[No Spoilers] First time watching TLA and LOK - thoughts so far

I am not saying the arc is bad, I'm saying the very end of it was handled somewhat poorly by not weaving it into the main plot enough (The field tripthing can be almost entirely trimmed to around 27 minutes and not lose everything).

It is somewhat bad writing to sideline the plot that much so late to focus on character arcs that have been hanging since episode 1 (Katara's trip is another one that could've been handled better). It is not at all terrible, but it is hamfisted much more than many other things in the franchise and could've been handled better than vomiting side plot on the viewer.

They always try to fill the writing/plot holes in LoK by extrapolating and projecting their feelings/theories/etc to fill the gaps.

I sorta am sorta not. In any other piece of media I have come across digressing the main plot that much is seen by many as boring at best and bad at worst, Zuko falls on to the more boring side than bad. The pacing of the whole entire series grinds to a standstill in the last parts due to the main plot overtaking the side plot and the side plots playing a game of catch up. While the plots that do catch up are good and are ended satisfyingly, they distract too much from the main to highlight how bad the situation actually is during that time.

on these criteria ATLA mops the floor with LoK.

LOK had better end game romance, better villains (even the worst one had a point), an arguably better character arc and a better finale to the series (ATLA wrote itself into several corners, LOK was smarter about that)

ATLA had more (in number and sometimes in interest) side characters and plot, better interactions and a somewhat more cohesive story

I'm not saying you are wrong if you like LoK more

I don't like either any more than the other. ATLA just doesn't handle somethings as well as it could. LOK doesn't either.

One thing I will say is that LOK has somewhat of an excuse due to Nick adding more on the plate as time went on, ATLA always knew it had three seasons and it should've paced itself better as a result.

/r/TheLastAirbender Thread