Discussion History Music / Celldweller

For starters, WordOfGod outright stated (and it\'s on Wikipedia with the source for the interview) that he had no plans for adding nuance to the issue of homophobia in Turf Wars and ([[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment as stated before on this site,]]) each nation\'s \'\'view\'\' of the issue is based \'\'purely\'\' on the elemental mentality rather than based established history/canon that would make it complex in the usual worldbuilding sense the franchise is known for that would make the issue as [[WhiteAndGreyMorality white and grey]] as LOK has been about the issues of Bender/Non-Bender, Man/Spirits and forms of government. The fact that \'\'Sozin,\'\' one of the most one-dimensionally, \'\'unambiguously\'\' evil characters in the franchise, (which reminds me of how long I\'ve put off calling Windleopard on his([[AmbiguousGender ?]]) \"arguments\" excusing Sozin and Hou-Ting to shit on Korra in the forums,) is the only named person persecuting queer people and having no other reason beyond [[WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged \"I\'m an evil prick\"]] for doing so the way Korra\'s villains [[VillainHasAPoint have an understandable point]] should make this a no-brainer that \"homophobia is bad,\" and that there\'s no \'\'understandable\'\' but \'\'\'NOT\'\'\' excusable reason(s) for being one compared to \"A firebender killed my wife so I blame all benders.\" \'\'Everyone\'\' Bryke wants us to like/sympathize with so far has been either super-supportive or at worst, indifferent with \'\'zero\'\' valid questions (i.e. When I found out from both a rumor and the rainbow flag in her room that a girl I knew since she was 5 was bisexual and had a girlfriend, I had a number of \'\'polite\'\' questions that she expected coming and politely answered) while again, the \'\'only\'\' named bigot was the same guy that\'s been 100% detestable villain since \'06.

Also just because sexism in the original series was a sub-issue compared to saving the world didn\'t mean that Katara\'s fight for gender-equality was any less valid and an example of [[CentralTheme balance]] with Pakku\'s sexism being inexcusable even when \'\'that\'\' had reason of also being cultural but not [[CultureJustifiesAnything justified]] in Pakku feeling culturally [[EntitledToHaveYou entitled to have Kanna]] just because he carved a necklace. Unless Tokuga turns out to be a gay runaway lashing out at the world because of bigoted parents and/or a dead lover, the point\'ll still stand that he\'s just as straight-forward a villain as the past Fire Lords instead of another Zaheer or Amon no matter how much he rivals them in [[EvilIsCool cool.]]

[[BuffySpeak Also-Also]] I noticed that nobody questioned/messed with my other points even though I (also accurately) stated that Raiko had been simplified from a more complex ReasonableAuthorityFigure to a typical SleazyPolitician to make Zhu Li\'s campaign against him look easier.

Second, [[CaptainObvious Sozin]] \'\'[[CaptainObvious is]]\'\' [[CaptainObvious a character.]] He doesn\'t have to be \'\'seen\'\' in the books when his name is still dropped as why the Fire Nation, like \'\'everything else\'\' it was known for being until he came along, went full-blown homophobe when it was stated to have been as previously queer-friendly as the Air Nation just as it was anti-dragon and Agni Kais went from casual sparring to serious duels, so they are definitely \'\'his\'\' policies shaping the nation as it did by the time Aang thawed out. Kya is not an UnreliableNarrator, she\'s a(n awkward means) of exposition that queer people \'\'were\'\' getting rounded up for being queer with even less of a cover than \"the Earth Kingdom was too stubbornly militant to accept queer people even though their own legendary Avatar was a bisexual badass.\"

[[CaptainObvious The selling point was]] [[JustHereForGodzilla Korrasami and the Verse\'s views on it, period.]] Yes, there\'s an interest in the aftermath, but \'\'come. on\'\', the books didn\'t fly off the shelves with excited customers posting pics on Tumblr of themselves with their copies because they were interested in Tokuga and nobody was linking/sharing leaked pics of his mutated form. Hell, Part 1 is more about them coming out/exposition than it is about Raiko \'\'or\'\' the bad guys.

Now to clarify TL;DR my points besides what on the YMMV page:

*As a Black man fucking \'\'\'tired\'\'\' of Gran Torino-type Noble Bigots and repenting White Saviors (Do. \'\'Not.\'\' get me started on \'\'Defiance\'\'), I\'m \'\'not\'\' looking for [[FreudianExcuse easy excuses,]] I\'m looking for \'\'understanding,\'\' \'\'depth\'\' and \'\'complexity\'\' in [[TheVerse this world\'s]] characters whether they just realized their best friend/ex-girlfriend/student/child/etc. isn\'t straight, why/how society feels that way beyond elemental mentality, and what can be done about it. Di-Martino (tired of using the punctuation thing for his name) never thought that far to the extent there\'s yet to be terms like \"lesbian,\" \"bisexual\", etc. stated in the books or even [[HoldYourHippogriffs analogues]] like \"Kiyoshians/Followers of Kiyoshi,\" \"bends both ways\" or \"Unagi Boys\" the same way they used to call meteorites \"space earth\".
*I \'\'want\'\' that if this world has been a collection of Fantasy Counterpart Cultures and this world has similar degrees of homophobia that something like the Earth Kingdom\'s bigotry be deeper than \"We hate queers because we\'re militaristic\" and more like \"Our warlords used to practice Wakashudo, so we associate same-sex couples with scheming barbarians and a CEO with The Avatar triggers those old fears.\"
*I \'\'want\'\' to know/see that Kiyoshi Island is the Fire Island/Lesbos of their world with Korra reading about with Jinora during Part 2 and talking about one day visiting with Asami where Ty Lee was their equivalent of a gay icon like Cher or Judy Garland.
* I \'\'want\'\' to know/see Fire Islanders that before and/or after Sozin practiced Laotong so they\'d be biphobic in the sense that they see Korra/Asami as perfectly valid/normal but see either previously dating \'\'Mako\'\' as \"a phase\" in a reverse of \"Gay Until Graduation\" with everyone having to argue, [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall \"No, we were genuinely attracted to Mako and it was his]] \'\'[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall behavior]]\'\' [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall that made us break up with him.\"]]
* I \'\'want\'\' that if there\'s bigoted villains we \'\'\'don\'t\'\'\' excuse their bigotry, but we do \'\'understand\'\' where they\'re coming from in that mindset as we\'ve done with Korra\'s past villains where having genuine friends and lovers didn\'t change the facts that Zaheer was a terrorist, Kuvira was a tyrant and \'\'both\'\' were responsible \'\'obscene\'\' body counts. So far it\'s just been simplified to [[EvilOverlord Sozin]] \"because reasons\" (\'\'which\'\' by the way had even Irene Koh rolling her eyes about.)
*Hell, I even \'\'want\'\' an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(DC_Comics)#In_other_media Aresia-type]] ShadowArchetype of Korra\'s who was a queer woman from the past that lost her Asami and became a [[TragicVillain vengeful spirit]] that Korra understands but still has to defeat, but also tackle the prejudices of the present to help placate her.
* Martino \'\'wants\'\' us to still like the same characters, but at the same time \'\'wants\'\' a conflict to relate to the LGBT audience, so you end us with the [[ConflictBall mess]] that is Korra\'s storming out of her parents\' house \'\'like\'\' they disowned her despite them warning of \'\'other\'\' people being bigoted with the resolution held off for Part 3 despite Asami helping her understand in Part \'\'1\'\'.

Does that help get my points across? And can we \'\'please\'\' put my statement back up and \'\'leave\'\' it alone for good?