fanfic rants

[timepiececlock]

My first post at fanficrants. About Zutara fic, of course. It's what I rant about when I have nothing else to do.

Edit: thinking about the subject further, I kind of wish that when I read a fic about Zuko running around as the Blue Spirit, that someone would actually be injured with those swords of his. I mean, that will never really happen on the show because of the network, but come on. Sword fights are scary, bloody affairs. People lose arms and legs and heads. People get disemboweled and impaled. People get their hamstrings cut. How come I read this fics where Zuko gets into a swordfight and miraculously no one loses any body parts, even when the swordfighter wins? Did we not remember our lessons from Kill Bill? Especially if Zuko ever got into a fight with Ty Lee or Mei, who use neither bending nor long-reach weapons. As sad as it is, if Zuko were fighting them for real (such as defending Iroh from them) then all it would take is one moment where Ty Lee dodges right when she should have dodged left and oops, pressure-point contortionist girl is no longer a problem for our heroes.

Comments

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Like I already said above, the show itself is excluded because of obvious reasons. :)

Although, interestingly, I counted when I was watching The Blue Spirit, and he appeared to throw at least 3 people off a wall in the fortress battle. A fall that was long enough to definitely kill you. I remember being surprised-- not that Zuko would kill in battle (because I assume that's what he was trained to do, given that he had the best training that royalty can buy), but that he was killing his own citizens and future subjects.

Does redemption mean using non-fatal strategies in fighting?

Now that IS an interesting question. Thanks for bringing it up.

Hm... it's almost moot to discuss it because we'll never see Zuko kill anyone except possibly his father. So you can never really answer the question. But, for discussion... hm. I have to say I never thought of it that way. Because I don't think Zuko was a murderer before, I don't see a lack of killing as part of his redemptive path. He's already there. Should he "aim to injure, not kill, always" ? Hm... I think 80% of the time yes, 20% of the time, no. For the most part we want our protagonists to respect life, and we've seen that Zuko does respect life. But Zuko is not Aang, who will always try to find a way, ALL of the time (although we know Aang in the Avatar State does *not* respect life as much as normal Aang.) Zuko's redemption doesn't mean that he does more or less violence, it requires that the violence he does be to deserving parties, in appropriate circumstances. Defending the innocent, fighting evil, etc etc. In all-out battle I can see Zuko killing someone if he thinks its necessary.

Actually, I think Zuko's redemption doesn't change the line of when to murder or not-- it changes the line of when to use smaller violence. He's not setting buildings on fire any more just to make a point, or randomly threatening people, etc.

With my post, I don't think it's so much that Zuko needs to *kill* people in fanfic-- it's just that I think it'd be nice if we saw some realistic swordfighting scenes in fanfic. And in a realistic sword fight, the only way to get hit and not get a serious injury is with the flat of the sword, but in a battle against someone like Mai or Ty Lee, Zuko might not have the luxury of turning his sword to hit in a non-limb-severing way. He was obviously trained to use the swords, which means he was trained to kill with swords. And when you're in a fight, you do what you were trained until the fight is over.

(Yeah, Jet would *so* gut people all the time with his swords.)