel relief when they finally get some comeuppance.  I also don't think her canon actions required all that much explanation while her actions in this story passed... Not a moral event horizon but a sort of aggravation event horizon in the last few chapters. 
On the other hand, now that some consequences have occurred, maybe the story and characters can move on.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.