I actually always liked Jet, simply because he was yet another complex character. I've never considered him bad at all - nor have I really witnessed a fan saying he was. He was very human, behaving like any teenage boy in his situation would. I was actually pretty upset when he died.

I don't necessarily see a strong Jet-hate trend in fandom, but I happened to stumble on a little sliver of anti-Jet sentiment recently. There was a recent entry at avatar_fans where a significant number of commenters expressed a dislike for Jet that seemed a bit stronger than anything he had done warranted, IMO.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about the essay mentioned above WRT several Avatar characters (most notably Mai, for whom there is a strong hate trend), so seeing Jet in that episode, being his wonderful gray-shaded self, brought the whole perplexing phenomena of "flattening and polarizing" to mind again, and I decided to mention it.

I think Jet is a great character. I don't particularly like him. I mean, he was going to kill a whole village worth of innocent people. I think it's valuable to see how someone can be on the "right side" and still do all the wrong things. But in season one at least, I would disagree, and say that he was "bad". He does have a somewhat redemptive arc in this season, though.

I totally agree about the flattening impulse being at work here (and with Mai). Fans judge characters like people they might want to be friends with, instead of as what they are, you know, characters.