The last airbender

Why did Season 3 feel so sub par compared to season 1 and season 2? S1 and S2 feel gritty and grounded. S3 feels campy and cringy; all they do is hug.

A lot of reasons.

Very little is really established about the fire nation or anything plot-related. The characters mostly just fart around the fire nation until the eclipse. The characters and their relationships aren't really explored in new or interesting ways. It's either random crap like Sokka wanting to learn sword training or retreading old crap like Katara and Toph in The Runaway.

I feel like it was entirely for Zuko's sake to show that he's accepted and shit

Thats another thing, they never really showed the war from the point of view of the fire people. The fire nation soldiers are just goofy for the most part. The fire lord just comes off as pure evil.

This

That birthday joke in the final episode was actually pretty endearing and they did nothing to make it seem like the faceless henchmen they were fighting were real people. They just made the fire nation people look like a bunch of brain-washed war hawks.

Which episodes would you remove, and what would you replace them with, to improve Season 3?

I wouldn't say season 3 had bad episodes, just incredibly unnecessary ones.

But out of all of them the Katara pollution episode was the most pointless. I like the idea of the FIre Nation fucking with some of the own lower caste/income citizens but it was handled really stupidly.

>Why did Season 3 feel so sub par compared to season 1 and season 2?
Because they pulled out a bunch of anime plot tropes through a major portion of the episodes after the series proved it could be subtle. Plus, what was meant to be character development turned out to be needless meandering.

Probably one of the reasons is that Dave Filoni left to cuck Genndy with fully Lucas-authorised Clone Wars instead of the best thing in SW he dared to make.

I was thinking the same thing when I rewatched the series last year and reached season 3
>season premier has Aang and Katara getting into petty hissyfits
>Mai's boring relationship with Zuko gets more screentime
>everything with Sokka feeling useless and getting a sword
>beach episode where characters read their personality traits out loud to the audience
>insomnia filler episode
>the soldiers' children being left behind but treated like they don't exist
>another beach episode where the Gaang somehow think saving the world isn't important at the moment
>lion turtle

The Gaang's circumstances going into the third season broke the successful formula of the previous two.

In Book 1, there are two main goals that drive the story forward: travel a huge distance to the North Pole, and learn waterbending. Even the inconsequential episodes contribute to the story's momentum since they continue to travel to new locations, and Aang learns from Katara along the way.

In Book 2, it's: secure the Earth King's assistance in the capital and learn earthbending. Same deal.

But they go into Book 3 with the goals of merely avoiding capture and staying alive to confront Ozai. Aang learning firebending is put on the back burner for the first half of the season. So the story's momentum stagnates, and the self-contained episodes feel pointless because they aren't working towards Aang's success in any meaningful way.

Also, what and said.

>they never really showed the war from the point of view of the fire people

While I would have liked more, I feel like they showed us plenty. The Fire Nation was a military state, and in the Headband we see how indoctrinated everyone is. We see the Fire Sages and their corruption, and we get Jeong Jeong and Iroh as very clearly good guys who operate knowing the FN is wrong, by either outright defiance or trying to make the best of what little you have left. We saw that the FN wasn't just going to drop all their prejudices because the heroes help some, and we got to see what upper-class leisure was like with Ember Island. I feel like we got a lot from the FN, even minor things fed along like Zuko and Iroh cutting their topknots to signify their abandonment of their homeland, which was so well done even at 13 I didn't need to be explained what that meant. There's more visible culture from Earth Kingdom than anywhere else, but the FN had a lot of development too,

>the self-contained episodes feel pointless because they aren't working towards Aang's success in any meaningful way.
This is kinda hit and miss. There is a larger cast that deserves screentime, and yet, it's true that Aang's development was badly paced in S3 and his ultimate victory wasn't well-won.

Season 3 had good points:
>The Invasion
>The Boiling Rock
>The Avatar and the Firelord

I would have given Iroh a bigger role post-prison break (I realise Mako's death was a big reason why he didn't).

Get rid of the insomnia episode, the headband, and The Painted Lady.

Make The Southern Raiders an extended subplot throughout the season instead of a one-off episode.

Same with The Sun Warriors. If they were referenced earlier in the season and built up, the episode would be more meaningful.

The main reason is that they fucked with established characterization to prevent Zutara from happening.

>its this post again

Pacing, filler, and the unsatisfactory energybending finale are the only things wrong with Season 3.

Romance in no way affects the season, positively or negatively.

Only you autistic shippers feel otherwise.

>it's this delusion again
If you have no idea what happened behind the scenes, just keep your mouth shut you shitposter.

>Romance in no way affects the season, positively or negatively.
Ehh, the kiss at the end between Katara and Aang felt unjustified and unsupported by the narrative. It wasn't a good note to end on.

Ignore it then. There are about 5 total minutes of romance in the entire season. The kiss has nothing to do with the basic flaws: pacing and resolution of the plot.

10/10 reply

I hate to say it, but book 2 is slightly overrated. The final ~10 episodes are amazing, but the first ~10 are basically just episodic filler no different than the filler from book 3. And book 3 *also* has about 10 amazing episodes - they're just not as focused as the Ba Sing Se arc from book 2, so it doesn't feel quite as good, even though I think it is.

You could cut out all romance of any kind from Book 3 and still be left with the same problems.

Kataangfags and Zutarafags just like to sling shit at each other over this for some reason, when Season 3's failure has nothing to do with it.

Hey Bryke, didn't know you browsed this forum. Thanks for letting me know your inside info on how Zutara happening would have prevented the magic rock, lion turtle, and filler episodes.

Oh yeah, I agree with you. It isn't significant. But I'd still say the romance negatively affected the season, even if only slightly.

Yeah, they each have about 10 good episodes.

Earth Book's feel more impressive because all 10 are in a row and the finale is so perfect.

>Empire Strikes Back

>Thanks for letting me know your inside info on how Zutara happening would have prevented the magic rock, lion turtle, and filler episodes.
It actually would have prevented two of those and massively rewritten the third one, but don't let me ruin your narrative.

>The Avatar State
>Return to Omashu
>The Blind Bandit
>Zuko Alone
>The Chase
>Bitter Work
>The Library
>episodic filler
Dude, are you high?

It felt rushed. Zuko was added late to the team.

It would have been better if Zuko was given more time to properly interact with everyone at the same time to see where he would fit in the group dynamic.

It would also nice see Aang slowly learn firebending over the course of the season like he did with the other elements.

This show really needed another season.

>Zutara would have provided Aang with another alternative to killing Ozai besides meeting a lion turtle in the penultimate episode and learning Deus Ex Machina energybending

It doesn't, season 1 was not very good at all, there's maybe 4 good episodes and plenty of the rest are just actively bad, the writing is far more childish.

That's not what I said. Dumb shitposter.

It is what you said, dumb shitposter.

>wow, name calling and giving no evidence for anything I say is so easy. I should do this all the time just like you do.

The real answer is because mako died.

Literally every single episode of Book 1 was great other than The Great Divide and possibly The King of Omashu and Imprisoned. You're full of shit.

>It actually would have prevented two of those and massively rewritten the third one

Not that user, but can you explain that further? A lot of the S3 filler happened before Zuko even rejoined the Gaang. Would you have Zuko join up with the Gaang at the end of season two instead, or what?

I also don't understand what Zuko could have done to rewrite the lion-turtle asspull.

Go watch them again. The concepts might be as good as in 2 and 3 but the execution is extremely lacking.

Book 2 filler (or at least episodes that are self-contained and not related to the larger plot in a meaningful way):
>The Avatar State
>The Cave of Two Lovers
>Return to Omashu
>The Swamp
>Avatar Day
>The Chase
>Bitter Work
>The Drill

Book 3 filler (again self-contained, not a piece of the larger plot):
>The Awakening
>The Headband
>The Painted Lady
>Sokka's Master
>The Runaway
>The Puppetmaster
>Nightmares and Daydreams
>The Firebending Masters
>The Southern Raiders

>not related to the larger plot in a meaningful way

>The Avatar State
That's the episode Zuko and Iroh become fugitives, setting up their arc for the rest of the season.

>The Drill
Advances Zuko's story with Jet's gang in the B plot, so I'd argue it's not filler in the traditional sense either.

You're a fucking idiot, in no way are The Avatar State, Return to Omashu, The Chase, or Bitter Work anything resembling filler. They are basically 100% plot.

>Literally every single episode of Book 1 was great other than The Great Divide

aye bitch i like the great divide

Then you have shit taste.

Always. ALWAYS.

In all Avatar threads you fucking appears. The guy that attributes all of Avatar flaws as consequences of lack of Zutara.

You are wrong, you ship is trash, go fuck yourself, stop trashing good threads because you ship only had 5 minutes of interaction, you fucking faggot.

yea, no. the episode is good.

>If you have no idea what happened behind the scenes, just keep your mouth shut you shitposter.

Yeah, the "powers that be" choose to ruin the show because ZUTARA CAN'T HAPPEN EVEN THOUGH IS SO PERFECT AND WOULD LEAD TO THE BEST STORY EVER TOLD.

Keep telling yourself that, shipfag

I will, because it's true.
(Well, except for the "best story" part, not least because there was plenty of shit writing in the earlier episodes too. But I digress.)

damn, I haven't seen this show in so long and I see you people discussing specific events and naming certain episodes that contain plot forwarding stuff, and it's like damn, how do you people remember this shit?

>I will, because it's true.
No, you will because you are a faggot that can't accept that your headcanon didn't happen, so you invented a story where the showmakers decided to ruin their own show in order to prevent your ship.

By the way, is that you? Because you fucking need help. What kind of person is still this ass blasted after 10 years? Your ship barely interacted, my man. Go have a real relationship, you will discover that usually they have more basis than 5 minutes of conversation.

Yep, that's me too. DEAL WITH IT FAGGOT

Oh and BTW, the "5 minutes of conversation" thing was BECAUSE THE SCRIPTS WERE CHANGED.

wait people really thought.....zutara was gonna...

l o l

If your best argument is "my ship is only shit because it was badly written", then you already lost the debate.

And if you think that they choose to ruin the show to prevent two characters that hardly had any interaction from getting together, then you already lost your fucking sanity, my dear faggot.

I agree it was insane, but it was what happened. You can't ignore the truth.

It is not "the truth", you retard.

You have no proof beyond tumblr and blogs from Zutarians as insane and ass blasted as you, you retard.

It literally makes no sense, you CHOSE to believe in the dumbest story to convince yourself that your shit ship should have happened.

FIVE. MINUTES. OF. INTERACTIONS.

RETARD.

Because there was supposed to be a fourth season.

Aaron Ehasz basically took the world Bryke created and moved it forward. Any good ideas from Airbender actually came from him. He's said before that originally there was supposed to be a fourth season that feature three episode story arcs that eventually became The Promise and The Search, along with other likes like an Iroh arc set during his time as a General, a Toph arc dealing with her forgiving her parents, Kid-Aang arcs that would lead into a New Airbenders arc, and finally, and yes this is for real and no bamboozle, a Zutara arc.

But by the third book Bryke were basically done with the series (mostly because of Nick's shitty treatment of it, Korra isn't the first time Avatar got shafted in timeslots and hiatus hell) and they settled with Nick to make the Comet arc the last arc.

Also as a sidenote: Overall Aaron (who was not involved in the writing of Korra, and it shows) DOES like Legend of Korra, but hates the treatment of the Last Airbender characters and thinks Bryke did a shit job with that aspect.

>the "5 minutes of conversation" thing was BECAUSE THE SCRIPTS WERE CHANGED
>You have no proof beyond tumblr and blogs from Zutarians

Can someone fill me in on what this is about, please? I missed this drama, apparently.

Minor nitpick with this post: the 3 seasons thing wasn't because "Bryke was basically done with the series", it was because of the movie deal.

Zutarians actually believe that the show was fucked if the sole intent of not making their ship happen.

You will NEVER see a source, but they insist that the show would have a fourth season dedicated to Zutara and Aang accepting that Avatars should not have a family.

Of course, that goes AGAINST the show, since Avatars do have descendants and family, but don't expect them to accept that.

That's how they justify how their perfect ship barely has any interaction whatsoever. According to them, producers went out of their way to NOT make Zuko and Katara happen, because apparently what they have in the first two season was so good and romantic (lol) that the ship would have happened naturally if not for the writers,

It is insane.

>Because there was supposed to be a fourth season.
There was actually supposed to be a 5th season too. Book 4: Air and Book 5: Spirits.

>Aang accepting that Avatars should not have a family.
That's not the argument. Stop making up shit.

It certainly gets too much hate, even if it was worse than most other episodes.

I feel like Aang's lie at the end is actually the best part of the whole thing. That and the cool designs of the valley monsters.

I rewatched this a couple years back with a friend, and we reached a few conclusions.

First of all, I'd hesitate to call S1 "gritty and grounded". Much of it is frankly unmemorable, and the stakes are pitifully low. It's fun, yes, but there are only a few episodes that contribute meaningfully to the narrative. Most episodes merely introduce characters who will be better utilized later in the series. The Storm, the Blue Spirit, and the finale are where S1 shows its storytelling merits. These all present more complex conflicts and characterizations—some of the most notable aspects of the series.

S2 is simply good. In S1, the threats to the gang were often resolved easily, even comically; not so in S2. In S2, the protagonists lose, a lot. Each conflict is more compelling because it could genuinely go wrong. Meanwhile, Zuko's arc is some fine drama in this season, and the whole latter half of the season is the best single run in the series. S2 also has the advantage of neither needing to set up the story, as in S1, nor conclude it, as in S3. The writers can and do call back established characters, to great effect.

S3 is unfocused. Only three things really need to happen here: The Day of Black Sun fails; Zuko joins the gang; the heroes triumph. And these things do happen, and they're fairly good too, but all the padding surrounding them is the issue. As Avatar goes, it's not even very good padding. The Painted Lady is the only episode I'd call legitimately terrible—worse than The Great Divide—and having utterly stakeless filler like that come in during should be the most dire hour kills the tension. Even with Combustion Man, there's no real threat; E1-9 of S3 are inconsequential, literally designed to waste time before the first big event.

There's less to gripe about in the second pseudo-filler arc, but only because there's simply less of it. It's clumsy, though. Characters are introduced, only to be dropped without any sense of planning or purpose.

That all sort of sounds like it wouldn't work in the actual show. They already had the ending with the day being saved, so continuing for a whole extra season on top of that wouldn't feel right.

Those are the perfect kind of things to do in a different form like the comics, it's just unfortunate that the comics kind of suck.

>Stop making up shit.
I ain't the one saying that powerful people were so concerned with Zutara (LOL) that they went out of their way to prevent it from happening, you retard.

The character developing "field trips" needed to be more cohesive in the second part of the season
Like they are just hanging out at the Western Air Temple in that second part, waiting for the finale, even though there is nothing to wait for. They give an explanation in Sozin Comet's Part 1 where the Gaang explains they are waiting for Sozin's Comet to pass, but it's weird that Zuko didn't ask what the plan was before that.

I suppose that's also the problem with the first half of the season. They are just killing time before the Day of Black Sun. In the first and second seasons they always had a destination.

The first half of the season could be fixed by giving them an actual reason to split off from the main invasion force and go undercover. Give them a long term goal, like some place they need to infiltrate for the invasion to succeed.

The second half could concentrate on Aang learning to firebend, basically expanding the Firebending Masters to be 3 episodes long.

>Not liking hugs

Then again, that's what they said about Teen Titans season 5, and to a lesser extent Kim Possible season 4. And both are excellent, if not better than the previous seasons of their respective shows.

The stories are so-so. Boiling Rock was fine, but it contributed to the problem of the protagonists simply winning too often. 3/4ths of the episodes in S2 end with the gang's predicament getting somehow worse, and this is both compelling and helps string the narrative together. How many episodes of S3 introduce any new and significant obstacle? Certainly none of the ones from 12-17 (though EIP was perfect).

I think it's a miracle the series ended as well as it did, even with the conveniently placed rock to the spine, and the last-minute energybending shit. That's a testament to the strength of the core story, I suppose. When the series stopped screwing around and really focused on telling its story, it was truly something to behold.

I actually loved the lack of Iroh in Season 3, since any time he DID appear was important, and it allowed Zuko to do his soulsearching independently from his continued influence.

If we saw Iroh between Day of Black Sun and his reunion with Zuko, the tension of that moment would be much less for the audience.

gib source, or BS

The Iroh thing was meant to be a oneoff special

Th-thanks.

Don't thank me, thank their lack of brain and inexistent knowledge of how real relationships works.

...

But Book 2 did setting better than Book 1, and character better than Book 3.

The Earth King stupidly leaving on his own was the first bad sign.

Them not questioning the Earth King about what he may have blabbed was the first bad sign, actually.

I totally forgot that was a thing until you just reminded me, that was retarded

They could have at least had the team put him in a safehouse or some shit

Are you kidding you faggot? S3 was still pretty great. It was so exciting to see how the Book of Fire would end up to be because that's their very enemy.

I actually think the one-off episodes in book 3 were pretty good. The only episode that feels like a slog is painted lady, but I still think its a good episode.

> muh Aaron Ehasz is a god
> muh bryke revisionism
bullshit made up narrative from the same user who claims to be knowledgeable but wasn't able to even tell whose idea Zuko was

>S1
>bad
It had more than four good episodes.

>Childish writing in a children's show
The audacity

This is pretty on point.

When I first watched TLA, I wasn't even sure I liked it, until S1 finale. It made me realize those characters grew on me.

But during a recent rewatch, I was pretty bored by it too. It's just not that good.

S3 was structured weirdly. There's a timeskip, then nothing happens, then lots of shit goes down, then nothing goes on again, etc.

S2 was the most fun to rewatch.