TrueMetis wrote: ↑Mon Feb 04, 2019 9:38 pm
Because the creators have no fucking idea what they're doing when it comes to romance? Their one good go at romance was Sokka and Suki, and that's because they had two compatible people and just skipped past all the build up horseshit and just had them be a couple. No will they won't they. No assholishness. No dumbass overdone misunderstandings. Every other relationship they tried to create during the series was trash.
Sokka and Suki were great, but I don't particularly have anything against Aang and Katara, they work albeit in a generic sort of fashion.
I actually DON'T like the whole "Zutara" thing, because those two would destroy each other. "The Southern Raiders" in particular showcases this--Zuko, in a legitimate, well-intentioned attempt to help Katara with her personal drama, nearly takes her somewhere really bad. It's Aang whose advice pulls Katara back to herself and reminds her of who she prefers to be. The core issue is that the personalities are too similar in all the wrong ways. Zuko is a man defined by his conscience fighting back against his more dominant traits of loyalty to family and nation. Katara is a woman defined by her loyalty to family and nation clawing at her more dominant conscience. Those two, together? They will stifle all the best parts of each other and reinforce the worst, all while trying their best to help.
Zuko and Mai works better because Mai and Zuko have a different and more "friends first" dynamic, and because they are both conscience-fighting-and-overcoming-loyalty types. (Also, I like the idea of "yeah, I've got this arranged marriage, but we get along OK and will be professional about our whole hereditary nobility crap", it's a refreshing take on the sort of world and situation built in the show)
As for TLOK--I genuinely like Korra/Asami and like to think that Asami had her eye on Korra from the start, because that amuses me. The problem with Mako, as others have mentioned, is that he's superficially caustic like Zuko but without any of Zuko's character development or initial villain status or genuine compassion or internal struggle to be better or ANY of that stuff. He's just...a good-looking jerk who the lead wants to bone. And that's annoying.
Then in season 2 he's still kind of a dick but Korra is being a total asshole, then in season 3 he has the family bonding arc that gives him a little humanity, and I like when they had him be the straight man to Wu's short man, but still, it's not enough.
Bolin was OK, he never really amused me as much as Sokka.
Jinora I could do with a tad less of, though.