Really Sick Of People Calling The Comics 'out Of Character' And Saying Fanfics Are More In Character.

Really sick of people calling the comics 'out of character' and saying fanfics are more in character. Like. I don't think you understand how this works. The creator of the content/characters decides who the characters are and what they're like. The comics cannot be out of character because the writers define what is in character to begin with. Your fanfics are not more 'in character' because you do not decide what the character is INTENDED to be like.

What they mean is 'the comics don't write the characters the way I wanted to see them or how I personally interpreted them'. That's not 'out of character', that's you being a fan of a personally idealized and/or old version of the characters.

Now, there can be talk about inconsistences in the characterization and then you start having a soapbox to stand apon but even then, I feel like people see anything that feels inconsistent and immediately go 'this is bad writing and the writers not remembering who their characters were' instead of asking WHY the inconsistency might be there because, fun fact, people and characters can be multifaceted and respond differently in different situations.

Case in point: Aang agreeing to kill Zuko. "That's out of character because Aang wasn't willing to kill Ozai."

1. That's false to begin with because Aang verbally acknowledge that if he had to do it then he had to do it.

2. This is a year later.

3. This is an entirely different situation.

This is not an unknown genocidal maniac, this is his best friend who personally asked for this promise. There are two ways you can interprete it and it still makes sense because, again, characters can be complex.

1. Aang doesn't kill because he believes all life has value. In agreeing to Zuko's request, he is not saying Zuko's life doesn't have value, he's saying the value of Zuko's life rests in Zuko's hands. This isn't a matter of life value, it's a matter of respecting Zuko's choice and right to his own life. Whether or not you agree with a stance like that doesn't mean someone can't have that stance. Many people do believe in the right to suicide.

2. (My personal interpretation) Aang is not agreeing to kill Zuko as a punishment, he is agreeing to kill Zuko as a mercy. The choice is not "kill or don't kill" it's "kill or strip bending and lock away to rot for years". It's like the zombie promise, where one character makes another agree to kill them if they turn because they'd rather be dead than be a zombie. Zuko specifies that he's asking this as a friend, as a personal choice for his comfort. Zuko would rather be dead than be like his father.

They literally go over this while Aang's talking to Roku, where Aang himself is like "Uh, so, that promise was kinda stupid because I couldn't even kill his DAD" and Roku goes "yeah, but you made a promise to Zuko" and that this was about Zuko's request, not about punishment or whatever. And then Roku starts trauma dumping as he do. And Aang goes "idk about that chief, friends be friends, just cause your friendship fell apart don't mean mine will" and multiple times people are like "yo Aang do it" and he insists that, nah, there's probably a better way or something he's not understanding.

This isn't out of character because the writers decide who Aang is as a character, and it isn't even that unbelievable if you stop expecting characters to be one note. This isn't Aang facing down whether or not to kill an enemy, this is Aang facing down whether or not to keep a fucked up promise to a friend.

Also, Aang gets pressured a lot in the comic and a regular flaw of his that we see in the show is that he's really fucking weak to pressure and regularly goes through this cycle of "I'm pretty sure this is the right choice" "everyone around me disagrees maybe I'm wrong" "ah fuck I'm wrong" "no fuck that no I'm not" "fuck all yall I do what I want", which is,,,,, literally his whole deal in The Promise.

But nOoOoOo, it's out of character because he didn't do what the fanfic writers would have had him do.

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