If someone wants a really good example of the importance of justice in fiction, then Avatar: The Last Airbender did it really well.
See, audiences are obsessed with justice and fairness in stories. They want the characters they like (the protagonists, usually) to win and for the villain to get their comeuppance. Stories get more complicated and really interesting when they question what justice actually is and what it means for characters to get what they deserve. Should the characters get what they want? Or what they need? If the characters haven’t “earned” it, should they get anything at all? If, at the end of a story, a character has gotten neither what they wanted or what they needed, why not?
A:TLA covers justice a lot, in many different ways. There’s Hei Bai’s forest, Jet and the Freedom Fighters, Monk Gyatso’s skeleton, Avatar Kyoshi and Conqueror Chin, the Ocean Spirit’s revenge on Zhao, what happened to Katara and Sokka’s mother, Hama of the Southern Water Tribe, Iroh’s past as the Dragon of the West, Zuko’s suffering versus his sins, Iroh and Zuko’s rejection of the Fire Nation’s war and their efforts towards peace, and so on.
A:TLA’s finale is especially well done because traditional story justice expects Aang to kill Ozai for everything the Fire Nation has done. The characters in the story expect Aang to kill Ozai. It would be long-awaited justice for the world. Ozai is responsible for the deaths and suffering of thousands of people in his time as Fire Lord; it can’t be argued that he doesn’t have a lot coming for him.
But Aang doesn’t kill Ozai.
And it still works, because at that point in the story, it’s not about what Ozai deserves, it’s about what Aang deserves. Aang is a 12-year-old boy who has the fate of the world on his shoulders, the last member of a pacifist culture that’s been essentially wiped from the face of the planet, and he doesn’t want to kill anyone. It’s justice for Aang, the last airbender, not to have to kill Ozai.
Whether or not the audience believes Ozai deserves to die, whether or not the audience believes Ozai’s death was the “right” course of action, they can still at least be somewhat satisfied that Aang is satisfied with this end.
if a4 has steve sacrificing himself again, that’s the pinnacle of lazy writing. it’s not character growth, it’s stagnation. all they’ve ever used steve’s character for is as the answer to a call to arms for fights that were never his to begin with, but which needed a leader and he was the one who was conveniently there. he wants to fight bullies, i understand that; he wants to fight for those who can’t, i get that. but to cheapen steve’s character and lessen him to only this, to only trite & repeated storylines as if this is the whole of who he is, is so boring.
steve has had so many experiences with death, the deaths of others and his own: why is it so hard to comprehend that this time around, it might be worth letting steve live? and not just live for the good of others so he can keep fighting for them – why is steve surviving and learning to live for himself such a foreign & unacceptable concept? if all the other avengers can have lives outside of avenging and outside of fighting, why can’t he?
So, ok I’ve been thinking, we know that clones have a thing about shiny armor. But like at some point, they probably fuck up bits of their armor and need to replace them. Which means they get a new shiny piece.
Now in construction work, we notice shiny hard hats. It means someone is either very new, or doesn’t do any of the work that gets a hard hat all scuffed up. So if we have to replace a hard hat, it’s not unheard of to deliberately put a few scuffs in it by dropping it and what have you.
And so now I’m imagining clones keeping stuff in their paint kits for their armor so that they can age any replacement parts so they don’t have a left leg that is perfectly polished and nicely distressed armor everywhere else. There next to the 501st blue or 212th orange or what have you is also some coarse grit sand paper and that one bit of battle debris that has a sharp piece of rebar with some coarse concrete stuck to it. But there’s an etiquette to this. It’s only for making replacement parts looks like the rest of your armor. Anyone catches a shiny trying to mark up their armor, that shiny best hope they like being called Dumbfuck for the rest of their career.
In the ideal modern lotr au, all locations should have an eery, abandoned vibe (like they do in the books). The kind of locations you stumble over on a road trip and are haunted by for the rest of your life.
Tom Bombadil’s house as an old tourist trap that hasn’t been altered since the 70s run by a too-friendly owner and his suspiciously beautiful wife.
Weathertop as a giant factory that became redundant decades ago and was left to rot.
Rivendell as a breathtakingly beautiful hotel that was fully booked every night in its heydey, but now is lucky to have more than two guests at a time.
Moria as an abandoned subway system… but is it abandoned?
Lothlórien as a fairytale themed amusement park built in the 50s that went out of business and was reclaimed by nature.
Casual reminder that Sirius and Buckbeak lived together for 2 years and Buckbeak was probably incredibly sad and confused when Sirius didn’t come home one day.
When a character doesn’t realize they’ve been, like, shot or whatever and they hand brushes against their side and comes away wet with blood, and they’re just staring at it like wtf is this and then their knees just totally give out on them and they sink down, maybe gasping a little as the reality finally hits them. That’s good stuff.
I see that, and raise you a character who knows they’ve been shot, but waits until the rest of their crew is out of sight to put their hand against the slowly spreading stain of blood on their shirt, then trying to steady their breathing so they can follow without letting on how injured they are.
Okay but like the character who doesn’t realize they’ve been hurt trying to see if everyone else is okay only to slowly realize that everyone is looking at them with mounting horror. Then they touch their side to find it’s wet and oh no
Idk man, a widowed father who works full time and lives in his car so he can afford to keep his child fed while he lives with his aunts, who still makes time to see his kid every day, and who is possibly the only family member that child has who has not implicitly or explicitly wished in front of him that his mother had survived instead of him, fostering an intense survivor’s guilt in him where he feels like his loved ones blame him for the death of his mother
I just don’t see how people have ever managed to call Greg Universe a deadbeat, I mean, the one time the dude did a mildly bad thing is when he lied about being hurt so he could spend more time with Steven who he felt was drifting away from him, and even then he copped to it and apologized. His sole concern as a character in the entire show is taking care of and being there for his kid, he’s honestly one of the best dads on TV and I think it’s sad that people act like he’s a shitty father because he’s poor and spends what little available time and money he has on his son who he loves more than anything
Fucking this. Also he’s called a ‘washed up musician’ when he made a choice to abandon what could have been a good career– we see he’s got the chops– on his life as a husband and then father.
He didn’t fail. He succeeded at being what he wanted to be, which was ‘the respected partner of Rose aka an alien war general’ and ‘Steven’s dad’. He still makes music in his spare time and loves it, but his priority #1 (by choice NOT because he isn’t good for anything else) is Steven.
He was Steven’s primary caretaker until he hit the limits of what he could teach (aka gem stuff), and he gave Steven a loving, nurturing life full of physical affection, musical tutoring, family traditions and outings.
I don’t think the gems pay for Steven’s cell phone subscription. I’m pretty damn sure that Greg thought a phone with music storage capacity for his son was a better use of his cash than anything for himself. He’s content living in the van, I think – he strikes me as being pretty zen– but he does have needs.
He always puts those needs second for Steven, except the once, which was such a huge anomaly we got an entire story arc about it.
Reviewers make a lot of how Steven seems to have ‘inherited’ Rose’s kind nature– bull. Bull and shit. Yes to some extent he does have Rose in him, but to ignore how much of his nurturing and forgiving nature he LEARNED from Greg is just lazy.
Greg Universe’s lover laughed in his face when he asked her if she respected him and he stuck around and talked it out like a goddamn adult.
Greg Universe had his home wrecked because he helped the Crystal Gems fight off Lapis and never turned his distress on them.
Greg Universe got pushed off a fucking roof because a badly socialized tech support agent wanted to see if he could fly and immediately forgave her because she didn’t know any better.
Greg has never told his son to ‘man up’ or ‘butch up’ or ‘toughen up’. Greg would have stared blankly if anyone ever suggested that he was ‘babysitting’ his own child. Greg is a huge part of why Steven is who he is and he chose to be there because he never for a second questioned or shirked his responsibility as a father.
Greg Universe for dad. Like, every dad of every animated character who has a shitty or absent father. Shinji from Evangelion? Now Greg’s son. Eren from SNK? Now Greg’s son. Meg from Family Guy? Now Greg’s daughter.
Steven has Rose’s boundless curiosity about and fascination with other people, but his empathy and patience? His desire to not only observe others’ growth in whatever intriguing form it takes, but to nurture? He gets that from Greg.
The best thing you can give your kids is your time. That’s part of why I love Steven Universe, and Greg Universe especially.
IN THIS HOUSE WE LOVE AND RESPECT GREG UNIVERSE
Damn fucking right we do.
I can see a little how people could jump to the conclusion of Greg being a deadbeat- he’s introduced in a way that, well, kinda looks like it. The episode where he lies to Steven about his leg is an early one. Heck, I initially had my doubts about Greg’s character, because of how he was introduced. We didn’t spend much time with him in the early episodes, so we didn’t learn how caring and compassionate and how legitimately awesome Greg was for quite some time. I can understand how that first impression might make some viewers write him off. First impressions stick with people, especially if they aren’t invested enough in the subject to pay attention and notice changes.
But he got that development, and we learned how amazing Greg is. Greg is awesome and has earned himself a solid place among my favorite characters from SU.
So okay, if early on you think Greg’s a bit of a deadbeat dad, I get it, I do.
But if you get caught up on the series and still think he’s a deadbeat, then I will fight you.
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