[ASN Interview #1] Gene Luen Yang goes penguin-sledding with ASN

[iwashere]

Azula's fate will certainly be interesting.  I found her breakdown to be incredibly compelling.

I completely agree. I think her breakdown was one of the, of not THE, best moments of the finale.

Its probably my favorite moment of hers.

[PokemonLotty]

Gene Yang did a very nice interview. I love how he tried to answer as much as he could, that was nice of him. I'm very excited for part two, I think it'll be way better than one.

[iwashere]

I really enjoyed part 1, but i have a feeling part 2 will be a little more exciting.

[drhorrible61]

^Probably.  Part 1 had to set up the story, Part 2 can cut right to the good stuff.

[iwashere]

^Yep, and it's focusing a lot on my two favorite characters.

[azure_flame]

my favorite characters

#1, Azula
#2, Toph
Momo
Ty Lee
Aang

[iwashere]

^Well, Azula probably won't be the main focus of part 2.

[PokemonLotty]

^We still may get to see a cameo of her in this volume, I hope so anyway. I have a feeling that whenever and however Bryke decides to tell us about Ursa, if she's alive and returns, which I think she will, then Azula will get some more attention.

[munchydino12]

OMG My question was answered! It was the one about which bender he wanted to be

[fire nation spirit]

my question about finding the new herd of air bisons was included and answered seems like it will be touched in korra instead

[aa623]

^Or not at all. Maybe we'll learn where they were, but I doubt there will be a big focus on them.

[LadyKim]

My question hasn't been answered 
But will be answered in later chapters!

[aa623]

Yeah, he didn't answer a lot. I'm sure he was overwhelmed by how long they were lol that and there was some things he just couldn't answer. Hopefully one day he will get used to our fandom.

[iwashere]

^Yeah, I don't blame him for not answering all of the questions, there was a lot to answer in one. (I think it made it easier for him to dodge some answers also. XD

We'll get our answers eventually.

[Rava]

Prior reading teh whole interview, dumdum me misses the information about who of the ASN crew did the interview?

(maybe I am just too stupid to see the part where that's written, but I searched and not found that detail *shrugs*)

[SMBH]

Prior reading teh whole interview, dumdum me misses the information about who of the ASN crew did the interview?

(maybe I am just too stupid to see the part where that's written, but I searched and not found that detail *shrugs*)

Avatar Mom did the interview. You may notice that the writeup about the interview on the mainsite news page (linked in the opening post of this thread) was written by her

[Oblivion]

How was the interview done? In person, over phone, etc?

[SMBH]

I think it was done via email.

[Avatar_Mom]

i would have LOVED to have gone to san francisco to interview gene, but alas, all was done via email correspondence

maybe next time ASN is given the opportunity to interview gene, i'll try to head to sf. i need to go there sometime in spring with my oldest.


my oldest and i were talking about how much he gave away by telling us his opinion of aang's character. we were both theorizing what sort of weakness will crop up in the future comics.

[Loopy]

Having read The Promise - Part 1, I think Gene is completely off base with his assessment of Aang's character. If he has a single fatal flaw, it's that he's too reactionary, not thinking things through and going with his first impression of things. If his problem was loyalty to his friends, he wouldn't have fought back against them so harshly in the finale during the argument about killing Ozai. He would have helped enable Katara during her revenge run, instead of trying to talk her out of it.

So that's the trouble with the whole thing. Gene fundamentally misunderstands the main character of the franchise.

[aa623]

I think Aang's character, and to a lesser point Zuko's, is why I don't like it. Pretty much for the reasons Loopy said.
I don't understand why Aang would so valiantly and somewhat irrationally defend sparing Ozai's life who wanted to set fire to the Earth Kingdom similar to Sozin's genocide of the Air Nomads, but so quickly agreed to "end" Zuko if he even show signs of becoming his father.  Gene's excuse for that makes no sense. 
Aang wouldn't listen to ALL his friends and past lives when it came to killing Zuko, yet only a few months later he quickly agreed to just kill Zuko when he already knew how to render someone helpless without killing them?
It's just not that viable of a reason for what's happening in the comic.  It really seems like a poorly conceived fan fiction. It's still not as bad as the movie, but we have another person who doesn't truly understand the characters. Gene isn't as bad as him, but if someone is to write these characters they need to fully understand the characters and how the world sort of runs.

[Avatar_Mom]

Having read The Promise - Part 1, I think Gene is completely off base with his assessment of Aang's character. If he has a single fatal flaw, it's that he's too reactionary, not thinking things through and going with his first impression of things. If his problem was loyalty to his friends, he wouldn't have fought back against them so harshly in the finale during the argument about killing Ozai. He would have helped enable Katara during her revenge run, instead of trying to talk her out of it.

So that's the trouble with the whole thing. Gene fundamentally misunderstands the main character of the franchise.

when reading the interview responses, i felt gene was explaining how he understood aang through his interactions with the creators. and for what its worth, characters do not need to do everything based on a logical course. this isn't the beach we are talking about

lets dig deeper into the "killing of ozai". would killing ozai have helped zuko or his nation? there were plenty reactionary episodes from many characters in the series, not just aang

Katara's revenge run: he cares for his friends, so he told her what he felt was right... but he told her she had to do this on her own. he could have easily pulled some avatar magic from his bag and kept her there. heck, summon hei bei and whisk her away where there are no bathrooms until she calmed down... but he did not do that. even though she could have easily destroyed her mother's killer, he trusted her. he even trusted her with moody zuko by her side. now, if we thought those scenarios out logically... yeah, kill that ozai! hold katara captive until after the full moon! but he thought with his heart because he would do anything for his friends, who are the only family he now has

killing zuko by request vs the series: even though zuko had hunted them, aang held hope for him. when he joined the gaang, he gave him a chance. they became friends... he wasn't going to end his life... or anyone's life because it was demanded by others. this death promise is a request from his friend. if zuko went down the path of his father, the potential for everything to start over again is very real. zuko is asking aang him to do to him what he could not do for ozai. he's asking him to just end him... dont take my firebending, dont lock me up in an asylum... just take me down. aang tried to talk him out of it, he tried to tell him, "no, youre my friend."

will he do this for zuko if that time comes? that depends on the continuing story

i can relate to gene's statement about aang

[drhorrible61]

I think a large part of it that Aang probably didn't believe Zuko would go bad.  Aang always believes the best of his friends.

[Loopy]

lets dig deeper into the "killing of ozai". would killing ozai have helped zuko or his nation? there were plenty reactionary episodes from many characters in the series, not just aang

Katara's revenge run: he cares for his friends, so he told her what he felt was right... but he told her she had to do this on her own. he could have easily pulled some avatar magic from his bag and kept her there. heck, summon hei bei and whisk her away where there are no bathrooms until she calmed down... but he did not do that. even though she could have easily destroyed her mother's killer, he trusted her. he even trusted her with moody zuko by her side. now, if we thought those scenarios out logically... yeah, kill that ozai! hold katara captive until after the full moon! but he thought with his heart because he would do anything for his friends, who are the only family he now has

But he didn't do anything for his friends. He didn't do what they begged him to do, he did what he felt was best for them in those situations. He didn't accept that Katara had to have her revenge, he tried to argue against that ideal, and then when he saw she was going to go ahead with it anyway, he advised her to be true to her heart and not go through with it, even if she had to confront her mother's killer. That's the exact opposite of what Aang is doing with Zuko in The Promise. He's not reassuring Zuko, not trying to talk him out of it; he's angsting about it for a full year, and then jumping the gun at the first opportunity.

Never mind that even if we use your logic about how those situations show Aang as too loyal to his friends, it's hardly a "fatal flaw." That term has a definition, and there wasn't a single moment in the cartoon where Aang's loyalty to his friends fulfilled that.

killing zuko by request vs the series: even though zuko had hunted them, aang held hope for him. when he joined the gaang, he gave him a chance. they became friends... he wasn't going to end his life... or anyone's life because it was demanded by others. this death promise is a request from his friend. if zuko went down the path of his father, the potential for everything to start over again is very real. zuko is asking aang him to do to him what he could not do for ozai. he's asking him to just end him... dont take my firebending, dont lock me up in an asylum... just take me down. aang tried to talk him out of it, he tried to tell him, "no, youre my friend."

Aang didn't actually try to talk him out of it. Aang protested briefly, then accepted it and said no more about it. Then he tried to kill Zuko when after a contrived set of circumstances made Zuko look merely shady.

I don't even get why Zuko thinks he's going to turn evil someday. He's read Sozin's private diary, and those events clearly showed that Sozin was a good, stress-free mindset when he decided that the world would be better off under his rule. Ozai was willing to murder his own son before he was even Crown Prince. Where did this stupid idea come that the pressures of being Fire Lord would turn Zuko into Ozai?

will he do this for zuko if that time comes? that depends on the continuing story

No, that depends on last year's SDCC Korra panel, where the Mike and the Bryan explicitly stated it wasn't going to happen. Oh, spoiler warning, by the way.

[PokemonLotty]

^Even though I did enjoy the comics, I pretty much agree with everything you just said. Aang going to kill Zuko that fast just didn't make any sense. And now that you mention it, why the hell does Zuko think he'd ever turn into Ozai, at all? He just doesn't have it in his heart to be that cruel. I mean Zuko, killing his own son? Yeah, I don't think so. I always thought he'd be the type to vehemently deny that he'd ever turn into his father under any circumstances and punch anyone in the face who dare suggest a thing.

But...whatever...Bryke did approve of the plotline....so, what are you gonna do?