The Dazzlings/Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai Comparison · 7:02pm Jul 31st, 2015
Okay, Azrael has shown repeated interest in me tackling this topic. I'm not sure why he does, as I already talked to him about it on Skype, but fair enough. I guess there is a bit more I can say.
When Rainbow Rocks came out. Josh Scorcher and Ink Rose did a podcast around what they thought of the movie. Both loved it, and said that Sunset Shimmer was awesome and blah blah blah..... I'm actually going to be putting this video on this blog post so that you can take a look at the idiocy of these 2 analysts.
But Josh brought up a comparison in the video, which is what I'm going to be talking about in this blog post. To find out go to 15:04.
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To compare the Dazzlings to the fire nation female trio, is completely insulting to the fire nation female trio. It's like comparing Equestria Girls to Avatar.... oh wait, that's exactly what this is doing. Comparing a series with beautiful animation, amazing action, incredibly emotionally involving character arcs, and something that tells one big epic memorable story. To a piece of commercialized garbage which only exists so that Hasbro can bring in money from hideous Monster High knockoff dolls.
Now, I guess they were just comparing the characters, not the shows, but nevertheless, comparing something from Avatar to something from Equestria Girls is just as insulting.
But why is this comparison not valid on the purpose of the characters themselves? Well, to tackle that. Let's take a look at the characters from Avatar, and them as a group.
Azula is a complete and utter psychotic sadist who takes joy in the pain and suffering of the other nations. She is also highly intelligent, a very strong and able fire bender, and someone you would not want to come face to face with. Whenever Azula comes onto screen, you know it's bad news, or at least, you know that she's going to be tough to defeat, if she's even defeated at all. She will not quit, not ever, unless she gets what she wants, and she does this through fear and backstage manipulation. A truly menacing foe, and as I said, not one that you want to come up against.
To take into account how she always finds a way to get what she wants. Let's look at Ty Lee. Ty Lee initially, wanted absolutely nothing to do with the war. She was happy with her life at the circus. Ty Lee was a close friend of Azula's, and she realized that full out threatening her would not be beneficial to her, as she would loose that friendship. So instead, she went backstage and made it look like the circus was highly dangerous so that her friend wouldn't want to be there anymore. Of course, she told the ringleader to do this.
But Ty Lee nevertheless is an incredibly innocent soul. Whilst she does go to help Azula after this, she wanted to do the right thing in the end, and that is why she eventually betrayed Azula and helped Zuko and Sokka rescue the prisoners from the Boiling Rock.
Mai on the other hand, always hated Azula, unlike Ty Lee who was previously her friend. She was always used by her, and bullied by her, and only ended up helping her because she wound up in that situation. However, she loves Zuko and has always loved him, so much that even when he has betrayed her, she still helps him escape from the prison. Remember, she never liked Azula, and only did what she told her to due to fear.
So after I've talked about the entire group dynamic between these three. What about the dazzlings?
I can list their personalities in such a short piece of writing.
Adagio: The only one who is remotely motivated in achieving her goal (ignoring the huge amount of plot holes in RR, which are for another day.)
Aria: The moody one who always complains.
Sonata: The annoying wise cracker who never shuts the fuck up.
All of them have one dimensional personalities. Their completely flat, and don't have anything that is remotely good about them. Comparing them all to Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee is especially insulting, and here's the actual comparison.
Sonata is nothing like Tai Lee. Whereas Tai Lee had a huge sense of innocence and postitivity, as well as a desire to help her friend until she realized how evil she was, Sonata is just annoying. She has no humanity at all, and is only there to tell jokes.
Aria is nothing like Mai, because whereas with Mai there was a clearly defined character and an almost tragic one, Aria is just there to bicker with Adagio.
Adagio is nothing like Azula, because whereas Azula was scary, psychotic, intelligent, and competent, Adagio is a flat and forgettable villain.
I will say that the dazzlings may have been incredibly poorly based on these three. They do have a similar group dynamic, I will give you that.
Basically, the dazzlings are highly flanderized versions of the fire nation female trio. Taking three dimensional characters and making them completely one dimensional.
But to be honest, McCarthy should start coming up with her own ideas for villains instead of just poorly ripping off other peoples.
Excellent entry. Just few little adjustment here and there:
And is Ty, not Tai.
Other than that is a great work!
I don't recall Sonata actually making any jokes in the movie?
Unless you mean the community and its Taco Tuesday jokes... In which case, BURN THE TACOS WE ALREADY HAVE MUFFIN JOKES DAMN IT
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but did Mai truly hate Azula? I don't recall Mai actively wanting to hurt the girl, or anything like that. The most that I can recall is that Mai nearly left with Zuko, but couldn't (possibly out of fear or a sense of obligation to Azula)
In retrospect, I still find it hard to believe that such a comparison can even exist. I mean, it's literally two different genres. Azula, Mai, and Ty are the three deadly beauties of the series that is adventure based (like most animes [can it even be considered anime if it wasn't Japanese originally?]) The Dazzlings are... dazzling? I can't see any similarity with the deadly trio. Whereas the trio of Azula, Mai, and Ty not only were archetypes (i.e., the cruel one, slightly mopey one, energetic one) but also expanded beyond the archetype, the Dazzlings did not. They remained as archetypes, thereby turning them into stereotypes.
To be honest, I can't see McCarthy drawing inspiration from a show that aired a decade ago, and that's not even counting the fact that RR came out only last year... so it's hard for me to draw that connection to something that distant...
So, what we have is an action, adventure, romance, comedy anime-like show, compared with a movie that was... high school. Yeah. I don't see the similarities.