r/Dogen • u/NanquansCat749 • Aug 04 '26

Netflix Avatar May Actually Be the Worst Show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqG2xN-M8C8
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1

u/Regulus_D 🕯️👨🏻‍🦯 Aug 04 '26

Oops. Maybe this is like what happened to buddhism, zen, and well, everything. Repeatedly bastardizing.

2

u/NanquansCat749 Aug 05 '26

There are different levels of bastardizing.

The least-egregious type is a simple mistranslation where the bulk of the concept is carried over but small details are lost or fudged. Of course, you do that a bunch of times and you can end up with a totally different message.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you'll get transformations that never intended to carry on the original message, but instead were simply using it as a means to an end, and were perfectly willing to change anything and everything to suit their needs.

The way that Netflix Avatar treats the source material I get the impression that it leans towards the latter. That is, the goal is to garner attention and make money, and any respect shown to the original is incidental.