MetellaStella

Analysis of Mao, Tropes, and Worldbuilding for Heroes of Pure Heart

There are so many different angles to come at Mao.

Mao expresses disdain for “magic tricks” and yet we see a mother during the first Bao Bao episode scribble a little glowing gesture into the air, clearly indicating thatmagic exists. That was far before the later episodes released containing more obvious shenanigans with The Ruby Pure Heart granting Adorabat and O.S. powers.

This begs the question, though: if Mao’s slaying sword and his ability to cause explosions and beams of light on his own aren’t magic, what are they?

He himself, I’m pretty sure, is supposed to be a parody of Dragon Ball Z characters. (Think of when he made an orb of power around himself during the Bao Bao episode and made their signature ‘gathering power haaaaah’ sound) I think somewhere buried in the lore of DBZ their powers are referred to as deriving from chi, the life force in Chinese medicine, but I wouldn’t know what episode.

In anime, chi, or qi, is sometimes referred to as magic and sometimes it isn’t.

In China, manipulating this energy is called chi kung.

In Japan, it is called seiki jutsu. (‘ki’ is the same word root as ‘chi.’) Masters such as Ikuko Osumi wield it to great effect.

In Western media, super-powered heroes are rarely referred to as magic, (though there are some individual characters that are). They are usually framed as pseudo-scientific, like a mutation. See: The X-Men. But, given worlds like Harry Potter indicate that magic is a genetic trait that runs in families, that doesn’t preclude some mutation arising within the Mao clan cats’ progenitor and therefore magic being genetic.

It also doesn’t preclude magic being present in plenty of species, as the albino gene is common to incredibly diverse species such as crocodiles and all forms of mammals.

I tend to prefer worlds where powers are a trait like that: whole groups of people or beings sharing a similar power, so there is a culture that forms around it, not just random individuals like the X-Men. ATLA I’m sure had a role in nurturing that preference.

The point is, Mao is super-powered in a way that other characters are not. He’s a distinct ‘kind’ of animal. B.C.’s ability to fight dragons is solely based on tech: if Victor Stone (Cyborg in the D.C. universe) didn’t have his robot parts, he wouldn’t be as effective a hero. True, there are some heroes like Batman and family that don’t have powers, but he relies a good bit on tech, too. Adorabat seems to have some of the properties of being ‘super’ or ‘magic’ as well: she, like other superheroes being slammed into concrete, and the concrete losing, is very tough. She defies the laws of physics so much that the tiny, normally fragile-boned species, as in, a bat, is able to knock over a dragon in the episode where she’s avoiding the dentist.

In my story, I just drop all pretense and call Mao and his sisters magic.

It is a conclusion well-grounded in tropes.

1. Time Distortion

Although we see that smart phones and video games exist in this world, the vast majority of episodes give off the vibe of an older, less modern setting.

Mao is a dragonslayer. Although there do exist urban fantasy books that bring that trope into the present, people are more inclined to associate it with a medieval type timeframe. Mao often greets characters like his father and the king in antiquated language. He comes across as a knight, a Western trope. Though there were plenty of monster and demon slayers in Japanese history/lore as well.

This also lends itself to Dungeons and Dragons style storytelling. Movies like Onward cleverly bring those tropes into a modern setting, but so far at least, this cartoon doesn’t seem to have that level of self-awareness and meta humor.

Given the episode where Adorabat tries to give him an “adventure,” and the framing of Bao Bao’s travels with him, the world simply doesn’t have a modernized feel, but more like The Lord of the Rings style wandering on foot. Perhaps technology is very rare? Perhaps Mao is old enough that things like aerocycles didn’t exist yet in his boyhood. (I picture that his dad’s forged armor is magic powered, not really tech) Perhaps Pure Heart particularly is technologically advanced because of its peaceful setting, which lends itself to reflection and tinkering, rather than being concerned with day to day survival. Maybe elsewhere, the planet is still very much in a second world state.

Mao himself is pretty much a wizard: in the same way that Gandalf fought the Balrog, so too does Mao fight monsters, and he even seems to have a much easier time of it. ;)

So not only is he reminiscent of a knight, serving the British-coded King-Arthur-like monarch, he also gives Merlin a run for his money!

Once you get past the simplistic, cutesy style of this show, you really start to appreciate the breadth and scope of the tropes it’s invoking.

He refers to the Mao clan, and that should make you wonder: is this world’s version of Japan still in a feudal warlord state? Is their historical progression different? Is he a wandering samurai? For that matter, since his name is Chinese, we don’t know which distinct ethnicity he’s even supposed to be. In my story his family is wealthy (dragonslaying and other magical gifts are lucrative) but he could just as easily fit the wuxia genre. Which can also be sort of the Chinese equivalent of dungeons and dragons, if it happens to involve monsters and magic. The show obviously riffs on anime tropes a lot, such as shouting out the name of an attack. Its handling of racial presentation is not as on point as it could be. Avatar: The Last Airbender and Kung Fu Panda are insanely high bars to clear, I realize, but just a little effort towards that would be nice. The 2003 TMNT seemed fairly respectful to its historical source material, though they did muddy the waters between “ninja” and the bushido code, two things that are also very distinct and even rivalrous.

I write a little bit about that concerning one of Mao’s sisters.

The turtles never refer to themselves as a clan, I don’t think, but I’m pretty sure I’ve read fanfiction where they do go by the Hamato clan.

I Googled info on the clans of Japan, and apparently a few are still intact. So that solves one worldbuilding mystery at least: it’s perfectly fitting to have a clan persisting, even if they aren’t directly involved in political structure anymore.

In my story, I speculate a bit on how having magic superpowers would affect that history.

1. Masculinity

I don’t want to get too far into this, seeing as I’d like to reserve the character development of my version of Mao to story exposition and dialog, but it should at least be said that Mao, while he embodies some negative aspects of masculinity (what to a historically informed person, is particularly *modern* and Westernized masculinity) but also displays very caring moments, too.

Heck, he could even fit a ‘tough guy’ biker gang type trope, seeing as he rides a type of motorcycle.

And let it also be noted that some real biker gangs do charity work and the like, too, so that false dichotomy set up by toxic masculinity doesn’t even match reality, much less make for fulfilling fiction.

To me personally, Mao and B.C. do the “bro” dynamic better than any recent cartoons, except for perhaps TMNT. Regular Show and Adventure Time I just found too obnoxious and grating. They tried way too hard with it. Mao and B.C.’s platonic chemistry feels much more natural. (and yes it’s canonically platonic, because per the Tanya episode, Mao is involved with Snugglemagne. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it line, but he says “I love you” over the phone)

Mao clearly enjoys a good brawl: in the episode where B.C. tries again and again to get him to “de-escalate,” he’s constantly raring for a fight.

So even though he’s canonically mlm, he directly bucks the convention of femme, “swishy” stereotypes about it. That deviation has a specific name irl, that I will mention at the end.

(It’s even particularly ironic given Badgerclop’s original pilot design!!)

Badgerclops on the other hand, is more femme than a paisley monogrammed napkin.

They make great ‘foil characters’ for each other.

Wonder who would win a ‘femme off,’ B.C. or Snug? Femme AMABs represent!! And diverse body types bucking the typical ‘twink’ stereotype too.

So, moving on to the next aspect of masculinity, Mao is presented as a martial artist. Unlike Western superheroes. Who usually just kind of punch and hope for the best, ha ha. He fits in with the aggressively macho DBZ characters, who make a huge deal out of training. With whole story arcs dedicated to the process of physical self improvement. His father indirectly measures him by his power. The level of which power is plenty hefty already. The only time we see him go toe to toe, or rather, hand to hand, with a dragon is during the cobbler episode, but it’s great! In my story I speculate that as he masters his powers even further, he’ll be able to do that without assistance from his sword more often.

The old joke about guys being “manly” enough to wrestle a bear is taken Up To Eleven when you apply it to boxing with a hogbeast or a dragon! Ha!

1. Fighting

Let’s do a bit of rudimentary linguistics here: the term “warrior” is far more romanticized than “soldier,” even though they’re in some respects, synonyms. “Warrior” brings to mind some distant past, where guns hadn’t yet changed the landscape of physical training and military endeavors.

I refer to Mao as a soldier in my fic, because that’s essentially what a samurai is, when stripped of its fantasy-like mystique.

Funny to imagine Samurai Jack ever adopting camo gear, but tweak a few things and that’s where you’d get.

That world was futuristic, yet also frames large scale battles in a way that’s less modern military and more romanticized.

He’s of the monster slaying tradition too, even if that, by literary and clearly deliberate thematic choice, was replaced with ‘monstrous’ ‘bleeding’ robots.

I never did watch the Samurai Jack reboot. Maybe I’ll get around to that.

Mao’s family history of warriors gives a deep root to this world’s lore that’s missing in modern super hero “oh look this mutation just arose” type stories. Series like the gritty “Heroes” are great, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t have the same immersive storytelling power.

This understanding of Mao being a soldier inadvertently creates an interesting tension though: B.C. is met with the line, “What are you, a cop?” and he replies that he’s not sure. A sheriff, although the word brings to mind equally as romantic associations of “cowboys and Indians” is indeed a cop- no doubt you have seen a siren-equipped sheriff’s department car at some point in your life. Therefore, B.C. and Mao also could be framed as a “buddy cop” trope series!! Which is pretty funny to contemplate. I imagine someone taking lines of audio from comedy movies or series and overlaying them on our favorite pair of queer and queer-coded dudes. (I’ve seen YouTube videos like that for famous movie lines and ATLA.) The Heroes of Pure Heart show seems to lean into the rodeo/Western association of sheriff though: for example playing classic western music in the episode where Mao gets sick. And the king wearing a cowboy outfit, complete with star and chaps, when he tries to ‘muscle in’ on the action in ‘He’s the Sheriff.’

Coincidentally, knights are usually pictured on horses, and sheriffs are too. I’m sure I’ll get around to drawing those with Mao at some point.

You have to wonder if the creators, in using the fungible word “sheriff” are intentionally steering away from the association with police- in the era of BLM I’m sure they might not want to wade into the backlash that might cause. And indeed, B.C.’s line “Justice system is whack” in the Adoradad episode seems to be a subtle nod to that, at least.

So, winding our way back to the question of a warrior/soldier being appointed as a policeman: it unintentionally butts up against the increased militarization of police which many people are doing good work opposing.

It even could cross over with the general psychology of deification of police, as in, the hero worship (not of pure heart): if you understand that people, if not explicitly, but implicitly, see police as gallant warriors, it suddenly makes sense why some don’t get that deaths at their hands are a problem. A warrior, in a conflict, “does what he must.” And the bureaucracy obviously thinks this way too. It sheds light on how to detangle those mistaken associations.

If you then frame police’s actions not as a heroic intervention against an enemy, but a soldier-like person abusing a civilian, that draws a very clear line between the persistent romanticization of the job. The positive subconscious links between the idea of warrior and hero are broken.

So, is Mao a wizard? A knight? A modern ‘tough guy’? A dated-language-using adventurer of yore? A gay ‘bear’? (or rather bear bi, since that’s also a thing, and he seems attracted to Tanya) A policeman? A sheriff slinging a sword instead of a gun? A cute cat? A magical cat? A superhero? An anime protagonist? A samurai? A wuxia warrior?

The answer is all of the above, depending on context.

And that’s a good chunk of why I find him so fascinating.

In these four general ways, Mao can become many different tropes simultaneously, while also managing to very narrowly avoid the trope of Unfortunate Implications.

So, a bunch of people were doing a fan zine for a certain pairing, right? And I wrote a piece for them that was queerplatonic instead of romantic. Now, they knew what that was. But, it included a tentative romantic interest for one of the characters. I offered to cut that part out. They turned that down. They, I offered them another piece, that, again, was not romantic. But that wasn't the problem this time around. They were super nitpicky about the process by which I needed to submit a piece. So, not based on any merit of the piece, as in, how good or not it was, they rejected it. Purely because of being uptight. So they rejected that one as well. So, I start up on a third idea. Again, some wrangling over the submission process. They are more rule-bound than an assistant principle who runs a school like a Drill Sergeant. I’m a teacher, and I’m saddened by that type of person. Who can’t be even the smallest bit flexible. Like a grumpy grandpa who won’t let go of outdated ideas. When I teach, I try to let the kids have as much free reign as possible. I don’t enforce rules with an iron fist unless it is absolutely necessary, and allow them to talk and give me feedback on them. So, more like a democracy, or a collectively owned business without a ‘boss.’ Even though I’m ultimately in charge. But here on the internet, where you’d maybe expect people to be more accommodating than the harsh unforgiving bureaucracies of the real world, on Discord, exact and strict rules and authority prevailed. That third idea of mine was torpedoed too.

So by now, I feel like I have the patience of a saint. I am polite with them. I try to explain myself. But they are all dead set and convinced I am either deliberately inciting, or just ‘dumb’ somehow. So finally, I have a FOURTH idea in place. They accept that one, but I haven’t started writing the actual piece yet.

So, what finally made them wield their authority over me, which, in my opinion, is an abuse of power just like any government or corporation, and bring down the ban hammer? I posted a link to a Tumblr post of mine, that had a joke in it about ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ boundaries. Now, I don’t know if you know what those are, but they can be used to vastly improve a person’s mental health, by informing people what emotionally hurts them, or even ‘triggers’ trauma or anger issues. They are great tools for general life. However, the terms originated in the BDSM community. So, these people completely lose their minds over this. The nuance and good intent of the post is totally lost on them. They get out the pitchforks and hunt me down for the witch burning. Any mention of BDSM on a SFW server is tantamount to a cardinal sin. And you know what? I understood! I told them I was fine with that. It made sense! I apologized! I was completely and totally willing to follow that rule. But more miscommunication, them not understanding my words and being eager to play Big Enforcer, not ‘walking softly and carrying a big stick,’ as Roosevelt said, but absolutely itching to curb-stomp me. I was trying to talk to two mods at once or something, and I find myself booted out.

I haven’t been this inspired to write in five years. And now, because I have been unable to ‘grease the wheels’ of this interaction, I feel like my experience in this fandom has been marred. I’m NOT about to leave the fandom, by any means. I’m still writing almost every day. But it’s going to take me some time to emotionally recover from this fairly devastating blow.

Do you understand Aang?

Do you really?

Imagine if you were demanded to be the tribal leader of an island nation like Hawaii (they did not go quietly into the 'colonization' of the U.S., let's just say that) or the leader of a SMALL country. Now imagine if you were demanded to be the leader of China, which is, in effect, the next upcoming world power, and one with A LOT of people at stake. There, you have the real world equivalents of the Water Tribe, Japan, and the Earth Kingdom. Princess Yue, Zuko, and King Kuei respectively. NOW. Imagine that you were demanded to be the leader of a (good) One World Government. That is Aang. In fact, he's not just responsible for the MATERIAL WORLD, he also has to manage its 'political relationship' to the SPIRIT WORLD. So not even you being the administrator of the ENTIRE WORLD describes what is on this TWELVE YEAR OLD BOY'S shoulders. Now that we have all that covered. Do you know what it's like to grow up in a war zone? No? 

Well, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko have all grown up in a war zone. Not explicitly, but it was part of the background that made up their life. It was expected, or at least understood. Even Toph, as I've decided in my story What Meets The Eye, with her very sensitive hearing, and has overheard things. She at the very least is AWARE that captured women are being raped, people are being tortured, and benders are being forcibly kept from bending, as with Haru.  

Which is also torture. Enter Aang. This is a kid whose worst problem he'd ever encountered was some kids NOT BEING BULLIES, just trying to be fair to everyone, excluding him. They weren't being mean, and he understands that, even though he’s hurt by it. So he doesn’t object. He doesn’t get angry, even though it would be justified. He was brought up IN THE MOST PEACEFUL PLACE ON THIS EARTH. I'm sure one hundred years ago, there was still conflict and territory skirmishes going on. But this was a monastery. Everybody meditates. Everyone is respectful of each other. If there were fights, they were either carefully overseen duels, or verbal shouting matches, at worst. Wake up a century later, and it is NORMAL FOR PEOPLE TO BE KILLING EACH OTHER. Every single word he has ever heard, every single teaching, pleads that this is wrong. That the world is not supposed to be this way. HOW can it be this way? Why can't people get along, like his 'brothers' and him. He does not understand. He can't even accept it at face value. It threatens to swallow him up and spit him out, beaten and chewed and so, so lost. But he breathes. He doesn't let the panic and sadness and horror drown him like it absolutely should. He tries his very best to still his mind, as he was taught. The torrent, the deadly undertoe, is strong, but he is hanging on.  THIS TWELVE YEAR OLD BOY, eating his vegetables, somehow manages NOT to cry himself to sleep every night, because at least, even though the world slaughtered every single one of his family and his entire race and he doesn't even like to picture COW-HOGS getting slaughtered and OH GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH REALITY, THIS MUST BE A BAD DREAM, will no one ever drink bison’s milk again? He’s the last to ever taste it? His fading memory is all that’s left of his pet’s species’ warm, motherly lowing for their calves? At least he didn't see the blood, only their bones, right? At least, despite everything, the world has gifted him with two water tribe children, who sort of share his bewilderment at the larger, politically labyrinthine world. His earthbending master gives him migraines. Not just because she’s blunt in a way that the monks never were. She knows all the ins and outs of nobility’s exhausting political games and precise and demanding manners, and is just as impatient with this training with him, who doesn’t understand why people can take offense so easily and take it out on others, when the monks always taught him it was your own responsibility to manage your feelings and never bring any harm to others if you could absolutely help it, even when hurting.  Apparently, he never does manage to teach her that. She’s a crochety old lady who verbally abuses people just the same as she was mouthy when she was little.  He doesn’t judge her. It just makes him sad, is all. He can stop volcanoes and tsunamis and hurricanes and save thousands of lives at once, but he can’t affect the deliberate behavior of one of his closest friends.  She was too damaged by her upbringing. 

Maybe, if normal people reincarnate too, they just can’t remember them, she’ll work off the karma, he reasons to console himself. 

All he can do is manage his own anger.

As Fire Nation people continue to be slaves to their racist propaganda beliefs for years after the war.  Even if he didn’t have the Avatar State, he would cling to this belief like a life preserver. It’s not just to honor people who will never walk the earth again. He believes it with his whole heart. It resonates in his spirit. Even when he feels deep seated hatred.  To feel less hatred, you can do. Breathe, little one.  To feel hatred, but not act on it, is the goal of all consciousness on Earth, they told him.  Any hatred. Justified hatred. Hatred of the moment. Hatred from your own selfishness. You are human. You will experience these things. 

They just never thought it would be of this soul-shattering magnitude.  “The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed.” - the Lion Turtle confirms.  Any other Avatar, raised any other place, would’ve destroyed half the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation if faced with a tenth of what he has.  Korra would’ve had blood on her hands just three episodes in.  He can’t do the opposite, either. He can't just roll over and act like a dead man. Even though he has every right to just emotionally shut down. He smiles. He mediates conflicts. He even manages to be playful. And, every day, he sits, and prays for the day that he can get past his bottomless grief. It's going to take a LONG time. But then, recovery from even lesser bouts of trauma always does. He can't even take a break to deal with it all like many normal people do. Azula gets waited on in a mental hospital. But him? Nope.   He's got to roll up his sleeves, and be the leader and healer of the entire broken, wounded world. The Avatar.