me, your friendly neighborhood villain apologist: zuko was never evil he was just 16
like yeah i know he gets a bonkers good redemption arc but like. he didn’t actually need one because if you give a teenage boy a ship and tell the people on it to listen to him the least you can expect is some attempted murder. that’s not on him at that point
I’m honestly dumbstruck because I can tell you at 16 if you gave me a ship, a crew, a wise old man, and a mission to kidnap someone I gotta tell you.
I’d be down for it. I’d probably have gone further.
Wait, this originally happened when he was 13 and I’ll tell you that 13 year old me would have committed atrocities.
13yo me would’ve taken the free boat and straight up become a pirate and the fact that Zuko didn’t is really the biggest plot twist in avatar
AU where Zuko just becomes a pirate.
He still sees the light blast and goes to the South Pole but instead of trying to capture aang he rolls up in his free boat like ‘get in losers we’re going to kill my dad’
Yes, this. I like this.
aang: who??? are you???
zuko: exiled son of the fire lord. did these two get you up to speed?
sokka: wait you’re WHAT-?!
katara: what do you mean, YOU’RE THE EXILED SON OF THE-?!
aang: i mean, mostly???
zuko: excellent. i reiterate, get in losers we’re going to kill my dad
aang: i’m personally not up for murder
katara: I AM! your dad is the reason my mom is dead
zuko: i like the enthusiasm. avatar, you can be moral support
sokka: i’d like to hit the loserlord at least one (1) time with my boomerang if possible
zuko: i’ll allow it on the condition that you hit my sister as well
sokka: deal
Jfhdhhdhd
Katara: your dad is why my mom is dead zuko: cool, hes why my mom is dead too. hop on board
the thing about italian food is that it kinda sucks when made in italy. the average italian cook is suffering under 300 different traditional family bylaws that prevent them from like, adding garlic to their sauce, or washing their vegetables or whatever. and if they were to move five kilometers away to the next town over then they’d be executed in the street for cooking it that way. when italians are released from the context of italy it’s like they’re taking off training weights. an italian cook with no limiters becomes a culinary apex predator. it’s for this reason that italian food has, outside of italy, become one of the big three cuisines, while remaining, in italy, frustratingly under-potential. it has to be this way.
If you think about it, Kung Fu Panda was the perfect trilogy. The antagonists represented Body, Mind and Spirit. Tai Lung was a physical battle. Shen was a mental and Kai was spiritual.
I agree that the 3rd was underwhelming. Mostly because Kai doesnt have much depth, his connection to oogway wasnt really built upon and his main goal was just to be the most powerful. His main motif being ‘finding yourself through failure’ lacked impact but later comes to effect.
Kai lacked any memorable features like Shen’s cunning and Tai lungs rage and physical prowess. However Kai being tragic wouldnt have really worked for him. With the other 2 movies having emphasis on their villains, the 3rd didnt have that and instead focused on Po’s journey.
It focused on how Po went from a nobody to the master he is now, essentially the dragon warrior. Po being the strongest maybe second to Oogway. It focused on him and tigress finding their spiritual way through the panda tribe and eventually leading to Po mastering chi.
With this in hand, Po defeats Kai which goes back to his motif of identification through failure. 3 in a sense acts as the reasoning for 1. Oogway even states to Po that his life has gone in full circle. This mastery of body, mind and spirit is why Oogway chose Po.
