bobbityhobbity:
shineyavatars:
bobbityhobbity:
shineyavatars:
bobbityhobbity:
tatara2014:
shineyavatars:
http://avatar-e.tumblr.com/post/119201381463/ikkinthekitsune-korractrify
Sorry if the question above seems loaded in any way but this post relates to something that’s been gnawing at the back of my head for days and I never could find the words for it. I hope it’s not too much trouble to ask for your stance possibly.
[snip]
I specifically say ’safer’, because the original post - not me - was portraying one as safer. That is where the compartmentalization started. I’m well aware that the original post was an example of the fandom polarization between the two halves of the series, and Korra is obviously characterized differently throughout her arc which I necessarily must respond to, but I don’t care to separate her journey into parts or pretend those are mutually exclusive when one is leading to the other.
The reason I say that is I’m not an anti-book 1-2 person for enjoying the latter half of the series, and I don’t care to engage with others or be perceived as if I am, which is how everyone will interpret you feelings if you say you enjoyed Korra’s ending point.
If my post implied people are ableist for preferring or connecting more strongly to parts of Korra’s characterization than others, I apologize. I later clarify that this is indeed not my intention, I believe.
I’m sure you can understand that coming with claims of why Korra was ‘less safe’ in earlier seasons, with comments that directly state Korra’s portrayal is much safer while she’s representing a severely under-represented element on screen, directly ignores how revolutionary it is to see a hero go through disability. And how decidedly ‘not safe’ it is. I don’t care for the specific definition of why Korra was unsafe in the first two books, it does not logically conclude that Korra’s arc is 'safe’ later for portraying something else.
I’m not going to apologize for taking issue with that and not reading the post in, as you say, ‘good faith’. You can surely understand I find you claim that the original post I responded to was “other people’s sincere, good-faith arguments” equally misrepresenting as you found mine. If it was misreading on my part, I don’t feel the need to pursue that further, but to clarify:
Saying that “female characters who don’t need to show vulnerability are incredibly rare” and “Sympathetic female characters who show vulnerability, in contrast, are a dime a dozen (to the point that “vulnerability” is basically required for female characters to be sympathetic)” comes with specific connotations that are pretty relevant to the general issue I raise, so I’m sure you can see why I felt the original post pretty dismissive.
The ‘substance’ I’m getting at in the isn’t to accuse anyone of ableism personally, again I apologize if that’s how it came across - I have no wish to morally oppress anyone into a specific preference. My intent is to address the implication that comes from the post, which is that vulnerability is perceived as more acceptable.
A point I feel we’re overlooking, and that I failed to address, is that females are only accepted for vulnerability because it’s perceived as inherently weak, and a weak female is not against gender norm. This only goes for females who are allowed to be weak, which many are not.
Women who self-identify as strong, or are expected by their surroundings to be strong, do not have that 'luxery’. Which is what I’m getting at. This is what is a toxic idea, and yes, it is inherently linked to ableism.
I can see why it’s empowering to see females break the gender expectations and take on what is usually seen as masculine trait, as a strength. Coming from another angle, this glorification of rejecting vulnerability, IN EITHER GENDER, carries a lot of problematic implications, though, which is what I find absolutely crucial to discuss, with no specific wish to ‘shame’ anyone.
That was addressing the implications of that post that I was getting. I’m not sure how you take that as a direct statement against Book 1 or 2?
I’m not trying to argue insecurity was Korra’s primary motivation, but it’s in my perception something she is - unwillingly, on her part - confronted with again and again and again. She is not allowed to escape it, nor is she ever allowed to be in the narrative without vulnerabilities and constantly being forced to confront the fact that she has it.
The reason a lot of us celebrate Korra’s acceptance of vulnerability isn’t that we during the first half of the show thought Korra was too confident and needed a lesson. It’s that we feel we continue to see a Korra that had internalized fears she often refused to deal with in constructive manners, and just as importantly: a lot of the time when she felt confident in something, the narrative forced her into situations that stripped her of that confidence or in different ways framed it as failing her.
For a lot of people, and this definitely goes for many mentally ill people (no, not necessarily everyone), we recognize that feeling of ‘false confidence’ or confidence that is constantly taken away from you by other people, as being extremely hurtful and damaging. We wish for Korra to find a more substantial basis for confidence that can’t be taken away from her through a confrontation with vulnerability.
“But brutality that is justified on the grounds that it leads to character development is questionable if it isn’t handled right, and it isn’t ableist to say that.”
But… this isn’t something unique to Korra’s PTSD?
In Book 1 Korra is kidnapped and locked up as a way to connect to Aang. Later she is stripped of her bending and arguably suicidal on a cliff before Aang shows up to essentially tell her she needed to be in this state to unlock her connection to him. In Book 2 she’s ripped away from everyone who supports her and given amnesia before connecting to Wan. Before the empowering self-actualization of the finale in Book 2, Korra is violently stripped of Raava, beat up and crying her eyes out.
This goes on all through the series, and not just to Korra. Korra’s desire to find meaning is first brought up in conversation with the widow of a guy who apparently chose to find meaning from the complete genocide of his people (except himself).
Believe me, I can definitely sympathize that violence as a lesson can be a really disturbing and uncomfortable meaning to some people. If you specifically took issue with it’s portrayal in the latter half of the series, that’s understandable - it’s definitely valid to find it distressing. However, I hope we can at least acknowledge that if it’s an issue, it’s a critique you can aim at any section of the franchise, not unique to Korra’s disability experience with violence. Different people interpret that differently, and I certainly remember, and still see people, who felt really uncomfortable about the message of Book 1.
I don’t see that a show where Korra is only taught a lesson through violence in Book 4. The very reason I can celebrate the state Korra comes out of her recovery in, is exactly because I’ve seen 'lessons’ hammered into her over and over and over, and at this point, I finally see her embrace her own vulnerability as an acceptable part of herself, instead of having other people forcing the need to confront it onto her… as has happened repeatedly through the series.
Korra herself accepting that, instead of other people making her feel it on her own body and soul in ways that goes against her self-image, is much more healthy and positive to me.
I can understand if one still feels it’s uncomfortable, but I don’t agree with this as a narrative that ever let Korra be just passion and confidence. It might portray her as that, it might be her primary characterization, but it always went out of it’s way to challenge her methods and self-perception in pretty disturbing ways.
So it’s especially in the context that Korra has never thrived on denying or pretending not to have vulnerability, I celebrate the fact that she finds STRENGTH in it. That it is, in fact, her biggest strength that allows her to - for the first time - defeat her enemy entirely on her own terms.
For a response to your problems with the word “safe,” I’ll just direct you again to my original response and to ikkin’s response and to avatar-e’s original post:
Me: But what “safe” here means is that in Books 3 and 4, Korra isn’t really in conflict with with the people around her, which is what bothered a lot of people about her in Books 1 and 2 and led to a lot of charges of “bitchy.”
Ikkin: We’re talking about what’s safer as a narrative being consumed by an audience that dislikes aggressive and uncompromising women.
In Books 1 and 2, Korra externalized her feelings of vulnerability. Her way of dealing with them was to attack them at their source, figuratively if not literally destroying whoever made her feel weak. The audience, generally speaking, hated that; Korra was called all sorts of horrible names for the way she acted and treated like she didn’t deserve to be the hero of her own show.
Book 3 Korra was basically sidelined to the point that none of this really mattered. But, after the trauma she suffered at the end of Book 3, she started internalizing her feelings of vulnerability, attacking herself for her feelings of weakness instead of aiming her aggression outwards. The audience, for whatever reason, liked that a lot better.
avatar-e: Book 4 Korra was going through recovery and fighting a battle against PTSD very much worth representing on screen (and the hate she got after the battle of Zao Fu for being “a weak avatar” was vile), but her portrayal was definitely much “safer” in the second half of the series than she was in the first half, where she was perceived as abrasive and * bites tongue * ‘bitchy’.
I think you can see the common links here. It is entirely possible that we are simply re-litigating old Book 1 battles, though I think that those are in many ways still relevant. What’s at the bottom of it is a desperate desire not to see the parts of Korra that were a little rougher and a little messier and a littler more “dangerous” sanitized for the sake of mainstream likability. I think you are right that there are some female characters who are not allowed to be vulnerable, but I also think that there are some characters who are constructed as strong and then put through a gamut of gratuitous violence and humiliation so that the audience will not feel threatened by their strength.
I don’t think that’s what Bryke was necessarily doing. I’m just showing that there are nuances within nuances. And I agree that violence is present throughout the narrative, though I think it is important to point out that at each of those points, Korra is given a moment to be efficacious and to have her value as a person and as the Avatar affirmed. Aang’s appearance didn’t sit right with some people, I know, but it is also legible (I am not saying that this is the only possible interpretation) as Korra finding the resources within herself (given that Aang and the Avatar Cycle is a part of her) to move forward. And it ends with a marvelous demonstration of her power. When Raava is ripped out of her, Korra manages to defeat Vaatu without even the aid of the Avatar Spirit. In other words, Korra has been shown to be able to vanquish threats and learn things from it without turning on herself.
Book 4 was really about Korra turning inward and internalizing violence in a way that we hadn’t seen her do before. And the fact that this did render her more acceptable to some viewers is, well, kind of disturbing. Some of the reactions I’ve seen in this regard, absolutely do reflect a level of discomfort with characters who are confident and self-assertive and who do not always stay within the neatly defined boundaries of what heroes are supposed to do and be. There was a very popular post circulating after the Book 3, praising Korra’s “humbling” and saying that this was necessary so that she could become a better person. It is clear to me now that this is not how you view things, but it’s what was in the background when we were using the word “safe.”
The description you offer above of what you took away from Korra’s arc is, I think, lovely and totally unobjectionable. My only point of contention is that while Korra’s integration of vulnerability within herself as a thing that she can live with is a positive thing, I don’t think the show necessarily did a good job of indicating that this did not come at the price of other things that I found extremely valuable about her. As ikkin says:
And, again, the climax of The Last Stand was everything I wanted. It’s just the stuff that came after it that undermined everything that scene had done and made her lose the traits that made that scene so effective.
This, of course, is all to do with the framing of that scene with Tenzin, where Korra appears unsure and unconfident, as if she is still fighting with internalized shame. Her feeling the need to apologize to Asami for needing time to recover and “i needed to suffer to learn compassion” makes that all worse. Korra learning to accept vulnerability isn’t the issue here, but she does feel like a character whose rough edges have all been sanded down, who is easier for most people to “like.” I’m going to mourn that even if I do have an overall positive view of Korra’s arc.
Your post is great as usual, but I think there’s something I want to add.
Because this?
“I’m sure you can understand that coming with claims of why Korra was
‘less safe’ in earlier seasons, with comments that directly state
Korra’s portrayal is much safer while she’s representing a
severely under-represented element on screen, directly ignores how
revolutionary it is to see a hero go through disability. And how
decidedly 'not safe’ it is.”
I can see why you wouldn’t want to address it, but… I don’t think it’s actually true.
See, having a male hero go through trauma might be revolutionary, but with female heroes? It’s pretty common as part of the backstory (TW for rape on the second link, obviously). The first link offers references to the characters of Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft and Infamous’ Fetch in the main text, but it’s the comments that hit on one of the worst offenders – Metroid Other M’s Samus, which basically uses PTSD-style trauma in a way that literally infantilizes her (to the point that she’s shown flashing back to being a terrified little kid in the face of a villain she’s faced multiple times before without issue; see “The Ridley Freakout” section of this article for more detail). When done wrong, traumatized heroes can be downright regressive.
As such, what’s revolutionary isn’t traumatizing a heroine to make her strong, even when it’s designed to look like PTSD instead of just being a knee-jerk “trauma makes an excellent backstory” sort of thing. What’s revolutionary is to tell a story about a traumatized character respectfully, without sanding the uncomfortable edges off for the people at home, and that’s something LoK was kind of hit-or-miss at (Korra Alone and Beyond the Wilds were, by far, the most successful at that, because they weren’t afraid to show Korra reacting badly in some ways). And, even in that case, there are some pretty major figures in the public conscious – such as Katniss Everdeen – who are already filling that niche in a way that there aren’t for brash, confident semi-antiheroic women who demonstrate a great capacity for both virtue and viciousness.