That's an interesting perspective about Maiko. My husband and I watched 3x1 expecting a reveal for how they got together at some point in time in the first few episodes and that never happened. It's about the only established plot in the 1st episode that doesn't get "and this is how we got here". There's a lot of exposition that (I later realised) summarized the web comics - Earth King and Bosco, Invasion of the Earth Kingdom (which actually found redundant because it was such the natural next step to Azula/Zuko's conquest at the end of Book 2) and the capture of the Fire Navy vessel. Maiko, on the other hand, doesn't get that set up in an episode of set ups and that's structurally jarring. I expected it would come later and The Beach seems to explain why the're together - that it's a bit deeper than a random hook up - but it doesn't go into the how.
"Zuko Alone" & the incidents with Song and Jin establish Zuko as out of his element with girls in general - it doesn't set Zuko up as reacting to Mai in particular or even noticing her outside his natural instinct to save her from the apple. How he progresses from there to casual PDA in 3x1 (and how Mai went from his bounty hunter to the more confident half of that pairing) was not just a jump in time but in character and plot - the two things that actually make a story, a story. Using the Sokka example, that would be like having Sokka own the space sword in 3x1 with the explanation that he's always loved gadgets the only explanation as to why he owns the sword but no explanation as the why.
Like I said, I'd never read Lord of the Rings but that's a valid observation about Rose. She's not introduced early as part of Sam's profile. Maiko echoes this in a smaller scale when Zuko's interest in Mai is assumed as established in the 3rd act when there's been no prior set up for it. It gets away with this better because Mai is not a new character and her interest in him is revealed quite early. It's part of the reason why some fans regard it as a retcon, especially when compared to the other major romances which begin within the 1st quarter of the 1st act.
More about Arragorn/Arwen would have gone towards showing us more about Arragorn's character but I'm not sure if that would have fit in the structure of the story (there's no "love story" subplot: the ship is part of the background) and it doesn't need to at any rate because the relationship doesn't reveal anything new about his character - not like if Arwen was a character on the other side of the war.
no subject
"Zuko Alone" & the incidents with Song and Jin establish Zuko as out of his element with girls in general - it doesn't set Zuko up as reacting to Mai in particular or even noticing her outside his natural instinct to save her from the apple. How he progresses from there to casual PDA in 3x1 (and how Mai went from his bounty hunter to the more confident half of that pairing) was not just a jump in time but in character and plot - the two things that actually make a story, a story. Using the Sokka example, that would be like having Sokka own the space sword in 3x1 with the explanation that he's always loved gadgets the only explanation as to why he owns the sword but no explanation as the why.
Like I said, I'd never read Lord of the Rings but that's a valid observation about Rose. She's not introduced early as part of Sam's profile. Maiko echoes this in a smaller scale when Zuko's interest in Mai is assumed as established in the 3rd act when there's been no prior set up for it. It gets away with this better because Mai is not a new character and her interest in him is revealed quite early. It's part of the reason why some fans regard it as a retcon, especially when compared to the other major romances which begin within the 1st quarter of the 1st act.
More about Arragorn/Arwen would have gone towards showing us more about Arragorn's character but I'm not sure if that would have fit in the structure of the story (there's no "love story" subplot: the ship is part of the background) and it doesn't need to at any rate because the relationship doesn't reveal anything new about his character - not like if Arwen was a character on the other side of the war.