>Aang is facing an extremely hard choice. Will he kill Ozai and betray his moral code or will he let him live and threated the peace he worked so hard to restore? >Haha, neither. He gets handed the ability to depower people by a magic turtle. No hard choices necessary.
>the non-benders of the world have considerably fewer job opportunities and thus overall lower social status than benders. Discontent has grown so much, that large numbers of non-benders have rallied behind a man called Amon to violently take power from benders. How can Avatar Korra deal with this problem? >Haha, what problem? Amon is revealed as a bender and all his followers immediately forget about the issue
>Prince Callum is naturally talented with magic, but he is morally opposed to the practice of the only magic humans can use, will he give up his only talent and remain weak and unable to help his friends, or will he put aside his morals and use dark magic >haha, what dilemma? Turns out all other humans ever just weren't trying hard enough and Callum can use elemental magic by connecting with nature. No consequences for anything.
Why is this shit allowed? What is the point of raising these interesting questions if they are going to be resolved by the plot in ways that just can't be applied to real life?
Dude, we see Claudia use elemental magic on episode ONE. She simply chooses dark magic because it's how her asshole father taught her.
Jaxson Thompson
That was dark magic. But like, less dark magic. Pulling magic energy from a bug and using it raw.
Joshua Perry
>Why is this shit allowed? Because you are a stunted adult looking for deeper morality and philosophical choices in media designed to appeal to children and generate revenue.
Bentley Powell
>all his followers immediately forget about the issue confirmed to never have watched the show.
Elijah Sanchez
Why burgers believe kids are retards and don't deserve attention? Is this why your kids go insane and start shooting people?
kinda hard to say the japanese have it better when their hangups are they grow up to be manchildren who think real women are hard to get (they prefer 2d or idols)
Adam James
I might remembering the issue wrong, but in my memory they see Amon using waterbending and immediately start leaving. And the issue of the oppression of non-benders is literally never raised again.
Matthew Cox
She was useing a primal stone, which are hyped up as super rare relics.
Justin Lewis
And where should I go for complex morals moron, everything feels like it's for kids or adult kids these days.
William Nelson
>m-muh japanese anime for KIDS This, too, stems from a misunderstanding about who the demographic is for these shows. Your question is also disingenuous--you aren't looking for "kids" to "get attention" and "not be treated as retards"; you're looking for kid's media to cater to YOU, an adult, because you feel you're deserving of complex stories yet still wish to remain a manbaby and watch cartoons for kids.
Joseph Cook
No it wasn't. She didn't consume anything.
So? A wizard bottled up a storm in there, and the fact that it'd be useless to an elf means it was a human who did. The principle is the same; Viren and Claudia simply didn't want to put the effort into normal magic.
Ayden Collins
Read a book, nigger.
Bentley Diaz
Probably something without a fantasy theme. These are like magnets for standard good vs evil.
John Watson
not to mention his most loyal follower, the lieutenant, attacked him immediately after he learned about amon's bending. it helps/hurts the equalists that in s2 they elected a non-bender into power so they already got what they were fighting for and to ask more would hurt their cause even more than the truth about amon.
Evan Barnes
The elf wizard literally says humans can't use magic and Claudia says that she uses dark magic because humans can't use anything else. At the very least means that no other human has publically used magic in decades and also that there are no records of humans using elemental magic.
>obviously a human A dragon, more than likely.
Jaxon Thomas
>The elf wizard literally says humans can't use magic Checks out. Elves wouldn't lie. Especially not about something that challenges their power.
Benjamin Lewis
Why would a dragon need a primal stone?
Cooper Morales
>The elf wizard literally says humans can't use magic We see Callum perform magic so it's obviously a lie. Also, Claudia uses the primal stone which is not dark magic so she's either a liar or a ditz. Doesn't sound like Claudia at all!
Julian Sanders
They could create it and gift it to their servants. Dragons have been played as the incarnation of primal magic, and the stones are similar.
Alexander Sullivan
Then how come humans have it and no elf's ever brought up anything similar on their side?
Jordan Wood
Using a primal stone is just not the same as drawing magic for your own connection to nature simply because the stones clearly can't be mass produced.
And the mechanics set-up by the story where quite apparent. You use magic by using a connection to nature. Magical creatures are born with a connection to magic. Humans are not. Humans howeer can still use the connections of other living beings and of primal stones. It is very simple.
But the issue I have with the development is not that we learn that humans CAN establish a connection with nature. The issue I have with the development is that the use of black magic was used for a moral dilemma with clear consequences, but the writer decided to "magic away" the consequences of the side of the dilemma that he deemed "good". Leading to a FANTASY moral solution. One that is not applicable to real life.
For example, my interpretation of Black Magic in the setting had so far been that it was a parallel for humans "abusing nature" (which could be associated with nuclear energy, or more than likely use of fossil fuels, but I could also see analogies for meat-eating). But unlike real life, where deciding that never again using cars could have consequences for you, the story rewards the protagonist with a "magic car" that does not use fossil fuels for his decision.
Mason Campbell
Because they are already tuned to an element from birth so the stones have no benefit for them.
Jackson Mitchell
>Aang I agree it was narratively lazy. Its tiresome how authors always sidestep around the hardships of pacifism.
>Korra Had a lot of writing issues in general but to be fair the city barely appeared until season 3 and by then the fusing of the worlds was a bigger issue.
>Callum Dragon Prince is nowhere near the level of narrative TLA had. Dark magic isnt even evil its just treated as such because the writers are vegans or something.
Andrew Russell
Why would a dragon make a primal stone to give to an elf wizard when it has no benefit to them?
You're just projecting a meaning for the dark magic that the story simply doesn't have. In fact, there's way too little information about the lore to jump to these assumptions. But given what we have, it's weird that you're treating it as a cop out when it's happening right at the beginning of the story or gives Callum an edge over anything. You can't make him not use magic because the show is super tame with physical violence and any other path would be completely passive and boring.
Colton Miller
>why Religious symbol, possibly. Connections to the elements should still be valuable. Maybe they could be a byproduct of something dragons do. Still, unimportant. The story sets them up as extremely rare and valuable. You couldn't expect them to be used for warming all the crops for a few months like the Lava monster's heart was. That is the important issue in the narrative itself.
>projecting a meaning You would have to downright ignore dialogue like Harrow's letter to not understand that this show at least partly intends to be a critic of utilitarianism. And while seeing things like meat-eating or fossil fuels being projections is right, they are going to be the first projections most people in western and western-ish societies see when they transplant the morals of this story into our world using the signifiers used in the story. I can't imagine the authors and animators not seeing them unless they are aliens or computers. And if you just see the author's previous works and still can't see intent... Well, I can't understand your thoughts at all.
I don't believe that humans being able to form bonds with elements would have been farfetched. I expected that to happen the moment the idea was raised. I did think it happened too easily, but that is IRRELEVANT to my complaint in this thread. My complain here is that the author made an interesting moral dilemma. One that has plenty of real world applications: "Do I do what empowers me the most, if I find it disgusting, but it will help me help others?". But then used his power as an author to give the protagonist an easy out.
And I believe that side was just the side the author liked, which invalidates any moral drawn from the dilemma. And is somewhat manipulative if the author is aware he did this
>what else could have been done To be honest, I don't think there was a direction to have Callum grow other than learn magic. He does seem to be heading towards facing off with Claudia in the finale. (Cont)
Elijah Brown
(Cont) So my best suggestions would be: Don't pretend your story is smarter than it is by introducing problems you can't solve in a smart and somewhat realistic way. Have Callum slowly develop magic by communing with the Dragon. Humans don't normally interact with dragons, so it would be believable that interacting with such a spiritual creature could eventually open a way for humans to connect to an element, and it just wasn't done before because humans just don't usually raise baby dragons.
Elijah Allen
But Callum did use Dark Magic. He made the choice, and may well again. Storms and shit can't solve everything.
Brody Hall
>the non-benders of the world have considerably fewer job opportunities and thus overall lower social status than benders Man yeah I bet there were people just lining up to sweat their lives away flinging lightning at metal spheres for what looked like pretty crappy pay If only they'd been born correctly
>Avatar The show is TV-Y7, they probably couldn't get away with the protagonist offing someone, though it was very stupid. >Korra That entire show is irredeemable garbage anyway so who cares?
Austin Cox
So no one is going to bring up the fact that the Ship Captain dude had a conection with either the Sky or the Ocean arcanum? Like, theoretically, should the Captain dude be able to draw magic symbols, he should be able to do magic.
Julian Cruz
Because Bryke have always been the most overrated writers who let their success get to their head this side of JK Rowling?
>The show is TV-Y7, they probably couldn't get away with the protagonist offing someone, though it was very stupid. A disney pre-school show recently did just that.
Jacob Lee
user you are right.
I know I shouldn't look to kids shows to meaningfully explore heavy questions but I like animation as a medium and when you read interviews they always sound so ambitious and ready to break new ground. I'd be disappointed to find that this might be considered nuanced by some adult creators.
Colton Johnson
>haha, what dilemma? Turns out all other humans ever just weren't trying hard enough and Callum can use elemental magic by connecting with nature. No consequences for anything. It's more than obvious that there's been some historical revisionism done by the elves/dragons. Even during their short journey, they've so far met at least one other person who is in tune with a primal source (Villads and the Sky/Wind). But the fact that humans can do primal magic is obfuscated. You saw how Aaravos could hide knowledge regarding himself from Viren? Who is to say the same couldn't have been done about the true history of the world?
NOT TO MENTION dark magic is not "evil". So far, we've seen countless good deeds that wouldn't have been possible without it. There's more to this conflict that blacks and whites. >Prince Callum is naturally talented with magic, but he is morally opposed to the practice of the only magic humans can use, will he give up his only talent and remain weak and unable to help his friends, or will he put aside his morals and use dark magic Also, this is Claudia's story arc, not Callum's.
>NOT TO MENTION dark magic is not "evil". So far, we've seen countless good deeds that wouldn't have been possible without it. There's more to this conflict that blacks and whites. I'd like to believe it but interviews with the crew treat it as overwhelmingly a bad thing.
Ayden Johnson
> A wizard bottled up a storm in there, and the fact that it'd be useless to an elf means it was a human who did. Primal stones are not useless to elves, they let them use magic from elements they were not born connected to. Rayla says archmages have been coveting them for centuries because they are so rare and so valuable, but the art of crafting them has been lost. We do not know who crafted them originally. >Viren and Claudia simply didn't want to put the effort into normal magic. They know more spells, more runes, and more ancient draconic than Callum. It isn't a matter of effort, but approach. They have been are trying to study and analyze something that is based on spiritual bullshit like being one with the trees or feeling the essence of the dirt.
Liam Hall
Look, I fucking love Nadia, but it's absolutely retarded, and the entire conflict was solved by a literal chosen macguffin character who just "had the power inside her", which, in my opinion, is way worse than Aang being shown to consistently strive for a solution, even if, ultimately, it just gets handed to him.
Michael Perry
>character has a relic called the key of Aaravos >Aaravos being a master mage known as an ally to humanity, who has displayed an affinity for each Arcanum >when character is tripping balls on the of an epiphany, keys are displayed prominently I wonder if any of these are connected
Jaxon Mitchell
>You saw how Aaravos could hide knowledge regarding himself from Viren? That wasn't Aaravos' doing. Someone else is trying to erase him from History.
Brody Butler
>NOT TO MENTION dark magic is not "evil". So far, we've seen countless good deeds that wouldn't have been possible without it. There's more to this conflict that blacks and whites. I want that to be true, and so far the show supports that perspective, but the creators have been really clear that dark magic is a Bad Thing and a corrupting influence. How/why, not stated
Daniel Reyes
We still don't really know what the trigger for Callum suddenly being able to tune in with the elements was, maybe they'll surprise us have have it so that only humans who have touched dark magic are open enough to attune to others.
Daniel White
Given he was found in the lair of the dragon king, and how absolutely rectally annihilated the dragons got over dark magic, you don’t have to be Sherlock to sleuth that mystery.
Elijah Nelson
Ezran is already attuned to Earth Magic, if you read between the lines. When questioned about whether his animal communication is magic based the writers specifically avoided a yes or no answer in favor of "it's deeply rooted empathy" which is central to Earth Magic, which could also explain why no earth elves were seen in the trail of tears scenes.
James Gonzalez
>I want that to be true, and so far the show supports that perspective, but the creators have been really clear that dark magic is a Bad Thing and a corrupting influence. How/why, not stated Which is confusing. If they want it to be a mystery and driving question then why are they giving an answer so clearly in the interview instead of the standard "watch to find out" statement? If they want it to be canon and stated in the show, why haven't they shown it yet?
Jayden Robinson
Because it’s a double bluff, and they’re waiting to reveal Viren did literally nothing wrong.
Cooper Perry
Maybe ironically, the corruptive/destructive aspect is something that can be mastered and avoided with time and work put in, despite being the "quick and dirty" way of magic to begin with. Which translates to most humans fucking themselves and everything else up because humans are impulsive by nature, but that dark magic itself isn't necessarily at fault due to that.
I really doubt Callum is the first or the only human able to use elemental magic,we will probably see more of that in the next season, it has potential to show the elves in a negative light like imagine, humans were always able to tap into it, but the ones they did where snuffed out by elves due racial distrust.
Easton White
seems kinda hard to imagine considering Black Magic by default requires killing creatures to work, unless Aravos has like a super secret way of doing BM that either doesn't require essence of living creatures or transmute them into new life forms/gives them a non painful ending.
Kevin Davis
Dark magic doesn't require killing creatures, it requires body parts of creatures that might or might not be vital for their survival. Scavenging the corpses of magical creatures for their parts seems to work just fine (Viren was happy when they found the magma titan and thought it was already dead, as it meant they could just open it up and get the heart), and some spells require stuff that you can harvest safely without killing the creature, like feathers or snot.
Adrian Lewis
The real answer: writing is hard and people who write cartoons are generally untalented
Kayden Anderson
Callum is probably a half-breed or at the very least one eight's cherokee elf. That said. Would Callum even have been able to resonate with an element if it wasn't for his dark magic near death experience?
I can buy it. Sounds less like a lack of trying for humanity, and more like extremely extraordinary circumstances for Callum that others' wouldn't have even begun to consider let alone experience the way he did.
I mean if Callum wasn't a prince he would have practically never have had the opportunities to ever achieve what he did. The vast majority of dark mages most likely don't have access to primordial catalysts to familiarize themselves with the elements. Even less likely for them to be friends with elf-kin to tutor them. And then they would have to sink to the dark side with dark magic consuming them, to even get the opportunity to attune to an element, but to do so they would have to already be familiar with the element. And they would have to survive their darkness induced coma.
I doubt that happened often.
Colton Ortiz
As has been much discussed, that argument doesn't hold up when the protagonists have been shown with being chill about consuming meat, and I presume due to the setting, use their remains as materials too.
There's no indication so far that the show condems killing animals for other forms of consumption and it's yet to posite why Dark Magic is any different beyond the personal health effects.
Samuel Phillips
It's an odd idea that no one in the history of humanity has ever stumbled across it.
It might work if it turned out to have been supressed.
Jason Stewart
>Dark magic isnt even evil its just treated as such because the writers are vegans or something. user. Dark magic consumes magic / life. It leaves nothing behind. It's strongly implied that dark magic is the reason for why Xadia is the only region remaining that has magic. Keep using dark magic and magic would be erased from the world.
Jace Jackson
>Xadia is the only region remaining that has magic. But it's not. Viren has a boatload of magical reagents to use, and he clearly isn't hopping the border to get them. That's not to mention Bait and the thing that tried to eat him flared up as magical.
Chase King
Those beasts were elemental, not magical.
Hudson Parker
>and he clearly isn't hopping the border to get them He has soldiers do that for him. Of course he is likely farming / breeding some others, but again the resources to do so would again be magical resources from xadia.
Sebastian Nguyen
The border is a gigantic wasteland, and the only time we can't be sure elves or dragons didn't have forces stationed around it was when Thunder got whacked. Sending soldiers over would be a death sentence for them If he'd been trying to do that, you can bet Harrow would have been on his ass for it too.
Matthew Anderson
He gets at least some of his reagents from Xadia. The magical moon moth, for example, is native to Katolis (there's a bunch of them in the Moon Nexus), but he says he got the soulfang snake in "our last journey into Xadia".
James Gray
They're from the border patrols. Pretty sure he even outright said it at one point.
Grayson Gonzalez
They've specifically said you're not meant to take it that way, so no.
Nicholas Harris
>will he give up his only talent and remain weak and unable to help his friends You're missing a key word here. "RISK remaining weak". Callum's dilemma is the power of a sure thing versus an uncertain future. It's the theme of the entire fucking show, it's what separates him from Viren. Viren kills the golem and saves the people, a sure thing (or at least what he perceives as one), because he's afraid of an uncertain future (or again, at least what he perceives as one).
Callum chooses uncertainty, he chooses self-sacrifice, true self-sacrifice, over self-centeredness, and he's rewarded with a miracle. That's thematic. Aang and Korra's shit are nothing in comparison. Callum still has to face his dilemma, he's not handed the solution on a silver platter. He breaks the storm orb thingy. That's his choice, and he looks for a way to move past it regardless. Aang and Korra never need to make choices. They just hem and haw until the story hands them a third option.
Jacob Harris
>Dark magic consumes magic / life. It leaves nothing behind. Eating animals also consumes life and won't leave much behind.
Evan Collins
Seriously, why wouldn't they have just started farming magical creatures? Did no one ever look at what they where doing with livestock and think "Huh, this but with magic"?
Bentley Sullivan
>Callum chooses uncertainty, he chooses self-sacrifice, true self-sacrifice, over self-centeredness, and he's rewarded with a miracle. That's thematic. I'm wondering if they didn't pull this too early in the story. There's just a lack of thematic tension when it feels like the writers are already pushing the "Primal Magic=Good/Dark Magic=Bad" angle long before they've built a case for it. Even with the Action vs Peace argument. Viren's painted as clearly in the wrong and no one agrees with him anyway. There's no thematic debate presented to the audience which again, kills tension.
The same if it turns out humans really can do arcanum with no problem after all. No moral dilema.
