Tag Archives: character growth

Expectations and Avatar: The Last Airbender

Posted on by Henry

Last week I posted about expectations and Masters of the Air. I skirted around something similar in my previous live action Avatar: The Last Airbender post but, having now finished the first season of live action A:TLA, I’m going to say it directly.

This show suffers greatly from my expectations. If I’d never seen the animated show, I’d be more excited about this live action version. I also just rewatched some of the animated A:TLA because I feared that my memories of it might have been too fond, and…

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, after season 1

Posted on by Henry

What’s my verdict after finishing season one of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters? No spoilers, I liked it. I even loved some of it. But I didn’t love all of it equally—for one, I didn’t care much about the big monsters most of the time.

My lack of interest in most of the monsters turned out just fine! That didn’t detract from the show, because Monarch is far more focused on people, and humanity, than on giant stompy monsters. And it was Monarch’s focus on people that I loved.

I think there are some interesting details in why I loved the parts I loved, and what didn’t work as well for me. Come check it out.

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Portals and the hero’s journey

Posted on by Henry

I figured out what I like about isekai and portal fiction—and why some of it feels so bad.

The portal fiction I love most plays with the hero’s journey. It is, at its core, about characters traveling into the unknown and experiencing growth through trials and tribulations. It’s the same pattern that so much adventure fiction I love adheres to.

The hero’s journey puts a big emphasis on coming home to confront the ways one has grown (in the image above, the Act Three segment saying “Master of Two Worlds” & “Incorporation”). But it’s confronting that growth which is the important part; what home you’re coming home to doesn’t particularly matter, as long as the recognition, confrontation, and resolution with past-self happens. The hero could literally return to their home world, or recognize any space within their new world as sufficiently home-like to be their new home—as long as they have that final confrontation and resolution.

And that’s the thought I had when everything clicked.

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