Episode 1 Of The Magnus Archives Podcast, Anglerfish, Is Still One Of The Best Pieces Of Short Horror

Episode 1 of The Magnus Archives podcast, “Anglerfish”, is still one of the best pieces of short horror fiction I’ve ever listened to. If you haven’t yet listened to it, please go and do so, even if you don’t feel like listening to the rest of the series. Give yourself a treat.

just remembered shows used to have 20-25 eps per season

*now kiss...*

This one always makes me laugh

The slander is 100% deserved

The AtLA story is not edgy nor will it ever be. Embracing the healing. While not all scars heal, some can.

I’ve censored names because I don’t want anyone to be sent hate, but this post and the amount of likes it got enraged me so much that I had to say something about it. This truly might be the worst take I’ve ever seen about both Katara and Aang.

Let’s address how this is harmful to Katara first. The original poster seems to want Katara to keep her scars for the aesthetic™, which is already a really gross concept, but I cannot stress enough how disgusting it is to want a female character to bear permanent, painful markings in order to give a male character ‘more development.’

We are shown routinely throughout ATLA that scars are not just physical indications of trauma but emotional ones as well. 

The only person we see who has scars for “cool” character design reasons is Jeong Jeong, but even then we can assume he received them while he was fighting in the war or because he became a deserter. 

All of these characters have these scars to serve as a constant reminder of the Fire Nation’s brutality and ruthlessness. Katara doesn’t need a physical reminder of this. She already deals with the tremendous, traumatizing loss of her mother on a daily basis. How could you possibly think that it would be good to scar Katara just to ‘punish’ Aang while completely disregarding how it will affect her emotionally?

Katara should not have to bear the emotional and physical weight of Aang’s mistakes in order to teach him a lesson. 

It also completely undermines her moment when she learns she’s a healer. She gets this incredible gift that is so special to her because it she is able to be both a fighter and a healer. These two sides of her are crucial in her fight for justice and compassion, and the healing aspect is a beautiful addition to a character who is so ‘down in the trenches’ in her approach to achieve these things.

This revelation is not only important to Katara as a character but also integral to so many pieces of the plot. If she hadn’t realized she could heal scars, she wouldn’t have offered to try healing Zuko’s in The Crossroads of Destiny. The chess pieces are constantly being set up in Book 1 in strategic and deliberate ways. I’m all for headcanons and fan concepts, but not when they dismantle the plot and characters for, frankly, sexist reasons.

Onto Aang. 

There is absolutely zero indication that Aang did not suffer the consequences from burning Katara. He is immediately remorseful. He is so incredibly guilty that he swears off firebending for good. He is attacked by Sokka, and is probably reeling over the idea that his best friends and the only people he has in this world might never forgive him for his mistake.

But Katara does forgive him, way faster than he forgives himself for this mistake, as we see him struggle with memory of hurting her well into Book 3. 

Zuko burns Toph accidentally, but absolutely no one chastises him for this or holds him to the standards they hold Aang. And sure, you could argue Zuko makes his mistake as an act of self-defense while Aang is just goofing around, but Aang is literally twelve when this happened. Don’t tell me that you never unintentionally hurt yourself or others when you were messing around as a preteen. Sokka lists an array of injuries he’s sustained at the end of The Deserter, and while I’m sure most of them were self-inflicted, I can’t imagine that Katara wasn’t involved in any of those instances. They’re kids - all of them, and Aang is the youngest of the bunch, so of course he still has lessons to learn. That doesn’t mean he should have to suffer the ramifications of his adolescent mistakes forever.

His impatience to learn firebending also stems from the fact that he only has until summer’s end to do so. It’s not an excuse for him not taking Jeong Jeong’s warnings seriously, but it is an explanation. And he learns from it. The way we see him handle fire and the responsibility of bending fire in The Firebending Masters proves that he’s matured. 

Aang, Book 1: Jeong Jeong tried to tell me that I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t listen.

Aang, Book 3:  All this time, I thought firebending was destruction. Since I hurt Katara, I’ve been too afraid and hesitant. But now I know what it really is … it’s energy, and life.

The audacity, the gall, the absolute nerve that it takes to say that Aang, a survivor of genocide who lost all of his family and friends and entire culture, “gets let off easy too much” is appalling to me. I’m not sure how many times I have to say that Aang honoring his culture and people and going against the tide - fighting back against the notion that he can’t preserve the traditions and beliefs of his people while being the Avatar at the same time - is not, by any stretch of the imagination, easy.

I don’t know how many times have to say that a child does not deserve to live with the trauma of killing someone, but I’m going to say it again. A CHILD DOES NOT DESERVE TO LIVE WITH THE TRAUMA OF KILLING SOMEONE.

If you truly still believe that the lion turtle/energybending is an easy fix, just read this meta because they explain perfectly why it is not.

And to the last point about Aang ‘getting to be with Katara’ as some kind of “reward” for winning the war, Aang never views Katara as a prize. Need I remind you that he completely drops any type of romantic expression towards her after she rejects his advances in The Ember Island Players? He lets her make the decision as to whether or not she wants to be with him. They get together because the timing is finally right for them - there is no more confusion or violence to prevent them from being together, and Katara no longer has to worry about losing someone she loves.