TGHStylish: @ dat_bird:The idea is not everybody likes how everything went down at the end of the original series. "The Promise" examined how everything didn't magically fix itself at the end of the war and the conflict that came about when the question of the oldest of the Fire Colonies was raised. Aang's Earth Kingdom friends were adamant about expelling everything Fire Nation while Zuko saw that the colonies were doing a great deal better integrated than the home countries and generations of people who may never have set foot in the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom mainland were going to be unfairly displaced and likely not accepted by either side. I wanted to tap into that.
I wrote Chan Lau as the guy who doesn't see Aang as a hero from a political and professional standpoint. He doesn't sugarcoat his absolute disdain for Aang's ability to take a person's bending away (something that's basically considered rape in The Legend of Korra; something in the setting stated to be the sole domain of The Avatar and ONLY brought up as a negative when Korra herself was at risk, which seems hypocritical, I felt) and personal opinions about Energybending weren't brought up in any significant sense in the canon Epilogue comics, to my knowledge. And as someone who's come from politically astute ancestors who had a direct hand in trying and failing to prevent the war in the Avatar's absence, Chan's view of the War isn't a romantic one. The conflict with Toph as far as the love interest angle is concerned is testing her ability to reconcile her feelings for Chan himself (sympathizing with his lost family and why he's an exile) Chan's political views (The Avatar's bad choices effect everybody and not always for the better) and her friendships with the Gaang.
Anon14: @TGHStylish: While an interesting idead, it's WAY too heavy-handed. The way he talks it's like Aang was marching around taking bending from anybody who looked at him funny. But in canon he only ever did it twice due to the extreme peril of the technique (the second time enough to scar the next incarnation). Past that, this guy is a weird combination of worried for the people and completely out for himself. Particularly when he seems to think he's entitled to whatever mineral rights he desires. Lastly, how is somebody with that talent and resources could possibly be a working class hero like he seems to believe he is?
TGHStylish: @Anon14: Chan's complaining that the technique EXISTS; and like metalbending and bloodbending, it's a game-changer and a new dangerous tool in the box and a line that shouldn't be crossed. I seriously doubt he's alone in that thought. Even Toph gave pause at the idea; not that it would ever happen, but if Aang la
TGHStylish: @anon14: stupid laptop sent the reply before I could finish my thought. As I was saying, not that Toph has any reason to fear getting energybent by Aang, but given that earthbending is how she gets around in spite of her blindness, hearing the possibility out loud is what made her concede the point. She also concedes the point that introducing the possibility of metalbending could negatively effect how prisons are made in the future since there's the chance that criminal earthbenders could figure it out and metal shackles will become useless and by extension, stone prisons. I will concede the point that it came out a little "reason you suck speech", but that's kind of the point; note a lot of Gaang's reactions to people asking questions about their plans and choices in the early pages of "The Promise". It took them a 3-parter to digest the possibility that the everyday rustic may have had a more focused view on things due to being the people directly affected by The Gaang's actions, and out of the entire group, ZUKO's the first one to concede the point but only after making Aang promise to kill him if his decisions turn out to be too similar to Ozai's which was taken by the Gaang at first to mean 'evil' but actually meant "devoid of emotion and powered only by logic and unpopular by nature".
Also, if it came off that way, I apologize if it sounded like Chan was acting like the working class hero. What I was going for was a lonely individual who looks at the big picture objectively and sees a lot that he doesn't like, and instead of overtly enacting change, opts out of society at large to focus on work and sees anything that would impede his work as an evil. I guess you can say I wrote Chan as a vehicle to invoke and challenge the "Protagonist Centered Morality", "Brutal Honesty", "The Friend Nobody Likes", "The Complainer is always wrong" "Jerkass has a point" and the "Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending" tropes. His interactions with Toph are going to be the means through which he regains a bit of his humanity back.
Also I'm loving the tri-braid look you gave Katara. Cute tush in the second panel.
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I wrote Chan Lau as the guy who doesn't see Aang as a hero from a political and professional standpoint. He doesn't sugarcoat his absolute disdain for Aang's ability to take a person's bending away (something that's basically considered rape in The Legend of Korra; something in the setting stated to be the sole domain of The Avatar and ONLY brought up as a negative when Korra herself was at risk, which seems hypocritical, I felt) and personal opinions about Energybending weren't brought up in any significant sense in the canon Epilogue comics, to my knowledge. And as someone who's come from politically astute ancestors who had a direct hand in trying and failing to prevent the war in the Avatar's absence, Chan's view of the War isn't a romantic one. The conflict with Toph as far as the love interest angle is concerned is testing her ability to reconcile her feelings for Chan himself (sympathizing with his lost family and why he's an exile) Chan's political views (The Avatar's bad choices effect everybody and not always for the better) and her friendships with the Gaang.
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It all just screams preachy OC.
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Also, if it came off that way, I apologize if it sounded like Chan was acting like the working class hero. What I was going for was a lonely individual who looks at the big picture objectively and sees a lot that he doesn't like, and instead of overtly enacting change, opts out of society at large to focus on work and sees anything that would impede his work as an evil. I guess you can say I wrote Chan as a vehicle to invoke and challenge the "Protagonist Centered Morality", "Brutal Honesty", "The Friend Nobody Likes", "The Complainer is always wrong" "Jerkass has a point" and the "Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending" tropes. His interactions with Toph are going to be the means through which he regains a bit of his humanity back.