YMMV / Avatar: The Last Airbender - "The Ember Island Players"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • How many of the play's inaccuracies were deliberate, and how many were due to the creators genuinely not knowing the truth?
  • The play's version of Toph is a muscular grown man, whereas the real Toph is a petite twelve-year-old girl. Was this just another case of the creators changing things, or did they get inaccurate information from people who didn't want to admit they were defeated by a little girl?
  • The play turns out to be Fire Nation propaganda, despite being written by an Earth Kingdom playwright. Is the playwright a Fire Nation sympathizer, or did he write the play as a tailor-made for a Fire Nation audience, which believes their nation is on the right? For that matter, Ozai's Obviously Evil characterization despite being the Hero Antagonist and his victory being portrayed as a good thing, is it a case of Deliberate Values Dissonance as the Fire Nation audience sees that as the traits of a good guy, or did the playwright include those villainous traits as a sneaky Take That! against the Fire Lord's villainy which the Fire Nation audience didn't notice?
    • It’s also possible the playwright is sympathetic to the Avatar's cause but doesn’t want to face repercussions from the Fire Nation so he tacked on a pro Fire Nation ending to keep out of trouble.
• Genius Bonus: Aang is annoyed at being played by a woman; in many stage adaptations of Journey to the West the monk Xuanzang/Tripitaka/Genjo Sanzo is played by a female actor.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Gaang watch an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender that, despite its decent effects, is incredibly inaccurate and insulting to their intelligence. Many of the Gaang's remarks could easily be used on M. Night Shyamalan's controversial film adaptation (except whether the effects are good is debatable) and the Netflix live action adaptation.
  • Aang complains on how he's played by a woman in the play. The Avatar that succeeded Aang, Korra, is female. Not to mention, in the Russian dub, Korra has the same voice actress as her predecessor, Aang. Also, most of Noah Ringer's stunts in the live-action film were performed by a woman.
  • In this episode, Player!Bumi is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, years later, Baker would be one of the voices for another Bumi.
  • In the Brazilian dub, Player!Zuko and Iroh are voiced by Ettore Zuim and André Bellisar, respectively. They'd go to voice the real ones in The Legend of Korra
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Tear bending has become a popular way to describe Tear Jerker moments.
  • The erroneous "Avatar State, yip yip" has become unironically used by fans in much of the same context.
  • The Gaang's aforementioned comments about the play became a popular reaction meme to poor adaptations and productions in general.
  • The panning shot of everyone's horrified reaction to Player!Toph's "echolocation", ending on the real Toph who by contrast looks like she's never experienced anything cooler in her entire life, has become a popular reaction gif.

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