August 31, 2008 at 06:16 PM · Posted under family
As you may have read on Sarah’s blog, Edward loves to play The Bee Game. We tie a robe sash to one of his arms or legs and he gets to wiggle his bee mobile around. It’s like a videogame, but with better physics. He really likes to figure out which limb is controlling the bees, then keep perfectly still until the bees have stopped swinging, then unleash a big wiggle to shake them all around. He’s even started to hold down the foot connected to the bees with his other foot, for maximum bee stability.
Other cute things Edward is up to:
- He giggles an adorable “heh heh heh” giggle when he’s very entertained by something
- He’s got some serious foot control while kicking around his tethered plastic ball:
- He’ll poise one foot just next to the ball and wait for it to be still, then kick it.
- He’ll grab the ball between his two feet and swing it around.
- He’s discovered that he has feet, and is fascinated by them, especially when he can grab them.
- He’s learning to program (that initial page turning is all him, he loves to play with books):
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August 18, 2008 at 09:24 PM · Posted under essays, television
The best kid’s television series ever ended a couple of weeks ago and not nearly enough people watched it. The show? Avatar: The Last Airbender. And since you probably didn’t watch it I’m going to extol its virtues in the time honored tradition of the comparative list. Since you are practically guaranteed to have read it, the otherwise relatively excellent Harry Potter series serves as our lens to the world of Avatar.
A world-spanning adventure
In Avatar the adventure literally spans the globe from pole to pole. Our heroes travel from the frigid arctic to sweltering swamps to dry deserts to lush tropical paradises and everywhere between.
In Harry Potter we spend 90% of our time with our heroes in a castle in England. Sure, we hear some small snippets about the wider world, but even that wider world doesn’t extend beyond Europe. Really? No magical people from, say, China are interested in stopping the ultimate evil?
A celebration of world cultures
Harry Potter is just as limited culturally as it is geographically. It barely hints at cultures beyond British, and still doesn’t get past Europe and doesn’t really care to. We must either conclude that the rest of the world is simply irrelevant, or that Voldemort was just a serial killer/cult leader stalking around the UK.
In Avatar, the world spanning conflict spans the world culturally as much as it does geographically. Bits of practically every world culture are found in the many disparate peoples of the series. Although the series does have a focus on Asian cultures it is by no means fixed. Bits of Western, Inuit, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and many more cultures make the world of Avatar a rich and compelling place. The global conflict really feels global, and not like some power play for a small European island.
Complex characters and motives
In Harry Potter, with the notable exception of one or two characters, the evil people really are the evil people. The Malfoys are evil from the start. House Slytherin really is the house of evil fighting against the three houses of good that we all thought it was. The Ministry of Magic really is as slow-moving and incompetent as we suspect.
In Avatar, the four nations are truly balanced, with good and bad in each: even the ‘evil’ Fire Nation. At the start of the series the Fire Nation is the faceless horde, bent on world domination. As the series progresses we learn of internal conflicts within the nation, and eventually a face is put to their people and culture and we learn that this isn’t the work of an evil nation but that of an evil person who happens to be a powerful and charismatic leader. Avatar doesn’t really treat people as good or bad, they just follow their logical motivations.
Breaking that down a little more:
In Harry Potter Voldemort wants to kill everyone. Why? Because he’s evil.
In Avatar Fire Lord Ozai wants to dominate the world because he desires power, yes, but also because he believes that his domination will lead to a better world. As we learn about the Fire Nation we find that under his rule the people in the Fire Nation are insulated from the war and actually enjoy a very prosperous lifestyle, albeit with some restriction on individual liberties.
Avatar presents a simplistic but very effective starting point for a discussion of both the lure and peril of imperialism. Harry Potter starts a discussion about why we shouldn’t like evil Wizards and bureaucracy.
Further, Harry never questions what he will do when he finally, inevitably, duels Voldemort. In Avatar Aang seriously soul searches for a solution that will allow him to face Fire Lord Ozai and restore balance to the world without taking a life.
Bending is martial arts based and has set rules and limits
Magic is great for a writer because you always have an out, because it’s magic. Harry Potter can introduce entirely new concepts and abilities as needed by the plot (see Horcruxes and every other plot device that requires Hermione to do something obscure she happened to have read in a book).
Avatar sets down the ground rules for bending and then never breaks them or introduces new plot devices. Instead, it demonstrates how cleverness and real honest to goodness hard work and training (shocking!) can be used to make great things happen within those limits.
Also, each style of bending being based on branches of actual martial arts means that bending is a million times more awesome than magic. Just about every fight scene in Avatar contains some of the best martial arts action I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something.
The adults aren’t all blindingly stupid (but aren’t always right, either)
It would be difficult to find adult characters more utterly, staggeringly idiotic and blind than those in Harry Potter. Look at the Quiddich Referee as a microcosm. Harry is the subject of openly obvious cheating and unusual events, yet the game goes on without a foul or whistle? Hmm, that bludger is continuously making hideously powerful attacks on that one player, even chasing him around and off the court…I’m going to allow this. His broom is clearly being immobilized by an enchantment…I’m going to allow this.
In Avatar, the story is about the children, yes. And they are also unusually gifted children. But the adults of the series are actually clever and competent as well.
You don’t have to be “magical” to be relevant
My biggest gripe with Harry Potter is that the lesson is: only magical characters matter.
In Avatar, many characters, including one of the main characters, has no bending (i.e. magic) ability and still contributes in a major way. We learn that if you work hard you can do whatever you set your mind to. That’s a lesson worth learning.
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