I see now what people mean when they express, hm, displeasure at atla's post-canon comic series, but it's kind of fun to read through and make a list of how to adapt what canon has given us to come up with a version that feels more like what I envisioned (Long post ahead!)
Toph
- For one, am I the only one who finds it kinda weird Toph immediately opens up an academy? I think it would be much cooler if she went back to pro-bending, got pissed off she wasn't allowed to metalbend or sth, and reluctantly started teaching people from there
- Maybe she even opened up her own battle ring because the last one... yeah. Maybe this is just my personal desire to see her as a pro-bender making the sport really popular (and legal) amongst the general population worldwide and being a badass in general. Earthbending would get boring at her level, so she'd probably open it up to all bending, too, and do her own part in uniting the nations through sports. Hey, that's important yk!
- But I do also like the idea of her taking in strays and being this tiny owner of what may as well be a wild mix of a fighting ring, a bending dojo, and a part-time orphanage.
- But also also, she's literally 13. I feel like I need to send her back into the education system first, jfc. Maybe she stays with The Boulder!!! for a bit after the war, gets her feet under her, figures out what she wants to do, without having to awkwardly ask one of the others from the Gaang to take her in for a bit. They'd love to, ofc, but she's a teenage girl with a rebellious streak, she's not gonna ask.
So she might be persuaded to go to school until she realizes that the novelty of public schools as opposed to homeschooling quickly wears off, kids don't find her as awesome (crazy) as adults either, and she does the rebel thing and runs off to do her own thing again.
- Maybe she goes to meet her parents after she can't justify staying away as anything but "cowardice" to herself anymore and figures... all of that out. I'd like to think her parents do step up in the end. Her dad got his own revolutionary ideas with the factory and her ma is hopefully living her best single life or sth and Toph can be awesome with them. Toph really deserves acceptance and for her parents to think she's as awesome as all the other adults who know who she is do
Speaking of ages, short intermission, I'm just gonna assume we're all aware what happens when you put the pressure of the ~balance of the world~ on the shoulders of a 13 year old and work from the fact that society sees Zuko, Sokka, Katara, and Suki as grown-up enough to have jobs and stuff a year after the war. From child soldiers straight to rulers and diplomats, yippee..? No seriously, I'm gonna treat them as metaphorical adults. I mean, in their cultures they might even be adults, who knows.
And if Zuko has to step up and Aang is who he is, Sokka and Katara won't go back to being no one to live out the last years of their childhood at home, either way. They've been saving the world for a year; the weight of continuing on from that to actually pulling the world back together outside of battles will probably only really register to them a few years after the fact, and then it will be too late. Which... really freaking sucks, but we've known that. Just... a PSA I guess, for anyone who'll go "isn't this guy literally 16 at the end of Atla?" Me too, buddy. If I can talk about war reparations I can talk about 17 year olds having to lead nations and how absurd it is to look to 16 year olds for advice on international relations, I suppose.
It might have been more realistic for them to cluster around Zuko for a year or two and just... keep things stable, without going right into revolutionizing stuff. But that would probably come with a whole host of problems with public unrest, so... Children in positions of power and influence it is.
Zuko, Sokka & Mai
Zuko
- Now, the Zuko thing... Hm. The comics sure had ideas for this guy, huh? Well, this is a popular fanon thing, so I won't beat around the bush, but I feel like a lot of his problems could be solved with: Ambassador Sokka and a relationship with Mai that's much closer to what we see in Ashes of the Academy than the trilogy series.
- Hear me out--Zuko's got a major problem with his international relations and national unrest. And if we rub two braincells together, he's probably freaking sweating trying to figure out how to change a society and, more importantly, an economy from 100 years of war to, well, peace. So many job displacements, my god.
- He's got technology used solely for war that the rest of the world lacks, he's got tons of soldiers returning from war who need to be reintegrated, the production of weapons and armor and whatnot has to cease and be redirected, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Culture needs to be reintroduced. You've got to revolutionize your whole system, basically, and try to weasel out the corrupt weeds while dodging their attempts to remove you. That's... a lot.
- I'd like to think he's actually attending lessons and learning how to do all this and not just... eyeballing it. I'd also like to think Iroh doesn't just immediately f-off to his tea shop leaving Zuko to figure this out on his own. He's the best bet at a trustworthy source of information on how to govern a nation considering Iroh got the firstborn treatment and probably had all these funky so-you're-gonna-be-the-next-Fire-Lord classes. Been a while but, yk. Better than untrustworthy ministers and what-have-you. You know. Like asking Ozai for advice. Seriously.
Sokka
- What does this have to do with Sokka? People listen to him. Specifically, important people listen to him--like King Kuei himself and, quite nicely, the Mechanist. Put Sokka in the Fire Nation and you ease a strain that wasn't quite visible before.
- With the Mechanist you've got new plans and ways to use your technology, and with new war-unrelated technology you have something to share with other nations, you've got new jobs, you bring back money. With money comes the ability to start on stuff like reparation payments and working on things like making life comfortable for your citizens instead of just survivable.
The Mechanist is a good guy who wants to help but he's also a bit of a coward and I think a friend asking him would make working for the Fire Nation again sound a lot better. He's got Sokka's word that his schematics will never be used as weapons again and that they'll be available for every nation that accepts them, and his word might mean more to the guy than the Fire Lord's, especially when Sokka starts pitching in with his own ideas.
- With King Kuei you have the ability to talk directly to the man in charge without having to go through ambassadors and ministers and whatnot. To bring up, say, accepting technology as war reparations and introducing them into Earth Kingdom society. Idk how obvious it is but I always got the feeling Sokka got along pretty well with Kuei. Heck, they spent some time in a cell together (with Toph), then broke out of said cell, and stole Bosco back before escaping. If that ain't friendship material, what is? But there's also Sokka trying to teach Bosco how to be a real bear (and sharing a tent with him lmao) and I kind of got the feeling they're friends on some level. Kuei is a weird guy and Sokka kinda matches his freak, so to say.
- I honestly cannot stress enough how insanely valuable a personal bond with a king of a priorly hostile kingdom and basically the main inventor behind Fire Nation military technology is.
- And it works because Sokka is not from the Fire Nation. He didn't need to redeem himself--his motivations have been laid bare from the very beginning: He has suffered and he is here to ensure something like it will never happen again. And to protect the balance of the world, blah blah.
- And, speaking of Sokka being of the Water Tribes, that's the next thing. I feel like a lot of emphasis is put on the Fire Nation/Earth Kingdom relations, but... hello? The Southern Water Tribe was nearly wiped out by the Fire Nation. There were no colonies here. If anyone came close to what happened to the Air Nomads, it was the Southern Water Tribe, and basically for the same reason too, I can only assume: Because the next Avatar would have been a waterbender. So eh let's maybe not ignore that and go with "oh yeah, the Northern Water Tribe is taking care of it". That's... not how it works. Or, at least, not how it should work. They deserve reparations more than anyone aside from Aang. They suffered from a genocide, too, and it's kinda wild people seem to keep forgetting that.
Sokka taking over communication with the Tribes is probably the kindest thing he could do for Zuko, cause if anyone hates the Fire Nation with an (ice-cold) passion, it's the Water Tribes. Sokka can look at their demands and weigh what's proportionate and what's just pettiness. Though, make no mistake, he won't let anyone debate with him over it. Once he's decided a demand is appropriate, he will have Zuko sign off on it. He may be a little more willing to move on from the past than some of his people, but he also won't accept anyone trying to undermine their right to compensation.
- So yes, Sokka has connections, Sokka is both an emotional brace as he is someone who can step in, in case of assassinations, but he's also here to be present and represent. To not let anyone forget. To demand attention and respect.
- Because, let's be honest, there's probably some tons of discrimination involved, however you wanna look at it (someone literally threw "Water Tribe savage" out there unprovoked and it wasn't even someone from the Fire Nation). People who commit genocide ain't polite about it, and Atla likes to remind us that non-benders actually face discrimination, too, and would you look at that! The South has one waterbender and scattered villages of non-benders. They're isolated enough they probably haven't faced too much of that specific flavor of discrimination, but they probably will in the following years.
- Either way, Sokka represents a lot of sides here, because he's also a representative of the Avatar, really, and brings in important connections. The weight off of Zuko's chest simply by Sokka taking over some of the international relations and motivating the Mechanist to take care of rebuilding their technology into something society-friendly would be tremendous. Sokka's the idea man, and Zuko desperately needs some ideas. And perspectives.
- Wow this got long, but it's such an important topic and it was ridiculously crudely handled in the comic.
- Is it highly unconventional for the ambassador of one nation to take over relations with the host nation and a third nation? Yes. Do they care? Not really. Sokka's in that funky position of "I'm part of Team Avatar" which kind of allows him to get involved in the future of the Fire Nation to ensure it doesn't start committing war crimes again, so long as Zuko allows it and Aang doesn't pull him back
- (If Ambassador Sokka doesn't work out, may I quietly put "metalbending assistant teacher" on the table, though...)
Mai
- Mai is Zuko's second pillar, so to speak, as opposed to Sokka easing international affairs, she handles the internal ones.
- She visits schools, attends the parties of high society, integrates into the lower classes. She feels the people out, finds the leaks and bad weeds, and uproots them. She's the one who ensures that the people adhere to Zuko's new decrees in their homes and not just on paper and on the streets. She's good at it. Spymaster Mai AU anyone?
- The comic about her stint as a teacher was actually quite sweet and inspiring, so let's leave that as either her day job or a future she keeps in mind for herself when life gets hard.
- Her father makes things both more and less difficult. They decide early on to let him do his thing because he's basically doing their work for them, finding the people who still loudly support Ozai. Mai is... not happy, most of all because of Tom-Tom. Mai's mom is in on it, though, and has agreed to stick to her father's side and commit to the bit if only to ensure Tom-Tom's safety and wellbeing and to feed information to Mai.
- With the bits we got of her backstory in the academy, it's also a really great idea to have Mai try to change a system that created someone like Azula. Ty Lee and Mai have some trauma man, and I don't think Azula will ever really leave their minds. And maybe that's for the best; Someone like Azula shouldn't be forgotten, so they can ensure it will never happen again.
- Am I saying Mai and Zuko would be a really badass power couple you don't see coming for your livelihood until it's too late? Yes. Add Sokka into the mix and you've got yourself such a solid base for a revolutionized government that their enemies either have to be very smart or very strong - and I mean very strong. With the Kyoshi warriors covering both Zuko and Mai's backs they're basically untouchable.
- See, it wouldn't work so well if Zuko didn't have complete authority as Fire Lord and ruled with an iron fist (of revolution and all that good stuff), gave just as much power to Mai, and let Sokka have some good old diplomatic immunity officially and the best friend discount for laws and public conduct unofficially. They rule, both in slang and literally. All Zuko has to worry about is having mad revolutionary ideas for his country and handling everything related to the war aftermath and reparations. Sokka worries about keeping the demands of the Water Tribes reasonable but proportionate and streamlining communication with the Earth Kingdom, and Mai makes sure no Fire Nation citizen tries to overthrow Zuko.
Suki
- I actually like the idea of Suki and her girls moving to the Fire Nation. It makes sense to want a personal guard for Zuko, who is extremely important for the continued peace of the entire world.
- In fact, I honestly can't think of a better place to put a squad of trusted elite soldiers. If Azula was right about one thing, it's that you can never be sure about who's gonna backstab you in that palace. Zuko needs to sweep house, but that will take time, and until he can be sure of his own people, he needs protection.
- Plus, it opens up the possibility of the Kyoshi warriors overseeing new recruitments and training (and retraining) of guards that hopefully involve some de-radicalization, re-education and de-politicization. Lots of fancy terms I definitely had to google but man this whole topic is above my paygrade and I'm trying my best. Basically: No weird chants regarding the superiority of anyone, definitely no discrimination, let's leave propaganda and false truths where we left Ozai, and waaaay less radical political beliefs in general. You know the drill.
- On a more personal note, with Suki's land so hell-bent on isolation (to the point they'd rather starve than reach out), I think her travels could have actually caused her own wanderlust. Getting a taste of what's out there and then actually getting the chance to stay in the Fire Nation? I think she'd be happy to just get to experience that. She's big on community, but as long as her girls get to stay with her, I think she'd appreciate some new challenges. Let the girl have some fun
- Is it also convenient that Sokka's staying in the Fire Nation too? Possibly. Do I think it would be hilarious if they were so in love with each other it's palace gossip basically every other day? Maybe! I don't wanna reduce her and her future to just her possible relationship but when I realized I put them both in the same place I was kind of gasp they're gonna be unbearably sweet and idk kiss in public and scandalize some court ladies or sth. Istg Sokka forgets all happenings every time he sees her in the comics. Or he deliberately ignores them, also a possibility. Anyways, the Fire Nation is being ruled by not one but two power couples and the supremacists never stood a chance
Aang & Katara
Aang
- Tackling the problem from the other side now!
- First off though, some character notes: Aang doesn't execute people. If people die it's because he didn't have the option to pull his punches. He's not naive, he's steadfast in his beliefs after everything he experienced and frankly, his friends respect him too much to ask him to abandon the way of his people anyway. Didn't think I'd need to clarify this, but apparently we have more to correct here than just political situations, and while Aang certainly wasn't the only one whose characterization suffered, this was particularly annoying, considering we went through the whole emotional dilemma with Ozai already. Why are we doing it again with Zuko? Welp, back to the important stuff!
- Aang is the avatar, which is very fancy but mostly just... kind of gives him political immunity? And the power to give his friends political immunity and more power and authority than, say, Hahn could ever dream of. That's pretty neat and really useful, especially when you kinda need to save the world from itself.
- Discrimination and desecration is the name of the game! We've got slurs flung left and right between all and every nation (I've got a list, it's kinda fascinating), radical bender groups, non-benders bringing the dawn of the industrial revolution, and a world that's questioning whether there's space for all of them that has seemingly no space left at all for spirits. The avatar is the bridge of many things, we've heard the line, but here Aang's really got his work cut out for him.
- So here's the deal: Republic City is a distant star in the night sky. You've got too many people coming home from war, too many people without jobs, without homes, without plans for their futures. You've got people who see opportunity there, and start working on their own new world. Jobs pop up and people from all over congregate around them and for the first time in a long, long time, you've got towns with residents from all the nations again. That would have come with enough problems, but they're introducing another factor: Machines that equal the playing field between benders and non-benders in manual work.
What does that leave us with? People that have possibly never seen anyone from other nations and have some opinions, too many jobless and not enough jobs, and the sudden realization that if those people from this nation weren't here or these machines didn't exist, all the jobs would have to go to people from this nation or just benders. Get the picture? Discrimination! Not fun.
- That's the humans, what's with the spirits? People are kinda destructive. This is where the desecration comes in! Not only do people build their dirty cities on land that previously belonged to spirits or was considered holy by a group of people now mostly eradicated, but they also kinda destroy it. Remember Hei Bai? Remember Tui and La? An eternal dance of push and pull and some opportunistic fool comes by and casually kills one half of it. A millennia old forest and some opportunistic megalomaniac orders a battle that carves a scar into it. Heck, remember Wan Shi Tong? Remember his library? What a marvel. Remember why he decided to bury it? Oh, I think it was because of some opportunistic humans. I think we see the trend. General Old Iron came to realize there's no space for his kind in the human world. I can't really disagree, not when we've rarely seen any human attempt to make space for them, and spirits just aren't strong enough to make a difference on their own. Not the ones that suffer alone. Not when the avatar is always, always human. So that's a little depressing.
- There hasn't been an avatar in 100 years, neither for humans nor spirits. I honestly doubt Aang can do much about any of the points I've brought up, not like he could do something about Ozai, but he has power and authority and friends in high places. You don't need to be a bridge of anything to make the world a better place, step by step
Katara
- Which brings me to Katara. I totally think she should travel the world with Aang and figure out what's best for the colonies. She's always been the one to look at a village not doing well and feel compelled to help them out; now, she actually has a chance to make things better for people permanently. No more painted ladies, if she wants to get things done she does it in her and Aang's names and doesn't rest until another town is stable and self-sustaining.
- She's basically an ambassador herself, but for a cause instead of her nation.
- If Aang brings balance, Katara brings change, and you better not try to stop her. She's not afraid to get her hands dirty herself (in a not-murder-y way) and travelling with the avatar, she has the ability to represent whatever town she's advocating for at the time. She's free of the binds that would tie her to her nation, especially considering that Aang is... well, the last airbender.
- They bring change and stability directly to the people while the politicians above ensure their systems will hold in place. They basically bring proof that their concepts put to work show results.
- I do actually like the idea of them eventually settling down in Cranefish Town to really dig deep into the societal issues there and let this town flourish into a what-if. Sure, they still travel, but they always pull back here. This is their future, whether they know it or not. A culmination of every ideal they stood for and then some. A city where they can live with their friends from all nations, all walks of life.
- But that is far off still, and so is Cranefish Town itself. Because at the very end of the war, there are prisoners of war, displaced people, colonies, and a system that needs to snap into place quickly that protects people from what's left of the violent branches of the Fire Nation but also the Fire Nation from everyone else who might look at the end of the war and see opportunities in civilians who can't defend themselves. Think Jet, just on a laaarger scale. Before you think about uniting anyone, you first need to separate. Zuko and Kuei would handle a lot of that, I'm sure, but Aang and Katara can be there for it, right where they're needed.
- Basically what I'm saying is that I see Aang and Katara as the hands-on types that don't wait for laws and decrees to go through and slowly change things over the years. They travel a lot in those first few years and help where they can, wherever they're needed. They've already been doing it before the war was even over, so it's nothing new. But this time, they don't have the threat of a whole army hanging over their heads and, if, say, someone needs an orphanage, a school, a healer, they can write to whosever nation they're in and request for money or helping hands or professionals to be sent.
- The people love and hate them. The avatar is known better by kids in villages who've barely ever heard of the avatar at all while the people of Ba Sing Se barely catch a glimpse of Appa's hide, and that's kinda how they like it. Zuko can catch the spotlight and Sokka can scandalize high society and Toph can do all her insane stuff, but Katara and Aang just want to help people without suffocating under the weight of it. It's healing, to help without feeling the whole world resting on their shoulders. They both needed that, but especially Aang, who has to relearn a whole new world. And if they spend a good part of those first few months penguin-sledding and Koi fish riding and whatnot, well, who's gonna blame 'em?
Some random characters
- Hakoda does not start a thing with a random Northern Water Tribe woman who's doing dubious cultural erasure practices in the South, come on. In general just... can we agree that the whole Southern Water Tribe thing didn't happen? Great. Sokka and Katara went home once in the literal year since the war (seriously, wtf? They've got Appa on speed dial), the South has a say in what their cities look like, and especially Sokka and Katara who helped save the world and have one of the closest relationships to their community/nation, great thanks. I assume Hakoda is busy ensuring his people don't starve now that there's a whole bunch of them coming home to villages barely holding on. He probably stays chief of the South until each village is big enough to justify separate chiefs again, and with the North sending help, that's also an... interesting political situation, considering how long it took their "sister tribe" to help out. Yikes.
Trade routes need to be re-established, too. One of the few things I did like of what we got was King Kuei coming for a visit and being charmed by the warmth of community, so diplomatic visits are also a thing. I doubt the South has much interest in "establishing themselves" just yet, but they will want to take the first steps towards a solid relationship with the other nations, at least.
But I really think the Southern Water Tribe just wants to breathe first now that the war is over. They've got soldiers, many of them probably wounded and, come to think of it, in prisons. If there's any chance of any of the waterbenders still being alive, too... Well. That's some correspondence between Zuko and them, huh. Finding, gathering, and feeding all their people is their first and most important priority.
- About Azula... I really didn't like the institution bit. Buuuut... Anyone else familiar with this story trope where a character gets ordered to stay with monks/priestesses to heal mentally and find a new path in life or sth? I think it would be both a little funny because it's Azula but also offer the opportunity to leave in the spirit bit from that one comic centered around Azula. I really liked that spirit and the idea behind it, so I thought, why not center Azula's journey completely around that?
Maybe they take her bending away or they find another solution for it, but we exchange the straightjacket for some novice sage clothing and while she's really angry she's also really struggling with keeping it up when her mind is just crumbling. And then weird spirit shit starts happening that forces her to confront both herself, her past, and what both mean for her future. I think it would offer a lot of paths you could take for the future; redemption, her disappearing, some spirit stuff, her actually becoming a sage idk. Her doubling down on being evil and leading one last devastating charge against Zuko only to actually die this time, whatever floats your boat. Spirits are funky in their unpredictability and I think that suits Azula's character perfectly.
Just so that Azula's story is a little more about herself than Zuko being Fire Lord. She started crumbling before Ozai was defeated, after all.
Is this my morbid curiosity getting stuck on the thought of Azula getting sucked into the wrong side of the world and having to deal with all these spirit things when all she really wants to deal with is the human world? Yes. Do I think it could be really interesting and incorporate all these metaphors for her life, the mask she pulled on that got stuck on her face, the perfect control she lost all pieces of, the knife permanently stuck in her back because she refuses to pull it out? Also yes. But mostly: I liked the spirit idea and decided to run with it because, similar to Ursa, I don't quite know what to do with her and this seems like a fun and wild idea that could actually work
- Iroh! And June. I'll actually stick to what the comics gave us, for this one. With the exception that Iroh sticks to Zuko for the first few years, that is. After that, though? He re-opens his tea shop. I think Ba Sing Se is important to him, most of all because it's where Lu Ten rests, so he'll stay there, even if it seems a little, hm, insensitive? Oh well. And June? Her ending up as Iroh's special tea collector is... perfection. No notes, literally just perfect. So yeah, basically, peace isn't good business for bounty hunters, June is kinda struggling, Iroh has some cravings for rare tea, who better to send out for rare stuff than June and Nyla?
- I do actually like the idea of Ozai treating Zuko badly because he's being petty and vindictive. It kind of moves Ursa from this magnanimous, wounded soul into someone human who makes mistakes because she's hurt and would write something as dangerous as Zuko being illegitimate just to confront Ozai about intercepting her letters. The rest of it... let's say I'm not too much of a fan of the convenient erasure of memories and then reclaiming of said memories when the plot fits right. Honestly, though, I don't know where I'd put Ursa. I can't see a woman like her just... give up on Zuko and Azula, permanently, to live a peaceful life. Especially when rebel groups like Iroh's existed. So either she worked for the White Lotus all along and we go a little canon-divergent, or she worked in some other fashion to help her kids. She could assume a new identity and become an actress again to hide her face and when Zuko finally follows her paper trail, he sees her on stage, first, and idk recognizes her eyes or figure underneath the mask and costume, all poetic like. Most awesomely: She's both an actress and a rebel and has been preparing for an internal coup for years now, with or without the White Lotus. She could be responsible for Zuko facing some but not that much opposition from the higher classes after everyone was busy either ensuring Ozai does or doesn't take over the rest of the world. She does know how to make colorless, odorless poison after all and she's already responsible for the death of one man - what's a few more?
- I'm gonna forget everything about the fanclub and defer to the Avatar Aang movie for the founding of the Air Acolytes. Wow.
- Okay seriously these are minor characters but why are the Freedom Fighters doing their thing again? Weren't Smellerbee and archer boy exactly the people who kept insisting that they're done with that life? I have questions, but okay. I think it would be a lot cooler if they'd work for Iroh in his tea shop, instead. They're already in Ba Sing Se and they've known Iroh since they all arrived. They could use a job and Iroh could use some new waiters now that Zuko is Fire Lord and someone who takes over when he's away helping Zuko out
These are only for the immediate, say, 5-10 years after canon. I've got some ideas for what happens after, but that's so far away from taking canon and only kind of running with it that I'll leave it here. At that point my ideas would veer too much from what I assume Korra gave us as their future, and, well, that's not quite what this post was for. Maybe I'll make a second one eventually! But this is it for now, and wow did it get long!
The comics were just... wow. In.. interesting ways, at times. They had some fun ideas and nice character interactions, but that doesn't make up for making the characters go through basically half their character development all over again just to stir up conflict. And for not giving some characters anything to do (cough Sokka cough). But, admittedly, my gripes mostly lie with the sequel trilogy series (plural), and even then, Imbalance was so good again it's one of my favorites of all the comics.
So yes, I understand now why people pretend they don't exist and I'm all for creative freedom, but if you like Atla, I can only recommend giving 'em a try. Especially the one-shot comics or the during-canon mini comics are lots of fun. I'll have to make a second post just talking about details I liked about them, but this is it for this one!
So yeah, thanks for reading, hope someone had fun with this! :D
