Audience interpretation is the most valid assessment of a story. It's no good Rowling telling us Harry is a hero if fans have a problem with his use of an Unforgivable. The same with Mai.
Trie audience interpretation is important, but it's hardly uniform, and liking a character or not isn't the same thing as misunderstanding them. I've heard plenty of people who dislike Mai without misunderstanding her, so I don't think that's a flaw in the author. Likewise I think JKR wrote Harry Potter as a hero by her standards and a lot of people agree with that--including his use of Unforgivable. On 24 the writers spend a lot more time making their case for why Jack is a hero for torturing people and I still don't buy it.
Which is why though I enjoy her character, I can't dismiss criticsm of Mai.
I think there's plenty of valid criticism to make of Mai as a person. I just don't think it necessarily translates into a failure of her writers. They showed her doing things, they didn't really strongarm us into telling us how we had to interpret her. She's blatantly bad in the beginning and has a good moment helping the good guys in the end. Some people don't think that moment makes up for her being a villain before, and don't respect that she's doing it to save her boyfriend. Other people are just fine with it. But having different judgments about a character's actions doesn't imo mean that the writers didn't do it right. I don't think they meant to write her as somebody who's a complete good guy at the end of the series and don't think it would necessarily be better if she was.
Also I don't agree that Mai simply thinking that boyfriend>>>brother is the most direct reading since that's not what I got when I watched it. Zuko is more important to her than Tom Tom, imo, but I still think that reducing the two actions to only that ignores all of the stuff we do get about Mai elsewhere. Her apathy seems a little too highlighted to me to not be more important than her feelings about individual members of her family.
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Trie audience interpretation is important, but it's hardly uniform, and liking a character or not isn't the same thing as misunderstanding them. I've heard plenty of people who dislike Mai without misunderstanding her, so I don't think that's a flaw in the author. Likewise I think JKR wrote Harry Potter as a hero by her standards and a lot of people agree with that--including his use of Unforgivable. On 24 the writers spend a lot more time making their case for why Jack is a hero for torturing people and I still don't buy it.
Which is why though I enjoy her character, I can't dismiss criticsm of Mai.
I think there's plenty of valid criticism to make of Mai as a person. I just don't think it necessarily translates into a failure of her writers. They showed her doing things, they didn't really strongarm us into telling us how we had to interpret her. She's blatantly bad in the beginning and has a good moment helping the good guys in the end. Some people don't think that moment makes up for her being a villain before, and don't respect that she's doing it to save her boyfriend. Other people are just fine with it. But having different judgments about a character's actions doesn't imo mean that the writers didn't do it right. I don't think they meant to write her as somebody who's a complete good guy at the end of the series and don't think it would necessarily be better if she was.
Also I don't agree that Mai simply thinking that boyfriend>>>brother is the most direct reading since that's not what I got when I watched it. Zuko is more important to her than Tom Tom, imo, but I still think that reducing the two actions to only that ignores all of the stuff we do get about Mai elsewhere. Her apathy seems a little too highlighted to me to not be more important than her feelings about individual members of her family.