That's precisely why it's filler especially since there is a lot of missing buildup/backstory to the finale. You can skip The Runaway and it won't make a difference.
Make a difference to what? I realize that it's not necessary for the plot, the the Bei Fongs don't turn up again, but it's a TV series. "Filler" implies that it's like a foam peanut packing the actual object. An episode about this character is just as legitimate as any other episode. It's a stand-alone episode rather than moving along the central plot, but that doesn't make it disposable mean that it took time away from telling us something about a more minor character. We know as much about Mai as they thought they needed to tell us. If they'd had a story about Mai they thought they should tell I think they would have told it.
The level of attention Mai got would have been fine if they had given her the right kind of attention.
I'm just not comfortable with saying it's the wrong kind of attention because there are fans who think she's shallow. There's fans who think lots of characters suck. I don't think the writers were wrong for not giving those viewers whatever it was they were looking for from Mai, which might even not be in character for her. Just as some people look at Mai and think she's just shallowly into her boyfriend, other viewers didn't get that at all from TBR. Sometimes the gestures are going to read louder than any context.
I don't think she's flimsy but she does strike me as someone comfortable with letting a trusted other be her own moral centre.
Possibly, but is that a problem for where she is at the end of the story? She's not being presented as a person who acts out of a strong moral center, she's shown as somebody apathetic and believing in the Fire Nation to somebody who throws her lot in with the rebel Prince Zuko. She doesn't switch sides via the same route as Zuko or Iroh or Ty Lee. Love for Zuko is a catalyst in which Zuko's love for her is not.
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Date: 2009-02-26 05:34 pm (UTC)Make a difference to what? I realize that it's not necessary for the plot, the the Bei Fongs don't turn up again, but it's a TV series. "Filler" implies that it's like a foam peanut packing the actual object. An episode about this character is just as legitimate as any other episode. It's a stand-alone episode rather than moving along the central plot, but that doesn't make it disposable mean that it took time away from telling us something about a more minor character. We know as much about Mai as they thought they needed to tell us. If they'd had a story about Mai they thought they should tell I think they would have told it.
The level of attention Mai got would have been fine if they had given her the right kind of attention.
I'm just not comfortable with saying it's the wrong kind of attention because there are fans who think she's shallow. There's fans who think lots of characters suck. I don't think the writers were wrong for not giving those viewers whatever it was they were looking for from Mai, which might even not be in character for her. Just as some people look at Mai and think she's just shallowly into her boyfriend, other viewers didn't get that at all from TBR. Sometimes the gestures are going to read louder than any context.
I don't think she's flimsy but she does strike me as someone comfortable with letting a trusted other be her own moral centre.
Possibly, but is that a problem for where she is at the end of the story? She's not being presented as a person who acts out of a strong moral center, she's shown as somebody apathetic and believing in the Fire Nation to somebody who throws her lot in with the rebel Prince Zuko. She doesn't switch sides via the same route as Zuko or Iroh or Ty Lee. Love for Zuko is a catalyst in which Zuko's love for her is not.