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Korra doesn't 'swoon' and Lin is not a man: 3 Fangirls and a Rant
But there have been some posts on tumblr lately, that have me, and other fans like me going wtf? The post in question:
http://crossedwires.tumblr.com/post/25058424137/starship-repair-bankuei-seekingwillow
ETA TO MAKE READING EASIER: http://swatkat.dreamwidth.org/315909.html?thread=2100997#cmt2100997
So
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zorana84, swatkat24 and I spent about an hour ranting and then another hour trying to put together a coherent response.QUOTE: As in, WHY this story? Why tell the tale this way? Why a ‘HUMBLING’ story, as you put it? And if such a story, why humbled in this manner? She isn’t being humbled by being told off by ordinary citizens; non-benders talking about how, perhaps, those who don’t make it into pro-bending, join gangs and try to get fame and acknowledgement and power any way they can. She’s not being scorned for even being the Avatar, by ordinary people. And she’s already being humbled in some ways by her elders and some peers; by Tenzin sighing at her and BeiFong waiting for her to grow up and get a clue, and perhaps even Asumi waiting for her to learn the measure of composure, while Mako waits for her to have a clue about the responsibility and weight that come with looking out for someone else (not! #1)
There is a disturbing line of thought here, one that causes me great distress, because it seems to imply that a female protagonist’s narrative cannot involve any sort of ‘humbling’, as it were. That Korra’s narrative is somehow unfeminist because it involves Korra learning, among other things, humility and patience. It’s thoroughly baffling to me how one could have watched all of AtLA and emerged with the idea that learning humility, somehow, is beneath a well-rounded ‘badass’ character (what would uncle Iroh say?) -- and worse, how somehow ‘humility’ is now unfeminist, or at least, not a fitting narrative for a female protagonist. The only way it could have been unacceptable is if Korra had been put to her place for being an uppity woman - which, thankfully, is not what the narrative has been about AT ALL. Whenever Korra’s privilege has been questioned, it has been done so because of the assumptions she makes and the things she takes for granted - NOT because she’s an uppity woman. It seems to me what is being suggested is that the ONLY way Korra’s narrative would have been ‘feminist’ one is if she had emerged badass from her South Pole cocoon on day one and proceeded to take her opponents apart with cold, clinical precision:
Is this the kind of strong female character we’re talking about? (One word: yes)
QUOTE: If you are raised by several martial arts masters, spending your whole life training? You don’t end up cocky. You’ve spent your whole life surrounded by people who can kick your ass, do amazing things, and force you to work until you drop, and even if you get UP to their level, you emotionally know how much work it took to get there and you respect their experience.
Are we supposed to imagine that Katara and the White Lotus masters suddenly dropped in skill and discipline to the level of shitty Master Yu in the intervening time? What people are trying to do is slam the Western story of the pampered noble who has no real training ON TOP OF what should have been the grueling story of a youth filled with training, training, training
I’d like to answer this in context of the last episode (episode 9) we saw. One presumes that given the magnitude of Yakone’s trial, all of Republic City and Katara would have known that blood bending was possible on non-full-moon days. So why wasn't Korra told? I would assume as someone who was being trained this information would have been shared with her. This surely raises serious questions about her training. Even now, Tenzin doesn't seem to get that "sheltering" her is not working. But this also makes one wonder about whether the White Lotus followed similar tactics as Tenzin. We know Katara and company grew up in a time of war. It is not a stretch to wonder whether they might have wanted children to be allowed to be children. In fact it’s not I think a wild suppostition that the White Lotus might have been overeager to ~correct what went wrong with Aang. When the last Avatar was put under so much pressure so young, that HE RAN AWAY AND FROZE IN AN ICEBERG FOR A HUNDRED YEARS, it might have lead to a rethink of methodology, as is evident from the way they trained her from a far. Let the kid grow into her Avatar-hood, and hell let her go penguin sledding because the rest of us couldn't.
QUOTE: Chi Blocking : Why can't Korra deal with it or learn how from someone else
Firstly, in the original series Aang never actually faced Ty Lee one on one. Whenever she did face benders she beat them, and this includes Katara, Toph and Azula. The only time she was defeated was on the Fire Nation drill in front of Ba Sing Se where she was physically held in place in the slurry by Katara and Toph. Suki was the only person who managed to avoid getting immobilised in the episode The Boiling Rock (part 2) but that was an interrupted battle. If Aang went back and learnt how to defeat chi blocking after the series, when Ty Lee joined the Kyoshi warriors, we aren't shown this. Also I assume if he had learnt such a technique at least Tenzin would know of it.
My point in reiterating this is that there doesn't seem to be any history in this universe of anyone managing to combat chi blocking. Even the people in Republic City who have been dealing directly with the the threat for a while (Lin, Tarlok, Tenzin) are taken by surprise and incapacitated. Again Korra in fact does (under duress, but still) join the only actual task force made specifically to combat chi blockers, possibly her best chance to learn techniques to defeat them, but even those can't quite deal with the problem. Korra has not been trained in how to deal with chi blockers I suspect because no one has figured out how to deal with them. Her previous masters seem to have been old, along the lines of Pakku in the original series. Remember Aang was trained in Earth, Water and Fire by young benders, benders who were discovering and changing their disciplines even as they taught him. I would say that this would be a factor that impacted on her development. Sokka in his speech at Yakone’s trial also underlines how fast bending is changing, even before Korra was born and presumably as she was trained.
Toph is an interesting counterpoint to this argument, as a central protagonist who invented a form of bending, something that was acknowledged repeatedly, both in the new series and the old. By the time we come to Korra’s period we know metal building is par for course, the police force is by rote trained for it. Has innovation in bending come to a halt because of the new technological steampunk advances that we see in Republic City? Possibly, but Korra, trained in the old arts, is not just allowed to be, but justifiably would be unequipped to handle the new threats.
Additionally it has been made pretty clear that while Korra has raw power, she can be defeated by a different style of fighting. She shows this in the pro-bending arena before she again learns from young benders, in a non-traditional style to use her powers more effectively in a different terrain. Similarly Aang was defeated by Combustion Man, repeatedly. A different style of fighting can discomfit even an Avatar.
Does Korra need to concentrate on this more? Yes, of course she does. But I don't think we can discount the very unknowability of the threat she faces, in an atmosphere where she doesn't know who she can trust. Aang knew he could trust Katara and Toph implicitly with his training, Korra only has Tenzin, who as we have seen, has no answers. Also, we are only 9 episodes in and I hope that this will inevitably become more of a focus.
QUOTE: Damsels in Distress or Swooning Korra Being Perpetually Rescued
Ok firstly I hate the word "swoon" and "faint" being used to describe every time Korra has been defeated. Sure she has been knocked out in battle, but that is very different from the idea that she's "swooning" away in fear or because her corsets are being laced too tight or even because she’s too weak and wittle to fight the big bad world. If the contention here is that she is less of an Avatar than Aang because she is knocked out and has needed to be rescued I will point out that (and this is only in the first season of ATLA) Aang:
- Ran away repeatedly from fights he couldn't win - Was knocked out and was rescued by Roku (in the spirit world), Zuko in the guise of the Blue Spirit from Zhao, Sokka when cornered by the fortune hunter June, and finally by Katara and Sokka when his body is taken away by Zuko in the final episode
- Was defeated by the Kyoshi warriors: Again a new style of fighting he hadn't encountered
- Is unsuccessful in countering Jet's plan to flood the Earth Kingdom town. It is Sokka who rescues the villagers
My point is the show did show Aang vulnerable, and I’m not sure why we see the progress of Korra dealing with an entirely new paradigm of fighting that her old masters were clearly not familiar with is her automatically being seen as weak or being Rescued By Men.
Which brings me to the WTAF at the claim of Korra Being Rescued By Men All The Time. So far in the series she has been
- Knocked out by Amon who left her there to make an (extremely creepy and disturbing) point. Tenzin does eventually come to see if she’s ok and comforts her, but I really don’t see the rescuing part.
- Knocked out by being electrocuted by the chi blockers in Amon’s attack on the arena. The same attack that left the ENTIRE police force who was on guard against the same thing INCLUDING Lin and Tenzin incapacitated. However she got right back up and fought against them, rescuing and in turn being rescued by Lin Bei Fong.
And I’m sorry I’m going to go on a little capslocked rant concerning this point that even when Korra is assisted by Lin BeiFong it doesn’t count because? --->
QUOTE: “BeiFong (who’s coded as Batman, so male)”
I AM SORRY BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DOES THAT MEAN! WHY IS LIN BEIFONG MALE EXACTLY? I’M SORRY BUT I CANNOT REALLY FIND WORDS TO ARTICULATE THE FURY THAT THIS EVOKES IN ME. LIN BEIFONG IS A WOMAN. A WOMAN WHO DOES A VERY HARD JOB AND DOES IT SUPERBLY, WHILE REMAINING A WOMAN. SHE CHOOSES TO PRESENT HERSELF IN A CERTAIN NON- STEREOTYPICALLY-FEMININE WAY, WHICH AGAIN DOES NOT MAKE HER A MAN IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO TAKE THE UNIQUENESS OF HER CHARACTER, OF HER SELF, AWAY BECAUSE IT DOES NOT MESH WITH YOUR ARGUMENT.
*deep breaths*
Unlike Toph, as we saw her in ATLA canon, Lin BeiFong is much more by-the-rules and within the system, but not conveniently, and not conventionally. Toph was a rebel breaking away from her traditional family to emerge as the blind bandit, admittedly a fascinating choice in negotiating gender roles. But Lin, Lin born to a mother who was the hero of the wars, who was the first police chief of republic city, who has had to define herself within the roles of her mother, but contrary to her mother, in the changing times, is all lady, and awesome lady at that. Lin is not batman! Lin is not privileged by birth, Lin (as far as we know) is not carrying a legacy of angst, Lin is not a vigilante, Lin is not a sole warrior. From the little we have seen of lin, she’s positively maternal to her troops, she’s awkwardly hilarious with her ex-boyfriend, she’s critical of the avatar’s inherent privilege. She’s a nuanced interesting character who also happens to be kickass awesome with her weapons and a whip, who can metal-bend like it’s going out of style, who knows and owns the technology of her times. If that makes her ‘masculine’ by any definition, then it’s a outdated and archaic definition of gender roles that makes me intensely uncomfortable to negotiate.
Next in the Korra is Not Indeed Saved by Men (or in this case Mako or Tenzin) is the Curious Case of the Erasure of Asami Sato. In the episode 7 it is NOT Mako or Bolin who save everyone but Asami’s incredibly courageous choice of going against her father and a lifetime of love and duty that does. I find it incredibly offensive that this is being erased in this kind of analysis. Asami is a 'privileged feminine archetype', a non-bender that NO ONE expects to make the choice that she did. It can be seen as a literal challenge to patriarchy and industrial patriarchy at that. Please stop erasing Asami in actual thought-out meta. I think she’s being done enough disservice in the ship-wars don’t you?
I'm going to stop now but I do remember the last fight against Tarrlok and Amon. This has already become a fucking great wall of text but I want to point out that Korra bloody well rescued herself and got out of the clutches of Amon. She was helped by Naaga yes but did only collapsed when she was safely back in the city. She didn't faint, she wasn't rescued by a man and she has finally been able to make a connection with the spirit world. It is good narrative progression and I'm eager to see where it takes this story.
Note: This has been a product of a lot of shouting between swatkat24, zorana84 and myself and our words are kinda mixed up here!
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