Z is for Zuko

If you’ve read this blog regularly, you know that I am a big fan of the Nickelodeon cartoon show Avater: 

the Last Airbender.  I’ve blogged about it twice, here and here, and I think I’ll probably blog at least once more about it in the future.  I really love this show, and it does so many things right.  There is a lot to learn from it.

I loved all of the characters on the show, but Prince Zuko was my very favorite.  I’ve already blogged about him before as being an awesome antagonist, which he was especially in book 1, but when I got the letter Z in the A to Z challenge, I couldn’t resist doing another Zuko post.  :)

There are going to be some spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the series and want to (and you should want to because I promise that even though it is a cartoon it is really, really good), you might want to stop reading here and come back when you’ve finished.

Zuko starts out as an antagonist, but I think by the end of book one, it is pretty clear that he is more than that.  The story is as much Zuko’s as it is Aang’s, and I believe that they are really both the protagonists each with their own paralleling and intersecting story lines and character arcs.  This time I want to talk about Zuko as a protagonist.

I love stories of redemption, and I love stories where two people on different sides become friends.  I’ve read and watched many stories with these themes, but IMO, no one has done it better than Avatar.

Here are three things I love about Zuko’s redemption story arc.

1.  Even when he changes sides, his goal remains the same.  He always wants the same thing, to restore his honor.  His father, the Fire Lord, banished him in dishonor and told him he had to capture the Avatar in order to restore his honor.  That is the fuel that drives him, that makes him such a relentless antagonist to Aang and his friends.  When he finally changes sides, Zuko still wants to regain his honor, and it is his view of what honor is that has really changed.  He realizes that no one can give him honor, he has to earn it by doing the right thing and restoring the balance the Fire Nation has destroyed.  He joins team avatar to not only regain his honor, but the Fire Nation’s as well.

Why this is important- Zuko goes through big changes, but at the core he hasn’t changed that much.  What defines him does not change, and this helps him stay consistent.  No matter how much he changes, he’s always Zuko deep down.

What we can learn from this- A character doesn’t have to maintain the same goal like Zuko, but something at the core shouldn’t change.  In the end, he/she still need to be the same person.

2.  Love opens his eyes, and no it is not the love of Katara like a lot of team Zutara fans wish (there is no romance between these two characters, but that doesn’t stop some fans from dreaming).  It is the love of his Uncle Iroh.  Iroh is one of the best characters ever written IMO.  Zuko would have never found his way without the patient, ever-hopeful, and unconditional love of Uncle Iroh.  But it is important to note that Zuko doesn’t change for Uncle Iroh, but is inspired to change because of what Uncle Iroh shows him.

Why is this important-  Zuko would never have changed if his uncle hadn’t opened his eyes and helped him see what was really important.  A character can’t be redeemed without some sort of inspiration, and love can be a powerful inspirer.  

What we can learn from this-  I think a lot of redemption romances misses the mark when the redeeming hero (it’s usually the hero, but it could be the heroine) only changes for the heroine.  Love can help open his eyes, but real change has to come from within or it will never stick.

3.  Zuko got everything he wanted before he walked away.  The episode The Crossroads of Destiny drove me nuts at first.  I was so ready for Zuko to join the avatar, and it looked so much like he was going to, but then he joined up with his sister and helped her nearly kill Aang.  But I realized how much more powerful it was for him to have regained his honor in his father’s eyes and his place as heir in the fire nation, to get everything he thought he wanted, and then give it all up to do what he believed was right. 

Why is this important- The change was far more profound when Zuko gave up everything he ever wanted.

What we can learn from this-  We have to make our characters make those tough choices.  Giving up nothing to switch sides is easy but giving up everything to switch sides shows a much higher level of commitment.

4.  The change was realistically shown.  The metaphorical journey Zuko went on was pretty amazing.  There were ups and downs, steps forwards and steps backwards, there was frustration and anger and confusion.  It really was a story about someone trying to figure out who he was and where he belonged.  I loved the episode when he saved Aang from General as the blue spirit, and the episode when he helped the Earth Kingdom boy, and that moment when he stood on top of the mountain in a lightning storm begging the universe to strike him so he could prove he was strong enough to deflect it, and when he confronted his father and proved that he could.  It really showed the small and big moments that changed him.

Why this is important-  Change is never easy.

What we can learn from this- If you really want to write a redemption story, you are going to have to really show it.  No short cuts.

That is all I got.  I’ve really enjoyed this A to Z challenge.  It has been fun reading my fellow prosers posts as well as many of the other participants in the A to Z challenge.  So thanks everyone for a fun month.

~MaryAnn

When the Setting Makes the Story

You know, I had the perfect introduction to this post all written out. But then I accidentally pasted the rest of my post from Word on top of it, and then Blogger autosaved the draft before I could revert to an earlier copy. Now, of course, I can't remember what I said. Are openings for posts one of the most difficult parts of blogs for anyone else?

Anyway, I do remember saying something about I've been wanting to write on a particular aspect of settings for a while. And then with MaryAnn and Susan writing on different aspects of setting last week, I thought it would be the perfect time to continue the theme. MaryAnn wrote about believable societies and Susan wrote about adding details, but I'm going to take a few steps back. I want to talk today about two steps that can take the setting from the background of a story (har) and make it central to the story's heart.

Make it original 

Few things draw me in more than an unusual setting. Some prince tracking his heritage and a lost secret weapon? Snore.  A Zulu prince in the 19^th century chasing down his heritage and a lost secret weapon? Now I’m paying attention. I’m drawn to fantasy because of the way it fires my imagination, and a vividly drawn and unique setting can help a story stick in my mind long past the first read.

Of course, if you’re going to use another culture as your setting, be darn sure you thoroughly do your research. See MaryAnn’s post, and this excellently scathing review from the review site Dear Author of a book set in fake-Japan.

Make it integral to the story, not secondary

A cool and original setting is all good, but if it's not integral to your stories or your characters, it risks feeling tacked on. If the story could be transferred to another setting with few changes, you've got work to do.

The Last Airbender, which was also MaryAnn's example, is an example of a setting that's integral to the story. Given that the heart of the conflict within the story involves the clashes between races (and between bending abilities), there's really nowhere else the story could be.

Settings both original and integral

Many people will tell you there’s nothing really new in fiction, that it’s all been done before. Maybe, but only in the most broad sense. Take these settings: An alternate America. The moon. Venice with fantasy trappings. A school for wizards. Heard it all before, right? Taken that way, these settings have been done dozens of times. But add in those details – Patricia Wrede’s magnificent flora and fauna, Meredith Ann Pierce’s sea of dust, Scott Lynch’s mysterious glass towers, and of course J.K Rowling's Harry Potter series – make those tired tropes new again. You all know Harry Potter, but here's more on what of these other three series so captivated me.

Patricia Wrede’s Frontier series

The Frontier series is set in an alternate history America in about the 1800s.  The book mostly takes place on a small settlement along the Mississippi River. In this series, the founding fathers were all mages, and they set up a Great Barrier spell to separate the colonies from the extremely dangerous wilderness on the other side of the river.

There are a whole variety of creatures from history (mammoths, sabre tooth tigers) and magical (swarming weasels, ice dragons). I was especially pleased by the inclusion of dire wolves (best species name ever). Wrede has clearly done her research, and has more than a passing grasp of ecology. Sabre tooth tigers cause plenty of danger (have you ever seen life size models of how huge those things were? YIKES), but the animal that causes the most destruction is an insect. Very ecologically appropriate.

The plot centers on the thirteenth child of a mage who is certain that her birth order means she’s destined for bad luck. The book starts shortly after her family moves to the edge of the Great Barrier Spell, and continues through the next ten years of her life at an occasionally breakneck and jarring pace. But the ideas and characterization are great, and once and a team of mages and scientists move across the Great Barrier Spell and into the open landscape, I was totally hooked. Can’t wait for book three, when we apparently will find out what’s on the other side of the Rocky Mountains (something that can frighten dragons!).

Meredith Ann Pierce’s Darkangel Series

The Darkangel Series is set on the moon of Earth, or Oceanus as it’s called in these books. But this is a moon that has been terraformed and settled, with its own unique landscapes, flora and fauna. The trilogy tells of a young woman kidnapped by the Darkangel to care for his twelve brides, whose hearts he has eaten. Aeriel must use her knowledge and wits and prevent him from taking a thirteenth bride, which would turn him into a vampyre and doom her world.

My favorite book of the trilogy is the second, which takes Aeriel on a journey across the terraformed moon. One of the author’s great strengths is her use of prose to make the settings shine:

She saw that this was the haven of the bats. They flew in and out of the opening and through the cave like silver moths, and many of them clung to the walls and ceilings, like a mass of withered leaves.
 Aeriel’s craft sped over the Sea-of-Dust, riding the swells that rolled like water and glowed by starlight with their own internal fire. Beneath the surface, Aeriel saw the silt-fine particles constantly shifting. Wind stole a few from the crests of the waves, whirling them off in dust devils against the dark, starry sky…
Stars turned. Night drifted by. Oceanus peered over the rim of the world, and Aeriel’s heart lifted, soared. The air was showered in its ghost-blue light. 

Does a dust sea make logical sense? No. Do I care? Absolutely not, because the image is so strong in my mind that I would dearly love to see an ocean of dust. Cultivating a sense of wonder can get you far.  

Scott Lynch’s Locke Lamora series

Occasionally, when I read a new book, I become immensely jealous that I didn't come up with a particular idea. In Scott Lynch’s case, I’m in love with his idea of mysterious cities left behind by an unknown race (he probably is not the first to use this device, but it’s the first time I was jealous). I love the idea of moving through these mysterious technologically advanced and completely indestructible glass structures that glow and fade with the hours of the day. I actually didn't realize the setting was based in Venice until I read the author’s website.

  

The city, rather than animals or exotic landscapes, is the star of the setting here. Even aside from the Elderglass tower, Lynch puts intricate detail into all parts of the city, from the slums to high society - literally, in this case, where they reside high in the alien towers. It's been a while since I've read this, but one of the things that sticks in my mind is the idea of Gentled animals, of damaging a creature's brain until it's permanently docile. Probably of great use to anyone who has to deal with recalcitrant donkeys, but creepy as heck.

I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a new fantasy read. Lynch has a way of twisting the plot in completely unexpected directions.  Trying to explain the plot is, therefore, rather difficult. As is usual of books with such twisty plots, a short description can sound rather banal: Locke and his band of thieves attempt to pull off a robbery of rich merchants. You’ll just have to take my word that the setting, the characters, the plot and the prose (oh, the prose) are top notch.  And Lynch will take your bull fighters and raise you some shark fighters. (Be warned, this book is rather high on the violence scale).

What are your favorite settings from books, from fantasy or other genres?

Creating Believable Societies

My oldest has been obsessed with Avatar the Last Airbender cartoon lately, and I’ve been sick this week, so not only have I allowed my kids to watch a little more TV than normal, I’ve been watching it with them.  I was very happy that they wanted to watch something that I love so much.

I’ve blogged about the series before, but I think that there are so many great lessons from this series that I have a few more blog posts written in my head that I might share soon as well.  But this time I watched the series, I paid close attention to the world-building.

The world-building is excellent in this series.  It matches the tone and spirit of the story being told, which is far more important than being realistic.  There is a lot thought and details that went into to creating the world, but for this post, I want to look at the societies that were created and why they worked.

I’ve blogged before about world-building basics, but this time, I want to focus on how to make those made up societies feel real using examples from Avatar the Last Airbender.

1.  Think about how your speculative element would affect the day to day life in your societies.

There has to be a reason why your story cannot be told in our world.  It could be a complex magic system or a different history or religion, but there has to be something otherwise why not just place the story in our world, sure make the world building a lot easier.  J

No matter what the elements are in the story that necessitates an alternate world, how those elements affects the society must be thought out carefully.  The society will feel real if it has logically adapted to those speculative elements.

For example:  in Avatar The Last Airbender, there are four kingdoms each based on the element (water, earth, fire, and air) that individuals in each race can bend (manipulate).  I found it interesting how the bending of the different elements affected the society of each nation.

The location of each nation is related to their bending element.  The Water Nation had tribes at the North and South poles, surrounded by water and ice.  The Wind Nomads had temples on mountains and cliffs.  The Fire Nation settled on a string of islands created by volcanoes, and the Earth Nation lived pretty much everywhere else.

I also love how the bending plays into the day to day life of the societies.  How the walls surrounding the great cities in The Earth Kingdom don’t have any gates, earth benders bend the earth in the walls to let people in and out, and the Northern Water Tribe does the same thing with walls of ice.  The mail delivery system in the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu uses a system of tubes and shoots that requires earth bending to get packages up, and the Fire Lords throne is protected by a wall of flames.  These little details of using bending in the daily lives of the people in different nations is what makes the world feel real.

It is important to think about the magic in the world or the technology or religion or whatever elements you add to the world you’re creating and decide how the people would use them to adapt, and how those elements would affect the daily lives of those live in that world.

There is no right or wrong, only what is logical.  There are a million different ways the creators of Avatar could’ve gone, for example:  the water tribe could’ve settled on islands or a rain forest or on floating cities on lakes or oceans, but the settling at the poles makes perfect sense too.  All you need to do is choose a logical direction and add those little details, and the society will feel real even if it is far from realistic.

2.  Don’t make any race either all good or all bad. 

This is extremely important.  Nothing feels more false to me than one society being brilliant, moral, and perfect in every way while another is brutish, selfish, and the epitome of evil.  There is going to be good and bad in all societies just like there is good and bad in all people.  Avatar did a great job showing this balance.

The Fire Nation commits genocide on the Air Nomads before the story begins.  They believe they are superior to all the other nations and are trying to conquer the world.  This seems pretty evil, but the Fire Nation itself is not shown as evil only misled by the Fire Lord.

There are many instances where Aang and his friends save innocent Fire Nation citizens (once from Jet trying to flood a Fire Nation controlled village and another in the Painted Lady episode).  The previous Avatar was Fire Nation and he fought against the Fire Lord to protect the four nations and keep balance, and Aang comments on having Fire Nation friends before he was encased in ice for a hundred years.      ***SPOILERS  ***     Uncle Iroh is shown to be a wise, noble character who wants to stop the Fire Nation, and Prince Zuko eventually joins Aang’s side.

The show makes it very clear that the entire Fire Nation isn’t pure evil.

Also, the other kingdoms aren’t perfect either.  The Northern Water Tribe refuses to train Katara because she is a girl.  The Airbender monks threaten to remove Aang from his beloved guardian because they believe the guardian is too soft on Aang, and the corruption and conspiracies in the Earth Kingdom city Ba Sing Se reviles any of the evils of the Fire Nation.

The point is that the creators of Avatar show that all of the nations, just like all people, are flawed.  And this is important in making the world believable.

3.  Be aware of your own culture biases.

Just one more caution when creating a new society.  Be aware of your own culture biases.  We all have them.  Try to treat all cultures even fictional ones with respect.  One of the greatest things about writing is being able to see things from another’s perspective, and if you keep an open mind while world-building you might not just create a more interesting, complex world, you just might become a more tolerant and accepting person in the process.

~MaryAnn

P. S.  I also found this great post about world-building. Check it out.

Collaborative writing

MaryAnn chose for her post this week to write about the show Avatar: the Last Airbender. Which is great, because I had been planning to write about the show this week too, and now instead of trying to describe the show, I can tell you to just go read her post!  

(really, you should anyway, for her tips on writing antagonists. On my part, I spent the first season just wanting to give Zuko a hug.)

Also, I'm just going to put this up here for MaryAnn, and any other fans of Uncle Iroh.

 

But I had actually been planning to only talk about the show tangentially. See, late last year, after listening to me complain about how I could never get my characters to feel real, and that I had some trouble getting myself to write, a friend coaxed me in to joining her Airbender fanfiction group.

I'm not going to talk today about the legality of fanfiction. In our case though, we don't write for anyone bur our small group, we certainly don't attempt to sell anything (definitely not legal, as well as Not Cool), and we don't even use the characters from the show, but our own characters. We just go off from the general setting and events of the series and make up our own plots from there.

There are two ways we write: taking turns on posts on a forum, or all taking turns writing in instant messenger. Basically, it alternates so that each character has a chance to give their perspective and move the scene along. Planning for these sorts of things is a little like improv sketches: you agree about what the scene is and then go from there.

And thus, here is what happens when a by-the-numbers writer enters into the world of collaborative fiction.

1)  What do you mean, I can't make a five page outline first?

It's been a long, slow struggle for me to find the most efficient writing methods for my personality, my ideas, and my (lack of) work ethic. What works for me is lots of planning, outlining, writing out thoughts and ideas in various Microsoft Word documents, deep analysis of characters before writing.

This does not really work when you're sitting on AIM with three other writers all waiting for you to come up with the next portion of the story.

And so I have to come up with something right there on the spot. It's not always good. It's sometimes pretty terrible. But as long as it moves the story along, well, my fellow writers forgive me.

There are still some miscommunications. Last week, I was doing my usual thing of putting out my ten ideas first to get rid of the silly ones, but my fellow writers just said, "but those ideas don't make any sense!" but as I was trying to explain about the list of ideas, the discussion had moved on without me.

In other words, it's good for my ego from both sides.

2) Timeline

This is perhaps been the biggest learning curve for me: we write multiple storylines at the same time. Sometimes decades apart. I'm all, but how do we know that something important hasn't happened in the interim? How can I plan if I don't know what happened already???? To be honest, I'm still not entirely comfortable with this, but I'm doing my best not to appear calm and collected. (note: I am only partially successful at this).

3) Characters

As I have mentioned on multiple occasions, one of my great weaknesses as a writer is character. I tend to come up with great plot ideas rather than great character ideas. This writing group is entirely character based. My first character was kind of a flop, but then I randomly came up with Kalliyan.

This is Kalliyan, as drawn by Shin (one of my fellow writers). For those of you who know the show, she's a waterbender from the Foggy Swamp Tribe. She loves chickens, trees, and making new friends. She makes her money as a mediocre fortune teller (her talents are unreliable, and she's more likely to be able to tell you where you'll be in four days, five hours and sixteen minutes than anything helpful about your love life). She's also incredibly naïve and unprepared for life outside the swamp.

I don't know how it happened this time, but Kalliyan is the kind of character I dream about creating. I always know exactly what she'd do in every situation.  And Kalliyan definitely happens to the plot, rather than the other way around.

And prior to this experience, I would have sworn that I was terrible at humor. But Kalliyan (who is, admittedly, a bit of a caricature) absolutely lends herself to silly situations and sayings.  And yet, when I try to write funny stories for publication, I come up absolutely blank. And that just goes to show how crucial good characters are to great stories.

  

Have these experiences change the way I write? Maybe not in any direct fashion.  Writing for the forum and writing for publication seem to exist in two different spaces in my head. But it's given me confidence that I can come up with ideas and workable sentences on minutes' notice. And that's a good salve for those nights when nothing seems to go right.

Also, I'm having a lot of fun.

Antagonists: Depths and Motives

It has been a long time since I’ve blogged about TV. I know everyone is dying to know what my latest TV obsession is (Merlin, thanks a lot Sabrina), but I’m going to talk about an earlier obsession, Avatar, the Last Airbender.

NOT THIS (Trust me if you haven’t seen this movie, don’t)

But THIS



Yes, it is a cartoon.

The Premise

There are four nations each with the ability to bend one of the four elements: water, earth, fire, and wind. Every generation the Avatar is born who is the only one with the ability to bend all four elements. The Avatar keeps peace and brings balance to the four nations.

When the Fire Nation starts a war with the other nations, the Avatar disappears. One hundred years later, a water bender finds an iceberg with Aang (the new Avatar) frozen in it and frees him, but now the Fire Nation has nearly conquered the world. So Aang (A twelve-year-old boy) needs to master all the bending forms and defeat the Fire Lord to bring peace back to the four kingdoms.

The series

You really have to watch a few episodes to appreciate it, but it has all the elements of great storytelling: an overall complex plot, deep characters with rich back stories, an imaginative and fully realized world, and it is really, really funny. It just goes to show you that great storytelling can be found anywhere.

There is a lot to learn from this three season series, but the one thing that stood out the most to me was the main antagonist, Prince Zuko.

Prince Zuko

Prince Zuko is the one in the back

He is the prince of the Fire Nation who was disgraced and banished. He has to capture the Avatar in order to be able to regain his honor and return home to reclaim his birthright. He is intelligent, unrelenting, assiduous, and has some serious anger issues. He is a formidable foe for Aang and his friends.

Over the course of the series Zuko’s backstory is slowly revealed: his insecurities, his loss of his mother, and his desire to be accepted by his father. This enriches his character, strengthens his motive, and makes him very sympathetic.

I’ve heard the advice to make your antagonist the hero of his own story, and this series illustrates why this advice works. In fact, after a few episodes of watching Zuko’s character developing and how Zuko’s storyline often parallels Aang’s, it becomes apparent that Aang and Zuko are both protagonists, only on different sides. And I started to be equally invested in both their stories and hoped that they would unite against the Fire Lord, Zuko’s father, and turn from enemies to allies.

Not every story can or should develop the antagonist to this extent. Some stories really need an under-developed big bad especially when the antagonist is more of a symbol of evil than a character (like Sauron in LOTR). But most of the time, adding some depth to the antagonist strengthens the story.

Pros of having a well-developed antagonist

Increases or deepens the conflict-The stronger the motive of the antagonist, the stronger the conflict is.

Zuko doesn’t just want to capture Aang. He needs to. He is banished from his home and stripped of his honor. The only way he can return home and become the heir to the fire nation is to capture the Avatar. There is no other option for him, and he is determined and obsessed and this just ratchets up the tension.

Makes the plot more interesting-A lot of times, the antagonist drives the plot as much as the hero, so if you have an interesting, well-developed antagonist with real motivations and goals and not just acting like a plot device, your plot will be a lot more interesting.

Zuko always behaved intelligently and true to his character, this put Aang and his friends in a lot of sticky situations, and it was interesting to watch them get through it. When Zuko did make a mistake, it was true to his character and not just a plot device to help the protagonist out (see the Evil Overlord List).

Everything is more dramatic-When the antagonist is seen as a real person and not just some two-dimensional evil overlord, the conflict feels more real. It becomes two real people fighting for different goals, and even if it is clear who is right, just knowing that each have a clear, strong motive, makes the whole thing more dramatic.

When Zuko and Aang fight, knowing what each of them is fighting for and what each of them has to lose makes the fight scenes so much more dramatic and exciting.

The con

The antagonist could take over the story. The stronger, character-wise, the antagonist is, the stronger the protagonist needs to be. Otherwise the audience will start cheering for the antagonist.

In Avatar, they purposely made Zuko as important to the story as Aang. I have to admit that Zuko was my favorite character, but Aang and his friends were just as strong, just as well-developed, and really I loved them all.

Like I said before, not every antagonist needs to be this well-developed, a lot of great stories don’t. But if it can work for your story, it is worth the effort. Personally I love a real, complicated, deep bad guy or girl.

Okay, now I think I need to work a little more on my antagonists. :)

~MaryAnn