Avatar: The Last Airbender/Headscratchers/Production

For that matter, why would they have cloths for warm weather. They grew up in a Pole, so why would they have them. In fact, why would those cloths even exist. They are apparently meant for warmer weather, but the look is clearly Water Tribe, both of which are at the Poles and have no seasonal cycles, just an everlasting winter. I didn't really know where else to put this. Can we just not focus on where it is and focus more on the question please? Thank you. As for the clothing, their "spring" clothes seem to be mainly their regular clothes, only less so. Sokka has an undershirt, for instance, that he stops wearing in the second season. I don't think they have specifically warm-weather clothes, they just don't wear as many layers.
 * The fact that Katara's opening narration never changes throughout the entire series, not even for the finale. Her statement, "he's got a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone," makes no sense in context, because even from the beginning of the series he often helps and saves others. They could've at least updated it each season.
 * All the money they saved not doing that went to making the rest of the show good. Or they paid off the censors to get so much crap by the radar.
 * Is it just me, or are the Avatar Extras for season three pretty lame? Granted, I haven't watched the first two seasons in a little while, but it seems like 90% of the extras in season three are recapping information we just got, stating the obvious, and recapping information we just got. It seemed more like an effort to avoid Continuity Lock Out for new fans than for getting new or behind-the-scenes info to old ones.
 * The whole Extras was a big disappointment. The first two books were mostly dumb kid jokes.
 * I dunno what you two are talking about. Aside from the Captain Obvious recaps, I really liked the Avatar Extras, particularly when they fleshed out a character like the Earth King, or when they started getting sarcastic. They added more personality to episodes I'd already seen before and I felt they were fairly well done.
 * It's also interesting with how certain things have played out. For example, Avatar Extras from the first episode said that Katara was originally supposed to be in love with Zuko. It is unknown why this idea was scrapped. Now, what is the pairing that is even more popular then the Canon, even years after the series' end.
 * Zuko/Katara wasn't scrapped, the Avatar Extra was a completely lie, probably as a joke. Like the one about how Zuko loves war meetings.
 * Just because shippers are loud and are convinced that their way is the only real way to look at the series doesn't mean it's actually more popular than canon.
 * Except that Zutara really is one of the most popular ships, in case the many flame wars weren't an obvious indication.
 * Flame wars imply, you know, a war between two equally obsessive sides. If Zutara was really so much more popular then other ships, this fandom wouldn't be famous for its ship wars.
 * "Wang Fire" sounds like an STD. Why did no one pick up on this?
 * Because Wang Fire is so awesome you'd thank him for contracting it. More seriously, it's just an on-the-spot name using two incredibly common names/terms.
 * Because it's a show targeted for children.
 * You think that's bad? In the comic collection "The Lost Adventures", there's a story where Sokka infiltrates the Fire Nation Army using his disguise and becomes PRIVATE Wang Fire. If that's not getting crap past the radar, I don't know what is.
 * Why did Sokka's face look so weird in season 2? In seasons 1 and 3 he looks fine, but his eyes are way too big and his face is shaped oddly in season 2.
 * He's going through puberty. Teenage boys do tend to look kinda funny at times, though it's usually about arms/legs/feet being disproportionate to the body than about face shape...
 * Katara's face does that too, especially during the desert episodes. It seems to alternate between episodes, meaning it's probably a storyboard artist who illustrates the characters differently.
 * Am I the only one who finds season 3 suspicious? It's full of filler episodes, throws all attempts at gender-equal casts out the window midway through, and retcons lots of things established in the previous seasons. (That, or it introduces things that just flat-out don't make sense in light of events that happen in previous seasons -- good!firebending, for example) It's also extremely episodic and lacks overarching subplots. Compare this to season 2, which is absolutely amazing -- many episode-spanning subplots, lots of character development, and a cast that arguably favors female characters. I believe I read somewhere that the developers said that they were crunched for time towards the end -- it seems to me that they weren't planning on making a third season until midway through the second, and then suddenly had to fill in a whole new season despite not writing it yet. Add in the fact that by the end of season 2, they were likely behind schedule, and we get filler episodes to buy them time to write the plot episodes, which of course have to be condensed and episodic because they're really stressed for time. This wouldn't be as suspicious if we hadn't seen the level of storytelling they were capable of in season 2, but in light of that... (season 3 was still good, of course, but I do have a lot of issues with it, and "the developers were forced to rush things" makes the most sense as the explanation for them, in my opinion)
 * Most of these accusations are, to be totally honest (but in no way mean-spirited), completely wrong. Each of the "filler" episodes in the first half of the season (with the possible exception of "The Painted Lady") contributes something important to the plot, like bloodbending ("The Puppetmaster"), Combustion Man ("The Headband" and "The Beach"), the idea of Fire Nationals as normal and decent people, important character bonding moments ("The Beach" and "The Runaway")... It's also just as gender-equal as the other seasons, if not more so, since we see female Mooks every time there are Mooks on screen, which didn't happen in the first two seasons. The final version of the Gaang had three girls and three guys, and all of them had major roles in the Finale (among other things--note that "favoring" female characters does not equal "gender equality"). The revelation of True Firebending is a bit of Fridge Brilliance as well, since none of the other bending disciplines had been shown to be inherently good or evil, making firebending as we knew it something of an anomaly. And yes, they had planned the entire series from the beginning, so it's not like Season Three just happened to them and made them rush the development. The more episodic style I can understand being controversial, but the season itself is innocent on all other counts.
 * Episodes like The Puppetmaster and The Headband were unnecessary to the plot itself though. Things like bloodbending and Combustion Man could have been completely cut -- the fact that they worked them in to later episodes does not mean that they are essential to the overall story. In season 2 we also learned about the Earth Kingdom citizens as people, but it was a minor subplot that spanned the entire season rather than being the focus of the episode. And firebending was never an anomaly -- it wasn't portrayed as good or evil in previous seasons. Good!firebending distances from that, by saying that it's not just the people that are evil, but the tools they use as well, turning it into a simplistic Black and White Morality conflict. There is a distinct form of firebending that everyone else uses that is inherently bad, and the one Aang learns that is magically good. (And also, Katara is a good female counterbalance to Aang in terms of feminism -- Suki is not a good counterbalance to Zuko. Yes, she does do important things, but compared to Zuko, she can't really do much. Now, normally I'd be more willing to look this over...except for the Order of the White Lotus. Every. Single. Member. Is male) Again, I wouldn't be so suspicious of this if it wasn't for the fact that they showed what they were capable of in season 2 -- why return to episodic and more simplistic plots when you're capable of more depth?
 * Who cares about the member of the White Lotus? They aren't even close to main characters! (besides Iroh) So what, it's not enough for you that the main group is balanced? Every group in the series must be balanced? Beleive it or not, that's how it is in real life, sometimes you get disproportionate numbers of genders. And obviously Suki isn't a good balance to Zuko because she isn't meant to be! She balances Sokka, yknow, since they're the two non-benders. And Toph balances Zuko. I'm almost done, now. At the end the team had 3 boys and 3 girls. 2 benders and one non-bender of each gender. You said season 2 had "a cast that arguably favors female characters". Care to explain how season 3 is the more gender disproportionate season?
 * Also, we really only see the top people in the White Lotus. Who says that there aren't women who fight with them?
 * Oh gosh, there's more active participation of women in the younger generation compared to the older generation? It's not like that isn't an accurate representation of reality or anything. Oh. Wait.
 * I heard that Season 3 was meddled with by the higher ups at Nick - they apparently disliked the season-arc structure of Season 3 and demanded more episodic stories like before - Bryke compromised by making self-contained episodes that contributed to the world-building and to an overall story-arc (and character arcs). As to the Order ... consider yourself lucky that we even GOT as many girls as we did. In the original outline for the 3 Seasons, Katara was prety much the ONLY major girl character full stop. In fact, Toph and Azula were originally concieved as boys; Suki (and Jet) were one-offs who were popular enough to be brought back; and Mai and Ty Lee likely didn't even exist. As for arguing that Suki's not equal to Zuko ... what planet were you living on that implied SOKKA was equal to TOPH. Season 2 had given more power to the GIRLS, because there were TWO girl benders to ONE boy bender (though Aang is the Avatar) and one boy without bending. By the end, Team Avatar consisted of six people - four benders, two of each gender, and one Badass Normal for boys, one for girls. Not to mention that it was Suki who saved Sokka and Toph's lives at the end of the finale, and Katara who defeated Azula in the end (AND saved Zuko, as well). Some of your criticisms do make sense though - but if the execs. hadn't meddled, we might've gotten Book 3 to be better than it was (it was still good, just not QUITE as good as Book 2).
 * The so-called Good!firebending is not a difference in forms; it's a difference in mindset. Zuko temporarily lost his firebending because of his mindset; to conjure fire, one needs either emotional fuel or something on which to focus. Up until then, firebenders would use hate as that emotional fuel, which is why Jeong-Jeong only saw the destructive capabilities of firebending; it was just ingrained into him. The Firebending Masters was not about introducing "new" firebending, just expanding on what was already established.
 * In the earliest episodes, nether Katara nor Sokka seemed fazed by the Earth Kingdom. Katara claims to have never left the South Pole before, and the same can be assumed for Sokka. However, they are never shown reacting to the warmer temperatures, nor things like trees, leaves and dirt, all of which would have been completely foreign to them.
 * They may not have left the water tribe, but they're not totally ignorant. They'd probably know what grass and leaves and dirt are, even if they've never seen them before. Also, while it might be mostly snow, the tribe clearly has wood and other materials, which had to come from somewhere.
 * Also, they do have houses, inside of which you can wear normal warm weather clothes. I don't think their whole society would be in such a way that they don't even know what warm is.
 * There is contact with the outside world, as evidenced by the Earth Kingdom merchant recognizing and accepting Water Tribe coins so the concept of not-frozen would not come out of the blue (heh). In Book 1, as they traveled through warmer then back to colder climes, they shed layers then bundled up again at the Northern Watertribe capital. When they went swimming, it looked like underclothing pressed into service. They got new clothing at NWT, though still Watertribe, for Book 2. Finally in Book 3, they acquired (by stealing) Fire Nation clothing to blend in with the locals.