Stereotypes and Jokes

I love to laugh, and I love good comedy.  Jim Gaffigan, Chris Rock, and Aziz Ansari are some of my favorite widely known comedians.  I even did standup comedy myself for about a year, performing at various open mics, and even co-hosting a comedy show out of a Jiujitsu gym I trained at.  During that time I met tons of great comics from southern California; some of my favorite were Karl Hess, Billy Bonnell, Rajan Dharni, Christian Spicer, and Zoltan Kaszas.  My good friend David Zafra, whom I had co-hosted the Jiujitsu comedy show with, still performs and is even getting booked shows now.  He's taking the comedy and podcast world by storm with his wild, take-no-prisoners style of wordplay that would have Shakespeare himself saying "damn, that shit was hot!  Now time to go smoke a blunt and write some more dick jokes."

Me doing standup, circa 2012.

 The point is, I'm no stranger to standup comedy.  In fact, I'm quite the fan.  During my time participating in it, I had a lot of fun coming up with new joke concepts and fleshing them out.  I also heard a lot of fantastic jokes of all sorts: some critiquing something about society, some dealing with certain traumatic experiences, some just so wacky and out of left field you couldn't help but laugh.  Then there were the jokes about race, and that's my topic for today.  There's a lot to unpack when talking about race and comedy, especially since there are different ways to do so.

First off, jokes where the punchline is the stereotype.  These are what people, even advocates, appropriately term "racist" jokes.  When you make jokes that draw upon stereotypes, you're perpetuating these stereotypes. You can say it is "ironic" or just in "good fun" or whatever, but you're still bringing those stereotypes to the surface.

Let's take an example of a racist joke I heard recently to look at what I mean. "What's the difference between a Mexican and a bench? A bench can support a family!" Literally, the punchline of that joke is that Mexicans can't support a family. It's feeding into the idea we are all unreliable and living in poverty.  If you didn't know about the stereotype, then this joke could not work.

For instance, we don't have many stereotypes about Bhutanese people here in the United States.  So let's try the same joke: "What's the difference between a Bhutanese person and a bench?  A bench can support a family!"  It's completely nonsensical.  That's what any joke about stereotypes would be if we didn't actually still hold onto those stereotypes as a society.

On a side note, holy shit, look at this picture from Bhutan!

Also, remember that stereotypes have real life consequences.  For instance, the stereotyping of young black folks as criminals means they're more likely to be shot than their white counter parts, more likely to be arrested for drug use despite similar rates between black and white folks, and less likely to receive employment when qualifications are the same.  Stereotypes are not harmless.

Now, if you and your friends just love teasing each other about your backgrounds and only make these jokes around each other, sure, do you and have fun.  But also, try to develop an actual sense of humor?  Because these types of jokes, aside from keeping around stereotypes, are also just structurally bad. Because the meat of your joke is literally "ha, notice that I just said a stereotype?  Pretty clever and ironic, right?" That shit is just weak.

But not all jokes involving stereotypes simply refer to them.  Plenty of comedians bring them up to critique, ridicule, subvert, or otherwise challenge them.  These comedians take these stereotypes on and challenge them.  For instance, check out this quick Dave Chappelle joke about chicken:

 
In it, he talks about an experience of his as a black man visiting the south. He then explores and mocks the stereotype about black folks liking chicken; "all these years I thought I liked chicken because it was delicious, turns out I'm genetically predisposed to liking chicken! I got no say in the matter! That guy ruined chicken for me, I was scared to eat it in public."

Notice how he deconstructs and attacks the stereotype. The punchline isn't "black folks sure do like chicken!" but "man, isn't that stereotype about black folks liking chicken ridiculous?" And that's what comedy has the power to be: subversive and challenging to prevailing ideas. Even outside the topic of race, it can be used to critique society and be a powerful tool for critical thought.

The thing is, when you make a racist joke where the punchline is a stereotype, you're doing exactly the opposite. You're just keeping stereotypes in people's minds without being critical about them, and that's where the difference lies.  A lot of people say "well, if you're criticizing racist jokes, then how about guys like Chappelle and Rock?"  It's a misunderstanding, because they are tackling the subject matter in very different ways.  Talking about your experiences involving stereotypes and deconstructing them is quite different from simply referring to those stereotypes and calling it a joke.

One thing that is important to keep in mind is that anyone can make jokes lazily relying on stereotypes.  Carlos Mencia's entire shtick is based on constantly repeating the punchline that lots of Mexican Americans are here without papers.  No one gets a pass when they are making shitty jokes.

Now, of course there are plenty of shades of gray when talking about jokes that subvert stereotypes vs feeding into them.  I've heard a lot jokes that I couldn't neatly place into one category.  What's important is that we at least try to analyze and think critically about them.

Especially when it's a super edgy joke about ketchup.

Damn him and his reckless comedy!

Self-Defense for Women

How awful is it that I even have to make this post?  Unfortunately, we live in a society that teaches young men that they are entitled to women's bodies.  Ever since childhood we are shown and told stories of men saving the day and essentially winning their love interest, even if that love interest previously didn't have any interest in them.  In every day life,"nice guys" think that if they act pleasant toward a woman then they somehow deserve her, as if a woman is a prize to be won at an arcade in exchange for politeness points.

 

Redeemable for 20 chivalry coupons!

Beyond that, men are often encouraged to not respect when a woman says no, or to try to push the boundaries of what she is comfortable with, in order to score and prove how "manly" we are. It's an unjust situation.  If we lived in an ideal world, this post wouldn't be necessary.  Alas, we don't, and this is where we find ourselves.

The main focus of this post will be two-fold: critiquing so-called "self-defense" oriented programs and recommending better alternatives for training.

The main problem with most self-defense focused programs/styles is that they offer very little "aliveness" in their training- in other words, they don't have opportunities to go against an opponent who is actively resisting.  Instead, they usually only do choreographed drills that involve your opponent compliantly letting you do to them whatever you're being taught.  Static drills are an important part of any training regimen, but they can't be the only part.

The excuse you'll hear from these "reality based" styles is that their moves are "too deadly" to train with aliveness. And certainly, there are indeed highly effective moves you don't want to perform on your training partners for risk of severe injury.  But here's the thing: if you're not supplementing your training with aliveness, everything you learn will fly out the window the instant someone in real life actually tries to attack you.  If you're not used to someone trying to fight back when performing your moves, you will have no idea how to deal with an opponent who isn't being compliant.

Basically, if your training has no aliveness, this is what you're doing- which is all good,
but let's call it what it is.

And that's what most self-proclaimed "self-defense" styles do.  Compliant drill, after compliant drill, after compliant drill.  It's like becoming really good at playing catch and thinking that alone can make you a quarterback in the NFL, when in reality you need to practice throwing the ball while dealing with people trying to tackle you to the ground.

Instead, train in a style that offers aliveness.  The ultimate form of aliveness is sparring (or its equivalent in other styles such as randori in Judo, rolling in Jiujitsu, kumite in Karate, etc): a simulated match where each participant is trying to win.  There are other forms of aliveness, too, such as drills where your opponent offers increasing levels of resistance when you try to apply techniques on them.

Now, because you're training in a style with aliveness, your training won't focus on "deadly" moves.  But it's much better to be able to perform well-trained normal moves under pressure than to have "deadly" moves that you can't use on anyone willing to fight back.

To bring this back to women in particular, I'd recommend a good grappling style to train in.  Most violence against women outside of domestic abuse doesn't involve a man hitting a woman, but trying to force himself on her.  That is what a good grappling style will prepare you for- also, size also tends to matter less in grappling arts than in striking arts.  I'd recommend Judo, Jiujitsu, Sambo, or even good ol' Wrestling as consistently reliable styles.

A grappling match between a man and a woman where the woman wins by submission.

Check out that video up there (the advertisements end at about 20 seconds in).  Even when the guy gets the dominant top position and is trying to go for the finish, she is able to keep her cool, fight off of her back, and go for the finish herself.  That's what training with aliveness does.

Now, I do have to warn anyone reading this and considering training, it is not easy.  I honestly think part of the reason people train in less effective arts without aliveness in the curriculum is they know how hard it is  to train effectively.  In my post about martial arts and violence, I talked about all the setbacks and small victories that define training.  It sounds noble and almost romantic in writing, but in the gym it can sometimes be frustrating and discouraging.

However, the results are more than worth it.  That grappling match I posted was from an actual competition; in other words, that guy was actively trying to beat her and still lost.  Very, very, very few non-trained men could ever smother an experienced grappler, regardless of their sex.  When I first started training Jiujitsu, women that probably don't even have weight in the triple digits were able to submit me easily.  Even with my training, a high level grappler half my size can still wipe the floor with me.

For those of you reading who don't know me in real life: I am 6 feet tall, just shy of 200 pounds, and do strength training a couple times a week.  I am not exactly a small guy.  But if I were trying to win a match in Jiujitsu, I'd much rather take on a 250 pound man without training than a 120 pound purple belt.

We shouldn't have to live in a world where women are put in charge of defending themselves from sexual assault and other forms of violence.  Thanks to the objectification of women, however, we do.  To all the ladies out there, please, don't be taken in by talk of super deadly, super awesome, super quick self-defense classes.  It's a scam.  Instead, take a class where you are being pushed to your limit and put up against people in an alive training environment.  It'll be difficult, but if you are ever forced to put your training to the test, you need to be able to make it out okay.

Fantasy Worlds and Believability

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I write fiction in addition to blog posts.  Some of the settings I write are "realistic" in the sense that everything operates in the same way that everyday life does in the real world.  There are no mystical elements involved in these stories.  Others involve crafting new worlds, worlds with their own internal logic and creatures that inhabit it.

When discussing works of fiction that take place in worlds more fantastic than our own, criticism of certain plot points someone finds nonsensical is often met with the response "of course it doesn't make sense, it's a movie/video game/TV show/etc."  This post will be about unpacking that statement; I think it is mostly a cop out, but there is also some truth to it.

As I alluded to in the first paragraph, creating worlds different from our own involve creating a new set of rules.  No matter what type of world you're creating- a fantasy land of magic and mythic creatures, a science fiction space adventure, an alternative universe where United States foreign policy actually gives a shit about democracy- a fictional universe needs its own set of governing rules that dictate how everything operates.  Let's take Fullmetal Alchemist, an easy example.

A universe where perfectly coiffed hair curls can withstand anything.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, the show emphasizes the principle of "equivalent exchange"- the idea that in order to obtain anything, something of equal value must be given in turn.  In other words, alchemists can transform and modify objects in that world, but they can't simply make something out of nothing.  When you see Edward make his staff, he's transforming the materials in the ground into his signature weapon.

If someone in that show were suddenly able to make objects materialize out of nothing, then you'd want an explanation for how that happened.  Yes, alchemy is basically magic and defies our laws of physics, but the world of Fullmetal Alchemist still has its own set of rules that it is expected to follow.  Hell, if someone were to suddenly bust out an iPad when the technology of that world is about equivalent to the technology of the early 20th Century, you'd want an explanation.

And that is where the "it's a _____, of course it's not realistic!" idea falls apart.  Yes, we shouldn't hold our entertainment to our own laws of reality.  But fictional works need to hold up to their laws of reality, otherwise that is inconsistent writing, even if other elements of the story are awesome.

A big example of this sort of inconsistency from a work I like (I prefer to pick apart works I like so that it's more analysis than complaint) is from The Walking Dead.  As this article tells us, one of the main rules about zombies is that their eyesight is poor and their sense of smell is strong.  We see that confirmed when Rick decides to cover himself and his pals in zombie remains to walk through the streets... but then we see it broken later when they avoid zombies by hiding under cars.

Then Daryl does something badass and all is forgiven.

A common response to this criticism is that the walkers spot the humans first, and then they use the ol' sniffers to track out whether they are human or not.  But that goes against the rule mentioned above, which specifically says their eyesight is "poor" but they have a "strong" sense of smell.  That would mean that their smelling ability is stronger than their sight (unless the meaning of those words have changed recently), and therefore the hiding trick they used shouldn't have worked.  It's a vague, inconsistent trait that helps kill the believability of their world- again, not because it is "unrealistic" by our terms, but by the terms the show sets up for itself.

These inconsistencies can make us feel less like we're watching something unfold in a different world and more like we're watching something unfold in a clearly fictional one.  Now, different inconsistencies bother people to different degrees, and what some people consider plot holes others don't.  For instance, I find a lot of the so-called plot inconsistencies everyone usually brings up about The Dark Knight Rises to be unfounded, and a lot of the actual inconsistencies didn't bother me much.

"No one noticed Bruce Wayne in the European cafe!"  Oh, right, because a billionaire who is well known in his own town will definitely be globally recognized.  Just like how you would totally recognize the CEO of Walmart or Target if they walked by you right now!

So, yes, some things take some people out of the movies, while those same things don't take others out.  Some aren't taken out of the experience because they don't think the inconsistency is a big deal, while others don't think it's an inconsistency at all.  That's fine, because we all interact with fictional worlds in our own ways.

The main problem with saying "it's a [comic book/fantasy/sci fi/etc] [movie/game/TV show/etc], don't think about it" is that it's dismissing the fact that these types of works have the ability to be immersive and take people to a different world.  A well crafted world with consistency is a fantastic thing.  When you say "don't think about it" you're encouraging people to not immerse themselves, to not critically engage with what they enjoy.

Now, that all being said, not everything needs an explicit explanation.  A movie that comes to mind is the movie Midnight in Paris from a few years back.

They never once explain how Owen Wilson keeps finding work!

In the movie, Owen Wilson is a writer who is visiting Paris with his fiance.  He loves it there, particularly because it was the home of many ex-patriot US writers during the modernist era of the 1920s.  One night, while on a walk, he ends up transported to 1920s-era Paris and gets to meet Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, and others from that time period.  There is never an explanation given as to why Wilson (and, later, someone sent to track him) are able to travel back in time.

The thing is, the movie is still establishing a set of rules.  The movie shows us early on that time travel is possible in that universe, but everything else about it is realistic.  No one shows up with a light saber, or mind reading abilities, or a positive opinion of any M Night Shyamalan movies.  That is a universe that permits time travel in certain vehicles to the past, and the movie never adds extra fastballs into the mix.

So an explanation isn't always necessary.  In the original Star Wars trilogy, they established how the force functioned as a power, but not what it actually was "scientifically" speaking.  Everyone loved the movies, and then the prequels came up with a sci-fi explanation as to what the force was.  It wasn't a bad explanation, but it wasn't an answer people were clamoring for to make further sense of the universe.

So, in the end, what is arguably most important is establishing a clear set of rules that the works within that universe follow consistently.  Analyzing and picking apart fiction can be fun, and certainly helpful to anyone trying to create their own.  Critiquing and contemplating entertainment can help give us a deeper understanding of it- or at least that's what I tell myself to justify all the time I spend over-analyzing pop culture.

UFC on Fox 12: Lawler vs Brown

I've been out of the MMA world for a while, partially because of everything I've been trying to do since graduation, and partially because our apartment no longer gets Fox Sports 1 and I therefore have missed out on a lot of the free events.  But I was fortunate to be able catch the UFC on Fox card this last weekend, which- like almost all of the UFC on Fox cards- was fantastic.  In this post, I am going to analyze a lot of the striking techniques and strategies we saw on the main card.

For anyone who doesn't know me, a quick breakdown of my experience with martial arts (that way everyone knows I'm only partially speaking out of my ass): the martial art I have the most training in is Muay Thai, at just a little over three years.  In other arts relevant to MMA, I also have a little over two years of training in Jeet Kune Do, a year of Boxing, and about a year's worth of training in no-gi Jiujitsu.  I also regularly read books about fighting technique/strategy, as well as articles by analysts such as Jack Slack.

On a more personal level, in my own training, I've always been pretty strong, but not very fast or aggressive.  A strong punch means nothing if it can't connect.  Reading up on fighting techniques and strategies helps augment my training, and teaches me how to strategically set up my attacks against faster and more aggressive opponents.

Reading up on these techniques and strategies, and putting them into practice, has been crucial to my progress as a martial artist.  It's saved my ass in sparring too many times to count.  The point of this post, then, is to analyze fights in a way that can hopefully be helpful to all martial artists/fighters/combat athletes out there looking to improve their understanding of the game. It is meant to be accessible to people who train in any sort of martial art, as well as those who don't train at all but enjoy watching.

Bobby Green vs Josh Thomson
 
Green is a fighter who has been around for a little while, but is just now starting to come up (this was only his fourth fight in the UFC).  Josh Thomson, meanwhile, has been near the top of the division for a while, dating back to when Strikeforce was around.  This wasn't quite the old school vs new school match up we saw in other fights on this card, but there was definitely a significant experience disparity between the two.

One of the most noticeable aspects of this fight was Bobby Green's footwork.  He was the aggressor the entire fight, and played the role well with his movement.  A mistake many fighters make is yp simply follow their opponent, playing a game of cat and mouse that can go on forever and tire the contestants out- especially the aggressor if they have a consistent attack output when trudging forward.

What Green did so well was to cut off the cage.  In other words, he would back his opponent toward the cage but, instead of following him in a straight line, would use lateral movement to corral him against the cage and block off his escape.  This cuts off your opponent's movements so that they have nowhere to run, and can be a death sentence for movement based fighters.

When you corral someone like this, you have to be careful not to get sloppy and think you are now safe to light them up without worry.  When cornered, fighters can still throw shots, and will often throw powerful ones in an attempt to escape their entrapment.  Bobby Green seems to have taken this to heart, but perhaps a little too much; he was very reserved in his striking when he cornered Thomson, and Thomson soon figured out he could get trapped there and not have to worry about being too brutalized.  He was therefore able to keep trying to find was to circle out of his corner, because Green wasn't punishing him hard enough for doing so.

Another thing that Green did well was shoulder roll.  Shoulder rolling, in boxing, is when you keep your lead hand low and let your lead shoulder do the blocking by keeping it high and tucking your chin into it.  It's used often enough in boxing that boxers know how to deal with it, but it's not used very often in high level MMA (Anderson Silva and Robbie Lawler are the only elite MMA fighters I can think of who have used it consistently).  Because it's not seen often in MMA, Thomson didn't seem to know what to do; the answer is body shots and Thomson didn't throw enough.

However, again, Green didn't capitalize on this move as well as he could have.  When taking a shot on your lead left shoulder, your body is turned to the right, meaning your right hand is already cocked up for a counter right punch.  In boxing, fighters like James Toney and Floyd Mayweather Jr are experts at absorbing a punch with their left shoulder and immediately responding with a good punch from their rear hands.  Green, however, mostly used the technique only defensively.

In the end, it was a close fight, with Green pulling out the split decision.  Josh Thomson threw a lot of fantastic combinations, but Green had some tricks up his sleeve that helped him level the playing field against one of the best 155lb fighters in the world.  If he could just work on becoming a little bit more bold in his offense and throwing more combinations instead of just a single shot or two each time he strikes, he could become an even more formidable fighter.


Clay Guida vs Dennis Bermudez

Ahh, the featherweight division.  Perhaps my favorite division since the light heavyweight division lost its luster (other than Jones, Gustafsson, and Cormier, who are phenomenal).  With a champion like Jose Aldo and other fighters like Chad Mendes, Cub Swanson, Chan Sung Jung, and Conor McGregor, there is a lot to love about the division.

Anywho, Clay Guida was a fan favorite for a long time for his wild style of fighting (though for his last few fights, he has been much more reserved).  He represents the old type of wrestling based mixed martial artist: a wrestler who learns how to brawl, and mixes in that brawling with his wrestling.  Dennis Bermudez, on the other hand, is of the new variety: he has learned proper striking technique and supplements his wrestling-based grappling with high level Jiujitsu.
 
The match went exactly as you would think it would given the description I just provided.  The two started off at a quick, exciting pace, and when they were striking it out Bermudez got the best of the exchanges almost every time.  Whereas Guida was almost always throwing a mild jab to set up for a strong but obvious right overhand, Bermudez was throwing varied combinations and almost always ending with a strong leg kick on Guida's lead left leg.  Guida is a tough guy, not to mention experienced, but they still took a toll on his movement.  Guida also threw some kicks, but only by themselves (that is, no set up or follow up strikes), and they therefore didn't do much.

One thing that Bermudez did that was lovely was striking when breaking the clinch.  Hitting after disengaging from the clinch is something you learn in every MMA gym, yet in the heat of the moment can be hard to remember to do in that split second.  Almost every time Bermudez disengaged from Guilda, he would throw strong strikes, including some very potent knees.  Striking on the break is generally good for making an opponent not want to try to clinch with you again, though since Guida was losing so badly in the striking exchanges, he had no choice but to keep going for it anyway.

The fight ended after Guida desperately tried to wrestle Bermudez to the ground, and Bermudez used his superior Jiujitsu to get the back and lock in a nice rear naked choke.  It was pretty sweet.  Bermudez, like Bobby, has now proven he is ready for the top of his division. 

Anthony Johnson vs Rogerio Nogueira

Oh, how the light heavyweight division has fallen.  Jon Jones is perhaps the best fighter on the planet today, but with many of the former superstars of the once packed division now either far past their prime or in another weight class, he doesn't have much compelling competition outside of Alexander Gustafsson and Daniel Cormier, and perhaps Anthony Johnson.

That is the only reason this fight happened.  Rogerio Nogueira, the smaller twin brother of Rodrigo Nogueira, is far past his prime, and yet somehow was ranked near the top of the division due to a lackluster win over Rashad Evans.  Anthony Johnson, meanwhile, is back in the UFC after multiple weight cutting problems.  He now fights at light heavyweight (205lbs); he used to somehow fight at welterweight (170lbs) and was eventually cut when he kept showing up overweight to fights.

In this fight, Johnson massacred the injury prone 38 year old veteran.  There isn't much to be drawn from this one sided match up that ended in under a minute, other than a critique of the defense Lil Nog used.  He brought his arms up to his face and covered with his gloves to defend from punches.  This works with 16oz boxing gloves, but doesn't work well with the smaller MMA gloves.  Johnson was able to get past Nogueira's defense by picking his shots and scored a quick knockout.

If anything, this shows that MMA fighters should be sure they get in much more sparring with MMA gloves than with boxing gloves (often times, in my experiences at least, Muay Thai classes in MMA gyms usually use boxing gloves exclusively, and only use the MMA gloves for the MMA specific classes).  It also shows that Anthony Johnson is a wrecking machine and his power should be taken very seriously.

Matt Brown vs Robbie Lawler

Brown and Lawler are two of my favorite fighters in the welterweight division (my favorite being Carlos Condit), and I was excited leading up to this fight.  Lawler has phenomenal boxing skills by MMA standards, and Brown has a fantastic Thai clinch.  While Lawler has found a bit more success in his overall MMA career, both have been around the scene for a minute.  The only significant experience disparity was that Lawler has more experience in 5 round main event fights than Brown.

When this fight started, the first thing that became apparent was how much looser Lawler was on his feet than Brown.  MMA fighters usually can't be too light on their feet, because they have to keep a firm enough base that they can defend against an opponent diving in for their hips and attempting a single or double leg take down.  However, in fights like this where both fighters are expected to remain standing and strike, a fighter may risk using more fleet-footed movement and theoretically worry less about getting taken down.  Lawler decided to take this gambit, and it worked out marvelously.

In their striking exchanges, Lawler was always quicker to the punch, and because of his agile footwork he was able to remain just outside of harm's way whenever Matt Brown threw strikes of his own.  Brown was clearly using his strikes to try to set up for his Thai clinch, but Lawler's slick movement meant that he was always gone whenever Brown tried to get a grip on him.

Eventually, Brown did get the clinch and threw some beautiful knees and elbows, as well as attempting the trip.  But Lawler showed he wasn't a pushover in the clinch, either, and landed some very strong punches and avoided being held against the ground.  However, after they broke from the clinch, Lawler's footwork slowed down.  He still had the upperhand in most of the punching and kicking exchanges, but not as much as when he had been darting around in the beginning of the fight.

One of the most important things Lawler did better than Brown was dodge.  Everytime Brown suspected a counterattack was coming his way, he would duck very low and sometimes not even keep his eyes on his opponent.  This can be dangerous, and there were indeed a few times where Lawler capitalized on it.

Lawler, on the other hand, would dodge by bringing his head back just far enough away to avoid the oncoming hit, and would then fire back rapidly.  This difference in defense was perhaps one of the most decisive factors of the fight: Lawler's method of avoiding attacks allowed him to keep his rhythm and fire back, whereas Brown's method of avoiding attacks left him out of position to return fire and marked the end of any combination he might have been throwing.

It was, however, a close battle.  A closer battle than the appearance of both fighters at the end may have led one to believe, as Lawler looked fresh and Brown looked a mess.  One thing both fighters did well (Brown the entire fight, whereas Lawler didn't start catching on until later rounds) was mixing levels with their kicks.  In other words, they would switch between kicking the leg, body, and head.  When a fighter does this and does it consistently, it leaves their opponent uncomfortable because they don't know where that next kick is headed.

One brilliant moment in the fight had Brown twist his hips to feint like he was about to kick Lawler, to see what his reaction would be.  He saw that Lawler prioritized blocking his head.  He then threw a half-power kick to the head that Lawler blocked, then threw a full power kick to the body that hit Lawler square in the ribs.  These were Brown's best offense throughout the fight, other than the elbows that he is so brilliant at throwing.  Because Lawler prioritized blocking his head so much, Brown wasn't able to get a Cro Cop style head kick knockout, but anyone who has experienced them knows a series of good kicks to the body will take a severe toll.

Lawler did a similarly good job of changing levels with his kicks later in the fight; in the earlier rounds they were almost all low kicks.  His biggest advantage was his punching, which was fluid and crisp, especially by MMA standards.  He has developed a few signature moves, such as throwing a left cross (straight rear punch), then following up by moving his upper body to the right while throwing a right uppercut.  But these signature moves were mixed in periodically, and with good variety, so he was able to remain unpredictable while also throwing shots that were technical and smooth.

Lawler ended up winning the fight.  It was both exciting and technical, which is my favorite combination.  Overall, the card was a quality one, like most UFC on Fox cards have been.

Expect more fight card analyses from me in the future!

Fiction Writing Tips

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I write short stories.  Ever since I was in elementary school I've enjoyed writing fiction, and over the last couple of years I've been trying to create stories for the world to read.  Currently, I am in the process of researching independent publishers while I finish up a few more stories so that I may publish a collection.  I am also writing a novel that, if current trends continue, may be published by the time I have grandchildren.

 

 "I've never been more proud in my entire life."

"But honey, what about our children?"

"Yeah, they're cool I guess."

Now, I'm certainly no writing expert- the only thing I'm an expert on is useless pop culture trivia and the art of terrible puns.  But if we had to be experts to give advice on something, how would society function?  Climate change deniers would have to actually listen to scientists, people would understand statistical principles like when to use the mean vs the medium, and Piers Morgan would have never been allowed near Americas Got Talent.  Nobody wants that.  Ahem.

Regardless, there have been quite a few things I've picked up while writing that have been of great benefit to me.  Good resources, helpful exercises, and productive ways to think about your writing that are helpful whatever amount of experience you have.  Here are a few of them.

And no, basic advice like "read and write consistently" or "edit, edit, edit" aren't here.  I know you know that by now.

4.  Thesaurus.com is Your Friend
William Faulkner once said Ernest Hemingway "has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."  Hemingway, being the Notorious B.I.G. of American literature, responded with "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."  Oh snap!

"Fuck fist fights and lane scuffles/pillow case to ya face make the shell muffled"

I tend to write in a style similar to Hemingway's in that regard, in that I try not to be too verbose.  If a simpler word suffices, then I don't feel a need to be flashy and send readers to the dictionary.  Personally, I love finding new words to play with in my own writing, but as a reader I also enjoy feeling captivated by a story.  If I have to take a break because there are words I don't understand, then that spell can be momentarily broken.  I want to avoid breaking the spell for my own readers as much as possible.

Even with my relatively simple writing outlook, however, there are still a lot of uses in consulting a thesaurus.  One is that you simply don't want to repeat words too much.  Some stories involve repeating certain actions, for instance, but you don't want to describe everything exactly the way you had before.  It'll feel mechanical when you're writing it, and repetitive when someone reads it.  Instead, hit up your friendly neighborhood internet thesaurus and find different ways to articulate what you wish to say.

Another important reason to use an online thesaurus is that different words have different connotations.  Two paragraphs above this one, I used the word "captivated" when describing what a well written story does to me.  I had originally wanted to use the word "engrossed", but felt it wasn't exactly what I wanted to say.  A quick trip to thesaurus.com gave me a list of similar words, and "captivated" seemed the most appropriate for what I wanted to say.  The two terms are of course basically the same, but sometimes one just feels more right than the other.

The final point I will mention here is dialogue.  Different characters use different words for various reasons- their culture, their education level, the place(s) they have grown up, the popular culture they interact with, their peers, and so many more reasons I couldn't even begin to list them all.  If the dialogue between characters sounds interchangeable, your dialogue needs work.  Sometimes it can be as simple as having some characters respond with "yeah" or "yep" instead of "yes" because it is truer to who they are (or the situation at hand).  Other times, using a thesaurus can be a huge help in giving different characters their own distinct vocabularies.

3. Write a Profile for Each of Your Characters
There is a common saying in writing fiction that you'll know more about your character than your readers ever will.  You have to have a definitive, clear-cut understanding of everything about your character if you want to convey who they are when writing.  No matter how integral your character is to the story at hand, even if their pasts and their families and their beliefs explicitly play a role, you still can't communicate everything about them without straight up word vomiting information at your reader.

You don't want to do this to your readers.

One thing that has really helped me keep track of my characters is creating detailed profiles about them.  In a separate Word document, I'll whip up detailed descriptions of everything I can think of about each character, even minor ones.  The basics minimum for these profiles include your character's life story, their personality, their motivations, and whether they prefer east coast or west coast hip hop.  Any other detail you can think of that might be relevant- their height, their ethnicity, their favorite movie, their sexuality- belong in this profile if they are relevant to the story.

Writing a profile for your characters helps give you a clearer understanding of who they are.  Sometimes, in fact, when you create a separate document and start writing about your characters, you get even more ideas while writing out the profile.  Just like you can get inspiration for what to add to your stories while in the middle of writing them (more on that in a moment), the same can happen when you're writing about your character.

This profile also means you can more efficiently describe parts about your character that are important.  So many English teachers and beginning writing classes teach you to write in as much detail as possible, and for good reason: being able to visualize a person or scene or object is important.  But if you mechanically describe everything about every character, it'll feel like a chore both to write and read those descriptions.

When you understand a character well, you are more easily able to describe what is important about them.  For instance, their height probably isn't important- unless their height doesn't match up with the rest of their family's, or it is a barrier to them getting on the basketball team, or they are so tall it is harder for them to find cover in a shoot out.

One of these men would have a much easier time hiding behind a three foot wall than the other.

Finally, understanding your characters better can give you a better idea of the types of actions they will carry out and the types of decisions they will make when confronted with certain scenarios.  Speaking of which...


2. Don't be Afraid of Not Knowing the Plot Ahead of Time
A lot of newer writers- and I definitely had this problem in the past- are afraid of beginning to write because they don't know how their story will end ahead of time.  It is a reasonable fear, as going into a story without knowing how it will end is scary because you don't want to mess it all up.  Its like going into college without knowing what you want to do afterward or fighting a pterodactyl without an electric guitar- its terrifying because you're not sure where everything is headed.

Still, as with any almost any other reason not to write, it should be disregarded.  When you have characters you understand who make their own decisions, you will create a chain of events that will often answer your questions about what happens next for you.

Other times, when you're trying to think of other problems to throw at a character, writing can help give you that inspiration.  This is especially true for when you're establishing your character(s) and everything else in the beginning. Setting up what is "normal" in that world can help you think about what types of situations would be out of the ordinary.

Like if you had to watch a play that hilariously parodies you and your group of friends, for instance.

Right now I have four different short stories I am writing, and I have varying levels of certainty for how each of them will end.  For one of them, about a woman signed up as a soldier in a sword and shield warfare type setting, I know exactly how it will end because the story is supposed to be an allegory.  With the second story, about a group of high school friends who have to start thinking about what they want to do after graduation, I know that the climax will be one of them attempting suicide for reasons I have already decided; the general story draws from my group of friends and the suicide attempt is based on something that happened with a friend of mine.  Where the rest of the overarching plot goes, though?  That is anyone's guess.

In regard to the third, about a boy who gets a job working at a thrift shop, I have a vague idea of how it will end. I know the direction I want to go with it, but I don't yet know exactly how we will get there and how much that chain of events will affect what I have in mind.  Finally, with the fourth story, I have no idea how things will end.  The premise is the protagonist finds out reality isn't real thanks to his quantum physicist dad, and he and his girlfriend try to cope with living in an existence that is apparently "fake."  I have no idea where this story will go, but we'll see as I continue to write out how they cope with and react to the situation.

What is important to understand here is that I am actually in the process of writing each of these stories right now.  Each of these stories are at least a few pages in.  I'm not waiting until the perfect bolt of inspiration hits me.  Sometimes I'll know exactly where I want to go, sometimes I'll simply conjure up a few characters and a scenario and let it play out.  Just as with anything else, its far too easy to come up reasons for why it is not the right time to start.

Fuck that, the time is now.  Believe in yourself, because you are capable.  You'll be able to find what you need in your story, even if you don't have all the answers right now.  The most important part is that you start and show yourself what you can do.

I'm going to repost this article from my last post, because I can't reiterate this enough: GSP almost quit MMA when he felt discouraged, but stuck with it and went on to become one of the best MMA fighters of all time.  This could be you as a writer or anything else, but only if you actually start what you've been meaning to start and stick with it.

1. Surround Yourself with Productive, Passionate People

As a writer, anyone will tell you that you should spend time with people interested in writing.  People who can critique your works, who can share resources for editing and publishing, who can connect you to their own networks of people, who can fill you in on all the things you never thought about (formatting, finding someone to design the cover for your book, etc), and of course those people good looking enough to write Blogspot posts giving other writers advice.  Surrounding yourself with other writers, whether online or in person, is one of the most important and helpful things you can do if you're serious about this whole 'stringing together words and whatnot' thing.

Through my own personal experiences, I've also found that being around people who are passionate about pursuits other than writing are still extremely helpful to be around.  A lot of my closest friends enjoy short fiction, but are more focused on other pursuits.  One of them, for instance, has quite a few story ideas, but spends more time drawing and playing his keyboard.  Another close friend of mine is passionate about too many things to name, but right now is focusing on playing his guitar and writing song lyrics.

People who pursue what they want to do are important to surround yourself with, even if you don't share the same exact passions.  Even if you like writing and your friend likes soccer, the process of getting good is the same: study the greats, get advice from people who know what they're talking about, and practice, practice, practice.  Surrounding yourself with as many people who have that mindset as possible is healthy, because you're learning those positive habits and outlooks even if you are applying them in different avenues.

Because you share similarly productive mindsets, you can also help encourage and push each other.

What happens when you team up with other supportive, dedicated people.

Yes, when you tell someone who wants to become a sculptor that you're having trouble writing dialogue, they probably won't have much to give you in the way of advice.  But if you tell them you feel like you're not getting anywhere, no matter how much you try, that is advice anyone who tries to build their own talents can relate to.  There is a chance they might have some words of wisdom to offer you that can help phenomenally.  I've had some of my best encouragement come from close friends like the ones I mentioned above, who don't do the exact same things as me.

When you finally do complete a story, your sculptor friend (or violinist friend, or judo friend, etc) can feel genuinely happy for you because they can draw from their own experiences of how they feel when they finish their own creation or finally get down something they've been practicing.  There is something special about letting a friend know you finished something you've been working on and they respond with an authentic smile, one that lets you know they legitimately understand the sense of accomplishment and pride you're feeling at the moment.

So surround yourself with committed people.  You deserve to be around people who can push you to do better and lift your spirits if you're feeling discouraged.  Your stories deserve to be read.  There will never, ever be someone in the history of existence who has the same combination of personality, life experiences, aspirations, fears, and world outlook as you.  Not a single one.  In other words, you have the ability to create stories that no other person will ever be able to create in quite the same way.  You bring something to the table no one else can, so don't let anyone ever tell you that you can't do something.

Good luck writing, and I hope these tips help!

Martial Arts and Violence

When the media talks about martial arts, the topic of whether or not martial artists are trained to be aggressive is brought up quite often.  Opponents of martial arts will often accuse us of being brutes, especially those who train in arts that involve striking and competition, such as Boxing, Muay Thai, and Mixed Martial Arts.  It is especially bad with MMA, as it is the new kid on the block, and therefore seen as the rowdy, dangerous new combat sport that totally disregards everything civilized and honorable about previous combat sports (despite the fact it is much safer, neurologically speaking, than football, hockey, or boxing).

Perhaps it is needless to say, but I find all of this alarmist and false.  However, I also find the response from certain parts of some martial art communities disingenuous as well.  The typical response to allegations of us being a bunch of meat heads tends to sound like something written by a first year philosophy student.  "Martial arts isn't violence, its about peace and enlightenment!"  You especially see this coming from traditional martial arts communities, where they exoticize the Asian roots of the martial arts they train and think its, like, totally spiritual and zen.

"OMG, are you Asian?  You must be super wise and meditate a lot and know Karate!"

"Ma'am, first of all, Karate is Japanese and I'm of Chinese descent.  Second of all, no, I'm not some Buddhist monk, I'm just a guy who plays basketball."

This is silly, because no matter what semantics game you try to play, at the end of the day a quality martial art is still teaching you how to fight.  No amount of cute sounding tangents will change the fact that you are learning how to effectively harm someone else while minimizing harm to yourself.  Yet children who practice martial arts are far less likely to exhibit bullying behavior.  What gives?

First and foremost, it is important to realize that, child or adult, bullying can be derived from either too little self-confidence or too much.  This distinction is important, because martial arts deals with both of these issues in different ways.

For people who have low self-esteem, the answers are obvious.  When you develop any sort of skill, your self-esteem increases.  Being able to develop and hone a talent gives you a tangible accomplishment that you can be proud of.  When it's gardening, you can eat something you grew and literally enjoy the fruits of your labor.  When you write, you can take pride in all the groupies and extravagant wealth you gain from your moderately interesting Blogger posts.  When you train martial arts, you can feel proud about your ability to Karate the hell out of things.

I'm gonna Karate the shit outta you, persistent self-doubt!

On top of that, martial arts also leads to everything else associated with any other physical activity, too, such as better health and energy levels.  There is also the fact that, hey, you are training with a group of human beings, and that means people you can socialize with!  If its a tight knit enough school, you may even hang out with them outside of class.  Rad, right?

So now we have a pretty good idea of why people with low self-esteem might benefit from martial arts.  But what about jerks with high self-esteem?

The answer to this question is the sense of humbleness that you get from good martial arts.  To reiterate a post from my previous blog, a good martial art is a martial art that trains with aliveness.  Aliveness means that some aspects of your training involve an opponent that is actually offering resistance against you in a way that isn't in a set pattern.

The ultimate form of aliveness is sparring/kumite/randori/rolling/foreplay/whatever your art calls it, where you go against an opponent in a simulated match where both participants are trying to gain the upper hand.  But there are other forms of aliveness, too.  For instance, hitting punching mitts while the holder randomly throws counterattacks you have to block or dodge, or drilling techniques where your partner resists instead of being compliant.

When you consistently go against people like this it is phenomenally humbling, especially when you're first starting out and go against more experienced students.  It is particularly humbling if you're a dude.  You come in with the same programming that every guy between the age of 14 and dead has: a unique, cognitively dissonant bullshit blend of "I'm gonna learn to flying spin kick or rip off the limbs of all the opponents I ever meet!" and "that martial arts stuff won't work on me, bruh, I just see red and hulk out on them for like thirty seconds straight."  Flying spin kicks and thirty seconds of hulking out may describe my love making style, but you quickly come to realize that these lines of reasoning are both utter bullshit when you actually put yourself to the test in a fight.

 I've been in, like, at least a million street fights, man.  I've seriously lost count at this point.

The thing is, when you fight against someone, myths about fighting become dispelled pretty easily.  When you punch someone's nose in Boxing, you learn that anecdotes about killing someone by sending nose cartilage into their brain is bullshit.  When you learn the sciences of fighting for chokes in Jiujitsu, you learn that dorks who think they can break someone's neck by turning it to the side would in reality only be giving you a rough neck massage.

There are many more examples, but the point is there is a reason we don't all die whenever we accidentally bump into things or play a contact sport.  The human body has evolved to be durable.  In learning this, you realize that all the ridiculously superhuman sounding myth in martial arts is a farce, and that you'll never be able to learn the exploding death touch. As Seanbaby once said, " If you could actually kill someone by poking them in the wrong spot, I would have driven home from the prom a murderer."

With all of these wild myths debunked, you realize you won't be able to take out your opponent easily like the badass you thought you were.  You have to actually, like, slowly learn proper technique, put yourself out there, face a lot of defeats, and relish in the small victories.  No matter how good you are, when you step into a martial arts gym, you will be humbled by people who have been training for a while.  Even if you're naturally athletic or quick to pick things up or whatever else, you'll have a lot to learn and be around people who have more experience than you.

When I first started learning martial arts, I certainly had internalized a lot of bullshit.  But as time went on, that broke down and I was forced to face the reality: I wasn't that amazing at it, nor would I learn any sacred mega techniques that could fell any opponent in one easy move.  I ended up sticking with it regardless, and both my ability and my confidence grew.  Each time my head started getting too big, however, I would go against a more experienced student and end up getting my ego deflated quickly.

It may sound discouraging, and it can be.  There were plenty of days I wanted to quit.  But instead, I kept with it and continued making small, incremental improvements that were hard to see.  However, every once in a while something will happen, and you will have an "aha!" moment reminding you that everything has been worth it.  The most recent one for me happened last time I was rolling with members from my Jiujitsu gym, 10th Planet Vista.

I'm the bearded one in the multicolored Bruce Lee shirt sitting down in the front, to the right.

We were doing Jiujitsu on the beach in Oceanside a few weeks ago, and I was going against some of my fellow students.  Now, the people that come to these beach sessions tend to be some of the more skilled/dedicated students in class.  We're talking most of them at least being seasoned blue belts, a rank which is usually earned after a year and a half to two years of intensive training, and a lot of them even being purple belts (the next rank, which is usually earned after about three to four years of intensive training).  As someone who had been training there only during weekends and holidays while at UC Irvine, and then started going consistently only when I finished at UCI back in March of this year, I of course get turned into a pretzel by these more experienced members when rolling.

On this day, however, I actually held my own- relatively speaking, of course.  From the people who were way above me in rank/experience, I was able to last for a lot longer than I usually do.  Even when they would take my back and go for a choke, I would usually be able to defend myself and escape the position.  It sounds like a small thing, and that's because it is.

I was beaming with pride afterward, because I thought of every time I ever got choked out by a higher ranking belt in seconds.  Since I had gone through that so many times, I had gradually learned how to defend myself properly, and was much harder to submit than I was in the past.  Small, incremental progress.

What is important to take away from these small victories is you gain them not by innately being a badass, but by accepting defeat and continuing to work past it.  There is no shortage of people who will quit something because they aren't initially great at it.  I lost count of the times I've seen 200-something pound guys come into different places I've trained, thinking they'll be the next Chuck Liddell or Cain Velasquez, only to get beaten in sparring or submitted in rolling and never come back again.  Its because they're used to being the big kid on the playground, and can't handle having that reality shattered.

Even Georges St Pierre, widely considered the second or third best UFC fighter of all time, almost quit in his early days due to some set backs, but stuck with it and broke records.  

What does this have to do with violence?  Well, when you are consistently testing your fighting skills in an environment with these humbling small victories, you tend to not think of yourselves as "better" than other people in the traditional sense.  After all, your skill wasn't something you initially started out with, it was something you honed through countless defeats.  Even if you're a high level practitioner, there will still be more people around who have more experience and skill than you do.  With what you learn, you realize that the way to surpass people better than you isn't to act like an aggressive asshole, but to keep putting in work and earning those small victories.

Now, with all of this said, there are still plenty of major assholes in martial arts.  There are assholes anywhere.  The key here is there tend to be less, because the benefits from martial arts give you self-esteem boosts while the constant defeats keep your ego from getting too big.  People who stick with it in the long term tend to display less aggression because they find the healthy, constructive type of confidence that let them continue to grow as martial artists.

Speaking of which, here is an old video from a couple years back where my friend David Zafra and I interview 10th Planet Vista's head instructor, Ryan Fortin!  Thanks for reading, everyone.

Avatar: Analyzing the Writing in The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra

In my previous blog post about poignant moments in video games, I talked about how one of my writing classes at UC Irvine taught us to read stories from the perspective of a writer.  We were told to go through and think about narrative choices the authors made, and how those choices added to their stories.  The underlying idea was that we would develop the ability to analyze fiction to understand what made it work, and then be able to take different writing decisions we liked to apply to our own stories in ways that worked for us.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best written television shows I have ever watched.  Like with the television show The Walking Dead, I was reluctant to watch it until a combination of my friends and my sister eventually persuaded me to, insisting I would really like it.  I enjoy The Walking Dead and follow the series, but I was absolutely blown away by how fantastic The Last Airbender was (this will be the only pun here, I promise).  Or not.

The deceptively simple world everything takes place in.

Since then, two full seasons of Legend of Korra have come out to positive, but not glowing, reviews.  The consensus seems to be that they are still good, but don't live up to the quality of The Last Airbender.  So far for season three, however, the reviews have been better, and people are calling this season a "return to form" for the writers.  Why is this the case?  Some people have said the lighter tone and returning to an open world adventure are what have made the difference, but here I will make the argument that it goes a lot deeper than that.  In this post I am going to analyze the writing of The Last Airbender, then analyze what Korra did differently, and finally discuss what this new series does that harkens back to the first series.

I'd also like to take a quick moment to thank all my friends whom I've discussed this show with.  You've all helped me see things I wouldn't have otherwise noticed and given me some fantastic insights.

Avatar: The Last Bender








In the first series, Avatar Aang awakens after a hundred years to find that the Fire Nation has wiped out his people, the Air Nomads, and colonized the Earth Kingdom.  Through the course of sixty one episodes, Aang has to learn how to bend the other three elements, build a resistance against the Fire Nation, and ultimately defeat the Father Lord... err, Fire Lord.

In a narrative sense, that sounds simple, right?  Well, yes, it is.  It is a simple template for a story, and it never truly deviates from this path.  A lot happens in between Aang becoming unfrozen and defeating the Fire Lord, and certainly the stakes are raised as the plot progresses, but the show never actually deviates from this overarching goal.  The plot, at the end of the day, is simply another grandoise good versus evil plot.

This actually ends up helping the show, however, rather than hindering it.  Because the overarching narrative never changes, the writers are able to focus more on creating compelling characters and exploring some complex ideas in seemingly simple concepts.

I could talk a lot about any of the characters on the show.  Aang, who has to cope with the genocide of his people while still trying to find the strength to both fulfill his role as the Avatar and remain optimistic in the face of everything standing in front of him.  Katara, who will always be there for a loved one and would never hesitate to help a stranger, but will go scorched earth if you betray her.  Sokka, who is sarcastic and wacky on the outside, but on the inside is a very intelligent person who sometimes struggles with the fact he is the only non-bender on the team.  None of these characters are done justice by a single sentence summary, and thats a testament to how much depth they gain from all the time we spend with them.

There are two characters I do quickly want to focus on, however, as they are my two favorite.  The first is Toph Beifong.

 

Melon Lord ain't nothin' ta fuck with

What is great about Toph is that she is a well written badass.   Making a character a badass isn't too hard, all you have to do is give them some "tough" characteristics- in Toph's case, an IDGAF attitude and a lone wolf personality, not to mention top notch bending skills.  But the writers manager to do two things with her: explain these "tough" traits she is given, and give her human vulnerabilities.

The personality traits I mentioned before are there because her parents tried to shelter her, so she had to sneak away to the earth bending tournaments to really find a place to spread her wings.  There, she fought as the Blind Bandit, where acting tough and winning fights was what mattered.  She still had to keep her distance, though, lest people find out who she really is.

A lot of writers who write "badass" characters don't give them real vulnerabilities out of fear that people will no longer think of them as badass anymore.  Toph, however, is given real vulnerabilities.  One of them is her struggle with her femininity.  In Tales of Ba Sing Se, she talks about not being able to see how she looks or having no clue about make up does make her feel insecure sometimes, even if she keeps a tough front.  The only way she knows how to be feminine is the "proper" way her parents tried to force on her, but that just isn't who she is.  She therefore has to struggle to find it on her own terms.

Speaking of struggle, my other favorite character from the show is Zuko.

Hello, Zuko here!

Zuko is a classic villain to antihero to good guy character. Like with Toph as a badass, he is a well written version of a timeless character archetype.  His transformation feels so believable because they had a lot of time to work with it and let it happen without feeling forced.  When he is introduced, he is ruthless, but not in a cartoonishly villainous sort of way.  He makes good on his word when he invades the Southern Water Tribe in the beginning to spare the village if the Avatar is handed over.  He isn't the type of villain who kicks puppies for fun, he just wants to get Aang and get back home.

As the story unfolds, his transformation is gradual, which helps make it more believable.  Characters don't just suddenly realize they've been wrong the whole time, unless something drastic happens.  Zuko's adventures throughout the Earth Kingdom begin to open his eyes to how much his nation has hurt the world.  He begins to question things, then at the end of book two seems ready to switch sides.  Except, when the critical time comes, he chooses to side with the Fire Nation and attempts to capture Aang.

This is a milestone moment.  It would have been easy to have him side with Aang after all the build up, but instead he chooses to go with the Fire Lord, because at the end of the day he is still a fourteen year old who desperately wants the approval of his dad that has been denied to him all of his life.  When he gets that and realizes it is not enough, his decision to rebel after that means he can join the Avatar team without any regret or uncertainty.  He knows what his father has to offer, and he doesn't want it.

He is also plagued with guilt when he joins, particularly about betraying his uncle.  Considering we see how Iroh was the father figure to Zuko that his own father never was, we agree.  But having seen everything Zuko went through, both in his back story and everything that transpires throughout the series, we also see where Zuko is coming from.  Ultimately, it all pays off in an incredibly rewarding reunion towards the very end of the show.

I'm sure I'm with other Avatar fans when I wonder aloud, "why are my allergies suddenly acting up?"

They also are able to explore complex wrinkles in seemingly straightforward situations.  They do this by taking these simple situations and asking questions about how the characters react to them.  Defeating the Fire Lord sounds simple enough, in the sense that it is a clear goal without much moral ambiguity... but what do they do afterward?  He's the most powerful bender in the entire world, after all.  Aang has to struggle with this for a while before arriving at an answer, and it involves his overwhelming desire to never murder anyone conflicting with that of his group and even past versions of himself.

The show asks plenty of these questions.  Should the team stop to help different groups of people or villages when they are in a hurry?  How does one balance their anger at injustices done by the Fire Nation without becoming consumed by hatred and revenge?  How about these henchmen, who are working for the empire but are revealed to be actual human beings who crack jokes and make small talk and have their own lives?  These questions about how the characters will interact with the world and others in it add depth to a simple premise.

What I do want to point out, though, is that these questions are personal.  They're not asking any big questions about society or the world, other than taking safe stands like women in the Northern Water Tribe should be considered equals or Fire Nations should be governed by peace.  Even the heaviest issue in the series, the genocide of the Air Nomads, is personalized through Aang.  It is him who has to struggle with having lost his home, cope with having no one else who comes from his same culture, and try to figure out how he can be preserve it as the last remaining Air Nomad.  This personalization of struggle, of course, also adds to the characterization of each person on the show.

The Legend of Korra










When Legend of Korra was announced, I was excited.  As details leaked, I became even more excited.  Set in an early 1920s-esque steam punk setting?  A city free of any particular nation that is about peaceful coexistence between different benders?  A bending-stealing villain who actually has a good point, that their society benefits benders far more than it does non-benders?  Holy shit!

I watched beginning of Book 1 and adored it.  The plot moved at such a fast pace, and they did a fantastic job of showing some of the ways in which non-benders were marginalized.  Amon was legitimately scary, which is hard to do when the protagonist is the Avatar and the villain is a guy who allegedly can't even bend.  In the appropriately titled "When Extremes Meet", where Tarrlok ascends to power and acts fascist about catching Amon, we see even further manifestations of benders keeping non-benders down.  Shit was about to go down!

But then, after that episode, the theme is basically dropped.  After Tarrlok is revealed to be Amon's brother, and Amon is revealed to be a blood bender, we don't hear much about how non-benders are treated anymore.  At the end of the series, when they get their bending back and everyone is all happy, there isn't a single mention about what to do about all the ways non-benders are marginalized.  It switches back to the simple "bad guy defeated, happy ending!" storyline that the writers are more comfortable with.

In the end, the only commentary they left was the very safe and very lazy "both extremes are bad!" message.  That would be fine if the theme were a side detail, but when it is part of the thematic foundation of the entire season, it is less forgivable.

Now, even though I didn't love that part, I still liked a lot about the show.  We didn't have a lot of time with the new characters, but we still saw them go through a lot and saw them grow by the end of the series.  Sometimes the story was a bit too plot driven, focusing on twists and turns that didn't always do much other than take away time from the characters.  Still, they were solid characters.  We also got callbacks to the first series, which was a treat for us fans of the first show.

 

There was also this moment, where Ikki taught us to hate (something the internet definitely doesn't do enough).

When the next season was announced, I was hopeful still.  I liked the first season overall, and this new season promised some more interesting ideas to tackle.  The first book offered only 12 episodes.  This one offered 14, but then an additional 26.  That meant that now things would be less rushed and we'd have more time to flesh everything out.  Not only that, but the main antagonist from this season was Korra's uncle, who wants to preserve a lot of the old ways and retain his spirituality in an increasingly modern world.  How is the show going to explore a balance of old vs new and spirituality vs secularism in this increasingly "modern" world?

The answer was, not very well.  This was another case of "villain begins the show with a good point, ends up as another unambiguously evil character by the end."  In the season finale, she is literally fighting the manifestation of chaos itself, which threatens to destroy the entire world.  That would be fine if that was what they had promised us, but what they had been building towards earlier was about conflict between the old and the new.

Now, this one at least is answered somewhat, by erasing the gap between the spirit world and the human world.  A solution that makes sense in that world, but doesn't translate very well to social commentary about a similar struggle in our world, where opening spirit portals is not a possibility (as far as we know).

But at least we got to bond with the characters, right?  Unfortunately, it seemed that the characters from the previous season didn't seem to grow much.  Korra's hot-headedness got in the way in the same ways it did last time, right down to her siding with a villain over Tenzin and later realizing the error of her ways.  Tenzin himself didn't seem to learn from the first season that he is often overbearing.  A lot of other characters are simply written with less depth, like Bolin transforming from lovable scamp to complete idiot and Lin Beifong becoming the same stubborn police chief you see in every cop movie ever: the one who can't see the truth until its too late.

Personally, when I watched this season, the characters I liked the most were Tenzin's siblings and Jinora, because they all both felt like real people and avoided rehashing personal struggles from a previous season.  The absolute highlight for me came when we saw Iroh, a character we had grown to care about from the previous series.  The two part episode covering the origins of the Avatar was also a highlight, partially because there were no false promises or rehashes in those episodes.

Having covered the first two seasons, lets look at the new one.  I mentioned before some might think that the lighter tone and around the world adventure are what is drawing people back, and maybe that is the case for some people.  But it also calls back to the original show in a few other ways, and I think that deserves recognition.

First and foremost, there are no more false promises being made about answering complex questions about large, difficult issues.  The villains haven't given away their motives, so we aren't being fed anything about large social problems that need addressing only to be swept under the rug later  The villains are powerful and trying to get to Korra, and that is all we need to know for now.

With these villains in the background and no big social issue to tackle, we have been given more time with the characters, and its been nice.  We've gotten to learn more about each one, as well as see that they have actually grown.  Korra, for instance, is a lot calmer than she used to be.  She has remained bold, but is no longer always short tempered and quick to jump the gun the way she was last season.  Tenzin seems to have learned, too, being more lenient with Jinora.  I could go on, but it seems like the characters are now growing, and being handled better in general.

We're all happy this new season is better, Jinora.

In terms of the plot, like the original series, we see a complex issue that is personalized, instead of a wide societal issue.  Tenzin is trying to figure out how he can get people to join the Air Nomad order, and I'm sure later a central struggle will be him trying to figure out how to mix Air Nomad tradition with a world that is much different than the last time they were around, and with people who weren't raised as Air Nomads.  What will stay?  What will go?  Who else will he consult in these decisions?  These are questions he will have to face, and I look forward to seeing them answered.

As for everything else happening, like going around the world to help recruit for Tenzin and freeing air benders from the Earth Queen, the plot has been the decision of the characters.  Until they learned about the escaped group of villains, they had no antagonists immediately pushing the action, and that gave us a chance to see what good they would do in their down time.  Even when they learn about the villains, they make ready, but don't make it their number one priority.  This also shows character growth: old Korra would have immediately left everyone and walked around with a neon sign saying "I'M THE AVATAR, FIGHT ME YOU FUCKERS!"  Instead, she is preparing to defend herself if she needs to, but wants to remain focused on what is more important.

There is so much more I could talk about in every section of this blog: what The Last Airbender did right (hell, I could probably write an entire essay about Toph or Zuko Alone), where Korra's first two seasons went wrong (though to be fair, they were still quite good), and where this season promises to go back to focusing on characterization and finding tough personal questions in seemingly straight forward situations.  Hopefully this can, at the very least, serve as a launching point for people to think about why certain parts of a show can be considered hit or miss.