b^_^d

why hello there!

gods, don't call me that. I had to quit practice early today because my assy-as-hell legs fell apart on me. >:T

Fair enough, this is a better place to go over it.

Look, I think you're conflating ethnicity with character design. Yes, in _real life_, someone who's black has different bone structure in the face than someone who's white or asian or whatever. I have native friends paler than I am, and the visual cue of their ethnicity is in their bone structure and hair texture.

The _character design_ of Avatar included costume (obviously well handled in the photos), hair style (also ditto), and colour. There _is_ some significant variation in facial structure in Avatar, I think- compare Cabbage Guy to Iroh to Zuko, for example. But I agree that, generally, there's not enough space in drawn faces on a TV screen to really get across ethnic bone structure, plus the inheritance of an animesque art style tends toward simple face designs. But the absence of ethnic bone structure in the art style of Avatar _isn't_ an argument for the colouring being unimportant in the character's appearance, it's just a reduction of elements! That reduction of elements means you have to get your data from fewer sources, which means there's a greater emphasis placed, not on the ethnicity, but on the _colour_ (of the skin) of the _fictional character_. I said "the ayranest eskimos" because the water benders wore traditional eskimo outfits and had colouring that strongly suggested eskimo.

You're absolutely correct- there's no "face" hints as to what their fictional ethnicity might be. But you're absolutely incorrect that this means that the colour of the character's skin is therefore unimportant. It's an element of their design just as much as the blue theme of water tribe clothing! If you saw a water bender in Avatar with _black_ clothing, you'd be surprised, wouldn't you? Shammy's playing with the palette of the characters in his casting, that's what I'm saying. It's not a "race" or "ethnicity" thing, it's a "colour" thing, in the literal meaning of "colour."

The fans are disappointed, not because "ZOMG I'm a racist and don't want Katara to be white," but for the same reason that TF fans would be up in arms if the movie had an Optimus that was orange and black. The creators didn't tell us what _race_ the characters were; they told us what _colour_ they are. What if an NGE movie was made and Rei Ayanami was cast with a tanned girl? People would be upset because the change of _colour_ suggested a change of _character_, because we're talking about a _visual medium_ for Pete's sake.