I think they write family dynamics and friendship with much more sincerity and elegance.
Oh boy do they ever. I was blithering in snarp's journal about how much I love the way the handled the non-romantic deep emotional relationships--all of them properly explored, regularly referenced and refreshed...
--Sokka and Katara's sibling relationship --Karata's friendship and mothering and support and mentoring of Aang, the adoption of Aang and later Toph into the Sokka/Katara family unit (conflict and everything)
--Zuko and Iroh, Zuko and Ozai (not all relationships are functional, but this dysfunctional relationship was very well handled, dramatically! Oh, the incredible difficulty of acknowledging that an adored parent figure is abusive and a bad parent and that trust and love and pride cannot ever be won, and the only way to stop being hurt by that is to learn to stop wanting those things from the abusive person...wow. They never shied away from the darkness of that. It is heartbreaking, but I was as proud of Zuko as Iroh was, when Zuko finally had that breakthrough).
--...and the equally character-important family bonds like Sokka and Katara and the absence of their father and the memory of their mother, Zuko and Azula, Zuko and Azula and their mom, Azula and her father...every one of these got its due, and the show and the characters are so strong for it. Just thinking about everything they did RIGHT makes me feel awfully forgiving of the missteps in writing romances.
just listing these makes me wibbly
Oh boy do they ever. I was blithering in snarp's journal about how much I love the way the handled the non-romantic deep emotional relationships--all of them properly explored, regularly referenced and refreshed...
--Sokka and Katara's sibling relationship
--Karata's friendship and mothering and support and mentoring of Aang, the adoption of Aang and later Toph into the Sokka/Katara family unit (conflict and everything)
--Zuko and Iroh, Zuko and Ozai (not all relationships are functional, but this dysfunctional relationship was very well handled, dramatically! Oh, the incredible difficulty of acknowledging that an adored parent figure is abusive and a bad parent and that trust and love and pride cannot ever be won, and the only way to stop being hurt by that is to learn to stop wanting those things from the abusive person...wow. They never shied away from the darkness of that. It is heartbreaking, but I was as proud of Zuko as Iroh was, when Zuko finally had that breakthrough).
--...and the equally character-important family bonds like Sokka and Katara and the absence of their father and the memory of their mother, Zuko and Azula, Zuko and Azula and their mom, Azula and her father...every one of these got its due, and the show and the characters are so strong for it. Just thinking about everything they did RIGHT makes me feel awfully forgiving of the missteps in writing romances.